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

No mercy: If you’re a Christian pastor or a stand-up Guy who says something that hurts the feelings of gays and lesbians such that a complaint is lodged with one or more of Canada's Virtue Enforcement bodies, it's a safe bet that you’re going to get chewed out and forced to publicly "repent" for your anti-social utterances. If, however, you’re an aggrieved gay or lesbian and you complain to the body that oversees Canadian broadcasting because during the course of the Ceeb shill-com about an adorable wee mosque one or more of its cuddly characters happens to say much the same thing as the minister and the comic, it's a whole 'nother ball game. As the Ceeb explains re a CRTC decision

The Canadian Radio and Television Commission reviewed a complaint about the Season One episode "Traditional Mother" -- in which the characters Fatima, Baber and Fred voiced disapproval of homosexuality and same-sex marriage -- and decided that the episode did not constitute abusive comment about gays and lesbians.

The CRTC ruled that Little Mosque wasn't promoting anti-gay views but was portraying them as they exist in parts of Canadian society.

Read more about the case at CRTC Finds No 'Abusive Comments' in CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie at broadcastermagazine.com. Link

Memo to Rev. Stephen Boisson and Guy Earle: time to pack up and move to Mercy, Saskatchewan.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:59 | link | comments

Sex in a cold climate: It was the rakish Pierre E. Trudeau who once famously defined a Canadian as someone who “knows how to make love in a canoe.” Having never attempted the feat myself (because, let’s face it, who, save for PET, ever has?), I can foresee canoe-canoodling as one of many possible plotlines if and when Canada’s very own porn channel—Northern Peaks—ever comes to fruition. (The channel is awaiting final approval, which hinges largely on a willingness to include a certain amount of “Canadian content”; the broadcasting powers-that-be apparently believe that our national identity will be better served if porn actresses can fake an orgasm in two official languages.) Here are a few other suggestions for Northern Peaks productions:

·         The Friendly Giant: He’s really “friendly,” if you know what I mean. 

·         Candy Does Kamloops: Also, Stacy Does Saskatoon; Wendy Does Winnipeg; and Annie Does Attawapiskat. 

·         Anne of Blue Gables: Fairly self-explanatory, I’d say. 

·         Michelle, Michelle: A young girl’s strange, erotic journey from Moncton to Moose Jaw.

·         Emily of New Moons: Small town gal travels to the big city for a caboose enhancement; post-recovery, hijinks ensure.

·         Come-By-Chance: The story of how residents of a small Newfoundland town attempt to overcome their sexual ineptitude. (Hint: a visit to the town of  Dildo helps.)

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

How some Pakistani faithful deal with uppity chicks: They murder them, of course. From AP via the Toronto Star:

Women buried alive in 'honour' killings

ISLAMABAD–A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament this week to spare him their outrage.

"These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, said Saturday. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.''

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch.

They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according media reports and human rights activists, who said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing

Zehri told a packed and flabbergasted Parliament on Friday that Baluch tribal traditions helped stop obscenity and then asked fellow lawmakers not to make a big fuss about it.

Many stood up in protest, saying the executions were "barbaric" and demanding that discussions continue Monday. But a handful said it was an internal matter of the deeply conservative province.

"I was shocked," said lawmaker Nilofar Bakhtiar, who pushed for legislation calling for perpetrators of so-called honour killings to be punished when she served as minister of women's affairs under the last government.

"I feel that we've gone back to the starting point again," she said. "It's really sad for me.''

The incident allegedly occurred one month ago in Baba Kot, a remote village in Jafferabad district, after the women decided to defy tribal elders and arrange marriages in a civil court, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission.

They were said to have been abducted at gunpoint by six men, forced into a vehicle and taken to a remote field, where they were beaten, shot and then buried alive, it said, accusing local authorities of trying to hush up the killings.

One of perpetrators was allegedly related to a top provincial official, it said.

To describe this crime as having anything to do with “honour” is beyond revolting.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:33 | link | comments

Just in time for Ramadan: A woman reporter from the Telegraph goes undercover to get the scoop on what the faithful are being exposed to at London’s most famous mosque:

In a large balcony above the beautiful main hall at Regent's Park Mosque in London - widely considered the most important mosque in Britain - I am filming undercover as the woman preacher gives her talk.

What should be done to a Muslim who converts to another faith? "We kill him," she says, "kill him, kill, kill…You have to kill him, you understand?"

Adulterers, she says, are to be stoned to death - and as for homosexuals, and women who "make themselves like a man, a woman like a man ... the punishment is kill, kill them, throw them from the highest place".

These punishments, the preacher says, are to be implemented in a future Islamic state. "This is not to tell you to start killing people," she continues. "There must be a Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough."

A young female student from the group interrupts her: the punishment should also be to stone the homosexuals to death, once they have been thrown from a high place.

These are teachings I never expected to hear inside Regent's Park Mosque, which is supposedly committed to interfaith dialogue and moderation, and was set up more than 60 years ago, to represent British Muslims to the Government. And many of those listening were teenage British girls or, even more disturbingly, young children.

My investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches came after last year's Undercover Mosque, which investigated claims that teachings of intolerance and fundamentalism were spreading through Britain's mosques from the Saudi Arabian religious establishment - which is closely linked to the Saudi Arabian government.

In response, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia denied it was spreading intolerance, while Regent's Park Mosque, which featured in the film, urged all mosques to be "vigilant" and monitor what was taught on their premises.

So earlier this year, dressed in a full Islamic jilbaab, I went back to Regent's Park Mosque to see what was being taught there. As a woman, I had to go to the main female section, where I found this circle preaching every Saturday and Sunday, eight hours at a time, to any woman who has come to pray.

The mosque is meant to promote moderation and integration. But although the circle does preach against terrorism and does not incite Muslims to break British laws, it teaches Muslims to "keep away" and segregate themselves from disbelievers: "Islam is keeping away from disbelief and from the disbelievers, the people who disbelieve."

Friendship with non-Muslims is discouraged because "loyalty is only to the Muslim, not to the kaffir [disbeliever]".

A woman who was friendly with a non-Muslim woman was heavily criticised: "It's part of Islam, of the correct belief, that you love those who love Allah and that you hate those who hate Allah."

One preacher even says Muslims shouldn't live in Britain at all: "It is not befitting for Muslims that he should reside in the land of evil, the land of the kuffaar, the land of the disbelievers."

Another, Um Saleem, says Muslims should not take British citizenship as their loyalty is to Allah.

"Some conditions can take you into disbelief, to take the British citizenship, whether you like it or not, for these people, you are selling your religion, it's a very serious thing, it is not allowed to give allegiance to other than Allah."

Their teachings shocked me. This was not the Islam that I and many other Muslims in the UK were taught as youngsters, nor is it a version that most Muslims follow.

I was amazed at how many young British women seemed to find this version of the faith attractive. One young girl told me that when she first attended the circle, she was dressed in jeans and that she had many non-Muslim friends. She now loves only those that are around her - "other sisters in the circle" - and only engages with non-Muslims to try to convert them. Many of the sisters had the idea of living as a separate community - a concept alien to me and many other Muslims I know…

Not surprisingly, the mosque is deeply committed to bamboozling the kaffirs, er, interfaith dialogue:

Regent's Park Mosque has a major interfaith department, which arranges visits from the Government, the civil service, representatives of other religions and thousands of British school children a year.

I watched as an interfaith group was brought in to meet the mosque's women's circle for a civilised exchange. But when the interfaith group wasn't there, the preacher attacked other faiths, and the very concept of interfaith dialogue.

One preacher said of Christians praying in a church: "What are these people doing in there, these things are so vile, what they say with their tongues is so vile and disgusting, it's an abomination." As for the concept of interfaith live-and-let-live: "This is false. It does not work. This concept is a lie, it is fake, and it is a farce."

Like many of the other women at the circle, I was soon invited to private sessions in houses around London, to "learn more" about Islam - or their version of Islam….

By now it should be abundantly clear that “their version of Islam” is pretty much the real deal.

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

Clueless in Toronto: The Toronto Star has a simple explanation for the appallingly high rate of infant mortality in Afghanistan—it’s a function of “poverty”. (Hey, isn’t it always?) Others— for example, Reuters—have a different explanation:

HONG KONG (Reuters) - High child mortality rates in conservative Afghanistan are linked not just to war but to mothers being uneducated and having little or no say when their children need medical help, a study has found.

Child mortality rates in Afghanistan are among the highest in the world, and one out of every five Afghan children (or 191 out of every 1,000 live births) will not survive beyond age five.

The study of 2,474 children from 1,327 households in Kabul province found that diarrhoea (32.5 percent), acute respiratory infection (41 percent), emaciation (12.4 percent) and stuntedness (39.9 percent) were among the most common health problems, said the article published in the latest issue of BioMed Central Public Health.

"As in other countries, the primary caregivers of small children in Afghanistan are their mothers; however, in this country, mothers are subject to a number of restrictions in the decision-making process regarding child healthcare," said the article published by a team of Afghan and Japanese researchers.

The researchers said they interviewed mothers of the children and found the problems correlated most closely with mothers not having any autonomy (79.1 percent) and education (71.7 percent).

Up to 18.3 percent of the mothers also delivered their first child before they were 16, which meant they were married when they were still children, the researchers wrote.

A shortage of basic material needs was also observed in 59.1 percent of the households….

Notice how the lefty Star bumped up “a shortage of basic material needs” to top of the list (since the numero uno reason—lack of female education and power in sharia-ridden Afghanistan—doesn’t jibe with its multishmulti mindset).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:34 | link | comments

Hope ‘n’ change, “interfaith”-style: Gullible dhimmis take heed. The real aim of “interfaith” outreach is revealed in this Islam Online article (my bolds):

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the spirit of Ramadan and the need for change, the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) kicked off its annual convention with a joint "2008 interfaith build" in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity and several Jewish and Christian organizations.

 

"We collaborated this effort with Habitat for Humanity because we believe that housing can be a means for elevating poverty," Mohamed Elsanousi, ISNA Director of Communications and Community Outreach, told IslamOnline.net.

He added that the efforts falls in line with the spirit of this year convention's theme, "Ramadan – A Time for Change."

"We always encourage people that Ramadan is an opportunity to change, but if we can continue to keep up with the spirit of Ramadan for the betterment of the society then that’s wonderful."

ISNA invited Habitat’s CEO Jonathan T.M. Reckford to come and address its convention, which kicked off on Friday, August 29, and run through September 1.

"They (ISNA) were going to focus on poverty and of course housing goes along with that," Danielle Turnage, the Special Events Manager for Habitat for Humanity, told IOL.

"We are advocates for making sure that everyone has simple basic shelter and so it was a natural fit for us to be involved."

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing organization building simple, decent, affordable housing in partnership with people in need.

Among those present for the interfaith event was Reverend. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, which represents some 45 million members from 100,000 local congregations.

He was accompanied a group of about twenty VIPs representing the three monotheistic religions on this interfaith build project.

Representatives from most of the national Muslim organizations also took part in this humanitarian project.

Timely, Fitting

Tamima and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Sarah, traveled all the way from New Jersey to attend the ISNA conference.

They believe this year's theme was "very fitting" and "gives us a little perspective on how to start our month."

"I think again it is very time appropriate since Ramadan is about to start and with the whole election coming up and the whole change thing," notes Tamima, who has Pakistani backgrounds.

Pamela Wilcoxson, a recent convert who attended last year's ISNA convention in Chicago, is accompanying her friend Barbara Pouros, who is attending ISNA for the first time.

Both are excited about the conference and its theme.

Nelly, who currently lives in the United Arab Emirates with her husband, feels the theme reminds her of the Democratic National Convention because of the emphasis on change.

Robert Engel, a convert to Islam, believes the theme indicating a need for change in the spirit of Ramadan fits well with ISNA’s efforts to reach out to followers of other faiths and work towards a common goal of ending poverty.

"Since I used to be a Christian, I like the interfaith work that they offer."

You gotta hand it to these guys. Piggy-backing on Habitat for Humanity, a cause that’s right up there with motherhood and the environment, is a brilliant way to rope in the guileless dhimmis—and maybe even persuade a few of them to opt for “change”.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:10 | link | comments (1)

Beware the insidious swoon: Phyllis Chessler has some thoughts on the rapture of Denver:

…What frightened me about the evening [when “The One” gave his acceptance speech] was this: Each of the average American citizens who spoke, including two former Republicans who are now voting for Obama, had clearly been rehearsed in the Saul Alinsky-style of Method Acting. They spoke as if they were at a left political rally on a soapbox or in the street, gesturing largely, speaking loudly, grandstanding, repeating slogans and gestures over and over again. “Yes we Can.” None spoke “naturally,” or from the heart.

This canned performance coupled with one other reported fact troubled me. Several newscasters said that people openly wept when Obama began to speak. And kept on weeping. I myself saw some weeping faces: Young girls, older African-American men, middle aged white women, the Hollywood celebrities. Even Oprah was quoted as saying that “Nothing compares” (to this evening). The tears, plus the largeness of the choreographed event (85,000 people were in Invesco Field) brought to mind other large political rallies where leaders have held their people spellbound, often for hours.

No, I am not going to compare Obama to Hitler, Castro or Khomeini; that would simply not be true or fair. And yet, these are very dangerous times. People need to keep their heads about them, not lose them in a swoon. A Cult of Personality will not save America…

Of course it won’t, but the swoon is like a drug that causes feelings of elation and euphoria, and for plenty of people looking for a quick “fix” (in both senses of the word), it’s awfully hard to resist:

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:48 | link | comments (1)

Moon watchers: Despite the technological advancements of the 21^st Centry, espying the orb that signals the start of the Muslim holy month in still an inexact, er, science. From the Washington Post:

…The 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference even proposed to launch a satellite to monitor the moon for Ramadan.

Science has also allowed precise tracking of the moon and the sun, allowing astronomers to know in advance that the crescent moon starting Ramadan will be visible in the Middle East no sooner than Sunday.

In the parking lot and in most of the Middle East, technology deferred to religion. Astronomers went through the motions, at least, of looking for the crescent.

"It's a matter of Islamic law we have to be here. But it's 100 percent sure we're not going to see it today," Faleh Mohammed, head of one of Egypt's government astronomy institute, told the al-Jazeera reporter.

A rumor went through the crowd that Libya had announced the start of Ramadan -- different countries often pick different days for the start and squabble over each other's decisions.

Mohammed scoffed. "What do they see in Libya that we don't see with our telescopes?" he asked.

Mohammed Yousuf, an astronomer in his eighth year of moon-watch duty, rose from another telescope.

The last time a member of a moon-watch committee thought he had spotted a crescent moon at this point in the lunar month was in 1991, Yousuf said. Other members of the committee were able to convince the man he had seen light glancing off a bird's wings, and error was averted, Yousuf said.

Even in Muhammad's time, Yousuf recounted, a man who believed he had spotted the crescent moon was about to announce Ramadan to the world -- until a friend leaned in and removed a stray eyelash from the man's eye.

At the next telescope over, astronomer Ahmed Mohem Fathi grumbled at Cairo's pollution, thick enough to veil any moon.

By 6 p.m., Mohammed was speeding off, rushing toward a news conference in Cairo with some of Egypt's top religious and government officials to announce the findings.

The word of Egypt's grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, would be: No moon Saturday, therefore the moon's appearance Sunday was inevitable, and Ramadan would start Monday…

 Can’t hardly wait.

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

“Compensation” or jizya?: Italy is forking over molto lira to Libya because once, some years ago, it occupied it in a colonial manner. From the Ceeb:

Italy agreed Saturday to pay Libya $5 billion US as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in 1943.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi signed a memorandum pledging a $5 billion US compensation package involving construction projects, student grants and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during the Second World War.

"It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours during the colonial era," Berlusconi told reporters at the airport on his arrival. "This agreement opens the path to further co-operation."

In return, Italy wants Libya to crack down on illegal migrants turning up on Italian shores, and Italy will fund $500 million US worth of electronic monitoring devices on the Libyan coastline.

Gadhafi received Berlusconi under a big tent in Benghazi where they discussed the agreement over lunch. The Italian leader said $200 million US of the package would be for infrastructure projects over the next 25 years, including a coastal highway stretching across the country from Tunisia to Egypt.

The two leaders exchanged gifts, with Berlusconi giving Gadhafi a silver inkstand, sculpted in the form of a lion's head, with two pens inside with which to sign the agreement. The Libyan leader gave Berlusconi a linen suit.

Berlusconi's office said in a statement that the premier would also hand over to Gadhafi the Venus of Cyrene, an ancient Roman statue taken in 1913 by Italian troops from the ruins of the Greek and Roman settlement of Cyrene, on the Libyan coast.

Relations between the two countries have warmed over the last few years, with Italian leaders meeting Gadhafi several times. However, it has taken years of negotiations for the two sides to reach a deal on compensation for Italy's rule over Libya from 1911 to 1943.

Libya named Aug. 30 Libyan-Italian Friendship Day.

Not much of a “friendship” if you have to pay for it. More like the tax that dhimmis are obliged to pay their overlords—and/or a bribe to induce Libyan officials to keep their nationals from flooding into and occupying the former “colonizer”.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:22 | link | comments

Lennon's useful idiots: This one's for the B'nai Brith, the organization that wants to accomplish the impossible--a useful "overhaul" of Canada's state censorship system:

You say you want to use the censors

Well, you know

We all wanna shape the land.

You say that curbing “hate” defends us

Well, you know

It’s not in “all thy son’s command.”

And when you want to curb our freedom

Don’t you know that you can count me out?

 

Don’t you know ain’t gonna be

Alright?

Alright?

Alright?

 

You say you’ve got a real solution.

Well, you know

It’s a cockamamie plan.

You say it’s made a contribution

Well, you know

Frank Dimant says it’s very grand.

But if you participate in the whole national farce

All I can say is that it's gonna bite your arse.

 

Don’t you know ain’t gonna be

Alright?

Alright?

Alright?

 

You say you’ll “tweak” the legislation.

Well, you know,

Ain’t no point in doin’ that.

You’ve come up with a calculation.

Well, you know

It’s gonna fall so fla-a-a-at.

And if you go citing the thoughts of Pierre Trudeau

Ain't never can get where we need to go.

 

Don’t you know ain’t gonna be

Alright?

Alright?

Alright?

Alright?

Alright?

Alright?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:55 | link | comments (1)

French candour: We’re awfully quick to criticize France for its profound cluelessness. It is, after all, the land of countless “no go” zones and pyromanical lads from les Bainlieues. But ask yourself this: Could the novel du jour in France, which depicts how Nazism and Islamism intersect and overlap, find a publisher in North America? Here’s the City Journal review:

Boualem Sansal, Le village de l’Allemand: ou le journal des frères Schiller (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 264 pp., 2008)

While Americans and their elected officials do everything they can to avoid even the appearance of criticizing Islam or using such words as “Islamist,” the French public seems to suffer from no such inhibitions, at least not in the area of fiction. For example, it has embraced Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal’s Le village de l’Allemand (The Village of the German), a plainspoken masterpiece that boldly uncovers the affinities between Nazism and Islamism. In March, the novel won the RTL-Lire 2008 prize, which is awarded by a jury of 100 readers chosen by 20 bookstores throughout France. One wonders how an American readership might receive such a book.

The German of the title is a former SS officer who serves in a number of extermination camps during World War II. After the war, he is smuggled out of Germany to Istanbul and then Cairo. From there, the Egyptian government dispatches him to Algeria during its war of independence in the 1950s. His job: to support the insurrection by training Front de Libération Nationale fighters. He subsequently settles down in a remote village, where he soon becomes the highly respected sheikh.

Sansal slowly reveals the German’s story through the eyes of his two sons. Half German and half Algerian, they are sent as boys to live in France. Their discoveries begin when the elder brother, Rachel (an amalgamation of “Rachid” and “Helmut”), returns to his native village in the mid-1990s after terrorists murder his parents. Clues among the dead sheikh’s possessions lead Rachel on an increasingly agonizing search to reconstruct his father’s life in places like Auschwitz. Devastated by what he learns about the Holocaust, the son commits suicide to atone for his father’s sins.

The second son, Malrich (from “Malek” and “Ulrich”), is a creature of the banlieues, French suburbs that have become violent Muslim ghettos. His common sense has already helped him reject an attempt by the local Islamist imam to recruit him, but he continues to drift along with little hope for the future, among friends with similarly bleak prospects. Malrich learns about his father by reading the diary that Rachel has left behind. His reaction is to fight back—not against the Nazis, who are in any case long dead, but against the Islamists, whom he sees as essentially of the same ilk.

Malrich realizes that the Islamists are immeasurably more determined, stronger, and better organized than he and his little band of friends. The Islamists also have the implicit support of the French authorities, who are primarily concerned with keeping things quiet. The only weapon available is the power of the word: Malrich is determined to warn others of the danger, regardless of the risks he faces. His final interview with the local imam is heavy with threats.

The novel is rooted in reality. During his travels in Algeria, Sansal came across an actual village de l’allemand by accident. He then researched the headman’s story, learning along the way that it wasn’t unusual. An estimated 2,000 former Nazis settled in Egypt after World War II. They included Johannes von Leers, formerly Goebbels’s favorite propagandist of annihilation, who under Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was responsible for anti-Jewish propaganda. Other former Nazis organized police forces or, like Sansal’s headman, served as military trainers.

The sons’ ignorance of the Holocaust is similarly based on sad truths of history. Sansal, in an interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, stresses that the Holocaust is never mentioned in Algeria: “The fact is that never, until today, has Algerian television shown a film or a documentary on the subject, never has an official breathed a word about it nor, as far as I know, has an intellectual written on the theme.” Though Rachel and Malrich grow up in France, not Algeria, their knowledge of the Holocaust is also rudimentary. And indeed, with growing resistance among Muslim schoolchildren to any history lessons about the Holocaust, the level of knowledge in many French schools may soon resemble that of their Algerian counterparts.

The intertwining of the hatred that once led to extermination of the Jews and the potential of radical Islam is the book’s deliberate theme. According to Sansal, “the border between Islamism and Nazism is very slim.” Or as Malrich comments: “When I see what the Islamists do here and elsewhere, I tell myself that they will exceed the Nazis if one day they come to power.” In Malrich’s eyes, the Islamists are already taking over the Muslim banlieues, running them like concentration camps. The inhabitants do not know how to react. “We are like the deportees back then,” Malrich reflects. “Caught up in the machinery, rendered immobile by fear, fascinated by evil, we wait with secret hope that docility will save us.”…

Sounds like the type of expression that could get an author hauled in front of a Canadian “human rights” “court” to account for—and be forced to recant—his/her “Islamophobic” tendencies.

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

“Peace” on their terms: Once you understand that Islam’s conception of “peace” (i.e. the “peace” that will--that can only--prevail once sharia rule does, too) and the West’s conception (i.e. the permanent cessation of hostilities between nations; the end of any totalitarian drive to make others submit to your authority) are diametrically opposed to one another, the following story from an Iran news site about that nation’s and Islam's “peaceful” intentions makes perfect sense (my bolds):

TEHRAN, Aug 30--A senior Iranian military commander has warned that any US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic would start a world war III, the state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

"Any aggression against Iran will start a world war III," Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces for Cultural Affairs, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by the agency.

He reiterated that the so-called leading countries are falling and the world will soon witness great developments. He said that Islam and the Islamic Republic call for international peace and co-existence.

"Teachings of Islam and the aspirations of the Islamic Revolution uphold peace and tranquility throughout the globe and are totally against war and escalation of tension being stirred by the US and Zionism, the Brigadier General said.

Jazayeri underlined the need for promotion of peace and stability in the world. "It is evident that if such a challenge occurs, the fake and artificial regimes will be eliminated before anything," he said, without naming any countries.

The extremist and expansionist policies of Washington and Tel Aviv which have been manifested in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and recently in the Caucasus, have endangered the entire world.

The United States and its staunch ally the Zionist regime, the region's sole nuclear armed regime, allegedly accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran has repeatedly denied the allegations, insisting its nuclear drive is aimed solely at providing electricity for a growing population when its reserves of fossil fuels run out.

And if, during the course of Islam’s pursuit of “international peace and co-existence,” a little bit of taqiyaah about the true purpose of Iran’s “nuclear drive” is called for, well, a Mahdi-obsessed mullocracy’s gotta do what it’s gotta do (like, say, wipe out that pesky Jewish entity that's both an insult and rebuke to everything Islam holds dear).

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:36 | link | comments

The Beeb soft-peddles rape: A Canadian woman was raped while poking around one of France’s lesser known “no go” zones—a camp where illegal immigrants help smuggle other illegal immigrants across the channel to the U.K.—but the Beeb wants us to know how nice these illegals are, and how rarely such crimes occur (my emphases):

…[Vice-prosecutor] Mr Muller said there was a strong possibility that the rapist was a people smuggler or a migrant and had since left the country.

 

"We fear he may well have already gone, possibly to England or to another French port. It is also possible he has gone to Belgium or the Netherlands," he said.

 

Mr Muller said detectives had traces of the attacker's DNA and also his fingerprints.

 

The camp, in Woodland near the Calais ferry terminal, is one of several where illegal immigrants wait for the chance to smuggle themselves across the English Channel.

 

Many pay hundreds or even thousands of euros to trafficking gangs to get them across.

 

Mr Muller said the attacker had told his victim he wanted to show her something and led her into one of the makeshift shelters. That was where the attack took place.

 

The victim - who has lived most of her life in the UK - is said to be still in shock and is being helped by the Pas-de-Calais Victim Support Association.

 

A police spokesman said: "You have to be very careful when entering these camps.

 

"The people there, mostly men, have an illegal status, they have no job and no home. The Jungle is a dangerous place and it's not safe to go there."

 

Father Jean-Pierre Boutoille, of the French refugee charity C'Sur, said it was not certain the attacker was an immigrant.

 

"The prosecutor said he can't say whether the rapist was an illegal immigrant or not but they do know he spoke fluent French," he said.

 

Inhumane conditions

"This suggests he was therefore not actually an illegal immigrant but someone else who was in the wood at that time as most of the illegal immigrants don't speak French."

 

He said that in six years of working with refugees he had never heard of such an attack by any of them.

 

"The immigrants in these camps are very respectful people and many are practising Muslims. The conditions they live in here are inhumane," he said.  

 

In 2005 a group of migrants was reportedly implicated in the rape of a resident of Oye-Plage near Calais but such cases are said to be rare.

 

Yeah, I’m sure these folks are real salt of the earth types. And on the rare occasions when such attacks do occur, no doubt they are due to “discrimination,” “desperation” and “poverty”.

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

More useless "tweaking": Last November I had occasion to see the anti-hate industry in all its glory at the Combating Hatred Conference. That was back in the days when my understanding of the human rights system and how it was proscribing our most precious freedom--free speech--was, shall we say, less than complete. One of the speakers who made a particular impression on me, though, was B'nai Brith Canada's David Matas. What struck me at the time was that, for reasons I couldn't then fathom, he went on and on about Jew-haters past (Keegstra, Ross et al) and the BB's role in silencing them via our nation's anti-hate mechanisms. It sounded like very old news to me, and I couldn't help but wonder why on earth he would dredge it up, thereby preventing these pipsqueaks from fading back into their much deserved obscurity. Now, in the fullness of time, I understand the reasoning: it's so that Canada's Jews can retain their false sense of security by employing the power of the state to play Whack-a-Mole with local "Nazis".

One of my free-speecher colleagues (h/t BCF) was kind enough to send me the B'nai Brith's plan for overhauling our anti-hate system. The document shows that the BB "gets it" re the OIC and its "sharia first" agenda, but remains doggedly blind to the damage that civic censorship inflicts on a free society. Ironically, it's the censorship itself that will allow the OIC agenda to slip in through the doors marked "Human Rights" and "Islamophobia". Would that the BB, an organization that has played the victim card so successfully for so long, could see that censorship is the problem, not the solution; would that it had a clue that its rennovation scheme--preventing one designated victim group (the one trying to shut down the discussion about the jihad and sharia) from availing itself of the system while allowing another designated victim group (the one fighting the "Nazis") unfettered access to it--is a non-starter. The way it works here in multishmulti Kanuckistan is that either everyone gets to kvetch to the Thought Cops, or no one does.

How long must we wait before the BB "gets" that?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:15 | link | comments (1)

Reflections on the DNC: Our northern aerie had satellite, so I was able to catch a bit of the Democrats' Mile High City Hope 'n' Change Salvation Show (a bit being about all I could stomach). My thoughts, in verse:

The Bush years have caused such a panic

That they long for an age Messianic.

Is Obama “The One,”

Both Father and Son?

Or will he sink like a human Titanic?

 

The latter, one hopes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:53 | link | comments

Our tax dollars in action: It isn’t enough that Canadian taxpayers are funding the planning of Hamas infrastructure in Gaza via a CIDA initiative; we’re also on the hook for this--a Canadian Arab Federation/Heritage Canada project designed to “illustrate the contributions and accomplishments of Arab Canadians in Visual Arts, Music & Dance, Literature and Film.”

Who wants to bet that at least some of these “contributions” involve hyping Palestinian “oppression” and bashing that pesky Jewish entity that persists in, er, existing?

Don't miss the "Mission" link, a classic of multishmulti victim-group-speak.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:16 | link | comments (3)

Freaky “tweaking”:  Just blew back into town after a week away, and had to respond to this piece of blithering idiocy in yesterday’s Globe and Mail. Here’s my letter:

I don’t know what’s more alarming: the fact that Ontario’s Human Rights Commission has been “tweaked” such that it is an even bigger drain on taxpayers and has been granted even greater powers of search and seizure than it had before, or the fact that the “tweaking” involves searching for even more know-nothing censors to sit in judgement over what Ontarians ought not to say.

Let’s call it a toss-up and pray that “famously antagonist right-wing author” Mark Steyn, who’s been on vacation ever since his encounter with the British Columbia censors back in June, gets back to excoriating our nation’s thought police A.S.A.P.; his voice has been sorely missed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:26 | link | comments

One more before I go: Don't miss this “Islamophobic” report from the Daily Mail about the hard-to-nail-down provenance of potential terrorists:

Potential Islamist terrorists in Britain are not religious extremists or illegal immigrants, a leaked MI5 report warns.

The internal study of hundreds of known and suspected radicals says it is difficult to identify those most likely to commit atrocities as they often have well-paid jobs and families and are 'demographically unremarkable'.

The Security Service report concludes that the vast majority are British nationals or in the country legally.

Slipping under the radar: The July 7 bombers arrive at Luton station to head for London for their suicide attacks. Future terrorists may be no easier to identify, MI5 warns

It says half are born here. The rest includes people who originally came to study or to join family or for economic reasons, as well as asylum-seekers who had fled oppressive regimes or violence. Many of these only became radicalised years after arriving.

Very few have come from highly religious households and most only practise their faith occasionally. The proportion of converts is above average.

Some are even known to have taken drugs, drunk alcohol and visited prostitutes.

But they are not especially prone to mental health problems or pathological personality traits.

They come from ethnic backgrounds as diverse as Pakistani, Middle Eastern and Caucasian.

Most have become radicalised in their early to mid-20s but a significant minority have not done so until later. Those over 30 are just as likely to have a wife and children as to be loners with no ties.

Radical clerics are also playing less of a role now in radicalising future terrorists, according to the 'restricted' briefing note, published in the Guardian today.

The research was carried out by the security service's behavioural science unit and involved analysis of several hundred people linked to violent extremism through activities ranging from fundraising to planning suicide bombings in Britain.

Overall they are 'a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism', the study says.

In other words, they emanate from what you could call "a broad strata of society."  And here's the impossible to swallow kicker:

MI5 praises mainstream Islam, stating there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.

Riiiight.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:31 | link | comments

Even cowgirls get a break: It's that time of year again--my annual end-of-August break. Barring the unforseen, I plan to be back in the saddle on the 30th. Happy trails to y'all until then.

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

Still clutching the blankie: Ezra Levant calls this Canadian Jewish News article about the HRC controversy “a surprising story” (since the CJN, an official mouthpiece of Official Jewry, is usually disinclined to wade into this type of controversy). I don’t know that I’d call it “surprising”; given the uproar over HRCs and how heavily invested the Jewish alphabet agencies (CIJA, CJC, CFSW, etc.) are in the system, it would be more “surprising” if the CJC failed to cover the kerfuffle (since it would end up calling its journalistic integrity into question). Also not “surprising”: despite their feeling the heat of exposure and calling for the anti-hate sections of the system to be revamped so that the likes of Elmo and his sock thingies don’t get to censor us, the Jewstablishment still refuses to drop their tattered security blankie—the “anti-hate” provisions that enable Jews to censor decrepit, incontinent Nazis and Aryan bloggers.

Two out of the three Jewish organizations most closely identified with the anti-hate system (the CJC and the B’nai Brith) have adopted what amounts to a Bob the Builder approach (“Can we fix ‘em? Yes, we can”) But one Official Jew—Wiesenthal’s Leo Adler—is adamant that the rickety apparatus must remain more or less as is:

…Leo Adler, director of national affairs for the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, agreed the federal human rights legislation could be improved, but he argued Canadians have chosen to adopt a European model of restricted free speech and not the more open American model.

Asked to comment on Levant’s argument that the process in itself is the punishment given the costs needed to defend against a complaint, Adler replied, “We live our entire lives under ABCs – agencies, boards and commissions – that govern different aspect of our lives.” Lawsuits, police investigations and other legal matters might require an individual to incur costs by hiring a lawyer, he said.

He said that every genocide, including the Holocaust, started with words. “We don’t want words that have the potential for causing these catastrophes.”…

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Holocaust didn’t “start” with words; rather, the “words” were harnessed to a specific political agenda by a megalomaniac who was obsessed with “the Jews” and how they were befouling the planet, and who took it upon himself to rid the world of the "scourge" so that the “pure” people—his people—could gain global power and rule for at least a millennium.

You would think someone who claims to be an expert in the Holocaust would know that.

But maybe what’s going on here isn’t merely a desire to “stop” the “words” that “start” the genocides. Maybe it’s also about someone whose bread and butter is the anti-hate industry and all the delightful perks that come with it (the accolades; the cushy government appointments; the lavish conferences both here and abroad, etc.) being bound and determined to hang on to what he believes are his entitlements.

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

Fishy finding: I’m not sure how much cyanide it takes to kill oneself; certainly, far less than the one quart bottle of the stuff found in the Denver hotel room of a late gentleman from Ottawa. And I’m not sure why a Somali Canadian would travel all the way to Denver, of all places, for the express purpose of offing himself; surely it's easier for all concerned to kill yourself at home. And I’m not sure why he would need such a large amount for the job—which could conceivably also be employed to kill vast numbers of people in, say, a jihadi terrorist attack—when a mere fraction would do. And I’m not sure if he bought the cyanide in Denver, or brought it with him across the border, since no one is saying. What they are saying is that there is not a shred of evidence that the dead guy was up to any mischief of the terrorist variety, especially none that might possibly involve the upcoming Democratic National Convention—so you can banish that thought from your suspicious mind right away. As the 29-year-old’s family back in Ottawa tells it, the purposeful cyanide-inhaler had no terrorist inclinations whatsoever, but was an, er, “schizophrenic”. That explanation was readily accepted by the Denver coroner, who has ruled that suicide was indeed what was going on here; the coroner is apparently persuaded that toting around vast quantities of cyanide for the purpose of committing suicide is something “schizophrenics” do.

Sounds plausible to me.

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

Selective vision: An editorial in the Toronto Star castigates the Taliban for promulgating “The Big Lie”:

Adolf Hitler knew that some people are quicker to swallow a big lie than a little one. So do the Taliban. In an "open letter" to Canadians this week, they claim we "came to Afghanistan to kill and torture the Afghans."

Really? When Canada first sent special forces into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, we went in self-defence.

The World Trade Center in New York was still smouldering from Osama bin Laden's strikes, and the Taliban were still playing host to Al Qaeda. Canadians were among the nearly 3,000 people who died. We deployed troops to help prevent another such strike.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was right to dismiss the Taliban letter as propaganda that won't affect Canadian policy.

Canadian troops and aid workers are in Afghanistan under a lawful United Nations mandate that declared the Taliban a threat to peace, to freedom, to the rule of law and to human rights. We are there at the request of Afghan leaders who, unlike the Taliban, were elected.

And while Canada and 40 allies are taking casualties – the Taliban killed 10 French troops yesterday in the worst allied loss in years – the Taliban are in no position to turn Afghanistan back into a state sponsor of terror. And that suits most Afghans, who suffered their misrule.

So the Taliban have turned to murdering unarmed Canadian aid workers and others in cold blood, and then blaming the victims. What was their crime? Bringing schooling to Afghan women and children? Building homes? Delivering medical care? Fresh water?

What part of Canada's aggression is our $1.3 billion aid program?

If the Afghan people decide Canada's presence is more trouble than it is worth, they are free to say so, through their leaders or opinion surveys. We will not stay a day longer than we are wanted.

But Canadians would betray the UN, the Afghan people, and our own principles, by being cowed by murderers, or seduced by their Big Lie.

Odd how the Star can see “The Big Lie” as it applies to Canada, but continues to embrace the stinking load of manure (Israel’s “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,”  “land theft,” Jew as the “new" Nazis; Arabs as the “new” Jews, etc., etc., etc.) that Palestinians and their supporters keep shovelling. You would think that at some point even the clueless Lefties would twig to the fact that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban are essentially one and the same, and that, as kafirs, Canadians and Israelis share space in the same crowded, leaky canoe.

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

The dawa's the thing: An Islam Online reader seeking guidance asks whether it’s okay for her daughter to take part in a school play. The reply: By all means let her participate, as long as she realizes she's not just play-acting, she's a girl with a mission:

…In the case you are discussing, a drama class monologue can be directed either way. A young woman can choose between acting a decent monologue that would be of use to herself and to her audience, or between staging for an act that would spread lust and convey corruption.

 

On a personal basis, and I am not giving a scholarly fatwa here, I am of the opinion that the young girl should go for it. But, what she would need to fix here is her intentions.

 

She would be of great benefit to herself and to her audience if she intents her act as a service of God. In this case, she does not necessarily need to preach or speak of religious matters. Just have her deliver a positive reforming message. She can dedicate her monologue to convey a social message, a moral message, a global message, and so on.

 

She would be greatly rewarded by Allah if she was able to touch hearts and change paths through a monologue about equality, brotherhood or Palestinians' rights to maintain their lands and dignity.

 

Maybe she can present the Palestinian cause from A to Z through her act. The same would be if she devotes it to the criticism of Western chaotic family system, out-of-marriage sex (depends on her age), or the disadvantages of drinking alcohol. Everything is possible…

 

Says someone who has obviously never sat through a kafir school play. It’s awfully hard to insert a discussion of Palestinian land rights and criticism of the Western family into, say, High School Musical or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:42 | link | comments

“Healer” on hold: Has-been crooner Chris de Burgh, who claims to be able to heal the afflicted with a mere touch of his hands, has been trying to bring his healing powers to one mighty afflicted area, the Middle East. Too bad for him he’s been rebuffed by the mullahs, who have some very different ideas about how to “heal” the region (i.e. by excising the “cancer” of Israel). From the timesonline:

Chris de Burgh’s ongoing campaign to take his brand of schmaltzy love songs to the people of the Middle East hit a hurdle today.

His much-touted plan to play a live concert in Tehran has come unstuck with Iranian officials claiming they have yet to be consulted.

The Irish crooner, best known for his middle-of–the road classic Lady in Red, sparked amused headlines last year when he announced he had permission to become the first major Western artist to perform in the country since the 1979 revolution.

Pity he forgot to tell the Iranians.

According to a report from Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, the country’s ministry of culture is still waiting for De Burgh to request a performance permit. As a result, it said, he does not have permission to perform there.

The Iran concert, planned for a 12,000-seater stadium in the capital, would have been the latest episode in De Burgh’s recent love affair with the Middle East.

In May he released a Farsi reworking of his song The Words ‘I love you’ with Iranian band Arian. He has also now recorded a duet with a young Lebanese singer, Tina Yamout, who he discovered last year.

A spokeswoman for De Burgh was today looking on the bright side, pointing out that although permission has not yet been granted, it has also not yet been denied.

Hamas, Hezbollah, ayatollahs and the lugubrious song stylings of Chris de Burgh—that’s far too much for any one region to have to handle.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:34 | link | comments

Why Israel is doomed: There’s no way you can survive when you reject your own narrative (and the truth) and embrace the narrative (and lies) of your enemy. From the Jerusalem Post:

The government took Ze'ev Jabotinsky out of the schoolbooks and inserted the [Palestinian] Nakba instead," Opposition leader and Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday in a special Knesset session during the summer recess.

Netanyahu was referring to Education Minister Yuli Tamir's decision to remove the writings of Jabotinsky from the curriculum.

Jabotinsky was the founder of the revisionist movement in Zionism before the establishment of the Jewish State, which advocated a greater Israel and in recent years has come to be seen as an overly 'hawkish' version of Zionism.

The Nakba, meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic, is the term used by Palestinians to describe the defeat Arab armies suffered at the hands of Jewish paramilitary organizations during Israel's War of Independence…

Leftist Jews and their delusions are paving the way for Israel’s demise—a true “Nakba” for Jewry and all mankind.

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

Useless UN: A New York Sun editorial comments on the UN’s haplessness re the Russia-Georgia conflict:

…Mr. Ban, according to his spokesmen, has been working the phones, although he could only talk to actors with cameo roles in the drama, such as President Halonen. It took Mr. Ban a week to get Mr. Saakashvili on the blower, by which time the Georgian had accommodated any American television anchor that would have him on. United Nations spokesmen say that Mr. Ban has yet to receive an audience with any Kremlin decision maker, though he did merit a meeting with the Kremlin's ambassador in Turtle Bay, Vitaly Churkin.

Marginalization at a time of war is nothing new for Turtle Bay, its champions say. The organization is mostly needed when it is time to reach and preserve peace. As Russia has demonstrated so far, it is planning to allow that time to come only once its military and diplomatic objectives are achieved, and even then it is sure to veto any resolution that would include even a comma that may indicate there is anything wrong with those objectives.

As Mr. Sarkozy's chances of sealing a deal that Russia would implement — rather than merely saying it accepts — dimmed, Europeans yesterday circulated to Security Council members a short resolution proposal. It demanded an immediate compliance with Mr. Sarkozy's ceasefire agreement, and specifically a Russian withdrawal to the lines it held prior to the onset of the hostilities. It also called to affirm Georgia's "independence and territorial integrity."

Our Turtle Bay sources say that early on European diplomats were prepared to water down such wording to accommodate Moscow, while their American counterparts quietly proposed a tough resolution containing red lines that would force a Russian veto. Such a veto would help Washington to present the Kremlin as intransigent and uncooperative. It now seems that the Europeans, who are clearly frustrated by Moscow's unfulfilled promises, are ready for a Security Council confrontation, in lieu of a real one on the ground. At best, the council will now become a public relations instrument — a small achievement for a body aspiring for a real role in world affairs.

* * *

What it all adds up to is a lesson in world government: It's a chimera. Anyone who hopes that the United Nations would carry the day is either too complacent to chart an American policy or simply willing to let the Russians off the hook for a war. Let it be an instructive moment in respect of Darfur, Zimbabwe, and Burma, to name but a few crises that are not going to be solved on the shore of the East River. Anyone assigning the job of confronting Iran's nuclear ambitions to diplomats who would negotiate for years and then produce an unreadable and ineffective Security Council resolution is simply allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. No wonder Mr. Obama has, at least for now, dropped the council from his list of tools to handle Georgia.

I disagree that world government is a chimera. What’s chimerical (also comical) is the idea that the UN can be a force for good in this world. The prospect of a world government governed by Islamic law—as the UN is governed by the OIC, its largest voting block—is, alas, all too real.

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

Fatah’s blinkers: Tarek Fatah is undoubtedly a brave man, a Muslim who speaks out against the imposition of sharia, and who has been denounced and threatened with death on numerous occasions because of it. And yet, despite his bravery, this most moderate of Muslims has several blind spots, as David Solway points out in his review of Fatah’s book for FrontPage:

…Fatah’s well-intentioned but problematic distinction between Muslims and Islamists, between a “state of Islam” (good) and an “Islamic state” (bad) and his belief that “Islamists…have ridden roughshod over Quranic principles and the Prophet’s message of equality” are not persuasive. All one has to do is read the Koran to put paid to his claim. His notion that “Equity and social justice run through every fibre and gene of the Muslim psyche” is a piece of untenable hyperbole that is deflated by Fatah himself when he later writes that “So deeply ingrained is the idea of replicating the so-called Golden Age of the Rightly Guided Caliphs that few are willing to consider the implications of what they are asking for,” or when he bemoans “the permanent gash in the Muslim psyche, a festering wound” brought on by the struggle for power. Which is it, deeply ingrained error or enlightenment?

One is puzzled by the contradiction inherent in his admonition that Muslims “stop chasing an Islamic State” on the one hand and his evident approval of the “Palestinian struggle for an independent and sovereign state,” which would be nothing if not Islamic, on the other. Also troubling is his appreciative quotation from a Pakistani historian who speaks of “the solemn averment that Islam spread peacefully in India” when the carnage visited upon the subcontinent by the invading Islamic armies is an order of magnitude higher than the Holocaust itself.

Fatah’s animus against the United States also seems rather facile and not altogether thought through. When he writes that “The invasion of Iraq was manna from heaven for Al-Qaeda,” it is clear that he has not been following the course of events or the evening News—nothing has weakened al-Qaeda more than the Iraqi conflict and it is now, as the Press has it, “on the run.”

For Fatah, the US is no different from the Mongol hordes led by the savage Hulagu who in 1257 invaded Baghdad and “pitt[ed] the Shia population against the Sunni caliph.” The fact that the “Sunni caliph” of 2003 was Saddam Hussein, himself a contemporary Hulagu, is a matter of no consequence. Nor am I sure what he is getting at when he denounces American fundamentalism equally with bin Laden’s species of fundamentalism; I cannot see even the faintest semblance of an equivalence between the two nor can I understand how American fundamentalism, whatever that may be, “poses a threat to Western civilization.”…

Moderates like Fatah are in a real bind. In order to retain their faith, they have to twist themselves into pretzels trying to account for its obvious internal contradictions, which entails an outright refusal to recognize the truth about Islam and its founder (as, for example, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has done—the reason she is no longer Muslim). Fatah is in a double bind, since, unlike that other notable moderate, Salim Mansur, he wants to retain his “street cred” with Leftists and Muslims, and thus refuses to see the pivotal role the U.S. and Israel are playing in foiling the jihad and the advancement of sharia. So, yes, kudos to Fatah for standing up to the seethers and for “getting it," sort of, about sharia; would that he “got” the rest of it, too.

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

Soldiering on: The lawyer for alleged terrorist Momin Khawaja, the Ottawa lad currently on trial in London, has come up with an interesting defence. He says his client hoped to be an old-fangled holy warrior in a battlefield setting, not an urban one. From the Globe and Mail:

OTTAWA -- Momin Khawaja was interested only in waging jihad against Western soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan, not attacking civilian targets in London, his defence lawyer argued yesterday in a long-shot effort to have terrorism charges against the Ottawa software engineer dismissed.

Lawrence Greenspon said he concedes that a remote detonation device - dubbed the Hi-Fi Digimonster - was found in Mr. Khawaja's home, and did not dispute what the device can do. However, he added that Mr. Khawaja's intention was to use it as a remote detonator in Afghanistan. Mr. Greenspon attempted to explain his client's actions as those of a would-be soldier, not a terrorist.

"It's not okay," Mr. Greenspon said of his client's desire to fight in Afghanistan, "but it's not terrorism."

The final phase of Mr. Khawaja's trial kicked off yesterday. He faces seven charges under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act - he is also the first Canadian ever charged under the act. The 29-year-old is accused of trying to build a remote-controlled detonation device for a British terrorist cell.

However, his lawyer is trying to persuade the judge in the case, Mr. Justice Douglas Rutherford, to dismiss the charges on the basis that there isn't enough evidence to uphold them.

It was in that context that Mr. Greenspon claimed yesterday that his client was focusing his energies on Afghanistan, and had no knowledge that his alleged co-conspirators were planning an attack in London.

Last year, five people were convicted in England of plotting to bomb targets including a shopping complex and a nightclub.

Mr. Khawaja has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Judge Rutherford is hearing the case without a jury. If the judge accepts Mr. Greenspon's argument, he could conceivably drop all the charges and set Mr. Khawaja free.

In arguing that Mr. Khawaja was only interested in fighting Western troops in Afghanistan, Mr. Greenspon said his client should be dealt with in the same way as any soldier in a war.

Mr. Greenspon has repeatedly said that the conversations among Mr. Khawaja's alleged co-conspirators were significantly different when Mr. Khawaja was around. He said that while a London bomb plot - of which he claims his client was unaware - is sufficient to base terrorism charges on, "wanting to be a soldier in Afghanistan is not."

Coincidentally, Mr. Greenspon's claim that his client's only interest was fighting Western soldiers in Afghanistan came immediately after one of the bloodiest days in that country's ongoing conflict. Insurgents ambushed and killed 10 French troops outside the capital of Kabul in an attack that caused the largest combat loss for international forces in Afghanistan in three years…

I’m sure we can all rest easier knowing that the likes of Momin restrict their warfare to far-away battlefields. (And if you buy that, I have a razed site formerly occupied by two giant towers to sell you.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:47 | link | comments (1)

Shaggy beast story: The news that the hairy remains of a creature reputed to be Bigfoot is really a hoax—and a rather maladroit one at that—should come as no great surprise. Except, of course, to those folks (you know the type) who refuse to let a little thing like truth get in the way of their firmly-held convictions. From the Ceeb (my bolds):

The website that promoted the finding of the supposed remains of the legendary Bigfoot has confirmed what most people suspected: the body was nothing more than a rubber sasquatch costume.

An investigator with Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., the group that promoted the discovery, reported the confirmation on Tuesday, just four days after a circus-like news conference in which two Georgia men claimed they had bagged the dead body of the mythical man-ape.

Georgia residents Matthew Whitton and Ricky Dyer claimed at the news conference Friday in Palo Alto, Calif., that they had stumbled across the corpse in the woods of northern Georgia.

But Steve Kulls, a self-described sasquatch hunter, wrote on the company's website that once the body arrived for examination, it became obvious that it wasn't real.

"As the team and I began examining this area near the feet, I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in and confirmed it was a rubber foot," he said.

Kulls wrote that sasquatch promoter Tom Biscardi, who runs the Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. website and appeared onstage with Dyer and Whitton to defend their find, "informed us that both Matthew Whitton and Ricky Dyer admitted it was a costume."

Even before the admission, skeptics had already noted that one photograph released — that of a hairy corpse stuffed in a freezer — looked suspiciously like a Halloween costume available at retailers.

And the evidence presented at the news conference — including a blurry photo of teeth and inconclusive DNA samples — had done little to sway public opinion…

Today’s essay question: The psychology/psychopathology of those who believe in Bigfoot is akin to the psychology/psychopathology of those who believe in blood libels and that 9/11 was an inside job. Discuss.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:01 | link | comments

Where are the 'roos?: The summer is winding down and there's still no sign of the B.C. 'roos. The marsupials retired apres the June show trial to consider the case of the CIC vs. Maclean's--a mere blink of the eye, it's true, compared to the 900 days it took the Alberta commissars to deal with the Levant complaint. And since the process is as much a part of the punishment as the actual punishment, and since at the end of the day they may dismiss the whole thing (because it's too high profile and too much of a hot potato) and not get to mete out any actual punishment, I can understand why they would want to drag it out. Nevertheless, I'm hoping that this novelty tune from a summer long past will encourage them to move things along:

They were afraid to come back from vacation.

They were as nervous as all get out.

They were afraid to come back from vacation.

They were afraid that somebody would shout.

 

Four, three, two, where, oh where are B.C.’s ‘roos?

 

They’ll make an itsy-bitsy-there’s-no-foolin’-Steyn’s-Islamophobic ruling

Based on words of some “experts” in “court”.

An itsy-bitsy-there’s-no-foolin’-Steyn’s-Islamophobic ruling,

That’s the verdict they long to report.

 

Two, three, four, stick around for what’s in store…

 

They were afraid to come out in the open.

So a blanket of silence they wore.

They were afraid to come out in the open.

So they dragged the thing out a bit more.

 

Six, seven, eight, kangaroos deliberate…

 

They’ll make an itsy-bitsy-there’s-no-foolin’-Steyn’s-Islamophobic ruling

Based on words of some “experts” in “court”.

An itsy-bitsy-there’s-no-foolin’-Steyn’s-Islamophobic ruling,

That’s the verdict they long to report…

 

From the puppets to Elmasry,

From Elmasry to the ‘roos.

Freedom’s hanging in the balance

Thanks to lawyers, Libs, and Jews.

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

“Sexy” skater: The latest singing harlot to offend “moderate” Malaysia’s sense of decorum—Canada’s very own skater girl, Avril Lavigne. From AP via CTV News:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's Islamic opposition party has urged the government to cancel a concert by Avril Lavigne, saying the Canadian singer's on-stage moves are "too sexy," an official said Monday.

Lavigne, a Grammy-nominated rock singer who burst to fame with her 2002 debut album "Let's Go," plans to start her monthlong Asia tour with a performance in Kuala Lumpur on Aug. 29.

The youth wing of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party said Lavigne's concert would promote wrong values ahead of Malaysia's Aug. 31 independence day.

"It is considered too sexy for us. ... It's not good for viewers in Malaysia," said Kamarulzaman Mohamed, a party official. "We don't want our people, our teenagers, influenced by their performance. We want clean artists, artists that are good role models."

Kamarulzaman said he sent a protest letter to the Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry and the Kuala Lumpur mayor last week, calling for the concert to be canceled.

An official from the Culture Ministry's department that vets all foreign artists said the government has not given permission for the concert yet. The department is to meet Tuesday to decide on the organizer's application, which was received last week.

The official declined to be named because she is not authorized to make public statements.

A spokesman for the concert's organizer, Galaxy Group, denied that Lavigne's show had any "negative elements."

The spokesman, who declined to be named citing protocol, said his company was confident of receiving the permit as feedback from authorities so far had been "very positive."

Malaysia requires all performers to wear clothes without obscene or drug-related images and be covered from chest to knees. They must also refrain from jumping, shouting, hugging and kissing on stage…

Standing stock still dressed head-to-toe in a black sack, though, is bound to earn you the Malaysian "opposition" seal of approval. My poem for Avril:

The way you pronounce it’s “Levine”

(Which sounds Jewish, if you know what I mean).

But their stated abhorrence

Is re her performance

Which they claim isn’t wholesome or clean.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:54 | link | comments

The UN’s moral bankruptcy: Once again demonstrating its true colours  (green, green and more green, with a wide streak of cowardly yellow), the UN ululates in collective grief at the passing of Mahmoud Darwish, the Yasser Arafat of poetry. By Joseph Klein in FrontPage Magazine:

The Palestinian ‘national poet’ Mahmoud Darwish passed away on August 9, 2008.  Regarded by the Palestinians as the “poet of the Palestinian wound,” he was given the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank.  Only the terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, with whom Darwish served in the PLO, had ever received such an honor. 

As Aljazeera reported, Darwish’s “grave faces the outskirts of Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to create the capital of a future state which Darwish had yearned for in poems imbued with the agony of exile and loss.”

In life, Darwish spent his considerable writing talents as an apologist for the Palestinians’ self-inflicted wounds.  He wrote the veiled threat that Arafat spoke at the United Nations in 1974: "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

In death, senior United Nations officials joined a chorus of admirers in raising Darwish to the iconic level of a “universal” voice of “justice,” “dislocation” and “alienation” for all the suffering people of the world – except, of course, for the Jewish people whose more than 2000 years of exile and persecution Darwish and his UN admirers have conveniently ignored.

In sending her condolences last week to the Palestinian people following Darwish’s death, for example, the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Karen AbuZayd, issued a statement, saying that Darwish was “the poet of exile, the refugees’ poet” whose “universal language of dislocation and alienation will be heard for many years to come.”  These encomiums should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with AbuZayd and her agency.  She has sided with the Palestinians against Israel time and again, no matter what atrocities were committed by the Palestinian terrorists against innocent Israeli civilians.  UNRWA itself has been complicit in such terrorist acts.

King Solomon wrote long ago in Proverbs that "death and life are in the power of the tongue."  The Talmud teaches us that words can kill.  Darwish used his poetry to give voice to those who reject Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in its ancient homeland.  He called himself a “weapon” and wrote that “my words were stones.”  Truth had no place in his poetry.

Darwish helped to popularize the blood libel in the Arab world that referred to the creation of the state of Israel as al-Nakba or “Catastrophe.”  UNRWA’s Chief of Public Information quoted Darwish in commemorating the 60th anniversary of the “Catastrophe.”

Even before Israel ever occupied the West Bank and Gaza in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, Darwish was busy spinning his militant poetry into language of anti-Israel propaganda.  He wrote the following in 1964:      

            I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks.
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!
<!--[endif]-->

This was supposed to be a protest against the ‘forced’ exile of Palestinians from their families’ lands into a semi-permanent refugee status.  The sad truth that Darwish could never acknowledge was that the Palestinians themselves and their Arab neighbors - not Israel - were largely responsible for the decades in which Palestinians have lived as stateless refugees…

Yeah, it’s a bitch when your people have sovereignty over a scant 99.99 per cent of a region's land. Lucky for Darwish and the other “exiles” they’ve had the UN around to try rectify the grievous wrong done them all those decades ago—and in the years intervening—because the Jews won't lie down and die.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:16 | link | comments (1)

“Racist” Harper races to young Canadian Muslims’ defense: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, branded as “racist” by CIC Grand Poobah-for-life Mo Elmasry for failing to intercede with American authorities on Omar Khadr’s behalf (Elmo claimed that Harper’s hesitations were due to Omar’s being “brown-skinned”), is acting all, er, bigoted again. Wahhabi rag Arab News has the details (my bolds):

RIYADH: The case of two Canadian brothers charged in connection with the death of a teenager during a schoolyard fight in Jeddah has taken a new turn after a court threw out an earlier judgment and ordered the retrial of one of the brothers in an adult court.

If tried as an adult, Sultan Kohail, 18, may face a stiffer punishment or even death for his role in the killing. Sultan’s elder brother, Mohammed Kohail, 23, has already been found guilty and sentenced to death. That ruling is currently being appealed.

Although Mohammed has been in prison for the last 18 months, Sultan has been living with his family. In April this year, a juvenile court in Jeddah sentenced Sultan to 200 lashes and one year in prison. This ruling has now been thrown out.

Abdul Rauf, the youths’ uncle, confirmed the retrial but refused to discuss the matter further. “It is hard for the family at this time, we are all praying... We don’t know what will happen,” he said.

In an official statement, the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh said Canada would continue to pursue all avenues to assist Mohammed and Sultan Kohail. Canadian officials, during their recent visits to Saudi Arabia, have raised the case at top levels.

“The Canadian consular officials are actively providing assistance and support, and remain in regular contact with the Kohail family and their legal counsel... Due to the Privacy Act, we cannot comment further on specific details of the case,” the statement said.

Following news of the retrial, Liberal Canadian MP Dan McTeague, who has been following the case, has called on the Conservative government “to make sure the pair receive due process.”

The Canadian government has asked for clemency.

The Kohail brothers are Canadian citizens of Palestinian origin. They moved to Canada in 2000 from Saudi Arabia and settled in Dollard des Ormeaux, only to return to the Kingdom later. In January 2007, Sultan became involved in a schoolyard brawl and called for the help of his brother and friends.

A Syrian youth, Munzer Haraki, 19, died during a fight, and Mohamed was charged with murder.

Yup. “Racism” in action. The most unintentionally amusing aspect of the saga: Liberal MP Dan McTeague’s call for “due process.” Clearly, the clueless McTeague is unaware that “due process” under sharia is the last thing he should be requesting, since it will likely result in the public spectacle of the lads’ heads being detached from their bodies with less than surgical precision by a man wielding a large sword. Whereas in Gitmo, home these last few years to another young Canadian awaiting “due process,” you may be forced to lose some sleep, but at least you get to keep your head.

Let’s ask Omar Khadr which variety of “due process” he prefers to face, shall we?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:35 | link | comments

The most popular American in Paris: Here’s a hint—it’s not Jerry or Woody, and it’s unlikely any self-respecting cultural snob would cop to having such plebeian tastes. Here’s another hint— that snippy Ms. Klein would definitely not approve.

Posted by: scaramouche at 02:28 | link | comments

Little boy blew (up): Well, not quite. He longed to martyr himself for Allah and be rewarded with his own personal hutch of heavenly virgins, but British authorities put an end to that dream.  The Guardian has more on the widdlest jihadi (“schoolboy extremist," in Guardian-speak) this side of Omar Khadr:

A schoolboy recruited into a cell engaged in a "worldwide conspiracy" to kill non-Muslims yesterday became Britain's youngest convicted terrorist.

Yorkshire teenager Hammaad Munshi, who was 16 when he was arrested, downloaded terrorist materials including guides for making napalm and grenades.

Now 18, Munshi was found guilty with two other men of possessing or making documents promoting terrorism. Material found in their possession included guidance for making lethal weapons, manuals on how to carry out assassinations and personal details of members of the royal family.

During a three month trial at Blackfriars crown court in London, the prosecution accused the three of involvement in an al-Qaida-inspired conspiracy to attack the west.

Munshi was leading a double life when he came to the attention of Leeds counter-terrorism unit. By day the teenager from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, whose grandfather is a respected Muslim scholar, was studying for his GCSEs at Westborough high school.

But at home, stashed beneath his bed, he kept handwritten notes about his desire for martyrdom including the claim: "One who is not taking part in the battle nor has the sheer intention to die is in the branch of hypocrisy."

It was a small find compared to the hoard of terrorist material police discovered he had accumulated through the internet. He had collected notes on the manufacture of grenades and napalm, and his PC contained videos and audio clips showing mujahideen fighting and al-Qaida propaganda.

Co-defendant Aabid Khan, 23, a former burger bar worker from Bradford, recruited Munshi when he was 15 and served as his mentor. Described as the "Mr Fix-it" of the cell, he had links to proscribed terrorist groups and ran an "online extremist support network" through which he hoped to recruit "a group of at least 12".

In one exchange he wrote: "What I want to do is cause trouble for the kuffar [non-believers] with hit-and-runs everywhere, cause fear and panic in their countries, make them nervous so they make mistakes."

He and Munshi phoned each other, swapped documents about "black powder explosives" and during an online chat discussed how to smuggle a sword through airport security.

Khan was detained when returning from Pakistan in June 2006. A routine stop and search of his luggage at Manchester airport yielded the largest library of computer files promoting terrorism seized by police. Video footage in his suitcase suggested he had visited the Balakot mountains, site of a Jaishe Mohammed terrorist training camp.

Anti-terrorist officers also found handbooks on explosives and poisons, information about transport systems in the UK and the US, guidelines for "beating and killing hostages" and planning assassinations. They also found he had personal details and addresses of members of the royal family including the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

Khan led officers to Munshiand the third defendant found guilty yesterday. Sultan Muhammad, 23, Khan's "right-hand man", worked nights as a post office sorter and was found in possession of terrorism-related materials.

He and Khan, his cousin, talked regularly about killing non-Muslims and purchasing explosives.

Simon Denison, prosecuting, told the court that material found by police showed the three were motivated by a "common cause".

"The material in their possession promoted extreme ideology, most notoriously of Osama bin Laden of al-Qaida, as well as groups in various countries that adopted it."

The three were convicted of eight Terrorism Act offences committed between November 23 2005 and June 20 2006…

So sad when young ambition is stifled by inconsiderate grownups.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:55 | link | comments

How I know I’m completely out of synch with the Zeitgeist: This man, according to the New York Times, is said to be “the most trusted man in America.”

Me? I don’t trust him and his perpetual smirk as far as I can spit. Here’s my pick for most trustworthy. If only he had his own daily show.

Update: My pick for most trustworthy tells is like it is.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:37 | link | comments (2)

Taliban atrocities: Is seems there are real ones occurring all the time in Afghanistan, unlike the fake ones occasionally trumped up by Jew-haters in order to cast aspersions on the Zionist entity via the gullible useful idiots of the international media. From an editorial in the Halifax Chronicle Herald:

…According to Sarah Chayes, a journalist, published author and the founder of a soap-making co-operative in Kandahar, "the most important constraint on aid work is the risk it poses to Afghans. Many villages in Kandahar have been refusing development assistance for several years now. They are afraid that the mere acceptance of these projects will transform their homes into targets."

In an opinion piece published by the Globe and Mail, she goes on to describe Taliban atrocities committed against anyone accepting foreign aid or collaborating in ensuring its delivery. "The Afghans do not support this so-called insurgency," she concludes. "They are its primary targets."

There might be less ambivalence on the home front about this war if we knew more of what Ms. Chayes knows or saw more of what our soldiers see. Those who have served a tour of duty in Afghanistan, either as a civilian or a soldier, often come back more convinced than ever that their presence spells help and hope and that a pullout would be a crime – against humanity, no less.

For the media, it is difficult to gauge how welcome we really are among the general population because speaking out against the Taliban merely invites swift retribution. Those who disparage foreign forces, however, have free rein.

Nor are the cameras rolling when the Taliban hang a 16-year-old by his feet and shoot him for the crime of being an apprentice truck driver whose job is to bring humanitarian food shipments to Kandahar.

Anyone heard so much as a peep of condemnation from those who screamed bloody murder when a Palestinian lad was supposedly offed by the wicked IDF? No? Me neither. I’m sure it’s an oversight and that we’re bound to hear some genuine outrage real soon.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:59 | link | comments

Puppetry of the pinheads: If you think that Holocaust denial  and world-devoid-of-Jewry conferences comprise the sum total of cultural life in Ayatollahville, think again. They also have an annual puppet competition. One that doesn’t involve mullahs putting words in the mouth of a hairy sock thingy named Ahmawhoozits, I mean. The Tehran Times (another sort of puppet) has a run-down of this year’s winners. Here’s a partial list (and, no, I’m not making any of this up):

* Best stage designer: Bahareh Nozad-Moqaddam for the play “Don’t Tell Anybody”

* Best puppet designer: Foruz Hashemi “Awaiting Spring”

* Best puppeteer: Mohammad Molaii “Gallows and Circle”

* Best theatrical idea: Javad Tulami “Mobarak and the Black Demon”

* Best director: Siamak Baniani “Fairy Cockroach”

The winners of the international competition section are as follows:

* Best puppet designers: Erika Schmitzer, Werner Hierzer, and Christian Hierzer “Johann Strauss” from Austria

* Best puppeteer: Luca Runga “Pulcinella with Four Hands”

* Best stage designer: Ezzio Antonelli “Alice in Mirror” from Italy

* Best playwright: Davud Fat’hali-Beigi “Story of Fortune” from Iran

You mean to tell me no one assayed a puppet version of Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? And, hey, where’s that delightful Neturei Karta entry, The Sound of Maniacs (“High on a hill was a lonely nutbar/Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo”)? Oh, well, there’s always next year.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:19 | link | comments

There’s no Fox like an old fox: Islamic supremacist Syed Soharwardy has been trekking across Canada with one aim in mind—to remake his image. Syed has grown tired of the bad PR he garnered when he complained to the local human rights authorities that Ezra Levant has bruised his tender sensibilities by printing some purportedly scurrilous Mo ‘toons. The gentleman behind both the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (a title which, sorry, Syed, always gives me the giggles) and Muslims Against Terrorism (in which capacity he‘s earned the approval of assorted useful idiots) has sought to put all the unpleasantness behind him via his perambulation across the nation. He might have done so, too, if he hadn’t lost his cool and lobbed new threats at Levant when the two were brought together recently on a Toronto radio program—thereby tipping his hand that it was more or less the same old Syed. The sound of Syed avowing that Ezra would “soon pay” should have dispelled any illusions that he had become a new man. Some, however, like clueless Calgary Herald scribe Naomi Licorice, are determined to look for the good in the man no matter what. Here’s la Licorice, wildly cheering on the imam who would be Terry Fox (my bolds):

…What Terry did, what Soharwardy is doing, what all these people who run, cycle, walk or otherwise travel the Trans-Canada Highway for a particular cause do, is called tikkun olam in the Jewish faith.

Tikkun olam means mending the world and Jews believe everyone has a duty to do this. It's an obligation to do constant mending to keep the world from falling into greater disrepair -- to put good back in, to fill the spaces where pain, injustice and other evils might otherwise take root.

"We can't eliminate violence, but we can reduce it," Soharwardy said. He was a few kilometres west of Winnipeg when he heard about the killing of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus just ahead on the Trans-Canada, near Portage la Prairie. Someone asked him if he was embarrassed by the irony of his walk against violence being in proximity with this terrible crime -- didn't it prove the fruitlessness of his venture?

"I was not embarrassed. I felt despair and hope. The killing of this young man strengthens my resolve," Soharwardy said. He sees it like this: When we say or do nothing, when we simply absorb violence out of fear, as when the victims of domestic abuse are afraid to expose their abusers, then we are enabling more violence.

"To stop violence, to not accept violence -- one person has to stand up and speak against it," he said.

In one aspect, Soharwardy agrees with the letter writer. "We're not able to change the whole world," he said. But he feels that if he's changed one person, enabling that individual to say no to whatever form of violence he or she may be personally experiencing, then his walk is a success. That's tikkun olam. You do what you can. As Ming Jiing Hsieh told the weekly Stonewall Argus about his disaster relief cycling tour: "If I can help people, that's happiness."

Where else but Canada does an imam walk across the country, practising a tenet of the Jewish faith? Some days, it seems like peace may not be such an impossible dream after all.

Oy vey. Could someone please tell the tikkun olam-beffuddled Ms. L. that the imam is doing no such thing. What he’s actually doing is practising an age old tenet of Islam, i.e. taqiyaah, i.e. pulling the wool over the eyes of easily gulled, let’s-all-join-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya types like Naomi. If he wants to “tikkun” (Hebrew for “repair”) the “olam” (Hebrew for “world”) it's so that the "olam," as per Allah’s promises to “the seal of prophets,” will one day be in the hands of "olum" al-Isam. She, of all people, should recognize fabrications when she sees them. After all, she did get her start concocting fairy tales for skeevy supermarket tab the National Examiner.

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

The remarkable Dr. Makow: The street corner Der Sturmer’s popular columnist, Henry Makow, has what can only be described as an incredible CV, as detailed on Wikipedia (my bolds):

Henry Makow, Ph.D., (born November 12, 1949 in Zürich, Switzerland) is a Canadian conspiracy theorist, inventor of the board game Scruples, and the author of A Long Way to go for a Date, the story of his courtship and marriage to a young Filipina. (He has since divorced and remarried.)

As a baby, he moved with his family to Canada, settling in Ottawa. At the age of 11 he began to write the syndicated advice-to-parents column “Ask Henry.” The column ran in 50 newspapers in the early 1960s. This led to appearances on the Jack Paar Show (the forerunner to the Tonight Show), What's My Line and To Tell the Truth.^[1] In 1984, he invented Scruples, a game of moral dilemmas which was translated into five languages and sold seven million copies worldwide.

He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1982, and lives in Winnipeg. His critique of feminism as an attempt to destabilize society and his explanation of how heterosexuality works have been collected in a book Cruel Hoax: Feminism and the New World Order.^[2]

Many of his articles cite evidence of a hidden hand shaping modern history according to a long-term occult (satanic) agenda. He associates this force with the "-isms" :Zionism, Communism, Liberalism, Secularism, Neo-Conservatism, Fascism, Nazism and Feminism. He argues that democracy today is a charade and serves as an instrument of social control; the mass media generally stifles information and channels thought; and popular entertainment diverts the audience from what it is happening and degrades us. The occult force, which operates through Freemasonry, is empowered by the London-based central banking cartel which must bring about world tyranny to defend its monopoly on credit (money creation.) Using the pretext of war, the goal is depopulation and ultimately, the enslavement of mankind, mentally and spiritually, if not physically.

Makow is Jewish^[3] and his grandparents were victims of the Holocaust. He criticizes using the Holocaust as a PC club, the denial of crimes by the communists and by Turks against the Armenians.^[4]

To Tell the Truth? Scruples? Freemasonry? Folks, you can’t make this stuff up (although as Dr. Makow demonstrates, you can confabulate and/or expand upon plenty of other piffle; hey, maybe "Piffle" can be the name of the good doctor's next board game).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:12 | link | comments

All the news that makes things fit: A National Post editorial expounds on the subject of the street corner Der Sturmer, the rag flogged by homeless Torontonians. The paper has been purveying calumnies, canards and conspiracy theories about "da Jews" for nigh on a decade:

…On principle we are in favour of his right to publish nonsense, and to have a proper hearing in a courtroom when his copy crosses the line and incites violence, as the paper apologized for doing when columnist Henry Makow called for the deaths of "Jew bankers." But the Street News seems to have a problem with plagiarism, and it appears to be backtracking on its apology for the outbursts, claiming in the latest issue under the headline "Zionists controlling the media" that it was "no longer permitted" to run Makow's column because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Toronto Police Service are "controlled by people with alien loyalties." So where does Fletcher really stand on the issue of lynching "Jew bankers"?...

I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t oppose it, were the issue ever to arise in public. My question for the “columnist”: where does he stand on sharia financing--one of the genuine overt "conspiracies" aimed as gaining traction for Islamic law in the West?

Also, it never seems to occur to these loopy conspiracy types to ponder this glaring contradiction: if “Zionists” with "alien loyalties" truly controlled the media, then why do they consistently get such bad press?

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

On hatred, the homeless and HRCs: Even though I'm en vacance, I've been ruminating about that piece in the National Post yesterday revealing that homeless people in Toronto have been flogging a newspaper full of antisemitic crapola. The old Scaramouche,the one who didn't know wasn't fully up on the infamy of the the anti-hate industry and how seriously it compromised our freedom, might have said and done what the CJC has done--i.e. worried about the hatred, lodged a complaint with an HRC and waited for the thought cops and/or  'roos to, at some point, depending on how quickly it got to it (in Ezra Levant's case, it took a whopping 900 days), either dismiss the matter or adjudicate it in a "quasi-judicial" framework, and mete out the requisite punishment to the offender. At the end of which there would be high fives all around and immense satisfaction that another hater had been squashed, and Canadian Jews have been made "safe".

That's the old Scaramouche. The new Scaramouche says, "Hold on a minute. In the annals of Judenhass, this has to be one of the most pathetic stories ever. Here you have a pathetic old cancer-ridden Jew-hater who's in the grip of the same old pathetic delusions about "the Jews" controlling the global monetary supply pushing that line in pathetic "newspaper" flogged on downtown street corners by pathetic homeless people. Will I as a Jew feel "safer" if the whole sorry lot of them are "punished" by commissar Barbara Hall's wacky, Orwellian "court"? Not on your life."

You see, it's not the free floating Judenhass that alarms me--the pathetic chatter in the pathetic Stormfront chat rooms that Tammy and Co. labour so hard to shut down. As a student of history I have come to understand that free floating hatred is a permanent feature, a given given Judaism's place in the pecking order of monotheism. The free floating hatred--that's everywhere, all the time. (One example: recently, my 10-year-old son was told by some kids at the yacht club where we have our modest sail boat that they could tell he was Jewish because he "had a Jewish nose." The thing is, my son is adopted, and has the button-nose of his Kentucky forebears. Obviously, these kids had heard that "the Jews" are noted for their probosci--even, it seems, the Jews who don't have even a trace of Jewish blood in them.) It's the Judenhass that's tied to political agenda we have to worry about; the hatred on display in Arab newspapers that's tied to an agenda of obliterating the Jewish state in the same way that the hatred in Nazi newspapers was tied to an agenda of liquidating the Jews of Europe.

That being said, how sad is it that the only way a homeless person can make an "honest" buck is by purveying this tommyrot? And why has it taken so long for the contents of this loathesome rag to be exposed?

As well, one must note the disparity in the way Commissar Hall reacted to this instance of hatred versus her reaction to the case that got away--Mark Steyn and Maclean's. Babsy, as you'll recall, never got to adjudicate that matter since, alas, it didn't fall within her purview. Deprived of the opportunity to conduct a B.C.-style show trial, she worked herself up into a frenzied--one might even say hysterical--state, declaring Steyn and Maclean's "guilty" of flagrant "xenophobia" and "Islamophobia". Compare that to her reaction to the homeless rag, which really is vile and hateful (as opposed to the Maclean's pieces, which were truthful about, albeit criticical of, the jihad). Babsy's low-key reply: Ho hum; no biggie; wake me up when someone says something nasty about a Muslim so's I can spring into action.

Dare we call that the commissar's "disproportionate response"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:44 | link | comments (2)

The Globe's blood libel:  I meant to post this one the day I saw it, but never got around to it. It's a Glib and Mewl editorial 'toon showing Iran--you know, the nation that is in the process of enriching the uranium that will enable it to, as promised, fulfill Hitler's Final Solution--morphing into a delectable pear, and teensy Israel, cannibalistically, taking a big bite out of it.

Any conflation of this image with those age old canards about Jews feasting on the blood of juicy gentiles is....purely intentional.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:58 | link | comments (1)

Gone fishing: Blogging will be light to non-existent from now through Sunday. I hope to be back at it full throttle on the 18th.

T.t.t.t. (ta ta 'til then).

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:05 | link | comments

On sale now: Superbambi:

Wait a sec--I thought he was Jesus.

Update: Oops! Looks like we're too late. The Super B tee is plum sold out. If you hurry, thought, you can still get the shirt showing Dubyula sucking the life out of the Statue of Liberty--a surefire way to garner a laugh or two in moonbat quadrants (like, say, the upcoming convention in Denver) .

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:18 | link | comments

No shrouds allowed: Mona Eltahawy, one of those brave women who consistently speak out against the repressions of sharia, poses a timely question: Where are Saudi Arabia's female athletes?

The query, obviously,  is rhetorical, since it's difficult to compete in an athletic event looking like this. Which I guess is the point.

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

National angst: The country is in the grip of semi-hysterical embarrassment and self-reproach over our paucity of medals at the Smoglympics. Our medal count so far: nada, diddly, goose eggs, a tally which puts us below such athletic powerhouses as, er, Togo.

Me? I could care less about being medal-less. Like some letter-writers to the National Post, I’m far more agitated about being free speech-less.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:34 | link | comments

Dead poet society: An unfond farewell to the object of the Ceeb's and other useful idiots' veneration, Mahmoud "The Voice" Darwish:

The Ceeb says the poet’s divine

Since his “homeland” is Palestine.

It cannot resist

A “nationalist”

Even one whose intent was malign.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:46 | link | comments

Unlikely story of the day: It has just been revealed that Julia Child, the rather slapdash French chef with the high-pitched voice, was once a spy. Blogger Vanity Fairest recalls comedian Dan Ackroyd's impersonation of Julia back in the early days of Saturday Night Live:

The whole scene was not unlike that Saturday Night Live sketch my dad loves so much — the one where Dan Ackroyd impersonates Julia Child as she “cuts the dickens” out of her finger and blood is spurting everywhere as she tries to make a tourniquet with a chicken bone while still lecturing the audience about salvaging the liver because it makes a nice paté. Except my dad remembers the words differently so that whenever anyone mentions having cut himself he starts hopping around clutching his thumb and yelling in a gravelly high-pitched British accent, “I’ve cut the PISS out of my fingah!” with extra emphasis on the “PISS.”

I don't believe it was a British accent--more like a high-toned New England one, as if she were speaking with a couple of marbles in her mouth. I guess she was more adroit at espionage than she was in the kitchen, though (since we hadn't heard about her covert career until now).

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:28 | link | comments

Realpolitik: The U.S. casts Israel adrift, leaving it to twist slowly, helplessly, in the wind.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:09 | link | comments

More Ceeb shtick: Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s funding the Ceeb—Canadian taxpayers or Saudi Arabia. This evening, for example, the Ceeb frames the ruckus in China as being a matter of Muslim “separatists” desiring to, um, separate (so much easier to wrap one's noggin around than the reality of its being one of dots in the larger global scheme). And in another instance of useful idiocy, the Ceeb has gone into paroxysms of grief over the death of a Palestinian poet probably few Canadians had ever heard about before his untimely demise. (He died in the U.S. following heart surgery.) We know the death of Mahmoud Darwish, a “nationalist” chased out of his “homeland” by the Jews, must be a big deal,  since it elicits lengthy coverage, including a report from the scene of his funeral. On Ceeb radio news, Middle East correspondent Margaret Evans is using her soft voice, the one with the catch in it, the one she reserves for the discussion of poor, put upon Palestinians chased away from their homes by dastardly Jews—so you can tell she’s really broken up. And as if Maggie’s soggy, lachrymose reflections aren’t enough, there’s a whole new round of lamentation for the Great One on radio show As It Happens.

My word. From the way the Ceeb is going on, you would think Leonard Cohen had bought it or something.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:04 | link | comments (1)

Today's protest song: With apologies to one hit wonder/original raging granny, Malvina Reynolds:

Little thought cops, little thought cops,

Little thought cops on the HRCs.

Little thought cops, little thought cops

And they all think just the same.

There’s a tall one and a short one

And a fat one and a skinny one

And they all get put on HRCs

Where they all think just the same.

 

They hold hearings,

They make rulings,

And they punish miscreants

Who have said something impolite

And who may not think just the same.

They are censors; we’re defenceless,

And they’re riding roughshod over us.

Know what’s best for us--

That’s what’s stressed to us

So we’ll all think just the same.

 

They’re so earnest when they spurn us

And tell us to put a sock in it.

Their advice is: “Opt for niceness

So we’ll all think just the same.”

It’s so chilling that we’re willing

To bow down and kowtow to them.

Where’s our gumption when th’assumption

Is we must think just the same?

 

And the people in this country

Aren’t free like we used to be

‘Cause of thought cops on the HRCs

Who insist we think just the same.

There’s a tall one and a short one

And a fat one and a skinny one

And they all get put on HRCs

‘Cause they all think just the same.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:50 | link | comments (2)

Unwelcome company: I had a chance to visit Petra, Jordan, last year when I was in Israel, but declined to do so. My reasoning: even though Jordan made “peace” with us back in 1994, the Hashemite entity is officially Jundenrein; under the terms of Jordanian law, only one people are barred from ever becoming citizens—the Jews.

So, on principle, I saved my shekels and decided not to take in the glorious ruins. There are plenty of Jews, though, who don’t share my hesitations.YNet News reports on some of them—folks who went to visit Jordan, but who were told they could only get in if they left anything identifying them as a Jude behind:

Dozens of Israelis who have passed through the Arava border crossing during the last few days were given a choice, either turn over all items that carry Jewish symbols or be denied entry into Jordan.

The reason? According to the Jordanians it is nothing more than a security precaution.

 

"The Jewish symbols will make it easier on terrorist elements to identify Israelis" a Jordanian official explained.

 

For the past year the Jordanians have been meticulous when checking Israelis, especially orthodox Jews, who wish to enter Jordan. Last week authorities reiterated their advisory that "Jewish paraphernalia" that could risk the lives of the tourists, must be left at the border checkpoint.

'No anti-Semitic sentiment'

On Tuesday, for example, a group of 30 religious Israelis had to cancel their planned trip to Petra, after Jordanian authorities' confiscated their Jewish paraphernalia.

"The Jordanians confiscated everyone's prayer books and even seized one members' copy of a book by (Shmuel Yosef) Agnon", mentioned Trix Richter, a member of the group.

 

According to Richter, the Jordanians claimed that this was being done for security reasons. "It sounded a little far-fetched', said Richter, "I hate to think what would happen if the State of Israel would confiscate copies of the Koran from Muslim tourists or copies of the New Testament from Christian tourists; the rest of the world would be upset."

The foreign Ministry has confirmed that the Jordanians had in fact increased security regarding Jewish paraphernalia. "They claim that it has to do with security measures," a source inside the ministry said.

"They believe tourists we can be recognized as Jews would be easier target for terrorists," he said. We told them that it seemed a bit much, and that generally, Jews pray and put on tefillin in private, such as in a hotel room, but their concerns are about Jews praying in public and drawing attention to themselves."  

Following the increase in complaints both the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli embassy in Amman plan to appeal to the Jordanian authorities in order to ease the restrictions

 

"It must be understood that this decision stems from a genuine desire to keep the Israeli tourists safe", said a source in the ministry. "There is no anti-Semitic sentiment (behind the decision), just the desire to protect tourists the best that they can". 

 

Riiight. Memo to clueless Jews: Next time you have an itch to visit the Hashemite hot spots, stay home.

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

The necessity to whup the kafir is the mother of jihadi invention: Dissatisfied with the pace of Continental Islamization (it’s not going nearly fast enough for his taste) a true believer offers a “brilliant” suggestion for speeding it up. From MEMRI:

On August 9, 2008 a member of the Islamist forum Al-Boraq proposed poisoning the water systems of major European cities. The forum member began his message by reminding "monotheists [i.e. Muslims] who yearn to support the Prophet" that Ramadan is coming, and explained that poisoning the water systems of major European cities is just one of many options - some of them "more powerful and more damaging" - but that his posting is meant to "prompt the mind [to generate] innovative [ideas]."

Oh, those “innovative” holy mass murderers—always coming up with new ways to push the death envelope.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:39 | link | comments (1)

Mosque promotion: Canada’s public broadcaster/training ground for al Jazeera invites us to put our “love for Little Mosque [on the Prairies] to the test” by answering some skill-testing questions. There are prizes galore for aficionados of the shill-com (currently on summer hiatus but back for more side-splitting hilarity come fall) who have been paying close attention.  

In another instance of mosque promotion, the other day Ceeb Radio treated listeners to a heart-tugger about a new “little” mosque going up in northern British Columbia. Any similarity between the way that story was reported and how it might have been reported by, say, Muslim Brotherhood Media (an entity I just made up) is purely co-incidental.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:12 | link | comments (1)

Lip synch scandal: The news that the angelic-looking-and-sounding moppet who sang the national anthem at the opening ceremonies of the Smoglympics did not in fact do her own singing (the honour went to a snaggle-toothed, less telegenic moppet) is an apt metaphor for the entire event. After all, "performance enhancement" features prominently in the athletic competition, too.

My thoughts: There are over a billion people in the People's Republic. You mean to say in all the country they couldn't locate a cherub who was both good looking and could sing? Barring that, why didn't they go with the less-angelic looking kid? She's kind of cute, in her own snaggle-toothed way. And that lip-syncher--I don't know about you, but her performance (youthful perfection married to impassioned true belief) gave me the willies.

Update: Maybe after the games are over the two moppets can get together and go on tour. Suggested name for the duo: Milli and Vanilli, of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:37 | link | comments

Propane desecration: The buck-passing continues in the wake of the propane explosion, with the city blaming the province, and vice versa. While most of the residents in the neighbour adjacent to now devastated propane site have returned home to varying scenes of damage, some have been told they cannot yet return due to concerns that there's asbestos in the air. (It's unclear to me why the asbestos, being airborne, wouldn't affect the entire neighbourhood.) No answers are yet forthcoming from Sunrise Propane,  the company that went up in a fireball, but  after issuing a brief statement through a lawyer, the owners have gone underground. Local residents of this working class area, home to many eldery residents, are already talking about a class action suit, but there's no talk, as yet about a class action suit by others affected by the explosion--those of us who have family buried in the Jewish cemetary across the road. The cemetary, the last resting place of my father, grandparents and other close family members, was heavily damaged, and may never open again.

At the moment, I don't know who's to blame. All I know is that it's not too much of a stretch to see that a combination of apathy, greed and incompetence are to blame.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:47 | link | comments

Playing the victim canard—on the taxpayers’ dime: The Canadian Arab Federation is well versed in playing the victim game—and in getting the provincial government to underwrite it. In two days, victims and non-victims alike will be able to participate in a government-funded workshop in order to hear some gripes and come up with ways to counter the “stereotyping” (which, we’re assured, is at the root of Canadians’ groundless fears about Arabs.) Here’s what's on tap:

Hate Crime Victims Provincial Support Network Workshop

An initiative of the Canadian Arab Federation, with funding from the Ministry of the Attorney General, the HateCrime Victims Provincial Support Network is hosting a forum to continue building awareness of the challenges facing Canadian Arabs in Ontario, stemming from negative stereotypes, racism and hate crimes. Working together to understand these issues, we will explore methods for countering and addressing the impact of such challenges.

 

When: August 14, 2008 at 7:00 PM

Where: University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), Council Chambers-Room 3130, South Building. 3359 Mississauga Road North...

Come out to share your experiences and learn from others. This forum is free and open to the public. The event includes refreshments and a Question and Answer period.

Guest Speakers:

Raja Khouri

Raja Khouri is managing consultant at The Knowledge Centre, a Commissioner with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and a member of the Toronto Committee of Human RightsWatch and the Ontario Hate Crimes CommunityWorking Group.

 

Nouman Ashraf

Nouman is Director of the Anti-racism and Cultural Diversity office at the University of Toronto and was

appointed by the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario to serve on the Community Hate Crimes Response Grants Selection Committee in September 2007.

 

Mohammed Ashour

Mohammed Ashour is the current President of the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) at the University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus. Having served on the executive level for three consecutive years, he has witnessed a pattern-less fluctuation of Islamophobia on campus. Convinced that most Islamophobic sentiments are the progeny of misinformation and lack of awareness, he and the MSA are committed to dispelling such ignorance with wisdom and intellectual fortitude.

 

Hate Crimes Investigative Unit Representative

Speakers will discuss:

· What you can do when faced with an incident of hate, racism or a hate crime

· How the Arab and Muslim communities have been affected by hate post 9/11

· Incidents of hate crimes and racial tensions at university campuses

· The legal context of hate crimes and what your rights are

· Freedom of expression of the press vs. hateful speech

Sounds like a blast. The Muslim Student’s Association, by the way, is the progeny (to borrow a word) of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization of Islamic supremacists dedicated to putting Islam on top, as per Allah’s promise to the faith’s founder. For obvious reasons, that didn't make it into the MSA prez's bio. (Query for the prez during Question and Answer Period: What is a "pattern-less fluctuation of Islamophobia," and how does it differ from a patterened fluctuation of the same?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:26 | link | comments

Elmo’s afeared of “Nazis,” too: The CJC, as we know, is obsessed with the Nazi threat, and is thus engaged in a relentless battle to pursue and punish decrepit, incontinent Nazis and White Power pishers wherever they are hiding. Taking a page from the Jews’ playbook, the Canadian Islamic Congress’s Grand Poobah-for–life is also promoting the Nazi theat—and the “new” Jews he sees in its crosshairs:

…On July 4, 2008 the Independent newspaper reported that Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathizer in East Yorkshire, England, was jailed for 16 years. "Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. In a note at his flat he had written, ‘I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act’."

The Independent headlined the above-quoted report by journalist Peter Oborne as "The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease." The article observed that "Suspicion of the Muslim community has found its way into mainstream society - and nobody seems to care."

In fact, the Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story.

"There is a reason for this blindness in the media," Oborne continues. "The systematic demonization of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed."

Commenting on Canadian Prof. Sherene H. Razack’s new book "Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims From Western Law & Politics," Dr. Ghassan Hage, Prof. of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, observed: "Hannah Arendt argued that Holocaust history shows that Jews were perceived and treated by German society as marginal and expendable long before their extermination was acted out. [This book] shows the complex ways in which Muslims in the West are slowly being driven to become today’s exterminables ... It is worth remembering that the Holocaust was not a historical inevitability. Those struggling against the dark forces of extermination can succeed."

Memo to Elmo: No need to fret. Nazis and Muslims are long-time natural allies, united by a desire to exterminate the same old “exterminables”—the Jews. Nice try at purloining the Jews’ identity and horrific history, though. Were the CJC actually awake and in possession of a clue, your remarks should, once and for all, put the kibosh on your beautiful friendship.

As for the notion that the West is "casting out" Muslims--'tis to laugh. In fact, it is Islamic law, now making a big push to gain a foothold in the West,  that "evicts" and marginalizes non-believers. But I have a feeling that the Professor and Elmo are both well aware of that.

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

Hamas summer camp: It's a day packed with fun and excitement at Camp KilltheJews. Indocrination, martial arts, military drills, semtex A&C--no wonder the kids collapse into bed, exhausted, each night.

Plans are already underway for a camp reunion, but if all goes well, some of the campers hope to be otherwise engaged.  (h/t Carl in Jerusalem)

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

Overlords and lackies: The Wahhabis are praising their foremost dhimmi factotums—Spain—for hosting that Wahhabi-sponsored interfaith conference, and helping to make it such a roaring success: In another act of obeisance, the Spanish dhimmis have recently issued arrest warrants for some pesky Jews.

Looks like the Wahhabis’ al Andalus  reclamation project is right on schedule.

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

Censorship makes strange bedfellows: What does the dictatorship of Egypt have in common with the “democracy” of Canada? Both are determined to censor unacceptable speech on the Internet. From al Jazeera (my bolds):

The Egyptian government is in the early stages of preparing a new law on audio-visual media that critics say is aimed at cracking down on dissent.

The proposed legislation, should it pass into law unchanged, will set the standard for other governments in the Arab world seeking to silence opposition voices on televisions and computer screens across the region.
 
The draft bill, which was leaked to the independent Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm on July 9, requires journalists and broadcasters to avoid damaging "the social peace", "national unity", "public order" and "public values".
 
Those who contravene such rules, the draft suggests, could face imprisonment for periods ranging from one month to three years, along with suspension or cancellation of broadcasting licenses, the confiscation of equipment, and fines ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,800 - $9,000).

Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, sees the proposed law as a cynical attempt at strangling the burgeoning democracy movement in Egypt.

"Television and the internet have been giving the government a hard time for the past four years," he said.

"These two media have played a big role in the escalating movement asking for democracy. They are two important parts of the movement, so the government is trying to put more restrictions on them."…

How interesting: in Egypt, the censorship is aimed at curbing unacceptable speech that advances the agenda of Muburak’s disloyal opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood (advocates of a one-time only “democracy” that would permit the populace to put it in office; once firmly ensconced, “democracy” would be jettisoned and a sharia state would rise); in Canada, the censorship is aimed (in part) at curbing unacceptable speech that criticizes that same agenda.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:47 | link | comments

Fun with names: You may or may not recall that the reason I started calling the Toronto Star’s resident shill for Islam Haroon Siddiqui, “Harpoon”. It’s not a name I came up with. Rather, it’s his spell-check suggested name. (In a feat of logic that is opaque to all save Spell-check, the grammarian recommends “Sodium” as the correction for “Siddiqui”—but I think “Harpoon Sodium” is a tad too much, even for me). The first time the suggestion popped up, I was so amused that I decided to use it from them on—a cheeky riposte to a guy who’s so solemn, serious and sober-sided, and who writes with not a whit of wit, that he’s the journalistic equivalent of Lunesta.

Now onto another amusing moniker. It has come to my attention via a comment in Ezra Levant’s blog that “Lakritz,” the surname of the clueless Calgary Herald pundit who thinks Ezra’s a drama queen and that we’re not being nearly nice enough to Muslims, is German for “licorice.”

Naomi Licorice—how absolutely perfect for a gal whose ideas are sticky, sickly sweet, non-nutritious, and woefully lacking in heft. From here on in, she will be known by that name to me.

And wouldn’t Harpoon and la Licorice be ideal collaborators on a book justifying their beloved thought cops?  Maybe they could get Harpoon’s pal Tammy to pen the intro.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:39 | link | comments (2)

Insightful essay, circa 1998: Idling away an hour before a doctor’s appointment, I happened to poke around in the bargain bins in front of a a nearby pre-owned book emporium. One of the intriguing books I came across (I ended up buying three for the grand total of $4) was one entitled The Ethics of War and Peace. A collection of scholarly essays published in 1996 by Princeton University Press, it’s an examination of Jewish, Muslim, Christian and secular perspectives on the subject. It cost me a whole buck—my bargoon of the week. If I could, I would post the entire essay by Bassam Tibi (described in the "Contributors" page as “professor of international relations at the Georg-August-University in Gottingen, where he also heads the Center for International Relations…”). Since I can’t find it online, here’s the conclusion, which offers a fairly good summation. Remember, it was published in 1996, back when many of us—moi included—hadn’t a clue about Islam and its imperatives (my bolds):

     In discussing the basic concepts of the Islamic tradition of war and peace, and their understanding by Muslims at the present, my focus has been on Muslim attitudes toward war. The ground for war is always the dissemination of Islam throughout the world. And in conducting war, Muslims are to avoid destruction and to deal fairly with the weak. Muslims do not view the use of force to propagate Islam as an act of war, given their understanding of the da’wa as an effort to abolish war by bringing the entire world into the “house of Islam,” which is the house of peace. For this reason, as we have seen, Islamic conquests are described by Islamic historians not as wars (hurub) but as “openings” (futuhat) of the world to Islam.

     Despite the universal religious mission of Islam, the world of Islam was a regional, not a global, system. The only global system in the history of mankind is our present international system, which is the result of the expansion of the European model. As we have seen, this modern international system has placed strain on the ethics of war and peace in Islam, generating the divergent responses of conformism and fundamentalism.

     Islamic war/peace ethics is scriptural and premodern. It does not take into account the reality of our times, which is that international morality is based on relations between sovereign states, not on the religions of the people living therein. Though the Islamic states acknowledge the authority of international law regulating relations among states, Islamic doctrine governing war and peace continues to be based on a division of the world into dar al-Islam and dar al-harb. The divine law of Islam, which defines a partial community in international society, still ranks about the laws upon which modern international society rests.

     The confrontation between Islam and the West will continue, and it will assume a most dramatic form. Its outcome will depend on two factors: first, the ability of Muslims to undertake a “cultural accommodation” of Islamic religious concepts and their ethical underpinnings to the changed international environment; and, second, their ability to accept equality and mutual respect between themselves and those who do not share their beliefs.

Looks like in the twelve years since the book was published—years that saw al Qaeda bombings of American embassies in Africa; two attacks on the World Trade Centre; the coming to the fore of Mahdi messianism in Iran and the mullahs’ support for Hamas and Hezbollah, jihadi organizations committed to a genocide of Israel’s Jews—“cultural accommodation” and “mutual respect” have been put on the back burner. That’s largely a function of the house of Islam, feeling ever more powerful due to the cravenness and cluelessness of the house of war, along with the self-confidence that comes from being awash in oil. Both globally and in Western locales, the house of Islam has been insiting that others do the accommodating, upon pain of being labelled insensitive, racist or Islamphobic should they fail to comply. Obviously, the essayist hadn’t even a inkling of the way things were going to pan out when he we wrote his thoughts in the downy, hedonistic days of the Clinton era. Was it only a mere ten years ago that we thought the most pressing crisis in America revolved around an avoirdupois intern who had a nifty way with a cigar?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:52 | link | comments

Morocco in transition: If you have a yen to visit sunny Morocco, you’d better do it soon. It looks like this most modern of Muslim countries may be in the process of becoming far less hospitable to tourists and their foreign ways. From AP via the Toronto Star:

RABAT–The muezzins' calls echo well before daybreak, summoning the Muslim faithful to daily prayers and reminding foreign tourists in the Moroccan capital how far they are from home.

But the rising decibel level is deepening fault lines between a government drive to modernize and a wave of rigorous political Islam.

Morocco, a country of 33 million people, gets more than 7 million tourists a year, and there are worries some may be put off by the five heavily amplified calls a day, each lasting five minutes, to "hasten to the prayer, hasten to the prayer."

Muslim purists counter that authorities are compromising religion to please Westerners and the country's liberal elite.

The frictions are happening in a country that is considered moderate on matters of religion and is a U.S. ally at a time when there are fears that Al Qaeda is establishing itself in North Africa.

Morocco has lately been shaken by two different cases in which the government, or wealthy Westerners, have been accused of plotting to force down the volume on the muezzins who make the call to prayer…

Nouzha Skalli, the minister for family and social affairs, is accused of seeking legislation to lower the volume on muezzins in tourist zones. Newspapers have asked whether Skalli, a feminist and former Communist, is trying to curb Islam and impose secularism on Morocco's overwhelmingly Muslim society. Some hard-line imams have cursed her during public sermons.

"It made huge waves, even a tsunami," Skalli said…

Still, Mohammed Darif, a Moroccan political scientist and expert on Islamism, says hardliners increasingly are depicting the tourist influx as a threat to Muslim values. The wealthy may support the government's pro-Western and liberal values, he says, "but the Morocco of poverty, backward countryside and urban slums is increasingly averse to tourism and the internationalized elite."

He says some Moroccans complain of walled-off resorts that make them feel unwelcome.

"It's discrimination by wealth, and tourism is highlighting the sore," he said.

Olivier Roy, French author of Globalized Islam, says the tensions are a new phenomenon, and that the former French colony has "a history of cohabitation" in which Western hippies of the 1960s and '70s were welcome visitors.

Roy says louder calls to prayer are a product of Salafism, a rigorous strain of Islam imported from Saudi Arabia. Also, he said, audio technology used for prayer calls has improved, and imams are in competition to fill their mosques.

Islam is the state religion in Morocco and the king is the "Commander of the Believers." The state trains and appoints all imams, but tends to avoid dictating standards of public behaviour.

Miloud al-Atifi is an imam who doubles as the muezzin in his small mosque in Sale, a poor suburb of Rabat. He takes a benign view of the muezzin uproar.

"The prayer cleanses the soul, it's fundamental," he explained, but loudspeakers are simply a technical aid and can be toned down if, for instance, they're near a hospital.

As for tourist zones, the imam doesn't think there's a debate because, "If there are only non-Muslims around, it makes no sense to even have a call for prayer."

Sure it does—if you want to ensure that the non-Muslims know who’s in charge. AP thoughtfully provides a translation of the muezzin’s call, so everyone can see how peaceful, spiritual and innocuous it is:

God is great, God is great.

God is great, God is great.

I bear witness there is no divinity but God.

I bear witness there is no divinity but God.

I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.

I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Hasten to the prayer, hasten to the prayer.

Hasten to success, hasten to success.

God is great, God is great.

There is no divinity but God.

“Hasten to success,”eh? No doubt a reference to an individual’s successful personal struggle to heed God (virgins not included).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:40 | link | comments (3)

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A "youth" gets shots by police, sparking rage, rioting, looting and torched cars.

Paree, fall '06? Nope, Montreal, last night.

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

Walking imam's bio: The cleric who’s a favourite of the CJC (since they both want to “build bridges in the Canadian context” and despise Ezra Levant, whom they see as an impediment to their interfaith construction project) has quite the impressive C.V.:

Prof.  Imam Syed B. Soharwardy was born in a very highly respected religious family in Karachi, Pakistan. His father and Murshad (spiritual guide), Allama Syed Muhammad Riazuddin Soharwardy (May Allah shower His blessings upon him) was a great Islamic scholar and the Imam of a famous mosque in Karachi, Jamia Bughdadi Masjid, Martin Road, Karachi, where he established Dar-ul-Aloom Soharwardia. Syed B. Soharwardy's grandfather, Allama Syed Muhammad Jalaluddin Chishty (May Allah shower His blessings upon him) was the Grand Mufti of Kashmir (Baramula). Allama Jalaluddin Chishty later migrated to Amritser (India) where he served as the head of Dar-ul-Aloom Nizamiah Sirajiah and Imam of the Mosque.

Imam Soharwardy received his early Islamic education from his father in the traditional Islamic Madrasah at Bughdadi Masjid. Later, he graduated from Dar-ul-Aloom Soharwardia, Karachi. Mr. Soharwardy also earned Bachelor of Arts degree in Islamic Studies from University of Karachi. Beside his Islamic education, Mr. Soharwardy earned Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) from N.E.D. University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Master of Science in Management Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA and Master of Engineering in Project Management from University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. He is a certified Project Manager from Project Management Institute, USA

Syed Soharwardy was appointed as a teacher at Dar-ul-Aloom Soharwardia where he taught various subjects of Islamic studies. Later, he also served as an assistant Imam and Kahteeb at Jamia Bughdadi Masjid, Martin Road (1971- 1979).

Syed Soharwardy has lectured in Pakistan, USA and Saudi Arabia at various universities and institutes for over 12 years.

Prof. Soharwardy is the founder of Muslims Against Terrorism. He founded this organization in January 1999. He is also the founder and the national president of Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. He has authored several papers on Technology issues, Information Technology Management, Islamic beliefs, Challenges for Muslims in western world, conflicts within the Muslim community, Intra and Inter religion conflicts.  Mr. Soharwardy has addressed hundreds of gatherings in Pakistan, USA, UK and Canada on various topics of Islamic faith.  He is the head of the first ever Dar-ul-Aloom in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he teaches Islamic studies. Prof. Soharwardy lectures in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Mississauga, Brampton, Richmond Hill, Markham, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver on monthly basis.

Mr. Soharwardy is a strong advocate of Islamic Tasawuf and believes that the world will be a better place for everyone, if we follow what Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has said, " You will not have faith unless you like for others what you like for yourself." He believes that the spiritual weakness in human causes all kinds of problems. Mr. Soharwardy can be contacted at Soharwardy@shaw.ca OR  Phone (403)-208-7148

An engineer (like Elmo and Atta) and a strong advocate of Islamic Tasawuf (a.k.a. Sufism)? Kewl. Now that we have his e-mail and phone number, maybe we should contact this professional, spiritual soul and urge him not to follow through on his threat to the bane of his and the CJC’s existence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:34 | link | comments (1)

Feel the love: In a review of Andrew Bostom’s recent book, Bruce C. Thornton gets at the “root cause” of Islamic Judenhass. From City Journal (my bolds):

…Islamic anti-Semitism begins, as do all things in Islam, with the Koran—the immutable, infallible, timeless words of Allah dictated to the Prophet—in which Jews are cursed with “abasement and humiliation” and are “deserving of Allah’s wrath” because they rejected Mohammed. Jews are further characterized as corrupt, treacherous rebels and infidels whose destiny is to be the enemy of the true believers. The debased status of Jews is communicated most starkly in the Koranic verse (5:60) referring to their transformation into “apes” or “apes and swine,” a motif repeated in the early Muslim biographies of Mohammed: just before he executed the adult males of the Banu Qurayza, a Medinan Jewish tribe, Mohammed called them “brothers of apes” or, in another version, “brothers of monkeys and pigs.” This odious phrase recurs repeatedly in Muslim writings right up to the present: in a 2002 radio broadcast, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir called for jihad against the Jews, “those apes, pigs, and worshipers of calves.” And Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, grand imam of Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious center of Muslim learning and theology, likewise has called Jews the “descendants of apes and pigs.” As the Tantawi example shows, such characterizations of Jews are not limited to fringe writers or marginalized extremists, as they are with present-day Christian anti-Semitism.

Further, Jew-hatred has been voiced over the centuries by the most respected theologians, jurists, and Koranic commentators, such as al-Tabari, Baydawi, and ibn Kathir. In the sixteenth century, the Moroccan sheikh al-Maghili’s voluminous diatribes against the Jews of the Touat oasis—“Love of the Prophet requires hatred of the Jews,” he wrote—culminated in a massacre of Touat’s Jews and the destruction of their synagogue. Closer to our own times, this tradition can be found in the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and prolific Koranic commentator, who was the most important theorist for modern jihadists. Qutb linked his call for a fundamentalist return to Islam to the Jews, whose “wicked nature . . . is full of hatred for Islam,” and whose defeat would come about only at the hands of Muslims who “implement Islam completely in their lives.” And modern terrorists have accompanied their murders of Israelis with similar justifications that refer to the Koran and Koranic exegetes, as in a 1968 Cairo conference that called repeatedly for forcing the Jews to return to their proper status of permanent abasement, humiliation, and wretchedness.

Like the Koran, the deeds and sayings of Mohammed collected in the hadith justify Muslim hatred of Jews. Mohammed repeatedly defines the proper behavior of Muslims by contrasting it with the customs and practices of the Jews. In the hadith, Jews are treacherous, envious, and spiteful. They alter the sacred scriptures to remove references to Mohammed; cast evil spells on Muslims; poison Mohammed; and reject spitefully Mohammed’s revelation and status as “seal of the prophets.” This alleged Jewish hostility toward Muslims justifies Muslims’ obligation to subdue and humiliate Jews. A seventeenth-century Yemenite ruler, Imam al-Mahdi, desired to fulfill Mohammed’s deathbed charge, as recorded in a canonical hadith, that “two religions shall not remain together in the peninsula of the Arabs,” so he exiled the Jews of Yemen to the desolate plain of Tihama, destroying synagogues and desecrating Torah scrolls. Only 1,000 of the original 10,000 Jews survived the ordeal.

In traditional biographies of Mohammed, the Jews appear as rivals to the new faith who must be conquered and displaced in order for Islam to advance. According to the eighth-century biographer ibn Ishaq, the Jews of Medina harassed Mohammed “out of jealousy, envy, and malice because Allah Exalted had conferred distinction upon the Arabs by choosing him as His messenger.” In point of historical fact, the Medina to which Mohammed repaired after leaving Mecca was home to three Jewish tribes whose rejection of Mohammed impeded his ambitions and whose ridicule of his exegesis of Jewish scripture aroused in him something akin to Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence”—a humiliating reminder of how much of the Koran was plagiarized from Jewish sacred writings. What followed was a campaign of assassinations of Jewish poets and leaders—ibn Ishaq quotes the Prophet as saying, “Kill any Jew that falls into your power”—and raids on Jewish caravans. This escalating aggression culminated in an attack on the Banu Qaynuqa tribe, whose members were despoiled and expelled from Medina. Next was the turn of the Banu Nadir, who were also expelled, their property distributed to Muslims. The last tribe, the Banu Qurayza, held out for a while behind their fortifications; when they finally surrendered, 600 to 900 men were beheaded, their women and children were sold into slavery, and their possessions were distributed, again, to Muslims. Subsequent Islamic exegetes (Abu Yusuf and al-Mawardi, for example) pointed to the extinction of the Banu Qurayza as a model for Muslim treatment of infidels who stand in the way of Islam’s ambitions by refusing the call to convert.

Bostom links this tradition to Muslims’ later treatment of Jews in Palestine, Spain, Turkey, and Iran. The doctrine of jihad is crucial to the story, for it links the goal of conquest to the protocols for treatment of Jews and Christians, who as dhimmi must live at the sufferance of their Muslim overlords, subjected to humiliating restrictions on their lives and payment of a poll tax. Contrary to the apologists and their fantasies of ecumenical tolerance in historic Islamic states, Bostom’s history is filled with massacres, enslavement, dispossession, and plundering of Jews, all justified by the Koran and Mohammed’s own behavior. This pattern extends to the present. Yasser Arafat, for example, appeared to the West in the guise of a secular nationalist, but his “core ideology,” Bostom writes, “remained . . . rooted in jihad.” Thus Arafat wrote to the Ayatollah Khomeini, “I pray Allah to guide your step along the paths of faith and Holy War in Iran, continuing the combat until we arrive at the walls of Jerusalem.” After the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, which provided the Palestinians with a golden opportunity to realize their goal of an independent state—the presumed motive for their violence against Jews—Arafat said, “The jihad will continue.” And Hamas, of course, continues the long tradition of Jew-hatred and jihad today…

The above summary, as well as Bostom’s book, should be required reading for every Jew endeavouring to build bridges with Islamic supremacists.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:48 | link | comments

A question:  Why was a propane facility allowed to move into a residential Toronto neigbourhood five years ago, with apparently little or no consultation with the locals?

Who on Earth thought that was a good idea?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:48 | link | comments

Extry, extry: UN remedies endemic, systemic  Judenhass; appoints Israeli Jew to exalted position. From Arutz Sheva:

(IsraelNN.com) For the first time in the history of the organization, the Postal Operations Council of the United Nations' Universal Postal Union elected the Israel Postal Service to serve on its professional decision-making body.

Israel has been a member of the Universal Postal Union since December 1949.

The Postal Operations Council makes decisions relating to international postal services, financial issues and setting standards in quality of service. Israel will serve on the council for four years.

According to an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson, the election of Israel to international organizations is virtually impossible due to the anti-Israeli atmosphere generally prevailing in the United Nations institutions. Thus, every vote won is the result of a complex process of bilateral negotiations in the multilateral context.

Itzhak Levanon, Israel's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said: "This is a significant achievement for Israel in the framework of UN institutions. We do not enjoy many such events, and this success leaves us hopeful for the future. I hope that this will herald further Israeli achievements at the UN institutions in Geneva."

Israel's election by almost 90 votes is the result of almost two years' work, and of cooperation between the Israel Foreign Ministry, the Israel Postal Company and the Ministry of Communications.

The 24th Congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) began in its home country of Switzerland July 23 and will conclude on Tuesday. More than 1,500 delegates representing the 191 member countries of the organization, as well as observers, are attending the sessions.

We’re supposed to be excited because Israel gets to have a say on the flipping “Postal Operations Council”? Get a grip, Jews. It’s not like they got rid of the UNRWA or gave us a say in the running of the UNHRC.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:32 | link | comments (1)

Sharia creep or sharia “reform”?: You be the judge. From the Asian News:

EXPERTS are divided about the impact of a proposed new Muslim marriage contract being launched today in London with the backing of Ann Cryer MP, that would, claims one, give recognition to shariah law.

The new contract, drafted by the Muslim Institute, launching at the City Circle, would provide women with written proof of their marriage under Islamic law.

But discrimination barrister Neil Addison says it would mean shariah law by the 'back door.'

‘With government members approving it, it gives pseudo-legitimacy to Islamic marriage and to shariah by the back door, without giving any real reason why this contract is necessary and what’s wrong with civil marriage.’

Up to now, Muslims, alone among all religious groups, do not register their religious buildings in order to perform marriages that conform to English law. The new contract encourages registration.

The nikah is not recognised by the British courts  and as s a result, Muslim women who face talaq – Muslim divorce - could be left with no financial redress and become outcast, suffering loss of honour, status and social and financial support.

Dr Ida Glaser, a Director of the Centre for Muslim Christian Studies, and an expert on women’s issues, told Lapido Media: ‘It can be an unbelievable nightmare, so what is proposed is absolutely revolutionary.

‘It’s advocating recognition of the woman’s role in marriage both in English and Islamic law. It’s a very, very egalitarian interpretation of Islamic law. It’s not outside of Islamic law, but it’s a much more modern interpretation of Islamic law and one to be greatly encouraged.’

MP Ann Cryer has also endorsed the contract, describing it as ‘an excellent piece of work’.

She said: ‘I feel confident in recommending its findings to women (and men) of the Muslim faith contemplating marriage. The advice contained will, I am sure, help thousands of young people.’

The contract is the work of Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Founder Director of the south London-based Muslim Institute, who since 1994 has been working to persuade leading Muslims in Britain including the Muslim Council of Britain and others to reform the written contract that forms the basis of the nikah.

He said: ‘Now they are realisng the need for this. I think partly they were living in their own ghettoes.

‘Many young people thought marriage through an imam was acceptable. Now if the marriage breaks down, it is only then that the woman realises she has lost everything.’

The reforms in the contract include:

·         removing the requirement for a ‘marriage guardian’ (wali) for the bride, who, as an adult, can make up her own mind about whom to marry.

·         enabling the wife to initiate divorce and retain all her financial rights agreed in the marriage contract.

·         forbidding polygamy whether formally or informally in the UK or abroad

·         encouraging mosques to register to perform marriages

Dr Siddiqui said the contract would bring Muslim marriages in Britain into line with positive developments in Muslim family law ‘across the Muslim world.’

Sounds like a step in the right direction—a way to “update” sharia, right?

Wrong (my bolds):

It did not however have the support of the salafist UK Islamic Shari’ah Council – or Muslims who are against shariah recognition of any kind…

The Shari’ah Council knows that “God’s law” is perfect, and it thus blasphemous for mere mortals to presume to tamper with it. Meanwhile, some non-believers point to different problems:

Other British lawyers were sceptical about the contract. Discrimination lawyer, Neil Addison author of Religious Discrimination and Hatred Law described it as ‘an encouragement to illegality.’

‘Though I can see that the intention behind this contract is good, it continues the unfortunate trend of separating Muslims from the general community in Britain.

‘The Contract will still permit Imams to perform Muslim Marriage ceremonies when the couple are not married in accordance with British Law; indeed the existence of such a ‘model’ contract endorsed, as this is, by lawyers and MPs gives the seal of approval for the continuation of marriage ceremonies which have no legal legitimacy under British law.

‘It is in fact an encouragement to illegality.’

He said Jews, Catholics, Sikhs, Hindus and Quakers all carried out marriage ceremonies in accordance with British law either by insisting that the couple had a civil ceremony before the religious ceremony, or by registering for marriages and incorporating the legal requirements for marriage into the religious ceremony.

‘Muslim organisations are the only religious group encouraging their members to ignore the British law of marriage, and that is harmful to Muslims because it deprives them of their legal rights under British law.

He added there was nothing in civil marriage that was contrary to Islam.

Aside from the niggling detail that it’s part of kafir law, not Allah’s, that is.

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

On second thought...: Alan Borovoy, civil liberties activist/attorney and one of the key architects of Canada's calamitous HRC system, is upset that his creation is now running amuck. 

How very Victor Frankenstein of him. In light of Borovy's "regrets," I thought this snippet from the Wikipedia entry about the famous monster's ambitious creator was intriguing:

It has been argued that Frankenstein himself is the monster, because of his savage rejection of the being he created. Although Victor has very few pangs of conscience regarding his duty towards the creature he brought to life, it is his undeserved neglect that causes the creature to turn to evil. In a moral, if not actual sense, it is indeed Victor who is the monster.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:44 | link | comments (2)

A poet worthy of his people: If there were such a position as Poet Laureate of Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish would have filled it. Unfortunately for him there isn’t, and he’s dead. The Beeb, for one, is waxing poetic about the demise of this giant of Palestinian literature:

 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish has died after surgery at the age of 67, hospital and Palestinian officials say.

 

He suffered complications after undergoing open-heart surgery in Houston, Texas, said a spokesman for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

 

Mr Darwish was the most recognised Palestinian poet in the world, using his words to try to draw attention to the Palestinian cause.

 

He also delivered harsh criticism of the infighting by Palestinian factions.

 

During a reading in 2007, Mr Darwish denounced the violence in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah, describing it as "a public attempt at suicide in the streets".

 

He said that the two warring factions had made the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state far more unlikely.

 

Poet of conscience

Mr Darwish is famous throughout the Middle East and is regarded as the Palestinian national poet.

 

He is said to have given voice to the Palestinian dreams of statehood, crafted their 1988 declaration of independence and helped to forge a Palestinian national identity.

 

"He started out as a poet of resistance and then he became a poet of conscience," said Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi, quoted by AP news agency.

 

"He embodied the best in Palestinians... even though he became iconic he never lost his sense of humanity. We have lost part of our essence, the essence of the Palestinian being."

 

His poetry has been translated into more than 20 languages, and he has won many international prizes for his work.

 

Here’s an example of it, a poem entitled “The Seige”:

 

Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time
Close to the gardens of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners do,
And what the jobless do:
We cultivate hope.

***
A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent
For we closely watch the hour of victory:
No night in our night lit up by the shelling
Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us
In the darkness of cellars.

***
Here there is no "I".
Here Adam remembers the dust of his clay.

***
On the verge of death, he says:
I have no trace left to lose:
Free I am so close to my liberty. My future lies in my own hand.
Soon I shall penetrate my life,
I shall be born free and parentless,
And as my name I shall choose azure letters...

***
You who stand in the doorway, come in,
Drink Arabic coffee with us
And you will sense that you are men like us
You who stand in the doorways of houses
Come out of our morningtimes,
We shall feel reassured to be
Men like you!

***
When the planes disappear, the white, white doves
Fly off and wash the cheeks of heaven
With unbound wings taking radiance back again, taking possession
Of the ether and of play. Higher, higher still, the white, white doves
Fly off. Ah, if only the sky
Were real [a man passing between two bombs said to me].

***
Cypresses behind the soldiers, minarets protecting
The sky from collapse. Behind the hedge of steel
Soldiers piss—under the watchful eye of a tank—
And the autumnal day ends its golden wandering in
A street as wide as a church after Sunday mass...

***
[To a killer] If you had contemplated the victim’s face
And thought it through, you would have remembered your mother in the
Gas chamber, you would have been freed from the reason for the rifle
And you would have changed your mind: this is not the way
to find one’s identity again…

It’s just so beeyootiful. No wonder he was so acclaimed.

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

Supreme dreams: One of the pamphlets available for downloading on the Young Muslims of Canada site advises young‘uns on how best to respond to the Palestinian situation. Among the helpful hints (sentence bolded by me):

Make Dua (supplication) – pray for the Muslims who have died and are suffering. Pray for Allah to help the families of the deceased and those who are injured. Pray that those who have died are granted Jannah (Paradise). Pray for the Help of Allah so that Muslims may be victorious against the enemies of Islam all over the world. The Prophet (peace be upon him) told us that “none of you truly believes (is a Mumin) until he wishes for his brother/sister what he wishes for himself.” So include them in your prayers, and make Dua for them as you make for yourself, surely Allah will reward you and is sufficient for all of us.

 

“Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties; for the price that theirs shall be the Paradise. They fight in Allah's Cause, so they kill (others) and are killed. It is a promise in truth which is binding on Him in the Torah and the Injeel and the Quran. And who is truer to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded. That is the supreme success. (The believers are those) who repent to Allah, who worship Him, who praise Him, who go out in Allah's Cause, who bow down, who prostrate themselves, who enjoin (people) for Al-Maruf (all good) and forbid (people) from Al-Munkar (all evil and injustice), and who observe the limits set by Allah. And give glad tidings to the believers.” [9:111-112]

 

In other words, think globally but act locally against the uppity Jews of the Zionist entity in order to restore them to their proper place (i.e. on their knees, grovelling before their Islamic superiors or, barring that, dead and roiling in H-E-double hockey sticks).

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:25 | link | comments (2)

Iranian Olympic spirit: It’s right in line with the spirit of the Third Reich, as an Iranian swimmer refuses to get in the same pool as a Jew.

Guess he didn't want to come in contact with any of those dreaded Jew cooties.

Demonstration event at the 2012 Tehran Olympics: Jews hide behind Gharqad trees; sharp-shooters compete to see who can kill the most.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:51 | link | comments (1)

The jihad heats up: Jihadis, er, Muslim "seperatists", are at it again in China. Just think--if they're able to "separate," that would boost the OIC (a.k.a. the Dar al-Islam) tally to 58.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:37 | link | comments

His own worst enemy: I sort of feel badly for Syed Soharwardy.  Here he’s gone to all the trouble to try to reposition himself—from Islamic supremacist/HRC complainant to gentle interfaith perambulator/peacenik—and he goes and blows his cover. Long a favourite with the Official Jews in his capacity as head of “Muslims Against Terrorism,” Syed  lost his cool and told Ezra Levant that he would “soon pay”—a threat he was foolish enough to make on Toronto radio.

Kind of makes the whole “Walking Man” thing seem rather pointless now, no?

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

Explosions rock North Toronto: Shook us out of bed just before 4 a.m. (it sounded like a lightening bolt had scored a direct hit on the house.) Huge billow of smoke in the sky. Details still sketchy at this stage, but there's a report that a propane depot in the Keele and Wilson area has blown up.

Update: Photos of the explosion.

Update: "Large-scale evacuation"...

Update: More, from CP:

TORONTO - A series of explosions at a propane depot early Sunday forced police to evacuate a residential area in the city's northwest.

"It was just a tremendous explosion and blew all the windows out of the house, just blew the house up, and I just managed to get out of there in time," said Robert Helman, who lives across the street from the facility, which he identified as Sunrise Propane.

Helman, who was covered in cuts and bruises, said when he went outside, he saw a "huge fireball" followed by "multiple explosions."

He said when he ran a "wave of a heat" followed him.

The first explosion sounded like a loud thunderclap and could be heard at least seven kilometres away.

It was followed by a series of more muffled explosions.

Clouds of black smoke could be seen billowing hundreds of metres into the air.

An emergency worker with Bombardier, which has a facility in the area, said he saw houses on fire. The worker, who did not want to be identified, also said he saw propane tanks dropping from the sky.

Police brought in buses to take residents out of the area to the Yorkdale shopping centre southeast of the scene of the explosions. It was not immediately known how widespread the evacuation was or how many residents were involved.

Some people moved away from the danger zone were wearing masks because the air was foul.

It was unclear whether there were any casualties.

Scores of police and emergency vehicles were on the scene trying to keep people out of the danger zone.

Update: The Ceeb is hot on the trail of the story...of the Olympics.(Well, it did pay a heap o' cash for the TV rights.)

Update: Video of explosion.

Update: All hell breaks loose and nearly two hours later the Ceeb is still asleep.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:14 | link | comments

Levant case makes waves abroad: The repercussions of the ABHRT dismissal are being felt as far afield as Old Blighty—and beyond. From the National Secular Society:

…In the light of this decision, and the controversy surrounding it, Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, has written to Trevor Philips of the UK’s own fledgling Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is currently considering its own future strategy.

Mr Porteous Wood has counselled strongly against the UK following the Canadian model and pointed out that this latest case should be seen as forming part of a wider and growing assault on freedom of expression by Muslim or Islamist bodies – depending on the definition employed. These bodies certainly include the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has been so successful curtailing freedom of expression in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) itself, as Keith can testify from personal experience.

Keith highly recommends this article as background, from Maclean’s magazine, which has itself been subjected to an assault by Islamists seeking to censor it.

Reference is made in the Maclean's article to the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s lonely and noble fight at the UNHRC, and the NGO speaker referred to is NSS life member Roy Brown, whose bravery and determination is a shining example to us all.

Keith Porteous Wood commented: “Ezra Levant should also be lauded for his single-minded determination to win, and congratulated for doing so. But Ezra Levant only did so by paying a huge personal price: financially (and without any compensation); emotionally; and the disintegration of his personal and professional life. I hope that our Canadian readers — and we know there are some very influential ones — will point to these examples and seek to change the law in Canada to prevent any repetitions.

“These victories should not however blind us to the massive and continuing threats to freedom of expression. The publicity fall out over the years from Ezra’s case, the murders in the Netherlands, the death threats over Rushdie, the Danish cartoons to name but a few examples, all conspire to create a growing climate of self-censorship that is so poisonous to those seeking to maintain (yes, we are on the defensive) an open democratic and fair society.

“And one of the greatest dangers to such a society is the OIC, pressing ever harder for defamation of religions legislation to be instituted worldwide, as mentioned in Newsline before. Such legislation would be much more far reaching than blasphemy law and could be expected to render religious bodies, doctrines and spokespeople, activities and misdeeds all-but immune from adverse comment.”

True enough. We must remind ourselves that what’s happening been in Canada is merely a local manifestation of a much larger global agenda intended to stifle free speech along with all our other freedoms.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:29 | link | comments

And speaking of seething cauldrons of hatred…: The Toronto Sun’s Peter Worthington takes a look at the dissatisfied employees of the Ceeb:

If almost half of the CBC's 10,000 employees show signs of high-level psychological distress and job unhappiness, think of what we CBC listeners and viewers go through.

As reported by Sun Media, a "wellness" survey at the CBC shows massive job dissatisfaction, despite CBC employees getting better pay, better pensions, more job security than colleagues in private-sector media.

Some 33% of those participating even indicated they intended to quit their job -- but that's likely empty rhetoric, because they're unlikely to get as good a deal on the competitive job market these days. Especially media jobs.

Poor dears, some 12% of CBC types said they were treated rudely and meanly by fellow employees and their bosses. Some even were "hated" and got death threats. Their only recourse was to take sick days.

Unhappy campers indeed. Try taking too many sick days in the private sector when you're not really sick, and see how long you last.

The survey is enlightening as it is startling, because the CBC is sort of socialism personified.

Job satisfaction is low because there is no accountability.

Public taste or preference is irrelevant at the CBC, which does its own thing without regard to what the public wants.

The Mother Corp. knows best. It forcefeeds listeners and viewers with what it thinks they deserve. If the public doesn't like it, let them write letters or phone Rex Murphy on CBC Radio Sunday afternoons.

That's quintessential socialism.

Bitching by those who work in the media tends to be a normal fact of life. But in the private sector, unhappiness is more often related to being unable to do the job in a way that the individual finds rewarding.

In the newspaper business, it's tradition for reporters to grumble if their story is spiked: "Damn editors wouldn't know a good story if it jumped up and bit them on the butt," is the refrain. When editors play the story big, the reporter praises their judgment.

At the CBC, no one gives a hoot. They live on public money -- money the rest of us pay in taxes. The job satisfaction ratio has to be low when it's only the bosses and not the public who need to be pleased...

Now we know why Avi Lewis and the rest were so eager to decamp to that placid workplace, al Jazeera.

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

No clue: As you’ll recall, Ontarians gave a mega-thumbs down to the idea of paying for any more religious schools in the province—an idea brought to the fore by the Jewstablishment and foolishly picked up by the Conservatives, who lost the last election, big time, as a direct result. But since the ‘stablisment can’t seem to let go any of its bad ideas—hullo, thought police—it’s still running with that deflated football. Here are two members of the team in a recent letter to the Toronto Star:

Religious school funding deserves a full, public debate, Comment Aug. 4

While we welcome Michael Prue's initiative in opening a full debate on the funding of faith-based schools in Ontario, we reject his suggestion that there are only two options - fund every religious school or fund none of them. That is a gross simplification of a complex issue.

The fact that different provinces have pursued a variety of options is ample proof that the issue of school funding is hardly black and white. In other parts of Canada we see cultural schools that teach traditional values without manifestly religious practices, cash subsidies for private day school tuition and faith-based schools that are part of the local public or Catholic board. There's plenty from which to choose.

Why not start by consulting with Ontario's faith communities and the organizations which represent them? Mr. Prue might find that these communities have important ideas on how they can contribute to the overall quality of education in Ontario in a fiscally responsible way. We remain committed to a solution that is respectful of the diversity of all communities and the needs of all students and will work with all parties to achieve this end.

Len Rudner, Canadian Jewish Congress, and Ted Sokolsky, Ontario UJA Federation of Greater Toronto

Why not start by consulting with Ontario’s faith communities? Let me spell it out for you,, fellahs. There’s no point in consulting with anyone at the moment because people in Ontario don’t want to fund madrassahs.

Mind you, I’m sure that’s because Ontario is a seething cauldron of hatred, and not because people are uncomfortable with the type of instruction the students in such schools receive.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:16 | link | comments

"Free speech" in Bangladesh: There isn't any, which is why a journalist there is on trial and facing a death sentence for the "crime" of advocatiing closer ties with Israel.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:31 | link | comments

Blind, batty Babsy embraces sharia: Here’s another “gem” retrieved from the interior of my “Combating Hatred” binder—Barbara Hall’s truly terrifying explication of “human rights” that appeared in the Globe and Mail in October, '07 (scroll down to #11 in the link to read it all; my emphasis):

The values embodied in human-rights laws hold a special place in the minds of Canadians, who believe that tolerance, mutual respect, and diversity are fundamental to the nature and success of this country.

Looking at some of the recent debate in Ontario about funding for religious schools and the ongoing consultation in Quebec on reasonable accommodation, I believe that this is a time to remember and promote those values. It is certainly not time to turn away from them.

There has been recurring public discussion about the relationship between human rights and religious faith. Many religions include detailed codes of conduct prescribing what followers can eat and wear, for example. In an ever more diverse society, we will inevitably face challenging questions. What is the role of religion in the public sphere? Are there limits to accommodation? And how can we reconcile the sometimes competing demands of various groups?

Sadly, I believe that some of the recent public discussion has been motivated by stereotypes, discriminatory attitudes and fear of the unknown. Prejudices and stereotypes should never be the basis for making fundamental changes to human-rights laws. There are real and legitimate issues at stake, but we must remember that it is dangerous to react in haste on the basis of fear and anger. It is sobering to remember that the wartime internment of Japanese Canadians and the establishment of residential schools for native Canadians were perceived as necessary actions in their time. In seeking solutions, it is important to remember, on the one hand, the real, serious and ongoing oppression and marginalization experienced by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. There are deeply felt concerns that hard-won advances towards equality could be reversed, and that discrimination against these groups could be legitimized. On the other hand, it is equally important to recognize the very difficult experiences of many faith-based communities in Canada, and particularly those of the Muslim community, which since Sept. 11, 2001, has suffered from high levels of open and covert hatred, fear and discrimination.

Human-rights laws exist to protect us all equally from discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, creed, race and other grounds, and these protections remain vital.

Some have suggested that the tension between religious rights and other rights can be resolved by creating a formal, legal hierarchy of rights, with religious rights subordinated to the rights of others. This would be a mistake. I think a better approach is to recognize that all rights are equally important, and that a balancing of rights may be necessary in some circumstances. To adopt a hierarchy of rights would certainly be a radical departure from fundamental international human-rights principles, which have recognized individual rights as indivisible and interdependent.

If I read her correctly, she’s making a pitch for sharia to be accorded equal weight under Canadian law. No wonder she’s the darling of Canadian Islamists from coast to coast. She’s their kind of gal: a useful idiot in a powerful position who has absolutely no awareness of how she’s helping them advance their agenda. When her term of office as head of the Ontario wing of the Inquisition comes up for renewal this fall, I suggest we point that out to those who might otherwise be so foolish as to allow her to continue.

As for those “fundamental international human-rights principles,” apparently Babsy hasn’t heard that the OIC hews to some other “fundamental principles,” ones inimical to the ones she’s referencing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:08 | link | comments

Adios, Espana: I was thinking of going to Spain. Think I’ll have to think again since it’s doing its utmost to help facilitate the final Final Solution. From the Jerusalem Post:

Israel is battling hard to overturn a Spanish court's decision to issue arrest warrants against six current and former politicians and senior military officials, a source in the Attorney-General's Office told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Late last month, Audiencia Nacional, the National Court of Spain (the highest Spanish judicial council), issued arrest warrants against the six - Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Doron Almog, Moshe Ya'alon, Dan Halutz, Giora Eiland and Mike Herzog - accepting a petition from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights that suggested they were guilty of war crimes in the Gaza Strip during the summer of 2002.

At that time, Ben-Eliezer was serving as defense minister; Ya'alon was IDF chief of General Staff; Eiland headed the National Security Council; Halutz was commander of the IAF, Almog was OC Southern Command and Herzog was a senior Defense Ministry official.

The plaintiffs claimed that Ben-Eliezer personally oversaw the killing of Hamas commander Salah Shehadeh, a Palestinian terror chief who was responsible for killing of dozens of Israelis, in which 14 civilians also died. Israel subsequently apologized for the civilian deaths.

The Foreign Ministry has said only that the matter is being taken care of. However, the Post has learned from a source in the Attorney-General's Office that active negotiations between Madrid and Jerusalem were taking place to overturn the warrants.

This is not the first time that PCHR has filed suit against high-ranking Israeli military commanders, but if the court's decision is not reversed it will set a disturbing precedent in international law, said Ofer Zalzberg, co-chairman of YIFC (Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation), an organization that promotes relations between Israel and the European Union.

Zalzberg recalled a 2005 incident in which Almog, travelling to London to raise funds for handicapped children, stayed in his plane upon arrival in London rather than risk arrest. Shortly thereafter, a British warrant for his arrest was revoked.

"This time," Zalzberg said, "we are talking about several people and a very significant and drastic step. It might also cause a shower of law suits from various groups and individuals in Europe against various Israeli officials."

Almog told the Post that he believes the warrants issued against him, first by the British and now by Spanish courts, are not directed at him personally, but at Israel and its right to defend itself.

"Some elements with very clear motives and intentions use these lawsuits as a weapon against Israel. The combat between Israel and terrorists continues on different scenes, and the legal scene is just one of them," he said. "I don't think the decision of the Spanish court indicates a crisis in Israel-EU relations, but it seems that these elements exploit the law in these countries to act against the State of Israel."…

Feed that crocodile, Spaniards. You’re still going to end up as one of the ingedients in its tasty paella.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:51 | link | comments

If at first you don't succeed, sue the P.M.: Since releasing the video of poor Omar being "harassed" by a nasty CSIS official weren't enough to get him sprung from Gitmo, his lawyers have come up with another tactic. He is now "suing" Stephen Harper, demanding "repatriation". (The word is in scare quotes because, although he was born in Canada, Omar has never lived here, which makes the idea of "repatriating" him to what is essentially a strange country for which he and his family feel absolutely no patriotism rather absurb.)

Why stop there? If they can make Omar's ordeal sound sufficiently horrific, maybe his lawyers can squeeze the government for multi-millions in compensation, a la that other torture victim, Maher Arar.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:33 | link | comments

Why we need the Conservatives to stay in power: We need Conservatives in office so they can get rid of preposterous efforts like PromArt, a government-funded “cultural” program that doled out mucho dinero so that leftists could hobnob with other leftists in exotic settings on the taxpayers’ tab. The National Post details—and slams—the lunacy:

The majority of the grants awarded under the federal government's $4.7-million PromArt program -- which was cut by the Conservatives on Friday -- were tiny and uncontroversial: $1,000 to an independent filmmaker to show his short documentary at a European film festival; $750 to a novelist to read excerpts from her book at a store in New York City; $2,000 to help an Aboriginal artist transport some of his works to an exhibition in New Zealand. Most of the awards wouldn't raise the eyebrow of the average Canadian.

But some would absolutely curl their hair.

Why, for instance, is it the duty of Canadian taxpayers to fly left-wing anti-war journalist Gwynne Dyer -- who is a resident of Britain-- to Cuba to hobnob with that country's opinion leaders and give them a "greater awareness and appreciation of Canadian foreign policy, values and models"?

Camilla Gibb, the novelist -- who, like Mr. Dyer, lives in London -- was given $10,000 last year "to travel to the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia to participate in public diplomacy activities in support of Canada's dialogue with Muslim communities." Again:Why?

Barbara Willis Sweete of Rhombus Media received $2,000 from the program to allow her "to present her production Five Days in September -- The Rebirth of an Orchestra at the 2006 Sydney Film Festival in Australia." That seems OK. But why should ordinary working Canadians give former CBC activist Avi Lewis, who now has brought his anti-American schtick to al Jazeera, $5,000 to attend film festivals in Australia and Argentina? Why should they underwrite his jet-setting travels when they are having trouble saving up a few hundred dollars for a summer camping vacation of their own?

Alexander Mair was given $4,200 "to participate in seminars in Helsinki, Finland and Trondheim, Norway on cultural exportation in the sound recording industry." If he wants to fly thousands of miles to hear a Finnish academic drone on about business models for alternative rock bands, so be it. But PromArt paid for several other Canadians to attend the same seminars, then added several thousand more dollars to subsidize the conference itself.

Many of the recipients weren't even Canadian and had very little connection to Canada. A group called Peru 2021, for instance, received nearly $30,000 from Canadian taxpayers "to organize a one-day conference on corporate social responsibility," while nearly $44,000 was doled out to the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency to "host a two-day conference on Pakistan's national Elections in 2007 and possible political scenarios for the region."…

B-b-b-but it’s important for us Canadians to support Peruvians and Pakistanis. Isn’t that what being multishmulti is all about?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:01 | link | comments

Drop the blankie, boys: George Jonas—scathing, blistering—explains why Tammy, Frank and Leo can’t keep their security blankie (because its retention means that the officious, nit-witted commissars get to continue sitting in judgement over us):

…Whoa, just a sec! Hatred? Excuse me, but what is hatred? The Muslim complainants thought that what Levant and Steyn published or wrote was hatred.…

Oh, complainants, what do they know? Entre nous, they're just a bunch of Jews, Muslims, homosexuals.  We're officials. We know. Anyone above the rank of obergruppenfuhrer at the Federal or Provincial Human Rights Commissions knows. We're trained to tell the good cholesterol "offensiveness" from the bad cholesterol "hate." It's a skill you acquire in human-rights school.  You sit for an exam and get a framed diploma for the wall.

We, by the Grace of Progress, the Referees of Democracy, the Linespersons of Constitutional Rights, the Arbitrators of the Limits of Free Speech, the Omnipotent State, Greetings: Know by this Present that Chief Human Rights Commissioner Jennifer Lynch, Q. C., being able to Smell Odium from Two Miles Upwind, has been Admitted to the Order of Big Nurses and is Qualified and Authorized to Draw A Line for Writers, Dead or Alive, Including but Without Being Limited to, Homer, Aristophanes, Mark Steyn, Stephen Leacock, Alexander Solzhenityn …

Sorry. Got carried away there. Attribute it to age and experience…

Also to having a clue, unlike Tammy and the rest of the blankie boychiks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:31 | link | comments

“Hatred” warriors: I was dipping into my binder from the COMBATING HATRED IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Conference last night—the first time I’ve done so since the event was held last November. (The theme of the conference, an all day fête put on for the anti-hate community by the legal industry that has nurtured and sustained it for so long, said it all: “BALANCING RIGHTS, FREEDOMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES”.) The binder is a treasure trove of “human rights” mishegas which, like the conference, casts a very wide net for “hatred” and, not surprisingly, catches a lot of fish. What do the anti-“hate”warriors consider to be “hatred”?  Apparently, it’s what’s experienced by a Muslim at a homeless shelter when pork shows up on the lunch menu. It’s society’s exclusion of the “Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgendered/(Two-Spirited)/Intersexed community.” (My knowledge of alternate sexuality only goes so far. Up to “Transgendered” I get. But“Two-Spirited” and “Intersexed”?  Is that the fancy p.c. locution for, er, hermaphrodites?) It’s what a “differently-abled” person faces when a location is insufficiently accessible.

In other words, “hatred” is everywhere and can be experienced by everyone—unless, of course, you happen to be white and Christian. If you are, and people hate you because of it, well, sir, you’re just plum out of luck.

One of the items in the binder was written by that former confabulator for a skeevy supermarket tab who now writes for the Calgary Herald. Yesterday the women weighed in on l’affaire Levant, pretty much accusing Ezra of being the architect of his own misfortune. Par for the course. Back in 2007—the binder inclusion—she insisted http://www.montrealmuslims.ca/module-pagesetter-viewpub-tid-7-pid-1982.html  “It’s us who created the xenophobia”:

If an us versus them mentality is growing in Canada towards minorities, it's us who created it, not them. The xenophobia marinating in that slimy little euphemism of "reasonable accommodation" which originated in Quebec, is a symptom of what's wrong with our mindset, not theirs.

 

Fifteen or 20 years ago, the idea arose that minorities were offended by Christmas and other overt displays of majority Canadian culture. This did not come from minority Canadians, but from self-proclaimed progressive middle-class whites. These people thought it was the height of liberalism to declare their own cultural and religious traditions offensive to others and to fight to have those traditions hidden away, much as the Victorians covered the legs on their pianos in the cause of prudery. Schools rushed to rip down Remembrance Day displays of white crosses.

Christmas was relabelled a "winter festival," venomous battles were fought over public displays of creches featuring -- ironically -- the infant who grew up to be the ultimate preacher of brotherly love, and spruce trees festooned with glass balls, tinsel and angels were renamed holiday season trees.

In all that time, no member of a minority was quoted as claiming to be offended by any majority Canadian ritual. In fact, people who said they were Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims wrote letters to the editor stating that not only were they bewildered that all this was being done on their behalf, but that they didn't mind being wished a Merry Christmas and always returned the greeting. (A few years back, when I received a Christmas card from Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai, I could joke with colleagues that when a Hindu MP sends a Jewish person Christmas greetings, we have reached the acme of multiculturalism).

The same crusaders who misread Pierre Trudeau's vision of multiculturalism, and who thought it meant that minority traditions had to be elevated at th