The Merciless MERS Virus Makes This Is a Very Good Year to Avoid the Hajj

When masses of people are crammed together in the closest of quarters, like this (no, this is not a pointillist painting; every one of those dots is an actual person),



and there's a highly fatal virus flying about in the same country where this crush occurs, it makes sense to give the pilgrimage a pass this year, no?

Paramount Censors the Word "Israel" From the Subtiles of World War Z for the Sake of Zion-Loathing Turkish Audiences

How, um, thoughtful. (And, FYI, the Z in WWZ is supposed to stand for zombies, not Zionists.)

Where's He Getting the Money?

Obama unveils $7 billion power initiative for Africa

The Male Equivalent of That Well-Meaning (and Now Dead) Italian Chick in the Wedding Dress

The naïveté of some infidels, who think that earnestness and good intentions alone will act as a protective shield in dangerous places, never fails to astound:

(CNN) -- An American student fatally stabbed in Egypt was so fascinated with the region, he read poems about it to his girlfriend, his mother said. 

Andrew Pochter of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was stabbed Friday in the port city of Alexandria. He was in the country teaching English to elementary school children. 

"As we understand it, he was witnessing the protest as a bystander and was stabbed by a protester," his family said in a statement. "He went to Egypt because he cared profoundly about the Middle East, and he planned to live and work there in the pursuit of peace and understanding." 

Egyptian state media reported that he was stabbed in the chest while filming the protests...

Update: Pochter's Arab adventure was initially underwritten by the U.S. State Department:

Andrew D. Pochter, the young American teacher who was killed during protests in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on Friday night was a man whose mind was “filled with Arabic language and with the Arab world,” a teacher who taught him in Morocco told Al Arabiya English.

He was also a young man who “loved common folks, socializing and simple life” despite coming from an upper middle class family in the United States, said Hachimi Taoufik, a teacher who taught Arabic to Pochter in al-Jadida, Morocco.

“I believe he was the only student among his group who was the most social; he loved to go buy sardine sandwiches in Mellah, that cost 5 dirhams (60 cents), he loved to come home and cook with my wife and kids, he even liked to go grocery shopping to cook some of the meals he wanted to share with us,” Taoufik said.

Pochter, 21, studied in Morocco between June 2010 and June 2011 as part of the U.S. National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) funded by the Department of State to study in Morocco, said Bouchra Kachoub, then resident director of NSLI-Y.

From the NSLI-I website:

NSLI-Y programs offer intensive language immersion in a variety of locations around the world. Scholarships are available for students to learn the following languages:

• Arabic
• Chinese (Mandarin)
• Hindi
• Korean

• Persian (Tajik)
• Russian
• Turkish

Programs may take place in the following locations:

• China
• Egypt
• India
• Jordan
• Korea
• Morocco
• Oman

• Russia
• Taiwan
• Tajikistan
• Turkey
• Other locations
  around the world

Um, maybe they should rethink sending young Pochters to fend for themselves in some of those dangerous locales. (And a young Jew going to Morsi's Egypt during a summer of Jew-hate--really bad idea.)

Update: You can all but bet that Andrew Pochter won't be turned into the Rachel Corrie of the Arab Spring. So don't expect any theatrical productions featuring entries from the young idealist's diary, or Billy Bragg setting Andrew's life to music as he did for Rachel, "martyr" to the Jew-oppressed Palestinians and their "just" and "urgent" cause. And, oh yeah, no one is going to call Andrew the Anne Frank of Egypt, even though Andrew, a casualty of irrational Jew-hate, has more in common with Anne, another casualty of Jew-hate, than Anne has with Rachel, a casualty of her own Zionhass/Americahass, engendered by her own extreme leftism.

So They ARE Gay

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Give It a Rest, John

John Kerry extends marathon Mideast peace effort

The Political Message of Dykes v. Kykes

The Toronto Star reports on yesterday's Dyke March, which, like the Pride Parade (set to attract over a million people today, supposedly) has also been hit by the Zionhass bug:

Jacquie Buncel and Lorraine Gale, both of Toronto, have participated in the Dyke March with their daughters, Aviva, 12, and Maya, 10, since the girls were infants. Buncel said it was unusual a decade ago to take children to the Dyke March but it is more common now — evidenced Saturday by parents pushing baby strollers and youngsters carried on shoulders. 

“We haven’t met with a lot of homophobia as a family” said Buncel, who noted Toronto crowds — some people standing three deep in places along the Yonge Street segment, most with cameras — are supportive of marchers. 

Buncel and Gale, both in their early 50s, were part of a group carrying black placards that stated in pink lettering: “Boycott Gay Tourism to Israel” and “There’s nothing hot about cruising in an apartheid state.”

No doubt about it--Zionhass makes you hateful and stupid.

 

Update: Actually, there's plenty that's hot about cruising in Israel (which, contrary to the Big Lie purveyed by the leftist/Marxist/Islamist axis of Zionhass, is not and has never been an apartheid state).

Nice Bunch of Relatives You've Got There, Mr. Mandela

Not really.

"Homegrown Terrorists"--Don't Think of Them as "Lone Wolves"

Think of them as young men who find the siren call of jihad especially compelling.



But a few members of the a cappella choir of heaven's singing sirens

Obama's Selective, Highly-Politicized Sweating

As Brigitte Pellerin points out, he was sweatin' buckets when it was time to roll out his climate change agenda, but he's as cool as a proverbial cuke during a visit to hot-as-Hades Africa:

Christian Girl Accused of "Blasphemy" in Pakistan Finds Refuge in Canada

Don't tell any of our local zanies, 'kay?

A Christian girl who was falsely accused of blasphemy in Pakistan has fled to Canada, CBC News has learned. 

Rimsha Masih, 14, was charged with blasphemy in 2012 for allegedly burning pages of the Qu’ran. 

Although she was acquitted, supporters say her family decided to live in hiding after continued threats. 

The family made the secret journey to Canada just weeks ago – arriving at an undisclosed location in Toronto, according to Peter Bhatti, who runs a Christian organization that is helping them settle in Canada. 

Bhatti says that Masih, her parents and her brother and sister had to leave Pakistan in order to have safe, secure lives. 

Their journey to Canada comes after Masih’s case sparked an international outcry when she was arrested last August. 

A neighbour claimed she had burned pages of the Qu’ran. Masih – said to have Down’s syndrome – spent 25 days in an adult prison before being freed on bail. 

The incident fuelled new calls for reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which have often been used to target religious minorities and to settle personal scores...

You can bet these tender-hearted Jews won't do much of anything to safeguard this sort of refugee.

Toronto's Dyke Parade--Come for the Political Statement, Stay for the Ta-Tas

Topless lesbians making a political statement--what more could one ask for on an otherwise dull Saturday afternoon?

Join the Toronto Sun's Julia Alexander for live coverage of Saturday's Dyke March — part of the city's Pride Week events.

But don't confuse it with Sunday's Pride Parade, organizers say, because "the march is not a parade but a political rally."

The event caters to lesbians and transgendered people, but encourages every one to come out and support the march which, "strive to dismantle racism, transphobia, classism, and ableism."...

What about striving to dismantle loopy, self-important Marxism? I'm waiting for the parade/political rally that'll tackle that madness.

Still Celebrating the End of State Censorship? Anthony Furey Says You Might Want to Tone It Down a Bit

He has a point:

It may just be a case of winning the battle but losing the war. After the usual long slog through the House and the Senate, Bill C-304 has the go ahead, repealing Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Now a nuisance complaint can no longer see someone dragged before a kangaroo court based on Internet “hate speech” — which could be something as simple as typing that you don’t like someone’s religion or making a colourful joke. Now there will be a higher threshold for “hate speech” prosecution. Police and courts will adjudicate, instead of tribunals. In other words, serious cases will still be prosecuted. But this argument is far from over. It may even get worse.

Here’s what Kathleen Mahoney, a University of Calgary law professor, said at a June 25 Senate committee studying the bill: “Human rights legislation puts the onus on individuals to make a claim. In other words, it does not recognize that people are members of groups. When a person is attacked individually, their group is attacked as well. In order to achieve a human rights remedy, every individual must go before a Human Rights Commission and say: This is what happened to me, because I was Jewish, because I was a woman, because I was gay or because I was a fill-in-the-blank. 

“It seems to me it would improve our human rights legislation if the legislation recognized group harms in addition to individual harms.” 

Recognize group harm?! But groups don’t actually exist. And they certainly don’t have rights. And if they did, how could they act en masse? Is there really an official Jew out there who has the right to speak for and file suits on behalf of all Jews? 

This is a troubling statement, particularly as it comes from a legal authority...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Explains Why That "Two State Solution" Is a Non-Starter

Are you listening, John Kerry?

Writer and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali offered some frank words on the prospect for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians in a wide-ranging interview with Israel Hayom, saying “From the perspective of the Arab leaders, reaching a two-state solution is to betray God, the Koran, the hadith and the tradition of Islam.”...

Hirsi Ali says that the two sides, the Israelis and Palestinians, have diametrically opposed concerns, and this has lead to the current stalemate. 

“…the main problem is that you may speak of a peace process, but what you get is a process, not peace. And why is this process so prolonged? Because for the Israelis this issue is a territorial problem. For the Palestinian negotiators, on the other hand, it is not a territorial problem but a religious and ethnic one, It is not only about Palestinians but about all Arabs. Most of all, it is a religious problem.” 

Hirsi Ali continues: “But there is no agreement as of today, because on one side it has become religious jihad of all or nothing, while on the other side it is still a territorial issue. Of course I know that there are Israelis who also perceive this as a religious problem; but their numbers pale in comparison to the Muslim side.” 

Describing Islam as an “Orthopraxy”— something that must be fought for, Hirsi Ali says that what is needed most— compromise—is unlikely to be attainable...

It is about the territory--the puny Jewish territory that sticks out like a sore thumb in the vast, pristine, all-Islamic landscape

Don't You Hate When That Happens?

Another Mississauga home 'bombed' by sky poo

A Barbershop Chorus of Singing Vegetables? Does the TDSB Know About This?

Dudes dressing up as broccoli? It could put a whole new spin on the TDSB's nifty crudité suggestions.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Muslim Brother(hood)

Andrew McCarthy has nothing good to say about Obama and Co. welcoming Qaradawi factotum Sheik bin Bayyah to the White House:

It is not known whether Donilon, Smith, Rashad Hussein (Obama’s envoy to the 57-government Organization of Islamic Cooperation), and the other administration officials on hand congratulated bin Bayyah and the IUMS on recently welcoming Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a member of the organization. Yes, Hamas is still a terrorist organization. And yes, it is still a federal crime to promote terrorism — at least nominally. But when it comes to the Brotherhood, our president is obviously of a mind to let bygones be bygones, insha Allah. 

Taking cues from the Brotherhood is working out well, wouldn’t you say? Iraq and Libya are imploding; the Obama-backed Islamic-supremacist regimes in Egypt and Turkey are brutally repressing authentic democratic revolts; the Taliban is poised to retake Afghanistan; and now, we’re off to Syria...

If things go according to plan, Assad will be toppled and al Qaeda types will rule in Damascus. And that's a good idea because...?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Update: Jonathan S. Tobin says:

If the likes of Bin Bayyah are welcome in the White House, it’s little wonder the president and his foreign policy team have been unable to put forward a coherent policy on dealing with the problems of the Middle East.

My song for Bin Bayyah (the ditty he should have been sung in Washington):

Pack up all your jihadis,
Get rid of Hamas, please.
Bye Bin Bayyah.
MuBros are ambitious guys,
Viscous dudes; seditious lies.
Bye Bin Bayyah.
Infidels host him at their own peril.
He wants to make kafirs weak and sterile.
Obama is a big fat dud.
MuBros are out for blood.
Bin Bayyah, buh bye,
Bin Bayyah, buh bye.

Update: Obama's Muslim Brotherhood doctrine is insane

Ontario's First Lesbian Premier Has Nothing, Squat, Diddly, to Say About QuAIA Zionhass Polluting the Pride Parade

One thing you can say about Premier Kathleen Wynne--when it comes to QuAIA's Zionhass, she has no balls at all:

TORONTO -- She's been busy running from one Pride event to another this week -- including two on Thursday -- and has made sure everyone knows she's the first Ontario premier to march in Toronto's Pride parade this Sunday. 

At a Law Society of Upper Canada Pride reception three nights ago our first openly gay Premier Kathleen Wynne waxed poetic about those who are "singled out for exclusion" because of their sexual identity and told the group they must all work together to ensure that "fairness and equality" are central to Ontario's values. 

She also referred to one of her big political agendas -- protecting school kids from "bullying" and giving them the right to form gay-straight alliances in Ontario schools. 

Obviously, as an openly gay right-of-centre married woman, I have absolutely no issue with Wynne being front and centre at a myriad of Pride events this week. 

What I do have problem with is her complete and utter silence on the very controversial Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) file -- that is, the very toxic presence of this group both at the parade and at a Pride Week event. 

The province's stake in Pride is even higher than the City of Toronto's $140,000 grant (plus free policing and cleanup resources). This year the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport gave Pride Toronto a $350,000 Celebrate Ontario grant -- one that is supposed to assist festival organizers to attract more tourists...

Celebrate Zionhass. It has an eerily Third Reichian ring to it, no?

The WorldPride 2014 "Human Rights" Confab at U of T (the Place Where Israeli Apartheid Week Got Its Start) Sounds Like It'll Be a Real Far Lefty Humdinger

Here are some possible topics for next year's "LGBTTIQQ2SA human rights around the world" confab, but I expect at least one more (i.e. Israeli "pinkwashing") to be added before it starts:

Possible themes of workshops, panels, and presentations for The WorldPride Human Rights Conference 2014 include: 

"Homonationalism"? That's a new one on me.

Can't Wait to See How QuAIA is Going to Interpret This Year's Pride Theme, "Superqueer"

Do you think they may strut around as Hamas "superheroes," decked out in full jihad "superhero" martyrdom gear?


QuAIA "superheroes" at "Superqueer"?

Update: Remarkable how much they look like these, um, "superheroes":



Section 13 is Dead. Is It Me, Or Does Jonathan Kay Sound Underwhelmed By Its Demise?

Mark Steyn posts Jonathan Kay's thoughts on the death of state censorship, a development which Kay attributes primarily to a post-9/11 sensibility. After reading it over twice, however, I found  I found Kay's words on the matter to be fairly tepid.

No, I take it back--they're extremely tepid. 

While crediting Ezra Levant and Steyn for their fight, Kay still gets in his digs at both of them, and credits Globe and Mail opiner Doug Saunders for getting it right re Islamic demographics. (Saunders' half-baked ideas can summarized like this: hey, don't sweat the big stuff--like global jihad.)

Kay, too, seems disinclined to want to sweat it, a function, it appears, of his post-Among the Truthers mentality. Ever since writing that book, in which he exposes "troofers" on the left but also lashes out at "extremists" on the right, one of whom is the decidedly non-extreme and perfectly sensible David Solway, Kay has been trying to position himself as a calm, cool, dispassionate centrist, and his writing has suffered as a result.

Can You Develop PTSD After Being Heckled By a Comedian?

A lesbian who claimed that it happened to her got a big pay day courtesy a "human rights" body and the courts, but a woman who has the disorder writes in a letter to the NatPo that the idea that you can get it that way is, well, laughable. As someone who suffers from "complex-PTSD," she says

it took way, way more than someone swearing at me and giving me a shove to be diagnosed. I’m considered a victim of torture. I suffered for over 15 years, I’ve also been raped and held hostage at knife point for over six hours.

I’m in a support group. Most of the women there have PTSD and have suffered rape, been physically assaulted for years, were sexually assaulted as children or have seen war conditions or death as a result of a natural disaster.

This bar patron, who claims to developed PTSD after having suffered “ ’lasting physical and psychological effects’ after [a comedian] directed a string of lesbian slurs at her,” makes a mockery out of a very serious illness. Having generalized anxiety disorder is serious, but you cannot say you have PTSD with a straight face in this circumstance. Her life was never in danger: that is one of the criteria for being diagnosed with the disease.

She makes people like me, and those in my support group, seem less legitimate. Shame on her. 

K. Murphy, Mississauga, Ont.

Watch it, Ms. Murphy. Saying such things to a hyper-sensitive lesbian could potentially complicate her anxiety issues, and could get you hauled in front of a "human rights" 'roo to answer for your "discrimination."

It's a Logical 12 to 7 That NOW Magazine's Gender Blender Cover Does Away With Guys and Dolls

 Here's this week's cover:



Here's my song:

When you see a "guy"
Heave a big heavy sigh
'Cuz it's just so passé
To have guys and dolls.
When you catch a chick lookin' more like a dude
Please don't go and be rude,
Or show her some 'tude,
Be in a bad mood.
When you view some "girls"
In mascara and pearls
But they'll still packin' genital folderal.
Call it odd or confusin' and, pal,
You'll come in for a bruisin'
'Cuz it's just so passé
To have guys and dolls, and dolls,
Yes, it's just so passé
To have guys and dolls!

Al Jazeera Buys Into the "Newseum," the D.C. Venue With the Words of the First Amendment on Its Frontage

Claudia Rosett examines this revolting development:

What Al Jazeera most seems to need is credibility. Which brings us to its arrangements to broadcast from the Newseum, a venue meant to showcase the glories of a free press, not the advantages of Arab oil wealth. Operating as a tax-exempt public charity, built at a cost of $475 million and opened in 2008, the Newseum is located on prime Washington real estate just blocks from the White House and Capitol. Complete with conference facilities and crammed with interactive exhibits and historic items—such as a twisted piece of the antenna that once topped the North Tower of the World Trade Center—the Newseum’s block-long building offers a prestigious address, especially for those in the news trade. To symbolize transparency, its walls are made of glass, adorned at one end with a 74-foot-high marble slab engraved with the First Amendment. 

Giants of the American news industry contributed millions to help create this place. Plastered throughout its premises are the names of such patrons as Hearst, the New York Times, Bloomberg, News Corporation, ABC, and NBC. The studio Al Jazeera is now refurbishing to its taste is named for the Knight Foundation, a legacy of the Knight Newspapers empire. Until recently, it was home to ABC’s This Week, with George Stephanopoulos. 

It’s easy to see what Al Jazeera gets from this arrangement. But what is the Newseum getting? Or, to put it in dollar terms, how much? Al Jazeera America, headquartered in New York, did not return my phone calls. When I phoned the Newseum press office recently to ask for financial details of the Al Jazeera arrangements, it turned out that officials of this institution dedicated to reporting would not answer such questions from a reporter. Newseum media relations manager Jonathan Thompson did confirm that while a number of other news organizations rent temporary studio space at the Newseum, “Al Jazeera will be the only news organization that has a more permanent contract.”... 

Thereby demonstrating the First Amendment is no match for an ambitious, sharia-loving emirate awash in oil wealth.

Canadians React to the Death of State Censorship (Section 13)

Some are sad while others are elated:

Various human rights lawyers and groups such as the Canadian Bar Association say Section 13 is an important tool in helping to curb hate speech, and that removing it would lead to the proliferation of such speech on the Internet. 

But critics of Section 13 said it enabled censorship on the Internet, and are calling its repeal a victory for free speech. 

“We’re pleased with the repeal,” said Cara Zwibel, director of the fundamental freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who testified before a Senate committee on the topic. 

Zwibel said Section 13 had “some serious problems from a freedom of expression perspective.” 

“We don’t want there to be a chill on speech that is controversial but not necessarily hateful,” she said. “We felt that given the impact that it has on freedom of expression, and given that it hasn’t really proven to be a very effective method for dealing with discrimination, that it shouldn’t be on the books anymore … We really encourage countering hateful speech, rather than trying to censor it.” 

Zwibel also said there’s not a lot of good evidence that marginalized groups have used the statute to curb discrimination. 

“Section 13 is not something that minority groups were already embracing and making use of,” she said, noting that a large majority of the tribunal cases “were brought by a single individual.” 

That person is Ottawa-based human rights lawyer Richard Warman, who has brought 16 successful Section 13 complaints before the human rights tribunal against neo-Nazis and white supremacists since 2001. 

On Thursday, Warman said section 13 had helped sideline neo-Nazis from the Internet because of the power of Section 13 to obtain cease and desist orders from Canada’s human rights tribunal and enforce them through the courts. 

“Virtually every other Western democracy has these kinds of civil law controls on hate speech,” Warman said. “Now, Canada just moves one large step further out of line from realizing that these kinds of controls are necessary and imperative.”...

God Bless Canada for having the courage and the wisdom to move "out of step" with "these kinds of controls," ones which have no place whatsoever in a free society.

In an Attempt to Pre-Empt Complaints About QuAIA's Orgy of Zionhass, Co-Chair of WorldPride Craps All Over Israel

Not a pfennig, not a farthing, not a shekel, not a plugged nickel in public funds would I give this shindig, not so long as this co-chair remains there:

The co-chair of the 2014 WorldPride Human Rights Conference in Toronto says organizers of the global gathering are worried it could be "an orgy of pinkwashing." 

Doug Kerr raised the issue at a discussion about pinkwashing — how Israel uses sex and marketing to distract from apartheid-like policies in the West Bank and Gaza — at the 519 Church Street Community Centre on June 24.

Kerr told speaker Ali Abunimah — one of the world’s leading voices in the anti-Israeli-apartheid movement — that conference organizers want to resist pinkwashing at WorldPride 2014. "But many of us involved in organizing see it as an opportunity for social justice education," he said. 

Abunimah, the co-founder of the influential blog Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, said Toronto is a leader in the global resistance to Israeli pinkwashing.

That’s thanks mostly to the efforts of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), which has been embroiled in a three-year fight against censorship at Pride Toronto (PT) and Toronto City Hall, Abunimah said..

In the annals of the Big Lie, the "pinkwashing" canard ranks right up there with "Israeli apartheid," Jews moistening their unleavened Passover matzohs with the blood of juicy young goyim, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Update: If the Zion-loathers have their way, WorldPride could end up turning into a Durban IV, a scenario predicted here:

Toronto will host the World Pride event in 2014, prompting fears from the pro-Israel camp that the event could be used as an even bigger platform to demonize the Jewish state. A grassroots advocacy group called Stop Sponsoring the Hatred raised concern about how World Pride 2014 might further tarnish the city’s reputation. “If [Toronto city council] doesn’t act to stop the politicization of a parade built on civility and tolerance, then it opens the floodgates to every hate group. And next year, World Pride 2014 will attract the same elements of the G20 who came here to politically protest, but ended up deliberately smashing our city,” the group said in a May 30 statement. “Is it unreasonable to speculate whether World Pride 2014 will be used as an international anti-Israel bashing session, like [the World Conference Against Racism in] Durban [in 2001]?”

No reason to speculate since the Zion-loathers have already shown that that's exactly what they're planning. The question is does anyone at City Hall have the cojones to do anything about it?

Photos of Fresh-Faced Jihadi Laddies Belie Their Barbaric Actions

For some reason--a desire to downplay the threat of violent jihad, perhaps?--the media love to haul out those cute, Lisa-Simpson-approved-non-threatening-boy photos of young jihadis. Thus, the by-now familiar head shots of hardened jihadis Omar Khadr and DzhokharTsarnaev. Similarly, as noted in passing in this Ceeb report about a Canadian "revert" who played a key role in a jihadi escapade in Algeria, going by the lad's yearbook photo he looked as docile and harmless as a lamb:

The 22-year-old Canadian man implicated in the deadly attack on an Algerian gas plant in January threatened to kill one foreign hostage every hour if his militant group's demands were not met. 

In exclusive interviews with CBC News, several of his former hostages at the In Amenas gas plant confirmed meeting London, Ont.-native Xristos Katsiroubas – a recent convert to an extremist form of Islam – during the attack. 

In those interviews — for some, the first public comments on the ordeal since it ended — survivors shed new light on Katsiroubas the militant, painting a picture at odds with the high school photo that has dominated news coverage. 

Katsiroubas, who is of Greek-Canadian extraction, apparently wore a beard and fatigues, was constantly carrying what appeared to be an AK-47, and could understand and speak some Arabic. 

More significantly, he helped handle weaponry and assemble improvised bombs, said one of the survivors of the ordeal who had a chance to observe him for hours. 

Katsiroubas also appeared to play the role of negotiator on behalf of the group of approximately 30 al-Qaeda-like militants who stormed the plant in Algeria near the border with Libya, and held some 800 oil workers hostage. The standoff lasted four days...

As docile and harmless as a ravenous wolf (and not a lone one), more like.

Obama a Competent President? C'mon Man!

David Solway says it's time to vote this doofus off the island.

Saudi Sharia Police Take a Pro-Active Approach to Law Enforcement Vis-a-Vis Lacy Unmentionables

I bet plenty of Wahhabi officers are volunteering for this gig:

The Labor Ministry is warning that it will intensify raids on abaya and lingerie shops from July 8, in association with related departments, to ensure they are run by Saudi women and follow the necessary conditions. 

“We have plans to restrict more jobs to women gradually,” the ministry said.
Lingerie and abaya shops that violate employment rules would be listed among the Red category and denied of the ministry’s services. 

“Employing women in abaya and lingerie shops is a must as it comes as part of the ministry’s efforts to create more jobs for Saudi women, especially in sectors related to women,” said a ministry official. 

“All shops should meet the criteria before July 7,” he added. 

In a related development, Saudi businessmen have called for the setting up of specialized companies to provide various services such as plumbing, cleaning and electrical services to meet manpower shortage following the departure of thousands of illegals...

Sorry, but I'm having a hard time seeing how setting up plumbing services and a raid on the Riyadh Victoria's Secret are "related." (Only in Saudi Arabia, eh?)

Meet the New Emir. Same as the Old Emir

No real change in sight as Qatar remains a bastion of Zionhass and jihad-enablement.

This Section 13 Is No More. It Has Ceased To Be. It's Expired and Gone to Meet Its Maker. It's a Stiff, Bereft of Life...

Section 13=dead parrot. Hurray and huzzah!

 

Update: The "human rights" apparatchiks/kangaroos can no longer play the role of censor, but that doesn't mean we have free speech:

Section 13 ostensibly banned hate speech on the Internet and left it up to the quasi-judicial human rights commission to determine what qualified as "hate speech." 

But, unlike a court, there was no presumption of innocence of those accused of hate speech by the commission. 

Instead, those accused had to prove their innocence. 

With elimination of Section 13, producing and disseminating hate speech continues to be a Criminal Code violation but police and the courts will adjudicate rather than human rights tribunals.

Police? The courts? Swellllll!

Head of the Neo-Caliphate Tells Europe to Accept Inevitablity of Islam

A member of one civilization (a supremely confident one) tells members of another civilization (an exhausted, self-loathing one) that it's time to put up and shut up:

CAIRO – A global Muslim body has called on the European countries to accept Muslims and their religion as a family member and to fight anti-Muslim sentiments to help improve relations with the Muslim world. 

"Islam should be welcomed as a family member in Europe, not as a guest,” Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), told Anadolu news agency and Turkish state broadcaster TRT on Tuesday, July 25. 

“As the exclusion of Islam means ignoring the influential role of Islamic civilization in the evolution of the Western civilization." 

Ihsanoglu is currently in Brussels to open the OIC Permanent Observer Mission to the European Union (EU)....

Emphasis on the "Permanent."

A Study That's Bound to Wrankle Zion-Loathers Everywhere

Canada is number one and Israel is tied with Japan for number two in a new survey ranking the "most educated" countries in the world

"Diversity" and "Inclusivity" at Obama's White House Means Saying Howdy to a Qaradawi Factotum

Don't worry. I'm pretty sure he's one of those "moderate" members of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi is considered so radical that the United States bans him from entering the country. 

Qaradawi, considered the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, has called for the killing of Jews and Americans. 

That history makes the June 13 White House meeting with Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah all the more inexplicable. Bin Bayyah is vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a group founded by and headed by Qaradawi. The IUMS has a long history of supporting Hamas -a top Hamas leader is an IUMS member - and of calling for Israel's destruction. 

Bin Bayyah's website claims that he met June 13 with senior Obama administration officials at the White House. 

Nonetheless, it was the Obama administration which sought the meeting with Bin Bayyah, his website's account said. 

"We asked for this meeting to learn from you and we need to be looking for new mechanisms to communicate with you and the Association of Muslim Scholars (another name used for the IUMS)," Gayle Smith, senior director of the National Security Council, reportedly said...

Mechanisms for dhimmitude, more like.

Jew-Hate Is Alive and Well and Living in...Boston?

Yup:

WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP) — Babson College plans to offer a formal apology for anti-Semitic actions taken by students 35 years ago before and during a crucial soccer game with Brandeis University. 

The Boston Globe reports (http://bo.st/14X5BK9) that Babson President Len Schlesinger will apologize Wednesday. He'll also announce a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League on a program to eliminate bigotry. 

The ADL says that in November 1978, several players at Babson, a private business school based in the Boston suburb of Wellesley, hung a sign in the gym that read "Happy Holocaust" during the game with Brandeis, a school in nearby Waltham with a large Jewish population. 

The ADL says Babson players also wore swastikas during the final practice before the game and yelled "Holocaust!" and other anti-Semitic slurs to boost morale. 

A statement by the ADL says the "insulting and ignorant actions left a bitter taste in the mouths of everyone at Brandeis."

Who do these Babson players think they are? QuAIA?

Update: In light of the above story, this is freaking hysterical (not my bolds):

Diversity at Babson

A Prerequisite for Success in a Global Environment 

In an increasingly complex, changing, and interdependent world, collaboration is at once more critical than ever and more challenging. The technologies exist to bring different people together; what is needed is experience working closely with people from different cultures and countries, bridging differences and leveraging the strengths each person brings to the table. 

Babson's mission is to educate entrepreneurial leaders who create great economic and social value—everywhere. We have embraced a strategic vision that states our commitment to create “a diverse, multicultural and inclusive community of highly talented students, faculty and staff characterized by respect, understanding and appreciation of the uniqueness and value of all people.” 

Inclusivity begins with the diversity represented in our student body...

"Happy Holocaust" and "inclusivity"/"diversity" don't seem to go together too well. Just sayin'.

Apparently There's No Human Right to Not Have Your Pocket Picked for the Benefit of Canada's "Human Rights" Mausoleum

Not for Canadian taxpayers, and not for union members:

SISLER High School teacher Matthew Stacey is a staunch union member and supporter of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights -- coming from a long line of Welsh miners will do that to someone.

 

But he bristles when his own union, the Manitoba Teachers' Society, wants to spend $1.5 million in union dues -- $91 over five years from Stacey -- to name a classroom in the new museum.  

"The issue isn't about giving money away, the issue is about consulting people," said Stacey. "You have to go out and actively inform people. At this school, most teachers had no clue."  

Stacey said it should be left to individuals to choose their charities. "This is not about the museum and I'm not anti-union. I don't think they have any right to dictate their conscience to us."  

Stacey has called on Gail Asper, a trustee with the CMHR and the driving force behind the museum as president of the Asper Foundation, to reject the $1.5 million from the MTS.  

"All citizens of Canada are entitled to freedom of conscience and freedom of association, and for me, charitable donations are guided by conscience," Stacey wrote to Asper. "The irony of fundamental rights and freedoms being contravened in the name of a human rights charity is both unfortunate and unsettling."...

Gee, that's exactly how I feel as a taxpayer been forced to fund this laughingstock.

The Ontario "Human Rights" Commission's Gay Abandon Revealed in Tweet Timed for Pride Week

Did you know that here in Ontario gays have been granted the extra-special right to complain that they've been harassed in the workplace even when they haven't been harassed in the workplace? No? Well, it says so right here (my emphasis):

Harassment can happen even if the comments or actions are not specifically about sexual orientation.  

Example: In a workplace that has a history of homophobic attitudes, the only two “out” gay workers are targeted repeatedly for ridicule and practical jokes. In the past, other gay workers have quit due to similar treatment. Based on the circumstances, the remaining “out” workers could argue that they are being harassed based on their sexual orientation, even though no one has directly referred to the fact they are gay.

Nice work if you can get it.

Khomeinist Group, Part of the Grandiose Ayatollah's Propaganda Machine, Doled Out the Moolah to Three Canadian Universities (and Lots of American Ones)

According to this article, Carleton, McGill and the University of Alberta have all benefited from the Khomeinists' largesse.

Update: Maclean's has more:

A foundation that American authorities say is a front for the Iranian government continues to fund McGill University and a Toronto Farsi school, years after U.S. federal prosecutors went to court to seize the group’s assets and alleged it was channelling money to an Iranian state-owned bank sanctioned by Canada. 

The Alavi Foundation is a New York-based non-profit that has given more than $300,000 to Canadian universities, and more than $200,000 to the private Toronto Farsi School, since 2004. 

In November 2009, U.S. federal prosecutors filed an amended civil complaint seeking the forfeiture of the foundation’s interest in a lucrative Manhattan office tower, from where it derives most of its income. The property was built in the 1970s by the Pahlavi Foundation, which was controlled by the shah of Iran to run the country’s charitable activities in America. 

The claim, which is not resolved, alleges that, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s new government took control of the property and the foundation, which it renamed, running them through Iran’s ambassadors to the United Nations. 

It alleges that the Iranian state-owned Bank Melli, through an offshore shell company, owns 40 per cent of the Manhattan property, while the Alavi Foundation controls the remaining 60 per cent. 

Under Canada’s 2010 Special Economic Measures Regulations on Iran, Bank Melli is a designated entity with which Canadians cannot do business...

Update: About that private school in Toronto...:

The Toronto Farsi School was founded seventeen years ago as a Persian language and literature centre.  

The school is registered as a not for-profit organization and has charitable status. 

The school's primary objective is to ensure that Iranian-Canadian children are kept in touch with their heritage...

If the school accepts money from Khomeinists, one has to question exactly which part of their heritage these kids are being "kept in touch with." What, for example, are students being taught about the Iranian Revolution? Also, shouldn't any school that receives funding from a front group for the Iranian regime have its charitable status revoked post haste?

Europe's Jews Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Literally:

Jews in Europe seem to be caught between the hammer of persecution by Muslims and the anvil of “post-multicultural” native-European animosity toward both Jews and Muslims as “outsiders, clinging to backward, unsavory rituals and beliefs.”

The Epitome of Hot Air

President Obama announces a climate change action plan

Is the New Brad Pitt Flick--WWZ--an Exercise in Zombie Zionhass?

I haven't seen it, but someone who has--Hendrick Hertzberg of the New Yorker--has some mighty disturbing things to say about it:

Early in the film, for example, we learn that while the governments of the United States, Russia, and the big European powers have been pretty much obliterated (though their cable-TV news networks are still going strong), two countries, and only two, have managed to survive the onslaught of the undead: North Korea and Israel.  

A curious pairing, that, don’t you think? The axis of … of what, exactly?  

North Korea does well because its dictatorship is so ruthless that it succeeds in forcing everyone in the country (with the exception, presumably, of Kim Jong-un and selected other Kims) to have all their teeth pulled, so that nobody can bite anybody else. (Zombiefact: you can’t be gummed to undeath.)  

What do the Israelis do? They build a wall. But they’re basically humane, civilized people, so in Jerusalem, where we join them, they keep a gate open to let in the as-yet-uninfected un-undead—Palestinian Arabs, by the look of them. All goes well until some Palestinians already in the city start singing too lustily, and the massed zombies, also seemingly Palestinian, decide that they want in, too. (Zombies are attracted by loud noises.) This leads to the most remarked-upon scene in the film, which takes place at what resembles the Western Wall. The scrambling West Bank zombies just keep coming, climbing on top of one another until they form a giant ex-human pyramid, a siege engine of the undead, stacking up and spilling over the barrier. We are left to infer that everything probably would have still been O.K. if only the gates had been kept shut.  

One has to wonder what foreign audiences, which are crucial to the commercial success of this type of expensive Hollywood spectacle, will make of all this. Will they conclude that the filmmakers saying that Kim Jong-un and Benjamin Netanyahu are the wisest leaders in the world, except that Kim is a little bit wiser, because he’s uncontaminated by humanitarian sentiments? North Koreans still have a few teeth in their heads, but Israel has already built a wall. Will foreign audiences, or potential audiences, interpret the film’s message to be that the only thing wrong with the existing wall is that it’s not sealed tight enough?  

I’m pretty sure these were not the filmmakers’ intentions. What they did intend, obviously, was to give a boost to the battered ideals of internationalism...

Scrambling West Bank zombies, you say? Man, I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall when this movie was first pitched ("It's like a cross between Night of the Living Dead and Jew Süss...").

In the Nazi era, Judenhass was used to boost the battered ideals of nationalism. It should thus come as no surprise that Zionhass, the Jew-hate of our time, would be used to boost internationalism.

No surprise--but revolting all the same.

Gays the New "Chosen People"?

So says this individual:

“I can’t imagine a world in which I was born gay and wasn’t completely proud, to the point of arrogance. It’s like you are the REAL chosen people. You’re smarter, funnier, warmer, kinder, more capable of emotional intelligence, more stylish, and just straight-up more incredible than anybody else on this planet.”

You know, as a Jew my feelings are really hurt by such an assertion. I'd be tempted to turn this alleged funny person into the "human rights" cops--that is, if I didn't loathe our so-called "human rights" system, and if I didn't know that in the pecking order of victimhood a Lesbian chick trumps a Jewish one every time. ;)

"The Cursed Elixir of Political Dysfunction -- Oil"

Oh, brother! Harper Derangement Syndrome, anyone?

"The Next Time U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Visits Ramallah, Will He Actually Violate U.S. Law to Make Sure There are No Jews Among His Entourage Lest He Upset His Palestinian Hosts?"

Good question.

"Nations Swinging Away at the Obama Pinata"

Well, whadya know? There really is such a thing.

"Ku Klux Klanners 4 Israel"?

Lefty Webzine Slate illustrates its flagrant anti-Israel bias thusly:

Portugal's "Baby Bust" Shows Prescience of Mark Steyn's Warnings Re EU Demographics

Things are so dire in Portugal that the locals are disinclined to procreate, a situation Mark Steyn warned about (and was criticized for) in America Alone.

John Bolton for President!

Halevai (Yiddish for "I should live so long"/"yes, please"), as my late Bubby might have said.

Derisory Islamic Group Mocks Murder of Infidels by Taking on Name of Bombs (IEDs) Used to Kill Them

This is what passes for humour in certain extremist precincts:

Hate preacher Anjem Choudary is backing a new Muslim group accused of using its name to ridicule British soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

The Islamic Emergency Defence is already being shortened to IED, which also stands for the Improvised Explosive Devices used to kill or maim soldiers abroad.
Anjem Choudary, who said Drummer Lee Rigby 'will burn in hellfire' after he was executed on a Woolwich street a month ago, has an advisory role with the group. 

The new organisation says it has been set up to stop 'violent hooligans willing to inflict large scale carnage on innocent Muslims'.  

They have also set up an emergency hotline for Muslims to call them instead of the police so incidents can be 'dealt with in a swift and Islamic manner'. 

Their website adds: 'Our aim is to build a national network of Muslim volunteers who are ready and able to protect and defend any Muslim from verbal and physical abuse. 

'Muslims should not be afraid to protect themselves or their brothers and sisters from acts of violence or hooliganism, because it is totally rational, sensible and above all: Islamic'...

Reality Check: David Solway Explains Why a New "Progressive" Muslim Group Is Doomed to Fail

One can applaud those who seek to bring about the equivalent of a Reformation in Islam. At the same time, though, one must be realistic, as Solway is when he says that such efforts are unlikely to make much (or even any) headway:

What these “moderates” or enlightened Muslims are proposing, however laudable, has little to do with mainstream Islam, whose fundamental scriptures cannot be rewritten on pain of apostasy and execution. Any scrupulous reading of the Koran and the attendant canonical and jurisprudential literature should make it amply clear that injunctions to slaughter, conquest, oppression and domination are inscribed in the faith. No attempt at what is euphemistically called “re-interpretation” or “contextualizing” can be expected to gain even modest traction in the larger Muslim world.

Then, too, Islam has had many "reformations"--Wahhabism, Khomeinism, Muslim Brotherhoodism--and each time it "reforms" by looking backwards, at the supposedly better earlier days of Islam's founder and his first few successors.

Kerry Thinks His "Face" Will Effect a Breakthrough Between Israel and Palestinians

The man has an ego the size of Dar al Islam:

Jerusalem Post – WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State John Kerry will head back to the region this week in his latest drive to renew peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, hoping that his strategy of putting in personal face time with leaders on both sides will finally produce results.

Has he looked in the mirror lately? He ain't that purty.

My song for the SCOTUS:

Frankly, John, your lack of modesty reveals to them
Self-appraisal of the most delusional kind.
And if I add your punim doesn't much appeal to them
It's not 'cuz your face looks like your behind.

You've got all the qualities of Mrs. C.
Looking at her face did not make them agree.

Don't love your scarecrow face,
Your wary, scarecrow face.
Though you're the SCOTUS,
Please don't quote us,
You've got a lot of audacity, you see.
You fill the air with smoke.
Your M.O. is a joke.
Though you're no Machiavelli
Your "face" time's a disgrace,
Your wary, scarecrow face...

QuAIA's Zionhass Is Okey-Dokey in Bernie's "Delicatebalanceland"

For one brief moment--'twas but a nanosecond, really--I thought an ex-Big Deal Jew had come over to the "dark side" (i.e. had seen the light) of free speech (h/t BCF):

Surely the delicate balance of free speech vs. hate speech is something both extremes of the spectrum must agree are worth embracing. From municipal pronouncements to human rights experts, many have opined on QuAIA’s use of the term “apartheid.” The conclusion reached is that it may be offensive, even obscene and hateful, but it simply does not meet the legal test of hate promotion."

Alas, this is not, as it may appear at first glance, an endorsement of free expression. It is, rather, an endorsement of the idea that certain designated victim groups, for example, the LGBTXYZ crowd, are allowed to hate others, but no one is allowed to hate them. Thus, it has become perfectly acceptable in "Delicatebalanceland," our national dystopian theme park, to hate--really full on, meets-the-legal-definition-of-hate hate--Christians (especially Catholics) and "Zionists." Which results in the cognitive contortions on display in the statement quoted above. QuAIA, because it is "queer," can spew Zionhass, an acceptable form of hatred (and the Jew-hate of our time), and can do so in a publicly-funded parade. However, it could not spew old-fangled "anti-Semitism"--that is, hatred aimed at Jewry qua Jewry--because Jews are still seen as a victim group (though, admittedly, we're near the bottom of the list these days, well below Muslims, Aboriginals, black people and those with disabilities). And you would never see, say, Ku Klux Klanners Against Israeli Apartheid being allowed to march in the Pride parade because, while their cause in this instance may be socially acceptable, they themselves are not.

 

In other words, the "delicate balance" and "the conclusion" that QuAIA's Zionhass "does not meet the legal test of hate promotion" is a load of codswallop that only those of the Leftish persuasion (a group that's even more tribal and insular than Jewry) could ever swallow.

 

Welcome to "Delicatebalanceland." Come for the scary rides; stay for the even scarier Zionhass.