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

Say what? A NY Daily News article about the possibility of an “October Surprise”—and attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the U.S. or Israel or both—brought some of those serving the elimationist agenda out of the woodwork. Here are the sage words of two “Ohavei Zion”, followed by someone brave enough to take them on:

FYI Greenbeanie: the Israel Kool-Aid, unlike the sickly-sweet purple lefty libation, is made from Jaffa oranges—and it’s dee-lish.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:19 | link | comments (1)

D’Escoto’s main squeeze: Who is this Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, president of the UN General Assembly, and why is he so quick to hug a thug? A Sept. 17 VOA News article provides some perspective on this most affectionate of diplomats:

A new session of the United Nations General Assembly has opened in New York, with a sharp attack on the United States by the assembly's president, former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. VOA's Walter Wisniewski reports from our New York newscenter.

The past year's General Assembly of the United Nations has come to a close, and the new, 63rd session of the General Assembly is now formally open. World leaders will address the annual U.N. meeting next week, but the Assembly's incoming president caught diplomats' attention Tuesday with his opening remarks, a scathing attack on U.S. policies.

The General Assembly president, former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, mentioned the United States by name only a few times, but made it clear who his target was.

D'Escoto says it is "undeniable" that some members of the Security Council have "an addiction to war," and he says they are threatening international peace and security. In a scarcely veiled reference to President George W. Bush's administration, d'Escoto also said no nation has the right "to decide on its own which states are sponsors of terrorism, and which are not."

"By now, over 1.2 million people have died as a direct consequence of that aggression and occupation," d'Escoto said about the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The 75-year-old diplomat, who is a Roman Catholic priest, told reporters later he intends to try to reform the U.N. to give the 192-member General Assembly a stronger role, compared to the Security Council, whose permanent members - the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain - have veto power over U.N. decisions.  

D'Escoto says the world has changed since 1945, when the United Nations was founded, but the U.N. has not kept pace. He predicts "soul-searching" and frank debate at the General Assembly in the weeks and months to come.

"This will be an interesting year, and I will be making an appeal from the very depth of my heart and my experience," he said.

D'Escoto used spiritual terms in his opening speech, which he addressed to "my dear brothers and sisters" from all over the world. Asked about the significance of his dual role as General Assembly president and also a priest, he tried to deflect the comment with a joke.

"I'm also the oldest and the most decrepit [laughter], healthwise, and I know that. But will I, therefore, because I am a priest, pay particular attention to interfaith dialogue?" he asked. "That's already on the agenda. This is something that I have spoken about quite a bit with the secretary-general, and he is asking me to join him in this effort."

He was asked about his scheduled appearance at a forum next week together with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel's destruction several times. D'Escoto says he does not feel it is inappropriate for him to take part.

"Obviously, if I am here talking about brotherhood and sisterhood, I don't want anyone to be wiped off the map - not even any individual, much less a state," he said…

So why, a week and a half later, did he hug the thug instead of giving him the greeting he so richly deserved: a well-aimed loogie in the face? Actions speak louder, D’Emento, and yours are saying, “I hate Great Satan and the Zionists just as much as my cuddly pal Mahmoud does.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:02 | link | comments

Speaking frankly about Frankly speaking: You know, Mr. Diament, two blog posts--one in mid-August, the other at the end of the month--doth not a blogger make. Guess you're too busy hunting down the next generation of Nazi hate-speakers--sweaty, pimply nerds hiding out in the folks' basement in, say, Flin Flon, eating pizza pops, playing "Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway," and maybe occasionally talking trash about "da Jews"--to have have time to comment on pressing events. One would have expected, though, that a blogger of your calibre might have found the odd mintute to weigh in on, oh, I dunno, maybe how the BB's been slapped with another one of those HRC "nuisance" complaints?  Or perhaps offer an insight or two into the stink bomb that Ahmadinejad dropped at the UN last week, the one that made many of the assembled hold their noses--and then applaud him heartily. Yes, I know, I know, that particular "gent" is losing no sleep at all over what Laura Rosen Cohen said in the National Post the other day. On the other hand, her words sure seems to rubbed you the wrong way.  Hope that, despite the obvious agita, you're managing to catch some Z's (that's zees; not zeds). 

So, just to clarify: is it blogus interruptus? Or blogus kaput?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:02 | link | comments

Sheepish Ceeb “apologizes” for Heather’s malice: Heh. From CP:

TORONTO — The CBC has issued an apology and retraction for posting a controversial online column by freelancer Heather Mallick about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin earlier this month.

Following 300-plus complaints from readers, and attacks from Canadian and American media organizations, including Fox News, publisher John Cuickshank said the public broadcaster had erred in its editorial judgement and the item should never have appeared on the CBC website.

In an online statement, Cruickshank said reaction to the column has caused the CBC to install new editing procedures that will ensure inappropriate work won't appear.

"We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack," he said in a statement posted on the broadcaster's website.

Despite the vitriolic response to Mallick's Sept. 5 piece, "A Mighty Wind Blows Through the Republican Convention," the CBC had initially stood by the article and said it wouldn't remove it from its website.

In the article, Mallick said Palin appeals to "the white trash vote" with her "toned-down version of the porn actress look."

Vince Carlin, the broadcaster's ombudsman who was later asked to assess the offending article, determined many of Mallick's assertions lacked a basis in fact.

"Mallick's column is a classic piece of political invective," Cruickshank agreed. "It is viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan."

In the wake of her column, Mallick has said she's faced a slew of abusive comments. She was called a "pig" by a Fox News anchor and branded an insane Pakistani Muslim on Fox message boards.

She has also received threatening email, some of which include anti-Semitic slurs - despite the fact she's neither Jewish nor Muslim.

Mallick has never expressed apologies for her column, and had one week ago lauded the CBC for supporting her right to expression.

Partially in response the outcry, Cruickshank said CBCNews.ca has plans to soon expand the diversity of voices and opinions expressed online "to better reflect the depth and texture of this country."

My thoughts:

·         Since the Ceeb has apparently decided a la the Islamists that “anti-Semitism” includes both Jews and Muslims (a classic Islamist tactic; a way of ridiculing and diminishing Judenhass), I suggest that from now on we ditch the term and refer to Jew-hate as, well, Jew-hate.

 

·         I’m glad that Mallick wrote what she did. It showed Canadians the freaky mindset of Ceeb employees, and it’s encouraging that so many Canadians were so appalled by it that they felt compelled to complain. That being said, I don’t think she should have been censored. Free speech means that the Heathers and Evans and Jians get to express whatever sophistries and imbecilities they want to. That’s my assurance—and yours—that our voices get to be heard, too.

 

·         “Partially in response to the outcry” the Ceeb is planning to “expand the diversity of voices and opinions”: Cut to the chase—the Ceeb is feeling uneasy about a possible Conservative majority. Should such an eventuality come to pass, the Ceeb knows it will no longer be able to get away with presenting a single viewpoint—the lefty/Socialist/anti-American one. Not if it hopes to keep sucking from the taxpayer’s teat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:26 | link | comments (4)

Shoeless Jews: This letter appears in the National Post:

Re: Getting To The Root Of Hate, letter to the editor, Sept. 27.

Letter writer Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, defends the hate crime law used against the young man who painted swastika graffiti, in case he became like the "unknown high school drop out named Adolf Hitler." This shows that B'nai Brith is attempting to remove all thorns from the road instead of teaching Jews to wear strong-soled shoes

The Nazi phenomenon occurred in a unique set of political, social and economic circumstances that can never reoccur. Instead of enjoying the publicity of swatting flies, B'nai Brith and other Jewish leaders should attend to their real mortal enemies -- the ones who call them apes and pigs and desire their extermination.

Since hate is a natural human emotion, our hate speech laws are an affront to human dignity and freedom. In the interests of the larger Canadian community, Jewish leaders, who originally pressed for these repressive laws, should now work to abrogate them. Better still, work to get rid of the whole human rights political machine.

Jiti Khanna, Vancouver.

I don't know about that "can never reoccur" part: it's "reocurring" at this very moment via the eliminationist agenda. However, I do agree that it's high time Frank and the other thorn-removers drop the security blankie, eschew the thin-soled Florsheims, and invest in a sturdy pair of Doc Martens.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:23 | link | comments (4)

Shana Tova!: Wishing all my Jewish friends in the blogosphere a happy, healthy and sweet New Year--from me, mine and three sock puppets. Blogging will be necessarily light today as I get ready for the holiday (and cook up a storm), and non-existent tomorrow and Wednesday.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:16 | link | comments (1)

Kittens, a long-running UN musical: An unwelcome addition to the cast of the UN nuclear watchkittens—Growltiger Iran and Rum Tum Tugger Syria are demanding their own box of kitty litter at the IAEA. An outrageous request, I know, one that’s even more chutzpahdik that their demanding—and being allowed  to—play a central role on the UN’s farcical “human rights” body (a demand that makes more "sense" since that body exists largely to help the OIC implement its vendetta against Israel—which makes an Iranian and Syrian presence there a perfect fit). From the IHT:

VIENNA, Austria: A meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's 145 member nations this week could turn into a showdown between the West and the developing world, as Iran and Syria bid for more influence within the agency, and Islamic nations express anger over Israel's nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's general conference, starting Monday, has traditionally been an annual chance for member countries to plan general nuclear policies that range from strengthening nonproliferation to programs of medical and scientific benefit.

Decisions are usually made by consensus, which in the past has led all sides to bridge sometimes substantial differences to reach compromise. A votes on any topic have been rare in the meeting's 52-year history, and are considered dents in the meeting's credibility.

But Islamic nations have grown frustrated with Israel's refusal to put its nuclear program under international purview, and could force a vote for a third year running. They have lost the vote on Israel in the last two years, and now are threatening to up the ante if they don't get conference backing on the issue by calling for a vote on every item of this year's agenda, no matter how minor.

"In all my years of dealing with the general conference, I have never seen it as divided as this," one conference veteran said Sunday. The diplomat demanded anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment to the media.

As in the past two years, Islamic IAEA members are expected to put forward a resolution urging all Middle East nations to refrain from testing or developing nuclear arms and urging nuclear weapons states "to refrain from any action" hindering a Mideast nuclear-free zone.

Israel — widely considered the only Mideast nuclear weapons state — last year called for a vote on that resolution because of the introduction of a separate Arab-backed item deeming Israel a "nuclear threat." The resolution was defeated, but the fact that it was put to a ballot weakened the consensus principle.

Arab members — backed by Iran — have again asked conference organizers to include a similar item. While it now refers to "Israeli nuclear capabilities" instead of "nuclear threat," the Jewish State still objects to being singled out — and diplomats told The Associated Press it would again force a vote on the Mideast nuclear-free zone resolution unless the second item is withdrawn.

Focusing on Israel by name "is substantially unwarranted and flawed," said a letter prepared for review by the conference from Israel Michaeli, the Jewish State's IAEA representative.

Sponsors of the item should instead "address the most pressing proliferation concerns in the Middle East," said the letter in allusion to Iran's defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusal to stop uranium enrichment and world concerns about allegations that Tehran had past plans to make nuclear weapons…

Past plans? Present, ongoing, soon-to-be bombs-away plans, more like.

Update: "Grizabella" ElBaradei's big number:

Silence.

Not a sound from the Shias.

They claim they’re not enrichin’

But they won’t let me check.

In the moonlight the ayatollahs plot genocide

And the Jews moan like heck.

 

Every mullah seems to speak a fatalistic warning.

Ahmadinejad sputters and the UN flutters.

And soon those nukes are soaring.

 

Memory

Of the Final Solution

Hasn’t meant evolution;

No, not even a bit.

I remember the time I got my Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s so shiny; I’m a git.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:45 | link | comments

France tries to hold back the tide of Islamization: A losing battle, not assisted in any way by reports such as this one from the IHT.

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

Yo ho ho and 20 million dollars: Somali pirates make allowances for inflation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:18 | link | comments (1)

“Rebranding” balkers: As expected, Israeli Consul General to Toronto Amir Gissin’s plan to “rebrand” Israel so that people with see it as being useful to the world and won’t get behind the OIC’s eliminationist agenda has met with some, er, hostility. The Canadian Arab Federation, for one (an organization that was recently given a whack of cash by the federal government to promote the creative efforts of Canadian Arabs) has some harsh, not to mention hateful and deranged, words about the plan, ones fully in keeping with the eliminationist agenda. Here’s the CAF news release, issued late last month, slamming the branding. Please take note of the usefully idiot/hard lefty organizations that have signed on to serve the Arabs’ agenda:  

COMMUNITY GROUPS DENOUNCE 'BRAND ISRAEL' INAUGURATION

 

(TORONTO, August 26, 2008) – Yesterday over a hundred Torontonians showed up at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Center (MNJCC) to voice their opposition to the official launch of a 1-million dollar 'Brand Israel' rebranding campaign at that venue. Toronto has been selected as a 'test market' for a year-long public relations campaign launched by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve "Israel's image" – a state who's racism against Palestinians has come under increasing scrutiny by the growing worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

 

During the rally, organized by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), speakers from No One is Illegal (NOII), the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), The UofT Reparations Committee, the United Black Students at Ryerson (UBSR) and Women in Solidarity with Palestine (WISP, formerly the Jewish Women's Committee to end the Occupation) addressed the racist nature of the Israeli state and its rebranding campaign. CAIA spokesperson, Kole Kilibarda, noted that, "Just as Torontonians rejected attempts by the South African regime to rebrand apartheid in the 1980s, we will also refuse to 'buy into' this latest attempt to change the subject and divert attention away from Israel's state-sanctioned racism." Hussan of NOII reminded the crowd that, "The world increasingly rejects settler-colonialism, whether here on Turtle Island [North America] or in Israel. Just as apartheid fell in South Africa, it will fall in Turtle Island and Israel!"…

 

…CAIA members leafleted in the rush hour traffic informing thousands of commuters about the 'Brand Israel' campaign launch and the need to oppose its various manifestations over the next year.

 

2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, which laid the foundations for the current system of Israeli apartheid. To date the year has been filled with worldwide events marking the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of over 430 Palestinian villages by Israeli militias in 1948. A number of important resolutions in support of BDS have been passed by labour and student unions this year, including a number in Canada. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' attempts to use Toronto as a 'test market' for its rebranding campaign are seen as a testament to the strength of the growing BDS movement in this city. CAIA has vowed to continue pressing forward with this important campaign until the core demands of the Palestinian-initiated BDS movement are met, including: (1) the end of Israeli military occupation over all Arab lands; (2) the right of return of refugees as stipulate by UN Resolution 194 and (3) the granting of full equality to the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

 

Sounds reasonable--if your goal is the violent demise of Jewish sovereignty in Israel, that is. I know—let’s ask Assud, Hamas TV’s giant bunny, to help articulate Palestinian hopes and dreams vis a vis “the Jews” once the “refugees” have been given leave to “return”.

Sheesh. Seems to be kind of a disconnect between the bunny's cuddly appearance and his voracious words. No matter. I see no reason why some of that Canadian Heritage coin earmarked for Arab creativity couldn’t be used to bring the fluffy emissary to Canada as a Palestinian “goodwill” ambassador: if there’s anything from which Canadians could benefit, it’s clearer insight into this particular type of “artistry”.

Update: What, you may ask, is "the U of T Reparations Committee? Apparently, it's a group that's attempting to shame the university in forking over mucho diinero to Black Students, "atonement" for university investments in apartheid-era South Africa. As well, the committe demands  "atonement" for slavery, discrimination, and colonialization--none of which, as far as I know, U of T is in any way responsible for. The Committee held a forum recently to air its grievances:  

Forum by the Reparations Committee: U of T Must Atone

September 18, 2008

 

U OF T MUST ATONE FORUM

September 18, 2008

Doors open at 9:30AM

Forum: 10AM - 1:00PM
Location: OISE of the University of Toronto, Auditorium, 252 Bloor St.

In January of 1988, the University of Toronto after intense pressure from an overwhelming amount of students, grudgingly decided to reverse their policy of continuing to invest in companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. While the University of Toronto divested itself of about $19 million worth of shares in the apartheid regime, it has still remained reticent and inactive on repairing the breach with its Black students. Come hear key witnesses in a landmark case in New York, that seeks millions of dollars in reparations from corporations that supported and profited from South African apartheid.

Make sure you attend the historic forum being hosted by The Reparations Committee at the University of Toronto, that will demand U of T and other institutions to pay reparations to Black students for their complicity in the crimes of slavery, colonization, and apartheid...

 

Doesn't anyone in the U of T administration have the cohoonies to tell these grievance junkies, these shake-down artists, to take a hike? (The Committe could also use the services of a good copy editor since, in that last sentence, it sounds like the Black students, not the institutions, are complicit. One the guilt money starts rolling in, hiring an editor should be easy-peasy.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:40 | link | comments (1)

Voting the Hitler ticket: An American Jew I know, an otherwise sane and intelligent chap, recently explained his undying devotion to the Democratic Party in this way: “I would vote for Adolf Hitler if he were the Democratic candidate for President.”

Given that, this loyal party man would no doubt vote an entire Nazi slate, were it Democratic: Joseph Goebbels for V.P., Adolf Eichmann for Secretary of State, and Albert Speer for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Heinrich Himmler at Homeland Security?

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

A case of mistaken Levantity: Something I didn’t mention in my report about the lunch featuring the troika of Human Rights speakers—the amusing slip of the tongue by B’nai Brith’s David Matas. At one point during his rambling spiel, Matas called Ezra Levant “Oscar Levant.” He corrected himself immediately, but, being a fan of old Hollywood musicals—and the acerbity of Oscar, a once famous mid-20^th Century depressive and wit—I couldn’t help but giggle at the error. And then, imagination sparked, I thought of how An American in Paris might be remade today—in a non-musical version with Ezra in the Oscar role; John Bolton assaying Gene Kelly; and, as the adorable French gamine with legs that never end, introducing the lovely and talented Mrs. Nicolas Sarkozy.

Okay, I admit it. I am a bit nuts.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:51 | link | comments

Opportunity lost: Phyllis Chessler poses an intriguing question:

I know that Ahmadinejad entered the Grand Hyatt Hotel earlier tonight. What I don’t understand is why he has also exited it. Are there no Iranian dissidents or human rights activists prepared to arrest him on the spot and transport him to stand trial in The Hague? As the Israelis did for Herr Eichmann?

Can’t help you out there, Phyllis. But even if some brave dissident or activist had tried to pull an Eichmann on the hairy little guy, how can we assume that the learned justices of The Hague would have been willing to try him?

No, I think a better question is why did no one try to put a bullet between the tyrant’s lyin’ eyes? Think of how history might have been changed had someone managed to do that to Herr Hitler before the Holocaust.

 

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

Fire and blasphemy: Thinking about writing or publishing a "controversial" book about Islam’s founder?  You might want to think again. From the Beeb: 

Three men arrested in north London on suspicion of terrorism continue to be questioned by police.

 

They are suspected of attempting to set fire to a publisher's office in Lonsdale Square, Islington.

 

The publisher, Gibson House, is due to release a controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad and his child bride, entitled The Jewel of the Medina.

 

The three men were arrested by armed officers from the Metropolitan Police in a planned operation.

 

The men, aged 40, 22 and 30, were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and are being held at Paddington Green police station.

 

Two were arrested outside the property in Lonsdale Square, and the third following an armed vehicle stop near Angel Tube station on Upper Street at 0225 GMT on Saturday.

 

A small fire was put out at the property, which is used as a home and office by publisher Martin Rynja, who is due to publish the controversial book.

 

Its publication in the US was cancelled in August by publisher Random House, fearing it could offend Muslims.

 

Random House said then it had been advised the book "could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment".

 

At the time, Mr Rynja said there must be "open access to literary works, regardless of fear".

 

He added: "If a novel of quality and skill that casts light on a beautiful subject we know too little of in the West, but have a genuine interest in, cannot be published here, it would truly mean that the clock has been turned back to the dark ages."

 

Welcome to the 7^th Century, Mr. Rynja; one man’s “dark ages” is another “small, radical segment”'s glorious era of enlightenment.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:36 | link | comments

A change is gonna come: Blogger Urban Infidel has some photos of the anti-Ahadinejad protest in New York City. I particularly liked this one:

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:19 | link | comments

"We believe ourselves to be victims, and we become victims": Here's one of my favorite Paul Newman moments--his summation to the judge in The Verdict.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:51 | link | comments

Look out below!: NDP's Jack Layton to release platform in Toronto this Sunday.

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

Today's unintentionally hilarious Orwellian headline from the Tehran Times: Nasrallah pledges to maintain spirit of consensus in Lebanon.

Translation: Hellzbollocks' Nasty Nasrallah is going to firm up his (and the mullahs') stranglehold on Lebanon. In the "spirit of consensus," of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:38 | link | comments

The Star’s lame post mortem: After consistently downplaying the Toronto 18 terror plot, the one which led to one of the young conspirators being convicted last week (with more convictions likely to come), the Toronto Star clues in (kind of, sort of, not really) to the fact that, just because terrorist-wannabes are young and naïve and newbies in the art of jihadi havoc, that doesn’t preclude their being a genuine threat (my bolds):

Canada's first successful terror prosecution since 9/11 did not land an Osama bin Laden-size fish. Far from it. Our first homegrown terrorist turns out to be a naive 17-year-old, more to be pitied than feared.

But Justice John Sproat of Ontario Superior Court sent two stern signals Thursday to those who feel drawn to do violence against the public, as he found the youth guilty of knowingly participating in terrorist activities: Canadian law provides no free pass for bumbling terrorists, and naivete is no defence.

Sproat forcefully rejected the view that the 2006 "Toronto 18" terror plot should be laughed out of court as the fantasy of "a hapless fanatic who posed no risk." He was equally dismissive of efforts to portray the defendant as an innocent. He attended a training camp where people spoke of sharing Al Qaeda's "principles and methods," and of "striking" at North American targets, and where a gun was fired.

Critics of Canada's beefed-up anti-terror laws have long worried that innocents may be swept up in their net. Indeed the Star has criticized the laws, including their provisions for preventive arrest and self-incrimination. But in this case, the police appear to have disrupted a real conspiracy, at least as far as the judge saw it.

Given the youth's age, a lenient sentence is in order. But after the Air India bombing and 9/11, Canada's courts are not disposed to treat terror lightly. Nor should they be.

Sounds to me like the Star wants to have it both ways—commending the judge for taking the threat seriously (something the Star was disinclined to do; the judge’s withering words about those who thought the terror plot should be “laughed out of court” since these “innocents” posed “no risk” accurately describes the paper’s coverage)—and still, still, harping on the “youth’s” ineptitude, naivete, and pitifulness.

“More to be pitied than feared”? Save your pity, silly sob-sisters, for those who deserve it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:31 | link | comments (4)

Reproductions: Great news! Canadians have finally started having more babies, which means we can rest easy, at least for now, about the nation’s depopulation sitiuation. The Ceeb has more:

Canada's fertility rate reached a 10-year high in 2006, when women aged 30 to 34 had more babies than women aged 25 to 29 for the first time, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The total fertility rate — the average number of children per women — rose to 1.59 in 2006, up from 1.54 in 2005, the agency's health statistic division said in its report on births.

The replacement level fertility, or the level of fertility the population needs to replace itself from one generation to the next, is 2.1 in Canada.

"The recent increase in births could be explained partly by the fact that many women from the echo generation [those born between 1988 and 1995] had entered their childbearing years and their fertility rates edged up," the report said...

Yes, that must explain it—those “echo” chicks have decided to be fecund and multiply. Of course, there could be another reason, one that doesn’t seem to factor into the StatsCan reckonings, but one which some smarty-pants at the Ceeb seems to have considered, since this link—Immigration critical to population growth: census—appears next to the above story on the Ceeb’s website (my bolds):

Immigrants made up the vast majority of the 1.6 million new Canadians between 2001 and 2006, giving the country the highest population growth rate among G8 countries, new census data released Tuesday suggests.

Canada's population stands at 31,612,897, with a growth rate of 5.4 per cent during that five-year period.

That's up from the four per cent growth rate in the previous census period between 1996 and 2001.

Roughly 1.2 million new immigrants made up the bulk of the population growth outlined in the latest census, while the country's native-born population increased by 400,000.

"Our natural growth rate is lower [than] in the U.S. for example. Sixty per cent of their growth rate came from natural growth," said Anil Arora, the director general of Statistics Canada's census branch.

The fertility rate for Canadian women between 15 and 49 remained an average of 1.5 children, the same rate as in the previous census period. The fertility rate in the U.S. is 2.0.

An average 240,000 newcomers per year more than compensated for Canada's flat fertility rate…

And from where, pray tell, are the bulk of our newcomers arriving? This map helps provide a snapshot:

Oh.

Update: Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders describes the "baby boom" in Europe to an American audience:

...The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see – and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule...

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:54 | link | comments (2)

Did somebody say "hidden agenda"?: What the Libs (who've long accused the Tories of hiding their true intentions) may be keeping from voters.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:39 | link | comments

The irreverent (and ever-relevant) Mr. Wolfe: What follows is an excerpt from Tom Wolfe’s (in)famous 1970 magazine article “Radical Chic”. The article was a scathing, and scathingly funny, examination of elitist poseurs—New York, mainly Jewish ones—and their then-newly fashionable fascination with the primitif:

     From the beginning it was pointless to argue about the sincerity of Radical Chic. Unquestionably the basic impulse, “red diaper” or otherwise, was sincere. But, as in most human endeavours focused upon an ideal, there seemed to be some double-track thinking going on. On the first track—well, one does have a sincere concern for the poor and the underprivileged and an honest outrage against discrimination. One’s heart does cry out—quite spontaneously!—upon hearing how the police have dealt with the Panthers, dragging an epileptic like Lee Barry out of his hospital bed and throwing him into the Tombs. When one thinks of Mitchell and Agnew and all of their Captain Beefheart Maggie & Jiggs New York Athletic Club troglodyte crypto-Horst Wessel Irish Oyster Bar Construction Worker followers, then one understands why poor blacks like the Panthers might feel driven to drastic solutions, and—well, anyway, one truly feels for them. One really does. On the other hand—on the second track in one’s mind, that is—one also has a sincere concern for maintaining a proper East Side life-style in New York Society. And this concern is just as sincere as the first, and just as deep. It really is. It really does become part of one’s psyche. For example, one must have a weekend place, in the country or by the shore, all year round preferably, but certainly from the middle of May to the middle of September. It is hard to get across to outsiders an understanding of how absolute such apparently trivial needs are. One feels them in his solar plexus. When one thinks of being trapped in New York Saturday after Saturday in July or August, doomed to be part of those fantastically dowdy herds roaming past Bonwit’s and Tiffany’s at dead noon in the sandstone sun-broil, 92 degrees, daddies from Long Island in balloon-seat Bermuda shorts bought at the Times Square Store in Oceanside and fat mommies with white belled pants stretching over their lower bellies and crinkling up in the crotch like some kind of Dacron-polyester labia—well, anyway, then one truly feels the need to obey at least the minimal rules of New York Society. One really does.

     One rule is that nostalgie de la boue—i.e., the styles of romantic, raw-vital, Low Rent primitives—are good; and middle class, whether black or white, is bad. Therefore, Radical Chic invariably favors radicals who seem primitive, exotic, and romantic, such as the grape workers, who are not merely radical and “of the soil” but also Latin; the Panthers, with their leather pieces, Afros, shades, and shoot outs; also the Red Indians, who, of course, had always seemed primitive, exotic and romantic. At the outset, at least, all three groups had something else to recommend them, as well: they were headquartered three thousand miles away from the East Side of Manhattan, in places like Delano (the grape workers), Oakland (The Panthers), and Arizona and New Mexico (the Indians). They weren’t likely to become too much…underfoot, as it were. Exotic, Romantic, Far Off…as we shall soon see, other favourite creatures of Radical Chic had the same attractive qualities; namely the ocelots, jaguars, cheetahs, and Somali leopards.

Substitute baby seals and whales for ocelots, etc. and Palestinians for Black Panthers, and  update the politically incorrect terminology (“aboriginals” for, gasp, “Red Indians”) and Wolfe’s words are as timely as ever—see the newest book by Canadian elitist poseur John Ralston Saul.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:29 | link | comments (1)

More eliminationist festivities: Fun—and Judenhass—in Nazi Iran. From Breitbart (via Drudge):

Iranians chanted "Death to Israel" on Friday as Islamist students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day annual parade to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

 

And in Gaza City, the Islamist Hamas movement that has ruled the impoverished Palestinian territory since June 2007 marked the day by calling for more suicide attacks on Israel.

The book "Holocaust," published by members of Iran's Islamist Basij militia, features dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary.

Education Minister Alireza Ali-Ahmadi attended the official launch of the book in Tehran's Palestine Square.

The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground.

Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999.

Another illustration depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving from the other side as gun-wielding "terrorists."

Yet another shows a patient draped in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the extermination chambers.

Iran does not recognise the Jewish state, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attracted international condemnation by repeatedly predicting Israel is doomed to disappear and branding the Holocaust a "myth."

The commentary inside the book includes anti-Semitic stereotypes and revisionist arguments, casting doubt that the massacre of Jews took place and mocking Holocaust survivors who claimed reparations after World War II.

One comment, in a question-and-answer format, reads: "How did the Germans emit gas into chambers while there were no holes on the ceiling?" Answer: "Shut up, you criminal anti-Semite. How dare you ask this question?"

In 2006, the Islamic republic hosted a conference of Holocaust deniers and revisionists and a mass-circulation Iranian newspaper held a cartoon competition on the subject.

On Friday, tens of thousands of Iranians marched in Tehran, chanting "Death to Israel," declaring solidarity with the Palestinians and calling for Jerusalem and Israel to be handed to the Palestinians.

Demonstrators carried placards bearing slogans including "Israel will be destroyed, Palestine is Victorious" and "Holy war until victory," and they also torched American and Israeli flags.

In Gaza, a Hamas parliamentarian called for more suicide attacks against Israel as thousands of Palestinians marched to mark Al-Quds Day.

"We call on all the factions to undertake efforts to contain the enemy and halt its aggression by planning martyrdom operations," Ahmed Abu Helbiya told a crowd of more than 2,000 protesters.

Friday's Iran protest follows a fresh verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad…

From somewhere down in Hades, Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler are giving the “protesters” a hearty thumbs up. Or would be, if their digits hadn’t been burnt off long ago.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:02 | link | comments

Malarkey’s ride: And speaking of those who serve the eliminationist agenda (see post below), here’s a harrowing adventure tale--call it "Palestinian Cohones and the Temple of Doom"-- by Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon of the Globe and Mail. You’ll laugh; you’ll cry; you’ll hurl:

JERUSALEM — With his head down and his eyes firmly fixed on his feet, Nader Deek stepped tentatively through the arched stone gate, praying to the highest power that the Israeli soldiers all around wouldn't ask him for identification as he went to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque yesterday morning. “In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful,” the sturdy 26-year-old muttered as he stepped between two soldiers clutching black assault rifles.

That higher power seemed to be on Mr. Deek's side yesterday. Busy checking the documents of other Palestinians wishing to pray at al-Aqsa yesterday, the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan, neither soldier noticed as he slipped through the ancient stone portal and into the vast courtyard known to Muslims as Haram ash-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.

Taking part in noon prayers yesterday at the al-Aqsa mosque was the end of an incredible 4 1/2-hour ordeal for Mr. Deek, during which he was accompanied by a reporter from The Globe and Mail. Along the way from his home in a village near Ramallah to the Old City of Jerusalem – a 10- to 15-minute drive in normal circumstances – he was shoved by Israeli soldiers, crawled through a drainage ditch, evaded soldiers at a checkpoint, sneaked through an olive grove and then disguised himself as a Jewish tourist for the nerve-racking final walk through the Old City to the mosque compound.

Mr. Deek wasn't the only Palestinian resident of the West Bank who made such a journey yesterday. In a testament to their resilience and religiosity, hundreds of other Palestinians could be seen along our route evading Israeli bureaucracy, and a thick network of checkpoints, to pray yesterday at the site from where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have ascended to heaven, also on the last Friday of Ramadan. As the deeply devout Mr. Deek explained along the way, kneeling inside al-Aqsa yesterday was worth the same as “1,000 months of prayer” elsewhere.

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said that about 190,000 Muslims prayed at al-Aqsa yesterday “without incident.” But tens of thousands of others were turned away because they were deemed a security threat simply because of their age, driving many to take desperate measures to reach a mosque that is one of the holiest sites in Islam.

It has never been easy for West Bank Palestinians to go to the al-Aqsa mosque, but since the second intifada, or uprising, Israeli restrictions have tightened. Now, based on the idea that young people are more likely to cause trouble – riots after Friday prayers are not uncommon at al-Aqsa – Palestinian men under the age of 45 and women under 35 are barred, and other restrictions apply. The rules apply only to West Bank residents; Israeli Arabs can visit the mosque whenever they wish. Residents of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, meanwhile, are currently barred from entering Israel.

When we began our journey early yesterday morning, it was far from certain whether Mr. Deek would end up inside the mosque or an Israeli prison. As a West Bank resident under the age of 45, he was formally barred from entering Jerusalem. Nonetheless, like thousands of others, he arrived yesterday morning at the Qalandiya military checkpoint that Israel has constructed between Ramallah and Jerusalem, hoping the soldiers might let him pass anyway.

Mr. Deek arrived with two friends at 7 a.m. and the situation rapidly became extremely tense.

“Why are you waiting? You're wasting your time. You won't be allowed through,” a young Israeli soldier shouted in Arabic through a megaphone. Later in the day, the situation at Qalandiya would escalate into a small riot in which one Israeli soldier was injured by rocks thrown by the crowd of Palestinians. But some, including Mr. Deek, hadn't yet given up hope of reaching al-Aqsa.

Palestinians are traders by nature, and with Qalandiya blocked, a black market quickly developed with drivers offering “no-guarantees” drives through the surrounding hills to Jerusalem at 30 shekels ($9) per passenger. Five of us piled into a white 1979 Mercedes sedan and headed south. We had no seatbelts, just two passengers who were madly clicking prayer beads…

Traders by nature, are they?  I can think of some other things they are “by nature,” things you're unlikely to read about in an article by the empathetic, agenda-serving Malarkey.

Update: My (unpublishable) letter:

I would like to thank Middle East correspondent Mark MacKinnon for performing a valuable service for supporters of Israel. Here I was feeling all down in the dumps because of the rapturous reception accorded to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad this past week at the UN, along with news about Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day, Iran’s annual day of solidarity with the Palestinians, during which thousands of “protesters” chanted “Death to Israel,” and Iran’s leaders unveiled a new book mocking the Holocaust (which, of course, they deny ever happened). Meanwhile, over in Gaza, Hamas, Iran’s ally, promised to get back to the vital business of killing Israelis by sending booby-trapped “martyrs” into crowds of civilians. Yet, to read Mr. MacKinnon, one gets the impression that Israel is firmly in command, wilfully putting Palestinians through “hell” not because of any ongoing existential threat to the Jewish state, but out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

 

I am reminded of a joke that made the rounds in Europe during World War 2, the one about the Jew who explains that the reason he reads Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer is because he finds all the stuff about how the Jews control the world a great comfort at a time of such unpleasant reality.

 

That’s sort of how I feel, practically every time I read one of Mr. MacKinnon’s reports.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:06 | link | comments

My dinner with Paul: I am saddened to hear of the passing of Paul Newman. Although, unlike me, he was a lifelong lefty (my leftiness having ended not long after 9/11), he was a truly decent, philanthropic man—a mensch, as we of the tribe would say. For my money, he was also the sexiest blonde Hollywood male star ever, with a killer smirk and those famous, fabulous blue eyes. I had occasion to see them up close once when, some years ago (in a previous life) I was sent with a friend to New York City on business. It was the first time in NYC for both of us, and on our very first night we decided to go to an Italian restaurant that had opened not long before on the Upper East Side; I had read about it in the New York Times. Upon arriving—without a reservation, I might add—we were greeted by a gentlemen we assumed was the Maitre d’.  He smiled and ushered us inside, then, stopping suddenly, he turned to face us and said, “No, I don’t think I'll seat you here. I’m going to put you next to Paul Newman.” We looked at each other as if to say, “Yeah, right, you do that.” But sure enough, that’s exactly what he did. So there we were, our first evening in New York City, eating dinner not more that eight inches or so away from Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, their daughter, and their daughter’s male friend. Needless to say I have no recollection of what I ate that night since I WAS SITTING BESIDE FREAKIN’ PAUL NEWMAN. I do remember, though, that at one point my friend nudged me under the table and whispered excitedly, “Look, they’re sharing dessert!” I looked, and indeed they were.

After the Newman party had left and our dinner was winding down, the Maitre d’, who turned out to be the restaurant owner, came by to chat. It believe it was the first year that the Toronto Blue Jays had made it to the playoffs, and back then I was a rabid baseball fan. Turns out so was the owner, who was originally from, of all places, Buffalo. Seems he had owned a restaurant there when Robert Redford was in town filming baseball-themed flick, The Natural. When the owner opened his place in Manhattan, “Bob” told his friend Paul about it—the reason the Newmans had dropped by for a meal. The owner then treated us both to dessert and brandy—but that’s a story for another time.

Update: Let's not forget that immortal line from Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song": "Paul Newman's half Jewish; Goldie Hawn's half, too/Put them together, what a fine lookin' Jew."

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:34 | link | comments (4)

Mahmoud and the Apocolyptics sing...: Another selection from Tehran Boys:

Wicked as that old devil’s spawn,

They call them Jews…

 

Jews, go away you’re no good for us.

Jews, got a nuke that’s so good for us.

Blast off,

Blast off’s loomin’.

Think of what big men we’ll be.

Think of our guy, the mahdi.

Now think what the future will be

When there aren’t any Joo-oos…

 

Jews, go away, your time’s come and gone.

Jews, they like us and what’s goin' on.
Before you say

That you’ll stay

We want you to

Think ‘bout the promises made.

Think how your fortunes’ll fade.

Now think what the future will be

When there aren’t any Joo-oos.

Joo-oos.

 

Jews, go away you’re no good for us.

Jews, go away you’re no good for us.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:45 | link | comments

Allahu Akbar Road: Posed as the Beatles on one of their most famous album covers, the denizens of a wee Prairie Town are promo'd by the Ceeb as being "the most famous Muslims in the world."

The most famous fake Musliims, maybe.

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

Dimant in the rough: As an actual, palpable genocidal threat to the Jewish peope looms courtesy a hairy little Hitler-wannabe and his Apocalyptic cohorts, the head of B'nai Brith Canada frets in the National Post about the possible emergence of a genocidaire from, say, Flin Flon:

Re: Misplaced Concern, letter to the editor, Sept. 26.

B'nai Brith Canada is well aware of the difference between a bigot-in-training who defaces signs in Toronto with messages of hate, and a full-blown tyrant who is feted at the United Nations for promoting genocide. However, your letter-writer seems to miss an important point. It is when hate is at the fringes that there is still time to act. When a purveyor of hate is in a position of power, such as the head of a country with nuclear ambitions, the battle is even harder to win. Certainly, the Iranian President will not be losing any sleep over Ms. Cohen's strong denunciation of him. It is ill-advised for society to simply dismiss the actions of a "teenage wannabe neo-Nazi." A similar description could have been applied, perhaps, to another "teenage wannabe" -- an unknown high school dropout named Adolf Hitler.

Frank Dimant, executive vice-president, B'nai Brith Canada, Toronto.

Newsflash, Frank: the Judenhass you’re so freaked about has moved from the “fringes” right smack  to the centre; you can’t get any less finge-y than the floor of the UN General Assembly where a robust Hitlerian speech was delivered to a receptive world audience—the essence of Ms. Rosen Cohen’s argument, since it seems to have escaped you. The Iranian President may not be losing sleep over her strong denunciation of him, but Ms. Rosen Cohen and I and you should sure be losing sleep over this genuine neo-Nazi and his soon-to-be-executed plans.

Let’s deal with one “Hitler wannabe” at a time, ‘kay?

Update: Another reason why Dimant's frantic seach for "Nazis" (Keegstra and Zundel and Ross, oh my) is so ridiculous: these days, those serving the eliminationist agenda are far more likely to be hiding in plain view, taking up popular positions on the left. Here's the Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford describing the short, strange trip of Ms. Lesley Hughes. Until the other day, Ms. Hughes was the Liberal candidate in a Winnipeg riding, but, upon being outed by some tencious "right-wing" bloggers for her, er, interesting views on history and current events (she's an avowed "troofer" who sees Jewish hands in the 9/11 attacks), she was quickly sent packing by her embarrassed bosses:

…Two years ago, she was a supporter of the United Nations Platform for Action Committee (Manitoba), or UNPAC for short, and did a radio interview with the “Femme Fiscale”, a superheroine created by the group, who “flew into the Manitoba Legislature to ask how Budget 2006 would make life better for the province's women.”

She also has written a one-woman play, Bloomberg's Radio, launched in 2002 at the city's famous Fringe Festival.

It was there that the first glimmer of what was to come may have showed itself, for in an interview, Ms. Hughes told the writer Morley Walker, “Both U.S. and Canada have become quasi-security states” because of laws passed since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We just haven't found that out yet,” she said. “And the mainstream media in North America are doing little to challenge this.”

Then came the story she wrote called “Get the Truth” and which cost her the candidacy, and which read, in part, “Israeli businesses which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it. About 3,000 Americans working there were not so lucky.”

It was no one-hit wonder, either. According to one of the many 9/11 conspiracy websites, Stop Lying, Ms. Hughes was part of a “push for truth” about 9/11 in Winnipeg in the spring of last year.

At an evening called “Code of Silence” hosted by Barrie Zwicker, who has written a book and produced a documentary on the “media coverup” of 9/11, Ms. Hughes was part of a panel discussion on the same subject.

Funny, but eight years ago, when Stockwell Day was running for the leadership of the old Canadian Alliance, Free Press columnist Gordon Sinclair Jr. wrote about an encounter Ms. Hughes, then a freelancer, had with Mr. Day.

She approached Mr. Day to ask what she called “an awkward question.”

The question was, “Jim Keegstra [the Alberta Holocaust denier convicted of promoting hatred against Jews] claims to be a friend of yours” and “that he would vote for you.”

Mr. Day was upset, and Ms. Hughes said, and I can imagine her smarmy smugness, “The part of the country you come from has struggled with a lot of ugly movements.

“I'm thinking here about the whole neo-Nazi thing and racism of a very virulent kind.”

Well, what goes around comes around, even to a good leftie Canuck.

Oh, well. She could always be appointed to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Her credentials for the job appear to be in order.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:37 | link | comments (1)

Aish outed: Islam Online, in the throes of semi-hysteria, exposes a nefarious Jewish conspiracy to besmirch Islam's good name (“scarier” aspects of the story bolded by moi):

CAIRO — A Jewish charity is seen behind the funding of a controversial anti-Islam documentary being widely circulated across the United States to scare Americans from Islam and Muslims, reported the St. Petersburg Times on Friday, September 26.

"We don't have to say who its directors are or give financial information until Nov. 6, 2008," Gregory Ross, spokesman for Clarion Fund, said.

Clarion Fund, a shadowy NGO founded in 2006 by Canadian filmmaker Raphael Shore, has shipped out millions of copies of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West" documentary in 14 US states by mail and as an advertising supplement of major newspapers.

The film, produced by Clarion, features interviews with commentators famed for their notorious anti-Islam views, including Martin Gilbert, Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson.

It also shows footage of terror attacks, clips from Arab TV and historical films.

Clarion Fund has declined to unveil the source of its funding for the film.

But an investigation by the St. Petersburg Times found that the fund is connected to Aish HaTorah, a charity founded in Israel in the 1970s.

According to the daily, Ross, the Clarion spokesman, was listed as an Aish HaTorah international fundraiser on a federal election donation form in June 2007.

The name written on the mail permit for the bulk mailing of the anti-Islam film was Elke Bronstein, who worked for Aish Discovery, which produces high-tech programs and films for Aish HaTorah.

Clarion's address, according to Manhattan directory assistance, is the same address as Aish HaTorah International, a fundraising arm of Aish HaTorah.

The Clarion Fund and Aish HaTorah International are also connected to a group called HonestReporting, which produced the anti-Islam documentary….

The documentary is not “anti-Islam.” It is anti-Islamic terrorism, anti-Islamic supremacism, anti- creeping and galloping sharia.

Boo!

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:40 | link | comments

Hello Central get me rewrite: CIJA's "Ten Commandments" for communicating with Canadians about Israel and the Palestinian conflict have been rewritten with a unique "twist" that makes the entire strategy look, well, ridiculous (not that hard to do, I know).

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

Misleading header: Some nasty and decidedly unempathetic Jews are keeping a daughter and her two children from visiting their dying dad/gramps in Gaza. The headline over an Oakland Ross in the Toronto Star—“Israel bars Canadian from seeing dying father”—sez so (my bolds):

TEL AVIV–A Canadian woman and her two teenage daughters are surviving on handouts and sleeping on the floor of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque because Israeli authorities won't let them enter Gaza to visit the woman's ailing father.

"I want them to give us mercy," Saadiya Joha, 34, told the Star last night. "My father is going to die."

Along with her two daughters – Fatima, 16, and Afaf, 13 – the Ottawa woman has spent the past 10 days hunkered down in the huge mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, waiting for permission to enter Gaza where her 79-year-old father is in failing health, unable to walk because of a serious back ailment.

She says she has no money for a hotel and little for food.

"You know how much money I spent just to come here?" she said. "It's not easy to come from Canada. It's too expensive."

Born in Syria, Joha has lived in Canada for the past 13 years.

Her husband, a carpenter, remained behind in Ottawa along with their son, 17, while the woman and two daughters travelled to the Middle East for what was supposed to be a poignant reunion but has turned out to be a torturous ordeal.

An Israeli group that promotes freedom of movement for Palestinians has taken up the Canadian woman's case.

But so far it has had no success persuading the Israeli government to allow Joha and her daughters to enter Gaza, which has been under a partial blockade by Israel for more than a year.

The organization – called Gisha, whose name means "approach" or "access" in Hebrew – has engaged a lawyer to represent the woman and has written a series of letters to Israeli authorities promoting her case but to no avail.

"It's just an ongoing problem," said Itamar Schachal, a spokesperson for Gisha. "There is no advancement. Every day, they are finding some new reason for delay."

Joha has also sought help from the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv, but says officials declined to assist her.

"They said, `Sorry, we are not going to let you go inside Gaza,'" said Joha. "I said, `Why?'"

The simple answer is that Canada is far more worried about getting people out of Gaza than with helping people to get in. Ottawa has issued a travel advisory that strongly urges Canadians against entering the territory while calling on those currently in Gaza to leave.

During the past year or so, Canadian diplomats in Israel have carried out five operations to extricate Canadians stranded in Gaza, efforts that involved transporting them across Israeli territory and into neighbouring Jordan. Those missions were complicated by Israel's acute security concerns about the troubled coastal strip.

Nonetheless, a Canadian official said last night he would take another look at Joha's case…

Oh, wait, so you mean it’s actually Canada that's preventing the daughter and grandkids from reuiniting with their dying paterfamilias?

Never mind.

/channeling Emily Litella

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:32 | link | comments (2)

A song for the censors: This 60s oldie goes out to all those who think silencing white power creeps in Canada (because their "hate speech" will all but certainly lead to a genocide) and revoking Canadians' freedom of speech at a time when they need it most is a rational, a sane, thing to do:

Do you perceive the madness in the HRCs?

How their “cure” for what ails is worse than the “disease”.

And it’s madness how they want to stop “hatin’”

By censoring our thoughts and speech so there’s no debatin’.

I’ll tell you ‘bout the madness, boy, it makes me sick.

Who's madder--Dave or Leo? You can take your pick.

 

If you believe in madness of the kangaroos

Then a Stalinist “court” is one that you’d choose.

So be nice now, or face the consequences;

They’ll grind you down until you’re left with no defences.

And pretty soon a silence will prevail in the land

And they’ll claim that it’s in keeping with “in all thy son’s command.”

 

If you believe in madness, go along with BB.

They’re gonna fix the “problems”--just you wait and see.

And then maybe they can stifle the doubt

That silencing the Zundels ends up helpin’ us out.

I’ll tell you ‘bout the madness--it is such a joke:

While they're busy nabbing "Nazis," Jews go up in smo-oke.

 

Yeah, do you peceive the madness,

Yeah, perceive all the madness in the CJC?

Perceive all the madness in the B’nai B?

Perceive all the the madness in Wiesenthal?

Oh, talkin’ ‘bout madness…

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:49 | link | comments

Say it loud, she’s “Islamaphobic” and proud: Mouthy, free-thinking chick Brigitte Gabriel takes ownership of the intended smear and wears it with pride. From FrontPage Magazine:

For the past five years, I’ve been traveling the world in an effort to inform people about the threat of radical Islam.  I have often been accused of “hate speech” and “Islamophobia.”  The latest was in an article in the New York Times, where I was described not just as an “Islamophobe,” but a “radical Islamophobe.”  This made me question what those terms really mean.  What is the difference between “hate speech” and “free speech”?  What is “Islamophobia” and who are the true “Islamophobes?”

 

“Hate speech” verses “free speech” is easy to define.  All over the United States, so-called “progressive” individuals and groups berate the USA and Israel and in the process tell outrageous lies about both countries.  That’s called “free speech.”  When others, including me, tell the truth about the threat of radical Islam, that’s labeled “hate speech” by many of these “progressives.”

 

But what is “hate speech” and what is “Islamophobia”?  When I describe the threat presented by radical Islam, I quote chapter and verse from the Koran and authoritative classical Islamic sources.  When I describe the worldwide campaign of Islamist hate indoctrination against the West, and the mind-numbing mass violence committed and glorified by radical Islamists, I am relaying facts that have been published by print and electronic media outlets all over the world. Do some of the facts about Islamist supremism manifest “hatefulness?”  Certainly. 

However, it’s not my fault that the truth about Islamist supremacist teachings and edicts is that they promote hate.  I wish they didn’t.  But wishing doesn’t make it so (contrary to the belief of the New York Times).  The Koran explicitly tells Muslims to hate (terrorize, subdue, oppress, and slaughter) the unbeliever until Islam is supreme in the world:  "Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I am with you. Give firmness to the Believers. I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.’" (Koran 8:12)

 

The Koran explicitly preaches that Christians and Jews are descended from monkeys and apes.  In the more than 13 centuries since the emergence of Islam, this strict Islamic dogma has never been abrogated, amended or ameliorated.  It is the Koran that is guilty of “hate speech.”  I merely am the messenger exposing this hate.

 

 Which brings us to “Islamophobia” and “radical Islamophobes.”  According to the dictionary, the suffix “-phobe” comes from the Latin phobos, which means “fearing.”  Do I fear radical Islam?  You bet.  Do any of these locales ring a bell?  London subways.  Madrid train stations.  Bali night clubs.  Beslan elementary school.  They are all locations of horrendous terrorist atrocities committed by radical Islamists, with scores of civilian fatalities and hundreds maimed.  I can name hundreds of other locales, from all over the world.  If fearing radical Islamist terror makes me an “Islamophobe,” then I am an “Islamophobe” in its healthiest manifestation.  In light of recent history, I submit that it would be (at best) foolhardy to be otherwise.

 

Things get a little more complicated when we get to “Islamophobia.”  The dictionary defines a “phobia” as “an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.”  Anyone who thinks that my fear of radical Islam is “exaggerated,” “inexplicable” and/or “illogical” is invited to take the world terrorism tour referred to in the preceding paragraph, or read my two books, which I submit as evidence from a personal and factual level.  If exaggeration or illogic are required elements in the definition, then my fear of radical Islam is NOT “Islamophobia.”

 

If that was not sufficiently complicated, when used as a suffix “-phobia” can include “intolerance or aversion for” the object of the phobia. Am I intolerant of mass murder, justified and glorified in the name of Allah?  Yes, I am.  Do I have an aversion to subway and train bombings?  Yes, I do.  According to that definition, my fear of radical Islam would be “Islamophobia.”  However, if my intolerance of mass murder and my aversion to nightclub bombings makes me a “Islamophobe,” then I submit that my so-called “Islamophobia” is fully justified and logical and therefore not a phobia in the usual sense of the word…

 

Personally, I’m Islamophilic, but only of those pre-Hejira teachings—the nicey-nice ones that are always being cited—that weren’t abrograted after you-know-who hightailed it to Medina and set up the world’s first Islamic state.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments (1)

Food for thought: If one has been immersed for some time in the issues pertaining to censorship and Canada’s parallel totalitarian “justice” system, listening to three gentlemen pontificate on the subject while trying to eat is perhaps not the best idea. Not if you hope to digest both the discussion and your grilled veggie wrap. Yesterday, I endeavoured to do both, as three men, attorneys, with a direct connection to the HRC system—Leo Adler, of the Canadian branch of the Wiesenthal Center; Alan Borovoy, head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; and David Matas, counsel for B’nai Brith Canada—spoke to a group of about 75-80 in the board room (and a mighty roomy room it was) of one of the city’s pish tosh downtown law firms. The topic being tackled: How do we here in Canada “balance” free speech and “human rights”.  A weighty and often indigestible subject,  indeed, one which, on its own, has been known to induce dyspepsia.

First up—Leo Adler. Now, Leo, as we know, is a Very Important Personage and one of the city’s most in-demand attorneys. In fact, as he informed us, he was going to have to leave as soon as he finished speaking because he had been summoned to court.  By a judge. (You know, a real one, who wears robes and has a law degree; not a pretend one, who’s a lefty bureaucrat plugged into identity/victim politics, and whose understanding of “justice” is grounded more in Marxist mumbo jumbo about “hegemony” than in eight centuries of English Common Law.) When last I saw Leo, he was practically foaming at the mouth, trying—and failing miserably—to rebut the words of Ezra Levant, who was deftly making mincemeat out of him. This time an entirely different Leo was on display. Dapper Leo. Unflappable Leo. Calm, cool, not speaking off the cuff (never a good idea if, in doing so, you end up sounding hysterical and/or buffoonish) but reading from a prepared speech. I would summarize his comments as follows: Everything is copacetic, folks. Here in Canada, we have managed to strike a perfect balance between free expression and curbing hate speech (which, as we all know, has been the precursor to every single genocide in the history of mankind, including the Holocaust). And what we have here is not censorship, so put that out of your minds right now. No, what we’ve managed to do is achieve “a balance”. At least when it comes to Section 13, the anti-hate speech provision of the federal human rights code and the body, the CHRC, that investigates and adjudicates violators. (But, to reiterate, this doesn’t constitute censorship because they deal only with “extreme cases of hate”—so no worries there.) There is, however, some problem with the provincial and territorial equivalents of Section 13, which, sad to say, have not achieved the federal code’s level of wonderfulness. Of course, things are always uneasy, shifting, but, at the end of the day, they always return to equilibrium. That seems to be what Canadians want. Americans, on the other hand, have opted for something completely different. Unfettered free speech. The rough and tumble of ugly name-calling.  “Hate speech” galore. (And did I mention that “hate speech” always “incites genocide”?) So un-genteel. So un-Canadian. We must realize that, here in Canada, we mind our “ABCs”—agencies, bureaus and commissions—because that is what Canadians do. So don’t fight it; embrace it. Oh, and don’t worry about your “free speech”.  Section 13 does not allow complainants to go after the owners of media outlets or Internet servers. It only permits them to complain about the users of the those services—the little guy who expresses a “hateful” in a letter to an editor, or on a radio talk show, or on one of those scary white power websites—and by his count, that amounts to a scant 30,000 “haters”. Yup, under the splendiferous edicts of Section 13, Canada, which offers the world “a model of how to deal with hate speech,” has managed to “walk a tightrope” between allowing for free speech and limiting “hate speech” ("hate speech" being a pre-requisite for genocide—did you know, for instance, that in Rwanda the Hutus described the Tutsis as “insects” prior to slaughtering them?) As Leo sees it, Canada has found the correct balance, and there’s no need to fix something that’s working so well.

At that point there was a smattering of polite applause, and Leo, pulling his briefcase-on-wheels behind him, skeddadled out of the room.

Next up—Alan Borovoy. Borovoy, who could be considered the Dr. Frankenstein of the HRC monster, since he was instrumental in setting it up way back when (“I fought like hell” to get it going, he said), contradicted just about everything Leo had to say. It is not, said Borovoy,  that the federal provision, Section 13, is working and the problem lies with the provinces and territories.  They are all equally problematic, since they don’t just silence the whackos (okay, my word, not Alan’s), the fringe “haters”; they end up targeting a much wider swath of the population. That’s because, there is no clear definition of “hate”. Section 13 allows for the prosecution of individuals on the grounds that their expressions will “likely expose people to hatred or contempt.” Pretty fuzzy. There is no need to show that the speaker “intended” to so expose them. It doesn’t matter if the “hate speech” is factual, since “the truth is no defence.”  Under the terms of Section 13, Mark Steyn (which Borovoy mispronounced “Steen”) writing in Maclean’s magazine that some Muslims are “hot for jihad” can be considered “hate speech.” So, too, can Daniel Goldhagen’s book about the complicity of ordinary Germans under Nazi rule, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. The Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian Human Rights Commission have claimed that “Steen’s” statements aren’t hate speech because they are “not extreme enough.”  But who gets to decide what’s “extreme”? And do we want to live in a society in which Steyn’s words and Goldhagen’s book, are censored as “hate speech”? The CJC and other Jewish organizations act as though these laws are the only weapon we have. They aren’t. We have the weapon of our free speech—our most “valuable weapon”; the weapon these laws deprive us of. And at a time like this, we need this weapon. No two ways about it: Section 13 and its equivalents have to go.

Hearty applause for those impassioned words—ones which were all the more compelling because they were spoken extemporaneously, from the heart, and not read off a sheet of paper.

Finally, David Matas. I had heard David Matas before, so I knew what to expect—a dry, dull, pedantic review of some of the Section 13 “gotchas”—Ernst Zundel, James Keegstra, Malcolm Ross, David Ahenekew—you know the names. Pipsqueaks aggrandized to Hitlerian levels by Jews obsessed with hate speech; Jews who’ve been told, and accept as gospel, that “hate speech” inevitably ends up in genocide. The gist of the Matas’s remarks: We “accept as a given that we are going to censor hate speech.” We thus need to “reform” Section 13 such that the Jews can still censor Nazis, but those pushing the OIC agenda aren’t permitted to push it in Canada via our anti-hate speech laws (what I describe as “censorship for me, not thee”; our cases against Nazis are valid but cases against the BB are dismissed by Matas as being "frivolous").

I won’t go into the four reforms he’s suggesting, since you can read about them here if you so desire, and since I caught the drift of only three of them. (Several times during Matas’s speech, I had the sense that I was in the middle of one of those colouring book mazes my son used to like: I knew that somewhere amidst all the dead ends and meanderings there was a point, an egress, if only one could manage to locate it. With Matas, however, it seems that a point is more of a journey than an actual destination. Afterwards, several other people told me that they, too, had a tough time following him.)  My point (since I do have one): even though Matas and his organization “get” what’s going on at the international level; even though they understand the threat that the OIC agenda poses to Jews and Western civ.; even though, both nationally and internationally, “human rights” has been hijacked by the enemies of freedom and free speech (which these enemies rightly see as the most “dangerous” freedom of all); even though the B’nai Brith now finds itself on the receiving end of two HRC complaints; despite all that,  poor befuddled Matas remains doggedly, determinately, clueless.

An addendum: Borovoy hung around for a while afterwards (Matas did too, but, poor guy—I believe the word in Yiddish is "shlemiel"—he was largely ignored), and at one stage I was summoned from a conversation I was having at the other end of the room to come participate in the one Borovoy was engaged in. It appears that despite championing the abolition of censorship provisions, Borovoy is still a true believer when it comes to the rest of the cockamamie quasi-judicial system. He was complaining about Ezra Levant. Complaining about Ezra's complaining, that is. Elbowing into the discussion, I said that the reason Ezra was “complaining” was because, for someone who's the subject of a complaint, the process can drag on for years and that, in fact, the process is part of the punishment.  Borovoy  agreed. I then pointed out that the subject of a complaint is on the hook for his own legal fees, which can mount up pretty quickly, especially if, as in Ezra’s case, it takes a full 900 days to wrap up, and that the onerous fees—none of which the complainant are on the hook for, since we the taxpayers pick up his tab—are also part of the punishment. Yes, he admitted, that, too, was valid. I then pointed out that, as someone who was in on the ground floor of getting these commissions up and running, he knew that a large part of the rationale for these "courts" was that they were supposed to deal in a speedy manner with cases that would otherwise be clogging up the regular justice system, something which, obviously, the HRCs have failed (and failed miserably) at. I got a nod of the head at that one—so I was three for three defending Ezra.

I then boldly waded into more treacherous waters, asserting that it wasn’t just “hate speech” sections that were problematic: they entire system was, too. I recounted a number of our ‘roo courts’ zanier rulings but, go figure, he wasn’t familiar with a single one.

My last word on the subject: Borovoy told me and the others involved in the Levant discussion that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is going to be defending Rev. Stephen Boisson’s right to free speech. In other words, the guy who was instrumental in instituting the parallel "justice" system now finds his organization having to defend one of its principal casualties.

There’s a bitter—but rather satisfying—irony in that, don’t you think?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:46 | link | comments (4)

Creeping sharia: In New York City, no less. From the New York Sun:

City Council members are calling on the state to give New York City children the day off from school on two Muslim holidays.

On Friday, the council will debate a resolution urging the state Legislature to pass a law declaring the Muslim holidays of Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha to be observed holidays in the city's public school system.

According to the resolution's sponsor, Council Member Robert Jackson of Manhattan, the issue is a matter of fairness, as Muslim students make up a significant percentage of the public school population.

"You have 10% of the student population out of 1.1 million children, so over 100,000 students, who are Muslim," Mr. Jackson said yesterday in an interview. "There was a situation about two or three years ago where they held a big exam on one of the highest holy days and parents had to make a choice: Do I send my kids in to take this exam or do we celebrate our religious holiday? That should not be the case. It doesn't happen on Christmas, it doesn't happen on Easter, it doesn't happen on other major religious holidays."

Bills that would give city schoolchildren the day off on the two holidays have stalled in the state Senate and Assembly, failing to get out of committee…

What next? Requiring everyone to fast for Ramadan?

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:56 | link | comments (4)

Here comes da judge: I happened to catch a glance at the NYT in its dead tree form today, and this article about the Toronto 11 (down from the original 18) caught my eye. The reason it caught my eye was because it asserted that the accused were “all talk and little action” jihadi plotters. So move along now, folks, ‘cause there’s nothing to see here.

Well, the judge in the case didn’t see it that way. On the same day that article appeared, he up and convicted one of the little “big talkers.” From the Ceeb:

An Ontario Superior Court judge has convicted a 20-year-old man of conspiring in a group plot to bomb several Canadian targets, including Parliament Hill, RCMP headquarters and nuclear power plants.

Judge John Sproat gave his ruling Thursday on the first of 11 people accused in the plot at a courthouse in Brampton, Ont., saying evidence that a terrorist conspiracy existed was "overwhelming."

"Planning and working toward ultimate goals that appear unattainable or even unrealistic does not militate against a finding that this was a terrorist group," Sproat said.

"I also reject the argument that [the alleged ringleader] was a hapless fanatic who posed no risk."

Sproat had heard arguments from the defence that the accused had no knowledge of the plot, which was a "jihadi fantasy" brewed by its leaders, while prosecutors maintained he was a willing participant.

Accused first to be convicted under anti-terror law

The accused, who was 17 when he committed his alleged offences and therefore cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, has become the first person in Canada to be convicted under the Anti-terrorism Act passed by the government in 2001.

The accused stood motionless as the verdict was read, even as emotions overcame the man's family members, who broke down outside the court, said CBC's Muhammad Lila from the courthouse in Brampton.

Although the accused was found guilty, the judge agreed to hold off on entering a formal conviction until a defence appeal is heard in December. The man potentially faces a 10-year sentence.

The remaining 10 suspects face charges that stem from allegations they participated in militia-style training camps north of Toronto. They are also accused of plotting to blow up hydro installations and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and CBC buildings in downtown Toronto.

"In terms of the actual terrorism offence, the judge says that the young man did not actually have to be involved in a specific plan … but that he just had to know that this was their intention generally," said the CBC's Ron Charles, who is also covering the trial…

Smart judge.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:26 | link | comments

Appease, appease me: Daniel Pipes summarizes the great appeasement efforts of the 20th Century, why they failed, and why the policy will fail once again with Iran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:12 | link | comments

Blowing their own shofar: The two guys who head up the Canadian Jewish Congress have penned a letter to the community that appears in the Canadian Jewish News. Most of it is boiler plate about the upcoming “election.” No, not the political one; the Divine one. Turns out, though, that the greeting is actually a hearty pat on the back for the work being done by, you guessed it, the CJC (my bolds):

…It does sound somewhat odd, even problematic, to see the Days of Awe as being like an election campaign. Look at it another way. Whatever wishes we have for ourselves and our families are just that – wishes. We dare not demand, because demand suggests entitlement. And entitlement borders on arrogance.

We wish, we humbly ask, and we combine the “ask” with the awareness that simultaneous with our asking of God, we must ask of ourselves. It cannot be a one-sided relationship of all ask and no give.

After that, we leave the rest to God.

What should we be asking of ourselves? Generally, to be our best, to do our best. This means taking life seriously, living up to our sacred calling, faithfully living up to our responsibilities, and to add a bit of seasoning to all this, allocating some time to helping others.

It makes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur all the more meaningful if we give it our best, if we make the best possible “pitch.”

In the year that we have served as co-presidents of Canadian Jewish Congress, we have met many volunteers, both inside and outside the Jewish community, who are deeply devoted to others. These are people we greatly respect and admire. And we have gained an intensified appreciation of the professionals at Canadian Jewish Congress who eat, sleep and breathe for the community.

There is much more to do, and we are looking forward to the challenges, which are made all the more achievable because of the great team of professionals and volunteers.

We all have within us the power to do significant things with our lives. That is an endearing power that along the way will gain for us God’s vote that this be a year of good signs for all: “Tehay shnat siman tov –tav shin samech tet.”

The writ has been dropped. Let the voting begin. Shanah Tovah to you and all.

And a Happy New Year to you, too. May the coming year bring you health, happiness, and—I know this one’s a long shot—a clue.

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

Another Canadian panacea: Listening to Green Party leader Lizzie May applauding the Liberal Party's Green Shift on the radio minutes ago, I was struck by a revelation: The Green Shift is the environmental equivalent of Social Credit--a complicated, crackpot, completely unworkable "cure-all" scheme of a bygone era.

Social Credit, in the form of political parties in the provinces of B.C.and Alberta, actually stuck around for quite a while. The Green Shift, I'm sure, will have a much shorter shelf life.

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

Belly-aching: When they were poor, they were thin and sassy. Not that they’re awash in oil lucre—and lots of American fast food joints—their bellies are spreading faster than sharia financing in the West.  And don’t get me started on what they go through during Ramadan: it’s brutal. The Globe and Mail’s Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon has all the gruesome details:

MANAMA — Each evening, as the invariably hot yellow sun dips into the azure waters of the Persian Gulf, a warbling call rises from hundreds of mosques across this tiny island kingdom. Come pray, the muezzins sing, and celebrate the holy month of Ramadan.

More often than not, the appeal is drowned out by a more pressing one – a plaintive “let's eat”– emitted by the stomachs, and children, of those Muslims who've spent the day fasting. Instead of the mosque, many head straight to the nearest buffet table.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with its dawn-to-dusk fasting, sounds like the ultimate crash diet. But in Bahrain, and across this deeply devout region, day-long abstinence is followed each night by binge eating that contributes to one of the world's fastest-growing obesity crises.

More than 60 per cent of the just over one million people who live on this island are either overweight or obese, according to government statistics, meaning that Bahrainis – slim and fit as nation just a few scant decades ago – are now slightly more likely to be overweight than Canadians. Bahraini bellies are now nearly on par with notoriously ballooning beltlines in the United States.

Gulf Arabs from Kuwait to Dubai to Saudi Arabia, all countries that had thin and active populations 30 years ago, are now stereotyped by their neighbours as idle and overweight. Call it the curse of affluence: As their oil-based economies boomed and their societies became richer, Gulf Arabs adopted more sedentary lifestyles and fattier diets heavily laced with the Western fast food that they've come to crave.

Matters only get worse each year during Ramadan, a period during which patience and sacrifice are supposed to be paramount as Muslims mark the time when the Koran was revealed by God. Health-care professionals here say many Bahrainis routinely gain five to 10 pounds during the month, much of it due to oversized iftar (Arabic for “breaking the fast”) meals.

“It should be a good chance to lose weight, but it's the opposite. People eat like hell – they feast like animals once they're done fasting,” laughed Khalifa Bin Dayna, himself sporting a bit of a Ramadan belly two weeks into the holy month. He said that while it was traditional for Muslims to end the fast with light foods such as soup, yogurt and dates, many now chomp straight into the main courses – red meats and deep-fried foods such as falafel – as soon as the sun sets…

So much for “self-sacrifice” in the name of enlarging the spirit. Could it be that creeping Dairy Queens and the like imperil Dar al-Islam in the same way creeping sharia imperils the West?

Funny how, in the affluent West, obesity is a trait of the poor, not the rich. The rich people are either starving themselves so they can fit into size 0 (in People Magazine, Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria is chided for her weight gain; "fat" Eva has gone up to that size from a 00), or getting their meals sent in from one of those South Beach Diet-type caterers.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:12 | link | comments (3)

Better safe than ‘sploded: A strange package caused some consternation at the Phillies' ballpark, until its true contents and purpose were revealed. From AP via the NYT:

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Nobody knew just what to make of three items heavily wrapped in white packaging and duct tape outside the Philadelphia Phillies' ballpark.

So, a few hours before Wednesday night's game, someone called the police as a precaution.

The bomb squad showed up to detonate the three packages. Turns out they contained hot dogs.

The wrapping that made them so suspicious was so the team mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, could fire them from a hot-dog launcher.

The franks has been left behind inadvertently after a commercial photo shoot for the hot-dog maker.

Team vice president Michael Stiles says Phillies employees aren't bomb experts, so it made sense to call the police.

Indeed. My question: how can you advertise your product if it's wrapped in white packaging and duct tape?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:51 | link | comments

Process servers: The Beeb reports that the Mid-East quartet has 'lost its grip' on the peace process.

What a shocker. Could that be because what they were doing was all about process (and, more specifically, the process of elimination of Jewish soverignty in Israel) and had little to do with "peace"--at least, not as the West understands it?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:28 | link | comments (2)

Pathological horse race: It's a race to the finish to see who will get to be the first to rid the world of "the Zionists" (i.e. Israel)--the mullahs, with one of their nukes; or the "human rights" crowd, via the UN's second Wannsee Conference, Durban II.

My money's on the mullahs.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:49 | link | comments

What’s the difference between the Nazis and the mullahs?: The Nazis kept their plans to rid the world of “the Jewish menace” on the Q.T. The mullahs, through their hairy mouthpiece Mahmoud, shout it to the rafters. By Daniel Johnson in the New York Sun:

LONDON — This time he went too far. If a Western head of state had echoed Adolf Hitler, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did this week, would Europeans have shrugged their shoulders and dragged their feet over sanctions?

Yet it seems that the Iranian president is now licensed to blame "Zionists" for everything from the economic crisis to "the whole world order," to threaten Israel's existence and to use words like "cesspool" to describe its people. There was a deafening silence in Britain. Prime Minister Brown was too preoccupied with his own survival, making yet another "life-or-death speech" at his Labor party conference. The Conservative leader, David Cameron, also ignored the scandal.

For the press, too, this was old news, and not even the intended victims raised much of a protest. The Times of London, determined to impress its readers with the gravity of the story, ran the story accompanied by a fetching photograph of Carla Bruni.

Some have compared Mr. Ahmadinejad's language to that of the Nuremberg rallies. That is not entirely accurate. It actually reminded me of Heinrich Himmler's notorious speech at Posen in October 1943, in which he explained why the Nazis wanted to exterminate even Jewish children, to "make this people disappear off the face of the Earth," so that future generations of Jews could never avenge their parents. Like Himmler, Mr. Ahmadinejad claims that his own people — and Muslims more generally — are threatened by "Zionists," exploiting the paranoia of the Islamic world to justify turning Iran into a single gigantic nuclear suicide bomb.

But if there is little difference between Mr. Ahmadinejad's murderous intentions and those of Hitler and Himmler, there is a considerable difference in the openness with which he talks about them. Himmler's speech — one of several occasions when the S.S. leader was frank about the aim of annihilating the entire Jewish people — was given to an invited audience of party bosses, including Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer.

Years later, Speer tried to claim — falsely — that he had not been present at this occasion, in order to persuade the world that he had known nothing about the Shoah. In other words, the Nazis were secretive about showing the world the full enormity of their crime.

Not so Mr. Ahmadinejad, who speaks in the full glare of publicity at the United Nations in New York. True, he claims to be a friend of those Jews who are not "Zionists" and even praised Moses as a great prophet. But this rank hypocrisy is so transparent that nobody even pretends to take it seriously…

But neither it seems do they take seriously the devastating consequences of a nuclear Iran. Why would they, when the world, succumbing to irrational obsession, has persuaded itself that “the Zionists” are the problem? (And in order to assuage any lingering feelings of guilt about the fate of the Jews in Hitler's Europe and to justify current derangements, it compartmentalizes "the Zionists" as being distinct from "the Jews"; Ahmadinejad, of course, who denies the reality of the Holocaust, makes the distinction to justify his impending destruction of the Jewish state.)

Pull up a chair and I’ll tell you what’s really scary—a moose-hunting, church-going, abortion opponent with a naughty librarian vibe.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:25 | link | comments

Clueless, semi-senile Jew chats with would-be genocidaire: If you can stomach it, here's Larry King's lame, softball interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hey, isn't Larry one of the "elders" he's been warning us about?

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

"The other day me and my BFF Madonna went to the park and, while Apple, Moses and Rocco were playing in the sandbox, she told me all about the Kabbalah...": Introducing Gwyneth Paltrow, blogger.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:00 | link | comments

There be witches: "Scary" religious zealot Sarah Palin once received a blessing to be free of witchcraft.

To no avail, apparently.

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

Something that definitely won't be on the agenda of the "Zionism is Racism" Durban II Conference: Palestinian crimes against Christian Arabs.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:46 | link | comments

Member of the lucky sperm club takes his place on the political stage: Trading on his good looks, his daddy’s name and not a whole heck of a lot else, Justin “Son of Pierre” Trudeau has announced he’ll be running as the Liberal candidate in a fractious Quebec riding. From the Toronto Star:

…"I've been on the ground for 18 months, doing at least 10 events a week," Trudeau says. These days, the 36-year-old father of one – with another on the way – looks as if he's studied Details magazine, dressed in a dark-blue suit and an open collar white shirt. "Building personal connections is extremely important in this riding."

Liberals, whose political fortunes continue to fall in Quebec, see Trudeau's candidacy in Papineau as the lone bright spot.

"I think Trudeau is a good name and I think it will probably help the Liberals here," says Jean Lapierre, former Liberal cabinet minister and now a political commentator. "This is probably the only riding where I see some movement to the Liberals. Otherwise, I don't see the other ridings where the Liberals could pick up support."

Papineau is a two-party race. The Conservative candidate can barely speak French.

It's a very diverse riding and one of the poorest in Canada. It has a large number of new immigrants, many of whom live in the area of Parc Extension, part of which was included in Pierre Trudeau's old riding. So memories could count.

But francophone Quebecers are the largest voting bloc in the riding, and it is they who Trudeau will have the hardest time convincing.

As if to underscore the point, a sovereignist group called the Young Patriots of Quebec held a "No Trudeau in Papineau" demonstration in front of Trudeau's riding office yesterday evening.

They believe Trudeau is the same as his father, a federalist warrior who patriated the Constitution minus Quebec's support, and opposed any special distinction for Quebec.

"We want to underline the contempt of Justin Trudeau toward the French language and the Quebec people," says group spokesperson Marilyne Lacombe.

Justin Trudeau, like his father, has not been kind to sovereignists. He disparaged the resolution adopted by Parliament in 2006 that recognized the Québécois as a "nation." He maintains he just doesn't know which Quebecers are being recognized as such.

In an interview, Trudeau called "federalist" a "word that increasingly means less and less."

Asked to clarify, he said there's been an evolution in the way Quebecers see themselves, a move away from being simply federalists, who believe in federalism, or sovereignists, who believe in Quebec. "Between them there are so many who are proud to be both," he says.

His critics like to say he's fairly vacuous; a lesser facsimile of his father. Yet he states his convictions at every turn. Most prominently, he has taken up defending multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, one of his father's most enduring legacies…

Fairly vacuous? The man makes lightweight Barack Fauxbama look like a statesman of Mount Rushmore calibre.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:40 | link | comments (3)

Role model: Saudi chicks, who are oppressed to within an inch of their lives due to the petty, misogynistic religious laws that govern them, are taking heart from the example of another woman who has faced—and managed to surmount—great obstacles. Here’s the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby on the woman who’s wowing the Wahhabi gals:

…A recent New York Times story - "Veiled Saudi Women Are Discovering an Unlikely Role Model in Oprah Winfrey" - explored the appeal of America's iconic talk-show host for the marginalized women of the Arabian peninsula.

"In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police," the Times noted, "Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives . . . Some women here say Ms. Winfrey's assurances to her viewers - that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value - help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence."

And so they avidly analyze Oprah's clothes and hairstyles, and circulate "dog-eared copies" of her magazine, O, and write letters telling her of their dreams and disappointments. Many undoubtedly dream of doing what she did - freeing themselves from the shackling circumstances into which they were born and rising as high as their talents can take them.

But the television star never faced the obstacles that confront her Saudi fans.

That is not to minimize the daunting odds Oprah overcame. She was born to an unwed teenage housemaid in pre-civil rights Mississippi, and spent her first years in such poverty that at times she wore dresses made from potato sacks. She was sexually molested as a child, and ran away from home as a young teen. It was a squalid beginning, one that would have defeated many people not blessed with Oprah's intelligence and drive and native gifts.

But whatever else may be said of Oprah's life, it was never crippled by Wahhabism, the fundamentalist strain of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia and immiserates Saudi women in ruthless gender apartheid. Strict sex segregation is the law of the land. Women are forbidden to drive, to vote, to freely marry or divorce, to appear in public without a husband or other male guardian, or to attend university without their father's permission. They can be jailed - or worse - for riding in a car with a man to whom they are unrelated. Their testimony in court carries less weight than a man's. They cannot even file a criminal complaint without a male guardian's permission - not even in cases of domestic abuse, when it is their "guardian" who has attacked them.

Could Oprah herself have surmounted such pervasive repression?...

Doubtful. One thing that’s frowned upon (and dealt with harshly) in the Magic Kingdom is a mouthy, pushy female—and an unveiled one, to boot. A Wahhabi Oprah doesn't stand a chance.

Posted by: scaramouche at 08:29 | link | comments

Ahmadinejad changes everything: The Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent me an e-mail requesting that I sign a petition addressed to UN Sec’y Gen Ban Ki-Moon denouncing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “dangerous rhetoric.” My question for Canadian Wiesenthalers: What’s the point of continuing to deprive Canadians of their right to free expression  when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets to stand up at the UN and bloviate like a latter-day Hitler—to thunderous applause, no less? It’s not like we can haul his sorry butt in front of one of our HRCs. Not that anything they could say or do to him would make an impression on the man who has made it his mission to wipe Israel off the map. At a time when, more than ever, we need our free expression so we can freely express our contempt for this hateful man and his despicable blather, isn't it time to draw down the curtain on state-santioned censorship?

Face it: the genie of Judenhass is out of the bottle, and censoring Canadians is a futile—not to mention suicidal—endeavour.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:05 | link | comments

Udderly ridiculous: PETA is urging Ben & Jerry's to substitute human milk for cow's milk in their ice cream. (link via Drudge)

Suggested new flavour: Chunky Honky.

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

Not so wishful thinking: An Islam Online article written by a U.K. cleric imagines what things would be like "if Mohammed lived in Europe."

Uh, I'm pretty sure he's already there.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:37 | link | comments (1)

A clarification: An Egyptian Muslim scholar says Mickey Mouse is not, I repeat not, Satanic. From Yahoo! News:

CAIRO (AFP) - An Egyptian Muslim scholar has called for an end to risible religious edicts after a Saudi cleric said Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan who should die, local media reported on Wednesday.

Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the United States, said last week that mice were "agents of Satan" and should be killed.

"Sharia (Islamic law) calls for the extermination of all mice. That includes the rodents as well as 'the famous cartoon mouse'," he said.

He blamed Mickey Mouse for causing people to become soft on mice.

However, Suad Saleh, a woman preacher who hosts a popular television programme on fatwas, or religious edicts, told the English-language daily Egyptian Gazette that Munajid's ruling "tarnishes Islam's image."

"An edict should be based on knowledge, logic and reason," she said. "Yes, mice should be killed when seen according to Islam's teachings. But it is illogical to deal with a cartoon character as a live mouse and kill it."…

Gee, ya think? In that case, why did some dastardly Zionist have to go and “exterminate” that nice Farfour Mouse?

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:25 | link | comments

Like Hitler, only lit’ler: Totalitarian obsessed with “the Jewish Problem” and with an agenda to “solve” it (once and for all) bloviates hatefully, forcefully at the UN. From the New York Sun:

UNITED NATIONS — President Ahmadinejad is suggesting the Jews are to blame for the financial crisis.

Delivering a speech redolent of classical European anti-Semitism, the Iranian leader accused Zionists of controlling the banks and was embraced yesterday by listeners at the General Assembly. He exchanged a long hug with the Assembly president and was feted afterward with mostly friendly questions from handpicked reporters.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech — in which he accused "Zionists" of domineering Americans and Europeans through their banking and political activities, and predicted the rise of a "righteous and perfect human being" in their place — was denounced by Israel's President Peres as a return to the language of Hitler and the fraudulent anti-Semitic tract the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Senator Obama said he was sorry that Mr. Ahmadinejad "had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views."

A spokesman for the McCain-Palin campaign, Michael Goldfarb, responded: "It is Barack Obama who would give him the greatest platform of all, an unconditional summit with the President of the United States. Barack Obama's reckless determination to meet with a man who believes our Israeli friends are 'Zionist murderers' undermines our nation's allies and demonstrates a frightening lack of judgment."

Mr. Ahmadinejad declined to answer a question by The New York Sun, yelled out at the end of a press conference, whether he would support Senator McCain or Mr. Obama in the American presidential race. But he told CNN that regardless of who wins, what matters is whether the new president would "bring about some changes in policy or continue the same old path."

The Iranian president did answer one question from the Sun, saying through an interpretation provided by the Iranian foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, that there is an important difference between America's Jews and what he described as "Zionists." In his speech, he noted, he had referred to Moses as one of the great prophets, which proves he was not anti-Jewish. On the other hand, "Zionists are political," he said.

According to Mr. Peres, however, the reference to Moses, included in an anti-Semitic speech, was ludicrous. Mr. Ahmadinejad "called on Jews who came to Israel to return to their countries of origin," Mr. Peres said. "Where should we begin? From Moses? He came from Egypt. And then he says he believes in Moses. I am embarrassed anyone at the U.N. even listens to this man seriously."...

Um, isn’t the entire peroration “ludicrous”? Also hateful, wicked and vile in a Third Reich kind of way? And isn’t the most ludicrous aspect of it the fact that the world has willingly granted this villain, this would be genocidare, his time in the spotlight, and has listened respectfully to his maniacal remarks?

Thus does history repeat—like a bad pastrami sandwich.

Update: Melanie weighs in on the madness:

There cannot be a more graphic demonstration of the UN’s bankruptcy and negation of its own ideals than the events of today. It gave a platform to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who is an enemy of the civilised world, the Prime Minister of a country which has repeatedly declared its intention to wipe out one of the UN’s own member states and is building the nuclear weaponry to enable it to do so, a country which is the subject of Security Council sanctions because it pursues a nuclear weapons programme and supplies weapons to terrorist organizations.  It gave him a platform not only to accuse the Jews of playing an ‘underhanded’ role in the crisis in Georgia, and to reiterate his call for the demise of the ‘Zionist regime’ – ie, Israel -- and its replacement by a Palestinian state, but also to accuse the Jews of secretly conspiring to manipulate and dominate the international money markets, a claim which comes straight from the lexicon of Nazi demonology:

The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support. This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.

Classic Jew-hatred straight out of the Nazi lexicon – delivered in the institution which supposedly embodies the protection of freedom against tyranny to which the world committed itself after the Holocaust. Yet here was that body giving a platform to a man who denies that Holocaust and intends to bring about another – and giving him also the opportunity to threaten America that unless it submits to Islam it will be destroyed. And actually applauding him for it...

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

It's the creeping sharia, stupid: Don't miss Kathy Shaidle's FrontPage piece about American efforts to prevent Islamic law from setting up shop in the U.S. (since it's too late for the U.K., which has already submitted to the inevitablity of the flawless law).

Update: Andrew Bostom comments:

...Apparently, a preponderance of Muslims, including Muslim “academics” here in the US such as Khaled Abou El Fadl, and the equally deficient Roy Mottahedeh, as well as various “mainstream” Muslim advocacy groups, want nothing less than for our liberal democracy to willfully impose upon itself the Ur-Fascistic totalitarianism of Sharia. For example,  El Fadl and Mottahedeh recently had the temerity to claim that Sharia Law’s compatibility or incompatibility with human rights was wholly “vacuous” and “irrelevant,” and further lamented the fact that Muslims have spent too much time trying to reconcile Shari’a with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—precisely because by design, the latter refuses to concede Islamic supremacy to a truly universal standard of rights based upon the US Bill of Rights. Only the most empty-headed buffoons, their minds melted away by ceaselessly and uncritically imbibing the cultural relativism that prevails in our “academy,” and “public discourse,” would even begin to entertain the premise of pseudo-academic frauds like El Fadl and Mottahedeh.

 

Thank goodness for Congressman Tancredo’s courage and clarity on this pressing matter!

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:13 | link | comments

Equine morality: One thing we’re really good at here in Canada—getting on our high horse while simultaneously draping ourselves in the cloak of morality (which makes it kind of tricky to ride the beast, believe you me). All the while we remain blind to our own internal shortcomings. Here’s an example of high horsery—a commentary in the Globe and Mail:

Ottawa -- During the Vietnam War era, Canada saw fit to grant refuge to 50,000 Americans who refused to serve in the U.S. armed forces. As one of the 50,000, I am deeply grateful for the privilege I was granted to become a Canadian and deeply saddened that the current government is unwilling to compassionately accept small numbers of Iraq-era war resisters.

The expulsion of Robin Long and the deportation proceedings against Jeremy Hinzman (U.S. Deserter Wins Stay Of Deportation - online edition, Sept. 22) have been justified because military service is no longer compulsory. This generation of war resisters, therefore, are of some lesser morality than their predecessors.

In an ideal world, young men and women would develop their senses of morality before entering military service, and government would be truthful. In this case, people unwilling or unable to give blind allegiance to their government would not be forced to choose between exile and prison. This world does not exist, so young people will continue to evolve to the point where they refuse to support immoral actions of their government. One can only hope that Canada will reconsider its refusal to offer such people refuge.

In an ideal world, Canadians wouldn’t be so consistently full of themselves—and so clueless— such that they could have been persuaded that a totalitarian “justice” system set up to harass and punish citizens who fail to toe the PC line would be of net benefit to society. That sort of unfair—dare we say “immoral”? (yes, we dare)—system would never have been tolerated by our “immoral” neighbours to the South.

So get off your high horse, dude.

Update: Canadian "compassion" in action.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:58 | link | comments

Ahmadinejad karaoke: Grab a mike, folks, and sing along with Mahmoud:

Why do you make me hate (make me hate)

Great Satan, baby?

It defies belief (‘fies belief)

And gives me such grief.

And then worst of all (worst of all)

You never believe it

That I’ll wipe the map (wipe the map)

And all of that crap.

I hate you (I hate you)

Even more than the Zi'nists.

You knew I was cracked from the first.

So make me hate, Satan,

You are the worst.

 

I’ve come over again to that awful UN

That’s gone and  sanctioned me--

Well, fie and fiddly dee.

I spoke to the floor and it gave me a roar.

Seemed to adore what I was callin’ for.

 

(Hey, hey, hey!) Satan baby I need time

(Hey, hey, hey!) Before the Jews commit a new crime.
(Hey, hey hey!) I'll be calm

Waitin’ for them to bomb
Facilities.

(Oo oo oo-hoo; oo oo oo-hoo)

Why do you me hate

Great Satan, baby?

When we could all agree--

You and the mullahs and me.

And then best of all (best of all)

The mahdi’s returnin’

Like he said he would (said he would);

It’s understood.

I hate you (I hate you)

More than anythin', darlin’.

You know you're the one I loathe most.

So make me hate (make me hate)

Satan, your “empire” is toast…

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:13 | link | comments

Oh, the shame of it all: Say you’re a nineteen year old guy, and your girlfriend (who also happens to be your cousin—but let’s leave that aside for the moment) tells you to take a hike--permanently. If you’re an Israeli and that happened, you’d likely mope around a bit, and then go out and find another girlfriend. If you’re Palestinian, however, a whole different kind of psychology apparently comes into play--one that could prove fatal for Jews. Noah Pollack of the contentions blog offers his comments:

If you want to get a sense of one of the deep pathologies that afflicts Palestinian culture, look at one detail in particular of today’s terror attack in Jerusalem, in which an Arab resident of East Jerusalem drove his car into a crowd of Israelis:

The 19-year-old had wanted to marry his cousin, and when she refused his offer, he decided to carry out a terror attack, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

The terrorist was a rejected teenager. Well, so what? Isn’t that a universal phenomenon? In Arab culture, especially Palestinian, this kind of rejection — especially within the family, as this particular person experienced with his cousin — is a point of deep shame, and Arab culture is perhaps the greatest honor/shame culture on earth. When you are publicly shamed, you have to regain your honor. And Palestinians have been teaching their children for generations that one of the most honorable things in the world to do is murder Jews. Such killers, no matter how humiliating their existence before martyrdom, are instantly transformed into celebrities and hailed as the most honorable members of society. In a culture such as this, it should not be surprising that personal humiliation is so frequently translated into Jew-killing.

Hitler’s Nazis and their German followers felt great shame, too, because of the Versailles Treaty. Jews sure paid the price for that humiliation, didn’t they?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:00 | link | comments (1)

Ouch!: Friends of Simon Wiesthenthal (which some baleful cynics have been heard to refer to as "the Holocaust tchotchke store") is the second censorship-championing Jewish organization--the B’nai Brith was the first--to be hoist on its own petard. The National Post’s Melissa Leong elaborates:

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies want the city of Toronto to reconsider its decision to prohibit an "inflammatory" exhibition that compares Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler.

The Making of a War Criminal was to be one of four travelling educational exhibitions being shown in schools and on city-owned property. It features an image of Hitler saluting and a photo of Mr. Ahmadinejad with a burning devil over his shoulder.

"[Mr. Ahmadinejad's] threat to wipe Israel off the map -- if that's not a call for genocide or another Holocaust, I don't know what is," said Avi Benlolo, chief executive in the Canadian branch of the Los Angeles-based human rights organization.

"We did this exhibit to press this case. It needs to be seen in public spaces," Mr. Benlolo said.

City officials rejected the exhibit because it may "stereotype or promote views and ideas which are likely to promote discrimination, contempt or hatred for any persons," as stated in the city's display policy.

The city's art and display committee reviewed the exhibit and had a "fulsome discussion," before making its decision, city spokesman Rob Andrusevich said.

"They misunderstood this policy, and they have a little bit of fear of a backlash," Mr. Benlolo said. "But they have to ask themselves: There's a threat of genocide here, how do we bring attention to it?"

City councillor Mike Feldman (York Centre) agreed with the city's decision to edit the exhibit.

"It's the city's responsibility to try to maintain a peace within the city," he said yesterday. "The city is erring on the side of caution. If we display that, then what will prevent any display from anyone else?"

Further, he was concerned that the exhibit would provide a platform for Mr. Ahmadinejad's "very dangerous" ideas.

"I don't think anyone is applauding what this madman is saying, but ... I don't know what the [display] would accomplish."

But David Shiner, councillor for Willowdale, thinks the city should show the whole exhibit.

Mr. Shiner, who has not seen the controversial exhibit, said he understands that it includes statements Mr. Ahmadinejad made about Jewish people and a paragraph about the Holocaust denial conference he hosted in 2006.

"If [the exhibition] is based on fact, don't we believe that people should be able to see all of the facts and the city shouldn't be one controlling what goes out to the public?" Mr. Shiner said.

"We may be promoting discrimination and hatred by allowing the opinions of the few and those promoting the offence to go without challenge.

"Do we have a bylaw against controversy or a bylaw against discrimination?"

The remaining parts of the exhibition, made up of panels two metres tall, provide the history of the Holocaust, profile those who helped Jews escape the Nazis and feature prominent human rights advocates. They are on display at the Scarborough Civic Centre this week.

Next week, Milton District High School will display all four exhibits.

They were shown in July at the Ontario Police College; but The Making of a War Criminal was taken down after a few cadets complained.

Mr. Benlolo said the exhibit is not meant to be offensive.

"It's meant to be shocking," he said. "It is meant to be provocative because the situation is real and serious."

Silly Avi. Don’t you know that here in the glorious mutliculti Trudeaupia of Torontostan “diversity” has been enshrined as our most sacred common value. Diversity of provenance, that is. As for diversity of opinion--well, let’s just say that that one is complicated.

Thanks largely to the censorious efforts of you and other CIJA Jews, folks here in Hogtown (er, sorry, ix-nay on the piggy nic; don’t want to “offend” anyone) are free to express all the lies they want to about Israel--including some Big Ones, some Whoppers, like the ones told annually at U of T’s Israeli Apartheid Week—but are now being told to keep mum about some awful truths about jihad, sharia and the Islamist agenda, up to an including the truth about that hairy little Holocaust-denier in Tehran and his plans to make the Mideast Judenrein

Where do I send in the form nominating you and Leo Adler as co-recipients of the next Nobel Peace Prize?

/mega-bitter sarcasm

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:50 | link | comments (1)

First things first: I have spoken to a leftist Jew who told me that the reason she wants Obama to win is because her number one concern is—wait for it—the Supreme Court. I have heard from a colleague who told me an acquaintance of hers said she couldn’t possibly vote for Stephen Harper—the only world leader to have stood up and bravely defied the upcoming, and second, UN gang-bang of Israel, Durban II—because her number one concern is “arts funding,” which the Prime Minister has just cut. (He didn’t cut it because he’s a philistine, although that’s probably what this woman believes. He cut it because much of the funding wasn’t being used to further creative endeavours and a flowering of Canadian arts so much as it was providing lavish trips on the taxpayers’ dime to rich leftists so they could act as our “cultural ambassadors”—an egregious waste of money if there ever was one.)  And I—we—have heard from CIJA,  the umbrella for Jewish advocacy groups in Canada, which advises us that our top-of-mind concern in next month's election should be “poverty”.

That’s right, folks, “poverty”.

As a welcome respite from all these clueless Jews and their maladroit prioritizing, here’s Caroline Glick, a gal who has her priorities straight.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:42 | link | comments

PajamasTV covers Ahmadinejad: Who's not in his pajamas.

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

 A word to the unwise: What’s the deal with CIJA Jews and their ongoing devotion to state censorship? Why do the likes of Tammy, Leo, Hershell and Frank (who, really, should know better) continue to hold onto their tattered security blankie, the one that has enabled them to “fight” the phantom menace of local “Nazis” via a genuine menace—our anti-Western, anti-democratic, anti-freedom totalitarian court system? Well, you could say it comes down to a matter of words—or, rather, a misunderstanding about words—and the role that words, “hate speech,” played in the genocide of Europe’s Jews. As far as these gentlemen are concerned, the “hate speech” came first and, as a direct result, the Holocaust followed hard on its heels.

Leo Adler explained how it worked to the Canadian Jewish News:

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

But in the same article, Ezra Levant spelled out the historically inaccuracy—and downright fallaciousness—of Adler’s assertion:

Levant, however, dismissed that line of argument. Hitler, he said, gathered strength in the Weimar Republic, which had legislation against hate speech.

“What killed Jews in the Holocaust was not hate speech.” As well, he noted, the Shoah was preceded by the Nuremberg Laws and the removal of Jewish rights to property, self defence and even life itself.

“We’re foolish if we think that controlling speech will protect us from real violence,” he said.

Why do we have censorship in Canada? In large part it’s because influential Jews like Mr. Adler have misread and misunderstood the historical record. I would direct these machers to Saul Friedlander’s masterful history of the Shoah, The Years of Extermination. It makes clear that the catastrophe didn’t “start with words.” It occurred because an ambitious, power-hungry, charismatic leader who had designs on the world and an irrational obsession with the Jews gained power over a powerful nation. This leader used hate propaganda—“words”—to help him fulfill his agenda of ridding the planet of the blight he thought threatened to destroy it, “the Jews.”

In other words, “words” didn’t cause the Holocaust. Hitler and those who got onside with his eliminationist agenda, caused it. And those good people who remained silent and impassive, thereby allowing evil to triumph, abetted it.

You can see the same sort of irrational obsession—and another eliminationist agenda; hello, Durban II—in operation today. Only now the obsession is not about the blight of the Jewish people and how it threatens to "contaminate" the world, but about the Jewish state and how its "immorality" and "racism" are "contaminating" the global scene, and why it must be extirpated before doing any more harm. And the agenda is being driven not by a totalitarian dictator with grandiose dreams, but by the international organization that arose from the ashes of  a world devastated by war in order to prevent the recurrence of another catastrophe like the Holocaust; an organization that takes its marching orders from its largest voting bloc, which denies that the Holocaust happened and is obsessed—obsessed—with Israel.

Ironic, no?

So how does curtailing free speech in Canada translate to helping Jews and others put the brakes on what now seems inevitable—the elimination/destruction of the Jewish state by the world community on “moral grounds”? It doesn’t. It can’t. It won’t. All it has done is spark a backlash against Canadian Jews, since they are rightly perceived as being responsible for subverting our most valuable freedom. It has also led to a truly perilous situation: if we dare to speak out about the irrational obsession and the looming threat of Israel’s destruction (along with the threat to Western civilization as a whole) and end up “hurting” the feelings of those pushing the eliminationist agenda, we risk being silenced and punished by a powerful nomenklatura of useful idiots. Now, when more than ever, Jews and all freedom-loving Canadians need to be able to use their words, we aren’t allowed to—in no small measure because some well-meaning but misguided Jews continue to believe that “words” are the problem and censorship is the solution.

There's only one word for such people: fools!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:28 | link | comments (5)

Table manners: In a column in the Jerusalem Post, Issi Leibler unpacked the strategy of CIJA, the umbrella which shelters Jewish advocacy organizations in Canada. He attributed its reluctance to speak up for Israel to a “sha shtill” mentality. (“Sha shtill” is Yiddish for “stay still”—i.e. shut yo’ mouth—the approach employed by mainstream North American Jewish groups in the lead-up to what turned out to be the Holocaust.)  A letter to the Post’s editor suggests that another factor is in play (h/t BCF):

No place at the table

Sir, - Two important points need to be added to Isi Leibler's excellent "Canadian Israel advocacy in turmoil" (September 21). The takeover by a small group of fund-raisers and main donors was really a coup, without any consultation with the Canadian Jewish Congress, a body elected by all Jews across Canada, or with the Canada Israel Committee (the Canadian AIPAC), a group of volunteers comprising supporters of all Israeli political points of view.

Both organizations had highly qualified staff with excellent PR qualifications, and were very efficient. But the new group - the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) - controls the purse-strings and the budgets; and the message to other organizations, who were doing a much better job than CIJA is now doing, was to go along, or be cut off.

Most of the "machers" are good friends of Shimon Peres and want only his agenda as the policy of the Canadian Jewish community. It is thus not so much the "sha shtil" approach, as leftist-only ideas. Political centrists, even more so those a little to the right, have not only lost their place at the decision-making table. They cannot even approach the table.

Sometimes it seems that this new entity is a branch of the Israeli Labor Party.

Happily, as Leibler points out, there are a number of smaller groups in Canada carrying the message Israel needs to be sent to the Canadian Jewish community, and to the Israel-friendly Canadian government.

DAVID ROTENBERG 
Jerusalem /Toronto

As someone who belongs to one of these smaller groups and who votes Conservative—something that sets me apart from the majority of Canadian Jews, who, like their American counterparts, continue to vote left—I can vouch for the accuracy of Rotenberg’s observation about those on the right having been banished from the table. No matter. We are currently in the process of regrouping at another table—a smaller one, to be sure—but one where the company and food for thought are far more congenial.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:53 | link | comments (2)

Dear Necrophiliac: Michael Ledeen has written a letter to death-doter and UN General Assembly keynote speaker Mahmoud A.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:29 | link | comments

Solution pollution: One would have thought that, post-Final Solution, the idea of looking at anything to do with "the Jews" as a "problem" that required "solving" would be seen for what it is--disgusting, offensive, obscene. And yet, here we are six decades after Israel's founding, and the world is frantically beavering away, trying to decide if a "one-state solution" or a "two-state solution" will do the trick. (The conundrum is the subject of a conference slated for summer '09 at Toronto's York University, a little piece of Gazastan in the city that's often called the "most multicultural" one on earth).

Let me assure all those geniuses committed to "solving" the "problem" of Israel: there is no "solution" that is going to satisfy those who demand that Israel maintain its identity as the world's only Jewish state, and those for whom a Zionist Israel is anathema. So knock it off with trying to "solve" Israel out of existence and move on to "solving" something else--like, say, problems pertaining to the "two-state solution" of India and Pakistan (which has worked out fine on the Indian end but has been a dismal failure on the Islamic side).

Oh, and one more thing. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has worked out his own "solution" to "the Jewish problem," one which he might get to put into effect before the problem-solvers convene in Toronto next summer. Call it the "no-state solution". Or, if you prefer, the final Final Solution.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:49 | link | comments

Hee hawllahu akbar: Here’s something you don’t hear every day—or ever: a Muslim “country” singer. From AKI:

Rome, 21 July (AKI) - America's first Muslim country music singer has shown that Middle-Eastern and Western music can form an exciting new hybrid that builds bridges between cultures.

Kareem Salama, born and raised in Ponca City, Oklahoma in the southern US, is the son of Egyptian immigrants. He began to get into country music while studying in graduate school.

He performed in front of a mostly Italian crowd at the Villa Celimontana Jazz Festival held in Rome on Sunday. His songs were well received by the crowed, which energetically clapped after every song.

"People in Europe have strong stereotypes about what country music is," said Salama in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI). He speaks Arabic and English.

In his songs, he draws on elements of Rock, Pop, Country and Folk music, as well as Islamic themes, Sufism, poetry and issues ranging from chivalry and nobility to war.

Kareem Salama, whose name means 'Generous well-being', performed for 90 minutes and performed his most famous hits. The songs included 'Baby, I'm a soldier' which recounts the face-to-face encounter between an Iraqi and an American soldier who end up killing each other on the battlefield.

In 2006, he wrote a song called 'Prayers at night' in order to draw attention to the war that year between Israel and Lebanon.

Salama told AKI he would like to perform in his parents' native Egypt and is confident that his music would be well received there.

He draws a parallel between old Arabic music and country music. "Both talk about virtues. A lot of storytelling. Storytelling is a huge thing in country music. They are very similar," he said.

However, he is quick to point out that in his opinion, modern Arabic music does not have much in common with country music.

"Country music is based on Judeo-Christian principles and the idea of fatalism. You will find a lot of that in Islamic literature as well."…

You don’t say. There’s also a lot of "fatalism" in Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion, perennial best sellers in the Arab/Muslim world.

In honour of the Muslim Keith Urban (and the UN's upcoming Wannsee, er, Durban II conference), I've revised an old Hank Williams standard:

Goodbye Jews,

You’re gonna lose

Your own state-oh.

Can’t let it be,

"Hegemony"

It aggravates so.

Old time hate--that’s your fate; it’s not abatin’.

Sons of Mo they’re gonna go get “Great Satan.”

 

Oh, jumbled lies,

Crazy guys at the UN

Have a plan, take a stand,

Know what they’re doin’.

“Human rights” fuels the fights

‘Gainst the Jews now.

Sons of Mo they’re gonna go

Light the fuse now…

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:07 | link | comments

Repent, EU kafirs: Or else:

Algiers, 22 Sept. (AKI) - A leader of the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened France and Spain in an audio message broadcast on jihadist Internet forums on Monday.

"To those that are involved in the war against Islam and have betrayed the Islamic nation, we say to them: Repent before God punishes you with his hands and with ours," said Abdel Malik Droukedel, who uses the name Abu Musab Abdel Wudud.

"This is because judgement day is close and punishment is imminent. And whoever among the treacherous apostates thinks that France is in a position to ensure its safety, we tell them they are wrong, because France will not be in a position to do it, and will be worried for its safety."

In the audio message, entitled "Message to our nation in the Islamic Maghreb", Droukedel reminds his listeners about Spain and Morocco's territorial dispute over the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

"Dear nation, it is not conceivable for any Muslim that loves Islam to speak of the Maghreb without remembering Ceuta and Melilla, occupied by Spain without remembering the injustice suffered by our nation," said Droukedel.

"The complicity between Spain and international organisations such as the Arab League, the Islamic Conference and the United Nations is clear."

Melilla and Ceuta are autonomous cities administered by Spain and considered by neighbouring Morocco to be an integral part of its territory and of immense political and economic significance.

Morocco claims both locations to be "despoiled" territories, calling them by their Arabic equivalents of Sebta and Melillia. The cities have been under Spanish control for over 400 years…

Silly Spanish. Don’t they realize that once a land has been conquered for Allah, it’s ipso facto part of Dar al-Islam no matter how long the infidels control it thereafter? The same holds true for Israel as well, which has been in Jewish hands for a scant sixty years—a blink of an eye to those who take the long view of history.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:32 | link | comments (3)

Our friends the Iraqis: So glad that surge is working and democracy is taking hold in a once tyrannical land. From Yahoo! News:

BAGHDAD - First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi's troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state — something Iraq's leaders refuse to consider.

The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel — a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party's sole seat in parliament.

Because he had visited Israel, many Iraqis assume the maverick legislator was the real target of the assassins who killed his sons in 2005 while he escaped unharmed.

Now he is in trouble for again visiting Israel and attending a conference a week ago at the International Institute for Counterterrorism.

"He wasn't set to speak, but he was in the audience and conversed with a lecturer on a panel about insurgency and terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel," said conference organizer Eitan Azani. "We didn't invite him. He came on his own initiative."

Al-Alusi has a German passport, allowing him to travel without visa restrictions imposed on other Iraqis. Lawmakers accused him of humiliating the nation with a trip to the "enemy" state.

The uproar shows how far Iraq has moved from the early U.S. goal of creating a democracy that would make peace with Israel and remove a critical force from the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The U.S. Embassy declined comment. "It is an issue for the Iraqi parliament, not the U.S. Mission to Iraq," said spokesman Armand Cucciniello…

"What has happened was a catastrophe for democracy," Al-Alusi told The Associated Press in an interview in his Baghdad home. "Within an hour's time, the parliament became the policeman, the investigator, the judge, the government and the law. It was a sham trial."

Al-Alusi said he went to Israel to seek international support for Iraq as it struggles against terrorism, and insisted that the outcry reflects Iranian meddling in Iraq's internal affairs — an accusation often leveled by Sunnis like himself against Iraq's mostly Shiite neighbor.

"Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah and many other terrorist organizations. Israelis are suffering like me, like my people. So we need to be together," he said. "Peace will have more of a chance."

Iraq sent troops to three Arab wars against Israel, and fired Scud missiles at it in the 1991 Gulf War. It remains technically at war with the Jewish state. Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community has shriveled to just a few people, most having fled after Israel was founded in 1948.

"Al-Alusi has insulted the hundreds of Iraqi martyrs who fell while fighting the Israelis," said Osama al-Nujeifi, a Sunni lawmaker. "It was a provocative visit to a historical enemy."…

And once an enemy, always an enemy, eh, Sunni lawmaker?

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:21 | link | comments

Suicidal, short-sighted Jews: Here, courtesy the New York Sun, are the remarks Sarah Palin would have made at an anti-Ahmadinejad rally, had the Jews behind the event not been so concerned that any comments by Palin might mean a few more votes for the Republicans (h/t S.L.):

I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country — leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage.

Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York — to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan — and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.

Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him.

He must be stopped.

The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a "Final Solution" — the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a "stinking corpse" that is "on its way to annihilation." Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman — not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.

The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.

The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the "Iranian nation would not retreat one iota" from its nuclear program.

So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.

If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons — they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.

But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world's most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran's desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.

Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government's threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments…

You can see why New York Jews would be dead-set against this “scary” woman and her “scary” agenda. After all, gun control and abortion are far more worrisome issues than the possibility that Israel will shortly be wiped off the map by religious totalitarians with an agenda for global control.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:11 | link | comments

Melanie nails it: The indefatigable Ms. Phillips speaks truth to power, gives the corrupt, morally bankrupt international body a good raking over:

It has been obvious for years that the UN is simply a club of tyranny. It ignores, condones or protects gross abuses of human rights, while attacking and undermining democracies which abide by them. The fact that it is sanctified by the west as having more legitimacy than individual nations, and for embodying the deluded progressive belief that ‘soft power’ can bring about the brotherhood of man on earth, has meant that the west has turned a blind eye to the excesses committed by member states and institutionalised the UN as a weapon against western interests.

Time to end the anachronistic worship of the UN (the UN of the era when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified; the UN of our dreams) since it's blind to the reality of what the UN has become: the organization that's sealing our doom.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:58 | link | comments

 A call to “convert”: Roger L. Simon, a pariah in Tinsel Town for his unpopular non-lefty views, pens an open letter to American Jews:

From the days of FDR, the vast majority of American Jews have identified with the Democratic Party almost if it were their religion.  This included most especially secular Jews like me whose blasé attitude toward their faith and toward religious observance in general made such a replacement all the more important emotionally. This same Jewish majority also identified with the cause of social justice and, as Barack Obama among many others has noted, were some of the most active participants in the civil rights movement of the Fifties and Sixties. That was all how it should have been and was a perfectly logical and praiseworthy epoch in the development of our country.

Hello – those days are over!  The events leading up to Monday’s anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration by Jewish organizations at the UN put the final nail in an already long-moldering coffin. Jews should no longer align themselves with the Democratic Party any more than they should align with the Republicans.  They should act and think for themselves, devoid of ideological or partisan bias. They should first be Americans, not Democratic Party Americans.

The reasons for this are many, but paramount among them is that being hostage to one political party is tantamount to giving up your freedom and relinquishing your ability to confront reality and act in your own interest, not to mention the interest of others. Many Jewish Americans still do this for reasons that are at best sentimental and nostalgic, and at worst self-destructive. But a tipping point may be approaching.  The virtual night of the long knives played out between the Democratic Party and various Jewish organizations surrounding the Iran demonstration, including allegations that party operatives were threatening the loss of tax exempt status over Sarah Palin’s appearance, with more unpleasant revelations undoubtedly to come, is obviously causing people to reconsider this allegiance to the Democratic Party that approaches fealty.

I urge my fellow Jews to keep thinking about this and not to retreat into the cocoon-like safety of an outmoded tradition.  Change is difficult.  But remember that Hillary Clinton – that paragon of the Democratic Party, a woman who calls herself a “progressive” (oh, desecration of the English language!) – was willing to forego the protest of the man who is arguably the most significant enemy of the Jews since Hitler for partisan and (most likely) personal pique reasons. How morally repellent is that!

And then Joseph Biden told us he was busy–too busy to protest a nuclear-armed madman who fervently believes that his mysterious Twelfth Imam (Mahdi) is destined to unite a chaotic globe under Allah.  (And don’t tell me that evangelicals believe similar things.  If you think there is an equation between evangelicals and Khomeinist Islamists, you need a cold bath.)

No, those Democrats thought of themselves and their party first, the citizens of this country and the world later. When Republicans behave in a similar reprehensible manner, we should condemn them with all ferocity.   But fellow Jews, stop being slaves to the Democratic Party.  End this illicit love affair – not just for your own good, but for the good of humanity...

Jews give up the feel-good “tikkun olam” party? Now that would require not just a change but a seismic shift.

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

Elites v. “trailer trash”: Diana West has posted a translation of a speech by Dutch “Islamophobe” Geert Wilders. The speech was so incendiary, so politically incorrect, that the “elites”---the targets of his excoriation—pulled the plug on it. Change the odd word and name here and there and he could just as easily be talking about Canada:

…This elite finds everything very well — as long as the subsidy flow continues towards the VPRO [leftist TV broadcaster], Milieudefensie [Environmentalists] and the arts chiefs. They are the followers of Geert Mak [the Dutch Michael Moore], Doekle the dhimmi [Doekle Terpstra, former Christian Democrat, now Unilever officer and a fanatic anti-Wilders opponent], Eveline Herfkens [Socialist employed by the World Bank and the UN, involved in a major fraud] and Al Gore. It is the leftist canal-zone [the expensive property at the Canals in Amsterdam where most leftist celebrities live] and their sticky friends.

But all these so-called ideals of the political elite are minority projects. There is almost no one who still believes in it, except for an ever-smaller gang of leftists hanging on the taxpayers-drip and with permanent jobs for themselves at a subsidy nipple, the government, or a lobby club. Professional Muslims, professional climate fundamentalists, professional chairmen, professional lobbyists.

One of those is Bert Bakker. We still remember him — until recent a parliamentarian for D66 [set up in 1966 to achieve more democracy, but now a leftist appeasers party]. And what tough politically-correct talk he uttered. The PVV party, he said, are all racists, all thugs. He had this written up in the newspaper. But alas — thanks to the action of the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs, ms. Koser Kaya took Bert Bakkers’ seat here [after the last elections].

And now Bert tries to scrape some money together as a lobbyist for an aircraft manufacturer. And thus he also visited the PVV. A little bit of licking, a little driveling. Well, we have told Bert Bakker that he can take a hike. Lobbying is ok, but not with us. And then suddenly Bert turned like a leaf on a tree and look what I now found in the post: a real apology. Geert, sorry, you are suddenly not racists anymore.

Look, that is the way of our elite. In public they express politically-correct tough talk. And as soon as they have a little job they send little apology letters. Some people have ideals and are steadfast. Others have a spine full of whipped cream. Bert Bakker is a symbol for the elite. Rather a fat bank account than principles.

But alas, Madam President, there is also another Netherlands. My Netherlands.

The other Netherlands consists of people who have to pay the bills. Literally and metaphorically. They are robbed and threatened. Who sigh under the load of the street terrorists, under high taxes and the desire for a socialist Netherlands. They are the people who do not get anything for nothing. They are the people who have built up our country. They are the people who have never believed in the leftist project of the multi-nonsense or climate rubbish or our donations to the cocktail-mafia on the Antilles.

They are the people who are rarely heard here in the Lower House in The Hague. They are dismissed as trailer park trash and xenophobes, as little provincials.

This government puts down this double Netherlands. This government chooses consistently for the Netherlands of the elite and not for the Netherlands of the ordinary people who have to pay the bill.

Who is wondering why it is that Dutch people are increasingly cynical about politics should look at these two Netherlands. They must wonder how we can achieve ONE Netherlands.

Nowhere the differences between what the Dutch find and what the elites find is sharper than in the case of mass immigration. Nearly sixty percent of the Dutch people see Islam as the biggest threat to our identity and also nearly sixty percent finds mass immigration to be the biggest mistake since the war. But here in the parliament hardly six percent believe the same thing…

Ironic, isn’t it, that it’s the “trailer trash” and “little provincials” who may yet save Western civilization?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:20 | link | comments

Le nom juste: Sometimes an individual has an especially appropriate name. Like, say, a ritual circumciser named Dr. Foreskin. Also, like the guy named in this Ceeb report about unrest at an American meat-packers:

Hundreds of Muslim workers involved in a dispute over prayer breaks at a Nebraska meat-packing plant are set to meet Sunday to decide what to do next.

Dozens of workers were fired during a week marked by protests at the JBS Swift & Co. plant over break times to allow Muslims to pray at sunset.

The plant employs about 2,500 people, not including managers. About a fifth of them — mostly of Somali background — are Muslim.

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said Saturday that workers at the plant wanted to hold another protest, but that he urged them not to.

Instead, Rage said, all the Muslim workers — including those no longer with the company because of the dispute — will meet Sunday to talk about a resolution.

On Monday, hundreds of Muslim employees walked off the job, saying they weren't being allowed to take a break to pray during Ramadan. Break times were then altered on the second shift so that Muslims could make their fourth of five daily prayers at sunset…

His name is Mohamed Rage!? I’m sorry, that’s just too…perfect.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:50 | link | comments (2)

CIJA’s agenda: All those frustrated souls trying to get a grip on the inner workings of the Jewstablishment (me included), can now relax. Isi Leibler ‘splains it all to you (Israpundit's bolds):

Canadian Jews can take pride in the remarkable infrastructure of educational, religious and cultural institutions they have created. The fact that assimilation and intermarriage in Canada are far less advanced than in the United States is largely attributable to their magnificent network of Jewish day schools. Canadian Jews also have a splendid record of support for Israel and their donors are among the most generous contributors to projects in the Jewish state.

Regrettably, in recent years the community’s public advocacy on behalf of Israel has dramatically declined. This paralleled a major upsurge in anti-Semitism and demonization of Israel as a consequence of Muslim immigration and intensified hostility from the Canadian left.

The downturn had its genesis in 2004 when the principal communal fund-raisers, concerned about increased anti-Semitism and hostility to Israel, decided to supplant the traditional communal advocacy bodies - the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canada Israel Committee - with a “more professional” organization. The new entity, the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), was commissioned to deal exclusively with “advocacy on Canada Israel relations while the Canadian Jewish Congress would handle issues of Jewish concern.” This effectively neutralized the central role of the Canadian Jewish Congress in determining policies on Israel and antisemitism and replaced it with an undemocratic body headed by professional public relations consultants.

The federations, via the United Israel Appeal, allocate very substantial funds to the CIJA. The budget this year, including mega-salaries for the principal officers, amounts to more than $11 million.

However, from the outset, the new team of PR professionals, headed by CEO Herschel Ezrin, was soon identified as archetypical practitioners of the discredited sha shtil approach, displaying passivity and determined to maintain a low profile. Their vast financial resources concentrated on campaigns emphasizing that Israelis “are just like the rest of us Canadians”.

Their PR philosophy, depicted as a model that other communities would do well to emulate, was outlined in a surrealistic internal document circulated in 2004 titled “The 10 Commandments.” It was never formally repudiated and to this day appears to reflect CIJA policy. The document must be seen to be believed.

Commandment 5 states: “Do not directly attack or assign blame to the Palestinians or their leadership. Canadians will not tolerate - or believe - that one side is more responsible for the violence than the other.”

Commandment 6 says: “Do not ask Canadians to pick a side in the conflict or assign blame. Very few Canadians are prepared to assign blame for ongoing violence or attacks.”

Commandment 7 states explicitly: “Do not ask the government of Canada to appear - or be - more favorable to Israel… There is no support for further government support of Israel.”

Commandment 9 warns: “Do not attack the media for being biased against Israel… There is no constituency to support a public effort to attack the media.”

That such a document was not immediately condemned and withdrawn demonstrates how a group of wealthy donors, dazzled by “PR expertise,” bypassed the will of the vast majority of Canadian Jews.

The obsession to avoid “confrontation” was especially acute on the campuses where Hillel activists were explicitly directed to avoid debates, ignore Arab anti-Israeli tirades and never display examples of Islamic antisemitism to avoid offending Muslim groups.

Three years ago, the PR mavens even managed to convince the Montreal federation to cancel the annual Israel Independence Day parade out of a fear of possible anti-Israeli counter-demonstrations. Fortunately, independent communal leaders, rabbis and school principals took it upon themselves to lead a grassroots revolt to retain the dignity of the community and Independence Day parades were reinstated.

The CIJA has a virtual monopoly on Israel advocacy in Canada…

I don’t know if I agree completely with Leibler that  CIJA’s “sha shtill” approach is always in effect nation-wide. Here in Toronto, for example, there’s an annual Walk For Israel that had a record turnout this year. There have also been extremely well-attended rallies for Sderot and a celebration in honour of Israel’s 60^th birthday. Nonetheless, the “commandments” which drive CIJA’s actions are most disturbing, as is its ongoing support for state censorship. Luckily, there are many, many Jews who reject such commandments (which, being morally relativistic, make a mockery of the real ten commandents, the rules which provided the moral underpinnings of our civilization), and who continue to make waves (which, trust me, hasn’t exactly endeared us to our own mucky-mucks).

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:19 | link | comments

Be careful what you wish for: A little birdie (you know who you are) caught a play at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre the other day and saw the following grafitti in the washroom: "Queers for a free Palestine."

Memo to "queers": A "free" Palestine means lots of dead queers.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:40 | link | comments

Nasty, brutish and short--and hairy: Don't miss the Li'l Hitler's nuclear adventures--though they're not nearly as animated as the man himself.

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

Buh bye and good riddance: Yes, that long-awaited day has finally arrived--the day when that pathetic excuse for a leader, Ehud Olmert, tells us when he'll be packing it in. Only one thing left to do--sing!

Arrivaderci, Olmert.

Goodbye, goodbye Ehud.

Leader who’s so hapless and so feckless

Leader who’s so useless and so reckless

Israel is gonna be one shmuck less

Once you’re gone…

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:42 | link | comments

Missing in action: What's the name of Bambi's running mate again? Seems I plum forgot (and I'm not the only one to have that memory lapse):

Bambi’s Veep choice, that Senator Biden

Is hardly worth even deridin’.

Despite the Dem’s plottin’

The man’s been forgotten

And won’t factor into the decidin’.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:23 | link | comments

A whole ‘nother party: On the israpundit site, Mario Goveia writes that the new Dems are nothing at all like the old Dems—a reality American Jews have yet to twig to:

As a non-Jewish American supporter of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, it has become increasingly apparent to me that some of the most virulent Bush-haters and far-left-wing Americans supporting Barack Obama, are Jews! Good heavens! Do they have any idea what the real and psychological pressure will be like on Israel if the US administration is put in the hands of Barack Obama, who would embolden Israel’s mortal enemies by making inappropriate moral equivalencies, as he has already done, and recognizing Israel’s enemies as “legitimate” seekers of peace by meeting with them without any pre-conditions?

What compromise position do you imagine Obama is going to propose in such a meeting when Ahmadinejad, or Assad or - take your pick - re-iterate their ultimate goal regarding Israel, now further emboldened by Obama’s obsequious presence at the table??

What would make Obama’s election a Perfect Storm for Israel are far left wing Congressional Democrat leaders like Nancy “The surge is not working” Pelosi and Harry “We have lost in Iraq” Reid. Don’t kid yourselves that these sentiments are restricted to Iraq. What kind of national political leadership openly cheers for its own country to fail, and declares defeat right in the middle of a war? What kind of national political leadership continues to fail to recognize what America has achieved in Iraq - an epic and now increasingly successful attempt to plant the seeds of freedom and democracy in places where these had never been experienced before - thus providing Israel with some relief, however small at the moment, from radical dictatorships that have decided in lockstep since 1947 that Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth?

Only Israel’s survival instincts and strength and American resolve has prevented a second Holocaust from happening. Only Joe Lieberman’s lone vote has often stood between an American retreat, which is tantamount to a defeat, and the current victory that is at hand. Why Lieberman continues to caucus with the Democrats after they tried to destroy him and his political career is about as big a mystery to me as the majority of American Jews who blindly vote for Democrats at every level.

When I came to this country as an immigrant 37 years ago I learned how to deal with it from Jews whom I used as role models, and their lessons and example served us well. They stood for higher education, working harder than anyone else, strong family and community values, rugged independence and self-reliance, standing up to discrimination, helping those in need, and protecting with their lives the only sliver of freedom and democracy in the middle-east over the last four decades.

Can ANY of these traits be found in the heart and soul of the MODERN Democrat party? The Republican party’s many faults are all such that they can be changed from within because their heart and soul is still in the right place, they still support the factors that made America great. But if the far left loons who control the Democrats of today - just read their websites and blogs - could rip Hillary and Bill Clinton to shreds, classify them as right-wingers and warmongers - and less than 10% of blacks would support her after calling him the first black US President, then the writing is on the wall. Sadly, the blind cannot see.

In the meantime Osama Bin Laden is planning a radical Caliphate from which to promote Sharia law worldwide, by force if necessary, with only Israel standing in his way regionally, and the US globally - perhaps, sadly, only until this next election… 

The Caliphate? Ho hum. That’s nada compared to the prospect of another four years of scary, belligerent, non-multilateral Halibushitler hicks from the sticks. (That’s me channeling Jewish Bambi-soxers.)

Update: Bill Whittle say, "Go hicks!"

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:39 | link | comments

Rousseau’s children: One of the tried and true ways of attempting to undermine the West from within is to insist that its “values” are corrupt (since they are Western and “European,” code for imperialistic, colonialist and therefore intrusive and worthless). One of today's underminers: “big thinker” John Ralston Saul, who wants Canada to return to its “pure” aboriginal roots. That’s an idea the Toronto Star’s “big thinker” Harpoon Siddiqui can get behind, since he’s keen to return to some roots, too:

…Canada is in trouble because it has been untethered from its aboriginal moorings. It pretends to be what it is not. It is not European or American.

He writes: "In spite of the enormous role played by churches over the centuries, ours is not a civilization that emerged out of the Judeo-Christian line. Nor did we rise out of the opposite, the secular or the laic. The central inspiration of our country is aboriginal ...

"How we imagine ourselves, how we govern, how we live together, how we treat one another when we are not being stupid is deeply aboriginal ...

"We are a Métis civilization. What we are today is inspired as much by four centuries of life with the indigenous civilizations as by four centuries of immigration."

The aboriginals, with their "idea of expandable and inclusive circles of people," welcomed the French settlers. They taught the newcomers how to survive. They encouraged intermarriage, as did Champlain: "Our young men will marry your daughters, and we shall be one people."

But this mutual approach was abandoned by later settlers in favour of land grabs, broken treaty promises and an assault on the aboriginal way of life.

The Orangemen, in particular, importing their extremist Protestantism, applied their "old European prejudices in a new place," and imposed the language of a "monolithic nation-state, with its ideas of racial purity."

The First Nations were to be assimilated. "This was the underlying theory of the residential school system, with its deadly health conditions, the banning of language and culture, the sexual degradation, physical violence and the disruption of families."

All this was an "artificial Europeanization of Canada."…

Ah, yes. Let’s all get out our feathers and drums and pretend that Canada is a noble savage and not the product of an inebriated Scotsman, some cranky Englishmen, and a few stubborn Frenchmen—Europeans all—and eight centuries of Western law beginning with the Magna Carta.

If Canada is “artificial,” then so is America, and Australia, and New Zealand—all the democracies of the “new world.” For that matter, so is Israel. But that’s part and parcel of Saul’s and Harpoon’s insidious argument—the idea that only the “native,” the “aboriginal,” has legitimacy.

My letter:

Upon reading Haroon Siddiqui’s latest column in which he concurs with John Ralston Saul’s assessment that “Canada is in trouble” because it is “untethered from its aboriginal moorings,” I was tempted to get out some drums and feathers. Then I remembered that Canada is the product of an inebriated Scotsman, some cranky Englishmen, and a few stubborn Frenchmen—Europeans all—and eight centuries of Western law beginning with the Magna Carta, and the urge soon passed.

True, Canada, along with all the other countries of what used to be called “the New World,” was home to original settlers, long before any “Europeans” arrived, and the history of relations between the two groups has long been challenging, to say the least. But to argue that Canada has somehow lost its way because it has strayed from its “aboriginal” roots is, well, just plain silly. And the idea isn’t even John Ralston Saul’s. Credit must go to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher who so despised his European "moorings" that he concocted the notion of “the Noble Savage.”

Canada is what it is, a Western nation grounded in Western law that has opened its doors to people from every nation of the world. If anything is “untethered”--untethered from any sense of reality, that is--it’s the idea that “we” must return to our “pure” aboriginal origins.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:01 | link | comments (4)

Extry, extry: Despite the "best" efforts of the scourges of "hate" to make our country pure and good, research has revealed that antisemitsm and "Islamophobia" in Canada are both on the rise.

Naturally, there's no indication from the poll how much, if any, of the rise in the former can be attributed to those who are targets of the latter (and how much of it is prompted by their demented hatred for the Jewish state); in Canada (and elsewhere--it's an international poll) we don't dare ask such rude (and "Islamophobic") questions.

Update: According to another survey, the majority of Muslims in Arab countries think non-Muslims should be compelled to observe Ramadan.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:01 | link | comments

Little brutes don't cry: I saw—and loved—the musical Jersey Boys the other night. The show about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons inspired me to revise one of their hits for an, ahem, Tehran Boy. He's a guy who speaks plenty of falsehoods, but who, alas, doesn't have Frankie's angelic falsetto:

Oh how he tries,

Cuts "Satan" down to size

By tellin’ pretty lies about a nuke.

Now he’s returnin’

And Jews’ ears’ll be burnin’.

Get ready for his words--you’ll retch and puke.

 

(UN said) talk like Ahmad’

Squawk like Ahmad’.

Balk like Ahmad’, he’s swell.

He’ll tell the world

"Great Satan" should be hurled.

And walk with Ahmad’ to hell.

 

Oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo,

(Talk, talk).

Oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo…

 

Good-bye Jewry,

Hello crazed rage and fury

At “Zionists” and all their eee-vil ways.

Final Solution

Is nearing execution

As Hitler’s planning enters its next phase.

 

(They’re gonna) walk like Ahmad’

Talk like Ahmad’

Flock to Ahmad’, by gum.

We’ve seen his sort--

Brutish, nasty and short--

They’ll walk with Ahmad’, by gum.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments (2)

Elmo’s dynamic: The Canadian Islamic Congress’s Grand Poobah-for-life wants state censorship laws to stand—and even be expanded—in order to clamp down on all the dangerous “hate speech,” of course. By Joseph Breen in the National Post:

Hate speech creates a "silencing dynamic" that excludes disadvantaged groups from civil participation, according to Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

In a submission to Richard Moon, a University of Windsor law professor hired by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to review its online hate speech mandate, Prof. Elmasry writes that "the state should act to empower those who are disadvantaged by hate speech, and that may mean lowering the voices of some in order that others may be heard."

He called for mandatory press councils, and an end to "media monopoly," and said the CHRC was wrong to dismiss his recent complaint of Islamophobia in Maclean's magazine, which "aired its opinions to more than two million readers, but CHRC did not hold a hearing for Canadian Muslims and experts to voice their views."

His comments are a rare departure from the public silence the controversial Muslim leader has taken on an issue in which he is deeply invested.

Since initiating hate speech complaints last year against Maclean's in Ontario, British Columbia and federally, Prof. Elmasry has delegated spokesmanship to lawyer Faisal Joseph and a group of young articling lawyers. Only British Columbia heard the case, but has yet to rule.

The lawyers also prepared a brief for Prof. Moon, in response to questions he provided: what would be lost if the hate speech provision of the Human Rights Act, Section 13, were repealed; how might it be improved; should it require an intent to spread hate; and what other complaint mechanisms for hate speech might be enhanced.

Prof. Elmasry compared hate speech laws with speed limits as examples of "worthwhile" exercises of state power.

"The old idea that the state is an enemy of freedom should not be replaced with the idea that it can be a friend of freedom by not dealing with hate speech regulation," Prof. Elmasry writes.

"The current mantra that 'the remedy for hate speech is more and better speech' is in fact both false and misleading. The reality is that those who are expected to respond with 'more and better speech' cannot do so in today's public forum. Or if they do speak out, their words are often dismissed as lacking credibility."…

What really creates a “silencing dynamic” is the dynamic exercise of censorship by a state determined to silence free speech because it could pose a challenge to the powerful and their prevailing social orthodoxy.

You know, like the “dynamic” that’s prevalent in both Saudi Arabia and Canada.

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

Just asking: Why is the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services funding the Canadian Arab Federation’s “Unity” Basketball tourney? Did anyone at the Ministry—which is no doubt hoping to give the young’uns something to do after school and keep them out of trouble—bother to find out what kind of “unity” the CAF is, er, pitching (to mix a sporting metaphor)?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments

Cause and effect: Moonbat rag The San Francisco Chronicle suggests (hopes and prays?) that the “Palin Effect  is already wearing thin”; Rex Murphy suggest the same of the Obama effect (“Incredibly shrinking Obama”) and, further, compares Bambi to iconic American literary figure, the Great Gatsby:

…Mainly, his was very much a candidacy constructed by those who were drawn to him. If there was any meaning to that fortune-cookie poeticism that "we are the ones we have been waiting for," it was that his campaign was a feedback loop. People saw what they came to see. Mr. Obama was the slate; the crowds brought their own chalk.

This is the nature of Mr. Obama's particular kind of charisma. People project their best wishes on him, they fill in the blank of a very attractive and plausible outline. His is not, emphatically, a charisma of deeds. For what has he done, save run for president? He is an accommodating vessel - cool, smart, biracial and "unfinished." This is the Gatsby quality of him that others have noted. Like Gatsby, he is a receptacle of others' glamorous invention.

People see in him, or wish to see, the last great ideal of the American polity fulfilled, a final and full racial accommodation. That should he be elected president, America will have achieved, by his singular persona, the perfect emblematic demonstration of having exorcised at last the great stain of its racially riven origins.

Mr. Obama's charisma is, in this sense, external, something extended to the candidate. And it follows that that which is given may equally be taken away. The sparkle has, in fact, dimmed. He travels now in a lower orbit, closer to Earth - which is to say, he grows more mundane. The great word "hope" sounds less frequently now. He picks a running mate thick with the dust and rancour of many long years in Washington.

His acceptance speech in the Olympic-style stadium could not gather the inspirational energy of his earlier arias. Of late, the flash supernova of U.S. politics is seen "competing" with a second-on-the-ticket female governor of a remote state. There's more than a gap between the "audacity of hope" and "lipstick on a pig." The mouth that spoke the first phrase should not be capable of the second.

He has shrunk into a combative partisan. He crowds his own screen, leaves less space for projection. Others are not writing his narrative now - he's inscribing his own.

A candidacy that leached so much of its energy and drive from the imagination of others, Gatsby-like, is shedding its gift. The narrative stage is over. It's all tactics from here on in.

So we beat on, boats against the current, trying to fight the rising tide of cluelessness and the totalitarian will to power.

Or something like that.

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

Fatal visit: Two young, independent-minded Algerian-born sisters moved out of the family home and into their own digs, whereupon their brother paid them a visit—and (allegedly) stabbed them both to death. From UK Press:

A man has appeared in court charged with the murders of two sisters found dead in the flat they rented.

Mohammed Ali, 28, spoke only to confirm his name and address when he appeared at Birmingham Magistrates' Court charged with murdering Yasmine and Sabrina Larbi-Cherif.

Ali, of Old Snowhill, Birmingham, was charged with two counts of murder.

The sisters were found in the flat they shared in Birmingham's Ladywood district at about 5.40pm on Monday.

Two magistrates were told on Saturday that the family of Yasmine and her 19-year-old sister Sabrina phoned police after they failed to contact the women, who usually called home every day.

When West Midlands Police visited the flat they shared in the Jupiter Apartments complex they found the sisters lying on two single beds in the bedroom, prosecuting solicitor Louisa Dolphin said.

Yasmine, 22, had been stabbed twice, once in the back, whilst Sabrina had suffered a "significant amount" of stab wounds, Ms Dolphin added.

No application for bail was made and Ali was remanded in custody to appear next at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday, September 26.

The Algerian-born sisters were British nationals and had only lived in their flat a few weeks…

I’m told it’s a “cultural” thing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:11 | link | comments (2)

A correction: That video showing (alleged) northern jihadis frolicking in the snowy woods was not, I repeat not, introduced as Crown evidence during their trial; apparently, the Crown never had the video in its possession, and was thus forced to depend on the iffy testimony of its lavishly paid—and unbelievably addled—informant, Mubin Shaihk. No, the video in question was posted on the 'net in time for deliberations—and, boy, is the defence ever pissed.  From CP:

TORONTO — The release of an alleged terrorist training camp video that's tied to a group accused of plotting attacks on Canadian soil is "very concerning" given the timing of its appearance on the Internet, a lawyer for one of the accused said Friday.

A verdict is expected next Thursday in the case of the first person to go to trial following the arrest of the so-called "Toronto 18" two years ago, and lawyer Mitchell Chernovsky said the public is seeing "provocative" images connected to the case without the proper context.

The video shows, among other things, men in camouflage carrying out alleged terrorist training exercises in a rural area during winter, and is featured on an American website.

The Nine-Eleven Finding Answers Foundation, which posted the clip, reportedly obtained the video from a British court where it was an exhibit at the trial Aabid Khan, who was convicted last month of being a terrorist propagandist.

The BBC, in its coverage of the trial, reported that Khan was friends with the alleged ringleader of the Toronto group and that Khan's former wife was Canadian.

"Why, however, it's being released right now, just prior to the decision ... which is scheduled for next week, is very suspect," Chernovsky said. "But I have no idea why it's being released now.

"It just is very concerning that it is being released at this time and without any context."

The video wasn't submitted as evidence at the trial in Brampton, Ont., nor is there any reason to believe Canadian prosecutors had it in their possession, said Chernovsky, who added he saw the video online for the first time Thursday.

"This video was never in the hands of the Crown, as far as I know," he said.

"If they did, they would have shared it in court. It's informative. They showed other videos that were far less helpful to them."

The 2 1/2-minute video - posted at http://www.nefafoundation.org/ - jumps from daytime scenes in the woods to a nighttime campfire and a van skidding around a darkened Canadian Tire parking lot. Islamic music runs throughout.

A police informant, Mubin Shaikh, is the only person on the video whose face is recognizable. A handgun is seen being fired, and court has heard it was the only weapon, apart from paintball guns, present at the camp.

There's also footage of hiking excursions through the woods and a man waving a black flag while yelling out "Allah."

The Crown alleges the group produced videos for recruitment purposes…

No, no, they weren’t recruiting for the jihad. They wanted other young lads to come share their love of the outdoors and the winter camping experience in their beloved new land.

What are you, Islamophobic or something?

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

“Messiah” with feet of clay: The Economist, surprisingly enough, has some pretty good things to say about David Fredoso’s book The Case Against Barack Obama:

…The Obama that emerges from its pages is not, Mr Freddoso says, “a bad person. It’s just that he’s like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Just like all the rest of them in Washington.” And the author makes a fairly compelling case that this is so. The best part of the book concentrates on Mr Obama’s record in Chicago, his home town and the place from which he was elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, before moving to the United States Senate in 2004. The book lays out in detail how this period began in a way that should shock some of Mr Obama’s supporters: he won the Democratic nomination for his Illinois seat by getting a team of lawyers to throw all the other candidates off the ballot on various technicalities. One of those he threw off was a veteran black politician, a woman who helped him get started in politics in the first place.

If Mr Obama really were the miracle-working, aisle-jumping, consensus-seeking new breed of politician his spin-doctors make him out to be, you would expect to see the evidence in these eight years. But there isn’t very much. Instead, as Mr Freddoso rather depressingly finds, Mr Obama spent the whole period without any visible sign of rocking the Democratic boat…

It was said of toothy, unctuous, hyper-enthusiastic Brit TV interviewer Sir David Frost that he was a man who “rose without a trace.” One might say the same about the Big O.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:41 | link | comments (1)

Evil, Jew-hating, morally bankrupt : Ahmadingbat and the whole effing UN--they certainly deserve each other.