Clueless G&M Shills for "Nice" Sharia

Idiotically, an editorial in the Globe and Mail hopes against hope that Libya's will be a kinder, gentler sharia. (Apparently, any interpretation of Islamic law that enshrines the customary inequties but eschews the more Draconian penalties employed by the wacky Wahhabis and mully-bullies is okey-dokey with Canada's newspaper of record.)

Is UNESCO About to Bite the Hand that Feeds It?

If the UN's "cultural" agency opts to embrace the Palestinians and their culture of eliminationism, there will be some clear winners and losers:

Admission will be seen by the Palestinians as a moral victory in their bid for full U.N. membership but could be costly for UNESCO.

Under U.S. law, the admission of Palestine as a full UNESCO member would trigger a cutoff in U.S. funding which accounts for 22 percent of the agency's funding.

"A moral victory"? Make be barf. An amoral one, more like.

Update: Palestine's in:

Palestinians gained full membership to UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization, on Monday, winning the support of a majority of the body’s 173 members. “This vote will erase a tiny part of the injustice done to the Palestinian people,” Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told the UNESCO congregation in Paris following the vote. However, the vote means that UNESCO may lose more than 20 per cent of its total funding, which it gets from the U.S., which has vocally opposed Palestinian membership in the UN. Israel has also spoken against the result, calling it a rejection of the bilateral peace process and saying that it will “bring no change on the ground.” Although the move is largely symbolic, it shows a significant level of international support for the recognition of a Palestinian state. The UN Security Council will vote on full Palestinian membership next month. In Monday’s vote, 107 countries, including rising powers like China, India and Brazil, supported the Palestinians’ full membership in UNESCO. Canada was among the 14 countries that voted against Palestinian membership. Fifty-two countries abstained. 

Shame on India for going with the flow. It has the same enemies as the Jews do, and should have had spine enough to vote nay.

Update: The U.S. is suspending its UNESCO funding, not as a matter of principle, but because, by law, it has to.

Ceeb Shill-Com Shows Up on Iran TV

BCF investigates here.

Is Herman Cain Being Clarence Thomased?

Yup. This could well derail his campaign since, as we know, such accusations are way more incendiary than, say, having an outright America/Jew-hater as your mentor.

Canadian Media Still Missing the Real Story About Edmonton Imam's Arrest During Hajj?

The Edmonton Sun either ignores or is ignorant of the imam's Shia affiliations and anti-Saudi activism:

Mohamed Hayward told reporters the situation escalated as they made their way across the courtyard of the nearby mosque.

A member of the religious force began calling Al-Atar a thief in Arabic, he said, and that led to Al-Atar being swarmed by a group of people.

“He virtually choked, we could see him go black and blue,” Hayward said. “We’re absolutely still in shock.”

A member of the religious force, huh? Sounds to me like he knew exactly who the imam was, and yelled thief so's he had an excuse to arrest him. Of course, you'd never suspect that from the Sun's account, which doesn't explicitly mention that the imam is a Shia (but which you could extrapolate from the fact that he's "originally from the Iraqi city of Karbala"), and which highlights his secular scientific endeavours:

Al-Atar is a well-known cleric with several publications in the fields of Diabetes and Cancer research.

Now, why would anyone want to arrest him, a man of science? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Officials at Edmonton’s Islamic Centre University, and Downtown Islamic Centre both declined to comment or offer reaction on the alleged injustice.

Gee, I wonder why.

What Good Will Common Sense For It Do?

Mark Steyn's Song of the Week is "Witchcraft," which hands me an excuse to give my version of the Coleman-Leigh number another spin:

Those 'splosives down their pants.
Those noxious imam rants
That make 'em take a chance--
It's jee-had.

And there is no defence for it.
When P.C. spin commences it
Drives out all common sense PDQ.

'Cause it's jee-had.
Just a jee-had.
And although some go, "It's strictly taboo."

When you arouse a need precise--
A need to shtup in Paradise--
We'll bleed; indeed, that's what we will do.

It's a Medieval trope.
Can we escape it? Nope.
No hope that it's all over soon.

Is There More to An Edmonton Imam's Arrest in Saudi Arabia Than Meets The Eye?

The Ceeb and other media outlets are reporting that Usuama at-Atar, a Canadian imam from Edmonton on hajj in Saudi Arabia, seems to have been on the receiving end of an unprovoked attack by the local religious cops:

The attack took place at a cemetery in Medina early Sunday morning and was reportedly sparked when religious police approached an international group of pilgrims that included the imam, Usama Al-Atar of Edmonton.

Witnesses said angry words were spoken, then things calmed down. That's when a single member of the religious police approached Al-Atar, offered to shake his hand and then called out to a group of men at a taxi stand.

They rushed in and began beating Al-Atar, kicking him and attempting to throttle him, the witnesses said.

Medina central police arrived, escorted the Canadian to a car and drove away, according to the witnesses.

Several witnesses said the attack was unprovoked, CBC journalist Muhammad Lila wrote on his Twitter page.

That may indeed be the case. However, a quick Google search reveals that the imam is a Shia who has been an outspoken critic of the Saudis. At a rally in Edmonton in March of this year, for example, he said

The atrocities committed today against innocents in several countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia among others, are crimes one cannot stand silent about.

Given the imam's obvious hostility toward Wahhabis and the fact that he mentions his exact whereabouts on his website ("With the grace of Allah (swt), Al-Hajj Usama will be in Hajj this year. You can find him in Makkah on the 3rd floor of the Sacred Mosque at the Gate of Al-'Umrah between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. where he'll be reciting Du'as and lecturing"), I'm wondering if he wasn't targeted on purpose.

Earth to Ottawa Citizen: Time to Wake Up and Smell the Islamism

From an editorial in the OC:

The National Transitional Council in Libya has always contained Islamist elements. So it's not exactly a shock to hear interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil declare that the new Libya will be an Islamic state with a constitution based on Sharia law.

It was, however, not an aspect of Libya's rebellion that its military allies in the secular democratic West were eager to talk about. When Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, John Baird, visited with NTC in August and called it the "legitimate representative of the people of Libya," that was not followed by any statements clarifying that Canada would prefer that 13-year-old victims of gang rape not be buried up to their necks and stoned to death in stadiums. (That's one way Sharia law has been interpreted and applied, in Somalia in 2008).

In those heady summer days, most discussions about the Libya of the future were brushed aside as secondary concerns. First let's get rid of Moammar Gadhafi - the argument went - and then we'll worry about what replaces him. After all, nothing could be worse than Gadhafi, could it?

Of course, it's quite likely that the NTC and what follows it will indeed be a vast improvement on Gadhafi. And the mere fact that the interim leader wants the constitution to respect Sharia doesn't mean the new Libya will be another Somalia, another Nigeria, or another Saudi Arabia. Much depends on the interpretation of Sharia. It is possible for a democratic state to acknowledge its Islamic heritage while respecting human rights...

Maybe so, but it's impossible for a state to be democratic in the Western sense and also hew to sharia, a type of law that is both inimical to and the antithesis of democracy.

AP Scribbler Most Sympathetic to Hamas "Plight"

Ibrahim Barzak of the AP writes:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A new round of violence between Israel and Palestinian militants has Gaza's Hamas rulers caught between reluctance to take on Israel and discomfort with reining in fellow Islamists from smaller, more radical groups involved in the fighting...

Caught between the Zionists and a hard place, eh? Wow, sucks to be them.

OMG--Fareed Zakaria Thinks It's Time for the U.S. to "Re-engage Iran"

Yeah, I'm sure the Ayatollah, A-jad and the mully-bullies are eager to put all that Great Satan stuff behind them.

Al Shabbab's Message to Cool Canucki Sofa Spuds--Stop Chillin' and Start 'Splodin'

From Stewart Bell's report in the NatPo (h/t MH):

TORONTO— The al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab released an audiotape Sunday it said was a message from a Somali-American suicide bomber who struck an African Union base in Mogadishu this weekend, killing 10.

The English-language message specifically called for terrorist attacks in Canada and said it was a duty for Muslims to fight for Islam, urging listeners not to “just sit around and be a couch potato and just chill all day.”

“My brothers and sisters, do jihad in America, do jihad in Canada, do jihad in England [and] anywhere in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in China, in Australia – anywhere you find kuffar [infidels],” it says.

“Fight them and be firm against them.”

The message appears to be the latest attempt by Al-Shabab to incite Western youths. Canadian authorities are investigating as many as 20 Canadians who are suspected of having joined the Islamist extremist group...

The Opera Isn't Over Until the Fat Lady Sings Judenhass

CAMERA summarizes the Jew-hate that has infested the high-"cultchah" climes of grand opera.

VDH on How Liberals Assuage Their Guilt in an Imperfect World

In in earlier age, he writes, they purchased "indulgences"; in our time, ditto:

Recently I saw some TV clips from MSNBC and CNN, one critiquing Herman Cain, the other an interview with Michael Moore. They both reminded me that one of strangest aspects of modern American society is the system of indulgences that permeates our entire culture.

In a nutshell, our American elites, even if well-meaning with real concern for the less fortunate, have adopted the medieval practice of compartmentalization. Loud demonstrations of general progressive piety exempt one from consistency. Our medieval ancestors could practice usury if they helped repair a collapsed nave or joined a Crusade, as traditional Christianity tried to deal with an imperfect world of important Christians who did not wish to live by their doctrine.

Today, liberalism puts a comparable burden on its elites: can one occupy Wall Street and still enjoy the luxury of that iPhone 4s? Did the university professor in Zuccotti Park worry about Wall Street when his TIAA-CREF account used to return 8% plus per annum? Can we still jet to Tuscany and worry about carbon footprints? Can we live in Chevy Chase, Malibu, or Woodside and be stalwarts on the barricades of racial integration and multiculturalism? How can we make $200,000 a year as assistant vice provost for diversity affairs, when a part-time lecturer gets 1/5 for the same class a full-time, top-step professor teaches?

One can do all the above, in fact, so long as you feel--or pretend to feel--really, really guilty about it; to those with this skewed worldview, manifesting feelings of guilt is seen as evidence of one's innate virtuousness, all outward signs of wealth and privilege to the contrary.

Move Over Kardashians and Real Housewives!

TLC's new reality series--All-American Muslim--debuts November 13th.

Denial Is a River in Egypt

And, indeed, throughout the Middle East.

T.O. "Kids" Getting Away With Murder

An extremely disturbing report from the Toronto Star:

Monique Lyle ended an escalating argument with a man she had just met in the Jane St. subway station by stabbing him in the back and head. The mother of one is unrepentant. 

A loaded 9mm pistol tucked in his waistband and crack cocaine in pockets, drug dealer Bennett McCreedy struggled with police officers trying to arrest him in a public building.  

A behemoth, Bennett would not look out of place on a professional football field.

Tristan Rice drove a pickup truck around Toronto, slowing down to look for targets and laughing while he fired an assault weapon-style paintball gun at homeless people. 

Newton Walters terrorized the east side, a cloth covering his face and knife in hand, robbing six convenience store owners of cash and cigarettes. He committed some of the robberies after consuming his third ecstasy tab of the day — what he called a “triple smack.”

Unreformed and unmoved by the damage caused by his first sexual assault, Cole Gilbert committed a second, this time in a high school bathroom.

After time spent behind bars waiting for the conclusion of their cases, the total amount of jail time these five criminals were sentenced to by a judge:

Sixty days.

Why?

Because they are kids.

The Toronto Star spent four months inside the 311 Jarvis St. youth court north of Dundas St. in Toronto and found: Kids who committed serious crimes got little or no jail time; repeat offenders whom the court failed to rehabilitate; and youth charged with serious, violent crimes granted bail too easily and released to the street...

There's something fundamentally wrong with such a system, no?, one that's more concerned about underaged, recidivist thugs than about the law-abiding people they harm.

Not Such a Smart Cookie

Mom fights to get son into Girl Scouts--and wins!

No "Human Rights" Outfit for the Commonwealth

The Commonwealth confab has wrapped up without the 54 nations, former English colonies, figuring out how to come together on the issue of human rights. It had been hoped by some that the loose affiliation could set up its own human rights commission (yikes!), but that's rather a pipe dream at the moment given that the majority of Commonwealth nations aren't exactly human rights paragons:

A key proposal to set up a commissioner for human rights was opposed by several leaders, including South Africa, India and Sri Lanka.

"With these discussions and the significant reforms we have agreed, I believe we've made a major contribution towards ensuring the Commonwealth is an institution that is well-positioned for the future," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters on the final day of the summit.

But critics said those measures fell short, and focused on the leaders' inaction over Sri Lanka which will be host of the next summit in 2013. Canada has already threatened to boycott that meeting unless Sri Lanka improves its human rights record.

"It is an absolute disgrace that Commonwealth leaders have agreed to hold their next meeting in Sri Lanka in spite of its appalling human rights record," Amnesty International's national director Claire Mallinson said...

The Commonwealth failed to take action on two other issues on its agenda-- child brides and HIV-AIDS. Twelve of the 20 countries with the highest rates of child brides are in the Commonwealth. Sixty percent of the world's HIV-AIDS population live in the Commonwealth and health advocates say laws in 41 Commonwealth states making homosexuality illegal have hindered the fight against the disease.

Since, clearly, "human rights" aren't do-able, the Commonwealth moved on to something easier:

In its final communique, the Commonwealth committed to helping small island states, which make up more than half of its membership, cope with the effects of climate change and said there was a need to work towards legally binding measures like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Many small island nations fear being wiped off the map by global warming and were pressing for a strong statement ahead of the international summit on climate change in South Africa next month.

"Climate change issues are not something that is happening in the future. It is happening now and we must deal with it now," Mohamed Nasheed, the president of the small island nation of Maldives said. He applauded Australia's recent carbon tax as a model for other nations.

In sum: apparently, we can't make any headway on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh but we can make oceans recede via an onerous carbon tax?

If you say so, Mo.

It's Official: Tahrir Square Supplants Jetsons/Flintstones as TLF's Favorite Trope

Thomas L. Friedman, sage of all he surveys, appears to have left his heart in Tahrir Square; where his brain is is anybody's guess:

I was in Tahrir Square in Cairo for the fall of Hosni Mubarak, and one of the most striking things to me about that demonstration was how apolitical it was. When I talked to Egyptians, it was clear that what animated their protest, first and foremost, was not a quest for democracy — although that was surely a huge factor. It was a quest for “justice.” Many Egyptians were convinced that they lived in a deeply unjust society where the game had been rigged by the Mubarak family and its crony capitalists. Egypt shows what happens when a country adopts free-market capitalism without developing real rule of law and institutions.       

That's our Tom for you: noticing things that don't exist (free-market capitalism in dictator Mubarak's Egypt) while ignoring things that couldn't be plainer (the quest for democracy and justice not as the West understands them but as Islam's sharia and its avid Egyptian fans, the Muslim Brotherhood, do).

Sorry, boys. You're out and that Cairo square is in

Only 22?

Andy Donato's 'toon in Sunday Sun re this:

Now, THAT'S the Kind of "Occupy" I Can Get Behind

"We are the de facto leader of the new “Occupy Neiman Marcus” movement. You can find us in shoes, protesting the high cost of the Louboutins. No footwear, no peace."

Reuters' Mot Unjuste

You may accuse me of nit-picking, but there's a word in this Reuters report that struck me as being both odd and inappropriate:

(Reuters) - Israel's air force bombed an Islamic Jihad base in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing five senior militants and drawing cross-border Palestinian rocket salvoes that killed an Israeli civilian. 

The flare-up smashed the relative lull in violence that had surrounded an Egyptian-mediated prisoner swap last week between the Jewish state and Islamist Hamas, which is negotiating a fraught power-share with its U.S.-backed Palestinian rivals.

The air strike on the training camp in southern Rafah followed a rocket launch this week which the Israelis blamed on Islamic Jihad. That attack caused no casualties but the rocket landed deep enough to set off sirens on Tel Aviv's outskirts.

Islamic Jihad said one of its commanders, Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil, and four comrades who had overseen production of bombs and rockets for the faction died in the mid-day strike. Two other fighters were wounded.

Israel's military said its aircraft "targeted a terrorist squad ... that was preparing to launch long-range rockets."

It said in a statement that those hit were responsible for the rocket launch late on Wednesday, though no Palestinian faction had claimed responsibility...

 "Comrades" sounds much too band-of-brotherish and friendly, no?

Either that or much too Commie.

Occupy: The Musical

Here are some show tunes from the Globe and Mail:

Here are a few of mine:

76 iPhones there at "Occupy"

With a 110 rich kids who hate dad.

There were more than a dozen guys

Who thought Marx and Chomsky wise.

There were folks who were stark raving mad...

Gray skies aren't gonna clear up--

Put on a crappy face.

Capitalism--jeer up,

Put on a crappy face.

Act like a revolutionary 'cuz

That means you're cool.

You'll feel so good but unaware that you

Look like a fool...

People with money and all corporations,

Forecasts too sunny and great expectations,

That crap one percent who behave like they're kings:

These are a few of my most hated things...

Ain't got (cluck cluck ssssss) steam heat,

Ain't got (cluck cluck ssssss) steam heat,
Ain't got (cluck cluck ssssss) steam heat,

'Cuz I'm sleepin' in a park that's frikkin' cold...

"Yosemite Ahmeds"

Mark Steyn looks to old WB 'toons to find a droll way to characterize inept jihadi laddies who, during the course of their adventures, set their own gotchies on fire, thereby harming themselves instead of their intended infidels target(s). Steyn quips:

Muslim terrorists are all Yosemite Ahmeds – until one of them succeeds.

Exactly. At that point, the comedy--and the laughter--ends.

"Islam For Leathernecks"

That's Diane West's cheeky term for the lessons U.S. Marines have been receiving from an Islamic scholar; I prefer to call it "Etiquette for Kafirs":

[Marine Corps-contractee Shafiq] Mubarak teaches US Marines:

Don't spit toward Mecca.

Don't urinate toward Mecca.

Don't sleep with your boots toward Mecca.

In other words, Mubarak teaches US Marines to become intensely sensitized to the whereabouts of Mecca, and to be guided by that magnetic North for Muslims as a matter of the most personal habits and hygiene -- in accordance with sharia (Islamic law). This goes well, of course, with ISAF's guidance to all troops to revere the Koran and its teachings.

What next, prayer rugs?

I wouldn't be at all surprised, but Marines will no doubt be told to refer to them as "welcome mats."

Obama Mideast Peace Envoy Misses the Bus Re Hamas

Man, that Obama employs some real idiots. This guy, for instance:

Hamas could be swept out of power by the Arab Spring if the Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations with Israel, a top US diplomat said Thursday.

"The Palestinians are no more immune to the currents of change and demand for democratization, reform and freedom than any of the other people in the region," said Ambassador David Hale, the US envoy for Middle East Peace.

"I think you will see those same forces affect Hamas because clearly their leadership is not characterized by any of those words."

Hale cautioned that while Hamas is vulnerable, it will only lose power when the Palestinian people are given a real choice between peace and violence.

"That choice can only be put to the Palestinian people in the context of negotiations in which there is actually something tangible to be judged," Hale told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

"It has to move beyond rhetoric which is unfortunately all we have right now to show for our efforts," he said. 

Reality check: the Arab Spring's "democratization" amounts to sharia and people getting to vote for their favourite Islamist. Also, Hamas now has some shiny new toys--Gaddafi's anti-aircraft weaponry--that should keep its people happy, at least until all the Spring nonsense dies down.

"Arab Spring" in Egypt a Huge Set-Back For Chicks and Their Vajayjays

With Mubarak out of the picture, Female Genital Mutilation is surging and the campaign to end the barbaric practice is more or less kaput.

The Trouble With "Noramaliut" Is It Always Gets Worse

Mark Steyn makes the "case for pessimism" in the November Commentary:

In Israel in the mid-1990s, an idea called normaliut seized hold of its populace. What it meant was that Israel wanted to live like any normal Western society. That was the real attraction of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. In a sense, it offered not merely a treaty negotiated in Oslo but the possibility to be Oslo, the chance for Israelis to live as Norwegians, to live as any other advanced Western nation. Instead, Israelis are on the military call-up list until 55—or about the age a Greek hairdresser gets to retire on full salary. Israel’s example suggests that if you think you’re an advanced Western democracy, but you don’t get to live like one, eventually the conflict between what you are and what the difficult circumstances ensuring you are not obliterated from existence require of you, you get worn down over time.

Israel implemented the terms of the Oslo accords, and in return Israelis got an Arafatist terror squat on their Eastern flank, suicide bombers on their buses, Iranian proxies to their north and west—and, in the wider world, isolation, demonization and delegitimization accompanied by a resurgent and ever more respectable anti-Semitism. The dream of normaliut didn’t work.

In 2008, the U.S. electorate also voted for normaliut. Americans voted to repudiate the previous years, dominated by terror attacks and Code Orange alerts and anthrax scares, and thankless semicolonial soldiering in corners of the map no one cared about. They were under the sway of a desperate hope that wars can simply come to an end when one side decides it’s all a bit of a bore. In reality-TV terms, the Great Satan wanted to vote itself off the island.

But as Israel understands by now, sometimes who you are is more important than anything you do. And sometimes who you are is an offense to those indifferent to anything you might or might not do. America will discover, as Israel did, that a one-way urge for normaliut will lead to a more dangerous world.

Here, I suggest, is that world's theme song:

Darkness Visible in Abbas's Brain

For one brief moment, a tiny glimmer of light crept into the crepuscular corridors of Mahmoud Abbas's brain. Alas, a mere second later it was lights out once more:

The Palestinian president, in a remarkable assessment delivered on Israeli TV, said Friday the Arab world erred in rejecting the United Nations' 1947 plan to partition Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state.

The Palestinian and Arab refusal to accept a UN plan to partition the then-British-controlled mandate of Palestine sparked widespread fighting, then Arab military intervention after Israel declared independence the following year. The Arabs lost the war. 

"It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Channel 2 TV in a rare interview to the Israeli media. "But do they (the Israelis) punish us for this mistake 64 years?

How do they "punish" you, Fat'head? By having the audacity to govern themselves in a Jewish state? By refusing to lie down and die? By being?

Yeah, I can see how that might tend to piss you off.

Hirsi Ali Urges Canadians to Fight Oppressive HRCs

We Canadians have been living with our quasi-totalitarian "human rights" system for so long that we've become quite blasé about the way it oppresses us and deprives us of rights. But when Licia Corbella of the Calgary Herald told an outsider--Ayaan Hirsi Ali--about our obnoxious "human rights" busybodies, she was more than a little shocked:

When told about Canada's human rights commissions persecuting and prosecuting a publisher of the Mohammad cartoons and others who offended homosexuals, she is incredulous.

"A human rights body that wants to silence people - that's a contradiction. It's absurd. A total absurdity.

You must fight that. Canadians must fight that."

Nah, we have far for important things to do--like, say, bringing "freedom" to Libya and other parts of the globe. (Far easier to do that than have to tend to the erosion of freedom in your own backyard, right?)

Mob of Masked Gunmen to Girl Students in Pakistan: Dress Modestly or We'll Thrash You

RAWALPINDI: In a first for the garrison city, sixty masked men carrying iron rods barged into a girls’ school in Rawalpindi and thrashed students and female teachers on Friday...

Christie Blatchford, Warrior Queen!

In the wake of the Rob Ford home invasion, Christie Blatchford has a great take-down of head-up-butt Ceebers Jian Ghomeshi and scary Mary Walsh.

First, here she is on Jian, whose radio show she happened to catch during her down time covering the Kingston "honour" killings trial:

“Oh dear, Rob Ford,” Mr. Ghomeshi began, and went on to chide the mayor for not knowing the “first rule of politics – play along with the satirists”, agreeing that approaching him at his home was rough but adding, “This is Mary Walsh we’re talking about, Marg, Princess Warrior”.

He pointed out that Ms. Walsh has ambushed other politicians (mind you, few, if any, that I could find at their homes). Why, they could take a joke, he said, though in fact, when I watched the video on the CBC website, I thought most of them, but for Stephen Harper, looked profoundly uncomfortable.

The inference was huge: Mr. Ford bloody ought to have known who Ms. Walsh was (the show, Mr. Ghomeshi said, is a “national institution” and has been on the air since 1993) and is surely an out-of-touch rube, and a humourless one at that.

But then, he concluded sadly with that special knowingness of CBC hosts, this is the “new Toronto,” where creative expression is stifled, to which I’d say that may be so, but what has creative expression to do with 22 Minutes?

Ouch!

Next, here's her perfect diss of scary Mary:

Ms. Walsh may be the only unfunny person I have ever seen from Newfoundland...

Now, that's funny; far too funny, in fact, to have emanated from the Ceeb.

"This week, Tunisia elected an Islamic party to power, and Libya's transitional ruler promised that sharia law would be the basis of all new legislation. Scared yet? Repeat three times after me: 'Islamic' is not the same as 'Islamist'"

Repeat three times after me: Gwynne Dyer (a.k.a. Grim Dire) is an absolute moron.

Paris When It Fizzles

Erna Paris insists we must reinforce curbs on "hate speech"--NOW!--or else Canada could be facing its own Lee Harvey Breivik incident:

This protection has become urgent in the years since 9/11 with the concomitant increase in verbal attacks on Muslims. In Canada, the most prominent free-speech extremists are Ezra Levant, who provocatively republished the insulting Danish cartoons denigrating the Prophet Mohammed in 2005, and Mark Steyn, who has been generalizing about Muslims for years. Both these authors have tried to shift the Canadian consensus by normalizing previously unacceptable levels of speech.

And normalizing is exactly how it happens. Shifts in the general consensus regarding minorities are progressive and incremental. We don’t notice. Then we wake up to find ourselves in a changed environment, as did the Norwegians after Anders Breivik went on a murderous rampage last summer. Mr. Breivik was part of a growing continuum of radicals fixated on the idea that Muslims, as an undifferentiated group, are conspiring against the West. In his eyes, he was a patriot. Unfortunately, history is rife with such people. They are nourished on incessant, unbridled hate speech.

Ooo, scary. In reality, though, there is something far scarier than Steynian "generalizations" and "Levantine "provocations": the chill that would result from curbing them and the concomitant general erosion of freedom that would be the inevitable result. And, sorry Erna, I'm not willing to put a sock in it because you think, delusionally, that that's the best way to put the kibosh on more Anders Breiviks. (Notice how Erna, good little lefty that she is, never flags the "incessant, unbridled hate speech" of the jihadist/Islamist variety. That's because in her bizarro world--where, perversely, West is worst and the Third World is hallowed--doing so is perceived as both being and engendering the hated "hate.") 

The Toronto District School Board's Politically Correct Halloween

In light of the TDSB's Halloween guidelines--unpacked by David Menzies here--I guess the Muammar Gaddafi costume my son wore last Purim (I dressed him to look like this) would definitely be out of line.



Update: Presumably dressing up as a "Mosqueteer" is similarly beyond the pale.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey Goodbye

Sad news: the chap who co-wrote the above immortal words and set them to music has died.

On the bright side, they could be revived as the Goodbye Occupy theme song, no?

Update: Occupy Toronto to be "winterized"?

Like Handel's Messiah--Without the Handel

Kiddie troubadour Raffi puts Saint Jack Layton's final "inspirational" missive to music. (Hat tip: WM)

"Copt-Thwacking"

Mark Steyn suggests a practical use for copies of Dreams from My Father that members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood may have received as gifts courtesy the American taxpayer.

Valiante and the Cult of Victimhood

The lead piece in the weekly e-zine of the Canadian Islamic Congress, an outfit helmed by Wahida Valiante, is a rave review of a riveting new book by--wait for it--Wahida Valiante! Here's why the reviewer thinks you should read it:

This well-crafted work is divided into seven chapters, of which the first, “Human Rights and Social Justice,” highlights the struggles of humans for justice and freedom, going as far back in history as the soul-stirring account of Bilal ibn Rabah, an enslaved African who embraced Islam during the time of Prophet Muhammad. Mrs. Valiante also writes passionately about the plight of Palestinian children, based on her first-hand account of visiting their occupied homeland just before the second Intifada. And she advocates for local causes with the same fervor, from censuring the influence of advertisers on editorial content, to the underprivileged children of Kananaskis First Nations (Canada), to Islamophobia in North American media.

Victims, victims and more victims; a near-ceaseless procession of victimhood: that just about says it all re sweet Wahida and her "social justice" mindset, don't you think?

Things She Learnt In School

A recent product of Canada's educational system speaks out in favour of the Occupy mob:

As shocking as it may sound, the Occupy protesters do have reasons for what they do. Across Canada, thousands of individuals are standing up for what they believe in, and camping out in support of economic equality. They are sacrificing the luxuries of their homes to create change. Every time I pass by the Vancouver Art Gallery, I can't help but be proud and impressed by the little tents packed tightly together in front of the public building. These people should be honoured, appreciated, and most importantly heard, not simply disregarded as being a nuisance or a hindrance to society. Instead of trying to get rid of protesters, municipalities across the Canada should listen for once, and compromise with their citizens.

We may be a country known for our freedom of speech and thought, but we surely are not one in which these words and actions are truthfully heard

Christine Grigorian, Grade 12 student, Vancouver.

Sigh. Such staggering ignorance of what has happened in history when idealists have forced "compromise" on people for the sake of "economic equality"; such a Utopian, "change"-fetishizing worldview. If Ms. Grigorian is an example of the kind of citoyen being produced by our school system--and there's no reason to believe she isn't--we are well and truly doomed.

The Ceeb: Do As It Says Not As It Does

The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente says that most Canadians, even many die-hard lefty ones, think the Ceeb ambushing a public figure, even a hated conservative one, at his family home is an unconscionable intrusion. "Not even bona fide investigative journalists are entitled to harass whoever they want on their own property," she writes.

Well, yes. But if you're a Ceeb sort of squishy leftist, you likely don't have much respect for private property/property rights which, after all, are not even mentioned in our sacred, squishy Rights Charter.

Which is to say, you see nothing wrong with the Ford "home invasion" (Ezra Levant's cheeky description), but make sure you put up barriers to keep out the hoi polloi (who pay your bills) when you fete one of your obnoxious own (to the tune of a quarter mill) so he can get to hang out with "the cool people"--Hollywood types, don't you know?--during the Toronto film festival.

Another "Human Rights" Commission Heard From

Did you know that there's such a thing as an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights?

No?

Neither did I until I read this:

An alliance of six Vancouver Island First Nation groups is preparing to have its human-rights complaint against Canada heard before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 

The Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group has alleged the First Nation peoples had their human rights violated by the historic granting of traditional territory to private landowners.

The treaty group has highlighted the grant of around 270,000 hectares of land to the E&N Railway Company in 1884.

The hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is scheduled for the morning of Friday, October 28, in Washington, D.C. 

Egad! You mean, along with our nutty homegrown "human rights" system and the egregiously corrupt international one (the UN Human Rights Council) there's also a continental "human rights" racket?

Talk about yer "human rights" overkill.

Wahida Valiante on the Islamic History Month Scam

Canadian Islamic Congress chief Wahida Valiante explains to her peeps how that annual, month-long da'wa/bamboozle-the-kafir event, Islamic History Month Canada, came to be:

On October 25, 2007 the Parliament of Canada officially declared October as the annual observance of Islamic History Month in Canada.

The Hon. Mauril Bélanger (MP for Ottawa-Vanier and Official Opposition Critic for Canadian Heritage, Francophonie and Official Languages) introduced the motion in support of recognizing IHMC, declaring:

"That, in the opinion of the House, due to the important contributions of Canadian Muslims to Canadian Society; the cultural diversity of the Canadian Muslim community; the importance of Canadians learning about each other to foster greater social cohesion; and the important effort now underway in many Canadian communities in organizing public activities to achieve better understanding of Islamic history, the month of October should be designated Canadian Islamic History Month.”

His history-making motion was carried in the House of Commons. During that inaugural year of 2007, and in every year since, a growing number of Canadian cities have individually proclaimed October as Islamic History Month in their civic jurisdictions.
With each year’s theme and programs, IHMC has shown that history is not only what is set down in books; rather, it is the living experience of who we are and what we do, individually and together in society. Moreover, in making IHMC a living reality, Canadian Muslims are also a part of Canadian history in-the-making.

We believe that this uniquely Canadian project has multiple merits and inherent benefits...

The biggest "benefit," of course: getting to shill for Islamic supremacism without the kafir being any the wiser--as Wahida more or less admits in her wrap-up:

 In closing I would like to address Canadian Muslims with the message that we need to empower ourselves by making Islamic History Month Canada everyone’s project, from the grassroots up.

All Canadian Muslims are encouraged to actively participate in IHMC and its activities by being present at events in their cities, involving themselves in IHMC activities, volunteering, and publicizing IHMC by sharing information with family members, neighbors, friends, co-workers and the public.

Whether it is embraced by Masjids, Mosques, community organizations, schools, or individuals, this is a Canadian project, made in Canada, by and for Canadians. It is not about Islam “out there,” it is not “foreign.” It is about what people can achieve when they take up a compelling challenge and apply it, not dogmatically or in the abstract, but through implementing the fundamental first command of the Holy Qur’an -- “Iqra,” “Read!” as revealed to the Prophet.

We can achieve this by following fundamental Qur’anic principles such as standing up for human rights, gender equality, acceptance of differences in color, race, faith, and social status, and above all the boundless pursuit of knowledge. It’s about time as Canadians that we embrace IHMC as a progressive new medium through which to present Islam for what it really is – a religion of this time and place, not something alien, foreign, or imported.

That she can say the above with a straight face shows how truly determined she is.

Gaddafi: Stud or Queen?

If was said of late soul singer Ray Charles's female backup singers that if you wanted to be a "Raelette" you had to "let Ray." By the same token, word is that if you wanted to be one of Muammar Gadaffi's Italian female bodyguards--call them Mu's Shrews--you had to be prepared to screw Mu:

According to reports, his bodyguards, in addition to being women, were chosen for being virgins. Furthermore, they had to take a vow of chastity and swear to lay down their lives for him. Apparently, they took their oaths seriously -- they reportedly never left his side, day or night. These trained guards were well-versed in martial arts and were experts in the use of weapons, according to a Daily Mail report. The Huffington Post said the women underwent "extensive martial arts and firearms training at a special academy" before they were officially inducted.

Gadhafi must have thought it made sense to train beautiful women and turn them into killers. Sporting lipstick and high heels in a country where women wore veils in public, his contingent certainly turned heads.

Gadhafi's guards were synonymous with his reign. He would parade them as a symbol of his belief in female liberation. However, as the war kept getting worse, members of his force accused him and his sons of rape and abuse.

"They would come and take us by the hand and walk us down the corridor. We knew what would happen," said a teenaged guard, Nisrine Gheriyanih, in a report to India Today. 

Gadhafi's visit to Italy in 2009 was punctuated by the invitation of 500 attractive Italian girls for an evening at his villa. He, reportedly, used the event to persuade the girls to convert to Islam and handed them all a copy of his "Green Book"...

Quel turn-on.

Colour me sceptical, but given Gadaffi's drag queen tendencies, I can't help but be somewhat dubious about claims re the potentate's alleged potency. Maybe he only had one-on-ones with his Italian chicks to exchange fashion tips and solicit inside info about Donatella Versace.

Download This, Occupyniks!

Eat The Rich; also, "eat the rich."

Koring Opens a Vein, Bleeds Like Crazy For "Abused" Omar Khadr

Globe and Mail scribbler Paul Koring is in major sob sister mode as he recounts the "choices" facing our poor homey, Omie:

This week, huddled with his lawyers, Mr. Khadr may be examining his options. 

He could agree to seek repatriation quietly, to serve his remaining time and try to re-enter Canadian society as unobtrusively as possible in an attempt to salvage something approaching normality for the remaining two-thirds of his life. That would require the Harper government to approve and quickly facilitate his return.

In return, lawyers familiar with his case believe Mr. Khadr would need to agree to abandon any further constitutional challenges.

But some lawyers believe Mr. Khadr could be out in less than a year if he takes his case again to the Canadian courts. They believe Mr. Khadr could challenge the U.S. war crimes conviction and the sentence, claiming both were illegal under international law. In Canada, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the government failed to properly protect Mr. Khadr’s rights.

A constitutional challenge could embarrass the government and force public disclosure of the role its agents played in Mr. Khadr’s interrogation. But it would also cast him again in the spotlight, likely making his family even more unpopular.

Many regard Mr. Khadr as a victim, an abused and gravely injured child soldier, who should never have been imprisoned by his American captors let alone put on trial for war crimes....

Cue the shmaltzy violin.

Update: Koring's line about Omar's supposed desire to "salvage something approaching normality" inspired this poem (a poem for Om'):

What's "normal" for Omar Khadr

May not be the norm for anhadr.

To wit and i.e.:

He a jihadi

Like his fhadr, his sisdr and mhadr.

'At this stage it is looking like a tragic accident'

I suppose it's perfectly plausible for a couple of teens engaged in an illicit romance (he was Muslim; she was not) to have drowned accidentally, but perhaps authorities might want to probe it a little more for signs of an "honour" crime.

Well Whadya Know--Turns Out Beggers CAN Be Chosers

Turkey's Islamist rulers remain adamantly opposed to Israel despite all the unasked for post-earthquake aid.

Ceeb Pulls Off a "Gotcha" on Rob Ford After All

Here's the skinny on Mayor Ford (who is famously rotund): the Ceeb sent one of its most deranged harridans to bait him at his own home, where he lives with his wife and young kids. Refusing to interact with her and her film crew, the mayor called 911. Since the Ceeb couldn't get the "gotcha" of the mayor swearing at the harridan, it settled for second best--the mayor allegedly swearing at 911 dispatchers.

The Ceeb thinks we should be shocked--shocked!--by such behaviour. However, a guy who's received death threats provoked to drop a few f-bombs because he's been ambushed in his own driveway in view of his five-year-old daughter isn't at all shameful.

The ambushing, on the other hand, is.

Update: A police source begs to differ re the swearing:

A police source said the mayor got impatient and called the 9-1-1 service a second time and got into a heated discussion with the dispatchers.

The source, who is familiar with the events, disagreed however with a CBC Radio report that said Mr. Ford had used profanities in his discussion with the dispatcher.

Gee, you don't suppose the Ceeb is fabricating stuff in order to make a despised conservative look bad (the very purpose of its ambush), do you?

Warmington Sounds the Fire Alarm

The Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington writes that Occupy Toronto threatens to become a whole lot more heated if Mohawk warriors follow through on a promise to build "sacred" bonfires in St. James Park all winter long (thereby potentially transforming the situation into another Iperwash or Caledonia).

Fringes and Mussels Alive Alive-O

One would expect "Occupy Whatever," a "movement" fixated on the crimes of greedy bankers, to manifest at least a soupcon of Jew-hatred, and indeed it has. Scott Whitlock of Newsbusters details some of it—along with the disinclination of Lefty Jews to acknowledge it—here. There's also stuff about it here, here, and here. And yet Jonathan Kay, whose perceptions have been somewhat clouded by years spent investigating conspiracists both left and right, complains that "lazy conservatives"—yes, that's what he calls them—are ginning up a non-existent spectre. He writes:

Lazy conservatives who instinctively are repelled by the Occupy Wall Street movement, but can't be bothered to intellectually engage with the issue, are circulating their own YouTube hits - alleging not just stupidity and bad hygiene, but also anti-Semitism. A popular one (200,000 hits so far) called "Anti-Semitic Protester at Occupy Wall Street - LA" features a woman who declares: "The Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve - they need to be run out of this country." 

Armed with video snippets such as these, an American conservative group is running a slick ad suggesting that the Occupy movement is basically just one big Democratic-supported anti-Semitic jamboree. Links to their ad, and the accompanying anti-Semitism claim, are all over my Twitter feed. Opponents of Occupy don't even have to watch the video: They can confirm all their pre-existing biases about the movement in 140 characters or less. 

The reality about Occupy? That's more boring. This week, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen - one of those Zionist Jews who supposedly are in danger of getting lynched by Occupy protesters - made his way to Lower Manhattan to observe the pogroms. He sums up his experience thusly: "Projecting an unvarnished Semitism, I circled the place, encountering nothing and no one to suggest bigotry - not a sign, not a book and not even the guy who some weeks ago held up a placard with the instruction to Google the phrase 'Zionists control Wall St.' Google 'nut case' instead."

Cohen isn't arguing that the anti-Semitic nuts who occasionally pop up at Occupy movements aren't despicable. And neither am I. But all recent mass movements, from trade unions and anti-globalization protests to Tea Party rallies and Canada's Reform Party, have attracted bigots. Intelligent people don't judge a movement on the basis of the fringe haters they inevitably attract. 

They don't? I guess I'm not too "intelligent" then, because when, for instance, revelers were celebrating in Tahrir Square, all I could see was the "fringe" who were screaming "Jew! Jew" as they gang-raped CBS's Lara Logan. Similarly, when I attended the Ayatollah's Al Quds Day rally at Queen's Park this year, I couldn't help but focus on the "fringe"—and there were only a few individuals, mind you—who were holding aloft Hezbollah flags.

How dumb was that?

So, sorry, Jon, if dumb old me, dumbed down as I am by the bedumbing Internet, espies something ugly and disturbing in the "fringe" of Jew-hate that has affixed itself like an invasive species--like a zebra mussel, say--to the "Occupy" hull: I happen to believe we ignore such critters at our peril.

Quel Bargoon!

Obama: It "only cost us a billion dollars" to install Sharia regime in Libya

Update: "Our" Libyans are the "good" Libyans, right?

Right?

"Funny" Imam Equates Harper With Hitler

Who says there are no jokes in Islam? I found this—Imam Zia Khan riffing on Stephen Harper's interview last month with the Ceeb's Mansbridge (the imam sees Harper's "Islamicism" comment as being a slippery slope that could ultimately lead to Muslims being tattooed and eliminated a la what Hitler did to the Jews)—on this website.

"Sexy" Money

The Ceeb reports that before the government unveiled the new hundred dollar bill, it got focus groups to respond to it. Not surprisingly, folks said they saw all kinds of bizarre stuff (that wasn't there):

"The overall purpose of the research was to disaster check the $50 and $100 notes among the general public and cash handlers," says a January report to the central bank.

The Canadian Press obtained the report along with other documents under the Access to Information Act.Almost every group thought the see-through window looked like a woman's body, but participants were often shy about pointing it out.

"However, once noted, it often led to acknowledgment and laughter among many of the participants in a group."

The new $100 bills feature two portraits of Prime Minister Robert Borden.
On the other side of the bill, there's an image of a researcher at a microscope and a depiction of the double-helix structure of DNA.

But the DNA strand evoked something else. A Vancouver focus group thought it was "a sex toy (i.e., sex beads)."

Others thought it was the Big Dipper...

I think the fact that a Vancouver group saw "sex beads" tells you a lot more about people in Vancouver than it does about the money.

"Dialectic Materialism"=Sharia

We read in the National Post today that "Middle Eastern countries" are keen to "mix religious, civil law," thereby somehow "Integrating Islam and democracy."

Pretty neat trick, eh?

But say you do manage to "mix" the two in some sort of Hegelian thesis-antithesis process, you'd still end up with something that is not democracy in any Western sense of the concept; something that's a lot more Islamist than it is democratic.

Same deal when you add those who come from cultures practising a Medieval, literalist Islam to the multicultural "mix." Eventually, as Mark Steyn points out in this post about the Afghan dad, mom and son on trial for the mass murder of the most uppity (i.e. the most assimilated) chicks in their family, instead of them adapting to us, we adapt to them (hello remorseless Islamization), as our society is utterly transformed:

It's hard to see what Canada has to gain from admitting significant numbers of people from the culture that spawned the Shafias. Perhaps in time one could make functioning western citizens of them, but it would be a slow process and, even if we had the stomach for it, would be unlikely to justify itself in cost-benefit terms. So instead they come and settle into a culture that asks nothing of them. And slowly but remorselessly we adapt to them: Police departments learn to tiptoe round touchy subjects like "honour killing"; hospitals evolve from "FGM" (the pejorative "female genital mutilation") to "FGC" (the less judgmental "female genital cutting"); and a courthouse in Ontario discreetly reorders its day in order not to inconvenience the translators that "Canadian citizens" now require:

On Fridays, the judge told the jurors, the lunch schedule will be shifted so the interpreters, all male, can get to mosque for prayers.

The multicultural experiment is not worth it. By the time those who foisted it on the post-war west acknowledge that, it will be too late.

For us as well as for the poor women subjected to such misogynistic horrors.