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

A delectable rant: As a connoisseur of totalitarian propaganda and bafflegab—the two usually go hand in hand—I found the following overheated condemnation of Tiny Hitler’s cool reception at Columbia to be especially yummy. From the Tehran Times:

Columbia school of scandal
By Ismail Salami

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- It is widely believed that a university is the bastion that houses the best and the greatest of minds and that which produces future leaders.

Yet, the belief was ruefully shattered on Monday September 24 when Mr. Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University proved to the world that a prestigious institute of higher education like Columbia can harbor a man of crooked mindset as the president who can be easily used as a puppet in the hands of those who dictate to him what he should or should not say.

Bollinger, a U.S. Constitution scholar who has led Columbia since 2002, said the university encourages free speech and said bald-facedly, “Let's, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President. You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.” Had he invited the president with the intention of lambasting him? Was the invitation not a mockery of his own rhetoric of free speech? Or was it a mockery of American democracy and free speech?

Was he talking as a world leader to another leader who represents a nation? Did he really contemplate the consequences of his affront and contumely? Did he know that his insult to the president would not only target him but recoil against an entire nation whom he represents?

The fact that Bollinger had invited President Ahmadinejad required him to treat the president with respect and hospitality. However, his attitude was a far cry from hospitality. Instead, Bollinger was discourteous and boorish in manners. In fact, he had an opportunity to show to Iranian people, their president and the whole world what American democracy and free speech really meant. Yet, he squandered the excellent opportunity and helped further tarnish the image of Uncle Sam.

Mr. Bollinger's vitriolic and uncalled for introduction could have been a prelude to further insults if President Ahmadinejad had not shown a great degree of composure and magnanimity.

As a sophisticated person, Bollinger could have used a softer tone and said, “Mr. President, we welcome you here. You represent a land with a great civilization and culture. You come from the land of Cyrus the Great who formulated the first charter on human rights. Since we have some questions on our minds to which we fail to find convincing answers, we beg your permission to let us ask the questions which have long been lingering in our minds. We really hope you will answer them.”

Poor Mr. Bollinger actually played more the part of a neocon than president of a distinguished university did. He was surely put under a lot of pressure by the propagandists and thought police of the American right wing. The plain truth is that an invited Muslim leader was affronted by an academician in a Christian land where love and respect are considered as the most sublime values. This is the way the values are tailored to suit the interests of a police regime.

Brainwashed by the American thought police, he leveled an improper, indecent and unprofessional attack on the Iranian president. The New York Times even praised Bollinger as a paragon of democratic values for his impertinent behavior, writing that he “defended the event as in the best tradition of America's free speech.” American free speech indeed!...

And by “American free speech” the splenetic Shia is obviously referring to the “freedom” to act like a sycophantic toady—just like they do over there in Iran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:49 | link | comments (2)

Talk is cheap: Mark Steyn, a man who’s much too smart to be a politician or a New York Times pundit, explains the essential difference between democracies and Ahmadinejad—the former are talkers; the latter’s a doer. From the OC Register:

…Lots of prime ministers and diplomats accepted invitations to meet with Hitler, and generally the meetings went very well – except for one occasion when Lord Halifax, the British foreign secretary, was greeted by the little chap with the mustache, mistook him for the butler, and handed him his coat. But even that faux pas is a testament to how normal thugs can appear in social situations. Civilized nations like chit-chatting, having tea, holding debates, talking talking talking. Tyrannies like terrorizing people, torturing people, murdering people, doing doing doing. It's easier for the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then for the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything.

As witness this last week. Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, was evidently taken aback by the criticism he got for inviting Ahmadinejad and so found himself backed into what, for a conventional soft-leftie of academe, was a ferocious denunciation of his star guest, dwelling at length on Iran's persecution of minorities, murder of dissidents, sponsorship of terrorism, nuclear ambitions, genocidal threats toward Israel, etc. For a warmup act, Bollinger pretty much frosted up the joint. The Iranian leader sat through the intro with a plastic smile, and then said: "I shall not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment." He offered many illuminating insights: There are, he declared, no homosexuals in Iran. Not one. Where are they? On a weekend visit to Kandahar to see the new production of "Mame"? Alas, there was no time for follow-up questions.

And afterwards Bollinger got raves even from the right for "speaking truth to power." But so what? It's like Noel Coward delivering a series of devastating put-downs to Hitler. The Fuhrer's mad as hell but at the end of the afternoon he goes back to killing, and dear Noel goes back to singing "The Stately Homes Of England." Ahmadinejad goes back to doing – to persecuting, to murdering, to terrorizing, to nuclearizing – and Bollinger cuts out his press clippings and puts them on the fridge.

The other day, National Review's Jay Nordlinger was musing about our habit of referring to some benighted part of the world's "humanitarian needs" and wondered when we'd stopped using the term "human needs," which is, after all, what food, water and shelter are. And his readers wrote in to state the obvious: That "humanitarian" label gives top billing not to the distant, Third World victim but the generous Western donor – the "humanitarian" relief effort, the "humanitarian" organizations, the NGOs, the Western charities: It's about us, not them. Bill Clinton's new bestseller on charity is called "Giving" – because it's better to give than to receive, and that's certainly true if the giver is busying himself with some ineffectual feel-good "Save Darfur" fundraiser while the recipient is on the receiving end of the Janjaweed's machetes. The Sudanese government appreciates that, as long as we're allowed to feel good about ourselves and to participate in "humanitarian relief," the killing can go on until there's no one left to kill. Likewise, Ahmadinejad knows that, as along as we're allowed to do what we do best – talk and talk and talk, whether at Columbia or in EU negotiations – his regime can quietly get on with its nuclear program.

These men understand the self-absorption of advanced democracies. The difference between Winston Churchill and Ward Churchill, another famous beneficiary of "academic freedom" who called the 9/11 dead "little Eichmanns," is that for Sir Winston talking was a call to action while for poseurs like professor Churchill it's a substitute for it.

The pen is not mightier than the sword if your enemy is confident you will never use anything other than your pen. Sometimes it's not about "freedom of speech," but about freedom. Ask an Iranian homosexual. If you can find one.

Like finding a needle in a haystack, since, in der Shialand, friends of Dorothy are being tortured and exterminated, ruby slippers and all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:08 | link | comments

Speak for yourself, Tom: The New York Times’s pundit di tutti pundits, Thomas L. Friedman, opines that 9/11 made us stupid.

Au contraire, Tom. 9/11 woke up lots of folks but, sadly, not those (like you) who've made a choice to remain in the dark about the existential threat posed by the ardent souls who heed the eternal, seductive call of the jihad imperative:

...I’d love to see us salvage something decent in Iraq that might help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive pathway. That was and is necessary to improve our security. But sometimes the necessary is impossible — and we just can’t keep chasing that rainbow this way.

Look at our infrastructure. It’s not just the bridge that fell in my hometown, Minneapolis. Fly from Zurich’s ultramodern airport to La Guardia’s dump. It is like flying from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. I still can’t get uninterrupted cellphone service between my home in Bethesda and my office in D.C. But I recently bought a pocket cellphone at the Beijing airport and immediately called my wife in Bethesda — crystal clear.

I just attended the China clean car conference, where Chinese automakers were boasting that their 2008 cars will meet “Euro 4” — European Union — emissions standards. We used to be the gold standard. We aren’t anymore. Last July, Microsoft, fed up with American restrictions on importing brain talent, opened its newest software development center in Vancouver. That’s in Canada, folks. If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?

We can’t afford to keep being this stupid! We have got to get our groove back. We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy. Al Qaeda is about 9/11. We are about 9/12, we are about the Fourth of July — which is why I hope that anyone who runs on the 9/11 platform gets trounced.

Poor Tom. Still stupid (and a really crappy writer) after all these years.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:22 | link | comments

I heart John Bolton: A great man, Churchillian in his vision, but one who could never be a politician in our era because he is compelled to tell the unvarnished, unshaded, unadulterated truth. From the Guardian:

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord (Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-back" from the west.

"I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is.

"Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities."

He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad.

"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."

The fact that intelligence about Iran's nuclear activity was partial should not be used as an excuse not to act, Mr Bolton insisted.

"Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction." He asked how the British government would respond if terrorists exploded a nuclear device at home. "'It's only Manchester?' ... Responding after they're used is unacceptable."

Mr Bolton, now a fellow at the conservative thinktank the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book called Surrender is Not an Option, was applauded by delegates when he described the UN as "fundamentally irrelevant".

Defending the decision to invade Iraq, he mocked the Foreign Office's "softly softly" approach to Iran's imprisonment of 15 British sailors accused of straying into Iranian waters in April this year.

They were released after Mr Ahmadinejad announced he was making a "gift" to the British people. "They [Iran] got no response from the UK or the US. If you were the Iranian leader, what conclusion do you draw?"

Mr Bolton said he did not really want "to get into the specifics of your own internal politics here" and made no comment on David Cameron's foreign policy. But he said that Gordon Brown's performance under pressure had not been tested and he hoped that Britain would not withdraw from Iraq.

"There is too much of a view in Europe that you have passed beyond history," Mr Bolton told delegates. "That everything can be worked out by negotiation ... Democrats or Republicans, we [Americans] don't see it that way."

However, he praised the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his forthright criticism of Iran in recent weeks.

Raising the spectre of George Bush's "axis of evil", Mr Bolton said that Kim Jong-il's regime in North Korea was akin to a "prison camp" and that he would "sell anything to anyone".

Those who thought North Korea would give up its nuclear capability voluntarily were wrong, he said.

The regime had made similar promises during the past decade. Only reunification between North and South Korea could resolve the problem. That could be achieved "if China were to get serious" and cut off fuel supplies to Mr Kim, but the country feared a reunited Korea.

Mr Bolton told an inquiring delegate that he was not and had never been a neoconservative: "I'm not even a Reagan conservative. I'm a [Barry] Goldwater conservative. They [neocons] have somewhat - I would say excessively - Wilsonian views about the benefits of democracy."

However, the threat to world peace did not come from neoconservatives but from the perception that "we have passed beyond history", he said…

If John Bolton’s a Goldwater conservative then, by gum, so am I.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:50 | link | comments

Deadly fairy tales: The always perceptive Diana West describes what happens when people succumb to the soothing pieties of moral relativism: the clueless idiots think the Three Bears’ point of view is as equally valid as Goldilocks’s--and may, in fact, be more valid, since Goldilocks hails from an imperialist, coloniolist, Zionist hegemon. From the Washington Times:

Some years ago, when our teenagers were tots, my husband and I took them to a puppet version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Or was that "The Three Bears and Goldilocks"? Turns out, we were seeing "the other side" of the old story. Here, Goldilocks was no wandering lass improbably meeting up with an even more improbable household of bears, but a human interloper vandalizing the home of her fellow mammals.

 

When the bears came home from their walk, happened upon Goldilocks' mischief and chased her out of the house, they were acting in fright, not anger, and had no thought of, say, devouring the heroine — which is often the conventionally climactic possibility in this and other such fairy tales. The puppets made it clear that the whole incident resulted from a lack of communication. Everyone — bears, children — should listen to one another because, as the puppets sang in conclusion, "there are two sides to every story."

 

This really burned me up, naturally. First, the kids in the theater were too young to have their Goldilocks narrative down pat and, therefore too young to have it messed with. And who did these puppeteers think they were injecting a dose of moral relativism into age-old tales? It's not that Goldilocks is a rallying figure exactly, but there's a disconnect here. For kids still grappling with moral absolutes known as right and wrong, it's very confusing to contend with the "alternate" message: essentially, that there is right and right again. For the preschoolers in the audience, this was just the beginning of their postmodern education.

 

It's no coincidence that this anecdote comes up in the aftermath of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's obscene caper across New York City — from Columbia University (with a threatened detour to Ground Zero), to the United Nations and to the Intercontinental Hotel where he hosted a dinner for 50 American guests from academia and the media. The same childlike ethos of right and right again — moral relativism — of the PC puppet show was the institutional rationale that permitted Mr. Ahmadinejad's terrible PR triumph over America. I fear it has only convinced him that he can win more.

 

He came, he raved, he hosted the media. Question: Couldn't cable stars Brian Williams and Christiane Amanpour and Time magazine's Richard Stengel and whoever else supped with Iran's jihadist-in-chief have told him, if not where to go, that they had to wash their hair? Alas, no. No one in charge, not the president, not the State Department, not Columbia, not the media, could think of a single reason to say no to this thug — this sworn enemy of our country fighting a covert war against U.S. troops in Iraq, this largest sponsor of terrorism in the world, this Holocaust-denier seeking the nuclear tools for another Holocaust —and deny him an American showcase on the world stage.

 

That's because they don't know a single reason. Decades of multiculturalism, positing that all cultures are equally valuable, except, of course, for Western culture, which is the pits, have undermined our ability to make distinctions, to understand that being open to everything — like Mr. Ahmadinejad — is not the same as preserving a tolerant society. "If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant," Karl Popper wrote, "then the tolerant will be destroyed and tolerance with them."…

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:29 | link | comments

Wake us up before you blow blow: After a disasterous performance at the MTV Awards, flabby has-been slattern Britney Spears is trying to get her self-torpedoed career back on track (to mix a metaphor). Here she is singing a new version of the hit that propelled her to fame all those years ago. To appeal to the largest possible audience, Britney's words reflect the mindset of the clueless, craven, appeasing majority:

Oh, Mahmoud baby

How were we supposed to know

That something wasn’t right here?

Oh, Mahmoud baby

We shouldn’t have let you crow.

We shoulda been much brighter.

 

Show us that you are a threat now

Make us all regret how we ignored it.

Because…

Our cluelessness is killing us.

And you don't seem so ominous.

IAEA’s ElBaradai says, “Show me a sign.

Nuke me, Mahmoud one more time.”

 

Oh, Mahmoud baby

You’re petty, short  and ‘foonish

So you don’t really scare us.

Oh, Mahmoud baby

Although you’re kinda goonish

We’ll let you rant and dare us.

Shake us out of our deep slumber

Make us take a number

While your boys prepare for "five, four, three, two, one..."

'Cause..

Our cluelessness is killing us.

And you don't seem so ominous.

The MSM, most all of them, say, “Give us a sign.

Nuke us, Mahmoud one more time.”...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:00 | link | comments

A seemingly solitary voice of reason: Back in the days of the seeth-a-thon following a Danish newspaper’s publication of Prophet ‘toons, I had a heated exchange with a high-ranking member of the Canadian Jewish Congress executive. I was seething myself because the CJC had seen fit to issue a media release condemning the rampage, but condemning, too, the Danish paper. As I recall, the CJN criticised it for being “unduly provocative,” or something along those lines. It seemed to me that the CJC had no business weighing in on the matter—unless it was to support the fundamental Western value of free expression. Since it didn’t, and since it seemed to be acting in a dhimmified manner for no good reason, I sent an e-mail to this exec to express my horror at the CJC’s action. It took one, two, three emails before he finally revealed what was at the bottom of this dhimmitude: a desire to—I believe his words were “march arm-in-arm”—to Queen’s Park with his Muslim “buddies” to persuade the government to fund their religious schools.

Fools! Knaves! Short-sighted nincompoops! Jews incapable of seeing past their own short-term self-interest and making common cause with those who, given their druthers, would get rid of Western freedom altogether and replace it with sharia law.

I have repeated the same refrain—fools, knaves, etc.—during the current election campaign, the one in which Jews and Muslims, in convincing Conservative leader John Tory to take up their cause, will in all probably cost him the election. By and large, however, mine has been a minority voice among those who fork over mucho dinero to send their kids to non-Catholic religious schools, the vast majority falling in lockstep with the CJC and Bnai Brith on this issue.

I was thus thrilled to read a commentary in the Canadian Jewish News by someone who has the same doubts as I do about climbing into bed with Islam:

As the Ontario provincial election draws closer, the push for funding faith-based schools will no doubt intensify. And so it should. The cause is just and, with fees at most Jewish day schools at an all-time high – and way beyond what many families can afford – the timing couldn’t be more crucial.  Proponents of such subsidies need to maintain their momentum and do whatever seems practical to sway Ontario voters toward supporting a redress of the current system.

That the Jewish community leadership of Toronto has opted to join up with Armenian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim groups with like-minded objectives is probably a good strategy. Interfaith cohesion on issues of common interest plays well in the public domain and carries with it a certain respectability that may have other positive spin-offs as relationships develop and dialogue becomes more comfortable.

However, we in the broader Jewish community need to be extraordinarily vigilant that we do not compromise our values and loyalties as we engage in coalition-building of this sort. We need to be clear on who our partners are and what view of us they bring to the table. It might reasonably be argued that it’s not acceptable to include as part of such a group those who, under other circumstances, might wish us harm – individually or collectively – by actively promoting anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist positions.

It is, therefore, a matter of great concern when one reads in the September issue of the Hamilton Jewish News that a Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) memo has been sent to federations in Ottawa, Windsor and London “asking them to build interfaith partnerships on the Hamilton model to support the Jewish community on this important matter” (i.e., school funding).

There is no reason to doubt Congress’ good intentions, but what really is the “Hamilton model”? Well, unlike the multicultural Toronto coalition, the Hamilton “dialogue” comprised only Muslims and Jews. Before expanding – to primarily focus on the funding issue – the group, aside from UJA Federation of Hamilton, had just three other “partners.” Of these, one has gone on public record expressing contempt for Israel during the Lebanon war and praising “Hezbollah’s resistance,” while another helped to sponsor a local rally just over a year ago where Israel was venomously attacked and the Hamilton Jewish federation was itself accused of “endorsing the killing of Lebanese”.

Yet such “partners” continue to be part of the ongoing Hamilton dialogue, and the Hamilton community leadership persists in according them credibility and public affirmation.

So if this is the prototype that other small communities across Ontario are being encouraged to emulate, a plea for caution is needed. We can certainly do better.

Hear, hear. Fortunately, the majority of Ontarians have no taste for funding madrassahs (Bigotry! Islamophobia! shriek the media), and, come Oct. 10, will give the Tory Tories a big ole thumbs down.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:27 | link | comments (1)

The sight and sound of pure evil: Tiny Hitler came a-calling this past week, and for the most part our mainstream media outlets—as per usual—buried the lede. (The Toronto Star and The Glib and Mewl, for two, concentrating on how “petty” and “buffoonish” he is). Luckily, we have Caroline Glick to offer clarity, and to audaciously state the obvious that the MSM obviously and willfully missed. From RealClear Politics:

During his visit to New York this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked every basic assumption upon which Western civilization is predicated. Ahmadinejad offered up his attacks while extolling his vision of Islamic global domination.

Refusing to note his existential challenge to the Free World, the Western media concentrated their coverage of his trip on his statements regarding specific Western policy goals. His rejection of the UN Security Council's authority to take action against Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program; his championing of the Palestinian cause and Israel's destruction; his denials of Iranian support for terrorism, and his attacks against the US were widely reported. So too, his insistence that Iranian women enjoy full rights and that there are no homosexuals in Iran received banner headlines.

Ahmadinejad gave two major addresses this week - at Columbia University and at the UN General Assembly. He devoted both to putting forward his vision for global Islamic domination. And while the Western media sought hidden meanings and signals for peaceful intentions in his words, the fact is that on both occasions, Ahmadinejad made absolutely clear that his vision of Islamic domination cannot coexist in any manner with Western civilization. Consequently, Ahmadinejad's statements were not negotiating stances. They were the direct consequence of the world view he propounds. As such, they are non-negotiable.

At Columbia University, Ahmadinejad devoted the majority of his speech to a discussion of the role of science in human affairs. While most coverage surrounded his refusal to renounce his call to annihilate Israel, his central message, that he rejects the right of people to be free to choose their paths in life, was ignored. His remarks on the issue were dismissed as "weird" or "unintelligible." Yet they were neither.

Speaking as "an academic," Ahmadinejad said that from his perspective, the role of science is to serve Islam and that any science that does not serve Islamic goals is corrupt. As he put it, "Science is the light, and scientists must be pure and pious. If humanity achieves the highest level of physical and spiritual knowledge but its scholars and scientists are not pure, then this knowledge cannot serve the interests of humanity." Elaborating on this notion, he argued that Western scientists serve corrupt governments who reject the pure and pious path of Islam and therefore are used as agents for corruption.

Tellingly, Ahmadinejad moved directly from his assault on non-Islamic scientists and regimes to a defense of Iran's nuclear program. The message was clear: Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is done in the name of Islam and therefore it is inherently legitimate. As far as he is concerned, refusing to allow Iran to pursue nuclear weapons is tantamount to an assault on God.

IN HIS address at the UN, Ahmadinejad laid out his case for Islamic supremacy. He claimed that all of the world's problems are the consequence of two things. First, by his reading of history, after the Second World War, "The victors of the war drew the road map for global domination and formulated their policies not on the basis of justice but for ensuring the interests of the victors over the vanquished nations."

The second cause for the world's woes is the world powers' rejection of Islam. As he put it, "The second and more important factor is some big powers' disregard of morals, divine values, the teachings of prophets and instructions by the Almighty God... Unfortunately, they have put themselves in the position of God!"

Thankfully for Ahmadinejad, this "corrupted" world order will soon be swept away. Either the "corrupted" powers will "return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan to the path of faith in God," or "the same calamities that befell the people of the distant past will befall them as well."

Concluding his UN remarks Ahmadinejad pledged, "Without any doubt, the Promised One who is the ultimate Savior... will come. In the company of all believers, justice-seekers and benefactors, he will establish a bright future and fill the world with justice and beauty. This is the promise of God; therefore it will be fulfilled."…

Tiny Hitler plans to nuke the Jews so the “Promised One…will come” and Shia Islam with rule the planet.

Try as I might, I fail to see anything “petty” or “buffoonish” about that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:48 | link | comments

Proceeding from a false premise to a false conclusion: The Globe and Mail, an ardent multiculti organ, has a lead editorial which, unbeknownst to the editorialist, points to the basic flaw in our national social doctrine—that it makes no distinction between cultural practices, and, in the name of “tolerance” forces us to tolerate the intolerable:  

The liberal societies of the West are increasingly faced with cultural practices from abroad that subjugate women. This week, a young Muslim woman who had been beaten and sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant announced through the Ottawa Hospital's sexual-assault unit that she had not been raped, so as to preserve her chances of finding an observant Muslim husband.

The announcement is a disturbing one, even if, on balance, the hospital acted appropriately. Liberal and multicultural societies such as Canada's do not need to declare all cultural ideas equal. Far from it. They need to insist on equality before the law. Treating rape victims as ruined for marriage is a pernicious form of discrimination. It's a life punishment doled out to the victim. Victims fearing this punishment will not come forward for justice. They are therefore denied equal protection of the law.

Why, then, was the hospital's action defensible? Because it would be wrong to put the principle ahead of the individual, and thus make the 24-year-old pay the very price that society wishes to save women from. The hospital's immediate duty is to care for its patients, and therefore to help the woman avoid a serious harm arising from the sexual assault. All the hospital did, in a sense, was correct what appears to have been a factual error in some news reports about the notorious incident, which happened after midnight in a chemistry lab at Carleton University, as the academic year began.

But there's a risk in making such an announcement based on a highly vulnerable victim's say-so. If a victim believes that to be raped is to destroy her life chances, should the onus be on her in effect to press charges? Of course not. The onus is on the police to ascertain the evidence.

When the 24-year-old told the hospital a few days after the assault that she was not raped, the hospital checked with the police, and the police confirmed her story. Still, can that story be trusted? When she arrived at the hospital she was in shock and not fully conscious. Shouldn't the hospital, having done a medical check according to its protocols, know the answer? “When we do a sexual-assault examination, it's very hard to determine if someone was raped. It's not like on CSI,” Christine Baker, a nurse with the Ottawa Hospital's sexual-assault unit, said yesterday. “If I thought she was denying it to save herself, there's no way I would say anything.” Fair enough, but it's a dangerous precedent. Imagine a case where a woman was raped and a hospital or counselling centre declared on the basis of a victim's request that no rape occurred. It would be impossible to bring the culprit fully to justice.

There's another risk, too. The hospital may have inadvertently reinforced the very stigma that causes so much harm to sexual-assault victims. That stigma is linked to a growing problem in Europe. In Ayaan Hirsi Ali's autobiography Infidel, the Somali-born former Dutch politician writes of Somali women in the Netherlands who have been raped and live in fear of their family or clan finding out. “Honour killings” in the West are rare, but they happen.

It is not as if Canada and other liberal societies can claim to be above shaming and stereotyping sexual-assault victims. “Distrust and contempt for the unchaste female accuser was formalized into a set of legal rules unique to rape cases,” a legal observer wrote about past practices in the West. It's fair to say, though, that at least since 1983, when Canada rewrote many of those legal rules, it has made advances toward equal treatment.

This country needs to ensure that all women benefit from these advances. In some Muslim villages, people “despise the person who has been a victim of rape, even if it is their own daughter,” says Mumtaz Akhtar, president of the Ottawa Muslim Association. “But it is not like that here. People are more educated.” Canada needs to make sure it does not become like that here…

The editorial wants to have it both ways: criticize a backward, primitive, misogynistic, duplicitous practice, but allow it to continue so as not to “punish” the individual—even though it isn’t the individual’s “rights” which are being upheld here, but the “right” of the group to keep her in line (the essence of multiculturalism, which considers the group over the individual).  And, of course, call for “education” and “equal treatment,” hoping to change the group, little realizing that the group has virtually no incentive to adapt to Canada when Canada bends over backwards to adapt to them—and, by social fiat, keeps them locked away (out of sight out of mind?) in ethnic ghettos.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:07 | link | comments (2)

Luxuriating in victimhood; blaming the Jews: An editorial in the Muslim News (U.K.) interprets Tiny Hitler’s mixed reception in the U.S. as a sign that another  Muslim country is about to become the “victim” of American “belligerence.”

The war drums are sounding yet again. Needless to say, the threat is being made against more Muslims and the country being named, Iran, is nothing new. The belligerent tone has come not only from the US but now from France following the election of new President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is reportedly seeking to improve relations with Washington by filling the vacant role left by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, after his retirement. It also coincides with attempts to blame Iran for the failure of the Iraq war.

The supposed justification goes back more than three years after it was realised that the US-led regime change wars in Afghanistan and Iraq altered the balance of power in the region in favour of Iran. The demand is that Tehran permanently closes down its development of uranium enrichment, even though they are entitled to this development under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It is based not on any evidence but mere suspicions - which draw eerily uncanny similarities with the pretext of invading Iraq - that Iran may be seeking to develop a nuclear weapon capability. The discrimination is being made in contrast to 40 years of silence regarding Israel’s proven stockpile of nuclear weapons, which Britain has helped to develop.

The renewed saber-rattling comes after Iran reached an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on a work plan to clear any outstanding issues on its nuclear programme. It led IAEA Secretary General, Mohamed ElBaradei, to warn against talk of war. “There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons,” the Egyptian diplomat said.

Although the IAEA is the UN agency responsible for implementing the NPT treaty, the US supported by the UK made it a political matter by referring Iran’s case to the Security Council, but two years on it has reached a stalemate.

Reports have spoken of Washington running out of patience and intensifying plans for mass air strikes against Iran amid difficulties in reaching a consensus with Russia and China to impose more sanctions. To this end, the Bush Administration is being zealously egged on by Israel, which hopes to be the main beneficiary by boosting its military domination in the region. Yet it appears the US has learnt nothing from the debacle of the Iraq war and its sole reliance on brute force as the world’s only remaining super power. Instead of attempting to clear up the mess Washington has caused in the Middle East, it is threatening to create more havoc…

Not nearly as much havoc as the prospect of mullahs with nukes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:01 | link | comments

Intrepid truth teller: Alan Dershowitz, debunker of the Mearslimer-Walt blood libel, debunks Tiny Hitler's demented Holocaust fantasies.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:09 | link | comments

The nutty professor(s): Bristling with pride and disdain, and in the grip of the same dementia as Professors Mearshimer and Walt, an Iranian academic pens a condemnatory missive to an American academic. From the Tehran Times:

Mr. Lee Bollinger, The President of Columbia University Dear Sir,

I wish to register my deepest regret in regard to your remarkably discourteous introductory remarks to President Ahmadinejad. Your class act as an arbiter at the University of Columbia was nothing short of disgrace. It lacked professionalism especially given the fact that Mr. Ahmadinejad had not even been given the chance to speak. And it clearly undermined your repeatedly made claim that the event upheld free speech. Fortunately, this age, despite all its cruelty and barbarity, is an age of transparency, which is why not even liberals can hide themselves behind their usual covers these days.

What happened yesterday (Monday, Sept. 24) merely displayed utter conceit and petty politics showing who it was that really lacked civility. Trying to humiliate an invited guest, an elected President of a sovereign country, before an international media only reflects the culture of an insular and bigoted society. One wonders if your reaction had anything to do with the donors threatening to withdraw funds from Columbia. It is incredulous that a respected American university chose to turn this meeting into a show trial of Iranian policies. So much for academic integrity and intellectual honesty.

Your crass, ill-mannered and duplicitous greeting of President Ahmadinejad amounted to a crude planned ambush. It is just unbelievable that someone who is simply questioning elements of the U.S. foreign policy and refuses to be a U.S. client should be submitted to such a systematic harassment.

If anybody wanted any proof that the Israeli lobby controls U.S. foreign policy, media, academia, etc., he has found plenty of evidence today. It has been noted that the protests against Iran at the UN and at Columbia were primarily made up of Israeli advocacy groups. Obviously there is nothing wrong with that, but it highlights, among other things, AIPAC’s influence not only on U.S. foreign policy but also in the mainstream academia.

One could be forgiven for thinking that what happened yesterday (Monday, 24) at Columbia University represents the typical mindset of the present American ruling elite: delusionally arrogant, insolent and insensitive to the rest of the world. A sad spectacle since they have become so politically isolated that they are even incapable of learning from their past experience.

It is extremely dishonest and manipulative to call into question the Iranian president’s integrity when in reality it is the USA that is responsible for the misery and death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and total destruction of their country. America is the same country that installed a medieval Shah with its secret Savak police after removing the democratically elected government of Dr. Mossadeq which in turn led to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians being killed and tortured by an Israeli trained police force. Ever since its inception, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been subject to countless destabilizing attempts by the U.S. But it has thwarted them all. The 8-year-old war with Iraq, when all Western countries were helping their then good old chum Saddam, failed to bring this country to its knees. We do not think that the current drive towards waging a new war on Iran will stand a better chance of success.

In any case, yesterday (Monday Sept. 24) was an opportunity to show the world that the USA is an open country that will challenge its opponents with appropriate compassion and honest debate. Instead, your decision to gather all Zionist- manufactured anti-Iranian appellations, pile them up on the stage, and throw them shamelessly at your invited guest, will become the black page of’ ignominy in Columbia University’s history.

With regards,

M. J. A. Larijani President Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (IPM)

“It is incredulous”?“All Zionist-manufactured anti-Iranian appellations”? “The black page of ignominy”?

Quite the silver-tongued rhetoritician, that President Larijani—a trait he shares in common with the tyrant to whose rescue he has raced.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:04 | link | comments

A clarification: There are political figures who are described as "clowns," the better to downplay the threat they pose.

Then there's London's mayor Ken Livingstone:

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

Loony “virtuous” lefties assist jihadis, undermine Israel: Far-leftist Canadian rag This Magazine gives a hearty “you, go, guys” to (self-loathing, usefully idotic) Jews and other lefties who are “protesting” Chapters/Indigo because the company’s head, Heather Reisman, supports an Israeli charity they don’t approve of. The magazine pretends to do one of those hard-hitting “is criticism of Israel anti-Semitic?” pieces, but all it really wants to do is sling muck at the Jews for being “racist” and practising “apartheid”—patently specious claims (though embraced as gospel by those who exist in this alternate reality). The magazine is of the opinion that these charges have a much better chance of sticking if genuine Jews are making them:

“Tear Down That Wall!”

Activists demanding a better fate for Palestinians have chosen a potent accusation—the new apartheid—to rally support for the growing anti-Israel boycott. Their belief: what forced change in South Africa can provoke change in the Middle East. But it may not be that easy-or that simple.

BY Sue Ferguson
Photography by Reuters: Reinhard Krause

Imagination. Creativity. Inspiration. Three words to stir the soul crown the towering windows of Toronto’s flagship Indigo bookstore. At ground level, shoppers pass in and out of wood-framed glass doors, navigating planters and benches intended to create a friendly, front-porch sort of welcome. They take little notice as, on the sidewalk beyond, two women unfurl an off-white canvas banner. Printed on one side are another three words, less poetic perhaps than the store’s motto, but the intended effect is just as moving: Boycott Chapters/Indigo.

No, the protest is not a last-ditch attempt by independent booksellers to draw the literate back into their fold. Rather, the activists—11 have turned up on this Friday in April, the fi rst truly warm day of spring—are taking a page from a much larger book. They are members of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), a network of Palestinian rights, Jewish peace and socialist groups doing their part to promote an international boycott campaign against Israel. They compare themselves to the early voices against South African apartheid, and history, they believe, can repeat itself: If international pressure could help rescue South Africa from apartheid, the same can be true for Israel.

Indigo picketer and Holocaust survivor Suzanne Weiss greets approaching pedestrians at the corner of Bloor and Bay streets, “Have a bookmark.” Weiss is handing out rectangular pieces of cardstock. Printed on each are the logos of Chapters, Indigo and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with the words “Partners in Apartheid” beneath. Flip it over and a short statement explains why Indigo Books and Music is the coalition’s fi rst and most prominent target: Two years ago, the chain’s founder and CEO, Heather Reisman, and her husband, Gerry Schwartz, chairman and CEO of Onex Corporation, launched the Heseg Foundation for lone soldiers. About 6,000 lone soldiers-so-called because they have no family living in Israel-serve in the Israeli army. Heseg (Hebrew for “achievement”) awards 100 scholarships each year to those who, after completing service, want to remain and study in Israel. Reisman and Schwartz donate $3 million a year to the cause.

The impetus behind such generosity? “We are a family,” Schwartz announced to the scholarship’s first recipients in December 2005. “As Jews who live outside of Israel, I can tell you that family extends to so many nations around the globe... and you’re here not just for yourself, or just for the State of Israel, you are here protecting the freedom of Jews around the world.”

Schwartz, Reisman and the lone soldiers share a deep commitment to political Zionism—a variant of the Jewish religious doctrine advocating pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Born of hundreds of years of anti-Semitism, the 19th century doctrine holds that only a nation-state, Israel, can guarantee Jews freedom from persecution. It follows then, that for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, an attack on Israel, whether physical or ideological, is tantamount to an attack on the very right of Jews to exist.

Outside Indigo, the protesters—mostly older Jewish peaceniks and socialists—could not be easily mistaken for anti-Semites. And although one participant, jazz composer Charnie Guettel, says she senses “a turning point in consciousness,” she acknowledges some passersby are contemptuous and hostile. Most people, however, ignore them. Fair enough. Eleven protesters on a downtown Toronto sidewalk doesn’t look much like a revolution, but they are part of a broader movement gaining momentum and commanding attention on the world stage…

For those disinclined to wade through the remainder of this bilge, I can sum it up as follows: a bunch of loathsome lefties/moral solipsists have bought into the fraudelent concept of Palestinan victimhood/Israeli iniquity and want to punish—through boycotts, protests and other measures—those Jews who continue to have chutpah enough to support Israel.

‘Twas ever thus: Jews helping the enemies of Jews do their dirty work.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:16 | link | comments (1)

Tiny's Star champion: Someone who’s as equally off the wall as Rick Salutin—Harpoon Siddiqui. The Toronto Star’s very own revered Order of Canada recipient would no doubt see my missive to the Globe (posted below) as being unduly “alarmist." Like Columbia U's Lee Bollinger, Harpoon wants us to downgrade Tiny Hitler from "evil" to "petty"—a puny, innocuous blowhard:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questions the Holocaust and wants Israel wiped off the map. Still, the American reaction to his visit to New York has been way over the top.

The city thought that his sinful presence would desecrate the site of 9/11. "The evil has landed," screamed a tabloid. A TV pundit called him "a foul-smelling fruit bat." A councillor likened him to the "snakes slithering through the streets of New York."

The president of Columbia University, ostensibly celebrating the civility of academic freedom, unleashed a 10-minute tirade, pandering to agitated patrons.

But was the petty politician from Tehran worth all this attention?

The president of Iran has little power. This was proven during the tenure of his predecessor, the popular and suave Mohammed Khatami, who could not get much done despite holding a commanding majority in parliament.

Iran itself has little or no power to wipe Israel off the map. It can only support Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran is also nowhere near making a nuclear bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly said so, even while noting some minor cheating.

Iran cannot develop the bomb if the agency inspections continue. (North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel made the bomb on the sly by not letting the inspectors in). Recently, the IAEA and Iran agreed on even more intrusive inspections.

Yet the United States, joined by France and Germany, wants to pursue bilateral and Security Council sanctions.

The latter would pave the way for a possible war on Iran (not likely, given the quagmire in Iraq) or the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, its oil installations as well as military and civilian infrastructure (highly likely).

This makes Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, "shudder." The U.S. is pounding "war drums" the way it did prior to invading Iraq. Congress, too, is caving in, just as it did then.

Demonizing Ahmadinejad fits in this bigger picture. Not all those angry at him want war with Iran. But many do. He obliges them with dangerous and sometimes stupid statements, such as that there are no homosexuals in Iran (he should read Farsi literature).

Either he's the fool we think he is or he's playing to his constituency of poor Iranians who he promised economic gains but failed to deliver. Lobbing rhetorical bombs at the U.S. and Israel is a diversion…

Go back and read everything that holy rollah Khomeini—Tiny Hitler’s mentor and inspiration—had to say on the subject, Harpoon. It’s not a diversion; it’s the main event. And soon enough the mully-bullies will have real nukes to lob along with their rhetorical ones.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:16 | link | comments (2)

Sounds painful: Hillary flip flop on torture inspired after meeting generals--New York Daily News headline.

Youch! I hope she got some physio for that.

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

Make ‘em laugh: The Globe and Mail’s battiest moonbat, Rick Salutin, insists that, contrary to all appearances and the impression conveyed by the media, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a buffoon. The real buffoon, writes Salutin, is, drum roll, please…Chimpsky McHaliburtonrovecheneyhitler, a.k.a., well, I don't think I have to spell it out for it.

Since I was shocked to find myself agreeing with even a portion of a rootin’-tootin’-Salutin piece, I felt compelled to write the Globe’s editor to tell him:

 

It isn’t often that I agree with Rick Salutin—the phrase “once in a blue moon” leaps to mind—but I must concur with his assessment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Ahmadinejad, the front man for a bunch of brutal, ambitious theocrats who aim to dominate their region and, ultimately, the Muslim world, is definitely not “a buffoon.” I’m prepared to go even further and say there is nothing the least bit “buffoonish” about him. It is comforting to view him that way, however, since it makes his statements about wanting to wipe Israel off the map and the Holocaust and the presence of homosexuals in Iran both being “myths” far easier to bear—and to dismiss.

 

We have been gulled by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s physical appearance—a short man with an ever-present grin (or smirk) on his face—into perceiving him as clownish, and thus, as not all that threatening. But look behind the puckish demeanour and you can see a man who is deadly serious about solving his region’s Jewish “problem”.

 

An eerily familiar visage, I’d say.

 

I think Smokey Robinson said it best: Well if there’s a smile on my face/It’s only there tryin’ to fool the public…

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

Barf!: That’s my educated comment after reading this, the journalistic equivalent of Ipicac, in the New York Times. (I have held down my rising gorge long enough to highlight the most egregiously emetic passages):

After two days of prickly confrontations with critics at Columbia University and the United Nations, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran held a friendly, even warm, exchange yesterday with Christian leaders from the United States and Canada convinced that dialogue is the only way to prevent war.

The session, held under tight security at a chapel across the street from the United Nations, was a reminder that Mr. Ahmadinejad is a religious president of a religious nation who relishes speaking on a religious plane. He spent his 20 allotted minutes at the start of the two-hour meeting recounting the chain of prophets central to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the commonality of their messages.

He took questions from a panel that included a Quaker, a Catholic, an Anglican, a Baptist and a representative of the interfaith World Council of Churches, some of whom separately said they had been criticized by other religious leaders for sitting down with the Iranian president. Given the furor over Mr. Ahmadinejad’s earlier appearances, there was no advance publicity.

The gathering, which included an audience of about 140 other religious leaders, was organized by the Mennonites and Quakers, churches known for their commitment to pacifism.

The organizers said that they had pressed hard to find a Jewish leader to join the panel of questioners, but that those invited declined because they could not win support from Jewish organizations.

“My heart was broken that there was so little support from other religions to be here,” said Mary Ellen McNish, general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that helped sponsor the event. “If we don’t walk down this path of dialogue, we’re going to end up in conflagration.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s smile at times turned to a grimace as the panelists prodded him, politely, about his record on the Holocaust, human rights abuses, Israel and nuclear weapons development. Also politely, he conceded nothing, and often deflected the inquiries by turning the spotlight on the policies of the United States and Israel.

“Who are the ones that are filling their arsenals with nuclear weapons?” he said. “In the United States they have tested the fifth generation of atomic bunker bombs, missiles that go as far as 12,000 kilometers. Who is the real danger here?”

Though Mr. Ahmadinejad’s answers differed little, the tone of the session was a marked contrast to the verbal pummeling he received at Columbia University on Monday, when the university’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, called the Iranian president either “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated” for his stance on the Holocaust.

At the clerics’ meeting, Albert Lobe, executive director of the Mennonite Central Committee, said pointedly, “We mean to extend to you the hospitality which a head of state deserves.”…

Such a friendly chap, that Herr Hitler. And so well-groomed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:42 | link | comments (2)

A modest request: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Somethingorother (is there any native-born person in the Magic Kingdom who isn’t a Prince or Princess Somethingorother?) wants Israel to cease and desist construction on its security barrier as—hold on to your burnoose—a goodwill gesture to Arabs.

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahaha!

 

Sure thing Princey. Just as soon as Jews are allowed to defile your holy desert kingdom with their infidel cooties. And, oh yeah, when you Saudis tear down that other wall.

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

Big mosque in Scandinavia: Islam Online reports on “a dream come true”—after years of patience, Muslims in Goteborg, Sweden, will soon see the rise of a “stately” mosque:

GOTEBORG, Sweden — After years of praying in halls and basements, Muslims in the Swedish city of Goteborg are rejoicing as this year's Ramadan bings (sic) them closer to their distant dream of a stately mosque with a dome and minarat.

"This year's holy month of Ramadan brought good news for us in Goteborg," Abdulghani Hakki, president of the Muslim Association in the city, told IslamOnline.net.

"The construction of the stately mosque Muslims have long dreamed of will begin in the next few weeks," he added.

After two years of planning, the mosque construction will start thanks to Saudi funding.

"The construction licence was initially granted in 1996," recalled Hakki, also a member of the Islamic Awqaf in Sweden which will supervise the building.

He noted that the mosque idea was first tabled in the 1980s by a Turkish group before later being championed by the Islamic Awqaf.

But it was last year's agreement with Saudi Arabia to finance the mosque project that paved the way for the long-cheriched dream to turn real.

The mosque, to be established on the bank of Gota river, is a traditional place of worship with a dome and a crescent minarat.

Designed by Swedish archticts (sic), the mosque will combine both the Islamic spirit and innovation of modern architecture.

The 5000-meter mosque will accomodate about 1200 people.

Goteborg, which lies on the west coast of the Scandinavian country, is home to nearly 40,000 Muslims, mostly from Somali, Turkish, Bosnian and Moroccan background...

Note to Goteborgians (Goteborgers?): Been to Malmo lately?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:04 | link | comments (1)

Hamas's "charm" offensive: And offensive it is! As Israel keeps getting Mearslimed, Carterized and Garfinkled, the Hamas P.R. machine just keeps chugging along--and persuading Americans that, all in all, genocidal jihadi terrorists aren't so bad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments (2)

Oy vey!: The Ceeb fantasy sitcom about funny Muslims and silly infidels in small town Saskatchewan is about to land (with a thud?) in Israel and the Palestinian entities. (As if they don’t have enough problems.) From marketwire.com:

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Sept. 25, 2007) - Little Mosque On The Prairie, the award-winning CBC breakout hit situation comedy that looks into the lives of a small Muslim community in the fictional prairie town of Mercy, will soon air in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Finland and Turkey, announced the show's executive producer Mary Darling of WestWind Pictures.

Beginning on October 23, Little Mosque On The Prairie will begin airing season one in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza on the country's paid satellite channel, Stars 3. The show will air in English with Hebrew subtitles.

"This is a really exciting distribution deal for the show and for the viewers in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank who will be able to view the show for the first time ever. Since debuting last season, we have received numerous emails from people in this region asking when the show will be coming to their country. We are delighted that we can finally announce an air date in this region," said Darling.

Little Mosque On The Prairie's producers also secured a distribution deal with one of Finland's largest television broadcasters, YLE Teema, a free-to-air channel. The broadcaster obtained licensing rights for seasons one and two for a three-year period. The show's first season will begin airing in 2008. It is expected that Little Mosque On The Prairie will air in English with subtitles.

"YLE has been extremely proactive in bringing this series to air and we are thrilled that the show will air in this marketplace," said Darling.

Finally, Little Mosque On The Prairie will also be aired in Turkey on Kanal 7, a free-to-air channel. The broadcaster has secured the license to air season one and five episodes of season two with an option for the remaining episodes of second season. No date has been provided when the show will debut in this marketplace.

"It is clear to us that there is a strong appetite for innovative programming in the international broadcasting arena. Our goal is to continue reaching out to broadcasters overseas while producing Canadian television shows that have universal appeal and positive messaging," said Darling…

 

Funny, this kind of multiculti drivel makes me lose my appetite.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:29 | link | comments (1)

My letter to the Ceeb: Just sent this one out into the ether and thought I'd share:

Once again, on the eve of a Jewish holiday, CBC radio has chosen to feature someone who is extremely—and unduly—critical about Jews and the Jewish state. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Anna Maria Tremonti of The Current interviewed John Mearshime for twenty uninterupted minutes. Professor Mearshimer is the Harvard academic who, along with his colleague, Stephen Walt, has posited that American Jews are involved in a nefarious plot to poison American foreign policy by convincing the U.S. to act in Israel’s interests, ones which, according to Mearshimer and Walt, run counter to America’s. This venomous diatribe, masquerading as academic inquiry, had been torn to shreds by another Harvard notable—Alan Dershowitz—among many others. Even so, it remains in the running to become The Protocols of the Elders of Zion of our era—a discredited tract which did untold damage and eventually became, in the words of historian Norman Cohn, a Warrant for Genocide.

 

This afternoon, on the eve of the Jewish festival of Sukkoth, you chose to feature someone else who has harsh words for Israel—author Jonathan Garfinkle. On the program Here and Now, Mr. Garfinkle shared his “ambivalence” about the situation vis a vis Israelis and Palestinians—Ambivalence being the title of his new book—and how upset he is that some Jews who may not share his “ambivalence” have had the temerity to see him as self-loathing and anti-Zionist.

 

The nerve of some people!

 

While I have no problem with free expression and the exchange of ideas, I have become increasingly alarmed in recent days by the marked imbalance of ideas and expression on CBC radio. As a frequent and longstanding listener—I have been listening to CBC radio for several decades—it is my general impression that those who want to slam/damn/condemn Israel are given free reign to “share” their ideas, with little or no rebuttal. Meanwhile, those who have something positive to say about Israel, America and the West in general are given extremely short shrift, to say the least.

 

As Canada’s national public broadcaster, the CBC has a mandate to provide balanced programming and, in so doing, to serve the interests of Canadians. I would suggest that because of this obvious imbalance, at the moment you are failing both your mandate and your audience.

 

Yours very truly,

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:13 | link | comments (3)

Sha sha sha sha sharia: Tiny Hitler and the oily Wahhabis may differ about who they see as the Prophet’s legitimate successor, but there’s one thing they have in common: a commitment to the stringent application of Allah’s law.

If you listen carefully, you can hear T.H., the mully-bullies and the oily “custodian of the two holy mosques” (a phrase which, to me, makes it sound like he's the janitor) come together in a souped-up jihadi version of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”:

 

Sha sha sha sha sharia.

Sha sha sha sha sharia.

Oh, sharia.

Islamic law.

Sharia.

“The one true law,” they howl.

Don’t ever run afoul of sharia,

Sha sha sha sharia.

 

Stole a bread for sport,

Had to go to court,

Adjudication’s brief

And now I’m one appendage short.

Oh, sharia,

Sha sha sha sharia.

The law that has no errors,

Submit, or say your prayers,

It’s sharia, sha sha sha sharia.

 

Went and messed around.

Adultery was found.

According to sharia

On my head with rocks they’ll pound.

Oh, sharia, sha sha sha sharia.

It isn’t always nice,

You’ll have to pay the price

Of sharia, sha sha sha sharia.

 

Apostasy for me—

Christianity.

But if you ever leave Islam

Then death’s the penalty

Of sharia, sha sha sha sharia.

The law that supercedes

And often makes folks bleed

It’s sharia, sha sha sha sharia.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:58 | link | comments

Fatal reflex: Tony Blankley thinks he knows why lefties like Columbia U president Lee Bollinger are so keen to cozy up to anti-Western thugs like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From RealClear Politics:

Our Founding Fathers were wise to create a constitutional republic rather than a direct democracy. Although, given the caliber of many of our elected representatives -- whose role it is to intermediate between the rashness of the public and the safety of the nation -- it seems like rather thin protection. Nonetheless, we must be grateful for small blessings.

On Monday, the left-wing Daily Kos (as pointed out by the blog American Thinker, which apparently monitors that citadel of leftish chat so we don't have to) had the following entry from one of its readers:

"I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed. But still, the guy (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran) speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...

 

Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes. But that's not all...

I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor -- locking up dissidents, executing gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can't help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policing preceding."

While some people might view this as merely an extreme case of Bush derangement syndrome, it is even worse. After all, the writer is able to articulate that while Ahmadinejad would kill people like her, she nonetheless finds him cute and appealing because he speaks with "frank rhetoric," not merely about Bush, but regarding generations of U.S. foreign policy.

This is a telling example of the state of left-wing thought today. Even if, arguendo, one accepted the substantive objectives of left-wing thought as wise and true, it still is deranged to find appealing that which would kill you. Left-wing thought has become disconnected even from the left wing's own view of reality.

Admittedly it can be noted that the author of these sad convulsions of thought is, presumably, an obscure and inconsequential person. All shades of the political spectrum have such sad figures, perhaps victims of chemical imbalances or excessive dodgeball playing in their youth.

But what are we to make of the comments of the exalted president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger? After all, as the president of one of our greatest liberal universities, he surely must be judged by the liberal elite who selected him to be an exemplar of their breed and a paladin of their cause.

Let us examine two of his statements in this affair: the first, crushingly inconsistent with prior expressions; and the second, more explainable by pathology than philosophy. Regarding his first mental failure: President Bollinger previously had barred the ROTC from his campus because they discriminate against gay people. And yet he invites Ahmadinejad to speak on campus, even though Ahmadinejad would -- as an act of state policy -- murder gay people. Bollinger's anti-ROTC policy reflects an extreme solicitude to gay interests, while his Ahmadinejad policy completely abjures that concern.

But it is his second statement that truly stuns: He asserted that under similar circumstances, he would invite Hitler to speak in the interest of freedom of speech. Keep in mind that Ahmadinejad is currently -- according to the testimony of several of our senior generals in the past month -- directing Iranian policy to kill American troops in Iraq. So this is the equivalent of inviting Hitler to speak in, say, 1943 -- not 1937.

The fact that Congress may pass no law abridging the freedom of speech is a non sequitur to the proposition that a patriotic president of a college ought not offer his campus to the leader of a wartime enemy (and provide him with a chance to propagandize against us. Indeed, the mere presence of such a person in such a location enhances his position and his cause in the eyes of many feebleminded people.)

I do not suggest that President Bollinger is unpatriotic. Rather, I think he suffers from a worse disease than Bush derangement syndrome; he suffers from a loss of the first instinct that nature implanted in every creature: the instinct of self-preservation…

I have a somewhat different explanation for it, one I came across recently in Ruth Wisse’s new book, Jews and Power—moral solipsism. As Wisse explains it, moral solipsism is the reflexive Jewish impulse to focus almost exclusively on one’s own moral rectitude, thereby avoiding the ugly reality of the amoral and immoral Jew-haters who want to kill you. This tendency to look inward and never outward can be a good thing, helping ensure that one becomes and remains a “mensch,” a decent human being. But it can also have dire consequences, for in emphasizing one’s own morality and moral failings above all else and turning away from the amorality/immorality of others, one can lack the resources to defend oneself against those who are truly evil.

 

I would suggest that leftists, like Jews, suffer from the same impulse. While making them feel extremely virtuous (whether or not they really are virtuous), their moral solipsism blinds them to the reality of genuine, evident evil, and renders them incapable of fighting it.

 

Thus, in this instance at least, virtue is definitely not its own reward: it is the suicidal character trait that allows one to defy “the first instinct”—the instinct of self-preservation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:03 | link | comments (2)

His struggle: He may not have produced an unreadable tome like Hitler (the title of which, quel co-incidence, translates in Arabic as My Jihad), but Tiny Hitler has clearly expressed his Hitlerian sentiments on many occasions. David Horowitz describes these as yet uncollected words--which speak volumes--as "The Islamic Mein Kampf."

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

Tiny Hitler’s Eva Braun: Tiny Hitler’s visit to the Big Apple sans spouse got me to thinking: What’s the deal with Mrs. Ahmadinejad? Who is she and how come she never accompanies her husband on these important trips, as one would expect the First Lady of a country to do? Is she too hideous to be seen in public? Too busy raising all the little Ahmadinejads back home? Why do we hear so little about the woman behind—as tradition would have it, by at least a good four steps—the despot?

A little research on the Web reveals—practically nothing. All we know for sure is that there is a Mrs. Ahmadinejad. Her provenance: unclear. Her first and maiden names: your guess is as good as mine. We know that she is the mother of three Ahmadinejad spawn—which means, shudder, that she had sexual relations with him on at least three occasions. She is said to have been studying Mechanical Engineering when Tiny married her in 1980 at the age of 24. (That’s his age; we don’t know how old she was).

 

It’s impossible to even say what she looks like, since she wears one of those all-encompassing black shrouds and has glasses on the only bit of skin that is showing. So she could be a babe. Then again, she could look like Quasimodo.

 

An appeal to Mrs. Ahmadinejad: come out, come out whoever you are.

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

Net saavy: Just 'cause he's a Medieval-minded homocidal madman who believes he's been tapped by Allah to nuke the Jews and host the 12th imam's return engagement doesn't mean he can't have a My Space page.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:59 | link | comments

The haters crawl out of their worm holes: On the same day Tiny Hitler regaled the folks over at Columbia with his take on the Shoa and same-gender sexuality in Aryan, some Nazi types, no doubt inspired by his appearance in their burg, got busy and left their spoors (Nazi swastikas) at least 19 synagogues in Brooklyn Heights.

Way to work up the rabble, Tiny!

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:26 | link | comments

Bears repeating: I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again and again and again): There is a religious conspiracy to domitate the world, but it isn't secret, and it sure ain't Jewish.

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

A date with destiny: Islam Online slams Morocco for importing dates from Israel, the avowed enemy of the Arabs--and on Ramadan, no less. Meanwhile, there's nary a peep on the I.O. site about Tiny Hitler at Columbia. Guess the Wahabbists don't want to give their arch-rival, the would-be Mahdi-greeter, any free publicity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:02 | link | comments

Tiny Hitler's fantasies: Homosexuals in Iran? Why, they're a myth--same as the Holocaust:

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:27 | link | comments

The crescent moon has landed: The jihad is alive and well and living in America (and Canada). It hitched a ride inside the belly of the multiculti Trojan Horse. From JWR:

"We're fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here" has become a hymn for the American right and an abominable lie to the left. But drowned out by all the noise is the fact that "they" are here already, having landed a long time ago and gotten very busy indeed constructing the American wing of jihad.

Have you watched the Arabic Channel, also known as TAC, which serves the New York region? Probably not, as most New Yorkers neither understand nor speak Arabic. But if you are among the estimated 1 million viewers — legal and illegal, new and old Arabic-speaking immigrants to the tri-state area — who tune in daily to Channel 507 on Time Warner Cable, this is what you can get:

• A daily dose of Islamic jurisprudence from an Egyptian sheik, Amr Khaled, who comes direct from Cairo as TAC's prime advocate of "peaceful jihad," on how the duty of every Arab-American is to become first, second, and only a member of the Muslim Ummah.

• A nightly helping of Syria's CNN-style digest of the world, sent fresh from a Damascus studio where the Iraq war is nothing but an American butchery of Arabs, and the Zionist regime in Jerusalem is just biding its time until it gets what it deserves.

• A sprinkling of Egyptian and Syrian soap operas (though TAC completely avoids footage of "Oriental" dancing and other "infidel" joys of life).

On its Web site, TAC says it is now 14 years old and serves the "Greater New York City Metropolitan area, including Jersey City, Bergen County, N.J., and Mt. Vernon, N.Y." through cable and satellite transmission.

TAC's ownership and funding are, to put it mildly, ambiguous. What is clear is that someone is funding this Islamist Trojan Horse already anchored inside the American fortress…

Yikes. And you thought VisionTV’s Islam shows were bad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:07 | link | comments

No news is bad news: I took a gander at the Tehran Times, “Iran’s leading international daily,” to see what it had to say about Tiny Hitler’s “rough time” at Columbia. It said this: diddly, bupkes, nada. Instead, the lead story on the site of this government mouthpiece is an in-depth look at Iranian films vying be the country’s official entry in the race for this year’s “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar. (If one of them does get nominated and wins, maybe Hollywood could ask Juan Cole to hand it out.)

I might be inclined to think that Tiny Hitler’s string-pullers are embarrassed by his rude reception in the halls of academe, if not for a piece that does appear on the site. The piece takes great umbrage at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s refusal to grant AhMAHDInejad’s request to visit Ground Zero—a request the mayor called “an outrage.” In the highest of high dudgeon, a cleric who belongs to an Iranian outfit called—wait for it—the Association of Combative Clerics—expectorated that Bloomberg’s “(i)nsult to the president is (an) insult to the nation.”

 

I’d say the fact that Iran has an organization called the Association of Combative Clerics underscores and is emblematic of the grave threat the mullocracy poses to us.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:47 | link | comments

Giving Tiny short shrift: The media are agog at Tiny Hitler’s visit to Columbia U and aghast at how its prez, Lee Bollinger, called him a “petty and cruel tyrant” to his face in front of the assembled. Michael Colton, the Ceeb’s guy on the scene, called it “a snub”—as if Bollinger had done something nasty and uncalled for. The Globe and Mail describes it as the “Iranian president (getting) a rough welcome.”

For those in the know (like, say, Caroline Glick, Columbia class of ’91), not nearly rough enough

 

Here’s the letter I sent the Globe:

 

After extending an invitation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Lee Bollinger, head of Columbia University, dismisses him as “a petty and cruel dictator.” That characterization probably made Mr. Bollinger feel good—even as it angered his guest—but it is actually highly misleading. In his time, Hitler, too, was dismissed as petty and cruel by many in the West; they saw him as little more than a funny-looking little man with a moustache. That didn’t stop him from getting on with his plans for a Thousand Year Reich and a Final Solution for the Jews—depraved schemes he came awfully close to fulfilling, plunging the world into a brutal war and murdering most of Europe’s Jews.

 

The point is not whether outsiders see a leader as petty and cruel. It is whether the man himself has grandiose dreams along with the will, power, and personal dynamism that compel people to follow his lead and help him make those dreams a reality.

 

Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad such a man? His personality and pronouncements certainly make it appear that he could be. It is thus to his great advantage—and our extreme disadvantage—to ignore historical precedent and perceive him exactly as Lee Bollinger does.

 

Update: So what if he was insulted and, though his own absurd words about the Holocaust and homosexuals in Iran (according to Tiny, there aren't any) made himself look the fool? As Ha'aretz notes, there was one clear loser in this encounter--and it sure wasn't the beardo weirdo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:45 | link | comments

Ross Hashanah: Season’s greetings! Although the Jewish New Year has recently come and gone and Christmas is months away, the Toronto Star’s Oakland Ross cannot restrain his sarcasm at the sight of Christian pilgrims starting to return to Arab-controlled Bethlehem (acidly, he calls the pilgrims “a very rare species”). Mr. Ross wants us to know that while Muslims bear some responsibility for the paucity of visitors—holy warriors wearing semtex tend to have that effect on the tourist trade—the Israelis are equally, if not more, at fault.

Rather than quote directly from the article—you can read Ross's piece of disinformation here—I have decided to write it up in the form of familiar seasonal standard song:

 

O little town of Bethlehem,

The season’s not yet here.

But Oakland Ross,

The Star’s sage scribe,

Will bring to you some cheer.

He says the “occupation”

Caused folks to rise and rage

A heated intafada chased the pilgrims away.

 

O little town of Bethlehem

O. Ross apportions blame

On Jews who dared to counter those

Who war in Allah’s name.

They went and built a wall there

To keep the shahids out.

And he'll let Arabs off the hook,

Of that there is no doubt.

 

Here’s the letter—not written in verse—I sent the Star:

 

It’s nice to see foreign tourists starting to trickle back into Bethlehem after years of finding it an inhospitable place to visit. I can’t help but contrast it, though, to the flood of Christian visitors I personally witnessed pouring into Jerusalem’s Old City during Easter and Passover, which coincided this past April. People from China, Africa, Latin America and many other parts of the world, mingling with Jews on their way to Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, and Muslims on their way to their holy sites, the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

 

This free intermingling was made possible, of course, when the Old City came under Israeli control as a result of the 1967 war; during the years when Arabs were in charge, there were restrictions on Christian visitors and Jews were denied access to their holy sites. Hundreds of synagogues were trashed and destroyed.

 

How tragic that Arabs who control Bethlehem do not accord Christians who want to visit the town they revere as the birthplace of Jesus the same kind of freedom they have when visiting Jerusalem. At least now, with Israel’s security barrier firmly in place, Christian pilgrims can take comfort in the knowledge that they are protected from those who believe they have a duty to perpetrate terrorism against non-believers in the name of their God.  

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:30 | link | comments (1)

Tiny Hitler's grandiose plan (and malign defender): Mahmoud  Ahmadinejad thinks the Holocaust was a fraud perpetrated by Zionist-colonialists determined to rob Muslims of their rightful land; has vowed to correct this grievous wrong by wiping Israel off the map—a pre-requisite for the return of his Messiah; is the front man for a bunch of holy rollers who fund the jihad throughout the region and in other parts of the world; is thrilled to bits that in short order he will have a nuke or two to lob at the Zionist entity and set into motion the long-deferred plan for Shia vindication/domination (they’ve been waiting ever since the Prophet’s cousin/son-in-law, their man Ali, was robbed of his rightful succession when Mo kicked the bucket).

Writing in Salon magazine, “esteemed” professor Juan Cole describes this bald statement of the obvious as the “demonization” of Ahmadinejad, a tactic of the cunning neoconservatives to push the U.S. into war with Iran.

 

Silly Juan. No need for anyone to “demonize” Tiny Hitler. He has shown himself perfectly capable of demonizing himself—as he will no doubt demonstrate when he addresses the UN. As for that august international body of Jew-haters, it will divest itself of its last shed of moral authority (and a very small shed it was) by providing him his forum, his Nuremberg, in which to spew his Judenhass.

 

At that moment, the Aryan plan for liquidating the Jews will meld once and for all with the Iranian plan to complete what the Aryans started.

 

Better rev up those bombers, Ehud. Time's a-running out.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:41 | link | comments (1)

Dumb idea: You know that Baathist backwater which may or may not have been building some sort of atomic thingamajiggy with the help of Dear Leader's minions--a somethingorother which may or may not have been demolished by the Zionists with the approval--and perhaps even under the auspices of--the U.S.?

It has been invited to sit down and talk Peace in Our Time with the Zionists and the Palestinians.

An idea on par with, say, inviting Tiny Hitler to kite his profile by addressing the world via the UN.

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

Lost in space: Star Simpson, a “quirky” MIT student, got in heck for going to Boston’s Logan airport while wearing a fake bomb (she claimed it was an “art” project). But according to her mortified parents, it was all a huge “mistake.”  From the Star-Bulletin:

Star Simpson probably went to a Boston airport yesterday mistakenly wearing a shirt she wore the day before that had a computer circuit board that security officials thought was a bomb, said her mother.

Stephanie Simpson said Star put on the shirt when she was going to pick up her boyfriend at the airport.

Star Simpson, 19, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineering student, was arrested and charged yesterday for bringing what appeared to be a bomb to the Logan International Airport in Boston. The device turned out to be a computer circuit board attached to a 9-volt battery on a black hooded sweatshirt.

The computer circuit board on Star Simpson's sweatshirt that security thought may have been a bomb at a Boston airport isn't out of character for her, according to the Maui woman's background, school affiliations and online supporters.

But her mother, Stephanie Simpson, said it may have been a mistake because Star used the shirt the day before on career day at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and when she went to pick up her boyfriend at the airport. "It was just sleepyheads. She must have been just asleep to the fact of where she was going," Stephanie Simpson said.

But Stephanie Simpson said it was an important lesson for her daughter. "You can be shot if you're that stupid to come up to the airport with something like that," Simpson said by phone from her Maui home. "She's going to have to learn from this experience." Star Simpson, 19, an MIT engineering student, was arrested and charged yesterday for bringing what appeared to be a bomb to the Logan International Airport in Boston. The device turned out to be a circuit board attached to a 9-volt battery on a black hooded sweatshirt.

Simpson, a former captain of the Hawaii Preparatory Academy's robotics team, claims it to be artwork she wanted to show off for career day, the latest creation in a long string of gadgets and experiments for the engineering enthusiast.

Stephanie Simpson said her daughter is not someone who has ill will or malice, but "lives and breathes in the workshop" to build robotics…

In that case, she obviously needs to get out more. Maybe watch the news now and then.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:01 | link | comments

Incomplete conquest: Sweden’s third largest city, Malmo, has largely submitted to its immigrant population, but as Islam Online notes (with distinct regret), the same cannot be said—as yet—of the Swedish capital:

STOCKHOLM — For Muslims visiting the Swedish capital Stockholm, the holy fasting month of Ramadan and its traditional manifestations are conspicuous by their absence.

There is almost nothing in the busy streets of Stockholm indicating that Ramadan, the most important month in the Islamic calendar, is eleven-day old.

Walking through Stockholm, one can hardly find a halal shop or hijab-clad young Muslims walking by, which have become part of everyday life in most European capitals.

Even dates, which most Muslims use to break their fast following in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), are something of a rarity at markets and shops selling only Swedish pastry.

One tradesman referred to a not-so-far Moroccan shop.

"Still, you might not find what you want for Ramadan," he said.

Muslims make up some 200,000 of the country's nine million people, according to semi-official estimates.

Leaders of the Muslim minority put the number at 400,000.

Religion, let along Islam, takes a back seat in the capital though Sweden is counted as a Christian country…

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:52 | link | comments (2)

Spewing under the influence: Is it just me, or does this photo of Tiny Hitler look like his meds have just kicked in?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:43 | link | comments (1)

Liar, liar, pants on fire: Tiny Hitler sez there’s absolutely no evidence that his Republic of Virtue and Great Satan are on a collision course.

As a public service, I have taken the liberty of bolding all the taqiyah spewed by "hot pants" in this Reuters report:

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran did not need nuclear weapons and his country was not heading for war with the United States, according to a television interview to be broadcast Sunday.

Asked whether Iran's goal was to obtain a nuclear bomb, he said the answer was a "firm no," according to a transcript of his interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" recorded on Thursday in Tehran.

"You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb. We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?" he said.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of its civil nuclear program. Iran denies both allegations.

Asked whether Iran and the United States were heading toward conflict over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, he said: "It's wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing."

Officials of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany met on Friday for what they called "serious and constructive" talks about new U.N. Security Council sanctions aimed at trying to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities.

Ahmadinejad, who was due to arrive in New York on Sunday for the U.N. General Assembly, reiterated Iran's position that its nuclear program is purely peaceful.

"Our plan and program is very transparent," he said. "In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use. If it was useful, it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union. If it was useful, it would resolved the problem the Americans have in Iraq.

"The time of the bomb is passed."

If Tiny Hitler were Pinocchio, at this point his nose would be so long he'd need a forklift to be able to perambulate.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:30 | link | comments

Nazis, real and imagined: I have it on good authority (i.e. from someone who was there) that the gist of a sermon preached from the pulpit at one of Toronto’s more liberal-minded synagogues was this: the far-left and far-right in Israel are involved in such unspeakable things that, should the country remain on the same path, it will shortly become a fascist state like Nazi Germany.

The Rabbi making such Carteresque pronouncements on Judaism’s Day of Atonement said that, even so, that didn’t preclude her—and shouldn’t preclude her congregation—from supporting the Jewish state.

 

How exceptionally magnanimous and “forgiving” of her—but not exactly the kind of sales pitch that would induce her flock to open their wallets and buy Israel bonds.

 

Said Rabbi is one of the many sanctimonious deaf, dumb and blind dumb types who find it easier and more satisfying to throttle Israel and concentrate on its manifest imperfections rather than to focus on the obvious, apparent, and existential threat it currently faces from Tiny Hitler and his galloping gang of nuclear nutbars. Which means that not even the following would likely penetrate her mush-brain. From the New York Daily News:

On the eve of his trip to New York City, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood before a banner blaring "Death to America," showed off his military might and declared his extremist regime will not bow to Western pressure.

"Those who think, that by using such decayed tools as psychological warfare and economic sanctions, they can stop the Iranian nation's progress are making a mistake," Ahmadinejad said yesterday outside of Tehran.

As the hatemonger spoke, a parade of anti-aircraft guns, missiles and military hardware moved before him. Three jet fighters flew overhead.

In a menacing move, Ahmadinejad's military henchmen said the medium-range missiles could reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

Ahmadinejad, who is coming to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, is expected to land at Kennedy Airport today.

The White House and U.S. military leaders have accused Iran of supplying training and weapons to terrorists who are attacking and killing U.S. troops in Iraq.

Large protests will greet Ahmadinejad - an accused terrorist, Holocaust denier and member of the Axis of Evil - when he speaks at Columbia University on Monday and when he addresses the UN Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad sparked outrage last week by requesting an official tour of Ground Zero. The proposed visit, which was promptly rejected by the NYPD, sickened victims' relatives and U.S. leaders.

Ahmadinejad said he was "amazed" by the negative reaction. But he has said he will abandon his plans to lay a wreath on the hallowed ground where nearly 3,000 people were killed by terrorists - an attack he has suggested was an inside job carried out by U.S. intelligence agents.

Columbia has refused to cancel Ahmadinejad's appearance at its School of International and Public Affairs. University President Lee Bollinger has vowed to challenge Ahmadinejad on his denial of the Holocaust, his alleged sponsorship of terrorism, his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the imprisonment of journalists and scholars in Iran.

But several political leaders and religious groups have slammed Columbia for inviting the madman to mouth off.

"Anyone who supports terror, pledges to destroy a sovereign nation [Israel], punishes by death anyone who 'insults' religion ... denies the Holocaust and thumbs his nose at the international community has no legitimate role to play at a university," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said…

How mean of that reporter to call Mr. Ahmadinejad a “madman.” Everyone knows that the real “madmen” in the region belong to the Likud Party (says scaramouche, channelling a certain leftist lady Rabbi).

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

Two schools, world’s apart: That bastion of multicultism, the Toronto Star, is doing a three-part series on religious schools in Ontario that are in line for public funding should Ontario voters opt for the Tory plan (which at the moment seems highly unlikely). In yesterday’s paper we learned about the ISNA Elementary School, a Muslim school in Mississagua. The front page featured a startling yet frolicsome photo of Fourth Grade ISNA female moppets at play during recess. The girls are decked out in blindingly white hijabs and full-length black robes, such that, save for the multi-coloured sneakers poking out cheekily at the bottom of their get-up, they resemble a bunch of young—really young—novitiates at a nunnery.

The school, which manages to keep fees down to a paltry $350 per student per month (leaving readers, though not apparently the reporter, to wonder who’s picking up the rest of the tab), follows traditional Islamic teachings, some of which aren't exactly in line with Ontario’s mainstream:

…But some of its practices appear at odds with what the public system embodies — equal treatment of all. In the debate around the use of public funds for private religious schools, it is the segregation of students along religious lines in these schools – and the separation of women at Islamic schools in particular – that are a central issue.

Yarkhan, a graduate of McMaster and the University of Toronto, said his students are "taught equality between boys and girls," but that even at family gatherings, women and men sit separately. The school's teachers have separate staff rooms, one for "sisters" and another for "brothers."

It doesn't mean the school expects any less academically from its female students.

"We don't discourage girls from having a career," said Yarkhan, 27, himself pursuing a master's degree at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. "Our graduates go on to be doctors, engineers."

Indeed, girls – who make up two-thirds of the school's population – participate just as often as boys in class. Also, the school's vice-principal is a female, as are most of the teachers.

Yarkhan will not shake the hand of a female visitor "because of my religion," however, the chair of the school board will, as will the director of education. He later apologizes if any offence was taken, and says it is not something his students are taught.

ISNA Elementary School, the first organized Islamic elementary school in Canada and possibly North America, was established by the Islamic Society of North America (Canada) but is now run by a separate charity under the society. It purchased its building, on a leafy subdivision street, from the Peel public board for about $500,000 in 1982.

The Conservatives have said in order to qualify for public funds, schools would have to teach the Ontario curriculum, take part in standardized testing and hire those who hold a teaching degree recognized by the Ontario College of Teachers.

ISNA elementary already does the first two – in fact, its test scores in reading, writing and math are far higher than the provincial average – and says with additional funds it could afford certified teachers.

Here, students are taught the full Ontario curriculum. So if that means teaching parts of evolutionary theory in science, it does – but in Islamic studies, students learn that Allah created and sustains the universe. Students also learn Arabic and how to properly read the Qur'an. These classes are squeezed in the school day by eliminating the morning recess and cutting short the lunch hour.

But the budget is tight, says M.D. Khalid, who chairs the Islamic Schools Association of Canada, which oversees ISNA elementary and its secondary counterpart, ISNA High School, also in Mississauga, with 65 students. With elementary school tuition at just $350 per month, discounted rates for each additional sibling, and a bit of fundraising, it's not a lot of money.

Teacher salaries start at $25,000; and it's tough to keep them when the certified ones could be earning $42,000 at a public board.

He sees the opportunity to join a public board as a way to bring in much-needed funds for classroom materials and teacher resources.

But when asked about hot-button topics – like how to handle homosexuality – and if the school would be willing to compromise its teachings, he says that, first, religious schools should be publicly funded on principle.

"Those are the details that will come out when it comes to that issue," added Khalid Khokhar, director of education, who worked for a Guelph-area public board for almost three decades.

Yarkhan said if the school was to become a part of the public system, sex segregation is something that could be "open for discussion" but right now it's the school's practice.

"We don't find it harmful for a boy to sit with another girl, but it's just some of the etiquettes the school has – the school, the parents, this is what they would like to see."

The school serves a Sunni population, but Khalid says it has enrolled students of other sects, and once a Christian family. While most of ISNA's students were born in Canada, their families may hail from Somalia, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

"Religion is not something you leave at home," said Khalid. "It's a way of life."…

Indeed. Contrast that with the subject of today’s article about a faith-based school, Toronto’s Leo Baeck Jewish Day School. At Leo Baeck, a school affiliated with Judaism’s ultra-liberal Reform movement, fees are far more exorbitant, running to almost $10, 000 per student per year, and mainstream multiculti-think—emphasizing "global citizenship"—is most definitely the order of the day:

…Though central to their identity, Jewish is far from all these students are. The school's mission statement is to prepare them for lives as practising liberal Jews who "participate effectively in a complex, ever-changing Canadian society."

That means more than just embracing the central tenets of Judaism – God, Torah and Israel. It's also believing women, gays and lesbians are religious and social equals and abortion is a personal decision, respecting other beliefs and cultures and opening congregations to non-Jewish partners of members and those considering conversion.

Each week, classes in two grades lead the Friday afternoon prayer service. Held in the school's synagogue, which doubles as its library, it features Torah readings and reflections of students who study one of the Five Books of Moses and relate it to life today.

"You can show leadership by doing your homework and respecting others," a Grade 4 student told the congregation at one recent service.

The majority of each student's day is spent on the same lessons as their counterparts in public schools – science, math, social studies and English language arts, making no religious deviations for such hot-button issues as sex education, creationism or homosexuality.

Leo Baeck is also a candidate to become an International Baccalaureate school, a global organization of more than 2,100 schools in 125 countries with the lofty mission of "creating a better world through education."

"It's a method of learning that then stays with you for life," Prashker said. "We want to be part of the public education system because we think it can gain from us and we can gain from it."

Parent Ronna Rubin, 48, said while the faith-based components of Leo Baeck are appealing, it's the fact that it offers kids an understanding of how that fits into the rest of their lives that matters most.

"Religious education for its own sake isn't something that really appeals to me," said Rubin, who has daughters aged 9 and 12 at the school. "Our goal is to graduate children who are curious and interested and ambitious about doing good things in the world, not just their very small community."

The main variance from the Ontario curriculum comes with French, the third language on offer at Leo Baeck. A core subject from Grade 4 for all students in the government-funded system, it begins at senior kindergarten here, as do classes in gym, art and music.

"The average Jewish Torontonian is involved in daily life in the city, in the modern world," said Eric Petersiel, south campus principal. "Why would they choose an education that segregates their children?

"It's a fully integrated experience."

For the past two years, the school's Grade 8 class has worked with Na-Me-Res, a native men's residence in Toronto. In addition to collecting coats, many travelled in the centre's outreach van delivering food, clothing and other essentials to the homeless.

Such initiatives are part of the Jewish belief in tikkun olam, or repairing the world. Other recent projects have included an annual Passover food drive, a Grade 5 class raising $321.62 in pennies last year for the Stephen Lewis Foundation for those afflicted with HIV/AIDS in Africa and the collection of more than 300 backpacks in 24 hours to send to students after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

"I like that they teach global citizenship and do it in a nurturing way," said Bonnie Goldberg, 38, who has two children, 4 and 8, at the school. "It doesn't have to be a Jewish issue for kids to mobilize."…

Good citizens of the world, to be sure. Pitching in, trying to minimize their cabon footprints, summoning up sympathy for the world's afflicted, no matter who or where they are—and remaining utterly clueless about the kind of Koran-based lessons in "global citizenship" being taught at the Islamic school to their north.

 

The Star is to be commended for shining a light on these two schools. It has thereby (and no doubt unintentionally) revealed that the world view of each is, in its own way, dangerously skewed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:39 | link | comments (2)

Siddiqui cooks the books: The Toronto Star's revered editorial page editor emeritus, Harpoon Siddiqui, nattering on, and on, about the how Iraq and Afghanistan are two sides of the same coin, and the failure to add up the number of people who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a direct result of American interference in those countries.

My rebuttal to the most recent nattering, in which Harpoon high-fives the late Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, sworn enemy of the West and Tiny Hitler's main man (next to the Prophet and the Mahdi, of course):

 

In an effort to get to the bottom of true number of civilians who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan—numbers he says the Americans are trying to cover up—Haroon Siddiqui quotes the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Mr. Siddiqui apparently sees a parallel between the Ayatollah’s contempt for the special treatment the Americans received during the Shah’s era, and the way Americans authorities today have yet to be held to be held for account for—and do a proper accounting of—civilian casualties in these two besieged countries.

 

I, too, would like an accounting. I want to know how many thousands of people have been stolen away in the middle of the night by the Ayatollah’s police since the Islamists came to power? How many have been tortured? How many killed? How many have simply disappeared, never to be seen again? I can think of one such person right off the bat—Zahra Kazemi, the Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist brutally raped and murdered by Iranian authorities while in custody on trumped-up charges; to this day, her remains have yet to be returned to her grieving family back in Canada. How many more anonymous Zahra Kazemis are out there who have never been counted?

 

I would also like a precise count of the number of Iranian children the Ayatollah used as human sacrifices on the field of battle during the Iran-Iraq war. How many youngsters did this holy man send out to clear land mines with their bodies so that his soldiers could advance? How many of the innocent were bloodied and killed because of his cruel indifference to their fate?

 

And I believe it is crucial for us to know exactly how many people have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere because Iran has been supplying extremists with armaments and supporting their political agenda, thereby helping advance the political agenda of the current Grand Ayatollah and his police state.

 

So by all means, let’s crunch the numbers. But let’s crunch all the numbers, so we can have a better sense of what is really going on in the area, and the reason behind much of the carnage.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:25 | link | comments

Bonkers in Beantown: An MIT computer student with a “quirky” (yes, that’s the word being used) personality tried to board an airplane in Boston while rigged out in a fake bomb.

Security officials were, shall we say, less than amused. From Information Week:

 

A woman arrested Friday for carrying a fake bomb into Boston's Logan airport is an MIT computer whiz who loves "crazy ideas" and "saving the planet from evil villains," according to her blog on a Web site hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

 

In her blog, MIT student Star Simpson says she is "currently studying computers and how they work." Simpson also participates in MIT's MITER project, a student run electronic engineering workship.  

Cops arrested Simpson, 19, on Friday after she reportedly walked into Logan International Airport with a fake bomb  made of lights, wires, and putty strapped to her chest. She was charged with disturbing the peace and perpetrating a hoax.

An MIT spokeswoman on Friday confirmed that Simpson is currently enrolled in the school's famed computer science program. The spokeswoman could not say whether the school is contemplating any disciplinary action against Simpson. "It's too early to say," she said. The spokeswoman said MIT is planning to release a formal statement on the matter.

Simpson's blog indicates she previously lived in Hawaii. It reveals a personality that could be described as quirky. She writes that she previously spent time "traveling the world and saving the planet from evil villains with my delivered-just-in-time gadgets."

Two of the flights that were hijacked as part of the September 11 terror attacks originated at Logan. As a result, Boston city officials have little tolerance for terror-related hoaxes. Earlier this year, two men were arrested for planting bomb-like devices around Boston in an effort to drum up publicity for the cable show Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Oh, those college kids--they get up to such hijinks. I suppose officials should be thankful she wasn’t one of those “quirky” jihadis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:40 | link | comments (1)

 Maclean's' outrageous cover:

Even if you despise him; even if you think he's the worst American president ever; even if you consider the decision to try to remake Iraq into a democracy using a constitution based on sharia law to be the most cockamanie scheme in history; and even if you're a struggling Canadian magazine trying to boost interest in your rag by having the most inflammatory cover on the magazine rack: it is beyond disgusting—obscene, even—to equate the leader of the free world with the would-be Caliph of Badghad, a brutal, barbaric, tyranical, mass-murdering thug (may he roil for all eternity in blazing Hades—him and his equally wicked spawn).

Or did I miss the part where Bush gassed tens of thousands of Kurds and had his henchmen dispose of his enemies by inserting them feet-first into a plastic-shredder?

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:49 | link | comments (1)

Out with the old, in the new: The old “axis of evil”—Iran, Iraq, North Korea. The really old axis of evil—Germany, Italy, Japan. The new “axis of evil”—Iran, Syria, North Korea.

Seems the Jews (and the the civilized world) just can’t catch a break:

From the Telegraph:

 

Just when we thought we'd seen the back of one axis of evil, up pops another one to give us all sleepless nights.

The original axis of evil, as defined by President George W Bush in his State of the Union address in January 2002, consisted of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

 

In fact, this axis was always an unlikely amalgam, conjured from the imagination of David Frum, the President's chief speechwriter at the time, who was casting around for a suitably demonic phrase to capture the gravity of the threat America was said to face from its combined enemies in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

 

The phrase made great headlines, but the reality was that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had no meaningful ties to Pyongyang or Teheran, other than a shared hatred of American military supremacy.

 

This summer it appeared that, with the stubborn exception of Iran, Mr Bush's axis of evil was on the wane: Saddam's regime no longer threatened the Gulf oil fields that fuel the West's economies, and the North Koreans appeared to be moving towards decommissioning the nuclear reactor that enabled it to test an atom bomb last autumn.

There were even signs that the serious economic hardship Iran was suffering because of its controversial nuclear programme had prompted the mullahs to have a serious rethink about pursuing the holy grail of uranium enrichment.

 

All that optimism seems wildly out of place following this week's revelation that the Israeli Air Force launched a daredevil attack on a remote region of northern Syria to destroy a top-secret military facility.

 

The precise nature of the target remains a matter of intense speculation, not least because the Israeli government has imposed a news black-out on the events of the night of September 6; and the Syrians, whose much-vaunted, Russian-built air defence systems failed to detect, let alone repel, the intruders, have been equally secretive.

 

But judging from the small scraps of information that have emerged, it would be fair to conclude that a new axis of evil is under construction, with Syria assuming Iraq's place. But unlike Iraq, Syria has well-documented links to the pariah regimes in North Korea and Teheran, and is cooperating with them on a range of projects, from the acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles to the development of chemical and nuclear weapons…

 

Two words for Tiny Hitler, Boy Assad and Dear Leader (and I ain’t gonna atone for uttering them): Bugger off! Two words in answer to the question “What the heck do we do now?”: regime change.

 

I leave to the experts the details as to how that's to be accomplished.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:33 | link | comments (1)

Un-"fast"-en your belt: To all those atoning, here's wishing you an easy one:

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:00 | link | comments (1)

Iran weaves its web: Charles Krauthammer looks that mysterious air strike in Syria, which may or may not have taken out a North Korean nuclear somethingorother. He thinks he has it figured out. From RealClear Politics: 

…Apart from the usual suspects -- Syria, Iran, Libya and Russia -- only two countries registered strong protests to the Israeli strike: Turkey and North Korea. Turkey we can understand. Its military may have permitted Israel an overflight corridor without ever having told the Islamist civilian government. But North Korea? What business is this of North Korea's? Unless it was a North Korean facility being hit.

Which raises alarms for many reasons. First, it would undermine the whole North Korean disarmament process. Pyongyang might be selling its stuff to other rogue states or perhaps just temporarily hiding it abroad while permitting ostentatious inspections back home.

Second, there are ominous implications for the Middle East. Syria has long had chemical weapons -- on Monday, Jane's Defence Weekly reported on an accident that killed dozens of Syrians and Iranians loading a nerve-gas warhead onto a Syrian missile -- but Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Syria.

Tensions are already extremely high because of Iran's headlong rush to go nuclear. In fending off sanctions and possible military action, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East:

(1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault.

(2) Hezbollah heavily rearmed with Iranian rockets transshipped through Syria and preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The third Lebanon war, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran's order.

(3) Syria, Iran's only Arab client state, building up forces across the Golan Heights frontier with Israel. And on Wednesday, yet another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament was killed in a massive car bombing.

(4) The al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training and equipping Shiite extremist militias in the use of the deadliest IEDs and rocketry against American and Iraqi troops. Iran is similarly helping the Taliban attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Why is Iran doing this? Because it has its eye on a single prize: the bomb. It needs a bit more time, knowing that once it goes nuclear, it becomes the regional superpower and Persian Gulf hegemon…

Come Persian hegemon, hedging bets for A-bombs; daylight come and me wanna go home.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:55 | link | comments (1)

Baader, Meinhoff and Muhammad: One of my favourite essayists, Theodore Dalrymple, pegs ‘Slamism as the Marxism of our time—an ideology that’s enticing a whole bunch of lost, excitement-seeking boys (and girls) into its ranks, especially in Europe. From City Journal via FrontPage Magazine:

From an Islamist point of view, the news from Europe looks good. The Times of London, relying on a police report, recently observed that the Deobandis, a fundamentalist sect, now run nearly half of the 1,350 mosques in Britain and train the vast majority of the Muslim clerics who get their training in the country. The man who might become the sect’s spiritual leader in Britain, Riyadh ul Haq, believes that friendship with a Christian or a Jew makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion.” At least no one could accuse him of a shallow multiculturalism.

According to Le Figaro, 70 percent of Muslims in France intend to keep the fast during Ramadan, up from 60 percent in 1989. Better still, from the Islamist point of view, non-practicing Muslims feel increasing social pressure to comply with the fast, whether they want to or not. The tide is thus running in the Islamists’ favor.

Best news of all for the Islamists, however, comes from Germany. Two of the men that the German police arrested in early September for plotting a series of huge explosions in the country were young German converts to Islam. It is impossible to know how many such German converts there are, but it is thought to run into tens of thousands, principally men; in the nature of things, it is also uncertain how many of them are attracted to extremism, but few people are so attracted by moderation that they are converted by it.

The man believed to be the leader of the little group, Fritz G., the son of a doctor and an engineer, was himself a student of engineering, of mediocre attainment. He grew up in Ulm, where a quarter of the population is now Muslim, and at the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 15, he began to frequent the Islamic Information Center of Ulm, and also the comically named Multikultihaus in the neighboring town of Neu-Ulm, where young men of jihadist views, including Mohammed Atta, had long congregated. In 2004, he was spotted at the Ulm Islamic center, selling a journal called Think in the Islamic Way. In December of that year, the police found propaganda in favor of Osama bin Laden in his car. In 2006, he went to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

His fellow conspirator, Daniel S., came from a well-off family and converted early in life to radical Islam. He traveled to Egypt to learn Arabic, and then returned to Germany, where he sometimes irritated his neighbors by praying loudly in Arabic three times a day.

All this suggests that Islam is fast becoming the Marxism of our times. Had Fritz G. and Daniel S. grown up a generation earlier, they would have become members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang rather than Islamic extremists. The dictatorship of the proletariat, it seems, has given way before the establishment of the Caliphate as the transcendent answer to some German youths’ personal angst.

This is good news indeed for Islamists, but not so good for the rest of us.

Fritz G. loved the Multikultihaus

‘Cause it gave him a cause to espaus.

Unfortunately,

It was jihadi,

And his ardour we’ve since had to daus.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:33 | link | comments

Seeing things: Time to commit Ehud Olmert to the loony bin. He’s in the grip of a powerful dementia that has caused him to fabricate fantastical creatures which don’t exist—like a genuine “peace partner.”

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

Monstrous Ahmadinejad: How is he monstrous? Let me count the ways. He has a monstrous ego, monstrous gall, and a monstrous ambition—to dominate the planet prior to pushing it into Armageddon. Steve Emerson, one the world’s pre-eminent “Islamophobes” (i.e., a pundit who, despite being in the firing line of the slings and arrows of outraged true believers, continues to sound the alarm about the jihad) lists a few instances of Tiny Hitler’s monstrousness—the latest being, of course, his request to violate sacred ground. From the New York Post:

GIVE Iranian President Mah moud Ahmadinejad credit for chutzpah: He has asked for permission to visit Ground Zero while he's in New York for a U.N. session.

In other words, a request to visit the site of the worst terrorist attack in history - from a guy who's involved in terrorism up to his neck.

Iran's government has actively and proudly supported terrorism for decades. It created and directs Hezbollah while funding Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Iran coordinates its terrorist sponsorship largely through its Ministry of Intelligence and Security and via the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Guard is also Ahmadinejad's chief power base - he's an IRGC veteran.

At the time of the Iranian Revolution, Ahmadinejad was a member of the executive committee of the student group that initially seized the U.S. embassy and took dozens of U.S. diplomats hostage. During his later time in the Guard, he was a member of the assassination team that killed several exiled Iranian Kurd dissidents in Vienna in 1989.

One of the Guard's five branches, the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, bears primary responsibility for coordinating with terrorist groups and sleeper networks around the globe - as well as insurgent groups and militias in Iraq now targeting American forces.

* On Feb. 11, the United States reported that Iran was the source of highly lethal explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) being provided to Iraqi Shiite insurgent groups. This Iranian ordinance had already killed 170 U.S. soldiers. Two months later, the United States stated that Iran was providing EFPs to Sunni insurgent groups as well.

Iran also has a warm relationship with al Qaeda - aiding it in the run-up to 9/11, and ever since:

* The al Qaeda-Iran relationship began in late 1991 or early 1992 when Iranian agents met with al Qaeda leaders in Sudan and informally agreed to provide mutual support for attacks against Israel and the United States.

* Not long after this initial meeting, al Qaeda operatives and trainers went to Iran, where they received training in explosives.

* After al Qaeda was forced to relocate from Sudan to Afghanistan, Iranian agents continued to meet with al Qaeda leadership figures. Iranian officials often accommodated al Qaeda operatives by not stamping their passports -facilitating covert travel through Iran.

* The 9/11 Commission Report notes that eight to 10 of the 9/11 hijackers traveled through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.

* After the liberation of Afghanistan, several top al Qaeda figures took refuge in Iran.

Iran's various terror puppets have also taken many other American lives:

* Hezbollah was founded in 1982 in the Bekaa Valley by Lebanese Shiite clerics educated in Iran. The IRGC established training camps in Lebanon where Hezbollah recruits trained alongside members of other national and transnational terrorist organizations. Hezbollah members train in Iran on IRGC bases and facilities.

* Before 9/11, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist group, having carried out the deadly 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 200 American servicemen.

* Saudi Hezbollah, which also receives Iranian support, executed a truck bombing at the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans in 1996.

Allowing the president of the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism to visit Ground Zero would be an obscene slap at the victims and survivors of the 9/11 attacks. The request itself is an insult of the worst kind.

Anyone got some garlic, a cross and a wooden stake?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:50 | link | comments (2)

 Flogging a deceased camel dep’t: Condi Rice has met with “secular” has-been Moo Abbas in an attempt to revive the dead Peace in Our Time process. From YNet News: 

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to try to bridge his differences with Israel over what a US-led Middle East peace conference might achieve.

 

Rice has found growing interest in “intensifying the dialogue”, a senior aide said, after her talks on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. She will see Olmert again, ending her two-day visit, after her session with Abbas.

 

Rice, meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres before traveling to the West Bank city of Ramallah, said she saw “a spirit and a desire to move towards peace” among Israelis and Palestinians, but there were “many obstacles to overcome"…

 

The chief obstacle: Israel’s being Jewish and sovereign. Good luck leaping over that hurdle, Condi.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:05 | link | comments

Racing to Mo’s defence: I would never accuse UN Nuclear Watchthingy, Mo ElBaradei, of being in the pay of those with a vested interest in seeing the successful completion of Iran’s nuclear power project. I’d accuse him of being feckless, clueless and useless—sure. But crooked and corrupt? Not on your life!

Someone else willing to vouch for Mo’s lilly-whiteness in matters atomic: a scribe with the Tehran Times. Dr. Shireen M. Mazari thinks Mo and the gang have been doing a bang-up job monitoring Iran’s big kaboom facilities. He wants the entire cabal of nervous infidels—that means you, M. Sarkozy!—to lay off the put-upon Nobel Peace Prize winner, and let the mullahs get on with the task at hand:

ISLAMABAD (The News) -- Being at the IAEA these days has once again reminded one that U.S. diatribes are not limited to regimes and states that act contrary to U.S. goals or even wishes. In the usual alliance of the government and the media -- clearly the U.S. media has its own interpretations of a “free” media -- the Americans have launched a blitzkrieg against the IAEA and especially its head, ElBaradei.

The issue, which has aroused a hail of abuse is Iran’s nuclear program. What has irked the U.S. is the fact that the IAEA under its present leadership has proactively sought to resolve this issue peacefully by dialoguing with Iran instead of supporting the American position of seeking confrontation through provocation so that a pretext can be provided for U.S. military action. Remember Iraq and the WMD issue?

Now we have begun to see a spate of articles targeting ElBaradai in the U.S. and U.S.-controlled print media. Some have been downright abusive with the Washington Post labeling him a “rogue” regulator. Ah that word which has become so central to the Bush era in the U.S. If one is not falling in line with the U.S., then one is a “rogue” of one form or another.

The problem arises when heads of international organizations, selected by the international community, are actually abused because they fall out of step with the U.S. Some UN secretary generals also had to suffer a similar fate, but the language now being used by the U.S. media for Baradei goes further than earlier vilifications of international personalities.

Worse still, this time a newly resurgent rightwing leadership in countries like France are supporting this new aggression against U.S. detractors, while British publications like The Economist continue to be predictable in their criticism.

Even the EU launched an attack against Baradei in the just concluded IAEA Board meeting, which led to the IAEA chief actually walking out for some time from the meeting. Such are the antics of the U.S. and its European allies in international organizations today.

Why is ElBaradai being abused and vilified with such vigor? What is his crime? Very simply, he has managed to get Iran back into a dialogue with a timeline for resolving the nuclear issue…

Very simply, he has donned a pair of blinkers and helped facilitate Iran’s End of the World scheme.

 

Update: Mo's IAEA springs into action--and slams Israel. From the Jerusalem Post: 

A 144-nation atomic energy conference criticized Israel Thursday for refusing to put its nuclear program under international purview, with the United States alone in supporting the Jewish state.

Besides Washington, only Israel voted against the resolution while 53 nations backed it and 47 abstained.

The remaining nations were absent for the highly unusual vote - only the second in the 16 years the issue has been on the agenda of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Up to last year, the resolution on "Application of IAEA Safeguards in the Middle East" had been adopted by consensus, but in 2006, and again this year, Israeli objections forced a vote.

This year, Israel opposed two paragraphs - one calling all nations in the Middle East "not to develop, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons," the other urging nuclear weapons states to "refrain from any action" hindering the establishment of a Mideast zone free of nuclear weapons.

Both passages were clearly aimed at Israel, which is considered to have nuclear weapons despite its "no tell" policy on the issue and which counts on the United States as its chief ally for support - both in the outside world and in forums such as the conference.

Israeli opposition last year was sparked by a separate Arab-sponsored resolution deeming Israel a "nuclear threat" and refusal by its sponsors to withdraw it.

While that resolution was put up for adoption it was not voted on. A similar resolution was being prepared for consideration at the gathering Friday.

A Western diplomat whose country normally is supportive of Israel sought to diminish the negative impact of the vote, pointing out that last year, 98 approved the resolution, with three abstaining and the United States and Israel opposed.

Still, although the conference has no decision-making powers, the lack of consensus reflected deepening tensions in the Middle East…

Apparently, 98 out of 102 condemning Israel is insufficient to count as a "consensus." It appears the Israel-bashers won't be satisfied until there's unanimity, and the vote is 101 to 1.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:40 | link | comments

Sharia “women’s lib”: How does a by-the-book sharia state attempt to bamboozle infidels into seeing it as “progressive”? By showcasing women in roles one would expect to be fulfilled solely by men. Last week, for example, The Today Show’s Matt Lauer, who was visiting beautiful, downtown Tehran, treated viewers to the sight of an entire fire brigade made up of women. These women had been fully trained in the art of snuffing out fires and were merely awaiting the sound of an alarm to hop to it. ‘Course, they still had to sit at the back of public buses, and should a stray hair emerge from their headscarf, they could be in line for a severe whupping by religious police. But, hey, no Medieval-minded totalitarian state is perfect, right?

In a similar vein, Hamas wants to show how progressive it is by signing up a bunch of chicks to be members of a police force in Gaza. A tough assignment, since the women have to do all their policing wearing outfits that aren’t exactly conducive to chasing criminals. From the Daily Star:

…Shrouded in a loose-fitting black coat, wearing a purple headscarf and white cotton underpiece designed to hide all of her hair, and with her face clean of make-up, Aqal is one of 50 women working with Hamas paramilitaries in Gaza City.

While most are secretaries, she is one of 10 policewomen based at the Saraya Prison in a nascent force set up by Hamas last month as "proof" of its progressive thinking.

"I know that this job needs a strong personality and someone who is courageous. I'm not scared. I just feel that the guilty need to be punished," she says, reeling off a list of crimes she interrogates suspects for - murder, drugs, theft and moral vice.

"We're treated very well within our brotherhood. I work here in the compound and deal with criminals directly. I interrogate men as well as women. At the moment I'm assisting our officers because we haven't finished our training yet," she says.

Amin Nawfal, a commander in the self-styled "man's police" - the Executive Force that supervises the women - says they will eventually be given firearms training, take part in arrest operations and be fully integrated.

"Females can't be touched by a man, therefore we need women police. That's proof we are a lawful country and not an Islamic state. It doesn't violate Shariah law either," Nawfal says.

Women work as police across the Muslim world, including in Hamas' patron Iran, where women clad in black chadors are taught how to use guns, rappel down buildings, chase cars and disable bombs.

"Having women in security jobs shows how democratic we are and that we have equality between men and women," says Nawfal, dressed in military fatigues and sitting at an enormous desk, Hamas television flickering in the background.

But despite his lofty comments, he silences the suggestion that Aqal talk in private, saying he should be present because she might not know the answers to all the questions…

Wow. How very Helen Reddy of him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:59 | link | comments (1)

Hell, no, he can’t go: Pass me some smelling salts. I near about fainted when I read this one—which has to represent the apex of chutzpah on one side and the enth-degree of wimpitude on the other. From the New York Sun:

In a move that has stunned New York, the Bloomberg administration is in discussions to escort the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to ground zero during his visit to New York next week, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said today.

The Iranian mission to the U.N. made the request to the New York City Police Department and the Secret Service, who will jointly oversee security during the president's two-day visit. Mr. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to arrive September 24 to speak to the U.N. General Assembly as the Security Council decides whether to increase sanctions against Iran for its uranium enrichment program.

Mr. Kelly said the NYPD and Secret Service were in discussions with the Iranian mission about the logistics for the possible visit, and whether it will take place at all. He said Mr. Ahmadinejad would not be allowed to descend into the pit for safety reasons related to ongoing construction there.

"There has been some interest expressed in his visiting the area," Mr. Kelly said. "It's something that we are prepared to handle if in fact it does happen."

Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Ahmadinejad had not indicated why he wants to visit the site of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Iran has been called the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism" by the U.S. State Department.

I have no problem allowing Tiny Hitler to defame the memory of the murdered by treading on their gravesite—as soon as Hell freezes over, the moon turns blue and pigs learn to fly. Until then, keep this smirking bastard away from the site and off American soil.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:14 | link | comments (2)

Jewish web masters: For all you Mearshimer-Walt-Carter types out there who think a Jewish cabal is secretly pulling all the strings, looks like you may be right.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:53 | link | comments

Fly ‘n’ cry babies: Here’s a good one. Some Israeli Arab leaders are planning to “boycott” El Al Airlines because of its “discriminatory” security practices. The leaders don’t like the way security officials tend to give Arabs who want to fly Israel’s national airline a harder time than they do to non-Arabs.

Serves you right, El Al. Keep it up and the next thing you know, your outrageous “apartheid” practices will be condemned by the likes of Jimminy Carter, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the UN Human Rights Thingamebobbir.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:08 | link | comments

Tiny Hitler’s clueless helpers: There are three things you can count on in this life: death, taxes, and useful idiots cozying up to the wicked in the name of doing good.

Oh, and also the jihad; you can always count on the jihad.

 

FrontPage Magazine has a barf-inducing account of #3. It’s all about how some pacifist Leftist Christians have been thwarted in their efforts to make kissy-face with Hitler’s successor.

 

I advise you not to read it on a full stomach.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:47 | link | comments

Jimminy’s hate-on for the Jews: The most sickening aspect of Jimmy Carter’s ongoing and unfounded smear of the Jewish state is that the old gasbag has the audacity to drape himself in the cloak of virtue while doing his dirty work.

You know, kind of like the Spanish Inquisition--and the jihadis.

Update: I had this in "comments" but decided to move it up here:

Mearshimer, Carter, and Walt
Believe that it's all the Jews' fault:
"Palestinians make us sobby,
As does that Jew lobby,
And as for those 'neo-Cons'--
Oy Gevalt!"

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:11 | link | comments (2)

Baathist bafflegab: The terrorism-sponsoring backwater on Israel's northern borden--the winged monkey to the mully-bullies' Wicked Witch of the East (or, alternatively, Mini-Me to the ayatollahs' Dr. Evil--Mark Steyn's characterization) wants us to know one thing. There is absotively, posilutely no truth to the rumour that they had been goin' fission with the kindly assistance of "Dear Leader's" atomic lads.

So don't you be frettin' your teeny little infidel heads about it any more.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:50 | link | comments

Flawed argument: At an event last night, an executive with the Canadian Jewish Congress tried to address concerns that a vote for religious school funding would also be a vote for funding Islamic madrassahs. Have no fear, said he. He’d looked into the matter—why, he'd even visited a Muslim school attached to a mosque. (“You can see the minaret from the highway,” he said.) Upon inquiring, he was told that school fees amounted to $2,500 a year—about a quarter of what Jewish parents pay. The exec suggested that, ahem, foreign elements, were picking up the slack. The way to curtail this foreign intrusion: extend full funding to Muslim schools and bring them under the public umbrella. We could thereby be assured that Muslim students would be taught a “moderate” version of Islam. Otherwise—and here’s the part we should be concerned about—Saudi-funded madrassahs teaching that old time Wahhabi religion would proliferate, a state of affairs which, to quote that old cliché, would not be good for the Jews.

I see several problems with this argument. First and foremost, why the heck are we allowing the Saudis to butt into our education system and indoctrinate Canadian youngsters with pro-jihadist, anti-Western messages? Shouldn’t that be, oh, I dunno, discouraged by Canadian officials? Second, to qualify for public funding, religious schools will have to agree to adopt certain standards—some of which may not be to the liking of parents who prefer the fundamentalist approach to education. Since the school fees at some Muslim schools are already kept pretty low courtesy the “unintrusive” Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques, wouldn’t these schools simply opt out of public funding? Also, Muslim schools opting in would still be instructing students in lessons from the Noble Koran, including, perhaps, the ones commanding Muslims to resist the temptation to become friendly with Christians and Jews. (Especially the Jews, since the Prophet, that epitome of perfection, took it upon himself to turn us into apes and pigs—and who wants to have a lowly ape or pig as a pal?). Hard to see how any of that is conducive to building a cohesive society—unless, of course, it’s an Islamic one.

 

As for the argument that public funding will invariably have a moderating effect, it can be countered (and deflated) with these few salient words: the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

 

In any event, there’s no way Ontarians are voting “aye” to religious schools.  A new poll reveals that, in a gross political miscalculation that will likely cost him the premiership, John Tory has hitched his wagon to a turkey—and that bird ain’t getting off the ground.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:33 | link | comments (5)

Wahhabi damage control: In a web exclusive, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Canadian urges restive infidels to calm down and accept sharia law—all in the name of religious sensitivity and multicultural amity, of course. From the Globe and Mail:

The recent decision by Elections Canada to allow veiled voters to participate in the upcoming federal elections without having to lift their veils has prompted a wave of objections from all political parties, including the governing Conservatives. Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated his outright opposition to this decision, suggesting it contravenes previous decisions adopted by Parliament in this regard.

It seems that the niqab issue is taking a sensitive and unfortunate direction between Canadian authorities and the Muslim community in Canada.

First, there was the decision in April to bar five Muslim girls from taking part in a tae kwon do tournament on account of their insistence on wearing the hijab, followed by a series of similar incidents that seem to target Muslim women who wear the hijab or niqab. The recurrence of such cases has opened the door very wide for those who seek to poison the relationship between Canadian Muslims and the authorities as well as the rest of society. Some have interpreted these incidents as an example of religious discrimination against Muslims and as a preamble to further stricter measures against the wearing of hijab by Canadian Muslim women, especially in Quebec.

With the exception of Mr. Harper's objection to the recent decision by Elections Canada, there hasn't been any change in the official position of the Canadian government concerning the hijab or niqab.

In 2004, then-prime minister Paul Martin told the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations that "wearing the hijab is part of the religious freedom that should be respected and safeguarded." So far, I haven't read that this policy has undergone any review or change by the government of Mr. Harper. One should also point out that the general reaction of the Canadian public has been very positive, in keeping with the spirit of openness and tolerance that characterizes a Canadian society built on the foundation of multiculturalism. A letter writer to this newspaper noted: "Isn't it ironic that Canadian soldiers are willing to die in Afghanistan defending the freedom of the Muslim people there, while in Montreal we are taking their rights away?"

Canada opens its heart and its doors to refugees and immigrants, including Muslims, from all corners of the world. Freedom of religion is entrenched in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that forms an integral part of the Canadian Constitution. In spite of the horrific Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the ensuing backlash against Muslims, Canada hasn't changed its positive attitude towards its Muslim community. For this reason, Canada is considered by many Muslims as an oasis of peace and security.

I did not want to intervene in the issue of the niqab and hijab, as this is a domestic matter that concerns Canadians themselves, but the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been implicated by some writers. I do so now, more in my personal than official capacity.

The Kingdom prides itself on being the cradle of Islam that includes the faith's most sacred sites — Mecca and Medinah — to which more than 1.5 billion Muslims turn in prayers from the four corners of the world. The King of Saudi Arabia is known as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, refusing the title "His Majesty," which is reserved only to Almighty God.

One of the fundamental pillars of Saudi foreign policy is not to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries; for this reason, no official comment or statement has been issued by the Kingdom on the subject of hijab in Canada.

Nevertheless, Muslims are encouraged to give sound advice to each other. As a fellow Muslim, my advice to Canadian Muslims is to avoid being isolated in their own society, without giving up their identity. Canadian Muslims are law-abiding citizens who contribute immensely to the progress of their new country, serving their society and their community positively.

I trust that countries where Muslims represent a minority, including Canada, will understand and appreciate the religious rights of such minorities; at the same time, Muslims in the diaspora have every interest to honour their responsibilities and duties towards the societies where they live.

I am confident that the issue of niqab that was recently brought to the surface will be dealt with by Canadian Muslims with calm and wisdom, in order to prevent any attempts to exploit this kind of issues for political gain at their expense.

It should be remembered that Muslims in Canada contribute in a very positive and constructive manner in the prosperity and diversity of the Canadian society. They are entitled to be treated with respect and not be used as pawns in any partisan games.

Then stop treating them—and us—that way, Mr. Ambassador. And stop spouting taqiyah about the Magic Kingdom’s not messing around in the internal affairs of other nations. The gazillions of oil dollars forked out every year in a Wahhabist outreach program to mosques and madrassahs around the world, including many right here in Canuckistan, makes your words ring very hollow indeed.

 

My letter to the Globe:

 

The Saudi ambassador claims that that “a pillar” of his country’s foreign policy is to stay out of the internal affairs of other countries.

 

Really? Then how does he account for the billions of dollars Saudi Arabia spends every year to spread its extreme Wahhabist version of Islam to mosques and madrassahs around the world, including many right here in Canada. Surely the ambassador knows that the lessons absorbed in such settings have the potential to affect another country’s “internal affairs.” If they didn’t, there would be little point in funding them.

 

If Saudi Arabia was really serious about keeping out of others’ internal affairs, it would pack up its tents and go home.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:14 | link | comments (4)

Who were those masked men?: Taking advantage of legislation that apparently allows Canadians to cast a ballot while their face is covered, some prankish Quebecers turned up at polls to vote in by-elections yesterday wearing a variety of disguises. Five guys (at least, I think they were guys; it’s hard to say for certain from the photo in the Globe and Mail) showed up in Sainte-Hyacinthe-Bagot wearing cowboy hats, one wearing a gas mask, another rubber animal mask, and still another, a real wise guy, decked out in a cowboy hat and a burka. There’s also a shot of an Outremont voter who showed up wearing a pumpkin on his head; the unintentionally droll caption explains that “(h)is ID was verified, though his face remained hidden.” (Alas, the photos aren’t available online.)

Are these guys goofballs? Bigots? Some combo of both? Or is there a serious message beneath the zany get-ups, a protest against the affront to Canadian values of an enshrouded women not having to reveal her face before casting a vote?

 

Update: Maclean's has a picture of Mr. Pumpkin Head.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:45 | link | comments (2)

Covering Islam—and missing the real story: From CAIR-CAN’s A Journalist’s Guide to Islam, an instruction manual designed to help infidels working in the media remain ignorant about the Koran's jihad imperative and other, ahem, problematic doctrine: 

…In covering Canada’s Muslim community, it is important to be aware of cultural and political differences that may affect newsgathering.

 

It is especially important for journalists to cultivate long-term contacts within the Muslim community in their area. As hosts, Muslims are extremely gracious and self-effacing. But to get beyond the surface, it is important to develop relationships and build trust in order to enhance understanding.

 

Furthermore, North American culture centres on the cult of the individual. Conversely, in Muslim culture the community takes precedence over the individual. That’s why Muslims are less inclined to be critical and outspoken about others in their community, regardless of disagreement. They are also less inclined to air their displeasure in public, particularly via the news media.

 

Certain courtesies ought to be followed when covering Islam and Muslims. For instance, when visiting a mosque, remove shoes upon entering. Further, it is inappropriate for a stranger to shake hands with a member of the opposite sex due to the Islamic etiquette of modest behaviour between genders. When taking photographs of Muslims at prayer, do not film or photograph them from behind. It is offensive. Don’t enhance racial profiling by simply running photographs and images of Muslims who, because of the way they dress, fit the stereotype. Most do not conform to the stereotype.

 

Do not seek out the Muslim community only when there is a crisis or major problem and a reaction is required. Islam offers a rich bounty of feature stories. Help the local community learn more about their Muslim neighbors. Islam offers a rich bounty of feature stories:

 

Examine the traditions around major celebrations.

Compare their marriage and funeral customs.

Outline how Muslims conduct business when charging interest is forbidden.

 

Conversely, avoid labeling extremist or terrorists groups as Islamic, even if they describe themselves as such. Journalists do not refer to white supremacists as Christian although they will cite the Bible to justify their actions. If the term is essential to the story, strive for balance and seek out an opinion and context from the local Muslim community. Be particularly careful in headlines.

 

Finally, do not rely on non-Muslims for information about Islam. And do not rely on Muslims for information about other faiths. By and large, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Christians know little about the others’ faith and what they may know may be erroneous.

 

No problemo there. I’m perfectly happy to rely on former Muslims like Ibn Warraq, Ali Sinna and Ayaan Hirsi Ali for my info.

 

Or should apostates be considered “unreliable” too?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:28 | link | comments

The compelling urge to purge: For months now I’ve been hearing that Ahmadinejad is out of favour with the mully-bullies and the people and that, soon enough, in no time at all, just you wait and see, the pint-sized tin-pot despot will be put in his place.

Yep, should be any minute now. By Amir Taheri in the New York Post:

September 17, 2007 -- AS millions of Iranians prepare for the new school year, the scene is being set for what could be a long hot autumn on university campuses across the nation. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has promised to "cleanse" the Iranian educational system of what he calls "the corrupt influence of the infidel" and has mobilized a special militia to crush the expected student revolts.

The radical president refers to his "academic cleansing" plan as "The Second Great Islamic Cultural Revolution." The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini closed the universities and launched the first "Great Islamic Cultural Revolution" in 1980. A committee created to "cleanse" academia purged more than 6,000 professors and lecturers, virtually destroying Iranian academia. Dozens of academics were executed as hundreds fled into exile. The committee also expelled thousands of students on charges of monarchist or leftist tendencies. It also censored or totally rewrote dozens of textbooks to conform to the Khomeinist ideology.

When the universities were reopened two years later, the committee tried to fill them with students and teachers sympathetic to Khomeinism. The trick was to allocate special places for members of The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and children of families believed to be loyal to the regime.

Further, it established a blacklist of banned authors and writings - an index that has grown every year since, reminding one of the worst days of the Inquisition in medieval Europe. The madness of censorship, supervised by the so-called Ministry of Islamic Orientation and Culture, reached a new peak last week with the banning of a new volume of memoirs of former President Hashemi Rafsanjai - who was a member of the original "cleansing" committee!

More than two decades of purges and "cultural cleansing" didn't prevent Iranian universities from becoming bastions of opposition to the Khomeinist ideology. In the 1990s, Iran experienced the largest and longest student revolt in its history. Then-President Muhammad Khatami crushed the revolt through the Revolutionary Guard with mass arrests and the expulsion of thousands of students.

Ahmadinejad launched his second "Islamic Cultural Revolution" last year by appointing a semiliterate mullah as chancellor of Tehran University - the first time that a cleric took charge of the nation's oldest and largest center of higher education.

Ahmadinejad's purge started last July with the replacement of 20-plus college deans. In almost every case, a bona fide academic was pushed out in favor of a Revolutionary Guard member.

If Vegas is taking bets on it, I’d put my money on Ahmadinejad’s stick around for the foreseeable future.

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

First nations: What do the Palestinians have in common with Maoris, Sami and Canada's First Nations people—aside from their sense of being the victims of Western interlopers who stole their land, I mean? According to the ever-helpful United Nations, they are all “indigenous people” whose “ human rights” are worthy of special recognition and protection. Such recognition was accorded last week when UN members overwhelmingly voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The only nay-sayers: New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. and Canada—Western nations with indigenous populations whose rights are already well-protected.

Why would the UN take pains to pass such a redundant declaration? It could be that UN members are so inordinately soft-hearted, kind, and determined to redress historical wrongs that they believed it behoved them to do so.

 

Then again, it could be because they hate Israel. From FrontPage Magazine:

...The Declaration’s purpose is to manufacture a synthetic global group identity among distinct, unrelated communities of people living within legally defined national jurisdictions all over the world. The characteristic that all of these folks are supposed to share in common, under the blanket title of “indigenous peoples”, is that they claim to be ‘first’ inhabitants in a given area of land whom ‘colonialist’ outsiders have sought to wipe out or exploit. The Declaration’s proponents believe that today’s globalization is nothing more than a continuation of this exploitation, which they call ‘neo-colonialism’. In their anti-Western, anti-capitalist worldview, which the Declaration embodies, technology, multi-national corporations and global markets are all driving forces in the exploitation of countless indigenous communities which stand in their way.

Although not legally binding as a treaty, the Declaration is intended by its proponents to set forth international norms to govern the collectivist rights of indigenous peoples over ‘their’ lands, resources and ‘traditional knowledge’. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (an advisory group under the UN’s Economic and Social Council), said that the Declaration "sets the minimum international standards for the protection and promotion of the rights of indigenous peoples. Therefore, existing and future laws, policies and programs of indigenous peoples will have to be redesigned and shaped to be consistent with this standard."[1]

Remember that you will not find any definition of “indigenous peoples” in the Declaration. It relies entirely on communities’ own self-identification as indigenous peoples, based on claims asserting historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies, a strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources, and different cultural, linguistic, traditional, and other characteristics to those of the dominant culture of that region or state. That could mean just about any self-declared minority group with alleged ties to an area of land can claim indigenous status, insist on self-determination over control of huge swaths of territory and resources within national borders and demand reparations for perceived wrongs against them and their ancestors.

Not surprisingly, for example, the Palestinians are asserting with a straight face that “Palestinian rights are enshrined in the universally accepted principle that land belongs to its indigenous inhabitants”.[2] They got help in this regard from a document published as far back as 1990 by the UN’s Division for Palestinian Rights, which contrasted the ‘outsider’ Zionists who came from Europe to establish the state of Israel with the “indigenous people of Palestine, whose forefathers had inhabited the land for virtually the two preceding millennia”.[3] Of course, under the UN principle of self-identification - which the Palestinians are all too happy to exploit to their political advantage - no proof is required of any Palestinian ties by birth, continuity of land possession, language, religion or tradition to the ancient idol-worshipping Canaanites whom Muslim Palestinians now conveniently claim to be their indigenous forebears. By contrast, Jews living in Israel today are indisputably connected by common religion, heritage and language to the ancient Hebrews who inhabited the land several millennia ago.

Masters of propaganda and of playing victim, the Palestinians have shamelessly linked their situation with that of indigenous groups such as the Six Nations Indian tribes in Canada. One of their motives is to whip up as much indigenous grassroots and sympathetic Leftist support as they can for their global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel by using the vocabulary of oppression, colonialism and apartheid that the Left loves to hear...

Just goes to show that one man's "indigenous people" is another man's (a Jew-hating anti-Zionist's, that is) oppressive, colonialist, apartheid state.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:46 | link | comments

Sheema’s con: In a small masterpiece of disingenuousness in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, CAIR-CAN founder Sheema Khan recalls how, as a girl in public school, she enjoyed hearing the Lord’s Prayer recited over the P.A. every morning. Listening to this Christian prayer made her feel all warm and tingly inside, allowing her “to relate to the spiritual calling of a faith different from my own – an experience that has served me well throughout life. And singing God Save the Queen instilled a sense of respect for authority.” Khan would like today's Muslim youngsters to have a chance to experience what she did. Oh, not by listening to an infidel prayer in an infidel public school—Allah forefend. No, Sheema wants them to be able to get their “spirtituality” and "respect for authority" at Islamic religious schools:

…Like those of other religious groups, a portion of Canadian Muslim parents wish to place their children in educational environments that imbibe religious values in harmony with their Canadian identity. There are Muslim schools in every major Canadian city, and the numbers are growing. These schools provide an environment conducive to daily prayer. During Ramadan, the schedule is eased for students who are fasting. A modicum of modesty (in dress and behaviour) is expected on the part of all students. Of course, not all is rosy. Some have financial problems, others can't find qualified teachers. Student discipline is sometimes a problem.

Despite these problems, Muslim and other religious schools seek to nurture children's spiritual and moral components. Does the public system have the luxury or the mandate to allow such exploration of spirituality, in this age of consumerism and self-indulgence? Most would answer no…

See, she only wants young Muslims to be able to explore their “spiritual” side and absorb all those Koran-based “spiritual” lessons that are the equivalent of “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.”

 

The Koran has tons of “spirituality” along those lines, right?

 

And if, along the way, young Muslims also imbibe what some of us might consider to be less than “spiritual” lessons—ones in which, say, Jews are described as apes and pigs and Allah and his Prophet unleash a seemingly endless stream of curses at them—well, that’s a small price to pay for “spiritual” fulfillment. And no doubt their teachers will be able to “contextualize” such “spirituality” in order to bring it in line with the larger society’s multiculti ethos.

 

Should it come to pass, however, that Ontarians fail to embrace the Tory plan—as now seems likely—Muslim parents who can’t afford private fees have another option: they can demand that public schools make, ahem, “accommodations” for their "spiritual" beliefs. Here, for example, is a step-by-step plan (it’s American, but equally applicable in Canada) parents can use to help bring the kind of "spritituality" mandated by sharia law into the public system.

 

To review: in the public system, accommodating sharia law can be seen as multicultural and contemporary; “The Lord’s Prayer” is seen as being hopelessly passé.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:54 | link | comments (2)

Unlikely envoy: If I had to point to the last person I would expect to describe herself as an "Ambassador for Judaism," it would have to be someone whose first name is "Madonna."

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

Ramadan astronauts: Islam Online reports that two Malaysians are vying for the honour of becoming the first Islamic faster in outer space:

CAIRO — Malaysia is hopeful that the country's first astronaut will also become the first Muslim to fast in space when he blasts off during Ramadan, the Sunday Star newspaper reported Sunday, September 16.

"It will be great if our astronaut chooses to fast. We are looking forward to having him relate his experience of fasting in space. I'm sure he is equally excited and will find it a thrilling experience," Anan C. Mohd, from Malaysia's Department of Islamic Development (JAKIM), said.

Anan said the astronaut could choose to fast in space or replace his fasting days when he returns to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft...

Um, better make that two Malaysians are vying for the honour of deferring Ramadan fasting until they’re safely back on the ground.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:07 | link | comments (1)

Size matters: In a sign of the times, and a highly symbolic one at that, a hotel complex in the Arab Emirate of Dubai has surpassed Toronto's CN Tower to become the highest free-standing structure in the world

In other words, their concrete phallus is bigger than our concrete phallus.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:54 | link | comments

Huzzahs for the Teddy Roosevelt approach: An editorial in the Boston Herald applauds the deft way Israel has handled the terror-sponsoring (and nuclear warhead-accumulating) Syrians:

Israel has just given the world a good example of the virtues of speaking softly and carrying a big stick.

This past week Israel launched airstrikes over northern Syria and said absolutely nothing. At last, Syria has to pay real penalties for its aid to terrorists.

There were not even any leaks out of the leakiest government in the Western world. What is known comes from other capitals, notably Washington.

The airstrike near the border with Turkey hit a shipment of weapons supplied by Iran and destined for the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, according to a U.S. military official. (It wasn’t known whether this official was relying on information from the Israelis or on U.S. intelligence such as satellite photos.)

An earlier report said Israel attacked nuclear material sent to Syria by North Korea. Another report said the attack was on sophisticated new missiles. Hezbollah said Israel was testing an air route for a later attack on Iran. Any of those would be good reasons for action.

Arab countries were mostly silent. Syria complained to the United Nations about a violation of its airspace, which took some brass since arming private groups in Lebanon like Hezbollah was forbidden by the Security Council resolution that ended Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah last year. Syria did not admit that a real target had been bombed, claiming only that Israeli planes dropped fuel tanks and munitions to enhance their getaway after Syrian anti-aircraft defenses opened up. There were indications that Syria was grateful for Israel’s silence. North Korea denounced the attack, which raises the possibility that North Korea was indeed the ultimate source of the arms.

What counts is the conclusion that Syria draws. It should conclude that it is safer to stop supplying arms to Hezbollah and to Hamas, the terror group that controls Gaza on Israel’s southern border, as it has for years. Further, it should conclude that the smart course is to return to the negotiations with Israel that were broken off in 2000. Other countries trying to destabilize their neighbors would do well to take note.

The Herald is right. A honking big hole in the ground is likely to make a far bigger impression—both literally and figuratively—than, say, talking softy about returning the Golan Heights and wielding no discernable weapon at all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:18 | link | comments (1)

Today's funny photo: BFFs Moo and Hu demonstrate that popular Iranian folk dance, The Tube.  It's the same one performed last year by jubilant Shias at a public ceremony celebrating Iran's entry into the nuclear club. At that time revelers clutched tiny test tubes containing simulated fissionable matter, but Moo and Hu have become so adept at the dance that they don't need real tubes:

 

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

All you need is love—and a really good plan for dealing with the jihadis: At a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 jihadi attack, Massachussets Governor Deval Patrick told the assembled that the reason Mo Atta and Co. hijacked  those airplanes was attributable to “a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other."

That’s right. The Lennonesque Gov. Patrick apparently believes 9/11 occurred not because of the resurgent jihad, but due to the marked scarcity of hugging at the international level.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Mark Steyn, for one, is less than enraptured with the gov’s anachronistic, hippy-dippy message. From the OC Register:

…I was laughing so much I lost control of the wheel, and the guy in the next lane had to swerve rather dramatically. He flipped me the Universal Symbol of Human Understanding. I certainly understood him, though I'm not sure I could learn to love him. Anyway, I drove on to Boston and pondered the governor's remarks. He had made them, after all, before an audience of 9/11 families: Six years ago, two of the four planes took off from Logan Airport, and so citizens of Massachusetts ranked very high among the toll of victims. Whether any of the family members present Tuesday were offended by Gov. Patrick, no one cried "Shame!" or walked out on the ceremony.

 

Americans are generally respectful of their political eminences, no matter how little they deserve it.

We should beware anyone who seeks to explain 9/11 by using the words "each other": They posit a grubby equivalence between the perpetrator and the victim – that the "failure to understand" derives from the culpability of both parties. The 9/11 killers were treated very well in the United States: They were ushered into the country on the high-speed visa express program the State Department felt was appropriate for young Saudi males. They were treated cordially everywhere they went. The lap-dancers at the clubs they frequented in the weeks before the Big Day gave them a good time – or good enough, considering what lousy tippers they were. Sept. 11 didn't happen because we were insufficient in our love to Mohamed Atta.

 

This isn't a theoretical proposition. At some point in the future, some of us will find ourselves on a flight with a chap like Richard Reid, the thwarted shoe-bomber. On that day we'd better hope the guy sitting next to him isn't Gov. Patrick, who sees him bending down to light his sock and responds with a chorus of "All You Need Is Love," but a fellow who "understands" enough to wallop the bejesus out of him before he can strike the match. It was the failure of one group of human beings to understand that the second group of human beings was determined to kill them that led the crew and passengers of those Boston flights to stick with the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late.

 

Unfortunately, the obsolescent 1970s multiculti love-groove inclinations of society at large are harder to dislodge. If you'll forgive such judgmental categorizations, this isn't about "them," it's about "us." The long-term survival of any society depends on what proportion of its citizens thinks as Gov. Patrick does. Islamism is an opportunist enemy but you can't blame them for seeing the opportunity: In that sense, they understand us far more clearly than Gov. Patrick understands them…

 

Which, all in all, doesn’t bode well for our ability to turn back the tide.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:22 | link | comments

Don’t get no closer, Tiny Hitler: Can’t hardly wait till the pint-sized ‘Slamonazi arrives for his return engagement at the Turtle Bay arena. I have it on good authority that singer Elton John, who, as you’ll recall, revised his song “Candle in the Wind” for the occasion of Diana’s funeral, has kindly consented to open the proceedings with a revamped version of another of his beloved melodies:

Bearded smiler.

Jew-reviler.

Fart catcher for the boys.

Ayatollahs,

Holy rollahs,

Makin’ a lot of noise.

Bloviator, Great Satan-hater, star of the global scene.

And now he’s comin’, and folks are hummin’.

Tiny Hitler here to preen.

 

Mahdi-freak, he will speak,

Hurling his insults far and wide.

No turnin’ back now.

He’s on his track now.

Setting the stage for genocide.

 

Shia man he takes his stand

For enriched uranium.

Looking out he starts to shout

The words he knows, the tune he hums.

But how unreal it feels

Going though this déjà vu.
If only we could hear, could really hear him

When he talks loudly, clearly.

 

Swallow poison, Tiny Hitler.

Do us all a great big favour.

Lay you out in shroud of linen.

Put you in an unmarked grave there.

 

Bearded smiler.

Jew-reviler.

Fart catcher for the boys.