What's the Least Sexy Thing EVAH?

It's got to be Matt Lauer's "huge bag of sex toys."

Yuck!

Update: I predict the next media personality to be fired for inappropriate sexual antics will be (drumroll, please) Geraldo Rivera. 

Rivera has boasted about sleeping with 1,000 women, which rather raises the odds that at least some of these encounters weren't entirely consensual.

Sandra Dee Redux

Remember back in the 70s, when the musical Grease heaped withering scorn on the social mores of the 1950? More specifically, I refer to the song sung by the character Rizzo at the girls' sleepover party, the one where she mercilessly mocks nice girl Sandy's "purity."

You recall it, don't you? It goes like this:

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee
Lousy with virginity
Won't go to bed
Till I'm legally wed
I can't, I'm Sandra Dee 

Watch it, hey, I'm Doris Day
I was not brought up that way
Won't come across
Even Rock Hudson lost
His heart to Doris Day 

I don't drink or swear
I don't rat my hair
I get ill from one cigarette
Keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers
Would you pull that crap with Annette 

As for you, Troy Donahue
I know what you wanna do

You got your crust
I'm no object of lust
I'm just plain Sandra Dee 

Elvis, Elvis, let me be
Keep that pelvis far from me
Just keep your cool
Now you're starting to drool
Hey, fungu, I'm Sandra Dee

Sandra Dee was supposed to be as passé as they come. Today, however, as Bruce Thornton points out in this insightful essay, the current moral panic re men behaving badly seems to have brought out the Sandra Dee in our womenfolk:

So here we are, watching self-proclaimed feminists who once sang “I am woman, hear me roar,” but now cower like Victorian ingénues, whimpering victims who turn to the statist Big Daddy for protection and redress. 

Obviously, sexual violence against women is a despicable crime to be severely punished. Men who use any sort of coercion to obtain sexual favors are cads and creeps whom every respectable person should look on with contempt. But apart from the charges of sexual violence, the bulk of the current sexual harassment complaints involve clumsy flirting, juvenile humor, unwanted touching, unsolicited sordid cell-phone pictures, sexual quid pro quos, and other techniques of the inept sexual suitor.

In other words, these women thought they were Rizzos, but all along what they really wanted to be was a Sandra/Sandy. Which makes the musical's denouement that sees Sandy transforming into a been-around-the-block-more-than-a-few-times tough/slutty Rizzo type in order to land her man all the more ironic for us, when the cry "keep you filthy paws off my silk drawers" seems to have made a dramatic and unexpected comeback.

Good Intentions; Ghastly Results

A Zimbabwean writer sees something positively Shakespearean in the saga of the rise and fall of Robert Mugabe, but I see it as something that's more in keeping with my headline (i.e. the same thing that ends up upending most utopians).

Facebook Creates Guide to Protect Non-Muslims (Also Muslims) From Jihadis

Just kidding, of course. Facebook, clearly, has other priorities:

Facebook has created a guide to improving the safety of Muslims online, in an effort to combat Islamaphonia, racism and hate speech levelled at the community. Keeping Muslims Safe Online: Tackling Hate and Bigotry was written in partnership with non-theological consultancy Faith Associates, and is designed to “empower Muslim users of Facebook”, Simon Milner, Head of Policy UK at Facebook said. The guide contains advice on reporting abusive comments and content to Facebook and the police, restricting the audience for what is shared on the social network and how to support somebody who is being attacked for being a Muslim. 

It will be launched at a parliamentary reception, where MPs will be invited to speak to Imams from their constituencies about the issues facing Muslim communities...

I'm about to say something that may very well be at odds with the Facebook guide: dhimmis are the useful idiots of our day.

CJN Cover Story Question: "Is Ezra Levant Good for the Jews?"

Read it here. And here's the letter I wrote in response:

I am not going to delve into the question of whether or not Ezra Levant is "good for the Jews." I would merely point out that such a query would never be posed about, say, Peter Beinart, or another high-profile Jew who is known to situate himself on the so-called progressive side of the political spectrum. Which is to say, a hardcore leftist Jew who withholds his full-throated approval of and support for Israel pending its' becoming much more reflective of his own values, attitudes and beliefs.

I would also suggest that posing such a query--is so-and-so "good for the Jews"?--says a lot more about the mindset of the individual doing the asking that it does about the person whose "goodness"/"badness" is being called into question.

 

Cap 'n' Trade Madness in Ontario: What an Awesome Way to Waste Our Money!

In the larger scheme of things, this leftist virtue signaling will make no difference whatsoever when it comes to "saving the planet"--or even Ontario"

TORONTO — Ontario’s final cap-and-trade auction before entering a joint market with Quebec and California next year is set for today. 

The province launched the program aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions this year and has seen three sell-out auctions, bringing in about $1.5 billion for green projects. 

The system puts caps on the amount of pollution companies in certain industries can emit, and if they exceed those limits they must buy allowances at auction or from other companies that come in under their limits. 

As of Jan. 1, Ontario will join Quebec and California’s carbon market, which has also seen three sold out auctions in a row for current credits. 

Critics in Ontario have slammed both the cost to consumers — an extra 4.3 cents per litre to the price of gasoline and about $80 a year to natural gas home heating costs, as well as indirect costs — and the potential cost to the economy.

The auditor general has said that when Ontario links its market with Quebec and California, an estimated $466 million will leave the Ontario economy over three years, because it will be cheaper to buy allowances from those jurisdictions. 

Both the environmental commissioner and the auditor have said that means greenhouse gas emissions won’t actually be cut in Ontario...

As I said, it's absolute madness, as well as being a pointless exercise intended to make Liberals/leftists (and only Liberals/leftists) feel good about themselves.

The 70-Year-Old Miracle That Is Israel

Michael Goodwin in the New York Post puts it very well, I think:

On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish, one Arab. Most Zionists accepted the deal, while Arabs almost universally rejected it and declared war. 

One Muslim delegate, referring to Jews living in Arab nations, warned that “The blood will flow like rivers in the Middle East.” Iraq’s prime minister threatened that the Jewish state would not survive, saying “We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in” while Syria’s leader claimed “We shall eradicate Zionism.”

Seventy years later, a lust for Jewish blood is a staple of Islamic State, Hezbollah and Hamas, whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel. Iran’s leaders call Israel “Little Satan” and vow to wipe it off the map. 

In important ways, then, not much has changed. Jew hatred remains mainstream enough to flourish in the sunshine as well as the shadows, including at major American university campuses and European parliaments. Year in, year out, Jews are the victims of most of the religious hate crimes in the United States. 

Some UN bodies exist to demonize Israel while ignoring wholesale slaughter and oppression in other lands. Indeed, if that partition proposal were submitted to a much-larger General Assembly today, it probably would not get majority support, let alone the two-thirds approval it got in 1947.  

Yet in other ways, everything has changed. Israel, which declared independence in 1948, is a mighty regional power militarily and its economy and technical innovations are world-renowned. This is exceptionalism, Israeli-style...

Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been a Male Creep?

Is it just me, or do you think the current moral panic--of which Matt Lauer is the latest, most high-profile casualty--has taken on the tone and tenor of a witch hunt?

Update: Another one (uber-folksy radio dude Garrison Keillor) bites the dust.

Conyers Is an "Icon" Alright--Of Blatant Anti-Israel Idiocy

Nancy Pelosi defends senescent Congressman John Conyers (whose advanced age has apparently had no impact on his unwanted advances on his female staffers) as "an icon in this country." That's a reference to Conyers involvement, waaay back in the day, in the civil rights movement.

Well, kudos to Conyers for that, but the fact that he's managed to get away with all sorts of creepiness for so long attests to the fact that he's been resting on these civil rights laurels for far too long.

Oh, and guess what? This American "icon" is precisely the sort of leftist numbskull who falls for the poor-poor-pitiful-Palestinians narrative. For that reason, as Alan Dershowitz recounts here, Conyers is one of Congressional "progressives" who is supporting a bill that would punish Israel "for trying to protect its citizens from teenage terrorists." Dershowitz slams such blatant unfairness in this scathing summation:

People of good faith on both sides of the aisle should call out this double standard for what it really is: an attack on Jewish victims of teenage terrorism and their state. For shame on this group of biased anti-Israel "progressive" Democrats, which include the following members of Congress: Mark Pocan (WI), Earl Blumenauer (OR), André Carson (IN), John Conyers, Jr. (MI), Danny K. Davis (IL), Peter A. DeFazio (OR), Raul Grijalva, Luis V. Gutiérrez (AZ), and Chellie Pingree (ME). They give a bad name to the Democratic Party, to the Progressive Caucus and to Congress.

"You Will Be Labeled a Nazi or a Racist Just Because You Made This Movie"

These prophetic words are spoken in a trailer for a documentary that was scheduled to be screened at the main branch of the Ottawa library, but that was cancelled at the last minute due to its being labeled Nazi and racist. (For the record, Lars Vilks and Lars Hedegaard, both of whom are interviewed in the documentary, are the victims of Muslims and not--I repeat, not--their victimizers).

The Nuttiest/Dumbest/Scariest Idea Yet From the Justin Trudopian Government

The imbeciles want to--wait for it--"reintegrate" Canadians who've gone off to fight for ISIS.

Hey, what could possibly go wrong with such a "brilliant" idea?

And let's not forget, because the Trudeau crew never does, that every Canadian jihadist is a potential Liberal voter).

Hijab Barbie a Symbol of Empowerment?

For sure. But she doesn't empower girls. She empowers the cultural jihad.

A Carbon Tax? A Child Care Entitlement?

How is that a conservative platform, Mr. Brown?

Some Seasonal Sights in Jihad-Plagued Europe

How can you tell that it's Christmastime on the continent? By the sight of giant gift-wrapped barricades in Germany and bollards decked out as Christmas trees in the U.K.

'Tis the season to be wary, fa la la la la...

Op-Ed in the NYT: All Men Are "Monsters"

That's sensitive, new age guy Stephen Marche's take-away from the current moral panic that has seen the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Roy Moore and many others exposed and decried for their dreadful behavior.

But if, as self-admitted Torontonian Marche insists, all men are "monstrous," doesn't that let the misbehavers (who cannot control themselves due to the inherent "brutality" of the male libido) off the hook?

Canada's Twit of a PM to Haitian Refugees: Sorry, Guys, You're Not Abject Enough

You see, Canada has certain "standards" when it comes to huddled masses yearning to be breathe free, and, sorry Haitians, you simply don't have what it takes:

OTTAWA - Would-be Canadians need more than just a desire for a better economic future if they expect to be granted refugee status in this country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday. 

Trudeau, speaking at an event in Charlottetown, pointed to the case of 6,300 Haitians who have crossed illegally into Canada from the U.S. in recent months to request asylum. Statistics released this week show that of the 298 Haitian cases that had been heard by the end of October, only 29 were granted protection.

"Refugee status means that you have nowhere to go, you can not be protected by your home state," the prime minister said. "It's not just a question of, 'I'm looking for an economic future, so I want to come to Canada.'" 

The Immigration and Refugee Board is working its way through more than 14,000 cases lodged by people who've crossed illegally into Canada from the U.S. since February. So far, they've heard 1,572 and the overall acceptance rate is about 60 per cent. Haitians make up the majority of claims. 

But though that country has economic challenges, it's far from a failed state, Trudeau noted. 

"There are people in different parts of the world who need help more, who have a more urgent need," he said. "We must ensure that our immigration system remains intact and that Canadians continue to have confidence in our immigration system."

In other words, Haitians, while Haiti is obviously a basket case, it's not, say, a Syria or a Yemen, if you catch my (well, actually, his) drift.

Update: If Haitians aren't the flavor of the month, refugee-wise, who are? Some months ago, it was Somalis, Eritreans and Ghanians.

Yup, We're Right On Schedule...

By now it's clear that America is in the midst of another moral panic, a type of hysteria that seems to grip the nation around every 30 years. 

In the 1950s, it was Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for Communists and the Hollywood blacklist. In the 1980s, it was the hunt for pedophiles, often via "recovered memory syndrome." Today, it's the need to purge Hollywood, the media and government of men-behaving-badly-towards-women (also, in the case of Kevin Spacey, men-behaving-badly-towards-men), an effort that makes no distinction between, say, Harvey Weinstein's rapey ways (which are likely criminal in nature) and Al Franken's rank assholery (objectionable?--yes; criminal?--probably not).

Then, too, the current hysteria can be seen as a reaction to (the dialectic of?) the "free love" ethos that swept the West in the 1960s. As British poet Philip Larkin famously put it:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

The logical conclusion of which is this:

Sexual intercourse ended
In two thousand seventeen...
When he heard that Harvey Weinstein jerked off in a potted plant
And that Roy Moore had diddled that teen.

What Drugs You Been Smoking, John?

The effete fat-head who once served as Obama's Secretary of State claims that--wait for it--the Palestinians have done an awesome job at sticking to their promise of non-violence.

E Is For Eliminate the Jewish State

Oddly enough, that's not one of the pairings in a "woke" alphabet book meant to indoctrinate the lefty moppets. However, "I is for Intifada" did indeed make the cut:

A new alphabet book for children has been attacked after one of its pages appeared to reference the Palestinian intifada. 

The book, “P is for Palestine”, was published in New York last week after raising nearly $16,000 (£12,000) in an internet crowdfunding campaign. 

Pages in the book include “A is for Arabic”, “G is for Gaza” and “Q is for Quds”, the Arabic word for Jerusalem. 

But it was the entry for the letter I – “I is for Intifada” – that triggered heated debate on social media. 

Beneath a drawing of barbed wire, the page text reads: “Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or grownup!”

To be clear, "intifada" is a euphemism for "jihad" (another word which, go figure, is nowhere in sight).



Update: Not-yet-ready for a crowdfunding campaign, here's The Li'l Lefty's ABCs:

A is for Antifa, who fight the alt-Right.
B is for Bernie, whose ideas burn so bright.
C is for Chomsky--he's edgy and hot.
D is for Diversity--of provenance, not thought.
E is for Educate, in ideas that aren't moot.
F is for Ferguson--"hands up, don't shoot."
G is for Gender, which is changeable and fluid.
H is for Hillary--it's too bad she blew it.
I is for Intersectional--one for all and all for one.
J is for Justin, Pierre's cutest son.
K is for Karl, our favorite Marx.
L is for Lenin, who still gives off sparks.
M is for Muslims, friendly helpers, the whole lot of 'em.
N is for Nicaragua's fighters--we've never forgotten 'em.
O is for Obama, a Prez we'd still choose.
P is for Palestine, oppressed by the Jews.
Q for Queer, as in LGBTQ.
R is for Redistribute--take from me, give to you.
S is for Socialism, which we'd still like to try.
T is for Triggers, which make us all cry.
U is for Underdogs--we think that they're tops.
V is for Victimhood--it never, ever stops.
W is for Wokeness, a trait of our kind.
X is for Malcom--we adored his keen mind.
Y is for Yesterday, which we'd like to revise.
Z is for Zeal--it's the light in our eyes.

Zion-Loather Max Blumenthal Now a Fox News Opiner?

What a perfectly heinous hire! 

What--was Noam Chomsky unavailable?

Trump Threatens to Close PLO Office in D.C.

Begging the question--why is there a PLO office in D.C.?

That's rhetorical, of course. The reason why the PLO has an official presence there while, say, the Taliban and Boko Haram don't is because, for far too many in this world, the jihad that's being waged against the Jewish state has been excised from the larger context of global jihad.

I still harbour no great hopes for the Trump/Kushner "peace" push, but shuttering the office of a body intent on "liberating" Israel from the Jews and transforming it into yet another failed Islamic entity strikes me as being an awesome idea.




Update: About that mission...:

The United States allowed the PLO to open a mission in Washington in 1994, a move that required then-President Bill Clinton to waive a law that said the Palestinians couldn't have an office. In 2011, under the Obama administration, the United States started letting the Palestinians fly their flag over the office, an upgrade to the status of their mission that the Palestinians hailed as historic. 

Israel opposes any Palestinian membership in United Nations-related organizations until a peace deal has been reached.

Update: America One Step Closer to Defunding Palestinian Terrorists

Hummus In Vienna

Sounds delicious!

On Sears and Fears and Delusions of Safety

I can't tell you how safe I feel knowing that Dr. James Sears, editor-in-chief of Your Ward News, an odious but wacky rag, is to be prosecuted for airing his pro-Nazi views.

I can't tell you, because Sears's crackpot expressions, while genuinely hateful, pose no threat to me whatsoever; certainly, they are far less threatening than, say, much of what's spewed during an average Al Quds Day, the annual "Let's Get Rid of Israel" hate-fest held on the grounds of Queen's Park. And even though the Khomeinists are every bit as eliminationist-minded as Hitler was, they know that, here in Justin's Trudeaupia, their sort of hate speech can be spewed with impunity. 

In one respect, though, Sears should welcome the prosecution. It will pluck him from obscurity and elevate him to the ranks of other infamous Jew-haters, including Ernst Zündel and James Keegstra. And you just know that a narcissist like Sears is going to bask--no, luxuriate--in his newfound notoriety/martyrdom.



Update: Quel wackjob:

There's a "steering committee" for the "Adolf Hitler Fan Club"?

Hey, sign me up!

Update: While officers charge James Sears with hate speech, and Official Jews breathe a sigh of relief, in another part of the GTA, Palestinians are spewing Jew-hate with, you guessed it, impunity galore (h/t--BS).

Word Du Jour: Deringolade

It's a new one on me (though not, thank heavens, on Hugh Fitzgerald).

MENDing the "Islamophobia" Narrative in the U.K.? What a Laugh and a Half!

It's that time of year Old Blighty again--the month dedicated to raising "awareness" re "Islamophobia". The organization behind it is called MEND, the acronym for Muslim Engagement and Development. (MEND seems to be the equivalent of CAIR in the U.S., and NCCM, or the entity previously known as CAIR-Can, here in Canada.)

And what, pray tell, does MEND wish to, um, mend? Let's just say that it is bent on hyping the victimhood narrative as a means of diverting the public's attention from the manifold incidents of jihad that continue apace in the UK and elsewhere in the EU.

This despite the fact that

A new Henry Jackson Society report has warned that the public sector organisations and elected officials are partnering with the extremist-linked group Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend). 

Compiling years’ worth of evidence, the report, Mend: “Islamists Masquerading As Civil Libertarians”, demonstrates how Mend meets the government’s own definition of extremism, even while local authorities, police, teachers and MPs have been working with this organisation. Our findings include:

• How Mend meets the government’s own definition of extremism, even while local authorities, police, teachers and MPs have been working with this organisation.

• It reveals how Mend has regularly hosted illiberal, intolerant and extremist Islamist speakers, while also pushing a message that risks being inflammatory and making British Muslims feel further alienated from wider society. Mend and key figures in the organisation have also attacked moderate Muslim groups.

• Mend has openly sought to undermine counter-terrorism legislation and counter-extremism efforts, in addition to having its own links to extremists. Despite this, the group received public funding from Tower Hamlets council to review part of the borough’s counter-radicalisation Prevent programme.

• Several of the organisation’s employees and volunteers, including senior figures, have publicly expressed a range of disturbing views on terrorism and anti-Semitism. This has included expressing support for terrorists overseas, dismissing recent terror attacks in the UK, promoting anti-Semitic conspiracies and even calling on British Mosques to hold prayers for “the Mujahedeen”.

Not that any of this has deterred the UK's current crop of Useful Idiots from making common cause with the MENDniks. Why would it, when both groups despise Israel and are completely in the tank for the victimhood spin, seeing it as the vehicle that will bring them the political power that they and their ilk desire above all else?

Some of the Useful Idiots are on view in this video:

Once Again, Phyllis Chesler Dares to Confuse Her Victimhood-Besotted Feminist Sisters With the Truth

Phyllis Chesler has a new book, a compilation of pieces on the subject of Islam and women, which is to say that it deals with women's subjugation in and by Islam and those who act in its name. Bruce Bawer, for one, has no doubt that "feminists," who seem to manifest a fondness for patriarchy when it is bound up with victimhood (it's part and parcel of the "intersectionality" claptrap), will remain deaf to the truths that Chesler imparts, and will continue to excoriate and dismiss her as an "Islamophobic" messenger. In Bawer's words:

This foolishness, this madness – this outright patriarchy-worship in the guise of feminism, this perverse insistence that political virtue always consists in taking the side of “the other,” even if “the other” is out to oppress or rape or even kill you – this is what Chesler is up against. And her only weapon is the facts. That's what this book is – 462 pages of facts about a culture whose systematic abuse of women she refuses to stop talking about. In these pieces, she takes us to Iran and Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Syria and Turkey, Nigeria and Pakistan, and France and Britain and the U.S. She attends to such phenomena as forced marriage, underage brides, honor killings, female genital mutilation (FGM), Muslim family rapes, female suicide bombers (and their Western defenders), splenetic Muslim cabdrivers in New York, slaveholding by a Muslim millionaire on Long Island, and much else. Not to mention plenty about burkas – about a burka ban in Syria, proposals for burka bans in the West, opponents of burka bans in the West, fights over the burka in Nantes, riots over the burka in Paris, and so on. 

It's all there in Chesler's book. But the people who most need to read this stuff and take it to heart – the Women's March marchers, the pussy-hat wearers, the would-be glass-ceiling-breakers like Lena Dunham and self-described “nasty women” like Ashley Judd – they'll probably never go near this book. As for Women's Studies, of which Chesler is one of the founding mothers, it has – as Chesler herself laments in these pages – been “Stalinized,” shifting its concern from “the 'occupation' of women's bodies worldwide” to “the alleged occupation of a country that has never existed: 'Palestine.'”...

Well, if you keep your eyes on "Palestine," you never have to deal with the unpleasant reality that your ethos, your belief system, your ideology, is a crock.

Update: Oh frabjous day--it's a Bruce Bawer two-fer!

Israel At Odds With U.S. Over Its Deal With Russia Allowing Iran Proxy Fighters Near (ie. TOO Near) Syria-Israel Border

Sounds like the Trumpeters, as per usual, have made sucking up to Putin a priority.

The Dhimmification of an Iconic American Brand: Mattel Introduces "Hijab Barbie"

No word on whether she's FGM Barbie too.

The Still Love Us In Poland

Just kidding, of course.

The Rot in Rotherham

Thanks to Islamophobiaphobia, it's still alive and stinking.

Why Trump's Middle East Peace Plan Is as Likely to Fail as Previous Peace-In-Our-Time Efforts

If Trump thinks that he, via Ivanka's hubby, can bring a lasting peace to this fractious region, he had better think again.

Could Calgary Change Its Name to Wishispa Oyade?

If identity/victimhood politics and "progressive" feelings of guilt rule the day--and they usually do in Justin's Trudeaupia--you can almost count on it.

The Epitome of "Progressive" Insanity/Decadence

Sharia-adoring/Israel-despising Linda Sarsour has been asked to lead a panel discussion about--wait for it--anti-Semitism (which is sort of like inviting Harvey Weinstein to chair a conference on female empowerment, or getting David Duke to lead a symposium on racism).

Update: Congrats to the Sour-puss on being named one of Glamour magazine's Women of the Year! (Apparently, calling for a vocal female critic of sharia supremacism, a victim of FGM, to be given a vagina-ectomy is no impediment to receiving this highly coveted--ha!--prize.)

The Misogynist's Mother Goose

1.
Horny Louis C.K.
Is going away
Because of some weird predilections:
He pulled out his dick--
Thought it was a neat trick--
And has now lost the public's affections.

2.
Harvey Parvey,
Hirsute and obese,
Used his position
For sexual release.
When a few women exposed the sinner
Harvey Parvey was done like dinner.

3.
Cosby was Doc Huxtable.
Cosby was adored.
Cosby drugged 'em by score
And pawed 'em as they snored.
Nothing could be done, of course,
Though many might have tried.
They thought he was Doc Huxtable;
He was really Mr. Hyde.

Optics Shmoptics

That, apparently, is Donald Trump's thinking re showing up at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit wearing the identical blue shirt as Vladimir Putin.

It kind of looks like this, you two:

And a Merry Allahu Akbar To You Too!

Bruce Bawer reveals that Christmas in Norway this year has taken on a distinctly dhimmi "diversity"-minded tone:

In some regards, the celebration of Christmas goes even further in Norway than it does in the U.S., or at least in some parts of the U.S. Because, until a generation or so ago, almost everybody in Norway was at least a nominal Christian, and because the separation of church and state is a relatively new concept in these parts. The Church of Norway was the nation's established church until this past January, and continues to be fully funded by, and to have strong ties to, the government. Christmas events at public schools still tend to have a more religious tinge than they do in public schools in the U.S., at least in religiously diverse urban areas such as New York City and Los Angeles. 

It drew national attention, then, when Document.no, an online outpost of honesty about Islam, reported on November 7 that the Stigeråsen School, an elementary school in Skien (Henrik Ibsen's hometown), announced that this year that its Christmas festivities would include not only the usual reading by pupils of verses from the Bible but also a bonus -- two verses from the Koran. All of the verses in question are about Jesus, whom Islam considers a prophet, although not, of course, the Son of God. 

Breaking the news of these plans, reporter Hanne Tolg noted that some such change in traditional holiday programming was probably inevitable, given that 40% of the kids at the Stigeråsen School speak Norwegian as a second language (if they speak it at all). Still, added Tolg, the whole thing was pretty bizarre, given that (a) Christmas is not an Islamic holy day, and (b) thanks to such misguided innovations, a whole generation of Norwegian children will grow up thinking "that Allah and the Koran have something to do with Christmas."

In "honour" of this development, I have rejigged a Christmas standard:

It's beginning to look a lot like Islam
Ev'rywhere you go.
Take a look at that Norway school,
They're learning the Golden Rule:
"Do unto Islam what you'd like Islam to do to you."
It's beginning to look a lot like Islam.
Diversity's a blast!
But the silliest sight you'll see
Is a roomful of dhimmis
Who think that croc'll eat them last...

Maybe Next Time She'll Think Before She Tweets (or Maybe Not)

The Toronto Sun's Lorrie Goldstein weighs in on Trudeau's environment minister claiming that her tweet high-fiving the Syrian despot for signing on to the Paris climate change agenda was all a big mistake. It should come as no surprise that Goldstein isn't buying her CO2 emissions:

As many others, aghast at Canada’s praise for the murderous Syrian regime, took McKenna to task, her ministry deleted its pro-Syrian tweet and McKenna tweeted in response to Raitt, on her own, “Catherine McKenna @cathmckenna” account — which also features a photo of her smiling as its avatar: “Clearly a mistake was made from my Dept Twitter. We’ve been clear that the murderous Assad regime must end attacks against its people.” 

Unfortunately, the impact of McKenna’s correction was diminished somewhat by the fact the pinned tweet on her personal account (one chosen by the user to be the first tweet everyone who comes to the site sees) was a picture of McKenna posing as a “Climate Crusader” in a green mask, beside Justin Trudeau as Clark Kent/Superman, with the message, “We all need to be superheros (sic) in the fight against climate change. #HappyHalloween Canada! #ClimateCrusader.”

To be clear: there are no grownups in the Liberal government.

Should've Been Called "How To Be a Dhimmi"

Can't wait to sign up for this one (hat tip: MW). 

"Weinstein Didn't Invent the Casting Couch. His Sole Innovation Is That He Might Have Accessorized It With a Potted Plant"

Good one, Mr. McG!

I might have added his "innovation" of also accessorizing it with a white terry cloth bathrobe (and a large paunch).

That's Their Made Up Story and They're Stickin' To It

Jihad Watch has a must-read piece on how the mainstream media has glommed onto a good guys/bad guys narrative vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians, even though it is predicated on the fiction that current problems arose in 1967, and even though it is blind to the resurgent supremacist Islam that imperils the rest of the West, too.

Is there anything worse than this crappy reportage based on an agreed-upon false narrative?

Why, yes; yes there is.

There are those like Neil Macdonald of the CBC who take great delight in spewing the Big Lie du jour--i.e. that Israel practices a form of "apartheid." 

Update: Speaking of crappy reportage based on an agreed-upon false narrative, the Ceeb's Derek "Rhymes With Awful" Stoffel is peerless at it.

Nikki Haley Says the U.S. Will Pull Out of the UN's Human Rights Council Unless It Smartens Up

Among the things on Haley's to-do list if the U.S. is to stay:

1. Get rid of "Item 7" (a permanent agenda item re Israel's--but not, of course, Abbas's--human rights breeches in the West Bank).
2. Prevent the countries with the worst human rights records (including, most recently, the horrendous Democratic Republic of the Congo) from being the arbiters of the world's human rights.

A "Diversity" Maven Muddies the Waters Re Islamic Prayers

One video shows an imam at a Toronto mosque praying for Allah to

"destroy anyone who killed Muslims” and “slay them one by one” and “purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!" 

And now it has been revealed that, in a second video, the same imam at the same mosque is seen chanting: 

“O Allah, whoever wishes ill for us and wishes ill for Islam and the Muslims, make his plot tied around his neck. O Allah, turn fate against them and annihilate them as you annihilated the peoples of Aad and Thamud.” 

While some, including Tarek Fatah and Meir Weinstein of the JDL, espy hatred in these words, and see them as being problematic, others warn that they've been "mistranslated" and/or "taken out of context."

Among the latter is Bernie Farber, a man whose powers of discernment are so exquisitely fine-tuned that he can basically tell at a glance who is--and is not--a Jew-hater. As Farber explains:

“In my experience I can tell who’s an anti-Semite and Mr. Elkasrawy [the imam in the two videos] is not one. He is a fine young man.”

Well, if Bernie says the man is kosher, who are we to second-guess him?

Farber is also an expert, apparently, on the meaning and import of Islamic liturgy. He insists, for example, that the prayers intoned by the imam are

"said every day in a mosque” and [are] no different from ones used in churches, temples and synagogues too.

Really? I can't vouch for what's prayed in churches, but I know that at my synagogue--and I'm there most Saturdays--we most emphatically do not call non-Jews "filth" or pray for their "annihilation"/"destruction."

But maybe things are different at Bernie's shul.

Update: Robert Spencer sees this second video as confirmation that (pace a certain "diversity" maven) this imam does not feel the warm 'n' fuzzies for "the Jews" as Islam understands them (for more on that, see this, for instance), and that it's time for gullible infidels to knock it off with the whitewash:

Ayman Elkasrawy prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews, and the Toronto Star ran a lengthy piece claiming that he didn’t really mean it, and didn’t actually even say it at all, but was just mistranslated. I showed the falsehoods of the Toronto Star piece here. And now the Star has egg on its face, because Elkasrawy has been caught praying for people to be killed again. 

Will the Star run interference for him again? Or will the Star and the rest of the Canadian establishment media finally realize that Islamic core texts teach violence, and so it’s not in the least surprising for imams to preach violence?

Knowing full well that the Star and the rest of the Canadian establishment cannot bear very much reality, I feel entirely safe in answering "yes" to the first question and "no" to the second.

Re the Russian Revolution, the Ceeb Deploys Its Usual Moral Relativism

There's no argument: the enterprise was totalitarian and resulted in misery, deprivation and millions upon millions of deaths. And yet, in its infinite wisdom (ha!), CBC radio's Sunday Edition insists that

In 2017, the legacy of the Russian Revolution is fiercely contested. 

For some, the revolution remains a symbol of liberation from oppression — proof that capitalism can be challenged and empires can fall.  Some see it as a cautionary tale about how lofty dreams can turn to nightmares — and for others, the whole enterprise was poisonous and doomed from the beginning.

For "some"? Yeah for, say, Cuba's Castros and for Kim Jong Un. Also for those in academe who, despite the lessons of history, still adore Karl Marx and believe in his utopian fantasy of absolute equality.

What the Traditional Jihadi War Cry "Allahu Akbar" Can Mean, According to the New York Times

It can mean:

• "you're so pretty";
• "you're so handsome";
• something "innocuous" (like, say, "have a nice day");
• nothing whatsoever--it's devoid of meaning.

So when you hear that someone has screamed "Allahu Akbar," and there are lots of dead bodies lying around, do not, I repeat, do not, leap to the conclusion that jihad, or Islam, or ISIS, or Muslims are involved (even if, as noted "Islamophobe" Daniel Greenfield rudely points out, the expression "originated when Mohammed massacred the Jews of Khaybar" and "what it really means is that Allah is superior to your religion").

Zafar Bangash's Khomeinist Magazine Uses Occasion of the Balfour Dec's 100th to Vow That Israel Will Soon Be Erased

Irony never being the Khomeinists' strong suit, this month's cover story accuses "the Zionists" of a "genocide" while simultaneously promising to wipe Israel off the map. (In case you were wondering, the left hand is Hezbo and the right hand is Iran.)

What's the Difference Between Being a "Witch" and Being a Purveyor of Snake Oil?

Not much, apparently:

Toronto-based healer Cassandra Thompson’s practise is rooted in Afro-Diasporic folk magic and fully intertwined to her politics. “As a queer Black woman, [witchcraft] allows me to claim control over my body, spirit and emotions,” the 27-year-old says. Although she’s always been a spiritual person, Thompson started practising regularly two years ago while she was involved in frontline organizing for issues around anti-Blackness, Indigenous sovereignty and violence against women and femmes. 

Thompson realized that despite all the work she and her fellow activists were doing, they didn’t have the time or space to heal themselves. Thompson started making plant-based medicines like teas for spiritual healing, as well as mojos, which are like the charm bags Worth demonstrated in her workshop. Thompson recently sent nearly 50 mojos with protective powers across North America to activists protesting police violence. Through her business Crystal Root & Conjure, Thompson offers one-on-one healing seasons and sells conjure oils and tote bags that say “Hex the Patriarchy.” 

“To demonize the idea of a witch or someone who is a healer is linked to our struggles as feminists,” says Thompson. “As women and femmes, witchcraft has become a tool to not only fight the [political] battle, but to also heal our internal battles at the same time.”

One can help but pity the plain old snake oil salesman here. Unlike Cassandra the Queer Black Witch, he can't play the victim card, thereby conferring legitimacy on his product.

Stoffel's Awful Tweet

The other day, the CBC's Middle East correspondent Derek Stoffel tweeted this, which showed up both on his Twitter site and the Ceeb's:

Latest work from Australian artist @lushsux on separation barrier in #Bethlehem: 

Pretty disgusting, no? Fortunately, Honest Reporting Canada refused to let that one pass, tweeting this in response:

Fact: It’s a security (not “separation” barrier that protects #Israelis from #Palestinian terror. Has reduced terror attacks by 90%.

Stoffel's anti-Israel bias is so obvious (and so awful) that it renders his reportage completely unreliable. Also unwatchable/unlistenable.

Israel Takes the Lead In Dealing With the Immense "Lone-Wolf Challenge"

All too often these days authorities are quick to reassure the public that a feat of jihad that results in many deaths has not been plotted by a larger terrorism network (a la, say, 9/11/01) but is solely the work of a "lone wolf."

As if that's supposed to be comforting.

Israel, naturally, views the existence of the "lone wolf" in an entirely different way--i.e. not as a source of relief but as something that poses an enormous, perhaps even an existential, threat to the West--and has developed a specific strategy to deal with it. Here's how Avshalom Peled, Israel's top cop, sees it:

While there is no typical lone wolf, Peled said, “what is common is the motivation of the ideology of extremist Islamic teachings, with the encouragement of Islamic terror organizations.” 

Social media, Peled emphasized, is “one of the main tools of incitement producing lone-wolf terrorists.” 

The lone-wolf challenge, he said, prompted the Israel Police to create “new procedures covering six main areas to deal with lone wolves — operational and tactical methods; intelligence; technology; dialogue; training; and public awareness.” 

According to Peled, Israel’s security bodies — including the police, Shin Bet and IDF — have bolstered their cooperation to handle the threat. 

“We’re building responsive joint command centers, which enable us to respond quickly and effectively during an event,” he said...

Israel "gets" the immensity of the "lone wolf" threat. For the Cuomos and the de Blasios to "get it," they would first have to acknowledge the threat and no longer position it as a "comfort" or a "relief"--and, given their pathological leftist blindness, there's no way that's going to happen any time soon.

"He Did Not Learn Religion Properly. That's the Main Disease in the Muslim Community"

An imam who knew him diagnoses Sayfullo Saipov's problem. (The New York Times, which interviewed the imam, attributes Saipov's difficulties to "disappointments" and "rootlessness"--in other words, America failed him).

But back to the iman. Could it be that the main disease in the Muslim Community isn't a failure to "learn religion properly" but individual Muslims inculcating core religious teachings--including supremacism and the jihad imperative--all too well?

The other main disease, of course, one from which the imam seems to suffer: denial.

Update: Many infidels suffer from the disease of denial too. For instance, this one.

One Man's "Resilience" Is Another Man's "Enfeebled Passivity"

One man: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Another man: Mark Steyn.

CAIR's Saccharin Post-Truck Terror Words At Odds With Another CAIR Pronouncement

Yesterday's deadly truck attack in New York generated the usual faux-progressive platitudes from CAIR:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the country’s largest Muslim civil rights group, called the incident a “cowardly attack” meant to sow discord across America, and offered its “sincere condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured.” 

“Since the goal of such heinous crimes is to divide our nation, it is incumbent on Americans of all faiths and backgrounds to frustrate that criminal objective by standing united in the face of terror,” CAIR said in a statement, using the hashtag #NYCStrong. 

To underscore the "unity" trope, CAIR sent out one of its biggest guns--its Jew-for-hire:

Albert Fox Cahn, legal director for CAIR’s New York chapter, echoed calls for compassion, saying the city would stand strong after the incident. 

“In the wake of this tragedy, we know that New Yorkers will not only show our city’s enduring resilience, but we will prove that our love and compassion are stronger than anyone who attacks and divides us,” Fox Cahn said.

Oh, yeah, Al? Tell that to CAIR's Zahra Billoo, who has opined that she's "more afraid of racist Zionists who support Apartheid Israel than of the mentally ill young people the FBI recruits to join ISIS."

Ms. Billoo gives us a glimpse of the true face of CAIR, which is Islamist, Hamas-supporting and Jew-hatey to the core.

It's That Little "Er" That Makes All the Difference

Another day. Another "lone wolf" screaming "Allahu Akbar!" Another bunch of reporters (including this one) explaining that that means "God is great" in Arabic.

In other words, another misrepresentation of what it really means (elucidated here by Robert Spencer):

Media outlets routinely mangle the true meaning of “Allahu akbar,” the ubiquitous battle cry of Islamic jihadists as they commit mass murder. 

The war-cry is mistranslated in the Western media as “God is great.” But the actual meaning is “Allah is greater,” meaning Allah Is Greater Than Your God or Government. 

It is the aggressive declaration that Allah and Islam are dominant over every other form of government, religion, law or ethic, which is why Islamic jihadists in the midst of killing infidels so often shout it. 

One primary purpose of shouting is to “strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah.”

"Strike terror," eh?

In that case, mission accomplished.

Update: Michelle Malkin says America is suffering from "Allahu Akbar-it is."
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453308/nyc-attacker-said-allahu-akbar-stop-whitewashing-it

Never MInd the Bollards

As you knew he would, Mark Steyn has some choice words about the latest feat of vehicular jihad:

And so, on a buckled, broken bicycle on the Hudson River Greenway, the wheel comes full circle. America and every other major western nation thought the appropriate response to 9/11 was to show how nice we are by dramatically increasing the rate of mass Muslim immigration. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov was among the many beneficiaries of the west's suicide by virtue-signaling. "Sayfullo" is a Central Asian rendering of "Saifallah" - or "Sword of Allah". Hmm, what a fascinating name! Do you think whichever brain-dead bureaucrat who gave Sword of Allah's online Green Card application the once-over (assuming anyone did) so much as gave the name a second glance? And so, because we did not take an act of war seriously in 2001, we are relentlessly harassed and diminished by unending micro-jihad - in Copenhagen, in Toulouse, in San Bernadino, in Calgary, Barcelona, Parsons Green ...and now on a bike path 300 feet from where we came in sixteen years ago.

Meanwhile, Daniel Greenfield decries the bone-headed sang froid of authorities who, on such horrific occasions, trot out the same old spin:

Governor Andrew Cuomo pointed out another hallmark of a vehicle assault. The perp, he said, was one of those “lone wolves” who “meant to cause pain and harm and probably death and the resulting terror.”

But it takes a pack to raise a lone wolf. Even if Saipov acted alone, he was part of a growing ideological fraternity numbering in the tens of thousands who now inhabit every region of the globe. Those seeking eternal glory have staged similar attacks in at least a dozen other cities—from Nice to Paris to Barcelona to London to Jerusalem. Like the attacks in these cities, the Halloween attack in Lower Manhattan was aimed at inflicting maximum carnage. Schools in the area were letting out students shortly after three o’clock when Saipov drove his rented truck off West Houston Street onto the bike path. There was no shortage of targets. The streets between West Houston and Chambers were crowded with parents picking up their costumed children prepared for an evening of trick-or-treating. Pedestrians and bikers on the Hudson River bike path were stunned and helpless as Saipov careened his weapon through the crowd.

These days it's all about "lone wolves" following ISIS's orders to mow us down. And, pace the bland assurances of those who run things, we, my friends, are the jihadis' sitting--or standing, or biking--ducks.

Update: Speaking of the same old spin, I, for one, are growing very tired of Trump's silly and overused phrase, "extreme vetting."

Why silly? Because what's needed isn't "extreme" vetting. What's needed is effective vetting of extremists. And that, as we know, is far easier said than done.

Update: Andrew McCarthy has this to say on the topic of "extreme vetting":

Ever quick with a tweet, President Trump reacted last night by asserting (among other things): “I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this.”  

But he is being politically correct. After all, what is it that “Extreme Vetting” is vetting for? No one wants to say. Why? Because, as we’ve been contending here for months, the ill-considered, ineffectual “travel bans” have pushed the Trump administration into a posture that makes screening for sharia supremacism much more difficult.

Not that "screening for sharia supremacism" is any more doable than screening for "extremism."