scaramouche

Friday, 20 November 2009

Can I have a frankfurter with my relish?: What’s Obama’s Achilles heel? Well, entre nous, it’s his outrageous egotism coupled with his rank ineptitude. In a Weekly Standard version of Henry V rallying the troops before the Battle of Agincourt, William Kristol offers hope for regime change that this bodes to his beleaguered and downcast “band of brothers”:

President Obama chose not to travel to Germany for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, he graced the occasion with a video address. He didn't have time in his two-and-a-half minutes to mention Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Pope John Paul II. But somehow he did find time to mention . . . Barack Obama:

Few would have foreseen on that day that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.

Obama tried (unconvincingly) to disguise his remarkable self-absorption, by adding Angela Merkel to himself as a culmination of the world-historical events of the last 20 years. But what do the victories of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel have to do with the character of human destiny anyway? If the recent German and American elections had gone the other way, and a united Germany were now led by a man from North-Rhine Westphalia, and their American ally by a man of Scots-Irish descent, wouldn't human destiny still be what human beings make of it?

Obama's claim does, however, invite the question: Just what is Barack Obama as president making of our American destiny? The answer, increasingly obvious, is . . . a hash. It's worse than most of us expected. His dithering on Afghanistan is deplorable, his appeasing of Iran disgraceful, his trying to heap new burdens on a struggling economy destructive. Add to this his sending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a circus-like court trial. The next three years are going to be long and difficult ones for our economy, our military, and our country.

What is the loyal opposition to do?

Oppose Obama's destructive proposals (health care, cap and trade) and try to defeat them. Expose the foolishness of Obama's ineffective policies (the stimulus, cash for clunkers) and show the American people their failure. And try to influence Obama's policy choices by persuasion (Afghanistan), embarrassment (political correctness in the fight against jihadists), or legislation (Guantánamo), so as to minimize the damage done to the country on his watch.

In all of this, Republicans and conservatives can succeed, especially if they keep two rules in mind: Don't celebrate bad news. Don't root for the bad guys.

Republicans need to point out that Obama's economic policies aren't working. But they need to resist appearing to relish bad news for the country on Obama's watch…

No can do, Bill. I for one lack the character required to eschew relishing the disastrous outcomes of catastrophic Uhope-ian (Uchange-ian?) policies. I vow, however, to try to resist taunting in a high pitched whine, “Told ya so, told ya so, told ya told ya told ya so!”

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

Almost Paradise: Before he got around to opening fire in public, Major Dr. Hasan is said to have conducted some er, private "research":

A jihadi, Major Dr. Hasan

Was "researching" an Afterlife plan.

Told the guy from Al Qaeda,

“Hey, see you laeda.

And drinks are on me.” What a man!

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:33 | link | comments

Farrakhan speaks out: The dapper and loquacious Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam supremo, thinks he has the Major Dr. Hasan shooting spree all figured out. The man who's fast friends with crackpot anti-Zionist outfit Neturei Karta and has been known to call Judaism a "gutter religion (that's Louie speaking, not Nidal--but, who knows, it could just as easily have been both) says the shrink did what he did because he was "cursed" by his superiors and fellow soldiers.

Cursed he may have been, but not by infidels. It was his misfortune to fall under the spell of a hateful ideology, one which cursed his life. And the memory of that life, and all the pain it caused to others, now elicits curses.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:49 | link | comments

Wish I'd said that: "There are now more muzzled watchdogs in the Obama administration than on the sidelines of the Westminster Kennel Club show," quips the droll Ms. Malkin.

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

Here's hoping: 'Palestinians say Israeli move could kill peace process'

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

Good thing he didn't call is a 'crusade': Senator Orin Hatch is vowing a 'holy war' over 'lousy' health care bill.

Hey, Senator Hatch, aren't you "trivializing" the victims of jihad when you use 'holy war' in this way (says moi, channeling the Miss Manners of Holocaust etiquette)?

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

Life still a misery for Afghan women: The Globe and Mail has an interview with "Afghan politician Malalai Joy (who) defies warlords and death threats to speak out against Canadian troops in her country. For these genuine feats of bravery (defying warlords and death threats, I mean, not speaking out against Canadian troops) the Globe headline hails her as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan.”

Ms. Joya seems to be the kind of “liberated” woman we here in Canada would like to see the women of Afghanistan eventually become--educated, articulate, confident, active in the public and political sphere. The kind who had no chance of emerging under the Taliban. Alas, it isn’t quite as simple as that. For this “liberated” woman does not support the new “democracy” (a “democracy” which, one must point out, upholds sharia law), sees the Taliban as a positive force since it offsets the horrible warlords who now hold the reigns of power, and would like to see Canada end its “occupation” of her country. She also says we are foolish to believe women have it better off now that they did under the Taliban:

Do you think that when the West says we are in Afghanistan to increase security for everyone that it is a lie?

Of course it's a lie. Under the banner of women's rights they occupied my country. Now, even in Kabul we do not have security. Security in Afghanistan is worse than it has ever been.

So if the West pulls out, you think Afghanistan will suddenly become a peaceful place?

Now my people are squashed between two powerful enemies. From the sky, these occupation forces bombing civilians, from the ground, Taliban warlords. It is much easier for us to fight one enemy instead of two. We want the soldiers to withdraw as soon as possible. Your government says it's leaving in 2011. You have to leave now because for eight years Canada has just followed the dirty policy of the U.S. government. The U.S. is there for their own interests, not for the interest of my people.

Do you really think that if the troops pull out, Afghanistan will become more secure for Afghans?

I am not saying that peace is coming and that everything will be okay. These warlords were mice when the Taliban were in power, in their holes. But after 9/11 these mice became wolves. They must stop arming them. The foreign occupiers are not honest with my people about their motivations. They are not honest. It's better to leave my country. As long as the troops are there [there] will be war. Your government says the Iraq war is a bad war, the Afghan war is a good war. I don't know what the difference is between these wars.

You argue in your book that the Western occupation of your country is being conducted under the banner of women's rights. What do you mean by that? Do you feel women face deeper dangers today than during Taliban rule?

Today killing a woman is like killing a bird. The situation for women today is as catastrophic as it was under the Taliban. The only difference is all of these crimes are happening under the name of democracy. They cut off noses and ears of women to punish them. Men cut women to pieces.

But why do you say this is being done in the name of democracy? That is a very bold claim.

Because your government, the Canadian government, says you are trying to bring democracy. But these people are sworn enemies of democracy. It's impossible to bring democracy this way. In Kabul, it is true, women have some access to jobs and education. There are women in parliament, more than in your country, but most of them have symbolic roles. And these women are outnumbered by warlords and drug lords who sit beside them in parliament.

Ordinarily I’d be suspicious of the words of someone who favours the Taliban. However, I think she’s probably telling the truth about the plight of Afghan women living under the thumb of warlords in what, after all, remains a sharia state. Which begs the question: should Canadians be there at all? Well, not if we think we’re there “for the women.” And not if we’re think we’re there to “win hearts and minds” and the rest of that fluff. And not if think we can turn Afghanistan into a functioning “democracy” a la our own (c’est impossible et tres fou with warlords in charge, the Taliban as the unofficial and disloyal opposition, and sharia as the law of the land). The only reason I can see for us being there is to keep Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, from falling to the Taliban--a worst case scenario that should give us all pause.

Update: 'Why Pakistan won't fight the Afghan Taliban'

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

Rubber room time: When last we heard from Charles Krauthammer, a former shrink, he was diagnosing the madness of imputing an avowed jihadi’s actions to, well, madness. Today he weighs in on more mishegas--the looming jihadi show trial in NYC:

WASHINGTON -- For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: "9/11, The Director's Cut," narration by KSM.

September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) "do not get convicted," asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. "Failure is not an option," replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

Moreover, everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning…

And which, when coupled with his other delusions (see post below), makes Eric Holder one very farcical (and batty) A.G.

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

Fascism on campus: Wahhabi shekels have despoiled the groves of academe (think of them as the Agent Orange of academic "philanthropy") to such an extent that prestigious universities (Princeton and Columbia) roll out the red carpet for the likes of Noam 'n' Norm 'n' Mahmoud, and roll it up for an anti-sharia truth-teller like Nonie Darwish. Phyllis Chesler has the revolting details.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:42 | link | comments

Black like me: I know American blacks were once enslaved. I know they’ve faced tremendous bigotry and oppression. But blacks in high government office--Condi Rice under Bush and now Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General--make a huge mistake when they see parallels between the American black experience and the American Muslim experience while failing to consider the factors in Islam which, when activated, constitute an ever-apparent threat to infidels. I’m speaking, of course, of jihad, sharia, and the religiously-based will to power. The problem is that people who identify as “victims” tend to identify with other “victims”--something Islamists depend upon in deflecting kafir efforts to clamp on the jihadis in their midst. Hence, post-jihad attack on American soil, the Islamist emphasis on a “backlash” (which never appears) and insistence that “profiling” (official scrutiny of Muslims in particular since, go figure, there aren’t a whole lot of Buddhists, Wiccans or Seventh Day Adventists fighting the jihad) constitutes prejudice.

This article on Islamist website Islam Online shows how easy it is to get blacks (as well as whites) to identify not with the victims of jihadis, but with those who play the victim card--a Three Card Monte bit of legerdemain at which Islamists are highly adept (my bolds):

…[Attorney-General Eric] Holder attacked the racial profiling of US Muslims, warning the move breeds mistrust and division.

“For the last nine months, I’ve heard from Muslim and Arab-Americans who feel uneasy about their relationship with their government, who feel isolated and discriminated against by law enforcement,” he said.

"Some of them have told me that they feel denied the full rights of citizenship."

American Muslims, estimated between six to seven million, have taken the full brunt of anti-terror measures since the 9/11 attacks.

They have become sensitized to an erosion of their civil rights, with a prevailing belief that America was targeting their faith

“This is simply intolerable,” Holder said.

“No American should feel denied the tenets of our Constitution or of the government that created it… It is inconsistent with what America is all about.”

Holder, America’s first African-American attorney general, recalled being racially profiled by police when he was young.

“I still remember how humiliated that I felt and how angry I was.”…

To recap: it is both bad history and bad policy to analogize the experience of blacks in pre-civil rights era America with that of Muslims living in Dar al Harb today. Blacks were fighting for the same rights accorded to white Americans; jihadis, both violent and non-violent (who, last time I checked, were all Muslim) are fighting to bring down the country and bring in sharia (which deprives women and non-Muslims of rights).

In the "bad" old days, back before the “backlash” and political correctness and an over-emphasis on empathy made us stupid, we weren’t afraid to call those of our own trying to do us dirt for the sake of an alien ideology what they really were: traitors.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:16 | link | comments

Thursday, 19 November 2009

With faux-supporters like the New Israel Fund, who needs Islamic Judenhass?: Isn't it nice that the New Israel Fund "loves" Israel, "supports" Israel, wants Israel to be perfect and Utopian--the bestest nation in the whole darn world? Because if you didn't know how ardently the NIF "supports" the Jewish State (as it continually affirms), you might take a look at this poster--a lascivious "occupying" Israeli soldier hand extended to grope the ta ta of a helpless Muslima--and see evidence of "supporters" who, at best, are extremely conflicted about Israel and, at worst, who really despise the place. (The word "penetrate," with its connotations of rape, being especially vile.)

A controversial poster depicting an Israeli soldier reaching for a Palestinian woman's breast was created by Israeli-Arab groups that receive funding from American Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:01 | link | comments (1)

The ADL and ODS: In much the same way that there is such a thing as “penis envy,” but only men have it, there is such a thing as Obama Derangement Syndrome, but only those who succumb to the swoon have it. And, man, does the Anti-Defamation League ever have a bad case of the swoons. It’s gotten so bad that the organization which, in years past, defended Jews from Nazis and other Jew-haters, is now lashing out at what it misperceives as being the latest “threat” to American Jews: those who dare criticize Obama. Jonathan Tobin has this to say about the flight of addled ADL’s sense of reason:

…In one tidy package, the ADL links not only “mainstream” critics but also radio and television talkers like Glenn Beck and peaceful “tea party” protests against higher taxes with those who talk of armed resistance to the government and even those responsible for the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing. Seen in this light, those who merely cry that they “want their country back” from the Democrats while standing outside a town-hall meeting become the thin edge of the wedge of a new threat to democracy and, by extension, a threat to the Jews.

The point is that the “tea parties” and protests at town halls are no more a threat to democracy than were the anti-Iraq-war protests of just a few years ago, where one was just as likely, if not more likely, to encounter not veiled anti-Semitism of the kind the report imuted to right-wing activists, but rather open vicious Jew hatred and Israel-bashing, as well as portrayals of Bush and Dick Cheney as Nazis.

More important, what the ADL seems to forget is that the right of the people to feel “anger and resentment” against the government of the day — be it Republican or Democratic — is what we call democracy in this country. The group is standing on firm ground when it calls on Republicans, as it recently did, to condemn those who outrageously link Obama with Hitler. Of course, Republican leaders have done exactly that. But had the ADL issued a report a few years ago that began by accusing Democrats of creating resentment against Bush and then linked opposition to the GOP to extremists who supported Hamas or rationalized or even denied al-Qaeda’s role in 9/11, Democrats would have cried foul and been right to do so. That never happened. But by choosing to frame its report denouncing this brand of extremism in such a way as to associate all those who have opposed Obama’s policies in one way or another with the far Right, the ADL has stepped over a line that a nonpartisan group should never cross.

Bottom line: Jews suspending their power of judgement and giving in to the swoon serves the object of their veneration. However, since the object has demonstrated again and again that he isn‘t worthy of their love--that, in fact, he neither “gets” nor cares about the Jews and their homeland--such worship isn’t merely ridiculous, it is suicidal.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:22 | link | comments (1)

Talking Turkey: Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium's P.M., is considered to be the front-runner for the coveted position of EU President (the job T. Blair desired with an ambition so naked it was downright lewd).

I know nothing about the man, but a brief perusal of the Web shows that, in the looks department at least, he's no Obama. But then who needs looks when you've got your wits about you, as is evidenced by this Van Rompuy statement from 2004. Back then, re Turkey's longing to hook up with the EU, the prosepctive prez said: "Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe. An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past. The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will loose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

Sounds to me like a guy who "gets it"--or did five years ago.

Update: Obama--a really crappy U.S. president, but given his globalist mindset and embarrassing need to feel loved by both the effete elite and the hoi polloi , well nigh perfect for the EU's top spot, no?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments

Boiling down Harry Reid's blubberific behemoth: It takes 2,074 pages to say "the government owns you, body and soul."

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

Nope: "Does sinking Mideast peace process hold any hope?"

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

Another country heard from: China joins the international gang-bang of Israel (for having the chutzpah to build stuff).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:19 | link | comments (2)

You’ve read the book, now see the movie: Hollywood is set to produce a mega-million biopic of the most perfect human being who has ever bestrode the Earth. And, if you’ve read the book, you know it incorporates some of the same kind of thinking re “THE JEWS”--i.e. that they’re scum, swine, the lowest of the low, the devil’s spawn, a detriment to and net drain on humanity--that animated one of history’s least perfect human beings. Ryan Mauro in FrontPage reports on the flick and its Islamist backer:

The producer of the blockbuster trilogies “The Matrix” and “The Lord of the Rings,” Barrie Osborne, is now working on a $200 million movie about the founder of Islam, the Prophet Mohammed. Helping to guide the project is Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a radical Muslim Brotherhood theologian. One quick look at this so-called “moderate” should raise serious questions among those investing in Osborne’s film and spark a call to boycott should his involvement continue.

Osborne describes his film as “an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam.” He has chosen to use the Qatar-based Alnoor Holdings production company, which has decided to have Sheikh al-Qaradawi “oversee all aspects of the shoot,” according to The Guardian. If Osborne’s goal is to combat anti-Muslim bigotry and portray a positive image of Islam, then the influence of al-Qaradawi on the film will only do the opposite.

Al-Qaradawi is only a bit less radical than Al-Qaeda. He has repeatedly expressed support for Hamas, a terrorist group that was birthed from the Muslim Brotherhood organization to which he belongs. The Israelis believe he has directly financed Hamas by donating $21 million to a “charity” knowing that it’d be used to help the group buy land. In November 2008, the Treasury Department blacklisted a network of charities called the Union of Good for acting as fronts for Hamas. Al-Qaradawi serves as the group’s president.

He was condemned by the Islamic Council of Norway and imams in Denmark and Sweden in February of this year after the Middle East Media Research Institute translated remarks he made the previous month.

“The only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life in martyrdom,” he said.

Al-Qaradawi doesn’t even bother to hide his anti-Semitism by replacing the word “Jews” with “Zionist” or some other term to differentiate between Israeli soldier and civilian, or between Israeli Jews and non-Israeli Jews…

Why bother hiding it? The Islamists and their useful idiots on the left have done such a crackerjack job of demonizing the Jewish state that the distinction would be lost on people. In any case, we both know “anti-Zionism” is “anti-Semitism”--so why beat around the beard, er, bush?

As for who should not play Perfection Personified (since, as we know, any visual representation of him makes some of his more thin-skinned followers go wild): I’d cast George Clooney in the non-role.

Update: Here are the immoderate "moderate's" bona fides

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:54 | link | comments (1)

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Just got my e-vite: Ms. scaramouche regrets she’s unable to lunch with “human rights” hucksters today (or any day), Madam:

We are very pleased to extend this invitation to save the date, February 4th, to attend Combating Hatred in the 21st Century: Legal Remedies. (If you have already received this invitation, please disregard this duplicate notice. Since you had expressed interest in the last conference, we wanted to ensure you were not missed for this year’s notification.)

This significant, day long event is a unique opportunity to gain insights and exchange viewpoints on criminal and civil remedies to hate and bias crimes in Canada.

Those attending this key event will include:

Members of the judiciary from all three levels of Court

Leaders from within law enforcement

Lawyers

Academia

Community leaders with a background in law

Law students and grad students with a special interest in discrimination in law

This year’s conference offers more opportunities for interaction through video demonstrations that will lead into table discussions. In addition, a combination of keynote speakers, panel debates and discussion workshops will address:

Use of the Criminal Code and Other Remedies to Combat Hate
Hate on the Internet
Campus Issues
Human Rights Code
Sentencing and Hate Crime

There will be a chance to hear from several prominent Canadians as they share their personal experiences with discrimination in a presentation moderated by Justice Harry LaForme of the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Watch for a formal invitation, which will be emailed to you later in November with additional details. Space is limited. Please ensure you save the date, February 4th, to participate in this ‘not to be missed’ conference.

Dr. Karen Mock

Special Advisor

Combating Hatred in the 21st Century Conference

Associate Chief Justice Peter Griffiths

Ontario Court of Justice

Honorary Conference Chair

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:07 | link | comments

Mentorship maven raves about giving Islam the benefit of the doubt: A little birdy (not naming names, but an unimpeachable source) informed me that Mark “I Get Jews to Mentor Somalis” Persaud sent out a communiqué commending the interfaith fellowship displayed in this JTA article:

Advocate for military’s Jews speaking up for Islam in wake of Fort Hood killing

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Mikey Weinstein is probably best known for defending Jews from alleged bigotry and harassment in the U.S. military. In the past few days, however, he's been raising questions about whether there's an anti-Muslim bias in the service as well.

Weinstein, the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, says Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's alleged killing of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood is inexcusable and reprehensible. But he also believes it is important to investigate reports of harassment that Hasan allegedly faced as a Muslim in the military -- mistreatment that Weinstein says could have contributed to his mental state.

“There's enough out there” to look into, Weinstein said. “I'm not excusing him, but did it affect him or was he just a maniac to begin with?”

Weinstein cited media reports quoting members of Hasan's family saying that someone had put a diaper in his car and told him, “That's your headdress,” and that a camel was drawn on his car with the words “Camel jockey, get out!”

Weinstein also provided a letter, with the name withheld, from a Muslim woman and wife of a member of the military in which she described how her best friend on the base, immediately after the shooting, told her that “Muslims shouldn't even be allowed in the U.S. Army” and that she repeatedly heard things like “Go back to your country” and “F-ing Muslims” as she shopped at the base commissary.

Weinstein, who spent 10 years in the Air Force as a military attorney, or JAG, said he also doesn't believe reports that Hasan's colleagues hesitated to report his changes in behavior because of political correctness. In fact, he claimed, Hasan's superiors would have been sympathetic to hearing such charges because of their strong Christian beliefs.

Weinstein would like to see military leaders make an “unadulterated clarion call” that Americans shouldn't “paint all of Islam with a broad brush” and emphasize a “zero tolerance policy” of any religious harassment…

Yes, let’s “twin” with mosques and “mentor” Somalis--let’s all sing Kumba-frikkin’-ya--while the Islamists count their blessings that we infidels are so clueless, so credulous, so easily bamboozled.

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

Kudos to Ontario’s “human rights” apparatus for another successful shakedown: Here’s the skinny--a student at an Ontario Catholic school tells the class his mom’s going back to school. The teacher comments she shouldn’t have too much trouble fitting in because she looks young. And why does she look so youthful? “Because she’s black.”

Ooops!

The student and his mishpacha take great umbrage to this obviously “racist” comment and file a grievance with the local “human rights” shakedown artistes. Rather than having to face years of ~~harassment~~ investigation, the school board decides to settle for an unspecified sum of dough-re-mi. The local rag has the gruesome details:

The Catholic school board has settled a racism complaint lodged by a student and his family.

In August 2008, Vidoll Regisford appeared before Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board trustees at a public meeting and requested they address “anti-black racism” aimed at students by faculty members.

He demanded the board take some action to address incidents of racism in classrooms and establish a better bureaucratic process for dealing with complaints.

His son, who was in Grade 11 at St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in 2007, was making a presentation in his English class when his teacher made what the family considers a racist, if not stereotypical, comment.

According to Regisford and his son, discussion surrounded middle-aged people returning to school to further their education. The teenager mentioned his mother was back in school, but partially able to fit in because she looked young.

According to the family, the teacher interjected his mother looked young because she is black. Regisford said the comment was a stereotypical remark that certainly had no place in a educational environment.

Feeling discriminated against and dissatisfied with action taken by the board, the family filed an application with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

In a brief news release issued Monday, the school board announced the issue had been resolved to the “satisfaction of both parties” and the family was encouraged by equity initiatives underway at the board.

“That’s all I can say about the settlement,” said Bruce Campbell, the board’s communications and community relations manager. “The terms are strictly confidential.”

Campbell noted there are several implemented and ongoing steps being taken to address equity, diversity and discrimination issues in schools and among staff. He mentioned the board is currently in the process of developing a human rights policy and procedures. Scheduled completion is next spring.

The board is also revising its equity policy, has implemented an employment equity policy and is providing human rights education for staff, he pointed out.

In 2005, the board agreed to implement anti-racism training for principals in response to human rights complaints alleging skin colour played a part in the suspension of some students.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission mediated a settlement between the board and complainants. The board agreed to implement steps that included anti-racism and anti-discrimination training for staff, reviewing board equity policies, actively recruiting minority teachers and taking measures to increase racism awareness in schools. The measures are part of a list of steps Dufferin-Peel committed to over several years.

I must be really “racist,” because I would have taken the teacher’s remark as a compliment.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:23 | link | comments (2)

Eco-vangelicals: They love Jesus and the eco-freaks' shady science.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:56 | link | comments

See what happens if you don't have a Jew to mentor you?: "Somali-Canadians fear sons radicalized"

Update: "Somali woman stoned to death for adultery"

Update: Yo ho ho but no bottle of rum (it being against the sharia and all)--"UN debates Somali piracy policy"

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

The jihadis’ search and destroy mission: A National Post reader is upset with Stephen Harper's India photo-ops:

Re: PM Arrives In India To Make 'Better Friends, Partners,' Nov. 17.

Our Prime Minister is in India "to reinvigorate Canada-India relations." He visits the massive country of India for just three days, home to 1.15 billion people, 80+% of whom practise Hinduism (alongside millions of Sikhs, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists) yet he finds time to hob nob with Jewish rabbis on his first day. Then the National Post runs two photos of the first day of the trade mission, and both are of his visit to the Jewish Chabad House.

Remarkable.

Tim Gibbs, Vancouver.

Actually, Tim, what’s remarkable is that the jihadi terrorists took pains to locate and brutally execute Jews in this massive country where few Jews reside--kind of like finding a proverbial minute needle in a proverbial massive haystack. Which is rather the point of Harper hobnobbing with the few Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:40 | link | comments (4)

Follow the moolah: Exhibit A in how Wahhabi shekels have despoiled the groves of academe--the controversy surrounding Yale U’s book about Motoons that purposely left out the Motoons. The lame-o reason proffered at the time: publication of said “forbidden” images might give rise to a whole new round of lively rioting/embassy burning. In reality, the reason the book was bowlderized was because Yale was in line for some Saudi lucre, and, well, deference to sharia law comes naturally when you’re trying to convince Islamists to give you a whopping pile of cash. The New Criterion unpacks the Yale tale which, in this telling, involves Yale alumnus Diana West (who recounted her adventures in Yaleland at last month’s free speech conference in Washington) and a babelicious Hashemite Queen (hey, aren’t they all?):

In September, we outlined some of Yale’s interests involving Arab support. The Middle East specialist Martin Kramer subsequently pointed out that a new Yale World Fellow this autumn is Muna AbuSulayman, executive director of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, which is planning to invest some $100 million to create centers on American universities to promote “Muslim-Christian understanding.” Yale was in contention a few years ago when Harvard and Georgetown each snapped up a cool $20 million. The Bulldogs didn’t prevail that time, but President Richard Levin has clearly been in training for a second round.

Among his initiatives was inviting Queen Rania of Jordan to Yale for a public chat with him in conjunction with Yale’s presentation of a traveling art exhibition (on view until December 12) called “Breaking the Veils: Women Artists from the Islamic World.” To forestall any misconception, let us explain that this exhibition is not meant to criticize the veil and assorted haberdashery in Islamic society (the burqa, hijab, niqab, and other emblems of women’s status as chattel in many Islamic societies). On the contrary, the exhibition—what President Levin apostrophized as a “magnificent” show—is intended to “combat” what the curators see as “misperceptions about the Muslim world and Arab nations” by the West. Item: a silkscreen by Leila Shawa, a Palestinian artist living in London, that “superimposes a United Nations resolution that established a special committee to investigate Israeli practices in occupied territories with the image of rubble, possibly a destroyed home.” Get it?

As the writer Diana West noted at her website dianawest.net, President Levin took the occasion of Queen Rania’s visit to celebrate Yale’s crescent Islamicization:

Yale’s new Modern Middle Eastern Studies Major, eight new faculty members in the field, the recent Ramadan banquet in the Commons, the new “coordinator of Muslim life for the University” (whom he didn’t mention but could have), all in order to make the case that “Yale is a place where Muslim scholars and students are welcome and embraced with respect.”

You betcha. But Ms. West was right to call attention to President Levin’s use of the word “respect.” Surely, she points out, it is an odd word to use about an ideology that does not

“respect” in return the equal rights of non-Muslims or women, let alone freedom of conscience and speech. In President Levin’s usage, however, embracing with “respect” really means embracing without question—taking an Islamic point of view about Islam. If “Islam” means “submission,” then “respect” is surely part of a submissive attitude toward it…

As everyone knows, there is no compulsion in religion. Nonetheless, the Yale tale demonstrates that, under certain circumstances, the sight of a Wahhabi sheik waving around a wad of bills can prove awfully compelling and make almost anyone behave like a whore.

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

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

And the winner is...: The New Oxford American Dictionay's word of the year is "unfriend."

Here, I'll put it in a sentence: Barack Obama has "unfriended" the State of Israel.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:47 | link | comments (1)

Same old loopy Jewish conspiracy theory, repackaged: Melanie Phillips--tongue lodged firmly in cheek--rails about the “Israel lobby,” the one that’s so diabolically powerful that it can force Brits to heed its every instruction, to the detriment of all mankind:

After watching Peter Oborne’s ‘Dispatches’ programme on the power of the Israel lobby in Britain, the scales have fallen from my eyes.

I now see things in an entirely different light. I now realise that the power of this unique cabal is so vast and unprecedented in its truly demonic power – a power given to no other lobby – that both the Labour government and Tory opposition slavishly and unquestioningly support Israel’s military actions and that the Guardian and the BBC have found themselves totally unable to publish or transmit anything other than wholehearted support for Israel.

I now realise that, every day, a cowed and intimidated Guardian publishes story after story in support of Israel, focusing relentlessly upon the beleaguerment of its citizens under the onslaught from Hamas while never carrying anything in favour of the Palestinians, presenting the Middle East entirely through a pro-Israel prism and never even reporting the Palestinian point of view except for a few contemptuous references suggesting that they are always lying.

I now realise that every day a cowed and intimidated BBC transmits only the most admiring reports of Israeli soldiers being put in harm’s way by their commanders in order to avoid killing Palestinian civilians wherever possible, and that its Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen is guilty of the most flagrant admiration for the Israel Defence Force and of presenting a version of Israel’s history which is drawn entirely from a Jewish perspective.

I now realise that Britain has been forced to endorse the most drastic and gung-ho action possible against Iran to stop it from going nuclear – part of the approach to the region which, in the memorable words of no less an authority than the former British ambassador to Iran, has been promoted by British Jews who are acting against the national interest of Britain and in the interests of another country…

As always, it’s far more comforting to make a scapegoat of Jews, who are few in number and can be done away with easily, than to have to deal with the your real problem--in this instance, the Islamists/Jihadists who number in the multi-millions, and who aren’t going away any time soon.

First they came for the Jews--again--while the appeasers fed the crocodile, hoping it would eat them last--again.

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

“Hate crimes” depend on who’s doing the hating: Some unknown yahoo(s) scrawled hateful graffiti--“Kill Jews” and “6 million more” and the like--on various surfaces across Calgary, included synagogues, a Jewish Centre and a Holocaust War Memorial, but the local Clouseaus aren’t convinced that this lively expression can be categorized as a “hate crime”:

Calgary police say it's too early to say whether they'll pursue hate crime charges against the suspect who sprayed anti-Semitic graffitti on the Jewish centre in the city's southwest last weekend.

Inspector John McReynolds with the diversity resource unit says cases like this usually aren't prosecuted as hate crimes.

He says police aren't ruling anything out at this point but hate crime convictions are extremely rare.

McReynolds says that distinction is usually made by the judge after the suspect is found guilty.

Not that I’m a fan of criminalizing speech, but you can bet yer Islamic Supreme Council of Canada that had the same sort of “love” shown up on Muslim property, the “diversity resource unit” would insist it be prosecuted as a “hate crime” (and if it didn’t, you can be certain there would be hell to pay).

It’s the unfairness, the blatant double standard, that gets me--viz Pastor Mark Harding, whose “hate crime” (in Ontario) entailed no calls for anyone to be killed, and consisted solely of criticizing Islam and Canada’s immigration policies.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:02 | link | comments

Wish I'd said that: "Major Hasan put up more red flags than the Politburo..."

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:24 | link | comments

Hyp-O-crite: Barack Obama is really big on free speech--in China. From the WaPo:

BEIJING -- President Obama, taking questions Monday from government-selected students at a town hall-style meeting in Shanghai, called himself "a big supporter of non-censorship." But the Beijing government, apparently, is not, and most Chinese never got to hear or read what Obama said.

Rather an irony there, no? The president who wants FOX to shut up because he doesn’t like what it has to say, and who’s trying to circumvent free speech via the Orwellian-monikered “Fairness Doctrine” comes out in favour of free speech for the Chinese--only the Chinese can’t hear it because it's been censored. Meanwhile, the same president is doing his utmost to silence Americans who decline to swallow media-purveyed claptrap re his sheer wonderfulness.

It’s always easy to be a “free speech” hero in someone else’s backyard, eh, Barack?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:08 | link | comments

Dead wood: Dennis McShane (in the National Post) has the best explication I've read about the sources and funding of campus Judenhass (which, as we know, is all the rage these days). It's no suprise that much of it is paid for by the slippery Wahhabis who, as the custodians of Islam's holiest real estate and real by-the-book guys want to see Juden, raus from Israel because the Jewish state is an affront to Islamic dogma. Hence their need to brainwash the young'uns to carry the "Israel is an apartheid state" torch--so they'll do the Wahhabi king's dirty work in the name of "social justice" for "oppressed" and "occupied" Palestinian "victims".

To sum it up in a line: Saudi shekels have despoiled the groves of acadame and brought us closer to the completion of the Final Solution. (Am I allowed to say that, or does it "trivialize" the Holocaust?)

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

Jen’s O.J. henchman: Jay Currie reports that when he submitted a “freedom of information” request--he wanted to see what, if anything of his was included in CHRC Commissar Jennifer Lynch’s capacious “rude speech” dossier--a familiar if not entirely unexpected name turned up:

…I got 88 pages, most of which are heavily redacted. However, there is this interesting fact. The Commission did not find out about the “Jessica Lynch” post at overthrow.com on its own. Nope, they had help.

I noted this post to [readcted] blog.
http://www.overthrow.som/blog/?p=151

Jennifer Lynch is the Chief Commissioner to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It needs to be taken seriously and I would add this to your file. I am CCing the CHRC FYI

Best
BMF

Bernie M. Farber,
Chief Executive Officer,
Canadian Jewish Congress

Yup, that’s right, BMF, Official Jew, takes time out from tweeting his followers, shmoozing with a Jew-shutupping actress, handing out an award to an intrepid “Nazi” hunter, and writing an article criticizing the B’nai Brith for “trivializing” the Holocaust to do his bit for Jennifer’s Stasi. “Nice to know,” writes Jay, “Bernie is trolling the internet underworld looking for ‘threats’”.

A chap with way too much time on his hands, perhaps?

Update: If they ever do a Canadian version of the classic Dr. Seuss Christmas tale (title: "How la Lynch Stole Free Speech") maybe Bernie can play Max.

Update: Jenny purrs her gratitude a la Kitt:

Bernie baby, slip an e-mail off just to me,

You’ll see

So many “threats” on the ‘net.

Bernie baby, and snitch on someone rude just for me.

Bernie baby, an out-of-touch complaint to us too, will do.

From your proxy W.

Bernie baby, and snitch on someone rude just for me.

Think of all the “hate” they say.
Think of all the “haters” in my dossier.
This year my life’s been full of zing.

Dashed to Dublin and ev’rything…

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:22 | link | comments (1)

Monday, 16 November 2009

Afghan women opt for self-immolation over forced marriage: Eight years after Western forces turfed out the Taliban, the situation of Afghan women has improved drastically, right?

Well, maybe in certain ways, although I’m not sure what they are, but since women still have absolutely no say in who they get to marry, many woman see only one way out--setting themselves on fire. From MSNBC:

HERAT, Afghanistan – We watched a teenage girl die last Friday.

Seventeen-year-old Shirin had been brought to the Herat Regional Hospital Burns Unit a few days before we met her. Ninety percent of her body was covered in third-degree burns.

Her mother-in-law said Shirin had burned herself by accident. The girl was preparing a meal in the kitchen but somehow confused cooking gasoline with petrol, she said.

But Dr. Mohamed Aref Jalali, the director of the burns unit, said Shirin told him in private that she had set herself on fire deliberately after fighting with her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law.

Many girls in Afghanistan think self-immolation is the best solution for family problems, according to Jalali.

"[For these girls], it’s no good to solve the problem with the father-in-law, with the mother-in-law," said the doctor. "They think self-immolation will solve the problem."

It’s a "solution" that appears to be a major problem in Afghanistan, particularly among young women between the ages 13 and 25.

In the first seven months of this year, medical staff at the Herat’s burns unit – the only one of its kind in the entire country – said they have seen 51 cases of female self-immolation. Only 13 have survived.

The practice comes from Iran, where many Afghan refugees had fled to during the decade-long war with the Soviet Union (1979-1989) and the era of mujahedeen fighting that followed in the 1990s, said Jalali. But its popularity has spread among Afghan women, often from poor, uneducated backgrounds, where the tradition of child or forced marriages runs strong.

"The forced marriage is the best reason and the important reason, and it starts from the economic problem," said Jalali.

Often in arranged marriages, women are viewed in very stark terms.

"She is here only to wash, to clean, to give baby … and nothing more," said Marie-Jose Brunel, a French volunteer nurse at the burns unit who was full of Gallic warmth and purposeful seriousness. "If they have no freedom, no possibility to study, to be considered like nothing, it’s very, very difficult."…

Yup, things are sooo much better for women since our troops went to “liberate” the place. My question: how horrible must it be to be married to some Pashtun dude that a woman would willingly chose a wretchedly painful death over marriage?

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:09 | link | comments (2)

Sharia on the march in Dar al Harb: As further proof that "sharia finance" is jihad through other means (through the means of appealing to infidels' greed, I mean) I offer this--the fact that true believers are trying to sell Islamic banking products in South Korea, where the Muslim population is miniscule to non-existent.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:48 | link | comments

Obama to Jews--screw you: In stark contrast to his warm and fuzzy/deferential approach to Muslims and Japanese Emperors, witness Barack Obama’s cold and disdainful treatment of Jews, as described by Caroline Glick (h/t TS):

Once again, US President Barack Obama has demonstrated his intention of "putting light" between America and Israel. His hostility towards Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the latter's visit to Washington this week was breathtaking.

It isn't every day that you can see an American President leaving the Prime Minister of an allied government twisting in the wind for weeks before deciding to grant him an audience at the White House.

It isn't every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the President; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit; and is ordered to keep the contents of his meeting with the President secret.

Ahead of Obama's meeting with Netanyahu, the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama was effectively attempting to blackmail the Israeli premier by conditioning the meeting on Netanyahu's willingness to make tangible concessions to the Palestinians during his speech before the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Although the report was denied by the Obama administration, if it was true, such a move by the White House would be without precedent in the history of US relations with Israel. And if untrue, the very fact that the story rings true is indicative of the wretched state of US relations with Israel since Obama entered office.

Obama's hostility was evident as well during his meeting with fifty Jewish leaders at the White House this week. In an obvious bid to split American Jewry away from Israel, Obama refused to discuss Israel or Iran with the concerned American Jewish leaders. As far as Obama was concerned, all they deserved from him was a primer on the brilliance of his economic policies and the worthiness of his plan to socialize the American healthcare industry. His foreign policy is none of their business…

But guess what? The Jews (the stupey-dupes) are still going to vote for him.

Update: Song for a bower:

Unpack his humility,

Bowing down, gingerly.

Bow, Obama.

Genuflects to Saudi’s King.

Deference is his thing.

Bow, Obama.

Hope ‘n’ change is what he’s recommending.

Puffed-up potentates he’s been defending.

'Cause sucking up is on his list

‘Cept if you’re Zionist.

‘Bama bow down,

‘Bama bow down.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:28 | link | comments (2)

And speaking of “Do It Yourself”: As his parting shot, the Silver Fox tries to pull a fast one (i.e. Palestinian statehood). Yet another despotic, Jew-loathing Islamic polity/OIC member--as if we don’t have enough (too many) of those already.

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

Et tu, Oscar?: Not even Sesame Street can resist taking a pot shot at the lone hold-out/non-swooner on the U.S. TV scene.

For shame, SS. You of all shows should be teaching kids to adore--not deplore or abhor or snore at--free speech.

There, I've given you the rhymes, now write the song yourself.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:55 | link | comments

Liberals blast Tories for failing to protect Canadians’ “human rights”: Actually, they’re concerned primarily with protecting the “rights” of a certain Canadian--the one down in Gitmo:

OTTAWA – The Conservative government’s indifference to human rights abuses experienced by Canadians stranded abroad is on display in the Supreme Court today, as they continue their vendetta against former child solider and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, Liberal MPs said today.

“Canadians shouldn’t have to rely on the court to force the government to safeguard our human rights,” said Irwin Cotler, Liberal Special Counsel for Human Rights and International Justice…

Agreed, Mr. Cotler. Canadians should not have to rely on the Supreme Court to get rid of Section 13, the censorship/anti-free speech provision of Canada’s Human Rights Act. You parliamentarians should step up and DIY. But since you and your fellow Grits are so focussed on (obsessed with) the rights of a “child soldier” and remain firm supporters of state censorship (control freaks that you are), and since the Tories aren't exactly willing to lead the way, that remains the remotest of possibilities.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:30 | link | comments

More pointless outreach: The Toronto Star has a heart-warming tale about Mounties reaching out to a special victim group:

The room fills up slowly. The 20 or so participants hesitate before entering the basement of Anatolia Islamic Centre in Mississauga. Most of them come to the mosque every day for prayer. This is the first time they are joined by national security officers from the RCMP.

But the meeting today isn't "nefarious," as one officer calls it. Rather, it is the start of six weeks of dialogue between the Mounties and the Muslim community, a small effort to rebuild a relationship that has become strained.

Corporal Steve James starts off the session with a joke. "I want to welcome you and introduce you to the RCMP officers here today," says James. "Don't worry, none of them are here to arrest you."

There is some nervous laughter and a few smiles. This is the first time many here have ever spoken to the police in Canada. Where they are from, police normally don't have a sense of humour.

All of the attendees, mostly middle-aged Muslim men and a few women of mixed ethnicities, are here to take part in the RCMP citizen's academy course, a get-to-know-your-local-law-enforcement workshop that will take place over the next few Tuesday evenings and cover such things as Internet safety, immigration and recruitment.

The national security arm of the RCMP created the academy in 2005, a few months before the terror bust and arrest of the Toronto 18, as a way to give Muslim leaders and community members a venue to air counter-terrorism concerns and dispel misconceptions about how the RCMP operates.

The academies have taken place in mosques across the city, graduating dozens of community leaders and activists. But three years and seven graduations later, many of the initial concerns still exist.

"The concerns are pretty much the same," said Superintendent Jamie Jagoe, responsible for national security investigations in Ontario, who came up with the idea for the academy.

"But the further we move away from 9/11 ... the angst that was there is getting reduced."

Most people in the community continue to hear stories of aggressive CSIS run-ins and humiliating questioning. And they still have fears that what happened to Canadian Muslims such as Maher Arar and Abousfian Abdelrazik, who was barred earlier this year from returning to Canada from Sudan, could also happen to them.

"I have a lot of questions I want to ask ... like why are we always targeted? Why are we always stopped? Is it because we are coloured?" said Mahamed Khan, a Mississauga-based real estate agent, attending the academy. "I am going to be diplomatic of course, and hear what they have to say, but I think we all have questions," said Khan, originally from Guyana…

To answer your question, Mahamed (nifty alternate spelling, BTW): Why, yes, it is because you are coloured, and because we are all racist, and has nothing at all to do with police trying to prevent jihadi terrorists from blowing people up.

Just kidding. It’s because jihadi terrorists, your co-religionists, keep trying to blow people up.

The Star may applaud such outreach, but it’s hard to see how anything good can come out of Mounties pandering to the Victims R Us mentality (especially since one group--young Muslim males--is noticeably absent).

Update: Oh, wait--police are reaching out to "yutes":

Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police O.A.C.P. Introductory Video on Islam
On Friday, November 7th, 2008, Young Muslims Canada participated in the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police O.A.C.P. introductory video on Islam. The production will act as a manual for newly inducted police officers in Ontario. Other respected members of the Muslim community such as Imam Hamid Slimi & Zubeda Vahed were featured on the production. Special thanks to the International Muslims Organization [IMO], O.A.C.P. production crew & RCMP Diversity Liason, Howard Adams [O Division]. The production will be featured on YoungMuslimsTV in 2009, God-willing.

Lemme guess what was in the introductory video--"no compulsion in religion''..."Islam means peace"..."he who kills one innocent, why, it's like he killed the whole blooming world"...

In other words, it's pretty safe to assume it bore no resemblance to Major Dr. Hasan's Islam 101 Power Point presentation.

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

Outreach not reaching him: Despite tons of hopeyhanger affection, the Shia Grinch remains adamant re going nuclear and, further, is outright laughing at us (as well he should, since we’re total wimps). From AP:

Ahmadinejad says Western pressure empowers Iran

TEHRAN, Iran — An impasse in nuclear talks between world powers and Iran would only hurt the West by making Tehran push harder to advance its technology, according to the latest remarks by the Iranian president.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments can be seen as a veiled threat that Iran would go ahead with enriching uranium to a higher level should negotiations with the international community fail.

"Cooperation with Iran is in the West's interest" while pressures on the Persian nation would only make the country "more powerful and advanced," Ahmadinejad said, according to a statement posted late Sunday on the presidential Web site.

The remarks come after President Barack Obama said Iran is running out of time to agree a U.N.-brokered plan to ship its low-enriched enriched uranium out of the country for further processing.

Ahmadinejad also reiterated that Iran's nuclear rights are not negotiable and that the country's nuclear activities would only continue within the framework of the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The Web statement did not elaborate on how Western pressure would embolden Iran…

Allow me to elaborate: it would embolden Iran because it fears Western “pressure” (i.e. appeasement) not in the least and sees it correctly as a sign of weakness.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:24 | link | comments

Eco-hysteria embraces a new scare tactic: The UN’s honcho says that unless we let globalists control everything--and I mean everything--there isn’t going to be enough food. From Reuters:

ROME, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The United Nations opened its world food summit on Monday by saying that a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger as rising temperatures threaten farm output in poor countries.

Government leaders and officials met in Rome for a three-day U.N. summit on how to help developing countries to feed themselves, but anti-poverty campaigners were already writing off the event as a missed opportunity.

The sense of scepticism deepened at the weekend, when U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, though European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action.

"There can be no food security without climate security," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Rome summit.

"Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change," he said…

“There can be no food security without climate security”--a totalitarian slogan if there ever was one. How about this for another: “COPENHAGEN MACHT FREI”?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:51 | link | comments (2)

After bowing to the Emperor and reminiscing about a youthful lark involving green tea ice cream, Obama pushes the U.S. to commit hara-kiri: The New York Post nails it re the 9/11 Sheik’s NYC criminal trial:

"It makes no more sense to try those responsible in a civilian court than it would have been to hold a trial for the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor."

Kamikazes then; shahids today: La plus ca change...

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

Sunday, 15 November 2009

All things to all people but one of a kind in the ego department: Now he’s “Pacific,” yet. And, as always, it’s all about him. William Kristol comments:

In his speech Saturday at Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Barack Obama called himself “America's first Pacific President.”

His basis for that claim seems to be that he was born in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia as a boy, and, “when I was a young boy, my mother brought me to Kamakura, where I looked up at that centuries-old symbol of peace and tranquility -- the great bronze Amida Buddha. And as a child, I was more focused on the matcha ice cream....I have never forgotten the warmth and the hospitality that the Japanese people showed a young American far from home.”

Perhaps that memory led to Obama’s extraordinary deep bow in reaction to “the extraordinary honor of the meeting with Their Imperial Majesties, the Emperor and Empress, on the 20th anniversary of his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne.” I must say, when I was Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and we met the newly-ascended emperor on a trip to Japan, it didn’t occur to any of us in the official party--all of whom were, I think, perfectly polite--to bow…

Well, Bill, is seems obvious you and Dan and the boys weren’t “Pacific” enough to pull off such a feat (unlike the black/white/Christian/Muslim/Hawaiian/Chicagoan).

Obama's deference to the Japanese Imperial Majesty prompts contentions' John Steele Gordon to remark:

President Obama goes abroad apologizing for the supposed sins of a country that defended and extended freedom around the world at a staggering cost in lives and treasure and then grovels before the man whose country has yet to apologize for the Rape of Nanking.

As my mother used to say, “Pardon me while I throw up.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:55 | link | comments (3)

Ho ho hopeychange: Here's today's seasonal standard, updated 'specially for 2009:

It’s beginning to look a lot like jee-had

Ev’rywhere you go.

Take at look at it at Fort Hood.

A jihadi up to no good.

And watch them claim it was the “stress”

Just like you knew they would.

It’s beginning to look a lot like jee-had.

Terrorists galore.

But the scariest sight to see is the way that the sharee-ya’s

Been creeping through the door.

Hamas and Hezbollah all holler so loud and so proud in the Middle East.

Afghanistan's plenty of Taliban men who are fighting the infidel beast

And hopeychanger’s reachin’ out--bad plan, to say the least.

It’s beginning to look a lot like jee-had

Ev’rywhere you go;

There’s Jew-hate in the OIC, virulent as can be,

And get a load of haters at the UNHRC.

It’s beginning to look a lot like jee-had;

Infidels'll bleed.

‘Cause when kafirs let down their guard

That’s the time they’ll be hit hard

By a confident sha-heed,

By a confident sha-heed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:40 | link | comments (1)

Rudy slams jihadis’ criminal trial: NYC’s former mayor thinks treating the 9/11 Sheik like a common criminal is a terrible idea:

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration’s decision to try five Sept. 11 suspects in federal court in Manhattan is a “mistake” that’s inappropriate for combating terrorism, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said.

Giuliani said moving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self- proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four others from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York to be tried as civilians will create additional costs and security concerns for the city. The administration’s plan is politically motivated, said Giuliani, New York’s mayor during the attacks, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

The administration’s plan, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, marks a shift by Obama from the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism strategy. The former administration created military tribunals for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, a process that was criticized by Democrats. Obama also is moving to close the prison in Cuba and relocate the detainees.

The White House decision shows that “both in substance and reality, the war on terror in their point of view is over,” Giuliani said. “There seems to be an over-concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern with the rights of the public.”

White House senior adviser David Axelrod, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” today, defended the decision, saying that “we believe that these folks should be tried in New York City, as you say near where their heinous acts were conducted, in full view in our court system.”

Let's cut the crap, shall we? What it does is afford the Obami a primo opportunity to blast the previous administration in full view in the court system, the better to remind folks how terrible Dubya was and underscore what a godsend Obama is.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:03 | link | comments

Dimant pulls a Harding: Last week the B’nai Brith took out a full page ad in the National Post that was intended to be a wake-up call about the jihad. So far as we know, no one has complained to state authorities about it--yet--even though it is clear violation of the censorship provision in our “human rights” act and could conceivably be considered “hate speech” under our criminal code. Lest we forget (and, alas, we have, we have) some years ago a Christian pastor, Mark Harding, was convicted of a “hate crime” and sent to prison for saying things that seems fairly tame compared to the BB's Nazi stuff. Here’s how it went down, from a 2002 WND piece:

Harding was convicted in 1998 on federal hate-crimes charges stemming from a June 1997 incident in which he distributed pamphlets outside a public high school, Weston Collegiate Institute in Toronto. Harding – who said that until that point he spent most of his time evangelizing Muslims – was protesting the school's policy of setting aside a room for Muslim students to pray during school hours.

In one of his pamphlets, Harding listed atrocities committed by Muslims in foreign lands to back his assertion that Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.

The pamphlet said: "The Muslims who commit these crimes are no different than the Muslim believers living here in Toronto. Their beliefs are based on the Quran. They sound peaceful, but underneath their false sheep's clothing are raging wolves seeking whom they may devour. And Toronto is definitely on their hit list."

"The point I was trying to make is you shouldn't have a violent religion like Islam allowed in a school when Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism is not allowed," he told WND.

That’s it? A sheep’s clothing observation can get you tossed in the joint? And you don’t even have to draw comparisons between jihadis and Nazis?

So that’s how Canada “balances” free speech and “hate speech”.

After losing a Supreme Court appeal in Fall, 2002, Harding was ordered by “enlightened” authorities to resume

his sentence of two years probation and 340 hours of community service under the direction of Mohammad Ashraf, general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America in Mississauga, Ont.

ISNA, by the way, is a Wahhabi-backed outfit. But wait, it gets better (i.e. worse):

Ashraf, according to Harding, said that instead of licking stamps and stuffing envelopes, "it would be better if you learned about Islam."

The cleric made it clear, Harding recalled in an interview with WorldNetDaily, that during the sessions nothing negative could be said about Islam or its prophet, Muhammad.

"He said he was my supervisor, and if I didn't follow what he said, he would send me back to jail," recounted Harding, who had been prevented from speaking publicly about his case under a gag order.

I don’t think the BB’s Frank Dimant need fear having to endure similar treatment. Still, it seems clear that a Canada that has apologized to so many for past ill-treatment (to Chinese and Aboriginals and Japanese-Canadians and, last but not least, Maher Arar) surely owes an apology and compensation to Mark Harding.

Update: From a July '09 piece by Tarek Fatah in the National Post (my bolds):

Until 2007, only men had translated the Koran and interpreted it. That's because the very idea of a woman translating the holy book offends Islamists. Consider, for example, the reaction to the first-ever translation by a woman — Laleh Bakhtiar's The Sublime Quran — two years ago.

Mohammad Ashraf of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — the same gentleman who this week told the CBC that there was no provision for honour killings in Islam — told The Toronto Star that he would not permit The Sublime Quran to be sold in the ISNA bookstore. "Our bookstore would not allow this kind of translation," he said. "I will consider banning it ... This woman-friendly translation will be out of line and will not fly too far."

What had Laleh Bakhtiar done to deserve the punishment of having her translation of the Koran banned from ISNA's Islamic bookstores? Her fault, in the eyes of Islamists, is that she believes the Koran does not condone spousal abuse, as claimed by Islamists.

If a woman's translation of the Koran is banned from an Islamic bookstore, what is available at such places? At one Toronto bookstore, the title of a gaudy paperback screamed at passersby: Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell.

Doesn't Pastor Harding's Islamic reeducator sound a tad, oh, I dunno, sexist? But he has even less worries about having to account for his "illegal" thoughts to Canada's thought police than Frank does. (After all, the BB has already been investigated by the inquisitors; no Islamist ever has.)

Update: Another interesting fact about Ashraf--he signed a letter of employment for an extremist Muslima, a foreigner. Maclean's wrote about it here.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:04 | link | comments (4)

Jew wars: The Canadian Jewish Congress is miffed that the B’nai Brith took out a full page ad in the National Post equating radical Islam with Hitler’s Nazism. In retaliation, the Ceej website posts an opinion piece from Lefty freebie rag/sex-for-hire directory NOW Magazine penned by Susan G. Cole in which she commends the Ceej and condemns its rival:

…Even what I refer to as official Jewry opposes these kind of tactics.

Start with the most important organization in this context. Co-president of the Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors SIdney Zoltak says he’s furious.

“The world is full of terrible things – genocide and oppression,” he tells me on the phone from Montreal, “but the comparison between those things and Nazis shouldn’t be made for the sake of raising funds. As a representative of Canadian Jewish Holocaust survivors, I’m sure my fellow survivors would feel the same way. It trivializes the Shoah.

“Let me be clear. The extremists of the Islamic leadership are a danger. They’re certainly a group that has to be watched – we have to be vigilant. It’s alarming to have lived through the Holocaust and still feel this kind of threat.”

But that doesn’t mean we should make irrational statements.

Last month, more than 300 Conservative rabbis signed a statement urging Americans to renounce the use of Nazi imagery in political discourse.

Back here at home, Bernie Farber, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote an article in the Toronto Sun that catalogues the many occasions the analogy has been made in inappropriate ways.

The feeling behind both the petition, Farber’s newspaper article and mostly the CJHS is that these kinds of comparisons diminish and belittle the tragedy of the Holocaust.

And that applies when Jewish organizations do it too.

Let me get this straight--Bernie, the guy who sees Nazis everywhere and who’s in favour of state censorship because he fears that unless we silence these scary Aryans their unfettered utterances will set us up for a genocide here in Canada (“hate speech,” as the Ceej sees it, being the inevitable precursor to genocide) thinks it's “inappropriate” to talk about Nazis?

If he freaking kidding me?

Plus, to add insult to injury, he is pleased to be quoted in a BB-bashing piece by a rag that supports the boycott against Israel and spouts all the loony leftist palaver about “Israeli apartheid”?

The whole thing is just plain wrong on so many levels (three at least, by my count).

Update: Coincidentally, this was posted in The Corner:

It is a commonplace to assert the similarity between these two hateful ideologies. But there is more than mere similarity at work; there is also a family resemblance based, at least in part, on a historical, genetic connection. In his new book, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, Jeffrey Herf describes in painstaking detail Nazi Germany’s effort to win the sympathy of Muslims in the Middle East. Herf uses thousands of pages of verbatim English translations of the Nazi broadcasts to build his portrait of how the Nazis appealed to Muslim tradition. They didn’t invent Muslim anti-Semitism, but they focused it and exploited it, and their rhetoric echoes today. The book comes from Yale University Press — which, it would be a severe understatement to say, did not distinguish itself in the recent controversy about its book on the Danish cartoons. Kudos to Yale for getting it right this time, and publishing the work of a serious scholar on the genealogy of today’s most serious anti-Semitic threat.

So much for the BB's "inappropriate" analogy. I suggest we pool our nickels and send a copy each to Susan G. and Bernie M.

Update: A question I would ask those Jews active in Holocaust education who want to ixnay the Nazi talk outside the "context" of the Holocaust: Why bother "educating" people, unless it's to point out how it could happen again if we turn a blind eye to today's Nazis (who hail Allah instead of Hitler)?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:55 | link | comments (2)

Jihadis inside and outside: You might think that sticking a prominent jihadi in the slammer might put a crimp in his grandiose plans. If so, think again. In the U.K., for example, incarceration has actually been a boon to Allah’s warriors, since it provides them with a ready supply of new recruits--a real captive audience. The timesonline has more:

SOME of Britain’s most dangerous Al-Qaeda leaders are promoting jihad from inside high-security prisons by smuggling out propaganda for the internet and finding recruits.

In an authoritative report, Quilliam, a think tank funded by the Home Office, claims “mismanagement” by the Prison Service is helping AlQaeda gain recruits and risks “strengthening jihadist movements”.

Abu Qatada, described by MI5 as “Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, has published fatwas — religious rulings — on the internet from Long Lartin prison, in Worcestershire, calling for holy war and the murder of moderate Muslims, it reveals.

Abu Doha — said to be Al-Qaeda’s main recruiter in Europe — has taken courses in Belmarsh prison, south London, enabling him to mentor other inmates.

Abu Hamza, jailed in 2006 for inciting murder, has preached radical sermons to followers using water pipes in his Belmarsh cell, and Rachid Ramda, the Algerian leader of the Paris Métro bomb plot, led Friday prayers in the same jail.

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, shadow security minister, said prisons risked becoming “incubators of extremism”.

Qatada, a radical Islamist cleric who is wanted on terrorism charges in Jordan, is held in the the “supermax” segregation wing of Long Lartin. Built at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign and designed to house dangerous inmates, it should be one of the most secure buildings in the country.

Like other jailed terrorist leaders, Qatada is meant to be cut off from his supporters outside. Yet it is said that last year, under the noses of warders, Qatada and Adel Abdel Bary, leader of the UK branch of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, were able to smuggle out a series of fatwas legitimising attacks by AlQaeda and endorsing the murder of moderate Muslims.

Qatada and Bary are two of about 100 Islamist terrorists in UK prisons…

Think of it as a jihadi exchange program. The Muslim world sends the West its jihadi imams while, in this related story, the West sends one of its own--an Irish “revert” with the unlikely name of Khalid Kelly--to rough it in the Swat Valley:

…Khalid Kelly, a former altar boy from the Liberties area of Dublin who used to be known as Terry, told The Sunday Times he is undergoing weapons training in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal region in order to fight jihad against the enemies of Islam. His dream is to face a British soldier in combat, although he would “settle” for an American, he said.

“I’m already on the path to jihad. I’ve already picked up a gun and done target practice to make myself familiar with weapons. The other day I learnt how to use an M-16 [rifle] in five hours,” he said. “Next week, inshallah, I could be in Afghanistan fighting a British soldier.”

Asked how he would feel about his own three-year-old son becoming a suicide bomber he replied: “I hope he goes to jannah [heaven] before marriageable age.” His son, named Osama after Kelly’s role model, lives in Britain with his Pakistani mother and two younger brothers. His father reckons Osama will be efficient with weapons by the age of ten.

Kelly says he learnt map-reading in the Scottish mountains, terrain similar to Afghanistan, although he admits he is currently out of shape. He justifies his intentions because of the West’s actions against Muslims.

“Why is it such a big deal that I want to do this? Have I not got the right to do the same thing as a guy going into an army recruitment centre?” he said. “As long as we have no security, you will have no security. We’ll kill and bomb you as you have killed and bombed our lands.”

Ireland is also a legitimate target, according to Kelly. “Ireland has a US embassy so it is open to attack,” he stated.

Kelly, 42, is an unconventional jihadist. Having grown up a staunch Catholic and trained as a nurse, he moved to Saudi Arabia in 1996 to work at the King Faisal hospital on a tax-free salary. In 2000 he was introduced to radical Islam by an Afghan when he was serving time in the Al-Ha’ir prison in Riyadh for bootlegging.

“I was living a cushy Western lifestyle, in a three-storey house with a swimming pool. I was your average Western racist,” he said of his time before conversion. “Now I’m living the dream, but the price of paradise does not come cheap. I am getting up at 5am to pray. I travel a lot and I’m experiencing hardship.”…

Sounds like Outward Bound for the psycho-barbarian set.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:57 | link | comments

Saturday, 14 November 2009

Obama shifts into "Major" damage control mode: The "diversity" demi-God is -- chortle, choke, guffaw--insisting--cackle, titter--that if any warning signs about Major Dr. Hasan were--giggle, snort, hoot--"missed," there will be--hahahahaha -- hell to pay.

Oh, that Obama. At least he's always good for a good laugh.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:49 | link | comments

What's the difference between a Muslim and an Islamist?: Christopher Caldwell grapples with the thorny topic here.

The way I would describe the difference: An Islamist is a Muslim who is taking active steps--whether violent or non-violent--to establish the primacy of sharia, Allah's law, or a Muslim who, while not taking action himself, supports those who are taking it.

A Muslim, that is a "moderate" Muslim, is one who is either non-practicing; who has no interest in asserting sharia's primacy and is content to live under the laws of the land where he happens to live; and/or who is working to thwart the Islamists so that no further accommodations are made for sharia.

Tarek Fatah is a Muslim. Tarek Ramadan is an Islamist.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:35 | link | comments

The jihadi succeeded. Send us your shekels to fund our “there’s no jihad here, folks” campaign: Major Dr. Hasan’s casualties haven’t even all been buried, but in a staggering display of carpe diem, CAIR is seizing the opportunity afforded by a fictitious backlash to solicit funds from supporters. The Weekly Standard posts the missive now in contention for the tackiest and most ill-timed fundraising appeal ever:

Urgent Action: Help CAIR Defend Your Community in Times of Crisis

Dear XXX,

As-salaamu alaykum (Peace be with you),

When a crisis such as the Fort Hood attack and now the government’s move to seize four American mosques occurs, CAIR is there to defend you and the Muslim community.

Within hours of the Fort Hood attack, CAIR, along with other organizations, held a news conference at its Washington, D.C. headquarters and issued a statement of condemnation to thousands of local, national and international media outlets.

Perhaps you saw CAIR spokespeople interviewed on MSNBC's Hardball or on PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, MSNBC, or the BBC. Or maybe you read CAIR quotes in the Washington Post, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, or USA Today.

CAIR's professional staff has been working non-stop in dealing with these crises.

CAIR provided advice and support for Islamic centers nationwide on how to handle the crisis, including ensuring your safety in case of an anti-Muslim backlash. CAIR soon became the most watched non-profit on You Tube.

Our tone and immediate response is paying off. Major media acknowledged the strong statement that American Muslims issued condemning the Fort Hood attack. On CNN, Anderson Cooper reported that CAIR “reacted to the shooting spree, condemning the attack in the strongest terms possible.” ON MSNBC’s Hardball, Chris Matthews noted that CAIR was “quick to condemn the massacre.”

But our efforts are not without associated expenses. Sending just one statement about the Muslim community's stance against violence and extremism can cost thousands of dollars in staff time and distribution costs.

There’s no way for me to soften this: We need financial help to meet these crises and push back against those who seek to score political points off the Muslim community in the wake of the Fort Hood tragedy.

Please consider giving $5,000, $2,500, $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50 or whatever you can.

If you donated in the past, please consider doubling that donation.

All contributions are zakat-eligible and tax-deductible.

Thank you for your support and may Allah bless you. We will continue to monitor the situation to prevent backlash against our community.

Nihad Awad

CAIR National Executive Director

P.S. Responding effectively to this crisis is pushing CAIR’s resources to the limit. Please donate right now. Then send this appeal to your friends and family, and post to Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet sites.

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

With apologies profuse to Dr. Seuss: Binky has some thoughts on the Grinch in his latest aggregation, so I thought I might give this one (with a few revisions) another spin:

How the Jews Stole Mahmoud’s Jihad

Every Jew down in Jew-ville liked living a lot.

But Mahmoud who lived due west of Jew-ville did not.

He hated the Jews, the whole Jew-ish entity.

He longed to expunge the Jew-ish identity.

Why?

It could be because he was warped like Khomeini,

And, as for his scruples, he hadn’t goteini.

But I think—and I’m certain I’m on the right track—

It’s he thinks that his Mahdi is soon coming back.

But whatever the reason that one cares to use,

He stood there in Tehran, hating the Jews.

Staring down from his podium, a smirk on his face,

He announced he had plans for the whole Jewish "race".

For, even though he contends that the Shoah's a fraud,

He longs for another, for the sake of his God.

“They have no right to be!” he snarled with a sneer.

“They have stolen the land from those already here!”

Then he danced a brief jig, saying, “Aye, here’s the rub--

We Shias are joining the nuclear club.”

For,

Tomorrow, he knew

All the UN kowtowers

Would dicker and dally.

And do nada to forestall all the nuclear showers.

And then! Oh, the cloud! Oh, the cloud!

Oh, the big mushroom cloud.

That’s the thing Mahmoud longed for! The CLOUD! CLOUD! CLOUD! CLOUD!

Then the Jews, young and old, would all sizzle and glow.

And they’d go! And they’d go!

And they’d GO!

GO!

And once gone, he’d be finally able to boast,

That because of his efforts, the Jews were all toast.

And THEN

The occluded imam’s long occult-like occlusion

Would be more than collective religious delusion.

The Mahdi’d return once the Jews were dispatched,

And they'd get down to business so long ago hatched.

They’d rule! Yes, they’d rule!

Oh, they’d RULE! RULE! RULE! RULE!

And, in a thrilling redress of historic unfairness

The world would wake up to a brand new awareness

That Shias were, fittingly, top o' the heap.

And the Sunnis and kafirs would sleep the Big Sleep.

And then…

Mahmoud got an idea!

A wicked idea!

MAHMOUD GOT A DELICIOUSLY WICKED IDEA!

“I know just what to do,” said Mahmoud, who was very ambitious.

And he made a quick call to his terror militias.

And he coaxed and he coo’d, “I’ll send lots of nice missiles.”

Then he sat down and dashed off some pithy epistles:

“Dear Barack, Dear Gordon, dear infidel leaders.

Here is your choice—submit, or be bleeders.”

But did Mahmoud stop at that?

No! He packed a valise

And raced off to the UN, there to speak his whole peace.

And he summoned his lapdog, Hu Chavez, to his mission,

The plan: first berate; then, cut bait and go fission.

He arrived at the UN,

One of his favourite fora,

For ‘twas there

He’d espied his bright glowing green aura.

Then Mahmoud shouted, “Boo!”

And the gathered grew pale.

And Mahmoud told a wicked, duplicitous tale:

“I don’t want to kill Jews.

I mean them no harm.

So there’s no need to sound any suddden alarm.

Why, it’s just that my oil has depleted a bit

And I'm pitchin' enrichin' so my buildings stay lit.”

Then, he slithered and smarmed, and grinned a great grin.

As he thought of which countries would fall for his spin:

France! And Great Britain! Holland! And Spain!

The U.S.! Cuba! Norway! Bahrain!

Then he smirked to himself, knowing all would be well,

And in no time at all Jews'd burn down in Hell.

So he oozed back to Tehran, full of bluster and thunder

And the weak internationalists

Were left struck dumb with wonder.

He’d received a reception due a king, a great man,

Not the kind for an evil total’tarian.

Then he preened like a peacock with a glorious tail.

“And NOW!” smirked Mahmoud, “I KNOW I can’t fail.”

And in no time at all, another secret enricher was up and running

To enrich more uranium—the amount would be stunning!

But, just then, from on high, Mahmoud heard a strange hiss.

A strange Jew-ish hiss,

And he suddenly realized, “Something’s amiss.”

For up in the sky was a shiny Jew fighter

Which caused Mahmoud to shriek,

“You bloody Jew blighter!

You’ll never, ever uncover my arsenal.

You’re all going to die—nothing parsenal.”

But we all know the Jews are so smart and so slick

And they’d sized up Mahmoud, and were on to his trick.

“Why, don’t worry, dear ‘moud, we aren’t here for your nukes.

We’ve come to get rid of your kookiest kooks.

So we’re taking the Ayatollah and his sock-thingy—you.

And here’s what we’re thinking we’re going to do.

First, we’ve hired a deprogrammer, to divest you of hate.

Next, we’re shipping you Stateside, before it’s too late

Where you’ll hook up with and get help from some real holy rollers,

And become Pentecostals, from your toes to your molars.

Then, once you’ve found Jesus

We’re shipping you back,

And your fire-breathing brethren will be on the attack

Because, as apostates, you’ll have no right to live.

(Thus saith sharia, which, as you know, has no ‘give’”).

So that’s what they did. The Jews stole them away,

And they had a sojourn in the U.S. of A.

Where they were de-programed

And divested of hate.

They rocked and they ranted. They shuddered and sang.

And at a quarter past dawn,

All the Shias still a-bed,

All the Jews still a-snooze.

They returned Mahmoud and Khameini—such an elegant ruse!

The devout were all stunned. They sputtered! They wailed!

And dispatched the apostates straight away, who were jailed.

Then, lickety-split, they chopped off their heads.

And Mahmoud and Khameini, hurray!, were both dead…

And what happened then…?

Well…in Jew-ville they say

That the mem’ry of Mahmoud has just withered away.

And the terror militias, with no more of his missiles,

Have dropped all the Jew-hate and penned peaceful epistles.

And the Jews—they no longer give anyone pause.

And if you believe that…

You probably believe there’s a Santa Claus!

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:33 | link | comments (3)

Bloody unlikely: "Hamas: The unlikely peacemaker"

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:36 | link | comments

Whoa, Barry!: The National Post's George Jonas skewers the PC way of putting the cart (condemning a backlash that has yet to--and will likely never--materialize) before the horse (condemning a massacre perpetrated by a devout Muslim):

If Obama cautions against "jumping to conclusions" about the motives of someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" before killing a dozen people, it's no surprise. The Obama presidency crowns half a century of wimpification. Even bellicose George W. Bush saw fit to visit a mosque right after 9/11, as if extreme acts of Muslim militancy had put the onus on America to assure Muslim-Americans of the country's continuing loyalty to Islam. Can you picture Franklin Delano Roosevelt wagging his tail in a Shinto shrine a day after Pearl Harbor?

Actually I can’t. Roosevelt was in wheelchair and, physically, the move would have been beyond him. But it was beyond him intellectually and emotionally, too, which is precisely Jonas’s point.

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

Jihad? What jihad?: The “editor” of Islamist/Leftist e-rag the Canadian Charger tries to ~~pull the wool over infidels’ eyes~~/~~whitewash the jihad~~ distance himself and his confreres from the belief system and actions of Major Dr. Hasan:

Immediately after Major Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 American soldiers and injured 30 others, at Fort Hood, Texas, the media was almost monolithic in reporting that Major Hasan is Palestinian, an Arab and supposedly a devout Muslim.

Aside from the fact that he is a psychiatrist and he was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan, there was little other information about Major Hasan.

What conclusion will the majority of people draw from this coverage of a tragedy?

Non-Muslims shoot multitudes of people regularly – especially in America – but the perpetrators' religious affiliations seldom becomes a focal point of media coverage.

Eric Rudolph and a significant number of others, bombed abortion clinics in the U.S., claiming to be good Christians, fulfilling God's will.

It's also becoming more commonplace for parents who murder their children to claim they wanted to protect them from a dangerous world, and that their children have gone to “a better place.”

Not much seems to be made of the fact that these killers are invoking a Christian concept of the afterlife.

Whether or not mass killers claim to have a religious or political affiliation and a corresponding agenda, we rarely – if ever – discover a well-adjusted individual or individuals who are responsible for these massacres.

With few exceptions, the perpetrators are odd loners, with poor social, and often cognitive, skills, who have trouble establishing meaningful relationships with other people – especially women.

Moreover, many of the perpetrators seem quite “normal” to those around them: interviews with those who knew the killer or killers, almost invariably describe them as quiet people who were “nice and polite” and seemed harmless.

However, Major Hasan didn't fit this stereotype.

He had frequent arguments with fellow officers over what he considered to be stupid and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and he openly expressed his anger at his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

One can't help but wonder how Major Hasan could reconcile his abhorrence for what he considered immoral wars with shooting and killing 13 innocent people and wounding 30 others. Where is the logic?...

Hmmm. Sounds like one little Canucki horsey has been cribbing Barack Obama’s talking points (‘twisted logic’ and that). But for the benefit of the ignorant still searching for “the logic,” here it is.

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

'Roo the day: Toronto Star opiner Thomas Walkom is hopping mad because, while Khalid Sheik Muhammad will be traveling to NYC to be tried in a crminal court, "boy soldier" Omar Khadr is "heading for a kangaroo court."

What, you mean one of Canada's many "human rights" tribunals will get to decide his case?

Well, no. "Kangaroo court" is Walkom's derisive description for a U.S. military commission. I'd lay odds that Walkom welcomes the type of "justice" meted out by our 'roos.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:32 | link | comments

Common sense goes up in smoke: Here’s just one of the many wacky '09 rulings of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, the same kooky kangaroo court that considered the Steyn/Maclean’s case. This one, which I honest-to-goodness picked at random, had to do with a couple of guys who were growing weed in their apartment, and whose water supply to nurture their crop was unceremoniously shut off by authorities. The couple (no, their names are not Cheech and Chong) insisted authorities did so not because they were cultivating an illicit substance, but because the growers were--wait for it--gay and disabled, the weed being used to alleviate “medical” symptoms related to the disability.

I'm sure you won't be shocked to learn that the ‘roo “judge” bought it (the complaint, not the weed, I mean).

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

Not so fast: The President who told mourners “It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy” wants to hold off on a Congressional probe into the slaughter for the moment. He claims it’s because “the stakes are too high” and because he wants lawmakers to "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater." But I suspect the real reason he wants Congress to delay an investigation is because it would get in the way of--and complicate--the political theatre (of the absurd) being played out re Obamacare, which is going through a rough patch just now.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:45 | link | comments

Obowma up to his old tricks: Would someone please tell the leader of the free world to knock it off already with the bowing. Not only is it unseemly, it's humiliating.

Update: In reference to the deference, here's a snippet from that famous poem, The Love Song of B. Hussein Obama:

...Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--

Almost, at times, the Fool...

Okay, maybe the second line doesn't work, but the rest of it kind of does.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:32 | link | comments

Living the low life: Back in the black and white days of TV (and way before my time), Edward R. Murrow hosted a show in which he’d dropped by the homes of famous people for an awkward chat and so the audience could get an idea of how the celebrities lived--consider it the Cribs (or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous) of its time. Ed’s long gone now, of course, but it’s still interesting to catch a glimpse of the famous--and infamous--at home. For instance, here’s a look at Major Dr. Nidal Hasan’s domestic arrangements, as captured in the timesonline:

Pictures inside the home of the gunman who shot dead 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood show an austere and empty apartment with his few possessions left in disarray.

The paraphernalia of Major Nidal Hasan’s Muslim faith are scattered among other jumble on the kitchen table in the Casa Del Norte apartment complex in Killeen, Texas.

A black and white, crocheted skull cap lies beside the sink; another is thrown next to a handful of foreign coins, some of them from Israel.

A special alarm clock is set to sound a Muslim invocation at the hours of prayer, while the gunman’s prayer mat is lying crumpled against a wall.

The killer shouted the words Allahu akbar (God is greatest) before he opened fire with two handguns on unarmed troops queuing for medical attention in a stress counselling centre on the Texan military base.

Investigators found an assortment of pill bottles in a shoebox, one of them containing a prescription medicine for coughs, another a black cumin oil supplement that Sweet Sunnah, the manufacturer, boasts was recommended by the Prophet Mohammed more than 1,400 years ago.

An official document stamp with Major Hasan’s medical qualifications and job title — army psychiatrist — lies near a book on the interpretation of dreams, written by an author with an Islamic name.

Elsewhere there are few signs of occupation. There is no furniture in the living area, only a rubbish bin, a document shredder and an empty duffel bag.

A handful of clothes are stuffed messily onto shelves in the laundry room and a stray trainer lies on the tiled kitchen floor.

A couple of toothbrushes sit in a glass by the sink in the small, white shower room, while the bathroom cupboard stands open with only one bottle inside, lying on its side.

There are no pictures on the wall, no personal trinkets, barely any evidence of an internal life…

Not exactly Kanye West’s digs, but then, Kanye West isn’t a jihadi. Also--I think I may try some of that Sweet Sunnah black cumin oil (though I’ll take a pass on the prayer notification alarm clock), since the Evening Primrose Oil I take on occasion doesn’t seem to be doing it for me anymore.

Also--I wonder if this was the book about dreams they found.

Also--what’s up with the Israeli coins?

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

Friday, 13 November 2009

Dopplegangers?: Sesame Street's Herry Monster

and soon-to-be-tried-in-a-criminial-court jihadi Khalid Sheik Mohammed

AP – FILE

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:14 | link | comments

Meet your Muslim “twinner,” dhimmis: The Islamic Foundation of Canada is the Muslim organization involved in this weekend’s winsome twinning efforts, as it is pleased to advertise on its website. So that must mean the foundation is one of those “moderate” Muslim outfits we always hear so much about, right? Well, only if you think the following, by a scholar the foundation is also pleased to promote on its site, part of a Da'wa effort, is “moderate”. Here’s how the religious sage justified the Taliban’s destruction of two ancient Buddhist statues:

As expected, the ‘civilized’ world is up in arms against the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in their attempt to destroy two statues of the Buddha carved into a mountain in Bamiyan Province. This seems like the pot calling the kettle black. It is flagrant hypocrisy on the part of countries like the US, Russia, India, Britain, and France, among many others, to condemn Afghanistan for a fault of their own.

Afghanistan has been suffering and bleeding after 22 years of devastating war. Instead of lending a helping hand, the US got enraged by Afghanistan's sheltering of Osama Bin Laden. After failing to extract Bin Laden out of Afghanistan, the US did what it does best: imposed sanctions on this shattered nation.

Syed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Taliban’s roving ambassador, expressed the sentiments of the Afghan government, “When the world destroys the future of our children with economic sanctions, they have no right to worry about our past.” Hashemi, another Taliban spokesperson, said that the decision to destroy the statues had been made out of anger and frustration.

International agencies were spending hefty amounts of money to repair the Buddhist statues, while nothing was being done to address the plight of Afghan children who were ravaged by malnutrition. Hashemi added that the statues were tolerated for 1500 years. Now, they had turned into a hated symbol of Western preference for rock over Afghan lives.

It is hypocritical of a country like Russia, for example, to voice its condemnation of the Taliban over the destruction of the Buddha statues. It was reported that since the Russian invasion of 1979, “thousands of Hellenistic, Persian and Indian artefacts from Afghanistan's many-layered past have been smuggled out to the voracious and amoral Western art market.”

If the West claims to be the guardian of cultural heritage, how come no one moved a pen to condemn the destruction of the historical Babri Mosque in India? The world cannot quickly erase from its memory what happened in 1992. In tearing down the Babri Mosque, Indian mobs threatened to ‘cleanse’ India of all Islamic shrines, palaces and artefacts. Two hundred million Indian Muslims were attached to the Babri Mosque while there is not a single Buddhist living in Afghanistan. Minorities continue to be threatened in India, whereas not a single non-Muslim was deliberately killed in Afghanistan. The Associated Press reported that in Kabul there is one old Jewish rabbi who stayed to protect a synagogue in the centre of the city. The Taliban did not prevent him from practicing his religion.

Where were the guardians of cultural heritage when mosques, libraries, historic buildings, and museums were destroyed in Bosnia, Kosovo and Palestine? The real culprits who displayed ‘medieval barbarianism’ and committed a ‘great crime against humanity’ were not the Taliban but those who killed the Imams and the civilians while destroying the historic monuments.

The world has to wake up to the fact that the Taliban cannot be branded as the destroyer of religious art. During the 13 centuries of Muslim rule in Afghanistan, layers of cultural heritage were preserved. One has to remember that the Taliban are not destroying any place of worship or anything belonging to a place of worship. In contrast, the most widespread destruction of religious art in modern times occurred under Chairman Mao during China’s Cultural Revolution…

If that’s “moderation,” then I’m the Queen of Sheba.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:51 | link | comments

The first thing we do, let's question the dubious priorities of all the lawyers: The Canadian Bar Association seems to have no problem with Canada having a "quasi-judicial" system that turns everything they learned in law school--eight hundred years of English Common Law dating back to King John's time--on its ear. To these legal eagles, Jennifer Lynch's "human rights" hucksters and the shakedown racket they claim benefits our society by promoting "human rights"--a grotesque lie--are not even on the CBA's GPS. A system in which there is no presumption of innocence, no fair comment, no regular rules of evidence, no consideration of truth as a defence, and--the cherry atop the disgusting parfait--powers of search and seizure unavailable to police in regular court proceedings and commonly reserved for totalitarian police states: the aforementioned litany appears to perturb our legal community not in the least.

But the thought of a Canadian "boy soldier" confined in an American military prison? Now, that raises the CBA's dander--and has been bugaboo for quite some time.

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

Bad scouts: The Guardian has a revolting tale of U.K. Judenhass featuring some Hitlerjungend-aged Brits:

A scout troop is being investigated by the police after its members shouted death threats and racist abuse at Jewish war veterans during a remembrance parade.

Dressed in full uniform, the explorer scouts, who were taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex were heard to repeatedly shout "Let's kill the Jews" at Jewish second world war veterans.

The head of the scouts in the area has issued a full apology for the incident, which was witnessed by a senior policeman standing a few feet away.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said the Met was investigating two allegations of "racially aggravated harassment" involving more than one member of the Romford explorer scout unit. He would not say how many scouts were involved.

The Rev Lee Sunderland, who was taking part in the service, expressed shock after hearing the scouts shout: "Here come the Jews, let's kill the Jews."

Other witnesses said the racists chants were started by a boy believed to be 15 years old. One of the troop has since come forward and been interviewed by police. He has been ordered by the Scout Association to visit the rabbi of the Romford and district synagogue to apologise in person.

Jack Rose from the synagogue said: "They were boy scouts who are supposed to be true to their cause. Somewhere along the line someone has been completely stupid or they really think these things."…

Let’s be clear: they’re completely stupid and they really think these things. With this type of Judenhass, it’s never an “either-or” proposition.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:15 | link | comments

Two from VOA: The hopeychanger’s “Middle East Strategy Stalls”; a Syrian dissident explains why:

Regarding US policy toward Syria, in contrast to the Bush administration, President Obama has pursued a policy of engagement marked by high-level envoys and the pending nomination of a U.S. ambassador to Syria. Washington would like to pry Damascus from its tight alliance with Tehran and encourage peace talks between Syria and Israel.

However, [dissident Ammar] Abdulhamid is skeptical of this approach, and says Middle Eastern regimes “are not necessarily interested in improving ties with Western countries.” “[For them], dialogue is just stalling for time … to deflect pressures and demands for reform.” The regimes, he says, are “willing to talk until they’re blue in the face,” but are not willing to “do anything.” And Abdulhamid does not believe Syria will loosen its alliance with Iran any time soon. He says Syria is seen as “a pariah regime” by many of its Arab neighbors.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:39 | link | comments

The suspence is killing: "Hamlet" Obama says a decision re more troops for Afghanistan is coming "soon":

To send, or not to send: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler on the ground to suffer
The slings and arrows of outragéd Taliban,
Or to take arms against a sea of jihadis,
And by opposing end them?...

Given his Muslim "outreach" scheme and the fact that, even with more troops, America aims not to defeat the Taliban but to win the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people, it will undoubtedly be the former.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:27 | link | comments

Hairy wannabe-genocidaire to hopeychanger--you’re either with us or against us: In Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest communiqué, he demands that Obama choose between Iran and the Jews, because he can’t pick both. Claudia Rosett comments:

…What’s interesting here is not that Ahmadinejad would be issuing swaggering ultimatums to Obama, but the assumption by Ahmadinejad that Obama would be open in any way giving to “support” to an Iran ruled by the likes of Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the rest of the messianic thugs who bestride what was once Persia — now officially a land of no homosexuals and no usury; and slightly less officially a land of terrorist training camps, prison torture, murdered dissidents, juvenile executions, an illicit nuclear bomb program and the origin of the Francop cargo vessel’s recently confiscated shipment of 500 tons of arms bound for the terrorists of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Surely it’s a joke even to suggest that any American president would support this gang. Or has Obama by now offered them so many rounds of “mutual respect” that Ahmadinejad thinks he really does have a blank check from the White House?

Now where on Earth would he get such a dang-fool idea?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:39 | link | comments

Nuts!: A National Post editorial gets it wrong--horribly wrong--about Major Dr. Hasan (my bolds):

If ever a crime was preventable by psychiatric intervention, this was the one. It is well and good that this episode has caused people to discuss strategies for preventing Islamist extremists from infiltrating Western militaries. But given this week's disclosures, it seems we should be just as vigilant about weeding out soldiers who are flat-out insane, as well. After all: If you wouldn't trust someone in your foxhole, why would you trust him on your army base?

Au contraire. I think the shrink was perfectly sane--and a perfect jihadi. To call him “insane” is to let him--and the jihad--off the hook, since an “insane” person doesn’t know the difference between the lawful and the unlawful. Major Hasan had no problem telling the difference, it’s just that his worldview is at odd with ours, and in his, it is incumbent on jihadis to off infidels to further Allah’s goals.

Is that “insane”? Well, yes--to us. But the true insanity is to see this as a case of singular lunacy and not as a dangerous mass dementia engendered by long-standing supremacist doctrines.

Update: Mordant former shrink/WaPo columnist Charles Krauthammer weighs in on the Post’s brand of madness:

What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs.

I cringe that he's a Muslim. . . . I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

They suffered. He listened. He snapped.

Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents?

And what about civilian psychiatrists -- not the Upper West Side therapist treating Woody Allen neurotics, but the thousands of doctors working with hospitalized psychotics -- who every day hear not just tales but cries of the most excruciating anguish, of the most unimaginable torment? How many of those doctors commit mass murder?

It’s been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic…

"Cherchez-le-juif motif"--too funny. Made me spew tea all over my screen. The only thing I would add is that anyone who thinks the Fort Hood massacre happened because Major Dr. Hasan was "crazy" out to have his head examined.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments

When Hell freezes over? When pigs learn to fly?: "When will a million Muslims converge on Washington to denounce the Islamic teachings that inspired Nidal Hasan?"

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:49 | link | comments (1)

“If the head shmatta doesn’t fit, you must acquit”: 8/11 thinking, the kind evinced by the Clinton administration, viewed Islamic terrorism as a “criminal” matter, to be adjudicated within the context of a courtroom. Post-9/11, Islamic terrorists were considered to be Allah’s soldiers, and were confined to Gitmo, where the military was supposed to consider their cases. Now that the hapless hopeychangers are in charge, it’s déjà-vu all over again. From the Beeb:

Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be sent from Guantanamo Bay to New York for trial in a civilian court, reports say.

Citing unnamed government officials, the reports said he would be transferred from the US prison camp in Cuba with four other suspects.

US Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the decision later, the officials say.

Mr Mohammed has admitted planning the 9/11 attacks, the US military says.

The five men have until now been facing prosecution at US military commissions in Guantanamo.

But US President Barack Obama has made closing the detention camp a top priority.

His administration says it will try some detainees in US courts and repatriate or resettle others who are not perceived as a threat.

However, questions remain over the fate of those assessed as dangerous but who for legal reasons could not be prosecuted in a US court - prompting suggestions that the 22 January closure deadline will slip.

According to the reports, Mr Holder will also announce that a suspect in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen will be tried at a military tribunal.

So Mr. Big Name Jihadi who is said to have planned 9/11 is going to be tried in a criminal court, but some random Cole “suspect” is headed for a military hearing?

I’m sure that makes sense to “diversity”-besotted hopeychangers trying to spruce up America’s image in the Muslim world. To me--not so much.

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

Dyspepsia and denial: This week B’nai Brith Canada ran a full page ad in the National Post equating Nazism and radical Islam. The ad was meant to be a wake-up call for those Canadians who had quaffed deeply of the multiculti nectar, and who assumed that resurgent jihad couldn’t possibly target them so long as they kept “building bridges” in the “Canadian context.” Some bridge-building types are really miffed about the ad, though, not only because of its content but also because of its timing: it came mere days before another of their winsome “twinning” weekends and, well, it’s hard to digest your bagels and samosas, along with all the blather about Abraham, our common Patriarch, when the BB is ~~telling the truth~~ being so insensitive to Muslims’ feelings. One of the twinners, a well-known local anti-Zionista, expressed the dismay of her sort to the JTA (h/t BCF):

Barbara Landau, co-chair of the Canadian Association of Jews and Muslims, questioned the ad's timing two days before Remembrance Day and in advance of the second annual Weekend of Twinning of Synagogues and Mosques. "My first thought was 'why?'" she said. "It was so distressing."

Yes, it’s so “distressing” to have someone serve up a turd at your banquet. As “distressing” as it was back in the day when some Jewish prophet or other--say, Jeremiah--was trying to wake up the people of Israel.

Not that the BB’s Frank Dimant is a Jewish prophet (except maybe in his own mind), but one does get the idea that l’dor vador, from one generation to the next, Jews remain resistant to hearing the awful truth.

The most confounding, and, yes, distressing, part of the article is that the “twinners” aren’t the only Jews resistant to confronting reality. There are a number of Holocaust survivors who prefer to ignore it, too:

"We survivors have fought everybody that tries to trivialize the Shoah. We get very, very angry when it is done by Jewish leaders. I think that they should know better," said the organization's co-president, Sidney Zoltak.

It is "horrible for a survivor to hear that anybody is compared to the evil of the leaders of Nazism," Zoltak said, but added: "We can see clearly the danger of extremism in the Muslim world. We have to be vigilant. We know what can happen when we become indifferent. [But] to compare the situation between now and then is not healthy. I'm upset about it."

Will all due respect to Mr. Zoltak, it’s the denial that’s not healthy, not the least because it’s exactly the same kind of denial that was in evidence in the lead-up to the Shoah. To acknowledge the truth is not to “trivialize” the genocide. To the contrary, it is to recognize that it was not a one-of event, and that the Jew-haters our time, who draw inspiration from their religion and from history, are endeavouring to complete Hitler’s job.

Nothing “trivial” about that.

Update: A real conversation stopper at this weekend's twinning feasts--Major Dr. Nidal Hassan.

Update: Suggested post-feast communal song for winsome twinners--change the lyrics of Raffi's cute kiddie tune to "I like to eat, eat, eat, bagels and samosas..."

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

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Happy Deathday, repellent kleptocrat!: It’s hard to believe that five years have passed since Suha’s hubby croaked in that Paris hopital. Standing in front of a gibungous image of the late unlamented, the dead guy’s successor, who’s been something of a disappointment (to drastically understate it) shed mucho crocodile tears for the old bugger. Here’s how the Beeb (whose correspondent, Barbara Flett, you may recall, shed copious tears on the occasion of reporting Yasser’s final airlift) describes the mass lachrymosity:

Thousands of Palestinians have flocked to the grave of their former leader, Yasser Arafat, in Ramallah to mark five years since his death.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the crowd, reiterating his demand that Israel end settlement building before he will attend talks.

It comes a week after Mr Abbas said he was frustrated with peace talks and would not seek re-election.

In his speech, Mr Abbas said he would not speak further about the decision.

He said the Palestinian Authority would not return to the negotiating table unless there was a "clear framework" for talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state.

Any deal had to be based on the 1967 ceasefire line that defined the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Mr Abbas said.

"We see Israel confiscating land, building settlements and Judaising Jerusalem with unprecedented speed... and then they ask that we return to negotiations," he added, according to the AFP news agency.

Mr Abbas, who is also leader of the Fatah movement, stressed that his hand remained extended to the Islamist group Hamas, which has said it will prevent elections from taking place in Gaza. Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

Egyptian attempts to broker a reconciliation deal have so far failed…

Oh, man. Don’t they (Palestinians, the Beeb, Egyptians) ever get tired of shovelling the same old pile o’ manure?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:36 | link | comments

Egregious third world homophobia elicits yawns from “social justice” types: Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room yesterday afternoon, I happened to pick up an old (Sept ’09) issue of the Economist, and was intrigued to read the following:

A vicious intolerance

The politicians seem unperturbed by hate crimes

IT MAY have a laid-back image of reggae and Rastas, sun and sand. But for gays, Jamaica is closer to hell. The latest apparent victim of homophobia on the island was Britain’s honorary consul in Montego Bay, the tourist centre, strangled in bed at home on September 9th. A note denounced him as homosexual.

Openly gay people must contend with the constant fear of violence. The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), a pressure group, reports 33 cases of serious injuries from mob attacks on gays in 18 months. Two female couples were attacked and raped by men in recent weeks. Many attacks go unreported, partly because police do not always investigate them. In court a murder charge is likely to be reduced to manslaughter if the victim was gay and the defendant claims provocation, as happened with the killer of an Anglican priest stabbed in his vicarage in 2006.

Some Jamaican gays say the police are becoming more helpful. Lyrics threatening death to gays by popular dance-hall artists have become much less common since the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica, a regulator, decided in February to block all “lewd” and violent content. These lyrics also attracted bans and fines abroad.

But this does not herald a serious outbreak of tolerance. What Jamaican law calls “the abominable crime of buggery” is punishable with up to ten years of hard labour; “gross indecency” merits up to two years. A reform of sex legislation is now before parliament. But under pressure from the churches, both government and opposition have taken pains to weed out any wording that might weaken the ban on gay sex.

The prime minister, Bruce Golding, told parliament that he would not yield to foreign pressure to liberalise the law. One of his backbenchers Ernest Smith called for J-FLAG to be outlawed, and gave warning that gays were infiltrating the police.

The violence is feeding a gay “brain drain”, with some of the brightest Jamaicans leaving for the United States or Canada. Even if they do not care about human rights, Jamaica’s politicians and its government might spare a thought for the impact of their intolerance on a chronically stagnant economy.

How disgusting. Both the vicious homophobia and the fact that no one on the Left and/or in the Gay community, including organizers of Toronto’s annual Gay Pride Parade, has seen fit to condemn the hatred, I mean. Guess they’re all far too busy worrying about that awful (and non-existent) Israeli “apartheid”.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:33 | link | comments

Not telling the whole story: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Jason Kenney’s bailiwick, has issued a new study guide for Canadian citizen wannabes--the first update since 1997. The guide sets out who we are and what we expect of citizenry--for example, according to the guide, we’re not keen on stuff like treating women as second class citizens and Female Genital Mutilation (not mentioning any religio-cultural groups that subscribe to such un-Canadian practices). In light of how our “human rights” system claws back some of our basic rights and the threat it poses to our body politic, I found the guide’s intro somewhat risible, to say the least. So I thought I’d fill in the gaps, so newcomers would have an idea of exactly what they were getting into. (The bolds and italics comments are mine):

Canadian citizens have rights and responsibilities. These come to us from our history, are secured by Canadian law, and reflect our shared traditions, identity, and values.

Canadian law has several sources, including laws passed by Parliament and the provincial legislatures, English common law, the civil code of France, and the unwritten constitution that we have inherited from Great Britain.

Together, these secure for Canadians an 800-year old tradition of ordered liberty, which dates back to the signing of Magna Carta in 1215 in England (also known as the Great Charter of Freedoms), including:

· Freedom of conscience and religion;

· Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of speech and of the press;

· Freedom of peaceful assembly; and

· Freedom of association.

(To be clear, neither the Magna Carta nor English Common Law play any role in our “human rights” tradition. And here in Canada, the most virtuous nation on the planet, we grant our Thought Police extraordinary powers not accorded to regular police, who can’t come to your home unannounced and without a warrant and search and seize your stuff at will.)

Habeas corpus, the right to challenge unlawful detention by the state, comes from English common law.

The Constitution of Canada was amended in 1982 to entrench the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which begins with the words, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” This phrase underlines the importance of religious traditions to Canadian society and the dignity and worth of the human person. (However, there are some--many--in Canada who recognize the supremacy of Allah and his rule of law. But if we pretend it’s all part of the colourful multiculti tapestry, maybe it’ll all be okay.)

The Charter attempts to summarize fundamental freedoms while also setting out additional rights. The most important of these include:

· Mobility Rights — Canadians can live and work anywhere they choose in Canada, enter and leave the country freely, and apply for a passport.

· Aboriginal Peoples’ Rights — The rights guaranteed in the Charter will not adversely affect any treaty or other rights or freedoms of Aboriginal peoples.

· Official Language Rights and Minority Language Educational Rights — French and English have equal status in Parliament and throughout the government.

· Multiculturalism — A fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity. Canadians celebrate the gift of one another’s presence and work hard to respect pluralism and live in harmony. (Alas, all too often it’s a one way street: we celebrate their presence; they spit on us ‘cause we’re kafirs.)

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

An awareness of "pre-meditation" after the fact: After being completely derelict in its duty to its own personnel, the army is said to be planning to charge Major Dr. Hasan with "pre-mediated murder."

Well, duh, it was pre-meditated; the jihadi couldn't have made his intentions more plain had he given a 50 slide Power Point presentation to a group of army doctors about how a Muslim cannot serve two masters--the Commander-in-Chief and Islam's chief Prophet.

Oh wait....

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:43 | link | comments

“Human rights” in Ontario: The small businessman, a gym owner, who ran afoul of the “human rights” apparatus when he refused to accommodate a pre-op transsexual who wanted to let it all hang out in the womens change room, has been let off the hook because the chick-with-a-dick dropped the complaint.

A great victory! Huzzah and hurray! The “system” works! Right?

Well, no, not exactly. The gym owner, who’s actually rather sympathetic toward the differently sexual, was hounded for three years by Ontario's "human rights" inquisitors, and is out of pocket an estimated $100,000 in legal fees. Meanwhile, as per usual in such cases, the complainant got a free ride and it’s Ontario taxpayers who were forced to shoulder the legal costs. A Sun Media editorial comments on this deplorable situation:

…It illustrates how out of touch the human rights process has become, how it is more interested in making a social statement than it is justice.

"The way the tribunal is set up now, the complainant is rewarded for taking a risk-free grab at a big bag of money," said Andrew Roman, Fulton's lawyer.

Incredibly, the human rights adjudicator is largely placing the blame on Fulton; it seems the tribunal would rather an accused roll over and fork over a settlement than stage a defence.

That is not justice.

But then again, as has been proven time and time again in these star chambers across the nation, there is little interest in justice in Canadian human rights tribunals.

That is the real shame.

A real shame? A real travesty, more like. With another drive-by guilty verdict, a la Barbara Hall’s shifty shafting of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s.

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

A real game-changer--in more ways than one: A Toronto Star story about creeping sharia that doesn’t realize it’s about creeping sharia but thinks it’s about promoting “tolerance” and “inclusiveness,” a crucial Canadian value, has this unintentionally ironic header--“Sports hijab aims to be a game-changer”:

MONTREAL–First, a Muslim girl was barred from a soccer match for wearing a hijab. Then, five Muslim girls were ejected from a tae kwon do tournament for the same reason.

It was 2007, at a time when Quebecers were preoccupied with how far they should go to "accommodate" the religious and cultural differences of immigrants in a secular and multicultural society.

While soccer and martial arts officials cited safety concerns, many called the ejections racist, and the incidents became part of the larger controversy.

Fast forward two years, and industrial designer Elham Seyed Javad has taken up the cause.

"I was so distressed when I learned about it," Seyed Javad said. "Your beliefs shouldn't prevent you from playing sports."

So, the 26-year-old University of Montreal graduate designed a sleek sports hijab, which fits tightly around the head and is part of a sports shirt underneath.

They were tested by some Muslim athletes at a martial arts tournament last weekend and passed with flying colours, Seyed Javad said.

Her innovation comes as the question of "reasonable accommodation" on the integration of immigrants into society is surging back into the public domain…

Reasonable accommodation, eh? And when some “reasonable” imam says it isn’t enough to cover a young Muslimas’ head, her whole body must be covered, too--what then? Will the hijab designer come up with some version of the type of “athletic” gear chicks are forced to wear in the less, er, accommodating parts of the Muslim world?

At what point does "reasonable" accommodation become abject submission/dhimmitude?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:45 | link | comments (2)

Blah blah blah: This one--a jaunty Beatles number--goes out to the POTUS with the gift of gab and not a whit of common sense about the jihad:

Barack is the leader of the U.S.A.

Nancy is the Speaker of the House.

Barack always knows exactly what to say

And if you cross him (like FOX) he begins to grouse.

O-blah-dee, O-blah-blah, Oblahblahma,

Golly, how that man goes on.

O-blah-dee, O-blah-blah, Oblahblahma,

Golly, how that man goes on.

Barack take his message to the Muslim world.

Wants to give ‘em all a great big hug.

Hopin’ they’ll all love him like the folks back home.

The Muslims look at him as they begin to shrug.

O-blah-dee, O-blah-blah, Oblahblahma,

Golly, how that man goes on.

O-blah-dee, O-blah-blah, Oblahblahma,

Golly, how that man goes on.

In a couple of terms

Things are bound to be much worse.

That’s what happens when you’re PC

And everyone’s “diverse”.

(Ha ha ha ha)

Happy ever after in his dhimmitude

Barack goes and gives another speech.

Nancy socializes Heath Care USA

As freedom slips away from everybody’s reach...

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

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

They didn't have to die: There is a bitter irony to Veteran's Day coming hard on the heels of the memorial to the soldiers murdered at Fort Hood--one that is no doubt lost on the hopeful "healer" at the helm. The troops we remember today died to preserve our freedom: they came through for us. The soldiers who were killed at Fort Hood died because no one came through for them--not the army, which kept on promoting this guy because he was an Arab; not the army doctors who knew about the killer's jihadi perspective but decided not to make a fuss about it; not the FBI which had been monitoring him; not even the Commander-in-Chief, who is so delusional that he thinks he can get the Muslim world to love him through sheer force of personality, and who is willing to let servicemen on his watch die not for the sake of freedom, but for the empty feel-goodism of "diversity".

The tragic truth of it is that had even one of these sectors come through, these soldiers would still be alive and would be able to take part in today's tribute to the fallen.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:48 | link | comments (1)

Overexposure sinks the swoon: A scribbler in the New York Times--yes, the New York Times--admits that inspirational speechifying that used to wow ‘em now elicits yawns:

WASHINGTON — As the most gifted orator of his generation, President Obama finds speechmaking perhaps his most potent political tool. It propelled him to national prominence in 2004 and to the White House in 2008. And whenever he needs to calm economic fears or revive stalled health care legislation, he takes to the lectern.

But the limits of rhetoric were on display last week when the president could not rescue two foundering candidates in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia. Has Mr. Obama lost his oratorical touch? Is the magic finally beginning to fade? Does the White House rely too heavily on his skills on the stump to advance his priorities?

It may be too soon to reach such conclusions. The Democrats who lost last week, after all, had fatal flaws all their own. But the results do suggest that Mr. Obama’s addresses these days may not resonate quite the way they did. Speeches that once set pulses racing now feel more familiar. And if that remains the case heading into next year, it could make it more difficult for the Democrats’ own Great Communicator to promote his program and carry along allies in crucial midterm elections…

Halevai, as my late Bubby would have said. Maybe Obama needs a new gimmick. Like, say, a compelling Power Point presentation (Major Dr. Hasan could give him a few pointers). Or fireworks.

People really love fireworks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:00 | link | comments

Obama's treachery reaches new heights (i.e. plumbs new depths): The hopeychanging "healer" has appointed a gent who's been working as a lobbyist for Iran to head the State Department's Iran section.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:24 | link | comments (1)

One is the loveliest number: Some Americans are taking great (indeed, excessive) comfort in the fact, although Major Dr. Hasan may have had some contact with al Qaeda, his strings don't seem to have been pulled by a beaded dude sitting in a cave somewhere in Waziri/Paki/Afghanistan.

As if there's much less to fear from jihads, afflicted by the same supremacist madness that drives Hamas, Hezbo, al Qaeda et al, who act alone and not under the auspices of a jihadi organization.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments (1)

The art of denial: David Horowitz tries to account for the Leftists’ surreal denial of the jihad (which I would note is along the lines of the Marcel Duchamp painting of a pipe with the caption “This is not a pipe.”):

…This extremist [Major Dr. Hasan, the Fort Hood shrink/shooter] said to an audience of doctors in university lecture (a military university no less) that those who do not believe in Islam should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.

And liberals are too polite (too “politically correct”?) to notice. Actually it’s not polite that they are (they are actually quite rude) but in denial. And why is that? It is the same denial that progressives maintained through the 70 years of the Communist nightmare, denial that mass slaughters were being conducted by their Soviet comrades, that Russia and China were vast prison camps, and that the same fate awaited us in the West if we didn’t wage a cold war against their expansionist designs. It does sound familiar doesn’t it? The only mystery is why progressives (so-called) like Tomasky and Fallows (and President Obama) should bend over backwards to protect medieval psychos — and I am speaking of here of the tens of millions — of Muslims who idolize Osama Bin Laden, Hamas, and Hizbollah and embrace their genocidal agendas. There is only one possible answer to this question and that is to one degree or another leftists regard America as the Great Satan and Israel as the Little Satan or believe at the very least that the policies of these two countries are the real cause of the violence against them.

Self-loathing: the root of all evil-abetting--and a pre-requisite for self-sabotage.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:27 | link | comments (2)

An attitude of gratitude: A young girl pens a touching tribute to a dead soldier, a letter in the Globe and Mail:

My name is Rachel. I am in Grade 4. I am writing this letter because I want to say thank you for sacrificing your life so we could live in freedom. I know I couldn't have done that. If there was a war going on right now, I would probably go in my house and stay there for as long as I needed to. But you didn't. Thank you.

If I were you, I would probably never risk my life for something that doesn't even have anything to do with me. But you did. Thank you for leaving your family to go to war. Thank you.

Thank you for experiencing all this just so people you don't even know don't have to. I couldn't imagine what it would be like getting off a boat with people trying to shoot you, like in Normandy. I would have told you to stop and go back. But you didn't. Thank you.

Rachel Hamilton, Barrie, Ont.

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

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

What would we do without the Geneva Conventions?: Having trouble getting an H1N1 shot? Fed up lining up for hours, only to be told that there's no vaccine left? In that case, you may want to consider flying to Afghanistan and pretending to be a Taliban P.O.W. According to the Geneva Conventions, which Canada follows to the letter, Taliban prisoners are entitled--entitled--to get flu shots, same as Canadian troops, and at the same high level of priority.

And if you think the idea of Taliban taking precedence over Canadians back home in Canada sucks, you'll have to get in line.

Update: Looks like after getting lots of flak, the military has reversed itself and will now provide the flu shot to Taliban prisoners on a "case by case basis." (But isn't that against the Conventions?)

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

40 years on, the street is greener--but less fun: You would expect Sesame Street, the kiddie TV show celebrating its 40^th year on the air, to be green-minded. After all, green’s the colour of some of its most renowned denizens--Kermit and Oscar, to name but two. You would also expect today’s show to lean toward the other green. No, not the green of felt, or of the Muslim world. The green of the cause that’s nearest and dearest to the hearts of those who hail the Goracle as one of the greatest--and greenest--human beings ever. Just don’t expect the “sunny days” crew to deal with things like, say, deforestation or polar bears with nary an ice floe to flee to. That stuff is just waaay too scary, according to this National Geographic story:

Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary today, and thanks to a multiday parade of Sesame Street Google images, it's be anything but a surprise party.

Still, with a little help from U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, the show looks to be joining what you might call the green party: Tuesday's 40th-anniversary season premiere kicked off a two-year, environmental "curriculum" called "My World is Green and Growing."

But don't look for hot-button issues such as global warming on preschooler-oriented Sesame Street—no matter how many sunny days may be sweeping the clouds away.

"Global warming and deforestation—those are really adult concepts, and it's just too scary for children," said Rosemarie Truglio, vice president of research and education at Sesame Workshop, the New York City-based nonprofit that produces Sesame Street.

"The place we're coming from is, 'Let's love and care for the Earth, because it's so beautiful, and we appreciate its awe and wonder, and we're going to respect it.'"

Sesame Street's producers hope that children who learn to love and respect nature early on will grow up to become passionate advocates for our planet.

"When you love something," Truglio said, "you want to take care of it." …

Exactly. For instance, American moppets should love freedom, and should therefore be encouraged to take care of it, lest it disappear due to another global blight: sharia. Unfortunately, that’s much harder to do than it was 40 years ago, before PC sludge had gummed everything up, and Oscar the Grouch was still free to be, well, grouchy. The Oscar of today is nowhere nearly as cranky--a tremendous loss, I think--while Cookie Monster is no longer allowed to scarf down all those nasty hydrogenated fat-laden cookies but has to heed the food Nazis and eat healthier fare. You know, to set a good example.

Sigh. I really miss the old Oscar--and the old Street.

Update: George "the Grouch" Will pours cold water on the eco-euphoria.

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

Log rolling in our time: I tend to ignore the Jewish “honours” circuit--socially prominent Jews honouring the philanthropy/good deeds of other socially prominent Jews, with the occasional gentile thrown in for good measure, at some shmancy testimonial dinner. However, this item from the Winnipeg Free Press caught my eye:

WINNIPEG - Winnipeg businessman and Canadian Museum for Human Rights trustee Arni Thorsteinson will be honoured by B’nai Brith at a gala tonight at the Fairmont Winnipeg.

Thorsteinson, the president and principal of Shelter Canadian Properties Limited, will be presented with B’nai Brith Canada’s Foundation Award of Merit at the annual event, which this year also celebrates the human rights organization’s 100th anniversary in Manitoba.

The award is in recognition of Thorsteinson’s "dedication to human rights and human security for all, and in tribute to his distinguished efforts and contributions to the realization of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights."

And how, exactly, did Mr. T. demonstrate his “dedication to human rights” and “the realization of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights,” which is located in Winnipeg? According to this, a report about another recent honour that came his way, “For over 25 years he has played a leading role in building and guiding the Associates of the I.H. Asper School of Business.”

Would that be the same I.H. Asper who thought up the mausoleum idea, and who was its driving force until he was so rudely interrupted by the grim reaper, whereupon his daughter Gail took over? Why, yes. Yes it would. So it could look to some that Mr. T.’s reward for his 25 years of devoted service to the I.H. Asper School of Business is that he gets to be a trustee of the I.H. Asper mausoleum of “human rights”--and, here’s the cherry atop the sundae--he even gets to be feted at a lavish dinner in his honour.

As I said--there’s some never-ending log-rolling going on here: socially prominent Jews ponying up big bucks to honour other socially prominent folks, knowing full well that if they play their cards right, their turn for the shmancy tribute dinner is on the horizon: I roll the “tribute” log to you; you roll it back to me.

Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with that, and that there isn't a goodly amount of altruism involved and that, indeed, lots of money is being raised for a plethora of good causes. It’s only that I happen to see the “human rights” mausoleum as not only a humungous drain on the taxpayer, not only woefully misconceived. I see it as validating the whole “human rights” racket--a parasitical nomenklatura that’s grown too powerful, too smug, and altogether too big for its britches. That it puts itself squarely in the state censorship camp is all the more reason to heap scorn on it--so phooey on them and it (Camp Silenzio).

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:56 | link | comments

A tale of two “walls”: The following letter, a response to an historic anniversary, appears in the Globe & Mail (h/t SL):

Can we now expect a U.S. president to say: "Mr. Netanyahu, tear down that wall"?

Tony Eberts, New Westminster, B.C.

Well, Tony, it’s like this: The Berlin Wall was built by East Germany’s Communist regime to keep freedom-seekers in. The “wall” you’re referring to is mostly a fence and was built to keep jihadi terrorists, people who spit on Western ideals of freedom, particularly as they are incarnated in what these freedom-loathers “fondly” call the Zionist entity, out.

Surely even someone with a clear animus toward Israel can see the difference.

Update: And speaking of fences, here's some cowboy music--a paen to freedom--to soothe a Zion-loather's soul.

Update: Time to revive this one, I think:

Oh, give me land, Jewish land,

From the river to the sea.

Don’t fence me out.

Wanna woo a whole slew--

72 up there for me.

Don’t fence me out.

I got a vest full of semtex to explode some Jews,

And folks’ll hear about it on the evening news.

I’m asking you politely so you can’t refuse.

Don’t fence me out.

Just tear it down and you’ll frown

When your viscera’s eviscerated now.

Without a fence I’ll commence

A campaign to maim and terrorize--and how!

I’m gonna rant “it’s apartheid!” so they’ll weep for me-ee

And get rid of Zion through diplomacee-ee.

I can’t stand for Jews to have their sov'reigntee-ee.

Don’t fence me out!

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:18 | link | comments

Lefty priorities: While the jihad is a-raging and the B'nai Brith warns all and sundry about another looming Holocaust, the CJC joins forces with one of Frank Sinatra's exes to craft a "Jewish response" to...Darfur?

Do we really need one? Shouldn't our response to Darfur be the same as that of any rational, responsible human being--that we're agin it?

Update: What's happening in Darfur--i.e. an evil Arab militia in the pay of Sudan's Islamist government allowed to cull the population with impunity--should send a message to Jews that the world has learned nothing--nothing!--from the Holocuast, and will do nothing to stop hirsute Iranians from nuking the Jewish state to Kingdom Come.

And, see, I didn't even need Mia (oh, the sheer glamour of her presence) to spoon feed it to me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:42 | link | comments (2)

Give me a break!: This one’s especially galling, given that “the healer” mentioned is the guy who’s so busy reaching out to Muslims everywhere (with head lodged firmly up his posterior) that he and his minions can't see the jihad, even when it’s doing high-fives, handsprings and shouting "howdy-do!" (which you can add to the PC definitions of “Allahu Akbar”).

WASHINGTON -- Presidents get elected to run the nation. Some days that means knowing how to heal it.

For the first time since winning the White House, President Barack Obama faces such a moment Tuesday at Fort Hood. It his job to offer comfort, if not answers, after the shooting that left 13 people dead and 29 wounded on the bustling Texas Army post five days ago.

Obama will privately console families of those killed, and then publicly pay respects at a memorial service sure to be watched by American troops around the world. He and first lady Michelle Obama will also visit wounded troops in the hospital before returning to Washington.

This is Obama's time to take on the healer-in-chief role that can help shape a presidency at a time of national tragedy.

Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, governed during the worst terrorist attack on American soil, the most crippling natural disaster in U.S. history, a space shuttle explosion, a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, a tornado that wiped away a Kansas town, a bridge collapse in Minnesota, Midwestern flooding and California wildfires. Each response affected his standing, for better or worse, in a country that expects its president to be empathetic and clearly in charge.

History is full of other examples. Bill Clinton helped rebuild his troubled presidency with the way he reacted to the Oklahoma City bombings.

In this case, Obama has sought his own balance…

He’s sought his own cluelessness and imbecility, more like--and there’s nothing “balanced” about it.

Obama as “healer”? Gag me with a samosa!

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:55 | link | comments (1)

A motive to go nuclear: One big reason why the mully-bullies long for regional and religious hegemony (a hegemony that nuclear weapons would likely give them)--it means they would no longer be forced to grovel to the Wahhabis, the current custodians of Islam's two holy mosques.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:15 | link | comments

The perversity of "diversity": By all accounts, Major Nidal wasn't much good at his job. As a psychiatrist working out of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. he received such a poor performance rating that he was shipped down to Fort Hood. There he proved just as inept. And yet, despite his obvious incompetence, this man was given preferential treatment and kicked up through the ranks; heck, the Obama administration, in its all too finite wisdom, even put him on a panel of "experts" dealing with--and this is bleakly, blackly risible in retrospect--security issues.

So if it wasn't his ability that was behind Hasan's success--because, clearly, he hadn't any--what was it about him that kept getting him promoted? Was it his charm? His savoir faire? His sparkling wit? His captivating personality?

Of course not. From the army's point of view, Hasan had only thing to recommend him, and it's the one thing that accounts for his rise: he was a Muslim Arab-American in a military eager, nay, desperate to enlist more of his kind.

That's right. Major Hasan was a beneficiary of "diversity," the current euphemism for "quotas" or "affirmative action" (itself a euphemism that had lost its lustre, hence the need to find a more effective replacement). Alas, in its zeal to have an Arab-American they could point to as a success story, the army was prepared to overlook one teeny weeny pecadillo: this particular Muslim Arab-American happened to be an outright jihadi. A minor detail to army brass, perhaps, but a real biggie to Major Hasan who, true to jihadi form, took the opportunity handed him by his infidel employer to off and injure all the infidels he could.

You could call these unforturate army personnel, some of them still in their teens, the casualties of "diversity". And if we continue to hew to this ridiculous--this perverse--philospophy at a time of war, there is a good chance that we could become its casualties, too.

Update: Also bleakly, blackly risible in retrospect--Hassan had warned the army about the “world view” of people like him. From FOX News:

The Army psychiatrist suspected of killing 13 people at Fort Hood reportedly warned senior Army physicians in 2007 that the military should allow Muslim soldiers be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars to avoid "adverse events."

According to The Washington Post, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic during his senior year as a psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Instead, Hasan lectured his supervisors and two dozen mental health staff members on Islam, homicide bombings and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting against other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A source who attended the presentation told the paper, "It was really strange. The senior doctors looked really upset."

The Powerpoint, entitled, "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military," consisted of 50 slides, according to a copy obtained by the Post.

"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," Hasan said in the presentation…

“Adverse events”--Hasan’s euphemism for sudden jihadi syndrome (which, in Hasan's case, sounds like it was in the planning stage for some time, as even a blogger for Mother Jones, the most leftist of lefty rags, concedes)?

Update: Here, courtesy the WaPo, is Hasan's Power Point presentation. How anyone could watch this thing and not know this guy was a clear and present theat is beyond my ability to fathom.

Update: In light of Hasan's actions, the FBI, which apparently didn't see the Power Point presentation (or if it did, decided it wasn't significant enough to spur anyone to take action) has decided to review its previous review of the apparent non-threat that turned deadly.

A little after the fact--and far too late--for the dead people, I'd say.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:24 | link | comments (1)

Monday, 09 November 2009

Top down cluelessness: William Kristol says if you want to blame someone for the PC “diversity” dementia that’s currently all the rage, don’t blame the underlings, blame the boss:

It was too much to hope, I suppose, that Army Chief of Staff George Casey, appearing on the Sunday talk shows, would signal a re-thinking of the regime of political correctness that seems to have penetrated the Army. It was disappointing that he reinforced that regime with his silly—and offensive—remarks about not letting “diversity” be a further casualty of the events at Ft. Hood, and his warning against a backlash directed at Muslim soldiers. A little more concern for the real casualties of jihadism, and a little less finger-wagging about a hypothetical backlash, would have been nice. As it was, Casey’s remarks merely reinforced the sense that the Army has a political correctness problem.

So Casey’s talking points—repeated almost verbatim on three talk shows—were deplorable. But, one has to ask, were they his? Did he come up with them? It seems unlikely he did.

Any administration official speaking on a topic of such interest would undoubtedly run what he planned to say by his superiors, who in this case would surely run them by the White House. And in this case, with President Obama himself, and Robert Gibbs on his behalf, already having weighed in on the topic, there would normally be a top-down dissemination of talking points to officials speaking publicly to ensure administration-wide consistency. Indeed, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in Abu Dhabi, said something very similar to what Casey had to say the same day. So there was clearly administration coordination from high-up at the White House with respect to the diversity/backlash message.

That’s fine. Administrations are entitled to coordinate messages coming from different cabinet agencies. But let’s be clear: The diversity/backlash message is President Obama’s, not merely that of General Casey or Secretary

I guess you could say there were just following orders.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:31 | link | comments

“Imperialism” on the brain: I’m no fan of Japanese imperialism, which brought us Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Iwo Jima, but, seriously, you have to have “imperialism” on the brain to think that a T-shirt with some black slashes on it is reminiscent of the Japanese imperial flag--the latest controversy to roil the already overheated campus of York University. York rag Excalibur has all the goofy details:

Drop Fees t-shirts resemble Japanese imperial flag

The controversy arose due to the use of a symbol that looks a lot like the Japanese imperial flag on the t-shirts, which has caused outrage among some students.

The YFS [York Student Federation] had printed the t-shirts as a part of their participation in the annual Drop Fees campaign, which gathers thousands of students every November in hopes of lobbying the government to decrease tuition fees.

Along with the t-shirts, the YFS has been handing out agendas, backpacks, water bottles and a petition to raise awareness about the Nov. 5 “Day of Action.”

This year, the print on the t-shirt sparked debate on campus because of its resemblance to the Japanese military flag, which is a symbol of colonial Japanese rule during the early 20th century.

Although not widely known in North America, Japanese war crimes in the period surrounding the Second World War, under the banner of the imperial flag, led to the deaths of millions of people in Asia.

The sheer brutality of the Japanese occupation of parts of China, Korea, and most of Southeast Asia, where local women were often forced to become sex slaves to the Japanese army, coupled with Japan’s refusal to atone for such actions, has hampered Japan’s international relations with these countries to this day.

Saravanamuttu said the student union is deeply apologetic for the design’s likeness to the Japanese imperial flag, saying the YFS chose the logo without realizing what it had resembled…

Well, one certainly wouldn’t want to condone Japanese war crimes--which, unlike Israeli war crimes, actually happened--but since the Japanese imperial flag looks like this

and the controversial T-shirt looks like this

it seems clear that “imperialism”--an historical reality that learned academics disdain, especially in its Western incarnation--is in the eye of the beholder.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:28 | link | comments (1)

Hasan’s true loyalty: What do we know about a jihadi mass murderer that the “diversity”-mongers who worry about a “backlash” don’t know (or don’t care to know)? Hugh Fitzgerald explains:

But we who have bothered to find out what the texts of Islam contain, and what the tenets inculcated by those texts are, know that Major Nidal Hasan was not a Muslim in name only, not a Muslim prepared to ignore much of Islam (even if only out of calculations of temporary self-interest), but was truly devout. He thus could not possibly, though an American citizen, have been an American citizen in the sense of being loyal to America and to the principles of the American Constitution, for that Constitution is, in its letter and spirit, flatly contradicted by the Shari'a.

Jihad is the way and sharia is the goal. That's it. That's the one line we inifdels need to know and understand. It's not rocket science, folks. And if we can't get that one simple idea to take hold in our squishy, "diversity"-warped brains, mark my words, there are going to me a lot more Fort Hoods, and even worse, before our time is done.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:59 | link | comments

It’s the nanny statism, stupid: Canadians who take umbrage at the idea that socialized medicine would be a bad thing for the U.S. (they're insulted that anyone would dare criticize that which Canadians hold sacrosant) and, yes, you Americans who don’t get what the all fuss is about and just want a “fairer” system which would see the uninsured get coverage, listen up. The Wall Street Journal explains why Nancy’s fancy will sicken the American body politic:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi defied policy logic and public opinion late Saturday night, ramming through the House a nearly 2,000-page health-care leviathan that counts as the biggest expansion of the federal government since the New Deal. As President Obama likes to say, this was a "teachable moment" about our current government.

The vote was 220 to 215, with 39 House Democrats joining all but one Republican in opposition. Mrs. Pelosi had to cajole and bribe her way to the magic 218, and the list of her promises must be stacked to the ceiling.

The lone Republican, Joseph Cao, represents a Democratic-leaning Louisiana district and extracted a promise that Mr. Obama would increase Medicaid payments to his state, and even then he only voted after Democrats had already hit 218. Let no one suggest this was the "bipartisan" health reform that Mr. Obama has long promised.

The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of "universal health care." It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European levels of taxation on business and individuals. The 20% corner of Medicare open to private competition is slashed, while fiscally strapped states are saddled with new Medicaid burdens. The insurance industry will have to vet every policy with Washington, which will regulate who it must cover, what it can offer, and how much it can charge…

Update: Nancy's fancy is D.O.A. in the Senate.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:20 | link | comments

A preview of coming attractions?: Looks like Major Hasan didn't defer his enjoyment of consorting with nekkid chicks until he got his virgins in Heaven.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:23 | link | comments (2)

Just when you think the Major Hasan saga can't get more surreal: It does.

(Remember the movie Private Benjamin, the one in which Goldie Hawn is conned into signing up because a recruiter tells her the "new" army has condos and foreign travel? Once she's in, of course, she, a pampered princess, has a rather rude awakening, which turns out to be a good thing--the movie's premise. Well, it seems to me that today's army has become more like the army of Judy Benjamin's pre-enlistment imaginings--soft, easy-going, PC, "diverse".

I would say the Major Hasan incident was the army's rude awakening, but so far that appears not to be the case.)

Update: A radical imam (AP's phrasing) offers a different sort of recruitment pitch (my emphasis):

WASHINGTON — The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers is praising alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as a hero.

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the attacks on the Texas military base last week are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Two U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press the Web site was Al Awlaki's. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence collection.

Anwar said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:20 | link | comments (2)

Elmo shills for the “bagels ‘n’ samosas” scam: Guess who’s all for “interfaith” comingling? None other than Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, the same guy who told a TV audience that every Israeli adult is fair game for an exploding shahid and the man behind the Islamist bid to push the sharia envelope by silencing Mark Steyn and Maclean's Magazine. Here's Elmo, all sweetness and light, from his new bully pulpit, e-rag the Canadian Charger:

I just attended a two-day conference in Qatar organized by the Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue.

The Qur’an (109: 1-6) addresses those who do not believe in Islam:

"(O Muhammad tell the unbelievers;) O unbelievers, I worship not what you worship nor do you worship what I worship. And I shall never worship what you worship, nor will you worship what I worship. You have your religion (din) and I have my religion (din)." Al-Kafirun, 109:1-6.

No other religion makes it as clear as Islam does that its adherents must respect all other religions. Religion here is any and every set of beliefs or values practiced by a group of people; it does not matter how different from Islam it is.

For example, in narrating the story of Joseph in Egypt the Qur’an refers in (12:76) to "the din of the (Egyptian) King."

But Islam appeals to the intellect and the soul of every person to seek the Truth and it offers the Qur’an as the Way to the Truth. But people have the right to accept or reject…

It goes on in this vein for many more paragraphs. Cut to the chase: can anyone read this stuff and not see that when Muslims play the “interfaith” card, it’s because they want to

A) Make credulous infidels think that Islam is lovely at best and benign at worst; and

B) Make credulous infidels convert, er, sorry, revert, to the one true faith?

The only reason I would ever go to any of these interfaith confabs would be to raise a verboten topic of conversation--Israel. I’d love to see the reaction of the samosa-scarfers when I ask what they think about Zionism. It would be the equivalent of farting in church (or shul, or the mosque--hey, I can be “Abrahamic” too).

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments (3)

Other PC definitions of “Allahu Akbar”: A brief selection:

· Allah loves you.

· Allah’s last name is “Akbar”.

· Would you like to come to our mosque for an interfaith feast featuring tasty samosas?

· Save the whales.

· Don’t forget to take your vitamins. They can help boost your immune system.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:40 | link | comments (3)

One Catholic channels another: Five Feet of Funny, er, Fury riffs on an overused quotation:

First they came for the hostages in Iran...

And we all wore nasty "Ayatollah" t-shirts and (eventually) voted for Reagan, and the hostages got freed.

But then they came for the Marines in Beirut, but something had changed, and even Reagan did nothing, because they were Muslims, and we had to be nice to them, or they'd keep killing us.

Then they came for the Cole, and Klinghoffer, and we did nothing, because they were Muslims, and we had to be nice to them, or they'd keep killing us.

Then they tried to blow up the WTC, and when they succeeded, we did nothing, because they were Muslims, and we had to be nice to them, or they'd keep killing us.

Then they attacked their fellow troops again and again, but we did nothing, because they were Muslims, and we had to be nice to them, or they'd keep killing us.

We were very, very nice to Major Hasan. Major Hasan killed us anyway.

And we did nothing, because we were all dead.

But we'd been nice to Muslims. And after all, that was the most important thing.

We have to be nice to “victims”. That’s the Gramscian way.

Update: Ooops! My bad--Niemoller was Lutheran. Intro should therefore read "One Christian channels another."

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

A primer on Gramscian thought: Last week I paid a visit to the University of Toronto Bookstore, where works by and about Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci--one of the intelligentsia’s heroes--were on display. For those who don’t know why this man’s thinking is so corrosive and how it is undermining the West, here’s “Professor” Melanie Phillips to clue you in:

…But as communism slowly crumbled, those on the far-Left who remained hostile towards western civilisation found another way to realise their goal of bringing it down.

This was what might be called ‘cultural Marxism’. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.

This key insight was developed in particular by an Italian Marxist philosopher called Antonio Gramsci. His thinking was taken up by Sixties radicals — who are, of course, the generation that holds power in the West today.

Gramsci understood that the working class would never rise up to seize the levers of ‘production, distribution and exchange’ as communism had prophesied. Economics was not the path to revolution.

He believed instead that society could be overthrown if the values underpinning it could be turned into their antithesis: if its core principles were replaced by those of groups who were considered to be outsiders or who actively transgressed the moral codes of that society.

So he advocated a ‘long march through the institutions’ to capture the citadels of the culture and turn them into a collective fifth column, undermining from within and turning all the core values of society upside-down and inside-out.

This strategy has been carried out to the letter.

The nuclear family has been widely shattered. Illegitimacy was transformed from a stigma into a ‘right’. The tragic disadvantage of fatherlessness was redefined as a neutrally-viewed ‘lifestyle choice’.

Education was wrecked, with its core tenet of transmitting a culture to successive generations replaced by the idea that what children already knew was of superior value to anything the adult world might foist upon them.

The outcome of this ‘child-centred’ approach has been widespread illiteracy and ignorance and an eroded capacity for independent thought.

Law and order were similarly undermined, with criminals deemed to be beyond punishment since they were ‘victims’ of society and with illegal drugtaking tacitly encouraged by a campaign to denigrate anti-drugs laws.

The ‘rights’ agenda — commonly known as ‘political correctness’ — turned morality inside out by excusing any misdeeds by self-designated ‘victim’ groups on the grounds that such ‘victims’ could never be held responsible for what they did.

Feminism, anti-racism and gay rights thus turned men, white people and Christians into the enemies of decency who were forced to jump through hoops to prove their virtue.

This Through The Looking Glass mindset rests on the belief that the world is divided into the powerful (who are responsible for all bad things) and the oppressed (who are responsible for none of them).

This is a Marxist doctrine…

To paraphrase a line in Noel Coward’s Private Lives: Extraordinary how potent bad ideas are.

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

Boxing Muslims: Why are the media having such a hard time coming to terms with the reality of a jihadi murdering infidels on an American army base? Why are they and other Leftist/multiculti types trying to sanitize a jihadi war cry and obsessing over an imminent “backlash”--an unconscionable insult to the dead and injured? Robert Spencer says it’s because the Leftist worldview places Muslims--non-whites, some of whom were at one time “colonized” by the West--into a victim box. And, well, the Left simply cannot think outside the box:

They reflexively deny and ignore these conclusions because they are completely sold out to the idea that Muslims, as non-white, non-Christian, non-Westerners, cannot possibly be anything but victims. (The facts that there are white Muslims, and that the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism are not racial issues, but constitute an ideological and societal challenge, are completely lost on them. Likewise the non-white victims of the jihad matter nothing to them.) We can see from the avalanche of “backlash” stories in the mainstream media – even in the absence of any actual backlash – that it is simply impossible for these people to conceive of a paradigm in which Muslims can perpetrate any kind of evil at all. In the lenses through which they view the world, only white Judeo-Christian Westerners can do anything wrong.

Cluelessness is bliss--until it’s shattered by some shaheed screaming “Allahu Akbar.” And even then a large number of people stubbornly refuse to identify the source of the disruption--because the thought that there’s something rotten in Islamic ideology is too horrible to contemplate--and redirect (misdirect, really) their concern onto possible retributive actions by those whom jihadis target. There’s a weird psychology in operation here that I cannot begin to understand.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:29 | link | comments (1)

Sunday, 08 November 2009

High time for a backlash backlash: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in Abu Dhabi on very important business, spoke about her grave concern. Oh, not about the possibility that the American military may be harbouring more jihadis. Why, that would be kind of “bigoted,” don’t you think? She’s fretting her little head off about a possible reaction that past experience has shown almost always fails to materialize:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The shootings left 13 people dead and 29 wounded.

Napolitano was in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for talks with security officials and a meeting with women university students in Abu Dhabi.

At least she didn’t mention “diversity”--thank Allah for small mercies.

Update: Still more cluelessness:

FORT HOOD, Texas — An Army chaplain asked mourners Sunday to pray for the accused Fort Hood shooter, calling on them to focus less on why the tragedy happened and more on helping each other through "the valley of the shadow of darkness."

"Lord, all those around us search for motive, search for meaning, search for something, someone to blame. That is so frustrating," Col. Frank Jackson told a group of about 120 people gathered at one of the post's chapel. "Today, we pause to hear from you. So Lord, as we pray together, we focus on things we know."

Worshippers at the 1st Cavalry Memorial Chapel hugged each other and raised their hands in prayer during the service, in which Jackson asked the congregation to pray for the 13 dead and 29 wounded that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of shooting. The chaplain also urged the crowd to pray for Hasan and his family "as they find themselves in a position that no person ever desires to be — to try and explain the unexplainable."

"Our prayer is that you will use us and this faith community to be a catalyst for healing and reconciliation," Jackson said. "Give us listening ears, open eyes and hearts, and confidence in the presence of your holy spirit as we journey together with all those around us through this valley of the shadow of darkness."

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:50 | link | comments (3)

Beam them up, Scotty: Today's speculative query: Can scientists make a space elevator? And more to the point, can we use it to transport (one way) certain undesirables--Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, etc.?

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

A study in contrasts: Senator Joseph Lieberman--bravo, Joe!--isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade, whereas the head of the U.S. Army is afraid to do so out of concern that daring to speak the truth will kill off something far more valuable than the lives of American servicemen he is duty-bound to protect:

Sen. Joe Lieberman called the Fort Hood massacre an act of "Islamist extremism" - even as top Army brass warned Sunday against guessing at a motive, fearing backlash against Muslim soldiers.

"There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman (I-Conn) told Fox News on Sunday.

"If the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism."

Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, chairs the Senate Homeland Security committee.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 30 more on Thursday, reportedly expressed moral concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lieberman's comments were in stark contrast to U.S. Army chief of staff George Casey, who told CNN he's deeply worried "that the speculation could cause something that we don't want to see happen."

"It would be a shame - as great a tragedy as this was - it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well," Casey said…

Yeah, that would be a calamity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:02 | link | comments (4)

Why we're doomed unless we smarten up: Why didn't those who heard the jihadi shrink spewing his vitriol speak up so authorities could cashier him before he got to fire the first shot? Apparently, they were afraid of being called Islamophobes.

It has come to this: that in our time the possibility of being labeled a bigot is so awful that people won't dare risk it, even if they know that something a lot worse than acquiring that label--something like, say, the death of many innocent people--might result.

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

Come again?: The Ceej posts an Ottawa Citizen piece by former M.P. David Kilgour in which he itemizes the death toll from religious intolerance:

One dismaying estimate of the number of people who died violently because of their religion between 1900 and 2000 includes 70 million Muslims; 35 million Christians; 11 million Hindus; nine million Jews; four million Buddhists; two million Sikhs and one million Baha’is.

What can be done to reduce the persecution of religions globally?

A first step is universal recognition that human dignity is ultimately indivisible in today’s shrunken world and all groups must thus stand together. As Pastor Martin Niemöller poignantly said of the Nazis, “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.”…

Human dignity is indivisible? Try telling that to the jihadis, Dave, who like to divvy up the world into two parts--the Islamic part and the up-for-grabs part--and who are responsible for a good chunk of those deaths, including the Muslim ones. The Islamists were also fully on side with the Jewish genocide back in Hitler’s time, and remain committed to finishing the job he started--a fact that makes your citation of the Niemoller quote (and the Ceej’s posting of your addled thoughts, especially during Holocaust Education Week) both ironic and inappropriate.

Update: In his must-read book The Israel Test (you really must read it) George Gilder links the genocidal Jew-haters, past and present:

Whatever the Arabs of the jihad and the intifada mean by the word “land” cannot be satisfied by giving up any particular patch of ground. Land to them is less transactional than transcendental and apocalyptic. As with all ideologies of race and fatherland, all the cults of blood and soil, with all their ruinous and romantic rejections of modernity, inevitably making the Jews their first chosen enemies, they are haunted and driven by demons no Peace Process can exorcise.

If I had my way, the Niemoller quote would be retired and this one would take its place.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:37 | link | comments (13)

Army probers not exactly the sharpest: Occam’s razor as well as common sense would tell us that the reason why a jihadi would open fire on a bunch of infidels is because--and here’s where the Occam’s razor part comes in--he’s a jihadi and they’re infidels. Army investigators, though, have a whole ‘nother theory, sort of, about what would motivate an Army shrink to perpetrate a bloodbath. From the clueless American media’s Mothership, the NYT:

WASHINGTON — After two days of inquiry into the mass shooting at Fort Hood, investigators have tentatively concluded that it was not part of a terrorist plot.

Rather, they have come to believe that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the shootings, acted out under a welter of emotional, ideological and religious pressures, according to interviews with federal officials who have been briefed on the inquiry.

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Major Hasan believed he was carrying out an extremist’s suicide mission.

But the investigators, working with behavioral experts, suggested that he might have long suffered from emotional problems that were exacerbated by the tensions of his work with veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who returned home with serious psychiatric problems.

They said his counseling activities with the veterans appear to have further fueled his anger and hardened his increasingly militant views as he was seeming to move toward more extreme religious beliefs — all of which boiled over as he faced being shipped overseas, an assignment he bitterly opposed…

Gee, ya think? Whatever would we do without “investigators” and “experts” to shed light on the otherwise murky and confounding?

Update: From the above article--""They are Americans of every race, faith and station," Mr. Obama said. "They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They reflect the diversity that makes this America.""

Yeah, ‘cause it’s all about the “diversity.” But perhaps even a hapless hopeychanger would admit that allowing an avowed jihadi into the army and sending him off to work for our side in Iraq is a tad too “diverse” (also perverse).

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:05 | link | comments (1)

The fatuousness of using food to defuse the jihad: I like a good knish as much as the next person, but I have to agree with Tarek Fatah when he says that Jews who think they can defuse Muslim rage via interfaith "bagel and somosa" gatherings (detailed in a Globe and Mail piece by Michael Poser) are being profoundly naive. But don't bother trying to tell that to the interfaithers--they're too busy scarfing down the ethnic delectables while they sing and dance the Hora:

Food, glorious food!

Bagels ‘n’ samosas!
While we’re in mid-shmooze

Our “amigo” knows us.
Peace partners and bon vivants!

There won’t be a schism.
Bridge-builders don’t say that word --
Zi-on-ism!

Food, glorious food!
We're anxious to swallow.
Denial spiced up--
Our favourite wallow!

Just picture a great big land--

Where no one is rude.
Oh, food,
Wonderful food,
Marvellous food,
Glorious food.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:30 | link | comments

The lack of "discrimination" stinks: Try to picture this: during WW2, a German has been allowed to rise through the ranks of the American army, even though he espouses Nazism every chance he gets, and makes it abundantly clear that, if he has to choose between loyalty to the U.S. and loyalty to what he, a true believer, sees as the superior credo, he’s going to have to go with the German jihad (Kampf).

Ridiculous. Ludicrous. Would never have happened outside a movie by, say, Ernst Lubitsch or Mel Brooks.

Of course, those were far less “sensitive” times, before political correctness had destroyed the West’s common sense. In our far less discriminating times (“discriminating” in the sense of being shrewd and discerning--the good kind of “discrimination”) just because a chap expresses a passion for an ideology we’re at war with, it doesn’t mean he should be discouraged from rising through the ranks (even though he’s pretty hopeless at his job), and, in time, shipping him off to the front.

I’m certainly not asking for a repeat of the 1950s “Red Scare”--a sweaty demagogue turning the country upside down in a quest for Commies. But surely the Fort Hood massacre is a wake up call (another one) that we have moved way too far in the other direction--giving people the benefit of the doubt when they have given you clear reason to doubt their allegiance. One hopes that after this man-caused disaster, army brass will realize that when a Muslim supposedly subservient to America's Commander-in-Chief tells people they’re going to burn in eternal hellfire unless they “revert” and insists that the War on Terrorism is a war on Islam, some “discrimination”--the good kind--is definitely in order.

That is, if you want to prevent your own from getting killed and maybe win the war.

Here’s how David Warren puts it:

…This deadly enemy of the West -- the Islamist ideology which holds all Jews, Christians, other non-Muslims, and a considerable number of Muslims, too, to be human filth in need of extermination -- is well infiltrated. Events like that at Fort Hood prove this, and from what I can see, the problem can only grow with the passage of time.

Getting at Islamist cells, to say nothing of lone, self-appointed jihadis within our society, means getting over the false sentimentality that turns a terrorist incident into an "incomprehensible tragedy" when it is not incomprehensible, and not a theatrical event.

It also means ripping through the politically-correct drivel that is put in the way of investigators. They should surely be allowed to assume that every loyal Muslim will be eager to give information to help them identify any potential killers in their midst.

We'd be better off confronting that Islamist enemy, than spraying perfume after each fatal strike.

Did you catch a whiff? More and more the perfume--Eau de“Allahu Akbar” neutered to the equivalent of “Salaam Aleikum,” anyone?--smells like death. Our death.

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

Saturday, 07 November 2009

Value for money? What a joke!: If you think spending eight thousand bucks to send Commissar Jennifer Lynch to a “human rights” schmoozefest in Dublin is money ill-spent, get a load of this chart (from a hot-off-the-presses CHRC report) detailing the other money purloined from the put-upon taxpayer. (No charge, apparently, for the gobbledeygook listed under the “Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes”--but don't forget to read the fine print because that's where the full cost is revealed):

($ thousands)
Program Activity	2007-08 Actual Spending	2008-09				Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
Program Activity	2007-08 Actual Spending	Main Estimates	Planned Spending1	Total Authorities²	Actual Spending	Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
Human Rights Knowledge Development and Dissemination Program	6,190	3,631	4,026	4,041	4,375	A diverse society that promotes linguistic duality and social inclusion
Discrimination Prevention Program	5,347	6,234	6,424	6,918	6,516	A diverse society that promotes linguistic duality and social inclusion
Human Rights Dispute Resolution Program	10,456	10,743	10,743	11,928	11,478	A diverse society that promotes linguistic duality and social inclusion
Total	21,993	20,608	21,193	22,887	22,369

¹ As indicated in the 2008–09 Report on Plans and Priorities, the Planned Spending included an amount of $585,000 for the funding related to the repeal of section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. This funding was not received in 2008–09, but was received in 2009–10 and also for future years.

² The 2008–09 Total Authorities represent an increase of approximately $2.3 million or 11 percent over the 2008–09 Main Estimates of $20.6 million. This difference represents funding received through the Supplementary Estimates for 2007–08 operating budget carry-forward, pay list requirements not forecasted and the salary increases resulting from the signed collective bargaining agreements.

You would think with all that lucre coming in on a regular basis, Jen’s racket could at least muster the largesse to pick up the tab for what have turned out to be comically misnamed “freedom of information” requests. But as we know, in the CHRC universe “freedom of information” is as chimerical as the threat of Namaimo Nazis is all too real.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:58 | link | comments (1)

In the same vein as “Don’t jump to conclusions--'Allahu Akbar' can be a convivial Islamic greeting"…: In the grip of the pathological cluelessness that afflicts large portions of the mainstream media and Western civilization, and that may well prove fatal, the Globe and Mail calls for “restraint, as after 9/11”:

The tragic shootings at the Fort Hood U.S. Army Base raise the spectres of hostility against Muslims within the United States, and of Islamic hostility towards the U.S. Everybody must follow the restraint shown so far by military and civilian leaders, withholding judgment until more facts come in. And once the story becomes clearer, it will be crucial to combat any anti-Muslim sentiment, and any actions that call the patriotism or motives of Muslims into question, in Western militaries, or societies at large.

Thirteen people are dead and 30 are wounded after Thursday's rampage. There are reports that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim, yelled "Allahu Akbar" - "God is great" in Arabic - before unleashing the lethal fury. A security camera video is said to show him wearing a prayer cap in the hours leading up to the shooting. An Internet posting by someone with the user name Nidal Hasan refers approvingly to suicide bombing.

What do these facts, which have yet to be confirmed in any criminal investigation, suggest? Conveniently weaved, they evoke a radicalized Islamist threat, dangerously implanted in the seat of what is by far the world's most powerful military. Even if only one person - the suspect - acted on the threat, some would conclude that other Muslims, similarly situated, could be tipped into sharing the same beliefs and carrying out the same actions.

That would be the wrong interpretation. The U.S. faces no generalized internal radical Islamist threat. The New America Foundation's Peter Bergen notes in The New Republic, "Nearly every major jihadist plot against Western targets in the last two decades somehow leads back to Afghanistan or Pakistan." Even the "homegrown" Toronto 18 plot drew substantial inspiration by propaganda from the same sources. Until Major Hasan can be shown to have trained in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or to have marinated in a hateful ideology, to say that this was "an attack by a radical Muslim" would be misleading.

And suppose the shooter did draw some inspiration from a warped view of Islam. Should that mean other Muslims should be singled out and have their beliefs probed? The unequivocal answer, again, is no. Military life is filled with enormous stresses (including some that Major Hasan saw in his work as a psychiatrist) that can presage violence, though this would be no excuse for the crime's heinousness. The mental health of soldiers, not their religious or cultural backgrounds, should be the paramount concern...

No jihad here, folks. Best to go back to what you were doing before the unpleasant interruption. (I wonder what’s up with the Gosselins and Speidi these days?).

Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that the Globe is calling for “restraint” from the wrong people?

Update: Robert Spencer 'splains it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:49 | link | comments (10)

Ceej spin: The Canadian Jewish Congress wants you to know that multiculturalism in the form of “working with other communities” is alive and well, and the Ceej is in the thick of it. At the same time, though, it is blind to the reality that one of its “partners” considers Jews to be--what’s that adorable phrase again?--oh, yeah, “apes and pigs,” and wants to see the Jewish state go the way of the Dodo. Here’s some of the Ceej’s “bridge-building” spiel from its new website, with my bolds and italicized comments:

…In 2007, Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region partnered with a number of other groups, including representatives in the Ontario Muslim, Sikh, and Armenian communities to advocate for public funding for all faith-based schools, rather than a selective system where Catholic schools receive funding, but the vast majority of other faith-based schools do not. Although the group was not able to secure this funding, it was an important initiative that brought very diverse communities together on a common issue and in a positive way. (Not so positive, really, since it was the impetus for the Ceej news release condemning the publication of the Danish Motoons: It’s hard to see how Jews throwing free speech under the bus for the sake of being spared the expense of their kids’ education is anything to boast about.)

Interfaith partnerships are also an important vehicle through which CJC has undertaken advocacy initiatives. We regularly partner with Christian faith leaders to promote an end to the genocide in Darfur and with Muslim imams on protecting religious rights regarding the ritual preparation of food, to cite two examples. (But not, of course, with Muslim imams to promote an end to genocide in Darfur or with Christian faith leader to protect religious rights.)…

Standing Together in the Face of Hate

Sadly, one of the most common reasons around which Canadian Jewish Congress builds relationships with other faith and ethno-cultural communities is to provide and receive support when one of these groups has been attacked. No community should feel alone in the face of hatred, because an attack on one of us is an attack on all Canadians. (Victims supporting victims--how Canadian. Too bad one of the “victim” groups--which, this being the Ceej shall remain nameless, is fomenting hate against Jews/Zionists.)

In the early part of 2004, the Jewish community of Canada was the victim (there’s that word again) of a series of antisemitic incidents that reached an intensity that had not been seen for decades. In response to the incidents, including a graffiti spree in the Toronto area, the overturning of gravestones in a Jewish cemetery, and most frightening of all, the firebombing of a Jewish school in Montreal (by an angry, hateful young Arab), Canadian Jewish Congress partnered with UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to organize a community rally. Although the intention of the event was to give our own community an opportunity to come together, it turned out be so much more. Politicians from all parties and representatives from virtually every faith and ethno-cultural community in Toronto came to the event and filled the building, standing together and ensure that it was not the victims of hate that were isolated, but the perpetrators. (If it brought all these different people together in the spirit of multicultural amity, then, by gum, that firebombing was worthwhile. Tikkun Olam, and all that.)

Of course, CJC comes to the aid of other communities too. In the fall of 2008, deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, claimed dozens of lives, including a number of Jewish victims at the local Chabad House. (“Terrorists” of known but unnamed origin; wouldn’t want to “offend” one our fellow victim “partners”/upholders of state censorship by sticking a label on the “terrorists”.) Canadian Jewish Congress joined with the Indo-Canadian community at an event to denounce the horrific terror attacks at a solidarity rally in Toronto. (Under the circumstances, the Islamo-Canadian community was nowhere in sight.) CJC also spoke out publicly when the Devi Mandir Hindu temple in Pickering, ON was desecrated.. And when the Almhadi mosque, also in Pickering, was vandalized and set on fire in March 2004, CJC participated in a solidarity rally at the mosque. (One for all and all for one, what? And if we’re really nice to our fellow Muslim “victims,” the warm feelings are bound to be reciprocated. Or are we so virtuous, so flipping selfless, that we do such things excepting no payoff at all--virtue being its own reward? In which case, aren’t we the fools?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:35 | link | comments

Oh, the embarrassment: It must be extremely emasculating for a jihadi warrior to be have his Afterlife plans derailed by a chick packing heat. I sure hope the army arranges for him to get lots of therapy to deal with this humilation. And how insensitive of the army to allow it to happen in the first place (that's me channeling radical/extreme multiculturalists).

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

In today's wacky "human rights" news: Iran criticizes the West for human rights violations.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:33 | link | comments

About that “Allahu Akbar”: The clueless, excruciatingly sensitive mainstream media try to come to terms with a familiar but confusing (to them, anyway) phrase. Here’s one “explanation” I found particularly amusing, in a “can you believe this guy?” sort of way, by some git in The Guardian:

The fact that Hassan reportedly shouted the above is meant, I suppose, to imply that he was an extremist fanatic.

I'm not sure that it does. My understanding is that it's something Arab people often shout before doing something or other. It's used in many different situations. It doesn't mean the guy is an al-Qaida mole any more than my drinking a cup of tea would mean I was a tea partier.

Let me also take this opportunity to say that I'm not wild about the headline and standfirst -- hed and deck, we Yanks call them -- they put on the piece. You people understand, right, that when it comes to pieces I write that are cross-posted on CIF, I don't write the display copy? I write the heds on my blog. But when I pass a piece off to CIF, they do it.

I'm usually quite happy with what they do, but alas not in this case. Hassan was quite obviously not an American "like any other" -- roughly 309,999,999 Americans have not killed a dozen soldiers, and he has, so I'd say he's rather dramatically unlike most other Americans.

And as for the deck, I did not write that his roots were "simply irrelevant" and I do not believe that they are. I wrote: "We have much more to learn about Hassan before we can jump to any conclusions." His roots might well turn out to be relevant. We don't know yet.

I did say at the end of course that he's a native-born American and that we should "let him rot – but because of what he did, not because of who he is" (a line with which I was quite pleased, I have to say). But saying that isn't the same as saying that his roots are "simply irrelevant." So I must distance myself from my packaging in this single case.

Distance yourself all you like, Mike. The jihad isn’t going away, and neither is the war cry that launched untold numbers of virgin-seekers on their journey to the Paradise bordello.

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

Thanks for the algebra: While Israel stands on the cutting edge of modern technology, devising advances in manifold areas that benefit mankind (the subject of George Gilder's The Israel Test), the Islamic world continues to rest on its laurels. Here's the Canadian Islamic Congress's "web-link of the week," a clip from a Beeb documentary touting early Islam's inventiveness.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:08 | link | comments

The army’s loose cannon: I was hoping Mark Steyn would crystallize the madness surrounding a jihadi allowed to operate with impunity--with encouragement, even--within the heart of the U.S. army, and indeed he has:

Thirteen dead and 28 wounded would be a bad day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan and a great victory for the Taliban. When it happens in Texas, in the heart of the biggest military base in the nation, at a processing center for soldiers either returning from or deploying to combat overseas, it is not merely a "tragedy" (as too many people called it) but a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have called, since 9/11, the "war on terror." Brave soldiers trained to hunt down and kill America's enemy abroad were killed in the safety and security of home by, in essence, the same enemy – a man who believes in and supports everything the enemy does.

And he's a U.S. Army major.

And his superior officers and other authorities knew about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless multicultural diversity – as if believing that "the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor" (i.e., his fellow American soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the "noble" "heroism" of suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war is to be regarded as just some kind of alternative lifestyle that adds to the general vibrancy of the base…

There is no question that Major Hasan pulled the trigger that killed and injured all those people. But make no mistake: through its wilful ignorance about Islamic doctrine and blind allegiance to the pieties of political correctness, the army loaded the gun.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:47 | link | comments

Friday, 06 November 2009

Nothing to see here, kafirs. Move along now: He was handing out Korans. He was dressed in devout Islamic garb. Though American-born, he was looking to import a similarly devout wife-in-a-bag from--wait for it--"Palestine." He chanted the jihadi war cry--"Allahu Akbar!"--before gunning down American army personnel. And yet Major Hasan's actions, claims Calgary's imam Syed Soharwardy, had absolutely nothing to do with Islam. (For those with short memories, Syed's the fellow who kvetched to the Alberta Human Rights Commission when a Jew named Levant had the audacity to print the Danish Motoons. When his "chill the infidel" campaign seemed to be backfiring and winning friends for Levant instead of him, he tried to go all Terry Fox on us, walking across Canada for what he claimed were purely alturistic reasons.) (H/T BCF)

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

A real tear-jerking ballad: A little kitty told me that Jennifer Lynch’s expense claim for her Dublin sojourn has been released. It turns out Dougie and Debbie taxpayer are out $8,000 dollars--the cost of flying Jen to Dublin and putting her up at some shmancy hotel so she could schmooze with some fellow “human rights” hucksters.

Nice work if you can get it, I say.

The news inspired the following song revision:

Oh, Jenny girl,

Ass-wipes, ass-wipes are trawling.

They’re hunting down those “Nazis” on the ‘Net.

And as a perk, from Dublin they’re a-calling.

A lavish trip, oh, girl, how lucky can you get?

But come ye back to testify to Parliament

How censorship is needed to curb “hate”.

And charge huge fees to get “free” information.

Oh, Jenny girl, oh, Jenny girl, you take the cake.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:56 | link | comments

Et tu, FOX?: America’s one and only “conservative” TV network (5% of which is owned by a Saudi prince) is also at a loss re Major Hasan’s “motives” (my bolds):

FORT HOOD, Texas — An Army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood cleaned out his apartment in the days before the rampage that left 13 people dead, a neighbor said Friday.

The neighbor, Patricia Villa, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan came over to her apartment Wednesday and Thursday and offered her some items, including a new Koran, saying he was going to be deployed on Friday.

Authorities said the 39-year-old Hasan went on a shooting spree later Thursday at the sprawling Texas post.

He was among 30 people wounded in the rampage and remained hospitalized Friday in a coma, attached to a ventilator. All but two of the injured were still hospitalized, and all were listed in stable condition.

Investigators were trying to piece together how and why Hasan allegedly gunned down his comrades in one of the worst mass shootings ever on an American military base.

His motive wasn't known, but some who knew Hasan said he may have been struggling with a pending deployment and faced pressure in his work with distressed soldiers.

Hasan's family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were "despicable and deplorable" and don't reflect how the family was raised. Hasan and his family are of Palestinian descent…

Apparently, Hasan’s shouts of “Allahu Akbar” failed to ring any bells.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:16 | link | comments (1)

The best defence is to claim victimhood: Pace the apologists for a put-upon Army shrink who "snapped," a Muslim veterens group says it has never--no, not even once-- received a complaint about Muslims being "harrassed" because of their religion.

Another half-baked theory bites the dust.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:45 | link | comments

Pathological cluelessness: The media remain baffled as to what could have possibly motivated an Army doctor to--what's that expression again?--oh, yeah, to "snap". Breath of the Beast, in a nod to an old Peter Cook/Dudley Moore routine, calls it "An Horrific Outbreak of Stupidity." Me? Well, I set it to song some years ago. (I realize that yesterday's horrific events are no laughing matter, but there's no denying the palliative effective gallows humour can have on the soul--on my soul, anyhoo. So please pardon my inappropriate levity, but it helps me cope with the awfulness out there):

It’s Jihad
(To the tune of “Let it Snow”)

Oh, the terror outside is frightful
‘Cause of guys so riled and spiteful.
We can’t figure out why they’re mad.
(It’s jihad, it’s jihad, it’s jihad.)

Oh, the dots are still unconnected
And the reasons undetected.
We hope that it’s all just a fad.
(It’s jihad, it’s jihad, it’s jihad.)

When we finally get a clue
There will be plenty more of us dyin’.
‘Cause denial ain’t nothin’ new

And denyin's what keeps us from cryin'.

Oh, another jihadi has acted
And still folks are quite distracted.

What is it in Islam that’s bad?
(It’s jihad, it’s jihad, it’s jihad.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:17 | link | comments

Cramming ideology down young throats: On impulse and because I happened to be passing it on my way to somewhere else, I dropped by the University of Toronto Bookstore on College Street yesterday. It was quite an eye-opener, to say the least, since its shelves were stocked with books containing the ~~load of anti-Western, anti-Israel crapola~~ brilliant/fashionable thinking du jour. A quick and by no means comprehensive perusal revealed works by Edward Said (Orientalism--feh), Tony Judt, Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci, and opening a book at random (it had something to do with persuading the masses, I think) I found laudatory references to Gramsci, Foucault and Derrida.

It’s hard to see how any student could survive this intellectual mugging and not become a Leftoid drone.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:02 | link | comments (2)

On Hasan the shrink's Thursday to-do list: 1) Hand out Korans. 2) Shoot people.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:23 | link | comments (2)

Going green: Here’s another reason for useful idiots to align with Islamists (along with their common loathing of Capitalism, Zionism and Western “colonialism,” I mean)--Islam and environmentalism are, like, totally simpatico (saith a Canadian Charger):

Islam is most commonly perceived in our society as a faith that calls for observance of highly demanding rules; all included in what is known as Sharia law.

This, in fact, does not exemplify some of the core issues of the faith. One of those issues is the preservation of the environment.

This issue is reflected in the purpose of the creation of human beings as declared in the second chapter in the Qur’an as well as in more than three hundred verses dealing directly with nature, natural phenomena and the environment.

The Qur’an teaches that God created earth before He created man. Then He created man for a purpose; namely to be His vicegerent on earth. As such, humans will be accounted for their interaction with the earth’s environment. The earth is given to us in trust; it is not our property, so we cannot waste its natural resources or dispose of its material as we wish.

There are three environmentally-related concepts in Islam that should be considered when addressing the subject of environmental ethics: that the entire universe is a sign of God’s power, humans are an integrated part of the unified creation of God, and God’s creation is precisely balanced.

Starting with the first concept, Islam declares that the earth with its components and complex interactions along with the rest of universe with its wonders are signs to recognize and appreciate the existence of God; His Might, Power and Authority.

Hence, humans are commanded to contemplate upon those signs in order to submit themselves to their Creator. To destroy one of those signs; for example a living species, a forest, a water resource, or an atmospheric constituent is akin to denying the work of God…

“Submission” being the operative word of both green theologies.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:00 | link | comments

Only human after all: Iconoclast Charles Krauthammer demolishes the myth of Obama’s remarkable powers of “realignment”:

WASHINGTON -- Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.

In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics -- most prominently, rising minorities and the young -- would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed "The Death of Conservatism," while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.

This was all ridiculous from the beginning. 2008 was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.

Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia -- presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in '08 for the first time in 44 years -- went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 -- a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus 15 Democratic in 2008 to minus 4 in 2009. A 19-point swing.

What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished…

As has the magic.

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

Paging Dr. Hasan…: Here’s a film I won’t be seeing--The Men Who Stare at Goats:

…Written by Peter Straughan and based on the nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, also titled “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” the film tells parallel stories that finally join. One involves a journalist, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who after his marriage tanks, heads to Iraq to give his life meaning. What he discovers is Lyn, a recruit in the mysterious New Earth Army, an experimental Army program centered on parapsychology that was developed by a Vietnam vet, Bill Django (Mr. Bridges) and pushed into creation by the gonzo General Hopgood (Mr. Lang). Realizing that he has the makings of a juicy story, Bob tags after Lyn, a decision that leads him both into Iraq and Lyn’s past in the New Earth Army.

Bill’s initiative, born in the fields of Vietnam and baptized in the hot tubs of the New Age movement, brings together Buddhism, pantheism, militarism and old-fashioned hooey-ism, the idea being that war can be waged with love, eagle feathers and assorted paranormal techniques — with a few martial arts moves thrown in. General Hopgood and Lyn take to the program with a seriousness bordering on devotional, partly because Bill, or rather the irresistible Mr. Bridges, could inspire lemmings of any genus. His batty smile and loosey-goosey gestural performance, which brings to mind a modern dance teacher stoned on good vibes, perfectly complements Mr. Lang’s spring-loaded turn…

Hollywood: in its own way as nutty as the jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:35 | link | comments

There’s a pachyderm called jihad in the room: Devout Muslim. Army shrink. Real head case. Heavy into da’wa. Liked to post on extremist websites. Opposed to wars in in Iraq and Afghanistan on religious grounds. Was about to be shipped off to Iraq. So why, queries the New York Daily News (among many, many, others), “did he snap?”

Yeah, that’s a real conundrum. (The better question might be: why did the army assume he wouldn't snap?)

I know. Let’s blame it on Bush.

Update: According to one report, the shrink was "yelling something in Arabic" during his shooting spree. That "something" may have been "I don't want to go to Iraq." Then again, it could have been "Allahu Akbar." It would be helpful if American servicemen, during the course of their training, were taught to recognize the latter "something," so they could know why they were fighting and why some Muslims hate them so much.

Update: Islam Online, quel surprise, blames the infidels:

CAIRO – An imminent deployment to war-torn Iraq and harassment at the US military over his Muslim faith have prompted Major Nidal Malik Hasan into rampage at a US military base.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” his cousin Nader Hasan told The New York Times on Friday, November 6.

“He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

Major Hasan went into rampage late Thursday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 31 at Fort Hood base in Texas.

He was shot and taken into custody.

The American Muslim soldier of Palestinian origin was about to be deployed to Iraq this month.

“He was doing everything he could to avoid that,” his cousin said.

“He wanted to do whatever he could within the rules to make sure he wouldn’t go over.”

The army major was born in the US to Palestinian parents who had emigrated from a small town near al-Quds (occupied Jerusalem).

He was raised in Virginia, and attended school in Roanoke before going to Virginia Tech university.

Hasan joined the army and received his medical license on July 12, 2005, according to Virginia Board of Medicine records.

“His parents didn’t want him to go into the military,” said Hasan.

“He said, ‘No, I was born and raised here, I’m going to do my duty to the country.’ ”

During his army service, he counselled many US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Having counselled the traumatized soldiers, Hassn knew all too well the terrifying realities of the war.

Hearing about his possible deployment to Iraq, he tried every means to leave the army but to no avail.

“I think he gave up that fight and was just doing his time.”...

Reminds me of another chap born to Palestinian parents who's doing his time.

Update: Right on cue, CAIR, an organization with ties to Hamas, condemns the Fort Hood massacre. My observation: CAIR is quite willing to call it "terrorism". Doesn't that give the timorous media the go-ahead to do the same?

Update: Also right on cue--Muslims brace for a backlash (one which never seems to come, but the mention of which is supposed to make non-Muslims feel guilty for thinking that Islam might somehow be implicated in such rampages).

Update: What a shockeroo--he was shouting "Allahu Abkbar".

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:19 | link | comments (1)

Thursday, 05 November 2009

Mail call: A Toronto Star reader expresses his “love” for Israel:

A ‘real’ human rights issue

Re:Harper is far from extreme,

Letter, Nov. 4

Frank Dimant says, "the demonizing and delegitimizing of the world's only Jewish state, while ignoring real human rights issues all over the world, is not an acceptable form of critique."

So according to him, the collective punishment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government is not a "real" human rights issue. And because it is not a "real" human rights issue, it's not worth pointing out the fact that Israel is committing a war crime with its policy of collective punishment against the Palestinian population. It is a war crime as stated in the Geneva Conventions.

Chirvan Edross, Oakville

In return, I express my love for the above:

Borrowing a page from the Hamas/Iran playbook, letter-writer Chivran Edross decries the “collective punishment” Israel is supposedly meting out to the Palestinians--a “war crime,” he fumes. About the “collective punishment” Israel’s enemies hope to mete out to the Jewish state by wiping it off the map, however, Edross is strangely silent.

Odd how concepts like “collective punishment” and “disproportionate force”--and, for that matter, “war crimes”--seem to apply only to Israel, and never to the other side.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:29 | link | comments (2)

AP bias subtle yet obvious: I’ve bolded the most egregious anti-Israel/pro-Hezbo stuff in this one, with my snarky comments in italics:

JERUSALEM — Israeli officials tallied up hundreds of tons of weapons seized from a commandeered ship Thursday as Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas denied Israeli claims that the arms were meant for them. (Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas? Iran’s Lebanon-based terrorist henchmen, more like.)

Israeli naval commandos, acting on intelligence reports, boarded the Antiguan-flagged Francop before dawn in waters off Cyprus on Wednesday and discovered that the cargo included hundreds of crates of rockets, missiles, mortars, anti-tank weapons and munitions.

The arms shipment was the largest Israel has ever seized, and it shone a spotlight on dangerous tensions between Israel and Iran. Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of its nuclear program and long-range missile development, and says Tehran is lying when it denies it is building atomic arms. (“Considers”--what a wimpy verb. Kind of makes it sound as though Iran’s oft-stated desire to wipe the Jews off the map with a nuke is a figment of the Jews’ overheated imagination.)

The Hezbollah guerrilla group, which fought a bruising, monthlong war with Israel three years ago, denied that the arms cache was meant for its fighters. (Now it’s a guerrilla “group”? Makes it sound very corporate, no?--HEZO, LLP.)

"Hezbollah categorically denies it has any connection with the weapons which the Zionist enemy claims it seized aboard the Francop ship," Hezbollah said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut. (How cozy. And AP no doubt wants to keep on Hezbo’s good side, since the “guerrilla group” is so influential in Lebanon and has its headquarters in Beirut.)

Israel had not provided evidence the arms were meant for Hezbollah — and the guerrilla group accused the Jewish state of fabrication and "piracy" for intercepting the ship. (Yes, and let’s give the “guerrilla group,” though not the Jews, the benefit of the doubt since the Jews have provided no “evidence” save for the humungous weapons cache.)

Iran has had no comment on the affair... (No comment.)

As a bonus, here's the AP map accompanying the piece which shows everything, except for Israel, written in Arabic. (I suppose we should be thankful Israel is written in Hebrew.)

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

Wednesday, 04 November 2009

Looking on the bright side…: Canada’s Jewstablishemnt may out to lunch when it comes to free speech, and delusional about “building bridges” with “moderate Muslims,” but at least they aren’t afraid to stand up--proudly and loudly--for Israel. The same, alas, cannot be said of British Jews, as per this blog post by Melanie Phillips:

…Britain’s Jewish community leadership is, first, congenitally supine and, second, historically ambivalent towards Israel. Having always been terrified of the dread accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ – the bigoted taunt that has always been flung at Jews wherever in the diaspora they have lived, long predating Israel’s rebirth in 1948 – they have always sought to minimise any identification of the Jews as a people or nation. Which indeed they are. In addition, they believe that anti-Jewish hatred is a constant and is merely exacerbated if Jews protest about it. So their instinct has always been to keep their heads well below all parapets and instead work behind the scenes to protect Jewish interests.

The development of political Zionism at the turn of the last century and Britain’s commitment to restore the Jewish national home in Palestine consequently filled many in the UK Jewish leadership at that time with horror. They feared that a reborn Jewish nation would give renewed and deadly traction to the charge of ‘dual loyalty’ and thus fan the flames of anti-Jewish bigotry. Mainly for this reason, the community’s leadership remained ambivalent towards Israel throughout Britain’s shocking betrayal of its obligations to the Jewish people under the Palestine Mandate, an ambivalence which continues to this day in the reluctance of these leaders to raise their voices in protest at the systematic demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel in which Britain’s intelligentsia now leads the western world. Instead – astonishingly – these leaders respond by attacking or demonising those who robustly defend Israel on the grounds that they are exaggerating the scale and nature of its victimisation.

This is very different from the situation in America, where prominent Jews do speak up in defence of Israel because Middle America backs them to the hilt; or in Leibler’s native Australia, where the Jewish community is robust in support of Israel and can draw upon the support of the Australian mainstream which identifies strongly with the plight of a nation embodying western values made vulnerable by the hostile forces that surround it.

It is hard to see any prospect of Britain’s Jewish leadership, which by contrast – and despite the many decent British people who have no problem with either Jews or Israel -- is itself horribly isolated within an intrinsically hostile culture, finding the courage to break with its timid past and fight as it should for the Jewish people against the onslaught.

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

Sort of like The View, if Whoopi and the other the loud-mouthed yentas were encased head-to-toe in black shrouds: Who says Saudi Arabia is repressive toward chicks? Why, there’s a Wahhabi TV show that has a chick host who’s, like, totally empowered. From Arab News:

JEDDAH: A new TV show that discusses issues concerning teenage girls and female university students was recently broadcast with Saudi presenters dressed in black from head to toe.

The show — named Asrar Al-Banat (The Secrets of Girls) — is broadcast on Awtan TV, a Saudi religious channel that was first aired in August 2008 and has women broadcasters who are covered in the all-enveloping abaya and niqab.

There are over 60 religious satellite channels that are broadcast across the Middle East via Arabsat and Nilesat networks. The channels represent different extremes when it comes to women presenters. Channels such as Iqraa and Al-Resalah have women presenters who do not cover their faces and dress in different colors, not necessarily black. On the other hand, channels such as Al-Majd have no women presenters. Awtan is perhaps one that toes the middle line by allowing women to appear but only when covered from head to toe…

You’ve come a long way, baby--as many others agree:

Sawsan [the show’s chick host] added that in addition to compliments from the channel’s owner and the program’s director, the support of religious scholars — such as Sheikh Salim Al-Gadani and Sheikh Ghazi Al-Shammari — has been very encouraging for her.

Answering a question about some opposing religious views that regard the voice of women as Awrah (something that cannot be revealed in the presence of men), Sawsan said that scholars deem women’s voices as Awrah only if they are speaking softly or on immoral topics…

I guess they don’t like it when chicks whisper because it makes it harder to tabs on what they’re saying.

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

Welcome to the dystopia: Last week Canada’s chief commissar, Jennifer Lynch, regaled a parliamentary committee with her thoughts re our numero uno freedom:

In spite of Canadians’ collective human rights accomplishments, forms of discrimination will continue to exist. This one area in particular requires continued vigilance. Canadians are still the targets of egregious acts of discrimination.

Let me be clear. Hate propaganda, sadly, is alive and well. Hateful expression aimed at groups of people continues to pose a threat to the harmony of our communities and undermines equality. Equality is guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It is therefore ironic that some point to the same Charter as providing an absolute right to freedom of expression. No right is absolute. When rights are in conflict, legislators must find a way to balance those rights.

Now, what, I asked myself, does this type of thinking remind me of? I know--it’s this:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought--that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc--should be literally unthinkable, at so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘The dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds.’ It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’, since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.

Substitute “Trudeaupia” for “Ingsoc” and “political correctness” for Newspeak, and it’s clear it’s 1984 in 2009.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:20 | link | comments

Hold me closer, fancy dancer: The latest “human rights” tribunal ruling on the CHRC site appears to be about a teacher who worked for a First Nations school board in Alberta, and who wasn’t allowed to return following her pregnancy leave--what you or I would call a wrongful dismissal suit were it to turn up in a regular courtroom. But why on earth would someone with a gripe want to take it before a real judge when the rules of the “quasi”-judiciary are so much more lax, and when you can have your legal tabbed picked up by the taxpayer, even if the tribunal rules against you. It’s nice to see, though, that despite the fact that political correctness precludes infidels from complaining about hateful imams, and would no doubt preclude a teacher in a similar situation from complaining about an Islamic school, a non-First Nations woman was allowed to complain about a First Nations school. Could this be the “human rights” tribunal’s way of signalling that, pace Steyn, Levant and the rest of the critics, the system is not necessarily mired in stultifying P.C.?

I didn’t have the patience to wade through the entire lengthy ruling, but this part jumped out at--and amused--me:

When asked if she integrated First Nations culture into her teaching, Ms. Gilmar testified that she was very enthusiastic about doing this. She gave several specific examples such as using a medicine wheel to illustrate geometry, math, science, and environmental instruction. She spoke of using First Nations medicine cards, and focusing the students on spirit perspective with animals. She would take the students outside at times, and walk out comparative distances between the planets, integrated Stoney language words into her lesson planning, and used the burning of sweet grass. Two of her students were tribal dancers, and one of them a "fancy dancer", so she had them showcase their talents in the classroom. She also incorporated First Nations images into her art lessons. I found her demeanour to be very sincere in recounting her desire while at Alexis to incorporate First Nations culture into her lessons, and it was obvious that she made real efforts in this regard…

“A fancy dancer,” huh? We could have used some of those back when I went to a Jewish Day School. All we ever got were Israeli folk dances about water and stuff--and there was nothing “fancy” about them.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:47 | link | comments (3)

Mausoleum help wanted: Here's a job I won't be applying for--and not only because it's in Winnipeg and I'm not fully bilangue.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments

Pass down the smelling salts, Wolf: Oyez, oyez. Last night's elections were not--they repeat, were not--a referendum on Obama. Had GWB been in office with this mixed bag of results, now, that would have been a referendum. But since he's not, they're not.

We now return you to regular CNN broadcasting (which remains as hopelessly a-swoon as ever).

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:05 | link | comments

Another dreadful anniversary: Five years ago today Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Dutch jihadist who didn't like the "tone" and tenor and content of his free speech. A dark day, indeed, for Western civilization. We are still experiencing its repercussions--and not in a good way.

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

Par-tay in Tehran: It’s been thirty years since the Khomeinists blew Great Satan a big, wet raspberry, and the Shia zanies are partying like it's 1979. Meanwhile, according to VOA, the opposition is using the occasion to voice its protest, and a happy hopeychanger remains inexorably clueless:

Iran is marking the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, with anti-American demonstrations. But opposition forces are using the occasion to protest their own government.

Thousands of people turned out for a government-sponsored rally outside the old U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The crowds shouted "God is great" and "death to America" as speakers recalled the events of 1979, when revolutionary students seized the U.S. Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for more than a year.

The takeover was a victory for the new Islamic Republic, which, earlier in the year, had overthrown the U.S.-backed Shah.

But, 30 years on, a new wave of protesters is challenging the government - in particular, the disputed election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June.

Demonstrators held counter-protest Wednesday in Tehran - the latest in a series of protests against what opponents say was electoral fraud. Witnesses say police used tear gas to break up the gatherings.

On the eve of the anniversary of the embassy takeover, President Obama said, "We have heard for 30 years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future is it for."…

A real head-scratcher, that one--but only for a blissed-out ignoramus who prefers to ignore the future the Khomeinists have clearly mapped out for themselves: one in which they ride to regional and then global pre-eminence on the coattails of Israel’s liquidation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:42 | link | comments

Safe haven for terrorists: The Ceeb reports that the Tamil Tigers, the terrorist group that was unceremoniously squashed in a civl war back in Sri Lanka a few months ago (where's the Goldstone report about that?), are planning to regroup and recoup in Canada.

Well, where else would they do it? After all, our generous refugee system has been very generous to Tamils--so generous, in fact, that there may be more Tamils in Canada at the moment than there are in Sri Lanka.

Ain't "diversity" grand?

Update: Further to that diversity quip, "Tamil migrant held over possible ties to terror group".

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

Steyn, Stern, let’s call the whole thing off: A Kathy Shaidle “fan” is the steynonline “READER OF THE DAY”. “Mark Stern is a douchebag and everyone knows it,” quoth the apparent pollster.

Mark Stern, eh? Any relation to that smutty radio guy?

There are two famous fellows named “Stern.”

There’s Howard and Mark, as you’ll learn.

They are both kind of Jew-y;

Howard’s got BabaBooey,

While Mark makes the moonbatty burn.

Reminds me of another--albeit less flattering--limerick about unrelated celebs (who are Jewish rather than Jew-y, hence the merest whiff of genteel anti-Semitism it exudes):

There’s a wonderful family called Stein.

There’s Gert and there’s Ep and there’s Ein.

Gert’s poems are bunk,
Ep's statues are junk

And nobody understands Ein.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:37 | link | comments

Tuesday, 03 November 2009

Explanation redacted to avoid giving offence: Listening to Bernie Farber define antisemtism in the CJC's new "vlog" feature (fittingly, it's on the left of the screen), I have to say that he mostly seemed to "get it". By that I mean that his description of how Jew-hate used to be a right wing thing, but has now morphed into something else again--an intense hatred that has affixed itself to the state of Israel--seems pretty much on the mark. Bernie further explains that while "criticism" of Israel is completely legit, it veers into Judenhass territory when it calls for Israel's destruction--the desire to make the world Judenstaatrein, rid of the Jewish state.

On second thought, though, something about Bernie's briefing seems rather, oh, I dunno, lacking. Now what could it be? Please give me a sec while I run down the list. Judenhass: check. Judenrein: ditto. Judenstaatrein: ditto the ditto. I know. There are a few crucial things that seem to have been left out of the discussion. They are (drumroll, please): Leftists, Islamists, Islam, jihad, jihadists, sharia, useful idiots and Islamic antisemitism/Judenhass and its basis in Islamic teachings.

Such reticence may be explicable--it's due to the desire not to stir the Islamic pot; the bonkers notion that one can't criticize Muslims because that's the same as Jew-haters cricitizing Jews; the faint hope that Jews can build bridges with Muslims via "mentoring" programs and other cockamamie ingratiation schemes. However, just because it's explicable, that in no way makes it excusable.

Update: Say what you will about the ADL, at least it doesn't defer to Islamic sensitivities a la the Ceej and is willing to acknowledge that the Judenhass of our era is largely Islamic in origin.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:20 | link | comments (3)

“This is the outfit our grandparents wore when they used to go out to hunt Jews. It’s a traditional Jew-hunting outfit”: CNN reports on a unique song contest:

Leeuwarden, Netherlands (CNN) -- "This is the outfit our parents wore when they used to go out to dance. It's a traditional outfit," jokes Riemelmeester Malde.

Malde is addressing a theater audience in Friesland in the northern Netherlands where he and his bandmates are about to perform in their native Low German dialect at Liet International, a song contest for European minority languages.

But Malde's band is a rap trio rather than a folk troupe and their outfits are anything but traditional: boiler suits adorned with yellow and black hazard tape and garish hip hop baseball caps. Their instruments are laptops, microphones and loudhailers and, as their name suggests, De fofftig Penns owe more to 50 Cent than their Lower Saxony origins.

"We try not to have anything too middle of the road. Our contest is about new songs. The variety and originality are important," Liet coordinator Onno Falkena told CNN ahead of Saturday night's final in Leeuwarden, the Frisian capital.

Since being established in Friesland in 2002, Liet International has become a hub of the minority language music scene. If that sounds niche, it's worth noting that there are estimated to be almost 50 million minority or regional language speakers in Europe. Liet International casts its net for contestants across the entire continent.

In purely musical terms, the event also offers a kaleidoscopic antidote to the Eurovision Song Contest, in which the lingua franca is cheesy English-language pop. This year, other finalists represented genres as diverse as Sami metal, Occitan electronica, Celtic power pop and cultures from Karelian in the Arctic north to Sardinian in the Mediterranean south.

"You would think it would be a bit worthy with people singing in Latgalian or Scottish Gaelic," says Davyth Hicks, a Cornish-speaking musician and lobbyist for the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (EBLUL) in Brussels. "But actually the musical standard is as good as anything you would get anywhere in the world in a competitive music market."…

Yeah, I’m sure those ABBA-esque power ballads are far less cheesy when sung in Latgalian.

Update: True story about some Latgalian-speakers. Years ago, when he was in university, my husband spent a summer working in a mine in northern Ontario. A couple of his co-workers were speaking a language he couldn't place. After a day or two, my husband, who's very outgoing, asked where they were from.

"Latvia," they replied.

"Oh, really?" said my husband. "My grandmother--my mother's mother--was from Latvia."

"Where in Latvia?" they asked.

"She was from Riga," he answered.

"She must have been a Zhooo!," said one, spitting out the final word as if there were something vile in his mouth.

Indeed she was, and, indeed, having learnt of my husband's heritage, the two Latvians wouldn't look at or speak to him again.

But no doubt the word "Zhooo" sounds a lot better when sung in Latgalian.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:05 | link | comments

U.K. police reach out to the demographic most likely go ballistic: The Brits have cooked up another feckless suck up scheme, reports Islam Online:

LONDON – Scotland Yard has invited a group of 17 to 25-year-olds, nearly all of them Muslims, to attend a drill on responding to a terror plot, hoping to win their support for its controversial anti-terror measures.

"The bottom line is to kind of work with the police to try to resolve these issues, these problems, the bombings that happen, working with the community and the police," Ali Al-Musawy, a 17-year-old participant, told the BBC News Online on Monday, November 2.

"(It is) making you realize that the police ain't always there to pick on you or hate you."

Musawy is among 30 young Londoners, mostly Muslims, attending a police exercise on anti-terror measures, such as the controversial stop and search powers.

They were giving video feeds with news of a terror threat and asked to make decisions to respond to a terror attack.

The aim is to give the young people a better understanding of why and how the police make decisions.

The Act Now exercise is part of the government's £140m "Prevent" strategy to fight extremism, launched by the Home Office in 2003.

The government says the strategy aims to prevent Muslims, estimated to number more than two millions, from being lured into extremist ideologies...

Well, at least authorities are trying to ingratiate themselves with a notoriously testy segment of society. And surely the effort will be appreciated, right?, this report from several years back notwithstanding:

Public opinion in Britain is mostly favourable towards Muslims, but the feeling is not requited by British Muslims, who are among the most embittered in the western world, according to a global poll published yesterday.

The poll, by the Washington-based Pew Global Attitudes Project, asked Muslims and non-Muslims about each other in 13 countries. In most, it found suspicion and contempt to be mostly mutual, but uncovered a significant mismatch in Britain.

The poll found that 63% of all Britons had a favourable opinion of Muslims, down slightly from 67% in 2004, suggesting last year's London bombings did not trigger a significant rise in prejudice. Attitudes in Britain were more positive than in the US, Germany and Spain (where the popularity of Muslims has plummeted to 29%), and about the same as in France.

Less than a third of British non-Muslims said they viewed Muslims as violent, significantly fewer than non-Muslims in Spain (60%), Germany (52%), the US (45%) and France (41%).

By contrast, the poll found that British Muslims represented a "notable exception" in Europe, with far more negative views of westerners than Islamic minorities elsewhere on the continent. A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed. Another startling result found that only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French Muslims.

Across the board, Muslim attitudes in Britain more resembled public opinion in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia than elsewhere in Europe. And on the whole, British Muslims were more pessimistic than those in Germany, France and Spain about the feasibility of living in a modern society while remaining devout…

Hmm. Maybe it’s not that authorities aren’t trying hard enough to ingratiate themselves with the “notable exception” but are trying way too hard.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:47 | link | comments

The definition of insanity: Doing the same dangfool thing over and over (and over) again, and expecting that this time it'll turn out differently.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:24 | link | comments

Monday, 02 November 2009

Ta ta to the swoon: It was bound to happen sooner or later, given that expectations were a tad, shall we say, koo koo. Still, it’s heartening to see this in the Obama-besotted New York Times:

WILLIAMSBURG, Iowa — Pauline McAreavy voted for President Obama. From the moment she first saw him two years ago, she was smitten by his speeches and sold on his promise of change. She switched parties to support him in the Iowa caucuses, donated money and opened her home to a pair of young campaign workers.Skip to next paragraph

But by the time she received a fund-raising letter last month from the Democratic National Committee, a sense of disappointment had set in. She returned the solicitation with a handwritten note, saying: “Until I see some progress and he lives up to his promises in Iowa, we will not give one penny.”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t realistic,” Ms. McAreavy, 76, a retired school nurse, said on a recent morning on the deck of her home here in east-central Iowa.

“I really thought there would be immediate change,” she said. “Sometimes the Republicans are just as bad as Democrats. But it’s politics as usual, and that’s what I voted against.”

One year after winning the election, Mr. Obama has seen his pledge to transcend partisanship in Washington give way to the hardened realities of office. A campaign for the history books, filled with a sky-high sense of possibility for Mr. Obama not just among legions of loyal Democrats but also among converts from outside the party, has descended to an unfamiliar plateau for a president whose political rise was as rapid as it was charmed…

That’s Barack, a charmer who coasted on a smile and a shoeshine until he was revealed to be as partisan as the rest of them, and the magic wore off.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:08 | link | comments

Arar lawsuit hits a roadblock: Maher Arar managed to wrest major coin and a heartfelt apology from the Canadian government, and has been angling for something similar from the Americans (who shipped him off to Syria based on Canadian intelligence). No such luck, reports the Ceeb:

Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar has again been denied the right to sue the United States over his deportation to Syria, where he was tortured.

During a September 2002 stopover in New York, while returning to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia, Arar was detained by U.S authorities, who were acting on information from Canadian security officials. Based on the erroneous Canadian information that Arar had links to al-Qaeda, the U.S. deported him to Syria, even though he was carrying a Canadian passport.

When Arar returned to Canada more than a year later, he said he had been tortured during his incarceration and accused American officials of sending him to Syria knowing that authorities there use torture.

In New York on Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 against Arar. He had asked the court to overturn a decision of the U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York, which had dismissed his suit against dozens of U.S. government officials, including former attorney-general John Ashcroft and former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge.

In the majority opinion, the court said it denied Arar's appeal because the U.S. Congress has not laid out legislation that specifies how unusual claims such as his can proceed and what remedies exist.

The court ruled that allowing the claim to proceed would "offend the separation of powers and inhibit this country's foreign policy."

Court a 'tool' of executive branch, Arar says

A key to the case was the practice of "extraordinary rendition" —when someone with suspected links to terrorism is sent to another country for detention and interrogation, without charges, trial or court approval.

The court said it was hesitant to "create to a new damages remedy that Congress has not seen fit to authorize."

"Even the probing of these matters entails the risk that other countries will become less willing to co-operate with the United States in sharing intelligence resources to counter terrorism," the appeal court said.

In a statement issued through the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents him, Arar said:

"Unfortunately, this recent decision and decisions taken on other similar cases, prove that the court system in the United States has become more or less a tool that the executive branch can easily manipulate through unfounded allegations and fear mongering."

"If anything, this decision is a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law," Arar said…

So many questions. Like: how can Arar claim “constitutional rights” if he’s, you know, Canadian? And isn’t the notion that the executive branch, currently in the hands of a president who’s “reaching out” big time to the likes of Syria, is manipulating things so as to deny Arar his chance to sue “the United States” (the whole United States? Including Guam and the AVIs?) just about the biggest load of twaddle you’ve heard in a while? And when is Hollywood going to get around to making the Maher Arar story?

Oh, wait--it kind of already has. (Too bad it tanked at the box office.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:54 | link | comments

Come an' listen to a story 'bout a man, Barack/A glib sort a feller full of lots and lots of talk/Said, "Over there in Washington's the place I gotta be"/So they loaded up the truck and they all moved to D.C...: Swimmin' pools. Movie stars:

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:05 | link | comments (5)

Fool us twice, thrice--um, anyone know what comes after thrice?--shame on us: Why is this man smiling? Sure, it could be because of the smooth and shapely photo-shopped blonde on the left. (I hear his Missus is so hairy she needs nuclear-grade Veet to depilate.) More likely it’s become, once again, he knows he’s playing the infidels for fools, and is utterly delighted at how they are willing to collude in their own demise. Amir Taheri (in the New York Post) describes the diabolical bamboozerly now underway in cloud cuckooland:

WHEN talks between Iran and the six major powers, including the United States, started in Geneva last month, the stated objective was to persuade the Islamic Republic to comply with the three unanimous UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran stop uranium enrichment or face further sanctions.

Yet, at the end of the Geneva session, the talks had clearly taken a different trajectory. The "5+1 group" appeared to have agreed to limit the talks to satisfying Iran's need for uranium fuel for its only atomic reactor. That the Iranian regime is already insisting on renegotiating the deal should not obscure what its negotiators won.

The talks ended with agreement on an idea first proposed by Russia in 2004. This would let Iran continue enriching uranium, then ship 75 percent of it to Russia for further enrichment. Russia would then send the higher-grade uranium to France for conversion to "fuel rods" for Iran's reactor.

The agreement satisfies Iran's principal demand: international acceptance of its enrichment program.

In exchange, the 5+1 group would get control of 75 percent of the uranium that Iran has enriched in one year -- thereby slowing by several months Iranian plans to build a bomb.

Under the regime's latest offer, however, it would exchange only small quantities of its enriched uranium against equivalent quantities of fuel rods. In other words, Iran is hanging on to the 1.5 tons of uranium it has already partly processed. If enriched further, that stock could yield the 25 kilos of higher-grade uranium needed for making one Hiroshima-size bomb.

The exercise is a classic in diplomatic deception…

Clearly, a lot more Obammmy hugs and kisses are in order.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:51 | link | comments

Power play: Hillary says the U.S. is adamantly opposed to UN efforts to criminalize criticism of Islam. At the same time, though, her boss has joined forces with the vicious control freaks of the UN's "human rights" division to do just that. Robert Spencer unpacks the hopeychangers’ double game and nails why it’s so treacherous (my bolds):

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has declared her opposition to attempts at the United Nations to criminalize “defamation of religions” – that is, to make it illegal to speak about the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists. Yet the Obama Administration is sending decidedly mixed signals about its commitment to free speech. Several weeks ago the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council on October 2, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”

Yet “incitement” and “hatred” are in the eye of the beholder — or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as “hate speech.” And now the President of the United States has given his imprimatur to this tyranny.

That one highlighted sentence explains why it’s bonkers to think that “hate speech” can be “balanced” with free speech (the Canadian approach), and why the attempt to do so should be squelched right away.

Throw out the baby with the bathwater (to use a cliché beloved by our Official Jews)? You bet your sweet Gharkad tree!

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

Still searching for scary Nazis in the age of “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”: Welcome to the CJC’s redesigned website. And don’t forget to click on the “Hate Speech” link, so you can get a fix on where the Ceej’s head is at, censorship-wise (i.e. lodged firmly up its backside):

Conclusion

As of this writing, the matter has not yet been resolved, but Canadian Jewish Congress has always maintained that the importance of section 13 lies in its ability to condemn formally expressions of hatred and to prevent their spread, rather than financially punishing the person who makes such statements.

Finally, there are those who observe, with seeming seriousness, that pre-Hitler Germany also had strict laws against hate speech but that these laws were insufficient to prevent the Holocaust. Thus, according to their reasoning, hate speech laws are useless and should be revoked. This is poor logic and poor history.

John Bookbinder, in his study of Weimar Germany, observes that “anti-Socialist or antisemitic violence, or for that matter inflammatory speech or writing, was dealt with harshly by the police and the judiciary” during the Wilhelmine era. We need to recognize that it was only during the post-war period of Weimar when German society – brutalized by the slaughter of the war, shocked by the unexpected defeat in the field, angered by the (perceived) punitive imposition of Versailles, abandoned by its Imperial traditions, and left unprotected by the collapse of the fragile democracy – plunged into social chaos. In the violence of the period that preceded the rise of Nazism, the legal system itself was a victim. To compare the situation of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s to present-day Canada is ludicrous.

Hateful speech has shown itself to be a necessary, if not sufficient precursor to acts of genocide and to the creation of systems of human misery that have spanned continents and generations.

The discourse of intolerance, repeated over generations, caused slavery to be seen as a normal state of affairs. Indeed, in the United States, it took war, not rational argument, to end it.

As for the Nazis, it took generations of repetition and elaboration of antisemitic tropes before they became self-evident.

As Alexander Tsesis has observed, “the ideology was so deeply entrenched that it seemed logical to them to round up Jews, put them in concentration camps and eventually try to exterminate them.” How is it that ideas that seem abhorrent today were the conventional wisdom of a few decades ago?

We cannot – and dare not – be insensitive to the power of language and its ability to shape our thoughts and behaviours. We ignore the power of language at our peril.

The problem with this line of thinking, of course, is that while “Nazi” language may be verboten in Pierre’s Trudeaupia, craven and/or clueless authorities have already signalled that it’s hands off when it comes to Islamic “antisemitic tropes”--and those are the ones that actually imperil us.

Kind of hard to make a case for censorship on that basis.

Update: What the...? The old site has made a stunning reappearance. Is the new one being rejigged in light of the Tsesis screw-up, perchance?

Update: Lucky a quick-thinking kitty took a screenshot for posterity.

Update: It's ba-ack with the hate speech spiel intact.

Update: Along with eradicating hate via HRCs and criminal "hate speech" laws, the Ceej wants the government to do away with poverty. Like, completely.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:42 | link | comments (5)

Sunday, 01 November 2009

Curbing their enthusiasm: Israel and Pakistan find common ground.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:01 | link | comments

The epitome of madness: Obama reaches out to mullahs, but not to Iranians keeping tabs on the mullahs’ human rights violations. Details by Michael Petrou in Maclean’s:

For five years, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, co-founded by McGill international law professor Payam Akhavan, has chronicled human rights abuses committed in Iran since 1979. The centre’s work is based on the conviction that an eventual transition to democracy will not be successful unless a culture of human rights and democratic governance is cultivated, and gross violators of human rights are held to account.

The centre has done exemplary work to this end, including a 125-page investigation into the torture and murder in Tehran of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi.

The centre has relied in the past on funding from the State Department, which the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has now cut off. It must be stressed that the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center does not send agents into Iran. It doesn’t smuggle weapons to militant opposition groups. There is nothing nefarious and much that is admirable about it.

Obama’s decision may be simply a crass attempt to jettison anything to do with his predecessor George W. Bush’s attempts to export democracy. Others involved with the centre fear his administration is willing to sacrifice human rights in Iran to get a deal on the nuclear issue.

Here is a report on the funding cutoff in the Boston Globe and commentary in the Wall Street Journal.

The centre’s budget is small. Their funding from the State Department, for example, amounted to $3 million. By way of comparison, the Canadian International Development Agency spent $2 million supposedly promoting democracy in Zimbabwe from 2003 to 2006. I have no idea what they did with that money because CIDA has ignored my access-to-information request about it for 30 months and counting.

(Amusingly, CIDA’s online explanation includes this gem: “Successful lobbying for amendments to the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.”)

My point is that perhaps Canada’s own government could channel a few of the millions of dollars that flows into CIDA and from there into the ether to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. It would be money well spent.

Promoting democracy in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe? What an egregious waste of cash. CIDA may as have well have frittered away millions on infrastructure in Hamas’s Gaza. Oh, wait…

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:54 | link | comments

Another selection from Left Side Story: A faded ingénue with a Q.C. (though not an OC) after her name sings:

I feel prissy, oh so prissy,

I feel prissy and hissy and right.

And it’s pissy that free-speechers feel the need to fight.

I feel balanced, oh so balanced.

I have talents for “balancing” speech.

And so prissy that I always practice what I preach.

See that prissy gal at the conf’rence there?

Who can that apparatchik be?

Such a prissy smile, such a prissy mind, such a prissy mien,

Such a prissy me!

I feel certain and empowered

Feel like dancing and singing out loud

For I’m loved by the whole no-men-kla-tu-ra crowd.

Free speechers chime in:

Have you met our “friend” the Czarina

The head of the CHRC?

You never have seen such a keener.

She is one who can’t stand it if you disagree.

She says she loves “rights”.

She says it’s her role.

It’s not just the “rights”

She loves the control.

It must be the cold or some sort of bug.

Or--hey, just a thought--she’s so frikkin’ smug.

Keep away from her type of thinking.

Know exactly what she’s been drinking:

Purple Kool-Aid, Trudeaupian kind.

Promotes “happy” thoughts--and effs up your mind!...

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:58 | link | comments (1)

The least beautiful sound I ever heard: Seeing West Side Story at Stratford last week jogged my memory about the song parody I wrote a few years ago when Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was deciding whether to give government sanction to sharia tribunals. Here it is, snatched from the scaramouche vaults:

Sharia.

Shall I pass some laws named sharia?

Incredibly unfair,

Some Muslim women swear

To me.

Sharia.

A system of laws called sharia.

I haven’t any doubt

We’ll keep the bad ones out--

You’ll see.

Sharia.

There will be no decapitations.

Muslim chicks will feel no obligations.

Sharia.

There’s nothing to fear from sharia…

Sharia.

Should I give thumbs up to sharia?

If not, ex-A-G Boyd

Will say she’s so annoyed,

And moan.

Sharia.

They want me to opt for sharia

To settle some disputes

With rules that oft refute

Our own.

Sharia

If you’re Muslim and male it’s aces

If you're not, best to seek other places.

Sharia.

They'll never stop flogging sharia…

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

Won't you be his neighbour?: The First Couple handed out goodies at the White House last night (something the President always likes to do, whether the treats are in the form of Hershey's kisses or cash for clunkers). While Michelle got all dolled up as a sexy leopard, Barack dressed up as...Mr. Rogers?

Way to scare the kiddies, Mr. President. (Guess his Jesus costume was at the cleaners.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:39 | link | comments (5)

Former CHRC chief calls free-speechers “freaks”; wants to retain state censorship to spare minorities’ “feelings”: The Toronto Star, a left-leaning rag which in the past has come out in favour of free speech, prints the ravings of a “human rights” geezer who’s trying to flog a book, and who wants "the media" to submit to "human rights" thinking on "free speech":

Sometimes it is useful to return to a contentious topic long after it has disappeared from the headlines, public passions have subsided and minds are perhaps more open to sober second thought.

One such subject is free speech vs. freedom from hate.

Um, when did it disappear from the headlines? Wasn’t it back in them as late as last week when a few champions of “freedom from hate”--what a deranged concept!--offered their two cents’ worth to a parliamentary committee?

A debate on it raged for months, triggered by complaints by a group of Muslims against Maclean's magazine for being allegedly anti-Islamic. But the issue was never fully resolved. Understandable, given that there's no easy answer.

Understandable, given that the complainers want sharia rules on speech to apply here is Canada, something that the clueless multicultists cannot--will not--see.

"Clearly both are desirable in any civilized society but they are often seen as being in conflict. Need this necessarily be so? Except as between unrepentant hate-mongers, on the one hand, and over-committed freedom of speech freaks, on the other, I do not see why they should be."

So writes Max Yalden, distinguished federal civil servant who spent years refereeing such competing rights while serving as Official Languages Commissioner (1977-84) and head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission ('87-96).

Over-committed freedom of speech freaks, eh? In the sage words Nile Rodgers, “Le Freak, c’est chic.” And, hey, it ain’t the over-committed censors, like Mr. Yalden and Ms. Lynch, who are going to keep the free world free.

In his just-released memoir, Transforming Rights: Reflections from the Front Lines, he is particularly critical of the media, the main trumpeters of free speech.

The media are "not entirely neutral." In fact, they have a conflict of interest that they rarely declare. "`Public interest' can sometimes get confused with what `interests the public,' i.e. what sells newspapers."

Yalden believes that the media shouldn't have any more rights or immunity than anyone else.

In fact, they don’t have “more rights”. They have the same rights as everyone else.

Free speech, yes. But there's the duty to curb hate: "We must, if we see ourselves as a civilized society, go after it as forcefully as we possibly can. Hate speech cannot be exempt from limits simply because it's been carried in the media."

We must, if we see ourselves as a civilized society, speak our minds without fear of being chastised and punished by the state. That’s what makes and keeps a society civilized. The alternative--the state decided what can and cannot be said--is a facet of totalitarian societies, not free ones.

The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly ruled that restrictions on hate speech "do not compromise the values of free speech."

Wrong. The Supreme Court ruled but once--a 4-3 decision in 1990--that Section 13, the “hate speech” provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act, should be retained. But as we know from the Moon Report, that ruling is way out of date since it was made at a time when there was no Internet, and is sorely in need of review and revision.

Yalden does not entirely dismiss the argument that the best defence against hate is public opprobrium (the censure-not-censor argument). But he's also "aware that editorialists who promote this line have newspapers to sell ... and are not usually members of the minorities who are subjected to abuse."

Yes, and we must do our utmost to protect “abused” minorities--even if they themselves evince clear hatred and racism, and even as Christians, who don’t fit into the category of abused minorities, are abused, harassed and scorned by state mechanisms.

Human rights issues are not well-served by the media, which "thrive on exaggeration and sensationalism, and have little regard for accuracy when it suits them not to."

The same point was made last year by the Quebec commission on reasonable accommodation, which accused some Montreal media outlets of inventing a crisis.

Far better to ignore the crisis and accommodate sharia. Keeps things so much calmer and "civilized," don’t you know.

As for the Muslim group's case against Maclean's, Yalden told me that he, too, would have dismissed it, as the federal human rights commission and the one in B.C. did, while the one in Ontario rejected it for want of jurisdiction.

But he upholds the right of people to file complaints: "Where there's a right, there must be a remedy."

Where there’s a will (to make everyone kowtow to sharia), there’s a way to make them do it, more like. What Yalden’s line means (where there’s a right, there must be a remedy for that right? come again?) is anybody’s guess.

Update: A "freak" responds:

Max Yalden claims that we need to put limits on free speech in order to protect “minorities” from having to suffer the “abuse” of “hate speech.” But that is to ignore the fact that free speech is the pre-requisite for a free, civilized society; that members of minorities can be just as “racist” and abusive as anyone else; and that most of the people who are being “abused” at the moment are Christians who are being hounded and abused by the state under the auspices of our Human Rights Commissions. If Canada hopes to remain strong and free and, yes, civilized, we need more “over-committed freedom of speech freaks,” as Yalden derisively calls them, and less state harassment conducted in the name of “human rights.”

Or, to paraphrase Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the state has no business in the minds of the nation.

Update: BCF had a post a few days ago about the Max 'n' Harpoon team (both of whom have won an Order of Canada, which speaks volumes about this here Trudeaupia).

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:04 | link | comments (5)

Your silence is requested, nay, demanded: Why are leftists (like Islamists; like atheistic totalitarians) so disturbed by free speech? As Ralph Peters explains, it’s because allowing for criticism invariably reveals their shortcomings, and because he who controls the discourse controls the world:

…So the White House temper tantrum over the popularity of Fox News is perfectly understandable: It's just leftists being leftists. They fear that leftwing theories, long discredited in practice, will die like vampires if exposed to the light of day.

For decades, the left has "owned" our media (as well as our schools and universities). Even today, Fox News remains the single national voice of dissent in television. Every other broadcast or cable network that presents the news demonstrates a left-of-center bias, from the button-down liberalism of ABC through the soft-core activism of CNN to the screwball extremism of MSNBC.

If the left's vision for humanity is so superior, you'd think leftists could live with alternative views. But the left is totalitarian at heart and can no more tolerate debate than al Qaeda's fanatics can accept religious diversity.

The American media elected Obama. No presidential candidate's past ever went so deliberately underexposed. So the attack on Fox may simply have been payback to the networks that are hemorrhaging viewers, the equivalent for the media of a night in the Lincoln bedroom.

Whatever the rationale, Team Obama's apparatchiks were fully in step with the global left's war on freedom of speech.

The Hopeychanger has no clothes! (Is one still free to say that at a time when Obama has thrown in his lot with the totalitarian UNHRC?)

Update: The new (old) hopeychangey theme song.

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