scaramouche

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

About me

Irreverent, contrarian, delighted to be out of synch with the zeitgeist, I depend on my sense of humour (such as it is) to keep me sane in this wacky world.

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Monday, 31 August 2009

Thugs par-tay in Tripoli: It’s wacky Gadaffi’s “special” anniversary, and you know what that means--lots of fun and frivolity, a soupcon of supremacist crowing, and a special guest appearance by a recently-sprung mass-murderer:

Libya is set to flaunt the Lockerbie bomber’s release at the climax of today’s celebrations marking Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's 40 years in power.

The Times gained access last night to the dress rehearsal of a spectacular two-hour show which extols Colonel Gaddafi for reviving his country and restoring Arab pride. As the finale approaches, the screen at the back of the giant stage in Tripoli’s Green Square shows Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi stepping off the plane which brought him home from his Scottish prison two weeks ago. His arms are raised aloft by Colonel Gaddafi’s son, Saif, as he acknowledges the joyful reception from the crowd below.

Unless it is cut out at the last minute, the clip’s inclusion seems almost calculated to provoke the West. Britain and America had urged Libya to keep al-Megrahi’s homecoming low key, and President Obama and Gordon Brown both expressed disgust when he was given what appeared to be a rapturous welcome at Tripoli airport. It also flies in the face of repeated assurances by Libyan officials, including Saif Gaddafi, that the reception was muted and not intended as a display of gloating. Al-Megrahi himself is now in hospital, seriously ill with prostate cancer.

Anxious to dampen down the controversy caused by al-Megrahi’s release, Britain is expected to send only a junior representative to today’s ceremonies. The British Embassy in Tripoli said that Sir Vincent Fean, the ambassador, was in Malta, suggesting the job will be left to a more junior diplomat. “We are still considering the level of representation,” a spokesman said.

Other European states are sending ministers, ambassadors or official delegations, but the President of Malta is thought to be the only European head of state attending. However the audience will include a large number of African leaders and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez…

Hey, it ain’t a real party till Hu shows up with the Pringles and onion dip.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:21 | link | comments

A bad case of Stockholm Syndrome: Swedish Jewish leaders defend Sweden, land of the Israelis-harvest-Arab-innerds blood libel.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:09 | link | comments (2)

Words--and worlds--apart: The Ceeb expresses grave doubts about the Harper government’s newly-minted phraseology:

There's a change in language taking place in documents and correspondence put out by Canada's foreign service.

Though it may be imperceptible to some, political hounds have noticed an unsettling transformation in language underway since the minority Conservatives took power in 2006.

Widely-accepted terms like "child soldiers," "gender equality" and "international humanitarian law" are disappearing. In their place are the phrases "children in armed conflict," "equality of men and women" and "international law."

While the government downplays the significance of the new nomenclature, critics are accusing the Tories of diluting Canada's longstanding and globally recognized human rights values…

Doesn’t sound like much of a “dilution” to me. More like a clarification, and perhaps an effort to distinguish ourselves from the mob that has diluted, not to mention diminished, not to mention devalued, concepts such as “equality” and “human rights”--concepts that actually used to mean something before the P.C. types and Islamists got hold of them.

I far prefer the Harper government's lingo to the Obama administration’s grotesque and weasely way with words--“man-caused disasters” for jihadi terrorist attacks and the like.

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

Protocols of the Elders of Zionhass: The insufferably smug geezers are in Israel this week--as if the country doesn't already have enough problems.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:54 | link | comments (2)

Another Obysmal plan: "Obama expected to moderate meeting between Netanyahu, Abbas"--Fox News.

Great idea. But only if they can all meet in their bathrobes while having facials and mani-pedis at a Dead Sea spa, followed, of course, by a full body slathering using plenty of Ahava emollients. At least that way, when nothing comes of the "moderation," they'll have tamed cuticles and baby-soft skin to show for it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:45 | link | comments

Oddly enough, an annecdote that didn't make it into the lugubrious eulogies: There's nothing the Lion of the Senate liked more than to kick back and tell a few Mary Jo Kopechne jokes--you know, because that Chappaquiddick was such a hoot.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:26 | link | comments

On today's to-do list: Head to the nearest store and stock up on Ahava beauty products; the useful idiots/sanctimonious hags of Code Pink are trying to "help" their beloved Gazans by putting the company out of business.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:08 | link | comments (2)

Dhimmi etiquette: Ever hyper-attuned to the exquisite sensitivies of "victim groups," the Toronto Star, channeling a Muslim Miss Manners, apprises us poor, ignorant infidels of the proper way to behave toward those of our work-mates who happen to be observing Ramadan. Conservative in the Closet summarizes it here.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:34 | link | comments

Survival of the fittest: The Globe and Mail offers space to Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a Dubai academic who propagates the astounding theory that Canada is evolving a newfangled Arab:

It's an impossible variable to quantify, but it could be argued that Canada's most important export to the Middle East is hope. It manifests itself in the substantial number of Canadians of Arab heritage who have chosen to return to the region their families left for work or a better future. Their return stirs a mixture of emotions: Here are educated young Arab men and women whose Western upbringings have armed them with modern and secular education. Whether their beliefs were liberal or conservative, they respect others. They look like us and speak like us but are charged with ambition and hope for the future: They are Arabs 2.0.

Canada generally enjoys tremendous goodwill in the region as it maintains a policy of non-interference in regional affairs and, unlike many European states, does not carry the weight of an imperial past or a part in regional political tensions. As a result, some Arabs increasingly hope that Canada will take a more active role in the Middle East peace process. But it is Canada's education system that is the most attractive…

But wait--that's not the best part. The Sultan insists that Gulf folk are especially impressed whenever these "new" Arabs sit around and "trade stories" and their time at "Corcordia, McGill, York and Toronto universities."

After wiping the tea off my computer screen--it had spurted out my nose upon reading the above--I penned the following au contraire:

I had to chuckle at Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi’s astounding claim that the Canadian educational system--and more specifically, universities such as Concordia and York--are producing a new and improved brand of Arabs: “Arabs 2.0.” These post-secondary institutions are notorious hotbeds of Israel-loathing, and are known to purvey the identical “lessons” in evidence throughout the Arab world, i.e. that Arab problems are the result of Western imperialism and Israeli “apartheid,” and the best way to remedy them is to get rid of the morally indefensible Jewish state.

The Sultan and others in the Gulf may be hoping these “educated young Arab men and women” will step to the fore and “take a more active role in the Middle East process.” However, Canadians should be dubious that just because these graduates have sprung from our modern, secular educational system, they will have anything “new” to bring to the table.

Here are a few of the attractive Arabs 2.0 who have been armed with a Canadian education. Anyone want to see them taking a more active role in “peace” talks?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:41 | link | comments

Sunday, 30 August 2009

Storm warning: For those who thought Heather MacNaughton’s roistering ‘roos were the most powerful force in the province of British Columbia, think again:

BULLETIN - The BC Human Rights Tribunal premises were flooded during the night of August 24, 2009. The flood has resulted in disruption of our work. We will continue to remain open for the next two weeks while restoration work continues but you may experience some difficulty contacting us. If you already have a case in our system, you should contact your case manager to find out about any impact the flood may have on the processing of your complaint.

Hmm. You don't suppose someone “upstairs” is trying to send ‘em a message, do you?

Update: Steyn says locusts are next, but I'd prefer to hit 'em with frogs.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:40 | link | comments (5)

Islam and chicks: Not a pretty picture; in fact, how the ugly visage of sharia's inherent misyogy afflicts and represses an entire gender.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:08 | link | comments

Bye bye, ElBaradei: The feckless, toothless UN nuclear watchkitten is on the way out. He will not be missed.

Update: The fallout of Mo's fecklessness--a jihadi inspects his nuclear cylinders (which, admittedly, look misleadingly rinky-dink, in a Plan 9 From Outer Space-ish kind of way.

Update: The Mo ElBee Theme Song:

Bye bye ElBaradei,

The UN’s lost you now.

We’ll try ElBaradei

To forget somehow.

No more fudging

Each time you ‘spect their plants.

No more judging when they tap their dance.

Your weak and milquetoast ways;

Your hemming and your haws.

What’s left for us to say

But Mo, you've got your flaws?

Bye Bye ElBaradei

Won’t miss you, not a bit

Bye bye ElBaradei

Time for you to spli-i-i-i-it

Such a useless git.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:13 | link | comments

Israeli “apartheid” in action: This post in the Weekly Standard blog explains how it works:

It’s Ramadan, and 90,000—got that? 90,000—Muslims worshipped today at the Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. Will we hear all about it from Human Rights Watch? Will they find a minute to stop fronting for Hamas over there to acknowledge this fact? Will the Israel-bashing Amnesty International take note? What of the horrified UN? Will it answer for having remained silent about the amassing of Hezbollah weapons caches in Southern Lebanon by speaking up to congratulate the Israelis on their heroic efforts to protect religious freedom, even for those who would exterminate them? And speaking of exterminating, having been treated to Nobellist Tutu’s conflating most vilely the Nazi annihilation of the Jews with the situation of Israeli Arabs, will we now be privileged to hear him—or for that matter any of the other outraged “Elders” with whom he has been travelling freely throughout Israel this week—mention that remarkable gathering on the Temple Mount?

It’s a plot--a plot, I say!--to disguise the reality of “apartheid” by, er, acting like there’s no apartheid.

Only a truly wicked people could come up with something as cunning and diabolical as that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:28 | link | comments

Are you an Islamophobe?: Take this test and see.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:13 | link | comments (1)

Builders vs. destroyers: In one brief paragraph, Sol Stern (reviewing George Gilder’s new book) almost nails why Israel blooms while Gaza rages and withers:

When the Israeli army pulled out of Gaza in 2007, the Palestinians had a golden opportunity to rebuild their economy, create a functional government and civil society, and prove that they were ready for statehood. The sands on Gaza’s 20-mile stretch of beach are reputedly even whiter and more inviting than Tel Aviv’s. With the willing financial support of every Western government and numerous outside investors, Gazans could have created their own Bograshov beaches and turned their little strip into a mini-Singapore of trade and commerce. Nothing prevented them from writing their own economic success story except their paroxysms of rage, a self-destructiveness almost unparalleled in the history of political movements. Indeed, to understand fully the disaster of Gaza, one has to throw away the political-science texts and turn to abnormal-psychology studies and the history of self-immolating millenarian religious movements.

Not to mention the history of the jihad and scripturally-inspired Judenhass.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:59 | link | comments

Having never had to wait hour after hour on a gurney in some hospital Emerj waiting for a doctor to finally get to you...: Bill Clinton praises Canadian health care.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:26 | link | comments

The "J" stands for Judas: An American Thinker mulls over the machinations of J Street, the anti-Zionist/pro-Obama cabal.

Update: "J"--also for "Judenrein":

Cloudy day,

Chasin’ the Hebes away.

Wanna make Israel feel the heat.

Can you tell me how to get

How to get to Judenrein Street?

Come and spew.

Tell Jews, “It’s up to you.

Gotta do what you can to retreat.”

Can you tell me how to get

How to get to Judenrein Street?...

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:56 | link | comments

Sucking up to an oily despot: A timesonline editorial speculates about the motivation behind a mass murderer’s release:

…Intelligent members of the public think they know what happened. They think the Scottish government would never have released Mr Megrahi without Westminster’s encouragement. They believe that encouragement was part of a deal to further Britain’s commercial interests in the country. That is why Gordon Brown has been so coy about condemning the release, while allowing himself the costless luxury of expressing revulsion at Libya’s celebrations of the bomber’s return home.

Diplomacy is murky. Deals done behind the scenes are not intended for public view. In this case, however, it does not seem murky at all, but perfectly clear.

It may be, of course, that this interpretation of events is wrong and the government’s claim that it had no part in and no influence on the decision can be backed up. It could be that ministers are as shocked and embarrassed by Mr Megrahi’s release as the voters.

That is not how it looks. It looks as if the feelings of the families and friends of the 270 victims of Lockerbie were sacrificed in the interests of keeping Colonel Gadaffi happy and getting access to his country’s lucrative energy reserves. If the facts are different, the government has an interest in releasing its records relating to the release. If not, suspicions will increase that a dirty little deal was done. The evidence we have unearthed points that way.

You mean to say it’s the crude, dude? I thought only rapacious Bushitlerians got involved in such hijinks. (Lowjinks, surely--ed.).

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:27 | link | comments

An inauspicious revival: I spent last week taking it easy up in cottage country (a most congenial spot by a lake), but that doesn't mean I was out of touch with the latest events. For example, I noted the passing of Ted Kenney and how it occasioned a whole new round of blarney about--what's the name of that be-knighted musical again?--oh, yeah, Camelot.

Now, the conflation of the JFK administration with the Lerner and Lowe show was a bit of a stretch back when his grieving widow first made it--the dead president, as we now know, being much more of a cuckolder (he wielded his lance-a-lot) than an Arthurian cuckoldee. But to haul out the hoary mythology and try to broaden it to include a dead Ted--Ted? Really?--is extremely de trop. He my mordant take on it all:

Oh, no--they’ve dredged up that “Camelot”,

A mythology into which they can cramalot.

The vast lachrymosity

Is of such great ferocity

It masks that that Camelot’s a sham--alot.

And now, of course, we're stuck with a whole new mythology--Obamalot.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:30 | link | comments

Friday, 21 August 2009

Dog days of summer: FYI, I'm outta here until the 30th. Feel free to visit any or all of my friends on the Right, who, oddly enough, are listed on the left. And here's a poem to remember me by:

It’s that time of year once again--

A week sans computer (Amen!).

So off I’ll skedaddle

With canoe and a paddle.

(Also, husband and kid and chien).

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:57 | link | comments (1)

“You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring”: The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same as this quip from an old Bob Hope flick.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:19 | link | comments

A clash of fashions: In Paris, home to restive, arson-prone "youths," it's pink and purple mini dresses vs. black abayas.

Gee, I wonder who's going to win the French fashion war?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:58 | link | comments

My prediction: This is the message Quentin Tarantino’s “revenge fantasy” about Jews and Nazis is certain to convey to more than a few: “You see the brutal way the Jews treat the Nazis in Inglorious Basterds? That’s how the Jews of Israel--the new Nazis--treat the Palestinians.”

Anyone think I'm wrong?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:40 | link | comments

Libya, oh Libya, say have you met Libya?: Only a real Groucho--like, say, Claudia Rosett--could decry the “rehabilitation” of a deranged despot:

In the current western mood of coddling terrorists and pandering to tyrants, the perversions by now appear endless. On “compassionate grounds,” Scotland has just allowed the terminally ill Libyan terrorist, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, to return to Libya. Convicted of murder in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Scotland, al-Megrahi was flown home Thursday to a hero’s welcome, transported by private jet, and met by Saif Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi — who along with his international terror sprees in years past has tyrannized Libya for 40 years.

If you’d like to learn more about the freed terrorist, al-Megrahi, and why Gaddafi might be so pleased to have him back, there’s an illuminating article on Forbes.com, written just before al-Megrahi’s release: “Don’t Let The Lockerbie Bomber Go Free.”

The author, Mohamed Eljahmi, had an older brother, Fathi Eljahmi, who was Libya’s most prominent democratic dissident. I say “was,” because after five solid years of imprisonment by Gaddafi, Fathi Eljahmi died this past April. There was no compassion shown by Gaddafi of any kind. Isolated much of the time, held in filthy conditions, incarcerated for a long stretch in a Libyan “psychiatric” facility, Fathi Eljhami was deprived of adequate medical care, and blocked from any direct communication with the outside world. He deserved a hero’s salute from both the democratic world and his fellow Libyans, but Gaddafi saw to it that from the day Eljahmi was arrested in 2004 until the day he died in April, 2009, he was never seen or heard in public again.

Gaddafi, however, has been living it up as the “rehabilitated” ruler of Libya. And next month he is expected to turn up at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where on the opening day of the debate, Sept. 23, he is currently listed as the next speaker in line after President Barack Obama. At the same UN gathering, Gaddafi will have even more to celebrate — Libya, in the person of one of Gaddafi’s former foreign ministers, Ali Treki, will take over the 2009-2010 presidency of the UN General Assembly. What’s next for Gaddafi and his henchmen? The Nobel Prize?

Maybe. After all, here’s a politician who actually followed through on his promise of hope n’ change--a scam artist who could give seminars on the art of flim-flammery.

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

Dastardly occupiers!: Here’s a YNet News story about the cruel, callous humiliations Israel will be inflicting on Palestinians this Ramadan:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi have decided to ease a series of restrictions on the Palestinian population during the month of Muslim month Ramadan, which begins Saturday.

The soldiers were instructed to act respectfully towards the residents and refrain as much as possible from eating, drinking and smoking in public in front of the Palestinian population, particularly at crossings, during the fasting hours.

According to the IDF, the ease of restrictions is part of a policy aimed at improving the fabric of life of West Bank's population. During the month of Ramadan, the activity hours of crossings leading to the cities of Jenin and Ramallah will be extended until midnight every day. The rest of the checkpoints will operate as usual, for 24 hours a day…

Kids may carry gun-shaped toys

Men over the age of 50 and women over 45 will be allowed to enter the Temple Mount for Friday prayers. The Allenby Bridger terminal on the Israel-Jordan border will continue to operate between 8 am and midnight for the transfer of citizens and goods.

Civil Administration officials met with representatives of the Palestinian Waqf and were updated on the scheduled times of prayers and religious events. All forces operating in the area have been briefed by the Civil Administration on the holiday's customs, and introductory leaflets have been issued.

During the month of Ramadan Muslims mark the revelation of the Koran to Prophet Muhammad. Throughout the month, they fast from sunrise to sunset, and take part in traditional prayers.

The security forces have been updated that ahead of the end of Ramadan, and as part of preparations for the Eid al-Fitr festivities, Palestinian children may be carrying weapon-shaped toys and firecrackers.

Weapon-shaped toys, eh? How sweet. And how fitting since “the revelation of the Koran to Prophet Muhammad” calls for the overthrow of infidels via a violent jihad (a way of spreading the universal faith and its God-given law, the sharia). I trust the Israelis realize that no matter how respectfully they behave during this holy period, the Muslims are unlikely to reciprocate the respect because, according to the Islamic law extrapolated from the “revelation,” the Jews of Israel have violated the dhimma regulations and are thus slated for destruction.

Update: Ah, childhood. Here's a shot of Palestinian moppets toting "weapon-shaped toys." Or weapons they play with in lieue of toys. Here's hoping those Israeli soldiers behaving in a Ramadan fashion out of respect for Muslims can tell the difference:

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:58 | link | comments

Two Ramadans feeling the pinch: This one, and this one.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:39 | link | comments

Quel surprise: "Americans losing confidence in Obama"--poll.

Losing confidence in the confidence man, more like. It was bound to happen once the hopeychangey euphoria wore off.

Update: Hope 'n' change hooked 'em. Now, with the Obamamagic wearing off by the day as the President gets bogged down in the nitty-gritty of selling government-run health care, the Democrats are desperate to turn back the clock and return to the days when they seemed invicible. And they're convinced it's all a matter of "messaging"--finding those simple words that will once again connect with the American people.

That's going to be rather a challenge, given the Byzantine complexity of the Obamacare package. What sort of "simple" message can ever sell that sucker? "Put your life in our hands"? "If you like how we run the Postal Service you'll love how we run health care"?

"Death 'n' taxes"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:27 | link | comments

Thursday, 20 August 2009

Only one world to describe the UN and Islam Online--feh!: Wahhabi website Islam Online reports that the UN has produced a documentary film about its favourite victims and most despised “victimizers”. Not that the OIC-dominated organization is biased or anything:

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The United Nations has premier a documentary on the plight of Palestinians living in the shadow of Israel's separation wall built on their lands in the occupied West Bank.

"The reason for walls is always fear, whether the personal walls that we build around ourselves or walls like this that frightened governments build around themselves," says former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, the film narrator.

"They are always expressions of a deep-seated insecurity."

The 15-minute documentary, “Walled Horizons”, opens with a wide shot of Waters walking along a towering concrete segment of the controversial barrier beneath the painted silhouette of a giant lying on its back.

The filmmakers interview a Palestinian farmer who has lost several hectares of land to the Israeli wall and a family caught in the 'seam line' between the wall and the 1967 Green Line separating Israel from the West Bank.

The documentary concludes with a shot of scores of Palestinians packed into a fenced-in corridor waiting to pass through an Israeli checkpoint.

The 700km-long Israeli separation barrier is a mix of electronic fences, concrete walls, trenches, and closed military roads.

According to UN figures, Israel has so far completed 413 kilometers of the barrier.

"It fills me with horror, the thought of living in a giant prison," said Waters as he spray-paints "We don't need no thought control" on the wall.

Waters is an English rock musician best known as the bassist player and one of the main songwriters and lead singers in the Pink Floyd from 1964 to 1985.

He is known with his progressive rock music, philosophical lyrics, and humanitarian interests.

Reminder

The film release has been timed to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) conviction that the wall’s meandering route through the occupied West Bank is illegal.

“It is first and foremost a reminder that the world's highest court has essentially said you cannot build a fence on your neighbor’s yard," Yohan Eriksson, the Finnish director of the film, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

After the ICJ issued its landmark ruling, the UN General Assembly asked Israel to tear down the wall and compensate the Palestinians affected.

Israel has refused to do either.

The filmmakers hope to increase international awareness about the controversial barrier and its impact on the life of ordinary Palestinians.

"As well as being a powerful piece of advocacy, the film is also a very balanced piece of journalism," insists Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA)…

My laugh of the day--a spokesman for UNRWA, a UN body whose raison d’etre is to maintain the Palestinians’ refugee status (until and unless these “refugees” succeed in their goal of overrunning Israel, that is), claiming that the obviously biased doc--the product of the hugely biased UN--is “balanced”.

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

Two views of the Afghan election: 26 killed during Afghan election, turnout uncertain; Afghan poll hailed a success.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:25 | link | comments

Lockerbie mass murderer released on "compassionate" grounds: A bleak day for Scotland--and the civilized world:

Update: David Pryce-Jones is skeptical that the mass murderer has "terminal cancer".

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:21 | link | comments

International Jen: When she isn’t busy jetting off to Dublin for Canadian Bar Association conventions, our gal Jennifer Lynch, Q.C., SWMBO (Queen Censor, She Who Must Be Obeyed) is heading off to stay in swanky digs at lots more international destinations. That’s because--who knew?--our Jen wears two hats. Not only does she head up the pre-eminent cog in Canada’s totalitarian machinery, the CHRC, she’s the chair of the Wahhabi-ish sounding International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, er, sorry, make that for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (the ICC, for short, ‘cause had it used all its first letters, the acronym would have been way too long). Jen’s other outfit, you may not be shocked to learn, has close ties to the Israel-bashing/sharia-boosting UNHRC. This article (from September ’08) has all the horrid details:

“You define a good organisation as one that can live up to its commitments,” says Jennifer Lynch QC, who in March 2007 took up the position of Chair of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC).

Shortly after her appointment, the ICC and ‘A’-accredited national human rights institutions were given a greater role to participate in discussions and debates at the United Nation’s newly established Human Rights Council.

This recognition brought with it the need to update the way the ICC operates, said Ms Lynch.

“The ICC functioned very well in its first 15 years with a more informal structure. However, with the establishment of the Human Rights Council, it was clear we needed a new governance model.

“For instance, we were not incorporated, we couldn’t receive money, we couldn’t pay out money and we couldn’t contract people,” she said.

Drawing on her expertise in corporate governance, Ms Lynch, who is also Chair of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, has overseen the development of a new governance model, which was adopted unanimously at the 20th meeting of the ICC in April this year.

The ICC will shortly be incorporated under Swiss law and changes to the rules under which the organisation operates will be voted on at the upcoming ICC International Conference, to be held in Nairobi between 21-24 October.

“These changes in our governance and operations will help move the ICC to the next level of maturity, which is what’s needed if we are going to live up to the commitments we’ve made to the international community,” she said…

You go, girl! Here’s Jen explaining how the ICC is “Building on regional partnerships”--a pursuit that affords her oodles of opportunity to amass those valuable Airmiles:

According to Ms Lynch, a key strength of the ICC comes from building cooperation and collaboration between the four regional groups of national institutions: the Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

“The structure of the ICC draws very much on the regions working effectively and then, through their representatives on the ICC Bureau, informing and advising the Chair on the issues that need to be addressed and the joint positions we adopt,” she said.

Since her appointment as ICC Chair, Ms Lynch has visited all four regional groups…

How does she keep up the pace? The only possible explanation: either Jennifer is an Iron Woman, the apparatchik equivalent of baseball’s Cal Ripkin Jr., or else there’s not nearly enough to keep her busy at the CHRC. In which case, we could very easily lose her--and it--and never miss either.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:11 | link | comments

Obama team gets “Simonized”: Roger L. Simon sez:

I used to think the Bush Administration was terrible at public relations – and they were – but the Obama Administration is, if anything, even worse. From the terminally charisma-challenged Robert Gibbs as Press Secretary to the loudmouth bullying Rahm Emanuel, this crew makes you cringe. You’d think with the media and Hollywood so heavily behind them, they’d be on easy street. But the healthcare debate has revealed Team Obama to be less ready for prime time than a television used car salesman. They can’t sell us anything and every time they open their mouths, it gets worse. (Come to think of it, that’s an insult to used car salesmen…

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

Still more barking Babs: Is there no end to the beeyotch’s madness? From the Toronto Sun:

No longer tied down investigating complaints, Ontario's Human Rights Commission is now better able to build "a culture of human rights" through targeted inquiries and public education, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall said yesterday.

"We knew what our new role would be because we'd done bits of it before and wanted to do much more," Hall said as she released the commission's first annual report since legislative changes came into effect last year.

"Now that we're not involved with the individual complaints, we have the focus on the more substantive issues," she said.

Complaints are now being handled by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. Hall said an example of the kind of work the commission will be more involved in now is the wide-ranging inquiry made last year into a series of attacks on Asian anglers.

The commission is also working on forcing transit systems in Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Hamilton to call out all stops for visually impaired passengers and is keeping a close eye on Oshawa and other municipalities who have tried to restrict the growth of student housing through zoning by-laws.

The public education role will also be beefed up, she said.

"In the past we had one staff person for the whole of Ontario that did public education," Hall said. "Now we will have more and we'll have the capacity to work with communities on the education that is the best for them."

Premier Dalton McGuinty praised the work of the commission and took a shot at new Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, who has been critical of human rights bureaucracy and called for the tribunal to be scrapped.

"I think that the Conservatives are bringing kind of a small view to what we're doing here," McGuinty said. "We are participating in a remarkable adventure largely without precedent in the annals of human history. We're inviting people to come here from the four corners of the world.

"It's only natural and predictable that in those circumstances from time to time there will be a little bit of friction ... we need a place in a civilized society to address those kinds of concerns," he said.

Hudak was not available yesterday…

The message to all freedom-loving Ontarians: if you want to halt the province’s clawback of your freedom via the ‘human rights’ Frankensteins, do whatever you can--whatever it takes--to get Hudak elected.

Update: Closet Conservative blasts Babs's totalitarian agenda, including her plan to indoctrinate us all so we'll see things exactly like her. Scary stuff, indeed.

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

Delusions of victory: The Canadian Jewish Congress (in the voice of Rabbi Reuven Bulka), toots its own shofar about its “success” in persuading a United Church of Canada conference to back down from a boycott of Israel (the Ceej’s bolds):

…The delegation from the Canadian Jewish Congress, which included its CEO Bernie Farber and West Coast representative Michael Elterman, was not there to stifle discussion on the Middle East. We realize that people have different views and we live in a free country, like Israel, where these views can be and are expressed. For the record, I strongly disagree with many of the assumptions and presumptions in the approved resolution.

But that is not the issue. What we could not fathom was the venom against Israel, and the poisonous message of a boycott as official United Church policy. Hopefully, the United Church will move away from the negatives and devote its full and considerable resources to encouraging and supporting even more ventures that increase the chances of peace and harmony.

It should be clear that much as the United Church was blamed for the scandalous language of its background papers, so does it deserve the credit for rejecting that language, and rejecting the boycott. I was impressed by the energy of the debate, as well as by the seriousness of those in attendance. I do not doubt the sincerity of the delegates.

But sincerity alone is no guarantor of the truth of an argument. For that, one needs to see both sides, and to ask the fundamental question of who is responsible for the suffering and hardship about which no one in their right mind could be happy.

Thankfully, the United Church pulled back from a decision that could have made it instead a Divisive Church. For that, too, it was worth going to Kelowna.

The head of UJA Federation is similarly ticked by the Ceej’s accomplishment (his comments, which were e-mailed community-wide, are posted on the Ceej site):

A message from David Koschitzky, Chair,
UJA Federation of Greater Toronto

Last week, the United Church of Canada (UCC) rejected resolutions that called for a boycott of Israel and repudiated offensive and antisemitic language attached to those resolutions.

There is no doubt in our minds that this responsible decision by the delegates to the UCC General Council was strongly aided by the public and private advocacy of Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), a vital player within the Federation family of agencies.

CJC and the church have built a longstanding and honest relationship over many years. CJC Immediate Past Co-President Rabbi Reuven Bulka and CEO Bernie Farber attended the General Council, and Rabbi Bulka was invited to address the gathering. When speaking with delegates both inside and outside the general council meetings, and to the media, they both spoke passionately about the damage that would result from passage of the resolutions, about the need to strengthen not weaken ties between the Jewish community and the United Church, about the bonds between Canadian Jews and Israel, and about the true nature of Israel as a democracy. CJCs fervent, unwavering and consistent stand helped sway the delegates away from the destructive resolutions.

UJA Federation is deeply proud of Canadian Jewish Congress, not only for its achievements on this particular issue, but also for its 90 years of tireless work on behalf of Canadian Jewish communities.

But an article in The Jewish Tribune by Atara Beck casts grave doubt on the Ceej’s “victory”:

KELOWNA-OTTAWA-TORONTO – At last week’s 40th General Council of the United Church of Canada (UCC), Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) delegate and rabbinical emissary Rabbi Reuven Bulka made his displeasure known after the final resolutions were approved.

“Do you realize you just voted for boycotting Israel? This will have grave repercussions,” Rabbi Bulka, immediate past co-president of CJC, declared to the almost 200 delegates that handled the Middle East issues for the UCC, according to a tape recording of the event that took place Aug. 9-15 at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan in Kelowna.

“That’s probably not entirely accurate,” Rabbi Bulka told the Jewish Tribune. “Thank G-d, there is no official church policy for a boycott, which is what we wanted to achieve.”

In the series entitled Implementation of Measures towards Peace in the Middle East, UCC changed the wording of its original resolutions. While it refrained from officially calling for a national boycott, it nonetheless left the door wide open, voting in favour of ‘United Church conferences, presbyteries, congregations and community ministries’ taking ‘appropriate action toward ending the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, and enter into conversation as to how to move the two peoples toward reconciliation, including, but not limited to, economic boycott.’

CJC published a press release dated Aug. 13 applauding the General Council “for rejecting proposals that endorsed a boycott of Israel.”

In a telephone conversation with the Jewish Tribune, Rabbi Bulka acknowledged, “the resolutions went back to where they were before.

“You had to be there to understand what was happening,” he explained. “What I was upset about was there was this resolution and then amendments to amendments. By the time they ended up voting, they didn’t know whether they were voting for the resolutions or the amendments. In the end, the moderator asked for a show of hands as to whether the vote reflected what they wanted. It was probably an accurate reflection.”…

I see. So he wasn’t objecting to the UCC’s ongoing lefty lunacy on the Israel front. He was merely upset by the unnecessarily complicated procedural muddle surrounding the boycott vote. Good to know he has his priorities straight. Berk continues (my bolds):

Asked whether he, as a spiritual leader, had raised any objections to the paragraph calling for Israel to abandon, among other sites, the Western Wall, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, Rabbi Bulka replied:

“This was not an issue that was up for discussion. Remember, I had all of three minutes to speak. If I had half an hour, I would have gone into an entire discussion…. We made sure the [boycott] resolution didn’t pass. They rejected all three resolutions with hurtful language.

“They didn’t single out Israel,” he asserted.

They didn’t? They sure had a funny way of “not singling” it out by, um, singling it out:

The council unanimously approved seven resolutions concerning the Middle East and Israel’s “illegal occupation,” including demanding that “the siege of Gaza by Israel cease.” Rabbi Bulka had told the gathering that Israel had already “left Gaza with everything in it.”

Regarding the resolution demanding the “settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem must be dismantled,” he said, “Fine, it’s a free country. That’s their conviction. These kinds of views you can actually find among Israelis. They’re entitled to their views. We can disagree with them,” as long as they don’t use the “belly whip of boycotts.

Riiiight. This from a mucky-muck in an organization that continues to champion state censorship. “Free speech for all--except for you, basement Nazis.”And, hey, as long as there’s no official boycott, the Ceej and the UCC can continue their--how did Bulka put it?--“ long history of working together on issues of common interest.” As Bulka explained to Beck, “You have to know what fights to pick.” All that non-singling out singling out business--"That’s all ersatz stuff. You can’t control all people. It’s not our business to tell people what to think. They can think what they want. Categorically, we can reject that.”

So when can we expect you to categorically reject Section 13, Rabbi? And how is there any basis for “working together on issues of common interest” when, as Berk relates, the conference, even without a boycott, was stinking with Zionhass?

Event replete with anti-Israel propaganda

While UCC had available for sale various books, including some from known anti-Israel authors such South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, B’nai Brith was ordered not to hand out any of its literature.

There were approximately 15 information tables inside the venue. Two of the tables represented anti-Israel groups, namely the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Independent Jewish Voices. They distributed propaganda, some of it highly troubling, including the Wall Must Fall brochure from CUPE BC, and asked people to join petitions against Israel and vote for the boycott. Independent Jewish Voices handed out invitations to several anti-Israel events that they organized and that were to take place before the voting date.

In contrast, the B’nai Brith representative was told to stop distributing information leaflets. He was threatened at least three times with ejection should he continue to “lobby” either inside or outside the building. The CJC was allowed, at the last minute, to put an information table in a remote corner, far away from the location of the other tables.

It just goes to show--you can sideline the Jews, treat ‘em like dirt, trash their nation state, but as long as you don’t vote for a boycott, some of the Jews--the clueless, lefty, dhimmified ones--will take whatever pathetic crumbs you hand them and keep on coming back for more. And pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

What a joke!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:18 | link | comments (1)

Separation of church and state?: There’s no discernable split between the two in Obama’s America, not with the Messiah-in-his-own-mind depending on religious acolytes to spread his Gospel, so to speak. From the L.A. Times:

President Obama has barnstormed the country to sell his healthcare overhaul directly to sometimes-skeptical Americans. Today he will bring his message to a friendlier audience -- faith leaders who see reform as an ethical and religious imperative.

Obama is scheduled to address more than 1,000 religious figures in two conference calls, allowing him to extend his message to legions of faithful in the pews.

First up is a "High Holy Day" call this morning with rabbis from Judaism's Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. Organizers hope the call will provide fodder for synagogue sermons when the Jewish holidays arrive next month.

"There is a very important moral dimension to this discussion," said Mark J. Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism which invited Obama to join the morning discussion.

The center is a co-sponsor of the second conference call later in the day -- pegged as "40 Minutes for Health Reform" -- with scores of lay leaders and clergy from evangelical, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish traditions.

"My hope and prayer is that President Obama is going to hold firm to his principle of making sure everyone is covered," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, head of the progressive evangelical group Sojourners and a member of Obama's faith-based advisory council. "Holding presidents to promises they have made is a good vocation for the faith community."...

My hope and prayer is that this clergy tell Obama to mind his own beeswax and keep his politics out of their pulpits. (BTW, can you imagine the howls of outrage if GWB had pulled this stunt? They would have been ear-splitting.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:02 | link | comments

Good question: "Why does it take more than 1,000 pages of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?"

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:38 | link | comments

Babs on the move: Why would anyone want to be a landlord these days with the likes of ideologues Barbara Hall and Michael Shapcott depriving you of your right to decide who you think would make a good tenant in a building belonging to you? From Babs’ perspective, it’s a win-win situation, because she gets to flay the “bad guys”--private property owners--while drumming up more business for her shakedown racket. From the Canadian Press:

TORONTO - Subtle discrimination in Ontario’s rental housing sector over race, age or social standing will be among the problem areas targeted in a new housing policy this fall from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the chief commissioner said Wednesday.

In its first annual report released since widening its mandate to focus on broader societal issues rather than just individual complaints, the commission found that the "issue of discrimination in housing kept coming up," said Barbara Hall.

It was the first time anyone has focused on the human rights component of rental housing, Hall said, adding the problems were provincewide.

One the one hand, healthy seniors complained they found it hard to secure accommodation because their landlords feared they would require additional assistance.

At the other end of the spectrum students griped about the tough time they had snagging decent accommodations because of landlords reluctant to disrupt the ambience of a mature community.

The commission plans to release a new housing policy in early October which can be used to guide landlords and tenants alike.

"There may be some tools for people who face discrimination in housing to get rid of barriers using the human rights process," said Hall.

Housing discrimination amid a tough economy is an issue of increasing concern for many.

"The report is showing the pain is not being shared equally. Some groups are bearing a bigger burden," said Michael Shapcott, director of affordable housing at the Wellesley Institute, an independent policy think tank…

Yes, because in a perfect society, “pain,” like everything else, is "shared" by all. In that “perfect” world, tenants have more rights than landlords; in fact, landlords have no rights since there’s no private property and housing is a “right” granted to people by the state.

Wait--I think I just described Soviet Russia.

Update: Babs and "independent" think-tanker Shapcott go waaay back. I found this in Shapcott’s wiki entry:

In 1989, Shapcott, Bart Poesiat and future Toronto mayor Barbara Hall created the Rupert Pilot Project[3] to fund affordable housing initiatives which received substantial funding in the early 1990s from Bob Rae's NDP Ontario government.

Rae hasn’t been a socialist for years (he abandoned the NDP when he realized he had a better shot at gaining actual power by becoming a Liberal--not that that's really worked out for him), but Babs and Michael carry on in the same socialistic vein--relentlessly, dogmatically, confidently.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:01 | link | comments

Babs the buttinsky strikes again: Barbara Hall has grandiose plans for reconfiguring our entire society--and penalizing businesses large and small in the process. Here’s the latest OHRC nuttiness, a plan to penalize businesses for not twisting themselves into knots to accommodate female workers with kids. From the Vancouver Sun:

An employer changes its shifts. As a result, one worker can no longer find childcare. Whose problem is this?

Most would say it's the employee's. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, no surprise, has a different view. According to the Commission, that employer is now guilty of discrimination and must reorganize her shifts to accommodate her childcare needs.

What impact will that have on workplace efficiency? For that matter, what will the reaction be of other employees who equally dislike their new shift schedule? Those issues, of course, don't matter to the Commission.

The Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination based on "family status," that is, being in a parent-child relationship. Very few employees or employers are even aware of this right.

The Commission wishes to change that. It has now written a policy purporting to explain the law that it is busily distributing across the province. That is bad news. The good news is that this policy doesn't actually reflect the law, which, fortunately for employers, isn't nearly as draconian as the new policy would suggest.

The policy is the latest attempt by the Commission -- along with some unions and more than a few activist lawyers promoting their "workplace investigation practices" -- to misrepresent employment law to promote their own political and business agendas. They are happy to have workers and employers fighting -- it serves their political goals and generates more work. More studies, more costly and unnecessary workplace investigations and more credulous clients.

The Commission's policy takes aim at almost every business in the province. It requires that every employer become "family-friendly." Switching an employee who can't find evening childcare to a day shift is just the start. They want flexible hours, reduced hours, job-sharing and telework, however damaging to Canadian business, to be introduced into every workplace. They consider the disciplining or firing of an employee who misses work for childcare, in any circumstance, to be discriminatory.

The policy characterizes a 'culture of hours' -- measuring performance by the number of hours worked at the office -- as inherently discriminatory. Even optional social events outside of regular work hours are viewed by it to be discriminatory because women with children can't devote as much time outside of their home…

Can’t someone do something to stop this insanity before Babs and her power-crazed band of social tinkerers succeeds in torpedoing a significant portion of an economy struggling to come back from a serious recession?

Update: For Babs, that most terrifying of beings, a social perfectionist:

A Utopian shrew, Barbara Hall,

Was possessed of insuff’rable gall.

She was finally cashiered

And, poof, disappeared

And nobody missed her at all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 01:04 | link | comments (3)

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Coming soon: A health care system devised by Rube Goldberg by way of one of those Byzantine rulers who didn't quite have his shit together:

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:19 | link | comments

Lawyers in love: Ezra Levant makes notes of a particularly revolting development--the Canadian Bar Association's "creepy crush" on Omar Khadr. If you listen up, you can hear members of the CBA crooning to the object of their affection:

We’ve got a crush on you, Omar K.
All the day and night-time hear us say:

“You're not an average jihadi. Fact is

You're kinda like our own little buddy.”

HRCs don’t raise our ire.

Not like the sight of Omar, whose plight is dire.

Canucks will pardon our mush

‘Cause we have got a crush, our Omar, on you.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:07 | link | comments

Wild in the White House?: With its talk of death panels and the rationing of health services for seniors, Obamacare could be seen as resembling something out of Wild in the Streets, a cult film from the heydey of 1960s psychedelia. Only "old folks" in that film had it somewhat better off. They weren't denied medical treatment because it wasn't seen as being cost-effective--i.e. given a death sentence, more or less. They were merely consigned to "reeducation camps" and pumped full of LSD so they couldn't protest.

Pray they don't screen the flick at the White House. We wouldn't want to give Obama--a devotee of several questionable 60s philosophies--any more "bright" ideas.

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

Zeke’s freaky life-and-death system: Nat Hentoff--hardly a knuckle-dragging right-winger--reports there’s another Emanuel giving advice to Obama--and it’s not the one who inspired the character of the brash Hollywood agent played by Jeremy Piven on Entourage. It’s Dr. Emanuel, and he has a lot to say about government death panels (for which, for the sake of subterfuge and to discourage panic among terrified seniors, he’s provided an Orwellian euphemism):

I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.

The members of that ultimate federal board will themselves not have examined or seen the patient in question. For another example of the growing, tumultuous resistance to "Dr. Obama," particularly among seniors, there is a July 29 Washington Times editorial citing a line from a report written by a key adviser to Obama on cost-efficient health care, prominent bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).

Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that "allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination." (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — "the complete lives system." You see, at 65 or older, you've had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks…

“The complete lives system”--how 1984 can you get?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:35 | link | comments

“Peace”=War: Would you be surprised to learn that a government-funded organization called the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) is pumping out propaganda for the furtherance of the Holy War? Or like me have you become wary of any outfit that has the words “peace,” “justice,” or “human rights,” in its name, knowing there’s a very good chance in this Orwellian world of ours that any such body is apt to be working for the exact opposite of those noble aspirations? Steven Emerson, who knows a thing or two about both the jihad and the Orwellian, discusses the USIP’s pro-Hamas proclivities:

With the federal government facing trillions of dollars in red ink, one might think that the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), which receives upwards of $30 million a year from the taxpayers, would want to show Congress it wasn't squandering money on propaganda for terrorist groups like Hamas.

But that hasn't happened. Instead, USIP has issued a new report that twists reality to argue that Hamas has moderated and Israel needs to negotiate with the terror organization. The authors of the report are a Jew and Muslim, USIP informs readers: Paul Scham, a visiting professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland College Park, and Osama Abu-Irshaid.

USIP identified Irshaid as a writer who "is completing a Ph.D. thesis on Hamas at Loughboro University, U.K., and is founder and editor in chief of Al-Meezan newspaper, published in Arabic in the United States." But USIP (and Foreign Policy magazine, which has published lengthy excerpts of the report ) neglected to inform readers that Irshaid used to be editor of Al-Zaytounah, the biweekly Arabic-language newspaper published by the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP).

In the summer of 2007, evidence in the Hamas-support prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and its officers showed that the IAP played a central role in the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. The committee was created to advance Hamas' agenda in the United States by, among other things, "what it needs of media, money and men and all of that."

For example, a November 1991 status report approved by the Shura Council explained that the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood, created IAP "to serve the cause of Palestine on the political and media fronts." It added that "The Association's work has developed a great deal since its inception, particularly with the formation of the Palestine Committee, the beginning of the Intifada at the end of 1987 and the proclamation of the Hamas Movement."

Evidence also included a 1992 internal memo urging the Palestine Committee to work to "increase the financial and the moral support for Hamas" to "fight surrendering solutions" and publicize "the savagery of the Jews." A July 30, 1994 report found in the home of a former Hamas official listed IAP as a member of the Committee.

Al Zaytounah also printed communiques glorifying Hamas suicide attacks. In its October 27, 1994 issue, Al Zaytounah's headline was: "In its greatest operation, Hamas takes credit for the bombing of an Israeli bus in the heart of Tel Aviv." IAP was listed among more than 300 unindicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. In November 2008, the HLF and five of its senior officials were found guilty on all charges. Read more here.

Given Irshaid's background, it should come as no surprise that the report he co-authored for USIP calls for a "reexamination of our assumptions" that Hamas cannot coexist with Israel. "Indeed, Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel," Irshaid and Scham write. They add that Hamas "has indicated on a number of occasions" its "willingness to accede to a hudna [truce] for a specified period of time] with Israel" if "basic Palestinian rights" are agreed to.

Their case for negotiating with Hamas verges on the farcical, as the authors try to explain away its opposition to any territorial compromise with Israel and its anti-Semitism…

Verges on the farcical? With all due respect to Emerson, a brave man whom I greatly admire, it sounds more like it “merges with” than “verges on.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:48 | link | comments

Life isn’t fair. Get used to it: Have you heard about Celine Dion? Sure, you have; the news is everywhere. She’s preggers again, courtesy expensive intervention by an in-vitro fertility specialist. The same intervention was necessary the first time around--it reportedly took her six years to become pregnant with her son, Rene-Charles.

Of course, it’s no biggie for Celine to foot the bills for pricey procedures: she’s stinking rich. There are those, however--for example, a couple who are the subject of an article in the Globe and Mail--who don’t have the same financial resources as Celine and her husband, and who thus can’t afford the prohibitive cost of years of in-vitro. The couple in question wants the government to foot their bill. Further, they are convinced that compelling the government to pay is--what’s that popular phrase again?--oh, yeah, their “human right”:

Six months ago, Ana Ilha knew her biological clock was ticking. She just didn't know it was ticking so fast.

But when the Ontario Health Insurance Plan would not cover fertility treatments because of the source of her problems - at 37, her eggs were running out abnormally fast, a condition called a low ovarian reserve - she decided to take action.

She and her husband, University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario on Monday. They argue OHIP's policy is discriminatory, since it covers in vitro fertilization only in limited circumstances.

"It's a medical condition like any other," Ms. Ilha said. "Couples like us should not have to suffer financially in addition to suffering emotionally."

Their case is part of a debate in Canada's two largest provinces, and it could soon spread across the country.

In Quebec, high-profile TV personality Julie Snyder, the wife of Quebecor CEO Pierre-Karl Péladeau, urged the province to cover IVF treatments. She made a documentary about infertility and put pressure on politicians.

In April, Premier Jean Charest's government announced that it will fund three IVF cycles for couples, making Quebec the only province to do so.

Seang Lin Tan, a fertility expert at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, said one in eight Canadian couples struggles with infertility.

"What's frustrating, is that people who would be good candidates are routinely told they have to dig into their pockets," Prof. Attaran said. "I'm fortunate, law professors get paid decently. But that's not true for everyone."

After a year of trying to conceive, the couple paid $6,300 for one IVF treatment at an Ottawa fertility clinic. A further $6,500 in drugs was covered by private insurance…

You know, mes amis (as Celine likes to coo to her audience), life ain’t fair. I can’t afford to live as lavish a lifestyle as the Angelils, nor, I’m sure, can Ana and Amir. Nor can they afford the same lavish fertility expertise. Nor do they have the resources to run off to Africa to find an adorable orphan to adopt a la Madonna and Brad and Angie.

It sucks, doesn’t it? Even so, there’s no way--no way!--that I the taxpayer should be on the hook for your fertility/adoption bills. Not even in the “rights”-besotted Trudeaupia of Canada.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:45 | link | comments (7)

A hole in the Human Rights Code: I found this under the heading “Human Rights Basics” on the Canadian Human Rights Reporter site:

It should be kept in mind that not all types of discrimination, nor all acts of discrimination are illegal. For example, refusing to hire a person who has an earring through their eyebrow is unlikely to be an illegal discriminatory act, no matter how unfair it may seem.

Excuse me? You mean you’re allowed to discriminate against someone--deny him employment and a place to live--because of a piercing? Isn’t that as grossly unfair as, say, discriminating against those who are LGBT’d? And say a pierced person happens to self-identify as one of those letters--isn’t it unfair that that person can lodge a complaint about discrimination (even should the discrimination he experienced be due to his piercing, not his sexuality) while a pieced heterosexual experiencing the same discrimination hasn’t the same recourse? Isn’t that, you know, discriminatory?

Time for the Pierced, Tattooed, Grometted and Differently-Decorated (PTGDD) community to rise up and demand its rights!

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:02 | link | comments (2)

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Delusional in Washington: Generally speaking, when a person sees something that isn’t there--white rabbits, fairies, Elvis Presley--it is wise to question that person’s sanity. So when a hopeychanger sees something that isn’t there--i.e. “positive steps” in the Middle East--isn’t that a sign that he’s, you know, cuckoo? From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he saw “movement in the right direction” on the crucial question of Israeli settlement construction in Palestinian areas, after Israeli officials described an apparent de facto slowdown there.

Speaking following an Oval Office meeting with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Mr. Obama said that a climate had developed for “positive steps” in the region. “We had an extensive conversation about how we could help to jump-start an effective process on all sides,” he said.

Mr. Obama welcomed the 81-year-old Egyptian president for his first White House visit in five years, continuing a concerted effort to improve bilateral relations that had been damaged not only by the Iraq war but also by Bush administration criticism of Egypt over matters of democracy and human rights.

Mr. Mubarak responded with warmth. He said that the American president had “removed all doubts about the United States in the Muslim world,” referring to what he called Mr. Obama’s “great, fantastic” speech delivered in Cairo in June.

“We are moving in the right direction” on restarting peace talks, Mr. Mubarak said…

Reality: Obama gives an embarrassing speech, replete with factual errors, in which he sucks up big time to Muslims, and Mubarak gives it his heartiest endorsement. Fantasy: Mubarak's enthusiasm for Obama's snivelling is going to lead to a “peace” that Israel can live with.

Update: Easily-duped American Jewish leaders thought Mubarak was “surprisingly positive” when they met with him in Washington. They were particularly impressed by his apparently warm regard for Israel’s prime minister. But here’s a clue about what the shrewd Egyptian is really thinking--an editorial that appeared in an Egyptian government newspaper earlier this month (as translated by MEMRI):

PA President Mahmoud 'Abbas provoked the wrath of the radical racists who rule Israel when he mentioned, at the Fatah conference, that the Palestinians have a right to resistance [muqawama] if the peace process has failed to restore their historic rights, and especially [their right] to their stolen land, to an independent state and to the return of the refugees.

The angry racists in Israel have deluded themselves [into thinking] that the Palestinian people have laid down their arms, to which they clung so steadfastly throughout their exhausting and noble struggle, and have capitulated to the illusion of the peace process and the [empty] talk of the negotiation tables. The Palestinian people has gained nothing [from the peace process] except strife among comrades-in-arms, which are [now] divided into [two camps] - the fighters and the negotiators; while the Israelis have gained time to carry out their plans to Judaize Jerusalem and settle the West Bank, and to prepare for throwing those whom they call 'Israeli Arabs' over the Green Line.

The Palestinian people, all of it, has no choice but to cling to the path of resistance, like all the oppressed people who seized their freedom and rights through force and steadfastness, struggle and unity...

Yup, sounds like Egypt is right on track to play a central role in bringing about a “just” and lasting “peace.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:40 | link | comments

The Arab and the Arabist: American-Egyptian relations went through a rough patch for a spell. Fortunately for the Egyptians, there’s a guy in the White House who can see the Arab p.o.v. for a change. From the Christian Science Monitor:

Cairo - Until five years ago, it was an annual tradition: every spring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would travel to Washington to meet his American counterpart, congressional leaders, and a few newspaper editorial boards.

Mr. Mubarak usually sat down with public affairs talk show host Charlie Rose, where the authoritarian military man would invariably grow testy after a half-hour of Mr. Rose's persistent questioning.

"It was like his annual pilgrimage," says Khalil Al-Anani, an analyst with the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

Then came Sept. 11, the war on terror, and a pronounced chilling of the US-Egypt relationship.

Now, with Mubarak in Washington for the first time in five years, Egyptian media are hailing a new era of bilateral harmony between the world's sole superpower and the country struggling to remain the Middle East's political linchpin. He is expected to meet President Barack Obama on Tuesday morning.

Mubarak's pitch? A continuation of America's hands-off policy and the US aid that has helped keep this impoverished nation afloat since the 1978 Camp David Accords in exchange for assisting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Egypt receives $2 billion in direct US aid annually, second only to Israel.

The visit has dominated local newspapers for days. Local speculation is rampant that another Mubarak goal will be securing quiet American approval for a plan to eventually transfer power to his son Gamal. The cover of the influential regime-connected magazine Rose Al Youssef declares nothing less than a "Rebuilding of the Egyptian-American Relationship."

But there are also worries within the regime and among its backers that President Obama, like President Bush before him, will harp on Egypt's poor human rights record and Mubarak's authoritarian rule. The same Rose Al Youssef cover story nervously asks: "Will Egypt accept a lecture on democracy from Obama that it refused to accept from Bush?"

The Bush administration's calls for political reform are now recalled here as the low point in several decades of tight US-Egypt relations. The regime was shocked when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered a public dressing-down of Mubarak in a June 2005 speech in Cairo, saying, "it is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy."

Though the Bush administration quickly backed off from its democracy push after the Muslim Brotherhood won 20 percent of parliament in November 2005 and Hamas won Palestinian elections in January 2006, the chill on US-Egypt relations remained. Mubarak stayed away.

A return to realpolitik?

Regardless of Egypt's willingness to accept a democracy lecture, it's unclear whether Obama is inclined to deliver one in the first place.

Obama's Middle East focus has been on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran's nuclear ambitions. The result so far, activists and analysts here say, is a return to the days of old-fashioned realpolitik, with the US turning a blind eye to repressive local governments as long as they serve America's regional political agenda.

"Obama needs Egypt as a cornerstone of the peace process" and as part of a "strategic partnership" against Iran, says Mr. Anani. "He is going back to the old game – encouraging stability even if it means supporting authoritarian regimes."…

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Mubarak is a thug. Obama is a putz. And the only “peace” Egypt will settle for is the kind that, to paraphrase the immortal worlds of Sam Goldwyn, includes the Jews out.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:07 | link | comments

Official Jews at odds over UCC: On Aug. 14, B’nai Brith Canada issued the following news release re the United Church of Canada’s Israel policy:

United Church of Canada Resolutions Insult to Grassroots Canadian Jews

B’nai Brith Canada, the voice of the grassroots Canadian Jewish community, was disappointed to learn that resolutions that enable United Church Conferences, Presbyteries, congregations, and community ministries to boycott the Jewish State of Israel, if they so choose, were unanimously passed at the United Church of Canada’s (UCC) 40th General Council. At the same time, the UCC passed resolutions that can best be described as advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria. B’nai Brith Canada was accorded preferred guest status by the UCC and monitored the proceedings in British Columbia.

“It is with great sadness that the Jewish community has learned that the moral stance in defense of the Jewish State expected to come from our Christian brothers and sisters at the United Church’s gathering did not materialize,” said Frank Dimant, B’nai Brith Canada’s Executive Vice President. “We expected much more from the people who had gathered in Kelowna. We had hoped that they would have had the good judgment to see through those anti-Israel and anti-Jewish motions, including the amendments that were offered and accepted, for what they really were: part and parcel of the campaign to delegitimize the one and only Jewish state in the world.

“The very concept that the United Church of Canada thinks it can predetermine the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is nothing less than an extreme example of chutzpah.

Children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and rejoice in the fulfillment of the prophesy of the return of the Jewish people to the ancestral homeland from which they were ethnically cleansed, has chosen instead to join those forces who are determined to undermine the Jewish State.”

Over at the Canadian Jewish Congress, the BB’s more liberal (and Liberal) but equally pro-state censorship rival, they issued this release about the identical UCC policy:

Aug 13, 2009 - CJC commends United Church for rejecting boycott of Israel

Kelowna, BC---Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) applauds the General Council of the United Church of Canada (UCC) for rejecting proposals that endorsed boycott of Israel.

Delegates to the UCC General Council also passed a motion earlier in the week repudiating language in the supporting documentation which CJC maintained crossed the line into antisemitism.

"We are encouraged that members of the United Church saw through this dangerous and hateful language, and rejected both the background materials and the Israel boycott proposals themselves," said CJC Immediate Past Co-President Rabbi Reuven Bulka, who attended the General Council.

"Canadian Jewish Congress and the United Church of Canada have worked diligently toward rapprochement over the past several years, largely through the Canadian Christian-Jewish Consultation," Bulka noted. "We always made clear in these conversations that Israel is central to the Jewish soul and identity. That's why we felt it was so important to ensure that the UCC understood the repercussions of these proposals."

"We are pleased that the UCC has rejected these misguided and destructive proposals and we look forward to building on this positive step," said CJC CEO Bernie M. Farber, who also attended the General Council.

In the past I’ve been a vocal critic of Frank Dimant’s cluelessness re state censorship (Frank thinks our ‘human rights” system can be “fixed” so that Jews, but not their enemies, can lodge “hate speech” complaints), but I think the BB nails it here. The Ceej, on the other hand, seems lost in the usual multiculti rose-coloured let’s-sing-Kumbaya-and-twin-with-mosques reverie, intent on “building bridges” with folks who will always despise the Jews/the Jews’ nation state, no matter what.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:25 | link | comments (3)

A case of mistaken Kurdentity: The Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington recounts the curious incident of the Kurds on the highway:

Kurdish Torontonians trying to make a good impression on their community's most famous singer certainly did not have an armed OPP takedown in mind.

But that is exactly what happened Sunday night on Hwy. 427 as the crew filming a cultural star for Kurdish TV was mistaken for a pack of armed and dangerous men in a black Hummer.

What resulted was akin to a movie scene.

The only problem was it was real -- and the only guns were the ones drawn by police.

In the end it was a misunderstanding. To compound matters there were also language issues at play -- since English was not the first language of anyone in the vehicle.

"I have had trouble with Turkish police before but I didn't know Canadian police were like this," said visiting singer and poet Sivan Perwer after being tracked down by the Sun to a North York hotel.

"I expect something like this at the border but this was wild! One policeman said 'I will shoot ... I will kill you now.' "

There are several sides to this story -- all with validity. You have the innocent parties in the vehicle who didn't deserve what happened, police who were responding to reports of a gun and had their own heart-stopping moments and the occupants of another car who thought they saw a lethal weapon and phoned police.

When the dust settled there was no gun and no bad guys. Just a camera, some apologetic coppers and some traumatized people who otherwise had a great day in Niagara Falls.

It would be difficult to find the actions or reactions of any of them wrong.

Sometimes it's a complicated world.

'HURT OUR HONOUR'

But that doesn't mean the people who were handcuffed and found themselves on the ground were thrilled about it.

"It hurt our honour. It hurt a lot," says Perwer, who is living in exile in Germany from his native Turkey because of lyrics to his songs. "It was scary stuff. It was terrible. Why? Why?"…

Not so “complicated,” really. As simple as an unfortunate misunderstanding. (A report about some Middle Eastern-looking types with a gun in a black Hummer--what were cops supposed to do?) Too bad for the Kurds they’re not Canadian, because this one could have gone straight to a “human rights” tribunal, and it’s a slam-dunk the cops would have gotten pilloried for “profiling”.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments (2)

Oren's optimism: Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren says he hopes Israeli Arabs will salute Israel's flag.

And I hope Iran's President Ahmadinijad will stop hating Jews and put his nukes on ice.

Guess both Ambassador Oren and me are destined to be disappointed.

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

Whereas misspending on ‘exotic’ pork projects is A-O.K.: “Obama blasts misspending on ‘exotic’ defense projects.”

obamaPorkFloats.jpg image by equationoftime

obamaPorkFloats.jpg image by equationoftime

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:48 | link | comments

Oh, those wacky Brits: The timesonline has the top ten silliest events in the U.K. They include such examples of national dottiness as the World Worm Charming Contest, the World Bog Snorkelling Contest, and the World Nettle Eating Contest.

Left off the list is another sort of nettle-eating contest, and probably the silliest event of all--the nation's slow and steady embrace of dhimmitude. The winner of that competition, hands down: this bloke.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:10 | link | comments

The man who “Jokerized” Obama: The artist behind the summer’s most memorable image must have been a crazed, middle-aged redneck--maybe even one of those kooky “birthers”--right?

Wrong. The Photoshopper in question is young (20), Palestinian, and a college student from--wait for it--Chicago. The L.A. Times managed to track him down and persuaded him to reveal his motives:

Although Alkhateeb claims he was making no political statement with the artwork, he's plugged into the Washington debate. Though born in the United States, his Palestinian family closely follows Middle Eastern politics.

"I think he's definitely doing better than Bush was," Alkhateeb said of Obama. Alkhateeb's views on foreign relations align with the Democrats, he said, while he prefers Republican ideals on domestic issues.

Alkhateeb's assessment of Obama: "In terms of domestic policy, I don't think he's really doing much good for the country right now," he said. "We don't have to 'hero worship' the guy."

Exactly right. And, hey, if you’re looking for a ‘hero’ to ‘worship,’ there’s a perfectly good Muslim prophet for that (according to Palestinians in the Middle East and elsewhere, that is).

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:41 | link | comments

Who was that masked man?: There are so many moments of luminous insight in a FrontPage Magazine interview with Victor Davis Hanson (Hanson discusses a former deity now revealed to be a mere mortal with a plummeting approval rating) that it’s hard to pick just one. Nonetheless, I just did:

Imagine that in October 2008 Obama had said:

"I plan to run a $2 trillion deficit / stimulus, take over GM, Chrysler, AIG, etc. and refashion the order of creditors, nationalize health care, de facto stall on fossil fuel exploration, push through cap and trade, apologize to Europe, Turkey, the Muslim world, create distance between Israel and the US, etc."…

I don't think he would have had a chance. He was the ultimate stealth candidate who knew that masking his intent was the only way to get elected. "Hope and Change" really meant "I am an old-fashioned statist liberal whose views are at odds with most of America, but which are in fact good for these (people will be) implemented from on high by gifted elites like myself--an agenda that means I must remain both charismatic and duplicitous in order that my personal popularity can carry through my unpopular agenda."

To paraphrase an uncharismatic and famously un-duplicitous former president: You can fool some of the people--along with most of the silly-ass, left-leaning media--all of the time (who wants to lay odds that Chris Matthews’ leg is still tingling?), and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

At the end of the day, the American people are un-flim-flammable--and God bless ‘em for that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:03 | link | comments

Monday, 17 August 2009

Yale sells its soul for a sack of shekels: The intrepid and indefatigable Diana West explains what's really behind Yale U's dhimmification as exemplified by its decision to put the kibosh on printing Motoons (and all visual representations of Islam's prophet)--it's the persuasive influence of Wahhabi dough-re-mi (oh my).

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:35 | link | comments (1)

Everyday life in “liberated” Iraq: Seems it’s not so liberated, since sharia retains its malign influence. From the Ceeb:

Iraqi militias are torturing and killing "hundreds" of men in a growing, systematic campaign against suspected homosexual activity that may be aided by Iraqi security forces, an international human rights group said Monday.

The bodies of several gay men were found in Baghdad's main Shia district of Sadr City earlier this year with the Arabic words for "pervert" and "puppy" — considered derogatory terms for homosexuals in Iraq — written on their chests, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch.

The killings have spread to other cities and areas in the country, but remain centred on the capital, according to the report.

"The killers invade homes and pick people up in the street, witnesses and survivors said, interrogating them before murdering them to extract the names of other potential victims," the rights group said in a statement.

Reliable numbers weren't available, Human Rights Watch said, blaming a combination of the failure of authorities to investigate such crimes and the stigma preventing families from reporting the deaths. But it cited a well-informed UN official as saying in April that the death toll was probably "in the hundreds."

The Mahdi Army, a Shia militia run by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is suspected of spearheading the killings, Tom Porteous, the London director of Human Rights Watch, told CBC News on Monday.

In an interview from London, Porteous said the Mahdi army has for the most part suspended its military resistance to the U.S. presence in Iraq, but has been eager to show it still has influence over the daily lives of Iraqis.

"One theory is in order to maintain relevance and to gain publicity, they are now taking it upon themselves to run a campaign to — in the words of some preachers and some media commentators — cleanse the country of depravity, which again is being interpreted as being brought in by the foreign invasion and occupation," he said.

The report also cited several cases of so-called honour killings, in which families kill their gay relatives to avoid public shame…

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:41 | link | comments

Snitching on hold: Fox News reports that something weird is happening with the White House’s Stasi-like snitch set-up:

The address set up by the White House for people to report "fishy" information about health care reform became inactive Monday, the same day the administration implemented new changes to its Web site following complaints about the way it collects and sends out e-mails.

It's unclear whether the White House pulled the plug on the controversial account, flag@whitehouse.gov, or whether there is a bug in the system…

Oh, there’s a bug in the system alright. But, fingers crossed, he’ll only be bugging us for one term.

Update: I think I found the reason for the snitch glitch (from an American Thinker piece):

…under the new program described by Information Commissar Linda Douglass, the former ABC news flack, the White House has been overwhelmed with emails by informants and many self admitted perpetrators of "misinformation" who were turning themselves them in for saying bad things about ObamaCare.

Heh.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:12 | link | comments

Scoundrel time: How well I recall those days of yore when many Jews were convinced that the presence of one of their own in the White House would be a boon to Israel, as would, for that matter, the presence of his boss, a slim, smooth-talkin’ community organizer. Let’s be charitable and call such delusions the triumph of optimism over reality as we read this contentions post by John Podhoretz wherein he examines a hagiographic profile of Rahm (the back-stabbing blackguard) that appeared in the New York Times magazine:

…But the most telling detail comes at the end, when Baker and Zeleny [the profile-writers] reveal that the administration’s decision to get tough on Israel is, to some degree, Emanuel’s doing: “In national security, officials said Mr. Emanuel had been a player on issues central to the Obama presidency. . . . He has been a force behind the administration’s opposition to Israeli settlement expansion, drawing fire from some Israel supporters.”

What this suggests is that Emanuel, the son of an Israeli who is said to be hawkish, is, in part, inserting himself into policy matters relating to Israel—and is doing so to speak out against Israel’s own sense of its own interests in the matter of the natural expansion of long-extant “settlements” that are really part of the metropolis of Jerusalem. Those American Jews who have said both in private (to me) and in public that Obama could be trusted not to take the sorts of positions on Israel suggested by his long association with Jeremiah Wright and his intimate friendship with PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, in part because of Emanuel’s presence in his inner circle, can no longer hide behind Emanuel’s paternity and the fact that he curses a lot and is a tough guy to offer Obama such scant and pathetic cover.

The cover now is blown. The ugly Arabist is exposed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:49 | link | comments

Birthday story: Ordinarily I avoid mentioning my birthday (it’s today), but I had such a nice birthday-related experience that I felt I had to share it. While perusing the mushrooms in the produce section of the local supermarket yesterday, I heard a little boy pipe up excitedly, “It’s my birthday party!” I turned toward the voice and saw a tow-headed kid looking straight at me.

“It’s your birthday party, is it?” I said. Is your birthday today?”

“No, my birthday’s tomorrow,” he said.

“No way. My birthday is tomorrow, too. August 17^th. Put it there, pal”--and I shook his hand. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be five. I’m four now.”

His mother, who was listening in to our conversation, said to me, “I bet you’re a little older than that.”

“I am, but I won’t tell you how much older. Happy Birthday,” I said to the boy, “And have some cake for me today, okay?”

As I walked away I could hear his mother saying, “Wasn’t that cool--meeting someone who has the same birthday as you?”

Cool it was. And very sweet.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:50 | link | comments (8)

Whadya know?: I'm a mutant.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:01 | link | comments

“Moderate” Mubarak’s demand: So Israel wants to gain recognition from its neighbours? Sure thing, says Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. All it has to do is effect its own demise and the Arabs will be delighted to recognize it. From Artuz Sheva:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, several hours before his scheduled meeting on Monday with U.S. President Barack Obama, said that the Arab world will not make any gestures towards Israel until a regional treaty is signed.

A Middle East peace pact must include Israeli agreement on the Arab demand for the right of millions of foreign Arabs to immigrate to Israel and the demand that the Palestinian Authority have control over all of Jerusalem, Egyptian officials said.

In an interview with the Egyptian daily al-Ahram, Mubarak rejected appeals by President Obama that the Arab world make small gestures towards Israel, such as allowing Israeli planes to fly in their air space and improving cultural ties.

"I affirmed to President Obama in Cairo [in June] that the Arab initiative offers recognition of Israel and normalization with it after, and not before, achieving a just and comprehensive peace," Mubarak told al-Ahram…

For those unfamiliar with the jihad lingo (a lingo employed by “Saint Sadat,” too): a “just” peace is one which acknowledges that, having once been conquered for Islam, the land claimed by Jews is an eternal part of the Muslim world (Dar al Islam). In which case, stick it in yer ear, Hosni. As for you, Barack, habibi, you can stick it in a nether, er, 'nother orifice.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:42 | link | comments

Lynch looks to lawyers: Jennifer Lynch, Q.C., SWMBO (Queen Censor, She Who Must Be Obeyed) wants lawyers to come to the defence of Canada’s teetering “human rights” apparatus. From the Vancouver Sun:

DUBLIN -- Canada's lawyers, academics and law school deans were urged here Saturday to come to the defence of federal, provincial and territorial human rights commissions and tribunals under attack by conservative critics.

Jennifer Lynch, head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission since 2007, told the Canadian Bar Association's annual meeting that opponents of rights bodies have successfully created a "chill" that makes it difficult for anyone to defend those bodies without also becoming a target.

Lynch, saying some criticisms have been "troubling" and "at times scary," also read out a graphic anonymous letter she received stating that she should be shot dead.

"I'm here to ask for your help," Lynch told CBA members, noting that academic experts, law school deans, and senior lawyers are among Canada's "most trusted sources of information" on public policy matters.

She urged them to write "letters to correct misinformation," encourage other experts to participate in the debate and promote public education of the role of rights commissions and tribunals in the justice system.

She said rights bodies have been under attack since 2007 after the Canadian Islamic Congress filed complaints against Rogers Communications over an essay published in Maclean's magazine, a Rogers publication, by conservative commentator Mark Steyn.

The complaints filed to the Canadian, Ontario and B.C. rights commissions were all eventually dismissed, though criticisms by those commissions against Steyn's published views about Islam prompted accusations that his right to free speech was being violated.

While she didn't identify her critics, Lynch has complained previously about attacks against her by Steyn, commentator Ezra Levant, various other bloggers, and politicians such as B.C. Conservative MP Russ Hiebert.

Critics have argued that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits the spreading of "hate messages" on the telephone and internet, violates the right to free speech. Some say hate crimes should be dealt with by the Criminal Code.

Lynch told the CBA that rights commissions represent an important component of the justice system, giving society's "most vulnerable" minority groups access to a mechanism to deal with alleged rights violations.

I have often wondered why it is that, as a group, lawyers have been so supine, so unwilling to condemn the “human rights” system. After all, they operate within and are guardians of a grand judicial tradition dating all the way back to the Magna Carta, a tradition which upholds essential, inviolable values such as the presumption of innocence, rules of evidence, fair comment and due process. You would think lawyers, of all people, would be sickened by the existence of a parallel universe--the “human rights” apparatus--which rubbishes the principles they hold so dear. Where’s their anger? Where’s their outrage? Why is it that Jennifer Lynch thinks she can count on lawyers to rush to her defence? In a sane world, lawyers should and would be in the vanguard of protest, calling for her dismissal and the dismantling of her shady apparatus--a system that has made Canadian “justice” a laughingstock in the free world.

My love for the many honest, reputable, hard-working lawyers within my immediate family precludes my saying that their silence can in part be attritubuted to the fact that many lawyers earn good coin from Jen’s appalling racket.

Update: Ezra weighs in on la Lynch in Dublin.

Update: BCF rounds up the usual suspects.

Update: A song for Jen's Irish sojourn (on the taxpayers' dime):

In Dublin’s fair city

There’s a junket so pretty

It attracted the likes of Ms. Jennifer Lynch.

As she flogged her dead pony

She spoke lots of baloney,
Crying, “Save me, ye lawyers, for I’ll never flinch.”...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:43 | link | comments (1)

Accounting for dissent: Mike Lupica in the New York Daily News claims Obama and not Obamacare, is "the real target of health care protestors." Not so. Had the man formulated a policy that appeared to have even a shot of doing what it aimed to do--significantly reduce costs; insure all the uninsured; allow people to keep their current physician and insurer if they so desired--there wouldn't be all the protest. But since Obama lets the Bozos in the House do his formulating, and it is obvious that the whole thing is shaping up to become a bureacratic nightmare of unfathomable expense, the "protesters" (ordinary people trying to avert an impending catastrophe) have voiced their dismay in the American way.

Then again, since this isn't the first time Obama has tried to use his gift of gab to get the American people to swallow his gargantuan "solutions," regular folks have become wise to his ways, and aren't nearly as willing to give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

The message to Obama: Fool us once, twice, thrice, shame on you. Fool us a fourth time, shame on us.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:41 | link | comments

Folks who could benefit from more modest swim attire: Jack Nicholson, for one.

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

Sunday, 16 August 2009

They considered the Really Useful Idiot Party, but thought the better of it: NDP name change fizzles.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:38 | link | comments

New T in town: You gotta love non-government bolstered American enterprise.

An opponent of healthcare reform at a Hagerstown, Maryland, town hall meeting wears a T-shirt that reads: "Proud member of the angry mob - and I vote".

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

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz: Who's the most boring twitterer of them all?: I haven't done a complete survey, but of all the twitterers I've come across, Michael Ignatieff has to be the biggest snore-meister. His most recent tweet says it all: "Zsuzsanna and I on a tour of the Waugh brother’s potato farm in Lower Bedeque, PEI, earlier today: http://twitpic.com/dvsw5#lpc"

A potato farm, you say. And was it a big potato farm, with lots and lots of spuds? How thoroughly rivetin....

Sorry, nodded off there for a sec. Here's another shot of Mike and Zsuzsana down on the farm:

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:13 | link | comments

A-jad’s softer side: In a bid to warm ‘n’ fuzzify his image, the tiny terror has tapped three chicks for his cabinet. From the Guardian:

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today attempted to soften his hardline image by nominating three women to his cabinet following June's disputed election.

As a new trial began of 25 more activists and opposition supporters, Ahmadinejad named Fatemeh Ajorlou, an MP, as social welfare minister and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as health minister, with a third woman to be named later.

"With the 10th presidential election, we have entered a new era ... conditions changed completely and the government [make-up] will see major changes," Ahmadinejad said on state television.

He also said Heydar Moslehi, his adviser on clerical affairs, would be nominated as intelligence minister. There were unconfirmed reports that the country's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, would be named foreign minister. Like Ahmadinejad, Jalili has taken an uncompromising stance in Iran's dispute with the west over its nuclear programme, which it defends as being for peaceful purposes.

But it is Ahmadinejad's intention to have three women ministers that stands out in a society where women politicians are thin on the ground –there are only eight women among Iran's 290 MPs…

He’s about as soft as a rattlesnake (and thrice as venomous), I’d say.

Update: Reduce the "softeness" by a third--the Tehran Times says only two women have received an invitation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:27 | link | comments

Swimming with sharia: I listened to a repeat of the Oakley Show on AM640 this morning. The topic under discussion: the public swimming pool in France that had banned the burkini. The consensus among callers was that burkini-wearing is not a religious issue and should be permitted unless it somehow violates health and safety rules.

Now, personally, I don’t care what anyone wears in the pool (although that teensy-weensy Speedo look favoured by tubby Quebecois en vacance in Florida ain’t exactly easy on the eyes). But the fact is that the burkini, like the burka, is a religious matter. It’s about forcing women to cover up because the sight of them sans covering is said to be so provocative that it is apt to drive men, creatures who apparently can’t control their lust, to rape.

The other problem with the burkini is that there are those who won’t be satisfied until everyone conforms to the Islamists' rigid swimwear requirements--as is evidenced by this article in the Telegraph:

Swimmers are told to wear burkinis

British swimming pools are imposing Muslim dress codes in a move described as divisive by Labour MPs.

Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.

Instead they are told that they must comply with the "modest" code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.

The phenomenon runs counter to developments in France, where last week a woman was evicted from a public pool for wearing a burkini – the headscarf, tunic and trouser outfit which allows Muslim women to preserve their modesty in the water.

The 35-year-old, named only as Carole, is threatening legal action after she was told by pool officials in Emerainville, east of Paris, that she could not wear the outfit on hygiene grounds.

But across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.

Croydon council in south London runs separate one-and-a half-hour swimming sessions for Muslim men and women every Saturday and Sunday at Thornton Heath Leisure Centre.

Swimmers were told last week on the centre's website that "during special Muslim sessions male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists".

There are similar rules at Scunthorpe Leisure Centre, in North Lincolnshire, where "users must follow the required dress code for this session (T-shirts and shorts/leggings that cover below the knee)"…

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:05 | link | comments (2)

A genuine debt: Lord knows we’re beholden to Islam for so much (minarets, algebra, sharia law, spaghetti, Scotch tape, Silly Putty--did I leave anything out?). But until I read the following in this book (my idea of a “light” summer read) I had no idea we owed it for…the Reformation?

On the eastern and southern rim of Europe, Islam remained a threat until the end of the seventeenth century. Even when the activities of the Ottoman fleet were curbed after the battle of Lepanto in 1571…north African corsairs systematically raided the Mediterranean coasts of Europe to acquire slave labour; in fact they ranged as far as Ireland and even Iceland, kidnapping men, women and children. Modern historians examining contemporary comment produce reliable estimates that Islamic raiders enslaved around a million western Christian Europeans between 1530 and 1640; this dwarfs the contemporary slave traffic in the other direction, and is about equivalent to the numbers of west Africans taken by Christian Europeans across the Atlantic at the same time. Two religious Orders, the Trinitarians and Mercedarians, specialized in ransoming Christian slaves, and over centuries honed diplomatic expertise and varied local knowledge to maximize the effectiveness of this specialized work. Large areas of the Mediterranean coastline were abandoned for safer inland regions, or their people lived in perpetual dread of what might appear on the horizon; this may well explain, for instance, why Italians lost their medieval zest for adventurous trade overseas. The fear which this Islamic aggression engendered in Europe was an essential background for the Reformation, convincing many on both sides that God’s anger was poised to strike down the Christian world, and so making it all the more essential to please God by affirming the right form of Christian belief against other Christians. It is impossible to understand the mood of sixteenth-century Europe without bearing in mind the deep anxiety inspired by the Ottoman Empire…

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:16 | link | comments

Who’s the “racist”?: I knew we were going to get an earful today from Harpoon Siddiqui--not that that one was tough to predict. Harpoon has worked himself into a lather about Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who allowed a Somali-Canadian to languish in Nairobi when an overzealous Canadian official there thought she and her passport photo were a mismatch. Instead of intervening post haste, as Harpoon insists he should have, the P.M. (possibly a “racist” and/or “anti-Muslim”) failed to take the proper steps to expedite her return:

Welcome home, Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

Her case has raised a host of questions. First, who's to blame for her 11-week ordeal? The officials at the Canadian embassy in Nairobi? Or the politicians in Ottawa?

If the former, would some bureaucratic heads roll?

If the latter, as has been the case in several incidents of Canadians stranded abroad, the Stephen Harper government has a lot to answer for: Is it racist? Anti-Muslim? Too ideological? Prone to micromanagement? Or just plain incompetent?

Whatever the reason(s), why have the Tories been so tin-eared to so much public outrage in this regard? Or is there a method to their madness, namely, that they ignore public opinion because they only care about catering to their core constituency of Conservatives?...

Yes, that must be the reason poor Ms. Mohamud was forced to cool her heels in Kenya awaiting DNA testing--because Harper was looking to cater to his “core constituency” (Harpoon’s veiled way of saying “the JOOOOOS”--even though most Jews vote Liberal). On the other hand, it could be due to someone else’s “racism”. That’s certainly the Muslim Canadian Congress’s contention. The secular Muslim organization issued a news release about the woman’s plight (my bolds except for the heading):

August 14, 2009

Suspend Liliane Khadour,
Canadian Vice Consul in Kenya

MCC welcomes PM's direct intervention to rescue Somali-Canadian woman

TORONTO - The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has welcomed Prime Minister Harper's decision to intervene directly in the matter of the Somali-Canadian woman stranded in Nairobi, but is asking Ottawa to immediately suspend the Canadian Vice Consul in Kenya, Ms. Liliane Khadour.

In a statement, Sohail Raza, president of the MCC said, "It is regrettable that Ottawa took so long to step in, but as a first step it should immediately suspend Ms. Liliane Khadour who is directly responsible for sending a Canadian citizen to a Kenyan prison on false charges that had all the hallmarks of a racist mindset."

In a letter about Suaad Mohamud to Kenyan officials, Ms. Khadour had written, "...We have carried out conclusive investigations including an interview and have confirmed that the person brought to the Canadian High Commission on suspicion of being an impostor is not the rightful holder of the aforementioned passport." She then went on to encourage the Kenyan authorities to prosecute Suaad Mohamud "regarding the improper use of the passport by a person other than the rightful holder."

Raza said the actions of Liliane Khadour, who is said to be an Egyptian Canadian, must be seen in context of widespread racism against Black Africans in the Arab World. "There is clear evidence that Black Africans are ill treated by Egyptians and racism against Blacks is widespread in the Arab world. We hope any investigation by Ottawa into the actions of Liliane Khadour will take such racism into account. Other officials involved in this incident should face a reprimand that will serve to be a deterrent to any other consular official who brings their racist views to the workforce."

The MCC president added, "I am sure if Suaad Mohamud had been a White woman with an anglicized name, Liliane Khadour would not have dared to declare her an impostor."

Ah, but the canny Harpoon has anticipated the above--though, for obvious reasons, he remains mum about its charges:

This does not mean that bureaucrats are blameless. They can be boneheaded, too, as the consular staff in Nairobi seemed to have been with Mohamud. They may be ill-trained for implementing post-9/11 checks or overzealous.

Picking on the wrong person for the wrong reason (her lips) to crack down on possible passport fraud is bad enough; handing her over to a corrupt Third World judicial system is scandalous. (The innuendo that there's more to her case than we know has no credibility, given all the lies told about Maher Arar).

Yes, and that “racist” Harper was the one who established the expensive investigation that cleared Arar of all malfeasance; he also declared a national mea culpa on our behalf and ensured that Arar walked away with a mega-million dollar payoff for his pain and suffering.

He must really hate Muslims, that Harper.

Harpoon’s parting shot--a kick in the nuts to the “racist” Tories who have so damaged the state of our “citizenship”:

More crucially, let not bureaucratic misdeeds obscure the systematic damage being inflicted by the Harper government on this fundamental aspect of our citizenship.

Au contraire, Harpoon. They systematic--and systemic--damage was inflicted by previous Liberal regimes which:

· Set in place a refugee system that allowed all and sundry to show up at the border and instantly receive oodles of benefits. Some of these folks eventually appear at a refugee hearing; many simply vanish.

· Larded the Refugee Review Board with the likes of Khaled Mouammar (currently, head of the Jew-hating Canadian Arab Federation) and his missus as well as--why, looky here--Mrs. Harpoon Siddiqui, who never met a Muslim refugee that failed to pass muster.

· Fixed it so one could have multiple citizenships, a situation resulting in a new category of Canadians--Canadians of Convenience. These “citizens” can avail themselves of our health system (and demand to be rescued when Israel and Hezbollah go to war) and return to live in their real home and native land.

The Liberals wreaked such immense damage on our citizenship that at this point it is probably beyond repair.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:06 | link | comments (3)

Saturday, 15 August 2009

Darkness visible: Do burgeoning Muslim demographics pose any threat at all to us here in the West? The Vancouver Sun’s Douglas Todd has looked around, consulted an “expert” or two, and is certain the answer is a resounding “no”:

…If they could have their way, would most Muslims try to impose their religious values on Western democracies?

Moderate Muslims are increasingly becoming influential in Europe and North America. I have interviewed Muslim leaders in the Netherlands, such as Turkish immigrant Haci Kraceur, who was encouraging Muslim immigrants to fully embrace the Dutch approach to religious freedom and free speech.

Kraceur's organization, called Milli Gorus or National Vision, was calling on Dutch Muslims to avoid living in all-Muslim neighbourhoods and to open up the country's 400 mosques to everyone with cafes, bakeries and Turkish massage parlours.

I've also talked to the influential European Muslim intellectual, Tariq Ramadan. He's calling on Muslims everywhere to be more "self-critical," while urging Christians, Jews, secularists and others in Europe and North America to resist the temptation to make Muslims the new enemy.

Ramadan, a gracious man and subtle thinker, was recently asked a tough question by a Dutch interviewer: Would Muslim leaders want to ban homosexuality if they ever became a majority in parts of Europe?

Ramadan maintained Muslims don't want to "silently colonize" Europe. As beneficiaries of multiculturalism and human rights, most Muslims, he said, want to respect over-riding Western values, which include tolerating homosexual relationships.

Asked if it's enough to "respect" homosexuals while still considering what they do "unnatural" and against the teachings of Islam, Ramadan said a person doesn't have to applaud someone's choices to respect them.

In much the same way that Muslims can respect non-Muslims who drink alcohol (which is banned in Islam), Ramadan said Muslims can also respect homosexuals.

In Canada, the number of Muslims is growing fast through immigration. But Muslims still make up only two per cent of the Canadian population.

Like Canadians with Buddhist, Jewish, Christian or Sikh backgrounds, the Canadian Muslims I have met are a mixed bag when it comes to how seriously they follow their religion. Many Canadian Muslims are basically "non-practising Muslims," like France's Zinedine Zidane.

However, I have talked to many devout Metro Vancouver Muslims, including young people. The teenagers I met are, like many Muslims, left-wing about economic issues, but morally conservative about sex outside marriage, homosexuality and drinking.

They both celebrate and criticize North America's libertarian culture. I was glad they attended public universities and public high schools (even though many others attend separate Muslim schools, which raises legitimate questions).

The Muslim teenagers I met interacted with Canadians from all ethnicities and walks of life. They did so especially through sports teams. Perhaps most important of all, the Muslim teens deeply appreciated the freedom they have in Canada. Most said either they or their parents come from countries in the Middle East and Asia where free speech and association is not at all a given. They were grateful to be in a democratic country.

Unless I was blind to how the seemingly wholesome Canadian teenagers secretly belonged to a "sleeper cell" of Muslim extremists bent on dominating the West, they gave no hint they would ever want to impose Muslim teachings on all Canadians -- because that would contravene the human rights they so cherish.

Memo to Doug: time to do a bit more, er, research. For starters, read this, about that “subtle” thinker Tariq Ramadan. As for the possibility of your being blind to how seemingly “wholesome” teens can suddenly become hot for jihad, all I can say is it’s time to get out your white cane because you, sir, are as blind as they come.

Update: I'd like to introduce dhimwit Doug to a marvelous resource. It's called google. The way it works is you type in whatever you happen to be looking for--in my case it was "Milli Gorus or National Vision"--and within mere seconds you can find something like this, from a 2005 post in DhimmiWatch. It's a translation of an article that appeared in a Dutch newspaper about an "interfaith" gathering at which Milli's thoroughly un-modern leader allowed his mask of moderation and agreeableness to drop for a minute, time enough to reveal the true face that lurked behind:

Haci Karacaer was rather provocative. He hammered home that Europe has its roots in Islam. “Europe does not have Judeo-Christian roots. We gave them to you!” When they talked about religious education things got even more heated. “André, try to keep up with the facts. Demographics tell you that a school board can’t continue to proselytize. I’ll go as far as to say that the Christian identity of these schools doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

André must have been shocked. You think you do your Muslim brothers a favour by giving them an opportunity to build their own schools and suddenly they want to take over yours. Maybe he finally realized Milli Gorus’ strategy. Karacear has for years been towing the same line as the Swiss preacher Tariq Ramadan. Avoid conflicts, be friendly, consensual and oppose the segregation of Muslims. Because it’s their holy mission to Islamize Western society you can’t have ghettoes like Islamic schools. You don’t Islamize by locking yourself up, but by using secular or Christian structures and turning them upside down when the time comes. But maybe Karacaer stumbled and dropped his mask a bit too soon. By already playing the demographics card, annexing the Jewish-Christian roots and glaring at the ‘black’ confessional schools he might have woken up the ChristianUnion.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:56 | link | comments (5)

Lost in translation: Raymond Ibrahim explains that, just as “jihad” comes freighted with a whole cargo of meaning that the pithy word “stuggle” simply cannot capture, so too does “zakat,” a word pithily translated as “charity”:

…A typical seventh-grade textbook, for instance, teaches that “jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties and do things that are pleasing to God. Muslims strive to respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly challenges. For instance, they might work to be better people, reform society, or correct injustice.”

Strictly speaking, this is by and large true. However, by not explaining what it means to be “better people, reform society, or correct injustice” — from a distinctly Islamic, as opposed to Western, perspective — the textbook abandons students to fall back on their own (misleading) interpretations.

Yet the facts remain: In Islam, killing certain “evil-doers,” such as apostates or homosexuals, is a way of “correcting injustice”; overthrowing manmade constitutional orders (such as the United States) and replacing them with Sharia mandates, and subjugating women and non-Muslims, are ways of “reforming society.” Those enforcing all this are, in fact, “better people” — indeed, according to the Koran (3:110), they are “the best of peoples, evolved for mankind,enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong,” that is, ruling according to Sharia law.

So it is with the Muslim concept of zakat, a word often rendered into English as “charity.” But is that all zakat is — mere Muslim benevolence by way of feeding and clothing the destitute of the world, as the word “charity” all too often connotes?

U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama seems to think so — or, given his background, is at least banking that others do — based on his recent proclamation to the Muslim world that “in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”

Thus does Obama conflate a decidedly Islamic concept, zakat, with the generic notion of charity. Is this justified? As with all things Islamic, one must first examine the legal aspects of zakat to truly appreciate its purport. Etymologically related to the notion of “purity,” zakat — paying a portion of one’s wealth to specifically designated recipients — is a way of purifying oneself, on par with prayers (see Koran 9:103).

The problem, however, has to do with who is eligible for this mandatory “charity.” Most schools of Muslim jurisprudence are agreed to eight possible categories of recipients — one of these being those fighting “in the path of Allah,” that is, jihadis, also known as “terrorists.”…

A more accurate translation of "zakat": my portmanteau "humaniterrorism."

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

That’s the way the pillar crumbles: Caroline Glick notes the passing of a core hopeychanger belief re the Mideast--i.e. that Fatah is the Rodney Dangerfied of Palestinian factions in that all it requires to become more amenable is more respect. The hopeychangers are so busy sticking their fingers in their ears and going “la la la I can’t hear you” that the loud and clear message Fatah has been sending (“we'll settle for nothing less than a Judenrein Israel”) hasn't reached them. From the JPost:

A central pillar of the Obama administration's Middle East policy paradigm was shattered at the Fatah conference in Bethlehem - but don't expect the White House to notice.

At the conference, Fatah's supposedly feuding old guard and young guard were united in their refusal to reach an accommodation with Israel. Both old and young endorsed the use of terrorism against Israel. Both embraced the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group as a full-fledged Fatah organization.

Both demanded that all Jews be expelled from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem ahead of the establishment of a Jew-free Palestinian state.

Both claimed that any settlement with Israel be preceded by an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and by Israel's destruction as a Jewish state through its acceptance of millions of foreign-born, hostile Arabs as immigrants within its truncated borders.

Both demanded that all terrorists be released from Israeli prisons as a precondition for "peace" talks with Israel.

Both accused Israel of murdering Yasser Arafat.

Bottom of Form

Both approved building a strategic alliance with Iran.

In staking out these extremist positions, both Fatah's old guard and its younger generation of leaders demonstrated that Fatah's goal today is the same as it has been since the its founding in 1959: Liberating Palestine (from the river to the sea) by wiping Israel off the map.

Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas's decision to remove both his own mask and that of his organization should cause the Netanyahu government to reassess its current policies toward the group. For the past four months, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government have quietly barred all Jewish construction in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem neighborhoods, as well as in Judea and Samaria. The government's unofficial policy has been implemented in the hopes of pleasing the Obama administration, which argues that by barring Jewish building, Israel will encourage the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority to moderate its policies and so engender an atmosphere conducive to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The Fatah conference put paid to that fiction.

Fatah's message to the Netanyahu government is important. But even more important is the message it conveys to the Obama administration. For Netanyahu, the Fatah gathering bore out his prior assessment that the group is a wolf in sheep's clothing. For US President Barack Obama, the message of the Fatah conclave was that his administration's assumptions not only about Fatah, but about terrorists and terror-supporting regimes in general are completely wrong.

FOR THE Obama administration, Fatah was supposed to be the poster child for moderate terrorists. Fatah was supposed to be the prototype of the noble terrorist organization that really just wants respect. It was supposed to be the group that proved the central contention of the Obama White House's strategy for dealing with terror, namely, that all terrorists want is to be appeased…

Hey, that’s all Hitler wanted, right? And about that “moderate terrorist” business--it has the distinction of being both moronic and oxymoronic. (And they said George W. Bush was "dumb".)

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

Schism in Gaza: The two main branches of Islam are at each others’ throats in Gaza as Shia (Iran)-backed jihadis (i.e. Hamas) are endeavouring to put down a rebellion by their Sunni (al Qaeda)-backed brothers. From the Ceeb:

Hamas security forces battled with Islamic radicals from an al-Qaeda-inspired group in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing 13 people and wounding dozens of others, according to media reports from the Palestinian territory.

The leader of the group known as Jund Ansar Allah triggered the gun battles by defying Gaza's Hamas rulers earlier in the day. He declared an "Islamic emirate" in the territory in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

The fighting began when Hamas forces surrounded a mosque in Rafah, where about 100 members of Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God, were holed up, according to residents.

The leader of Jund Ansar Allah, Abdel-Latif Moussa, warned Hamas forces against trying to enter the mosque compound.

"If Hamas does that, it will be their end," he said.

Shortly afterward, a gun battle broke out between the militants inside the mosque and Hamas forces surrounding it. Hamas officers then raided the mosque.

The group's leader had already fled the mosque, and Hamas forces surrounded his house later and waged another gun battle with his men.

A large explosion was heard from Moussa's home late Friday, and the house partially collapsed, witnesses and security officials reported. It was unclear whether the explosion was set off by Hamas forces or militants with explosives inside.

Hamas has closed off the area and ambulances have been unable to get to the scene of the fighting…

“Hamas security forces” vs. “Islamic radicals,” eh? Gotta love Ceeb-speak which A) makes Hamas sound like it’s legit and has its shiite together and B) is afraid to call a jihadi and jihadi (the accurate designation of both groups). Also--were Israel to prevent an ambulance from getting to the scene of fighting you would now be hearing an immense uproar from anti-Israel “human rights” types. But as long as it’s only Arab-on-Arab action, who cares?

Update: Elder of Ziyon is keeping tabs on the conflict.

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

Foreplay in Afghanistan: Remember some months ago when Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai was catching flak because he’d agreed to validate a sharia, er, “Shia” law sanctioning wife rape? The outcry was so loud that “our guy” Karzai was forced to back down--or so went conventional wisdom. Well, it seems c.w. is a bit of a dunce, since when we weren’t looking (too busy fighting for “freedom” for the Afghan people, I guess) they went and passed an equally--if not more--appalling version of the law. From the Guardian:

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.

Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country.

Islamic law experts and human rights activists say that although the language of the original law has been changed, many of the provisions that alarmed women's rights groups remain, including this one: "Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband's permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient."

The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country's Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday's election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday…

And it’s one, two, three, what are we fightin’ for?/It’s awfully plain to see / We’re dyin’ for the sharee…

Update: I feel like we're fixing to get screwed:

Give me an N!

Give me a U!

Give me an T!

Give me an S!

What’s that spell?

NUTS!

Well, come on all you strong kafirs

Uncle Ham needs your help for years.

But here’s what’s stickin’ in the craw--

Seems like we’re fightin' for sha-ree-ah.

Shut down your brain so you can’t see

We’re helpin’ out the enemy.

And it’s one, two, three what’re we fightin’ for?

It’s patently plain to see

We’re dyin’ for the sharee’.

And it’s five, six, seven, open up the gates of Hell.

What’s the point of goin’ through such strife

To spare the food and spoil the wife?...

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:40 | link | comments

Friday, 14 August 2009

Q: What do you call a clueless Jew who thinks taking money from Islamists signals a big step forward?: A: Joseph Ben-Ami, head of J Street, an anti-Zionist outfit masquerading as a pro-Israel outfit (as if we can't tell the difference).

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:07 | link | comments

"Apartheid" as a weapon: Move over, Zionist entity. As Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume sees it, there’s another purveyor of “apartheid” in the world--Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Jonathan Kay of the National Post comments:

This week's award for lunatic overstatement in a newspaper column goes to …

… Christopher Hume of the Toronto Star! Come up and accept your prize for your award-winning August 12 column.

By way of explanation: Hume's column concerns the federal government's treatment of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a Canadian who spent two-and-a-half months in a Kenyan detention facility after Kenyan and Canadian officials falsely accused her of being someone other than who she claims to be on her passport.

What Mohamud endured was terrible — and it seems likely that someone in the Canadian government screwed up quite massively. On the other hand, there is zero evidence of malice (let alone racially motivated malice) toward the woman. She seems merely to have been victimized by a maddening, Kafkaesque instance of incompetence by Canadian officials seeking to protect the skies, and Canada, from a possible threat originating in a nasty and violent part of the world.

In comes Hume, both fists of racial flurry flying. He declares this is but the latest piece of "mounting evidence" that the Harper regime is plotting to assign rights to Canadians based on the "colour of your skin."

"God help you if you're not white," Hume adds. And then — in a line that would set a writer with any hint of self-awareness into a bout of next-morning cringing — he declares "This isn't just another political scandal; this is cause for deep national shame. This smacks not just of prejudice, but of apartheid." (My italics)

Yes — that's right: apartheid. A Toronto Star columnist thinks that the mistaken, temporary detention of a black Canadian by black officials in a black African country because of incorrect information provided by bungling Canadian bureaucrats is akin to an explicitly racist South African political system in which millions of blacks were brutalized, subordinated — and in thousands of cases, tortured and murdered.

What epic crimes against humanity will the Star's intrepid race activist next be placing at the Harper government's doorstep? The Holocaust? Cambodia's killing fields? The Ukraine famine? King Leopold's depradations in the Belgian Congo? Star readers can only wonder.

Hume’s is another example of how left-leaners are quick to affix the “apartheid” label as a means to discredit/delegitimize those whose politics/worldview they deplore.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments (5)

Mail call: In a letter to the Globe and Mail’s editor, a University of Toronto academic explains why Israel deserves its “apartheid” label:

Far apart on apartheid

The “apartheid” analogy for Israel is legitimate, contrary to Margaret Wente’s assertions (How Israel Became South Africa – Aug. 13). Only Jews have full citizenship rights in the occupied territories. The Israeli state is preoccupied with preserving Jewish ethnic predominance in occupied territory (East Jerusalem) and in sensitive Israeli regions (Galilee).

Israeli walls and checkpoints prevent Palestinians from moving freely within and between the territories and pre-1967 Israel. Israeli state policies with respect to land, water, housing and refugees/immigrants consistently discriminate against ethnic Arabs (including Israeli citizens) and in favour of ethnic Jews.

The Palestinian political leadership, like their Israeli opposite numbers, are locked into a nationalist discourse that makes it difficult in the short term to be optimistic about equitable power-sharing or democratic development in Israel-Palestine. But the growing movement to raise the issue of Israeli apartheid aims to strengthen those in Israel-Palestine committed to a more equitable political arrangement for the ethnically mixed country.

James A. Reilly, professor, Modern Middle East History, University of Toronto

Wouldn’t you just love to be a student in Professor Reilly’s history classes? They must be rip-roaring Zion-bashapaloozas. My riposte:

If, as Professor James Reilly contends, what’s occurring in Israel amounts to “apartheid,” it’s the freakiest form of “apartheid” I’ve ever seen. Not only do Israeli Arabs enjoy the full gamut of rights--the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to access Israeli courts which accords them the same to due process, property rights, etc--but they have higher standards of health and education than do Arabs in the rest of the Middle East.

As for the professor’s observation that Arabs in the “occupied territories” don’t enjoy the same rights as Israelis--well, that’s a function of one of territories being wholly ruled by Hamas, which adheres to the inequities inherent in shariah law, and the other being under the sway of Fatah, which is demanding sole ownership of Jerusalem. As such, I’m pretty sure neither of these factions is looking to be granted the “rights” of Israeli citizenship.

Update: "Reilly" comes right after "Rebick" in this anti-Israel petition.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:40 | link | comments (2)

Shaking all over: When I wrote about the decision not to publish the Motoons yesterday, I didn't realize that the book-The Cartoons That Shook the World--was about the Motoons. I thought it was a more generalized history of controvesial 'toonery--Daumier, Herblock, etc--of which the Motoons were only the latest example. Deciding to ix-nay the 'toons in a book about the 'toons--on what grounds can that even remotely be justified? The answer, of course: there is no justification for an august press connected to a bastion of Western education kowtowing to the sharia agenda.

If you aren't prepared to show Exhibit A in a book about the 'toons, why bother publishing it at all?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:43 | link | comments

A bad idea: I’m all for parents having a say in what their kids are being exposed to in school, but this (from the Ceeb) strikes me as a really bad move:

A controversial bill that allows Alberta parents to pull their children out of class during planned discussions on religion, sexuality and sexual orientation won't officially become law before school resumes.

Bill 44 generated hours of debate in and outside of the legislature, but easily passed through a third reading in June.

Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett said it won't be proclaimed law until October or November due to continuing discussions with school officials about how the rules will be implemented in the classroom.

The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission is also undergoing changes, he said.

"We're looking at overall governance of the commission and we're also looking at training of staff within the commission. So a lot of those things have to happen and we'd like to get them all tidied up before we actually proclaim the bill into law."

A clause in the bill, which is an amendment to the province's human rights legislation, requires that school boards give parents written notice when sex, religion or sexual orientation are going to be covered in the curriculum. Parents can then ask for their child to be excluded from the discussion.

There will be no restrictions placed on casual classroom discussions that might arise about the topics.

The buried clause had drawn objections from teachers, schools boards and human rights groups, who argued Bill 44 would makes it possible for parents to file human rights complaints against teachers and school districts, creating a chill regarding what is taught in the classroom.

Instead of looking at the overall governance (which, given the above, seems to entail handing the AHRC’s crew of intellectual mediocrities--like the one who was flayed by Ezra Levant--greater power and more reason to butt into peoples’ affairs), a far better plan would be to get rid of the commission altogether--lock, stock and Shirlene.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:22 | link | comments

Him with his foot in his mouth: At another one of those Town Hall meetings yesterday, Obama tried to flog his health plan by citing this example of how it will supposedly save money:

All I'm saying is let's take the example of something like diabetes, one of --- a disease that's skyrocketing, partly because of obesity, partly because it's not treated as effectively as it could be. Right now if we paid a family -- if a family care physician works with his or her patient to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they're taking their medications in a timely fashion, they might get reimbursed a pittance.

But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 -- immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make sure that we're also reimbursing the care that prevents the amputation, right? That will save us money.

Balderdash! Here in the country Obama views as a socialized medicine Utopia, diabetes is also skyrocketing (I know that for a fact, since, in my professional life, I’ve written about it), and a surgeon who gets his paycheque from the government and is thus likely earning much less than his American counterpart might recommend surgery as a first resort to stimulate more business. That’s exactly what happened some months ago to my mother. She fell on the sidewalk and broke her wrist. Right away one doctor, a specialist, told her she’d have to have surgery. She asked for a second opinion and the second doctor, another specialist, told her to hold off on surgery and, at the right time, go for physio. Well, her wrist healed just fine without surgery. When she saw the second doctor the other day, she asked him why the first doctor was so quick to recommend surgery. The second doctor--who my mother has known for many years, and whose late father, a doctor, was a colleague of my late father, also a doctor--smiled and said it was because the first doctor was going to make a lot more money that way.

So there you have it. Under a socialized system, a doctor may have even greater impetus to opt for the more invasive procedure--so where’s the saving, Barack?

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:56 | link | comments (2)

Thursday, 13 August 2009

Dialogue, shmialogue: The United Church of Canada has nixed a proposed boycott of Israel--and Official Jew Bernie Farber couldn’t be more pleased. As Bernie tells the Ceeb, it means the Jews and the Church “can continue our dialogue together.” And there’s nothing Bernie like more than a good “dialogue”. But considering how adamantine the Church is in its convictions about Israel and the Palestinians, boycott or no boycott, there doesn’t seem to be much to discuss:

Delegates at the United Church of Canada's national meeting rejected a series of motions calling for a boycott of Israel that were deemed anti-Semitic by Canadian Jewish organizations.

The resolutions before the council in Kelowna, B.C., called for a boycott of trade, cultural and academic activities with Israel, as well as financial and other sanctions.

In a video interview posted on the United Church's website on Thursday afternoon, spokesman Bruce Gregersen said the council has instead encouraged local congregations to undertake their own initiatives and study ways to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

He described the decision as "part of the freedom of the church," comparing it to the variety of opinions among different congregations on the church's acceptance of same-sex marriage.

"The council has simply said, 'We want you to take that freedom and use it as you wish to discern ways of ending the occupation'," Gregersen said.

Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress who attended the council, commended the church for rejecting the "misguided and destructive" proposals he said were aimed at isolating and excluding Israel on the international stage.

"We are quite relieved and quite pleased," Farber told CBC News on Thursday. "The council understood it needed to be inclusive, not exclusive, and a boycott is exclusive by nature."…

“Inclusive”--gotcha. As if the folks who want to “study ways to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories”(note the knee-jerk pluralization, even though Israel ethnically cleansed itself from one whole territory, Gaza, some time ago), but who long ago made up their minds that the Jews are to blame for the problems, have any desire to be “inclusive” of Zionism. As if there’s any basis for a dialogue with these self-righteous twits/useful idiots.

Yes, I’m glad there will be no boycott--way to go, Bernie. But don’t delude yourself that voting down the boycott means these folks will ever get a clue about the jihad being waged against the Jews and, for that matter, against them, too--you'd be further ahead holding a dialogue with a brick wall.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:49 | link | comments (3)

A hellacious assertion: Guess who’s been bumped up to deity status? None other than the diminutive devilish despot. From Canada.com:

TEHRAN - A senior Iranian cleric seen as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor said obeying the head of government was like obeying God, the moderate Etemad-e Melli newspaper said on Thursday.

Firebrand cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi believes the authority of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei comes from God, not from the people.

Khamenei presides over a complex political and clerical system as vali-ye faqih, or religious jurisprudent, with the president running the day-today governing of the country.

"When a president is endorsed by the vali-ye faqih, obeying the president is like obeying God," the daily quoted Mesbah-Yazdi as saying.

Khamenei swiftly endorsed Ahmadinejad's re-election after the June 12 presidential vote, which was followed by the biggest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The losing candidates say the poll was rigged, a charge denied by Iran's authorities, including Khamenei, who has accused Western powers of fomenting the vote unrest.

Moderates say 69 protesters were killed in the demonstrations, contradicting the official report of 26 deaths.

Mesbah-Yazdi has long held that democracy and elections are incompatible with Islam. Ahmadinejad's allies deny the president takes orders from the cleric, who is a defender of the supreme leader's absolute power.

"When a president is . . . endorsed by the supreme leader and becomes an agent of the leader, the leader's light is also shed on the president," Mesbah-Yazdi said…

God shed his light on thee? Don’t think so. More likely the light comes from a far more southerly source.

AhmadinejadDevil.gif Ahmadinejad Devil image by fladj11

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:58 | link | comments

And speaking of acting like scared widdle babies...: Yale University and its publishing arm have decided not to reprint the controversial Motoons in a book called "Cartoons That Shook the World"--even though those 'toons probably shook it the most. The reason: they're scared of the consequences (you know, like being decapitated and/or having their domiciles torched by the offended).

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:35 | link | comments

Schizo in Tehran: A-jad and the mully-bullies, big macho men that they are, want to be left alone to build the nukes that will allow them to follow through on the vow to wipe the Jews off the map. But the idea that the Jews should be left alone to fend off such an eventuality causes the jihadis to run off to the international community like a bunch of tiny, widdle babies, as the Jerusalem Post relates:

Iran, whose nuclear facilities are under threat of possible Israeli military strikes, proposed Wednesday that a 150-nation conference convening in the fall ban such attacks.

Iran says the proposal, revealed to The Associated Press by diplomats and confirmed by a senior Iranian envoy, is not linked to veiled threats by Israel of an attack as a last resort if the international community fails to persuade Tehran to freeze its nuclear activities.

Instead, all of the diplomats said the Iranian initiative seeks support for a generally worded document prohibiting all armed attacks against nuclear installations anywhere, when 150 nations convene for the September general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"We are not worried about Israel," said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief envoy to the IAEA. "Nobody dares to do anything against Iran."

He said an Iranian resolution will seek a worldwide ban on such attacks as "a matter of principle."

"I think this is an urgent concern for all of the international community," he said. "All member states will support the idea."

He said his country submitted a proposal that a resolution specifying such a ban be put forward for a vote at the meeting, which begins September 14.

The IAEA's general conference already passed a resolution in September 1990 entitled "Prohibition of All Armed Attacks Against Nuclear Installations Devoted to Peaceful Purposes Whether Under Construction or in Operation."

But Soltanieh, who said his country was a key architect of that document, said a fresh resolution was called for because "nuclear installations all over the world are increasing and any sort of threatening attacks ... will have radiological consequences all over the world."

But Israeli warplanes have attacked nuclear sites before, and Iran appeared to be trying to ramp up diplomatic pressure on the Jewish state in hopes of reducing the chances of an attack…

Faint hope.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:54 | link | comments

Wednesday, 12 August 2009

Jordan's king in a tizzy: Israel has been quick to allay the Hashemite potentate's fears that just because 70 per cent of the entity over which he rules is made up of "Palestinians," it is not now and never will be considered Palestinian.

As an aside, I have a "solution" for Israel's image problems: it should declare itself a monarchy and make sure its royal family has several hot chicks. It's sure to get much better media coverage with a Rania and Noor or two in the palace. (I nominate Bar Rafaeili for queen, or at least princess.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:03 | link | comments

Quote of the day: A “random thought” from Thomas Sowell:

Many years ago, there was a comic book character who could say the magic word "Shazam" and turn into Captain Marvel, a character with powers like Superman's. Today, you can say the magic word "diversity" and turn reverse discrimination into social justice.

It’s flipping magic!

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:47 | link | comments

The real “realist”: In the Christian Science Monitor, a former CIA spy, an Iranian, poses a realistic question the “realists” in Washington are doing their utmost to avoid:

Los Angeles - Today the West must make one of the most important decisions of our era. Will we defend what remains of democracy and freedom in Iran, or will we succumb to Tehran's murderous government?

It's a question that goes to the heart of our own security. Iran is a thugocracy of Islamic mullahs, and it will soon have nuclear arms. Any misconception about the intentions of fanatics with nuclear bombs will have grave consequences.

I know because I spent years alongside them as a CIA spy working under cover in Iran's Revolutionary Guards starting in the 1980s.

The Guards Corps was set up as a check on the regular Army and to serve and secure the Islamic revolution. Thirty years of Western appeasement hasn't stopped them from terrorizing the West – or Iranians. Today, with Tehran's leaders caught in a power struggle over the June 12 election and the legitimacy of the regime, the Guards, led by zealots, are calling the shots.

The Guards – and the hardliner clerics they protect – are vulnerable, however. This summer's grass-roots uprising has put them on the defensive. A strong Western hand now could tip the balance.

We don't have a moment to lose. If we can't upend the Guards now, how can we do so once they have nuclear bombs?...

The short answer: “we” can’t.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:35 | link | comments

The penalty for pants: If you’re a chick in Sudan, you might want to think twice before donning a pair of trousers when you're about to travel abroad. From the CSM:

“Oh, no you don’t, you pants-wearing infidel.”

OK, so those might not have been the exact words that Sudanese authorities used when they stopped a Sudanese woman from traveling abroad at the invitation of French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday. But Lubna Hussein was prevented from leaving the country, and wearing trousers was the reason.

In fact, Ms. Hussein faces 40 lashes if convicted in a month’s time for dressing indecently (read: wearing pants that were deemed too tight).

Yes, you read that correctly. Forty lashes. For wearing trousers. That’s a no-go zone for Arab Sudanese women living under Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist regime, even if the prohibition is sporadically imposed. It’s un-Islamic and degrading.

Hussein was arrested, along with 18 other women, on July 3 at a Khartoum restaurant after police burst in and checked women for their clothing.

Christian women from the country’s south can wear pants, as can foreigners living in Sudan.

In fact, Hussein even had immunity from that law because of her job in the media department of United Nations Mission in Sudan. But she resigned from the UN job, indicating that she wants her trial to become a test case for women’s rights in Sudan…

Lots of luck with that, Ms. Hussein. You’ll need it in Sudan where, in case you hadn’t heard, sharia rules.

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

It ain't so itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, that's 'cause it's a huge "burkini": "A French woman who converted to Islam has been banned from wearing a "burkini" in a swimming pool outside Paris."

What's the point of taking a stance against swimwear when you're not prepared to do anythying about those "restive" youths?

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:05 | link | comments (3)

Jews back the wrong horse: U.S. Jews continue to swoon for Obama, PBUH, even though he panders to the guys who have vowed to complete the Final Solution and is giving Mary “Durban” Robinson a big, shiny prize. In sharp contrast, here’s just-released statement by Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA):

President Obama’s decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson is regrettable,” said Chairman Price. “Under Ms. Robinson’s leadership, supposed human rights efforts at the United Nations devolved into a circus of anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Our nation’s highest civilian honor should be reserved for those who embrace our fundamental principles of freedom and equality, not given to one who has repeatedly denounced the efforts of the State of Israel, our closest friend and ally, in the face of unfathomable challenges and extremist attacks. Ms. Robinson’s counterproductive stance and biased record makes her unworthy of the Medal of Freedom award and I call on the President to rethink this misguided and destructive decision.

Q: What do you call people who don't know who their real friends are? A: Jews. Dhimmis. Democrats. Fools.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:55 | link | comments

The Huckster: Why is Obama having such a hard time getting yer average Joe and Josephine to open wide and swallow his medicine? American Thinker Kyle-Anne Shriver (no relation to the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, I’m guessing) suggests it’s because the man has no plan, a clear violation of the Saul Alinsky playbook:

Alinsky's 12th Rule of Tactics: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying, ‘You're right - we don't know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.'

Why is President Barack Obama suddenly drowning in a sea of widespread resistance to his centerpiece legislation? Because it has now become quite clear to Harry & Louise Q Citizen that this was a man without a "constructive alternative" to the out-of-control healthcare system he has badgered and rhetorically beaten bloody to a pulp.

Obama himself, Organizer in Chief, had no plan. He proposed no plan to Congress. He has let committee after committee of witless tax-and-spend, haggard old liberals write the convoluted mess they're calling healthcare reform, and has virtually done nothing for own his part but bash the insurance companies, the doctors and even the patients, who ask for individual control over their own life-and-death choices.

This, dear readers, is the fundamental difference between an empty-suited celebrity and a nuts-and-bolts executive: flim-flam artistry vs. substance and real results...

Obama has also violated the first rule of snakeoil-salesmanship: don't let your marks know there's nothing in your snake oil except snake oil.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:24 | link | comments

Keeping score: Remember that episode of M*A*S*H when the forever-bucking-for-a-Section-8 Corporal Max Klinger faked another in a series of letters from home about morbidity/fecundity in his family (or as Henry Blake memorably summed it up: "Here's an oldie but a goodie...half of the family dying, other half pregnant")? Obviously, I spent way too much time back in the 70s watching TV because the Blake quote is what popped into my head when I read this.

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

Dead ringer: The late King of Pop has an ancient lookalike--a 3,000 year old Egyptian bust that, like the late-era Jacko, has a vacant stare, eyeliner-rimmed eyes and not much of a nose. (Of course, the Egyptian lost his nose tip due to extreme old age and not because facial dysmorphia prompted him to have too much bad plastic surgery.

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

More shekels for Jew-hating Arab supremacists: Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party recently laid claim to all of Jerusalem--which does not preclude its' receiving loads more cash from those looking to “solve” that pesky Jewish problem:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority has received 255 million dollars in aid from Saudi Arabia and the European Union, prime minister Salam Fayyad said on Monday.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has ordered the transfer of 200 million dollars the Palestinian Authority, Fayyad told reporters at a ceremony during which the EU signed over to the Palestinians 39 million euros (55 million dollars).

Fayyad said the Saudi aid was part of a one-billion-dollar financial assistance package pledged in January by Saudi King Abdullah to help the Palestinians deal with a steep financial crisis.

“I received a call from the Saudi finance minister, Ibrahim al-Assaf, who informed me of King Abdullah's decision to order the transfer of 200 million dollars to the Palestinian Authority's treasury,” Fayyad said.

The Palestinian Authority received pledges totaling some 12 billion dollars from international conferences in Paris in 2007 and Sharm el-Sheikh in March this year.

But Fayyad has repeatedly complained that international donors have been slow to hand over the promised cash due to the political deadlock in the Middle East.

During a visit to Norway in June he said that the PA needs 50 million dollars in international aid per month.

And in May the Western-backed Palestinian Authority was forced to take out bank loans worth 530 million dollars to cover its operations.

The latest EU aid brings to 207 million euros (around 293 million dollars) the total assistance received by the Palestinians from Europe since the beginning of the year.

According to Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority has received a total of 703 million dollars since the beginning of 2009 in international aid, excluding the 200 million dollars announced Monday by Saudi Arabia.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on July 24 that the United States had given 200 million dollars to the Palestinian Authority -- part of a 900-million-dollar aid package announced in March.

I love how both Hamas and Fatah are always described as “cash-strapped,” even as mega-millions are constantly thrown at them sans any strings attached.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:40 | link | comments

Buzz off: Toronto’s half summer-long garbage strike has sparked a pestilential attack of near-Biblical proportions--fruit flies who found an ideal breeding ground in the mountains of suppurating trash. From the Globe and Mail:

…Advantage Pest Control president Art Bossio said he began noticing an increase in the number of fruit fly complaints several weeks ago.

While call volume usually increases in the summer and early fall when residents are bringing more ripe fruits and vegetables into their homes, Mr. Bossio said he is now getting four to eight calls a week, versus one to two this time last year.

“There's more flies period,” he said, and “the only thing we could probably blame it on is the fermentation of fruits and foods in the garbage strike.”

While fruit flies may be a nuisance, health officials say residents have no reason to be concerned. The flies are harmless to humans.

“Fruit flies are not typically thought of as the type of flies that transmit disease,” said Howard Shapiro, associate medical officer of health at Toronto Public Health.

Hannah Fraser, entomologist for horticultural crops at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said that people frequently consume fruit fly eggs without noticing because they're so tiny.

“It's nothing to panic about,” she said.

Still, the idea of eating maggots is less than appetizing…

Oh, I dunno. I hear a few maggots can add texture and piquancy to almost any dish.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:15 | link | comments

The UCC declines to get in on the Israel-bash--for now: Delegates at a United Church of Canada confab have had second thoughts about “controversial” wording in some of their resolutions:

(CBC)The United Church is still considering the resolutions themselves, including a proposed boycott of Israeli organizations at this week's general council meeting in Kelowna, B.C., said church spokesman Bruce Gregersen.

But in a motion that deemed some of the wording "provocative, unbalanced and hurtful," delegates voted Tuesday to repudiate and regret background documents that raised the ire of Jewish organizations across the country.

One of the proposed resolutions called on the Canadian government to end support for Israel's "occupation" of the Palestinian territories and to boycott Israeli academic and cultural institutions in protest.

Another document likened the Israeli political authority to "South African apartheid," while a separate document questions Canadian MPs who are "dual citizens with Israel and have sensitive roles in Canada" and classifies junkets to Israel as "bribes."

In the end, the church decided to drop the reference to apartheid and Canadian MPs…

Wouldn’t it be ironic if they got rid of this language but opted to go ahead with the boycott anyway? Think I’ll hold off on the kudos for the moment and wait and see if the church rejects the entire raft of anti-Israel measures.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:22 | link | comments (3)

Messing with the law of supply and demand: Exhibit A in the unintended consequences of silly government regulation--this Mark Steyn post in the Corner. Apparently, if you're a South Asian couple in Canada in need of a South Asian sperm donor, you have a choice of exactly one; since the government made it illegal to be paid for sperm (also eggs), the supply has, well, dried up. There is now one--count him--one chap with a supple wrist and a Dixie cup servicing the entire South Asian sperm market in Canada.

Can't wait for the Ceeb sitcom about a gang of urban inbred : "Hi, my name is Lee. This is my half-brother, Lee. This is my other half-brother, Lee."

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:58 | link | comments

Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Ban’s blunder: Astonishingly, the UN’s frontman has sent congrats to a tiny jihadist on his, um, “election” victory:

(IsraelNN.com) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has congratulated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his reelection. Ahmadinejad's victory was highly controversial, and sparked weeks of bloody protests and accusations that Iran's ruling elite had rigged the vote.

Many world leaders refrained from congratulating Ahmadinejad due to the allegations of voting fraud surrounding his victory and the severe violence with which protests by the opposition were repressed, as well as his refusal to negotiate over Iran's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad has also upset world leaders by supporting Middle East terrorism, particularly in Iraq and Gaza, and by denying the Holocaust and threatening to destroy Israel.

A UN spokesperson confirmed that Ban had sent a letter of congratulations to Ahmadinejad. The contents of the letter will not be made public…

I can’t tell you how, but I managed to score a copy of the missive:

Dear President Ahmadinejad,

Well, it was touch and go there for a while, but as expected the Ayatollah managed to--you should pardon the expression--save your bacon. Here’s hoping your second term in office goes as smoothly as your first, and that you can finally put all that election unpleasantness behind you.

BTW, thanks for the invite to the official launch of your new nuclear facilities. Me and Mrs. Ban are really looking forward to seeing your entirely peaceful premises in operation.

Your fan,

Ban

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:55 | link | comments

Where's Jacko?: There's a report that Michael Jackson's remains may, er, remain unburied.

Maybe they're looking into a Weekend at Bernie's type deal as a way for the King of Pop to fulfill his obligation to London concert promoters even though he's, you know, dead.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:32 | link | comments

Ix-nay on the olution-say: Back in June Middle East expert Martin Kramer explained that the more ardently the U.S. and Israel embrace the “two state solution,” the quicker the Palestinians will flee from it (as if the “solution” were a Jew with a dog serving up a plate of porc au Pepsi):

…Why is there a correlation between U.S. and Israeli endorsements of a "two-state solution" and the Palestinian stampede away from it, both Islamist and secular? Every time an American president or an Israeli prime minister declares that a two-state solution is a vital U.S. or Israeli interest, more Palestinians conclude it can't possibly be in their interest.

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses," then-prime minister Ehud Olmert told an interviewer, "then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." Could one devise a more diabolical way to delegitimize a two-state solution in Palestinian eyes than that? Obama claims that "it is not only in the Palestinians' interest to have a state. I believe it is in the Israelis', as well, and in the United States' interest, as well." For Palestinians, that's one reason to support it, and two reasons to oppose it. Are the Olmerts and Obamas of the world completely ignorant of history and psychology? And even if Obama believes this (personally, I think it's untrue—a Palestinian state isn't in everybody's interest), why say it? Each time he does, he undercuts his own "larger strategic objective."

A smarter president would deploy the word "intolerable" not for the situation of the Palestinians (whose "president" has described that same situation as "good" and "normal"), but for the repression in Iran, whose courageous young people genuinely crave support. A smarter president would tell the Palestinians that the United States can uphold its Middle East interests forever and a day without a "Palestine," but that it's willing to try if Palestinians show the grit and unity that statehood requires.

Unfortunately, everything young man Obama knew about the Middle East before coming to the White House came from tainted sources. Now that his eight-year plan has run aground—in month five—acknowledging and adjusting to the "stuff" of reality will be a test of his smarts. If he refuses to let reality "distract" him, he'll fail the test, and leave the Middle East worse than he found it.

No coincidence, that’s exactly how he’ll be leaving the U.S., too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments

Pepsi 'n' porkers: An Egyptian scientist has incontrovertible "proof" that pig intenstines are part of Pepsi's manufacturing process--another Zionist conspiracy, natch. (Could he and other conspiracy-minded "scientists" be mistaking "pepsin" for "Pepsi," perhaps?)

Kind of gives a whole new meaning to "Joy it forward" (whatever that means).

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:59 | link | comments (2)

Come one, come all: You're invited:

Please join us for an outstanding Business Lunch Lecture on September 10^th, at 12 PM as we present our distinguished keynote speaker,

Jason Kenney,

Jason Kenney

Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, who will address

“ANTISEMITISM…GLOBALLY, AND IN CANADA”

Bennett Jones LLP

One First Canadian Place, One King Street West,

Suite 3400

“A new antisemitism that emanates from an alliance of Western leftists and Islamic extremists is more dangerous than the “old European” form of Jew-hatred…the existential threat faced by Israel on a daily basis is ultimately a threat to the broader Western civilization," observed Minister Kenney, speaking in Israel recently.

Lunch, $20 . Reservation Required . Space is Limited

This lecture begins promptly at 12 noon.

Sorry, no admittance without pre-registration.

Doors Open at 11:45 am Kashruth Observed

To Register: www.speakersaction.com

Enquiries: projectmanager@speakersaction.com

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

The "logical" conclusion of state censorship: The Official Jews had hoped that state censorship would protect them from deranged Jew-hate. Fat chance. All it's done is disrespect our most crucial freedom and give zanies like this guy another excuse to despise Jews:

BreedingBolsheviks?

Arthur Topham, bless him, has it completely wrong. They "foreign lobbyists" he really needs to worry about are the ones who want to silence the world to keep it in line with sharia thinking re "free speech." As always, though, the nutters find it far more comforting to think that the world is being controlled by a small number of shadowy Jews (or shadowy "Rothschild Zionists"--nice touch, Art) exerting supernatural control. Were they to step back and survey reality for even a minute, they would discover that, despite the insidious Zionist lobby, despite Section 13, Judenhass and Israel-bashing are alive and well--flourishing, in fact--and Canada's thought police, in the grip of their multicultural delusions, are now tending to favour the Jews'/Zionists' enemies. Just ask Frank Dimant, whose organization was hassled for five whole years based on a spurious complaint by a still-undisclosed accuser. On second thought, don't ask Frank. He's convinced the "human rights" system can somehow be "fixed."

It's true that that Tophams of the world don't need much excuse to despise Jewry. But in cheerleading state censorship via our cockamamie "human rights" bodies, not only did the Jews not turn back the tide of hate, ironcially, they ended up adding logs to the Jewish conspiracy fire. Time for the Official Jews to officially stand up for freedom and give thumbs down to censorship--and confuse the hell out of the Tophams.

Update: My favourite Topham (sorry, Art, it ain't you).

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:57 | link | comments (1)

Monday, 10 August 2009

And when he smiles, it's like a symphony of sunflowers and rainbows: A reviewer says Obama's autobiographical prose "spakles like sugar crystals."

I've read it. It's about as sparkly as Noam Chomsky, and not nearly as clever.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:37 | link | comments

Faux free-speechers: Some “civil libertarians” in British Columbia are on the warpath because they say their right to free speech is currently under threat. They’ve even filed a couple of complaints about it to the UN. That’s a clue--a big one--that free speech per se isn’t top of mind with these folks, since they’re seeking assistance from a body that’s fully onside with the Islamist scheme to snuff out free speech everywhere (so that no one will ever again “defame” Islam). And it’s not like these B.C.-ers have said so much as “boo” about Canada’s free speech-abridging “human rights” racket, or the rascally ‘roos in their own backyard. That’s because these particular “free-speechers” aren’t “free-speechers” at all. They’re anti-poverty types masquerading as free-speechers who only get really excercised (pun intended) about free speech when they think poor people could get shafted by the Olympics:

An Olympic watchdog group has filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Council alleging that the Games threaten free speech and could spur mass evictions.

The group, called the Impact on Community Coalition, has also asked the UN to send human-rights observers to Vancouver to keep an eye on civil rights.

"In our view, both in terms of civil liberties and tenancy, Canada is not living up to adequate housing and basic democratic and civil liberties standards," IOCC spokesman Am Johal told a news conference yesterday.

For example, Mr. Johal said police in Vancouver have paid visits to the homes of Olympic activists and have increased the number of tickets they hand out - especially in the impoverished Downtown Eastside - for minor infractions such as jaywalking. The group suspects that the ticketing campaign is a precursor to jailing people who don't pay these fines.

The IOCC was formed after Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Games bid. Its stated goal is to work with Olympic organizers to ensure the city avoids the pitfalls - namely evictions and the loss of free speech - traditionally associated with the huge sporting event.

The complaint won't be heard until next spring, after the conclusion of the Games…

Oh, so you mean the government has been clamping down on their free speech and violating the human rights of the poor? Well, no:

Mr. Johal and other civil libertarians say they're not suggesting that Canada doesn't respect human rights, but they want the observers to ensure Canada's high standards aren't breached.

Talk about barking up the wrong tree. Asking the UNHRC to defend free speech is like charging the fox to keep an eye on the henhouse so that no one swipes any eggs. It’s not only ludicrous, it’s completely counter-productive. As for Canada’s “high standards” in the free speech department, I can rebut that absurdity in two words: Jennifer Lynch. ‘Nuff said.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:40 | link | comments (1)

Tits for tots: In the annals of bad toy ideas, this one has to rank right up there:.

JUST A BAD, BAD IDEA / BREASTFEEDING DOLL

Most little girls play 'mommy' by busting into her closet and trying on dresses and heels. Now, they can do it by trying on a pair of double-As. Fresh from the bad idea department comes the 'Baby Glutton,' a doll that arrives with a set of mock boobs for tiny wannabe-mommies to faux-breastfeed with. Launched by Spanish toy manufacturer Berjuan, this provocative product comes with a dolly and a special halter top with daisies in place of nipples (because, we presume, real-looking nipples are super scary). According to the blog thingamababy.com, the doll even makes sucking noises when its mouth meets the daisies. While Berjuan insists its product is meant to send the message that breastfeeding is natural, some parents say this might be going a bit far. "What's next?" writes NJ.com columnist Eric Ruhalter. "Bebe Limp - The male doll who experiences erectile dysfunction?"

How about Baby Nip 'n' Tuck, a doll that gets Botox, rhinoplasty, lipsuction and breast implants?

My pick for worst toy ever: tiny pretend exploding vests for tiny potential shahids.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments

Useful idiot alert: The Israel-bashers/useful idiots are out in force in the Globe and Mail today. Five--count ‘em--five letters about the sanctimonious loons of the United Church of Canada who want to boycott the Juden, and nary a one that perceives the existential threat that continues to hover over the Jews’ heads (and threatens to blow them to smithereens), or that has clued into how Arabs and other Muslims use the word “resistance” to make their jihad against the Jews more palatable to easily-gulled virtue-whores in the West. My letter:

Wow. Five letters about the United Church of Canada’s possible boycott of Israeli academics, and only one of them--the one by Celia Brauer--supportive of the view that the issue is “complicated” and that boycotting Israel is “one-sided” and “simplistic.” And even she thinks the onus is on Israel’s to establish “fairer relations” with Palestinians.

No mention, in the wake of Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement that all of Jerusalem is the sole property of Arabs, that perhaps Palestinians need to be fairer to Israelis. And no understanding that constantly singling out the world’s only Jewish state for opprobrium and insisting-- for the sake of “social justice,” of course--that it commit suicide by allowing itself to be swamped by returning “refugees”” (the so-called “right of return”) is how “the longest hatred” has manifested itself in our era. And, certainly, no sense that boycotting Israel will actually penalize the rest of the world, since, per capita, Israel devises more scientific, medical and technological advances than any other nation--advances which benefit us all.

Nope. Just same old, same old: Israel bad; Palestinians good. It doesn’t get more--to quote Ms. Brauer again--“simplistic” than that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:01 | link | comments (3)

Sunday, 09 August 2009

Bolton's prediction: "Israel will attack Iran by the end of the year."

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:09 | link | comments

And speaking of Islam and sex…: A Saudi man is catching heck from authorities due to his, ahem, unacceptably playful attitude to indoor recreation, reports the Guardian:

Saudi authorities have closed an office of an Arab TV station after it broadcast an interview with a man speaking frankly about sex and showing off erotic toys, a government official said today.

Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, spokesman for the ministry of culture and information, told Associated Press that the office of LBC, a Lebanese-based satellite TV station, in the western city of Jiddah was closed because of the programme and because it was unlicensed.

"The closure is indefinite," Hazza said.

The Saudi man, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, has been in detention since last Friday. Abdul-Jawad, a 32-year-old Saudi Airlines employee, has begged forgiveness from Saudi society for appearing on LBC's Bold Red Line show, in which he appeared to be talking about his sexual exploits.

His 15 July television appearance shocked many in the conservative kingdom. Saudi Arabia, which is the birthplace of Islam, enforces strict segregation of the sexes. An unrelated couple, for example, can be detained for being alone in the same car or having a cup of coffee in public. Saudis observe such segregation even at home, where they have separate living rooms for male and female guests.

The television segment began with Abdul-Jawad apparently talking about the first time he had sex – aged 14, with a neighbour. Then the divorced father of four sons led viewers into his bedroom, where he said: "Everything happens in this room."

Sulaiman al-Jumeii, Abdul-Jawad's lawyer, insisted the interview was manipulated, his client was not aware in many instances that he was being recorded and that the sex toys were provided by LBC staff.

More than 200 people have filed legal complaints against Mazen Abdul-Jawad, who has been dubbed a "sex braggart" by the media, and many Saudis say he should be severely punished…

Some appendage or other ought to be amputated, at the very least. Alternatively, they could send him for “therapy” to Dr. Lootah, the Dr. Ruth of Dubai.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:36 | link | comments

Sex with Wedad: An article in the Toronto Star makes some astonishing claims about sex, marriage and Islam (my bolds):

Wedad Lootah is fighting for women's sexual rights from behind the full niqab.

A marriage counsellor in the family guidance department of Dubai Courts, Lootah sees couples who are considering divorce or want to revive their relationship. She is also the author of the shocking, for the United Arab Emirates, Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples, a book published in January.

And much of the advice she dispenses involves teaching husbands that their wives deserve sexual pleasure too.

The idea of anyone, let alone a female, practising sex therapy may seem at odds with the ethos of the U.A.E. – a country in which hand-holding and other displays of public affection can result in prison terms, where premarital sex among Western expats is a deportable offence.

But Lootah is able to get away with talking about this taboo subject because she bases her advice firmly on the teachings of the Qur'an, which is decidedly more forthcoming about sex than the Bible.

And she insists her motivation has much less to do with sexual liberation than with helping married couples avoid divorce.

"My subject is not sex; people always misunderstand that," says the married, 45-year-old mother of three, a marital counsellor for nine years. "I'm trying to guide people about how to satisfy each other and save society from illegal relations – girlfriends, boyfriends.

"We're talking about Islam. We're not talking about sex." …

Exactly.

Dear Dr. Wedad,

I want to enjoy sex, but my internal nether parts were scooped out when I was younger--which I'm sure you'll agree kind of puts a damper on things, pleasure-wise--and it says in the holy Qur’an (2:223) I’m a “tilth” for my husband to “plough” whenever he wants. Any advice?

Signed,

Non-tumescent in Oman

The response:

Dear N-t in Oman,

Better a tilth at will than no tilth at all. You uppity, ungrateful female.

Unorgasmically yours,

Dr. Wedad

Update: Sex in the bible? Pace the Toronto Star scribbler, it's pretty forthcoming.

Update: My letter:

Dr. Wedad Lootah, the Dr. Ruth of Dubai, claims the Qur’an is "decidely more forthcoming" than the bible regarding sexual matters. I don’t know which bible Dr. Wedad Lootah has been reading, but it’s obviously not the one that includes Song of Songs, that most exquisite expression of male-female amour, or the story of Adam and Eve, who had a spot of bother with a serpent in the Garden of Eden, or many other sexually-charged episodes.

In fact, of the two scriptures, the bible is clearly the “sexier” one --which, come to think of it, could explain at least in part the high demand for Dr. Lootah’s services.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:34 | link | comments

Salami baloney: A Muslim couple in British Columbia was handed some pork-infused salami by a guy working behind the meat counter of a supermarket--an accident for which the store apologized profusely and offered to compensate the couple for their anguish. The pair rejected the apology and the cash, and toddled off in a snit to the local “human rights” body--the same ‘roos who last summer evaluated Elmo’s beef (pun intended) about “Islamophobes” at Maclean’s. The ‘roos, shockingly, told the duo to take a hike because it was clear there had been no intent on the store’s part to deprive them of their, er, “rights”.

I say “shockingly” because I have a feeling that had the incident occurred within Barbara’s Hall’s jurisdiction--Babs having no compunction about rendering a guilty verdict sans a hearing and known to be hyper-attuned to "racists" treading on the "rights" of sensitive minorities--the verdict could well have gone the other way.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:43 | link | comments

Abbas sings Oklahoma!: The moderate-in-name-only leader of Fatah has set out his demands re Jerusalem, er, sorry, Al Quds, in a song to Ado Obama (a character who jist cain’t say no to Arabs):

With me it's all er nuthin'.
Is it all er nuthin' with you?
It cain't be "in between"
It cain't be "us and them"
No half and half--no chance!--will do.

I'm a whole city man, Jew-hatin' type,
All disguised by mirrors and hype.
Take me like I am, or leave me be!
If you cain't give me all, give me nuthin'
And nuthin's whut you'll git from me!

Update: Ado Obama's number:

I’m jist a guy who cain’t say no

I’m in a turrible state

I like to say, “We really blow”

To fellers who holler and hate.

When Bushitler lied to ev’ryone

He went and made the Muslims really sore.

So when I go and apologize

It keeps 'em wantin’ more and more and more.

I think it’s time to love the “foe”

Even if he’s barking mad.

Even if there’s a jihad.

I cain’t say no.

Whut you goin’ to do when the ‘tollah ain’t chillin’ and starts to do killin’

Whut you goin’ to do?

S’posin’ that he says, "I like your self-effacin’
Let’s do some embracin’".

Whut you goin’ to do?

S’posin’ that he calls me a charmin’ dude

And he’s not a bit afeard?

Whut you goin’ to do when he talks that way?

Step on his beard?

I’m jist a guy who cain’t say no,

Grov’ling’s my favourite stance.

Whene’er I’m in a dhimmi mood

I need a kick in the pants.

Other leaders are belligerent--

They’ve rarely acted humble and contrite.

But with hopeychange in Washington

You know that things are gonna be alright.

Rahm always says I set the tone.

Guilt is the air that I breathe

Even as millions seethe

I cain't say no.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:52 | link | comments

Saturday, 08 August 2009

Today's top jihadi fatality list: Top Taliban jihadi--may be dead; maybe not. Top Indonesian jihadi (said to have masterminded Bali bombing)--not only merely dead, really most sincerely dead.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:49 | link | comments

Woof!: Dr. Theodore Dalrymple casts a baleful eye on health care in the U.K.--for both humans and canines--and concludes that, all in all, it’s better to be a dog:

In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog.

As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.

The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different. There is no tension, no feeling that one more patient will bring the whole system to the point of collapse, and all the staff go off with nervous breakdowns. In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. The relatives are united by their concern for the welfare of each other’s loved one. They are not terrified that someone is getting more out of the system than they.

The latter is the fear that also haunts Americans, at least those Americans who think of justice as equality in actual, tangible benefits. That is the ideological driving force of health-care reform in America. Without manifest and undeniable inequalities, the whole question would generate no passion, only dull technical proposals and counterproposals, reported sporadically on the inside pages of newspapers. I have never seen an article on the way veterinary services are arranged in Britain: it is simply not a question…

The corollary to the above: it’s better (more lucrative, better hours, less paperwork) to be a veterinarian than to be a family doctor under a socialized system.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:38 | link | comments

Like Heather Has Two Mommies--only Heather’s a boy, has no fixed address and lives in a truck with his indigent mum: If you want the kiddies to grow up to become lefty squishes, you’ve got to get ‘em when they’re young--really young. That appears to be the thinking behind a new book that will be foisted on unsuspecting moppets in the U.K. A lesson in “diversity,” it depicts the adventures of a mum (married? unmarried? who knows, since there’s no sign of a dad) and her son who pursue the peripatetic, vehicle-based “Travellers” lifestyle. The Daily Mail has the ghastly details:

There are few things more evocative of childhood innocence than primary school reading books.

Even the characters' names - Janet and John, Peter and Jane, Topsy and Tim - conjure images of sunny picnics, friendly shopkeepers and spotless playgrounds.

But today's first readers are learning of a very different (and very politically correct) world thanks to a series of storybooks featuring Tess the Traveller.

Tess lives in a truck with her son Toby and their dog Teabag and moves around the country in a set of books recommended by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The tales, aimed at ages three to seven, are on many education authorities' reading lists.

Unlike the middle-class, two-parent families that usually star in such books, Tess is a single mother and at no point is Toby's father mentioned.

And instead of a trip to the market or the beach, the stories show Tess making money cash-in-hand at a car boot sale and other travellers earning a living by picking fruit.

They also describe a gipsy dance at a horse fair, meeting friends who run a circus, a trip to a green gathering and fixing a flat tyre on the family's mobile home.

The books have already been sent out to hundreds of primary schools and some large local education authorities have bought bulk sets to hand out to their schools.

It is part of a Government diversity drive to promote children's awareness and tolerance of gipsy and traveller issues from a young age.

But critics accuse the stories of romanticising the traveller lifestyle and encouraging children to follow it instead of achieving in education.

Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe said: 'If we're really committed to family life in this country we need to show children the values of the family.

'If we want to promote stability then we need to have books that show characters living with two parents in a conventional home.

'Otherwise children will grow up believing that a traveller's life is something beneficial.'

The books, which are recommended by the charity The Children's Society, were paid for by a grant from the Lloyds TSB Foundation. The bank is 43 per cent state owned after the Government bailed it out with millions of pounds of public money.

A spokesman for Friends, Families and Travellers, which campaigns against discrimination towards gipsies and travellers, said the books would raise awareness among schoolchildren.

She added: 'Children grow up learning about people from all sorts of backgrounds, so why not travellers?'

Of course, if Tess, Toby and Teabag lived in the U.S. of A., they’d be able to turn in their clunker of a truck--no doubt a big gas guzzler/polluter--for a brand-spanking new vehicle.

Unconventional: Tess and son Toby

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:16 | link | comments

How to overcome a compelling addiction to a charming clunker: Obama Anonymous--the latest 12-step program.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:21 | link | comments

Kaboom!: The Telegraph reports on the “demographic time bomb” ticking away in Europe:

Last year, five per cent of the total population of the 27 EU countries was Muslim. But rising levels of immigration from Muslim countries and low birth rates among Europe's indigenous population mean that, by 2050, the figure will be 20 per cent, according to forecasts.

Data gathered from various sources indicate that Britain, Spain and Holland will have an even higher proportion of Muslims in a shorter amount of time.

The UK, which currently has 20 million fewer people than Germany, is also projected to be the EU's most populous country by 2060, with 77 million people.

The findings have led to allegations that policy-makers are failing to confront the widespread challenges of the "demographic time bomb".

Experts say that there has been a lack of debate on how the population changes will affect areas of life from education and housing to foreign policy and pensions.

Although some polls have pointed to a lack of radicalisation in the Muslim community, little attention is being given to the integration of migrants, it is claimed, with fears of social unrest in years to come.

Shocking--and I don’t mean the numbers; anyone who’s read America Alone is well aware of current trends. What’s shocking is that an article in the British press actually acknowledges that this critical--and unassimilable--mass is going to prove critically problematic for the non-Muslims.

Adieu, Europe. It’s been swell visiting your sites and swilling your vino, but you are rapidly becoming one big no-go zone for Zionists and other kafirs.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:35 | link | comments

Friday, 07 August 2009

“F” is for “frivolous”--and “feckless": B’nai Brith Canada is distressed because some Jew-haters are availing themselves of our “human rights” apparatus:

TORONTO, August 7, 2009 – B’nai Brith Canada strongly condemns the Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) - Carleton University for following in the footsteps of other anti-Israel entities in abusing Canada’s Human Rights Tribunals and Commissions with another frivolous complaint. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario recently agreed to mediate between the SAIA chapter and Carleton University over events that took place earlier this year, when the University used its good judgment to insist on the removal of an offensive antisemitic poster. The poster, which the SAIA group had put up as advertisement for Israel Apartheid Week, modernized the medieval blood libel accusing the Jews of murdering innocent children.

“The poster that this SAIA chapter put up was an affront and an offense to every person of goodwill,” said Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President of B’nai Brith Canada. “The university was truly justified in using its good judgment to ensure the poster’s removal.

“It is obvious that this maneuver to involve the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is part of a new strategy being employed by those who wish to create a ‘legal chill.’ This new strategy is being propagated by those groups that cross the line from legitimate criticism of a democratic Israel to promoting propaganda against the Jewish State and, by extension, the Jewish people.

“We have recently seen other cases here in Canada which exemplify this new strategy of intimidation through ‘legal chill’: there was an attempt to muzzle Maclean’s magazine, the Western Standard and Ezra Levant were dragged through tribunal hearings, and B’nai Brith Canada, for a period of five years, had to defend itself against a frivolous charge lodged with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. In all of these cases, the charges were either withdrawn or the defendants won, but only after an enormous cost in terms of dollars and human resources.

“Serious reform is necessary to ensure the viability of our Human Rights Tribunals and Commissions. Canadians who believe in standing up for human rights should really be concerned that these types of frivolous complaints keep wasting valuable resources that could otherwise be spent fighting genuine human rights violations.”

See, it wasn’t supposed to work that way. The way it was supposed to work was that Jews would be able to lodge complaints about “Nazis,” but Jew-haters wouldn’t be to be able to gripe about Jews--in other words, censorship for me, not thee. Not in their wildest dreams did the Official Jews ever imagine that the very system they worked so hard to set up and in which they placed so much stock would end up being used against them by their enemies. And, further, that in Pierre’s Trudeaupia the state wouldn’t lift a finger to defend them against these particular Jew-haters, since they belong to one of Canada’s designated victim groups, and, apart from that, our timourous authorities don't want to mess with them.

Had the O.J.s resolved to toughen up and back free speech instead of state censorship way back when, these “rights” tribunals wouldn’t be fielding such complaints today. The fact that, despite everything that’s happened, the B’nai Brith still believes the system can be tweaked such that the Islamists’ “frivolous” complaints will be ignored while the Jews’ "valid" complaints will be entertained shows how out absurdly of touch with reality--dare one call it a type of derangement?--Frank Dimant and his posse really are.

Update: This one came to me in my sleep:

Among the Official Jews’ shibboleths

Is that only its gripes aren’t “frivolous.”

The all seem to agree,

“Censorship’s just for me”--

A thought apt to make free-speechers bibulous.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:41 | link | comments (4)

The P.C. apostrophe: Sometimes an apostrophe is just an apostrophe. And sometimes, as Contentions’ John Steele Gordon comments, it’s a symbol of creeping (and creepy) political correctness:

…But now, it seems, words adopted from foreign languages cannot be used by the politically fastidious if they have been Anglicized to conform to English rules of spelling and pronunciation. The “correct” word is now the transliterated term from the original language, even if the transliteration makes no sense to English speakers whatever. This wondrous language of ours, for instance, has had a perfectly good word for the holy book of Islam, “Koran,” since 1725.

But Newsweek now insists on spelling it “Qu’ran” instead. What purpose the apostrophe serves I have no idea. The normally sensible (at least orthographically) New York Times this morning has a sad story on the death of Donald Marshall Jr., a Canadian who was long incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. The first sentence describes him as a “mi’kmaq Indian.”

A what? English has used the word Micmac to denote the major Algonquian Indian tribe of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia since 1830. So why does it suddenly have to be spelled in a funny, un-English way, with one of those mysterious apostrophes in the middle? Not speaking the Micmac language, I can only guess that it’s a transliteration.

Notice that this nonsense is something so characteristic of political correctness: a one-way street. We are supposed to use a transliteration of the foreign word, but speakers of Arabic or Micmac are under no obligation to use our terms for the Torah or Bible or the descendants of Europeans living in North America…

Just to confuse the P.C. types, I’m thinking changing my name to scar’a’mouche.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:43 | link | comments (3)

One community organizer’s organized community is another community organizer’s mob: As this editorial in the New York Post observes, the hopechangers would prefer it if one community--the one that realizes how drastically ObamaCare will undermine the body politic--would remain, er, unorganized:

Get this: The party of "community organizers" is now whining that President Obama's critics are organizing communities -- against his health-care scheme.

The nerve of 'em, huh?

Faced with mushrooming opposition to ObamaCare, Democrats have launched a multi-media campaign that attacks foes as "extremists" who've "called out the mob" to "destroy President Obama" and "intimidate and silence regular people." They cite "the playbook of high-level Republican political operatives."

Actually, that sounds more like the tactics of the Chicago street, where Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel cut their political teeth. Indeed, you can almost hear Richard Nixon grousing about angry anti-war protestors and pleading for "the great silent majority of Americans" to rise up.

Some Dems, like New York's Rep. Anthony Weiner, are even trying to hold town-hall meetings on the sly, with little advance notice, to keep critics from attending.

And the White House has called on its supporters to "report" any "fishy" information about ObamaCare that they may hear, even in casual conversation.

Talk about intimidation.

Yet poll after poll has shown that criticism is actually coming from -- yup -- "regular people," Republicans and Democrats alike, who just don't trust the plan…

“Regular people”? God bless ‘em--they’re the folks who make the hopeychangers (elitists masquerading as populists) really nervous.

As I’ve said before, I have absolutely no faith in America’s ruling class. But unlike the hopeychangers, I have immense faith in the wisdom of America’s “regular people.”

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

Coming soon: In its latest newsletter, the Canadian Arab Federation advertises an exciting upcoming event:

Reviving the Islamic Spirit presents 35th annual ISNA Canada Convention. August 15-16, 2009. Toronto
For the first time, ISNA Canada and Reviving the Islamic Spirit partners up to present this year's convention on the theme 'Serving God, Serving Humanity: Moral Basis of Effective Social Action'. The focus will be on grassroots social activism and building a better future for our communities in Canada with renowned speakers including Dr. Anwar Ibrahim (Former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia). When: August 15, 9am to August 16, 11pm. Location: Mississauga. Price: Adult (Ages 19 and over) - $30 (Before July 31st) and $40 after. Children / Youth (Ages 5 to 18) - $15 (Before July 31st) and $25 after. For registration and more details please contact us at: info@isnaconvention.com OR 905 403 8406 Ext. 206/207 and visit www.isnaconvention.com for updates

Some elaboration is in order. ISNA, which recently held a hate-filled convention in the U.S., is “an unindicted co-conspirator in a jihad terror funding case and close partner of that other unindicted co-conspirator, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)."

And “renowed speaker” Dr. Anwar Ibrahim? You may recall he was involved in a bit of a dust up back in Malaysia involving a sodomy charge, but, as this FrontPage Magazine piece points out, he’s “renowned” for other reasons, too:

Johns Hopkins University is demonstrating a disturbing pattern of awarding fellowships to Islamists with an avowedly anti-Western agenda. Mustafa El Khalfi, the Moroccan Islamist who was recently awarded a fellowship at the university’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), is not the first. In March of 2005, SAIS granted a visiting fellowship to Anwar Ibrahim, a terror-supporting Malaysian Islamist whose Virginia-based organization apparently committed tax fraud in his benefit.

On March 30, 2005, SAIS announced that Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, was joining the university’s Foreign Policy Institute, as a visiting scholar. Ibrahim was to “present seminars on contemporary Southeast Asian politics, economic reform, Islam and democracy…[and] join in SAIS activities.” The announcement by SAIS said that Ibrahim would also be working on “a project examining democratization in the Muslim world.” While SAIS described him “as a strong advocate for civil society, economic liberalization, moderate Islam and democratic governance,” publicly available evidence shows the opposite. A quick glance at his website reveals a prominently featured photo of Ibrahim together with Yusuf Qaradawi, a leading Islamist scholar who is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and supports HAMAS, and who recently issued a fatwa calling for the Islamic conquest of Europe.

Anwar Ibrahim is a founder and director of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a think tank in Virginia that has alleged links to terrorism. IIIT’s 2003 tax-exempt IRS filing lists a $720 donation to the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon, which was designated as a terrorist funding organization by the U.S. government in 2004. Among the Treasury Department’s findings were that the Oregon branch of al-Haramain engaged in tax fraud, money laundering, supporting Chechen mujahideen affiliated with al Qaeda, and had “direct links between the U.S. branch and Usama bin Laden.” In fact, many of al – Haramain’s offices around the world were closed for supporting terrorism.

There is more evidence of IIIT’s links to terrorism. A few examples: according to court documents, in the early 1990s IIIT donated at least $50,000 to a think tank run by Sami al-Arian, the World Islamic and Study Enterprise (WISE), that served as a front group for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. IIIT is also named as a defendant in two class-action lawsuits brought by victims of the 9/11 attacks. One alleges that IIIT received the bulk of its operating expenses from the SAAR network, whose component groups are accused in another class-action suit of being “fronts for the sponsor of al Qaeda and international terror.” The same suit lists IIIT as well as every officer of IIIT besides Anwar Ibrahim as a supporter of the SAAR network. This public information was available to SAIS, yet the school extended a fellowship to Ibrahim.

Ibrahim, along with three other IIIT directors, is also a trustee of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). According to congressional testimony of testimony of Jonathan Winer, former Deputy Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement, in October 2002 WAMY made Hamas leader Khalid Mishal an “honored guest” at a conference held in Riyadh. A Saudi opposition group reports that WAMY disseminates literature encouraging “religious hatred and violence against Jews, Christians, Shi’a and Ashaari Muslims.” Evidently, as a trustee of this group, Anwar Ibrahim is far from advocating moderate Islam…

Oh, well. I guess we should be thankful that Imam Warith Deen Umar won’t be speaking (as far as we know, anyway).

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:21 | link | comments

There is a sanity clause: The Supreme Court of Canada uses its noodle in ruling that jihadis in Afghanistan aren't covered by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. From the Vancouver Sun:

A legal fight to extend constitutional protection to Afghan insurgents transferred by Canadian troops to face possible torture came to an end Thursday when the Supreme Court of Canada declined to consider the issue.

The court, in rejecting an appeal application from Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, effectively upheld a Federal Court ruling that non-Canadians abroad are not covered by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"Canada is now dead last on this issue," said Paul Champ, a lawyer for the two rights groups. "Just about every other democratic country has affirmed that military detainees held on foreign soil have human-rights protections in their domestic courts, including the U.S.

"This means that detainees, held abroad by Canadian Forces, do not have any human-rights protections under the Canadian constitution," Champ said. "I guess that the Canadian Forces would take the view that there is no risk of torture but that is hard to believe because the practice of torture is endemic."

A three-judge panel, by convention, gave no reasons for refusing the case…

If I may be permitted to explain to the “rights” types--and it ain’t exactly rocket science: The reason it refused to consider the case is because jihadis in Afghanistan aren’t covered by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedom.

I’d call that one a no-brainer.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:34 | link | comments

Obama’s new dumb-ass policy: I’ve never been a fan of the term “war on terror,” a circumlocution that fails to capture the real nature of our enemy. However, the hopeychangers’ resolve to change the Bush-era “nomenclature”--and the fact that they’re even calling it a “nomenclature,” as if fighting global jihad was largely a matter of semantics--doesn’t exactly inspire a great deal of confidence. Here’s the rationale behind Obama’s new policy, as described in an article by Paul Korning in the Globe and Mail (my bolds):

While the gravity of the conflict hasn't changed, the scope of the war and what will be needed for victory is seen quite differently by Mr. Obama.

He sees the struggle as a wider conflict, requiring the West to address poverty, ignorance, repression. “Poverty does not cause violence and terrorism,” Mr. Brennan said. “Lack of education does not cause terrorism. But just as there is no excuse for the wanton slaughter of innocents, there is no denying that when children have no hope for an education, when young people have no hope for a job and feel disconnected from the modern world, when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, then people become more susceptible to ideologies of violence and death. Extremist violence and terrorist attacks are therefore often the final murderous manifestation of a long process rooted in hopelessness, humiliation, and hatred.”

Poverty…education…hopelessness--gotcha. In that case, the “solution” would be for the West to throw tons more money at potential terrorists and “educate” them so they won’t feel so, um, hopeless.

Hey, it’s worked really well in “Palestine,” right?

My letter:

As I always say, if you start with a false premise, you’ll arrive at a false conclusion. And the Obama administration’s contention that more “education” is a key to halting terrorism couldn’t be more false. Mohamed Atta was an engineering student at a German university and had plenty of “education” when he and his gang plowed those airplanes into the World Trade Centre. So did the two physicians who attacked an airport in Glasgow, Scotland. So, for that matter, does Doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s second-in-command.

It’s not the lack of education and a sense of hopelessness that drives young men into the arms of jihad. It’s the enduring appeal of the jihad itself--the prospect of fighting on behalf of God in order to spread his Divine law, the shariah. (And don’t forget the promised payoff--an eternity spent romping with your very own throng of virgins.) Ironically--and terrifyingly--the ones who could really benefit from more “education” are Obama and others in his administration who, for various reasons, refuse to educate themselves about the true sources of “terrorism.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:03 | link | comments

Thursday, 06 August 2009

Big Sister and Big Brother are watching you, conservative running dogs!: Who's keeping tabs on "subversives"? In Canada, as we know, Chief Human Rights Commish Jennifer Lynch has a capacious file full of balkers, gripers and rasberry-blowers who have nothing nice to say about Jen and her fellow "human rights" rackateers. In the U.S., land of happy hopeychangers, there's a government-sponsored Stasi-like snitch line that encourages the ideologocially pure to turn in the ideologcially impure.

You would think that liberals, of all people, would have profound concerns about blacklists and McCarthyesque tactics, but apparently they're mostly concerned with their own free speech and feel not the least compunction in clamping down on the expression of those who don't happen to share their worldview.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:25 | link | comments

Obama’s “affirmative action” in action: This except from a blog post by Marty Peretz explains how it works--affirm everything the Arabs do (even when they do nothing) and micro-manage the Jews:

Yesterday, Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, was called by Foggy Bottom and lectured about the eviction of two Arab families from Jerusalem houses which, the country's extremely liberal Supreme Court had ruled, were not really theirs. In the meantime, the Saudis have resoundingly said "no" to the president's solicitations of tiny "confidence building measures." And the two major segments of Fatah will imminently hold a convention in Bethlehem at which extremism is likely to win the day, if only to allow the movement to compete with Hamas. No reproach on either. The Arabs may well have reason to believe that they need not negotiate with Israel because the U.S. is already negotiating for them...or bullying for them.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:03 | link | comments

Coo coo ca-choo, and all that jazz: David Solway explores the connection between the two famous Mrs. Robinsons--the UN one who’s been tapped by a hopeychanger to receive an illustrious award, and the other one:

…In Simon and Garfunkel’s legendary hit song “Mrs. Robinson,” there is a mysterious line that has puzzled many of the duo’s fans: “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio/A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” In an interview with with SongTalk magazine (1990), Paul Simon explained that this was the first line he had jotted down but confessed, “I don’t know why or where it came from.” It seems rather obvious, however, that Simon was playing with the notion of the American Hero, someone who represents and fulfills the country’s quest for greatness. Things are somewhat different now. Joe DiMaggio is no longer with us but Barack Obama has stepped up to the plate, basking in the glory of his presence and ostensible prowess as a nation turns its lonely eyes to him.

Obama, regrettably, is less like Joe DiMaggio and more like the Mighty Casey in Ernest Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat” (subtitled “A Battle Hymn of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888”). Casey, who represents the winning run for the Mudville Nine, advanc[es] to the bat” in all his “haughty grandeur” and inevitably strikes out. Perhaps “somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,” the last stanza begins, and ends: “But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”

The Mighty Barack has swung at air more than once in his brief, much-publicized career, but conferring the Medal of Freedom on Mary Robinson should send him back to the dugout in disgrace. In his forthcoming book Tolerism, Canadian author Howard Rotberg argues that the actual presentation of the Medal “may seem to be relatively unimportant,” but its historical significance is not. It is, he argues, indicative of something much more ominous, “the transition of the United States from being the leader of the free world and (on balance) a force for justice and freedom in the world to becoming a European-like rationalizer of injustice…” And he goes even further: “The giving of an honor to the woman who most epitomizes the evil of the Durban conference…could unfortunately symbolize a turning point in American and world history.”

Is Rotberg over-reacting? From the Jewish and Israeli perspective, certainly not, for the Robinson travesty is only one in a long line of actions signalling that Obama is “re-setting” the traditional U.S./Israel relationship in ways that do not augur well for the Jewish state. But Rotberg’s argument encompasses the larger context of the era in which we are now living—an era which has seen the corruption of the Academy, the “adoption of the post-modern concept of cultural relativism,” the emergence of identity politics, the appeasement of autocratic regimes and the attendant deprivileging of the idea of universal rights. “Obama,” he writes “is the perfect president for a nation without values.”...

You had to know this was coming:

And here's to you, Mary Robinson
Obama thinks you’re grand, as you well know (Woe, woe, woe)
Loved that Durban, Mary Robinson,
Dementia in action all the way
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey).

Don’t need to know another thing about you for our file.
Know all about your thinking and your deeds.
You’re a useful idiot, abetting the jihad.
Stroll up to the stage and get a big reward.

And here's to you, Mary Robinson
Obama thinks you’re grand, as you well know (Woe, woe, woe).
Loved that Durban, Mary Robinson,
Dementia in action all the way
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey).

Jetting into Gaza on a Sunday afternoon
Gonna hear Hamas recriminate.
Justify it, don’t decry it
When you've got to choose.
Ev'ry way you look at it, Jews lose.

Where have you gone, Yasser Arafat?
A “nation” turns its angry eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo)
What's that you say, Mary Robinson?
Yasser A. has left and gone away
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey).

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:16 | link | comments

Thank heaven for little girls: One of the sickest events ever--a mass wedding orgranized by Hamas that paired adult men (the "grooms") and girls aged six to ten (the "brides"). (h/t JB)

Pedophiles and their innocent victims--call it Love's Young Nightmare.

Notice how Al Jazeera sanitizes the whole sordid affair, avoiding the inherent ickiness of state-sanctioned pedophilia by attributing the mass nuptials to Israel's "seige," which has supposedly put individual weddings out of reach for the average Mo. The truth is embedded in the report, though, for anyone who cares to see it--this is a Hamas bribe, its sicko, jihadist version of "a chicken in every pot."

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:41 | link | comments

Wednesday, 05 August 2009

Obama magic a bust in Israel: In an article that appeared a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal, Elliot Abrams explains why Israelis, only 8 per cent of whom are said to support Obama, seem immune to the Obama charm:

Israelis have learned the hard way that reality cannot be ignored and that ideology offers no protection from danger. Four wars and a constant battle against terrorism sobered them up, and made them far less susceptible than most audiences to the Obama speeches that charmed Americans, Europeans, and many Muslim nations. A policy based in realism would help the Palestinians prepare for an eventual state while we turn our energies toward the real challenge confronting the entire region: what is to be done about Iran as it faces its first internal crisis since the regime came to power in 1979.

Living under an existential threat can go either one of two ways. It can result in delusional wishful thinking--a condition psychiatrist Kenneth Levin diagnosed as “The Oslo Syndrome.” Or it can lead to sobriety and realism--a refusal to rhapsodise about the Emperor’s haute couture duds when the dude is obviously starkers. The former makes you feel a lot better--at least in the short term. But the latter holds out your best shot at survival. Hence the wised-up 92 per cent.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:29 | link | comments

Now playing:

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:55 | link | comments

Isn't that nice?: Guess who's sponsoring the Toronto Palestinian Film Festival, an anti-Zionist hatefest decked out in respectable cineaste garb ('cause there's nothing more respectable in Toronto than a frikkin' film festival)? The Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

Thanks for doing your bit to further the jihad against the Jews, clueless government-backed arts bodies.

Update: The Ontario Arts Council, which will receive nearly $60 million dollars of taxpayers’ money this year and next, describes its “vision” as follows:

We believe that the arts contribute significantly to the quality of life, the cultural identity and social well-being, as well as the economic prosperity, of Ontario’s people and communities.

We envision an Ontario where:

· The lives, careers and work of individual artists flourish.

· Arts organizations are creative, viable and healthy.

· People of all ages and in all regions actively engage and participate in the arts.

· Aboriginal, francophone, culturally diverse, new-generation and regional artists and arts organizations are recognized for the value they provide to all of Ontario’s people, cultures and creative sectors.

· The creativity, innovation and excellence of Ontario’s artists and arts organizations in all their diversity are seen and acclaimed locally, nationally and internationally.

It’s hard to see how funding the Naqba nutters’ anti-Israel propaganda can in any way fulfill that goal.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:11 | link | comments (2)

He's the top: The tiny despot was officially sworn in today by the Grand Supreme Holiest Rollah in the Land. After thanking his patron--and taking a few obligatory swipes at the nation formerly known as Great Satan--the height-challenged jihadi broke into song, a Cole Porter standard he dedicated to the object of his affection (the big lug):

I get no kick from champage.

Mere booze, you see, contravenes the sharee’

And we both must agree that it’s true.

But I get a kick out of you.

I get no kick from Barack.

So full of talk that’s so easy to mock

And he, shockingly, hasn’t a clue.

But I get a kick out of you.

I get a kick every time I see you standing there to face me.
I get a kick because it's clear to see you obviously want to embrace me.

I get no kick from “Iran”.

It’s picayune re our much larger plan--

A whole planet Islamic right though.

So I get a kick,

(Just love your shtick),
I get a kick out of you.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:42 | link | comments (2)

A disproportionate fondness for senescent useful idiots: Since he couldn’t honour his former mentor, the ranting Rev. Wright, Obama did the next best thing--he gave a bright, shiny medal to Mary “Quite Contrary” Robinson and Dizzy Des Tutu. The Jews, who know that these two champions of “human rights” are fuelled by Judenhass and hot air, are not amused:

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The White House is facing mounting criticism over its decision to give a prestigious award to the former United Nations official who presided over the infamous 2001 Durban conference and has a history of criticism of Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of America and AIPAC were the latest to slam the pick of Mary Robinson, the former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, as one of 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the highest civilian honor in the United States.

On Tuesday, AIPAC joined a spate of initial criticism from conservative pro-Israel blogs soon after Robinson's name was announced July 30. A day earlier, the ADL and ZOA had come out with statements repudiating the choice.

AIPAC said it was 'deeply disappointed' by the choice of Robinson.

"AIPAC respectfully calls on the administration to firmly, fully and publicly repudiate her views on Israel and her long public record of hostility and one-sided bias against the Jewish state," the pro-Israel lobby said in a relatively rare public statement.

The ADL called the pick “ill advised” and said Robinson was “undeserving of the honor” because of her “animus towards Israel.” The ZOA in attacking the selection called Robinson “viciously critical” toward the Jewish state.

Even before the statements by the Jewish groups, the White House was defending the pick in a call to JTA.

“Mary Robinson has dedicated her career to human rights and working to improve an imperfect world," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the day after the selection. "As with any public figure, we don't necessarily agree with every statement she has ever made, but it's clear that she has been an agent of change and a fighter for good."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs delivered a similar message at his daily news conference Tuesday.

Robinson -- an honorary president of Oxfam International, chair of the Board of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, and president of a New York-based initiative to put human rights concerns at the center of globalization -- called the criticism “totally without foundation” and pointed a finger at Jewish critics.

“There's a lot of bullying by certain elements of the Jewish community,” Robinson, the former president of Ireland, said Sunday in an interview with RTE Radio One that was reported in Irish newspapers. “They bully people who try to address the severe situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gets the same criticism.”

Tutu, an anti-apartheid activist who the ZOA also called a “virulent critic” of the Jewish state, also is among the medal recipients.

The Robinson award comes as the Obama administration is already facing increasing criticism from several Jewish groups over a Middle East strategy that they see as placing disproportionate pressure on Israel compared to the Palestinians and Arab states. The president reportedly plans to embark on a campaign of media interviews with reporters from Israel and Arab countries in order to better explain the policy.

The growing controversy over Robinson could potentially complicate such efforts to win over the Israeli public, since the former U.N. human rights chief is slated to visit the region just a couple weeks after the Aug. 12 White House medal ceremony.

Robinson is expected to join Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a longtime Israel critic, on a mission to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as part of an international group of statesman and dignitaries that calls itself The Elders. Any anti-Israel rebuke from Robinson or the group is likely to prompt a new round of criticism and questions about Obama’s decision to honor her...

Oh gawd. Robinson, Carter and Tutu--the Larry, Darryl and Darryl of the aging diplomatic set. Can’t someone ground this dreadful trifecta of self-righteous dunces?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:17 | link | comments

Tuesday, 04 August 2009

Hezbo stockpiling ammo for final Final Solution: The timesonline reports that Hezbo jihadis are accumulating plenty of firepower should the time prove opportune to wipe the Jews off the map:

Three years after Israel fought a bloody war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, there are growing fears that hostilities could erupt again this time with the militant group better armed than ever.

According to Israeli, United Nations and Hezbollah officials, the Shia Muslim militia is today stronger than it was in 2006 when it took on the might of the Israeli army in a war that cost the lives of 1,191 Lebanese and 43 Israeli civilians.

Hezbollah has stockpiled up to 40,000 rockets and is training its forces to use ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv and anti-aircraft missiles that could challenge Israel’s dominance of the skies over Lebanon.

Brigadier-General Alon Friedman, the deputy head of Israel’s Northern Command, told The Times from his headquarters overlooking the Israeli-Lebanese border that the current stability was “in danger”.

He added that the peace, which has reigned over the rolling Biblical landscape for the past three years, could “explode at any minute”.

His concerns were partly due to threats from Hezbollah’s leadership. Last month, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, warned that if the southern suburbs of Beirut were bombed as they were in the last war, he would strike back against Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city.

“We have changed the equation that had existed previously,” he said. “Now the southern suburbs versus Tel Aviv, and not Beirut versus Tel Aviv.”

Hezbollah’s rearming is in the name of “resistance” against Israel. But the real reason probably has more to do with its ally Iran. If Israel carries out its threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, then the main retaliation is likely to come from its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. Hezbollah is Iran’s insurance policy.

Um, I could be wrong here, but isn’t the UN supposed to be ensuring that Hezbo cannot amass this weaponry--the promise it made as a means of compelling Israel to end its summer '06 war in Lebanon? That seems to be working out really well--for the jihadis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:05 | link | comments

In Pakistan, a pogrom against Christians: Anyone else see this stomach-turning article in yesterday’s New York Times?

GOJRA, Pakistan — The blistered black walls of the Hameed family’s bedroom tell of an unspeakable crime. Seven family members died here on Saturday, six of them burned to death by a mob that had broken into their house and shot the grandfather dead, just because they were Christian.

The family had huddled in the bedroom, talking in whispers with their backs pressed against the door, as the mob taunted them.

“They said, ‘If you come out, we’ll kill you,’ ” said Ikhlaq Hameed, 22, who escaped. Among the dead were two children, Musa, 6, and Umaya, 13.

The attack in this shabby town in central Pakistan — the culmination of several days of rioting over a claim that a Koran had been defiled — shows how precarious life is for the tiny Christian minority in Pakistan.

More than 100 Christian houses were burned and looted on Saturday in a rampage that lasted about eight hours by a crowd the authorities estimate was as large as 20,000 strong. In addition to the seven members of the Hameed family who were killed, about 20 people were wounded.

The authorities, who said the Koran accusation was spurious, filed criminal charges in the case late Sunday and apprehended at least 12 people. Officials said a banned Sunni militant group, Sipah-e-Sohaba, was among those responsible for the attacks, the third convulsion of anti-Christian mob violence in the region in the past four weeks.

Christians, who make up less than 5 percent of the entire population, are often treated as second-class citizens in Pakistan, where Islam is the official religion. Non-Muslims are constitutionally barred from becoming president or prime minister…

Sickening. But, hey, let’s boycott the Jews; have you heard how those “Zionazis” treat the Arabs?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:49 | link | comments

And the winners are…: The Canadian Human Rights Commission, a racket that exists to promote and perpetuate the Trudeaupian agenda (and that in turn keeps the apparatchiks on the “human rights” gravy train--see how that works?), is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s “most diverse workplace in Canada” awards. (Warning: reading the following tripe may cause heartburn and/or indigestion):

Background
Now entering its third year, Canada's Best Diversity Employers recognizes employers across Canada that have exceptional workplace diversity and inclusiveness programs. This competition examines a range of diversity initiatives covering five major employee groups: (a) Women; (b) Members of visible minorities; (c) Persons with disabilities; (d) Aboriginal peoples; and (e) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered/Transsexual (LGBT) peoples. This competition replaces our two annual rankings of the top employers for women and visible minorities, which we published as an appendix to our book from 2002 to 2007. Winners may use the competition's official logo for recruitment purposes until next year's winners are released.

Eligibility Requirements
Any employer with its head office or principal place of business in Canada may apply for this competition. Employers of any size may apply, whether private or public sector. Each applicant should have an interesting initiative for at least one of the five above diversity groups covered by this competition.

Competition Partners
We are assisted on this project by BMO Financial Group, which has agreed to fund the competition’s costs, and the diversity consulting firm TWI Inc., developers of The Equity Continuum™ - an industry-recognized diversity measurement methodology. Read this year's press release from the competition partners announcing the winners of our 2009 competition: English | French…

An industry-recognized diversity measurement methodology, eh? Sounds really, you know, scientific. But isn’t it just a fancy way of saying “we can measure systemic discrimination, i.e. preferential treatment for members of designated victim groups”? But then, if there were no systemic discrimination--tarted up as “diversity” in order to make the concept more palatable--companies would hire people strictly on the basis of merit, and where’s the net benefit to the Trudeaupian agenda in that?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:25 | link | comments (1)

The big cover up: This is a clip is from a PBS science show. My question: If, as Iran claims, it is processing uranium purely for peaceful purposes, why would it bother to hide its enrichment facilities under piles of dirt? Second question: Since this "gotcha" technology is readily available, who do the mullahs think they're fooling?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:41 | link | comments

Close encounters in Obama’s backyard: I just returned from a long weekend in Chicago--my first visit to that city. Some impressions:

· The architecture--spectacular, a visual delight. At one point walking up Michigan Avenue I actually gasped. I also appreciated the sense of humour at play here--for instance, the shiny silver “Bean” and the “spitting faces” fountain (where many children frolicked) in Millennium Park.

· The setting--gorgeous; ignoramus that I am, I had no idea that “a river runs through it”--and what a stunning river it is, green, glistening in the sunlight, with water taxis and cayaks gliding up and down.

· The food--everything we ate was dee-lish, from the spicy Thai noodles at the Big Bowl to the bougatsa in Greektown to the deep dish pizza at Pizzeria Due (as opposed to the deep dish at Pizzeria Uno, its equally popular sister resto where the pie genre was invented (or so it claims), that’s mere yards away across the road--only in the Windy City, eh?).

· The weather--superb; the one time it rained we were tucked up snug and dry inside the Art Institute of Chicago. (Incidentally, that Seurat canvas, the conglomeration of dots and dashes that somehow adds up to a scene of folks enjoying a day at the shore--it’s humungous! There again, who knew?)

Like New York and Paris, it’s a great city for flaneurs and perambulation--and I have the tired pedal extremities to prove it. We could have taken a bike tour of “Obama’s Chicago” (“Discover President Obama’s gorgeous Chicago Neighborhood on this Brand -New (sic), very popular tour beginning in Hyde Park…”); the tour lasts two hours, but there’s an extended four-hour version billed as--wait for it--a “STIMULUS PACKAGE.” (Funny, they didn’t seem to offer a tour through the “community” the former “community organizer” formerly organized. Guess it’s kind of off the beaten track, so to speak.) Instead of the Obamatour, we took a delightful architectural excursion up and down the river--far more relaxing, and lemonade and cookies were included.

Along with savouring the sights and sounds, I met a variety of fascinating people, including:

· Brett Mitchell’s brother. Brett’s a talented singer---with killer blue eyes--who, along with his band, the Giant Ghost, put on a terrific show at Navy Pier. By coincidence, we happened to be sitting beside his older brother who, like Brett, hails from the Detroit area. Anyway, we struck up a conversation and it turns out he’s a small business owner who loathes Obama and his health plan and who loves Mark Steyn. I can’t convey to you how pleasant it was sitting outside by the water on a glorious summer day, sipping some suds, listening to some tasty tunes (Brett’s originals and some oldies--and anyone who can sing Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime” and Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio” in the same set is aces with me), and chewing the fat with a bona fide Republican in Obama's Chicago. Pure unadulterated bliss.

· The sweet, very friendly woman who sat beside me at the outdoor concert at Millennium Park (a marvelous performance of Edward Elgar’s "The Dream of Gerontius"--admittedly, a bit church-y for this Jewish gal, but thrilling nonetheless). Upon learning we were from Canada, she wanted to know what we thought about out health care system, since the Republicans had been raising all sorts of fears about it. I told her the truth as I or someone near and dear to me has experienced it--that it works quite well if you have a real emergency requiring immediate--your three-year-old needs his appendix removed, pronto, say, or you have a bleeding ulcer and need a transfusion because you’ve lost two-thirds of your blood. Then again, if your problem isn’t as urgent, depending on the day, you could wait for many, many hours in a hospital emergency room. And that’s because there’s severe shortage of family doctors in our socialized system---who wants to go into family medicine when the pay is so sucky?--such that people often show up at emerj for stuff that a family doc should be dealing with. But since they don’t have a family doc, emerj is where they often go, thus clogging up hospital waiting rooms. And don’t get me started on how long you have to wait for something like cataract surgery--months and months to have first eye operated on, and many more months waiting for the second one to get done. And this in Canada’s largest city, where one has access to what is probably the best health care in the country. Those in smaller towns and other provinces may have to wait even longer. (My seat-mate was shocked to learn each province, and not the federal government, is responsible for health care. “And Canada is a tenth your size,” I said. “So the bureaucracy in charge of our health care is tiny compared to the one you’re going to have.” The woman thanked me for clearing up some of her misconceptions, especially since the very next day she was going to be participating in a discussion about the health plan. Hey, just doing my bit to thwart Obamacare, a real clunker of a program that, should it pass, cannot be traded in.)

Since I’m fading fast, (too much walking; not enough sleeping) I’ll leave you with these words, etched into the side of the Chicago Tribune tower. Written by John Milton, they pertain not to health care, but to free speech, something else that’s in jeopardy in Obama’s America (and even more so here in Canada):

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

A thought--no, more than that, a cri de coeur--that is as relevant now as the day it was first spoken, back in 1644.

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