The Headscarf Jihad

Can't hardly wait for "World Hijab Day." (FYI, it's the day before Groundhog Day, that infidel invention.)




Update: Iran's ABNA asks, "Will you wear a hijab?"

Bowing to What It Calls "A More Global Society," a U.S. Christian College Drops Its "Crusaders" Nickname

Well, after all, in the post-9/11 scheme of things, it is apt to offend:

Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown [Wisconsin] and its Division III athletic teams have used the name since its founding in 1968. Matt Davis, the university’s executive vice president, said no complaints have been received by the school and stressed that it coincides with its name change from Maranatha Baptist College in December. 

“But I also agree that times change and we understand that context changes,” Davis told FoxNews.com. “Our world has changed since 9/11 and we’ve become a more global society with the Internet. The heartbeat behind this was not political correctness, but expanded opportunities for our students.” 

Selecting the university’s next mascot will be a collaborative effort, Davis said, and the new name will be revealed during the spring semester. Uniforms will reflect the change beginning in the fall. Hundreds of potential replacements have already been submitted by students, alumni and university stakeholders...

Might I suggest "The Maranatha Dhimmis"?

Barack Obama Hearts (Unindicted Terrorism Co-Conspirator) ISNA; Stephen Harper...Not So Much

An article on the Gatestone Institute site by Christine Williams compares and contrasts the two leaders:

In dissociating itself from terrorism and terrorist entities, the current U.S. Administration has shown far less resolve than Canada at best, and encouragement for terrorism at worst, as in Obama's befriending the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], a Muslim Brotherhood entity which he went so far as to seek advice from when he visited the Middle East last March. For some background: Steven Emerson, an expert in national security, terrorism, and "Islamic extremism," published an article in the Investigative Project on Terrorism entitled: "ISNA Admits Hamas Ties". Hamas, which rules Gaza, is a terrorist organization that calls for Israel's obliteration. U.S. federal prosecutors have named ISNA, among three prominent Islamic organizations in the U.S., as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to financially support Hamas. ISNA was listed as one of the "unindicted co-conspirators" in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case, in which HLF founders were convicted of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. During that trial, ISNA and the North American Islamic Trust were also listed as "entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. 

ISNA's branch in Canada found itself in hot water, too, when four months ago the Canada Revenue Agency [CRA] stripped it of its charitable status over terror funding, following an audit of its books that pointed to evidence that linked the organization to Pakistani terrorist groups. The CRA issued a press release that stated, "The Government of Canada has made it clear that it will not tolerate the abuse of the registration system for charities to provide any means of support to terrorism." Meanwhile a federal court has just backed up former immigration minister Jason Kenney, by stating that he acted reasonably in cutting federal funding to the Canadian Arab Federation for supporting terrorist organizations. 

While Canada continues to crack down on terrorist-supporting entities, the current U.S. Administration has been busy tightening its relations with the "unindicted co-conspirator," ISNA, praising it as a "pillar of the American Muslim Community", and entering into consultative collaborations with it before U.S. President Barack Obama left for Israel last March. Obama met with ISNA President Imam Mohamed Magid and other Muslim and Arab American leaders to discuss issues "that will pertain to his upcoming trip to Palestine, Jordan and Israel." In addition to the consultations on his Middle East trip, Obama also had "an extensive 90-minute conversation... about his plans for immigration reform," according to the ISNA website...

Given all that, one can understand why American Jews would be hot for Obama, and why Canadian leftist Jews would whine about Harper's failure to see Israel's flaws as clearly as they do. ;)

Up Is Down, Over is Under, and, Oh, Yeah, the Niqab "Is Liberal and Progressive"

And anyone who has a problem with that line of thinking must be a big, fat "Islamophobe."

Nat King Cold A.K.A. Barack "I Speet on Your Constitution" Obama

Commenting yesterday on the president's ongoing flurry of Constitution-violating executive orders, Charles Krauthammer said that, "If a Republican had done what Obama has, he'd be impeached." It has become clear, however, that no matter how often Obama lies to the American people, and despite how frequently and flagrantly he insults the Constitution, the man, in a word, is...

Unimpeachable,
That's what he is.
Unimpeachable
For funny biz.

Like a thief that doesn't pay for it
How the POTUS gets away with it.
Never before
Has a pres'dent lied more.

Unimpeachable,
That is his fate.
Unimpeachable,
No Watergate.

That's why, darlin',
He's unteachable.
Also why he isn't reachable.
And why he is unimpeachable, too.

Um, Have They Checked the Karzai Brothers' Offshore Bank Accounts?

At least $1.6 billion in American "aid" to Afghanistan has gone missing. Where on earth do you suppose it could be?

"When It Comes to Being on the Same Page With Israel, American Jews Didn't Get the Memo"

I beg to differ. They got the memo--and chose to ignore it (because their devotion to Utopian leftism comes way before their commitment to Israel, an imperfect/non-Utopian state). 

Liberal Jews here in Canada--for instance, this chap--are exactly the same.

Totalitarian La Leche-ism

The UAE has just passed a law making it mandatory for mothers to breast-feed their babies for at least two years.  

My question: how will they enforce such a law? Via, say, Breast Police?

Interfaithy Rabbi Who Dissed Pamela Geller Talk Excluded From Harper's Israel Entourage

Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl's name didn't make it onto the long list--the very long list--and, for the life of him, he can't imagine why:

Though some 200 individuals were part of the “accompanying party” that joined the official delegation, questions have been raised as to who made the list and who didn’t.  

Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl of Beth Tzedec Congregation, one of Toronto’s largest synagogues, was not among those invited on the trip. He’s not sure why. There has been some discussion in the community about the list. “Jews talk about all kinds of things.  

People talk, who is on, who was not on.”  

According to Rabbi Frydman-Kohl...the Prime Minister’s Office made the final list after soliciting suggestions from major Jewish organizations. MPs submitted their own lists.

Gee, Rabbi, might your pointed exclusion have had something to do with this?

Just a hunch, mind you.

A Timely Read (or Re-Read): CAIR-CAN's Skeletons Exposed in '09 IPT Piece

In light of the entity formerly know as CAIR-CAN's libel lawsuit against the Harper government, it is interesting to read this piece by security expert David Harris. It first appeared on the Point de Bascule blog, and showed up on The Investigative Project on Terrorism site back in July '09. (Harris himself was SLAPPED by lawfare-loving CAIR-CAN, and well knows where the bodies are buried re this outfit and its true leanings.)

Obama's Female Sentries

Nonie Darwish says there's a reason why Obama has surrounded himself with so many chicks (Clinton, Rice, Sibelius etc.). It's to take—and dissipate—the heat so he won't have to:

It is not a coincidence that most of the Obama administration scandals happened under the leadership of women. The Obama administration chooses to surround itself with “yes men” and “yes women,” but liberal “yes women” have an advantage: it is hard to criticize and grill them when a scandal happens without being accused of sexism and being a bigoted woman-hater.

In our current political environment, liberal politicians in general, men and women, get away with a lot more than conservative politicians because of media liberal bias. But liberal female politicians can get away with a lot more than their male counterparts, and that explains why almost all the Obama scandals have female faces behind them. Under ordinary conditions, men or women should end up becoming fall guys or gals, but many of the women behind the Obama scandals end up rewarded, sometimes even with a better position.

Interesting theory—but I think there's another factor at play. I think Obama is a bit of a wuss who is used to, and even enjoys, being pushed around by alpha women (including Valerie Jarrett and his wife).

Obama's Half-Brother Malik--Best Man at the Obama-Robinson Nuptials--Dons a Festive Eliminationist Scarf

This post on American Thinker has the details, including a close up of the scarf worn with pride by Malik Obama (head of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, the "charity" named for the Obama boys' late pater which, go figure, was fast-tracked to non-profit status):

In case you aren't up on your Jew-'liminationist  imagery, Walid Shoebat explains that that's

a Hamas scarf (keffiyeh) that bears a well-known Palestinian slogan - 'Jerusalem is ours - WE ARE COMING!' It also includes a map of Palestine that says, 'From the River to the Sea!' In other words, Malik is saying, THERE IS NO ISRAEL.

Charming fellow. And, when it comes to brothers-of-presidents, a category that has included more than a few rogues and ne'er-do-wells, he makes a Billy Carter look classy, wise and sober in comparison.

Identity Theft

UN Watch asks:

Do Palestinian refugees in Syria suddenly forfeit their identity when the narrative no longer implicates Israel as the oppressor?

Apparently they do when UNRWA shills for shekels on their behalf. They become generic "civilians" because there's nothing to be gained by identifying them as "Palestinian refugees" when Israel can't be blamed for their suffering.

Loony Lefty California Prof Whitewashes Osama, Demonizes the U.S.

Gotta love those kooky academic types. They're so, ahem, creative with the facts:

Usama bin Laden was a freedom fighter and the U.S. is a “neocolonial power,” according to a California state university teacher whose writings are required reading for his political science students.

Emmit Evans, a political science lecturer at the public university Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, requires students in his "World Food Systems" class to read the textbook he co-authored, "The Other World." In the book, about politics in the developing world, Evans offers up a sanitized version of the 9/11 mastermind and the terrorist group he headed.

The Al Qaeda movement of Osama bin Laden is one example of an attempt to free a country (in this case, Saudi Arabia) from a corrupt and repressive regime propped up by a neocolonial power (in this case, the United States),” the book says. 

At least one student found the description hard to swallow. 

"It totally blew my mind that a professor would essentially call Al Qaeda a bunch of freedom fighters in required reading for class," Aaron Bandler, a junior who took Evans’ class, told FoxNews.com. 

Asked about his line referencing Al Qaeda, Evans told FoxNews.com in the language of academia that he merely presents facts and doesn't moralize. 

"With respect to my writings, they are empirical, not normative," he said...

They're a total crock, more like. Which is kind of ironic given that the prof's first name means "truth" in Hebrew.

Bad Employee-Job Fit

Dude in Poland who worked for a concentration camp museum gets fired for creating anti-Semitic posters in his spare time.

Way to Go, ScarJo!

The bodacious starlet has quit Oxfam because Oxfam, which takes issue with Israel, took issue with her new job as the face of Israeli company SodaStream.

Rather than let the BDSers push her around, she told 'em to shove it (or words to that effect)--which is the best way to deal with Zion-loathers and other totalitarian ideologues.

Justin Trudeau Banishes Liberal Sentors From Caucus, The Better to Distance Himself from the Stench Emanating From the Senate

Nice try, Justin, but a person would have to be really stupid (or a Liberal) to buy the snake oil you're flogging.

Oh, Swell--Q's Jian Ghomeshi Chats With the Jew Behind The Walrus's "Israel Taboo"

And for "balance" on the subject (which I wrote about yesterday), they've turned to Jonathan Kay of the National Post, and a regular commentator on a weekly Q panel. The thing is that in recent days, Kay's views on Israel have been more than a little, shall we say, problematic inasmuch as they seem designed primarily to provoke and upset NatPo readers.

But, yes, I guess in Ceebworld, Kay is seen as an acceptable--and therefore has become the designated--token non-leftist. (I don't count Rex Murphy here because, whereas in his NatPo guise he's a Tory tiger, in his Ceeb radio guise as host of Cross Country Checkup, he's as docile as a declawed tabby.)

Margaret Wente on How Harper's Israel Trip Brought Out the Worst in the Left--Especially the Jews

The idea that Harper's visit was a naked bid to wrap up that "all-important" Jewish vote is just plain wacky, she writes:

Some of my Jewish friends can’t decide what’s more offensive – Mr. Harper’s lovey-dovey friendship with Bibi Netanyahu (not their favourite guy), or the casual assumption in some parts of the media that all Jews think alike, that all they care about is Israel, and that their votes can be bought so cheaply. 

“I find that completely offensive,” Donna says. “It’s insulting and demeaning.” 

There is something about Stephen Harper that makes a lot of people irrational. Israel makes people irrational, too. So I guess it’s no surprise that when you combine Mr. Harper and Israel, a lot of people start saying really stupid things. This applies especially to our progressive opinion elites, who seem to have decided that Mr. Harper has twisted Canada’s Israel policy out of all recognition. Some of them also seem to believe that Canada’s Jews are so numerous, so powerful, and so single-mindedly devoted to Israel that they can significantly influence our politics and foreign policy. I am afraid this vastly overestimates their clout. Although it’s true that their accomplishments are out of proportion to their numbers, Jews account for only 350,000 of all Canadians. That’s roughly 1 per cent of the population. 

As for Canada’s Israel policy, it’s pretty much the same as it ever was. Canada supported a two-state solution back in 1947, and that has never changed. The Chrétien regime tilted a little more toward the Palestinians, but the Martin regime tilted back. Those who say we’ve sacrificed our role as an “honest broker” in the Middle East are simply nostalgic for the days when the Liberals were in power. They bitterly lament the decline of a “principled” approach to foreign policy, by which they mean their principles, as opposed to Mr. Harper’s, which they don’t like...

More than a few of those leftist lamenters are Jews who loathe Stephen Harper and his (booga booga) scary right-wing agenda, and who can't wait until their mahdi, Justin, assumes the reigns of power. That eventuality is the only thing that can temper their Harper Derangement Syndrome and scale it back to non-pathological levels.

Chief "Human Rights" Commissar Barbara Hall Reaffirms Official Victim Group Pecking Order

In an update to an update about the letter to the Toronto Star's "ethics columnist" re an unfortunate encounter in a women's locker room between an elderly woman and someone claiming to be a pre-op transsexual, Christina Blizzard notes that Ontario's chief "human rights" commissar Barbara Hall, peace be upon her, has now weighed in--and dissed the letter-writer:

In a letter on the OHRC website, Hall slams the woman who complained, saying there is no documented case of a heterosexual man gaining access to a women’s changeroom by “posing as a transgender.” 

In such situations, “transgender persons are more at risk than anyone else of being harassed, abused, assaulted, or even killed,” Hall said. 

“For more than 15 years, transgender people in Ontario have had the legal right to use the washroom — or changeroom — according to their lived gender identity,” she said. 

Hall slams those who call for segregation of transgender people into separate bathrooms and changing spaces. 

“This is a practice based on fear and stereotypes, and is exactly opposite the vision of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, which is to build an Ontario based on inclusion, where everyone feels a part of and is able to contribute to the community.” 

Oh, please. 

“Fear and stereotypes” have nothing to do with it. 

Modesty and the expectation that you’re sharing a changeroom with a person of the same gender is more realistic. 

I am sure we’re all sympthetic to transgendered people, but it’s unrealistic for them to expect to be accepted by the mainstream of women in a changeroom if they still have male parts.

Oh, Christina, you're such a "transphobe." Don't you know there's a pecking order of victim groups in Ontario, and at the moment "trans" is flavor of the month while chicks-from-birth just don't cut it (so to speak)?

Update: Re Ms. Blizzard's common sense about "men's" and "women's" facilities, the OHRC considers it decidedly hidebound and passé. Here's the skinny from an OHRC brochure on the subject (of gender, not changerooms):

Gender identity is linked to a person’s sense of self, and the sense of being male or female. A person’s gender identity is different from their sexual orientation, which is also protected under the Code. People’s gender identity may be different from their birth-assigned sex, and may include:  

Transgender: People whose life experience includes existing in more than one gender. This may include people who identify as transsexual, and people who describe themselves as being on a “gender spectrum” or as living outside the categories of “man” or “woman.”  

Transsexual: People who were identified at birth as one sex, but who identify themselves differently. They may seek or undergo one or more medical treatments to align their bodies with their internally felt identity, such as hormone therapy, sex-reassignment surgery or other procedures.  

Intersex: People who are not easily classified as “male” or “female,” based on their physical characteristics at birth or after puberty. This word replaces the inappropriate term “hermaphrodite.”  

Crossdresser: A person who, for emotional and psychological well-being, dresses in clothing usually associated with the “opposite” sex.  

Trans: An umbrella term used to describe individuals who, to varying degrees, do not conform to what society usually defines as a man or a woman.  

Gender expression refers to the external attributes, behaviour, appearance, dress, etc. by which people express themselves and through which others perceive that person’s gender. 

Good to know. The problem, of course, is that when some victim groups are more equal than other victim groups--and more equal than other ordinary folks who fail to make the victim grade--society as a whole is undermined, and common sense flies out the window.


Several VIPs--i.e. Ontario "human rights" commissars

"Envy=Social Justice"

Today's lesson in economics, courtesy Thomas the Wise.

Dumb Move: Obama Backs Syrian "Opposition"

Oh, you mean Al Qaeda and the other assorted supremacist schemers?

Just because they're opposed to a bad guy doesn't mean they're worthy of your/our support, genius (or did you learn nothing from what happened in Libya?).

Is the Entity Formerly Known as CAIR-CAN Engaging in "Lawfare Jihad"?

According to the Ottawa Citizen's Robert Sibley, that appears to be a distinct possibility.

Stop the Carousel I Want to Get Off

Re last night's presidential performance, Mitch Pearlstein writes:

Right at the very end of President Obama’s State of the Union address, when he started talking about “feet planted firmly on the ground,” I thought he might break out into at least a recitation of the “Soliloquy” from Carousel. And no, I’m not being the least bit disrespectful by noting this, as never has there been a showstopper, at least by my footlights, as terrific as Billy Bigelow’s. If only Rodgers and Hammerstein (especially Oscar in this instance) had a few weeks to work with Obama in New Haven.

Dunno about you, but I feel a song coming on:

My health bill
I will see that it's named after me.
My health bill
Will be big and will make history,
You'll see!
Like a weed it'll grow
Without DDT
And its roots planted firm in our hearts.
And you won't see no bloody GOP
Dare to break it or take it apart!
No gun-totin', God-fearin' donkey'll
Take it apart!...

Rap Crap: University Offers "English" Course on Jay-Z-Kanye Relationship

Let's just say it isn't exactly on par with studying the likes of Shakespeare or Chaucer:

English students at the University of Missouri can now take a full course on all things Hova and Yeezy.

Entitled "English 2169: Jay-Z and Kanye West," the course will examine the power-duo's joint and respective careers from three different angles, according to the syllabus:

"1. Where do they fit within, and how do they change, the history of hip-hop music?
 2. How is what they do similar to and different from what poets do?
 3. How does their rise to both celebrity and corporate power alter what we understand as the  American dream?"

Course activities include "listening to music and watching videos," as well as reading critical works on rap music, poetry studies, and Jay Z's 2010 biography Decoded.

What, no Beyoncé? How sexist!

Update: Suggestion for a new course at the U of M: The Semiotics of Pharrell Williams' Hat.

Seeing No Evil

Dennis Prager lays out what is perhaps the most salient difference between left and right in our time. Here's an example:

The right today is preoccupied with fighting Islamism; the left is preoccupied with fighting "Islamophobia."

Also, the right today is preoccupied with freedom; the left is preoccupied with abridging freedom for the sake of "human rights," "diversity," "inclusiveness," and, oh yeah, "accommodating" sharia.

Protocols of The Elders of Idiocy

"Elders" Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu visit Ayatollahville and pay homage to zany Khomeini.

Update: Taqiyyah alert!

Update: A song for those idiots who would worship at the shrine of a mass-murdering, supremacist thug:

His sneer is stern and cold.
His mouth is full of lies.
His moves are always bold.
He's got Ayatollah eyes.
He'll turn his wrath on you
With "Allahu Akbar!" cries.
He's a real Mahdi man.
He's got Ayatollah eyes.

And he'll vex you.
He'll perplex you.
And don't think that he respects you.
He's atrocious and he knows just
What it takes to make nuke projects.
He wants to bring about Zion's demise.
He's got Ayatollah eyes...

The Walrus's Taboo Boo Boo

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Israel last week, all the little Harper-haters and Zion-loathers (categories which tend to overlap) were a-seething and a-whining like crazy. And it's not as though these dissers were hard to find. All you had to do was turn on the radio, or watch the TV news, or open a newspaper--and there they were, in full force. And that reality makes this--an article in lefty 'zine The Walrus which claims that speaking ill of Israel is a big "taboo" in Canada--seem even more silly than it did before Harper's trip.

Trashing Israel "taboo" in Canada? Seriously? If anything, coming to Israel's defense and seeing the good in it (something which those of the leftist/Marxist and/or Islamist persuasion categorically refuse to do) is the far bigger taboo.

Pete Seeger Has Died, Aged 94, But His Song About Free Speech Lives On

He didn't write it--the original, obviously, is in German--but he came up with and first sang this English version. Anyone who genuinely cares about our most crucial freedom, whether s/he tacks left (like Pete) or right (like moi), cannot help but be stirred by lines such as, "My conscience won't cater to duke or dictator." And, to update it for our era, it won't cater to "human rights" bullies and/or political correctness.

R.I.P., Pete, and thanks for the song.

Prediction: The Only Thing Shovel-Ready in Obama's State of the Union Address Is the B.S.

In case you feel like forgoing the thing, Mark Steyn describes how it'll all go down:

 The president gives a performance, extremely animatedly, head swiveling from left-side prompter to right-side prompter, continually urging action now: "Let's start right away. We can get this done. . . . We can fix this. . . . Now is the time to do it. Now is the time to get it done." And at the end of the speech, nothing gets done, and nothing gets fixed, and, after a few days' shadowboxing between admirers and detractors willing to pretend it's some sort of serious legislative agenda, every single word of it is forgotten until the next one.

Let me be clear...it's going to be a real snoozeroo.

Kafkaesque

That's the word that popped into my head when I saw these dudes at last night's Grammys.



"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams

 he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect..."



Just Call Him "Uncle Barry"

Obama manifests "the Stalinist style" to deal with political foes.

If You're an Overheated Moderate Like Reza Aslan, You Might as Well Go for SodaStream

Noted Muslim moderate/author Reza Aslan (who will be hitting our town in March under the auspices of the entity formerly known as CAIR-CAN) says SodaStream, an Israeli company that's a current target of BDS fury, is akin to Adolf Hitler and that American actress Scarlett Johansson, the paid face of the company, supports the Nazis.

Nothing immoderate or hysterical about that, right?


In Reza's honour, let's all run out and buy a SodaStream machine!

Today in Egregious Double Standards re Diplomacy...

Security expert David Harris draws our attention to an, ahem, intriguing federal effort headed up by a Muslim and contrasts it with the howls of outrage that accompanied the announcement that Vivian Bercovici, a Jew, would be Canada's new ambassador to Israel:

Between about 2005 and its closing in 2010, unsuspecting taxpayers were forking out for a special Department of Foreign Affairs unit called the “Muslim Communities Working Group.” Its mandate, now “disappeared” from DFA’s website: “increasing awareness and understanding of Islam and Muslim communities.” No other religion or its adherents had similarly privileged government treatment. Related activity apparently continues, even after the Working Group’s formal 2010 shuttering. 

The Working Group was initially run in 2005-2006 by Ugandan-born Canadian Muslim diplomat, Arif Lalani. Contrary to the Bercovici experience, neither network journalists nor the foreign service association revolted against the Working Group’s Muslim emphasis or its boss’s religious affiliation. Neither did objections arise when Lalani later became ambassador to Muslim countries Afghanistan, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – a multi-nation Islamic group pushing for Islamic sharia law censorship in the international system. Indeed, back in 2009, CBC was cheerleading Lalani as “the only western diplomat invited to pray with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the end of Ramadan,” an invitation from which many non-Muslim diplomats were presumably excluded.

A Muslim? Canada's "first-ever" OIC envoy? Why, it's an outrage! ;)

How Real Life First Amendment Fights Do NOT Immitate Ones on "The Good Wife"

Here's a real life scenario as outlined by Vanity Fair's resident wiseacre James Wolcott:

Long story short: Competitive Enterprise Institute “scholar” Rand Simberg wrote an  article attacking [Prof. Michael] Mann’s research and, trying to be topical,  referenced the fact that he teaches at Penn State as the basis for an oh-so-clever PSU Michael Mann = Penn State football coach/kid rapist Jerry Sandusky analogy. Writing at NRO, former drama critic Mark Steyn whose climate science knowledge is limited to knowing all the lyrics to They Call The Wind Maria,  LOL’d and repeated what Simberg wrote. When Mann protested, CEI backed down and deleted the offending lines but not the rest of the post. On the other hand National Review Editor Rich Lowry seemed to be under the impression that he was William F. Badass Jr. and told Mann and his attorneys to pound sand... 

My advice to poor Michael is to go away and bother someone else. If he doesn’t have the good sense to do that, we look forward to teaching him a thing or two about the law and about how free debate works in a free country.

 “Poor” Michael Mann didn’t listen to Rich Lowry, and instead called his bluff and sued anyway forcing Lowry to beg for money from his readers because the treasure chest at National Review – which is a money losing wingnut welfare suckhole – couldn’t cover the check Lowry’s dumbass wrote... 

And now Mark Steyn is in quite the pickle himself, divorced from the legal firm that was defending him and the magazine after he excoriated the former judge in the case for being a stupido. Tactically, that isn't considered the brightest chess move to try in the halls of justice. Steyn is now representing himself, like a character in a wacky sitcom racing from the defense table to the witness chair as he cross-examines himself, and estranged from National Review, where he is considered a star attraction, such is the condition to which conservatism has fallen.

I dunno about "a wacky sitcom," but a relevant scenario did appear in the first season of acclaimed TV drama The Good Wife. An episode called "Infamy" dealt with, among other plot points, an obnoxious right wing TV host named Duke Roscoe--think Rush Limbaugh crossed with Glenn Beck and/or Bill O'Reilly. This being a CBS show, the right winger is a caricature/stereotypical ultra-conservative who, on a TV show that attracts a large and loyal following of like-minded nutjobs, calls people out for being "commies" and "limo leftists." A truly heinous character, he accuses a young mother whose baby had been kidnapped of murdering her infant. And he does so over and over again, with absolutely no evidence and going solely on his gut feeling, to the point where the distraught mom cannot take it any more, and kills herself. Whereupon her husband sues the blowhard and it comes to trial. But don't imagine that just because the judge in the case is a real lefty, and that Rush, er, Duke points out their obvious political differences (thereby implying that the judge will be biased), that that's going to matter a whit. Not when the lefty judge is adamant about the First Amendment being so crucial to American freedom. For, even when the jury rules against him, the leftist judge immediately overturns its decision on the grounds that First Amendment rights are inviolable.

To return to reality (as opposed to reality TV, which as we know is anything but real): considering that Steyn is already butting heads with the judiciary, which, oddly enough, seems not nearly as adamant about the First Amendment guarantees being the bedrock of American freedom as the TV judge, I'm thinking that real life court battle could turn out a whole lot differently. I'm hoping that it doesn't, but it could. Also, unlike a typical law show episode, which is wrapped up within an hour, the real life drama is likely to drag on for months if not years.

As well, it behooves us to note that the TV situation is far more extreme in every way than the real life one, not the least because the TV character is such a lout while the real life guy is a true gentleman. (I know; I've met him.) In fact, were you to write up the Steyn-Mann hockey stick court case as a Good Wife script, it would likely be rejected for lacking dramatic spice. With no suicides or accusations re the mother wanting a late term abortion--false info which the Duke character brings to air with no consequences whatsoever, not even being forced to apologize--and with a defendant who's as gentlemanly as they come, I'm afraid the real life version just wouldn't cut it.

I'll give Wolcott this--but only this--though: that line about They Call the Wind Maria is pretty freaking funny.

So Much for That "Checks and Balances" Stuff

Top White House Advisers Warn Lawmakers that Obama Could Go Around Them if Agenda Stalls Again

Hey, it's good to be the king.

The Crazy Ones: Obama's Hollywood Minions Set to Spread the Pro-O-Care Message on Behalf of the Object of Their Veneration?

Here's a great reason to turn off the TV and curl up with a good book (h/t SC):

According to an email invitation sent out by the Writers Guild East and obtained by Breitbart News, members of the Hollywood elite and the Obama Administration will be gathering in the middle of next month for a panel titled, "The Affordable Care Act: Comedy, Drama & Reality - Portraying ObamaCare in TV & Film." Julie Green Bataille, a director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will represent the Obama administration.

For obvious reasons they omitted the most pertinent category: Tragedy.


Can't wait for the episode in which "Pajama Boy" and Kathleen Sibelius guest star

Tony Blair's Reluctance to Utter the "J" Word Speaks Volumes About His Steadfast Cluelessness

It's the jihad, stupid. And I mean that most emphatically and sincerely:

Tony Blair has reignited debate about the west's response to terrorism with a call on governments to recognise that religious extremism has become the biggest source of conflict around the world. 

Referring to wars and violent confrontations from Syria to Nigeria and the Philippines, Blair, writing in the Observer, argues that "there is one thing self-evidently in common: the acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion. It is a perversion of faith." 

Identifying religious extremism as an ever more dangerous phenomenon, the spread of which is easier in an online age, he says: "The battles of this century are less likely to be the product of extreme political ideology, like those of the 20th century – but they could easily be fought around the questions of cultural or religious difference."...

Gee, ya think? That being so, it would be most helpful if you could at least peg it for what it actually is--neither an "abuse" nor a "perversion" but a central tenet of supremacist Islam.

Sign in Kosher Bakery in Williamsburg Asking Customers to Dress "Modestly" Elicits the Wrath of NYC's Ruthless, Totalitarian "Human Rights" Bureaucracy

A question to pose upon reading this story of alleged "discrimination": would the affronted "human rightsy" ones have acted in kind had such a sign appeared in a halal establishment?

You Can Take the Boy Out of Iraq But You Can't Take Iraq Out of the Boy

A cautionary tale of cultural incompatibility, by Diana West.

'Twas Ever Thus--The Left Is Out to Lunch Re Harper's Israel Visit

If you're wondering how any Canadian Jew who supports Israel could take issue with Harper's Israeli sojourn, a Carleton U journalism prof shows how it's done (i.e. by ignoring Harper's moral clarity and embracing murky, irrelevant nuance):

Ultimately, we might ask, just what did this visit do except reinforce a status quo with some mutually soothing, self-comforting delusions? Did the visit urge Netanyahu to give the nuclear deal with Iran a chance? Did it introduce Netanyahu to a broader Canada, and Harper to a broader Israel?

He forgot to ask if it helped the Aboriginals and the transsexual community ('cause if it didn't, then what was the point?).  ;)

That's Just Meshuganeh!

"Boycott Bupkes"--on Al Jazeera America! (Don't you love it when a Qatar-owned news outlet uses Yiddish?)

Steyn's Latest Free Speech Battle a Real Case of SLAPPstick

If you thought Mark Steyn's run in with the Canadian thought police and one of their kangaroo courts was quite something (and it was inasmuch as it led to the demise of Section 13, the notorious censorship provision in our federal "human rights" legislation), wait'll you hear about how he's been SLAPPED for hockey stick mockery in the U.S.

As much as I cheer his panache and bravado in taking on this latest fight, I fear that it has the power to grind him down and maybe even bankrupt him. Let's hope I'm wrong, and that things go his--which is to say our--way.

A Sickening Capitulation In The Tradition of--But Even Worse Than--Euphemizing Jihadi Terrorism as a "Man-Caused Disaster"

Just when you think Barack Obama can't go any lower, he up and does:

According to NBC News, the Justice Department will soon prohibit religious profiling in terror cases. The move, if true, would completely blind federal law enforcement to the threat from Islamic extremism. 

Already, the department has forced the FBI to bleach references to "Islam" and "jihad" from its counterterrorism training materials. It's also made it harder for agents to infiltrate radical mosques. 

But Attorney General Eric Holder reportedly now wants to make it illegal for agents to even consider religion in their investigations. 

Democrats on the Hill are cheering the changes, along with the ACLU and radical Muslim Brotherhood front groups, who have all lobbied the administration for them. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has seen several of its officials jailed on terror-related charges, calls it "a step in the right direction."...

"A step in the right direction"--oh, you mean towards Mecca? ;)

Obama Sings Bing: "I Found a Million Dollar Bundler Who Deserved a Big Reward"

This FrontPage headline about Obama's woefully underqualified nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Norway inspired the following:

I needed someone there in Oslo.
The search turned into quite a chore.
I found a million dollar bundler
Who deserved a big reward.

He didn't know that much
'Bout Norway.
So what?
I've picked such fools before.
I found a million dollar bundler
Who had earned a big reward...

Israel Created Expressly to Provoke Discord Among Muslims: Grandiose Ayatollah

Here's a toxic snippet from a speech on the topic of Islamic unity (or, rather, the obvious paucity thereof) he delivered at a recent conference:

It is 65 years now that the world of arrogance has been trying with all its power to impose the existence of the Zionist regime on Muslim nations and to make them accept this regime. But it has failed. We should not look at some countries and governments which are willing to act against their national interests in order to safeguard the interests of their foreign friends - who are the enemies of Islam - and to consign Islamic interests to oblivion. Peoples are opposed to the presence of the Zionists.

It is 65 years now that they have been trying to erase the memory of Palestine, but they have failed. During the 33-day war in Lebanon and during the 22-day war and - for the second time - the eight-day war in Gaza which were waged in recent years, Muslim nations and the Islamic Ummah showed that they are alive. The Islamic Ummah showed that despite the investment of America and other western powers, it has managed to preserve its identity, to slap the fake and imposed Zionist regime across the face and to frustrate the allies of oppressive Zionists who did their best during this time to preserve this imposed, oppressive and criminal regime. The Islamic Ummah showed that it has not forgotten about Palestine. This is a very important issue.

It is in such conditions that the enemy is focusing all its efforts on making the Islamic Ummah forget about Palestine. How do they want to do this? They want to do this by creating discord, waging domestic wars, promoting deviant extremism in the name of Islam, religion and Islamic sharia. They want a group of people to say takfiri things against Muslims. The existence of these takfiri orientations which have emerged in the world of Islam is good news for arrogance and the enemies of the world of Islam. It is these takfiri orientations that attract the attention of Muslims towards insignificant issues instead of letting them pay attention to the truth about the existence of the malevolent Zionist regime...

What "the Jews" were to a megalomaniacal Hitler, the "Zionist regime" is to the Grandiose Ayatollah--an irredeemably evil scapegoat employed to unite the people and gin them up for the "struggle" (in German: "Kampf"; in Islamic doctrine: "jihad") ahead.

And furthermore, what the death camps were to Hitler, a nuclear weapon is to Khameini--a way to eliminate the Jewish foulness once and for all.

The British Media's Protocols of the Elders of Zionism

The British media's obsession with a tiny Jewish nation and the purported existence of a shadowy, insidious "lobby" that pushes its interests at the expense of the rest of mankind is eerily reminiscent of an older Czarist canard.

UN Declares 2014 the "International Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian People"

That's silly. At the UN, every year is an International Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian People.

Foggy Bottom Cautions U.S. Athletes Not To Wear Their Olympic Outfits Off Site

Gee, do they really think athletes need to be warned that wearing stuff like this might tend to flag them (no pun intended) to Sochi area terrorists?

Clueless Barack Obama Thinks His "Messaging" Is the Problem

As he explained to the New Yorker's David Remnick,

the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the Republican base so that they feel persuaded that I’m not the caricature that you see on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, but I’m somebody who is interested in solving problems and is pretty practical, and that, actually, a lot of the things that we’ve put in place worked better than people might think.

Actually, Mr. President, your message (about the need for an e'er bigger government to "solve" the problems--hello, Obamacare) has come through loud and clear. The "Republican base" has heard it--and rejects it.

What is it about you that makes it so difficult to comprehend that those who disagree with you "get" your message just fine (and that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, who merely echo their views, have nothing to do with it)?

Song for Stephen Harper

This one works:

The Type of Story the BDS Industry is Loath to Hear: How, S'now Joke, the Jooos Saved Skiing in the Alps

Story here.

Obama Factotum Eric Holder and His DoJ Indict a Voluble Obama Critic

Well, at least they aren't sending him to a Gulag. Not yet, anyway.

The pertinent question to ask: would D'Souza have been indicted if he hadn't been a high-profile Obama critic?

US Official Downplays Al Qaeda Plot to 'Splode Stuff (Including the US Embassay in Tel Aviv) Because It Was Only "Aspirational"

Aren't all such plots "aspirational" until they're ready to go and become, to coin a word, detonational? Back in the day, the plot to unleash what occurred on 9/11/01 was "aspirational," too.

Harper Supports Israel Because It Is the Right Thing To Do. It’s That Simple.

The Calgary Herald's Naomi Lakritz cuts through the media's crap/spin/animus-laden speculation re Harper's "real" motivations for backing Israel.

"I'll Take Crack-Smoking Mayors for $1000, Alex"

Puppy Update

So we were thinking of getting one of these, but through sheer happenstance (or what we of the Jewish persuasion would call "beshayrt"--meant to be), we are getting another flat-coated retriever. Our puppy was born late last week and will be ready to go sometime in March. FYI, he will look a lot like this:

Taqiyyah Time

A deliciously hyperventilated article on Iran's Press TV site condemns the U.S. and Obama for supposedly fabricating a nuclear threat:

Part of the U.S. self-inflicted delusional mythology on Iran stems from the incessant reiteration of the phrase “Iran's nuclear weapons program” in the western media. This nonstop promulgation of propaganda predisposes the western mind to believe the Zionist regime’s calumnies of an “Iranian nuclear threat,” when in fact there is none.   Even those western pragmatists who concede the validity of Washington’s own intelligence assessments, which concluded that Iran does NOT have a nuclear weapons program, nevertheless trumpet noisily about the dangers of Iran developing nuclear “breakout capability.”  This is while Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has unequivocally stated that Islam forbids the “production, stockpiling and use” of nuclear weapons, starkly contrasting the U.S. track record of demonic aggression in pursuit of global hegemony, having caused the deaths of over 10 million of Planet Earth's citizens since 1945.

Well, if the Ayatollah says Islam expressly forbids it, it must be true. ;)

"Canada, And Other Countries That Support Israel Now...Gain Significantly From Their Actions"

Caroline Glick explains why and how supporting Israel makes moral and economic sense.

Via That Captain & Tennille 70s Shasheroo, Ummah-Boosters Look to an Old But Still Widly Effective Method--Communal Jew-Hatred--to Unify a Fractured Islamic World

Hate,
Hate will keep us together.
Think of the Joooos whenever
Life is crap, a zero sum game.
Need someone to blame,
Someone to demonize and to defame.
Just start,
Start thrashin' Zion.
Start,
With the Shoah denyin'.
Harden your heart and let's start
Hating together.

We'll be there to go ballistic.
Make 'em a statistic.
Pluck and shuck that thorn in our side.
No need to hide
As long as the ummah's along for the ride.
Just start,
Start with the seething.
Start,
It's as nat'rul as breathing.
Harden your heart and then start
Hating together.

Wicked and stiff-necked:
Jewry, it ain't circumspect.
When the Prophet lopped off their heads
It's 'cuz of their "disrespect"--
They balked, they balked, they balked.

And he,
He couldn't stand their japes then.
Made 'em pigs and apes then.
A fate that they can never elude.
And Bibi is rude.
And settlers are evil, illegal and crude.
Don't stop,
Don't stop with the hatin'.
Don't stop with the plot we're creatin'.
Harden your heart and then start
Hatin' together,
Forever...

"One Seat for Putin, the Other for Medvedev"?

What's the deal with those tandem Sochi toilets?

How Do You Say "Dismantle" In Farsi?

I'm not sure. And neither, apparently, are Obama and Kerry:

CNN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Wednesday that the Obama administration mischaracterizes concessions by his side in the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that “we did not agree to dismantle anything.” 

Zarif told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto that terminology used by the White House to describe the agreement differed from the text agreed to by Iran and the other countries in the talks — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany...

Shouldn't the, er, confusion have been hammered out before the sanctions were lifted?

If You Like Your Al Qaeda, You Can Keep Your Al Qaeda

It figures that that would be the one promise Obama came through on, even if he only made it implicitly:

Israeli security forces have shut down a massive al-Qaeda plot coordinated by terrorist mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri that involved attacking the Jerusalem Convention Center and the American embassy in the diplomatic center of Tel Aviv.

This is believed to be the first time that al-Qaeda chief al-Zawahiri has gotten personally involved in engineering strikes within Israel.

The foiled plot is a sobering reminder that al-Qaeda has been experiencing a comeback in the Obama era.

"Love Will Keep Us Together" Duo Captain & Tennille to Divorce

Ironically enough.

Abe's Nazi Problem

The Abe in question is Japan's prime minister, not a Jew named Abraham.

Can't Think of a More Fitting Tribute (Unless, Say, Obama Gets a Prize for Lying and/or the Grandiose Ayatollah Gets a Prize for Zionhass)

Warmist Who Got Ship Stuck in Ice Trying to Prove Ice was Melting Wins Global Warming Award

The Academic Jihad on Western Civ

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but an endless sleep induced by silly, soporific lessons in self-loathing:

In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles decimated its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift in our culture that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself.  

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.”...

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz. Oh, sorry. Anytime I hear the word "rubric," my eyes immediately glaze over. (Same thing happens when I hear "nexus," "praxis," "imperial," "transnational" and "postcolonial," among other buzz words beloved in/by academe.)

Since yesterday was MLK day in the U.S., here are some of the man's words that relate to the above:

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.