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

 

Another “winner”: And the awards to the repellent and egregious just keep on coming. First, Kojo’s dad, bespoke dunderhead Kofi Annan scoops the coveted Olaf Palme award. Now, ailing despot Fidel Castro has won the august Amilcar Cabral prize.

 

The whosit whatsit prize, you say?

 

The Amilcar Cabral, apparently an award named for great hero in Africa, and more specifically in the pestilential backwater, Guinea Bissau.

 

Here’s how the award was announced on the Cuban site periodico.cu:

 

President Fidel Castro Awarded Amilcar Cabral Medal

·        The highest distinction of the government of Guinea Bissau, the Amilcar Cabral medal, was received by Esteban Lazo as representative of the Cuban president. It was delivered by the prime minister of Guinea Bissau, Mr. Aristides Gomes

By: Luis Luque Alvarez

Taken from www.juventudrebelde.co.cu

 “It can be said that with few leaders have I developed such a deep friendship as the one there was between Amilcar and I,” said Cuban President Fidel Castro once, referring to African national hero Amilcar Cabral, “a thinker of great intellectual capacity, a creator and an especially humane person.”

These statements were made yesterday by the Cuban Communist Party Political Bureau member Esteban Lazo after receiving the Amilcar Cabral Medal on behalf of the Cuban leader. The award was delivered by Guinea Bissau’s Prime Minister, Mr. Aristides Gomes.

The medal granted to Fidel is the highest distinction given to outstanding personalities who have contributed to the establishment and strengthening of Guinea Bissau.

Lazo noted that this medal also pays homage to all Cubans who died in Guinea Bissau while fulfilling their internationalist duty. He noted that there are others who continue to render their services to that nation and region inspired by the lessons of the Commander in Chief, an advocate of “sharing what we have, not merely giving away what we don’t need.”

Gomes pointed out that Fidel Castro “will leave his mark not only on the history of Cuba and Latin America, but the entire World. He has left a deep mark in the patriotic consciousness of Guinea Bissau, in its fight for independence and later in its social-economic and cultural development and progress.”

“We wish him,” he added, “a speedy recovery. We are sure that this is another battle he will win, with the certainty that he still has a lot to give to the noble cause of humanity.”…

Well, live and learn, as they say. Who knew that Cubans had died in Guinea Bissau while fulfilling their internationalist duty—which, I take it, had something to do with helping the G-Bs fight a war. (Right-o, says wiki.) And who knew the grateful Guinea Bissauians (Bissauers? Bissauniks?) knew how to shmear up a dictator so well; the smarm is so thick it’s a wonder how anybody attending the ceremony could even shake hands. And what gives with the hyphen between Guinea and Bissau, which seems firmly in place in some reports, and strangely absent in others? If they can’t get something as picayune as punctuation right, what the odds of the G-Bers getting anything else right.

 

Case in point: The country is currently underdoing a spot of turmoil, in which its now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t hyphen may well be implicated. (Contentious punctuation having been known to stir up more than few crisis throughout history.) From Reuters alertnet:

 

BISSAU, 30 January (IRIN) - The United Nations secretary-general's representative in Guinea-Bissau, Shola Omoregie, has negotiated an end to a 17-day crisis involving the government and prominent politician Carlos Gomes Junior who had sought refuge in the UN building in Bissau.

 

Gomes Junior, chairman of the former ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, previously served as prime minister. He had been a close ally of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira before the 1998 civil war but has since called him a "bandit and mercenary who betrayed his own people".

 

Vieira was overthrown in 1999 and returned to power in elections in 2005.

 

Gomes Junior sought refuge at the UN following a series of violence incidents, including the beating in December of another outspoken opponent of the president, Silvestre Alves, and the assassination in January of Navy Commander Mohamed Lamine Sanha.

 

Sanha was a former leader in the junta that ruled from 1999 to 2000 after Vieira had been toppled. Gomes Junior alleged that Vieira was involved in Sanha's death and the government issued a warrant for his arrest.

 

After Sanha's died on 6 January fighting broke out in Bissau between protestors and security forces. At least one person was shot dead and one of President Vieira's houses was destroyed…

Yikes. Sounds like it may be a good time to send in more Cubans.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:14 | link | comments (3)

What can happen when a Muslim behaves like a “mensch”: He puts himself at risk of being murdered by true believers who wish he’d knock it off. From Reuters via Der Spiegel Online:

Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel prize for literature, has cancelled a reading trip of Germany.

The Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk has decided to cancel a trip to Germany in the light of the recent murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Threats shouted at Pamuk by the alleged mastermind behind that murder seem to have persuaded the author to keep a low profile for the time being.

The celebrated Turkish writer was due to receive an honorary doctorate at Berlin's Free University on Friday before embarking on a reading tour of major German cities. Pamuk's German publisher, Carl Hanser Verlag, and the Free University confirmed Wednesday media reports that the author had cancelled the trip at short notice.

Pamuk is believed to be concerned about travelling following the assassination of Hrant Dink on Jan. 19. Yasin Hayal, the alleged mastermind behind that murder, declared on his way into court on Jan. 24: "Tell Orhan Pamuk to wise up!" The nationalist is accused of initiating Dink's slaying, having admitted to police that he urged the underage Ogün Samast to carry out the killing and even provided him with the weapon.

The decision to cancel the tour will be another blow to Turkey's reputation when it comes to the issue of freedom of expression. Pamuk, like Dink, had appeared before a Turkish court charged with "insulting Turkishness" after commenting on the deaths of up to one and a half million Armenians at the end of World War I.

However, the case was dropped after the Turkish Minister of Justice said that a new legal code removed it from his jurisdiction. Official Turkish policy is to deny that there was any genocidal campaign against the Armenians, claiming that they died along with many ethnic Turks during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Pamuk is despised by militant Turkish nationalists for talking about the mass murder and for criticizing the Turkish government's handling of the conflict with the Kurdish separatists in the south east of the country.

The author of Snow and My Name is Red had planned to travel to Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich to read from his latest book Istanbul: Memories and the City. Berlin's Free University confirmed that the presentation of the honorary doctorate had been postponed, and that no new date had been set for the ceremony. The university announced that it "greatly" regretted the cancellation.

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

 

Don’t stand so close to him: One of my favourite groups of the 1980s, the Police, is set to reunite for the Grammys, and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve always been a sucker for that killer combo of high-pitched Sting vocals married to a kick-ass reggae beat propelled by Andy Summers’s guitar riffs. The news has inspired me to do my own update of a Police classic, that infectious confection—“Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.” In my version, though, the “she” becomes a “he,” and the “he” in question refers to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a.k.a. the hairy Islamic Hitler, a.k.a Moo Jihad:

 

Oh, he tried before to tell us

Of the loathing he has for us

In his heart.

So he’s written lots of letters

‘Cause that’s how he’s s’posed to do it

For a start.

 

Every little thing he does is tragic.

Every thing he do just turn us off.

Even though he claims that he is magic

All the infidels can’t help but scoff.

 

Does he have to tell the story

Of a thousand years or more

Since Mahdi’s gone?

Says he’s ending his occlusion

To announce there’s gonna be

A brand new dawn.

 

Every little thing he does is tragic.

Every thing he do just turn us off.

Even though he claims that he is magic

All the infidels can’t help but scoff.

 

He’s resolved to blow us up

And so he’s building bombs.

The IAEA is watching out

For those phenomenons.

But it’s also doing nada

To derail his evil deeds.

A regime change in Iran now

Is what ev’rybody needs.

 

Every little thing he does is tragic.

Every thing he do just turn us off.

Even though he claims that he is magic

All the infidels can’t help but scoff…

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:28 | link | comments

 

Numbers game: Tiny minority of extremists update. From the Jerusalem Post:

It's time we open our eyes and confront reality. Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the media has sought to reassure us that only a tiny minority of Muslims actually support the use of violence against Israel and the West.

It's just a small fringe, a marginal few at best, they tell us, so don't worry about it all too much. One percent or three percent - who cares? Just sit back, enjoy your morning eggs and coffee and have a nice day.

But a look at the numbers tells a very different story. The extent of support for global jihad is frightening in its proportions, and the numbers are anything but insignificant.

Consider, for example, the following statistics regarding support for suicide bombings and other types of terror attacks.

In a poll conducted five months ago, and broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 TV, nearly 25% of British Muslims said the July 7, 2005, terror bombings in London, which killed 52 innocent commuters, were justified. Another 30% said they would prefer to live under strict Islamic Sharia law rather than England's democratic system.

Now, one in four justifying terror may not be a majority, but it certainly isn't a "small fringe" either.

In other countries, the figures are no less unsettling. A survey published in December found that 44% of Nigerian Muslims believe suicide bombing attacks are "often" or "sometimes" acceptable. Only 28% said they were never justified.

According to the annual Pew Global Attitudes Survey, released in July 2006, "roughly one-in-seven Muslims in France, Spain and Great Britain feel that suicide bombings against civilian targets can at least sometimes be justified to defend Islam." The report also found that less than half of Jordan's Muslims believe terror attacks are never justified. In Egypt, only 45% of Muslims say terror is never justified.

STILL THINK only a "tiny minority" are in favor of violence? In Israel, the percentages are even more alarming. After Cpl. Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists last summer, a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center revealed that 77.2% of Palestinians supported the kidnapping, while 66.8% said they would back additional such attacks.

More than six out of 10 Palestinians also said they were in favor of firing Kassam rockets at Israeli towns and cities.

And lest you think that war fever lay behind the results, consider this: four additional polls published in September, nearly a month after the Lebanese conflict had ended, all found large majorities of Palestinians backing terror attacks against the Jewish state.

Indeed, in various countries around the world, support for Muslim fundamentalist terror groups appears to be widespread…

You don’t say. I thought they were all like those funny Muslims in Saskatchewan—sweet, benign ethnics forced to put up with the inherent racism of the white folks around them. You know, Islam as scrubbed clean by the multicultist Ceeb.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:41 | link | comments

 

Don’t miss it: A chilling summary of the links between Nazism and Islamism, The Islamic Mein Kampf. The presentation shows how, once again, the world is averting its eyes and ignoring the obvious while the Jew-haters get set to launch a second genocide of the Jewish people—the final Final Solution.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:43 | link | comments

 

If you can't lick 'em, join 'em: A Conservative politician in the U.K. is set to give a major speech tonight, encouraging the Brits to distance themselves from allies like the U.S. and embrace their inevitable dhimmitude.

 

Of course, he probably won’t use the words “dhimmi” or “dhimmitude” in what sounds like a painfully self-abasing surrender speech. Then, he doesn’t really have to. From politics.co.uk:

 

William Hague will tonight call for British foreign policy to turn towards the Middle East, saying there must be a "concerted national effort" to engage with Muslim states.

The shadow foreign secretary will accuse the government of neglecting some Gulf countries, noting that Tony Blair's visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before Christmas was his first in almost ten years in power.

He will also call for greater emphasis on forging links with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, saying: "Britain has not yet been sufficiently successful at promoting trade with China and India, and has sometimes lost out to other European nations as a result."

Mr Hague will blame the government's focus on events in Brussels and, in particular, in Washington, for its "slow" reaction to the changing balance of world power.

In a keynote speech to Chatham House this evening, the shadow foreign secretary will argue that events in Iran and Iraq, relations with Syria and the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations mean ministers should be "steeped in knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs".

"The potential dangers that lie ahead call for the maximum understanding of Middle Eastern societies as well as the firm anchoring of the friendships between countries of the Middle East and of the wider West," Mr Hague will say.

"While we are certainly engaged in a struggle against international terrorism, we are most certainly not engaged in a clash of civilisations."…

 

Perish the thought. No “clash of civilisations” here, folks. Just a bunch of disgruntled young “immigrants”, upset by “Islamophobia” and their lack of opportunity. And who take out their frustration by launching terror attacks so they can blow up a bunch of infidels for Allah.

 

Nope. Sleep tight, little Bits, ‘cause all's quiet on the civilizational front.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:27 | link | comments

Smells like teen shahid spirit: The National Post has a piece about the scent-sation that’s sweeping the nation—the nation of Lebanon, that is. It seems that, along with his coup d’etat, a work in progress, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has launched an olfactory offensive. The Hezbollah honcho has become the latest celeb to release his own brand of stink water. And if you think Britney, JLo, Paris, Shania and Celine smell purty, wait’ll you get a load of Eau de Hezbollah:

Last summer, during the war with Israel, Hezbollah's Al Manar satellite TV channel ran an advertisement featuring Reem Haidar, an attractive Lebanese woman with a special request for Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. "I want his cloak that he sweated in while he was defending me, my children, my sisters, and my land," said Haidar, with a toss of her highlighted hair, as martial music played in the background. "I want it so that I can rub some of its sweat on myself and my children. Maybe they can also distribute pieces of it to the people, so that they can soak up some dignity, honour and nobility." In her sunglasses, plunging V-neck and red bandanna, Haidar made quite an impression. Al Manar put the Haidar clip in heavy rotation, and, after the war, she got her wish: Hezbollah presented her with Nasrallah's presumably sweat-soaked clerical robe.

Haidar's desire for the perspiration of Hezbollah's black-turbaned leader may strike Westerners as a little odd (imagine, or perhaps don't, American women clamouring for the sweaty garments of Dick Cheney). But the odour of sanctity is a powerful draw; just as Catholics traditionally believed that the bodies of saints gave off the scent of roses, Shiites believe that the soil of Karbala -- where the martyr Imam Hussein was beheaded -- smells sweet, like musk.

Muslim or Christian, man or woman, everybody wears perfume here in Beirut: Men hawk bootleg couture fragrances on street corners, and stores will custom blend knock-offs of your favorite fragrance while you wait. So, given the cult of Nasrallah and the culture of perfume, perhaps it was inevitable that, sooner or later, Beirut's latest must-have item would invoke the essence of his sweaty robes: the "Perfume of Resistance" -- eau de Hezbollah.

I first smelled the Perfume of Resistance at the opposition sit-in that began occupying downtown Beirut on Dec. 1, 2006, in an attempt to topple the U.S.-backed government. There seemed to be some disagreement about what exactly the smell of the resistance was: Non-Shiites, outraged at seeing Lebanon's permanent underclass occupy its swank city centre, started sending out text messages sneering that the protesters smelled bad. (One suggested that the statue of dead Sunni politician Riad Solh came to life in order to hold its nose.) But, for the Shia faithful and their Christian allies, the sit-in took on the character of an outdoor bazaar, with vendors offering a wide and enticing array of Hezbollah- themed items. It was there, amid all the tchotchkes of resistance- Hezbollah banners, Hezbollah cellphone holders, flashing Hezbollah buttons, lighted crystal Nasrallah paperweights, smiling Nasrallah keychains -- that I spotted the little yellow packets of Nasrallah-themed perfume.

The Attar (literally, essence) of Resistance comes in jasmine, gardenia and tea rose (the latter, because it supposedly found favour with Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is rumoured to be Nasrallah's personal pick). The slender vials are packaged in little laminated folders with excerpts from Nasrallah's speeches printed inside. On the front, Nasrallah waves a hortatory hand, with Lebanese and Hezbollah flags fluttering behind him, while a missile sinks an Israeli gunboat. On the back, there's a photo collage of lilies and rocket launchers. All this for $1? Who could resist?...

Who, indeed? Well, actually, I, for one. As an infidel not much given to the niceties of political correctness, and as a member of the religious group that the Prophet Mohammed turned into apes and pigs, I’m not too interested in smelling like Sheik sweat and tea roses; I’m pretty sure that the rose aroma, powerful though it may be, doesn’t go nearly far enough to mitigate the stink of Nasrallah B.O. I can, however, suggest a more fitting—and perhaps even more marketable—name for the product (although, at $1 a bottle, I’d say it’s the price point that’s making it fly off the shelves): Eau de Jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:56 | link | comments (2)

 

Unreasonable demand: Somalia is struggling to keep the jihadists from retaking power, an effort that’s become all the more difficult since the EU and the U.S. are refusing to send the regime that ousted the Islamists any money until it agrees to hold “reconciliation talks” with its enemies. The jihadis. Tellingly this demand wasn’t required of Mahmoud Abbas before transferring $180 million to him so he could pay the salaries of his police force (and perhaps siphon some of it to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Fatah militia that collaborated with Islamic Jihad the other day to bomb a bakery in Eilat). Which begs the questions: can one ever reconcile with jihadists, and why is this demand being made? From News 24:

Addis Ababa - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is to host a national reconciliation conference in a bid to turn the page on 16 years of bloodshed in his country, says European Union commissioner Louis Michel.

Yusuf, who took up power in Mogadishu a month ago, told Michel of his intentions to stage the gathering in the next few weeks during a breakfast meeting at the ongoing African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

Michel, the commissioner for development, said: "I am impressed by his decision to call a conference of reconciliation. It (the conference) could happen in two or three weeks."

Yusuf, who appeared alongside Michel after the meeting, declined to comment on the conference and cancelled a press briefing that he was scheduled to hold immediately afterwards.

'We agreed to work together'

His only comment after the Michel meeting was that "we fully understood each other and we agreed to work together".

The EU had made clear earlier this month that it was only prepared to contribute 15 million euros to an AU peacekeeping force due to be deployed to Somalia as long as Yusuf's interim administration took concrete steps towards reconciliation.

Michel said Yusuf had met the EU's precondition by deciding to convene the reconciliation conference. He said: "In my opinion, all the conditions are fulfilled" for the EU to now release the funds for the AU force.

The interim administration, which was formed in 2004, had been confined to a provincial backwater until late last month after Ethiopia intervened on its behalf and helped oust a coalition of Islamist hardliners from Mogadishu.

'A very broad reconciliation'

The United States, United Nations and AU had all urged the interim government to reach out to rival factions in Somalia, including moderate Islamists…

Moderate Islamists? That’s a new one on me. We’ve heard of moderate Muslims (although so far, they seem to have made themselves scarce). We’ve heard of radical Muslims, a.k.a. Islamists, who are waging jihad in order to conquer the infidels and make Islam supreme. But “moderate Islamists”? Now, there’s a real head scratcher. What are they, exactly? Islamists who don't impose every last Draconian precept of sharia law? “Yes" to executing homosexuals by burying them chest deep in a pit and flinging large rocks at their heads; “no” to summarily killing all apostates?

 

It’s fair to say that the very concept of “moderate Islamists” is oxymoronic, along the lines of that classic oxymoron, jumbo shrimp.

 

Moronic, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:37 | link | comments

 

Festival of flayed flesh: It’s one of my favourite Shia holidays—the day of the year when Shias commemorate the death of the guy they believe to be the Prophet’s rightful successor, and who was killed in battle way back when in Karbala fighting against those who believed another successor had the better claim (hence the unbreachable and inexorable split between Shias and Sunnis). And what better way to celebrate than by slicing, dicing and julienne-ing your epidemis, and then parading through the streets with blood coursing down your head and body?

 

Now that’s devotion.

 

And since the Shias and Sunnis have decided to re-enact that medieval battle by killing each other in modern-day Iraq, suddenly, everything old is new again.

 

Which, come to think of it, could be the motto of the jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:25 | link | comments (1)

 

Kofi’s prize: Kofi Annan, the most feckless Secretary-General in UN history, a man who presided over the most lucrative scam in history and who did his utmost to further the jihad against Israel and the West, has won an award for his stellar accomplishments.

 

Who on Earth would want to give the bespoke buffoon a prize? Why, the Swedes, of course. From AP:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize on Tuesday for their work to protect human rights, peace and security.

The award will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm in May, and the two winners will share the $75,000.

The Palme memorial fund board, which selects the winners, cited Annan's courage and involvement during his U.N. leadership, saying he had "given proof of the utmost integrity" while also defending U.N. principles and international law when those were challenged.

"His fight for human rights, and his way of stressing that development is a necessary part of the work for security, has left indelible traces in the world o0rganization."…

True enough. But only the Swedes and those of a similarly delusional mindset would consider that to be a good thing.

I am reminded of a statement made upon Richard M. Nixon’s resignation—a statement that also applies to Kofi: Nothing so became his term in office as his leaving of it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:51 | link | comments (2)

 

The benefits of bakery butchery: Who needs unity talks and Saudi-sponsored negotiations? All you have to do is send a shahid into a bakery and, presto, instant solidarity. From Reuters:

GAZA (Reuters) - A ceasefire between rival Palestinian factions appeared to be holding on Tuesday, bringing people out of their homes for the first time in five days as shops reopened and traffic again clogged narrow Gaza streets.

"We are very happy and we hope that this time, the ceasefire will last," said Yahya Zaki, a clothing store owner.

Some gunmen remained on the streets in the Gaza Strip and police deployment was limited, but no major violence was reported.

The truce took effect after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas met an aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah on Monday in a bid to stem a surge of fighting in which at least 30 Palestinians were killed...

The truce took effect after a human bomb self-detonated and offed some Jews for Allah.

 

Unity built and sustained solely by mass-murder: hardly the basis for viable nationhood.

 

Update: It looks like three dead Jews won’t be enough to keep them united. Quel surprise.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments (1)

 

The IDF made him do it: The odious AP justifies the murder of Jews:

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — The Palestinian who blew himself up in the Israeli resort of Eilat on Monday was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby daughter and driven to avenge his best friend's killing by Israeli troops, relatives said.

Dozens of neighbors celebrated outside 20-year-old Mohammed Siksik's house after the fiery attack that killed him and three other people, waving his photo and praising him as a martyr. Inside, his mother greeted mourners with a smile.

"He told me: 'Meeting God is better for me than this whole world,'" said Rowayda Siksik, wearing a white veil.

She said her son told her only that he was going to carry out an operation inside Israel. "He said, 'Goodbye, I am going, mother. Forgive me.' I told him, 'God be with you.'"

Siksik never found steady work, getting by with occasional jobs with his father, installing tiles. "You can't find work in this place," his mother said. Her son lost his 7-month-old daughter to a nerve disease, she said.

Sitting on the floor of her bare house, the mother said her son's best friend, Nader Amrein, was killed six months ago in an Israeli military operation in northern Gaza. Amrein was a member of Fatah, the movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

As the brother of a top Islamic Jihad official, Siksik made an easy target for recruitment for the suicide attack.

Originally sympathetic to the more secular Fatah, Siksik's life changed after the death of his friend. "He became religious about six months ago," his mother said. "He joined Islamic Jihad."

Outside the house, Islamic Jihad and Fatah members argued heatedly over who would sponsor Siksik's funeral. The two groups claimed to have jointly planned the attack.

Secular, shmecular. A Jew-killer’s a Jew-killer, whether he’s killing because he’s an Arab “nationalist” or because he’s religious nutter. And the AP’s condoning such depravity helps ensure that it will continue.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:28 | link | comments (1)

 

Thanks for nada: Demonstrating yet again their complete inability to read and understand Palestinian intentions, the EU and the U.S. condemned the Eilat bombing—but for the entirely wrong reasons: the EU, because it’s a bid to “derail” the fragile “peace process”; the U.S., because, in failing to reign in terrorism, the Palestinians are undermining their heart’s desire, a state of their very own.

 

Dumbkopfs! Once and for all, there is no peace process, fragile, hardy or anything in between. There is only a resolve on the part of the Arabs/Persians to excise the Jewish “tumour.” And George, Condi—really, now. You actually expect Stinky Abbas to reign in the terrorists? It was his militia that co-sponsored the bakery blast, and the Palestinians are jubilant because, after weeks of murdelizing each other, they finally have something to celebrate; something to bring them together.

 

As for the aspirations of the Palestinian people—it should be Windex-clear by now that they have but one aspiration: they aspire to push the Jews into the sea. Barring that, they’ll settle for blowing them all up. Statehood is just something they pretend to want, to string along the Western suckers (like Bush and Olmert, who between them have just sent $180 million to the political arm of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade so it can conduct more “resistance” operations like the one yesterday).

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

 

Banki’s blather: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon says it’s finally time to do something to prevent Iran from building its deadly WMDs.

 

Oh, wait. Wrong initials. From People’s Daily Online:

The United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon said 2007 is a critical year for the world body's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at reducing poverty when he spoke Monday in Addis Ababa at the opening of the two-day summit of the African Union (AU).

"If we are to make the target date of 2015, we have to see concerted action in 2007 -- the mid-point in the work to reach the MDGs," Ban said when addressing the opening ceremony of the 8th AU Summit of heads of state.

Ban, who assumed his post as UN chief earlier this month, pledged to convene in the coming months a working group on Africa and the MDGs, a coalition of the willing bringing together key African stakeholders, as well as international organizations and donors.

"We will aim to meet by March, to formulate an action plan supporting practical initiatives for accelerating progress in 2007 and 2008," Ban said…

Can’t hardly wait to read it. I’m sure it’ll be a model of UN progressiveness and practicality.

It looks like Banki (as I like to call him) has already mastered the subtleties of UN doublespeak, a skill that served his predecessor so well and that will undoubtedly come in handy in the days ahead.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:00 | link | comments

 

My Unfair Loony: A song for kafiyah-wearing, Hezbollah-loving Mr. Bean doppelganger, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (see post below):

 

The birdbrain in Spain

Is easy to explain.

(I think he’s frightened.)

The birdbrain in Spain

Is easy to explain.

(By George, he’s frightened.)

 

Now, once again,

The hate’s aflame

In Spain, in Spain.

And why’s the hate germane?

It’s plain, it’s plain.

 

The birdbrain in Spain

Is easy to explain.

(It’s quite Satanic.)

The birdbrain in Spain

Sees fascists rise again.

(This time Islamic.)

 

Now once again,

There’s a campaign

In Spain, in Spain.

And once again Jews are the bane

Of Spain, of Spain… 

 

Enough of that. Those castanets are giving me a headache.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments

 

Adios, Espana: Contemplating a visit to sunny Spain? Don’t. As this FrontPage piece explains, the land that brought us the Spanish Inquisition is a hotbed of judenhass and Holocaust denial. Spain should be avoided like the plague—or the Spanish flu:

 

January 25, 2007 joins the annals of history as the first time a part of Europe adopted Ahmadinejad’s customs officially. Those stying the transformation of Europe into Eurabia will surely see the case of Ciempozuelos (Madrid) as the first warning of the Islamification of Spain. However, the picture is slightly different.

 

Ciempozeulos is a village near Madrid. Excluding punctual scandals—like the mayor’s recent resignation under charges of corruption—for the 12, 768 inhabitants of Ciempzeulos, life is good—and progressive. The Socialist Party PSOE calls the shots, so it was so surprise when the town announced there was not going to be any commemoration of the Holocaust Memorial Day, which Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spanish Foreign Minister like to say he established in Spain (even though the date was established in the Berlin Accords signed by previous Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in 1995).

 

The townhall will host the Day of the Palestinian Genocide instead, a hate-fest against Israel, Israelis and Jews in general.

 

Middle East politics notwithstanding, attacks against Jews in Spain keep rising. The Foreign Minister himself, known for his pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel points of view, starred in an episode a few days after the Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero appeared wearing a Palestinian handkerchief. Spanish business Mauricio Hatchuel Toledano was heavily admonished in front of an astonished press by Moratinos when Mr. Hatchuel, a Jew, pointed out the fact that no one in Spain—Osama, Chavez, Castro, Putin, and Ahmadinejad—is so heavily attacked by Zapatero’s executive as Israel. Moratinos simply could not argue. In a country whose citizenship jumpted to the streets to protest for the Lebanon war carrying swastikas to denounce Israel’s existence and as part of the western government congratulated by Nasrallah himself in one of his fatwa-speeches, Moratinos was forced to use the only method he could to shut up critics: It is not true because I tell you so.

 

While the sensation of the day is Abbas’ visit to Spain—the Foreign Ministry is working heavily to make Madrid one of the capitals to host a Middle East conference plan—Zapatero’s position towards the Holocaust was known around one year ago, when Europe MP Vidal-Quadras explained in (sic) Interconomia Radio a dark, grim Spanish episode very revealing in terms of Spanish anti-Semisitm. To make a long story short, during a semi-official dinner, Zapatero said he quite understands the Nazis, since the Jews are a problem?

 

Hey, aren’t we always? And isn’t Israel one shitty little country (in the immortal words of that French ambassador)? No wonder Zapatero has decided to align himself with the forces of darkness who want to wipe it out.

 

I have to say, though, that Spain’s angling to host a Peace in Our Time Conference—the apogee of chutzpah. Or however you say it in Spanish.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:07 | link | comments (1)

 

Jihadi justifications: Fatah is tied up at the moment trying to kill Hamas, but don’t think that’s deterred the “moderate” Abbas from his primary goal: terminating the Jewish “occupation” of Israel. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the militia associated with Fatah, got together with some hotheads from Islamic Jihad, and together they plotted a successful suicide bombing of an Eilat bakery; three people were killed. They feel perfectly justified in unleashing this terror; something about “resistance” being justified by Israel having the cheek to continue existing. From YNet News:

 

Monday’s suicide bombing attack in Eilat, which left three civilians dead, “underscored the Palestinian resistance's intent to continue the Jihad (holy war) until all Palestinian lands are freed,’ an Islamic Jihad spokesman said.  

"This is a message to the world saying that the Palestinian resistance has the right to choose the time and the place for their actions,” he said.

A high ranking official from one of the Palestinian organizations told Ynet that the terrorist attack in Eilat was an operation coordinated between Islamic Jihad's al-Quds Brigades and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing.

A senior al-Aqsa operative told Ynet, “The attack in Eilat was a natural response to Israel’s continued crimes in the West Bank.

“Each time the Israelis breach the ceasefire we will find a way to respond, be it through rocket fire or suicide attacks,” Abu Ahmad said.

'Israeli leaders stupid'

The al-Aqsa member said the bombing should not lead to the collapse of the agreed-upon truce with Israel as "the IDF killed and apprehended dozens of Palestinian activists during the period of calm."

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, “The suicide bombing in Eilat came as a response to Israeli military policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its ongoing boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government.”

"So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said…

See? Hamas and Fatah can agree on something.

 

Such charming, delightful, reasonable people. I’m sure if and when they get their very own state, it will be a light unto the world and become a shining testament to Jihadist ingenuity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments (4)

 

Jihad? What jihad?: An august member of academe weighs in on the War on Terror and posits an intriguing theory: What if 9/11 wasn’t really all that bad, and the reaction that followed constituted a massive—and completely unwarranted—overreaction?

 

And what if there were no jihad and what if pigs had wings? From the L.A. Times:

 

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism.

It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

Certainly, if we look at nothing but our enemies' objectives, it is hard to see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001 are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to destroy this country. But desire is not the same thing as capacity, and although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the existence of the United States.

Yet a great many Americans, particularly on the right, have failed to make this distinction. For them, the "Islamo-fascist" enemy has inherited not just Adolf Hitler's implacable hatreds but his capacity to destroy. The conservative author Norman Podhoretz has gone so far as to say that we are fighting World War IV (No. III being the Cold War).

But it is no disrespect to the victims of 9/11, or to the men and women of our armed forces, to say that, by the standards of past wars, the war against terrorism has so far inflicted a very small human cost on the United States. As an instance of mass murder, the attacks were unspeakable, but they still pale in comparison with any number of military assaults on civilian targets of the recent past, from Hiroshima on down.

Even if one counts our dead in Iraq and Afghanistan as casualties of the war against terrorism, which brings us to about 6,500, we should remember that roughly the same number of Americans die every two months in automobile accidents…

 

Now, I’m sure this professor of history at Johns Hopkins is a pretty clever guy; you don’t get to be professor of history at Johns Hopkins if you’re a dolt. However, he’s making a huge mistake here. He’s claiming that the number of fatalities is the most crucial factor, and is ignoring the fact that traffic deaths are the result of accidents, while 9/11 deaths were the result of jihadis, inspired by their reading of their religious texts, who are convinced they have a God-given duty to conquer that portion of the planet where Islam is not yet in charge—and who are determined to wage jihad until they prevail.

 

You cannot change this mission by, say, building better roads or lowering the speed limit. Or by pretending it’s no big deal. Although it would sure be swell if you could.

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

 

Hollywood’s duck and cover: On an evening when Hollywood is geared up once again to deliver another batch of awards to itself, an interminable annual ritual (I believe this time it's the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which precede the Oscars but come after the Golden Globes), it's instuctive to read this piece by L.A. Times columnist Andrew Klavan. Klavan tries to account for Tinsel Town’s reluctance to make movies about the key issue of our time—and we ain’t talkin’ global warming:

 

I RECENTLY attended "FBI 101," a G-man seminar for Hollywood writers. I do this kind of thing a lot: law enforcement seminars, ride-alongs, citizen academies and the like. It's a simple deal. The writers get information and research contacts; the lawdogs get a fighting chance at being portrayed realistically and maybe, on occasion, even sympathetically.

Now, in my case, the federales were preaching to the converted. Any agency with a record of battling gangsters, communists and dirty pols can show up as good guys in my work anytime. And never mind just their record. Since 9/11 — chastened by blunders from within and above — the FBI has reinvented itself as a thin gray line against Islamic terrorism. Pulling 16-hour days, volunteering for repeated tours of duty at FBI outposts in the Middle East, constantly aware that their failures will be remembered when their successes are forgotten, the G-people are clearly heroes.

But if they're hoping that their seminar will win them props from filmmakers in general — a picture or two celebrating their courageous work in the war on terror — I suspect they are going to be disappointed. In the history of our time as told by the movies, the war on terror largely does not exist.

Which is passing strange, you know. Because the war on terror is the history of our time. The outcome of our battle against the demographic, political and military upsurge of a hateful theology and its oppressive political vision will determine the fate of freedom in this century.

Television — more populist, hungrier for content and less dependent on foreign audiences — reflects this fact with shows such as "24" and "The Unit." But at the movies, all we're getting is home-front angst and the occasional "Syriana," in which "moderate" Islam is thwarted by evil American interests. But the notion that this war is about our moral failings is comfort fantasy, pure and simple. It soothes us with the false idea that, if we but mend ourselves, the scary people will leave us alone…

 

Sounds like the gist of the Toronto Star editorial that appeared a few days ago.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:46 | link | comments (2)

 

The power of polls: Oh, the absurdities of modern times. Palestinians have been killing each other for weeks now, but no one has been prepared to call it a civil war. Until now. There has now been a poll on the matter, and Palestinians, who can't seem to agree on much of anything these days, are unified in acknowledging that, yes, indeedy doo, it is a civil war, can it officially be labelled as such.

 

It's as though the polling, and not the warfare, is the key to apprehending reality and that, had the poll not been conducted, there would be no civil war; that it's only a civil war because the poll says it is.

A pretty freaky state of affairs, if you ask me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:43 | link | comments (2)

 

One way street: Alan Dershowitz came to Brandeis University last week to engage Jimmy Carter in something Carter claims to want above all else: a dialogue. Instead, Dershowitz found Jimmy bloviating away in a one of his customary monologues.

 

Dershowitz isn’t pleased.

 

From the New York Daily News:

...President Carter and I agree on many things. We both want a two-state solution to the conflict. We both want an end to the occupation. We both oppose new Israeli settlements. We both wish to see a democratic, viable Palestinian state emerge.

But President Carter and I have our differences, too. I favored a compromise peace based on the offer by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000-2001. Carter defends Yasser Arafat's refusal to accept these generous terms, or to make a counteroffer.

In fact, Carter never mentions in his book, or in his speech, that the Palestinians could have had a state in 1938, 1948, 1967 and on several other occasions. Their leaders cared more about destroying Israel than about creating Palestine. That is the core of the conflict. It is Palestinian terror, not Israeli policy, which prevents peace.

Why does Carter cling to his version of history? We know from Carter's biographer, Douglas Brinkley, that Carter and Arafat strategized together about how to improve the image of the PLO. Did Carter advise Arafat to walk away from a Palestinian state? That is an important question - one I would have asked Carter had I been given the chance.

President Carter told the Brandeis audience that he wants to reduce America's role in the peace process in favor of Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. To me, that is not a serious proposal. As Carter himself showed during his presidency, American leadership is both positive and necessary.

And President Carter continued to make the kinds of inaccurate claims that run throughout his book. He said that Hamas began a 16-month ceasefire in August 2004. What about the Hamas rocket attacks in the weeks and months that followed, which killed innocent Israeli women and children?

He claimed that Israel's security barrier was designed to seize land, when in fact it was proposed by liberal and left-wing Israelis to protect civilians from bombings and sniper fire.

And Carter's omissions speak volumes. Not once in his speech did he mention the Palestinian refugee problem, which the Arab states still exploit against Israel. And not once did he mention Iran and the nuclear threat it poses - not just to Israel, but to the entire world.

I give President Carter credit for the concessions he made at Brandeis. He at last apologized for an infamous passage in the book that condones Palestinian terrorism. He acknowledged that the use of the word "apartheid" in the title might have caused offense.

I would like to join with President Carter in working for peace in the Middle East. But peace will not come if we insist on blaming one side in the conflict. And real dialogue, at Brandeis or in the Middle East, means talking with people with whom you might not agree.

I’d say it means more than that. It means listening to people with whom you might not agree—a far more difficult feat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:47 | link | comments

 

Wilful blindness: As someone who supports Jewish sovereignty in Israel, and who is revolted by the Left’s attempt to delegitimize it by embracing Israel’s enemies (enemies who, not co-incidentally, are also  the enemies of Western civilization), I have often wondered how Left-leaning Jews who support Israel are able to reconcile their political leanings with the pathological loathing for the Jewish state.

 

As Thomas Lifson explains on the American Thinker site, they can’t. All they can do is blame Israel for its bad behaviour. Were they to take the time and trouble to examine their own worldview, it might call it into question--and who the heck wants to do that?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:04 | link | comments

 

Three cheers for sanity: The inestimable Melanie Phillips conducts a post mortem on the recent Livingstone-Pipes debate in Londonistan, and is cheered by what she sees:

…This remarkable reaction [cheers for Pipes; jeers for Livingstone] provokes two reflections. First, the reason why Livingstone has got away with it for so long is simply because he has been allowed to do so. Thanks to a media that slavishly laps up his every utterance and largely supports his odious world-view, and opponents who tend to be intellectually spineless (think of the Tories, who can’t find one single candidate able enough to stand against him) he has never effectively been held to account. Faced with opponents who are formidably well-informed and intellectually fearless, he is promptly exposed for the empty ideologue that he is and duly crumples.

The second reflection is that, despite all the opprobrium that fashionable opinion generally heaps upon the Pipes/Murray view of the world, despite all the name-calling of ‘Islamophobe’ and all the rest of it, below the surface at least some people have clearly been listening hard and thinking for themselves. They have undoubtedly noted that the Islamists are not exactly committed to fundamental human rights, and that the alliance between sections of the left and those committed to the genocide of the Jews, the killing of homosexuals, the beating of women and the extinction of individual liberty is as loathsome as it is lethal. In other words, opinion has shifted. That’s why they cheered. And that is immensely cheering.

It was a defeat for the totalitarian left and a move towards sanity and decency. And that, no doubt, is why it has not been reported.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments

 

The sacred and the profane: During the last Lizard lunch here in Toronto, a visiting Lizard mentioned that while viewing Air Canada’s in-flight screening of The Queen, he noticed that the word “God” had been bleeped out several times.

 

The assembled reptiles remarked that it was indeed odd to treat “God” as though it were an expletive, but, unlike some who are quick to proffer a conspiracy theory to explain the inexplicable, we did not attempt to account for the censorship.

 

The reason behind it has now been revealed. From the CBC:

ATLANTA (AP) - So much for God and country, at least during some in-flight showings of the Oscar-nominated movie "The Queen."

All mentions of God are bleeped out of a version of the film distributed to Delta and some other airlines. Jeff Klein, president of Jaguar Distribution, the Studio City, Calif., company that supplied the movie to the airlines earlier this month, said it was a mistake, committed by an overzealous and inexperienced employee who had been told to edit out all profanities and blasphemies.

"A reference to God is not taboo in any culture that I know of," Klein said. "We excise foul language, excessive violence and nudity."

Airline passengers watching the movie hear "(Bleep) bless you, ma'am," as one character speaks to the queen. In all, the word "God" is bleeped seven times. (At no time in the original movie is "God save the queen" uttered.)

Klein said he discovered the mistake after a London-bound Air New Zealand passenger complained. Jaguar has been sending out new, unedited copies to the airlines.

Airlines routinely show movies from which graphic scenes and strong profanities are edited out.

"The Queen" is about Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair in the week following Princess Diana's death in 1997.

A spokesman for Miramax, which produced the movie, had no comment on the episode.

The editor responsible for the mistake is still working in the Jaguar editing lab, Klein said.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:20 | link | comments (2)

 

Running on empty: Mark Steyn notes a disturbing whiff of late-era Soviet-style exhaustion on the American political scene. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

…Alas, the air of Andropovian exhaustion is not confined to Massachusetts. In the State of the Union, the president (as presidents are wont to do on Tuesday nights in January) spoke about energy, but he didn't seem to have any. Five years ago, when he was genuinely engaged by the subject, he wanted to drill in ANWR and go nuclear: He was energetic about energy. When both those excellent ideas went nowhere, President Bush retreated to some familiar bromides about vague targets and new regulations and increased efficiencies: His list was listless.

This seems to suit the Democrats. The only energy displayed by Nancy Pelosi was the spectacular leap to her feet within a nano-second of the president mentioning Darfur. Up went Madam Speaker and the entire Democratic caucus like enthusiastic loons on a gameshow. Darfur! We're all in favor of Darfur. People are being murdered! Hundreds of thousands! We oughtta do something! Like, er, jump up and down when it's mentioned in a speech. And, er, call for the international community to mobilize. Maybe one of those leathery old '60s rockers could organize an all-star concert or something. If Darfur were indeed a game show, the Sudanese would quickly discover it's one of those ones where you come on down to discover you've missed out on all the big prizes but you're not going away empty-handed: No, sir, here's your very own SAVE DARFUR! T-shirt autographed by Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney.

Darfur is an apt symbol of early 21st century liberalism: What matters is that you urge action rather than take any…

With good reason. Urging action without actually taking any allows one to feel morally superior—and, oh, what a wonderful feeling it is.

 

Update: The political scene isn't the only one where words speak louder than actions. Harvard professor Ruth Wisse notes that acadme is similarly inclined—an inclination she dubs "gliberalism." From OpinionJournal: 

 

…Recent surveys confirm that university faculties have been tilting steadily leftward, but I think it is wrong to assume they have been tilting toward "liberalism" as is commonly assumed. Liberalism worthy of the name emphasizes freedom of the individual, democracy and the rule of law. Liberalism is prepared to fight for those freedoms through constitutional participatory government, and to protect those freedoms, in battle if necessary. What we see on the American campus is not liberalism, but a gutted and gutless "gliberalism," that leaves to others the responsibility for governance, and arrogates to itself the right to criticize. It accepts money from the public purse without assuming reciprocal duties for the public good. Instead of debating public policy in the public arena, faculty says, "I quit," but then continues to draw benefits from the system it will not protect.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments

 

Shot shunners: There are growing numbers of parents in the U.S. and the U.K. who, for various reasons, are disinclined to allow their children to receive one or another vaccination As a result, the incidence of highly contagious childhood illnesses—measles, mumps, whooping cough—have been making a reappearance, and parents have been putting their kids and other kids at risk of contracting these potentially fatal infections. Now, a Muslim medical association in the U.K. is adding to the risk. It has encouraged Muslim parents to eschew some vaccines because, hold onto your niqabs, it’s “unIslamic.” From the Sunday Times Online:

 

A MUSLIM doctors’ leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is “un-Islamic”.

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them “haram”, or unlawful for Muslims to take.

Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has had its throat cut and bled to death while God’s name is invoked.

Islam also forbids the eating of any pig meat, which Katme says is another reason why vaccines should be avoided, as some contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine.

His warning has been criticised by the Department of Health and the British Medical Association, who said Katme risked increasing infections ranging from flu and measles to polio and diphtheria in Muslim communities.

Katme, a psychiatrist who has worked in the National Health Service for 15 years, wields influence as the head of one of only two national Islamic medical organisations as well as being a member of the Muslim Council of Britain. Moderate Muslims are concerned at the potential impact because other Islamic doctors will have to confirm vaccines are derived from animal and human products.

There is already evidence of lower than average vaccination rates in Muslim areas, reducing the prospect of the “herd immunity” needed to curb infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella.

Katme’s appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers to refuse vaccines from the West…

Look for the infidels to start making special provision for the faithful by producing “halal” vaccines. Presumably, that would go a long way to persuade British Muslims to get their shots. However, the following story from a few years back shows what can happen in more backward places when ignorance, zealotry, fear and conspiracy theories collide.  From AP via Dhimmi Watch:

 

KANO, Nigeria -- A suspected large-scale polio outbreak was reported Friday among children in a heavily Muslim northern Nigeria state that had boycotted immunization campaigns, and local authorities appealed for urgent action to stop the spread.

The suspected outbreak was in Kano state, one of several in northern Nigeria that had shunned polio vaccination drives over suspicions the vaccines were part of a U.S.-led plot to render Muslims sterile.

On Friday, local officials in the Kano state city of Rogo disclosed that they had recorded dozens of suspected polio cases in recent weeks. Rogo is 60 miles southeast of the state capital, also named Kano. ...

In September, Shekarau suspended participation in a global immunization program on the grounds that local scientists had discovered traces of a hormone in foreign-made vaccines that they feared could make girls infertile.

Some local Islamic leaders accused the Nigerian federal government of being part of a U.S. plot to kill off Muslims with the vaccines.

Apparently, one of the biggest objections to the polio vaccine is that it was developed by two Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:27 | link | comments

 

Tempus fugit, and so does Iran’s nuclear timetable: Caroline Glick, a woman who doesn’t mince words—although often her forthrightness makes for very disturbing reading—says Iran will be ready to blow much sooner than anticipated. From the Jerusalem Post:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an evil man. But he is not a stupid man. Indeed, he is smart and fastidious. He understands power and how to get it. And he understands that the purpose of a nation's foreign policy is to sell ideas and messages and to build coalitions that enable a state to achieve its national aims. Due to his understanding and his abilities, Ahmadinejad has achieved significant success in advancing his policy aims of defeating the United States, destroying the State of Israel, and acquiring nuclear weapons.

The source of his frenetic motivation for destruction is his deep-seated and fanatical desire to hearken the arrival of the Shi'ite messiah - the twelfth imam or the Mahdi. Ahmadinejad promises that the arrival of the Mahdi will signal the enduring defeat of liberal democracy and the notion of human freedom and the eradication of Christianity and Judaism. All will be replaced by the "pure" Islam of the Mahdi, of Ahmadinejad and of the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

Over the past week evidence of Ahmadinejad's success was legion. On Wednesday, London's Daily Telegraph reported that Iranian-North Korean nuclear collaboration has reached new heights. Not only were Iranian scientists present at North Korea's nuclear test last October, according to the Telegraph, North Korean nuclear scientists are in Iran today assisting their Iranian counterparts in preparing a nuclear test that could take place by the end of the year.

This new information means that the time line for Iranian acquisition of nuclear bombs has been shortened dramatically. If just months ago US intelligence officials claimed that Iran would not acquire nuclear weapons until 2011, and if just six weeks ago Mossad chief Meir Dagan told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Iran needed two years to acquire the bomb, the report that Iran could test a nuclear weapon by the end of 2007 means that there is reason to fear that Iran will have the means to launch a nuclear attack against Israel next year…

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

 

Bloody rivalry: Mahmoud “Stinky” Abbas promises that he and his nemeses are going to have those last few kinks in a Fatah-Hamas unity plan ironed out within the next three weeks.

 

Which still leaves everyone plenty of time to kill each other before any final agreement kicks in.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:21 | link | comments (1)

Carter's little "liberation" pills: From the fertile, acerbic minds & pens of the peerless Cox & Forkum:

Thugocracy

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:15 | link | comments

 

Fit to be Thai’d: Say buh-bye to Thailand, another dhimmi nation that finds it easier to capitulate to Islam than to defy it. From Islam Online:

 

PATTANI, Thailand — As part of the military-backed government's efforts to quell violence in the troubled Muslim-populated South, Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said Saturday, January 27, that the government will introduce the teaching of Islam in its education system in the Buddhist country.

"I've assigned the Foreign Ministry to coordinate with the Malaysian government and to study whether what educational syllabus is needed to be improved for primary education in our country," Chulanont said in statements carried by the Thai news agency (TNA).

He said the Islamic teaching will be allowed in schools from the primary grade to the university level in the Muslim-populated southern provinces on the long run.

Surayud said that his government was also mulling recruiting graduates to teach Islam in state-run schools.

A lack of Islamic studies at Thailand's state-run schools in the south has prompted many Muslims to enroll their children at private Muslim schools.

Thailand's southern provinces have been gripped by violence over the past three years with more than 1,800 people killed.

The three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were an independent Muslim sultanate.

Thai Muslims, who make up more than five percent of the predominantly Buddhist kingdom's population, have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education…

Thereby proving the old addage, “The squeaky jihadist, er, wheel gets the grease.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:10 | link | comments

 

Centrifugal force: The Mahdi may be getting here soon rather than later as the Shias announce they are in the process of installing 3,000 centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear facilities.

 

It’s a good thing the UN’s nuclear watchkitty, the IAEA, has been keeping an eye on things, otherwise we might be in real trouble.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:59 | link | comments (1)

 

Weird science: Some extraordinarily bizarre experiments, by and for those who have too much time on their hands.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:48 | link | comments

 

Rare bird: It’s as uncommon a sight as the seldom-seen yellow-bellied sapsucker—a letter in the Toronto Star that actually makes sense:

 

Mideast proposals have not worked

Canada must seek Mideast balance

Editorial, Jan. 25.

Please note that global jihad isn't something U.S. President George W. Bush made up so he could send troops into Iraq. The jihad – which, it must be emphasized, is something the Islamists have declared against the West – has been going on for decades.

The 9/11 attacks and the attacks on other global cities (London, Madrid, Moscow, Bali) that followed should have served as our wake-up call. Your editorial appears to be advising us to ignore the threat and go back to sleep.

Canada has not been "diminishing" contacts with the Arab and Muslim world. It remains as engaged as it has always been. What the Harper government has done is acknowledge that Israel faces Islamist enemies – Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran – who are actively working to destroy it, and support Israel's right to defend itself against these foes. The Harper government knows full well that the Islamists threaten Canadians, too, and that in defending Israel it is also defending Canada.

The "fresh approaches" you mention – empowering "moderate" Palestinians, encouraging Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to root out "extremists," working through the United Nations to convince Iran to set aside its nuclear ambitions – are actually the same tired, old approaches that have been tried for years and that have always failed. There is no reason to believe they would work any more effectively this time around.

The Star counsels a "more sensible, balanced approach." All well and good, as long as it doesn't blind us to the genuine long-term threat we face, and that the approach, whatever it is, doesn't endanger us even more by causing us to lapse into a false sense of security.

David Modlin, Toronto

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:38 | link | comments (1)

 

He works hard for the jizya: You definitely can’t call Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas a slacker. There he is, divvying up newly forked-over Western shekels to Palestinian security forces while, pausing briefly to change his bespoke suit,he jets over to Davos, to assure the assembled that a unity deal with his arch-rival, Hamas, is a mere three weeks away (a matter of tying up a few loose ends. And without taking a breath, he tends to a spot of bother in his own backyard—a buncha the bruthas shooting up Canadian and German premises in Ramallah.

 

Phew. I’m exhausted just reading about his unflagging efforts. But not too tired to write him a fitting tribute (think Donna Summer circa the Disco era):

 

He works hard for the jizya.

So hard just to plizya.

He works hard for the jizya

So you’ll say he’s “moderate.”

 

He works hard for the jizya.

So hard just to plizya.

He works hard for the jizya

So you’ll say he’s “moderate.”

 

We met there with Arafat,

A kleptocratic like him.

And it’s strange to me

Some people can’t

See that he’s just as grim.

Wishful thinking’s taken hold

And there’s longing now for peace

And since they need Abbas to stay

They’ve sent him lots of grease.

 

He works hard for the jizya.

So hard just to plizya.

He works hard for the jizya

So you’ll say he’s “moderate.”

 

(Repeat)

 

Hamas has ruled for ten long months

And there’s not an end in sight

For the ones voted in.

They really seem to like it there.

And to starve their people day be day.

For little money, no jizya they say,

But it’s worth it all

If it lets them get somewhere.

 

He works hard for the jizya.

So hard just to plizya.

He works hard for the jizya

So you’ll say he’s “moderate.”

 

Already knows, he’s seen their bad times.

Already knows, these ain’t the good times.

He’ll never sell out, just pretend he will

So the infidels’ll foot the bill.

He works haaaaard…

 

(Instrumental interlude)

 

He works hard for the jizya.

So hard just to plizya.

He works hard for the jizya

So you’ll say he’s “moderate.”

You bet…

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

 

They heart Islam: I don’t always agree with what Christopher Hitchens has to say—it seems to me that his flat out antipathy for all religious beliefs makes him singularly ill-equipped to understand and opine about Israel and Jewish sovereignty. However, giving credit where credit is due, I must say that in this book review of Nick Cohen’s blistering attack on the credulities of the loopy, nihilistic, Islam-embracing Left (the Left he left post-9/11), Hitchens nails it:

...It’s all here: from the pseudo-radicals who said there was nothing to choose between Nazi imperialism in Europe and British rule in India, through the supporters of the Hitler-Stalin pact, all the way to those who defended Slobodan Milosevic as a socialist and those who took, quite literally took, money from the bloody hands of Saddam Hussein. Just in the past decade or so, had this “anti-war” rabble had its way, we would have seen Kuwait stay part of Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo cleansed and annexed by “Greater” Serbia, and the Taliban retaining control of Afghanistan. You might think that such a record would lead its adherents to be dismissed as a silly and sinister fringe, but instead it is they who pose as the principled radicals and their opponents who are treated with unconcealed disdain in the universities and on the BBC.

This betrayal (because there is no other word for it) has been made possible in part by a degraded version of multiculturalism. The hard left has junked its historic secularism, to say nothing of its principles of equality for females and homosexuals, to make common cause with Muslim outfits some of which are associated in other countries with the extreme right. It has done this by the use of nonsense terms such as “Islamophobia”, which are designed to give the no-less nonsensical impression that Islam is some kind of persecuted ethnicity. But the vile attacks by Islamists on the Jews (Britain’s oldest minority) and on India (Britain’s most important democratic ally after the United States) show the truly reactionary and hateful character of the opportunist alliance between failed ex-Stalinists and fanatical theocrats. For Cohen, as for some others of us, this is no longer a difference of emphasis within the family of the left. It is the adamant line of division in a bitter fight against a new form of fascism, at home no less than abroad...

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

 

Ugly Dicky: Richard Dawkins is a scientist and science writer who writes for a lay audience. His specialty is evolution, which he writes about with all the zeal of a religious true believer—ironic since, at the same time, he cannot abide religious belief of any stripe, and has done his utmost to trash it, most recently in his book, The God Delusion.

 

In his column in the National Post, Colby Cosh springs to Dawkins’s defence after another Post columnist, Jonathan Kay had criticized him for spearheading a group of radical atheists. Colby says that Dawkins’s views are far less threatening that those of, say, fundamentialist Christians. Here’s Cosh’s closing paragraph:

We also still encounter controversies like the one now going on in several Ontario municipalities, where secular groups have quarrelled continually with religious conservatives over the right to commence council meetings with public prayer. If prayer works, there should be no reason elected Christians cannot ask God's blessing on their work in private. Evidently they're not fighting for the right to pray, which no one proposes to deny them, but for the right to make a collective gesture of exclusion -- to seek public sanction for the supremacy of religious faith and, by implication, the supremacy of believers. What has Richard Dawkins ever said or done that is uglier or more dangerous to social peace than this?

As it turns out, I happen to know that Richard Dawkins has said something that is uglier and more dangerous than that. I came across it not long ago in Marilynne Robinson’s review of the aforementioned Dawkins book that appeared in Harper’s magazine. In her review, Robinson, a practising Christian and author of the luminous novel Gilead, takes most if not all of the wind out of Dawkins’s bluster—and mentions an extremely disturbing statement he made about the Jews. Here’s the letter I sent the Post about the ugly statement. (I felt compelled to write the letter, even though I knew it couldn't be printed because I’ve had one in the paper within the past two weeks.)

 

I don’t want to wade into the bog of the religion vs. science debate—personally, I have no trouble reconciling the two. However, since Colby Cosh has asked for an example of something Richard Dawkins has written that is both “ugly’ and “dangerous to social peace,” I am happy to oblige. In his book, The God Delusion, Dawkins writes that, historically, the Jewish custom of not “marrying out” encouraged “wanton and carefully nurtured divisiveness” and represents “a significant force for evil.”

 

That’s right, “evil.”

 

Now, I’m no scientist, but as a student of antisemtism I can tell you that these sorts of words—whether they emanate from religious true believers or from atheistic rationalists—have always been “ugly” and “dangerous to social peace.” In fact, while it was religious disdain for the Jews that helped lay the groundwork for the Holocaust, it was science, in the form of the now discredited science of eugenics, which gave Hitler the idea that he could preserve Aryan racial purity by eradicating the Jewish people who threatened to pollute it.

 

It doesn’t get any uglier than that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:31 | link | comments (1)

 

Jihad juvies: Sigh. Don’t you long for the days when teenage rebellion meant motorcycles, leather jackets, rock ‘n’ roll and bad attitudes instead of explosive young jihadis on the prowl for ethereal virgins?

 

I know I sure do.

 

From the National Post:

TORONTO -- Canada’s intelligence service says a “very rapid process” is transforming some youths from angry activists into jihadist terrorists intent on killing for their religion.

Enraged over what they perceive as a Western “war on Islam” and coaxed on by extremist preachers, a few have embraced terrorism with frightening speed, the service warns in a new study. “The transformation from radical to jihadist can be a very rapid process,” says the “secret” report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, obtained by the National Post.

The study, released under the Access to Information Act, is the government’s latest attempt to understand why a handful of Canadian Muslims are alleged to have become involved in terrorist plots. It comes as a preliminary hearing is underway in Brampton, Ont., for four of 18 suspects charged for their alleged role in a Canadian terrorist group accused of plotting attacks in southern Ontario.

For at least the past two years, CSIS has been studying how some young people have been lured into terrorism. They are particularly interested in what made them radicalized and how they evolved from radicals to violent terrorists, a process known as “jihadization.”

The conclusion: It depends on the individual. But analysts have come up with a list of factors they say are leading some Muslims to radicalism. They include the belief in the need to defend Islam from perceived Western aggression, the influence of spiritual leaders and extremist family members, and overseas training, the report says.

“The most important factor for radicalization is the perception that Islam is under attack from the West. Jihadists also feel they must preemptively and violently defend Islam from these perceived enemies.

“They also watch what is happening in the Islamic world and the many conflicts that involve ‘Western’ or other aggression: Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and others.

“A few will act on these events and support or carry out terrorism in an attempt to change Western foreign or military policy. These individuals take the violent defence of Islam as a personal goal and religious obligation.”

Those who undergo this process of radicalization reject mainstream Islam and instead adopt a narrow, literal, intolerant interpretation, CSIS says.

The CSIS report notes that the failure of some Muslim immigrants to integrate into Western society is also a factor, but “this is seen more in European countries where the Muslim communities are more homogenous and there has been less integration than in North America.”

Many Canadians were shocked when the RCMP announced last June 3 it had arrested a group of adults and juveniles for allegedly planning truck bombings in Toronto. The group had also allegedly stockpiled firearms and intended to take hostages at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa and behead them unless Canada pulled its troops out of Afghanistan.

Prosecutors allege the suspected terrorists were encouraged partly by an extremist leader who has claimed that Canadian troops are only deployed to Afghanistan to rape Muslim women.

The report notes that younger jihadists are now often getting their inspiration online from spiritual leaders who are “available 24/7.”…

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:35 | link | comments (5)

 

Two letters: Here’s an example of the kind of fair-minded letter to the editor you can expect to read in the Toronto Star:

 

Harper ignoring Jewish history 

 

January 26, 2007

Canada's policy on Hamas correct

Letter, Jan. 25.

Ofir Gendelman criticizes Jim Travers's comparison of Israel's gangs (i.e. the Haganah, the Stern Gang, Irgun and Mapai) to Hamas by saying these Jewish gangs were scrupulous in avoiding killing civilians.

Here is a brief listing of some of the results of these Jewish actions: . There was the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which killed 91 and injured 45 British and Arabs; the assassination of Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944; the 1947 letter bombs to British cabinet ministers; the blowing up of the Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem, which killed the Viscount de Tapia and 19 other civilians. All of these were admitted by the Haganah and are a matter of public record.

The grossest outrage was Deir Yassin and the killing of 254 women, children and old men in April 1948. Then we have the assassination of Count Bernadotte and his aide by the Stern gang because of the rumour that Bernadotte was going to recommend that Jerusalem be made an international city.

It seems this history is being ignored by the Harper government, which is applying a different standard toward Hamas than toward Israel because of political and economic support of the Jewish lobby in Canada.

Bohdan Zaputovich and Maria Hrycaiko Zaputovich, Toronto

 

And here’s an example of the kind of letter that almost never finds its way onto the Star’s letters page:

Whenever someone wants to try to discredit Israel, one of the favourite tactics is to cherry-pick two events that occurred prior to Israel’s independence: the bombing of the King David Hotel and the Deir Yassin massacre.

 

I’m not going to defend either event—although, I would say that, unlike Islamist suicide bombers, those who blew up the King David didn’t do so with the intention of killing civilians and gave people plenty of advance warning of their intentions; I would also point out that the aim of the King David bombers was to establish a Jewish state, while the aim of Hamas is to wipe out Israel. However I would demand that these events be placed in the larger historical context. And the bigger picture would reveal these are isolated occurrences in Israel’s decades-long struggle to fend off Arab attacks, first from armies and more recently from militias and suicide “martyrs.”

 

The problem with cherry-picking history is that it is so highly selective. For example, here’s another historical fact ripe for the plucking. In 1970, Jordan’s King Hussein ordered an attack on Palestinians—an attack that has come to be known as Black September—that resulted in between three thousand and five thousand Palestinians being killed. That is more Arab casualties than have been killed in all the wars against Israel.

 

Odd how no one ever trots out that statistic to try to undermine Jordan’s right to exist.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:12 | link | comments (3)

 

Jewish default setting: A comment on The Corner tries to account for the Jewish and African American disinclination to vote Republican:

My son ... and I went, for the first time earlier this week, to a book signing/talk for Zev Chafets new book regarding the relationship between Jews and evangelicals.  The event was sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, a minority group within a minority group.  In fact, we felt almost subversive for being there, even though I have been a Republican Jew since, well, since I could think logically.  But your writer makes a good point about the unlikelihood of blacks ever voting Republican in large numbers, similar to the Jewish experience.  I think both my son and I have concluded that, while not inscribed in Ashkenazi DNA, the tendency to vote Democratic is somehow psychologically imprinted from birth by Jewish guilt, desire to assimilate, Franklin Roosevelt, and a basic lack of confidence in a Jew's place in contemporary society.  Kinda like we Jews are still looking into the candy shop from the outside, wanting in, and still not feeling like we are welcome inside, turn our backs on the shopkeeper, who, let it be known, is  happy to welcome us to the Party.  I'm sure there are many blacks who feel the least they can do to maintain their authentic blackness is vote Democratic.  You avoid an awful lot of arguments with your family if you do.

I can think of an even better way to avoid an awful lot of arguments with your family: don't discuss religion or politics.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:10 | link | comments

 

The power of truth: The best thing about having the stones to speak truth to power is the awesome power it has to cut through the bull crap. Witness the match last week between Ken Livingstone and Daniel Pipes, in which Pipes, by daring to speak the truth, made mincemeat out of the world’s most clueless and dangerous mayor (with a little help from Sir Martin). From the New York Sun:

Last Saturday many thousands of Londoners — plus a small but determined corps of Americans — came to Westminster to debate the clash of civilizations. Ken Livingstone, the notoriously pro-Islamist mayor of London, had invited Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, to be the neoconservative fall guy.

Not only Mr. Livingstone, but also almost everybody else expected the professor to be eaten alive by the politician. Mr. Pipes was warned by his British friends that he was walking into a trap.

But it didn't turn out that way. The audience — eccentrically attired and coiffed, sporting cranky badges and sandals — were atypical political activists, and to judge from their questions, heavily inclined to the left. "This is liberal hell!" muttered one New Yorker, contemplating the "Free Palestine" and anti-racism stalls to which the mayor was giving house room. Yet the loudest cheers were not for him, but for the Daniel who had ventured into this lions' den.

As soon as the self-styled "young British mom" in a hijab who was seconding the mayor, Salma Yaqoob, referred to the July 7 London suicide bombings as "reprisal events," I felt the audience shudder. There was another shudder when Ms. Yaqoob refused to utter the word "Israel."

Then the biographer of Winston Churchill, Sir Martin Gilbert, rose. "My son was on the subway when these ‘reprisal events' took place on 7/7. Would you mind telling me what these reprisals were for?" Ms. Yaqoob had no answer. What could she say to him? A great historian who has done the British state some service, who happens to be a Zionist? How could she justify the killing of scores of innocent people, and the attempted murder of countless others, including his son, as a "reprisal event"?

The mayor himself seemed taken aback by the lack of enthusiasm for his side. It is fashionable to describe figures like Mr. Livingstone as "former" Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, or whatever. But there was nothing in his demagoguery to indicate that he has really changed his mind about anything for 40 years. His heroes are Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. The only difference is that instead of Marx, he now quotes Mill — though he couldn't resist reprimanding that great advocate of women's emancipation for failing to write "he or she."

Mr. Livingstone's world is one gigantic conspiracy, with American neoconservatives pulling the strings. The Cold War was, he said, a conspiracy cooked up in Washington in 1943, just as the war on terror was devised by a "nexus around the White House and Wall Street." He stopped short of claiming that the CIA had ordered the September 11 attacks, but they had certainly created Al Qaeda. The state of Israel was an American conspiracy too: It "should never have been created" but the Americans, who of course control the United Nations, set it up on Arab land because they and the British were too anti-Semitic to accept Jewish refugees in their own countries. This is pretty rich coming from Mr. Livingstone — the mayor who was censured by his own party for abusing a Jewish reporter as a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Such fantasies are as commonplace as his assertions of moral equivalence between the "crude Islamophobia" of American neoconservatives and Islamist terrorists. But when Mr. Pipes pointed out that the Americans would have been mad to invade Iraq for the sake of oil, since the predictable effect had been to raise oil prices, the mayor replied that "the people in the White House were mad" and went on to make the apocalyptic prediction that if the war on terror continued, there would be "casualties in the tens of millions." The audience did not know what to make of this, and gave the mayor a distinctly muted response.

Mr. Pipes, however, was rewarded for his sweet reasonableness — which contrasted sharply with the malevolent extremism of Mr. Livingstone and Ms. Yaqoob — with hearty rounds of applause. He got a few laughs, too, as when he told one of his critics that Hezbollah "did not get to eliminate Israel this time round — I give you my condolences." Much of the audience having never seen a real, live American neoconservative in the flesh before and doubtless surprised that he had neither horns nor a tail, listened with rapt attention to what he had to say.

In essence, Mr. Pipes had a warning for Londoners: Thanks to the multicultural policies of politicians like Mayor Livingstone, "your city is a threat to the rest of the world."…

Maybe, just maybe, the Brits are beginning to wake up.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:48 | link | comments

 

Lower education: Hezbollah has taken its attempted coup d’etat to a new venue: the campus of Beirut university, where Islamist thugs have been setting things on fire and hurling anything that isn’t nailed down at students who support Lebanon’s democratic government. And just when it looked like jihadists were loosing ground, they sent for some off-campus reinforcements. From the Jerusalem Post:

…The battle grew out of an argument between pro-government Sunni Muslims and supporters of the Shi'ite Hizbullah opposition movement in the university cafeteria, students said.

As the melee grew, Hizbullah supporters called in help, and residents from the surrounding Sunni neighborhood joined in. Dozens of vigilantes wearing blue and red construction hats and carrying makeshift weapons - chair legs, pipes, garden tools, sticks and chains - converged on the university and started clashing with the police.

The army was called in with armored vehicles and fired tear gas and live fire in the air to disperse the crowd.

Hizbullah's al-Manar TV reported one of the Shiite group's supporters was killed. Security officials could not confirm the death but reported 17 people injured. Other TV stations reported that about 25 people were hurt.

The growing street battle illustrated Lebanon's struggle to contain violence sparked by the power struggle between the Hizbullah-led opposition and the US-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. Many fear the violence could spiral out of control and even plunge the country into a new civil war.

The university melee came two days after a general strike called by the opposition turned into the worst day of violence since the political crisis began. The strike sparked opposition-government clashes around the country that killed three people and took on a dangerous sectarian tone, with fights between Sunni Muslims and Shiites...

An odd way of describing what is essentially a fight between jihadists who want to impose sharia law on Lebanon and those who want the nation to remain a democracy.

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

Waiting for Mahdiman: He’ll be here any minute now.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:37 | link | comments

 

A song for Hamas: It’s the revolting regime’s first anniversary. Here’s hoping it’s the only one it ever has.

 

Unhappy anniversary to you.

We hope that you’re through.

Your people are starving

And they’re all blaming you.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:28 | link | comments

 

The clueless leading the clueless: The lead editorial in the Toronto Star advises Canada to seek “balance” in the Middle East.

 

In other words, retreat, defeat, appeasement, dhimmified acquiescence and throw the Jews to the wolves:

U.S. President George Bush had his eye on the political exit ramp this week as he gave his State of the Union address. And he is leaving as Commander-in-Chief, playing on fears of another 9/11 attack to legitimize his "decisive ideological struggle" with a growing array of Muslim foes.

That bleak message is one that Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to ponder as he tends both to the Canada-United States relationship in the twilight of the Bush administration, and to our broader global interests.

Canada under former prime minister Jean Chrétien was careful not to get pulled into the disastrous Iraq trap, as the British were to their regret. Now, Harper must resist being drawn into futile conflicts elsewhere.

If anything, Canada's interest lies in re-energizing – not diminishing – contacts with the Muslim and Arab world.

Specifically, we should increase aid to Palestinian moderates and use our modest leverage with Israelis and Palestinians to promote a peace deal before the Mideast climate worsens. We should urge Syria and Lebanon to do the same. We should insist Pakistan and Saudi Arabia crack down on extremists. And we should echo the United Nations in advising Iran that it can have political normalization and security guarantees if it stops seeking nuclear weapons and bankrolling terror groups.

Clearly, fresh approaches are needed, both in Canada and Washington. Americans worry where Bush may strike next before his presidential term ends two years from now. And with good reason. The war on terror "is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others," he told U.S. lawmakers.

In Bush's dark vision, even Washington's so-called successes thwarting terrorism become justifications for expanding a conflict that many Americans fear already is out of control. "Every success against the terrorists is a reminder of the shoreless ambitions of this enemy," he said Tuesday night in one of his more memorable lines.

That view should cause the Democrat-controlled Congress to recoil, because it legitimizes keeping the U.S. on a permanent war footing, fighting an enemy, terrorism, that can never be fully routed.

As well, it should be a red flag to Ottawa. Canadian politicians should think twice before hitching our cart to any further Bush misadventures.

Bush's approach has been disastrous. Rather than suppress Al Qaeda and its ilk mainly through police action, Bush first ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, then sent U.S. troops against Saddam Hussein in Iraq and is now playing up the military threat from Iran. While the Afghan intervention was a legitimate act of self-defence, the Iraq war was a tragic fiasco and an Iranian conflict should be preventable.

By heavily militarizing America's response to threats from "the Islamist radical movement," Bush has alienated much of the Muslim world, emboldened radicals, eroded America's moral leadership and strained relations with its allies. None of this has made his country any safer.

The verdict Americans delivered in November's elections when his Republican Party lost control of Congress to the Democrats was: "Enough. This isn't working." They are right.

What Americans want is for Bush to articulate a more sensible, balanced approach. It is also what Canadians should be hearing from Harper.

Here’s the letter I sent the Star:

 

Your editorial implies that the global jihad is largely a figment of George W. Bush’s “dark” imagination, and that if we could only redress the "imbalance" in the Mideast, the threat of Islamic terrorism would somehow evaporate. That is wishful thinking of the most perilous kind. It ignores the ideology that is actively working to subvert Western civilization, and that is counting on our acquiescence—what in another era, would have been called appeasement—to advance its implacable agenda.

 

Israel has been on the front lines of this war for decades. Now, the war has spilled out of the region and has come to the West—to London, Madrid, and New York. Pretending that the war doesn’t exist, or that it’s something Bush and his minions have concocted for their own malign purposes, isn’t going to make it go away; neither will the vain attempt to placate those who seek to destroy us. Much as we’d like to, we can’t sit out the jihad. The “sensible, balanced approach” you counsel may work in the short term, but in the long run it won’t take Canada or Canadians out of the Islamists’ line of fire.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:35 | link | comments (9)

 

Sweet charity: Canada is poised to send some $15 million in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, suffering under the onerous burden of a Hamas government that refuses to jump through the hoops required to officially restart the jizya.

 

My question: how about sending a few shekels to these deserving folks?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:40 | link | comments (3)

 

Too true: From the February issue of monthly journal First Things:

 

Islam was on a triumphant course of conquest until stopped at the siege of Vienna in 1683. This is the conventional wisdom, and it is conventional because it has the merit of being true. But there is in some enlightened circles a deep devotion to the proposition that Islam is “a religion of peace,” and, even if Muslims have been terribly aggressive at times, it is not really religion that motivates their assertiveness. Thus British critic Eric Ormsby reviews John Stoye’s new book, The Siege of Vienna (Pegasus): “Mr.  Stoye’s careful accumulation of detail makes one fact abundantly clear. The Ottoman campaign, for all the religious rhetoric on both sides, was no ‘jihad.’ The Turks were less interested in spreading Islam than in augmenting their empire.” To be sure, no military campaign is driven by any one motive. People go to war to gain territory, revenge wrongs, ward off threats, advance ideologies, or just for the sheer pleasure of beating up on those whom they view as their enemies. The fact is, however, that the Turks attacked Vienna in the name of Allah and, had they succeeded in conquering the heartland of Europe and continued “augmenting their empire” from that conquest, the basic texts at the universities of Vienna, Paris and Oxford would have been the Qur’an, hadith and sharia law. Which is not to deny that some may have been permitted to study also Augustine, Bonaventure, and Thomas under the severe limitations of dhimmitude. The subsequent and very different history of the world would likely have been the ever expanding dar al-Islam. Religion is hardly the only variable in world affairs, but to deny that it is a major variable, as Mr. Ormsby does, is to gravely distort the past and blind us to the challenge of the present, with very specific reference to jihadist Islam.

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

 

Identity theft: What all the Carter kidz and Christian Peacemaker Teams are wearing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:26 | link | comments (2)

 

American dreams; Israeli nightmares: President Bush and Condi Rice dream of Israel toddling down the yellow brick road map to Peace in Our Time (to mix two of my most oft-employed metaphors). Mort Zuckerman notes that there’s an obvious and immense stumbling block on the road: a regime of genocidal Islamists who plan to reclaim Israel, the existence of which is un-Islamic, for Allah. From JWR:

 

The roadblock to peace is Hamas. Prime Minister Haniyeh is just back from Tehran, where he declared time and again that his organization will never recognize Israel, will not honor any of the existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, and will continue its jihad until Jerusalem is liberated and "the face of the Zionist state would disappear," according to the Economist. Hamas seeks constant combat against Israelis in the hope of wearing them down morally, physically, and psychologically.

 

The elections Fatah is now calling for offer at least one cause for hope: They could tell us whether most Palestinians want pragmatic moves toward peace or ideological moves toward war. The crux, as it has been all along, is Hamas's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, which stems from a visceral hatred of Israel, the blood lust of popular resistance, the destructive influence of radical Islam, the interference of Iran, and the belief in so many Arab hearts that sooner or later Israel will disappear from the map because it has no right to exist.

 

The U.S. role in this nightmare scenario ought to be clear, though it is anything but. Washington is banking on the hope that Palestinians will remove Hamas from power and strengthen President Abbas and Fatah. That, this hopelessly wishful thinking goes, would prepare the grounds for negotiations, which would then be confirmed by a referendum, after which a Palestinian state with temporary borders would be established.

 

The presumption here is that Hamas will be contained and the security threat it represents eliminated — not a chance! We were foolish in believing that Hamas couldn't win an election, and we were dead wrong to overrule Israel's desire to retain control of the Gaza-Egyptian border, the source of so much of today's chaos.

The American proposal for this spiraling crisis is worse than premature. It will damage our credibility and our influence. The last thing America needs in this increasingly dangerous part of the world is yet another demonstration of its naivete.

 

I see it as more than a matter of naivete. It’s about failing to understand your enemies—and failing to appreciate your friends.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:09 | link | comments

 

Israel alone: The Cricket made all nicey-nicey at Brandeis last night, but his real views are obnoxious, and symbolic of the fact that, as Alan Dershowitz explains, Israel is losing ground and facing a terrifying—and potentially devastating—isolation. From CNS News:

 

Despite America's current strong support for Israel, the Jewish State should be prepared to "go it alone" in the years ahead, an American professor warned.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz mentioned several events as reasons to be concerned. They could create "the conditions for a perfect storm," he said, with Israel at the center.

The first event is the recent publication of former President Jimmy Carter's book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dershowitz, addressing a recent national security conference in Herzliya, Israel, called Carter's book a "watershed event" in U.S.-Israeli and U.S.-Jewish relations.

Carter's book asserts the "old canard" that Jews control the media and because they do, it prevents fair coverage of the Palestinians' plight, said Dershowitz, who addressed the gathering by satellite.

Carter's book also promotes the idea that Jewish control of American politics makes it "suicidal" for any American politician to present a "balanced view" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Carter gave legitimacy to arguments that undermine Israel, Dershowitz said. Until now, such arguments have only been heard from the extreme right and left, he added.

The professor also mentioned college campuses where "junk academics" have created a debate on the proper role of "Jewish influence" on American foreign policy. This is instilling questions about Israel's right to exist in the next generation, he said.

Then there's the "media war" against Israel, where terror groups such as Hizballah and Hamas attack Israelis, using civilians as cover -- then reap public relations benefits when Israel retaliates and kills the civilians, Dershowitz said.

Finally, there are comments from prominent Americans such as retired General Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential hopeful and Supreme Allied NATO commander, who recently hinted that there is too much Jewish involvement in U.S. foreign policy. "New York 'money people' are pushing the U.S. into war with Iran," Dershowitz quoted Clark as saying.

"Israel must be prepared for the possibility of losing American support over the coming years, diplomatically, economically, militarily and morally," said Dershowitz. But Israel should not allow "these stereotypes to weaken its resolve but it must be prepared to go it alone."

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that on a "popular level," Americans deeply support Israel. But on the "elite level," there is a "weakening" of that support…

 

We’d be well-advised to watch out for the “elites.” They’ve already facilitated the demise of Europe, and, given the chance, will do the same to Western civilization as a whole.

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

 

The real Jewish plot: Have you heard the latest one making the rounds? Actually, it’s one of those hoary old canards that the Jew-haters like to take out for a stroll every now and then, something having to do with “the Jew tax” gentiles are forced to fork over to the Rabbis to get them to put their kosherific imprimatur on grocery items.

 

As this piece in the Jerusalem Post explains, there is a Jewish plot, but it’s not one of the ones (world domination, formenting all wars and revolutions, toppling skyscrapers, sanguinary baked goods, to name but four) the crackpots had in mind:

…The persistence, ubiquity and sheer creativity of anti-Semitism rightfully concern us. But there is also something curiously invigorating about it all.

Because it points to what underlies Jew-hatred: the suspicion that the Jewish people are special.

However odd it might seem of God, He did indeed choose the Jews. In other words, yes, Bubba, there is a plot (though not exactly a conspiracy; there's only one Plotter).

But Bubba needn't panic. What anti-Semites like him don't realize is that the Jewish mission isn't to subjugate but to educate. Keep it under your hat, Bubba, but what we Jews are charged with is living lives of holiness and service to God and man.

That includes prayer, charity and acts of kindness, study of holy texts and meticulous honesty in all our dealings - as well as a multitude of ritual matters, including eating kosher food. But no, Bubba, undermining society and levying hidden taxes aren't on the list.

One day, God willing - likely when we Jews shoulder our mission with more passion and determination - those who labor so hard to hate us will suddenly be stopped cold in their tracks and made to meet a reality they never considered: that Jewish specialness was never a threat to them at all, but a gift.

As someone who is obsessed by judenhass and has been studying it for some time, I’m not so optimistic.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:17 | link | comments

 

Olympian death spiral: The London Olympics seems to have run into a spot of bother. It seems guesstimators had low-balled the calculation of costs, and the event—still five years away—is already facing a 900 million pound shortfall.

 

Oh, well. Organizers could always ask the Saudis, who are so keen to help build gibungous mosques in Londonistan and elsewhere in the U.K., to make up the difference.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:21 | link | comments

 

Cricket at Brandeis: One would expect that someone who was once president of the U.S. and who has spent the years ever since as a freelance foreign policy buddinsky—and who was awarded for his “vision” with the ultimate accolade of the internationalists, a Nobel Peace Prize—would at least have a clue or two about what’s going on in the world. Guess again. Jimminy “Cricket” Carter appeared at Brandeis yesterday evening, and the only thing he seems to have learned in recent years is that when you tell lies about Jews, some of them (like Alan Dershowitz, there in person to rebut Carter’s nahrishkeit) are going to call you on it, and that the Palestinians should knock it off with that suicide terrorism stuff, not because it’s barbaric, not because it’s reprehensible, but because it makes for bad P.R.

 

How are all the young leftoids going to be able to see you as the sympathetic underdog if you go and act like that? (Actually, that’s not really a problem. They would likely take their lead from Cherie Booth Blair who once opined following a successful human bomb detonation that conditions were so dire and the bomber so powerless that he couldn’t help but act out in this way.)

 

Here’s an account of Carter’s appearance from a student who was in the audience:

 

Following weeks of uncertainty over whether and in what format he would address the campus, former President Jimmy Carter spoke for about 20 minutes before answering pre-selected questions from nine students in a packed Shapiro Gymnasium Tuesday.

Carter, whose speech defended the ideas presented in his recent book, was rebutted almost immediately by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz in an event that capped months of controversy over the circumstances of their visits and the contents of Carter's controversial book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

"My bottom line was that the Palestinians are horribly treated, and their treatment is not known or minimally known in the United States," he said of his book. "I chose that title knowing that it would be provocative."

But, Carter acknowledged, the title may have been counterproductive to initiating peaceful dialogue.

"I realize this has caused great concern in the Jewish community," he said, emphasizing that he believes the word "apartheid" applies only to the conditions in the Palestinian territories and not in Israel proper.

The widespread criticism of his book did not compare to snubs he received on his many campaign trails, Carter said to the crowd of about 1,700.

"This is the first time I've ever been called a liar, a bigot, an anti-Semite, a coward and a plagiarist. This has hurt me."

Still, in his first major address on his book, Carter did not respond directly to the criticisms Dershowitz had made against his book. But he seemed to embrace the controversy leading up to his visit, joking that "I didn't think that Brandeis needed a Harvard professor to tell you how to" hold constructive dialogue.

The former president called his invitation to speak at Brandeis "the most exciting invitation I've ever received" except for the invitation from Congress to deliver his inaugural address. Although most of the questions he was asked were critical, the audience largely greeted his answers with applause, and gave him a standing ovation on both entrance and exit.

Carter described his first-hand observations of the hardships faced by Palestinians living in the West Bank, accusing Israel of running the Palestinian territories in a manner analogous to the state-sponsored system of segregation between blacks and whites in South Africa in the mid-20th century.

"The forced separation and domination of Arabs by Israelis," he said, is exemplified by the "dividing wall" that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories, the hundreds of checkpoints Palestinians are forced to cross to enter into Israel and the "spider web" of roads that connect the Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank.

"Palestinians are not permitted to get on those roads or even to cross some of them," Carter said. "All this makes the lives of Palestinians almost intolerable."

Carter expressed his hope for peace, arguing that Israel needs to withdraw completely from the West Bank and return to its 1967 borders.

Carter spoke of his personal stake in Israel's security that started at the age of three when he was taught as an evangelical Christian to "protect the chosen people."

In 1978, Carter helped negotiate the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, which established diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Since then, however, the peace process has taken a downturn, he said.

"I left office believing Israel would soon realize its dream of peace with its neighbors," he said. "The current policies are leading toward an immoral outcome … and not bringing peace to the state of Israel."

Yet he voiced optimism for the Middle East's future, which he said he learned from his experience negotiating the agreement between Israel and Egypt.

"The Jordanians want peace, the Egyptians want peace, the Palestinians want peace, the Israelis want peace."

And it is only "a minority of Israelis" who are the "driving force" of Palestinian persecution, he said…

 

Whereas an egregiously large majority of Arabs/Muslims are banking on the destruction of Israel. Therefore, spare us your platidutes and "protection",  Jimminy. They're the kind that helped put the Ayatollah in power, the kind that persist in the dangerous delusion the “Palestinians want peace.” Yes, they do want peace—but it’s a peace that entails removing the dhimmi “tumour” (Ahmadinejad’s colourful coinage) and plastering it over with Dar al-Islam. And don’t for a minute think they’ll be satisfied with that. No siree. All you have to do is listen to the Palestinian foreign minister who, on the front page of Canada’s newspaper of record the other day, advised Canadian infidels to fall in line with the Islamist agenda—or suffer the horrible consequences. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

 

Oh, and you can take your “protection” and insert it slowly up that dark, narrow passageway which for many years now has served as the repository for your head.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:57 | link | comments

 

He’s getting his act together and taking it on the road: Jimminy “Cricket” Carter brings his sanctimonious Casaubon act to Brandeis this evening. A piece on the American Thinker site expresses exactly how I feel about Jew U. giving this blackguard a forum for his despicable ideas:

 

Of all the universities, in all the towns, in all the states, it had to be Brandeis that chose to make itself a patsy by providing a protected platform  for Jimmy Carter to spout his anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian propaganda -- in effect placing a  "kosher" seal of approval on the former president's scurrilous book about Israel and his constant railing against the so-called "Jewish lobby."

 

Saint Somebody Catholic University could never get away with such a ploy; not could Anyplace Methodist U or Artexas Christian -- they'd be accused of bigotry and Israel-bashing in a minute. But not so Brandeis, which the real anti-Semites and anti-Zionists will herald as another case of liberal Jews lending support to something that, therefore, couldn't be as bad as it really is.

 

The university, founded in the 1940s by the American Jewish community to provide educational opportunities to Jews beyond what were available on the often heavily "restricted" campuses elsewhere, has in recent decades suffered the trauma of a distinct identity crisis, often supporting students and causes who were distinctly anti-Jewish, such as Black Panther Angela Davis and some of her fellow Jew-hating radicals.

 

It clearly appears that the university in Waltham, named after America's first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, has lost so much sense of both justice and Yiddishkeit that it no longer understands the word shonda [shame]. It's no longer a school I'd recommend my grandchildren even consider, let alone put on their college application A-list.

 

Now, Carter will be hosted this afternoon and sheltered from criticism and hard questioning by the banning of all outsiders from even attending the speech -- including Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, whose request to debate Carter on his controversial anti-Israel book was turned down by the former president. Similarly, Stephen Flatow, whose daughter, Alisa, was a Brandeis student when she was killed by an Islamic Jihad bomb attack, says he's been "privately discouraged" from attending, although he has questions he'd like to put to the former president…

 

I hope Dershowitz sticks it to him, but good.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:45 | link | comments

 

Scary cherries: Last week, British documentary show Dispatches revealed the disturbing Infidelophobia occurring as a matter of course at supposedly mainstream, moderate mosques in the U.K. As predicted, the usual suspects are trying to divert attention away from their own hatred by claiming statements made by imams at the mosques were “cherry-picked,” and that the infidels picking this rotten fruit did so out of some animus toward an otherwise peaceful and benevolent faith.

 

Cherry-picking, huh? In a certain way, I can see what they’re getting at: 

Jihad is just a bowl of cherries.
Best take it serious.
Makes you delirious.
You rant, you rave,
And when they probe,
Accuse 'em all of being "Islamophobe."
Oh, jihad is just a bowl of cherries.
It's rancid and poisonous fruit.

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

 

Go, Claudia, go: Pitbull journalist Claudia Rosett, daring to do to Jimmy Carter what she did to the UN’s Oil-For-Food program. From NRO:

 

Did Jimmy Carter do it for the money? That’s the question making the rounds about Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, an anti-Israeli screed recently written by the ex-president whose Carter Center has accepted millions in Arab funding.

Even in Carter’s long history of post-presidential grandstanding, this book sets fresh standards of irresponsibility. Purporting to give a balanced view of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, Carter effectively shrugs off such highly germane matters as Palestinian terrorism. The hypocrisies are boundless, and include adoring praise of the deeply oppressive, religiously intolerant Saudi regime side by side with condemnations of democratic Israel. In one section, typical of the book’s entire approach, Carter includes a “Historical Chronology,” from Biblical times to 2006, in which he dwells on events surrounding his 1978 Camp David Accords but omits the Holocaust. Kenneth W. Stein, the founder of the Carter Center’s Middle East program, resigned last month to protest the book, describing it in a letter to Fox News as “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments.” As this article goes to press, more protest resignations, this time from the Carter Center’s board of councilors, appear to be in the works.

If there is a silver lining to any of this, it is that Carter’s book has drawn much-overdue attention to some of the funding that pours into the Carter Center, whose intriguing donor list includes anti-Israeli tycoons and Middle East states. Founded in 1982 and appended to Carter’s presidential library, the center has served for almost a quarter century as the main base and fund-raising magnet for Carter’s self-proclaimed mission to save the world.

In recent weeks, a number of articles have noted that Carter’s anti-Israeli views coincide with those of some of the center’s prime financial backers, including the government of Saudi Arabia and the foundation of Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, whose offer of $10 million to New York City just after Sept. 11 was rejected by then-mayor Rudy Giuliani because it came wrapped in the suggestion that America rethink its support of Israel. Other big donors listed in the Carter Center’s annual reports include the Sultanate of Oman and the sultan himself; the government of the United Arab Emirates; and a brother of Osama bin Laden, Bakr BinLadin, “for the Saudi BinLadin Group.” Of lesser heft, but still large, are contributions from assorted development funds of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as of OPEC, whose membership includes oil-rich Arab states, Nigeria (whose government is also a big donor to the Carter Center), and Venezuela (whose anti-American strongman Hugo Chávez benefited in a 2004 election from the highly controversial monitoring efforts of the Carter Center)…

 

It’s not as if Jimmy wasn’t predisposed to hate Israel and the Jews prior to the founding of the Carter Center, but a little judiciously-targeted Saudi lucre certainly helps keep the pump of his judenhass well primed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:40 | link | comments

 

Tumult in Lebanon: After weeks of feckless sit-ins (occupations?) Hezbollah has ramped up the violence and has come one step closer—maybe—to toppling the dhimmi infidel government in Lebanon with which it has been forced to share power.

 

Notice how far-left Brit rag, the Guardian, awash in the kind of “nuance” beloved by the Toronto Star’s James Travers (see second post of the day), refers to the Hellzbollock’s supporters as “strikers” and “protesters,” and how the imperilled infidels attempt to set the record straight by calling it what it is: an attempted coup d’etat:

 

Dozens of protesters were wounded today as Lebanese opposition supporters took to the streets to impose a nationwide strike and effectively shut down the country in its latest attempt to force the government's resignation.

In Beirut, fires raged at many major junctions and thick plumes of smoke blackened the crisp winter sky above the city's largely silenced streets. Supporters of the mainly Shia and Christian opposition had gathered at dawn to set up roadblocks using parked cars and by setting fire to tyres and scrap vehicles.

At flashpoints throughout the country, strikers clashed with the army and pro-government supporters. Security sources reported a number of separate shooting incidents in various parts of Lebanon.

They said at least four people were wounded during a firefight between opposition and pro-government crowds in the northern Christian village of Halba, while in the ancient Christian town of Byblos, a gunman fired on protesters wounding three people before soldiers arrested him. Another three opposition protesters were wounded in separate shootings in other parts of the country, and more than 20 people were hurt in scuffles, especially in Christian areas.

The embattled cabinet had warned that the army, which has remained neutral since the start of the opposition's campaign, would fire on demonstrators if necessary. But pro-government leaders today denounced the strike today as a "coup attempt", and criticised the army and security forces for failing to prevent opposition supporters from shutting roads.

“Opposition supporters”—The “unnuanced” among us may prefer to cut through the fog of euphemism and see them as they really are: Islamic supremacists, funded by Iran’s mully-bullies, who are bent on destroying Lebanon’s fragile democracy and replacing it with the “nuances” of sharia law.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:12 | link | comments

 

Equality in the U.K.: I found the following story highly instructive. From The Muslim News:

 

A SMOKER was refused cigarettes at a Cambridge store because the Muslim shop assistant said it was against her religion to sell tobacco.

A 31-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified, was shocked when she attempted to buy a pack of 20 cigarettes at the WH Smith store in Market Street and was turned down.

She said: "I asked for a pack of 20 Lambert & Butler and the woman behind the desk asked me if they were cigarettes.

"When I said they were she told me that it was against her religion to sell them - I couldn't believe my ears.

"I rang up the manager to complain and he said the shop assistant has to ask someone else to serve them for her if a customer wants tobacco.

"If she had just said, I can't serve you, then that would have been fair enough, but the thing that really annoyed me was the way she gave me a lecture as well.

"She started saying she doesn't agree with smoking, that it kills you - I was really gob-smacked."

When contacted by the News, the store's assistant manager, who refused to give her name, said: "It is true that Muslims can't sell cigarettes - I used to be Jehovah's Witness and I wouldn't on religious grounds either."

She said the customer should have realised the shop assistant was a Muslim, and would not sell her tobacco, because she was "sitting there in her full robes".

Asked why the store had someone who would not sell tobacco working behind the till, she said: "It is against the law to discriminate against people on religious grounds"…
 

I think I have it sorted out. Apparently, it’s against the law to discriminate against someone who’s looking for a job, but it isn’t against the law if, after that employee has been hired, he or she discriminates against customers who don’t abide by the employees’ religious practices.

 

Got it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments (1)

 

Double haram: In the ideology of “no fun,” man’s best friend and a cold brewski are both strictly verboten. Which could make the following story doubly disturbing for those who believe in such proscriptions. From the CBC:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - After a long day hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a cold beer.

That's why Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a beer for her Weimaraners made from beef extract and malt.

"Once a year we go to Austria to hunt with our dogs, and at the end of the day we sit on the veranda and drink a beer. So we thought, my dog also has earned it," she said.

Berenden consigned a local brewery to make and bottle the non-alcoholic beer, branded as Kwispelbier. It was introduced to the market last week and advertised it as "a beer for your best friend."

"Kwispel" is the Dutch word for wagging a tail.

The beer is fit for human consumption, Berenden said. But at US$2.14 a bottle, it's about four times more expensive than a Heineken.

Actually, my dog prefers a nice cold Crantini, shaken, not stirred.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:29 | link | comments (2)

 

Listen up, Mo: A bunch of Osmaists wanted to send “a message” to an associate of “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas, so they blew up part of an abandoned resort in Gaza.

 

What, they couldn’t send a Candygram?

 

From the Jerusalem Post:

Dozens of masked gunmen claiming to be members of al-Qaida stormed an empty beach resort and blew up a reception hall on Tuesday, saying they were sending a message to a close ally of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Officials said there were no injuries and they were investigating the Qaida claim. Security officials have discounted such claims in the past.

Yousef Sari, director general of the resort, said about 40 masked gunmen raided the building. The attackers said they attack was aimed at Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, a confidant of Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president.

"Tell Dahlan al-Qaida has arrived in Gaza and his property and assets are targets," Sari quoted the attackers as saying. Dahlan is widely rumored to own the resort, which used to be popular with Israeli tourists in the 1990s, though he denies any business connection to the place.

Israeli officials have long warned that al-Qaida was trying to infiltrate Gaza following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the coastal strip in 2005.

Abbas also has claimed the group has established "sleeper" cells in Gaza, and al-Qaida has issued statements claiming responsibility for several violent attacks on Palestinian officials.

However, Palestinian security officials say there is no evidence the group is operating in Gaza. They say the claims are usually made by local militants or crime gangs trying to divert attention.

Hamas, which controls most government functions, denies any connection to al-Qaida. It says its violent tactics, which have included dozens of suicide bombings, are aimed strictly at Israel, not the Western world at large.

Bullcrap. Hamas is just as committed to the jihad as al-Qaida; it’s the local branch of the global effort. But it looks like al-Qaida may be encroaching on Hamas’s turf, and that can only lead to further divisions between Palestinian factions—and heightened threats of terrorism for the Jews. (Lucky there’s an “apartheid wall” to help keep them out.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:17 | link | comments

 

Travers blows smoke: James Travers, one of the Toronto Star’s squish-brained pundits, criticizes Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay for his “muddled mission” to the Middle East. What’s the muddle? For Travers’s standpoint, it’s the lack of muddle, i.e. the Conservative government’s refusal to see things, as Jimbo does, through a soothing grey filter. This filter is a pre-requisite if one is to avoid the pitfalls of those gung-ho black-and-whiteists (the U.S., Israel, the Harper Conservatives) and allows one to view Hamas as merely a democratically-elected government, and terror as merely another tactic on the road to statehood (the same tactic, notes the ever helpful Jim, that the Jews used on their road to independence.)

 

Jihad? Infidels? Dar al-Islam? Islamic triumphalism?—don’t be silly. You’ll find nary a mention in Jimbo’s column: far too “black and white” for his taste:

…Among the most popular [prevailing myths] are that we are at war with terrorism, that today's conflicts can be resolved with yesterday's methods and, most significantly, that the dominant colours in the international spectrum are black and white.

Together those myths fit a reassuring frame around a frightening world. They also distort the picture.

Terrorism is just another tactic, a time-tested vector for the desperate underdog's political aspirations.

Had Canada applied its current Hamas strategy to the 1940s Middle East, it would have isolated not only groups fighting to establish the state but also some of Israel's future elected leaders.

Troop and technological superiority are no longer reliable predictors of military or, ultimately, political victory.

Israel, with the region's most sophisticated military, is no more successful in rooting out Hezbollah than the United States, the sole remaining superpower, is in making Iraq a model market democracy, or NATO, with its collective muscle, is in defeating Afghanistan's Taliban.

It's the annoying hues of grey – those shades of beliefs, values and experience – that make a confusing world impossible to compartmentalize.

Painting it black and white, while politically comforting, only masks the riot of colour underneath…

Here’s the letter I sent the Star:

 

James Travers counsels us to resist the temptation of seeing events in the Middle East in terms of black and white, but to consider the “hues of grey” that lend them subtlety and nuance.

 

The problem with these hues of grey is that instead of adding to our understanding of complicated situations, they have a tendency to fog them up, making it difficult to see things clearly. For example, looking at the Hamas-Israel issue through such a fog makes it difficult to tell the difference between Hamas, a regime of Islamists waging a holy war against the Jews of Israel with the aim of liquidating the Jewish state, and Israel, which insists on its right to exist as a sovereign Jewish entity—the only one in the world.

 

Peter MacKay and the Conservative government seem refreshingly free of these smokescreens. I’d say the world needs more of this type of moral clarity, not less.

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

Gruesome twosome: According to reports, “Stinky” Abbas and “Meshuganeh” Meshaal have "come closer." Apparently, the two have grown fonder of each other because Stinky, who has a delightful Barry Manilow-esque voice, has been crooning this golden oldie in the Hamas terror boss's shell-like ear:

Cuddle up a little closer,

Meshy mine.

Cuddle up so we can plot

A plot Divine

Long enough to fool the kafirs.

Make ‘em set aside all their fears.

Finish off the Jews in ten years,

Meshy mine.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:49 | link | comments

 

Hamas threatens Canada: In his ongoing efforts to elicit sympathy for the Palestinians and antipathy for Israel, the Globe and Mail’s Middle East scribe, Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon usually concentrates on writing up overwrought, emotionally manipulative sob stories about suffering Palestinians (funny how there aren’t similar stories on the same regular basis from, say, Darfur). Today, however, he takes on a different role: taking dictation for (and from?) the Hamas foreign minister. And guess what? The minister isn't too thrilled with Canadian infidels and our support for the dhimmi infidel state crouched in the bosom of dar al Islam. MacKinnon brings us this dire warning/threat from an extremely tetchy Mahmoud Zahar: get with the Islamist program, or incur the wrath of Allah’s warriors.

 

Ooooo. I’m quakin’ in my Hush Puppies:

GAZA CITY — Canada risks making itself an enemy of the Palestinian people and of the broader Islamist movement by boycotting Hamas and openly siding with Israel, Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar said Sunday after he was shunned by visiting Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.

During an hour-long interview that he said was a replacement for the meeting Mr. MacKay denied him, Mr. Zahar alternated between saying he was anxious to open a dialogue with Canada and saying he looked forward to the moment that Canadians voted the “extremist” Conservative government out of office.

Had Mr. MacKay travelled to Gaza City to meet with him, Mr. Zahar said, he would have found an open door. However, Mr. Zahar said he would have challenged the minister to explain why Canada led the world in suspending aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won legislative elections a year ago. The United States and the European Union, which like Canada consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, also stopped giving aid, leaving the already cash-poor government bankrupt and unable to pay full salaries to its 170,000 civil servants for most of the past year.

“I would ask him very simply: What is the moral basis for these sanctions and boycott?” Mr. Zahar said, adding that the sanctions have primarily hurt ordinary Palestinians while leaving the Hamas government standing.

Canada has forbidden its diplomats from dealing with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Mr. Zahar said that Canada was not acting in its national interests by joining the boycott, but rather serving those of Israel and the United States.

“What is Israel providing you? Nothing. What are you achieving from such policies? What have you gained? Nothing, except the hatred of innocent people. If you would like to be the tail of the American dog, it's up to you. Or you can be a leading country, a linkage,” he said.

“For the sake of the future — one, two or three decades from now — the only way to help everybody, everywhere is to co-operate with the Islamic movements and Arabic countries because they are not your enemy.”

Addressing the absent Mr. MacKay, he added: “The question is very simple: Why do you refuse to meet us? As a human being, as a man, what is preventing you from meeting us? We are not eating human flesh.”…

No, just trying to blow it up into itty bitty pieces.

Where to start here? How about with Zahar’s assertion that the Conservatives are “extremist”? This from a man whose government has an agenda of liquidating the Jews; nothing extreme about that, I suppose. Next, there’s the stuff about Western nations “considering” Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Well, I guess since jihad-supporting regimes consider that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing—waging jihad on infidels through acceptable means—Hamas's terrorist status could be considered a matter of opinion; one person’s terrorist organization is another person’s jihadi outfit fulfilling God's commands, after all. And, yes, he does have a point about Canada not getting too much in return from its support for Israel. No oil. No love. Nothing except cutting edge medical research, technological developments and scientific advancements.

But who needs all that when you can wipe the Jews away and put the Palestinians and their manifold contributions to humanity (car swarms, kafiyahs, shahids, semtex) in their place?

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

 

Stella goes out on a limb: Paul McCartney, silly old fool, decided not to bother with anything so romance-crimping as a pre-nup. Now that his marriage to uni-limbed loudmouth, Heather Mills McCartney, has irrevocably broken down, he’s going to have to fork over $80 million--$20 million for each of four years they were wed.

 

Needless to say, Sir Paul’s daughters are furious about the deal—especially since, as part of the settlement, their Dad won’t be able to publicly rebut any of Heather’s claims (which include physical and emotional abuse). According to a source quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald,

"Stella and Mary are baying for blood. Their poor dad has been dragged through the mire by this woman, and all they wanted was to see his name cleared on the record, in public," the paper quoted a source as saying.

"Stella used to joke about looking forward to the day when Heather didn't even have one leg to stand on in court. But now that day will never come," the source added.

Oh, that Stella. She’s such a card.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:14 | link | comments

 

An heir of little brain: Prince Charles has three great loves—Camilla, Islam and the soon-to-be-late, great planet Earth. He has done what he can for the first two, and has now resolved to go that extra kilometre for the last one. From Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Charles, criticised for booking a trans-Atlantic flight to collect an environmental award, has cancelled a ski trip to Switzerland to reduce greenhouse gases, a palace source said on Saturday.

The decision not to take the annual holiday in Klosters was made some time ago and was part of the heir-to-throne's commitment to reduce his "carbon footprint", the source said.

Now if he could only do something to reduce the squishyness of his in-bred royal brain…To continue:

Environment Minister David Miliband has questioned the need for the heir to the throne to fly to New York next week with a 20-strong entourage to collect the Global Environmental Citizen Prize from former U.S. vice-president Al Gore.

"Was it a particularly heavy award?," Miliband told London's Evening Standard newspaper. "A lot of business can be done by telephone and video link these days."

Buckingham Palace defended the Prince's trans-Atlantic trip, saying the two-day visit on January 27 and 28 was being made at the request of the Foreign Office and would include a number of other engagements.

But environmentalists accused the prince, renowned for his green leanings, of skating on thin ice…

I imagine that must leave unsightly skid marks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:00 | link | comments

 

War games: Since Moo’s the hairy Islamic Hitler, I’m giving his Reich a more fitting name: Iranmany. And it looks like Iranmany is getting set to launch the final Final Solution (Hitler’s now turning out to have been the penultimate Final Solution). From My Way News:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran plans three days of military maneuvers, including short-range missile tests, beginning Sunday - its first since the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against it in late December, state-run television said.

"The elite Revolutionary Guards plans to begin a three-day missile maneuver on Sunday near Garmsar city," said the broadcast. The city is located in northern Iran on the edge of Kavir desert, about 60 miles southeast of Tehran.

"Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles will be test fired in the war game," the television quoted an unnamed commander of the guards, as saying. Both are considered short-range missiles.

Iran conducted three large-scale military exercises last year as tensions with the West and the United States rose.

In November, for example, it test-fired dozens of missiles, including the Shahab-3 that can reach Israel, in military maneuvers that it said were aimed at putting a stop to the role of world powers in the Persian Gulf region.

Sunday's maneuvers are to be the first by Iran since the U.N. Security Council imposed limited sanctions on the country on Dec. 23, banning selling materials and technology that could be used in Iran's nuclear and missile programs and freezing assets abroad of 10 Iranian companies and individuals.

Iran regularly holds large maneuvers, often using them to test weapons developed by its arms industry.

The latest Iranian maneuvers also come just days after the U.S. announced it would deploy a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, the USS Stennis.

That appeared to have alarmed some in Iran's hard-line leadership. A prominent member of a powerful cleric-run body this week warned that the U.S. plans to attack Iran in the coming months, possibly by striking its nuclear facilities.

The United States has said it is focusing on diplomacy but will not rule out other options…

Like, say, getting the Jews to do all the heavy lifting?

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

 

It’s off, it’s on, it’s off, it’s on, it’s...: Make up your minds, already. You’re giving me a headache.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:50 | link | comments (1)

 

Holy terror: Authorities in the U.K. can’t seem to lay off those poor pilgrims. From the Sunday Times:

 

THE intelligence agencies are monitoring every Muslim who travels from Britain to Mecca on pilgrimage in a wider effort to piece together intelligence on suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist activity.

A senior Whitehall official has disclosed that the operation targeting trips to the holy city in Saudi Arabia by more than 100,000 British Muslims is part of a trawl by MI5 and MI6 for information about movements of suspected terrorists. It follows evidence that British Islamic terrorists have visited the city before carrying out attacks in Britain and abroad.

The importance of the intelligence operation was one of the reasons given by spy chiefs for maintaining ties with Saudi Arabia when the Saudi government was threatening to break off intelligence ties over a bribery investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into BAE, Britain’s prime defence contractor.

Sir John Scarlett, the head of MI6, and Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director-general of MI5, told Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, that Saudi co-operation in the fight against Al-Qaeda was vital.

A well-placed security official said Scarlett and Manningham-Buller used the Mecca surveillance operation as evidence of the need for continuing intelligence ties with the kingdom: “They made it clear to Goldsmith that they were concerned about the implications for national security of losing Saudi co-operation. They said that every British Muslim who makes the pilgrimage to Mecca was monitored.”

This weekend Muslim leaders voiced their unhappiness about the operation. Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim parliament, said: “It is absolutely wrong that people who are going to Mecca for entirely religious purposes should be monitored by the security services. It is a sad commentary on Britain’s relations with Saudi Arabia.”…

I see it more as a sad commentary on the jihad imperative, a 7^th Century concept now wreaking havoc in the 21^st Century.

 

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, you may recall, assured everyone shortly before the London transit bombings that reports of an impending terror attack had been grossly exaggerated. While you would think that the Leeds lads self-detonnating not long after her pronouncement would have forced her to resign there and then, she has hung around until now, and won’t be retiring until the spring.

 

Since I like her euphonious name so much, I wrote her the following limerick:

 

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller

Had a mouth that was full of wool. Her

Premature calming

Was disrupted by bombing,

Yet her professional life could not have been fuller.

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

 

The difference between Liberals and Conservatives: This throw-away item, one of four brief stories under the NEWS TICKER heading in the Sunday Star, caught my eye:

 

Former Liberal MP regrets advisor post

Is Liberal scepticism about MP Wajid Khan’s Mideast report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper based on experience?

 

Onetime Liberal MP Sarkis Assadourian says he never did a day’s work after being appointed a special advisor to then-prime minister Paul Martin.

 

Before the 2004 election, Assadourian agreed to step aside in his Brampton riding so a star recruit could run. In return, Martin named him a special foreign policy adviser: “The whole thing was a lie…I never a single day worked in his office,” Assadourian said in an interview.

 

Rest assured, Mr. Assadourian, that’s not what’s going on with Wajid Khan. What you experienced was a Liberal pay-off, wherein you receive lots of moolah and aren’t expected to do an ounce of work in return; heck, the whole Adscam was built around that kind of pay-off. When the Conservatives buy your loyalty by giving you a job for which you have neither the experience nor the expertise, they actually expect you to do something, like write up a report of your findings.

 

They just don’t expect it to be any good.

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

 

The big O: Hillary Clinton has announced she’s seeking the Presidency and that, in her words, “I’m in, and I’m going to win.”

 

Think again, Hill. All the cool kids, like Oprah, seem to have decamped from the Clinton camp—a place which, let’s face it, is just soooo 90s (you remember the 90’s don’t you?: Oslo, Monica, JonBenet, “that depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is?). They’re all putting all their money behind the great mulatto hope, Barack Obama.

 

Mark Steyn explains the Obama appeal: he’s a “blank slate” on which people can write anything they want.

 

You know, kind of like Pierre Elliot Trudeau was back in the day (although, at the moment, Obama seems far less edgy and arrogant that P.E.T., who was always considered “sexy” and “charismatic” but never had a reputation, as Obama does, for being “nice”). From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Barack Obama announced last week that he was forming an exploratory committee to explore whether he can really be as fabulous as the media say he is. And happily the answer is: Yes! He's young, gifted and black, and white, and Hawaiian, and Kansan, and charismatic, and Congregationalist, and Muslim. He rejects the way "politics has become so bitter and partisan,'' he represents "a different kind of politics." He smokes, which is different. He was raised in an Indonesian madrassah by radical imams, which is more than John Edwards can say. And he looks totally cool when he smokes! I haven't smoked since I was 14 but I'm thinking of taking it up again just because the sophisticated refreshing nicotine taste helps take the partisan bitterness out of the atmosphere. Barack Obama is Lauren Bacall to America's Humphrey Bogart. Lauren Barack coolly blows smoke, leans against the wall and purrs:

"You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

Some commentators say he's a blank slate. And how long is it since we've seen one of those? They used to have 'em in the schoolhouses back when the kids still learnt stuff instead of just discussing their sexuality with the guidance counselor all week long. I'll bet in those radical madrassahs they're still using blank slates.

The madrassah stuff was supposedly leaked to Insight Magazine by some oppo-research heavies on Hillary Rodham Clinton's team. Which if true suggests that Hillary's losing her touch. It's certainly the case that a foreign education doesn't always assist in electoral politics: John Kerry didn't play up the Swiss finishing school angle. But look at it from a Democratic primary voter's point of view, the kind who drives around with those ''CO-EXIST'' bumper stickers made up of the cross and the Star of David and the Islamic crescent and the peace sign. Your whole world view is based on the belief that deep down we'd all rub along just fine and this neocon fever about Islam is just a lot of banana oil to keep the American people in a state of fear and paranoia. What would more resoundingly confirm that view than if the nicest, most non-bitter, nonpartisan guy in politics turns out to have graduated from the Sword of the Infidel Slayer grade school in Jakarta?...

I can think of only one more thing that would put him over the top with a certain type of voter: a dog named Kyoto.