...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
Fitting metaphor: Roger Waters’ giant swine balloon—the one he releases at the end of his concerts, the one which, in its current incarnation, urges folks to mark their ballots for Obama—came unmoored, post-concert, and flew off to parts unknown. It is now, to paraphrase that Monty Python skit, an ex-piggy.
Not to read too much into the fate of an unfortunate inflatable, but it seems, I dunno, kind of spooky that the Bambi balloon burst around the same time Jeremiah Wright arrived back on the scene and attempted, once and for all, to burst the candidate’s presidential hopes.
Coincidence? If you say so.
The lyric currently running through my brain is from Comden and Greene’s wistful ballad “The Party’s Over”:…”They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away.” Oh, sure, they can try and refloat another pig, but it won’t be same pig, and it won’t change the fact that karma seems to have spoken.
Cancel the celebrations: As I suspected, all the hoopla about the Canadian Islamic Congress being on the cusp of withdrawing its complaints about the "offensive" Maclean's cover story was a wee bit premature. Mo and Co. haven't moved an inch.
Feisty chick, Kathy Shaidle, was at the news conference, though, oddly enough, the man who got the ball rolling, 'Slammin' Mo, was a no-show.
It appears that the push to dhimmify Canada via the convenient smokescreen of "human rights" is still full systems go.
Update: Mo's demands are set out in this news release. Apparently, empowered by that Maoist Miss Manners, Barbara Hall, and her extra-judicial guilty "verdict" (for a hearing that never took place), he's still hoping to comandeer an issue of Maclean's, his condition for dropping his complaints with the BC HRC. In Islamic terms, he wants to force Maclean's, Canada's flagship periodical, into dhimmitde.
Sharing bed space with a bloody horse's head is easy-peasy compared to the prospect of having to face these sanctimonious thought cops. Unwittingly (at least one presumes it's unwitting) these terminally nice, confoundingly clueless bureacrats are serving as sharia's handmaidens.
Update: RightGirl, the blogger who attended the new conference with her sister-in-outrage, Kathy, adds an interesting detail. The lawyer for Elmo's sock thingys (who RightGirl says reminded her of Huggybear from Starsky and Hutch) had a letter of support from none other than confoundingly clueless Socialist, Jack Layton.
The bark and the bite: Now that Trinity United’s pastor has been, er, put out to pasture, it has looked to a new, young preacher—Reverend Otis Moss III—to pick up where Reverend Wright left off.
Here’s Reverend Moss defending his church and his predecessor from the pulpit. The sermon’s spin: the many remarkable accomplishments of both have been overlooked and unfairly reduced to a “sound bite”. (Moss starts out rather tentatively, but gains momentum as he goes on. Still, for those used to the over-the-top stylings of the previous pastor, Moss’s sermons must be something of a let-down.)
Meaning no disrespect, Reverend, but Wright's words were a lot more than sound bites. They were lengthy, leisurely, rambling fulminations in which many, many obnoxious "sound bites" were strung together to create one poisonous, repellent whole. But if you and your flock prefer to look at it as a question of "sound bites" being taken "out of context," so be it. Realize, though, that a lot of people are going to have a hard time getting past “sound bites” of an obnoxious bigot God-damning "the U.S. of K.K.K." and ranting about how the American government brought on 9/11 and infected black people with AIDS—and receiving a rapturous reception from a congregation which apparently welcomes such toxic views.
The dhimmi dance: When America’s enemies were godless Fascists or Commies, no one worried about offending their “religious” sensibilities. Now that America’s enemy is affiliated with one of the world’s Great Religions, the government has decided it has to tap dance around that affiliation, lest it “insult” the supposedly sacrosanct.
Is that any way to win a war? Patrick Poole on the American Thinker site thinks not:
Imagine that following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, that FDR had prohibiting the use of the terms "Nazi" or "Japanese Imperialism" due to pressure brought to bear by German and Japanese-American lobbying groups. Or at the height of the Cold War that the US government had determined to ban the use of "Soviet" or "communism" for fear of offending the sensibilities of Russian-Americans or European socialists.
Yet that is precisely what has happened following the revelation last week by the Associated Press that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security has issued guidelines banning the use of "jihad", "mujahedeen" and other Islamic terminology with reference to Islamic terrorism. This move lays bare the ideological prison house of political correctness in which our top policymaker's reside. The strictures are so ridiculous that even President Bush can't help himself in violating the guidelines.
No one can claim in defense of this move that it has been rooted in years of serious study and assessment of the issue at the highest levels of government. If so, where might these studies and assessments be found? What series of government publications outlines the strategic threat doctrine of our enemy in the War on Terror, similar to that prepared on Soviet doctrine in the early years of the Cold War? What comprehensive doctrinal assessment may our military and political leaders consult to inform themselves on the tactics and strategy of our enemy? Such does not exist, and the adoption of the government's new "lexicon" is an admission that such a strategic threat assessment of our enemy will not be done. This new effort means that in essence we have chosen to fly blind in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
The categorical failure of our political leadership nearly seven years after 9/11 to engage in even the slightest effort to assess exactly who the enemy is and how they propose to attack and defeat us borders on treason. What could possibly represent the complete abdication of responsibility by our political leaders than deliberately avoiding addressing this pressing, and for our men and women in uniform a life-and-death, issue?
So on what basis have our public officials made this recent decision? This new effort is being driven by politics, not public safety, as demonstrated by the fact that such pandering measures adopted by the British government which the State Department guidelines appear modeled after have completely failed to abate the terrorist threat there. And it reveals that our national security policy is being determined more by public affairs officials driven by political correctness than sober reflection by our nation's intelligence, military and law enforcement personnel…
I fear it is being driven by more than political correctness. It is a function of officials remaining profoundly ignorant about a “religion” that is actually an all-encompassing political system. If followed to the letter, this system, which considers itself to be the be-all and end-all of all political systems, is arguably even more oppressive than anything dished out by the godless.
Ignorance may be bliss, but only in the short term. In reality, ignorance amounts to dhimmitude--and, ultimately, will lead to defeat..
The tenor of betrayal: An Irish classic, dedicated to a now-defunct relationship:
Oh Bambi boy
Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright is raving.
He’s sabotaged his youthful protégée.
For twenty years you trusted and looked up to him.
Oh Bambi boy how could he treat his “son” that way?
It’s all because you criticized his hatefulness.
The loopy words which made him sound quite mad.
Now see what happens when you diss a demagogue?
Oh, Bambi boy, no one can shaft you like your “dad”.
Definitive definition: Bush says Palestinian state can be defined during his term.
With all due respect, Mr. President, it's already been "defined". Due to your "democritization" efforts, it's a genocidal terrorist entity: "Hamastan."
Wright’s revenge: Isn’t that what it’s really all about—a father figure getting a bit of his own back at the “son” who got too big for his britches?
If the bombastic bigot had wanted his protégée to win, he would have kept his head down until after election day. The fact that he didn’t shows that he’s more concerned about promoting himself and his own image than he is about boosting Bambi’s fortunes. He thus had no compunction about inflicting maximum damage.
A true demagogue, through and through.
Update: Bambi strikes back. Looks like the Fauxbamas and the Wrights won't be exchanging Christmas cards this year.
Update: Black Panther praises Wright's speechifying.
CIC offer in the offing: Mo and the kids are getting set to make Maclean’s “an offer” (it can’t refuse?). Link via steynonline:
THE CANADIAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS
PRESS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
April 29, 2008
ISLAMIC CONGRESS AND LAW STUDENTS TO MAKE PUBLIC SETTLEMENT OFFER TO MACLEAN'S ON HUMAN RIGHTS COMPLAINTS
TORONTO - The Canadian Islamic Congress and a group of law students who recently filed human rights complaints against Maclean's magazine for publishing Islamophobic content, are planning to present a public offer to the magazine's management to settle the matter.
Details of this offer and more information regarding the background of the above-mentioned complaints will be provided to those in attendance.
When:
10:00 a.m.: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Where:
Fairmont Royal York Hotel, The Quebec Room, 100 Front Street West, Toronto ON
Present at the media conference will be:
- Faisal Joseph: CIC legal counsel, former Federal and Provincial
Crown Attorney, and former Chair of the Criminal Section of the Canadian
Bar Association (Nova Scotia).
- Muneeza Sheikh, Naseem Mithoowani and Khurrum Awan: Three of the law students/graduates who were original complainants against Maclean's
magazine.
For more information contact:
Faisal Joseph: (519) 672-4510
Let’s see: Previously, Mo and Co. “offered” to commandeer an entire issue of Maclean’s and fill it with their “truth.” When the magazine’s editor told them to take a hike, they did—all the way to several of the country’s Miss Manners’ etiquette emporia.Word is they’re prepared to back off the HRC complaints—but at what price? And is it a price that any self-respecting, freedom-loving kafir will be willing to stomach?
All will become clear tomorrow.
Sighting the salesman: By Wesley Pruden in the Washington Times, 4/29:
Sen. Obama is actually the Willy Loman of presidential politics, the iconic salesman of the Arthur Miller play whose success on the road was fashioned with a smile and a shoeshine. Hillary Clinton, the inevitable nominee when the new year dawned, was rendered all but insensible when the Obama frenzy rolled over her after Iowa, and now Sen. Barack Obama is equally stunned as his magic begins to wane.
By me, 4/25:
In the early days, when Americans didn’t know who he was, he could coast on his good looks, soothing voice and piffle about “change”. (Another American salesman, Willie Loman, coasted on “a smile and a shoeshine,” until he, too, was done in by his own character flaws.)
The jihad’s useful idiot: Hillel Halkin on the abominable Mr. C. From the New York Sun (my bolds):
…Had Mr. Carter been minimally informed, he would have known that Hamas has for years been ready to "accept" a Palestinian state subject to certain conditions — which is what it means when it says that this state must be approved by a Palestinian "referendum" (to be torpedoed by Hamas if its conditions are not met) or a Palestinian "elected government" (ditto). These conditions, which Mr. Carter did not get Hamas to retreat from one iota, are, firstly, that Israel pull back to its 1967 lines with Jordan, including those that divided Jerusalem, and, secondly, that Israel admit all descendants of 1948 Palestinian refugees who wish to live within its borders.
What Hamas has not been ready to accept, is still not ready to accept, and has never told Mr. Carter is that it is ready to accept is the state of Israel itself. At the most it is willing to agree to a hudna, an Islamic truce, with Israel. And as any student of Islam knows, a hudna is by definition temporary. It can be for a longer time or a shorter time, but it is basically a breather separating one round of confrontation with the infidel from another.
To put it in plain language: Once Israel agrees to surrender half of Jerusalem, uproot hundreds of settlements and hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers from disputed territories beyond the 1967 lines, and grant residence rights to possibly millions of Palestinians who have never lived in it before, Hamas will call off its campaign for the Jewish state's destruction for X number of years, after which it will be free to resume hostilities.
By then, of course, there will be little left of a Jewish state to destroy, the influx of Palestinian refugees having eliminated the country's Jewish majority. These are the "concessions" that Mr. Carter, with his self-vaunted skills as a negotiator, has managed to extract from Hamas and is now trying to peddle as a significant achievement.
Mr. Carter has been taken — not for the first time in his career, it must be said — for a ride. Were he alone in the delusion that Hamas can be brought into Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as a constructive partner, this would not matter very much. In the three-ring circus of Middle Eastern diplomacy, he simply would be one more clown balancing bowling pins on his nose or pedaling a unicycle backwards.
But the delusion is more widespread. It is being voiced today from more and more quarters. Without Hamas, the argument goes, no Israeli-Palestinian process is possible; ergo, Hamas must become part of the process for it to succeed.
Now, the first half of this argument is certainly correct. Hamas is politically and militarily strong enough today, not only in the Gaza Strip, but in the West Bank as well, to thwart any agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that it does not approve of. It is just that the "ergo" does not follow, for the simple reason that Hamas cannot and will not approve of any agreement that could possibly be acceptable to Israel. It does not have the ideological leeway or flexibility to do so, and no one can say that it has not been ideologically consistent over the years.
Does this mean that no Israeli-Palestinian peace process can succeed at the moment? Alas, this is precisely what it does mean. Some of those who, like Mr. Carter, find it impossible to live with this truth will go on making fools of themselves in order to deny it. Let's just not let them make fools of us.
Are you listening, Condi?
Run, Bambi, run: Obama adds to distance from pastor and opinions.
Pure, unadulterated evil: With its agenda of appropriating the term "anti-Semitism" and affixing it to "racism" against Muslims (because, heaven knows, "Islamophobia" isn't nearly enough to cover it), Holocaust denial, delegitimizing Israel, and ignoring outrageous violations of "human rights" in Iran and Libya--the countries in charge of pre-conference preparations--Durban II is on track to make Durban I look like a hay ride.
Bayefsky in Rightsland: Reading Anne Bayefsky’s account of her visit to the UN’s zaniest body, the Human Rights Council, I couldn’t help but think of Alice’s disorienting adventures in Wonderland. All that was missing was one or more of the mad malevolent members crying, “Off with the heads of those who insult Islam."
IHT claptrap: Daniel Pipes is only one of many pundits who has pointed out that Islamic law is making great inroads here in the West--without anyone having to set off any explosives. The International Herald Tribune, for one, is hoping Pipes will shut up, already, since according to that noted expert, John Esposito, Islam’s as sweet and benign as a boxful of kittens:
…Pipes and others reel off a list of examples: Muslim cabdrivers in Minneapolis who have refused to take passengers carrying liquor; municipal pools and a gym at Harvard that have adopted female-only hours to accommodate Muslim women; candidates for office who are suspected of supporting political Islam; and banks that are offering financial products compliant with sharia, the Islamic code of law.
The danger, Pipes says, is that the United States stands to become another England or France, a place where Muslims are balkanized and ultimately threaten to impose sharia.
"It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia," Pipes said. "It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam."
Pipes refers to this new enemy as the "lawful Islamists."
They are carrying out a "soft jihad," said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York and a vocal opponent of the Khalil Gibran school.
Muslim leaders, academics and others see the drive against the school as the latest in a series of discriminatory attacks intended to distort the truth and play on Americans' fear of terrorism. They say the campaign is also part of a wider effort to silence critics of Washington's policy on Israel and the Middle East.
"This is a political, ideological agenda," said John Esposito, a professor of international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University who has been a focus of Pipes's scrutiny. "It's an agenda to paint Islam, not just extremists, as a major problem…
Islam's the one with the political, ideological agenda, John. I believe it's called sharia.
That's his (insane) story and he's stickin' to it: Fauxbama's pastor stands by his position that the U.S. government gave black people AIDS.
Dark side of the moonbat: Geriatric rocker Roger Waters capped off a concert by releasing a giant hot air piggy. The gaseous porker was Roger’s way of bashing America and demonstrating his support for his guy, Fauxbama. From NME (my bolds):
Roger Waters closed out the final night of the Coachella Festival (April 27) by performing Pink Floyd's landmark 1973 album 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and unleashing a giant inflatable pig into the sky.
The legendary performer drew a massive crowd for his main stage headlining set, which featured two parts.
The first half of Waters' nearly three-hour set featured solo and early Pink Floyd material, while the second half saw him performing 'Dark Side Of The Moon' in its entirety as well as Pink Floyd hits from 1979's 'The Wall'.
A large inflatable pig emerged onto the stage as he played 'Pigs' from 1977's 'Animals'. Graffiti scrawled on the pig said, "Don't be led to the slaughter" and "Obama" with checked ballot box next to it. It also contained illustrations of Uncle Sam holding a cleaver.
The pig was released into the night sky at the end of Waters' first set…
Didn’t we see that in Spinal Tap?
Arrogant, malicious, Jew-hating nincompoop: None other than Jimminy "Ain't My Nobel Peace Prize Purty" Carter.
Update: The unctuous one sings a song from--what else?--Grease:
Look at me I’m Jimmy C.
Lousy with sanc-tim-ony.
Wear my Nobel prize
As a brilliant disguise.
It works for Jimmy C.
I was the prez when Khomeini came
And things have never been the same.
Don’t say, “Oy gevalt!”
‘Cause it wasn’t my fault.
Not me, not Jimmy C.
I’m fair (hah!)
And true (ho!)
Unless you’re a Jew (ew!)
Get ill from that there “apartheid”.
“Peace” is my mission
So go to perdition
If you think that I’d ever takes sides.
As for the concept of “jihad”
It really isn’t all that bad.
Just bow and submit.
See--it don’t hurt a bit.
Say I, says Jimmy C.
Hugged a thug--
A loving start.
I’ve only lusted in my heart.
Won’t leave the scene
Till I’m pushin’ up green.
Hey, piss off! I’m Jimmy C.
CHRC’s dizzying spin: If I were to tell you that there were “courts” in Canada where there is no presumption of innocence, the usual rules of evidence don’t apply, and only one side, the “defendant,” is on the hook for legal costs, would you think that was a good thing or a bad thing? Well, chillingly, such “courts” do indeed exist, and it should be obvious to all Canadian that it’s a very bad thing. Here’s how the granddaddy of our kangaroo courts, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, tries to justify this outrage, attempting (and failing) to spin the dross into gold. It comes from the CHRC brochure, “Tribunal Hearings,” which outlines the two-part complaint process—the CHRC fields the complaints; the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hears them (my bolds):
What does the Tribunal do?
The Tribunal is much like a court. It conducts public hearings into complaints of discrimination filed with the Commission. However, because it is an administrative tribunal, it has more flexibility than regular courts. As a result, people who appear before it can explain their case more fully, without having to follow strict rules of evidence.
I must have missed something in all the happy talk about “flexibility” because I thought the presumption of innocence and “strict rules of evidence” were the foundation of Western jurisprudence.
Silly moi.
Popular Shias: You know those efforts to "isolate" Iran? Don't seem to be working out too well.
Pro-active supression: Starting at the end of June, the Ontario thought cops are going to take a more “pro-active” approach to gathering “hate” complaints. They plan to fan out into the community, and, operating like our very own virtue/vice committee, will keep their ears to the ground for the least little hint that someone is thinking impure, socially unacceptable thoughts.
Hey, if it works in Saudi Arabia, there’s no reason it can’t work here, right?
Wright still wrong: Fauxbama’s pastor doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. See, as a member of a group that, historically, has been on the receiving end of egregious racism, he’s allowed to spew racism from his pulpit and not have it be considered racist: Victimhood does have its privileges. The ranting rev explained his position to a receptive crowd at an NAACP dinner where he was the keynote speaker: From the Beeb (my bolds):
…Speaking at the fund-raising dinner, Mr Wright suggested critics had taken his remarks out of context to embarrass him and Mr Obama.
"We just do it differently, and some of our haters can't get their heads around that. I come from a religious tradition where we shout in the sanctuary and we march on the picket lines," Mr Wright said.
"The African-American tradition is different. We do it in a different way."
He added: "I am not one of the most divisive black spiritual leaders... the word is descriptive."…
Sorry, rev. Racism is racism, no matter how “differently” it’s done. It’s the content, not the packaging, that makes it racist.
The good folks of the NAACP, of all people, should be able to see that (and should never have invited you in the first place).
Washington grovels: Terrorism expert Steve Emerson on the U.S. government’s pathetic capitulation to sharia. From JWR:
This is a memo to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Hizballah (the Party of G-d), the Islamic State of Iraq, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and others:
Please consider changing your names to something a tad less religious sounding. Where you infuse your theological thought into radical politics and violence, things might get a little awkward for us. You see, if we point out that you identify yourselves with a religion, we might offend someone. That's the new policy of the U.S. government. It advises agencies to avoid using some of the same words that make up your very names.
All we're asking is that you meet us half way.
The Associated Press confirms what Robert Spencer reported Tuesday on Jihad Watch, that federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. embassies say words including "jihadists," and "mujahedeen" are off limits. In addition, references to Islam and Muslims are frowned upon, too:
The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.
For example, while Americans may understand "jihad" to mean "holy war," it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, "mujahedeen," which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.
U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."
Apparently the report does not say which American Muslims offered the recommendations. But it is virtually identical to a long campaign by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamist groups (Check out the examples we cited in our series on CAIR, then go back and read the AP report). So the U.S. government is taking its cues from a group that emanated from a secret Muslim Brotherhood operation in America, one with a stated goal of being "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
According to the AP, the government report says "even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world."…
In other words, the U.S. government has officially submitted and made dhimmitude its modus operendi. In which case, why even bother trying to implant “democracy” in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The apostate and the refusenik: The Sunday New York Times had a piece examining the different approaches of—and gaping divide between—Ayaan Ali Hirsi and Irshad Manji:
…“The most important explanation for the mental and material backlog we Muslims find ourselves in,” Ms. Hirsi Ali has said, “should probably be sought in the sexual morality that we were force-fed from birth.” Her first book, a collection of essays, was entitled “The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam.” In the Netherlands, she devoted herself to helping Muslim women, in her words, “develop the vocabulary of resistance,” and she continues the fight from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, where she is a resident fellow.
Ms. Manji, too, sees feminism as the linchpin for Islamic reform. “Empowering women,” she says, “is the way to awaken the Muslim world.” But she is not only a committed feminist (bad enough in the eyes of Muslim conservatives). She is also an open lesbian — a rebel twice over. The difference between them “really is between those outside of a faith and those still within it,” says Ms. Manji’s friend the writer Andrew Sullivan. “Hirsi Ali has abandoned faith for atheism. Irshad has taken the harder path, I believe.”
The two women have known each other for four years, since Ms. Hirsi Ali interviewed Ms. Manji for a Dutch newspaper, and they discussed their continuing relationship in e-mail interviews. They immediately bonded — understandably enough. “I could not believe she was not an atheist,” Ms. Hirsi Ali says, “and she could not believe that I had become one.” When Time magazine named Ms. Hirsi Ali one of its “100 most influential people” for 2005, it was Ms. Manji who wrote the comment on her. Ms. Manji admires Ms. Hirsi Ali’s determination to speak truth to power, saying that “Ayaan’s defiant distrust of Muslim authorities can help generate debates that move us closer to honesty.”
But, inevitably, the differences between them create tensions since, in their eyes, what is at stake is nothing less than the future of Islam. Ms. Hirsi Ali says, “Irshad is the most admirable person I know who is trying to achieve change from within,” but she agrees with Mr. Hitchens that “from an intellectual, logical perspective,” Ms. Manji’s religious faith and her own secularism can’t be reconciled. Mr. Hitchens himself believes that it’s a self-defeating exercise for a declared lesbian to try to bring about an Islamic Reformation.
Ms. Manji detects a certain incoherence in Ms. Hirsi Ali’s views: “She wants Muslims to reform, but she also seems to believe that Islam is inherently retrograde.” Ms. Manji says her own position “is that Muslims can reform while remaining faithful precisely because the Koran has the raw materials to be thoughtful and humane. It’s we Muslims who must develop the courage to change.”
For her part, Ms. Hirsi Ali replies, “I make a distinction between Islam and Muslims.” That is, “I picture the defeat of Islam as large swaths of Muslims crossing the line and accepting the value system of secular humanism. This is not a matter of one religion defeating another, it’s a matter of value systems which cannot coexist.”…
Manji detects a certain incoherence? Is there anything less coherent than the attempt to “reform” a religion which considers its scripture and prophet to be perfect, and which invariably “reforms” by looking backward?
It is Manji who is incoherent and whose efforts, at the end of the day, are futile and, even worse, counter-productive. Hirsi Ali is the one who “gets it,” the one whose ideas must be understood and assimilated if we hope to stop the creep and gallop of sharia.
Acceptable and unacceptable polygamy: If you’re a foreign-born immigrant with a “harem” of wives, Canada has no problemo with your polygamy: heck, if you can’t support your “lifestyle,” the state will even offer you a helping hand. If, however, you’re an FLDS polygamist with a passel of wives who have the fashion sense of Holly Hobby, well, sir, you’re just plum out of luck.
Only one thing left for those Mormons to do: “revert”.
I resemble that comment: I try to resist the temptation to pick up a copy of NOW magazine—Toronto’s hard left freebie rag that considers itself cutting edge on matters cultural and political. It’s not that I have a hard time taking seriously a publication that stays afloat by accepting a plethora of ads from the sex trade. It’s just that I know that when I pick it up, there’s a good chance there’s going to be another article/snippet/off the cuff comment bashing Israel (for being a brutal colonialist, imperialist, racist interloper—occupying the sacred land of those saintly victims, the Palestinians). And, whadya know? After months of ignoring it, I happen to open it up and find this "charming" piece: “Extremist JDL resurfaces in Bathurst synagogue with Likud pol in tow.”
The “pol” in question is Moshe Feiglin, a Likudnik who thinks the Palestinians can be bribed into leaving the West Bank and Gaza. (In its own way, as cockamamie an idea as following a road map to “peace”, since both fail to consider that the real impediment to a “two state solution. I’ll give you a hint. It starts with “I” and ends with “slam”.)
I won’t go into the details of the article; suffice it to say that it is offensive on many levels. I feel compelled, though, to mention this closing bit:
Michael Neumann, a Trent University philosophy professor and the author of The Case Against Israel, also warns against getting diverted by fears of JDL ultranationalism.
“Hell, if I’m going to be concerned about violent or extremist Jews, I’ll be concerned about the Israel Defense Forces. By far the greatest threat to peace are the lobbying efforts of impeccably well-behaved, well-connected Zionists and the decent but fence-sitting Jews who allow these lobbyists to speak in their name.”
Speaking as an impeccably well-behaved, well-connect Zionist, I take great umbrage at that remark. The greatest threat to peace was, is, and will always be the inability of Israel’s Arab/Muslim neighbours to come to terms with the concept of Jewish sovereignty. That’s the reason, by the way, why there is an IDF: Had the surrounding nations not been so intent on obliterating the Jewish state instead of living with it, there would have been no need for a Jewish army.
As for those decent but fence-sitting Jews, I suggest they get off the fence and speak up—now—if they want to see Israel reach its next milestone birthday. We impeccably well-behaved Zionists need all the help we can get if we want to put the brakes on the effort to delegitimize and destroy Israel—an effort which is being helped in no small measure by useful idiots in academe and the media.
Michael Neumann is in the front ranks of the idiotic, waving his pom poms and cheering maniacally for Israel's demise. Honest Reporting quotes him as having written the following:
My sole concern is indeed to help the Palestinians, and I try to play for keeps. I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose...I would use anything, including lies, injustice and obfuscation, to do so. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don't come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism or reasonable hostility to Jews, I don't care. If it means encouraging vicious racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the State of Israel, I still don't care.
So nice of the NOW magazine hack to go out of his way to quote the likes of this rabidly self-loathing, traitorous Jew. What, Ilan Pappe was busy that day?
Wishful thinking: Bambi Fauxbama, the guys who worships at a church committed to black liberation theology and whose mentor pals around with NOI scallywag, Louis Farakhan, says race is not an issue in the U.S. election.
Dream on, Fauxbama.
“They” are the problem: Victor Davis Hanson skewers Bambi and the missus for blaming all the bad stuff on an amorphous “they”. Who are “they”? That depends entirely on who Bambi or Mrs. Bambi happen to be speaking to at the time. From NRO:
Recently Barack Obama got into trouble by explaining to an affluent San Francisco audience why the cash-strapped, mostly white, working classes in Pennsylvania and the Midwest do not logically vote for his brand of economic populism, but instead cling to issues that sophisticates can see are extraneous to their economic plight.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
That sentence has been analyzed to death. But a single word struck me — who are Obama’s distant they?
Are they basically decent people, without a lot of education, who turn to religious and national superstitions like guns and church, or to primordial passions like racism and xenophobia, in lieu of Obama’s nostrum of “hope” and “change”? “They,” then, turn out to be the nice, but deluded folk — and yet sometimes dangerous people when riled by immigrants and other races that don’t look like them?
But the bitter, they can’t be the same they that Obama also said are jacking up the cost of his condiments in the store?
“Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”
Perhaps this nebulous and ever changing they evokes the same forces that Michelle Obama says are now thwarting her husband’s phenomenally successful campaign. Sometime they seem to be politicos, or media pundits, or hostile rule keepers who do all they can to sabotage the Obamas: “They tell you to raise money, you raise money. “They tell you to build an organization, and you build an organization.”
But at other times they for Michelle Obama can apparently also mean faceless government officials who likewise conspire against the American public as soon as it makes any progress — perhaps like achieving the Obama’s 2007 $4 million annual income, or $1.6 million home: “We live in a nation where they set the bar and you try to get over the bar and they move the bar.”
On rarer occasions, Michelle Obama becomes somewhat more specific with her they, and so names them as “folks.” But who and where these folks are, we are never told: “Folks set the bar, and then you work hard and you reach the bar — sometimes you surpass the bar — and then they move the bar!”
The multifarious use of they tells us a great deal about the Obamas. In one of the many manifestations of they, there is a sort of resentment here, the evocation of someone or something to blame when it is time to buy high-priced arugula or send the kids to summer camp or explain why you will lose Pennsylvania. This whiny they serves a psychological need, and relieves them of any introspection like, “Buy lettuce at Safeway instead of arugula at Whole Foods.” Or “Try harder to appeal to the working classes of Iowa and Pennsylvania by spending more time out of, rather than in, Whole Foods and San Francisco mansions.”…
One thing Bambi and Michi know for sure: whoever “they” are, “they” suck.
A new edition of the inquisition: A news release from earlier this month trumpets the bold new changes on tap for the Ontario Human Rights Commission (my bolds):
QUOTES
"Ontario has been a national leader on human rights since its creation of the first human rights code in Canada in 1962," said Attorney General Chris Bentley. "By creating a new, stronger human rights system, we are continuing our national leadership on this issue. The new system will address the underlying causes of discrimination and ensure the speedy resolution of human rights cases."
"This funding is an important part of ensuring the long term success of Ontario's new human rights system," said Michael Gottheil, Chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. "It will help us construct new, state-of-the-art, accessible facilities, including human rights hearing and mediation rooms. In addition, by developing a new case management system, we'll be able to process cases in a timely way, and monitor and report on the performance of the new system."
"W