One More Before I Go...the "Human Rights" Mausoleum Is an Out-Of-Control Disaster!

Our national shrine to victimhood, which has already hoovered up far too much of our hard-earned tax dollars, wants us to write it a blank cheque. What say we pull the plug on it instead?

Holiday Wishes/Blogging Break Notice

Wishing you all the best for the holidays (all of them--Chanukah, Christmas and New Year's). I'm signing off until early next year. Hope to see y'all then!

Come Mr. Taliban, Rally 'Round Joe Biden

Daylight come and me wanna go barf at the dhimmitude of the Obama regime. It has just backed up Joe Biden's assertion that the Taliban, unlike, say al Qaeda (jihadis, the both of 'em), are not our enemy.

America Still a Hotbed of Clueless Jews

Jonathan Tobin writes:

On Friday afternoon, President Obama received a hero's welcome when he spoke to the biennial convention of the Union of Reform Judaism. Approximately 5,000 Reform Jews gave Obama almost as many standing ovations as Congress gave Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu this past spring. But though the coverage of the speech has focused primarily on the president's repeat of his boasts that he is the most pro-Israel president in history, it should be understood that the bulk of the address did not touch on the Middle East.  

Rather, the main focus of his remarks was a compendium of liberal positions on domestic issues intended to draw cheers from an audience that, while still concerned with Israel's security, was far happier hearing talk about higher taxes, defense of entitlements and the class warfare rhetoric Obama has been rehearsing since the start of the debt-ceiling crisis this past summer.   

Those seeking to analyze the possibility of a shift in the Jewish vote as Obama seeks re-election know that the president's often-antagonistic relationship with the State of Israel could cost him next November. Polls and special elections such as the one in New York's 9th Congressional district last September have showed that there are enough swing Jewish voters who will be influenced by this issue to give Democrats something to worry about. 

But though the minority of Jews who can be swayed by concerns about Israel is not inconsiderable, it is nonetheless true that Obama is almost certain to win a majority of the Jewish vote in 2012 no matter what happens to Israel on his watch. And the applause Obama garnered on Friday afternoon when speaking to this conclave of the largest Jewish denomination in this country provides the evidence for that conclusion...

The notion that American Jews are prone to a "dual loyalty" is patently aburd. Clearly, most U.S. Jews are leftist, first and foremost.

WTF?! Is Israel Trying to "Open Dialogue" With Egypt's Islamists?

That's the claim of this piece on onislam:

CAIRO – Senior Israeli diplomats are eagerly working to open new communication channels with Egypt’s Islamists, so far seen as the major winner of the country’s first free elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last February.

Israel's new ambassador in Cairo, Yaakov Amitai must make contact with all relevant entities in positions of power, and talk to "anyone who wants to and agrees to talk to him, even if those contacts are not made public," a senior diplomatic official in occupied Jerusalem told Haaretz on Sunday, December 18.

Taking office only six days ago, the newly appointed ambassador was charged with trying to open contact channels with Egypt’s new rulers.

Those attempts include talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi’s Al-Nour Party, according to a senior diplomatic official in Jerusalem...

FYI "senior diplomatic official in Jerusalem": this would be an excellent time to acquaint yourself with the MuBro credo.

Today's Terrifying Global Climate Change Story

Planet Earth is about to let a big one rip (no, really), thereby warming things up even more quickly than ever.

Hasta La Vista, Kim Jong-Il

My favourite line in the NatPo front pager on the despot's demise:

A tearful television announcer dressed in black said the 69-year-old had died on Saturday of physical and mental over-work on his way to give "field guidance."

And now he'll be planted in the field (rimshot).

Seriously, though, it'll be kinda sad (from a comedy standpoint) that we won't have the tiny tyrant to kick around anymore:

Update: As always in North Korea, there is never a dearth of Kims:

Kim Jong-Il he got ill; now he's done,

So way for his number one son.

He's a brand new oppressor--
"The Great Successor"--

Kim Jong-Un. He'll be second to none.

What's Behind New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Cumbersome" Circulocution For Its Newly Reopened Islamic Art Galleries?

Michael J. Lewis investigates:

The new century has not seen a golden age of art so far, but there has been one bright spot: the campaign of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to rehang its major collections in carefully considered exhibitions. These have been consistently exquisite, superb in their scholarship and visual presentation. When they reopened in 2007, the Greek and Roman galleries were universally praised, as were the American galleries two years later. Now it is the turn of the Islamic galleries, which after a decade of planning were reopened last month as the Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.

That unwieldy title reminds us that the display of Islamic art has complications raised by no other category of art today. It is the only great artistic tradition with a potent strand of iconoclasm, expressed most recently in 2001 when the celebrated Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan were destroyed by Taliban decree. A culturally assertive Islam has increasingly come to insist that the West needs to treat Islam by the same rules that prevail in the Islamic world. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses (1989) was the first sign of this, and the subsequent stabbings of his translators in Japan (fatal) and Italy showed that the threat was most real. Rather than court such violence, American cultural institutions have chosen to cringe high-mindedly when dealing with Islam, as Yale University did when it censored a scholarly book about the Danish cartoons that sparked murderous riots, removing those cartoons from the book. (It cannot be said enough that the most offensive images were actually Iranian forgeries.)

Surely this explains the cumbersomeness of the title—Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia—which is not a title at all but a table of contents...

Ancient Buddhist statues go kaboom (for having the effrontery to belong to a different art movement than the Met's galleries from Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia).

Horowitz on Hitchens' "Poetic" Self-Destruction

David Horowitz writes a sweet and rueful tribute to Christopher Hitchens, his self-destructive friend:

He was a man of the Left to the end, and that is where he went to die. In his last decade he had held his comrades to account for their malicious support for the tyrant in Iraq and their equally disgraceful attacks on their country for its support for freedom. It was his remarkable achievement to retain his standing in a movement committed to those ends. He was able to do so in part because of his final campaign against God, which occupied the main part of his dying days. I understand why Christopher did this, even though its ordeals took precious time and attention from his family and friends and from himself. He was when all was said and done a romantic, who sacrificed his life in this world to the fantasy of a future he imagined – first without capitalism and then without faith.

I have missed Christopher since the day he was given his death sentence. I have reflected more than once on the times I saw him early in the day with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and the look of a man who had been freshly mugged, and thought my friend is killing himself, knowing that there was nothing I could say or do to stop him. After his diagnosis, Christopher defended his reckless self-destruction saying it helped to make his life give off “a more lovely light.” I think it did for him, and am glad for that, though those of us who enjoyed its pleasures will wish he had found some other way to shine.

I could be wrong, but I believe Hitchens was citing that poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.

Jew-ISH is Fine, But Full-On Jewish...Not So Much

Showing their true Zion-loathing colours, the EUnuchs have told Israel that it had better not become "too Jewish"--or else.

"Social Justice"-Indoctrinated Toronto Public School Moppets Shut Up For Al-Shabbab-less Famine

They're starving in Somalia because of a drought fueled in no small part by local jihadi nutters al-Shabbab. Funny that that tidbit of info didn't make it into this TDSB account of kids at an elementary school using silence to voice their dismay at the famine:

Me to We students at John McCrae PS in East Toronto put on an East Africa Drought Carousel to raise awareness about the need for aid for Somalians who are forced to walk for weeks in order to get food & medical attention.

Hillay from Free the Children and Karine from Medicins Sans Frontieres participated in the Carousel. The McCrae Me to We group of students prepared for the last six weeks to set up a total of eight stations that students rotated through. The stations included: What is Drought, The Geography of the Horn of Africa, Lack of Government in Somalia; What Life is Like in a Refugee Camp; A power point presentation on the Number of Children That Have Died in Somalia Due to the Drought, How We Can Help & Information on the Vow of Silence that took place at John McCrae. 

The event was a huge success! During a two-hour period, thirteen classes & their teachers rotated through the Carousel. Students were inspired to take part in John McCrae’s Vow of Silence & teachers were provided with a package of lesson plans to extend the Carousel into their classroom. A huge thank you to the McCrae Me to We group, Free the Children and Medicins Sans Frontieres.

Between May and July 2011 alone, about 29,000 Somali children younger than five died due to lack of food. That’s the same as 966 classrooms of 30 children.

No doubt the moppets were made to feel really guilty about the starvation. It's hard to see, though, how that's going to help defeat the jihadis. 

The American Jewish Dilemma

Jerold S. Auerback lays it out here:

No sooner did turbulence subside within the American Jewish community over Israeli videos and billboard ads that seemed to denigrate the quality of Jewish life in the United States than a new problem erupted.

This time, however, Israel could not be blamed. The new fracas was entirely the fault of Republican presidential candidates speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum in Washington. One after another, they affirmed their strong support for Israel and chastised the Obama administration for its incessant criticism of the Jewish state.

Newt Gingrich was the prime culprit. He sharply criticized Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's "outrageous" recent demand that Israel "get to the damn table" and make peace with the Palestinian Authority -- as if President Mahmoud Abbas, like his predecessors, had not persistently fled from negotiations, even with the assurance of Israeli concessions.

Gingrich indicated that if elected president, he would immediately relocate the American Embassy from Tel Aviv, where it has been ever since Israel achieved independence, to Jerusalem, which the United States still does not recognize as the capital of the Jewish state. In a follow-up interview on the Jewish Channel, he noted (correctly), to widespread outrage, that the Palestinians are an "invented" Arab people with no history of statehood in "Palestine."

Nor was Gingrich alone in strongly defending Israel and lambasting the Obama administration. Mitt Romney affirmed Israel's existence as a Jewish state and the "unshakable" American bonds with it. He sharply criticized the president for repeatedly chastising Israel, demanding indefensible borders, insulting Prime Minister Netanyahu, and ignoring incessant threats from Iran and Hamas.

All this might be considered mere campaign boilerplate from aspiring nominees currying favor with a tiny but strategically located voting bloc. Yet American Jewish voters confront a potential dilemma of major proportions: do they vote next November for a conservative Republican nominee who promises strong support and protection for Israel? Or do they vote for the Democratic incumbent whose criticism of Israel and genuflection to Muslim sensibilities they ignore because they favor his domestic agenda? Do they, that is, vote as Jews or as liberals? ...

They vote as the latter, natch. To quote an American relative of mine (who's no dunce, and who really should know better): If Adolf Hitler were a Democrat, I'd sooner vote him for him for president than for a Republican."

That about says it all, don't you think?

Unethical Chiquita Co. Bows to Pressure, Boycotts Canada's Ethical Oil

I'm taking up Kathy Shaidle's challenge to rewrite the Chiquita Banana song:

I am Chiquita banana and I'm here to say
I bow to eco-freaks who say, "Obey!"
I'm such a spineless, brainless little "goil"
That I'll decry Canucki freedom oil.
You can buy it from Wahhabis
Or that nice Hugo Chavez.
But don't get it from Canuckis.
Do what the eco-lobby sez!

A Seasonal Song for the Censorship Zombies

Roll back the nonsense.
It's such a con to tell us
That that Section rocks.
Haul back the claptrap.
You've been a-spewing it for
Such a freakin' long time.
'Cuz we don't need any censors,
Right here in our country.
Don't need any censors,
Spoiling all our fun, see?
No, we don't need any censors
Right here in our country.
It's been a total imposition
Having our own Inquisition.
So, please get a clue now.
Time for a Jew to do
What's best for everyone.
Crawl in a hole now
Although your goal, we know,
Is to parole Sec. 13.
'Cuz we don't need any censors,
Right here in our country.
Don't need any censors,
Spoiling all our fun, see?
No, we don't need any censors,
Censorship's offensive,
Don't need censors 'cuz we're free.

The Ceej is Dead and Gone But Its Pro-Censorship Zombies Live On

Here are former Ceej chief (the word is in a year from now he'll become Ontario's chief "human rights" commissar) and his wingman, former Ceej attorney Marvin Kurz, shilling for state censorship--and in the Toronto Star, yet:

Opponents of Section 13 argue that it is an assault on free speech. They claim that it targets speech that may merely offend those with thin skins. If the target of the law were merely “offensive” statements, we would wholeheartedly agree. But this is not the case. The law aims at expression that causes members of our society to be treated as less worthy than their neighbours merely because of who they are, rather than what they have done. The small number of cases that have made it to the act’s tribunal stage have been among the worst of the worst: hateful, malicious propaganda.

Another argument against Section 13 is that, unlike libel law, truth is no defence. But can it ever be “true” that victims of hate speech deserve hatred and contempt? Should someone be entitled to use a tribunal hearing to “prove” that, say African Canadians are inferior, that Jews are rapacious, or that all gays are pedophiles?

Section 13 tells us that we must find civil ways to prevent bigotry. That is the Canadian way. But if Storseth’s bill is passed, the state will rely exclusively on criminal prosecution to deter those who wilfully engage in promoting hatred. By ridding ourselves of Section 13, we diminish the hope that we can change attitudes through education and dialogue. We may very well unleash the blunt force of the criminal law on those who are guilty of nothing but ignorance...

Actually, Bernie, that blunt force you warn about is already in evidence--at the Human Rights Commissions, where petty bureaucrats tie up certain Canadians (Christians, right wingers, non-Muslims and other politically incorrect sorts) for years in capricious prosecutions conducted via star chambers/kangaroo courts. If that's "the Canadian way," then Canada is well on its way to Maoville.

And speaking of the "blunt force" of the law, it is now so "blunt" that police will, for example, allow hate-fueled Muslims to be as hateful as the wannabe, fearing that to act in a timely fashion against, say, a Salman Hossain (a Jew-hater whose rants made even the Judenhass of a pretend Nazi/Ceej honoree sound as bland as an unseasoned kugel) would anger Muslims, and threaten police "outreach" to that community.

And the reason we need to scrap Section 13, Marvin, is so that people like me can write stuff like the above (i.e. the truth) without having to worry that the "human rights" thought police will, unlike the other police--call them,vis-a-vis Jew-hating Muslims, the thoughtless police--act against us.

That's the freedom way, the democracy way, the Magna Carta way. And, oh, yeah, it's the Jewish way, too. Unlike your way, Ceej Zombies, which is the way to tyranny and sharia.

I believe that's Marvin on the left and Bernie, atypically, on the right.

The Arab League Is "Irked"

"Irked"--that's a bit more pissed off than "pissed off," but not nearly as furious as "furious."

The object of its, er, irkage, is, of course, Syria, which continues to off the populace at an alarming rate and despite AL "threats" to send in observers to...observe the unfolding carnage? To tell the truth, I'm not to sure what the point of it is. Apparently it's part of the outfit's plan to curtail the bloodshed. But since Hafez's spawn is being less than co-operative, his fellow Arabs are now so "irked" that they've hurled the most terrifying threat of all. No, it's not "we're going to haul you in front of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission; that kind of threat actually might make some headway. It's "we're gonna take this to the UN."

That should do the trick, eh?

The Night Christopher Hitchens Gave Bill Maher's Clueless Audience the One-Fingered Salute

Newsbusters' Brent Baker calls it one of the late writer's "finest moments":

The Drone of Obama's Appeasement

Barack Obama thinks no one can call him an appeaser because, after all, he ordered the execution of Osama bin Laden. While giving Obama points for the hit, Charles Krauthammer says not so fast, Barry (or words to that effect), citing Russian and Iran as two countries that have benefited from Obama's Chamberlainesque mien. In Iran, for example,

Obama imagined that his silver tongue and exquisite sensitivity...would persuade the mullahs to give up their weapons program. Amazingly, they resisted his charms, choosing instead to become a nuclear power. The negotiations did nothing but confer legitimacy on the regime at its point of maximum vulnerability (and savagery), as well as give it time for further uranium enrichment and bomb development.

For his exertions, Obama earned (a) continued lethal Iranian assistance to guerrillas killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, (b) a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant, (c) the announcement just this week by a member of parliament of Iranian naval exercises to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and (d) undoubted Chinese and Russian access to a captured U.S. drone for the copying and countering of its high-tech secrets.

How did Obama answer that one?

On Monday, he politely asked for the drone back...

Well, he did say please. And everyone knows how well megalomaniacal totalitarians respond to politeness.

A Very Muslim Christmas

It always makes me chuckle when Muslims tell you that they revere Jesus and "celebrate" Christmas--as if that's supposed to be a tremendous compliment to Christians and their faith, and a sign of Muslim tolerance. What they don't--what they never--tell you is that, as far as Islam is concerned, Jesus is not Divine, but he is theirs (as are Moses, Adam, Noah and, indeed, every Jewish and Christian "prophet" who, retroactively, has been deemed Muslim).

Balance, Shmalance--Censorship is Bad for the Jews and Democracy, End of Story

You have the admire the chutzpah, though, of someone who is proud to be billed as a "prominent human rights lawyer who has initiated fifteen successful Internet hate cases" (hat tip: JB):

The United Jewish Appeal Lawyers Division wishes to share with you a program hosted by our advocacy partner, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs: Freedom of Speech and Hate Speech in Canada: A Delicate Balance Please join the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs for this timely Town Hall debate on Section 13, the controversial hate speech provision of Canada’s Human Rights Act. FEATURING: Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association Richard Warman, prominent human rights lawyer who has initiated fifteen successful Internet hate cases January 10, 2012 | 7:00 pm George Ignatieff Theatre 15 Devonshire Place RSVP: cosheroff@cija.ca

Time to Rename Him "Shoah" Soharwardy?

Since Syed Soharwardy, imam of the grandiosely-named Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, is apparently in the grip of a terrible case of Holocaust envy (his website posits a whole bunch of Muslim "holocausts" here, and the other day he claimed, incredibly, that because a woman will have to show her face to take the Oath of Citizenship, Muslims in Canada are being treated like Jews were in Nazi Germany) I think the new nic is well-earned, don't you?

Radioactive Material Bound For Iran Found in Luggage at Moscow Airport

Let me guess--dude had a certain "glow" that gave him away.

Turkey's FM Boasts, "We've Brought Israel to Its Knees"

In yer dreams, neo-Ottomanist.

Co-Creator of Captain America Dies at 98

His creation, however, lives on.

He's Got High Hopes, He's Got High Hopes, He's Got High Apple Pie in the Sky Hopes

Tarek Fatah writes:

One day I hope to see the Liberals and New Democrats join the Conservatives to say out loudly that they find the niqab to be a medieval monstrosity that is a manifestation of misogyny that has no place in Canada and that this ghastly attire is not a religious requirement, but a political statement thumbing its nose at Canada and its Western allies. Quebec has produced such cross-political consensus against the burka and niqab. Will Canada?

And one day I hope to see Hamas "reject" jihad. At some point, though, wishful thinking drifts inexorably into delusion, and I hope we can both do our best to avoid that, Mr. Fatah.

Update: Here's a perfect example of how leftists--the ones Fatah hopes will one day come to their senses--think:

It doesn't take much to figure out the real rationale behind the new policy. Hint: it's anti-Muslim racism.

Hint: it's the sharia, genius.

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens

The great essayist/polemicist has shuffled off this mortal coil. I didn't always agree with his take on things--he never, for example, really got Israel, and his staunch atheism could be more than a little off-putting--but I usually found his writing (and he managed to write to the very end, until the cancer finally defeated him) to be witty, intelligent and a helluva good read. Which is more than you can say about most of the shlubs who write for the mainstream press and magazines these days.



Update: Here's Robert Spencer's tribute:

I seldom agreed with him, although even when I didn't, I found him compelling -- as when he slaughtered Dinesh D'Souza in a debate on the existence of God. He makes some excellent points above, and was a superb writer, of a level I shall never attain. For the truths he enunciated, and the power and verve with which he did so, I salute him.

Me too.

Freaky--Reuters' Adjective to Describe Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year

Those MuBros--they're so damned "pragmatic."

An Update to My Chagall Post

Yesterday I wrote about my trip to see the Chagall exhibit at the AGO, and how surprised I was by the oddly positive spin that had been put on the Russian Revolution and Soviet state-sponsored "art." Today I read this in Marc Chagall by Jonathan Wilson (a book I picked up in the exhibit's gift shop):

It didn't seem as if there could be any better news for Russian Jews than the fall of the czar in March 1917. Chagall was swept up in the general exuberance; his first thought was enormous relief that his days as an "illegal" resident in Petrograd [where only Jews with special permission could live] were over. In Chagall's memoir the months of Kerensky's short-lived semi-democratic Duma are parsed in a few quick ecstatic sentences, emblems of the freedom from restriction that Chagall undoubtedly felt, but they build to the dramatic and ominous arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station. Something about the famous "sealed train" sent shivers through Chagall, and amid the confusions and fervor of change, for perhaps the first time in his adult life he began to neglect his work.

Was Chagall a political animal? In his memoir he is frequently coy on the subject, often preferring to play the artist-naif, but his commitment at various times in his life was not insignificant, as is well illustrated in his discursive prose, particularly the articles that he published in the first eighteen months after the Revolution. Moreover, his paints, anecdotal by nature, often tell a story with a lesson for history: "Lenin turned it [Russia] upside down the way I turn my pictures," Chagall once wrote. but twenty years after the Revolution, painting in full knowledge of the murderous Soviet regime for which Lenin had laid the groundwork, and out of deep despair and disillusion with the entire Bolshevik experiment, Chagall turned Lenin ignominiously on his head at the center of his monumental painting The Revolution (1937).

In fact, that very painting



is on display, with nary a mention of Chagall's words explaining why he turned Lenin upside down; looking at it yesterday, in the context of Chagall supposedly approving and being a beneficiary of Bolshevik largesse, it appeared as though, whimsically, Chagall had merely made Lenin the centrepiece of one of his circus paintings (they were on display, too--right before this one). All of which makes the exhibit's Procrustean effort to marry Chagall to this "forward looking" Revolution, and its small "r" "revolution" in art, not only dishonest, but more than a little grotesque.

TIME's Person of the Year Is the Unhappy Crapper?

He's one of them, anyway.

Egyptian Islamist Whose Party Makes the MuBros Look "Moderate" Says Chicks' Faces Look Like Vaginas

Misogynistic wanker. Next up in Egypt: Facial Genital Mutilation?

All-Canadian Hair-Splitting

The other day, in a diatribe condemning Lowe's for bowing to "bigotry" because it had second thoughts about buying ad time during TLC's All-American Muslim, Jonathan Kay engaged in an exquisitely sensitive feat of hair-splitting:

Look at those words carefully — “Islamic agenda.” Not “Islamist” or “Muslim Brotherhood” or “Salafist,” but “Islamic” — i.e., of or pertaining to a faith embraced by over a billion people around the world.

You say Islamic and I say Islamist--let's call the whole thing off. Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister, for one, thinks we should. Channeling a hefty, Lesbian Jewish chick, he says, "Islam is Islam," and that's that. So, too, does Clifford D. May, who explains here exactly that Islam--not Islamism, but Islam in and of itself--has to do with it.



Update: At least J. Kay--who's supposed to be on the right--is willing to use the term "Islamist." Unlike, say, the Obami, who have banished both Islamic and Islamist (and jihad, jihadi and and jihadist) from their lexicon. That said, though, Kay's and Obama's "philosophies" appear to be in synch:

If you want to know why Maj. Nidal Hassan was able to carry out a jihadist attack at Fort Bragg, one of the most fortified targets imaginable; if you want to understand why, despite months of neon signs that he was a jihadist, Hassan was able to murder 13 United States soldiers and support personnel (i.e., about double the number killed in the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center); then look no further than this video clip.

It features testimony at a House hearing on threats to our military by Paul Stockton, President Obama’s Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Defense & America’s Security Affairs. He is unable to bring himself to utter the word “Islamist,” much less admit what ought to be the undeniable fact that Muslim terrorists are motivated by Islamist ideology.

It reflects the Obama philosophy that we cannot even hint that an interpretation of Islam — drawn literally from Islamic scriptures — is the force motivating our enemies. Even though this is unquestionably true, to say so, to acknowledge it in any way, would mean, according to administration thinking, that we are at war with Islam itself — with all 1.4 billion Muslims, including the hundreds of millions who do not subscribe to this interpretation. Unwilling to entertain the possibility that the enemy has a coherent, knowable doctrine — which is a powerful catalyst precisely because it draws credibly (not inarguably but credibly) on scripture — we have forfeited the natural right to defend ourselves and the troops who make it possible for us to live freely...

Is Justin Trudeau Trying to Show His Allegiance to "Occupy" By Transforming His Face Into a Facsimile of a V for Vendetta Mask?

Here's Justin:





Here's the mask:



Dead ringers, no?

You'd Better Fork Over Lots of Loot, Canadians, Or Else the Polar Bears May Turn Violent

The latest (and I must say a most creative) climate change scare tactic designed to part foolish Canadian from their cash. On par, I'd say, with David Suzuki trying to extort the kiddies by telling them they'd better send him money if they don't want Santa and his whole toy-manufacturing operation to be put out of business by an Arctic thaw. (Don't worry, though--it's really meant "tongue-in-cheek.")

Of Burqas, Balaclavas and Leftist Balderdash

An Ottawa Citizen editorial tut-tuts Jason Kenney's new measure compelling a Muslim chick to remove her face mask while reciting the Oath of citizenship. The paper claims that these women are well within their rights to insist on remaining covered, and doesn't buy the rationales being offered (that if her face is covered, how can we tell if she's really reciting the Oath, or, for that matter, that she is who she says she is?) to defend the move:

But this isn’t really about any practical imperative. It’s about making a statement about Canadian values, and Canadian values, in Jason Kenney’s mind, don’t include niqabs. If that’s so, why not go as France is going, and ban them altogether? Of course, this being a cold country, we’d have to distinguish between acceptable motivations for covering one’s face and unacceptable ones. Good old boys in balaclavas are fine, of course.

Of course. Though, as far as I know, not while reciting the Oath of citizenship. And while both balaclavas and burqas have been used as disguises by robbers, I doubt that anyone would wear a burqa--as they would a balaclava--merely to keep warm.

Canadian artist Charles Pachter's rendering of burqas 'n' balaclavas

Who Curated This Exhibit--Stalin?

I went with my mom to see the Chagall exhibit at the at Art Gallery of Ontario. The show, which features several of the artist's most famous paintings--along with plenty of fiddlers on roofs--tries to marry Chagall to Russian "Constructivists," the decidedly totalitarian style of painting, graphics and architecture that arose post-Bolshevik victory. It doesn't really work, though, because even though, initially, Chagall was excited about the revolution, he was far too much of an individualist to take orders from a top-down bureacracy, and left Russia (and Communism) behind as soon as he could. The entire exhibit is thus predicated on something of a falsehood--that Chagall belonged to this "movement" when, in, fact, he did not, and was only in Russia at the time of the revolution because he returned (from France, where he'd lived for several years) to reunite with the beautiful young women he was in love with, and who he had left behind. Reading some of the exhibit's notes, though, one would think that not only was Chagall an avid Communist (he was not) but that, on the whole, the Russian Revolution was a positive development. Here, for instance, is a bit of prose from the exhibit that I copied down word for word:

"BUILD A NEW WORLD," cried the young artists. Liberated by Russia's revolution of 1917, they began to transform their dream of social equality into reality. For those devoted to the Communist movement, art was no longer a luxury but a political tool meant for the street, the factory, the worker and the masses. The Soviet state harnessed the energy of painters, sculptors, photographers and architects to carry its message of freedom to its citizens. The Constructivists no longer found themselves at the periphery of society. At the same time in 1918 Chagall became Arts Commissar for the province of Vitebsk [Chagall's hometown--now in Belarus], and founded the Vitebsk People's Art College. But soon his personal subjects seemed out of step with the radical new work of politics, industry and geometrical abstraction.

You can say that again. There was no way that this sort of thing--all fluid lines and limp figures--



fit it with the hard, angular, in-your-face totalitarian-style then emerging. For example, the exhibit features this poster by Constructivist El Lissitzky:



Part of the commentary accompanying this work informs us that

...El Lissitsky fuses photographs of two youthful heads--male and female--superimposing text and geometric forms to create an arresting design that evokes the forward-looking vision of the Soviet state.

Yeah, they were sooo "forward-looking," those Soviets. So "forward-looking," in fact, that they looked forward to the mass starvation of millions. Such was the "vision" of brutal dictator Stalin, whose amorality and cold-bloodedness was summed up in the famous quotation about mass deaths being a matter of mere statistics.

Is it just me, or is this exhibit being overly sanguine, to say the least, in its view of Lenin's lads and the horrors they wrought?

Fear-Mongering Warman Raises Spectre of Scary Internet Nazis Should Section 13 Be Chucked

The very idea has me quaking in my Uggs, Dick. Speaking of which--weren't you, in fact, doing a superb impersonation of one of the scary Nazis you keep warning us about?

There IS Apartheid in Jordan, But Don't Expect Campus Zion-Haters to Launch a "Hashemite Apartheid Week" Any Time Soon (Or Ever)

Despite the Big Lie told over and over ad nauseum by leftists and Islamists, there is no Israeli apartheid. There is, however, apartheid in Jordan, not the that the aforementioned Zion-loathers could give a good goddamn about that:

In most countries with a record of human rights violations, vulnerable minorities are the typical victims. This has not been the case in Jordan where a Palestinian majority has been discriminated against by the ruling Hashemite dynasty, propped up by a minority Bedouin population, from the moment it occupied Judea and Samaria during the 1948 war (these territories were annexed to Jordan in April 1950 to become the kingdom's West Bank).

As a result, the Palestinians of Jordan find themselves discriminated against in government and legislative positions as the number of Palestinian government ministers and parliamentarians decreases; there is not a single Palestinian serving as governor of any of Jordan's twelve governorships.[3]

Jordanian Palestinians are encumbered with tariffs of up to 200 percent for an average family sedan, a fixed 16-percent sales tax, a high corporate tax, and an inescapable income tax. Most of their Bedouin fellow citizens, meanwhile, do not have to worry about most of these duties as they are servicemen or public servants who get a free pass. Servicemen or public employees even have their own government-subsidized stores, which sell food items and household goods at lower prices than what others have to pay,[4] and the Military Consumer Corporation, which is a massive retailer restricted to Jordanian servicemen, has not increased prices despite inflation.[5]

Decades of such practices have left the Palestinians in Jordan with no political representation, no access to power, no competitive education, and restrictions in the only field in which they can excel: business...

 Repeat after me: Free, free, Jordanstine...

Thomas L. Friedman's 14 Years of Venonous Anti-Israel Diatribes Say a Lot More About Him Than They Do About Israel

What does it say about TLF, the NYT's pundit di tutti punditti, that he adores China and despises Israel?

That he's a self-satisfied, self-important leftist twit?

That his head has been stuck up his arse for so long that he'd be blinded by the light of reality should he ever endeavour to remove it?

That, in taking stock of his much-vaunted insights and predictions over the years, it turns out he's as clueless as all get out?

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

No Ruling Yet on Section 13--But It's Hard to Get a Fix on Judge's Thinking

NatPo reporter Joseph Bream says the judge hearing the Section 13 case--which wrapped up yesterday--hasn't made a ruling but was "hinting he might have been persuaded to consider overturning the law."

I'll take Bream's word for it, since he was there and I wasn't. But that's not the sense one gets from this:

Section 13 is a "truly despicable law, enforced in a despicable way," with federal bureaucrats acting in the manner of Crown prosecutors, she [Barbara Kulaszka, Mark Lemire's lawyer] added.

"If it wasn't for Richard Warman, Section 13 would basically be dead, because Canadians love the Internet, the back and forth ... the free-dom of speech it represents."

Ms. Kulaszka compared Section 13, and its supposed 100% conviction rate, to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which did not sit well with Judge Mosley.

"Let's not get carried away with hyperbole. Some comparisons are offensive," he said. "Counsel should know this and restrain yourself."

Hmm. It kinda sounds like Judge Mosley (he does know that Maclean's and Mark Steyn were forced to endure--no hyperbole--a Soviet-style kangaroo court hearing, doesn't he?) may be the sort who's in favour of  the "restraint" afforded by Section 13.

The Stand Up Version of "Pass the Tasty Samosas"?

From the Jewish Tribune:

MONTREAL – After selling out Montreal’s Gesu Theatre last year, Kosher Jokes for the Halaladays is back – this time with a three-city tour.

The comedy show, which aims to have Jews and Muslims laughing together under one roof during the holiday season, will return to the same Montreal venue on Dec. 21 and also stop in Toronto (Dec. 22) and Ottawa (Dec. 17).

Organizer and performer Jeff Schouela notes that Canada’s top Jewish and Muslim standup comics are joining forces in an attempt to bring both groups together to laugh and be merry.

“In an ironic twist,” Schouela said, “the Montreal show will once again be taking place inside the beautiful 425-seat Gesu Church Theatre! That’s right, a Jewish and Muslim comedy show in a church on Christmas.”...

Isn't that high-larious!? Don't you think that all we need are a few yucks to dispel jihad, sharia and pathological Zionhass? Do you think any of these "brave" comics (the scare quotes are there because I know that when the going gets tough—as it did re the Guy Earle situation—"brave" comics tend to crumble) will have the chutzpah (the effrontery) to tackle any of those topics? (Also--jokes about Christmas are definitely welcome, but leave your "ironic twists" about Mohamed at the door.)

Reuters Deploys an Oddly Complimentary Adjective to Describe the Muslim Brotherhood

With Islamists making great strides in the Egyptian election, Reuters has taken to describing the Muslim Brotherhood (an outfit dedicated to global jihad which sees dying in its cause as the height of human aspiration) as--get this--"pragmatic".

Pragmatic is defined as:

adj.

1. Dealing or concerned with facts or actual occurrences; practical.
2. Philosophy. Of or relating to pragmatism.
3. Relating to or being the study of cause and effect in historical or political events with emphasis on the practical lessons to be learned from them.
4. Archaic.
   1. Active; busy.
   2. Active in an officious or meddlesome way.
   3. Dogmatic; dictatorial.

Presumably Reuters isn't using it in its "Archaic" sense (especially "c")--although, ironically enough, that's the only meaning that does describe the power-mad MuBros.

A few of the happy "pragmatists" in action

"They Operate Like the Gambinos on Steriods"

Hezbollah, a genocidal jihadi racket, is giving organized crime a run for its money, in no small part due to the Lebanese Canadian Bank, which laundered a great deal of Hezbo's bloody shekels. (H/T: RW)

Saddest Story of the Day--Toronto's 'Gay' Penguins Go Their Separate Ways

Buddy (the slut!) has taken up with a female, and even though the "parting" was reportedly "amicable," Pedro, poor guy, is still trying to come to terms with the split.

We are talking about penguins here, right? Because for a second or two I thought Buddy and Pedro were, you know, humans.

Buddy and Pedro in happier times.

"They're Cookin' the Books/We're Checkin' 'Em Twice/Gonna Find Out Who's Naughty or Nice/Occupy Is Coming to Town"

Is San Francisco the site of the nuttiest, naughtiest, nekkidest Occupyers--and the worst Xmas song parodists--anywhere? This blog by 'Frisco local Zombie makes the case for the affirmative.

Here's my "naughty" song:

You better cough up,
You better hand out,
You better give in
When you hear us shout:
Occupy is comin' to town.

We've studied at school--
"Colonial rule"--
Just so you all know we're nobody's fool.
Occupy is comin' to town.

That public defecation,
We know it turns you off,
But since we're so deserving,
Well, you surely shouldn't scoff.

So, you better push "change,"
"Equality," too.
Utopia, dope, is workin' for you.
Occupy is comin' to town.

Poster Couple for "Get a Room, 'Kay?"

A twosome who were likely plastered couldn't control themselves and took to a-shtupping on a Toronto subway train. (Say, isn't that part of a "12 Days of Christmas" parody--"two drunks a-shtupping"?)

Let the double entendres (they were "riding the red rocket"; they wanted to join the "Mile Low Club"--that one's mine) begin!

Update: "Don't shtup in the subway, darling..."

Time to Derail Section 13

This one--revised for the occasion--goes out to all the Supreme Court justices ruminating over whether to retain Canada's state censorship provision (the infamous Section 13):

Pardon me, oy,
Is that the "Human Rights" Commission?
Section 13,
You know the one that I mean.
We can’t afford
To get aboard that kooky choo choo.
It isn’t fair.
You never wanna go there.

You’ll see those "human rights" commissioners
Are doin’ their job.
Want you to be wary 'bout
What ‘scapes from your gob.
Allahu Akbar, honey,
Blasphemy ain’t funny.
Shut yo’ mouth or it’ll cost you money.

When you see 'em censoring
The folks on the right
Then you know they won't give up
Without a big fight.
True north strong and free-ah,
‘Cept for the sharia.
(Dovetails well with Islam's blasphemy-ah.)

There’s gonna be
Two foolish Jewish "intervenors".
Don't have a clue
About the harm that they do.
They're gonna cry
That stoppin' hate speech is the way to go.
Oh, please, Supreme Court judges,
Won't you just say, "No!"

 

For CAIR-CAN It's All About the Veil

Here it is kvetching about Jason Kenney's announcement that Muslim chicks will have to remove their masks so they can be seen to be reciting the citizenship oath. And, hey, doesn't CAIR-CAN's Acting Executive Director Ihsaan Gardee raise a valid argument when he says

If the concern is about the ability of the judge to either see the individual in question or hear them giving the Oath, then how does Mr. Kenney propose to deal with the issue of blind judges or, for that matter, those those applicants with facial bandages or bushy beards?

Good question, Ihsaan. I don't know how many "blind judges" there are out there, but, there being plenty of sighted ones, I'm sure there's no need to worry on that score. Also, unless the guy with a "bushy beard" looks like the Wolfman, he's still easily identifiable. As for "applicants with facial bandages"--I've seen more than a few about-to-become citizens dressed like this, but oddly enough not a single one who looks like this. (Of course, were he to remove his bandages--ones he is likely not wearing for religious, er, sorry cultural reasons that are incompatible with Canadian values--he'd be invisible, and then you would have a problem.)

CAIR-CAN is also in a froth about--and will present written arguments to--the Supreme Court, which is considering whether a Muslima has a "right" to wear a face mask while giving testimony in a Canadian (that's an as yet non-sharia-compliant) court. You can read about it here.

"Please Give Us Back Czechoslovakia, Mister Hitler"

A request that sounds almost as lame and pointless as, "Please give us back our drone, Mister Ahmadinejad."

How Dumb Does the Shafia Defense Team Think We Are?

They must think we're really, really dumb if they're using this as a defence:

One of the sons of an Afghan-Canadian couple charged with killing four members of the family in a so-called “honour killing” told their murder trial Monday he did not believe his parents and jointly accused older brother were capable of such a deed.

If they had had any such murderous intentions, it would likely have been himself who would have been the target, “because I used to do more (unacceptable) stuff than any of (the victims) did,” the witness said.

Right, because as that old Afghanistan adage goes, "a man's honour lies between his own legs."

Or something like that.

Update: Muslims are upset because the Shafia trial is reflecting poorly on their religion and that, like, really sucks:

TORONTO - Some Toronto-area Muslims say their religion is suffering from the negative publicity surrounding allegations of honour killings presented in a multiple murder case being heard in Kingston, Ont.

Some community members were paying respect to victims of domestic violence including honour killings during their prayer services on Friday.

About 50 worshippers gathered at the Noor Cultural Centre, on Wynford Dr., to remember victims of domestic abuse.

The issue was brought to the front-burner by the Dec. 6 anniversary of the slaying of women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique and the ongoing Mohammad Shafia murder trial in which honour killings are alleged.

Shafia, 58, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, along with his 41-year-old wife, Tooba Yahya, and their 20-year-old son, Hamed.

The bodies of three Shafia sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13 were found in a Kingston canal along with Mohammad Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 52,  

Imam Kassim Ebrahim said Islam has been placed in a negative light by the allegations.

“Some people feel that honour killing is sanctioned by Islam,” Ebrahim told worshippers. “There is nothing that is further from the truth.”

He said the Koran teaches believers to love and respect women.

“We have problems right here in our own backyard,” he said. “These attacks against women are taking place worldwide.”

He cited poverty and unemployment as factors that can lead to the abuse.

Devotee Sarfraz Akhtah said his religion is suffering...

What an odd way to look at it. I'd say the women who are on the receiving end of abuse by men (who want to keep them in line because, for example, the Koran tells them their wife is a "tilth" or that they can give them a smack or two providing they don't leave marks that can be seen in public) are suffering much more than "his religion."

Was Newt Right to Say Palestinians Were "Invented"?

Jonathan Tobin's analysis strikes me as being eminently sensible:

The only people to call themselves "Palestinians" prior to the creation of the state of Israel were the Jews who were the first, and up until that time, the only group to conceive of the land as being the home of a separate people or national identity. That was no accident since the land now called Israel or Palestine was sacred only to one people. For centuries, it was an Arab backwater, but it has been the object of prayers for two millennia for the Jews who not only never ceased to hope for the restoration of their sovereignty but also, as is rarely mentioned, never entirely left its soil. Zionism was merely a new name for an ancient though still living people's belief about their homeland and their destiny.

By contrast, Palestinian nationalism is, as Gingrich rightly said, a 20th century invention. It arose and flourished purely as a reaction to Zionism, a factor that has fatally complicated the quest for peace as Palestinian identity seems to be predicated more on a desire to extinguish the Jewish state and to delegitimize the Jewish presence than it is on the re-creation of an Arab political culture that is specific to this locality.

Even 50 years ago, there was little notion of a separate Palestinian political identity. After all, from 1949 to 1967 Jordan ruled the West Bank and half of Jerusalem and Egypt controlled Gaza. During those 19 years, there was no international clamor to create a Palestinian state in those territories. It would only be after Israel took control over the territories during the Six-Day War that the absence of a Palestinian state was deemed intolerable.

That said, it must be conceded that even if the Palestinians did invent themselves in the last 100 years, it is pointless to deny they do exist now. Millions consider themselves to be part of a distinct Palestinian people with a common history and destiny. The United States and Israel both understand that their desire for self-rule must be accommodated so long as it does not infringe on the rights and security of Israel. A two-state solution that would allow a state of Palestine to exist alongside Israel is now believed by most Israelis to be a commonsensical idea even if it would involve painful territorial compromises.

The catch is that the Palestinians seem unable to accept the idea of the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. And that is where their "invented" history comes in. Since the Palestinians only arrived on the world stage as a result of their revulsion at the notion of Jewish sovereignty over any part of the country, it is difficult, if not impossible for them to come to terms with a peace that would imply Israel's permanence...

To recap: If they weren't a "people" historically, they are a "people" now. However, that does not give them the right to deny and revile the Jewish people's claim to what, demonstrably, is their ancient and sacred land.