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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Saturday, 31 October 2009

Jewish overachievers: In his book The Israel Test, George Gilder accounts for the “objective anti-Semitism” of “Karl Marx, Noam Chomsky, Friedrich Engels, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein and other Jewish leftists who above all abhor capitalism”:

Jews, amazingly, excel so readily in all intellectual fields that they outperform all rivals even in the arena of anti-Semitism.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:41 | link | comments

"Humanity should come before identity": Greg Gutfeld guts the hopeychangers' "hate crime" bill--the one they attached to a defence spending bill (even though it had nada to do with defence) because they knew Republicans would have to hold their noses are vote for it since it meant more money for American troops.

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

Sharia funny business: Stop me if you've heard this one before. Man walks into an NYC bar, demands that the owner stop serving booze.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:21 | link | comments

Cry me a river: Canadian authorities have apprehended two alleged jihadis, and their lawyer, for one, is really upset at the needlessly traumatic manner in which it was done, reports the Ceeb:

Two Ontario men wanted by the FBI for alleged involvement in a radical Islamist group were arrested after police went to homes in Windsor, Ont., Saturday morning.

Police in the border city say Mohammad Al-Sahli, 33, and Yassir Ali Kahn, 30, both from the Windsor area, were apprehended "without incident."

The two men were taken into custody and will appear before a Superior Court judge on Monday to face extradition to the United States on charges of conspiracy to commit federal crimes.

Members of the Immigration Task Force (ITF), working with Windsor city police and the local RCMP, apprehended the pair a day after a Superior Court judge in Ontario issued warrants for their arrest.

The arrests come just days after Mujahid Carswell, the son of an imam killed in a shootout with the FBI in Detroit on Wednesday, was arrested in Windsor.

An FBI complaint, the result of a two-year-investigation, alleges all three men conspired to commit federal crimes.

Patrick Ducharme, the lawyer for the two men, said he was shocked to learn that a police tactical squad had surrounded two houses in the same area to make the arrests.

He said officers showed up with guns drawn in the presence of "terrified children" outside at least one of the homes.

"This could have been done very easily without any gunpoint arrest," Ducharme told CBC News…

Yeah, authorities could have tried some of that hopeychanger-style “outreach” to persuade them to give themselves up. After apologizing profusely for having to arrest them, of course.

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

Hillary’s excuse: On a visit to Pakistan where she isn’t exactly wowing ‘em, Hillary Clinton tells some local newspaper editors why that pesky Israel-Palestinian situation remains a going concern. Hint: it’s not for lack of trying on Bill’s or Barack’s part:

I think that, look, we all know that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is one that is a very serious and difficult problem that we are working hard also to try to resolve. We inherited a lot of problems. If you remember, when my husband left office, we were very close to an agreement because he worked on it all the time. The next administration did not make it a priority and did not really do much until toward the end. And unfortunately, we are trying to make up for some lost time, in my opinion.

What Clinton neglects to mention, of course, is that “the next administration” inherited a whole host of problems from her husband’s failure to deal in any substantive way with the pesky jihadists--a failure that came to a head on that fateful day in September, 2001. Nor does she tell them that, during Bush’s second term, he was just as keen on finding a fix for the Israeli-Palestinian issue--remember Condi Rice’s “the Palestinians are the new Mississippi Negroes” trope?--an effort that fell as flat as her husband’s even though Condi “worked on it all the time,” too.

One can understand why Mrs. Clinton would want to try to suck up to the Pakistanis and make her hubby and boss look good in their eyes, but why must she purvey the fiction that the reason the Israelis and Palestinians are still at odds is because there was a lull in the “peace process” during Dubya’s time?

Consider that a rhetorical query. I know she must do so because among Democrats Bush-bashing is both a habit and a reflex, and because to do otherwise is to admit that this is one problem no American president can “solve”.

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

York U-denhass and its responses: Traditionally, there have been two Jewish approaches to dealing with Judenhass. The first approach is “sha shtill”--Yiddish for “stay quiet,” don’t make a ruckus, and pray that the Judenhass subsides on its own; even if it doesn’t subside, “sha shtillers” hope that keeping their heads down will prevent the Jew-haters from locating them. Then there’s the opposite of “sha shtill”. Let’s call it “yell like the dickens,” or yltd for short. Yltd-ers are intent are making as much noise as possible because they know that the Judenhass is not going to go away, and to sound the alarm that it’s in the vicinity and must be addressed. These two approaches are evident in this Exclibur report about campus Judenhass and what various interested parties--both Jewish and non-Jewish--intend to do about it. First up, the yltd-ers--Hasbara and B’nai Brith Canada:

A pro-Israeli student group at York University announced it is going to create its own task force to deal with the issue of discrimination against Jewish students. Meanwhile, over 200 faculty members and students have signed a petition that rejects the claims of anti-Semitism.

In response to the unhealthy political atmosphere on campus, York University issued a report with recommendations compiled by the Task Force on Student Life, Learning and Community. However, Hasbara at York did not think the report fully addressed the issues of anti-Semitism.

Marlee Mozeson, co-president of Hasbara Fellowships at York, said the new task force is providing an opportunity to stand up and speak to students who would not normally
be vocal.

The task force meeting, which took place on Monday, Oct. 26 in the Student Centre, gave Jewish students a chance to talk about any experiences of anti-Semitism they have faced
on campus.

Mozeson said the task force’s goal is to grasp the seriousness of anti-Semitism at York. Anita Bromberg, national director of legal affairs at B’nai Brith Canada, was present at the task force meeting and said she thought it went very well.

“I hope there will be further opportunities for more students to express their concerns and I particularly hope that the report will stir up some changes on campus,” she said.

B’nai Brith has been outspoken about its dissatisfaction with York University’s task force reports in the past, claiming that they did not adequately address the issue of anti-Semitism.

Next, the sha shtillers--the official Jewish campus organization, Hillel:

Matan Hazanov, president of Hillel at York, said the Jewish task force was a Hasbara initiative and that Hillel prefers to deal with each student privately rather than holding a task force meeting.

“We feel it is more effective because students are more likely to share if it is done in a private situation,” Hazanov said.

And, after all, kids, it’s all about the“sharing,” isn’t it? “Sharing” is a great way to, say, prevent an angry mob of Jew-haters, er, sorry, an angry mob of people who desire justice for the Palestinians, from forcing Jews to take cover in order to avoid a righteous thrashing.

But don’t think that Judenhass is an issue that upsets and divides the Jews alone. No indeedee. Why, in the very next sentence, a member of another minority group offers his thoughts on the disturbing subject:

Odion Osegyefo, York University Black Students’ Alliance (YUBSA) president, said that the intimidation that black students face on campus is also severe, and he feels that there is an overreaction on the part of the mostly white Jewish students.

Yes, those “mostly white” Jews barricading themselves in a classroom in order to avoid being throttled--quel overreaction. Now, how it been some black brothers fleeing from a white mob, that would have not have been an overreaction, since the dudes running for their lives were, er, black.

And hard on Odion’s opining, an officer of a York students association begs to differ--sort of:

Zahran Khan, vice-president of equity for the York Federation of Students (YFS), was also present at the task force meeting and said he thought the meeting was a good opportunity for students to speak up.

“I think if there is any student discrimination on campus, we should take it very seriously,” he said. The YFS held their own task force meeting on racism in September. At the meeting, students from different backgrounds were free to express their concerns.

If there’s any discrimination? Meaning he’s not sure there is any, having not seen much evidence of it himself?

Meanwhile, a university official in permanent damage control mode employs the weasely language typical of his species:

Patrick Monahan, vice-president of academic and provost, who headed the Task Force on Student Life, Learning and Community, said students are free to organize meetings and have discussions.

“While working on the task force recommendations, we tried to contact Hasbara and asked to receive a submission from them, and we have not actually received anything,” he said.

Monahan said the task force was designed to make sure that all students are free from intimidation and are allowed to pursue their studies freely.

A weasel’s three top talking points: deny, deny, deny. And speaking of denial

nearly 200 students and faculty members have signed a petition that rejects the claims of anti-Semitism.

The petition’s statement read that the use of inflammatory language on this issue has to stop. Ilan Kapoor, an associate professor of environmental studies at York who referred to himself as a contact person for the petition, said the document was a collective effort.

He said the basic objective of the statement is to show the support that York faculty and students have for public debate and for discussion on Israeli and Palestinian issues.

“We are rejecting the highly exaggerated rhetoric and misinformation that we have been witnessing. Whenever there are student clashes and disagreements on campus about the issue of Middle Eastern conflict, B’nai Brith immediately equates them with anti-Semitism,” Kapoor said…

Yes, how silly of the Jews to equate the obsessive, irrational loathing for the Jewish state with the obsessive, irrational, loathing for Jews in general. Don’t they realize that the two types of hatred are completely unrelated? You know, in the same way that hating Jews because of their religion and hating Jews because of their “race” are completely unrelated.

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

There are none so blind…: It’s bad enough that, week in, week out, our national broadcaster is pleased to present its fantasy shill-com, Little Mosque on the Prairie, a show in which the Muslims are benign cuddle bugs forced to put up with “racist” rednecks, especially Christian ones, in their small Saskatchewan town. In a further feat of cluelessness/misdirection, this week’s episode of Ceeb dramatic series The Border dealt with the dire threat of--wait for it--“Nazis” in B.C.

Ooo. Scary.

How do I know about it? Oh, not because I watch it or any other Ceeb series. It’s because occasionally I click on BMFCJC to see what the Ceej’s Grand Poobah has been chirruping to his followers. In a recent tweet, he kvelled about the above-mentioned episode, calling it “an erie lfe imitates reality show on violent neo-Nazi in BC http://tinyurl.com/ylp4es7."

Yeah, I know I’ve sure been losing loads of shut-eye obsessing about B.C. neo-Third Reichers--all, what?, three of them--them and their diabolical “Holocaust” plans.

The only “eerie” thing here is the Ceeb’s (and Bernie’s) worldview, which sees scary Nazis lurking in the shadows, but cannot discern the Islamists standing right out in the open, in the bright light of day.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:01 | link | comments (8)

A no muss, no fuss Halloween costume: What every free-speecher should be wearing this year--the duct tape get-up:

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:12 | link | comments

Where's the "revert"?: The National Post has Part One of a two part series about ex-Bev Giesbrecht. She's the Vancouver chick who "reverted" to Islam, founded a jihad website, ventured alone to darkest Afghanistan, was promptly kidnapped by the Taliban, and whose whereabouts and physical state--is she alive?, dead?--are currently unknown.

I'd say ex-Bev, wherever she is, is a shoe-in for one of those Darwin Awards.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:54 | link | comments

It’s Jenny Lynch’s Flailing Circus: George Jonas comments on Prof. Richard Moon’s desperate bid to save a sinking ship by chucking some dead weight (Section 13) overboard:

Richard Moon is the law professor retained last year by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to write a report about the regulation of "hate speech" on the Internet. He didn't strike people as a libertarian when he got his commission, so he surprised many when he recommended the repeal of Section 13, the controversial "hate speech" provision, from the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The other day, Moon outlined in the Saskatchewan Law Review Annual Lecture how he arrived at his recommendation, leaving little doubt he threw the dead ballast of s. 13 overboard to save the leaky vessel of the CHRC. He reasoned, he said, that speech should be prohibited only if it advocated, threatened or justified violence against an identifiable group, not if it merely defamed or stereotyped it, and that prohibition against preaching violence should come under the Criminal Code, not the Human Rights Act.

"I argued," the professor explained, "that a narrowly drawn ban on hate speech that focuses on expression that is tied to violence does not fit easily or simply into a human rights law that takes an expansive view of discrimination, emphasizes the effect of the action on the victim rather than the intention or misconduct of the actor and employs a process that is designed to engage the parties and facilitate a non-adjudicative resolution of the 'dispute' between them."

Professor Moon mentioned this almost in passing, to get it out of the way, before embarking on a spirited defence of the human rights industry against its critics. I'd like to dwell on his description of human rights law for a moment, though, because it illustrates perfectly why such laws don't fit easily or simply into a free society's system of laws and should be repealed altogether.

A law that takes an "expansive" view of discriminatory conduct based on the subjective feelings of groups selected to be immunized against existential trauma, then bases censure or sanctions against conduct that falls short of this standard, not on what the "actors" had actually done or intended to do, but on the effect their actions may have had on the most hostile or sensitive or vulnerable member of an immunized group, and finally adds insult to injury by describing this arbitrary, coercive and iniquitous process as "a non-adjudicative resolution of a 'dispute,'" turns society into a mixture between Orwell's 1984 and a Monty Python skit...

You had to know this one was coming:

Oh, we’re the Thought Police and we’re okay.

We sleep all night and we search all day.

(They’re the Thought Police and they’re okay.

They sleep all night and they search all day.)

We censor speech, we’re really nice,

We’re full of sanct’mony.

Our dossier is stuffed with rude talk and calumny…

We censor speech, we schmooze like mad

With worldwide counterparts.

We go to lavish confabs where we display our “smarts”…

We censor speech, we sanitize,

We hunt down the “Nazees”

We’re just like Wiesenthal as most everyone agrees…

Oh, we’re the Thought Police and we’re okay.

We sleep all night and we search all day.

(They’re the Thought Police and they’re okay.

They sleep all night and they search all day.)

Update: Later on in his piece, the leaky ship metaphor segues into a Herman Melville metaphor--with these amusing results:

...One of his reasons, said Professor Moon, was that s. 13 "would require extraordinary intervention by the state and would dramatically compromise the public commitment to freedom of expression." No doubt, except that would be more a classical liberal's reason -- say, my reason -- for recommending s. 13's repeal than Professor Moon's. I suspect his recommendation had to do with the CHRC being an open whaling boat about to be swamped by big white whales, and Professor Moon not being Captain Ahab.

When Canada's human rights industry, emboldened by its success with netting small fry -- a teacher here, a preacher there -- set its sights on the big fish swimming in the mainstream media, it opened itself to the risk of running into Moby Dick. As it happened, it ran into a whole school, from Ken Whyte's harpoon-resistant Maclean's magazine to a mix between a whale and a mongoose named Ezra Levant, and of course the world's only cetacean with a sense of humor, Mark Steyn. The biggest whale turned out to be the Internet itself, looming immense, committed solidly to the freedom of the seas. The good ship CHRC was no match against such fish...

Let's all say it together re the good ship CHRC: Thar it blows!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:51 | link | comments

It's a-coming: Israel braces for the all but inevitable war with Iran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:53 | link | comments

Boo!: The great Caroline Glick notes that radical leftists of the J Street and hopeychanger persuasion don’t much care for the free exchange of ideas in the free marketplace of ideas. Given their druthers, they'd like those who don’t happen to share their worldview to simply shut the hell up (my bolds):

…There are six national television networks in the US. Five of them support President Barack Obama. One — Fox News — does not. Rather than rejoice in what is an overwhelmingly favourable state of affairs for it, in recent weeks, the Obama White House has gone to war against Fox News. Obama’s senior advisors have castigated the network as “the research arm of the Republican Party,” and claim daily that it is “not a news organization.”

Obama as well as top administration officials boycott Fox programs and are seeking to intimidate friendly news organizations into joining them in isolating Fox. In a spate of recent statements on the subject, Obama’s top advisors have warned the other networks not to follow Fox’s lead on any of the stories it reports, lest they discover they have allowed themselves to become the tool of the Republicans.

A straight line connects [Brandeis student and anti-Israel activist Jonathan]Sussman’s rants, J Street’s lies and the Obama administration’s attempt to destroy a news organization. In each case, actions aimed at silencing debate are falsely characterized as the brave moves of an underdog seeking to confront the evil powers that be. Sussman writes of the need to overthrow the “oligarchs.” J Street claims to be breaking the “right-wing stranglehold” on US Israel policy. And Obama’s advisor Valerie Jarrett claims that by attacking Fox News, the White House is “speaking truth to power.”

Luckily, the falseness of all of these claims has not been lost on the American public. Despite the actions of the likes of Sussman, “wildly pro-Zionist” voices still resonate on college campuses just as they do throughout the US. J Street has been unable to convince American Jews that its anti-Israel positions are the true expression of American Jewish Zionism. And Obama’s approval ratings now stand at a mere 51 percent.

But the fact that these views have not become dominant in America is no reason to be sanguine about the future. That opponents of free speech today occupy the top echelons of power in Washington and are represented at all levels of American society constitutes a critical challenge to the continued vibrancy of American democracy.

In other words, the hopeychangers hope to change “free speech” into “controlled speech” in what has been the world’s citadel of freedom. If they succeed, well, let’s just say it’ll be like all Jennifer Lynch, all the time. A chilling thought indeed on this All Hallows Eve.

Update: Speaking of "speaking truth to power," as Obama wonk Valerie Jarrett claims to want to do, Mark Steyn cheekily points out that she and her boss are the power. Which means if they have some sort of issue with the way things are unfolding, they need to take it up with themselves.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:44 | link | comments

Even ickier than Anna Nicole Smith and that decrepit billionaire: A Somali man who's 112 (that's his age, not his weight in lbs.) is set to wed a bride aged 17.

Don't tell me--they're going to honeymoon at the rest home and have registered for gifts (Viagra and Cialis, natch) at a Mogadishu pharmacy.

Update: Wahhabi pedophilia, er, I mean "marriage".

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:21 | link | comments

Friday, 30 October 2009

Exactitude, with no wiggle room: The Obama adminstration claims that its stimulus package has "saved or created" 640, 239 jobs.

Not 640, 238 jobs, mind you, nor 640, 240. But precisely, exactly the number cited.

Call me dubioius, but I think the hopeychangers' precision is clear evidence that they haven't a clue as to how many jobs--if any--have been "saved or created" by its multi-trillion dollar Tyrannosaurus Rex of a package.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:43 | link | comments

Who left the dawg out?: Both the gift shop at the hotel where I was staying and a kiosk at Reagan airport had Obama gear galore--he-Obama stuff and she-Obama stuff. (The quickest way to tell the diff between the two: the she-Obama stuff was pink). It occurred to me that Barack and Michelle, unquestionably a good-looking couple, are like the Ken and Barbie of the White House--that is if Ken was a "community organizer" who met Oprah and became a God, and Barbie was a disgruntled lawyer/mom who only became proud of her country once her partner was elected to the highest office.

Personally, my favourite Obama is the one with four paws and a tail. I ask you: where are all the cute Bo souvenirs? A lost marketing opportunity, I'd say.

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

The National Post gets a reprieve: There was talk that one of the dependable voices on Canada's right (mostly, sorta, kinda) was going to cease operation tomorrow, but as it turns out, George Jonas, Robert Fulford, Jonathan Kay and the rest will get to rage for another day.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:54 | link | comments

Gee Officer Lynch, ma’am, krup you: On Sunday, the day before I traveled to Washington, I was in Stratford, Ontario, watching West Side Story. While the film version of the musical is familiar--I know all the songs off by heart--this was the first time I’ve seen a full scale stage production. (We put in on once at my Zionist summer camp, but I don’t think that counts.) Compared to the movie, the play’s language and song lyrics are uglier, rawer (I think--I haven’t seen the movie for quite a while). Granted it was written in an era that, in retrospect, was refreshingly free of political correctness. But as I watched the racial epithets flying fast and furiously in these politically correct times it was, frankly, a little shocking. I kept looking over my shoulder, half expecting a contingent of Jennifer’s or Babsy’s thought police to burst through the door and shut the thing down. How is it, thought I to myself, that at a time when the “n” word can get To Kill a Mockingbird axed from the public High School curriculum, actors impersonating 50s gang members get to hurl “mick” and “spic” and “wop” and no one seems to mind?

Could it be because, in true sensitive muliticulti Canucki fashion, the “Jets” in this production are all visibly whitebread, but the “Sharks,” who are supposed to be Hispanic, Puerto Rican specifically, have been cast from a broad strata of visible minorities? Aside from Bernardo, Maria’s brother and the Sharks leader, none of the other Sharks appeared to have a Hispanic provenance. The guy who played Chino, for example, appeared to be Cambodian. Not that I have anything against giving a Cambodian guy a gig at Stratford, but purely from the standpoint of verisimilitude, asking the audience to buy a Cambodian in the role of a Puerto Rican is putting rather too large an encumbrance on one’s ability to suspend disbelief, don't you think?

My sense is that no one much cares if racist epithets are flung about, as long as the epithet isn't the the one that figures in the Harper Lee novel. My theory is borne out by a previous dust up involving the “n” word, one surrounding a Toronto-based revival of Showboat.

The distraction of the decidedly un-Hispanic-looking Sharks aside, it was an excellent production with superb singing and dancing. Still, I had to work hard to not to giggle at the idea of “tough” gang members making like finalists on So You Think You Can Dance. Also, the plot contrivances whereby Tony and Maria meet, fall desperately in love, pledge their eternal trough in a “pretend” marriage and Tony gets killed, and everything happens in the space of--what?--a day and a half, two days tops?, are kind of hard to buy, even if it is based on the play by that Elizabethan chap. Mind you, the Stephen Sondheim lyrics, especially the funny ones (Gee, Officer Krupke; America) hold up very well.

Update: Younger Jews turn the "Z" word into an epithet.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:55 | link | comments (5)

The whistle-blower: Don't miss Nick Cohen's piece in Standpoint about the guy who blew the whistle on the British Foreign Office, which supports the Islamist agenda at the expense of freedom. It's a sobering, thrilling tale about one brave individual's attempt to apply the history lesson that goes "do nothing, and you, a good man, will hand a victory to evil."

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

Romancing the (hearts of) stone thugs: Canada’s CSIS chief lambastes the Left for its ongoing love affair with “romantic” murderers:

The head of Canada's spy agency says terror suspects are too often portrayed as romantic revolutionaries.

Richard Fadden, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, chastised the country's civil-rights advocates and media yesterday, accusing them of presenting a distorted picture of the threat alleged extremists pose.

"Many of our opinion leaders have come to see the fight against terrorism not as defending democracy and our values but as attacking them. Almost any attempt to fight terrorism by the government is portrayed as an over-reaction or as an assault on liberty," he told a gathering of academics and security officials.

Fadden, a long-time bureaucrat, took over as CSIS director in late June.

Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International's Canadian chapter, responded that human rights organizations fully understand the critical importance of government acting to protect citizens from terrorism and other horrifying human rights abuses.

"Defending the human rights of individuals accused of terrorism is not about standing up for terrorism or romanticizing terrorism. It is about standing up for human rights, plain and simple," said Neve.

Not so simple, Neve, since in our time “human rights” aren’t about “human rights” at all, but are really a smokescreen behind which lurk Islamists and their useful Leftist idiots angling for power and control.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:28 | link | comments

Notes from the Resistance: While some Canadian proponents of state thought control--Jennifer, Richard, Bernie etc.--were defending their warped notions about the need to “balance” free speech with offensive speech as a means of sparing “vulnerable” people’s precious feelings (“feelings” and not freedom being these proponents’ be-all and end-all), I was off to Washington to attend the International Legal Conference on Freedom of Speech & Religion. The experience of being in the U.S. capital for the first time (at conference held right inside the U.S. Capitol Building compound, no less), of meeting delegates and speakers from the EU, the U.S. and Canada who are passionate about the cause of free speech, of taking part in an intensive, two-day event, was so heady, so exhilarating, that I’m still reeling from it. What follows are my first thoughts and impressions, which at the moment are still a bit scattered, but which I shall endeavour to collect as I write.

1) Washington

I arrived Monday afternoon, the day before the conference, and had only a few hours to see what sites I could. Luckily, the hotel was but a short hike to Capitol Hill, so that’s where I headed. The day was mild and sunny, and I was warmed--inspired--by sights I had previously seen only in pictures. What struck me right off the bat was the stark contrast between the two landmarks at the opposite ends of the National Mall. At one end: the Capitol building, immense, grand, elegant, elaborately and intricately decorated, a symbol of freedom capped by a dome and splayed out horizontally. At the other end: the Washington Monument: spare, unadorned, a symbol of freedom reaching straight up, up into the sky. (Were I of a Freudian bent, I might remark that the Capitol is female and the Washington Monument is male, an observation which no doubt has occurred to many others. But since I’m not, all I’ll say is: Wow. And Wow.)

On either side of the Mall: the famous museums which, amazingly, one can visit free of charge. Since my time was limited, I picked the one closest to my heart, the National Gallery (bet you didn’t know that in a previous life I was an art history obsessive), and spent a blissful couple of hours examining the masterworks. (To those who may be wondering: no, I did not visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum. With so little time to spare, I opted to take in the best, not the worst, of which mankind is capable.)

By that time, the museums were getting set to close, but because it was such a nice day I decided to take a different, longer route back to the hotel. Suddenly, I happened upon the Newseum, a punningly-named institution whose bailiwick I trust is self-evident. And there it was on the front of the building in big black letters:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Mega-wow. You won’t find words to that effect on the front of any Canadian building--or anywhere else on the planet, for that matter. Once again, I was literally stopped dead in my tracks, gobsmacked this time not by the beauty and immensity of a monument, but by the beauty and immensity of an idea. The idea. The one that underpins and shores up American freedom. The one that’s under assault by Americans (including President Obama) who, for a number of reasons, don’t fully appreciate it, and by those around the world, many of them Islamists and the leftists who are the Islamists’ useful suck-ups, all of whom are doing their damndest to, in effect, squelch free speech and efface those words--from the wall, and from the hearts and minds of freedom-lovers. Which leads me to, and in fact is a perfect segue for…

2) The conference. It was held in the Congressional Auditorium, inside the U.S. Capitol Visitor’s Center. (According to Frank Gaffney, whose organization, the Center for Security Policy, was one of the event’s sponsors, and who writes about the event here, the auditorium is brand new.) It was a large, though not huge, space. And while the subject is so critical the survival of Western civilization that one wishes there had been a warm body in each and every seat, sadly, that was not the case. However, most of those who were there--I didn’t do a head count, but I’d roughly estimate it at between 100 and 125--were true die-hards, individuals from various parts of the world who are so fired up about free speech that it was clear they could almost not not attend. The first day was devoted to free speech; the second to freedom of religion. Both days featured panel discussions and addresses by featured individuals, including several American politicians, a member of the U.K. House of Lords and a Danish representative to the EU Parliament. I won’t go into the ins and outs of each panel, several of which delved into legal minutia (well, it was a legal conference). Suffice it to say (at least for now--I may go into the nitty-gritty later) that one could take away three broad messages:

· In every part of the free world, free speech is under grave threat. In the U.S., blessed by a First Amendment and Founding Fathers who were committed to individual liberty and who knew how, given the opportunity, government would be tempted to trounce on it and/or claw it back, the flame of free speech is flickering: On the domestic front, the grotesquely misnamed “Fairness Doctrine” (dead in the water for now but soon to be revived under a more “palatable” name) and a government regulation calling for “diversity” in radio programming all but means curtains for “rude” right-wing radio; in the international arena, the hopeychangers have signed on to the internationalists’ anti-blasphemy agenda--a freedom killer if there ever was one. Both efforts seek to circumvent--indeed, to subvert--First Amendment protections.

In Canada, which has no First Amendment, but which has a piece of paper outlining our so-called “rights and freedoms”, a document that places an asterisk beside the line about free speech, the flame is even fainter: Our “human rights” system, a true abomination through and through, harasses certain individuals--mostly Christians and “Nazis”--whose words have been deemed “offensive”; and decades of imbibing the multicultural bilge which, since the 1970s our body politic has been awash in, has turned Canadians’ minds to mush. Then there’s that business about “balancing”--as if free expression were a see-saw. As far as I can tell, that’s a purely Canadian construct, since no else even seems to be talking about it.

In Europe, where reveries about how Utopia can come to pass once individual nations devote themselves to self-abnegation and blending in to the Great European Continent, free speech is all but extinguished. It exists in pockets--most notably in Denmark, home of the infamous Motoons, that test-case of Western freedom; in the Netherlands, home of Geert Wilders, who dares to reveal unpleasant truths about Islam; in the ruder ranks of Fleet Street. For the most part, though, Europeans--EUnuchs--have gelded themselves and handed their cojones on a silver platter to the Islamists. It is no exaggeration to say that, once Islam entered the scene, deference to “political correctness” very quickly became deference to Islam--i.e. dhimmitude-- and the continent on which the Magna Carta was written and the Reformation and Renaissance took place is becoming a little darker--Dar al Islam darker--each day.

· In the free world, especially in the EU, religious freedom, especially of Christians but also of Jews and other non-Muslims, is under grave threat. A cautionary tale was offered by Andrea Williams. A barrister in the U.K., Andrea is the director of an organization that offers pro bono legal help for Christians who have gotten into trouble with their employers for daring to empress some aspect, no matter how anodyne, on the job. For instance, it represented a National Health Care nurse who visited people in their homes. During the course of a visit with a patient who was failing, the nurse asked--and this is the sum of what she asked--if the patient would like her to pray for well. That one question, made not with any ulterior motive of “converting” the patient but purely out of compassion, caused the axe to fall on the nurse’s head. She was dismissed from her duties, and even though she has since been reinstated, her co-workers now turn their backs on her, and she is treated like a pariah. This in a country where Muslim women who work for the government are free to wear hijabs, a symbol of their religion, but Christian women cannot, say, wear a small cross, a symbol of their religion. The government has told these women that if they do feel the need to wear a cross, it must be pinned inside their garment, where no one can see it. God Save the Queen? Okey-dokey, but only if that God is Allah.

· The eclipse of free speech and religious freedom and the ascendance of sharia go hand-in-hand. Well, I didn’t have to go to a conference to learn that one. All I had to do was read the collected oeuvre of Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom, both of whom appeared at the conference. (They were on a panel moderated by blogger Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs fame. The discussion centered around the awful story of Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old Muslim girl living in Ohio who converted to Christianity. Knowing that the punishment for her apostasy was death, Rifqa fled to Florida. A Florida judge, who knew nothing about sharia, ruled that she should be returned to her home state, and saw no reason why she could not be returned to her parents--a ruling that amounts to a death sentence. Shockingly and disgustingly, the media, which doesn’t much care for Christianity and can’t seem to wrap its collective noggins around the concept of “apostasy” in the sharia sense of the word, have consistently depicted Rifqa as the villain of the piece. Pamela, a force of nature and a chick you do not want to mess with, is trying to rally people to save Rifqa. You can read about it here.)

· Like it or not, the fight to save free speech and religious freedom has become a “right” fight. I don’t like it--since freedom is not a right or a left thing, but a Western civilization thing. And there are some signs in Canada and the U.S. that there are those on the left who do realize this--for example, networks coming to the defence of FOX, under attack by the Obama administration for failing to toe the hopeychange line. Nonetheless and by and large, the people who are on the ramparts fighting for these freedoms come from the right end of the political spectrum. The reason for that is obvious. They are often profoundly religious people whose can see that religious freedom is being imperilled. Because they believe in God, they are highly are unlikely to fall for the secularist/Islamist God--UN Utopianism/internationalism/pacifism and all suchlike feel-good pap that is paving our road to Hell. People on the right also tend to know a lot more about Islam--not the squishy John Esposito/Karen Armstrong-type apologias for Islam, but the rigorous scholarship of Robert Spencer, Bernard Lewis, Andrew Bostom and others. One might also observe that this is a fight of the political right: all the politicians who spoke at the conference were of and on the right --the English Lord, the Dane who’s an EU Parliament member, and the five Republican American politicians (three Congressmen, one Senator, and the majority leader of a state house of representatives--all, as it turns out, from the Southern U.S.) Where were the Lefties? To afraid to stray from the hopeychanger ranks. Sitting in a room somewhere singing “Imagine,” “We Are the World” and “Kumbaya”. “Building bridges” and “reaching out” to people who are laughing--laughing!--at their sheer imbecility.

3) The speakers. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the incredible, remarkable, astonishing, amazing (okay, adjective overload, but that doesn’t mean that every single one isn’t well-deserved) speakers. So smart. So committed to freedom. So, well, nice (and you thought “nice” was a left-wing thing.) Aside from the ones I have already mentioned, there are four I would single out:

· Diana West--a hero of mine. I first met her in the Ladies Room before the conference got underway, and gushed--a bit too much, I fear, with admiration for her work. The first day, she appeared on the Frank Gaffney-moderated panel about limits on free speech the first day. The second, she gave a solo address about how Yale University--her alma mater--had sold its soul and sold out free speech (it refused to print the Danish ‘toons in a book about the Danish ‘toons) when it got in line for some of the Oily sheiks’ shekels. As Diana explained, money corrupts, and Arab oil money corrupts by turning university administrators into dhimmis.

· Morten Messerschmidt. He’s the Dane who sits in the EU parliament. Young, tall, blonde, very good looking (Kathy Shaidle, who I was sitting beside, remarked that he looked like the sort of fellow who would sing “Eidelweiss”), he gave an impassioned address about how Europeans have stupidly handed over their free speech to a cadre of “human rights” apparatchiks based in Strasbourg (the equivalent of Canada’s CHRC, I suppose). They are the ones who are empowered on the continent which gave the world Locke and Voltaire and Kant and Spinoza to decide which speech is and isn’t acceptable. And as in Canada, the speech that is acceptable is sharia-inspired hate speech directed at infidels, and the speech that isn’t acceptable is usually speech by Christians, whose religious beliefs clash with secularist political correctness. (It seems not to penetrate the hyper-saturated brains of these appartatchiks, multiculti relativists the lot of them, that the “victim” group whose “feelings” they are endeavouring so mightily to spare subscribe to some pretty politically incorrect beliefs themselves. Or maybe it has gotten through to some but they are either too scared or too desirous of holding onto their cushy jobs and remaining members in good standing of the “human rights” community to admit it.)

· Lord Malcolm Pearson. Lord Pearson is the peer who tried--but, alas, failed--to get Geert Wilders to speak to the House of Lords. (Here’s the speech he would have given, had he had the chance.)

· Congressman Tom Rooney. A first term congressman from Florida, Rooney has been on the job for only ten months and retains a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington vibe I found particularly engaging. Not that he’s a naïve hick from the sticks or anything, only that because he’s so new he has yet to become entrenched in Congress’s old boy’s/girl’s club, and is therefore willing to speak openly and plainly. It’s because of Congressman Rooney that the conference was held in the Congressional Auditorium, since his signature made it possible.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:01 | link | comments (5)

Monday, 26 October 2009

FYI: I'm taking a break from blogging until Thursday. Ta ta til then.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:48 | link | comments (1)

Sunday, 25 October 2009

The nutjobs are revolting (in more ways than one): "Clashes erupt at Temple Mount after 'Jewish conquest' rumour"--timesoneline

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:03 | link | comments

The “lesson” of balloon boy: One of the expressions that has gained sudden currency is “teachable moment(s)”--and I for one would like to put a stop to it right now. If there’s a lesson to be gained from anything, can’t we just call it a lesson? And can’t we also say that the lesson to be gleaned and taught to our impressionable youn’uns re the "balloon boy" episode isn’t the one being floated like a leaky mylar balloon in this piece?:

Many Fort Collins parents are using a story filled with drama and deceit to teach their children about the perils of lying.

Richard and Mayumi Heene made global headlines Oct. 15 after they reported their 6-year-old son, Falcon, was adrift in a homemade balloon. After the boy was found hiding in the attic, the Heenes came under deep scrutiny for allegedly having set up a hoax that had officers from Larimer, Weld and Adams counties, as well as members of the National Guard, searching for the now-notorious "balloon boy."

The Larimer County Sheriff's Office said it will pursue criminal charges against the parents, and a court document released Friday said Mayumi Heene confessed that the couple staged "balloon boy's" disappearance from their Fort Collins home.

For parents, the most serious lesson from the Heene incident is the importance of telling the truth.

"Don't lie, period," said Shelby Schilling, a parent at Werner Elementary School. She said teaching her children to be honest is the most basic rule of parenting, and it shouldn't take any media attention to remind parents to teach that to their children…

Well, that is a good lesson, but it’s not the only one I take away from the episode and would teach to my child. I see the bigger lesson here as being this: Don’t be such an idiot/publicity hog that your life becomes consumed by an obsessive search to find some angle that will capture the media’s attention by hook or by crook (mostly by crook, in this case).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:28 | link | comments

Bernie's tweet: The CJC honcho tweets the following message to all his twitter critters: "Dr. Richard Moon speaks out against uncivil debate engaged in by some on Section 13 http://tinyurl.com/yggsk34 Good for him"

His definition of "uncivil" debate: any "debate" that targets Section 13, his precious (but worthless) security blankie. Shame on him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:50 | link | comments (1)

Jennifer's "sting": Here's a song in "honour" of an upcoming appearance by a key member of Canada's thought police:

Though she’s tried before to tell us

How she wants to root out “hate” from all our hearts.

Free expression’s a nice concept

But one’s “feelings” are more vital in these parts.

Every little thing she says is bollocks.

Everything she say is such a crock.

Turn us into raving alcoholics

Just to drown out all her foolish talk.

Does she have to tell the M.P.s

Of her dossier of stuff so raw and rude?

It’s a big enough container

But it's always us who end up gettin’ screwed.

Every little thing she says is bollocks.
Everything she say is such a crock.
Turn us into raving alcoholics
Just to drown out all her foolish talk.

She’s resolved to take a stand.

Protect her sinecure.

Her intentions are the best;

Her motives are so pure.

Though the frothers keep on frothin’

Sayin’ censorship’s a bust.

Like a moth drawn to an open flame

Must she immolate? She must!

Every little thing she says is bollocks.

Everything she say is such a crock.

Turn us into raving alcoholics

Just to drown out all her foolish talk...

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:31 | link | comments

Saturday, 24 October 2009

America alone--again?: Global hysteria about climate change shows no sigh of abating, but in the U.S. there are indications that it may be wearing off.

Time for the Goracle to make another scary doc about melting ice caps and endangered white ursines.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:25 | link | comments

Harvard’s contribution to the dumbing down of lit-crit: I enjoyed reading this New Criterion rant about A New Literary History of America, a book edited by Rolling Stone Magazine hack Greil Marcus under the august imprimatur of Harvard University Press. The book has only the most glancing connection to “literature”--great writing by great writers. It is far more concerned with history and pop-cult ephemera, which has been inflated to hyper-importance by intellectual poseurs (no latter-day Lionel Trillings, they) who are literary nincompoops but politically "progressive". Here’s a taste of the rant:

…It is difficult to communicate the global awfulness of the book, the pretension mixed with smarmy demotic knowingness, the preposterous glorification of pop culture, the constant deflation of serious cultural achievement by means of sociological analysis. Perhaps the first thing that should be understood is that, despite its title, A New Literary History of America is only incidentally concerned with literature. A fair percentage of its approximately 200 chronologically arranged entries purports to deal with literary texts or figures. But the whole focus, the whole tone and gestalt, of the book is on extra-literary phenomena. An entry for 1982 is devoted to explaining how “Hip-hop travels the world”: “Perhaps hip-hop’s greatest contribution is the ease with which it inhabits contradiction.” It is hard to argue with that. The entry for “1956, April 16” dilates on the significance—Oh, what great significance it is said to possess!—of Chuck Berry’s pop song “Roll Over Beethoven.” An entry for 1970 is devoted to the porn star Linda Lovelace (she of Deep Throat). And so on. Nineteen-thirty-eight saw the introduction by Action Comics of Superman. In 1945, “Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie record together for the first time.” Another entry for 1945 is devoted to the atom bomb. The tagline: “Nobody apologized, nobody atoned.”…

The same might be said of the moral relativists who contributed to this alleged work of scholarship.

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

The censors come roaring back: I won’t be able to catch Jennifer Lynch and Professor Richard Moon testify on Monday in front of the parliamentary committee that has already heard from Steyn and Levant: I’ll be en route to a conference in Washington about free speech. But from the links Mark has posted on his site today, and from previous knowledge of what makes Jen ‘n’ Dick tick, I have no doubt both with back the retention of Canada’s surreal “justice” system, the one that is grounded in Marxist mumbo-jumbo and not eight centuries of English Common Law (and is thus a farce and an embarrassment of historic proportions). Prof. Moon is the gent who was commissioned by the Jen’s commission to look into state censorship--Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act--and who shocked everyone on both sides of the debate when he recommended that the section be removed forthwith. He’s been striving to re-establish his bona fides with his landsman in the human rights biz ever since, and does so yet again in a long snoozapalooza of a piece in the National Post, a preview, no doubt, of his upcoming testimony. (In case you don’t feel like tackling it, here’s a synopsis: While Moon still thinks Sec. One Three should be revoked--oh, not because he’s against censorship per se, but because he doesn’t think it can do what it’s supposed to, i.e. “censor” the Internet--he remains a steadfast supporter of the “human rights” system. He is highly critical of Steyn and Levant and others, who are “spinning” the issue (It apparently doesn’t occur to the prof that he and Jen and their gang “spin” just as vigorously--only in the opposite direction). And he doesn’t like the tenor of the debate--or even the fact that there is a debate--and would prefer that we all knock it off and allow the “human rights” bunch to get back to the critical work of ridding their domain of “discrimination”.

Well, what did you expect him to say?

Another chap who has absolutely nothing new to add to the discussion but who can always be counted on to add his two cents worth because he likes hearing the sound of his own voice so much: Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Unlike Prof. Moon, Bernie remains convinced Section 13 must remain in place. Otherwise, Jews and other “vulnerable” minorities remain at risk from scary Aryans of the Third Reich ilk. Here’s what Bernie has to say, ironically, to Capitol News Online, another Steyn link (ironic not because of his words, but because Bernie and the other Official Jews want to lasso the Web and scrub it clean of unacceptable chatter--you know, like they do in China):

Supporters of keeping the provision, such as Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, say it’s a necessary limit on free speech because the intent is to curb discrimination.

“Don’t throw it out,” says Farber.

He points to a 1990 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that upheld Section 13 as a justified limit on expression. The decision was in response to an appeal of a lower court ruling that found John Ross Taylor of the Western Guard Party in contravention for having pre-recorded hate messages on an answering machine…

Farber wants a fix instead of a repeal because keeping hate speech in civil law actually softens the blow for offenders.

“Civil remedies are far better than the criminal,” says Farber, because the civil order is to cease and desist with a potential fine whereas “a criminal finding leaves you with a record for the rest of your life.”

So as I understand it, Bernie prefers the “civil” route because…he doesn’t want the likes of John Ross Taylor and his roto-dial-up hate line (how quaint it all seems today) to be saddled with a criminal record? M’kay. You would think that's exactly what Bernie would want him to have, Taylor's being a hateful "Nazi" and all. More likely Bernie doesn’t want to give up Section 13, his threadbare security blankie, because of how it’s set up to favour the complainant (otherwise known as the “victim”), and how it has dispensed with such encumbrances as truth as a defence, fair comment, regular rules of evidence, burden of proof and other stuff that tends to get cases like John Ross Taylor’s thrown out of a real criminal court that has real rules. And that, oh yeah, how it picks up the legal tab for the person doing the kvetching, but not the person being kvetched about, who may also have to endure years of hounding and harassment from “human rights” apparatchiks until the case if finally wrapped up, the process, as Ezra Levant has correctly pointed out, being part and parcel of the punishment.

Meanwhile, of course, neither the criminal nor the civil remedies afford protection from real hate speech being spewed every day by Muslim Jew-haters--in mosques, on university campuses and on the Internet; speech that authorities, for reasons that should be painfully obvious to the Jews, have no intention of doing anything about. Which makes Bernie and Co.’s willingness to torch free speech--the first freedom; the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible--for the sake of the illusion of security all the more short-sighted, delusional and pathetic.

Also shameful. Very, very shameful.

That said, while Ezra may remain optimist that we’re making headway in the free speech debate (Ezra being an incurable optimist), my read of it is far less sanguine. I hope I’m wrong, but I (an inveterate pessimist) predict that the parliamentarians may decide to tinker a bit with Section 13, but that when the dust has settled, state censorship will still be a go, and the human rights industry will be reinvigorated by the failure of will of politicos across the spectrum to roll up their sleeves and make the changes that are necessary to ensure that Canada is and can remain free.

Update: The National Post’s Joseph Brean takes a stab at explicating Professor Richard Moon’s ~~attempt to get back into the good graces of the “human rights” industry~~ thinking about “hate speech,” HRCs and the “froth” of the cranky “right-wing”:

…"Searching neo-Nazi websites for hate speech and engaging with individuals on those sites to determine their identity involves ethical challenges that should not be dealt with by private citizens," Prof. Moon writes.

He did not mean that human rights commissions are corrupt star-chambers or kangaroo courts full of illiberal censors and fuzzy-headed social engineers who should all be fired, but his advice seemed harmonious with that popular right-wing conception.

As the issue grew in prominence, due in large part to Mr. Levant's summer publicity tour for his book Shakedown, Prof. Moon has seen his nuance lost in the froth of a campaign that, he says, "encourages the fragmentation of the civic audience into insular ideological communities that are unable to engage with each other."

He takes issue with the coverage of everyone from Rex Murphy, to CBC Radio's The Current, to the National Post editorial board, charging that the media gave too much latitude to critics such as Mr. Levant.

His written comments to the Commons committee -- first delivered this week as a lecture at the University of Saskatchewan, to be published in fuller form in the Saskatchewan Law Review -- are supplementary to Monday's testimony about the legal context.

But they are sure to invigorate a campaign that has a tendency to smack down its critics -- even, maybe, its heroes -- as publicly and personally as possible…

I must admit that, initially, I was as confused by Brean’s “spin” as I was by Moon’s statement about societal “fragmentation”. The word “froth” seemed to suggest that Brean was seeing things as Moon does, but after reading the above a few times, I concluded that he was really just describing things as Moons sees them. Maybe. I think. And I don’t know about Brean, but I found Moon’s “fragmentation" blather to be utterly--albeit unintentionally--hilarious: Who but a member of the “human rights” establishment would even speak like that and make an easily comprehended idea about divisions within society unnecessarily abstruse in order to show how goshdarned “smart” he is?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:15 | link | comments (8)

Friday, 23 October 2009

Saul’s game plan: David Horowitz fundraises by pointing out the disturbing connection between Barack Obama and radical anti-American “revolutionary” Saul Alinsky. As always on such occasions, I feel a song coming on, in this instance the one by the only American vice president to write a hit song and win a Nobel Peace Prize--top that, Barack:

Many a tear has to fall--

That was Alinsky’s game.

All in the terrible game

That we know as pow’r.

You will “organize”.

Show the people that you’re wise.

And these things will effect your very rise.

Once in a while they will balk

At your talk--but stay firm.

Soon you are bound to prevail.

You won’t fail, make ‘em squirm.

And you’ll gain control.
And your future’s on a roll.
And your rivals will fly away…

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

Verboten in Venezuela: Here’s the latest zany edict from Mahmoud’s compadre Hu:

Hugo Chavez is telling Venezuelans to limit their showers to three minutes, because they are "not in times of Jacuzzi," the Daily Mail reported.

“Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour," the country's president said during a televised cabinet meeting. "No kids, three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink."

Low rainfall caused by El Nino means water levels were at critically low levels.

"If you are going to lie back, in the bath, with the soap and you turn on the what's it called, the Jacuzzi ... imagine that, what kind of communism is that? We're not in times of Jacuzzi,' he said.

The three-minute show was part of energy-saving measures Chavez announced.

To recap: there are no jokes in Islam and no songs in Venezuelan bathrooms.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:40 | link | comments (2)

The old Law & Order: Last night I happened to catch a rerun of a Law & Order SVU episode. From the way the characters looked, and from their hair (Richard Belzer’s, which is now salt and pepper, had no grey; Mariska Hargitay’s was very short) I could tell that it dated from sometime early on in the show’s history. Here’s a brief synopsis:

When the daughter of an Afghan diplomat is found brutally beaten with evidence of sexual assault, Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) find that her family had already disowned her for attempting to assimilate into Western society. As the detectives learn of the ancient practice of "honor killing," they wonder if the politically charged family could be motivated enough to end their defiant daughter's life…

The other way I could tell it was a really old show is that it dealt with the issue of “honour killing” as if it were introducing a concept that would have been completely unfamiliar to the audience. And it did so in a way that was so startling, so unconcerned with political correctness and the possibility of treading on Islamic “sensitivities,” that I said to my husband, “This must have been made before 9/11.” Turned out I was right--the credits dated it from 2000. (Afterward I checked online, where I found the episode description--it was the second episode of the second season.)

I highly doubt this episode would have been made today. Watching it was a shocking reminder of how much things have changed--on TV and in real life--from a mere nine years ago.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:28 | link | comments

The newest member of the “Human Rights” World Order: The great thing about having a “human rights” racket in your own backyard is that it allows you to be part of the amiable fraternity of global human rights bodies without necessarily having to bother with all the messy business of vouchsafing genuine human rights; in places like Saudi Arabia and Canada, in fact, “human rights” aren’t about “human rights” at all, but have become a way of controlling “offensive” thought, speech and behaviour. Given the perks associated with the industry--lavish conferences in exotic settings; the respect of your peers and those who genuflect before the Great God of “Rights” (or to Allah); power--one can well understand why people would be eager to get in on the action, like these folks in an AP report:

CHA-AM, Thailand — Southeast Asian nations inaugurated a human rights commission Friday which was immediately blasted by representatives of civil society organizations who walked out of a meeting to protest being cold-shouldered by five regional regimes.

The annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations earlier began inauspiciously when half the bloc's 10 leaders failed to show up at the opening of the three-day conference due to a tropical storm, domestic politics, a VIP visit and a possible illness.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is hosting an official visit by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Indonesia is swearing in a new government and Malaysia's government was presenting its budget to Parliament, said Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was running late due to Typhoon Lupit, the third storm in a month due to hit the Philippines, her spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo said.

Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah was in Cha-am but didn't show up at the opening ceremony amid reports that he was not feeling well.

One of the first orders of business was the inauguration of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights which critics say will do little to deter human rights violators like ASEAN member Myanmar because it imposes no punishments and focuses on promotion rather than protection of human rights.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called the move "a significant milestone in the evolution of ASEAN." It is the first human rights watchdog in the bloc's 42-year history.

"The issue of human rights is not about condemnation but about awareness," he said.

But he acknowledged the shortcomings of the commission, calling it an "evolutionary process toward strengthening the human rights architecture in the region."

A shadow was immediately cast over the body when the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and the Philippines rejected members of civil society groups from their respective countries they had been scheduled to meet, said Debbie Stothard of The ASEAN People's Forum, an umbrella group of non-governmental organizations.

The governments said they would not take part in the dialogue if the five activists were present, she said. Instead, Singapore and Myanmar flew in substitutes from government-sponsored agencies, with Myanmar including a former high-ranking police officer, Stothard said.

When the meeting took place without the original civil society representatives, those from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia walked out in protest.

"It is a big shame to our dreams for genuine democracy in the region. It's like all of the human rights of the people in this region have been violated," said Sister Crescenia L. Lucero, a leading human rights advocate and Roman Catholic nun who was to have represented the Philippines at the dialogue.

"It does not bode well for the human rights commission. ASEAN has lost credibility," Stothard said…

Indeed, it bodes quite ill. Not that that’s ever stopped a human rights commission from paying lip service to human rights as it gets on with the task at hand--controlling and directing people, whether they like it or not.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:51 | link | comments

Thursday, 22 October 2009

Iggy before and after: When Mark Steyn appeared before a parliamentary committee looking into Section 13, the “hate speech”/censorship component of Canada’s Human Rights Act, he quoted this thrilling statement about free speech.

Collective rights without individual ones end up in tyranny. Moreover, rights inflation--the tendency to define anything desirable as a right--ends up eroding the legitimacy of a defensible core of rights.

The right to freedom of speech is not, as the Marxist tradition maintained, a lapidary bourgeois luxury, but the precondition for having any other rights at all...

What made these words even more thrilling is that they were written by Michael Ignatieff back in the days when he was an intellectual gadfly and author of profound books. Those days are long gone, of course, and the Iggy of today, the Iggy who helms the Liberal Party of Canada, the Iggy who’s looking to amass all the votes he can so he can throw the Harper Tories out of office and return the country to its default setting--that Iggy would never dare say anything so bold, so bald, so “out there”. That Iggy, would think, and hem, and haw, and hesitate before he spoke. Would temper his words to suit the temper of the times. Would be far more “gentle” and far less assertive. Would, in fact, write this:

…All legislation that seeks to protect human rights must seek balance between competing rights, like freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

While we recognize that s. 13, as it is, may not strike the perfect balance, we do not believe that scrapping it entirely is the way to make a positive change. We do believe that we must continue to look into the right way to strike that balance and will continue to study this act…

The word that should--and does--set off alarm bells is “balance”. Anytime anyone uses the word “balance” in a discussion about free speech, you can be certain that that person has already made up his/her mind that free speech is far less important than keeping certain people--leftists, Muslims, members of other “victim groups,” etc.--happy.

It got me to thinking about the weird alchemy that had taken place in the mind of Michael Ignatieff such that b.L.l., before Liberal leadership, he was an unequivocal advocate of free speech and a.L.l., after Liberal leadership, he turned into such a mealy-mouthed "balancer". And then I thought: what if I revised the words of some other famous men on that basis? And so I did:

Jesus b.L.l.: The truth shall set you free.

Jesus a.L.l.: The truth shall set you free--except at a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing, where the truth is no defence, and you’re usually guilty before you even step through the door.

Patrick Henry b.L.l.: Give me liberty or give me death.

Patrick Henry a.L.l.: Give me liberty--or give me liberty “balanced” with taxation sans representation.

Winston Churchill b.L.l.: When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber

Winston Churchill a.L.l.: When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to
jabber--but we welcome the voices of “diverse” fowl here in our multicultural aviary.

William Shakespeare b.L.l.: Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

William Shakespeare a.L.l.: Cowards die many times before their deaths; There’s always room for them in the Liberal party.

George Washington b.L.l.: If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

George Washington a.L.l.: If the freedom of speech is taken away, it’s no biggie.

Salman Rushdie b.L.l.: Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

Salman Rushdie a.L.l.: Free speech isn’t the whole thing, the whole ball game. “Feelings” are.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus b.L.l.: Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus a.L.l.: Be silent.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:28 | link | comments (2)

B.C. chick throws hissy fit: A B.C. feminist/"human rights" old-timer is p.o’d at our sexist, male chauvinist pig of a prime minister (her sentiments, not mine) whom she accuses of setting back the feminist cause. From the Georgia Straight (a venerable lefty rag; the “Straight” doesn’t refer to the paper’s sexual preferences, but is a play on the Strait of Georgia that separates mainland B.C. and Vancouver Island):

Stephen Harper is the most “sexist and antiwoman” prime minister that this country has seen in the past 50 years, according to Vancouver feminist and human-rights activist Shelagh Day. “In my view, this is a particularly bad time,” Day told the Straight in an interview at a Cambie Street coffee shop. “I’ve never seen government in Canada as bad as they are now.”

Since taking power in 2006, the Harper government has scrapped plans for a national child-care program and eliminated the Court Challenges Program—a national nonprofit organization set up in 1994 to provide financial assistance to those mounting court cases that challenge federal laws and policies that violate a person or group’s constitutional equality rights. Day noted that Conservative MPs also attacked women’s reproductive rights by supporting Bill C-484, which would have made it an offence to “injure, cause the death of or attempt to cause the death of a child before or during its birth while committing or attempting to commit an offence against the mother” under the Criminal Code. In addition, his government axed jobs at Status of Women Canada and removed the word equality from its mandate.

“Sometimes I think prime ministers do a lot of antiwomen things, but it’s somehow less overt,” Day said. “This one [Harper], I’d say, is pretty clearly antiwomen. Some of the attacks he’s made on programs and services that are vital to women are astounding.”

Day, who served as B.C.’s first human-rights officer in 1973, believes government should play an integral part in creating a balanced playing field for women. She says the recent federal budget exemplifies blatant sexism, asserting that a disproportionate amount of funding was allocated to male-dominated sectors such as construction.

“Fine, you’re going to solve the recession; why not put money into soft infrastructure instead?” she asked. “Why isn’t this a time to put money into jobs in daycare or health care? I think the whole question of how government spends money is increasingly important. The issue of human rights is about putting rights and money together. That’s essential to solving the problem of inequality.”

Day said the word feminist has been stigmatized, and that women who call themselves feminists are ostracized. She said this has created a hostile environment in which young women aren’t given the opportunity to understand that being a feminist means “believing in themselves and recognizing that they hold up half the sky”…

If the word “feminist” has been stigmatized--and I don’t really think it has been--it’s because “feminists” like Ms. Day make ridiculous claims, use silly metaphors about humans holding up the sky, and foolishly divide everything into chick stuff and guy stuff. That last trait means they can’t see the big picture which would shows that “construction” isn’t about gender and benefits society as a whole. As for Harper being a sexist pig--what errant nonsense! Everyone knows the vivacious Laureen wears the pants in that family.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:37 | link | comments

Toronto imam spews “love” for his fellow man; local authorities yawn: When a non-Nazi Jew-hater, a University of Toronto student, spewed the type of Judenhass that, had his name been, say, Ahenakew, would have gotten his keester swept into court to account for his hatefulness, Ontario authorities declined to prosecute the lad. This non-action confounded the mucky-mucks of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who have yet to twig to the fact that society is delighted to “protect” Jews from the non-threat of non-existent “Nazis,” but when it comes to hate spewed in the context of Islam, the Jews are on their own. The Ontario Attorney General all but said as much, stringing the Jews along with a cock and bull story about how the U of T student couldn’t be charged because too much time had elapsed. Still, the Ceej swallowed the lame explanation, pretended all was well and even commended the non-action as “positive step” in this media release:

TORONTO – Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region (CJCONT) is disappointed Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley will not consent to laying charges against Salman Hossain for Wilful Promotion of Hatred (under section 319 of the Criminal Code), but is encouraged by policy changes that will be implemented to better manage hate crime determinations in Ontario.

CJC representatives had met with Minister Bentley over the summer to discuss concerns with the process for obtaining the required consent of the Attorney General in hate crimes cases, as illustrated by the delays and lack of communication in the case of Hossain, who allegedly made a number of statements online that appear to reflect a hatred of Jews.

“In our view, Mr. Hossain’s alleged statements, which include his desire to ‘shoot a few Jews down’ and in which he asks ‘why…target the Americans when the Jews are better,’ crossed the line into wilful promotion of hatred as defined by the Criminal Code. Yet we were told a number of circumstances, including the length of time it took to make a decision in the case and Hossain’s own personal efforts for rehabilitation, were the reason the Attorney General declined to give his consent and that no charges will now be laid,” said CJC Ontario Region Chair Frank Bialystok.

“In our view, rehabilitation and process delays are not reason enough to decline prosecution in this very serious case,” Bialystok said. “At the same time, we are gratified the Attorney General has committed to make constructive policy changes that will, on a going forward basis, provide much-needed clarity and urgency to the administration of this section of Canada’s Criminal Code.”

The changes will ensure that any requests for charges under the hate propaganda sections of the Criminal Code will quickly be brought to the attention of the Attorney General, and that decisions on formal requests for charges will be made within 60 days…

Here’s a test: let’s see how quickly charges are laid against this guy, the centre of a story in today’s National Post:

A Toronto-area imam is under fire for using derogatory language against Jews and Christians, calling for Allah to “destroy” the enemies of Islam from within and calling on God to “damn” the “infidels.”

The address, given last Friday by Imam Saed Rageah at the Abu Huraira Centre and then posted on YouTube…is an attack on those who have been calling for a ban on the niqab and burka, both of which cover the faces of women.

“Allah protect us from the fitna [sedition] of these people; Allah protect us from the evil agenda of these people; Allah destroy them from within themselves, and do not allow them to raise their heads in destroying Islam.”

Tarek Fatah, a Canadian Muslim author and commentator, said that type of language could be interpreted as a call to violence. As well, the imam asks Allah to “damn” Christians and Jews.

“The cleric’s ritual prayer asking for the defeat of Christians and Jews and the victory of Islam is not unique,” Mr. Fatah said. “It is uttered by many clerics across Canada spreading hate instead of harmony. There should be no room in Canada’s mosques for such hatred, especially when most of these institutions get [tax-free status].”

The Abu Huraira Centre attracts about 800 to 1,000 people to a typical Friday service. A man who worked at the centre said that many women who attend only wear the hijab, which covers the head, and do not wear any covering on their faces.

The National Post repeatedly attempted to reach Mr. Rageah for an interview, but was unsuccessful.

Throughout the 35-minute speech he uses the word “kuffar” to describe non-Muslims.

In referring to those Muslims who would seek allies outside the Muslim community to bring about legislation that would ban face coverings, the imam said: “You will see a lot of them going to the kuffar, taking them as friends and allies. The wrath of Allah is upon them. If they were true believers they would never take them as allies.”

At its most benign, kuffar means “non-Muslims.” But others say the most common usage is considered highly offensive, akin to calling a black person a “n****r,” Mr. Fatah said.

“It goes back to the Arab use of the word against black slaves. It’s used in a very derisive manner.”

A clear-cut case of “racism” and “discrimination,” no? The kind of hate that the Canadian Human Right Commission has made it its business to root out of the heart of each and every Canadian. Well, no. According to an academic (Allah bless those academics), just because an imam loathes, reviles and abominates infidels and uses the Arabic equivalent of the “n” word to describe them (the same word that’s getting To Kill a Mockingbird turfed off local school curricula), it doesn’t mean he actually wants anyone to go out and, you know, kill people:

Professor Amir Hussain, who teaches theology at Loyola Marymount College in Los Angeles, but grew up in Toronto, said he does not read the word “destroy” in a literal way.

“For me, I don’t see the remarks ‘destroy them from within themselves’ as hoping for violence. Rather, I see it as him asking that the group implode from within. Granted, implode and destroy are of course violent metaphors, but I liken it to him asking for the organization to disintegrate.”

Yeah, it was one of those “internal implosion” things--as opposed to the kind of external explosions that those who hate the kuffar and plot to blow them up in, say, malls or skyscrapers or airliners are so fond of.

Come home, Professor Hussain. The Canadian Human Rights Commission (or the Ontario Human Rights Commission, or one our land’s many other “human rights” outfits) always has an opening on its roster of Commissars for people who think exactly like you.

Update: While I emphasized the imam's hatred for the kuffar in the above post, it should be mentioned that this story is really about a fight between literalist Muslims, like the imam, and the "fitnah" of secular Muslims who reject sharia, like Tarek Fatah and the Muslim Canadian Congress. Anyone care to lay bets on who's going to win?

Update: Who is Saed Rageah? A scan of his profile reveals he's a tall bloke. Born in Somalia. Studied in Saudia Arabia.

See what kind of mischief a Somali can get up to if he isn't "mentored" by a Jew?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:22 | link | comments (1)

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

UN busybodies bring their act to Canada: Tar and feathers is just sooo passé. Maybe we can run these folks out of town by forcing them to watch every episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie and Corner Gas. From the Ceeb:

A United Nations delegation was in Montreal on Wednesday to look at issues concerning minority communities.

The delegation, headed by independent minority issues expert Gay McDougall, is touring several Canadian cities to collect first-hand information from cultural communities across the country.

It's the first time the UN has turned to Canada to study minority issues, and the international body's expected report on the subject will be significant, according to Montreal community organizer Fo Niemi.

"Canada is always seen at the UN international bodies as a leader on human rights," said Niemi, director of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations. "So whenever there is criticism of us, or concerns raised by a UN agency about Canada's human rights record, then usually Canada acts on it in order to maintain and protect its reputation, its standing."

The delegation has already visited Vancouver and Toronto and is heading to Ottawa at the end of the week. During a two-day visit to Montreal, the team is meeting community groups to talk about racial profiling, social exclusion and police brutality.

The team will also visit Montreal North, where it will be taken to the site where Fredy Villanueva, 18, was shot and killed by police in August 2008.

A local group in Montreal North is expected to raise concerns about transparency in cases where one police force investigates another, Niemi said.

Sorry, did I fall asleep during the part where Canada ceded its sovereignty to the UN? I’ll have to remember to try and keep awake next time, so I don’t miss it when Ban Ki-Moon becomes our next Governor-General.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:53 | link | comments

“The (Potemkin) villages were very well-kept , and the merry workers toiling in the abundant potatoes fields are a testament to Comrade Stalin’s far-reaching vision of a collectivist Utopia”: A report in the Tehran Times about some Danish visitors in Ayatollahville reads like the kind of blarney returning American Communists used to utter following a guided (very guided) tour of the U.S.S.R.:

TEHRAN -- A group of students from the University of Southern Denmark (Middle East Studies), paid a visit to the office of the Tehran Times daily and the Mehr News Agency here on Sunday afternoon.

Speaking with the staff, the 20-member team expressed their appreciation of Iranian culture and its great civilization.

The group’s leader told the Tehran Times that they find Iranians to be one of the most hospitable and gentle people in the world, and seeing women with education and holding high level posts has totally changed their views of the Islamic Republic. Obviously she was not aware that more than 70 percent of the university students in Iran are female.

Katrine Rasmussen noted, “We have now a different view of your country compared with others who know Iran through some Western media.”

Traveling to Iran was of great importance to most members of the group, Rasmussen explained, stating that “After visiting Turkey in the previous semester, our most preferred country was Iran due to its central role in the Middle East.”

The group arrived in Iran on October 8 and during their ten-day stay, they made short trips to Isfahan, Shiraz, and Qom provinces

To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, they can most highly recommend the Ayatollah to everyone.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:18 | link | comments

Friendly guy charged with terrorism (again): Yet again authorities have nabbed an (alleged) jihadi terrorist before he could do any damage, this time in Boston. And yet again his neighbours are shocked by the allegations since he seemed like such a nice chap who wouldn't hurt a fly, never mind a bunch of kuffers minding their own beeswax at a local mall (the alleged terrorist's alleged target).

Just once I'd like to read a newspaper account in which a neighbour/family member says, "You know, he always gave me the creeps. He was a real loner--and sooo unfriendly."

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:06 | link | comments

York’s toxic “lessons”: Yesterday I posted an article from York U rag Excalibur revealing that 40 York U professors had pooled their resources to pay the fine incurred by a bunch of campus Cossacks who were on the verge of thrashing a bunch of Juden last February. (The Jews, whose sole offence seemed to be that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong campus, were fined, too, but none of the faculty has so far offered to chip in to help defray their penalty.) Professor Eric Lawee, a York academic who spends what seems like an inordinate amount of his time trying to persuade the Jewish community that, despite what they’ve heard, York remains a swell place to go to school if you’re a Jew (well, it is a rather tough sell, hence the amount of time that must be spent in the art of persuasion) offers these insights about his campus and the professors’ actions to the Jewish Tribune’s Atara Beck (my bolds):

“I believe faculty of all sorts, not just Jewish Studies faculty, should stand up for those things that are the university’s raison d’être: the search for truth in all its complexity, evidence-based argument and a civil atmosphere where students feel free to express their views in a way that promotes discussion and critical examination rather than yelling matches and so forth.

“Where those values are threatened by a growing cadre of obsessive Israel-bashers on North American campuses, as they are, faculty should speak out. Speaking for myself – but it is true of several of my colleagues in Jewish Studies as well – I show support in all sorts of ways, up to and including showing solidarity with our many admirably committed pro-Israel students who attend demonstrations, but I and my colleagues are also involved in dozens of things behind the scenes of which students will inevitably remain unaware, even as these things have a concrete impact on the defence of the beleaguered Jewish state on campus and, indirectly, on the quality of university life among pro-Israel students.

“To give but one example, when York’s faculty union was one of three campus groups financially supporting a strongly anti-Israel newspaper on campus a number of years ago, I got involved in the union and, along with Jewish Studies colleagues, we eventually managed to have that funding withdrawn, which in turn led to the paper’s demise. It was a significant victory. The victories are, however, often slow in coming and very time consuming for professors who are chronically short on time.... We do our best in a challenging atmosphere that, I'm sorry to say, is not going to disappear on North American campuses anytime soon.”

Indeed, the vicious Israel-bashing is not unique to York. Last weekend, for example, University of Toronto hosted an ‘end apartheid’ conference, titled ‘Palestine/Israel – Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Teach,’ and last Thursday former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s speech at University of Chicago was disrupted throughout, with heckling and comments, including, “He belongs in a cage, not on a stage.”

Regarding the issue of the SAIA fine, Lawee said:

“Fines are meant to serve as a deterrent. To the extent that those in need of deterrence do not pay their fine, they lack incentive to cease their rule-breaking behaviour. The faculty who helped to pay the SAIA fine, therefore, sabotaged an important ‘teaching moment’ for students whom they are supposed to instruct in the ways of law-abiding civil discourse and increased the chance of repeat offences…

A “teachable moment,” huh? The opportunity for that--in the positive sense of the phrase, that is--came and went when York authorities decided to penalize the Jews along the leaders of the angry mob that was threatening them; a “moment” that purveyed the ludicrous lesson that the Jews and their would-be attackers were equally culpable. Those York U profs paying the crazed Israel-bashers’ fine was like rancid icing on the E. coli-infused cake. The lesson it taught was that, pace the apologist Lawee, York is exactly what Jews thought it was: a fetid swamp of obsessive, irrational Zionhass.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:38 | link | comments (2)

The borrowers: Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the iconic Obama HOPE poster, is in trouble. He’d been balking at AP accusations that he cribbed the image as is from an AP photo, but it now appears he’s been fudging the truth (much like the icon himself). From NPR:

…Fairey admitted last week that he used the photo the AP said he used all along, a solo shot of Obama from a 2007 Darfur news conference where Obama was accompanied by actor George Clooney…

Fairey had previously said he used a photo of both Obama and Clooney which he cropped Clooney from.

But in his on-line confession last week he acknowledged that he had learned early in the case that the AP was right. He stuck with his story however, even destroying computer files that would have been evidence against him.

The AP's position is that Fairey knew from the very beginning that he used the photo the news agency said he used…

The reason it matters which photo Fairey used is because the fair-use copyright laws would allow an artist to use a news photo so long as the image was substantially changed. Cropping a photo would be a more significant change than taking a photo and painting it red, white and blue which is essentially what AP accuses of Fairey of.

Copyright laws aside, I don’t know what the big deal is. So what if Fairey pinched the image? Obama’s entire political career is based on pinching--bad ideas, that is--from Alinsky, Ayers, Wright, etc.

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

Happy "hatey" Anniversary: Mark Steyn's book American Alone, the one that got a high profile Islamist's drawers in a twist and prompted three-count 'em, three--complaints to our in-house "human rights" Inquisitions, is three years old today. In honour of this bracing blast of free speech, let's hear from Stephen Harper, who had this to say re "human rights" bodies back before he was Prime Minister: "Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society … It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff."

Scary stuff, indeed. And getting scarier by the day what with Obama in the White House and the rank whiff of censorship--the grotesquely misnamed "Fairness Doctrine" and UN-sponsored anti-blasphemy measures--blowing through the air. Now, what do you plan to do about it, Mr. Prime Minister?

Update: A shmaltzy waltz for the anniversary (featuring my late Bubby's favourite shmaltzy singer):

Oh, how he fumed on the night he first read

That tome by Mark Steyn--it suffused him with dread.

He called in the troops--four young socks with bright eyes.

All longed like that guy to cut Steyn down to size.

Three complaints later to three HRCs

Elmo thought he could bring speech to its knees.

Silence the “haters” and get us to quit

By putting a sock in it.

Alas for the socks (down to three by this time)

The censors ran scared, wouldn’t punish the “crime”.

Could socks but relive their brief day in the sun

They would but the three now are down to Awun.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:09 | link | comments (3)

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Obama’s moral compass is on the fritz: Dennis Prager faults the hopeychanger for throwing the little guys under the wheels as a way of sucking up to the big, bad guys:

According to the Jerusalem Post, as recently as six weeks ago, just 4 percent of the Jews of Israel regarded President Obama as pro-Israel. Even if exaggerated, it is likely the most negative Israeli view of an American president since Israel's creation.

If you think Israelis are irrational in this matter, perhaps Tibet will help persuade you otherwise.

Yes, Tibet.

Whereas every Democratic and Republican president since 1991 has met with exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, when he visited the United States, President Obama has decided that he will not do so during the Tibetan leader's visit to the United States. The president does not wish to annoy China's dictators prior to his upcoming visit to Beijing. As US News & World Report reported, "The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes soft-pedaling criticism of China's human rights ..."

This is particularly troubling to Israelis because it means that an American president is placing appeasement of strong dictators above America's traditional defense of embattled small countries. (One assumes that the Taiwanese are equally worried; and the Iranian fighters for liberty have come close to giving up on Obama's America.)

The line between selling out Tibetans and selling out Israelis is a direct one. Even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was disturbed by the president's snubbing of the Dalai Lama:

"Dissing the Dalai was part of a broader new Obama policy called 'strategic reassurance' — softening criticism of China's human rights record and financial policies to calm its fears that America is trying to contain it ... the tyro American president got the Nobel for the mere anticipation that he would provide bold moral leadership for the world at the very moment he was caving to Chinese dictators. Awkward."

The world is quite aware of the importance of Mr. Obama's snubbing the Dalai Lama. Dowd noted that:

"In an interview with Alison Smale in The Times last week, Vaclav Havel pricked Barack Obama's conscience. Havel (who led) the Czechs and Slovaks from communism to democracy, turned the tables and asked Smale a question about Obama

Was it true that the president had refused to meet the Dalai Lama on his visit to Washington?"

Those who worry about good and evil know that if America decides that the world's approval is important, evil will increase exponentially. Only an America willing to be disliked, even hated, will consistently support the smaller good guys against the bigger bad guys…

One problem with the hopeychangers is that they think “evil” is a concept simpletons like Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney invented for political purposes. If there is true “evil” in the world, they think it’s mainly due to American failings and will to power, which makes them deeply ashamed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:16 | link | comments

A shocking but welcome admission from a Human Rights Watcher: How vile/biased /in the back pocket of totalitarian thugs is the organization known as Human Rights Watch? So vile etc. that its own founder can no longer stomach it, and felt compelled to spill the beans about what it has become to readers of the New York Times. Tom Gross, who’s on the advisory board of NGO Monitor, an outfit that watches the watchers, posts this in the National Post’s FULL COMMENT:

There is an important op-ed in the New York Times by Robert L. Bernstein, the founder and for 20 years the chairman of Human Rights Watch – an organization which should be one of the world’s leading human rights groups but in recent years has become a stooge for Third World dictatorships as it bashes democratic countries, and in particular Israel.

He writes:

As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

… Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

HRW’s influence in demonizing Israel goes beyond the NGO world. One of HRW’s directors is Judge Richard Goldstone who, according to the leading watchdog NGO Monitor, did “a cut and paste job,” using HRW’s tainted material to write a recently-released U.N. report falsely and selectively accusing Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity…

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:56 | link | comments

Washing young brains the CHRC way: Did you know that along with being in the censorship game the CHRC is in the education game? No? Neither did I until I happened upon some scary lessons plans for Canucki teachers on the CHRC site. Here, for instance, are some lessons the CHRC would have teachers foist on impressionable Grade 7-8ers (I’ve italicized the parts that prompted me to exclaim “You gotta be freakin’ kidding me!”):

Lesson Plan (grades 7-8)

View this document in PDF format

Lesson Title: Introduction to human rights in 20th century in Canada
Teacher:
Date:
Class:
Total Duration: 1 week + 1 day
Materials: Computer lab, Internet access, copies of handouts 1, 2,3,4,( 5)
Curriculum Objectives:
Specific Objectives: To have students discover, analyse, synthesise, and integrate the evolution of human rights in 20th century Canada.

Activity 1: Launching the unit

Duration: 15 minutes
Suggested directives:

· Launch a discussion about fairness. Ask: "Can anyone give me an example of a situation at home or at school where a dispute was settled fairly? Can anyone give me an example of an injustice they have witnessed?"

· Brainstorm possible solutions. Write the answers on the blackboard. Ask: "How would you propose ending injustice and promoting fairness all over the country?"

· Explain that the Canadian government has asked itself the same question throughout history. Invite the students to discover the government's response to injustice by visiting the Canadian Human Rights Commission web site (http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca).

Activity 2: Investigation

Duration: 30-45 minutes
Suggested directives:

· The purpose of this activity is to have students explore the site. The site will become a powerful research tool once the students have become accustomed to it.

· Tell the students they are about to go on a "scavenger hunt". Distribute Handout 1. Tell the students to scour the site to find the answers.

· Assist the students. Students may work individually or in teams if resources are limited.

Teacher Tip: If students are lacking motivation, have them compete to see who can hand in a complete and correctly answered handout. Give prizes to those who finish 1st , 5th , 10th , 15th and 20th in order to ensure that everyone has a chance to win.

Yeah, wouldn’t want the kids to actually have to compete and possibly, you know, lose or something. So much “fairer” to reward (or punish) everyone equally (saith Marxists and Trudeaupians).

There’s more--much more--should you care to, er, investigate. As for me, here’s my proposed lesson:

Activity 3. Free Speech--Use it or Lose it

Duration: A lifetime
Suggested directives:

The purpose of this activity is to help students withstand the ideological malarkey they are being spoon fed on behalf of the state censors and other squishy multiculturalists.

Ask students if they’d prefer to live in a country where they can speak freely, or a country where they have to mind their words in case someone find them offensive.

Hammer home the point that people lose their freedom incrementally, either because they are too clueless or too apathetic to notice it ebbing away, but that once a freedom has been lost--as Canadians have de jure if not de facto lost their right to free speech--it is extremely difficult to get it back.

Teacher tip: If the students are lacking in motivation, it’s probably because their parents believe the same politically correct crap/multiculti pieties that the CHRC would have them swallow. In that case, introduce them to the ideas of some “dangerous” thinkers--Steyn, Levant, Shaidle et al.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:26 | link | comments (9)

Freedom’s just another word for "Let’s go throttle those apartheid-abetting Jews!": Last February a bunch of ardent Palestinian supporters at York University were so overcome by their desire for justice and their outrage at how it was being thwarted by brutal Israelis that they took it out on the first Zionists they saw. It wasn’t a pogrom exactly, but since the Jews in question had to barricade themselves in an office because they didn’t want to be pummelled by the mob, and had to wait for police to come rescue them, it had certain pogrom-like similarities (angry mob; helpless Jews--you get the picture). In a display of the kind of moral equivalence that morally bankrupt campuses have come to be known for, York authorities fined both sides (the Cossacks and the Jews). The Jews paid their own fine, reports campus rag Excalibur. The mob leaders had their tab picked up by 40 sympathetic professors--solely in interests of “free speech,” of course (h/t AMB):

Forty York University faculty members contributed personal funds to “defray” the $1,000 fine that was imposed on the Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) York student group for participating in an anti-Zionist demonstration in Vari Hall last winter.

The group that calls itself “Concerned Faculty For Palestinian Human Rights” issued a press release dated Oct. 1 in which they outlined that they decided to pay SAIA’s fines because they say it is “part of a larger pattern of repression” of free speech in defence of Palestinian human rights.

Ali Mustafa, a member of SAIA at York, said the faculty members wanted to remain anonymobecause they fear being “targeted” by the university administration.

“Repression concerning Palestinian students speaking out has been a familiar tactic of the York University administration,” Mustafa said. “We don’t hold rallies for fun or every day; we hold them when it is absolutely necessary.”

Patrick Monahan, York University vice-president of academic and provost and head of the Task Force on Student Life, Learning and Community, said that it is perfectly fine if a group of people want to pay other people’s fines.

“The goal here is not to have anyone fined. We just ask of the student groups to simply book space and follow space policies,” Monahan said, adding that all Canadian universities follow similar policies.

He also said issuing fines for those participating in demonstrations is not about limiting freedom of speech or expression, but rather punishing groups for holding an event in a public space without booking it…Monahan said the university has a very liberal approach to freedom of expression, and there are a variety of groups that often speak up on campus.

Yeah, York U is a veritable paradise of “free expression”--especially if you want the freedom to freely express lies/blood libels/Zionhass about brutal Zionist occupiers. If you’re a Jew who supports Israel, though, you might want to keep your views close to your chest, since freely expressing them could get you menaced and possibly throttled by a gang of, erm, dedicated free-speechers.

"Free" speech: Ain't it grand?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments (2)

Repression is freedom and other Islamist/hopeychanger bilge: Let’s see--there’s the Obama appointee who reveres Mao Tse Tung as a “moral philosopher,” and the (now ex-)appointee who’s a Marxist. So I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that there’s an Obama appointee, a Muslima, who thinks sharia is the go-to law for women’s rights. FPM’s spicily-named Cinnamon Stillwell has the details:

In thinking about women’s rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn’t typically come to mind.

Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and appointee to President Obama’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the two are closely intertwined. Her survey alleges that a majority of Muslim women believe sharia law should either be the primary source or one source of legislation in their countries, while viewing Western personal freedoms as harmful to women.

The survey’s findings appear in the book, Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, co-authored by Mogahed and John Esposito, Georgetown University professor and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, named for its Saudi royal benefactor. While Esposito is well-known as one of the foremost academic apologists for radical Islam, Mogahed is making her name as a shill for sharia law. Mogahed employs the Gallup poll, which has been criticized by knowledgeable authorities as misleading and unscientific, to portray sharia law as what Muslims women want.

She spoke last month by phone to the UK-based Islam Channel women’s television program “Muslimah Dilemma.” Hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the Islamist organization Hizb ut Tahrir (Party of Liberation), and featuring national women’s media representative for Hizb ut Tahrir, Nazreen Nawaz, the interview (view here; complete transcript here) presented a biased, pro-Islamist platform for discussing Muslim women’s rights. Hizb ut Tahrir’s self-described objective is “to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam and carries its call to the world.”

So it was with ostensible credibility that Mogahed could utter such preposterous statements as:

…we found that the majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance whereas only a small fraction associated oppression of women with compliance with the sharia.

And:

The perception of sharia and the portrayal of sharia has been oversimplified in many cases, even among Muslims. It is usually associated with maximum criminal punishment and laws that are hard for people to understand holistically, around family law, that to many people seem unequal for women. So I think that part of the reason is that there is this perception of sharia is that sharia in not well understood and in fact, Islam as a faith is not well understood.

And, ominously:

Well, I think what my role is, is very clear to me: to convey to the advisory council and through the advisory council to the president and to other public officials what it is Muslims want…

"Ominous" is a very good word for it.

Update: The Obama appointee's views on the subject seem entirely in keeping with those of Iran's holiest (and, alas, apparently non-comatose) rollah:

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has deplored the West's attitude toward women as 'insulting'.

Addressing a group of female Quran researchers on Tuesday, Ayatollah Khamenei admonished the West for its 'wrong, instrumental and insulting' attitude toward women.

The Leader said contrary to the West women were highly respected in Islam, which provided them with opportunities to nurture their talents in order to gain knowledge, conduct research and make progress.

Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that the establishment of the Islamic Republic has best paved the way for development based on the teachings of the Quran.

The Leader called for Islamic and Qur'anic principals to form the basis of policies in different arenas including the educational and political ones.

Update: The Islamist Feminist theme song (sung by men only):

They are women hear them yack.

It’s time to stick ‘em in a sack

‘Cuz we men cannot control our animal urges.

So we’ll tell ‘em it’s polite that they best keep out of sight

And we hope the truth about it ne’er emerges.

Yes, they are weak—but that weakness makes ‘em strong.

Yes, they long to speak—but what they say is wrong

If they don’t say they can’t do everything.

Sharia’s strong, it’s invincible.

Not so women…

You’re allowed to strike and beat ‘em

‘Cuz that’s one way to defeat ‘em

When they back-talk or won’t have sex when we want it.

That’s why God made us the bosses, and we won’t abide the sauciness

Of chicks who act defiant and who flaunt it.

Yes, they are weak—though much “weaker” in the West.

Yes, they fear to speak—but menfolk know what’s best.

So Allah sez, and that God knows everything.

Sharia’s strong, it’s invincible.

Not so women…

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

Jihadis and “monoliths”: New York Times scribbler David Rohe describes his ordeal as a recent “guest” of the Taliban. Rohe says that the men who held him and two others in a remote area of Pakistan were uneducated zealots who had some decidedly 7^th Century notions about “human rights” and collective responsiblity:

My captors railed against the evils of a secular society. In March, they celebrated a suicide attack in a mosque in the Pakistani town of Jamrud that killed as many as 50 worshipers as they prayed to God. Those living under Pakistan’s apostate government, they said, deserved it.

One commander declared that no true Muslim could live in a state where Islam was not the official religion. He flatly rejected my compromise suggestion that strict Islamic law be enacted in Afghanistan’s conservative rural south, while milder forms of Islam be followed in the comparatively liberal north.

Citing the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, he said it was every Muslim’s duty to try to stop others from sinning. If one person in a village commits a sin, those who witness it and do not stop him will also be punished by God…

Sounds a lot like Jennifer Lynch’s Canadian Human Rights Commission, which sees as its mandate the extrication of the sin of “hate” from the hearts and minds of all Canadians, and which punishes those who fall short in the virtue department. But I digress…Rohe writes that his captors were pretty set in their ways and not particularly accepting, in stark contrast to others he met in the region (my bolds):

After we had been held for months in captivity, my kidnappers demanded that I stop washing the group’s dishes because they did not want to catch my diseases. They believed that problems I was having with my stomach stemmed from my being an inherently unclean non-Muslim, not from unhygienic water.

Their rigidity was the opposite of the tolerant attitudes I had found among the vast majority of Muslims I had met in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pressing me to convert, one commander ordered me to read a passage of the Koran each day and discuss it with him at night. He dismissed my arguments that a forced conversion was not legitimate. He and the guards politely said they felt sorry for me. If I failed to convert, they said, I would suffer excruciating pain in the fires of hell.

At one point, a visiting fighter demanded to know why I would not obey. He said that if it were up to him, he would take me outside and offer me a final chance to convert. If I refused, he would shoot me.

I realized that he and other fighters might be exaggerating their views to frighten me. The virulence I saw among the Haqqani foot soldiers was not as monolithic as it sometimes seemed.

One young fighter showed a different side. He refused to carry out a commander’s order to kidnap a foreigner working in Afghanistan. During one visit, he suggested that I read a passage in an English-language Koran to comfort myself.

“Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope,” it said. “For it is only that which it hath earned, and against it only that which it hath deserved. Our Lord! Impose not on us that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us, absolve us and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk.”…

Oh, no. Not that business about a “monolith” again. Why is it that those possessed of a leftist worldview--even one being held captive by the Taliban, for heaven’s sake--always stick to the non-monolithic/non-homogenous talking point, as if that’s somehow supposed to be a comfort? Doesn’t Rohe realize that that “good cop/bad cop” routine he was subjected to is as old as the Koran itself, since Islam’s founder, at first tried to catch kafirs with honey (during his less successful Meccan period) before decamping to Medina (the “hejira”) where he dropped the pretence of niceness and proceeded to kill everyone in sight who didn’t submit. The folks who kidnapped Rohe may not have seemed “monolithic” in the way they treated him, but since they all ascribed to the core belief that sharia, as per Allah’s instructions, must be calling the shots everywhere, for all time, they didn’t exactly constitute a “ broad strata of society” (the phrase made famous by a sensitive Toronto police official struggling to comprehend the common dominator between a gaggle of alleged wannabe jihadi terrorists).

Memo to Rohe and all infidels: sharia is the monolith.

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

Monday, 19 October 2009

Conduct unbecoming: The L.A. Times asks if Obama's declaration of war against the one network that's given him the cold shoulder is "risky business."

How showbizzy of the Times to phrase it like that. But before we conjure up the image of a young and hungry Tom Cruise leaping about in his tighty whities to a Bob Seegar song (the sight of which now kind of gives me the creeps, given how Tom turned out), let's put on our thinking caps and come up with a better question. Like: Isn't it petty and demeaning for the leader of the free world, who heaven knows has a lot of really important stuff to worry about, to behave like a petulant child? And: Doesn't it show a distinct lack of character that this--the FOX stuff--is what he's obsessing over?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:36 | link | comments

In the grand tradition of balloon boy: Cupcake girls. Both should be charged with a DWHB (driving while half-baked).

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:22 | link | comments

The CJC’s “submission” (in more ways than one): In a submission to the Parliamentary Commission looking into antisemitism in Canada (it came out in August but I didn’t get around to reading it until today), the Canadian Jewish Congress ‘splains “contemporary” Judenhass:

…The comparison of Israel to Apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany demonstrates the way in which the line between legitimate criticism and antisemitism can be crossed. Nazi Germany was so irredeemably evil that the nations of the world united to fight for its destruction. Apartheid South Africa was based on a theory and practice of racial discrimination that negated the most fundamental principles of equal human worth. To place Israel in this company is to say that it, too, is unworthy of membership in the community of nations and, indeed, cannot be permitted to survive.

There can be no doubt that such comparisons are intended to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state. Neither the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia nor the genocidaires of Rwanda were compared to Nazis. This “honour” is reserved for Israel. In such a way, the Jewish people (the victims of Nazism) are made to appear indistinguishable from their oppressors. Simultaneously, the Jews become deserving of the same treatment that was meted out to the Third Reich (total destruction) and are further condemned for committing the evils that were done to them. In a similar vein, boycotts, a tool of Nazi Germany used against the Jews, are now being used against the Jewish state. Canada has not been immune to the infection of this new form of antisemitism. In 2006, the Ontario Division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees passed a resolution calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Since then, elements within CUPE Ontario have attempted to promote the BDS campaign within the wider labour movement. Also in 2006, the United Church of Canada considered a BDS proposal at its triennial general council. That proposal was transformed through debate into a more balanced initiative. However, demonstrating the fashion in which the new and old forms of antisemitism resemble each other, the United Church in 2009 debated three fresh anti-Israel proposals. These proposals relied on background material that, using traditional themes of antisemitism, alleged the willingness of Jewish organizations to engage in bribery and the potential disloyalty of Jewish Canadians.

On Canadian campuses, the ritual known as Israel Apartheid Week has taken root at the University of Toronto, York University and other locations. This annual event creates a poisoned environment where Jewish and pro-Israel students become subject to harassment and intimidation.

The notion of Israel as an Apartheid state came to full bloom at the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism. This conference, better known as Durban I, was convened to discuss serious manifestations of racism, such as the plight of aboriginal peoples and to consider redress for the injustice of the Atlantic slave trade. Instead, the conference was transformed into an opportunity for the persistent and continuous demonization of Israel…

At first glance, this seems to be more or less on the money. And yet, something seems to be missing. Something that looms large. Something that dwarfs Israel and Judaism. Something called--wait for it--Islam, and its adherents, Muslims. Call it the dromedary in the living room, one that the Ceej has gone out of its way to ignore, even though it’s causing havoc and crapping on all the furniture. Not once in this submission does the Ceej mention Muslims or Islam--even for as long as there’s been an Israel, it has been waging an existential battle against its, yes, Muslim neighbours; not once does it remark on how simpatico the Arabs were with Hitler back in the day, whose annihilationist goals they shared, and that thoughts of genocide continue to motivate and inspire them. Such squeamishness, no doubt born of a mistaken regard for the “feelings” of Muslims with whom the Ceej has deluded itself into thinking it has established friendly ties, is part and parcel of an intellectual dishonesty that’s so blatant, so astonishing, so downright shocking, that it literally makes one gasp.

But then, the Ceej has gotten awfully used to redacting the unpleasant bits of the story in order to spare Muslim “feelings”--as it did when it issued a scathing news release condemning the Danes for printing those Motoons. But, hey, if you’ve overindulged in the tutti-frutti multiculti Kool-Aids, “feelings” are a front and centre, since the squish-minded prefer to deal in such intangibles rather than to have to face the reality of how Judenhass is playing out on the ground--meaning authorities who are too scared to charge Muslims with hate crimes, and who can’t protect those brave enough to counter-protest a large gathering of spenetic Jew-haters. Despite these realities, which involve the abridgment of real rights, the Ceej is pushing for the following remedies, among others, to deal with the current crop of antisemites (my bolds):

The Government of Canada must ensure its legal and administrative systems are doing all they can to engage in the fight against antisemitism. Existing legal protections should be maintained new regulatory initiatives should be investigated, and the provision of appropriate training should also be facilitated. The Inquiry should recommend:

10) That the existing statutory “fence of protection,” both in the Criminal Code and in Human Rights legislation, should be reaffirmed and, where appropriate, strengthened.

11) That regulatory measures, especially in the field of telecommunications, that are consistent with Charter standards for the protection of free expression should be considered. This should include ratification of the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime and the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime.

12) That appropriate training be provided for members of Federal Boards and Tribunals that deal with hate speech and antisemitism to ensure appropriate application of the law…

In other words, censorship, censorship and more censorship--as if that’s going to protect Jews or anyone else in this era when the sharia types are pushing for exactly the same kind of measures to spare Muslim “feelings”.

A pox of “feelings”--and for going along to get along. An excessive concern for “feelings” is killing us. It’s enabling sharia to set up shop here and internationally. And it’s laying the groundwork for a time not too far off when free speech and the freedom that comes with it will be but a faint and distant memory.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:18 | link | comments

Perfidious, pusillanimous Albion: Melanie Phillips blasts the craven, dhimmfied (a tautology, I know) U.K. for being on the wrong side in the both Middle East and the war against Western civilization:

The Goldstone blood libel is part of the UNHRC’s strategy of delegitimising Israel to soften up the world for its eventual destruction. In the teeth of the opinion of one of Britain's most senior military experts in asymmetric warfare that Israel had done

more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare

the British government, whose own record in Afghanistan most certainly does not reach Israel's standards for protecting civilians, not only refused to support Israel against this demonisation of its defence of its own citizens but didn’t even have the bottle to register that it was abstaining in that disgusting vote. It simply ran away.

This shocking episode demonstrates with crystal clarity that in the great civilisational war now in progress, Britain is on the wrong side – as it has been in the Middle East, in fact, for the past nine decades.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:36 | link | comments

Polanski; Letterman; Obama’s Peace Prize: The Western Standard’s Noemi Emery writes that the fates (who like to dole out the bad stuff in threes, or so it often seems) have handed the left three great P.R. losses:

…For decades, the peace prize committee has seemed to speak with the voice of humanity, or of the world community, or of the Almighty, but it is clear now that it speaks with the voice of five more or less insular nitwits, of great self-regard and no great distinction, too clueless and tone-deaf to sense how their choice would be seen. Like the culture elites defending Polanski and Letterman, they have no sense of irony, much less of perspective or rectitude.

If there were a Nobel Prize for shark-jumping, these people would share it: They have proved themselves more inane than their critics imagined. With friends such as these, the left hardly needs enemies. And with enemies such as these, the right may not really need friends.

Shark-jumping or no shark-jumping, I think we can still use all the friends we can get.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:56 | link | comments

Jewish quislings: In an interview with FrontPage Magazine’s Jamie Glazov, Kevin Levin, historian, clinical instructor of psychology and author of The Oslo Syndrome, sheds light on the thinking of Jews who do dirt to their own:

Levin: Well, it’s certainly true, Jamie, that time and again we’ve seen Jews joining forces with those who would do other Jews ill. But, as I wrote in The Oslo Syndrome, this is common within many communities under siege, whether minority communities under assault by the surrounding majority or small states under attack by their neighbors. Inevitably, some elements of the besieged group will embrace the indictments of the besiegers, however bigoted or absurd. They will do so in the hope of thereby extricating themselves from the wider group’s dire predicament.

Some will simply abandon the community and seek to immerse themselves in an alternative identity. Within Jewish communities under siege, such people would convert to the dominant religion, whether Christianity or Islam, to escape the Jews’ plight. Some among them, however, to more emphatically establish their distance from other Jews, and to allay any potentially dangerous suspicions among the majority that their conversion was insincere, would become spewers of anti-Jewish venom and high-profile endorsers of attacks on the Jews.

FP: And there’s a long history of this.

Levin: Absolutely. This was, for example, a recurrent phenomenon in both the Christian and Muslim worlds throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times. One notable such individual was Solomon ha-Levi, who was chief rabbi of Burgos in Spain when, in 1391, a wave of murderous anti-Jewish riots and forced conversions decimated Spanish Jewry. Solomon was well enough connected that he could have escaped the choice of conversion or death, but – rather than remain a Jew under straitened circumstances and see his place in the world much diminished – he converted, underwent clerical training in Salamanca and Paris, and, as Paul de Santa Maria, ultimately became bishop of Burgos. When a second vast wave of forced conversions began in 1411, Paul took a leading role in the assault on Spain’s remaining Jews and was responsible for drawing up edicts that isolated the Jews, stripped them of many communal rights, and, most importantly, deprived them of almost all means of earning a living, leaving them with the choice of death by privation for themselves and their families or conversion…

Just call them Naomi and Judy de Santa Maria.

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

“Rights” amock: Welcome to la belle province, where all men are created equal, but women have more “rights” than men--and those rights somehow trump free speech. Globe and Mail columnist Lysiane Gagnon unpacks the madness:

Are some rights more important than others? Should gender equality prevail over, say, freedom of speech or religion? Experts on rights would consider the question irrelevant. Rights are rights are rights, jurists say, and there's no sense in establishing a hierarchy. But unfortunately, this question has jumped to the top of Quebec's political agenda.

If some prominent commentators, various lobby groups and, last but not least, the Parti Québécois, had their way, charters of rights and freedoms would be amended so that gender equality would prevail over all other rights. Quebec would become the only jurisdiction in the democratic world to consider that liberty of thought (something that's close to religious freedom) is a secondary value when it conflicts with women's rights.

The spark that led to the astonishing debate now under way in Quebec is, once again, an innocuous privilege granted to some members of Montreal's Hassidic community. When applying for a driving permit, they requested an instructor of their own gender for the practical test. They were allowed one when one was easily available, or told to come back later. Over six months, this happened six (six!) times. This became a tempest in a teapot, then the matter of a "national" debate when a newspaper revealed that the "reasonable accommodations" quietly practised on a case-by-case basis by the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec had been sanctioned by the province's Human Rights Commission.

Some issues never seem to die. Another debate over accommodation mobilized the province in 2007 after a few cases involving religious minorities received disproportionate exposure in some populist media. After extensive public hearings, the Bouchard-Taylor commission published a moderate and sensible report. It was widely thought the issue had been settled for good. Alas not. It simply had been buried.

When the so-called scandal at the SAAQ erupted, the government was introducing a bill on cultural diversity in the public administration (one of the Bouchard-Taylor recommendations). The Council on the Status of Women, a group that follows a radical feminist line, dramatized the SAAQ incidents, warned that women's rights were at stake and reiterated its old stance on the priority of women's rights over all other rights…

Gee, I wonder what the SAAQ position on sharia law is. I have a feeling the outfit follows the radical feminist line of seeing nothing wrong with forcing women to wear shrouds as long as it’s done in the name of “diversity”.

Update: My one-line letter:

A good rule of thumb: those who claim their “rights” take precedence over free expression--be they radical feminists or radical Islamists--don’t really care about “human rights” per se and are really seeking a way to control the conversation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:00 | link | comments (2)

Pearls of received wisdom: On an employment website for Canadian lawyers, a key player in Canada’s “human rights” industry offers some insight into her area of expertise (International law) and career path, and tells others what they need to be absolutely fabulous (like her):

How did you come to specialize in this area of law?

The path to be taken to work in the branch of one's choosing is not always clear! I started out working for a large corporate firm, because you get good training in all legal fields. As president of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (now called Equitas), I was then hired by the Ontario Human Rights Commission for its senior management committee. That's when I became truly involved in the international aspects of law; Ontario became the first province (excepting Quebec) where international principles were incorporated into the policy and the law. The United Nations then became interested in the Commission's work, and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) offered me a project aimed at creating an institution for human rights in Rwanda, after the genocide.

What type of cases do you handle?

The cases I handle almost always have international implications. I recently worked on a case involving the situation in Sri Lanka, which experienced a new bout of civil war in 2008. An intergovernmental organization gave me the assignment of getting a fix on what was going on in the country, which involved drafting a legal assessment of the impact of the conflict, especially on civil and political rights. My role was to determine whether or not the government was observing the international agreements the country had signed. To do this, I interviewed all of the players involved including the police, judges, government members, NGOs and defence lawyers.

What are your upcoming projects?

I have a couple of new projects in my sights. One of them is on China and the labour rights of migrant workers—not foreign workers, but Chinese coming from rural areas to work in towns. The other project involves the creation, in Canada, of a human rights newsletter and of classifying practices in the 14 jurisdictions of Canada.

What qualities do you need to work in international law?

I have training in civil and common law, which is required to be able to work in regions of the Commonwealth and in countries that draw on the continental system, e.g. France, Belgium or Germany.

Language skills are also very important as regards the practice of international law. In West Africa, for example, French is pretty well mandatory.

Then, you have to be extraordinarily tolerant, which, paradoxically, is not always the case of those who work in human rights. Being flexible is part and parcel of this tolerance. Finally, while the organization itself isn't perfect, the legitimacy of the U.N.'s work must be recognize.

Flexible? Tolerant? Funny, those aren’t the two adjectives that leap to mind when one thinks of Pearly Victorious, the scourge of Canadian free speech.

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

Question for the U.K.: How does it feel to be the new Jews?

Update: A Jew points out that "Iran has its own terrorist problem."

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:51 | link | comments

Sunday, 18 October 2009

“Racist” Rush blasts media and NFL double standards (and the real racism/Judenhass of racists on the Left):The Left’s most despised villain (now that Dubya’s out of the picture) fights back in the WSJ:

David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn't much care. I accepted his offer.

It didn't take long before my name was selectively leaked to the media as part of the Checketts investment group. Shortly thereafter, the media elicited comments from the likes of Al Sharpton. In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay $65,000 for falsely accusing a New York prosecutor of rape in the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He also played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews "diamond merchants") and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot.

Not to be outdone, Jesse Jackson, whose history includes anti-Semitic speech (in 1984 he referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in a Washington Post interview) chimed in. He found me unfit to be associated with the NFL. I was too divisive and worse. I was accused of once supporting slavery and having praised Martin Luther King Jr.'s murderer, James Earl Ray.

Next came writers in the sports world, like the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon. He wrote this gem earlier this week: "I'm not going to try and give specific examples of things Limbaugh has said over the years because I screwed up already doing that, repeating a quote attributed to Limbaugh (about slavery) which he has told me he simply did not say and does not reflect his feelings. I take him at his word. . . . "

Mr. Wilbon wasn't alone. Numerous sportswriters, CNN, MSNBC, among others, falsely attributed to me statements I had never made. Their sources, as best I can tell, were Wikipedia and each other. But the Wikipedia post was based on a fabrication printed in a book that also lacked any citation to an actual source.

I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things. Mr. Wilbon refuses to take responsibility for his poison pen, writing instead that he will take my word that I did not make these statements; others, like Rick Sanchez of CNN, essentially used the same sleight-of-hand.

The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?...

Silly Rush. He must know that Al and Jesse, being victims of racism and members of a victim group/visible minority, cannot possibly themselves be “racist”. That’s what being “colourblind” means to a Leftist.

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

Grandma got run over by a reindeer: At least she'll wish she had been--since it's a quick death--if Obamacare gets passed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:45 | link | comments

When life imitates Borat: The running of the Jew, Borat-style; the running of the Jew, UNHRC-style.

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

How easy is it to hornswaggle the media?: This easy.

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

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes: AP asks if Obama is "obnoxiously articulate." Mais oui. He's also noxiously articulate.

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

Farfour TV's linguistics lesson: "English is the language of the enemy." Time for everyone to brush up on their Arabic, I guess.

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

Messiah with feet of clay: He can walketh on water, saith the Norwegians, but he can't "solve" the pesky Mideast crisis. Whassup with that?
feet of clay by Indigo Goat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:53 | link | comments

Nowhere near as bad as a bull in a china shop: Bear in a liquor store

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:04 | link | comments (1)

Massacree! War crimes! Jenin! Gaza! Disproportionate force!: Oh wait--it's just Muslims offing other Muslims.

Never mind.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:57 | link | comments

Bono falls for Obama’s lines: Freelance busybody/virtue-monger Bono thinks Obama’s Norwegian prize is well-deserved, and says so in the Sunday New York Times:

...When Mr. Obama takes the stage at Oslo City Hall this December, he won’t be the first sitting president to receive the peace prize, but he might be the most controversial. There’s a sense in some quarters of these not-so-United States that Norway, Europe and the World haven’t a clue about the real President Obama; instead, they fixate on a fantasy version of the president, a projection of what they hope and wish he is, and what they wish America to be.

Well, I happen to be European, and I can project with the best of them. So here’s why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype. It starts with a quotation from a speech he gave at the United Nations last month:

“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration’s approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.

These new steps — and those 36 words — remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

All right ... I don’t speak for the rest of the world. Sometimes I think I do — but as my bandmates will quickly (and loudly) point out, I don’t even speak for one small group of four musicians. But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines…

Unless, of course, you happen to be Israel or Britian or any of America’s other traditional allies. Or if you happen to think that Obama’s renunciation of American exceptionalism and desire to blend in with the great bland, mushy mass is akin to the West committing hara-kari. In which case they are more like deathlines. (Anyone else think that Bono sounds awfully Obamaesque here--"But enough about me; let's talk about me?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:38 | link | comments

Abbas pays for his “blunder”: The Silver Fox’s slip--originally, he didn’t want to rush in for the kill along with the rest of the UN “human rights” jackals--is costing him, big time:

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Anger among Palestinians over President Mahmoud Abbas's original position on a Gaza war report critical of Israel has cost him public support in a rivalry with Hamas, a poll showed on Sunday.

The survey by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre (JMCC) indicated Abbas would receive 16.8 percent of the vote, with Hamas Islamist leader Ismail Haniyeh running neck-and-neck with 16 percent, if a presidential election was held now.

In terms of overall popularity in the occupied West Bank and in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Abbas's rating dropped to 12.1 percent from 17.8 percent in the previous JMCC poll in June. Haniyeh's approval rating held steady at 14.2 percent.

Abbas, whose Fatah party lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in fighting in 2007, has said his administration erred in approving a U.N. decision in Geneva two weeks ago to delay action on the report on the December-January Gaza war.

He was widely believed to have bowed to U.S. pressure over the matter, taking a stance that surprised and angered many Palestinians and, according to the JMCC, led to his popularity decline in the new poll.

Abbas reversed course last week.

In a special session proposed by the Palestinians, the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed the report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes but was more critical of Israeli actions.

The council passed a resolution that singled out Israel for censure without referring to any wrongdoing by Hamas.

Abbas has said he would proceed with plans to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in January unless Hamas agreed to a deal proposed by Egypt to delay the ballot until June.

Egypt has been trying to mediate a reconciliation pact between Fatah, which has accepted the unity proposal, and Hamas, which is still weighing the plan…

‘Tis to laugh. Why would Hamas want to “unite” with a dead weight like Abbas? That said, how risible--and appalling--is it that people are playing along with the pretence of “democracy” in “Palestine” and taking Palestinians’ electoral pulse as if they were, say, Canadians trying to decide between a Harper or an Ignatieff, and as if Palestinians weren’t entirely dedicated to making Israel Judenrein (something--maybe the only thing--on which both Hamas and Fatah can agree)?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:20 | link | comments

A dedicated follower of fascist analogies: Lefty icon Noam Chomsky is as uncomfortable with the excercise of free speech as is the Oval Office hopeychanger. But whereas Obama is content to criticize FOX for being out of step with the bulk of the media which backs him and his programs with gay (in the old sense of the word) abandon, Noam hauls out the heavier artillery. As far as he's concerned, those who have the temerity to balk at the lefty agenda are--wait for it--"Nazis".

Wow. How...original. No wonder he's hailed for his astonishing intellect and abounding insights.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:44 | link | comments

Take me out to the cabal game: Harpoon Siddiqui breaks his Goldstone Report hitting streak and devotes today's column to an entirely different topic. Harpoon had been going for the Cal Ripken, Jr. Ironman award in the category of Israel-bashing, but has decided to call it a day at five (or is it six?) grand slams. Today's piece is devoted to Afghanistan and, for once, Harpoon and I seem to be on the same page, albeit for different reasons. He wants NATO to am-scray because, as a true believer, he can't abide the sight of kafirs mucking about in Islamic affairs. I want NATO out because I think our "mission" is completely unfocused, is accomplishing diddly, and because I can't see the point of Canadians fighting and dying to uphold a sharia state.

Who's on first? Why, Harpoon, of course. He's got the bully pulpit and he's won an Order of Canada. And yet, on the subject of the clash between Islam and the West, you can always count on him to strike out.

Update: I think I may have heard this one at last winter's Gaza "protest" in downtown Toronto (the one where "protesters" shouted such terms of endearment as "Jewish children gonna f**king die!"):

Take me out to the cabal game.

Take me out to slam Jews.

Claim that the whole thing is Israel’s fault.

Jews on “Arab” land--oy gevalt!

For its root, root, root for Hamas’s team

If they don’t win it’s a shame.

For it’s eins, twei, drei more blood libels--

The old ‘bal game.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:50 | link | comments

Reaping what they've sown: Suicide bomber kills 29 in attack on Iran's guards

Update: Right on schedule, Iran blames the U.S. for the bombing. You mean all that concerted sucking up isn't cutting it with the mullahs? What a shocker!

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:36 | link | comments

Saturday, 17 October 2009

Family ties that bind--and pay really, really well: Welcome to the UN--especially if you happen to be close relative of a multilateralist mucky-muck. Claudia Rosett, the scourge of Turtle Bay, has the scoop:

Over at United Nations, lynchpin of America’s new Nobel-prize-winning multilateralism, it’s shaping up as the Year of Nepotism — again. Inner-City Press reports that the new president of the General Assembly, Libya’s Ali Treki, has his daughter, Amal Ali Treki, working in his UN office.

As Inner-City further notes, this follows the previous president of the UN General Assembly, Nicaragua’s Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, hiring a niece and nephew (Michael Clark, who likes the idea of a world without money) during his 2008-2009 stint presiding over the Parliament of Man.

This comes on top of the UN Development Program biting-and-nepotism ruckus earlier this year; while Inner-City’s questions about the ascent at the UN of Ban Ki-Moon’s son-in-law apparently remain lost in the labyrinth.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Mission to the UN has been promising to bring to America’s dealings with the UN — have you heard this before? — “high expectations for its performance and accountability,” including “financial accountability, transparency, ethics and internal oversight“…etc…. etc…. etc. Maybe the Obama adminstration should think smaller, and start simply by assembling, and releasing for the perusal of U.S. taxpayers, a directory of all family relationships in the UN system.

I bet right now you’re wishing your last name was Treki or Ban.

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

London calling: Some enthusiastic submissives/sharia-buffs exercise their freedom of speech in Londonistan.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:23 | link | comments

Irrational Judenhass in Obama’s backyard: I’m certainly no fan of Ehud Olmert, Israel’s corrupt and delusional former P.M. But I’m even less of a fan of the useful idiots on a Chicago campus who hurled epithets at Olmert because he represents Israel, which they loathe. From YNet News:

Students in Chicago prepared a rude welcome for former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Thursday, dubbing him a "war criminal" and chanting other insults as he visited a local university.

"My university should be ashamed for inviting a murderer," one student at University of Chicago yelled at Olmert as he arrived at the school to deliver a speech. The loud protest continued throughout the former PM's address. According to posters of a YouTube video, the protest was the work of members of various pro-Palestinian groups active at the university. The demonstration started outside the lecture hall, where dozens of people wearing traditional Arab headdress and carrying Palestinian flags chanted anti-israel slogans. However, the confrontation escalated inside the venue, with one female student yelling "you're a war criminal" at Olmert. Another woman said Olmert was "fascist," after he mentioned Israel's democratic regime.

At one point, the school's dean intervened and reminded those in attendance that the point of the discussion was to allow Olmert to answer student questions. In response, a woman in the audience yelled out that the former PM can make his views heard at the International Court of Justice

Olmert himself appeared relaxed throughout the ordeal. After one student asked "how many people need to die?" the former PM said this was precisely the question asked by many Israelis for eight years…

Were I Olmert my response to the question “how many people need to die?” would have been “Approximately six million--the number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and, eerily enough, more or less the number of Jews in Israel who would be liquidated by the Ayatollah’s nuke. That is, if international “diplomacy” doesn’t do the dirty deed of getting rid of the pesky Jewish state first.”

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

Song for a swinging hopeychanger: Sing it, boys:

Captivated swooners think he’s just Divine.

He’s the brightest guy with the smoothest line.

He’s makin’ history.

He’s such a mystery.

Barry (brrr) the riveting.

Won himself a coveted Nobel Peace Prize

Given out by virtuous Norwegian guys.

Makin’ a speech again.

Moments to teach again.

Barry (brrr) the riveting.

Barry’s middle name is Hussein.

(Shhh! Don’t say it too loud.

Likes to keep it on the q.t.

Except in certain places where he says it proud.)

America exceptional? Don’t you be absurd.

All the hopeychangers hang on ev’ry word.

Changin’ America

Into Eurabia:

Barry (brrr) the riveting.

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

Don’t try this at home: A B.C. court has found an amateur moil guilty of negligence, reports the Globe and Mail:

A man who performed an amateur circumcision on his four-year-old son on the floor of the family kitchen has been found guilty of criminal negligence.

The man, identified only as D.J.W. in a written B.C. Supreme Court ruling released this week, was found not guilty of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

The judge in the case, clearly an astute woman, reasoned that the man ought to have known better than to remove the aforementioned foreskin

partly because a circumcision he earlier performed on himself led to bleeding, sutures and infection.

"The fact that the accused had previously ineptly circumcised himself exacerbates, rather than minimizes, his awareness of the risks of home circumcision and his negligence," she noted.

How true.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:31 | link | comments (2)

The sound bite and the fury: Who’s scarier--Rush Limbaugh or Mao Tse Tung? Well, if you’re a member of the MSM and view the world through rose-coloured/Leftist specs, the answer, of course, is Limbaugh. He’s that “scary” radio show host who appeals to those knuckle-dragging reactionaries trying to thwart the hopeychangers’ Norwegian-approved Niceness Uber Alles initiative. Mao, on the other hand, was merely the greatest mass-murderer of the 20^th Century, and maybe of all time; in other words, not scary at all, ‘cuz he was in China, and now he’s dead. So when Limbaugh, the nerve of the man!, tries to purchase an NFL team, the MSM obsesses over a “racist” quote of his, even though there’s not a shred of proof he actually said it. But when Obama’s communications director is caught on tape touting Mao to High Schoolers (one of the two “moral philosophers” whose thinking informs her adult life, the other being Mother Theresa; yeah, I’m often tempted to bookend those two, too) all hell does not break loose--or even do the hokey-pokey and turn itself around. Mark Steyn comments:

So if I understand correctly:

Rush Limbaugh is so "divisive" that to get him fired Leftie agitators have to invent racist sound bites to put in his mouth.

But the White House communications director is so undivisive that she can be invited along to recommend Chairman Mao as a role model for America's young.

From my unscientific survey, U.S. school students are all but entirely unaware of Mao Tse Tung, and the few that aren't know him mainly as a T-shirt graphic or "agrarian reformer." What else did he do? Here, from Jonathan Fenby's book "Modern China," is the great man in a nutshell:

"Mao's responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 million to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin."

Hey, that's pretty impressive when they can't get your big final-score death toll nailed down to within 30 million. Still, as President Barack Obama's communications director says, he lived his dream, and so can you, although if your dream involves killing, oh, 50-80 million Chinamen you may have your work cut out. But let's stick with the Fenby figure: He killed 40-70 million Chinamen. Whoops, can you say "Chinamen" or is that racist? Oh, and sexist. So hard keeping up with the Sensitivity Police in this pansified political culture, isn't it? But you can kill 40-70 million Chinamen, and that's fine and dandy: You'll be cited as an inspiration by the White House to an audience of high school students. You can be anything you want to be! Look at Mao: He wanted to be a mass murderer, and he lived his dream! You can, too!

The White House now says that Anita Dunn was "joking." Anyone tempted to buy that spin should look at the tape: If this is her Friars Club routine, she needs to work on her delivery…

Steyn’s jest. He knows the delivery was fine. What Dunn and all the other hopechangers need to work on is their Weltanshauung, a shmancy way of saying their (skewed) worldview.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:59 | link | comments

Time not ripe: After coming together briefly to hail part of the Gallstone report (the part that accused Israel of "war crimes"), Fatah and Hamas are on the outs again. Egypt, the county that has been trying to broker a rapprochment between the two Islamist entities says negotiations have been tabled due to "inappropriate conditions."

What are the "inappropriate conditions?" The spokesman for the despotic thug nation didn't say. I'm pretty sure, though, they have something to do with Israel.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:29 | link | comments

Friday, 16 October 2009

What’s Pakistan’s problem?: Anti-sharia activist Tarek Fatah is convinced that Pakistan’s problem is that it is beset by extremists who pose a clear threat to democracy, but Ali Eterez, in an online Dissent Magazine article from last April, says its problem is that since 1973, it has been an Islamic state with a sharia-based constitution:

A recent sharia-for-peace deal between militant groups and the civilian government in Pakistan’s quasi-autonomous Swat region has ignited interest in the status of Islamic law in Pakistan. The U.S. State Department, concerned about terrorist safe-havens, called the deal a “negative development.” Meanwhile, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, trying to look at the bright side of things, argued that the deal might drive a wedge between “violent” radicals and those that are “merely extreme.”

Both of these views, rooted in the “war on terror” frame of thinking, diagnose Pakistan’s relationship with Islam incorrectly. The real issue in Pakistan is not that from time to time a group of militants, while demanding the implementation of sharia, begins attacking civilians. This, while deplorable and painful, is a consequence of Pakistan’s constitution. The essential problem in Pakistan is its flawed constitutional framework, which forces every citizen to refer to their idiosyncratic and personal views on life through the lens of “Islam.” Such a state of affairs has the effect of concealing every political, material and economic demand behind theological verbiage, and that situation ultimately favors religious hard-liners and militants who are willing to use violence.

Pakistan will not be rid of such religion-based conflict until it addresses the problem of its 1973 Constitution. That document’s constitutional Islamization engenders a cultural competition over who controls Islam—a conflict which, thanks to the Soviet war in Afghanistan and then 9/11, has become politicized, militarized, and weaponized.

Islamic State

Most people in the world, including some Pakistanis, live under the illusion that the country is secular and just happens to have been overrun by extremists. This is false. Pakistan became an Islamic state in 1973 when the new constitution made Islam the state religion. Under the earlier 1956 constitution Islam had been merely the “official” religion. Nineteen-seventy-three, in other words, represents Pakistan’s “Iran moment“—when the government made itself beholden to religious law. Most western observers missed the radical change because the leader of Pakistan at the time was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a whiskey-drinking, pseudo-socialist from a Westernized family…

Also--they missed the change because back then no one had a clue about the jihad and sharia, since the Cold War was still underway and there was an “evil empire” to defeat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:29 | link | comments

The Islamopranos: Phyllis Chesler on "The Muslim Mafia"

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

Tee hee: A Wahhabi vice cops's son has been arrested for, er, vice.

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

Snake in the candy store: Nestled amongst all its “good news” stories about stem cell research and an Iranian choir winning a prize in Italy, mullah mouthpiece the Tehran Times sneaks in this one, which isn't so nice:

TEHRAN - Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani held a meeting with Molavi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, a senior Shia scholar from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, in Tehran on Monday.

During the meeting, Larijani called defending the rights of Muslims one of the priorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran is seriously pursuing Muslim issues across the world, he told Ansari, who is also the senior representative of Shia Muslims in Kashmir’s parliament.

Larijani mentioned the many affinities India and Iran share and their extensive historical and cultural interactions and said, “With (their) rich cultures and histories, Iran and India have played very significant roles in the region for a long time.”

He also stated that the Islamic civilization and Muslims have played a prominent role in the cultural and political progress of India.

Ansari praised Iran for its support of Muslims’ rights in the region and the international arena.

“The Islamic Revolution (in 1979) revived the role of Islam and Muslims, particularly Shias, in political equations,” he said.

He described the Islamic Republic of Iran as the main supporter of Muslims and especially Shia Muslims.

“Today, in many parts of the world, Islam is identified with the name of Iran.”

He also praised the Iranian parliament for the outstanding role it plays in supporting the rights of Muslims

If you didn’t know any better, you might think that Iran is looking to establish closer ties with India, the world’s largest democracy, and that “human rights” was of consuming concern in Iran. Knowing, though, that the Shias are angling for regional supremacy, religious supremacy and, ultimately, global sharia supremacy via the construction of nuclear weapons, the above trumpets Iran’s intentions (including its intention to place India under sharia’s thumb) loud and clear. For anyone who cares to hear it, of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:21 | link | comments

Oh frabjous day!: New links from Binks

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:44 | link | comments

Finally, something Fatah and Hamas can agree on: In a rare show of solidarity, Palestinians have come together to applaud another UN Israel-bashing resolution, this one re the Gallstone Report.

In other news, dog bites man.

Update: Judge Goldstone, who may well be the most naive man on the planet, allowed himself to be used by those who knew there was much to be gained from the optics of setting up a South African Jew to do their Zion-bashing dirty work. It now appears that Goldstone has been double-crossed by the very racket that commissioned his report--and he doesn't like it one bit. From JTA:

The U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva sent the Goldstone report to the U.N. Security Council, while Richard Goldstone condemned the council for ignoring his findings on Hamas war crimes.

The Human Rights Council voted 25 to 6 on Thursday to endorse the report and recommend that other U.N. bodies heed its recommendations.

The report recommends that Israel and authorities in the Gaza Strip prosecute fighters for alleged war crimes committed during last winter's Gaza war and, should that not happen within six months, for the U.N. Security Council pursue such prosecutions. The Human Rights Council resolution cites only Israel.

Goldstone, who agreed to lead the fact-finding mission only if he could investigate Hamas as well, said he was "saddened" by the resolution. "There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report," Goldstone was quoted as saying by AFP, the French press agency...

And he's surprised by that? It beggars belief that he didn't know what the UNHRC was (the OIC's catamite) and what it aims to do (single out Israel for opprobrium every chance it gets) before he agreed to hook up with it.

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

Jihadists flex their muscles in the U.K.: Coming soon to Londonistan--a mass "protest" by aggressive submissives who want to see sharia installed uber alles in the land and the world. A new Kristallnacht in the making?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:30 | link | comments (1)

Turkey “reverts”: Bid adieu to Ataturk’s Turkey, writes Caroline Glick, because that country’s secular incarnation is fast retreating into history while a new Islamist vision takes hold:

Turkey's decision to betray the West holds general lessons for Israel and for the free world as a whole. These lessons should be learned and applied moving forward not only to Turkey, but to a whole host of regimes and sub-national groups in the region and throughout the world

Once the apotheosis of a pro-Western, dependable Muslim democracy, this week Turkey officially left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis.

It isn't that Turkey's behavior changed fundamentally in recent days. There is nothing new in its massive hostility towards Israel and its effusive solicitousness towards the likes of Syria and Hamas. Since the Islamist AKP party first won control over the Turkish government in the 2002 elections, led by AKP chairman Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the Turks have incrementally and inexorably moved the formerly pro-Western Muslim democracy into the radical Islamist camp populated by the likes of Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, al Qaida and Hamas. What made Turkey's behavior this week different from its behavior in recent months and years is that its attacks were concentrated, unequivocal and undeniable for everyone outside of Israel's scandalously imbecilic and flagellant media.

Until this week, both Israel and the US were quick to make excuses for Ankara. When in 2003 the AKP-dominated Turkish parliament prohibited US forces from invading Iraq through Kurdistan, the US blamed itself. Rather than get angry at Turkey, the Bush administration argued that its senior officials had played the diplomatic game poorly.

In February 2006, when Erdogan became the first international figure to host Hamas leaders on an official state visit after the jihadist group won the Palestinian elections, Jerusalem sought to explain away his diplomatic aggression. Israeli leaders claimed that Erdogan's red carpet treatment for mass murderers who seek the physical destruction of Israel was not due to any inherent hostility on the part of the AKP regime towards Israel. Rather, it was argued that Ankara simply supported democracy and that the AKP, as a formerly outlawed Islamist party, felt an affinity towards Hamas as a Muslim underdog.

Jerusalem made similar excuses for Ankara when during the 2006 war with Hizbullah Turkey turned a blind eye to Iranian weapons convoys to Lebanon that traversed Turkey; when Turkey sided with Hamas against Israel during Operation Cast Lead, and called among other things for Israel to be expelled from the UN; and when Erdogan caused a diplomatic incident this past January by castigating President Shimon Peres during a joint appearance at the Davos conference. So too, Turkey's open support for Iran's nuclear weapons program and its galloping trade with Teheran and Damascus, as well as its embrace of al Qaida financiers have elicited nothing more than grumbles from Israel and America.

Initially, this week Israel sought to continue its policy of making excuses for Turkish aggression against it. On Sunday, after Turkey disinvited the IAF from the Anatolian Eagle joint air exercise with Turkey, and NATO, senior officials like Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Opposition leader Tzipi Livni tried to make light of the incident claiming that Turkey remains Israel's strategic ally.

But Turkey wasted no time in making fools of them. On Monday eleven Turkish government ministers descended on Syria to sign a pile of cooperation agreements with Iran's Arab lackey. The Foreign Ministry didn't even have a chance to write apologetic talking points explaining that brazen move before Syria announced it was entering a military alliance with Turkey and would be holding a joint military exercise with the Turkish military. Speechless in the wake of Turkey's move to hold military maneuvers with its enemy just two days after it cancelled joint training with Israel, Jerusalem could think of no mitigating explanation for the move.

Tuesday was characterized by escalating verbal assaults on the Jewish state. First Erdogan renewed his libelous allegations that Israel deliberately killed children in Gaza. Then he called on Turks to learn how to make money like Jews do...

An interesting footnote: the Donmeh, an influential group of Turkish crypto-Jews, played a key role in turning Turkey secular.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:09 | link | comments

Being There, doing that: Charles Krauthammer espies a simpleton/”wise” fool behind the hopeychanger mask:

WASHINGTON — About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award “premature,” as if the brilliance of Obama’s foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

To believe this, you have to be a dreamy adolescent (preferably Scandinavian and a member of the Socialist International) or an indiscriminate imbiber of White House talking points. After all, this was precisely the spin on the president’s various apology tours through Europe and the Middle East: National self-denigration — excuse me, outreach and understanding — is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign policy successes shall come.

Chauncey Gardiner could not have said it better…

Exactamundo.

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

"There are the days of miracles and wonders": It was a slow news day, and the media were snookered by a family of fame whores into following the perilous plight of a First Grader named Falcon who had supposedly clambered aboard his daddy the inventor's flying-saucer-shaped balloon and was set to plummet, Icarus-like, to the ground.

Hmmm. Reminds me of a song. And a poem.

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

Divided on the "mausoleum" issue: I’m so old that an exchange in a B.C. paper about the ‘human rights’ mausoleum between Terry O’Neill--a guy--and Mary-Woo Sims--a chick (obviously)--reminded me of those Saturday Night Live Point-Counterpoint “debates” way back when between Jane Curtin and Dan Ackroyd, the ones where Dan always opened his begging to differ with "Jane, you ignorant slut." That said, I’m with the “Dan” on this one. He opines

By now, Canadians should be aware that not everything done in the name of “human rights” is necessarily beneficial to democracy. Not when one reads in the bestselling book Shakedown of the liberty-quashing excesses of human rights commissions. And not when human rights complaints end up smothering free speech.

This is why it is proper to view with skepticism the plan to build the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, towards which the feds have committed $100 million in capital funding and $22 million in annual operating costs.

My colleague declares reflexively that having a museum dedicated to human rights is a good idea. But a close examination of the project reveals the existence of problems with the direction of the institution, which is scheduled to open in Winnipeg in 2012 as the country’s fifth national museum.

The concerns centre on two contradictory attributes: first, that the museum will be biased in favour of “progressive” causes and will not take into account the liberty-suppressing aspects of the human-rights juggernaut; second, that the museum will, on the other hand, advance a relativistic worldview that will not allow it to assert what is right, even in the face of overwhelming evidence about the evil of genocide, for example. Confusingly, there’s evidence to support both concerns.

The first concern springs from an examination of the membership of the museum’s content advisory committee. Of the committee’s 16 members, 11 have been identified as feminist activists and their supporters. Some observers fear that, as a result, such controversial human-rights issues as abortion will be presented by the museum from a wholly feminist perspective.

Or maybe not. The second concern is based on the utterances of Patrick O’Reilly, the museum’s chief co-ordinating officer, who said last March that the goal of the museum “isn’t to find truth nor to present ‘the story;’ rather, it involves bringing many people together, challenging all to think differently and to consider other points of view.” He repeated the sentiment virtually word for word in a speech three months later.

Frankly, I don’t know what’s more disturbing: a museum dedicated to a biased version of human rights or a museum that rejects critical thinking and the search for truth. Either way, I’m not at all impressed.

Me neither. Although I must admit that the profligate waste of public funds is truly impressive. Meanwhile, “Jane,” the former chief B.C. Commissar, remarks

It has been a long time coming but Canada is eventually going to get the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. The late Israel Asper had a dream that one day, in his beloved hometown, the first national museum to be based outside the Ottawa region would be built. Asper’s daughter Gail has picked up the torch, managing to secure sufficient funding, and construction of the museum has started. Its first director, a former Tory politician (what else do you expect from the federal Tories?) has been named.

My colleague opposite, always quick to find fault with anything related to human rights, says the museum plan is a mess, “primarily because there’s great confusion about its goal.” He’s concerned that Patrick O’Reilly, the museum’s chief co-ordinating officer, has made a couple of contradictory statements about the goal of the museum, including, “isn’t to find truth nor to present ‘the story.’” That and other statements have led some conservative activists to worry the museum will present only a left-wing perspective on human rights, “the sort embodied by the BC Human Rights Commission of the NDP era.”

Is that some backhanded way of getting at yours truly (I was chief commissioner)? And what the heck is a left-wing perspective on human rights?

Why is it that anyone who dares question the status quo on the state of human rights in any given period of history is branded in some way — negatively usually — by those who oppose change?

From those who fought against slavery to the suffragettes and more recent feminists, branding them as radicals has been used to discredit the message that equality and human rights are important to humanity.

The museum’s mission is to “enhance the public’s understanding of human rights, promote respect for others, and encourage reflection and dialogue on various human rights issues.” That’s important.

I think one of the best things the museum can do is highlight the contributions that everyday people like Gim Wong have done to advance human rights understanding and redress past wrongs. Wong at 82 rode his motorbike across Canada to seek redress for Chinese-Canadians who paid the Head Tax. And while not such an “everyday person,” Israel Asper’s dream deserves to be honoured too.

To explain to “Jane,” who, as a card-carrying member of the “human rights” industry can’t see past the sparkly window-dressing of it all: the mausoleum is a shrine to victimhood and identity politics. As such, it will do nothing to advance the cause of real human right--first and foremost, the right to speak without fear of being reproached by the state--since, in a free society, these rights must pertain to the individual, not the group.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:48 | link | comments

The tyranny of “rights”: “Human rights” may have started out as something noble and desirable--the UN Declaration of Human Rights and all that. But a quick check of how it’s working on the ground both globally and locally reveals that it has morphed into something ugly and dangerous--a means of exerting power and control, and not the good kind. Exhibit A: a UN “human rights” henchchick has arrived in Canada, a nation that’s awash in “human rights” outfits a marie usque ad mare, to get us--us!--to shape up and get with the global “rights” agenda. The National Post has the grim details:

Gay McDougall, the UN's chief monitor of the way governments treat minorities, is charged with entering countries to expose discrimination and abuse.

One would expect the prime targets of her investigative talents would be the world's worst human rights abusers -- places such as China, Cuba, Libya and Saudi Arabia, to name a few of Freedom House's "worst of the worst."

Yet Ms. McDougall arrived in Canada this week after picking the country as her eighth investigative destination since her 2005 appointment as the UN's first Independent Expert on minority issues. Her previous "targets" were three European Union members: France, Greece and Hungary; as well as the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan.

In other words, half of her investigative efforts have focused on advanced democracies.

"The reality is that every would-be immigrant in the world knows that Canada ranks at the top in its treatment of minorities, thanks to its constitutional guarantees, independent judiciary, elected parliament, vigorous civil society and free press -- that all can speak for affected minorities and provide remedies where needed," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch in Geneva, the host city of the UN's main human rights branches.

"But there is not a single domestic institution that will speak for the two million black African migrants persecuted in Libya, the ethnic minorities oppressed in Tibet, or the women subjugated in Saudi Arabia."

"That is precisely where an international voice would be vital."

But the irony does not rest there. The UN statement announcing Ms. McDougall's Canadian probe includes a reference to the term "visible minorities," which the UN's anti-racism watchdog told Ottawa to stop using two years ago.

The statement cites Canadian census data that reveals "visible minorities" represented 16.2% of the Canadian population in 2006.

But the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination told Canada in 2007 that Ottawa's use of the term in literature "may not be in accordance with the aims and objectives" of UN's anti-racism convention…

At this stage the only UN Committee anyone who values liberty should be interested in is the UN Committee on the Elimination of UN Committees.

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

Thursday, 15 October 2009

P.C. medals: I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that the medals that will be handed out at the upcoming winter Olympics in British Columbia will be thoroughly--that is to say excruciatingly--politically correct. From the Ceeb:

The official medals for the 2010 Winter Olympics were unveiled Thursday morning in Vancouver, featuring original West Coast aboriginal designs of an orca and a raven.

In an Olympic first, each medal will be unique, featuring part of an image cropped from two large master artworks by Corrine Hunt, a Canadian designer and artist of Komoyue and Tlingit heritage based in Vancouver, B.C.

For example, each medal will include its own signature elements of the orca and raven artwork, such as the suggestion of the orca's eye, the curve of its dorsal fin or the contours of the raven's wing, said officials.

What, no polar bears desperately searching for ice floes but drowning in the soup due to trapped greenhouse gases causing the polar ice cap to melt? Or how about one showing Canada's Queen Censor persuing her capacious dossier full of ideologically impure thought: now that's Canucki P.C. (Is it just me, or do the misshapen medals look like something from a Salvador Dali painting?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:36 | link | comments

UN body debates Gaza report: Hold on a sec...UN body "debates" Gaza report.

There. Fixed it.

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

Burka lesbians: Apparently, when chicks are left to their own devices (so to speak) in the Magic Kingdom, Sapphism ensues.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:29 | link | comments

Jihadis spurn Obama’s kiddie prizes: Whadya know--treating Islamist thugs as though they are Kindergarteners who need their self-esteem boosted and get it via incentives such as cookies and smiley faces isn’t having much impact in Sudan, reports the WaPo:

Human rights groups and lawmakers are ratcheting up pressure on the Obama administration this week over its approach to ending violence in Sudan, saying the White House and the State Department are treading too cautiously in dealing with the government in Khartoum.

A coalition of U.S.-based advocates focused on the Darfur region -- where they say genocide is still being committed by the Sudanese government -- sent a letter to President Obama on Monday demanding the replacement of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration as special envoy to Sudan, arguing that his attempt to engage with the country's rulers "is wrong and deadly."

"The good-intentioned yet soft approach of the General towards the Government of Sudan is abused and exploited by a regime that has continued to rule Sudan with fire and blood throughout the last twenty years," read the letter from nine groups, including the Darfur Reconciliation and Development Organization, and several individuals.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in response, "The President is extremely grateful for the work General Gration has done thus far, and for all the work he'll do on this critical issue in the future."…

Have they tried giving out free coupons for McDonalds? I hear there’s nothing those Janjaweed lugs like more after a hard day slicing and dicing than tucking into a (halal) Big Mac and some McNuggets at the Darfur McD's.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:09 | link | comments

What's the world coming to?: In a shocking and unexpected display of anti-dhimmitude, the U.K. has rejected the Gallstone Report.

The Brits must have fallen victim to that sinister Zionist conspiracy, I guess.

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

Libelous Libs: Why do useful idiots hurl the “R-word” at people who are in no way R-ist? As Harry Stein writes in City Journal, it’s so they can both stop and control the conversation:

More than a few on the right are alarmed by the torrent of racism accusations that an all-star cast of liberal luminaries has directed at President Obama’s critics. “When people like Jimmy Carter and Maureen Dowd start saying this kind of thing, we’ve reached a whole new level of ugliness in our political discourse,” as one friend of mine puts it. “No charge in American life is so poisonous.” He’s got a point, of course—especially about the poisonous part. Yet as those on the other side spew the R-word with ever more irresponsible abandon, some of us find new reason for hope. Here’s a chance to lance the boil once and for all.

Genuine racism is a terrible thing, and for far too long it was a virulent strain running through our national life. This is so patently obvious that it scarcely bears repeating. Yet those of us who point out how much our nation has changed for the better invariably feel obliged to repeat it, early and often, lest our very sense of optimism about race relations make us subject to the charge. So while we’re at it, let’s dispense with the other essential pro forma acknowledgment: yes, even in today’s America, traces of the vilest racism persist in some dark hearts and twisted minds.

But those liberals who’ve lately been issuing the racism charge so promiscuously (speaking of aberrant hearts and minds) are aiming it not at skinheads living in their parents’ basements or at would-be Klansmen, but at decent Americans with the temerity to object to presidential policies that they believe would damage both the quality of their lives and the nation itself: in short, at Americans acting in the best tradition of democratic citizenship. This is so preposterous that literally millions who’ve never before given the matter any thought are taking notice.

And what they see is what has long been true: that the charge of racism is invariably a crock; indeed, that more than simply an expression of (often contrived) liberal moral outrage, it’s intended to be the ultimate conversation stopper…

In the same way that accusing Israel of the A-word (apartheid), a variation of the R-word, is a conversation stopper.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:15 | link | comments

“Change” or status quo?: I found this (unintentionally amusing) notice on the Alberta
“human rights” Commissariat’s site:

The Government of Alberta has amended the province’s human rights legislation. Here are some of the changes that are effective as of October 1, 2009:

1. Alberta’s human rights legislation is now named Alberta Human Rights Act.

2. Alberta Human Rights Commission is the new name of the commission.

3. Effective October 1, 2009, sexual orientation is written in as a protected ground under the Alberta Human Rights Act. Between April 2, 1998 and October 1, 2009, sexual orientation had been "read in" as a protected ground under Alberta’s human rights legislation.

4. The definition of marital status is now “the state of being married, single, widowed, divorced, separated or living with a person in a conjugal relationship outside marriage.” Previously, the word “state” was “status” and the word “person” was followed by “of the opposite sex.”

5. The Chief Commissioner is now called the Chief of the Commission and Tribunals.

6. Human rights panels are now called human rights tribunals…

And FYI: if you’re, say, an aggrieved imam who thinks sharia law applies here in Canada and who wants an uppity Jew called to account for daring to publish some blasphemous Motoons, please note that

A complaint must be made to the Alberta Human Rights Commission within one year after the alleged incident of discrimination. The one-year period starts the day after the date on which the incident occurred. For help calculating the one-year period, contact the Commission.

Whereupon the AHRC can then hound the target of your complaint for many years and pick up any legal expenses you, the complainant, may incur along the way--just one of the many special services it provides with the aim of ~~punishing the politically incorrect~~ ending “discrimination” in the province.

My conclusion: the wording may have been tweaked, but it’s the same old “human rights” mishegas .

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:32 | link | comments

Ignoble prize: Claudia Rosett says we shouldn’t blame the Norwegians for handing out unearned “peace” prizes. We should blame the guy who put his name on the prize, and who made it what it is today:

...[Alfred] Nobel laid out the criteria for his prizes in his will, signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris in 1895, the year before he died. For the peace prize, the basics are spelled out in three clauses. However well intended, they make no mention whatsoever of such staples of peace as freedom and human dignity. Nobel directed that the peace prize would go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Crammed into those clauses is a welter of fallacies and contradictions about what actually produces peace. The first clause, about working for fraternity among nations, is a catch-all so broad that as a guide to peace it is a recipe for disaster. Thus did Europe travel a Nobel-bedecked road to World Wars I and II. Or recall the 1973 Nobel for the Paris Peace Talks over Vietnam, two years prior to North Vietnam's brutal conquest of the South (Henry Kissinger accepted the prize; Hanoi's Le Duc Tho, then preparing to collect the more practical prize of Saigon, declined).

Today, Iran and North Korea favor fraternity among nations, as long as it comes on terms preferred by the Iranian and North Korean governments. These nations' fraternal cooperation on weaponry continues to make news, and their youth leagues just last year signed a memorandum of friendship and cooperation.

Wasn’t it Emerson who observed that a foolish “fraternity” is the hobgoblin of “progressive” minds?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:51 | link | comments

Harpoon’s obsession: Like a pitbull who won’t drop a bone, the Toronto Star’s Harpoon Siddiqui won’t--can’t--drop the Gallstone Report. It remains a subject of such consuming interest that he manages to pump out yet another whole column about it. Read it here if you’d like, but I warn you, it’s as soporific as Sleep-Eze. My riposte, I trust, is somewhat livelier:

Haroon Siddiqui’s enthusiasm for the Goldstone Report (by my count this is his fifth column in a row on the subject) reminds me that, two years ago, he was equally pumped about another document--the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report about Iran. That report concluded that there was absolutely no basis for the supposition that Iran was enriching uranium with the intention of creating nuclear weapons, and that there was therefore no need for the U.S. to consider a military option.

Two years later, we know that that report was a crock, and that Iran has been building secret nuclear facilities. Unfortunately, we have not learned to be suspicious of any and all reports commissioned by organizations that have a clear animus toward Israel (the NIE in the case of the Iran report; the UN Human Rights Council in the case of the Goldstone Report) and that are crafted on the basis of foregone conclusions.

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

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

Like the Sex Pistols, only without the sex and with sharia: Always on the cutting edge of cultural trends, the Ceeb has a report about Taqwacore, Islamic punk rock. It's not exactly ear candy, if you catch my infidel drift.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:21 | link | comments

Ayatollah about to meet his maker?: Is Iran's holiest rollah in a coma? Maybe. Then again, let's not get too excited until they've put a mirror under his nostrils and it doesn't fog up.

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

The (Palestinian) tail wagging the (U.N.) dog: The PA is demanding that the UN "punish" Israel for its "war crimes."

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:47 | link | comments

“Justice” in the Magic Kingdom: Every so often I like to click on Arab News so I can read stories like this one. They are a good reminder that, no matter how kooky things are here in our HRC-infested Trudeaupia, we still have a ways to go till we achieve Wahhabi heights of wackiness:

JEDDAH: The Jeddah Summary Court will convene on Wednesday to listen to the defense of a Saudi woman journalist charged with being involved in the preparation of the LBC’s “Bold Red Line” program in which a man boasted about his sexual exploits.

The Prosecution and Investi-gation Commission’s list of charges, which were handed over to the woman on Monday, included involvement in the preparation of the program, openly coordinating with the bragger on a satellite channel, and advertising the episode on the Internet to attract a large number of viewers. The journalist, whose name has not been disclosed, refused to appear before the court despite repeated summons.

When she finally appeared before the court on Monday, she was handed over the charges against her and the judge asked her to respond to them on Wednesday. The court sentenced the braggart, Mazen Abdul Jawad, to five years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes.

Which, when you think about it, is rather a better deal than getting one year in prison and 5,000 lashes.

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

Do as she says not as she does: Though she admits she has a hankering for junk food herself, Obama's missus is backing a humungously expensive effort to cleanse schools of their food sins.

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

Beware of Liberals thinking “deep” thoughts: With his political fortunes foundering, smarty-pants Michael Ignatieff is convening a conference of big thinkers like him to come up with some big ideas. From the Toronto Star:

OTTAWA–The federal Liberals will hold their much-postponed "thinkers' conference" in Montreal in mid-January, leader Michael Ignatieff says.

Replying to reporters' questions in Vancouver on Tuesday, Ignatieff said the Liberals would convene a policy-renewal gathering in Montreal from Jan. 14 to 16.

That announcement further seals the impression that Liberals, taking a hit in the public-opinion polls, are now gearing for an election next spring instead of this fall, and that Ignatieff is taking advantage of the wait to renew the party at the ideas level…

Lemme guess: the Liberal “thinkers” will try to repackage hopenchange as, say, “A New Beginning for Canada” or “Perfecting the Future” or something else that sounds suitably and ponderously Trudeaupian. Best o’ luck with that one, Iggy.

Update: It looks like Iggy is going to try to go Goracle to get into power (from the Vancouver Sun):

Ignatieff, who said the party has not yet costed its renewable energy strategy, told reporters he tries to live green in his personal life.

He and wife Zsuzsanna Zsohar do not use plastic bags when shopping, they have energy-saver light bulbs in their condo and they recycle. The Ignatieffs own neither a car nor bicycles and use the subway while in Toronto.

Why, he’s a veritable eco-Saint. How can Canadians not fall for him? (BTW, all of the above save the bit about car and bike ownership--my hubby drives and we both own bikes--applies to Yours Truly, too, but I would never think to use those facts as evidence of my inherent virtuousness.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:09 | link | comments

Po-mo drivel: I must be getting really old because I can’t make head nor tail of Jonathan Goldstein’s latest faux diary entry (i.e. his columm) in the National Post. (The faux diary thing is also the premise behind WireTap, his snoozerama of a Ceeb radio show):

…Wednesday. It's Tucker's birthday, and so we all meet at his favourite steakhouse, Marvin's. Ari didn't have time to get Tucker a gift, so he instead went around his house throwing stuff into a bag for him. A can of tuna. A half-used tube of toothpaste. A roll of wax paper. Tucker roots through the bag, genuinely pleased to find a CAA card-- until he realizes it's expired.

The last time we were at Marvin's, there were taxidermied animal heads all over the walls. Howard asks our waitress what happened to them.

"We sent them to the dry cleaner," she says, "and they were ruined."

Before she walks away, I study her face for an ironic glint. There is none.

Throughout dinner, we take pictures of each other with our cellphones. The object is to take the most unflattering, candid photo possible. Tucker snaps one of me talking in mid-blink, my mouth full of steak. Ari takes one of Howard staring at Tucker's half-gnawed steak bone while licking his top lip.

"There was a time when taking a photograph was an event," I say, "when every phone didn't come with a camera."

"Could you imagine if they had?" Tucker asks. "One of those clunky twin lense reflex cameras electrical taped to a rotary dial telephone?"

It took a visionary to imagine the coupling of phones and cameras -- the kind of person who could foresee a solution to world hunger in a lizard's tail.

I make a mental note to call up Gerard and apologize, and while I am doing so, Howard hands me over his cell so I can see what I look like in the process of making a mental note. All the while, Tucker is taking a picture of me looking at what I look like when I am making a mental note.

To escape this postmodern hall of mirrors, I rise from the table to find the waitress…

To escape this po-mo hall of mirrors/meta-Hell/unfunny theatre of solipsism (who are Tucker, Howard, Avi and Gerard, and why should I care about them?), I will avoid reading Goldstein.

Update: And speaking of drivel, here’s MoDo, the NYT’s dizzy diva, imagining a conversation, post-Nobel Peace Prize announcement, between two former POTUSes:

When he heard the Nobel Peace Prize shocker on Friday, Bill Clinton went into one of his purple rages. He picked up the phone and dialed the one person on earth who would be as steamed as he was.Skip to next paragraph

CLINTON: Hey, man, it’s me. This thing is plumb crazy. Can you believe it?

W: No way, Jose!

CLINTON: First that prig Carter. Then that prig Gore. And now President Paris Hilton. The guy’s in office three days and he gets the peace prize? He should have gotten the Nobel in chemistry, because chemistry’s all he’s got. Talk about a fairy tale. This ... is ... just ... wrong! It’s killing me, man. I feel like my head’s explodin’. First I had the vast right-wing conspiracy, and now I have the vast left-wing conspiracy.

W.: I hear ya, 42. As if his head wasn’t big enough. This cat is all cage, no bird. He doesn’t have a clue.

CLINTON: Heck no…

It goes on--but doesn’t get much better--from there. That there are those who continue find this sort of stuff clever/amusing is, I must admit, a source of fascination--and bafflement.

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

Tin foil beanie building cooks the books: It hasn’t even opened its doors and the “human rights” mausoleum is already in such desperate financial straits that it has resorted to some dubious accounting practices, reports the Globe and Mail:

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, still an estimated three years from opening its doors in Winnipeg, has dodged a financial crisis, thanks to an accounting sleight of hand.

In its 2008-09 annual report tabled late last week in the House of Commons, the museum announced that the government has approved a request for an advance of $5.2-million to meet its operating budget for the current fiscal year. The money is being “reprofiled” from the $21.7-million the Conservative government previously had benchmarked for the Crown corporation's operations in 2011-12.

Previously, the CMHR, the construction of which began this year, had been budgeted to receive $3.4-million to operate during the 2009-2010 fiscal year ending March 31. The $3.4-million was part of a $6.1-million operating package Ottawa provided for 2008-09 and 2009-2010.

But in May, the museum announced that inflation and unanticipated “payments in lieu of taxes” were pushing its budget for 2009 to $8.6-million. It subsequently advised the Treasury Board that it wouldn't “require the full $21.7-million” for 2011-12 operations, saying it could manage with $15.85-million if the balance could be allocated to 2009-10.

In the meantime, the CMHR is still looking for $45-million to meet its projected capital costs of about $310-million. Originally, in 2007, the museum estimated that its capital costs would total $265-million, but in May it announced that material costs, a drop in the value of the Canadian dollar and inflation-related hikes made that figure untenable.

The federal government is allocating a total of $100-million, parcelled out in stages, for the museum's construction and has indicated that it doesn't intend to add to that investment.

What a colossal waste o’ cash.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:52 | link | comments

The face of Islamic repression: The Globe and Mail has a few letters today from readers commenting on the possibility of a burka ban. I thought this one nailed it:

Your face is who you are. Without a face, you are nothing!

Bill Curry, Waterloo, Ont.

Right on, Bill. That’s why misogynistic control freaks in the grip of religious fervour force women into sacks, the outward expression of who and what they are: a nullity, a blank, a void, lacking status and a face.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:12 | link | comments

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Scaramouche, Jr.: My son, who’s in Grade Six, had to write a poem for school. I thought it was so amusing I just had to share:

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I think I’ll drive

A car that looks like the Pontiac Vibe.

Maybe I will drive a Lexus,

As long as it takes me to Texas.

I could start a company

To make the cars that are cool to me.

I might drive a Chevrolet

Because they make the cars of today.

Probably I’ll drive a Chrysler,

Hoping it won’t get a flat tire.

Maybe I will drive a Honda

Because it’s a car that I’m fonda.

Possibly I’ll drive an Accord

As long as that car can go forward.

Maybe a Toyata Corolla.

When I drive to Mexico I will say Ola!

But the car I think I’ll really use

I guess that I’ll still have to choose.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:15 | link | comments (2)

How to Succeed in Getting Norwegians to Give You a Peace Prize Without Even Trying: Sean Hannity recaps the event-packed 12 days that led up to a thrilling win:

On day one, after taking the oath it was time to take in the traditional Inauguration Day Parade, followed by several not-so-extraordinary black tie parties with his supporters.

Now jump to day three when the president vowed to close Gitmo within a year, a promise the administration now acknowledges will likely be broken. Then there's day four when he reversed a Bush administration executive order to bar U.S. money going to foreign groups that perform abortions.

Well, that's diplomatic. And on his first Sunday in office, well, the president skipped church. At that time he was still looking for a replacement for his old pal Jeremiah Wright. And then on the 12th day Obama once again skipped church and hosted a Super Bowl bash at the White House.

So there you have it. The fast track to winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Amazing. That it took him so long, I mean. This song, from the Frank Loesser musical about another ambitious chap who rises to the top in astonishingly short order, seems tailor-made for the hopeychanger.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:50 | link | comments

Tainted honour: You know how the Norwegians get to decide who gets a Nobel Peace Prize every year? Read this article which appeared in FrontPage last June and ask yourselves what on earth makes anyone think they have the moral authority to do so?:

Can one be an international leader in educating people about the evils of the Holocaust and simultaneously spend tens of millions of dollars to honor a dead Nazi? The Norwegian government thinks that such moral relativism is normal.

The honored Nazi in question is the novelist Knut Hamsun, who welcomed the brutal German occupation of Norway during World War II. He also offered his Nobel Prize in Literature as a gift to the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Hamsun later visited Hitler, whom he admired, in Bavaria. [1]

The New York Times wrote that in February 2009, Norway’s Queen Sonja opened the “year-long, publicly financed commemoration of Hamsun’s 150th birthday called Hamsun 2009…the queen spent a highly specific half-hour with Hamsun family members at the National Library. Together they viewed the author’s handwritten manuscripts. [2] There is more than one layer of significance to this. First, a Labor party-dominated government rehabilitates an admirer of Hitler and the National Socialists. Second, the Queen participates in this event, as if the royal family did not flee abroad when the Germans conquered their homeland in 1940.

In March, Norway became head of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research. The ITF consists of representatives of government, as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations. Its purpose is to place political and social leaders’ support behind the promotion of Holocaust education, remembrance and research. It was initiated by Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson in 1998, This Task Force currently has twenty-six member countries. It met on 24 June for a major conference in Oslo.

Holocaust remembrance requires moral choices. The whitewashing of a Nazi supporter however expresses moral turpitude. A Norwegian government spokesman said that Hamsun was one of Norway’s most important authors and added that during the Hamsun festivities his Nazi past will be mentioned. How important can such mention be in what in essence are festivities in his honor?

Has Norway built a twenty million dollar museum for any Norwegian who resisted the Nazis? A more than life size bronze statue of Hamsun is also planned. One can probably search in vain all over Western Europe for a statue of such an extreme admirer of Hitler…

A “peace prize” handed out by folks who revere Hamsun and Quisling? All I can say (channelling my late Bubby, a very wise women) is: Feh!

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:14 | link | comments (1)

"Sunny day, chasin' the Jews away/On my way to where the air is sweet/Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Judenrein Street?": Good intentions make for the strangest bedfellows--witness the bizarre alliance between Sesame Street and a TV station associated with...Hamas?

As if those infidel Muppets could ever give Farfour and his gang of shaheeds a run for their money.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:55 | link | comments (2)

All hail the vox populi: One place in Canada where free expression is flourishing is in the comments section that follows the story on the Ceeb website about Steyn's and Levant’s appearance before the parliamentarians looking into state censorship. As of this writing, there are some 217 comments. Here are a few of the more, ahem, colourful ones.

"CalmCalm," whose remarks belie hizzer (my neologism for the clunky his/her--feel free to borrow it) alleged tranquility writes

I easily understand why Chief David Ahenakew was so angry.

Following the Hitler Trip and the horrible experiences of the Jews, many left Europe and invested heavily into media and Hollywood.

Some of the same people who had just experienced and fled from the discrimination, stereotyping and racism by Hitler, arrived in North America and purchased movie lots and film companies which created film and other types of media which depicted Indians and blacks as savages and subhumans.

The native people suffered hugely from years of Hollywood films and sterotyping.

North American natives and blacks were described in films in almost the exact same manner in which Hitler had described the Jews.

You mean David Ahenakew (the First Nations elder who thought Hitler was on the right track, Jew-wise) was “angry” because Louis B. Mayer and the other Jewish movie moguls escaped Hitler’s clutches and came to America to make movies stereotyping blacks and the North American indigenes formerly known as “Indians” (as in Cowboys and…)? What an interesting--and at the same time completely inaccurate verging on the deranged-- interpretation of history.

Meanwhile, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Babe" (who I assume is a “her”) offers this caveat re the dynamic duo's testimony:

Let's hope these two [Steyn and Levant] don't go crying to the CHRC about Anti-Semitism next time somebody publishes a piece that is critical of the Israeli government or suggests that the influence of Judaism poses "a threat to North American institutions and values." Or is it only acceptable to criticize Islam?

Actually, BWBB, in Canada it is only acceptable not to criticize Islam. As for your concern about Ezra or Mark feeling the need to register a complaint with the Lynch mob, rest assured it would never happen because

A) These gents are leading the charge to divest the goons of power, and you can see how lodging a complaint with them would be rather counter-productive to that effort; and

B) The idea that the CHRC would ever entertain a complaint from a right-wing Christian or Jew about Islam or blood libels about Israel is so fanciful, so out of touch, that one fears for BWBB’s hold on reality.

But lest you think loony lefties are the only ones who take advantage of their right to bloviate freely, here’s someone who appears to approach the issue from the other end of the political spectrum, the eminently sensible "Myalterego":

Wow - its obvious many who have commented hear did not watch the entire proceedings. Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn presented facts, not opinions. Facts from CHRC proceedings and sworn testimony from CHRC staff themselves. Section 13 is corrupt and is actually punishing the human rights of Canadians. Like Ezra and mark said, the corruption is so deep and so heinous that at first it is unbelievable, if it were not for the immense documentation that exits. Changing section 13 is like putting lipstick on a pig. Section 13 effectively figuratively and not so figuratively if you must defend yourself, is cutting the tongues out of Canadians mouths so the CH RC can dine on them at tax payers cost. It is beyond unethical to fine or jail someone when they can not afford the fine after paying tens upon tens of thousands of dollars in a futile attempt to defend themselves, for simply offending someone. Offending someone is a thought crime under the CH RC and is punishable in fines or through jail time. It is lawfare for the easily offended - the definition of offended - whatever hurts your feelings. Hurting a persons feeling is now punishable. Ridiculous. The criminal code covers hate speech we do not need a kangaroo court ,without any of the rights of a real court for the defendant, to spend our tax dollars to the tune of millions upon millions for "hurt feelings" or feeling like they have been "offended" - on all expenses paid lawsuit for the plaintiff with no provision for the wrongfully charged to recover their money. Section 13 is unconstitutional and unconscionable.

I don’t know who “Myaltergo” is, but I sure like the cut of hizzer jib. That also applies to the pseudonymous “BillBan,” who adds:

The HRCs are a make-work project for campus Stalinists, ghetto princes, diversity lawyers, and under-employed social workers. They define this country as an incipient dictatorship. As we chop this monstrosity called HRC up, we can start with Sect. 13, but keep on going.

My sentiments exactly, BillBan.

My favourite comment, though, comes from “Sashhenka," who, in a deliciously Orwellian post describes her brief but extremely unsatisfactory experiences in that dizzying alternate reality that is Lynchland (my bolds):

From my personal experience I know the CHRC discriminates. I was trying to register a complaint against a Canadian Bank that forced me to use a telephone which i cannot do. Representatives of the CHRC on three separate occasions told me the only way forward was to telephone the CHRC. I remember at one point e-mailing the CHRC: 'Now all i have to do is figure out how to register a discrimination complaint against the CHRC.'

I think you’ll have to get in line there, Sashhenka. My suggestion: write to your MP, the Minister of Justice, and the Prime Minister.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:06 | link | comments

Sweating to the crazies: To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in…best-selling self-help gurus who’ve appeared on Oprah. At their own peril, as it turns out:

SEDONA, AZ -- The cousin of a New York woman who died at spiritual guru and best-selling author James Ray's Sedona retreat, is speaking out about her death for the first time.

"We were lucky to have known her," said Brown's cousin, Tom McFeeley. "We need to understand what happened, and from this, we're going to figure out in some way how to avoid it happening again."

Brown and 40-year-old James Shore of of Milwaukee died Thursday night after being overcome in a sweat lodge during a spiritual cleansing ceremony.

Nineteen others were taken to area hospitals, but most were soon released.

Starla Addair with the Flagstaff Medical Center said one person remains in critical condition Sunday, but that three others were either in fair or good condition Sunday night.

The man who hosted the Arizona retreat is a well-known author and TV personality.

James Ray is a New York Times best selling author who has made appearances on Oprah and Larry King Live.

He hosted at least 60 people for the Sedona-area retreat at the Angel Valley Retreat Center, according to Dwight D’Evelyn with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office. Some of his participants have attended in years past, and the sweat lodge has been part of the ceremony before.

Attendees told detectives they paid between $9,000 and $10,000 for their stay and participation in the program, which including a three-day fast and various spiritual exercises before the sweat lodge culmination.

Investigators said the goal of the sweat lodge cleanse was to achieve "an out of body experience."

The plan was for participants to sweat for eight 15 to 30 minute rounds.

Deputies said 50 to 60 people were crammed in the make-shift tent, which was only 30 inches on the sides and 53 inches in the center.

They said Ray's staff made the sweat lodge from plastic tarps, blankets, wood and other materials.

Sedona resident Anna Lisa Brown said she sees people constantly shuttling in to town for similar retreats.

"I was surprised that people would put themselves in that situation, but not surprised, because people are looking for things to fulfill themselves to give them purpose," said Brown.

Although some Sedona residents called the Angel Valley community "a cult," Brown's cousin said Brown should not be called a "follower" of Ray.

"The one thing we don't want, is for this to be represented as some kind of cult," said McFeeley…

Heaven forefend. Why would anyone think people refusing to exercise their own good judgement in order to “cleanse” themselves by “going native” in an obvious fire trap would be evidence of cult-like behaviour?

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

A must-read: In an effort to comprehend the rationale behind Obama's Nobel, Dennis Prager fisks the Norwegians.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:12 | link | comments

Rapist “rights”: In the U.K., reports the Telegraph, an illegal alien who likes to rape and rob is accorded heaps of “rights”. The women he rapes--not so much:

Running along a canal towpath in preparation for the London marathon, Mrs Browne, a mother-of-two, was dragged off the path and into the undergrowth by a teenager who grabbed her around the throat, struck her in the face, forced her to the ground and then sexually assaulted her.

Convinced she would be raped, Mrs Browne, fought back, kicking her attacker hard and as a stranger approached, the youth ran off.

"I was in fear of my life. I thought he was going to kill me. I was sure he was going to rape me," she says, as the memories come flooding back.

"I remember running along this canal path where I always ran. I just remember this man approaching me from behind a blind corner. He stepped out in front of me, blocking my path and asking me the time.

"And then he just grinned at me and I remembered thinking 'oh no'. I took one more step but his right arm came out around my throat. I can still feel his arm coming around my neck but then I don't have any recollection of what happened next but I must have been dragged 100 to 150 metres.

"I don't know if my mind went blank or I lost consciousness for a few minutes but the next thing I was aware of him shoving me up against a wall with his head braced against my chest and his body at 90 degrees.

"His whole focus was on removing my lower clothing. I realised I had my hands free and I hit him hard. He then hit me in the mouth – I don't know whether that was with his fist or his head. But then he threw me to the ground and pulled down my clothes.

"He started sexually assaulting me but finally I just got my legs free and I started kicking him as hard as I could. Then I heard somebody approaching and he just ran off."

Her assailant was caught by police later that day – but rather than being the end of her ordeal, it was just the beginning. Mohammed Kendeh, now aged 22, has used the Human Rights Act to resist all attempts to deport him back to his native Sierra Leone – despite admitting responsibility for at least 11 sexual assaults as well as a number of street robberies.

It leaves Mrs Browne distraught to know Kendeh is still in Britain when – but for the Human Rights Act – he should be thousands of miles away languishing in west Africa – and no longer a danger to her or other women.

"It makes my blood boil," says Mrs Browne, who has waived her right to anonymity as the victim of a sexual assault to speak out against Kendeh.

"He is allowed to stay here because to send him home would breach his human rights. But nobody seems to care about my rights when he tried to rape me. Nobody cares about the other women he has attacked."…

Need it be said? An all-consuming obsession with “human rights” breeds a type--this type--of societal madness.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:50 | link | comments

Turkey sticks it to the Hebes: From VOA:

Turkey's Foreign Ministry has denied that it canceled this week's international air force exercise over opposition to Israel's participation.

The ministry said Monday the cancellation was "not political," and urged Israeli officials to approach the situation with common sense.

Israeli military officials said Saturday Turkey canceled the Anatolian Eagle exercise because it wanted to exclude the Israeli air force from taking part in the drill. The military exercise also was scheduled to include U.S., Italian and NATO forces.

Turkey and Israel have had close ties, but their relations have been uneven since Israeli forces clashed with Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of this year.

Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized the Israeli campaign in the Palestinian territory.

Turkey has also played a role in trying to restart peace talks between Israel and Syria, but those contacts broke down last year.

Wrong interpretation, VOA. Turkey and Israel had close ties when Turkey was committed to secularism and before the Islamists took over.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:37 | link | comments

Monday, 12 October 2009

Tibetan in a rut in a hut: The Dalai Lama may have been snubbed by a hopeychanger (whose hugs and kissess are reserved for totalitarian thugs, and who thus had none to spare for a mild Buddhist), but his visit to D.C. wasn't a complete waste--he got to pay a visit to a local sukkah. (The holiday's over, but I thought this 'toon expressed both Tibetan and Israeli hopes, since both are dwarfed by belligerent enemies who long for their demise, and both dare to dream about a time when there will be peace, no matter how far off and unattainable it may seem at the moment.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:46 | link | comments

Epic understatement: A spokesman for the Israel's American embassy says (faux)-Zionist lobby group J Street could "impair Israel's interests."

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:37 | link | comments

And now for something completely different: I was listening to songs on my iPod in alphabetical order, and this one just popped up. Thought I'd share.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:32 | link | comments

The real reason the Norwegians gave Obama the peace prize: They were taking hopium.

Update: OMIGOD! He's winning every prize in sight (scroll down).

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:01 | link | comments

Total wackiness at the quasi-judiciary: Here's how the latest CHRT hearing went down--the complainant didn't show up, the target of the complaint didn't show up either, so the "judge" up and dismissed the whole shebang.

Unstated on the CHRC site: exactly how much did that no-show farce (in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, of all places) end up costing Canadian taxpayers?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:28 | link | comments (4)

American exceptionalism in action, except for one exception: His being tapped for a Nobel Peace Prize puts the president who takes exception to American exceptionalism (since he's a non or an un-exceptionalist, i.e. a globalist) into exceptionally--that is to say, almost exclusively--American company, prize-wise. Contentions’ John Steele Gordon comments:

The winners of the Nobel Prize in economics were announced today. They are two Americans, Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University and Oliver Williamson of UC Berkeley.

So now that all the 2009 prizes have been awarded, let’s recap: The Nobel in medicine went to three Americans. The Nobel in physics went to three Americans. The Nobel in chemistry went to two Americans and one Israeli. The Nobel in literature went to a German. The Nobel Peace Prize went to an American, and now the Nobel in economics has gone to two Americans.

Thus, of the 13 winners this year, 11 are Americans. A country with 4 percent of the world’s population produced 85 percent of the winners. To be sure, we are to some extent playing with numbers here. After all, Israel, with .08 percent of the world’s population, produced 7 percent of the winners. But over the 108 years they have been handing out Nobel Prizes, the number won by American citizens is exceptionally large.

I wonder if that fact embarrasses this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner.

I’d sure be embarrassed to be in such exceptional company, especially if I’d done nothing particularly exceptional to deserve it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:55 | link | comments

Swoon for the crooner: Old Brown Eyes essays a Rodgers and Hart standard:

My funny Nobel prize.

Sweet “humbling” Nobel prize.

I made it look like a breeze.

It wasn’t a propos

To get it--that I know.

Yet I’ll accept it,
Quel surprise!

Are their motives less than pure?

Is its granting premature?

Does it make the prize seem spurious

And foolish?

But look--the fury fades.

I just love accolades!

Mine, little Nobel prize, mine.

Norwegians know I’m Divine.

Update: Imagine--Obama sings Lennon:

I once got a prize, or should I say it once got me?

They gave me the gold, wasn't it wise, Norwegian prize.

They said that I’m their kind of prez, one they couldn’t resist:

A talker, a thinker, out-reacher and multilat’rist.

I sent out a tweet, isn’t it neat, winning a prize?

I’ll bask in the glow and then I’ll go off to Oslo.

They said it’s not for what I’ve done but for what I might do.

I told them their action is something that they’ll never rue.

And when I awoke, I looked around, up at the skies.

It turned out to be a bomb in disguise, Norwegian prize.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments

Get with the program, insolent Hebrews: According to Ha’aretz, the hopeychangers are fuming because Israelis of every political persuasion ~~aren’t falling for Obama’s fatuous “peace” patter~~ are “inciting” against hopeychange’s main man:

The U.S. administration is furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama, Democratic congressmen close to Obama told an Israeli source who returned from a visit to Washington this week.

The congressmen even hinted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been personally involved.

The source, who met in Washington with administration officials and members of Congress, told Haaretz he was stunned by the level of anger there over attempts to portray Obama to the American public as an enemy of Israel because of his efforts to restart peace talks and freeze settlement construction.

“There are people here who are playing with fire by damaging our relationship with the U.S.,” the source said.

Last month’s summit in New York between Obama, Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also reduced Washington’s expectations of a speedy resumption of final-status talks between Israel and the PA. While U.S. envoy George Mitchell will meet Netanyahu again Friday, the meeting is not expected to resolve the crisis in Israeli-Palestinian relations…

Blaming the Jews for “damaging” the relationship when Obama’s the one who’s gone out of his way to torpedo it--niiiiice!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:42 | link | comments

The Afterlife--like taking a mega-dose of Viagra without any of the unfortunate side effects: A Saudi cleric explains that in Paradise (i.e. as a dead person) one can eat, drink and shtup as though endowed with the strength of a hundred living men.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:27 | link | comments

Out-FOXed : The Obama White House has surveyed the media and, espying the one outlet that hasn't swallowed the hopeychange hogwash, has announced publicly that it's an adjunct of the Republican party.

As opposed to all the other media outlets that tack leftist/Democratic, I guess.

Update: Speaking of media outlets that have swallowed the hogwash...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:00 | link | comments

Ceeb favouritism: On tonight’s episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie, that Christian is up to no good again:

When Araar suspects Rev. Thorne is stealing his sermons, the Imam’s plot to expose the minister backfires.

The minister is stealing the imam’s sermons, eh? Presumably not the one wherein the imam recounts how the Koran claims Jesus and everyone else in the Bible who’s doing religion “properly” is really a Muslim.

In related Ceeb religious news: Yesterday, which happened to be the Jewish festival Simchat Torah, the holiday in which the last portion of the Torah is read out, and reading begins anew with Genesis, Ceeb radio broadcast a rather nasty peroration about Judaism by Christopher Hitchens. With his trademark bite, Hitch offered withering “insights” into the Ten Commandments and the Torah story about the Israelites defeating their enemies. Hitchens, at least, makes no bones about his blanket disdain for all religion. The Ceeb, on the other hand, is hot for one particular religion--the fastest growing one in the world. And you can bet a little Prairie mosque that it would think twice about broadcast Hitchens’ scornful remarks (of which he has plenty) about that faith.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:05 | link | comments

Justice Goldstone, they hate you: Harpoon Siddiqui and the Palestinians aside, the Richard Goldstone’s ga-ga conclusions aren’t exactly wowing ‘em, writes Melanie Phillips:

In the theatre of the absurd that now passes for international relations, a Jewish human-rights lawyer takes the side of those who wage genocidal war against the Jews.

This is in turn deemed profoundly unhelpful to a ‘peace process’ that is attempting to reward with territory others waging the same genocidal war — albeit with better manners — against the same Jews, a process that now expects those Jews to make concessions to their assailants, who will themselves be exempt from making reciprocal gestures to their victims.

Judge Richard Goldstone can hardly have expected that some of the strongest revulsion against his UN Human Rights Council-sponsored blood libel against Israel over its military action against Hamas in Gaza would have come from his own supposed allies.

The human-rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz said Goldstone’s name will be ‘forever linked in infamy’ with the most notorious haters of Israel because he ‘abandoned all principles of objectivity and neutral human rights’. Benjamin Pogrund, renowned former South African anti-apartheid activist, said Goldstone treated Israel ‘as though it were a unique source of evil’ and ‘fatally undermined’ his own commission’s credibility.

The less-than-wholly Israel-friendly State Department criticised the report for reaching ‘cookie-cutter conclusions’ about Israel while making only generalised remarks about Hamas. The similarly hostile Economist called the Goldstone report ‘deeply flawed’.

Even B’tselem, the Israeli ‘human rights’ pressure group which never fails to condemn Israel, gagged over Goldstone’s conclusion that Israel intentionally targeted Palestinian civilians rather than Hamas and the ‘weak, hesitant way that the report mentions Hamas’s strategy of using civilians [in combat].’ (Those worried that B’tselem might be losing its purity of hatred towards Israel will be reassured to know that it went on to blame Israel for Goldstone’s report.)

Such criticism has not prevented Goldstone from doing great harm to Israel’s cause — principally because he is a Jew and even, his daughter says, a Zionist…

He’s a “committed” Zionist, writes Harpoon. (“Committed" to Israel’s destruction, or someone who should be “committed” to a padded room while wearing a straitjacket?)

With “Zionists” like Goldstone, who needs Siddiquis?

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:31 | link | comments

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Way to go, O!: The Wahhabi potentate extends salutations and congratulations to an American submissive on an auspicious occasion:

RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah on Saturday congratulated US President Barack Obama on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel Al-Jubeir conveyed the greetings of the king and Saudi people to the president. In a statement on the occasion, Al-Jubeir said the world was pinning great hopes on the US president’s continuous efforts to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He also praised Obama’s Cairo address to reach out to the Muslim world.

US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith said he was delighted over Obama winning the most coveted prize. “We are honored that our new president has been chosen for an award that captures the desire of the world for peace,” he said.

He added: “This desire and vision was first shared by President Obama with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in June and then publicly expressed in his seminal address to the world in Cairo entitled ‘A New Beginning.’”

In that speech, Obama said that the US seeks a new start with the Muslim world that is based on mutual interest and mutual respect — “one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles, principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

The U.S. ambassador refers to him as “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”? Oy vey, as they say in Al Quds. And maybe I’m speaking out of school here, but wouldn’t the Wahhabi have been a far worthier recipient than Obama, what with his ~~bamboozle the dhimmis~~ interfaith mosque-twinning project and the like?

And in other Wahhabi tidings…

HAFR AL-BATEN: It’s the most important rule a man needs to know about buying a ring for his wife: knowing the right size. The second rule in ring buying: Don’t force a ring that’s too small onto the finger; it’s not romantic, and it can cause considerable discomfort. According to a report in a local daily on Saturday, the Civil Defense had to be called in to cut a ring off the finger of a woman who experience great pain over a number of days after her well intentioned hubby put a size-deficient ring on her finger that could not be removed, even at the emergency room. There’s a third rule to all of this: If you’re going to foolishly estimate ring size, it’s better to guess in the favor of a larger ring diameter so it can at least be removed easily.

Might one call it a “rule of thumb”? Oho! Such mirthfulness and side-splittingly comical recountings in a Wahhabi rag! Who says there’s no fun in fundamentalism? (Oh yeah--it was that party-pooping Shiite.)

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

It’s always about the Jews, isn’t it Harpoon?: One would never in a million years accuse the Toronto Star’s highly revered pundit, Harpoon Siddiqui, of harbouring anti-Semitic feelings. Why, the man has won an Order of Canada! It is evident, however, that Siddiqui is, how shall I put this?, a wee bit obsessed with Israel, in an irrational, overheated, manner that, quite often, is associated with inveterate Jew-haters. Does that make Harpoon? Or course not! It just means he’s determined to offer constructive--or, in Israel’s case, deconstructive--criticism. Repeatedly. Endlessly. Ad infinitum. Today, for instance (and by my count this makes three Sundays running) he once again pimps for the Gallstone Report, the one accusing Israel of “war crimes” for having the effrontery to use its military to counter Hamas rocket fire. In yet another thrilling display of Harpoonian logic, the Star sage insists that the “Nobel Prize (puts) pressure on Obama and Israel.” How so? Well, as Harpoon ‘splains it

The Nobel Peace Prize was always political, in the positive sense. The awards to Desmond Tutu, Yitzhak Rabin/Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta of East Timor, Shirin Ebadi of Iran, etc. were meant to advance peace and other causes.

Barack Obama's efforts at dragging America back into multilateralism, rebuilding bridges to the Arab/Muslim world, looking for a light at the end of the Afghan tunnel, trying for peace in the Middle East, etc. can use the Nobel to overcome his detractors. No wonder they are being so bilious.

Being honoured for defending the rule of law should also help him ease the U.S. from protecting Israel despite its flouting of international norms.

Take the recent Richard Goldstone report that said Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in Gaza. Instead of heeding his findings, Israel and the U.S. have been slinging mud at the highly respected South African jurist and former prosecutor of war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, who also happens to be a committed Zionist.

The smear job was followed by American strong-arm tactics to derail his report from the UN Human Rights Council, the Geneva-based body that had commissioned it. Mahmoud Abbas was pressured into spearheading a postponement until March.

But the report won't go away. It has been forced onto the agenda of the Security Council for Wednesday by Libya, the only Arab state currently on the 15-member body. Even if the initiative had come from a respectable member, the outcome probably would still be the same: a U.S. veto against any meaningful action.

But post-Nobel, such a vote would be embarrassing for Obama (he has already backed off his earlier call for Israel to freeze illegal Jewish settlements). And his grand declarations of building bridges to the Muslim world would begin to sound hollow...

Sounds like the only one who’s exerting pressure here is Harpoon, who likes how the hopeychanger’s been bowin’ ‘n’ scrapin’, and wants him to keep it up.

As for Goldstone being “a committed Zionist”--maybe he used to be one before he was bought off by the globalists. Or maybe he’s one of those “committed Zionists” who fill the ranks of J-Street: non-Zionists who think if they claim to be “Zionists” it gives them a pass to aid and abet Israel’s enemies.

Update: Two years ago Harpoon was really high on another report. Let’s take a quick glance back at what he had to say about that one, shall we?:

Just when it seemed that American credibility could not sink any lower, comes word from America's own spy agencies that Iran wasn't making the bomb that George W. Bush said it was.

So, "World War III" and "a nuclear holocaust" are not imminent.

That's good to know before he could've launched a war on Iran, unlike Iraq where he did, though Baghdad had no capacity to make the "mushroom cloud" that Condoleezza Rice said it did.

Given the new intelligence assessment, it's not Iran that's looking like a rogue state but rather the U.S., at least the Bush administration - "running around like a mad man, blade in hand," as Vladimir Putin put it recently.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is exulting in "total victory." Bush is struggling to maintain that he was not wrong. This is not a pretty sight.

What is comforting is that the American intelligence community has spoken truth to power. Unlike Bush, it has learned a lesson or two from Iraq: not to exaggerate and lie, and to admit when wrong.

The spooks acknowledge they were wrong to have said in 2005 that Iran was building the bomb when, in fact, they now think it had stopped doing so in 2003. If Iran does decide to build one, it won't be able to do so for some years.

This conclusion has several serious implications: It refutes the image, carefully constructed, of anti-American, anti-Semitic mad mullahs mixing ingredients in a secret nuclear shed.

The National Intelligence Estimate says simply: "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military cost."

In other words, Iran is not all that different from other nations. The International Atomic Energy Agency is fully vindicated…

Man’s a blooming genius!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:34 | link | comments

Another worthy recipient: York University, known affectionately in these parts as Gaza U because of its zesty campus Zionhass, is awarding an honorary degree to--wait for it--Woody Harrelson.

What has Woody done to deserve recognition from such an august institution? Well, he’s really big on the environment ‘n’ stuff. In fact, he is

an activist for the legalization of marijuana and hemp.[4] On June 1, 1996, he was arrested in Lee County, Kentucky after he symbolically planted four hemp seeds to challenge the state law which did not distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana. Harrelson won the case. Since 2003, Harrelson serves as a member on NORML's advisory board.[5]

Harrelson is also an environmental activist. He once scaled the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with members of North Coast Earth First! group to unfurl a banner that read, "Hurwitz, Aren't ancient redwoods more precious than gold?" in protest of Maxxam Inc/PALCO CEO Charles Hurwitz, who once stated, "He who has the gold, makes the rules".[4][citation needed]

He once traveled to the west coast in the U.S. on a bike and a domino caravan with a hemp oil-fueled biodiesel bus (the subject of the independent documentary, Go Further) and narrated the documentary Grass. Harrelson briefly owned an oxygen bar in West Hollywood called "O2". He is a peace activist and has often spoken publicly against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Harrelson is also a vegan and raw foodist. He did not eat Twinkies for his movie Zombieland, replacing them with vegan faux-Twinkies made from cornmeal.[6] He now lives on Maui, Hawaii in a mostly self-sustained community.

A doobie-toking, faux-Twinkies-eating eco-crackpot (the doobie-toking--hello, munchies!--no doubt having a lot to do with the faux-Twinkies-eating), huh? Give that man a prize! A peace prize, I mean, since, clearly, he’s done far more to advance the cause of mellowness and “peace” than a slim, half-black, faux-Jesus Christ.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:50 | link | comments

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Nobel, Shmobel: A 'toon takes the true measure of Obama's prize:

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:00 | link | comments

Obama fans and others: The New York Daily News is delighted by Obama’s “peace” prize win, and upset that Republicans aren’t as equally pleased. But get a load of who the rag quotes in a vain bid to make it seem as though its the Republicans who don't understand the implications of this "victory":

The GOP is using President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize as a fundraising tool, by mocking the award in a send-money letter to Republicans.

Russia's president congratulated Obama on Saturday for the surprising honor, and even Cold War foe Fidel Castro said he was happy for him.

But Republican National Committee head Michael Steele is bristling with outrage, saying in a letter that Obama won the prize "for awesomeness."

It shows "how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become," he wrote, asking for contributions of $25 to $1,000 for the RNC.

The Nobel committee's selection of Obama has been criticized, with some saying he hasn't been in office long enough or accomplished enough yet.

World leaders were more supportive.

Russia's Dmitry Medvedev sent a letter of congratulations to Obama, saying he wants the award to encourage further U.S.-Russian cooperation.

"I hope this decision would serve as an additional incentive for our common work to form a new climate in world politics and promote initiatives which are fundamentally important for global security," Medvedev wrote.

Cuba's Castro called it a "positive step" but said the prize is more a repudiation of President Bush than a recognition of anything Obama has done.

"Many believe that [Obama] still has not earned the right to receive such a distinction," the former leader wrote in a column.

"But we would like to see, more than a prize for the U.S. president, a criticism of the genocidal policies that have been followed by more than a few presidents of that country."

Well, if “world leaders” like Medvedev and Castro think it’s a good move, isn’t it mean-spirited and exceptionalist of Republicans to complain? (Also--don't they realize that only leftists are allowed to "mock"?)

Update: Oh brother! Now he's Mahatma Flipping Gandhi.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:40 | link | comments (2)

You're traveling through another dimension: TIME Magazine lists the Top Ten Twilight Zone episodes.

Personally, my favourite's the one where, a few years before 9/11, a Christian minister tries to warn people about jihad and sharia, is charged with a "hate crime" because of it, and is sent for "reeducation" to the Islamists.

Oh, wait. That's not the Twilight Zone. That's Canada.

These days, it's often hard to tell the difference.

Update: Another episode that gives me the heebie-jeebies--the one where an international "human rights" outfit backs all "free speech" except for "free speech" about Islam. I just love the de Maupassant-like ending of that one.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:40 | link | comments

A “glitch” in the rapprochement: Remember when Bill Clinton presided over the historic handshake between the Palestinian and the Israeli on the White House Lawn? Remember how well that turned out? Fast forward to another Democratic administration--Obama’s--and another Clinton--Hillary--who’s trying to get another set of long-time enemies (one Muslim; one kafir) to let bygones be bygones, and one again it looks like things, go figure, aren’t going swimmingly. From the WaPo:

…At the moment, though, the rapprochement [between Turkey and Armenia] is so sensitive that officials weren't sure until almost the last minute if the Armenians would even show up for the ceremony. Clinton did not add the stop to her official itinerary until Thursday. A day earlier, Obama called Armenian President Serge Sarkisian to "commend him for his courageous leadership" on the issue, according to a White House statement.

A senior U.S. State Department official said Obama was expressing support, not twisting Sarkisian's arm to attend the ceremony.

The Armenian president has faced angry protests in his own country and from Armenian communities in France and Lebanon over the plan to normalize relations. His tiny, landlocked country of 3 million people is dependent on remittances from the much larger population of ethnic Armenians in the United States and other countries.

The politically powerful Armenian-American community--which Obama courted during his campaign--appeared split over Saturday's accord.

"If Turkey normalizes relations with Armenia and ends its blockade of that land-locked country, it would be a very positive step for the region," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a leading supporter of Armenian genocide resolutions in Congress, in a statement.

He added, however, that, "Turkey must not be allowed to rewrite the history of the Armenian Genocide as a price of diplomatic relations."

The Armenian National Committee of America blasted the accord.

"The Obama Administration's attempts to force Armenia into one-sided concessions . . . is short-sighted and will, in the long term, create more problems that it serves," it said…

You mean the hopeychangers are pressuring the non-Muslim side in the dispute into making one-sided concessions? How freakishly out of character.

Update: Despite the Turks' bad case of genocide denial, the Armenians hold their noses and sign the sucker.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:43 | link | comments

Who they?: "He beat other nominees such as Chinese dissident Hu Jia, Ingrid Betancourt and Colombian peace-broker Piedad Cordoba."

Whoever they are, they ain't no hopeychanger.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:20 | link | comments (1)

Rude food: A conentions scribbler, a Yale alumnus, posts a letter from Yale Divinity School re the politically incorrect consumption of, ah, fruit:

A Note of Community Concern

Dear Divinity School Community,

On the evening of Friday, September 11th, following the Community
Dinner, there was a food-eating contest in the Common Room. The
contest was between teams of students eating watermelons. The contest
was a painful reminder of past images and painful stereotypes
involving watermelons and African Americans that continue to be used
today, and it should not have happened. To the extent that it happened
at all is a shared responsibility which we all deeply regret and for
which we all deeply apologize. The incident was not the fault of any
one person or group of persons, and it certainly was not the fault of
any two people. It went forward in ignorance of what it represented
and how it would be perceived by others. While we may acknowledge that
ignorance is no excuse for offense, it must also be acknowledged that
neither the ignorance nor the offense was intentional.

Student leaders, in consultation with faculty and administration, will
think together about ways that we as a community can address this
painful occurrence in a constructive and conciliatory manner. One way
this may go forward is with an educational opportunity about our
nation’s history and aspects of that history that often are
inadequately conveyed. We will give notice of this educational
opportunity as plans develop over the next several days. For now,
please note the suggested links at the bottom of this message for
educational information. Other opportunities for community
conversations related to this incident may go forward, as well, and we
will give notice of these opportunities as plans are made…

Oh my. Good thing it wasn’t a fried chicken-eating contest.

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

Coup de gace: This Reuters headline has an unindented double meaning--Obama urges lawmakers to finish healthcare reform.

I'm pretty sure that "finish" it is exactly what they'll do.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:30 | link | comments

Oslo breast man: Mark Steyn offers this amusing item about the guy who heads the committee that gave Obama a Nobel Peace Prize for his stellar twelve days in office (that’s how long he’d been C-in-C when the list of those in contention for this year’s prize was drawn up):

I was planning on skipping the Nobel prize ceremony, but it may be livelier than anticipated, judging from this tidbit re the committee's head honcho Thorbjørn Jagland:

In 1998, Jagland was confronted with another incident, after placing his hands on Synnøve Svabø’s breasts on national television. Svabø was at that time talk show host for Weekend Globoid.

"Weekend globoid" sounds like Norwegian for "dilletante transnationalist".

“Weekend globoid” sounds like Norwegian for “dilletante breast-festishist,” as in “On Saturday, Thorbjørn became so excited by Synnøve’s ample globøids that he felt compelled to place his hands on them."

Come award time, he’d better keep his hands off Michelle’s globoids, else he’ll have Barack to answer to.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:29 | link | comments

Friday, 09 October 2009

Let's "pre"-tend: In Canada as we know, you can be called to account for a speaking "hate" that is "likely" to engender bad feelings about a designated victim group: a "pre-crime." In much the same way, on the international scene you can be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishments in the realm of peace that are "likely"--but have yet--to occur: pre-achievements, if you will. Jeff Jacoby has a few remarks about the latter type of prequel.

How weird is it that we live in a world where things that have yet to happen--and that may never come to pass--are considered so vital and given such weight?

Update: The WaPo asks where's Bubba's prize?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:50 | link | comments

Eliminationist agenda all systems go: The Palestinians are pushing for "an urgent UN 'rights' debate on Gaza."

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:25 | link | comments

Indoctri-nation: Andrew Klavan definitively answers the question--"Is Barack Obama Jesus Christ?"

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

Peace is war, and vice versa: "He won the award on the same day he was convening his war counsel to weigh whether to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan to turn the tide against a resurgent Taliban"--Reuters

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

The Guardian ensures that the Nobel Peace Prize is Judenrein: In keeping with the spirit of Obama winning the Appease Prize, the U.K. lefty rag removes every Jew from the list of past recipients.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:05 | link | comments

Readin’, writin’ and libelin’: One of the most appalling aspects of the Leftist-Islamist campaign to smear Israel is that it is being conducted under the banner of “free speech.”

Let’s think about that for a moment. The folks who most want to do away with free speech (supposedly because it offends Muslims; in reality because it’s an effective way to curtail criticism of Islamism and the repellent political correctness that abets it, and to subvert Western civilization) are claiming to be advocates for our most crucial freedom. It's kind of like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claiming to speak for Holocaust education. For a couple of years now, the con has targetted Toronto school teachers in an effort to persuade them to brainwash the kids (a la Farfour mouse) before they get to university (where the message will be hit home by Zion-loathing professors).

Here’s the vile Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid's announcement about this year’s “Teach the Children to Hate Israel” conference:

Israel / Palestine:
Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Teach

A conference on elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education - rights and repression

Friday, October 16, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 17, 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Speakers include: Javier Davila, Yafa Jarrar, Sherene Razack, Denis Rancourt, Golta Shahidi

Registration: $5-$30 sliding scale (includes lunch with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options)

For further information and to pre-register, contact us at freedomtoteach.registration@yahoo.ca

Organized by Educators for Peace and Justice, Faculty for Palestine, and Students Against Israeli Apartheid

Freedom to teach? What a laugh! More like freedom to imbibe Judenhass (while scarfing down gluten-free comestibles).

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:43 | link | comments

"It's just a law whose intentions are good/Allah please don't let it be misunderstood": An Obama appointee pimps for sharia.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:20 | link | comments

Contrasting coverage: The ringleader of the “Toronto 18,” that broad strata of jihadis who wanted to topple large buildings and kill tons of infidels in Downtown Toronto, shocked many by ‘fessing up in court to his central role in the plot. Here’s how the Globe and Mail reports it:

“Would you like oil for your car?” Zakaria Amara, then aged 20, was often overheard asking in the months before his arrest.

“How are you doing today, sir? Would you like any windshield washer fluid?”

After customers drove away from the Canadian Tire gas bar, police surveillance teams perked up their ears. That was when they usually caught the hidden side of the polite attendant.

Mr. Amara's paycheques were small. His day job was drudgery. But his schemes were big – very big.

He invited his friends to the gas bar as he spoke of masterminding a terrorist attack that would dwarf the 2007 London subway bombings.

The reaction, he predicted, would cow Canadians and prompt the country to pull its soldiers from Afghanistan, where he would be hailed as a hero.

His attack against Toronto would be so big it would reprise of the Battle of Badr, in which the Prophet Mohammed's forces won a decisive victory for Islam against a vast army of unbelievers.

It didn't turn out that way.

Interesting. Sounds like Zakaria was little more than a feckless gas jockey with delusions of jihad grandeur. He sounds about as threatening as the kid who mans the drive-through window at a burger joint and asks customers “you want fries with that?” Oddly enough, though, that’s not the impression conveyed by the report in the Toronto Star:

Only one man knew all the details of a deadly explosives plot designed to cripple the economy and unleash mass carnage, terror and destruction in downtown Toronto.

That was Zakaria Amara.

On Thursday, the 24-year-old Mississauga man, regarded as one of the linchpins of the so-called Toronto 18, pleaded guilty in a Brampton court.

It was Amara who built the remote-controlled detonators by hand and made numerous treks to a local library to research ways to procure ammonium nitrate.

And he mustered $4,000 in cash to pay for three tonnes of the fertilizer, earmarked for truck bombs.

Members of the Toronto 18 planned to use three U-Haul vans filled with fertilizer bombs. One parked outside the Toronto Stock Exchange would carry at least two tonnes, enough to bring down the building and three surrounding blocks. Another truck would be parked near the Front St. offices of Canada's spy agency. Glass would shatter into the streets, cars would flip and roads would be torn apart.

And the third bomb would go off at a military base somewhere along Highway 401, between Toronto and Ottawa. To maximize the destruction, Amara wanted to place metal chips inside the bombs.

Amara bragged that just one of the three bombs would be comparable with the 2003 bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which killed 35 people and wounded more than 200.

And he was emphatic that the attack, which his right-hand man dubbed the Battle of Toronto, would be bigger than the London subway bombing of 2005, which killed 56 people and injured 700.

If they got their act together, maybe they could launch their attack on Sept. 11, 2006…

Hmmm. Maybe not so feckless after all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:10 | link | comments

The Ego has landed: The man who equated Palestinian suffering with the Holocaust; who is quite willing to throw Israel to the jackals; who has made goo-goo eyes at the most loathsome despots in the world; who throws around the word “trillions” as if he’s talking about spending “millions”; who thinks American exceptionalism is a myth and that America is no more “exceptional” than any other nation; who appeared on a triple bill with the loopy Libyan and the lit’ler Hitler; who is doing nada to halt the Ayatollah’s genocidal agenda; who signed on the UN “Human Rights” Council’s “shut up, all you uppity infidels” (a.k.a. its “free speech”) resolution; who thinks all you need is love, and that he is the worthiest object of the world’s affection; who has done a lot to further the cause of appeasement but nothing of substance to further peace--that guy just won a Nobel Flipping Peace Prize!

There will be absolutely no living with him now.

Update: The Associated Press explains that Obama won the prize not for what he's done, but for what he might achieve in coming years--that is, as a means of encouraging him to stay the course because it might lead to "peace" in the future.

This isn't the first time the Peace Prize committe has used that rationale. In '05, it gave the prize to Mohamed ElBaradei and his useless UN nuclear watchdogs, even though they had done nothing to deserve it, and even though, having won the award. And even though the prize motivated the watchdogs to do little more than continue "watching" as Iran built secret nuclear reactors and got closer and closer to unloading its nuclear payload on Israel, the committe has once again handed out a prize "on spec."

What next--a Nobel Peace Prize for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to encourage him to beat his nukes into plowshares?

Update: A double dactyl for the latest laureate:

Higgedly-piggeldy

Peace prize-awarders have

Given a prize that is

Purely “on spec.”

Meanwhile the winner is

Doing his utmost to

Sink U.S. fortunes with

All hands on deck.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:09 | link | comments

Thursday, 08 October 2009

For the Ceej, seeing is not believing: You would think that the CJC would have figured out by now that that “hate speech” thing is no longer working for them; that it may allow them to silence “Nazis,” but, for reasons of multicultural sensitivity/cluelessness, it can’t and won’t be used to silence Islamists who spew Judenhass that‘s as bad as or worse than the Nazis’. But reading this news release, it is obvious that Bernie and crew still don’t get it, and are trying to put the best possible spin on what, from their standpoint, must be considered very bad news:

Oct 08, 2009 - CJCONT calls Attorney General hate crime policy changes “a positive step”

Get it through your thick noggins, fellahs. 60 days or no 60 days, they ain’t charging the likes of Hossain, not when police have the feelings of 300,000 Toronto Muslims to consider.

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

Why “ban the burka” won’t worka: The Muslim Canadian Congress--that’s the secular Muslim organization once headed by anti-sharia activist Tarek Fateh--is calling on Canada to ban the burka. Much as I dislike the burka and what it stands for (i.e. womens’ subjugation both to menfolk and sharia law; sharia law as a fashion statement), I fear such a ban would not only be unenforceable, it would be undesirable. It’s unenforceable because--well, practically speaking, how would it be enforced? Would police start patrolling shopping maps and handing out fines to burka wearers? Would we have to set up special burka courts, a la traffic courts, where women would plead before a judge to have their fines reduced or thrown out? Would girls be forced to doff their Islamic coverings before being allowed into public schools--as now happens in France? And because, clearly, in multiculti Canada, banning the burka is unenforceable, such a ban is undesirable. It would make the law look foolish. And, in its own way, forcing women to remove their burkas is just as draconian as forcing women to put them on.

And then there’s the issue of “human rights”? At a time when we’re working so hard to get rid of this Through the Looking Glass “justice” system, the HRCs, why would we want to create a situation whereby we’d be creating more work for the apparatchiks, would have likely have their hands full fielding tons of complaints by women who would insist that wearing a burka is their (God-given) “human right.”

No, the way to handle the burka situation is to educate the public about the meaning of the garment and how it fits in with Islamic notions about women, and how those notions play out in sharia law, and why, given the built-in inequities of that law, it has no place in our free society. Sure, the burka is a symbol, and a potent one at that, but I think it’s far wiser to pick our battles and be more concerned about how sharia is slipping in the door via our porous immigration and refugee system, and making inroads under the auspices of greedy banks which, when it comes down to a choice between inhibiting the spread of sharia and making a buck, will invariably opt to make a buck.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:13 | link | comments (2)

Lefty laureate: The National Post’s Marni Soupcoff offers this snapshot of Toronto poet laureate-designate Dionne Brand’s brand of thinking:

Ms. Brand, for example, regularly flings around unproven accusations of institutional racism and signed the declaration of protest against the Toronto International Film Festival because of its Tel Aviv feature. There are 100,000 Jews in this city. How do they feel about their tax money going to Ms. Brand?

A good portion of them see things like Brand does, so I suspect they probably feel pretty good about it--as do the city's 300,000 Muslims. Here, free of charge, are some poems by a non-leftist, non-poet laureate:

Not a lot rhymes with “Toronto”

The one thing that does--that guy Tonto.

He said “Kemosabe”;

It was kind of a hobby.

We must curb such un-p.c. remarks--pronto!

In T.O. we had one of those strikes

That few of the populace likes.

The rats were high-fiving

As through trash they were diving
And the mayor caved to strike demands--yikes!

The TIFF tiff was about Tel Aviv

Which some silly people believe

Is a city that’s newish

And shouldn’t be Jewish

And they want all the Hebrews to leave.

A poetess named Dionne Brand

Will be writing blank verse on demand.

The pay is quite sucky,

But Dionne is lucky

Since the title---poet laureate--is grand.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:55 | link | comments (3)

Wednesday, 07 October 2009

Gotcha!: How did the CHRC's Nazi slayer manage to find so many Section 13 violators to complain about before his racket was finally exposed? Easy. He laid a trap for them by pretending to be a Nazi himself. It went down something like this:

You see somebody sieging heil.

He hangs around for quite a while.

You think there’s nothing wrong,

He strings along, boy,
And whap!

That heil, that guile, they're part of the Jen Lynch trap.

You’re eye-to-eye-about the Jews

And how they all control the news.

You’re chatting ‘bout your goal, you say jawohl, pal, then zap!

That goal, jawohl, is part of the Jen Lynch trap.

Some fateful day, prob'ly not until much later.

They'll haul your butt to a “judge” because you've been a hater.

And all at once six years have passed.

The die against you has been cast.

You'll have your day in “court,” but, sport, it won’t be a snap.

You wonder how it all came about.
Its too late now there’s no getting’ out.
You spoke some hate, and, mate, that’s the Jen Lynch trap.

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

S&M, Saudi-style: Bragging about one’s sex life is no biggie on infidel television; indeed, you could say it’s the medium’s bread and butter. But boast about the notches on your belt on Wahhabi TV, and you may come in for the same kind of licking that’s being reported by CNN:

A Saudi court on Wednesday sentenced a man who caused uproar by bragging about his sex life on television to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes, according to Ministry of Information officials.

Mazen Abdul Jawad, a 32-year-old airline employee and divorced father of four, spoke openly about his sexual escapades, his love of sex and losing his virginity at age 14. He made the comments on Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, which aired the interview a few months ago.

Saudi authorities shut down LBC offices in Jeddah and Riyadh after airing the interview on an episode of its popular show "A Thick Red Line." Abdul Jawad was arrested shortly after the program aired and charged with violating Saudi Arabia's crime of publicizing vice.

On the program, Abdul Jawad is also shown in his bedroom, where he holds sexual aids up to the camera. The episode ends with him cruising the streets of Jeddah in his car looking for women.

The episode caused an uproar in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, where sharia, or Islamic law, is practiced. Pre-marital sex is illegal, and unrelated men and women are not permitted to mingle.

Speaking about promiscuous acts "is a violation of the sharia regulations on the one hand and against Saudi customs on the other," police spokesman Suleiman Al-Mutawae told Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

Before Jawad's detention, Arab News reported that he initiated a damage-control campaign, apologized for his comments and was considering filing a complaint against the show's producers for presenting him "in the worst possible manner by taking two hours of footage and condensing it down to a minutes-long segment."…

My question: exactly how does one go about cruising for chicks in Jeddah when all of them look more or less like this?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:25 | link | comments

I think that I shall never see/A folk as lovely as the Palestinee: The city of Toronto had tapped Dionne Brand, an Israel-bashing lefty, to be its “poet laureature.” (H/T FH)

Well, I suppose it’s not quite as bad as troofer Amiri Baraka being Joisey’s designated p.l.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:45 | link | comments

Insanity in the Star: The sages of the Toronto Star--Harpoon Siddiqui, Thomas Walkom--are extremely concerned about Iran. Oh, not about the prospect of Holocaust-denying fanatics in the grip of a messianic fever getting their hands on nukes and exterminating six million Jews; that concerns them not in the least. No, the sages agree: what’s most vital is that the security of Iran--Iran!--be vouchsafed. A Toronto Star letter to the editor concurs with the sage assessment, adding its own tortured logic to the debate:

Re: A sigh of relief on Iran – for now, Oct. 3

Thomas Walkom, in his insightful article on the Iranian crisis, has carefully touched on the complexities of the problem and the Iranian sense of insecurity, which is mainly the byproduct of a greater regional conflict. That is why in any deal with Iran, it is crucial that Western powers guarantee Iran's securuty. (sic)

However, on the question of true intentions of Iran's nuclear ambitions, Walkom is unclear. According to International Atomic Energy Agency reports, there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. It is entirely likely that Iranians are truthful in saying their intentions are peaceful.

However, they are also aware that by becoming more sophisticated in the development of nuclear technology, they will be able to produce a nuclear bomb if they are under attack by the outside forces. Once again, this shows that the assurance of Iran's security in any future pact will be essential.

Ali Orang, Richmond Hill

Yes, and once Herr Hitler has assurances that his, er, securuty concerns have been addressed, no doubt he’ll drop all his nonsense about wanting to dominate the world and rid it of pestilential Jewry.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:10 | link | comments

Jooos poisoning wells! Jooos draining lads' blood for holiday baked goods! Jooos causing plague, AIDS, flu pandemic!: Jooos digging under (thus literally undermining) holy shmoly mosque!

The psychotic Jew-haters are off their meds again.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments (2)

Tuesday, 06 October 2009

And then I switched off the radio: On Ceeb radio program As It Happens, one of the chick hosts tells listeners that UNRWA is in the Gaza Strip "to help refugees rebuild their shattered lives."

No it's not. For one thing, how can Palestinians be "refugees" in land they rule? For another, ever since it was established, UNRWA, the one and only UN agency ever created for a single group of refugees (all other refugees are covered by UNHCR) has perpetuated the misery, helping ensure that Palestinians remain refugees long enough to "reclaim" the land "occupied" for over six decades by sovereign Jews.

It's shocking though hardly surprising that the Ceeb actually swallows (and then regurgitates) such spin.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:00 | link | comments

Does “free speech” allow for “Snuff TV”? : While Canadian parliamentarians were grappling with the thorny issue of a Supreme Court decision validating state censorship, south of the border, Supreme Court justices were taking the issue of “free speech” well beyond its logical conclusion. From the L.A. Times:

Could the government outlaw a future "Human Sacrifice Channel" on cable TV?

That question became the focus of a Supreme Court argument today on the reach of the 1st Amendment and whether Congress can outlaw videos showing dogs fighting or other small animals being tortured and killed.

Last year, a federal appeals court, citing freedom of speech, struck down a law against selling videos with scenes of animal cruelty. Today, most of the justices sounded unwilling to revive that law, fearing it may be used against depictions of bullfighting or illegal hunting.

Justice Antonin Scalia, an avid hunter, insisted the 1st Amendment did not allow the government to limit speech and expression, unless it involved sex or obscenity.

"It's not up to the government to tell us what are our worst instincts," said Scalia. He repeatedly cited German dictator Adolf Hitler and his policies of extermination. Scalia asked, "Can you keep him off the screen" just because his deeds were vile?

But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. garnered the attention of his colleagues with a series of questions on whether videos portraying humans being killed would be protected as free speech.

Alito said there may well be a "pay-per-view" market for programs made outside the United States, so there would be no criminal jurisdiction here, that showed real people being killed. He called it the "Human Sacrifice Channel" and wondered aloud whether Congress could outlaw the showing of such programs in this country.

What about "snuff films," asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The lawyer defending a Virginia man convicted of selling dog-fighting videos struggled to answer the question. She said the 1st Amendment usually protects speech and expression, even if the underlying conduct is ugly or illegal. She said the government should work to stop the illegal acts, rather than make it illegal to show the acts.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sounded surprised. "You think it is unconstitutional for Congress to forbid the 'Human Sacrifice Channel'?" he said.

But for much of the hour, the government's lawyer, Neal Katyal, struggled to persuade the justices that the law targeted only "crush videos," or dog-fighting videos. Congress passed the law 10 years ago with the intention of drying up the underground market for videos that showed tiny animals being crushed by women in high heels.

More recently, the law has been used to prosecute people who sell dog-fighting videos. Robert Stevens, the Virginia man, was convicted for selling three videos that contained scenes of pit bulls fighting in Japan, where this is legal.

By the argument's end, the justices seemed to be weighing two possibilities. One was to narrow the reach of the law to focus only on the "crush videos." The other was to strike down the law entirely because it infringed too much on the 1st Amendment…

A “human sacrifice channel”? Egad! I’m no Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but surely “human sacrifice” falls under the heading of murder, and is therefore criminal, and must therefore be prosecuted as such. Maybe I’m dense, but I can’t really see how “free speech” comes into it at all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:58 | link | comments (3)

Mutual aggegation society: Fresh links from binks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:03 | link | comments

Darkness visible: In his post-testimony interview with Rob Breakenridge, Mark Steyn says he was feeling fairly good about the way questioning had gone until a friend pointed out that Obama had climbed into bed with the heinous UN "human rights" outfit, and is backing its "free speech" (i.e. its pro-censorship) edict. This secular fatwa--which, no suprise, has been given a huge push by Muslim countries--would make "stereotyping" and "Islamophobic" speech illegal world-wide. That means that no matter how the Section 13 debate turns out here in Canada, the odds are it's going to be Lights Out for free speech in a large portion of the Western world.

Okay, now I'm really depressed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:56 | link | comments

Ask Jen: At some point, we know not when, Jennifer Lynch is going to appear in front of the same committee which yesterday heard from Levant and Steyn. Blazing Cat Fur suggests we each put on our thinking caps and come up with a question the standing committee members might pose to her. (BCF includes committee members' names and party affiliation, so we can compose our queries accordingly.

My question (which, for obvious reasons, I would put in a Tory mouth): The Supreme Court decision which, by the narrowest of margains, upheld the constitutionality of Section 13, did so on the understanding that it would be reserved for a tiny category of speech--speech that is the most "evil". How, then, can Ms. Lynch justify the way the CHRC has violated both the letter and the spirit of that ruling by casting such a wide "hate speech" net that it now catches fish such as Steyn, Levant and Maclean's Magazine?

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

Johnny Canuck's mission downsized from nation-building to mosque-building: Diana West casts a baleful eye at our country's well-intentioned but dreadfully misguided efforts to--what's that tapped-out expression again? oh, yeah--"win hearts and mnds" in Afghanistan.

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

Inspect away, kafirs: Why UN inspectors will find bupkes when they search Iran's nuclear facilities.

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

Whoosh!: That giant sucking sound is the most recent poll taking the wind out of Michael Ignatieff's sails--and Liberal fortunes.

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

Layton of Arabia?: Jonathan Kay describes the loony left’s danse macabre with fundamentalist Islam:

Has Jack Layton converted to Islam? That's what activist Tarek Fatah asked himself last month after the NDP leader sent out an effusive Eid message to Muslim supporters, urging one and all to "renew the spirit and faith in Islam."

"I am waiting with bated breath to see Layton 'renew' his faith in Islam," Fatah wrote. "Has he already embraced the Shahadah [oath of Islam]? He goes on to say, 'We are not celebrating the end of Ramadan, but thanking Allah for the help and strength given throughout this special month' We? May I suggest a new name for Layton: Jack AsSalaam."

Layton's Eid stunt wasn't a one-off: For years, the NDP has courted Muslims -- even selling out the party's otherwise dogmatic embrace of gay marriage and feminism by running candidates who support shariah law.

Nor is Layton alone. The post-9/11 shotgun marriage between leftists and fundamentalist Muslims has generated some bizarre juxtapositions. At anti-war demonstrations, militant feminists lock arms with women in burkas. A group called "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" marches in solidarity with Islamists who regard homosexuals as vermin. And the Socialist Worker (yes, it's still around) recently ran a column urging readers to support the Taliban because it's "the face of anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan."

That last one sums up the emotional bond between Islamists and Marxist enablers: a shared hatred of capitalism and globalization, and a romantic embrace of any fighting faith -- no matter how bigoted or reactionary -- that stands in opposition to our civilization…

Can’t wait to see Olivia Chow in a burqa.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:24 | link | comments

Protocols of the Elders of...Islam?: Robert Fisk--yes, that Robert Fisk--details secret Arab plans to get the world to ditch the dollar.

B-b-b-but how can that be when the Jooos have the global banking racket locked up?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:09 | link | comments

Speaking truth to power in Ottawa: What struck me in watching Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn (each an “individual” representing no one but himself, as they were described by the line that appeared under their name on TV) testify in from of a parliamentary committee yesterday was that, man, are we Canadians ever lucky that these are the two guys spearheading the fight for free speech! Because if we had to depend on the dullards in the room--the ones who are our elected representatives--to carry the ball, the ball would either not get carried, or would get lost in committee, or would get kicked around a bit but ultimately go nowhere. I realize that Ezra and Mark and some others of us have been immersed in the issue for while, and are fully up to speech on the nuances of free speech vs. “hate speech” to the extent that we know that there are no nances, that the thing is starkly black and white, and our choice is between “free speech” or state-controlled speech because we cannot have both. But even granting that if you’re just coming to the issue now with all your preconceived notions intact, and there’s something of a learning curve to tackle before you have all the information you need to arrive at an informed decision, the gents on the committee (because I didn’t see any ladies--were there any?) seemed not to “get” what was at stake--even after Ezra and Mark laid it all out for them in no uncertain terms. There were times while watching, say, Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh or the NDPer whose name escapes me that I was literally shouting at my computer screen. Idiots! Dumkopfs! Enough, already, with the Holocaust and Keegtra--Keegstra, who has nothing to do with Section 13, who was prosecuted in a real courtroom. You want to find “Nazis”? You want to keep the land free of the kind of utterances expressed during the Third Reich? Then shut down Jennifer Lynch’s grotesque Theatre of the Absurd where government employees get to strut around and be pretend Nazis on the taxpayers’ dime (which, in the annals of the misuse of taxpayer’s money, has to rank close to the top), because that’s where the bulk of the Nazi-esque blather is coming from, as Ezra so patiently explained.

One other comment: I thought it was brilliant of Mark to quote that line about free speech from one of Michael Igantieff’s books. It was a great line, penned back in the days when Iggy was an international gadfly/high-falutin’ thinker. I wonder, though, if the lggy of today, the lggy who leads the Liberal party and who has to cater to the victim groups who are so heavily invested in state censorship, would be willing to stand up for free speech in the same bold, bald way, sans spin. Something tells me Iggy's approach to the issue today would be far more, ahem, “nuanced”.

Update: My impressions about Ujjal Dosanjh--that he’s useless and clueless--are reaffirmed by Maclean’s (my bolds):

The tenor of questions from Liberal, Bloc Québécois and NDP MPs certainly made it sound like they would not be easily swayed by the arguments from Levant and Steyn for an outright repeal of Section 13. However, Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh—a former British Columbia attorney general and longtime human rights activist whose voice counts on this issue—said outside the committee room that he is “absolutely” in favour of changing Section 13, though probably not abolishing it.

Can a leopard “change” its spots? Can a turkey “change” into a swan? Can a longtime human rights activist/Liberal MP “change” into someone who has a semblance of clue? Can you “change” Section 13 and still have free speech? No way, no how, no siree!

Update: Andrew Potter says Steyn and Levant were "knocked off message" by Dosanjh. I disagree. I think they remained on message the whole time--a message that was clear, articulate, impassioned, and, this being Steyn and Levant, often witty. These two men, who themselves had felt the lash of the HRC whip, have good reason to be outraged by the excesses that Section 13 has wrought. The MPs, on the other hand, received the outrageous information phlegmatically--as if they were listening to the dryest financial analysis. One has to wonder: where was their outrage? And one has to ask: if they weren't outraged following Steyn and Levant's remarks, are they even smart enough to grasp this issue?

Ezra said more than once that, given his druthers, he would prefer that Canada's legistalors and not its judiciary have the final say on the matter. But watching these legislators in action, one gets the sense that they're not up to the job, and that, ultimately, the issue will have to be left to the Supreme Court.

Update: It occurs to me that a big problem for the MPs is that they cannot get past that this is the "Canadian Human Rights Commission" that we're talking about. The name sounds so worthy, so gosh-darned righteous, that for MPs, taking on the CHRC would be like taking on motherhood--or multiculturalism. Were the Commission to have a name that more accurately represents what it does, something like, say, the Canadian Censorship Commission or the Canadian Harrassment Commission, it would be much easier to do what must be done and mothball it. But because it has such a virtuous-sounding name, the politicans are disinclined to touch it.

Totalitarians of every stripe know how effective it is to try to disguise their wickedness by describing it as something positive--along the lines of the Saudi's Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the way the Wahhabis describe their draconian religious police. But the truth is they're only fooling themselves, and that (to use a somewhat scatalogical analogy) you can wrap a turd in gold foil and call it a truffle, but at the end of the day people will still know what it really is, and that it stinks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:26 | link | comments (2)

Monday, 05 October 2009

The world according to the Ceeb: On tonight’s episode of Ceeb shill-com, Little Mosque on the Prairies, “When Amaar invites Rev. Thorne to co-host a party, the minister hijacks the planning and almost tanks the event."

Well, isn’t that just like a Christian minister? A Muslim goes out of his way to extend a hand of friendship, and the Christian tries to take advantage of him. (Get a load of how the Rev. had altered the town sign--from "Welcome to Mercy" (the name of the fictional Saskatchewan town where the fictional hijinks take place) to "Welcome to purgatory." Very droll.)

Your tax dollars in action, my friends.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:59 | link | comments (1)

The "rights" monster runs amock (again): Were I landlord in the province of Ontario, I’d think of selling off my properties post haste because, according to Babsy Hall’s Ontario Human Righteousness Commission, housing is now a “human right.” Meaning, of course, that if you’re a prospective tenant, you have “rights” galore, in fact, you’re stinking with rights--even if your personal hygiene habits are such that you do, indeed stink, and even if you’re on welfare and can’t afford the rent. The property owner whose livelihood is invested in your apartment however, is plum out of luck--and out of rights. Here’s the out-of-control commission’s latest fatwa:

International law says that people in Canada should be able to get good housing that they can afford. To help achieve this in Ontario, tenants and landlords (or housing providers) have rights and responsibilities under the Human Rights Code.

As a tenant, you have the right to equal treatment in housing without discrimination and harassment.

You cannot be refused an apartment, harassed by a housing provider or other tenants, or otherwise treated unfairly because of your:

race, colour or ethnic background

religious beliefs or practices

ancestry, including people of Aboriginal descent

place of origin

citizenship, including refugee status

sex (including pregnancy and gender identity)

family status

marital status, including people with a same-sex partner

disability

sexual orientation

age, including people who are 16 or 17 years old and no longer living with their parents

receipt of public assistance.

You are also protected if you face discrimination because you are a friend or relative of someone identified above.

There is such a thing as good discrimination, you know--discrimination in the sense of discernment; being about to refuse to rent to, say, deadbeats, or drunks, or people who like living in their own filth--people who are likely to compromise the value of your property. However, Babsy’s plan doesn’t allow for such discernment, and essentially turns apartment owners into provincial employees.

If this edict is allowed to go ahead, not too far down the road province will likely be the only owner of apartments and all rental buildings will be public ones.

But maybe that’s the whole point of the thing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:31 | link | comments

Islamabad’s creative accounting: The U.S. has been pouring billions into Pakistan, funds earmarked for fighting Taliban and other “militants.” Turns out it’s money down the drain, since the canny Pakistanis pulled an old bait ‘n’ switch. From AP via the Toronto Star:

ISLAMABAD–The United States has long suspected that much of the billions of dollars it has sent Pakistan to battle militants has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India.

Now the scale of the misuse is becoming clear: Between 2002 and 2008, only $500 million (U.S.) of the more than $6 billion in U.S. aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, two army generals say.

The account of the generals, who asked to remain anonymous because military rules forbid them from speaking publicly, was backed up by other generals, former bureaucrats and ministers.

At the time, Pervez Musharraf, a Washington ally, served as both chief of staff and president, making it easier to divert money intended for the military to bolster his sagging image at home through economic subsidies.

"The army itself got very little," said retired Gen. Mahmud Durrani, who was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. under Musharraf.

"It went to things like subsidies, which is why everything looked hunky-dory. The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget."…

More fool Washington.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:03 | link | comments

Oprah’s (or is it Dr. Phil’s?) malign influence shows up in Obama’s diplomacy: Josef Joffe has some interesting thoughts on “The Age of Nice, or Politics as Psychiatry” in Commentary Magazine:

Will Obama's administration end up as a remake of Jimmy Carter’s? Carter started out with his own take on the “audacity of hope”: let’s lose our “inordinate fear of communism.” Toward the end of his term—the Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan—he recanted. “That action had made a more dramatic change” in his view of their true goals “than anything they have done in the previous time I have been in office.”

Two hundred and fifty days into his first term, it is now reasonably clear that Mr. Obama is heading in the same direction—if he continues to walk the road paved with good intentions. The man who knows better than most how to calculate and corral power at home, who beat the mighty Hillary machine and snipped away John McCain, does not seem to appreciate the game nations play. In that game, nice guys don’t win.

Take the most recent no-no. We could see it coming since the spring. Last week, Obama finally gave away the anti-Iran missile shield, to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, for nothing. No wonder the Russians are cheering, as any rival of the United States would. A freebie is the loveliest gift in international politics.

The threat from Iran, Obama said, is still far, far away. And so is our capacity to counter it. So you wonder why the U.S. installed a missile shield in Fort Greely, Alaska, years ago to offset Russia’s offensive potential that is far more deadly than Iran’s will ever be. To scare away the bears, perhaps? And you then wonder why Obama wants to put such a porous shield out to sea, into the Mediterranean, for the missiles and radars are pretty much the same ones the Poles and the Czechs were supposed to host.

The answer is simple: The Russians don’t like it. Mind you, not because the U.S. missiles would have targeted their nuclear hardware. Nor were the Russians truly frightened, as their generals have been freely conceding over the years. The real reason comes straight out of International Politics 101. Eastern Europe is their turf and off-limits for the U.S. Add to this the oldest game in Russian-Soviet policy, which is to gain a veto over Western strategic choices. The United States denied them that veto for 40 years.

The U.S. deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Europe in the early 1950s, brought a rearmed West Germany into NATO in 1955, fielded Pershing and cruise missiles in Western Europe in the early 1980s, and brought former Soviet satrapies into the alliance during the 1990s, all against the fierce opposition of the Soviets and Russians. Every American president since Truman has defied Moscow’s attempt to dictate Western security choices. Obama just granted the Russians that veto power. Let’s hear a loud spasiba from Moscow, for we won’t hear much else.

Of course, the expectation is that the Russians will finally come around and play ball on Iran, that is, agree to severe sanctions, including the denial of a sophisticated air defense. “We don’t do (real) sanctions” has been Moscow’s mantra. Last week, President Medvedev did a bit of tantalizing when he said: “Sanctions rarely lead to productive results, but in some cases sanctions are inevitable” Nice but noncommittal. Why would the Russians reciprocate? First, they just got something for free. Second, Putin’s game is not cricket but rugby. In that contest, you collect allies against No. 1; you don’t play Friday to Obama’s Robinson Crusoe. Hence, Moscow has diluted every proposal for sanctions that the U.S. has ever tabled. Count on some motion but not on movement.

Yet the missile farce is but a tile in the mosaic. Call it “politics as psychiatry.” You see, Dr. Obama reasons, so many clashes among cultures and nations are kind of psychosomatic, not physical. They reflect misunderstanding and resentment. Let’s try the talking cure, let’s soothe the patient, and he will come around to a constructive view of reality…

And, hey, if the patient happens to be in the studio audience on the right day, he/she could even score a free car--or, at least, cash for a clunker.

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

The elephant in the parlour (and Afghanistan’s Constitution): NATO has been in Afghanistan for--what?--eight years now, but even though the Taliban are no longer in charge, women have yet to be accorded their full gamut of rights. A baffling situation, indeed--especially if, like the Toronto Star’s Olivia Ward, you write an entire article about how slowly Afghan women are gaining to their rights (so slowly that progress is barely perceptible), and not once do you mention the reason (starts with “sha” ends with “riah”) why this should be. It’s all there, though--for those who care to read between the lines (which I have bolded for easier perusal):

In Afghanistan a new law that bans violence against women is about to come into force, drawing a legal line under the brutal rule of the Taliban, who made women virtual prisoners and targets for abuse. The law would allow women to prosecute abusive husbands and make it illegal to stop them from going to work or seeking education and medical help. But eight years after the Taliban regime was ousted, it’s still difficult to measure the progress of women’s rights. And, says an expert who has studied the situation of Afghan women, there is no quick fix in a country where the majority of the female population is illiterate, rape victims may be jailed, and girls are bartered to pay off family debts. “We should avoid unrealistic expectations,” says Paula Kantor, director of the independent Kabul-based Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. “It is not enough to legitimize the justice system without trying to change how women are viewed in society.” In a phone interview from Ottawa, Kantor said time is short for promoting changes that will benefit Afghan women, whose plight sparked worldwide outrage during the 2001 war against the Taliban. Western countries, she said, must focus on Afghanistan’s future rather than seeking a speedy exit strategy. “It’s a critical year. A lot of money will be thrown at Afghanistan. But with what aims? There’s insecurity in more provinces of the country, and hope is diminishing among Afghans.”

Canada is pulling its troops out of Afghanistan in 2011, and U.S. President Barack Obama is mulling a new Afghanistan strategy, as skepticism grows in Washington over boosting troop levels, and public support for military action shrinks.

Women’s rights, already low on the Afghan political agenda, would plummet if the country were allowed to lapse into civil war or break down further into war lord ruled fiefdoms, Kaplan said. That could cancel the gains that women have made in recent years…

Oh, you mean the barely perceptible gains which are “still difficult to measure”? Yeah, that would be tragic. But how much can women really expect to gain when shariah remains the be-all and end-all of their land, and any tampering with the divine law is likely to be viewed as blasphemous and un-Islamic--with or without Taliban rule?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:10 | link | comments

We got Khadrs coming and going: The stars of Canadians most popular reality TV show, Khadr Shariah Family Values (just jesting--but wouldn't that be a hoot?) are in the news again. This time, the U.S. is trying to import (i.e. get Canada to extradite) one of the Khadr sons for prosecution; last time, of course, the U.S. was trying to ship one back to Canada.

As far as I'm concerned, you can keep 'em both.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:17 | link | comments

Got free speech?: Mouthy "hate mongers" Steyn and Levant (which could be the name of a Vaudeville act--or a firm of Jewish accountants) will be telling a select committee in Ottawa today why state censorship is so bad for Canada. Jennifer Lynch, CHRC Commissar in Chief, has declined to appear in such uncouth company. She is slated to testify tomorrow.

In honour of the momentous occasion, I have penned three poems for and about the hyper-sensitive censor/drama queen. A limerick,

This aft, both Steyn and Levant

Will be countering Sec. 13 cant.

But the censorship queen

Will nowhere be seen.

She shall not appear--no she shan’t!

a higgedly-piggedly

Higgedly piggedly

Commissar Jennifer

Declines to appear on

The same bill as Steyn.

Ezra Levant also

Gives her the vapours but

Once they’ve both gone she’ll be

Feeling just fine.

and a clerihew.

Jennifer Lynch

Won't give an ynch.

Thinks censorship’s a panacea.
(Hey, it works for North Korea.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:05 | link | comments (3)

Sunday, 04 October 2009

Funny 'toon: Hollywood activism

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

Gee, ya think?: American strategy of winning trust of Afghan people is high risk

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

Great Scot!: Time was when American patriotism wasn’t a left-right thing but a national--or, rather, a nationalistic--thing. These days, of course, being loudly patriotic is sooo passé , and Americans of the leftish persuasion--cultured, exquisitely sensitive citizens of the world that they are--cringe at such jingoistic displays of bravado (which, oddly enough, makes them seem rather Canadian). “You’re a Grand Old Flag”? Not so much. As President Obama, internationalist extraordinaire, explained re the unexceptionalism of American exceptionalism, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Or, put another way, when every country is exceptional without exception, then no one is exceptional.

Hence this review in the New York Times book section of a tribute to America penned by comedian/chat show host Craig Ferguson. A Scot by birth, Ferguson, now an American citizen, is loudly, unabashedly, enthusiastically pro-America; also loudly, etc. pro-Bush. Both enthusiasms engender distinct distaste from reviewer Andy Borowitz--as if Ferguson had done something unseemly, like, say, fart in an elevator full of people:

Craig Ferguson isn’t kidding. That’s what struck me as I turned the pages of the Scottish late-night comedian’s memoir, “American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot.” Almost every time Ferguson has a chance to go for a cheap, easy laugh — the mother’s milk of late-night comedy — he runs in the opposite direction. Take the opening scene in which he meets George W. Bush at a reception before the 2008 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where Ferguson, a newly minted American citizen, is to be the entertainment. He recognizes that making fun of Bush near the end of his catastrophic presidency would be like shooting fish in a barrel, so what does he do instead? He bonds with Bush as a fellow recovering alcoholic, clinking glasses of sparkling water with him as the president makes an earnest toast to America. I repeat: this is the opening scene of a book by a comedian. That’s what we in the comedy business call courage, and it pretty much sets the tone for the rest of this memoir, in which Ferguson admirably avoids wisecracks and instead goes for something like wisdom.

And does he manage to find it? Heaven’s no! He’s a Bush-loving Scot who doesn’t realize overt patriotism is out of fashion:

There’s some irony in the spectacle of a man who jump-started his comedy career by lampooning a Scottish über-patriot becoming an American über-patriot, but Ferguson doesn’t acknowledge it. A book that begins with him sharing a toast to America with George W. Bush ends with a chapter full of heartfelt declarations of love for his chosen country. Speaking of his on-air campaign for citizenship, he writes, “I wanted . . . native-born Americans to understand the thrill and exhilaration that comes from joining the land of the free.” Once again, Craig Ferguson isn’t kidding. To be an American this patriotic, it probably helps to be Scottish.

No doubt. And what a sad commentary on our times that is.

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

Appease, appease me: It’s an appeasement double header in the Toronto Star today. First, an editorial praises Obama for going that extra mile to try to “reach out to Iran”--an effort that already appears to be bearing fruit:

In Geneva, [Iran’s chief negotiatior Saeed] Jalil made it clear that Tehran would welcome a show of U.S. respect for Iran’s sovereignty and interests, after calling it an “axis of evil.” Iran also claims the right to civilian nuclear power, which implies some (monitored) enrichment capacity, and an end to sanctions that hobble trade and investment. Jalil even raised the prospect of a leaders “summit” to broker an agreement.

A leader’s “summit,” eh? Well, okay. But only if at the end of it Obama gets to return from Munich, er, sorry, Geneva, flapping a piece of paper and declaring “peace in our time.”

The appeasement pleasantries are seconded by Harpoon Siddiqui, who asserts that the West needs to strike a grand bargain with Iran--pronto:

To sum up, Obama has a few good options. Only a grand bargain--giving Iran security guarantees and access to investment and technology in return for rigorous IAEA policing of its nuclear activities--offers a way forward.

It offers a grand leap backward, more like--to another time when a megalomaniac projected his ambitious plans for global dominance onto the Jews, and used their “protocols” as a pretext to justify his conquests and their genocide. That Harpoon would have us think that what’s happening today is about Jewish intransigence (“But Israel has been in violation of several council resolutions for decades…So it’s a case of one law for “us,” another for “them.”) and call for further fruitless placation of the mullahs speaks volumes about where his head is at (i.e. in the Leftist-Islamist camp, lodged firmly up a dark, narrow personal passageway, never to re-emerge).

Update: The lovable moptop sings:

Last night I said this to O-ba-a-a ma:

“Here’s what you do to have no trau-a-a-ma.

C’mon, (c’mon),

C’mon, (c’mon),
C’mon, (c’mon),

Appease, appease me, oh yeah,

Like Munich II.

You be the one to show the way, O.

The world’ll do what e’er you say, O.

C’mon, (c’mon),

C’mon, (c’mon),
C’mon, (c’mon),

Appease, appease me, oh yeah,

Like Munich II…"

Update: The Star's call to strike grand bargains with Twelver thugs is especially sickening because it comes on the same day as this, a UN report stating that the fanatics have everything they need to build A-bombs today.

Update: U.S. lawmakers vow swift action over Iran's alleged nuclear inroads. Too late, lawmakers. That genie has left the bottle.

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

Saturday, 03 October 2009

The incredible shrinking president: Obama’s decision to put in a personal appearance in Copenhagen to push for a Chicago Olympics--and being rebuffed by the IOC--appears to have diminished both the president and the U.S.

Obama realizes he’s the leader of the free world and not the mayor of Chicago, right?
\

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:06 | link | comments

From Russia with hate: Israel names the Russians helping Iran build nukes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:36 | link | comments

“Clarity” is in the eye of the beholder: While not sharing or condoning Mark Lemire’s political opinions, one can certainly sympathize with his plight. For the past six years, he’s been fighting for his--for everyone’s--right to speak one’s mind without fear of state interference, and when his case finally comes before the federal “human right” tribunal and the ruling goes his--and our--way, the CHRC decides to appeal it to a real court.

Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Censors, is down with that. As he told the National Post, "There are a number of different decisions by human rights adjudicators that are all in conflict. The Federal Court will now be the correct instrument to bring the needed clarity."

At first, I, too, was disappointed that the Lynch mob was appealing the ruling. But now that I’ve had time to think about it some more, I’ve come to see it Bernie’s way. We do need clarity. And had the B.C. ‘roos who presided over the Mark Steyn show trial had the cojones to convict Maclean’s of hate speech (because as Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is written--i.e. words that are “likely” to promote hatred--they were guilty), Maclean’s would have appealed the decision to a regular court back then, and we may have had some clarity by now.

Clarity in the legal sense of things, that is. Those of us who know what this fight is really about have seen it clearly for quite some time, and don’t need a judge to “clarify” the issue for us. And for those like Bernie, who have never seen it clearly, and who likely never will, a judge will only bring “clarity” if he or she rules in favour of retaining censorship. If the judgement goes the other way, and reaffirms the tribunal’s ruling, you can doubtless expect a Ceej news release calling for a higher court to bring further “clarity” and to “rectify” that error.

That’s okey-dokey with Lemire, who has “vowed to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.”

What a topsy-turvy world we live in when the “white power” dude is the freedom fighter, the hero, and the Jew is on the side of the Inquisition.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:00 | link | comments (10)

Way to go, O!: His jaunt to Copenhagen may have been a bust, but Obama’s excursion to Geneva, writes Amir Taheri in the NY Post, was time well spent--as far as A-Jad and the Ayatollah are concerned, that is (my bolds):

…So far, Obama has made several concessions to Iran:

* The negotiations are no longer about Iran's compliance with the Security Council resolutions it has violated. Obama is careful not to even mention the resolutions in his statements.

* A new agenda, based on a "package" proposed by Iran, is to be developed. Talks on that issue will start by month's end.

* The 5+1 are no longer demanding that Iran stop uranium enrichment. Instead, they're promoting a range of ideas that would let Iran continue its program.

* Obama's delay in challenging Iran on the newly revealed Qom nuclear site also played into Ahmadinejad's hands.

Britain and France shared intelligence about the plant with the US four months ago. They wanted Obama to disclose the information when he chaired a Security Council session last month -- a move that would have dramatized Iran's defiance of the United Nations. Obama refused, preferring an announcement in Pittsburgh with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Premier Gordon Brown at his side. This let Ahmadinejad claim that he was facing "the Crusader-Zionist" camp rather than the whole of the UN.

* Obama got his allies in Congress to bury a resolution to impose a ban on the sale of gasoline to Iran. (The move, supported by 300 House members and 75 senators, was one of the "crippling sanctions" threatened by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)

* For the first time in 16 years, Iran's foreign minister was granted a visa to visit Washington -- sending a signal that Obama endorses the second Ahmadinejad administration.

* Obama has rejected Sarkozy and Brown's suggestion to fix a time frame for the talks to produce results. Ahmadinejad thus needs only to stall: All he wants is another 18 to 24 months, by which time Iran's nuclear program would become irreversible.

When Obama became president, Iran had 800 centrifuges enriching uranium. Now it has 8,000. By 2010, it may have twice as many...

One can well understand Obama’s priorities. After all, the Olympic Games are really crucial if Western civilization--and, for that matter mankind--is to survive. Far more crucial than an itty-bitty Jew state that almost nobody likes. And, anyway, what with all those centrifuges thrumming along tickey-boo, who knows if Israel will still be around to compete in 2016?

But then, who knows if America will be around either?

Update: None of the jaw-jaw is going to deter Iran from its goal.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:58 | link | comments

Now it can be told: Ahmadinajew

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

Shoot the messenger--and her shady outfit: So what if Jennifer Lynch, the woman who sits atop the federal outfit that has the power to decide what’s fit to print and say in the land, has a capacious dossier full of unfit utterances? As Richard I. Hornung, “past chair of the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board and past vice-chair of the Canada Labour Relations Board, Calgary” (try saying that three times fast) writes to the National Post, in the grand scheme of things Jen’s vast and growing compilation is really no biggie:

Jennifer Lynch keeps files. So what?

Re: Big Sister's Been Watching Me, Terry O'Neill, Oct. 1.

I read, with some dismay, the personal attack levelled by Terry O'Neill against Jennifer Lynch, the current chair of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I was dismayed that Mr. O'Neill would have the gall to cast himself as some investigative journalist worthy of being on some-one's "Nixonian" list. And the fact that Ms. Lynch would have a file of media articles related to her as head of the CHRC should come as no surprise to anyone.

Pick any cabinet minister from the last 50 years, and you will find that they (or their staff ) kept media coverage files in order to stay abreast of what is being said about their department or agency. In fact there are clipping agencies who fulfill just that need. More importantly, I am dismayed both by the tone of this column and that such an obvious personal attack would be published at all. Ms. Lynch is not the CHRC. It is an institution which, over the years, has done immeasurable good for this country. Section 13 is part of the legislation which governs the CHRC. Ms. Lynch's job is to interpret and apply the legislation.

Get over yourselves. Quit attacking the messenger and the institution she represents. If you don't like the legislation have Parliament change it.

Apparently Mr. Hornung hasn’t been paying attention. We have been attacking the institution she represents--constantly and vociferously; that’s why her dossier is so fat. The fact is, though, that Jen’s the front man, er, sorry, front person, for said organization, and has turned its defence into something of a personal crusade. In a desperate bid to save her Titanic from sinking, she has appeared on radio and TV, bringing the message to Canadians that even though the CHRC engages in petty vendettas that have nothing to do with “human rights” and everything to do with power and the desire to instil ideological purity in the populace, her outfit performs a valuable public service.

Well, it might have done so in the distant past, but these days it is little more than an irredeemably corrupt shakedown racket: The exorbitant bill it tried to hand Terry O’Neill for his (one cannot help but chuckle mordantly when saying this) “Freedom of Information” is the latest proof of that.

The time is nigh for the CHRC to stop resting on its laurels, which by now are withered and brown, and cease to be--lock, stock and dossier-compiling messenger.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:46 | link | comments (3)

Paging Vladimir Nabokov: Roman Polanski is definitely not a decent guy, but he is an artiste of great acclaim. Despite his having committed what any casual observer aside from noted legal scholar/ethicist Whoopi Goldberg would concede was a “rape-rape,” tout Hollywood has raced to his defence. And they have done so--get this--in the name of “free expression.” Mark Steyn, who’s had some experience of late with that particular struggle (the fight for free speech I mean, not the fight to free the Polish Humbert Humbert) has a few choice words for Roman’s stalwart defenders:

Debra Winger denounced the Swiss authorities for their "philistine collusion": No truly cultured society should be colluding with the "philistines" of American law enforcement. Polanski, explained the producer Harvey Weinstein, "is a man who cares deeply about his art and its place in the world." And if its place is occasionally in an involuntarily conscripted 13-year old, well, you can't make a "Hamlet" without breaking a few chicks. France's Society of Film Directors warned that the arrest of such an important artist "could have disastrous consequences for freedom of expression across the world".

Really? For the past two years, I've been in a long and weary battle up north to restore "freedom of expression" to Canada. On Monday afternoon, in fact, I'll be testifying on this very subject at the House of Commons in Ottawa, if France's Society of Film Directors or Debra Winger would like to swing by. Please, don't all stampede at once. Ottawa Airport can only handle so many Gulfstreams. If only I'd known how vital child rape was to "freedom of expression," my campaign could have taken off a lot earlier

How do we know Hollywood’s moral compass is seriously askew? Because it is so quick to defend the “rights” of the Humberts (who have the power), and just as quick to discount their victims, the Lolitas (who have no power, and are therefore irrelevant and expendable).

In the Nabokov novel the pervy Continental eventually gets his comeuppance--because that’s how morality works, at least in some fiction. We shall see how things pan out in real life.

Update: Roger and Lionel, the Sunshine Boys of PJ TV, weigh in on the subject.

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

Funny headline: The New York Daily News quips “David Letterman should have kept it in his Worldwide Pants” (the name of Dave’s production company). Since the rag is of the leftish persuasion, however, it concludes that despite Dave’s horizontal mentoring policy for female employees, and despite the fact that his recent turn toward the “political” and relentless Bush-bashing may have influenced how some folks in the heartland--his core fan-base, apparently--voted, all in all, Dave “is still a decent guy.”

Really? How so? Maybe it would have been even more honest had he added this statement to his on-air revelations: “I’m not really a decent guy. I just play one on TV.”

Update: It's karma, alright.

Update: Okay, I admit it. I'm shocked to learn that gap-toothed, un-sexy Dave is actually a highly successful Lothario. In terms of sheer shock-value, the only thing that could top it would be the revelation that the late Larry "Bud" Melman was actually a "swinger."

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:53 | link | comments

Friday, 02 October 2009

I told you it was a bad idea: Hamas says "deal proves Israel has no choice but to accept our demands."

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:58 | link | comments

Great news: The Goldstone report has been “shelved” for now--and maybe forever. Could it be that Obama is twigging to the fallout from the report--i.e. that it would criminalize actions Western nations take to deal with attacks by terrorist enemies waging an “asymmetrical” war?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:59 | link | comments

Never surrender!: Blazing Cat Fur rallies the troops--that's you and me--to fend off the rearguard action being mounted by the federal "human rights" apparatchiks in support of state censorship. They cannot be allowed to have this power because

A) it makes them extraordinary powerful;

B) who are they, bureaucratic mediocrities, to tell us what we can say?, and;

C) stripping them of this immense power will so weaken them that, ultimately, it may turn out to be the equivalent of Dorothy pouring water over the Wicked Bitch, er, Witch.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:35 | link | comments

When transgendered “rights” collide with religious doctrine: An Edmonton man, a part-time teacher at an Islamic school, has been fired from his job for “coming out” as gay, and his teacher’s union has filed a complaint on his behalf with the province’s “human rights” outfit.

April fools! Of course such a thing would never occur here in Pierre’s multiculti Trudeaupia. What really happened is this, as reported by the Ceeb:

An Edmonton teacher has filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission after he was fired by a Catholic school board for telling it he was changing his gender.

Jan Buterman, who worked as a substitute teacher for about six months, was removed from the Greater St. Albert Catholic school board's substitute teacher list last year.

Born as a woman, Buterman is transitioning to become a man and told the school board he had gender identity disorder.

In a letter, Steve Bayus, deputy superintendent of schools for Greater St. Albert, wrote that in discussions with the archbishop of the Edmonton diocese, it was their view that "the teaching of the Catholic Church is that persons cannot change their gender. One's gender is considered what God created us to be."

Bayus said the board, which oversees public Catholic schools in several communities north of Edmonton, purposely hires teaching staff who are "models and witnesses to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

"Since you made a personal choice to change your gender, which is contrary to Catholic teachings, we have had to remove you from the substitute teacher list," Bayus wrote.

"Your gender change is not aligned with the teachings of the church and would create confusion and complexity with students and parents as a model and witness to Catholic faith values."

Bayus notes that Buterman has "served the schools well" as a substitute teacher.

The teachers union has lodged the complaint on Buterman's behalf with the human rights commission.

Buterman is currently out of work and money and living in social housing while he waits for a resolution.

"I do hope that this challenge at least gets Canadians thinking about that," he said...

It does indeed. It gets me to thinking that Buterman should probably look for a job with the regular school board, the one which hews to secular doctrines that don't conflict with the issue of gender reassignment. It also gets me to thinking he probably shouldn't apply to an Islamic school, but were he to do so, and be turned down, he probably can't count on his teacher's union filing a complaint on his behalf; not only would it be tres politically incorrect to complain about one of Canada's foremost victim groups,but the likelihood of rights types entertaining such a complaint is about as remote as Antarctica.

One more thought: does it seem to you, as it does to me, that complaints by transgendered seem to comprise an inordinate number of "human rights" cases these days?

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

Quote of the day/month/year/decade: When I heard Mark Steyn say this on radio yesterday re the ridiculous efforts by some to equate Obama care with the Holocaust, I thought to myself: “By George, he’s got it.” (See what I mean about my misspent youth?) Thought I’d share his insight with you (my bolds):

Well, I don’t see it as any comparison between health care and the holocaust. The Holocaust happened because the German state decided that the Jewish people were not individuals, and did not have the same rights that other German citizens did. I’ve come more and more to the conclusion that what matters is not identity group rights, what happens is not the largesse of the state. What matters is that we have the same individual rights as everybody in society, and are allowed to exercise as great a degree of liberty as possible, including over our health care choices.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”. All men, not all groups of men. This group dynamic seems to have superseded the notion of individual liberty and individual rights--rights granted to the individual, not to the group he or she might happen to identify with. When you lose sight of the individual and start considering people solely in terms of their group allegiance (as the social doctrine of multiculturalism does) you risk messing with--and undermining--the foundation of a free society.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:58 | link | comments

"Nellie" Obama sings: After reading this piece in FrontPage Magazine about how Obama's foreign policy is predicated on "hope" (also on his own unfortunate misreading of history, but that's another story), the line that popped into my head was "I'm stuck like a dope with this thing called hope"--cockeyed optimist Nelly Forbush's self-description in a song from South Pacific. (That's what happens when you misspend your youth memorizing the lyrics to every big Broadway play starting with Oklahoma--practically everything in adulthood reminds you of a song). I was tempted to revise the number, with Barack in the Nellie role, but a rereading of the lyrics persuaded me that I needen't change a single world; that the song as is perfectly captures the Obama essence. Of course, Nellie was a naive, unwordly--if spunky--nurse from the Little Rock, Arkansas who was thrust into a dizzyingly unfamiliar environment--a South Pacific island during WW2--and who had a hard time coming to terms with what she encountered there. Obama, on the other hand, is a worldly Harvard grad, a polished sophisticate, and the leader of the free world who's perfectly comfortable consorting with the high and the mighty, since he sees himself as two and the same. And yet there's no getting around it: Barack (who grew up in the south sea isles of Hawaii) is a Nelly, and these Oscar Hammerstein lyrics written in far more optimistic times could have come out straight of his mouth circa today:

When the skies are brighter canary yellow
I forget ev'ry cloud I've ever seen,
So they called me a cockeyed optimist
Immature and incurably green.

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we're done and we might as well be dead,
But I'm only a cockeyed optimist
And I can't get it into my head.

I hear the human race
Is fallin' on its face
And hasn't very far to go,
But ev'ry whippoorwill
Is sellin' me a bill,
And tellin' me it just ain't so.

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I'm stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can't get it out of my heart!
Not this heart...

Which brings to mind another optimisitc South Pacific lyric: "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair and send him on his way...

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:00 | link | comments

His Name Isn't Earl, It's Dave: By now you've probably heard about David Letterman's astonishing on-air admission that he's been canoodling with female staffers--a reality that gave rise to an extortion attempt. I don't really want to go into all, except to comment that the studio audience's laughter and applause following the confession was perhaps even more appalling than the confession itself, and to observe that given his snarky comments over the years about Bush, Cheney et al, there's something--dare I say--karmic about this particular turn of events. Now Dave's the one who's going to be made fun of nastily and mercilessly.

What goes around comes around, eh?

Update: The MSM is (barf) trying to spin this as being about a "brilliant" hour of televsion, and not about the appropriateness of a boss hitting on his employees. (Even if they were consenting adults, the inequity in power meant there may have been more consenting going on because he was their boss and because they were working for a show had his name on it. I am reminded of the annecdote told about Ray Charles's back up singers, The Raylettes. Word was that if you want to be a Raylette, you had to "let Ray." I wonder how many of Dave's employees felt a similar pressure.)

Update: Sleazy behaviour is good for ratings.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:55 | link | comments

Give 'em hell, Mark: Mr. Steyn goes to Ottawa

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments

Even exchange?: Israel handed over 19 Palestinians in exchange for a two minute video tape proving Gilad Shalit is alive and well. Bu lest you think the Palestinians got the better of the deal, the Jerusalem Post explains

None of the prisoners on the list were convicted of offenses which involved casualties; mostly were jailed for failed terror attacks or for filling out support roles. All were nearing the end of their jail sentences.

Quel relief!

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:22 | link | comments

Thursday, 01 October 2009

The Ceej stands with censors: The Canadian Human Rights Commission will be appealing the Lemire-Warman ruling after all--and the Canadian Jewish Congress, for one, is tickled pink:

TORONTO- Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) commends the Canadian Human Rights Commission for seeking judicial review of the decision in the case of Warman v. Lemire which involved a number of alleged antisemitic and homophobic postings on Lemire's web site.

"CJC agrees that the decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in this case is based on significant errors of law. These errors raise important questions about the constitutionality of s.13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act that require clarification," said Congress CEO Bernie M. Farber. "We support the Canadian Human Rights Commission in its application for judicial review and urge the Federal Court to rectify the errors of the Tribunal's decision in Lemire."

What about Warman’s antisemitic and homophobic postings? How does the Ceej propose to, um, “rectify” that hatred?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:10 | link | comments (6)

And speaking of smart people with dumb ideas…: This idea is actually being floated--a federal department of peace. From the National Post:

A federal New Democrat has teamed up with a Liberal to propose the creation of an army of peace professionals within a new federal department to resolve violent conflicts within Canada and around the world.

The idea was introduced through new legislation tabled by NDP MP Bill Siksay, seconded by Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis. Mr. Siksay said the proposed department of peace could change the role of the Canadian military, but not necessarily replace it.

"In a utopian vision of our world, maybe that will be possible some day but certainly we see this as an area that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves," said Mr. Siksay at a news conference.

"The inclination to seek a non-violent solution to conflict isn't always the first action that people take in our society and around the world."

Mr. Siksay's private member's bill was modelled after a proposal by an advocacy group that suggests Canada needs more trained experts to promote peace in its diplomatic corps as well as in the military.

Bill Bhaneja, a co-chairman of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, said the proposed department could employ hundreds of professionals who would promote a culture of peace in the government's policies and actions, as well as help to resolve conflicts in a non-violent way...

He should speak with that American envoy to Sudan who thinks people can be motivated to smarten up if you reward them with cookies and smiley faces. And after that, for the good of all concerned, perhaps we could sequester them both in a padded room until the urge to foist silly ideas on us passes.

Still, I can resist asking: if a department of peace is being considered, can a department of furry kittens and fluffy bunnies (terrific motivators, I’m told) be far behind?

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

What good are brains if your world view is effed up?: A question addressed here by smart dude Thomas Sowell:

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

It was, after all, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brilliant “brains trust” advisers whose policies are now increasingly recognized as having prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s, while claiming credit for ending it. The Great Depression ended only when the Second World War put an end to many New Deal policies.

FDR himself said that “Dr. New Deal” had been replaced by “Dr. Win-the-War.” But those today who are for big spending like to credit wartime big spending for bringing the Great Depression to an end. They never ask the question as to why previous depressions had always ended on their own, much faster than the one under FDR, and without government intervention or massive government spending.

Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson’s administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s brilliant “whiz kids” tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs…

How true. Just look at the “just society” created by brainiac Pierre E. Trudeau, replete with state censorship, “human rights” commissions and so wedded to the false premises and promises of multiculturalism that at this stage a divorce is all but impossible.

They say that guy Iggy is pretty bright, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:44 | link | comments

Geography question: Has the director of Chinatown met his Waterloo in Zurich? We shall see. But isn't it revealing how some folks think artistes should be allowed to do stuff forbidden to the hoi polloi? Here, I've written a poem about it:

Thirty years ago Roman Polanski

Did something while wearing no pantski.

He was tried and convicted.

Now the focus has shifted

To how he’s the victim--fat chanceski!

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:45 | link | comments

Blah blah blah blah blah blah...KABOOM!: Iran nuclear talks begin in Geneva

Update: Senescent buttinsky counsels everyone to lay off Iran.

Update: Lots and lots of talking today, and at the end of it Iran and world leaders agree about one thing--the need for more talks.

Who says nothing substantive ever comes out of these confabs?

Update: The Great One says Iran must take "concrete action." Actually, I believe the action it's planning on taking does involve concrete--blowing up great quantities of it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:21 | link | comments

Men in stilettos: And they aren't even transvestites or pre-op transsexuals.

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

Freedom of information--for an exorbitant fee: Vancouver writer Terry O’Neil had a hunch that Commissar Jennifer Lynch’s capacious dossier full of scathing, ideologically impure utterances may have included one or more items penned by him. So, as is his right as a Canadian, he duly filled out a “Freedom of Information” request, hoping to see what, if anything, of his turned up. I’ll let O’Neil, writing in the National Post, take it from there (no link as yet; will post it when it appears):

Alas, Ms. Throop informed me in a three-page missive that any further digging by the CHRC to fulfill my request would entail email searches, typing and reading involving up to 100 employees and 6,284 hours of government time at $10 per hour, hence the $62,840 figure, of which I was requested to immediately send half ($31,420) to Ottawa to enable my request to proceed. Either that, or narrow my search and reduce the cost accordingly.

Got that? Because Jen’s dossier is so frikkin’ full, it’s too expensive for her wonks to wade through it and extract individual items. Mind you, the CHRC and its provincial/territorial counterparts have no compunction about spending oodles of taxpayer shekels to harass, er, sorry, investigate the target of a complaint--an investigation that can and often does go on for multiple years.

In essence, we here in Canada have “freedom of information” to about the same extent that we have “freedom of speech.” (Or, as Kris Kristofferson once put it: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”)

What an outrage, and yet another reason to heed the words of Ezra Levant--whose three-year-long probe for “hate speech” by the Alberta Human Rights Commission at one point tied up 15, count ‘em 15, AHRC workers and I guarantee cost a lot more that $62,840--and (say it along with me) FIRE. THEM. ALL.

Update: Here's the link: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2052589

Update: Sorry, Kris:

Busted flat by Ottawa, searchin’ through the file.

Jen has got a right thick dossier.

Pourin’ over pages there, reams and reams of stuff.

Tryin’ to find some words I once did say.

I took out a loan and put down cash for information.

They found some things that I had thought were lost.

A hundred full-time workers, sweat cascadin' down their brows,

They earned ev'ry penny that it cost

Freedom’s just another word for nuthin’ left to lose.

Information ain’t exactly free.

Speakin’ out was easy once ‘fore we got HRCs.

Speakin’ out is what once made us free.

Now nuthin’s free in our society…

Update: The name "Throop" is positively Dickensian. Or maybe 60s girl group-ish. How did that Throop Throop Song go--"If you wanna know if she loathes you so it's in her file (that's where it is)"?

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