Politics and Religion

Feeling myself subdued....

2008-01-13T18:57:00.001-08:00

Test. Comments should be disabled.

Subject off limits per EU and UN orders. Coming soon to a courthouse near you.

Closed until further notice.

Musharraf Cracks Down

2007-11-04T18:39:00.000-08:00

Pakistan is trying to live up to Time's (actually Newsweek's, the cover with Islamic Rage Boy -- Chip) most dangerous label.

Islamic extremism in Pakistan?!

ISLAMABAD — Police wielding assault rifles rounded up opposition leaders and rights activists today after Pakistan's military ruler suspended the constitution, ousted the top justice, and deployed troops to fight what he called rising Islamic extremism.
Michelle Malkin has a good summary and analysis.
Jeffrey Imm:
The failure of American leadership to have a policy on Islamism has prevented the ability to provide a pro-active coherent policy in Pakistan that addresses both the strategic issues of pro-Islamist Pakistani public sentiment along with support in areas of the government and public for the Taliban, as well as the tactical issues of fighting “extremists” in Afghanistan who have found safe haven in NWFP in Pakistan.
Ali Eteraz suggests Secretary Rice might be insincere about democracy in Pakistan. Insincerity in diplomacy?!
Disengaged western audiences, pumped full of the current pro-democracy intoxicants, will almost universally decry Musharraf's behaviour. I decry it too, precisely because I am a disengaged westerner and I have that luxury.
However, the story in Pakistan is not so straightforward. What I am being told by bazari merchants, some young professionals, and some industrialists in Karachi and Lahore is that they merely care for stability, whether it comes in the form of the military, or in the form of democracy. Incidentally, many of them believe that it is Musharraf who is more likely to assure that stability. A couple of people, with middle class businesses, suggested to me that Musharraf should behave more like a dictator; a secular version of the previous Islamist dictator, Zia ul Haq, in order to assure stability for business and economic growth.
However, that is a minority view. The democratic push in Pakistan is not some sort of romantic affair pitting slaves against a demonic genocidal Stalin. Musharraf made his errors (like the Red Mosque fiasco and the
disappearances linked to the War on Terror) but he is not homicidal. Cinema, music, the arts and freedom of press are thriving in Pakistan. The popular satire programme - "We are Expecting" - has a regular character mocking Musharraf, which does nothing more than grunt and proclaim "Yes!" in a loud voice.
Musharraf has, in fact, helped the Pakistani economy and business, admitted even by democracy-promoting analysts. Until this year, when the democracy push struck, construction projects were booming and money from Dubai was pouring in. In fact, a study published by the anti-military newspaper, Dawn, showed that: "Nonetheless, in the eight year period since the latest take over by the military, the size of the economy increased by almost 50% and that of income per head of the population by nearly 25%."
I hope all those Islamic Bombs stay tucked away.
A.Q. Khan says Western governments repeatedly tried to prevent Pakistan from developing a nuclear weapon capability, but they were foiled by the greed of their own companies: "Many suppliers approached us with the details of the machinery and with figures and numbers of instruments and materials ... In the true sense of the word, they begged us to purchase their goods. And for the first time the truth of the saying, They will sell their mother for money,' dawned on me. We purchased whatever we required..."
PJM's giant link dump

Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays

2007-09-05T14:12:00.000-07:00

Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays -- Onion News Network

Guardian's Neocon Fascists Seek World Domination

2006-12-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

Uncle Sam needs a push

there is no longer any part of the world that is not our business, too

This breathtaking push for hegemony is reminiscent of of Genghis Khan. Why did they choose to reveal their plan for world domination right now?

Ending the embargo on Castro's Cuba, of course.

Kathryn Robinson, of the Australian National University: WTF?!

2006-10-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

Some lies are easier to spot than others.

Queensland Islamic Council spokesman Sultan Deen said it was unacceptable to kill someone because they chose to leave their religion.

He said families should use other methods to convince a relative not to abandon their religion, but said killing was never appropriate.

“There are other ways to deal with it, you talk to them and try to work it out but you don't kill them, if they're going to go they are going to go,” he said.

“In no circumstances in Islam are you allowed to take another person's life, no-one can say the Koran tells you to do that.”

Islam expert Kathryn Robinson, from the Australian National University, said most Muslims would be horrified by the death.

“Clearly there is something going on about the type of control that father wanted to have over his family, but you can't blame the religion.”

Really? I'm sure the father who killed his wife in an effort to kill his daughter is familiar with the central tenants and texts of Islam. Otherwise he wouldn't have acted as he did. After "the Qur'an" (only slightly less explicit on death for apostasy) come ahadith and the Sunnah. Those are horribly explicit on the issue.

Woe to him who changes (his religion) after me.

...for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "

' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"

Search "Islam kill religion" for more.

What would we do without "Islamic expert(s)"?

Robert Spencer's Jihad/Dhimmi Watch is always a good resource for the unvarnished truth about Islam if the clear statements of the ayatollahs and imams aren't available due to the mainstream media blackout of their off-camera remarks. Death for apostasy in Islam is not debatable by serious students of Islam.

Pretending something isn't true is not the same thing as dealing with the issue forthrightly. It's possible to mount arguments against the morality and behaviors of the Seventh Century, but only if the so-called experts first admit the problem exists. The Australian National University should ask for its money back.

Word of the Century?

2006-10-06T23:41:00.001-07:00

I hope it's not sahwa.

Contrast that very important bit of information with this well-funded tripe at the Boston Globe. It's from Hah-vahd.

It's not a big secret unless you still rely on newspapers or TV for information. That's so last millenium.

Wake-Up Call: Brigitte Gabriel

2006-09-30T23:51:00.000-07:00

Pay particular attention to the first question 31:25 into the presentation.
Europe is doomed if that's the best solution they can muster. Gabriel takes the passive European multiculturalist "moderate Muslims" solution out of the park, over the street, and down the railroad tracks. "Actions speak louder than words."

Amen!

Another brave woman, Diana West, wonders about the moderates as well.

It's a female three-fer. This is the only article I've ever seen which deals with the very real problem of radical Islam at universities.
Candace de Russy notices a real root cause: higher education. The usual tropes about poverty and alienation almost never reflect actual jihadis, who tend to be well off and educated.

Algerian at the UN lectures US on human rights

2006-09-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, the world has gone completely mad. Inmates not only run the asylum, but the state board which governs the asylum.

Of course the Islamic government in Algeria doesn't want terror plotters to give up information, but using human rights as an excuse under UN cover is particularly hypocritical.

Alice:

"We call on the government to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and, until that time, to refrain from any practice amounting to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," they said.

The statement was read out by Leila Zerrougui, the Algerian chairwoman of the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention.

Wonderland:

The human rights situation in Algeria is terrible. Thousands of men, women and children have been killed, many massacred in their own homes, both by security forces and the government-backed militias or by extremist Islamic groups. Thousands more were arrested and imprisoned, many without charges or trials, and hundreds have been sentenced to prison after unfair trials. Torture by the security forces is widespread, both at secret detention centers and in prison. The security forces continue to "disappear" people, and the fate of thousands of the disappeared remains unknown.

Of course Reuters won't even consider telling you the real story.

Even anti-American and pro-Islamist Human Rights Watch has trouble putting a fig leaf over Algeria.

The issue of prisoner treatment is now before Congress and the UN is already involved. Anyone else see something wrong with this picture? I guess we need to save a seat for the UN representative from here on out.

But worst of all, Algerians presently in Gitmo (if they exist) cannot be sent to Algeria due to all the HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS!

Iran: How to Win Friends and Still Kill Millions of People

2006-09-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

When did everyone forget the early space boosters doubled as ICBM's? China is planning on providing Iran with advanced ICBM technology under the guise of a "space program."
As if we needed any more proof Iran is racing towards nuclear weapons, here it is.

Finally! Suing Ahmadinejad for Incitement to Genocide

2006-08-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

The lawsuit, whose main points are being published here for the first time, is based on the 1948 UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, one of the most important conventions in international law.
Indeed it is. Where are AI, HRW, and the rest when it comes to the Hitler (but with less nuance) of our era?

Unfrozen Enlightenment Caveman Voter

2006-08-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

Unfrozen Caveman Voter

For people trying to understand American public opinion but questioning recent use of polling "data." Numbers depend on phrasing.

Don't caricature this attitude with a desire for more invasions, more nation-building, more regime-change, random airstrikes, or wanton slaughter. It's hard to say just what policy exactly might satisfy the caveman demographic. But really, the Unfrozen Caveman Voter intuits a large portion of the art of warfare: opportunities must be created and then exploited -- or if they come by luck, they must be exploited all the same. And finally, the use of extreme and otherwise intolerable violence is necessary if used in the service of victory.

Hollah! Sam (SM) ("Egyptian Sandmonkey," rants)

FTR, I'm not a WASP or from New England.

There's good multicultural and bad multicultural. It's like touching.

Not sure why anyone would risk summing up the greatest intellectual movement in western history - not noted for simplicity - this way:

The Enlightenment, however, by consigning Christianity to the private sphere, also removed the basis and justification for these values in the public sphere.

It's much simpler with examples. The bible, qur'an, torah, hadith, sunnah, davinci code, all books, are entitled to no special protection or privilege under the law, but equal protections. They're books. That's the Enlightenment view if we're extreme generalizing. Generalizing is not necessary.

Baruch
Spinoza

John
Locke

Wikilock
Wikispin

Pico della Mirandola: Renaissance or Enlightenment?

Wikipico

The French Revolution? (from "Enlightenment view") The French Enlightenment (Rousseau, Voltaire) wasn't the blueprint for successful governance, or particularly relevant to the major English thinkers.

I don't have the time to explain how unenlightened the French Revolution became.

American "democracy" (a representative republic, limited government, federal system, state sovereignty, enumerated federal powers, pre/post Civil War, no establishment or infringing on religion...), one could argue, succeeded in large part due to the popularity of Deism.
Thomas Paine:

The Persian shows the Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster, the lawgiver of Persia, and calls it the divine law; the Bramin shows the Shaster, revealed, he says, by God to Brama, and given to him out of a cloud; the Jew shows what he calls the law of Moses, given, he says, by God, on the Mount Sinai; the Christian shows a collection of books and epistles, written by nobody knows who, and called the New Testament; and the Mahometan shows the Koran, given, he says, by God to Mahomet: each of these calls itself revealed religion, and the only true Word of God, and this the followers of each profess to believe from the habit of education, and each believes the others are imposed upon.

But when the divine gift of reason begins to expand itself in the mind and calls man to reflection, he then reads and contemplates God and His works, and not in the books pretending to be revelation. The creation is the Bible of the true believer in God. Everything in this vast volume inspires him with sublime ideas of the Creator. The little and paltry, and often obscene, tales of the Bible sink into wretchedness when put in comparison with this mighty work.

The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence?

Society is built on intellectual presumptions, or "pillars" for effect.

Deism is one ?small? historical ideological pillar of the United States, unlike the dominant historical European sectarian secularism. Given Thomas Paine's use of several major religious figures in writing of the times, in the Colonies/United States religion was very much in the public sphere. Many warring European religions coexisted in the United States.

Whenever you read George S. Patton quotes (UCV)...

"Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood. But remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and remained slaves."

And then this,

"We Americans are a competitive race ... We love to win. In this next fight, you are entering the greatest sporting competition of all times. You are competing with Americans and with Allies for the greatest prize of all -- victory."

...it's important to remember he was a working theorist trying to defend the cavalry services, modernize armored forces, and convey a particular image to his soldiers. Patton was calculated and professional, contrary to many depictions of him in film. He scrupulously followed orders and accepted command discipline. Patton was a secular, professional warrior whatever his personal beliefs about religion. Patton knew that unnatural organization, logistics, yet aggression, and courage were advantageous in warfare.

As an unfrozen caveman blogger, scared by your blogging tools and viruses, not a strategist for either party, I'll simply (and that's all I know) conclude with this:

It's not healthy in our republic for such a large slice of the populace to be unrepresented by any politician. But that is the case today. Soon enough it will change. Just remember what happened to Phil Hartman's Caveman Lawyer:

"Thank you! Thank you very much, thank you! First of all, let me say how happy I am to be your nominee for the United States Senate! . . . I don't really understand your Congress. . . because, as I said during the campaign - I'm just a caveman! I fell on some ice, and later got thawed out by scientists. But there is one thing I do know - we must do everything in our power to lower the Capital Gains Tax. Thank you!"

Olmert the Johnson-McNamara of Israel?

2006-08-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

This won't end well.

If true, this explains a lot of what we've been seeing. War is not politics. Politics is not war. But war is politics by other means. Politicians and generals sometimes forget the first two, usually politicians. Towards the end of his career General Douglas MacArthur dabbled in politics and watched the Chinese come streaming over the Yalu River.

Politicians: objectives

Generals: means

Got it?

UPDATE: apparently not

UPDATE: "Right-wing" Haaretz?

Perhaps Reuters should have said a "broad strata" of Israeli society thinks Olmert is not up to the job?

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a backlash on Friday over a U.N. proposal to end the war in Lebanon, with army officers saying they were held back and right-wing rivals calling for new elections.

"Olmert must go," read a front page headline in Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.

Military incompetence when under rocket fire and threats of annihilation from the patron of the shooters negates partisan affiliation apparently. Notice how there's a right wing but the left only leans? Check news articles for "left wing." You'll almost never see it, even applied to former members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang who became EU politicians. The only extreme tends to be right. But Haaretz got a "left-leaning" from Reuters which is progress(ive).

Iran's Aryan Obsession

2006-08-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

Most people don't know that Iran's leader at the time was a big fan of Adolph Hitler. "Iran" - the name given to Persia in 1935 - was intended to connote a connection to the original Aryans. The "Aryans," you may recall, were a big hit in Germany. German scientists, when not trading the Arc of the Covenant back and forth with Dr. Indiana Jones, were using the pseudoscience of the time to prove - measuring noses, foreheads, and skull bumps - a racial linkage back to the original Aryans. Given the state of DNA technology today, this story would be funny if it weren't associated with the last major global conflict which destroyed much of human civilization and killed tens of millions of people.

Don't say nobody warned you (dropping a cluster blog)

2006-08-08T01:08:00.000-07:00

Terror cult clue time hat tip: No Pasaran

Multiculturalism is great when you mean restaurants, clothing, or holidays.

Before political correctness and multiculturalism disarmed the West intellectually...

After After After

Downfall of the Netherlands, a book far ahead of its time, and censored using prior restraint.

How did we forget that Israel's story is the story of the West? Charles Moore, one reason to read the Telegraph.

Quote of the last three centuries?

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine‹must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science‹the science against which it had vainly struggled‹the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Ten months since the countdown started. Anyone plan on doing something?

Not the Left's plan: Throwing the Jews Under the Bus.

My Joe Lieberman Post

2006-08-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

First posted at Dr. Sanity - "Joe Lieberman's Sin".

I welcome refutations of the factual observations I make in this piece. If the truth of it hurts you deeply, feel free to vent angrily. I'd love to post your unhinged rantings in a future post.

OK, I'll say it.

The Left is now mainstreaming the notion Israel is "a mistake." This comes months after normalizing the notion HAMAS and Hizballah want "to destroy Israel." They're fine with that. The Left thinks Israel's supporters are dupes of AIPAC and the "Jewish Lobby" of Walt and Mearsheimer. The Left buys into the old "dual loyalties" argument which plagues Jews only for some reason. Anyone can have mixed motivations, but if it's Jews somehow the term morphs into treasonous sounding "dual loyalties." The Left's major enemy these days is the "neocons" - codeword for Jews in power. Ever since the 1967 War and Israel's backtrack from socialism, the Left has been turning away from Israel. Leftist icons like Fisk, Raimondo, Kossholes, etc., believe Jews control America.

But worst of all, Lieberman is a practicing Jew. Few on the Left would admit that has anything to do with it. That's what all the arguments in the first paragraph are used for: dressing up anti-Semitism.

I support Israel because it angers all the bigoted scumbags on the Left. All this crap about "Jewish State" and "Apartheid State" ignores the fact every state ruled by Muslims is bigoted against non-Muslims. Israel allows non-Jews power in government. In other Arab-Muslim states there might be one or two legislated token Jews, and that's it.

If you're not angry yet, the modern Left is merely an extension of radical socialist organizations which have always demonized their opponents and usually tried to reeducate or exterminate them.

And before some leftist bigot asks, no, I'm not Jewish. I don't particularly like organized religion and I'm not of the "Jewish race" whatever that means.

But nothing makes me angrier than the disgusting bigots on the Left I've been debating for decades. What could possibly be worse than hypocritical, preachy, bigots?

To me, nothing.

UPDATE: links

Notice that Lanny Davis, linked last, seems to think Ann Coulter's biting sarcasm is on par with the vicious anti-Semitism so common on the "Progressive" Left. Until the Left honestly looks at what it's been for decades, and remains, only continued image scrubbing by the mainstream media can protect its political influence. Bringing Zuniga "Kos" into the public sphere while ignoring the views of his supporters is the best recent example. Relying on bigotry for support, then covering it up, is no way to run a big tent. I could list many examples from the CBC, or among other elected Democrats, but you know who they are. If someone can't decide between Hizballah and Israel, that person might be an anti-Semite.

UPDATE: The intellectual Left finally responds.

Here's a brilliant analysis of my arguments and the situation in Iraq weighing all the sectarian divisions, considering the nascent Arab democracy, America's foreign policy interests over the coming decades, and what our relations should be with the Iraqi government. Oh, who am I kidding? This is their typical kinky and scatological output.

Look, I don't know what the fuck Joe has done for you lately (precious bloody little, I bet) but his unwavering, Dubya-asslicking support for Iraq must make even people like you say 'what the fuck? vote for that brain-dead piece of crap again'? No way.
Lieberman's an idiot.

Thanks! Any more takers?

Insanity is just another opinion

2006-07-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

A Skeptic on 9/11 Prompts Questions on Academic Freedom

“I want to avoid as much as we can creating some kind of a political test for instructors or faculty, to say that only those whose thinking fits within some predetermined mold are well equipped to teach our students,” Mr. Farrell said. “I think that creates a dangerous precedent.”

There are countless topics which no professor would dare raise in university classrooms all over the nation. "Hate speech" regulations and "diversity" being the buzzwords for a kinder, gentler totalitarianism, insanity somehow slips through the cracks. Let's talk about gender affecting intelligence! Whoops, you're fired.

Anyone who's seen this Barrett nut on TV knows he's at least six or seven slices short of a full loaf. But being in a protected class (Muslim convert) means he can spew any venom he wants to a captive, paying audience. If we offend him he might kill us after all. And it would be our fault for offending Barrett's hypersensitive belief system. As the essayist fjordman notes:

In this age of Multiculturalism and cultural relativism, the only places we can identify evil and fight it are in fictional worlds, be that the Middle Earth of Tolkien or the Hogwarts of JK Rowling. Maybe that's why it's such a relief to visit them, if only for a few hours. In the real West, our Universities would advice us to negotiate with Sauron and identify his legitimate grievances. Our media would say that the real reason why the Orcs kill people is because they suffer from institutionalized racism and Orcophobia. We would all get sensitivity training, invite Orcs to settle in our major cities by the millions and teach our children about the richness of Orc culture.

Barrett's "freedom" to speak is totally and fairly constrained by the subject matter. If I were to teach a class on American history, and I practiced Scientology, it would not be proper to go into a week-long diatribe on Scientology's theory of alien seeding of the planet. Barrett is trotting out the same "theory" one might hear on a seedy street corner in Karachi. Does nobody see the obvious connection between Barrett's newfound faith and his penchant for Jew-hating conspiracy theories?

When did Bush hatred and conspiracy theories, not bordering on, but right in the heartland of insanity become intellectual topics?

The New York Times has overgenerously labeled Mr. Barnett a "skeptic." Really? I thought skeptics were on the sharp edge of Occam's Razor.

You be the judge:

Intellectual?

What about this?

Would you call these people "skeptics"?
The traditional theory suggests people trample crops with boards. Needs a good shaking out perhaps?

Speaking truth to power?

You want credentials?

I have a theory that the Left has become completely unhinged from reality. They could not deal with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and have been rooting aimlessly for something to take down the horrible American Empire ever since. In their desperation they've hitched onto a Seventh Century belief system which features misogyny, beheadings, kidnapping, suicide bombing, and snuff videos. Despite thousands of fatal, brutal attacks, admissions by the culprits on video, celebrations in the Middle East, millions of witnesses, and the lionization of the "Magnificent Nineteen" the Left simply couldn't adjust to 9/11. That particular attack, moreso than the first attack ON THE SAME TARGET in 1993, actually caused Americans to perceive a real external threat. That meant greater support for Israel and more defense spending, violating the two main catechisms of the Left since 1967. Worst of all, they feel George W. Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore and will do anything to bring him down.

Think I can get a grant to study it further?

The Islamists Are Winning

2006-07-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

Do you agree?

Those who retain a faith in the ‘force of reason’ may wish it otherwise. Yet just as unreason plainly marks many aspects of the creed of Islam, so it also vitiates the cause of the non-Muslim world. Among the latter’s irrationalities is the myopic belief — held by the non-Muslim Israelophobe and the firebreathing Islamist together — that Israel, the ‘Jewish lobby’ in the US and the actions of Jews in general stand at the heart of this third world war. This belief, akin to that of the Nazis in the second world war, is of the greatest significance in one respect above all; indeed, it could be said to be the West’s Achilles heel. For it is a belief which permits, and even invites, Islamists to play (to their own advantage) upon a favourite prejudice of non-Muslims of all political persuasions. With the other moral debilities that afflict us, it makes it more likely that this war with Islam will ultimately be lost.

David Selbourne’s latest book, The Losing Battle With Islam, was published in the United States by Prometheus Books in November 2005.

Update (for an excerpt, not the website)

Covering the war

2006-07-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

Times, UK

On the spot: Lebanese dead lie in rubble

WaPo's Cohen Consigns Israel to Asheap of History

Hunker Down With History

fisking fisking fisking

fitzing

I'll bet Robert Fisk quotes Cohen at some point.

Israeli Planes Batter Lebanon Again, Killing 30 People

Oh, by the way, over a hundred rockets were fired at Israel...

Hezbollah fires over 100 rockets at northern Israel

One killed in Katyusha strike on house in Nahariya

The fresh volleys struck also Safed, Hatzor, Carmiel, Moshe Sde Eleizer, Acre, Kiryat Shmona, Tiberias, the Krayot region (Haifa suburbs of Kiryat Yam, Kiryat Haim, and Kiryat Ata), Hatzor Haglilit, Yesod Hama'ala, the central Golan Heights, and the Haifa Bay region.

War coverage is all about Israel's strikes in Lebanon with little mention of the ongoing Hiz'b'Allah rocket blitz of Israel. Haaretz, for whatever reason, finds the more recent rocket strikes to be newsworthy.

Israel is besieged by at least two kinds of unguided Iranian rockets. The Fajr-3 and it's larger sibling the Fajr-5 are both Katyusha knockoffs. It sounds like smaller launchers and perhaps smaller rockets are being employed, along with small Katyusha launchers, perhaps single or double tubes.

The anti-ship stealth cruise missile which damaged the Israeli missile boat is the "Kosar," IDF-designated the C-802.

Another missile engaged thus far is the larger "Zelzal" ballistic missile destroyed in Beirut.

Hiz'b'Allah is using a low tech but massive arsenal of unguided rockets to terrorize much of Israel. They have access to advanced Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles.

While the Lebanese are certainly victims of the war, the rocket barrage coming from Lebanon receives scant attention by comparison.

Deeyah!

2006-07-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

If you don't like it, don't watch the video.

Deeyah interview

Threats

'Muslim Madonna' - Brace for another muslims' riot, bloodshed
Feb 24, 2006

She's smart.

Why is it important to you to make it plain to the world that you are speaking as a Muslim woman?

Because it has become so important to some Muslim leaders and extremists to discredit me as a Muslim, I have had to justify my existence as a “Muslim artist”. I have now inadvertently become a sort of spokeswoman for a younger generation western-born Muslim women. I never really set out to do this. My heritage is something I’ve always been proud of but never forced onto people. Despite this I have never really been allowed to just be an artist and to get on with just music. My background has always become an issue (and a negative one at that) within the community. After years of trying to be the obedient and quiet girl that I was told to be if I wanted to earn support from the community, my efforts were always proven to be wrong and of no use. Proven wrong usually by extremes (mostly men) who were afraid of losing their power in a changing community. The fact that I have chosen a profession that is largely considered unacceptable and not respectable for a Muslim woman has always attracted not just insults and condemnation from certain sections of the community, but also intimidation and physical attacks and threats. It is only after more than 10 years of being silent and quietly taking this abuse that I decided to speak out.

Israel's strategic depth

2006-07-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Comparison to Maryland and Virginia

Israel and Border States

West Bank

United States Civil War battles, Virginia

International Pressure on Bush

2006-07-15T02:17:00.000-07:00

NYT

U.S., Needing Options, Finds Its Hands Tied

The administration may yet reconsider its approach in light of the escalating tensions. After all, Ms. Rice has already gone further toward traditional diplomacy than many neoconservatives within the administration would like, by prodding Mr. Bush to offer to join European talks with Iran on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Bush Declines to Call for Israeli Cease-Fire
Other World Leaders Denounce Military Strikes Against Lebanon, Which Seeks U.N. Action

"One can ask oneself whether there isn't a sort of desire to destroy Lebanon," French President Jacques Chirac, who will be among the leaders meeting with Bush here, said in a television interview. "I find, honestly, like most Europeans, that the reactions are completely disproportionate." He added that he also considered Hezbollah guerrillas "completely irresponsible" for firing rockets at Israel.

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Israel was "making a mistake" in striking Lebanon because "it won't bring anything other than an escalation of violence." The Vatican said it "deplores right now the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation." Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian chief, called Israel's attacks a "violation of international law," adding, "You are supposed to do something to the armed group. You are not supposed to hurt the children of people who have nothing to do with this."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is hosting the Group of Eight summit, already is moving to put the fighting on the agenda as draft statements were being written. "We will press all the parties to immediately stop the bloodshed," he said.

Ynet: Report: Israel gives Syria ultimatum

London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat says Israel gave Syria 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity, bring about release of kidnapped IDF troops. ‘Israel will not end military activity until new situation created that will prevent Syria, Iran from using terror organizations to threaten its security,’ newspaper quotes Pentagon official as saying

Bush resists pressure on Israel

Mr. Bush called the leaders of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan to explore ways to end three days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Turning aside complaints that Israel is using excessive force, the president rejected a cease-fire plea from Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
"The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
In urging the U.N. Security Council to impose a cease-fire, Lebanese Foreign Ministry official Nouhad Mahmoud said Israel's stepped-up military campaign was aimed at "bringing Lebanon to its knees and subverting it by any means."

Mission imperative
By Victor Davis Hanson
July 15, 2006

Ultimately, the Bush administration needs to do a better job of presenting this current war in a far larger context. Jihadists of the Arab world for decades have been at war not with George Bush alone, but with modernity itself. The radical Middle East street may be fascinated by the Internet, satellite television, ATMs and cell phones -- but not by the foreign anathema of democracies, religious tolerance, free markets and gender equality that ultimately accounts for such goodies.
Here at home, we witness the end of the multicultural dogma. Yes, there are really evil people who wish to kill us for who we are, not what we do -- and they embrace cultural assumptions that are not just different from our own, but, let us be honest enough to admit it, far worse.
So, there are many fronts in our struggle against Islamic terrorists from the seventh century. The American people must be reminded of our challenges constantly in lieu of platitudes about the inevitable triumph of freedom and democracy. In short, our government should provide much more explanation of this complex war and far less simple declarations about it.

A new war, but both sides recall old ones

Artillery, rockets and tanks mass along the border

“This was a very bad gamble,” Alex Fishman of Yedioth Ahronoth wrote of Hezbollah’s attack on Wednesday. “(Israel) is acting as if every valve that had been locked for six years has been released and all restraints are off. Everything is permissible.”

In Maariv, Ben Caspit demanded Churchillian resolve from Israelis facing Hezbollah rockets — about 80 missiles hit Israeli towns yesterday, killing a woman and her five-year-old grandson and wounding more than 40 people,. “Not for naught is a parallel being made here between terminology from the World War Two period, the tenacious British resistance against Hitler’s blitz. This threat must be abolished. Nasrallah must die.”

Radical Shiite Cleric Hints at Militia Attacks to Protest Israel’s Actions

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 14 — The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr said Friday that Iraqis would not “sit by with folded hands” while Israel struck at Lebanon, signaling a possible increase in attacks from his mercurial militia, the Mahdi Army.

Readers' Opinions
Forum: The Middle EastIn a written statement, Mr. Sadr also said that he considered the United States culpable in the conflict unfolding in Lebanon, since America was the largest foreign ally of Israel.

Mr. Sadr’s statement was issued at a time of rising tensions between the American military and the Mahdi Army, with American forces carrying out raids against Mahdi hideouts and arresting senior leaders.

American commanders have strongly denounced militias in recent days and have pledged to try to curtail the militias’ death squads, which they say are feeding the spiraling cycles of sectarian violence. Many Sunni Arabs blame the Sadr militia for abductions and killings, including an episode on July 9 in which militiamen seized up to dozens of Sunni Arabs in the Jihad neighborhood of Baghdad and shot them in the head.

“Eyes are shedding tears, and the heart feels pain and sadness for our people in Lebanon due to the bombing, terror and clear aggression that the Zionist enemy conducts and that is shielded by a number of countries, including the United States,” Mr. Sadr said in the statement.

“Let it be known to everybody that we in Iraq will not sit by with folded hands before the creep of Zionism,” the statement continued.

The fury was echoed in a Friday mosque sermon given by a cleric allied with Mr. Sadr, Sheik Asad al-Nasri, to worshipers from the southern holy cities of Kufa and Najaf.

“We address all the arrogant powers of the world, including the United States and Israel, and tell them to realize the true reality and take lessons from history that show that all world powers, no matter how strong they are, prove to be failures and will definitely vanish,” the sheik said...

Syria says fully backs Hizbullah against Israel

"The Syrian people are ready to extend full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance to remain steadfast and confront the barbaric Israeli aggression and its crimes," said a communique from the party's national command issued after a meeting. (Reuters)

Cry havoc, and let slip the puppies of war

2006-07-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Cry havoc, and let slip the puppies of war
By Spengler

Dogs of war incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is. Gavrilo Princeps, the Serbian gunman who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand dead in June 1914, was a puppy. So are the Hamas kidnappers, who at this writing still hold Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the Mehdi Army shooters who reportedly disposed of several dozen Sunni civilians in Baghdad on the weekend. The North Koreans, by contrast, are just nasty old dogs who long ago got loose from their leash.

Wars start because no one wants to disown his dog. If your dog bites a neighbor, your neighbor well might come after you with a shotgun. Nicholas II of Russia, I observed recently, did not want war in 1914 and until the end of July insisted that no war would break out. [1] But the Serbian puppies supported by his secret service dragged him into it willy-nilly. The past week's events in the Middle East have a disturbing feel of July 1914 about them.

Surprised? -- Rantings of a Sandmonkey

And then you read something like Hal's latest rant and you ponder the arab mentality. We are the only people in the world who talk about dignity and honor when it comes to military conflict, and who will continue fighting losing wars, unprepared and undermilitarized, because of reasons such as "our pride and dignity" and then wonder why the fuck we lose. I mean, can you imagine if the americans acted the same way? They would never have left Vietnam. They would stay in Iraq forever. You don't see a single american saying "we should stay in Iraq because our national pride and dignity are wounded by the insurgents attacks". Only we would use some half assed justification to keep fighting wars we can't win, where we keep getting our asses kicked, and some how don't see the folly in it at all.

Big powers are split as UN envoys begin work

THE big powers split yesterday over the fighting in the Middle East as leaders gathered for the G8 summit in Russia, with President Bush refusing to demand that Israel halt its military action.

President Putin, host of the summit in St Petersburg, called for an immediate end to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. “We assume that all sides in conflict should immediately end their military action. That should be the starting point for resolving all other problems,” Mr Putin told an international group of teenagers.

Are Israel's military tactics justifiable?

I am with you, Jeff Melvin; you are bang on. Anyway, the usual response will be to blame America ( I have even heard it suggested on the BBC - by one of their expert correspondents - that America is partly to blame for the bombs that went off in Bombay because apparently India is now thought to closer to the USA (those nasty capitalists).
If you can't blame the Americans then blame the Jews (that tiny nation which is threatened with extinction by Iran peacefully developing nuclear capabilties) and if you can't blame them then you can always blame the police I say - but whatever you do, do not blame the real culprits (those that invade Israel and capture its soldiers). If you want peace it is simple: hand back the captured soldiers and hand over those responsible (not forgetting those murdered in the capture).
My comments will now provoke responses of cries that it is all "tit for tat" thereby excusing the culprits. Blame the police I say.
Posted by Robert Wilson on July 14, 2006 12:54 PM

In response to the poster who seems to think that Hezbollah and Hamas have the right to oust "the occupier" under the Geneva Convention - first of all, neither Gaza or Lebanon were occupied by Israel at the time. Secondly, the soldiers were captured on Israeli soil - in other words, Israel was invaded by foreign forces and their people attacked. Add to that the daily bombardment that Israel suffers anyway and the only question is - why have they taken so long to do something?

Personally, I feel sorry for the Lebanese people. They don't want this, but it's being foisted on them by Syria and Iran. The embryonic Lebanese government - starting to get a life of it's own after finally kicking out the SYRIAN occupiers after 20 years are too weak to prevent Syrian and Iranian proxies from attacking their neighbour and now they have a new war on their land.

But put the blame for this where it truly lies. On the shoulders of the Syrian and Iranian governments.
Posted by Stan on July 14, 2006 1:27 PM

Podcast: Pajamas Media

And what a week to review! Moderator Austin Bay talks with the usual suspects, Tammy Bruce, Eric Umansky, and Glenn Reynolds. The topics: 1) Mumbai terror attacks, (2) Geneva Convention rights for Al Qaeda, and (3) Israel versus Hezbollah—and Iran. As always, Ed Driscoll produces.

Hugh Fitzgerald at Dhimmi Watch

Is Israel's bombing "disproportionate"? "Disproportionate" to what? So far, after all those bombs in three days of sensational and excited and much exaggerated coverage, a grand total of 73 people have died in Lebanon. How many of them were "innocent civilians," that is people who did not ardenly support the continued Hezbollah attacks on Israel when there was not a single Israeli soldier left in Lebanon? Given Israel's size, its lack of strategic depth, the fact that in the pre-1967 armistice lines it is 8 miles wide, and one has some idea of its pitifully tiny size by the fact that Haifa, that was hit with rockets "deep inside Israel," is a mere 18 miles from the Lebanese border. Israel cannot tolerate any of this. It may be difficult for Americans, with the Atlantic Ocean standing guard on one side, and the Pacific Ocean standing guard on the other, and reasonably friendly if often un-admiring Canada to the north, and perhaps too-friendly and a little too-admiring Mexico to the south, to quite perform the feat of imagination required to imagine what it must be like to live in Israel, what the real size of the country, and size of the dangers, are. But at least we should all close our eyes and try.

Today we celebrate King George III

2006-07-04T04:31:00.000-07:00

What's that?

Yes. Today we celebrate King George III.

By declaring the colonies (that's us) in open rebellion over a year before the Declaration of Independence he gave the Founding Fathers nothing to lose. By the time of the signing of the Declaration, the Redcoats had been driven from Boston and were closing on New York. Not long after that they were chasing our dimuntive Colonial Army through New Jersey. But thanks to George Washington's - ahem - strategic withdrawals, and a victory over the Hessians in Trenton, we quickly wrapped up the Revolution in - What's that? - 1783 with the signing of "the" Treaty of Paris.

By losing nearly 1% of the population (25,000) it was the costliest war in United States history, by percentage, excluding the Civil War.

Of course we showed them in the War of 1812.

What's that?

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most significant and well-reasoned documents in world history. But would the Continental Congress have drafted it in peacetime?

We'll never know.

Guardian's Steele thinks he can fool all of the people all of the time

2006-06-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

"The moral in Palestine is not that democracy brings instability, but that it is the failure of powerful forces to accept democracy's results that causes instability."

Some version of this argument makes up nearly the entire weight of "reasoning" as to why foreign governments should continue to support third and fourth generation "refugees" (read: mujahideen terrorists). This argument makes foreign aid some sort of entitlement program for terrorists.

Let's flip that one around, shall we?

George Bush was elected president in transparent democratic elections. Shouldn't the world accept that result and support his policies? Of course not. The Guardian could be published daily on one square of toilet paper if that were the case. Not a bad idea, much more useful.

Secondly, democracy can be defined many ways. If democracy is viewed as narrow process, majority rule, as Steele does here, there's not much to recommend it in places where the majority is bound and determined to wage a war of extermination on its neighbors. HAMAS advocates shari'a, rule by the Qur'an, and following the Sunna (See, HAMAS Charter, infra).

If that's democracy, Iran and Saudi Arabia are closely related to Jeffersonian ideals.

Liberty, rule of SECULAR law, civil institutions, and productive activity trump mere process. If those are valued, process-based democracy usually results. But to hold elections and claim the result is somehow magical and should be respected ignores elected brutes and fundamental norms which govern society.

One thing you'll never see in the Guardian are long passages from the HAMAS Charter.

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

"Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement."

"The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement adopts Islam as its way of life. Islam is its creed and religion. Whoever takes Islam as his way of life, be it an organization, a grouping, a country or any other body, the Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself as their soldiers and nothing more."

That leaves exactly no room for the ideals upon which nations build consensual government.

Spain should feel lucky Israel is still around to occupy HAMAS and its jihadist head-choppers. Once any territory is captured or settled by Islam it must always be reconquered until global conquest and the end of days. It's not called the Dar-al-Harb because jihadists want to have town meetings, focus groups, and use push polling.

No jihad would be complete without the media-dominating, money-grubbing, secret society conspiracy theories found in Article 22 of the HAMAS Charter. I'm not making this up:

For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

Democracy will bloom over there if we just sprinkle more money after the millions wasted already?

Please.

The journalists who continue to sugarcoat and lie about HAMAS's intentions - ignoring deep roots in Islamic shari'a, despotism, and warfare - are helping them wage the jihad as much, if not more than, the fumbling "militants" themselves. From Article 30:

Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake.

"Whosoever mobilises a fighter for the sake of Allah is himself a fighter. Whosoever supports the relatives of a fighter, he himself is a fighter." (related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, Abu-Dawood and al-Tarmadhi).

Obviously the Guardian's Steele is angling for the 72 virgins, little boys, and rivers of wine.

hat tip: Discarded Lies

Kofi Annan, just one question

2006-06-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

This means you're A-OK with the Jews who migrated into the territories which Israel captured during the 1967 war, right?
Oh, snap. You are a raging hypocrite after all. Why don't you try to keep UN "peacekeepers" from raping kids, m'kay? Then you can get back to preaching about things above your pay grade.

Just read it: Sword Without Leniency

2006-05-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sword Without Leniency
The West must scuttle arrogant materialism and take jihadists at their word.

Bruce Thornton puts into words what I've been thinking better than I ever could.

By refusing to take the jihadist at their word, we Westerners are indulging our own superstitions and received wisdom. We have accepted the unscientific assertion that all reality is material, and so we dismiss the spiritual as a superstitious fantasy, a hold-over from less enlightened times necessary for those benighted folks still mired in exploded beliefs and incapable of accepting the hard reality of God’s death. Afraid of facing the truth of their own repressions and neuroses, believers cling to these fantasies as bulwarks against all the changes they fear, especially the liberating progress and utopian boons that are mankind’s destiny once these old illusions are discarded.

This view of religious faith is on display everywhere in our culture, from television and movies and “high” art to the ruminations of “progressive” intellectuals and media pundits. The great irony is that this interpretation of religious faith is itself not a scientific truth but mere prejudice at best, bigotry at worst. And it is a stale cliché, the remnant of old Western ideas long discredited. With every expression of this received wisdom, we hear the ghost of Marx telling us that religion is “the opiate of the people,” the “illusory sun” we must discard, the instrument of oppression invented by the oppressor to keep his victims in check. We hear Nietzsche’s cry of liberating joy at God’s death: “We philosophers and ‘’free spirits’ feel, when we hear the news that ‘the old god is dead,’ as if a new dawn shone for us . . . . At long last the horizon appears free to us again.” And we hear another antitheist (because like the other two, he doesn’t so much disbelieve in God as dislike and resent Him), Freud, telling us that “religious ideas” are “illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind.”

Armed with these old materialist prejudices, we then treat the Muslim as one sick or confused, a victim of Western crimes, a neurotic who resorts to misunderstandings and distortions of his own faith in order to cope with events whose causes he doesn’t understand. Or, as the press has done with Ahmadinejad’s letter, we explain away his belief as a Machiavellian political tactic. Either way, in the guise of rationalizing jihadist violence we display a curious Western arrogance that sweeps away the most cherished beliefs, that asserts we Westerners better understand Islam than do millions of its adherents, and that reduces Muslims to the status of children and dupes, the passive prey to material and psychological forces they can’t comprehend. How superior we are, we Westerners who see the true reality disguised from others by superstition and tradition!

Sun Tzu warned us long ago:

"(If) you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

But, he cautioned,

"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

On the whole, we (liberal democracies) know neither ourselves nor the enemy. Draw your own conclusions. As the era of nuclear hyperproliferation in the Muslim nation (ummah) is dawning, we've blinked. They sense weakness and smell blood.

The greatest irony is that there could be no unified Muslim jihad effort without the technology of the West, from the printing press to the Internet, oil drilling, and the car (bomb) to the guided missile.

I hope I live long enough to see the ugly divorce of the Left, fascist, Islamist alliance. They only agree on who they hate the most: Jews and Americans.

Hell on Earth?

2006-05-13T22:57:00.000-07:00

It must be better than North Korea. Every time a "human rights" organization wastes an hour criticizing nations with actual respect for human rights, how many North Koreans die in gulags, by summary execution, torture, human experimentation, or of starvation? Nobody knows.

Our interview over, the women relax and begin to talk about their first few days in America. "It's completely different from what we learned. It is difficult to accept that there is a world like this," Hannah says. "They [the North Korean government] teach us that America is a country that shouldn't be allowed to exist." "When we were in China," Naomi says, "we always had to hide. Now we don't feel that way anymore."

"We still do feel lonely," says Hannah, "but my heart feels free."

North Korea is a recent addition to "The Nuclear Club." China benefits from our enormous trade deficit and currency manipulation which saps the industrial bases of nations worldwide.

But I hear the United States government might be crunching phone numbers in a supercomputer to avoid another 9/11. Quick, call Human Rights Watch!

Should our enemies have greater rights than common criminals?

2006-05-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

Based on recent articles I must conclude the mainstream media believes the answer is a resounding "YES!"

Spy Agency Watching Americans From Space

The test is "reasonable expectation of privacy." Every recent article from pen registers to this latest partisan attack has dealt with an issue which was settled during the unreal "War on Drugs." This is a REAL WAR, with WAR POWERS.

I never liked declaring fake wars on things like poverty or drugs. Now I'm seeing the results.

Florida v. Riley, settled law.

Let me explain something very briefly. War powers must be used to fight wars. That's the limit. The instant there is a real abuse for mere law enforcement, blackmail, or political advantage, I'll be all over it like a French prostitute.

But in the case of aerial surveillance, like pen registers, there is no limit on government power. Could anyone fly a Piper Cub over your house at 500'? Why, yes, yes they could. So if you want privacy, stay inside.

Passive Security, Isn't

2006-05-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

Cargo containers are universal in our global economy. From factory, to truck, to ship, to distribution point, to retail, cargo containers do everything. Al Qaeda has smuggled in cargo containers. But unfortunately, this is true:

While nuclear smuggling is possible, so are dozens of other attack scenarios. Overinvesting in countering one tactic when terrorists could easily employ another is dangerously myopic.

Unless we get to the root of the problem - religious and ideological - our free and commercial society will always be vulnerable to attack. To make it completely safe we'd have to become a totalitarian and economically dysfunctional society like North Korea.** Terrorism in North Korea is owned by the government and used against the people, but they're "safe" from outside "threats."

It's time to face reality. Mosques and Islamic centers are the problem. Saudi Arabia, among many others, but especially Saudi Arabia, fund the jihad ideology being taught to those who want to kill us. Even in the United States, Saudi taught imams control over three quarters of the mosques. That's the root of terrorism: jihad against the kufr (unbelievers). Islamic imperialism and Islamic supremacism are already here. Screening containers is an important issue but not the most important issue.

**Recent report on worldwide religious freedom, and the lack thereof.

Things which will never come up in European Arab Dialogue

2006-04-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

This is not unusual, just one of the cases which made the news. Of course it will never make it to the mainstream media in the United States. The sixteen-year-old girl who stabbed one of her attempted rapists is still awaiting death by hanging in Iran.

Perhaps one of our MESA professors can explain how Arab-Muslim culture pioneered women's rights? I could use some re-education about now. Plus, I love camping.

KARACHI: Sixteen-year-old Isma Mahmood was deported to Pakistan last month after serving six months in shackles and handcuffs in a prison in Saudi Arabia. Her crime: being raped by a Saudi man.

“It’s difficult for me to talk about what happened to me, from rape to prison and from prison to deportation,” Isma told AFP in the office of a rescue trust in Karachi where she sat with her sister Muna, 18, who was also deported.

Isma’s parents, originally from Multan, were trafficked to Saudi Arabia around 20 years ago. But in Isma’s case, being born in Saudi Arabia was no help when she was raped last year in Medina. “I was the victim, I was raped and molested but I was named as the accused, and the man who committed the crime was not touched,” she said.

“He first kidnapped me, dragged me into his car,” Isma said. “At first he asked me to sleep with him and offered good money. When I refused and tried to resist, he warned me of dire consequences and raped me in the car.” The unnamed man warned her she would be imprisoned if she went to the police, and said that the Saudi sponsor who brought her parents to the country through a Pakistani agent would have them all expelled. The sponsor too threatened Isma and Muna, she said, asking that the sponsor’s name not be revealed to spare her family any additional grief. “I and my sister went to the police expecting justice, but after a few hours of filing the report the police changed it,” Isma said. Under pressure from the Saudi sponsor, Isma’s parents asked her to withdraw her report. “My sister Muna tried to help me out but was also arrested and put in prison only because she spoke for me,” she said.

Once in jail, their nightmare began in earnest, Isma said. The women prisoners were mostly Pakistanis, Indonesians, Bangladeshis and Nigerians who came to Saudi Arabia through trafficking networks and were charged with prostitution, she said.

“When I used to protest against the ill treatment they beat me on my back,” Isma added. “We were chained all during this period. The only time jail officials removed the chain was during lunch or when anyone went to the bathroom or at prayer time,” she said. “Once a jail official offered me help and assured me I would be released if I agreed to sleep with him. There was a Pakistani woman who was over 40 years old and developed AIDS in prison, but she remained in chains before she was deported to Pakistan,” she added.

Isma and Muna are now in the care of the Ansar Burney Trust. “It’s pathetic that all this happened with Isma at the hands of a fellow Muslim,” the trust’s president Ansar Burney told AFP. Burney says many poor women and girls from South Asia are lured with promises of good money working as maids or nurses, but their Arab sponsors and Pakistan agents later force them into prostitution. AFP

But look at the bright side, her family may not shoot her in the head, dump acid on her, or burn her alive. :D

Hat Tip: Discarded Lies

Eurabia wages war against The Force of Reason to obliterate The Legacy of Jihad

2006-04-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

I like to read several books at once. Dry non-fiction books, the spinach of reading, are often too difficult to read in huge chunks. When loaded with healthy facts, books can cause the mental palate to become overwhelmed. After about 40 pages I find myself going back and reading the last page again. That's a sure sign my brain has reached temporary storage capacity.

Sometimes books read best in combinations. They are like the chocolate and peanut butter of books, tasty when read together. One book exemplifies or adds some meat to the other.

I don't think any two books are more compatable than Eurabia, by Bat Ye'or and The Force of Reason, by Oriana Fallaci.

For a good beverage to compliment the entire reading experience I'd suggest The Legacy of Jihad, by Andrew Bostom.**

Oriana Fallaci begins the Force of Reason with a short section describing the vicious threats, legal attacks, and vitriol which came after the publication of The Rage and the Pride. With Eurabia sitting next to you, having digested a mere fifty pages, this pincer attack on Fallaci, from all sides, will make complete sense. If you've read The Rage and the Pride you know Fallaci didn't say anything honest students of Islam and observers of modern terrorism haven't been saying all over the Internet and in other books. In one section of The Legacy of Jihad you can read a couple dozen folks who predicted the revival of political, imperialistic Islam.

In the next section of The Force of Reason, Fallaci moves on to a brief history of jihad warfare against Europe without removing all the details which have been carefully excised from history classes and Middle Eastern studies classes all over the world. With The Legacy of Jihad sitting next to you, heavily sourced and footnoted, you realize Fallaci is recounting a past which is slowly making its way down the memory hole. Eurabia explains this is EU policy going all the way back to the early 1970's. The European-Arab Dialogue has been a one-way affair. The Europeans have placed hope, global aspirations of power, oil supplies, and hatred (of Jews and America), over centuries of experience. If enlightened self-interest and mere economics were the only motivations, the Europeans would have used their technology weapon to counter the oil weapon. But that would require a united front without traitors circumventing the technology ban, impossible for Europeans.

In modern academia, it's taken as a given that Islamic nations simply appeared on the borders of China, Spain, and Eastern Europe. The gory details, or any details, have vanished from education.

When President Bush talks about extremists hijacking a peaceful religion everyone should realize this is tantamount to condemning thousands of innocent people to death in our next so-called "wake-up call." Sadly, he's the only president since Jefferson to do anything substantial against the global jihad. Whether Bush knows it is another question.

Hunker down. This "long war" is almost 1,400 years old. Every sign points to it going nuclear before substantial action will be viewed as justified. On the domestic front, Muslim spokesmen whisper sweet lies into every important ear, from President Bush, the mainstream media, your local community college president, down to one-way "interfaith dialogues." Conversion, blasphemy, or apostasy in Islam means death, so I don't see listening to reciprocal dialogue being advisable for Muslims.

Europe is in graver danger than it was in WWII, but nearly every government is Vichy. The EEC-EU was built on the twin pillars of Jew-hatred and anti-Americanism. To accomplish their geopolitical goals policymakers deluded themselves, chose to punish honest history, and sacrifice their indigenous European populations on a social experiment. This experiment was doomed to fail. Anyone who'd read the Qur'an or studied history carefully could have seen it. But hatred and lust for power are the most compelling motivators for people who take survival for granted. Nothing clouds thinking like grandiose schemes.

**Appetizers could include anything by Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, or Ali Sina's (Faith Freedom) new book, among many others. The truth is outing, but stupidity evolves like bacteria, ensuring its survival for all time.

America's Elites and Saudi Money

2006-04-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

Read it and puke.

Our educational system is, if anything, worse. As we are working hard to secure our borders from terrorism and fighting terrorist movements overseas, the same people who are financing much of the world’s terrorism are pouring money into American colleges and universities with the intent of undermining support for our government’s efforts in the War on Terror.

American universities – those idealists who claim racism, misogyny, religious persecution and violations of human rights are antithetical to their mission – are more than willing to accept funding from the Wahhabist Saudi regime that practices such behaviors. The funds go to set up Middle East Studies centers that serve to indoctrinate future generations of American college students to support the goals of overseas terrorists and dictators. These centers also promote outreach programs in which teachers and professors in our local communities are trained and provided with curricula that preach a radical anti-democratic, anti-American, and frequently anti-Semitic agenda in our primary and secondary school classrooms. Our children are their targets.

Knowing the government, media, and academia are bought and paid for with Saudi money shouldn't upset me any more. The comical, yet Ivy League, screed suggesting AIPAC controls the nation makes this particularly galling.

Which nation did 15 of the 19 hijackers call home? Which nation is an apartheid kingdom with no freedom of religion whatsoever? Which nation has an abysmal human rights record, including bureaucratic terms for lopping off heads and hands? Which nation spends billions all over the world creating militant Muslims who eventually do damage all over the world?

Maybe I'll convert so I can be trampled at the Hajj. It beats waiting around for our institutions to side with the American people.

Macrotrends

2006-04-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

The EU is bound together only by its hatred of Jews and anti-Americanism.

The UN supports genocide in Darfur, Israel, and the United States, Iran having just gained a seat on the disarmament body. Nobody discusses Saudi apartheid, Islamic imperialism, da'wa, demography, or dhimmitude, save intrepid columnists like Diana West or Mark Steyn. The Internet is the only reliable source of information, and only if you know how to use it.

The U.S. university system is controlled by Stalinsts.

The mainstream media, governed by over-reliance on wire services, political agendas, stupidity, and a lack of curiosity, along with the previously mentioned anti-Americanism and Jew-hatred have not educated the masses of ordinary folks, who don't have all day to get their news, one whit about the true global situation.

South America is descending into totalitarianism. Vote Communist, you'll never have to vote again. Or, everyone will for the same guy.

Climatarians around the world are obsessed with global warming which is mostly due to solar warming. Climatarians now speak of mass extermination of the human race in positive terms, the United States being their favored target.

Russia and China continue to play Cold War games.

Islam is getting out of control and policy-makers still haven't read the important books (Bat Ye'or, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Oriana Fallaci, too many others to list).

I'll leave it for my readers (I love you, man) to decide what all this means.

Once again French policy (from the end of WWII to the present) is directly responsible for many of the problems I listed.

If you think it sounds like another world war is already in progress, or about to begin, I'll indulge your pessimism. Unlike many people, I envy those folks, I never assume a positive outcome or mentally leap to victory in any war before the actual outcome of the major battles.

UPDATE: Now for the bad news. LOL

American University Totalitarians Strike Again: Ohio State University

2006-04-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hat tip, Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch

Anyone who claims the American university system is not run by the totalitarian Left is nothing but a pathological liar or horribly misinformed. The Academic Bill of Rights proposed by David Horowitz would be one small step in the right direction.

It was getting bad when I was in college. Now it's insanity writ large.

OSU librarian slapped with “sexual harassment” charge for recommending conservative books for freshmen
Ohio State University will press forward with frivolous investigation despite ADF letter
Thursday, April 13, 2006, 11:30 AM (MST)
ADF Media Relations | 480-444-0020

Parents, don't let your babies grow up to study for a Bachelor af Arts. Send them to North Korea for a more balanced approach to indoctrination.

Speaking of pathological liars and totalitarians ruling America's universities, Front Page tries to whittle down Noam Chomsky's lies to a top 100.

It must have been difficult to narrow them down so much after his voluminous output of specious crap.

Science beginning to catch up with religion

2006-04-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

When I took science, many moons ago, the preferred model for life on Earth was what you might call a Steady State Earth. The ooze produced some sort of early life which slowly progressed into what we see today. The Earth was viewed as relatively calm. More specifically, calderas, space impacts, and earthquakes were viewed through the lens of recorded history.

But in various religious traditions there were stories of global floods, mountains appearing suddenly, out of nowhere, and fire or ash raining from the sky.

Well, guess what? Religion was right.

Now we know Catastrophism is what pushed human evolution. The most recent example is the eruption of the Toba supervolcano (caldera) approximately 70,000 years ago. The human population dwindled under 100,000. Our species nearly went the way of the dinosaurs before it had a chance to get started.

Some argue the Yellowstone caldera is "due" for an eruption. In geologic terms that could be 10,000 years from now, 50,000 years from now, or tomorrow. Research has shown the caldera breathes, the land moving up and down in response to the magma chamber miles below. Yellowstone is just one of numerous supervolcanoes which dot the Earth.

How could a mountain appear from nowhere? Either volcanism or a large impact from outer space?

Global flooding? The end of an ice age or impacts again.

While humanity discovers more reasons to, and a catalog of means for, destroying one another, science is tending more and more towards evidence we needn't bother.

"Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

William Shakespeare

I'm not the granola-crunching, hold hands, give peace a chance type. I'm a realist when it comes to human behavior.

However, as the evidence mounts it's becoming increasingly clear our focus should have remained on survival, just as is must have been for our neolithic ancestors. Just when we thought we could conquer nature, science (the means for doing so) has proven nature's teeth are much larger and sharper than anything we can grow, or hope to grow, in the near future.

Conquering the Earth from other humans is a pyrrhic victory at best.

Iran can build nuclear weapons, but the fault lines which crisscross their land will never surrender. Portland's Greens can howl about global warming and saving the Earth, but the Cascades have already signed Portland's death warrant. Who will save Portland from the Earth? It's a question of when, not if.

Now that we are beginning to understand the nature and scope of these types of events for the first time in human history, in terms of science instead of religion, it would behoove us to take them seriously and factor them into our planning.

But short-sightedness is much less frightening and simpler.

Get a Room!

2006-04-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

California faces battle over gays in textbooks
I have no problem with consenting adults doing whatever it is they do in the privacy of their homes. But, really, doing it in textbooks isn't sanitary. It's just not right!

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California school textbooks would highlight the role gays have played in the history of the nation's most populous state if a new proposal that has angered conservatives passes the state Legislature.

History books record contributions by gays but their sexual orientation is often ignored, a situation gay activists say is inexcusable in California, home to a large gay population in San Francisco, a city that briefly made history in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The proposed bill would require school textbooks to include lessons on how gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons have helped California develop.

Oh, never mind.

I'm straight, boring, and proud! Would you like to hear all about my struggles as a heterosexual man? Yeah, me neither. The only problem I have with the neverending stream of gay issues is trying to stay awake. Is it necessary to discuss sexual orientation when writing history? Usually the historical figure has a SO of some kind, often mentioned in passing. In California politics, sexual orientation becomes obvious through public statements or actions.

Which reminds me, what would it mean for someone to be "openly" gay in the military? Maybe I have an overactive imagination but I'm seeing that guy with the leather hat in the Village People throwing beads off an M1A2 Abrams.

"We're going to have a fabulous occupation! But this place needs some color!"

UPDATE: For Al
The point of this post is really to be funny. Not one "LOL" so I'm tempted to delete it. But I won't because I'm proud of four comments, only one being mine. Yes, that's a very small victory. Please, don't ruin it for me by pointing out other blogs. *sob*

But if there is a serious point, it's trying to figure out what's really going on in California. Is the idea to add gay activists to textbooks?

If so, I suggest we nail down who was president during the Civil War and whether or not the Germans won that one before we move on to teaching our kids who formed ACT UP or Queers for Palestine. Who, by the way, should steer clear of the actual "Palestine" or risk being "killed in the worst ways possible." That's a quote from "Red" Ken Livingstone's favorite moderate cleric.

Balkans Scam Beginning to Surface - New York Times Lies for ANOTHER Pulitzer

2006-03-29T21:51:00.000-08:00

The New York Times appears to be on an institutional crusade to disprove the old adage "Honesty is the best policy." That's nice, but lying wins Pulitzers.

I never liked the idea of attacking Serbia. I didn't want to risk war with Russia just when we should have been patching up decades of mistrust. Though I'm no isolationist, the Balkans are a Eurasian problem going back centuries. All ideologies, ethnicities, and religions get bogged down in the Balkans. It's the intersection of strife.

NATO was tasked as a defensive force contra the Warsaw Pact. Sure, the UN is worse than useless, but any American action should have gone through the UN. Unlike Iraq, there was no long history of U.S. involvement and conflict in the Balkans.

Like most people, all I knew was what I saw in the news. So it seemed a bit strange when the "mass genocide" didn't turn up but one mass grave (8,000 bodies, no women and children) after the war.

Former NY Times Reporter: '93 Pulitzer Should Be Revoked
By Sherrie Gossett
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
March 22, 2006

Bill Clinton's legacy will haunt our relations with Russia for centuries.

During his recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Binder said it would take "at least a decade" before historians "clear out that wretched underbrush of lies and concoctions" from "despicable" politicians "like Richard Holbrooke," an international negotiator during the administration of former President Bill Clinton and "certainly the journalists" criticized in Brock's book. The rise of blogs and media watchdog groups offers a "corrective" for the public now, Binder contended.

I linked this in a previous post. What did Bill Clinton get out of the attack on Serbia? I can think of some very wealthy desert dwellers who might have been very grateful ($$$).

ITM: Know Your Enemies, Dudes!

2006-03-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

Know your enemies, dudes!

The first step to understanding politics in Iraq is getting away from over-simple MSM or partisan politically-driven analysis. For example, "Secular Saddam would never work with jihadys." That's an obvious crock if one merely looks at the last couple years of Saddam's regime. And I'm not discussing secret meetings or Prague, but Saddam's changing public persona.

If you don't read it all, read this:

One and actually the most important is that we have an American ambassador who recognizes Iran's role in supporting both ends of violence in Iraq; that's the Shia militias, namely the notorious Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr and the extreme terror groups like al-Qaeda's Ansar al-Sunna.

Knowing that ambassador Khalil Zad will be the one leading the talks with Iran makes me feel that the talks are in good hands that are aware of the scope of the conflict.
Many people find it difficult to agree with this theory that Iran has ties with al-Qaeda and its branches and affiliates in Iraq and that's because they think the ideology difference between Wahabism and Shiasm would make any cooperation between Iran and al-Qaeda a fairy tale or a ridiculous American excuse to justify a possible offensive on Iran.

But what really frustrates me is that we have people here who are supposed to be politicians aware of the behind the scenes game who refuse to accept this theory (which I consider a fact).

A few days ago a saw a prominent politician from the UIA talking on al-Hurra and when the point of Zad's accusations to Iran was raised his response was (not literal translation) "No sane person can think that Iran is supporting the terrorists who murder Shia Iraqis…".

It is this kind of blind conviction that make me lose faith in most of the political elites in Iraq; they have entrenched themselves behind their sects to the point that they cannot accept questioning the policies and intentions of their presumed friends forgetting that it's politics 101 to not put absolute trust in anyone.

Read that last paragraph several times and never forget it.

Playing the double game is a very old trick.

Announcement - Zachary

2006-03-25T18:03:00.000-08:00

My second son was born.

He weighed six/four.

We've decided to name him Zachary.

Please wish us luck and keep him in your prayers.

After Alexander's tragedy we really need things to go right.

Yale Fails

2006-03-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

Why did Yale slam the door on Afghan women?

Give one of these Marines a scholarship.
Marines Notice Things

The Marines unloaded a shiny new pediatric wheelchair from one of their vehicles and rolled it into the house.

The little girl had suffered a severe spinal injury in a car accident two years ago. The old wheelchair was the best the family could do for her.

Until the Marines came.

The family's faces lit up with the smiles. The incredulous father picked up his daughter and immediately placed her in the new wheelchair. He shook the Marines' hands, saying "Thank you," again and again.

"They seemed pretty happy about it," said Cpl. Matthew Rivera.

"We knew we had to help out in some way," said Staff Sgt. Charles Evers.

The Marines didn't stay long. There were smiles and a few tears and then they jumped back into their assault vehicles and headed back to Camp Smitty.

I really like the new M-32 and this post has some interesting detail on specialty rounds.
HUNTIR, HELLHOUND, DRACO and carrying a big stick

M-32

PDF: MGL-140 (aka "M-32")

Blackfive likes it.

WOULD AN ARMY OF DAVIDS FIGHT LIKE THE UNIT?

Army of Davids provokes many reactions, some of them related to the book itself. This is not one of those reactions.

Glenn Reynolds does not own the rights to "heh" "hah" "har" "BWHAHAHA" "ROFL" "spew" "you owe me a monitor" "lol" LOLOLOLOL" or any combination of "ol" or "lo."

Indeed.

Army of Davids

Right-Wing Nuthouse visits the ethical and cultural questions of our times.

“What Would Jack Bauer Do(?)”

I'd counter with "What would THE UNIT do?"

They have a more reasonable mission statement and mandate for fighting the GWOT.

The Unit understands the importance of team work and doesn't rely so much on Jack Bauer's Army-Of-One approach to confrontation. THE UNIT knows 9mm handguns aren't the answer to every tactical situation.

Horrified?

2006-03-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

Apocalyptic president

Even some Republicans are now horrified by the influence Bush has given to the evangelical right

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday March 23, 2006

Within hours of its publication, American Theocracy rocketed to No 1 on Amazon. At US cinemas, V for Vendetta - in which an imaginary Britain, ruled by a totalitarian, faith-based regime that rounds up gays, is a metaphor for Bush's America - is the surprise hit. Bush has succeeded in getting American audiences to cheer for terrorism.

You're selling the Democrats, education, mainstream media, and Hollywood short, Sydney. Terrorism chic and ignorant moral equivalences as answers to everything.

I think you're playing with fire which will have long-term damaging consequences to the Democratic Party, but worse the United States and free world.

Meanwhile, in Iran, gays are rounded up and stoned to death. Girls can be hung for self-defense from attempted rapists. The UK features polygamy and honor killings now.

Hollywood and the Democrats only attack soft targets.

Christians don't believe in bringing on chaos in the world so the Twelfth Imam or Madhi reveals himself, as does Ahmadinejad. "Twelvers" are in charge of Iran. When Christians start pushing for a Senate vote on dates for an apocalypse, be sure to send me e-mail alerts.

Blumenthal claims to have a refined sense for apocalyptic danger, but it's overly selective.

Happy Norooz Everybody!

2006-03-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

Norooz

Faith Freedom

Norooz greetings to all Mankind and particularly to those who celebrate this great Day. Norooz is the celebration of life and fertility. Its origin fades into history. This is the oldest festivity alive and it will live as long as this planet lives. Ten thousand years from now, the world will be a different place. All races will merge and become indistinguishable. Nationality would make no sense. Long after religions are thrown in the dustbin of history along with their festivities, the Mother Earth will keep celebrating Norooz in the vernal equinox as she has been doing for billions of years. Trees will blossom, deserts will bloom and life will burst with its glory and beauty. Norooz and perhaps its twin festivity Mehregan, celebrated in the other equinox will endure as long as the Earth endures. The festivity of the 21st of December, when in most of the Earth light overcomes darkness, symbolizing the victory of good over evil, will also be celebrated. These festivities do not belong to any nation or religion. They are the festivities of the Mother Earth. We humans only rejoice watching in awe the miracle of her rebirth year after year in Norooz. Happy Norooz!

South Park creator: "...the million-year war for earth has just begun!"

2006-03-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

'South Park'-Scientology Battle Rages On
By ERIN CARLSON, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - "South Park" has declared war on Scientology. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of the animated satire, are digging in against the celebrity-endorsed religion after a controversial episode mocking outspoken Scientologist Tom Cruise was yanked abruptly from the schedule Wednesday — with Internet rumors it was covert warfare by Cruise that led to its departure.

"So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!" the "South Park" creators said in a statement Friday in Daily Variety. "Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies... You have obsructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!"

.....In another dig at the famously secretive religion, the credits at show's end are filled with names like "John Smith" and "Jane Smith."

The battle began in earnest earlier this week when Isaac Hayes, another celebrity Scientologist and longtime show member — voicing the ladies' man Chef — quit the show, saying he could no longer tolerate its religious "intolerance and bigotry."

Stone and Parker didn't buy that either.

On Monday, Stone told The Associated Press, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith in Scientology...He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians."

My Ideal War by Hitchens

2006-03-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

.....So, now I come at last to my ideal war.

Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.....

(hat tip: LGF)

Monkey Cops keep the peace among groups

2006-03-20T03:20:00.000-08:00

Monkey Cops keep the peace among groups
When 'law enforcement' removed, monkey society becomes divisive

....."It's not just that violence goes up, but a whole range of behavior involving a whole range of individuals suddenly disappears," said David Krakauer of the Santa Fe Institute. "It's like saying you take police out of human society, and all of a sudden people stop going to the opera, or something more important."

The study, detailed in today's issue of the journal Nature, also uncovered a complex monkey "voting" system for appointing the peacekeepers.

Peacekeepers 'appointed'
Pigtailed macaque monkeys, Macaca nemestrina, don't just pull into town like Wyatt Earp or Dirty Harry and take over. They have to be "appointed" to the position.

Instead of a paper ballot, inferior monkeys bare their teeth to a more dominant member of the group.

"It's like they're saying, ‘You don't have to beat me up to establish your dominance, I'm simply telling you that you are,'" Krakauer told LiveScience.

When an individual receives these voting signals from most of the group, it shows he is well respected — or feared — and he becomes the new sheriff in town.....

By the way, monkey cops, monkey cops, monkey cops. I love that.

Sultan and more

2006-03-20T01:47:00.000-08:00

Women at war with the mullahs

While some acclaim her as “a voice of reason” others have denounced her as a “heretic” and insist that she deserves to die. What seems to have most infuriated many Muslims were Sultan’s comparisons between how Jews and Muslims have coped with the tragedies that have befallen them.

“The Jews have come from tragedy and forced the world to respect them,” she said, “with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.

“We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

Sitting in the airy living room of the spacious modern home where Sultan and her husband live, it is hard to believe this small, neatly dressed woman could be at the centre of an international firestorm. Just as improbable is that the most important and controversial critics of Islamic fundamentalism, violence and intolerance are, like Sultan, women, mostly from Islamic countries.

They include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician, who has strongly criticised Islamic attitudes towards women and the widespread practice of female circumcision in Muslim north Africa; Irshad Manji, a Canadian lesbian of Pakistani descent, whose book The Trouble with Islam Today chastises Islam for its aggression towards women and for its anti-semitism; Amina Wadud, an African-American convert to Islam and Muslim academic and author, who has infuriated traditional Muslims by leading Friday prayer for Muslims in New York, a role traditionally taken only by male imams.

Other Muslim women in the front lines of the clash with Islamic governments are as diverse as Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani village woman who was brutally gang-raped in 2002 as reprisal for an alleged transgression by her 14-year-old brother, and Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2003 for her defence of the rights of women and children in fundamentalist Muslim Iran.

hat tip: New, improved, spicy graphics, Sandmonkey(.org)

Or Sandmonkey(.com)

Tehran’s Killing Fields
By Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 27, 2005

Elio Bonazzi and Alireza Saghafi were co-writers of this special feature.

Operation Swarmer

2006-03-20T01:23:00.000-08:00

ITM: A look at the Swarmer

.....Through my humble military knowledge, the participating force is way larger than the size of the assaulted targets. All we heard from US or Iraqi officials about accomplished objectives was the capture of 50 or 60 suspects (no big names or top ranking al-Qaeda leaders), IED making materials, several missiles and 70 lbs of TNT, i.e. almost the everyday finding of weapon caches. Let alone that we didn't see any footage of the reportedly confiscated weapon caches.
(Numbers from a statement for the spokesman of Iraqi defense ministry)

I tend to believe that the primary objective of the operation is to polish the skills of future battalion-size airborne Iraqi units through real-time action against real targets and to move Iraqi forces to the stage where they can take the initiative instead of waiting for the enemy to make the first move.

As the maps show, the area where the operation is taking place is surrounded by a number of medium and large sized US and Iraqi bases and using helicopters in such great numbers is more expensive, complicated and has little advantage over ground transport of troops and you don't really need helicopters to gain the surprise factor when approaching the open plains, semi-desert area takes slightly more than an hour in vehicles from the nearest bases.

But I think Iraqi forces can benefit greatly from this kind of experience given the relatively small number of these troops compared to the area they need to cover which makes air deployment of troops vital for having quick response abilities especially when Iraqi troops are planned to become responsible for security in a growing amount of territory over time.

I also suspect there are other two possible dimensions for the operation; one deals with morale and the other is a long-term military plan to cut the lines of transportation between the eastern and western areas of action of the insurgency that pass through the rural areas near and around Samarra.....

All Omar's reasoning makes sense to me, also amateur analyst.

Practically speaking, this is one way to assault a city, with helicopters. Driving in is another. Given Iraqi-U.S. casualties (0), Swarmer sounds like a winner. It makes sense to launch airborne assaults with overwhelming force (Operation "Swarmer"). They could combine air and land. Helicopters are excellent gun platforms as well.

Commanders need to mix up tactics in order to keep the enemy guessing.

If intelligence is sketchy I'd rather be the commander who went in with overwhelming force and nobody died.

Brave (ex?)Muslim Women to the Rescue

2006-03-19T22:43:00.000-08:00

Heroine Chic

Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Wafa Sultan

Manji says she's Muslim. Ali says she's moved on. Both must be brave to take the stands, threats, and abuse they take.

It's not my business to determine who's a Muslim, how they should behave or speak, or the rules for leaving Islam. I support all their rights to say what they want to say about any religion. Go ahead, tear up Theism or Deism, personal favorites at times. I can take it.

An ocean and a continent away is Dr. Wafa Hannah, a middle-aged, Syrian-American psychiatrist who lives in the Los Angeles area and speaks fluent Arabic. She was invited to go on Al-Jazeera and debate Islam and the so-called 'clash of civilizations'. Jaw, say hello to floor. This clip is so extraordinary, it has been clicked on by more than a million people worldwide so far. The man chairing the discussion made a wise decision to keep his head down, but the Algerian Islamist who was... debating is too strong a word as he hardly got a chance to get a word in -- her opponent, kept coming back in disbelief to take another hit. This debate, which was translated by MEMRI and is run on their site, has made Wafa Sultan a worldwide recognizable, and quoted, name.

So Irshad Manji, Aayan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan all have international recognition.

Deservedly so. They should have more. Maybe jihadys will spontaneously combust from the uncovered hair rays?

Open discussion, even ridicule, of religion is a cornerstone of freedom. Taking critical issues out of public debate to avoid offending amorphous concepts like "religious defamation" will cause religion to grab more and more issues and concomitant priviliges.

Maryam Rajavi

She waves a large bound book that, she says, contains the names of 21,676 people who have died resisting the clerical regime. Another 120,000 people have been executed since the mullahs took power in 1979, she claims. Now Iran's rulers are trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

"We have always said that a viper cannot give birth to a dove, but nobody believed us," she told the Sunday Telegraph. "Only a fraction of the true nature of this regime, which is a brutal dictatorship of religious fanaticism, has come to public attention."

British MPs, lawyers and human rights campaigners are among those who have recently travelled to hear Mrs Rajavi, 52, hold court on behalf of the National Council for Resistance for Iran (NCRI). Yet while some see her as the best hope to lead a moderate Islamic government in Teheran, others are more cautious.

When I finish Jefferson's War by Joseph Wheelan I'll review Oriana Fallaci: Force of Reason (Litigated in Europe!)

Is the nation-state dying?

2006-03-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

Austin Bay at TCS.

Yes, but not in favor of a civilized international order. Tribalism (and not just in nations with tribes), sectarianism, dictatorships, and radical revolutionary ideologies are stronger than ever. The Left's feminists have allied with Taliban at Yale. Professors favor prior restraint of mild cartoons. Global theocracy, race-baiting, authoritarianism, and lapidation are in. Borders, Enlightenment values, equal justice, and rule of secular law are out.

It's hard to believe anyone could place intellectual stock in the present-day UN. Sudan and China policing human rights? That's the most unfunny joke I've ever heard.

Using the Balkans as reason to believe in international law is a bit like using Hiroshima to push for more nuclear power plants.

Do Journalists Know How Insane They Sound? And who killed Milosevic?

2006-03-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

Watching one of the 24-7 news channels and a pundit 'sagely' opined how a civil war in Iraq might affect President Bush's approval ratings.

If there's a difference between partisan politics and voodoo, please feel free to attempt to make the distinction.

On the other hand, two can play at the wild-speculation-based-on-no-facts game.

Former Serbian leader Milosevic just attempted to call Clinton and Blair to the stand as defense witnesses. Then he suddenly dies in captivity.

It's becoming increasingly obvious the "facts" we were sold in the lead-up to NATO action were, at a minimum, exaggerated. Unlike the many conpiracy theories with no evidence in support, a conspiracy of like-minded internationalists is easy to prove: Clinton, Soros, Heinz, the UN, CFR, the EU, MSM, NGO's, etc.

How, well, convenient that Milosevic was never allowed to present a defense by cross-examining his accusers in politics.

You can hear it coming...

"WHO BENEFITS" from the death of Milosevic?

/Proof? Since when has Justin Raimondo asked for proof? My standards for rumor-mongering are well-established in precedent.

No Jihady World Coverage, Sorry - Citizen Journalist Duties: Shirked

2006-03-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

I said "shirk" in a story about chickening out on driving out to UCF to listen to Islamists speak. Heh.

But that's what I did, chickened out. I was going to drive out there and take pictures. I imagined myself hassled by University Police and college administrators, protecting their pet jihadis from any harm.

I can't imagine any other scenario. There's no way UCF administrators decided to stop a public university from becoming a recruiting ground for jihadis and radical Islam. They're not Christians, after all. Besides, what a wonderful opportunity to recruit some spicy diversity! Maybe there's Taliban without a full scholarship.

Welcome to Jihady World, Orlando. This is but a small lost battle in a campaign for our university system.

Back in 1944, were Nazis allowed to recruit on campus?

Jihady World, Orlando

2006-03-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

This stinks. More on our da'wa festival and the rogues gallery of 'clerics' out at University of Central Florida.

Dremali would soon make his way to sunny Florida, where he resided previous to the IDF incident. Later, he would be chosen as the Imam of a radical Boca mosque, the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR), and the home of an Al-Qaeda operative, Rafiq Sabir, and an associate of Sami Al-Arian, Bassem Alhalabi, who would receive a sentence in 2003 for shipping a $13,000 piece of military equipment to Syria.

Never let it be said we learn from our mistakes.

"SJS," but aggressive da'wa at UCF (public school)

2006-03-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

"Sudden Jihad Syndrome"

Daniel Pipes on SJS:

Until his would-be murderous rampage, Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major, had an apparently normal existence and promising future. In high school, he had been student council president and a member of the National Honor Society. A number of UNC students told the Los Angeles Times that he “was a serious student, shy but friendly.” One fellow student, Brian Copeland, “was impressed with his knowledge of classical Western thought, adding “He was kind and gentle, rather than aggressive and violent.” The university chancellor, James Moeser, called him a good student, if “totally a loner, introverted and into himself.”

In fact, no one who knew him said a bad word about him, which is important, for it signals that he is not some low-life, not homicidal, not psychotic, but a conscientious student and amiable person. Which raises the obvious question: why would a regular person try to kill a random assortment of students? Taheri-azar’s post-arrest remarks offer some clues.

He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.”

He explained to a detective that “people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States[’] turn to be killed.”

He said he acted to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.”

He portrayed his actions as “an eye for an eye.”

A police affidavit notes that “Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States Government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack.”

He told a judge, “I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.”

So he rented the largest SUV he could and tried to run down the people who'd befriended him for the last few years. Now he plans to use his trial for da'wa.

From the We're Gluttons for Punishment Department at The University of Central Florida in Orlando.

March 8, 2006 - Philadelphia, PA - PipeLineNews.org - On March 17th 2006 the Student Union of the University of Central Florida Student Union will be transformed into the Student Ummah, as it will be the venue for a Da'wa [Muslim proselytizing] event entitled "Returning to Our Rabb" [Lord] and supported by university funding

According to the posters on the Muslim Student Association website, the event aims to "teach Muslims the correct beliefs in relationship to our Lord, and also his (s.w.t.) relationship towards us. With this new information not only can we strengthen our faith- but also our Da'wah." [aggressive faith spreading]

This brazen exercise in jihad through conversion is being funding by the Student Government Organization.

No one at the administrative office, could say whether a Muslim effort to convert Christians and Jews was entitled to university funding, but one can easily imagine the protests which would have ensued had a Christian evangelical group announced an event at the university hosting Jerry Falwell. Yet the silence is this case is deafening.

The Muslim Student seminar will be presented by three "preachers of fundamentalism." - Ibrahim Dremali, Radwan Koualti and Yahya Abdulbary.

Dremali is the former Imam of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton whose present Imam, Muneer Arafat, admitted to being a member of a jihad organization while testifying during the al-Arian trial.

Dremali's ICBR has openly done fundraising for Hamas – a U.S. designated terrorist organization - via the Health Resource Center of Palestine which listed his brother as the “Gaza coordinator."

Under Dremali's leadership the ICBR has hosted fundraisers and speakers such as the now jailed Rafil Dhafir, whose Help the Needy 'charity' was closed down for illegally funneling money to Iraq, and Khalid Smaili, the director of Kind Hearts, a “terror charity" which was closed down last month by the U.S. Treasury .

Dremali is a documented radical Islamist, who completed his Islamic studies at the fundamentalist Al Azhar University.

Al Azhar U is probably best known for being the alma mater of Abdullah Azzam – bin-Laden's mentor.

It also serves as a headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dremali's mere presence at a Muslim student event aimed at instilling in Muslims students a duty to advance the cause of radical Islam, leaves no doubt as to the focus of the seminar.

Don't let this keep you away from the attractions, recruiting jihadis and aggressive da'wa in a public university about 30 miles from Disney World.

UPDATE: Right on cue, the UNC-grad, SUV-attack, da'wa-trial defendant writes a TV station. LGF: UNC Attacker: "Allah Gives Permission in the Koran..."

UNC Attacker: "Allah Gives Permission in the Koran..."

I'm sure renting SUV's isn't in there, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar.

Oriana "gets it"

2006-03-14T07:08:00.000-08:00

Some of us got it in stages. Most of us got it by tying up disparate events over a long period of history.

Just started The Rage and the Pride. Oriana goes through many phases I shared.

1. Jihad is a cultural/religious phenomenon. Those of us who get it reject Marxist economic determinism or capitalist reform-by-trade economic determinism. Jihad is in the books, schools, and culture. Job training and welfare won't solve the problem.

2. Those who kill, or attempt to kill, massed civilians are not legally insane, "alienated," or "troubled."

3. If it's warfare, jihidiot, follow the rules of war. Wear uniforms and don't attack civilians.

This is why people are wary of Muslims. It has nothing to do with any pre-existing bias. Fact is, most Americans learned about Islam and Arabs through terrorism and jihad conducted by 'civilians.'

4. Negotiations, apologies, and other acts of surrender (see, dhimmitude) won't make any difference.

5. Moderate Muslims should be encouraged, but we can't expect them to take down Ikhwan by force.

6. Major lefty papers like the NYT can't be trusted. They'd rather jail middle America than some of their 'Oriental' spice friends. In Europe it's worse.

"Oh, Buffy, you're dating a bearded Taliban?"

"How totally post-colonial."

UPDATING:

Oriana’s Screed:
Truth we’re sure to miss.

Roman Candle:
Oriana Fallaci sheds heat and light.

The Rage of Oriana Fallaci

It's still just a book, even today. Twelve Danish Cartoons War has a higher body count, but the fight over the Rage and the Pride rages on in Europe. I'll review Force of Reason when I get to that one as well.

Fallaci three years ago.

"How good if the Iraqis would get free of Saddam Hussein by themselves. How good if they would execute him and hang up his body by the feet as in 1945 we Italians did with Mussolini." But it does not help. Or it helps in one way only. The Italians, in fact, could get free of Mussolini because in 1945 the Allies had conquered almost four-fifths of Italy......

.....It remains for the reasons I will try to state. And the first one is that, contrary to the pacifists who never yell against Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden and only yell against George W. Bush and Tony Blair, (but in their Rome march they also yelled against me and raised posters wishing that I'd blow up with the next shuttle, I'm told), I know war very well. I know what it means to live in terror, to run under air strikes and cannonades, to see people killed and houses destroyed, to starve and dream of a piece of bread, to miss even a glass of drinking water.....

.....The second reason is that this war should not happen now. If just as I wish, legitimate as I hope, it should have happened one year ago. That is, when the ruins of the Towers were still smoking and the whole civilized world felt American. Had it happened then, the pacifists who never yell against Saddam or bin Laden would not today fill the squares to anathematize the United States. Hollywood stars would not play the role of Messiahs, and ambiguous Turkey would not cynically deny passage to the Marines who have to reach the Northern front. Despite the Europeans who added their voice to the voice of the Palestinians howling "Americans-got-it-good," one year ago nobody questioned that another Pearl Harbor had been inflicted on the U.S. and that the U.S. had all the right to respond. As a matter of fact, it should have happened before. I mean when Bill Clinton was president, and small Pearl Harbors were bursting abroad. In Somalia, in Kenya, in Yemen. As I shall never tire of repeating, we did not need September 11 to see that the cancer was there. September 11 was the excruciating confirmation of a reality which had been burning for decades.....

Media and Islam

2006-03-10T05:47:00.001-08:00

The media and Islam
By Diana West
March 10, 2006

WASHINGTON TIMES

Way back when I was a cub reporter at this newspaper, I got hold of a book about the "art" of interviewing. It was a thin book. There was no use spending thousands of words to tell a reporter, cub or old Grizzly, to bone up on a subject and let natural curiosity take its course.
That thin book came to mind on reading a three-part series in the New York Times about an imam named Reda Shata who presides over the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, N.Y. As far as the art of interviewing goes, the reporter got it exactly backward: Thousands of words; negligible expertise; and no curiosity.
Both the New York Post and the New York Sun have already pounced on the most egregious flaw of omission: not a mention, in 11,000-plus words, of the day in March 1994 when a man walked out of that same Bay Ridge mosque and, inspired by the anti-Jewish sermon of the day (delivered by a different, unidentified imam), armed himself and opened fire on a van carrying Hasidic Jewish children. Ari Halberstam, 16, was killed. The Times series, as it happened, concluded on the 12th anniversary of his death.
Such journalistic jaw-droppers abound: gaping holes, like the one above, but also dead ends that leave countless questions that the female reporter, it seems, never thought to ask. For example, she notes, over six months of interviews, the Egyptian-born imam refused to shake her hand. "He offers women only a nod," she writes. Why is shaking hands with a woman "improper"? What does the imam think about sexual equality? She doesn't tell us. In Belgium last year, she doesn't mention, the female president of the parliament made headlines for canceling a meeting with an Iranian delegation over this same refusal to shake a woman's hand (the parliamentarian's own), while in Holland, the English-language blog Zacht Ei reported, a Muslim man lost a month's worth of welfare benefits for not only refusing to shake hands with female municipal employees, but also refusing to acknowledge their presence. This is supposed to be "the story of Mr. Shata's journey west," but the story bypasses such landmark issues.
Instead, we get a load of happy talk: "Married life in Islam is an act of worship," Mr. Shata says. So impressed were the editors of the New York Times by this load that they ran the quotation, not just above the fold, but across the very top of the front page over a gold-bathed family photo four columns wide. Does Miss Reporter ask the imam to reconcile this ecstatic notion with the Islamic custom of arranged and forced marriages, the spate of spousal abuse and "honor killings" within European Muslim communities -- as recounted in clarifying detail in Bruce Bawer's important new book, "While Europe Slept" -- or the tradition of polygamy which exists to this day in portions of Islamic society?
No, no and no. She writes: "One Brooklyn imam reportedly urged his wealthier male congregants during a Ramadan sermon last year to take two wives. When a woman complained about the sermon to Mr. Shata, he laughed. 'You know that preacher who said Hugo Chavez should be shot?' he asked," referring to a comment by Pat Robertson about the Venezuelan leader. " 'We have our idiots, too.' " One clumsy feint and presto -- the New York Times loses all interest in polygamy, from Mohammed's Mecca to Bloomberg's New York.....

New York? Wow.

UPDATE:
dilys says

As they used to say, "That's not writing, it's typing." In this case, taking dictation for a long press release.

Sounds exactly right to me.

FURTHER UPDATE:
Mark Steyn sounds a similar theme. UK to Mark Steyn "Don't let the door hit you in the ass..."

Dhimmification is not painless nor does it lead to less punishment. Buck up little leaders.

Steyn:

.....And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis -- non-Muslims in Muslim society -- seem to have been taken on board by the Western media:

The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . . .

Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?

A fellow called Mohammed mows down a bunch of students? Just one of those things -- like a gran'ma in my neck of the woods a couple of years back who hit the wrong pedal in the parking lot and ploughed through a McDonald's, leaving the place a hideous tangle of crumbled drywall, splattered patties and incendiary hot apple-pie filling. Yet, according to his own statements, Taheri-azar committed an act of ideological domestic terrorism, which he'd planned for two months. He told police he was more disappointed more students in his path weren't struck and that he'd rented the biggest vehicle the agency had in order to do as much damage to as many people as possible. The Persian car pet may have been flooring it, but the media are idling in neutral, if not actively reversing away from the story as fast as they can. Taheri-azar informed the judge he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah," and it was apparently the will of Allah that he get behind the wheel of Allah.

Meanwhile, a new Washington Post/ABC poll finds that, in the words of the Post, "nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence."

"Often" targeted? Want to put some hard numbers on that? Like to compare the "violence" Americans perpetrated on Muslims after the slaughter of thousands of their fellow citizens in the name of Allah with, say, the death toll perpetrated by Muslims annoyed over some itsy-bitsy cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper? In September 2001, 99.99999 percent of Americans behaved with remarkable forbearance. If they're less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt these days, perhaps it's because of casual slurs like the Post's or the no-jihad-to-see-here-folks tone of the Times.

Ronald Stockton of the University of Michigan doesn't see it that way: "You're getting a constant drumbeat of negative information about Islam," he told the Post. By "negative information," Professor Stockton presumably means the London bombings, and the Bali bombings, and the Madrid bombings and the Istanbul bombings. But surely it's worth asking why in 2006 the Washington Post needs a man with a name like "Ronald Stockton" to explain Islam to us? The diversity bores in the media go out of their way to hire writers of color, writers of gender, writers of orientation. Yet, five years after 9/11, where's the New York Times' Muslim columnist? Where's the ''Today Show's'' Islamic weather girl? Why, indeed, are all the Muslim voices in the press broadly on the right -- Amir Taheri in the New York Post, Stephen Schwartz in the Weekly Standard, Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal?

If Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar is not a free-lance terrorist, then what is he? Who is he? What's he thinking? In the absence of any explanatory voices from the Muslim community, all we have are the bare bones of his resume: He's a 22-year old UNC psychology major who graduated in December. And what's revealing is the link between Taheri-azar's grievance and his action.

Take him at his word: He's upset about "the treatment of Muslims around the world" -- presumably at the hands of Israelis on the West Bank, of the Russians in Chechnya, the Indians in Kashmir, the Americans in the Sunni Triangle and the Danes in the funny pages. So what does he do to avenge Islam? He goes to the rental agency, takes out the biggest car on the lot, drives it to UNC and rams it into the men and women he's spent the last few years studying with and socializing with -- the one group of infidels he knows really well.

How many Muslims feel similarly? Not many in America, perhaps -- if only when compared to Europe: For all the multiculti blather, the United States still does a better job assimilating immigrants than France or Germany. A recent poll found that 40 percent of British Muslims want sharia introduced in the United Kingdom and 20 percent sympathized with the "feelings and motives" of the July 7 London Tube bombers. Or, more accurately, 20 percent were prepared to admit to a pollster they felt sympathy, which suggests the real figure might be somewhat higher. Huge numbers of Muslims -- many of them British subjects born and bred -- see their fellow Britons blown apart on trains and buses and are willing to rationalize the actions of mass murderers.

©Mark Steyn, 2006

Copyright © Mark Steyn, 2006

What's up with the double copyright alert?

Blogging is much simpler.

Mohammed at Iraq the Model - Pajamas Media - Opinion Journal

2006-03-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

Incoming
A mortar attack near my home makes me fear for the future of my country.

BY MOHAMMED FADHIL
Wednesday, March 8, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Did you read all of Jim Pinkereton's piece?

If not, go back and read the whole thing.

Now, read all of this. I'm not playing around. People who don't educate themselves are nothing but lambs waiting to be sheared and lamb-chopped.

This, from what I understand, is what to expect from a Catholic education.

A moment of honesty. When I hear the name Mohammed I do not have what might be described as positive mental associations. But reading ITM for years has convinced me Mohammed is one of the moderate Muslims everyone loves and wants to encourage to put an end to the global jihad.

Well, isn't that special?

I think he's going to need some help.

BAGHDAD, March 6, 2006--We woke up this morning to the sounds of many explosions and since we are familiar with those sounds we recognized that these were no doubt mortar shelling but not like the usual which is one or two rounds fired by some terrorists in a hit and run manner; this time fire was exchanged between two or more groups and lasted for more than an hour.

Mortars are blind and whoever uses this kind of dumb weapon that belongs to World War I is blind too. Maybe they make good weapons in open battlefields but using mortars inside crowded cities reflects savage insanity that forces you to pick a mortar-lottery ticket and hope not to be the unfortunate winner.

When you count the homes in Baghdad and the number of daily mortars and using some logarithmic equations of probabilities you feel somewhat relieved by knowing that you are unlikely to watch a mortar round fall on your head and after each time you hear the bang of one of those dumb things you realize that it fell sufficiently away from you and you hope that it didn't hurt someone.

I wasn't home this morning but I was close enough to home to know that the relatively unusual intense bombardment was close to my neighborhood.

It still felt "normal" until my cell phone rang, I picked up and it was my father.

Yes dad?

Are you coming home soon Mohammed?

Yes, why?

I just want to tell you not to panic when you see the crowd and police vehicles in our alley . . .

What's wrong? What happened?

Don't worry (said the old seasoned former soldier) it's just a mortar round; it hit the home of one of our neighbors, some 60 meters from ours.

Anyone hurt?

No, no one was hurt . . .

I rushed home as fast as I could and when I arrived I learned that my father instructed the family to remain in the small bomb-shelter we have in the backyard. "They come in threes and fours, so I thought it was safer to keep them there for a while, until we're sure the attack is over" my dad explained.

Those were moments that brought a strong flashback from the days of previous wars especially with a strong smell of gunpowder in the air.

What is happening to us? Many questions rang in my head at that moment that were nagging for answers. I looked at my father and I prayed he could help me put things into perspective.

I always talk to my father when things get complicated; this man lived through the times of the monarchy, the first republic, the pan-Arab nationalists and the Ba'ath and he's from the generation that ruled Iraq for decades and many of our current politicians belong to this generation. This makes men like my father closer to understanding the way his generation thinks as well as its internal conflicts, so I threw at him the urging questions and confused thoughts I had in my head:
Me: How is this mess going to resolve dad?

Dad: it is not.

Me: Are you positive? Why?

Dad: People find solutions only if they wanted to and I think many of the political players do not want a solution.

Me: Is there a chance the situation will further escalate?

Dad: Most likely yes, we are a state still run by sentiments rather than reason which means it's a brittle state and any sentimental overreaction can turn the tide it in either direction.

Me: what kinds of challenges can make things worse?

Dad: Virtually anything . . . assassinating a leader, a fatwa, attack on a shrine like last time; we do not possess the institutions that can abolish the effects of severe sentimental reactions.

Me: Is there going to be no role for politics?

Dad: What politics are you talking about?! We are dealing with deeply-rooted beliefs . . . Yes, in politics everything is possible but with religion you find yourself before very few options to choose from and our people have mostly voted for the religious.

Me: And what's America's role here? Will they stand by and watch while things go against what the way they desire?

Dad: Why do you always put America in the face of the canon? America is a super power but it's not superman. These are our problems now and America has nothing to do with it. We have to fix our mess or no one will.

Me: But their interests and presence here makes Iraq's stability a top priority for them, right?

Dad: And this stability is not going to happen soon . . . Why do you always want things to be the way you like them? Failure exists just like success does.

Me: Will America leave Iraq?

Dad: Not now of course but they will at the nearest possible chance. Don't forget that America had been in the region long before 2003 and Iraq is not an irreplaceable base. Syria and Iran can be dealt with from Turkey or the Gulf countries.

Me: We need another 9th of April.

Dad: There will be no new 9th of April.

Me: Why do our politicians seek confrontation?

Dad: The religious seek death because after death comes heaven they believe . . . Do you want to deny them this dream?

Me: No but . . . will they really go to heaven?

Dad: hell, no!

As a people we have believed in democracy and elections as the best means to decide the future for our new country. We do have different visions for democracy but the massive turnout in the last elections show that the majority of people are looking up to voting as a means to choose leaderships and get representation.
We chose our representatives and we know they have a variety of programs and visions for the country and we hoped that the difference in opinions and exchange of thoughts would initiate constructive debase and bring up better decisions.

We the voters expressed our differences through the box and the paper and every one of us voted for the person or party he or she deemed the best.

And in the same manner our representatives should restrict expressing their differences to the halls of the parliament because that's what we chose them to do in the first place and violating this by turning their differences into a violent conflict in the streets is a outrageous betrayal to the people and it's so far away from the way we chose for ourselves to work out our differences.

Mr. Fadhil, along with his brother Omar, runs Iraq the Model, a blog based in Baghdad.

Ave Maria: theocratic police state or apartheid gated community?

2006-03-08T01:28:00.000-08:00

First, look at the law school.

college

development

university

This place has more official websites than the Vatican. But wait, there's more.

Ave Maria, Discover!

Read the scrolling information on the right. If you don't make it to the end, I'll throw you a bone...

Community resources will include an on-site fire/sheriff/EMS building, as well as medical facilities provided in partnership with the NCH Healthcare System; all will be operational when the community opens.

A significant network of parks and recreational areas has been included; in fact, about 45% of the total town area is devoted to lakes and open space. The Collier County Public Schools have been gifted land for both an elementary and a middle school, and the University plans a K-12 parochial school to be operational when the first phase of the community opens.

It is anticipated that the first phase of the University and Town, including representative housing and commercial areas, will be operational in mid 2007.

Wikipedia: Holy Roman Empire

Contemporaries did not quite know how to describe this entity either. In his famous 1667 description De statu imperii Germanici, published under the alias Severinus de Monzambano, Samuel Pufendorf wrote: "Nihil ergo aliud restat, quam ut dicamus Germaniam esse irregulare aliquod corpus et monstro simile ..." ("We are therefore left with calling Germany a body that conforms to no rule and resembles a monster"). Voltaire later described it as "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire".

James "Jim" Pinkerton (watches news) explains everything.

Holy Roman Empire USA (read the whole thing)
(I'm already concerned.)

The Liberal-Left Establishment has never liked suburbia and exurbia, which are dismissed as "sprawl." And we know what the Liberal Left thinks of the Catholic Church. So what do you suppose Liberal Lefties think about a plan for a Catholic exurb? Talk about a bad twofer, in their eyes. Even worse, the new town of Ave Maria, Florida is being bankrolled by Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza, the leading conservative Catholic philanthropist in the world. Yikes! No wonder it's so easy for the mainstream media to descend into name-calling -- The Times of London has mocked him as "the pizza pope," and it's likely to get worse in the future.

On the other hand, Monaghan is not without resources on his side. And by resources, I mean not only his own billion or so in wealth, much of which he has given away already. But the greater resource he has is the tradition of the Catholic Church, and its proven power, over two millennia, to create and sustain institutions. So while nobody can know the future of Ave Maria, the town, here's a prediction: It will be around longer than the Liberal-Left Establishment.

Jim's calling them out.

Now he's on a roll.

The Left has never forgiven the American working class for becoming the American middle class. Through the middle of the last century, the Left had high hopes for the Masses; Lefties hoped that Proletarians, guided by a Revolutionary Vanguard (Stalinist or Trotskyist, there was division here) would build a good Soviet United States. But even before World War Two, instead of socialism and communism, Americans embraced capitalism, consumerism, and suburbanism. Whereas the Left wanted urban renters, who could be whipped up into rent strikes and other forms of urban protest, those darn American people preferred to become suburban owners; the folks in Levittown wanted to wage war on crabgrass, not their bosses.

This is good.

So then it came: the Left's effort to eject Monaghan and his mini-metropolis right outta de game.

An article on the Lefty website workingforchange.com tossed around the obligatory buzzwords, such as "ultraconservative," before warning that Monaghan's charitable ventures "appear to be walking a thin line between conservative organization and radical cult."

More mainstream-y publications were a bit less inflammatory, while still making their anti-Ave feelings apparent. Newsweek's understated hostility toward Ave Maria began with its headline, "Halfway to Heaven." For those not familiar with Newsweek's worldview, trust me -- the magazine intended that as an ironic joke. Reacting to reports that Monaghan might seek to prevent pharmacies in his new town from carrying contraceptives, the magazine echoed the tone of the American Civil Liberties Union, which declared itself to be "worried." Happily, according to the mag, ACLU Florida executive director Howard Simon "will be watching Ave Maria for any signs of Monaghan's requests becoming a demand." And lest any reader be too thick to see the gravity of the situation, Newsweek added, "Planned Parenthood is similarly alarmed."

A subsequent AP story was even more explicit in expressing Liberal-Left fear: Ave Maria would offer "no place to get an abortion, pornography or birth control." And the same Howard Simon was quoted again, this time more threateningly toward Monaghan & Co.: "If they attempt to do what he apparently wants to do, the people of Naples and Collier County, Florida, are in for a whole series of legal and constitutional problems and a lot of litigation indefinitely into the future."

Such attempted legal bullying led Human Events columnist Mac Johnson to snap, "What do you bet this town will have low crime, high test scores, good neighbors, a healthy rate of reproduction, and be sued every day that it exists by the ACLU?"

Just a few years ago, given the correlation of forces -- people on one side, liberal litigators on the other -- one would have had to bet on the liberal litigators. But the judiciary has changed and continues to change, such that the Right is now winning victories, not just at the ballot box, but also in the courts. So it's possible, just possible, that the ACLU won't be able to clobber Ave Maria.

(More links in original)

Contrast MSNBC's story on Monaghan with Matt Lauer's treatment of Bennish.

For Tom Monaghan, the devout Catholic who founded Domino's Pizza and is now bankrolling most of the initial $400 million cost of the project, Ave Maria is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to spreading his own strict interpretation of Catholicism. Though he says nonbelievers are welcome, Monaghan clearly wants the community to embody his conservative values. He controls all the commercial real estate in town (along with his developing partner, Barron Collier Cos.) and is asking pharmacies not to carry contraceptives.

Rumblings of litigation and unhappiness from the ACLU.

Repeal the 22nd Amendmet?

2006-03-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

I saw recently.

No.

Domestic gridlock in the second term is good for reflection. We don't need more laws. After two centuries there are not many needs in the statutory supply department. Both Congress and the President have constitutional duties to perform without major domestic overhauls.

Entitlement spending and defense spending must be controlled. In the case of entitlements it makes more sense to start early and phase it in. Cutting discretionary spending won't cut it. I want to go to the moon, and get along with the Chinese and Russians up there.

Which should be a focus of the second term, finding a way to get on the same page with China, Russia, Japan, and Korea. We're in a multi-polar world with ineffective and corrupt international governance.

Human rights law licenses genocide. We don't need more bridges named after Senator Byrd.

President Bush can veto whatever he wants. He has never vetoed any bills, but he could veto all bills. GWB will always be the war-democratic reform-idealist presdent. If he's actually quoted instead of paraphrased. Making it work is more important than politics or a domestic agenda.

The second term is like coasting your senior year, but playing very competitive sports.

News roundup, yee-haw!

2006-03-07T05:05:00.000-08:00

Forgiveness is so divine sometimes it's only reasonable to expect from God. (doff: PJM)

Christians sometimes take an approach to forgiveness and dialogue which amounts to suicide, which is itself a mortal sin.

More on the Muslim rape spree.

Credit Fjordman for bringing the truth to light. But revealing the truth, sadly, forced him out of blogging. Europe would rather sacrifice women to the hordes than deal with them. It's easy to punish peaceful bloggers.

More MSM lipsticking of Islam.
By the time the mainstream media realizes they are proselytizing for those who would destroy them I fear it will be too late.

I have yet to see one, ONE, mainstream media article which squarely deals with the Islamic scripture our enemy uses to justify raping, beheading, capturing, enslaving, and murdering us. Has there ever been such a ongoing failure in a critical institution which didn't lead to disaster?

On the other hand could Europe be awakening to the threat despite the best efforts of the mainstream media? Perhaps an "Army of Davids" is more powerful than the original David. The mainstream media Goliath never learns from mistakes, which is both bad for society and good for the blogosphere.

How many great articles on human rights violations around the world were scrapped so the MSM could keep picking away at the United States? How can news services and reporters sleep at night?

Of course, even the home nations or neighbors of Gitmo detainees summarily executing the prisoners is the fault of the United States. But so is military intervention to overthrow brutal regimes. And so is keeping them in Gitmo. And why can't the U.S. force other nations to give them asylum? And...? Media logic always ends at the same conclusion: U.S. bad.

How many people come out of North Korean gulags with good things to say?

(Boy, 12, recounts days as terror inmate
Youngest captive spent 17 months detained, a year at Guantanamo
)

Oh, yes, I forgot. Nobody is allowed in them, near them, or has any idea how many millions have died of starvation, human experimentation, forced abortion, or the good old Communist coup de grace to the back of the head.

Goliath, the big dumb brute, thinks he can still make us disbelieve our lying eyes.

So what changed? The answer is 1967 and Israel’s subsequent emergence as a power determined to annex territory beyond its legally recognized borders. The unbearable truth is that the left that identifies with the Palestinians today is largely the same left that identified with Israel in the 1950s and the 1960s. Moreover, it does so for largely the same reason: instinctive sympathy for the underdog. For some, the idea that anyone could see the conflict in these terms is literally unthinkable, so they are forced to impute to Israel’s critics the motive of Jew-hatred.

This reminds me of the German father who warned his son who was heading to Operation Barbarossa: "Any idiot looking at a map (could) see Germany (was) going to lose the war."

Somehow, Israel has defied every bit of accepted military wisdom and triumphed. Survival as a motivator is certainly a factor. Brilliant strategy and tactics is another. Some would argue the only way Israel has triumphed in the face of superior numbers, even equipment in some cases (upgraded Shermans v. modern Soviet T-54's in 1967), is divine intervention.

Only a Jew-hating Guardian columnist could call the Arab states the underdog. See? I didn't call you an anti-Semite.

Dueling Dystopias: A Brave New World Draws First Blood

2006-03-04T18:30:00.000-08:00

Dystopia

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

When I finished reading Huxley in 1986, twice because once wasn't enough, I began to wonder which dystopia would be proven more accurate when I reached manhood.

George Orwell's 1984, though brilliant, particularly Orwell's treatment of vocabulary as a means of control, is not as relevant today as A Brave New World.

Community, Identity, and Stability - The World State's Motto in A Brave New World

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (excerpt)

"If you allowed yourselves to think of God, you wouldn't allow yourselves to be degraded by pleasant vices. You'd have a reason for bearing things patiently, for doing things with courage. I've seen it with the Indians."

"l'm sure you have," said Mustapha Mond. "But then we aren't Indians. There isn't any need for a civilized man to bear anything that's seriously unpleasant. And as for doing things--Ford forbid that he should get the idea into his head. It would upset the whole social order if men started doing things on their own."

"What about self-denial, then? If you had a God, you'd have a reason for self-denial."

"But industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning."

"You'd have a reason for chastity!" said the Savage, blushing a little as he spoke the words.

"But chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability. And instability means the end of civilization. You can't have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices."

"But God's the reason for everything noble and fine and heroic. If you had a God ..."

"My dear young friend," said Mustapha Mond, "civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise. Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations to be resisted, objects of love to be fought for or defended--there, obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense. But there aren't any wars nowadays. The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. There's no such thing as a divided allegiance; you're so conditioned that you can't help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren't any temptations to resist. And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears--that's what soma is."

In the constant struggle to avoid tears, difficulty, effort, in our world, not brave, not as new as we think, the consequence is often a long trail of tears, over centuries.

In conclusion, Orwell must get his due.

"You want a vision of the future? Imagine a boot stomping on a human face, Forever."

Perhaps the UN and EU could get some tee shirts made up? Legacy media could use the advertising dollars.

A "discourse of cultures" is much simpler if one civilization lies prostrate under foot and only listens.

Maybe sunlight will do the trick: vampire hate crimes

2006-03-04T14:17:00.000-08:00

If a law makes you feel good, it must do good.

My favorite subject, "hate" "crimes." That's when lawyers forget every pragmatic concern they ever had about the basics of criminal law and get tough on oh-so-very-bad mens rea.

Actus reus?

Did I mention how very bad it is to have certain things in your head?

Hate crimes famously came up in James Byrd's capital murder case when Texas was hamstrung by an inability to offer any punishment beyond lethal injection, thus allowing the perpetrators to walk free as the undead for all eternity. Clearly holy water and stakes must be applied posthaste.

Here we only have multiple counts of attempted murder, in a situation where the specific intent practically jumps out at a potted plant.

Yes, more laws! That will do good!

Osama: the new, improved final prophet

2006-03-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Gitmo Inmate: Osama Called Himself Prophet

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 5 minutes ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A Pakistani millionaire held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay testified that he met Osama bin Laden twice, and the al-Qaida leader called himself "a prophet."

.....In 1999, Paracha said, he met bin Laden in Afghanistan. The following year, he returned to Afghanistan to interview bin Laden for his news agency, Universal Broadcast Ltd.

"He delivered (preached) the Quran, and said he was a prophet," Paracha said. "He said very nice things, very impressive."

That's funny.

The holy Quran and the holy Prophet's Ahadith (teachings) eloquently prove that prophethood ('nabuwwat' and 'risalat') came to an end with our Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam).

If this keeps up I'm going to open my own Islamic university. Do Islamic rules apply to Muslims? First the Danish imams get away with blaspheming the Final Prophet and now Osama claims to be a prophet.

Punk kids playing in the street

2006-03-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

Or a secluded university pit.

I'm so glad there haven't been any terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11/01. That "fact" has become far more important than honestly investigating dozens of crimes just like this one. Start with the boy who crashed a small airplane into a Tampa bank tower shortly after 9/11/01.

By the way, this is why Osama chose 9/11/01 to attack the United States. Remove one zero.

009.111
YUSUFALI: Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.

The "achievement supreme" in Islam is to slay and be slain for Allah. Thank goodness Islam is a religion of peace.

The trackback doesn't work for me. If it didn't for you, try this.

Wikipedia's Tamerlane

2006-03-02T04:58:00.000-08:00

Timur

I wouldn't call it a complete whitewash. There is this:

Capture of towns and villages were accompanied, very often, with their destruction and the massacre of the inhabitants.

Given the historical obsession with Vlad Tepes and his unfortunate tendency to impale his enemies on poles, seems odd to leave out Timur's pyramids of human heads.

Timur’s campaigns are infamous for their extensive massacres and emblematic “pyramids of heads”.

Of course Wikipedia wouldn't cover up Islamic brutality while playing up the atrocities of those who fought against the jihad, would they?

Homer-Simpson Test

2006-03-01T20:59:00.000-08:00

I'll try to name the Bill of Rights from memory.

1st: freedom of press, speech, religion: no establishment/free exercise, peaceful assembly, petition for redress of grievances

2nd: right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed

Put that in your militia pipe and smoke it.

3rd: No troops in homes during peacetime.

Don't see the Third cited very often.

4th: No unreasonable search and seizure, persons, houses, papers, effects. Warrant preference, issued on probable cause.

5th: Grand jury, self-incrimination, due process, compensation for property condemned.

6th: Speedy and public trial.

7th: Trial by jury

8th: No cruel and unusual punishment.

9th: Unenumerated rights.

10th: Reserved powers of states and citizens, would be nice if the courts respected it.

But do they ask me? Of course not.

And it figures I'd forget most of the Sixth Amendment, as I studied that one in law school. "Right to counsel" who needs it? You'll get no witnesses, and LIKE IT!

Speech laws turn scumbags into martyrs

2006-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

From David Irving to Red Ken, speech laws always backfire. They give a wider audience and moral authority to people who really, really don't deserve it.

Inchoate offenses, of which speech is a part, are one thing. Punishing speech itself is always abused for political reasons, if one accepts any benefits to doing it in the first place, which I don't. The UK and Belgium are poster nations in this regard.

He accused the Board of Deputies of British Jews of making the original complaint only to try to “hush” him up over his views on the Middle East. They want him to “tone down” his views on the Israeli Government, he claimed, adding: “For decades the charge of anti-Semitism has been used to try to suppress any meaningful debate about the policies of the Israeli Government.”

What calling a Jewish reporter a prison camp guard has to do with criticizing the Israeli government, I have no idea. Red Ken gets another free shot for the price of one, this time as a "martyr."

Latest Wank Poll

2006-02-28T06:33:00.000-08:00

David Gregory, Eric Alterman, and Keith Olberman need more lotion.

Why should I care about the latest opinion poll of a lame-duck president?

Just wondering. Cuz, Bush isn't running again, and it's nearly impossible for congressional incumbents to lose.

If the Democrats thought jihadists were more of a threat than Republicans, hell, I might vote for one. It wouldn't be the first time.

If you read my blog regularly - hey, it's like a membership at Augusta National in terms of exclusivity - you'll know I think polls are not worth the calories used to create them.

Shocka (/sarc), the most basic rule of political polling was broken (hat tip: PJM) AGAIN.

Total Respondents 1018

Total Republicans 272 27%

Total Democrats 409 40%

Total Independents 337 33%

WEIGHTED

Total Respondents 1018

Total Republicans 289 28%

Total Democrats 381 37%

Total Independents 348 34%

Part of me hopes the Democrats continue to believe their push polling, but the other part of me wants a healthy two-party system.

Polling no longer has anything to do with MEASURING opinion.

Arabs upset - also, sun predicted to rise in East

2006-02-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

Arabs see phobia behind uproar over ports deal

"Islamophobia is rising and has become like an infectious disease that spreads... in the West," wrote columnist Rashid Saleh al-Oraimy in the UAE daily Gulf News this week.

Maybe if you didn't issue fatwas over cartoons, kill civilians, blow up hospitals, and behead innocent people, etc., etc. Have you considered that?

There are consequences to not policing your own.

Finally, a term for me: "crunchy con"

2006-02-20T23:09:00.000-08:00

Meet Rod Dreher, a conservative who is critical of capitalism.

One area which particularly bugs me is protection of Florida wildlife.

I was listening to talk radio one day and the obviously-northern caller referred to manatees as...

speedbumps on the water.

Now I don't mean to sound feral Floridian, but that's not funny. There's a good chance someone will pull a scimitar and split you ear-to-ear for saying something like that down here.

No, sorry, that's cartoons in Denmark.

Anyway, many of us don't cotton to your Yankee "jokes" about killing off our native animals. Honestly, if the alligator eats you, most of us will excuse the alligator. You have NO right to swim in our lakes. Anyone raised here would agree. So don't run over our manatees, kill our gators, or poison our birds.

M'kay?

In Mr. Dreher's view, consumer-crazed capitalism makes a fetish of individual choice and, if left unchecked, "tends to pull families and communities apart." Thus consumerism and conservatism are, for him, incompatible, a fact that mainstream conservatives, he says, simply do not grasp. He warns that capitalism must be reined in by "the moral and spiritual energies of the people." It is not politics and economics that will save us, he declares. It is adherence to the "eternal moral norms" known as the Permanent Things.

Much of the world does not think you are what you spend. Understanding this fact, and putting consumerism in perspective, is critical to understanding and living happily in the world.

Rod's world sounds livable even if you don't agree with everything he argues.

Mr. Dreher sees "Crunchy Cons," in part, as "a handbook of the resistance." He advocates homeschooling. He applauds community-supported agriculture, small businesses, simple living, historic preservation and much else that promotes a "sacramental" (non-utilitarian) sense of life. You cannot be truly conservative today, he avers, without being countercultural.

Left shows ass: not pretty

2006-02-20T14:56:00.000-08:00

I've avoided much comment on the UAE taking over New York's port security.

On the face of it, the UAE seems like a lousy candidate. Why "on the face of it"? Do I really need to spell it out? Second letter, starts with "a."

Thing is, I don't know that much about the UAE. Compared to the Saudis, Syrians, Iranians, or "Palestinians" they don't seem particularly dangerous.

If you don't already see the rank hypocrisy on the Left, let me make it clearer.

Where is the Left on the PATRIOT Act, terrorist surveillance, or fighting jihadists overseas?

No-show, or opposed, that's where. Now we're supposed to hang out a perfectly good (as far as I know) UAE company because the Left sees a threat to itself?

Sorry, but New York only deserves the same PC-protection we get here in Rube Land.

To be clear, yes, I am saying any Democrat who suddenly finds him or herself heavily involved in besmirching the perfectly good name of this fine, upstanding UAE company is Islamophobic, anti-Arab, racist, and should be punished under the applicable hate speech ordinance.

How does it feel, hypocrites?

Religion of overwrought metaphors

2006-02-20T13:56:00.000-08:00

PJ Media: Peaktalk

The order makes the astonishing comparison between not wanting (another) big box store on their doorstep and the expulsion of the Israelites from Egypt.

[I did not make that up. This is not one of my fake news stories or headlines.]

There was once a time when religion had some of the BEST thinkers.

LOL!

This month, as Wal-Mart finally began clearing ground on the site, Gillespie introduced a new group, this time including Jesuits, Catholics, Baptists, Buddhists, Daoists, Lutherans and Anglicans, among others, to front the argument that Wal-Mart will blight the practise of religion in Guelph. This time the target is the constitutionality of the local bylaw that permits the Wal-Mart on the site. "The by-law is illegal -- in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- in that major commercial activity will directly and substantially interfere with the religious beliefs and practices of individuals of many faiths," reads a release from the group. But is the intent of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms really to permit religious groups to dictate what others may do?

Mixing the oh-so-"tolerant" Left with medieval religious logic is a fascinating milestone of our times. Cartoons of Blasphemy, meet the Wal-Mart of Idolatry.

Rumsfeld states obvious, mildly, but mainstream media seethes

2006-02-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

Wretchard

"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we — our country, our government — has not adapted," he said.

(Rumsfeld)

One more time, for posterity.

The modern mainstream media knows four or five basic stories.

1. Vietnam War

2. Protesting the Vietnam War

3. Watergate/presidential scandal

4. Hurricane smashes coast, minorities hardest hit

5. Crap which isn't Earth-shaking national/international news like movie stars, divorces, the latest pretty white woman murder, hunting accidents... The MSM Looney Tunes bias in reporting other issues relates to their star-****ing, IMO.

MSM terrorist coverage would slot into numbers two-four. They basically support anti-American forces, no matter how retrograde or bloody. See, NVA, KJI, Stalin, Che, Saddam, Ahmadinejad, The Dread Cartoons of Blasphemy, HAMAS, or Al-Sadr.

Sandmonkey observes roosting chickens

2006-02-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

The chickens are roosting

I have told you before that the people who started this whole cartoon mess were the arab governments, all with their own agendas and goals. Now it seems that they will regret ever instigating this crisis, because it now seems to be out of control. They have unleashed the forces of chaos and now it's backfiring in their faces.

(link in original)

Diana West: Cartoon network

2006-02-17T10:01:00.000-08:00

Cartoon network
By Diana West
February 17, 2006

Everything is at stake in the information business, which is now everything else as well. What a perfect backdoor to UN control of the Internet.

Maybe there's some rarified irony about the fact that in a society increasingly dependent on imagery, not words, to convey information, it is imagery that the media have denied us in conveying the story of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. But with a Gallup Poll reporting that 61 percent of US respondents believe that Europeans who printed the caricatures of Mohammed acted irresponsibly, it's nothing to shrug off.
The rationale goes something like this: "Not all self-censorship is a bad thing."
"Even if all the world had the right of free speech, I still believe there are things that should not be said."
"It's some weird presumption of modernity that says because something can be done it must be done."
The above statements came out of my e-mail bag after last week's column "Cartoon Rage 2006," or, "How a Proud Press Bowed Its Head and Submitted to an Islamic Law against Depictions of Mohammed." These letter-writers, representing a small but noticeable contingent, rejected the submission argument as a point of pride, reading into their own contentment to "see no evil" — that is, see no Muhammad cartoons — an elevated sensibility: good manners, good taste, and self-restraint. This may be highly commendable — the good manners, taste and self-restraint part — but it is entirely beside the point.
Which is what draws me back to this freak show of a story one more time before its narrative-memory is set, and before the beginning of the end of press freedom is permanently attributed to kindly, responsible behavior, not incipient dhimmitude.
In another context, I wouldn't disagree with the reader-comments I quoted above. Indeed, I've been known to make similar arguments against all manner of fetid cultural excess, from lurid children's fiction to the notorious Sensation Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in which Dung Virgin first came to fame. Or was that infamy? It's easy to get them confused.
The topic of Dung Virgin, not to mention its companion piece in shock value, Piss Christ, strikes the Good-Mannerists as an important marker in their personal guides to press etiquette. Not grooving to such "artistic" attacks on Christianity, the Good-Mannerists say they can understand the consternation of the Cartoon Ragers — at least to some point shy of death threats, arson and murder — and see media self-censorship as a matter of common decency.
Is the comparison valid? And is the politeness deserved? Absolutely not, and here's one big reason why. Christianity and Islam are not interchangeable belief systems inspired by a generic divinity. One relevant distinction is the way they operate in relation to their societies. Christianity abides by the separation of church and state; Islam knows no separation whatsoever. As a result, the theological teachings of Islam as revealed by Muhammad, which form the basis of the Islamic law (sharia) that drives Islamic societies, necessarily belong to the political sphere in a way that Christianity does not.
This is not to say that Christianity should be, or has been off the table. Indeed, all the ink (not blood) spilled over assorted Excrement Icons only enhanced their value, not to mention the reputations of their artists (using the word loosely). But the all-encompassing nature of Islam underscores a special need for open, critical examination of the Koran and Muhammad as political, and politically violent, forces that roil our times.
Let's take what are considered the most inflammatory of the Danish Dozen: Bomb-head Muhammad; and Muhammad in the clouds, telling arriving suicide bombers that Islamic paradise is plumb out of virgins. What Denmark's cartoonists did in these caricatures is something few writers have dared to do in words: They made visual reference to the copious, historical and contemporary theological underpinnings of holy war (jihad) and suicide bombings. What is offensive here, then, is not the extremely mild caricature, but rather those theological underpinnings of holy war and suicide bombings. When the widely influential Sheik Yusef al-Qaradawi can praise Muhammad as "an epitome for religious warriors [mujahideen]," Muhammad, a jihad model, shouldn't be a taboo subject in the West, either in caricature or commentary, and certainly shouldn't be super-sacralized, in effect, by a fearfully polite censorship. The subject should be laid out for all to see.
The valiant Dutch parliamentarian and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali put it this way: "You cannot liberalize Islam without criticizing the Prophet and the Koran... You cannot redecorate a house without entering inside." And especially when you're not allowed to see what it looks like.

Surrender of caricature and illustration rights are just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps more craven appeasement and groveling will work.

So far, so good, dhimmi mainstream media scum. Diana West is one of the only op-ed columnists to mention dhimmitude regularly. Watching my fellow citizens cringe like shy or abused animals is sad.

The media lied about the religious arguments related to depicting the human form in Islam, mostly ignored the plot of the Danish imams and several governments, overstated the nature of the cartoons, used prior restraint on itself, while pushing the AP French hog-calling photo and two other fakes as real, and running old Abu Ghraib photos with vigor.

I welcome comments from those with apocalyptic viewpoints. Most of the media could not be more self-righteous or cowardly.

Diana West's dhimmified readers who wrote wish we could go back to a simpler, more modern time without any effort.

"Prophet" Law Snags Human Rights Body

2006-02-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

A drive by a bloc of Islamic nations for a global ban on "defamation of religions and prophets" has thrown a major kink into U.S. hopes for an overhaul of the leading U.N. human rights body.

"defamation of religions and prophets"

Yes, Virginia, it is 2006, and we're debating blasphemy laws in the context of human rights and defamation.

Subtract a thousand: February 17th, 1006. Now it makes sense.

Private human rights groups say the most problematic part of the amendment is a call for the new U.N. council to "prevent instances of intolerance, discrimination, incitement of hatred and violence arising from any actions against religions, prophets and beliefs which threaten the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
Jennifer L. Windsor, executive director of the human rights group Freedom Watch, said the OIC effort was one of a number of attempts by nations and blocs at the United Nations to "dumb down the human rights standards."
Freedom Watch has opposed anti-blasphemy laws both in Europe and the Islamic world as an infringement on free speech, she said. "It is never a good idea to protect one human right by repressing another."

Freedom of conscience, expression, and religion are on the chopping block.

"What a beautiful world we live in, a sweet romantic place. Beautiful people everywhere...."

-- Devo

Gumbel bumbles

2006-02-16T18:11:00.000-08:00

No blacks in Winter Olympics
I saw Real Sports and did a spit take. First off, there are black people at the Republican Convention. Second, being white relates to less sun, causing frozen water. Right?

Helen at Caribpundit (PJM) had the same reaction I guess.

Florida to sink or explode?

2006-02-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

Simply put, Florida is full. Chock full of every urban ill you can think of with more on the way.

(PJM)

Some might contest the absolutist nature of the opinion, but the coastline is hammered from development. On the other hand, we're supposedly entering a long cycle of increased tropical storm activity.

Charting your course through the surridiculous

2006-02-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

Cheney

and the magic pellets theory

(PJM)

UN Tables Iran Nukes, Debates Cheney Threat

(Scrappleface)

Bush authorizes deadly force against domestic attorney

2006-02-16T08:59:00.000-08:00

President Satisfied With Cheney's Account

WASHINGTON - President Bush was satisfied with Vice President Dick Cheney's account of his Texas hunting accident, but Bush's spokesman declined to say Thursday whether the president felt it should have been revealed earlier.

"I think that the vice president clearly explained the rationale behind that," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, avoiding a direct response to questions about whether Bush felt the shooting accident was publicly disclosed in a timely manner.

The accident happened on Saturday but was not publicly revealed until the next day.

Sometimes speech is governed by one's opinion as to when, or even whether, it should come out.

See, a certain caricature controversy.

But see, old Abu Ghraib photos.

Cheney reveals super power

2006-02-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

Very much like Dr. Xavier of the X-Men,

Vice President Dick Cheney disclosed Wednesday that he has the power to declassify sensitive government information, authority that could set up a criminal defense for his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Who is a mutant. "Scooter"?

Rash of VP shootings concerns lawmakers

2006-02-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

Cheney Could Face Charges in Shooting

In the only other case of someone being shot by a vice president, Aaron Burr was indicted on murder charges in New York and New Jersey for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, but he was never tried and finished out his term in office.

Cheney COULD face charges, when monkeys fly out of my butt.

Brit Hume and Cheney

2006-02-15T14:49:00.000-08:00

Cheney admitted fault for bad trigger discipline. Good call and should settle things.

Hard to spin that against him.

UPDATE: Apparently it's easy to spin an admission against him.

Some people think he should be charged with a crime.

And nothing is settled.

In other news, there is no other news.

Vice-Presidential Control Lacking?

2006-02-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Vice President Dick Cheney is the most recent in a long line of violent vice presidents of the United States. From Theodore Roosevelt to combat photographer Al Gore, vice presidents are noted for hot tempers and violent outbursts. Some allege Thomas Jefferson was the spiritual leader of an anti-Anglican insurgency some centuries ago.

Dan Quayle, IMO, is by far the best golfer to hold the office of vice president, or president for that matter.

This raises some interesting statuary possibilities.

No-Fun Range Rules Police Backslapping

2006-02-15T06:54:00.000-08:00

OH, GOOD GRIEF, YOURSELF YOURSELF [Mark Steyn]

I'm not saying I'm entirely on board with the line that real men shoot each other all the time without whining like a bunch of ninnies about what's no more than a healthy American male bonding experience. But on balance this is one of those no-scandal scandals where Democrat/media hysteria only underlines their estrangement from the average red-state male.

I'm not "on board" with it at all. But shooting tiny pellets all over your surrounding biosphere has been known to cause some small problems. I've never had a similar problem shooting clay birds, but don't bounce shot off metal objects.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

WNMCWJD?

2006-02-14T14:55:00.000-08:00

What new muscle car would Jesus drive?

The only old one remaining, retro-mod-redone, is the Mustang.

GTO
Challenger
Charger
Camaro/Firebird

To be fair, foreign cars are getting quite muscle car, ah, ey. Some candidates might include the...

Impreza WRX
Evo
350 Z

And so on.

Feel free to be symbolic.

Commuter Cars

The Tango T600 shows one wave of the future.

The Tango is a glimpse into the future of commuting. Lane doubling, lane splitting, and perpendicular parking will become commonplace. Traffic-induced headaches and lost time will fade into the past. No more worries about safety as you're ballasted for flat-out cornering stability and protected by a racing-certified roll cage designed to protect you and your passenger. Park in places you wouldn't even dream of in a Mini Cooper. Emission-free and exciting, the electric Tango T600 is designed to beat most sports cars in the quarter mile with acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in just 4 seconds and a top speed of 150 mph!

WMWJU?

2006-02-13T06:30:00.000-08:00

"Sputnik" - satellite, fellow traveler

see moon

"Soyuz" - Union

"Saturn V"

but see

"Trident"

"Ariane" has the nicest name.

New species? You ain't seen nothing yet

2006-02-12T06:11:00.000-08:00

New species? You ain't seen nothing yet

But for the “wow” factor, a treasure trove awaits beneath the sea. Winser, who has been on 10 expeditions, says: “If I was setting out as an explorer today, it would be the deep oceans I would want to work in. I never thought in my lifetime we would discover an entirely different lifeform. David Attenborough’s programme The Blue Planet showed worm-like creatures living off hydrothermal vents in the mid-Atlantic ridge. It shows you don’t have to go to the moon or into space to find something new.”

Steve Fossett Body Double

2006-02-12T04:10:00.000-08:00

In pictures: Fossett landing

Looks suspiciously like a P-38 Lightning

Pope says science no threat to faith

2006-02-12T03:41:00.000-08:00

Pope says science no threat to faith

Scientific discoveries sometimes came so rapidly "that it becomes very complicated to recognize how they are compatible with the truth revealed by God about man and the world," said the German-born Pontiff, 78.

"M-Theory"

I understand the "MPower Theory."

Three dimensions and time are enough for me on an ordinary day.

Big bang theory is introduced
1927

Far-Right PBS purports that...

Georges LeMaitre (1894-1966) showed that religion and science -- or at least physics -- did not have to be incompatible. LeMaitre, born in Belgium, was a monsignor in the Catholic church.

Life of Brian: Scene 4

2006-02-12T01:41:00.000-08:00

The stoning

7 Questions

2006-02-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

7 Questions
It's a great post on everything from moderate Islam to non-violent tactics.

I'm going to cherry-pick one small possible suggestion when cartoons offend anyone.

ignoring them is certainly a valid option

What Missile Would Jesus Use?

2006-02-11T03:55:00.000-08:00

Barcepundit via PJM.

Jesus is depicted holding the AIM-54 "Phoenix" Missile, deployed with the United States Navy F-14 "Tomcat."

Other candidates for Jesus:

SA-7 "Grail"

SS-18 "Satan"

LGM-118A "Peacekeeper"

Hoax cartoons and the continuing saga of the Danish imams

2006-02-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

Another Possible Hoax of a Cartoon; Call for Graphology Expertise.—

The Volokh Conspiracy (links in original)

The Danish clerics who spread the 15 Muhammad cartoons have been evasive about where they got the three most offensive ones, ones that had never been published by Jyllands-Posten or media in any country, at least before the dispute arose.

.....These two oddly drawn letters raise a question in my untrained mind whether the author of the "demon pedophile" cartoon was brought up writing some form of the Arabic alphabet.

Iraq quietly approves vote, and car bomb

2006-02-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

The final results made official and grants women their right share…

Car bomb

Within minutes of the final election tally, a remote-controlled car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in southern of Baghdad killing seven Sunnis and wounding 22.

Decapitation Chic

2006-02-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

PJ Media links to Lileks. Something for everyone, history buffs, soda jerks, Francophiles, Francocide, whatever.

I'm sure it’s a direct intentional reference to the sort of dead-king porn I posted above. According to the website for the demo organizers, the “endorsers” of the rally include Ed Asner, Susan Sarandon, John Sayles, Martin Sheen, Al Sharpton, Gloria Steinham, Studs Terkel, Jane Fonda, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (still alive!) Gore Vidal (that famous man of the people), Wavy Gravy (he had a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream named after him, so he must be heeded. Attention must be paid!) Jessica Lange, Michael Lerner, Mark Crispin Miller, Ed Begley Jr., Harry Belafonte, Gabriel Byrne. Ward Churchill, and someone described as the “executive director” of the “Hate Free Zone Washington.” Also Casey Kasem, the voice of “Shaggy” on Scooby Doo. I do not think that any of these people want anyone decapitated. I also do not think that any of these people would have told the woman to put the sign away. I do think that I will recall that sign when I hear their names again.

MPAC cribs Holocaust denier Irving and no hat tip

2006-02-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

No hat tip

Maybe if Asghar Bukhari and the people at MPAC spent less time reading the works of David Irving then they would not believe all this Zionist conspiracy nonsense so readily.

MPAC do, however, hat tip Bilal Patel for the discovery .

Hat Tip, Pajamas Media

link

Trappes, France

2006-02-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

Guest Translator, "joiesauvage"

>Dhimmi Watch

Translation from Paris: the ISLAMISATION OF FRANCE

Trappes, 35 km of Paris: an islamist city

Seen on television last month:
http://www.dailymotion.com/search/islam/video/34176
I decided to give you the link to this impressive video about Trappes, a little town not far from Paris. I hope those of you who understand French will watch it. For the others, I decided to translate the main moments of the video as it really shows how a country gets islamised. A lot of French people have seen it.

First, the journalist tries to film a Muslim prayer in Trappes. People warn him: “if you stay here you will have big problems”. He cannot attend the end of the prayer and he has to leave. Later, a guy in the street threatens him: “What, you want to film what, you want to film the Brothers ? Go away ” etc.

A guy explains to the journalist: “In 20 years, everything has changed here. One cannot buy alcohol anymore. One cannot buy pork. Almost all the whites have left. Amost all the women are veiled. It is a pity because diversity has disappeared”.

The journalist goes to a Muslim book shop... the book seller is a Catholic convert, a radical Muslim (wearing a beard etc.). He only sells religious books about Islam, and he also sells veils for the women. He does not answer when he is asked about lapidation. He says: “it is a complex issue and one would need more time to discuss it”.

Another guy explains he is a theater professor. He tries to give theater lessons to the youth of Trappes. He says: “There are less and less girls attending my improvisation and theater courses... sometimes I meet a girl I know in the street, who used to attend my theater courses, I can hardly recognise her: she wears a veil, she acts strangely and does not talk to me. I can’t believe how they changed, it makes me feel uncomfortable”.

A veiled girl says, very moved: “When I pray, I feel like I am soaring... I am facing God. It is as if I was under drugs, I cannot explain it”.

Then the journalist meets a group of Rap, one of the only ones which is male and female, and some singers are non Muslim. He asks the youth what they think about the veil, but the girls, even the non Muslim, are embarrassed and don’t seem to want to answer. Only the guys talk. But then the journalist asks the girls what they think about it. A non Muslim girl says “I am against the veil, but I don’t want to talk about it”. Another girl says: “I don’t wear a skirt here in Trappes, because in the street the guys would call me a whore. But outside Trappes, I like wearing a skirt”.

The journalist finally finds a laic place, it is a high school. There the girls are free to talk: “20 years ago, women were respected here. Now, there is no respect towards women, they are called WHORES by the men in the street”. Another girl: “the French State must do something... they know it happens, it is visible enough no ? “ Another girl: “When the girls wear trousers, they are more respected than if they wear skirts, but they are still inferior to the men”. “Men think we are sexual objects, and cooks”. A blond girl makes fun of the men saying “all they want is a hole” and all the girls laugh.

Then the journalist films the preparation for the big demonstration against the Law against the veil (it had been a big controversy in France). The guys organise everything and tell the women what they must do. There are two buses to go to Paris (for the demonstration), one for men, one for women. A man climbs into the women’s bus and says to them: “do not talk to any journalist during the demonstration”.

But during the demonstration (in Paris), a veiled woman tells the journalist: “wearing a veil is not always easy, because when you have the veil, you cannot go out on evening anymore”.

Back to the high school. A philosophy teacher (white, non Muslim woman) says: “I had never had problems before but now, some pupils question my teachings in the name of Islam. Islam is superior to everything, it has the answer for everything. It is superior to Science. They say the Big Bang is explained in the Coran. I had some parents coming to the school to contest my teaching in the name of Islam. I was sued by the Muslim association of Trappes for “racial hatred” (NB: the journalist does not say who won).

The journalist films an anti Israel demonstration in Trappes.

The journalist then visits some mothers, first generation of immigrants, who cannot speak French (they speak Arabic). They explain that they are against the veil “because we want our daughters to find a job and with the veil it is not easy”. A white woman says “it is the fault of the successive French goverments because they have put all the Muslims together and hence they speak Arabic between them and have no chance to integrate, and now the radicals are here. It is ridiculous, some women are not even veiled in their coutnry and when they arrive here, after a few months they wear a veil”.

The daughters explain (in French): “We are more educated than our mothers, hence we are more religious because we understand Islam better”. One of them says: “They keep asking us to “integrate”... but they must stop now, they must understand that a Frenchwoman does not necessarily drink beer or eat pork... WE DO NOT WANT TO INTEGRATE. France is also Islamic”.

Some Muslims, in Trappes, disagree, it is the black community (from West Africa). A black guy explains: “We have been rejected by the Arab Muslim community. The Arab Muslims have become too political. We do not want that. We are for a tolerant Islam. We respect the laws of France. We African Blacks are not Arab, and we will never be Arab”. And also: “Now I hear some kids saying that Coca Cola is the drink of Satan...”

Back to the Catholic convert (the book seller): “Islam is for everybody... we just have to wait. Islam is a giant which will conquer everything. Everybody will be touched, the Europeans, the Americans, men and women, the lawyers and the workers, everybody”.

Dhimmi part: about the mayor of Trappes, a socialist. A guy explains that “the mayor of Trappes has given his soul for a mosquee”. He explains that the mayor promised the radicals to give them money for a mosquee and for a religious (coranic) school if they voted for him, which they did. The journalist visits the mayor of Trappes who says he will not comment about that.

Laic resistance in Trappes: some teachers have organised a conference about “women and laicity”. The radical Muslims are attending but they do not speak. A woman says “Islam has to renounce some of its principles to be integrated in Europe”. A veiled girl takes the micro: “Who are you to tell us what we must do, you so called laic people...” etc.

That’s all ! Sorry for my imperfect English... I felt I had to translate this video because it might be our future... I will post in on several threads.... (maybe Mr Spencer will argue with me but I take the risk, as long as he does not lapidate me, but I don’t think lapidation is part of his traditions).

Votre Anglais est tres bon.

LOL

To translate from the French I'd have to listen to it a hundred times and dig out my dictionary.

The proposed Trappes Mosque looks like a cross between Versailles and the Louvres, pre-pyramid.

Speaking of great obelisks, some Muslims want to destroy the Great Pyramids.

What happens to the Danish imams who created the three most offensive cartoons?

2006-02-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

If they aren't under threat, aren't the world's angry Muslims nothing but hypocrites?

Michelle Malkin has all the cartoons here. By any - Islamic - standard, the Danish imams must die.

(That's a rhetorical point, not a suggestion.)

Reconciling Islam With Modernity

2006-02-08T06:11:00.000-08:00

He asserts that Koranic verses must be interpreted in their historical context and, paradoxically, that it is by acknowledging the historical roots of the Koran that Muslims can reconcile it with modernity.
I've made this argument on many occasions. Unless Islam leaves Seventh Century morality and behaviors in the Seventh Century the modern world will be forced to take draconian defensive measures.

Free people will not accept theocracy, shari'a, beheadings, blasphemy laws, stonings, dhimmitude, jizya, and Islamic supremacism over all other faiths. Islam - the total regulation of human life according to Seventh Century law, science, and morality - will not conquer the modern world. Without Enlightenment Islam is digging its own grave.

Merkel gets it!

2006-02-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

Iran and the Hitler analogy

It's like ignoring the tide suddenly going out much further than you've ever seen it go out before. Genocide is not a talking point.

Mrs. Merkel warned against a repetition of the complacency demonstrated by the international community during the early years of Nazi rule. "Looking back to German history in the early 1930s when National Socialism was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said, 'It's only rhetoric -- don't get excited,' " she said on Saturday, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements calling for Israel's destruction and questioning the Holocaust.

As I've said before, Iran has a right - as a nation - to peaceful nuclear energy. Ahmadinejad and the mullahs do not have a right to launch a war of extermination.

Decapitation strategy, all leadership targets, figure out what to do next, next.