ABC Cancels 'Alice in Arabia' Show After Uproar Galore

An affronted one 'splains what sparked the cancellation:

So why did Alice in Arabia spark such a [negative] response? The premise seemed to be ripped out of a movie from the 1980s: a young American teenager is kidnapped by her extended Saudi Arabian family and imprisoned on their compound. Our heroine “must count on her independent spirit and wit to find a way to return home while surviving life behind the veil.” 

The backlash to the pilot’s announcement on Twitter was immediate. Soon Arab-American and Muslim-American groups joined in expressing their apprehension. 

Even I raised my concerns in a telephone conversation with an ABC Family executive on Thursday. The ABC official explained that they had tackled other touchy subjects in a respectful way as in the case of its show The Fosters which features a same-sex couple raising a multicultural group of children. But when I asked: “Were any of the children on The Fosters kidnapped and forced to stay in the family like in Alice in Arabia?,” I was met with a moment of silence, followed by assurances thatAlice would be nuanced.
The outcry escalated Friday whenBuzzFeed released a version of the pilot script and reported that it’s, “dotted with cultural inaccuracies and stereotypes.” For example, one of the show’s characters refers to the mixed ethnicity of “Alice” as, “half Jew-loving monkey.” 

By Friday night, ABC Family apparently had enough: “The current conversation surrounding our pilot was not what we had envisioned and is certainly not conducive to the creative process, so we’ve decided not to move forward with this project.” 

Some are ecstatic by this swift cancelation. I’m not. I would’ve preferred that ABC Family first met with people in the Middle Eastern and Muslim-American communities to try and make the show work. If the premise had been tweaked to eliminate the kidnapping angle, it very well could've become a fair showcase of Arabs and Muslims. And “fair” is all I want. I’m not looking for a PSA, but rather a TV show that features the good and the bad in our community...

Oh, you mean like, say, showcasing tasty samosas and jihad? Yeah, I'm sure that, in the absence of the kidnapping angle, that would have done the job.

The Blind Leading From Behind

(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con
No more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con no more.)
What you say?
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con
No more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con no more.)

Oh, Kerry, oh, Kerry,
You're clueless and weak.
You don't know a single thing of which you speak.
We wish you would give it a rest
'Cuz that would be for the best (that's right!).

(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con
No more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con no more.)
What you say?
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con
No more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road,  John, we don't want your con no more.)

Now Kerry, listen Kerry, Abbas ain't no good.
He'll never make peace even if he could.
If only you knew the score
You wouldn't come back encore (that's French).

(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con
No more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con no more.)
What you say?
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con
No more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road, John, we don't want your con no more.)...

Michael Mann, Hockey Stick Graphologist and Steyn Nemesis, Has Serious Concerns About the UN's Hyper-Alarmist Climate Change Report

He thinks it's way too "conservative."

Watch 'Groundhog Day' (Again)

One of Charles Murray's "Rules For a Happy Life."

It's Always "Earth Hour" in North Korea

Silly, guilt-ridden people luxuriate in their own misguided sense of virtuousness by powering down for an hour. Meanwhile, over in Pyong Yang and environs...

So Classy!

Future former prime minister Justin Trudeau drops the "F"-bomb at a cancer charity event.

"His Lack of TV Experience was Especially Apparent Last Week During an Appearance on NBC’s “Today” in Which He Seemed to Have Trouble Linking Sentences..."

MSNBC's latest talking head, Rhodes scholar Ronan Farrow (son of Mia and Woody or Frank), flails and flounders on air.

Black IS Beautiful

I happen to believe that this



is the most beautiful dog breed in existence. It seems I'm in the minority, though. Apparently, there's something called "black dog syndrome," and it makes people shun black dogs in particular because they're black.

I say: Resist the syndrome! Black pooches rock!

Update: Black beauties, a photo series.

Thanks For Coming and Try the Genocide

A new novel posits the absurdity of Hitler doing stand up comedy.

Iranians Diss Their Loathsome Leadership By Lauding Israel

Heh:

Iranians have launched an unprecedented attack on the country’s government – for not behaving more like Israel. 

The criticism of President Rouhani's administration came following the news that an Iranian soldier taken hostage by militants in Pakistan had been killed. 

Angry Iranians took to social media to condemn the Islamic Republic’s failure to rescue the soldier, comparing its apparent inaction unfavourably with Israeli determination to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, the IDF private who was held by Hamas for five years. 

One post on Facebook read: “Keep saying ‘Death to Israel’ but they freed 1,072 Palestinians in return for the release of one of their own.” 

Another admitted: “Yes, I admire Israel. The same Israel they have been wanting to wipe off the map. The same Israel who for five years tirelessly did everything to save one of its soldiers.  

Most of the messages were posted abroad, but have been widely discussed in Iran, despite Facebook and Twitter being banned there.

U.S. Clitorectomy Clinics Set to Do a Booming Business

It is estimated that between 150,000 and 200,000 young girls in the U.S. are in line to have their genitals obliterated because of a primitive obsession with/disgust for female sexuality.

Gee, I wonder if the procedure is covered by Obamacare. (Just don't expect the angry chicks who want Hobby Lobby to pay for their birth control to protest the FGM.)

World Is Ill-Prepared for Impact of Global Warming, UN Says

To which the corollary is: cede all your power to the UN ('cuz we'll never steer you wrong).

Beware of Leftist Jews Who Yammer On (and On) About the Need for a "Big Tent"

As Alan Dershowitz explains, what these J Street/J Space kind of Jews really want is for you "other" Jews to come into the "big tent"--and shut your big, fat mouths.

Bibi Comments on the UN's Odious "Human Rights" Thugocrats

The only thing they do really well is, well, condemn Israel, as Israel's P.M. observes:

Over the weekend the UN Human Rights Council condemned Israel five times, this at a time when the slaughter in Syria is continuing, innocent people are being hung in the Middle East and human rights are being eroded. In many countries free media are being shut down and the UN Human Rights Council decides to condemn Israel for closing off a balcony. This is absurd. This march of hypocrisy is continuing and we will continue to condemn it and expose it.

Problem is, "human rights" is in the hands of the bad guys, as is the entire UN. In the current issue of Moment magazine, Irwin Cotler comments:

What makes today's delegitimization of Israel different from classical, historical delegitimization is its masking under the rubric of all that is good, such as the struggle against racism, and doing so under the effective cover of institutions such as the United Nations. This ideological anti-Semitism is much more sophisticated and arguably a more pernicious expression of the new anti-Semitism because it is not expressed in any genocidal incitement against Jews and Israel, which is overt and public and clear.

I'm not sure if I agree with the second sentence. It seems to me that Zionhass, the excessive, obsessive hatred of Israel, can often be both "more sophisticated" in that it cloaks itself in the sheep's clothing of "human rights" as well as genocidal, in that ending the "occupation" (of Israel by Jews), the endgame of the UN "human rights" thugs, would ipso facto entail the mass slaughter of Jewry.

Why the Climate Change Souffle Has Fallen Flat

Here's why:

The inability of the climate campaign to ponder whether environmental problems can be solved with means that are compatible with individual liberty, democratic institutions, and market economics is the chief reason they are losing. 

Exactly. The "solution" to climate change is antithetical to individual freedom but entirely in synch with authoritarianism of various stripes, a huge part of its appeal for those who long to control stuff (and who like to tell themselves they're on the side of the angels).

The TDSB Can't Spell

From the Tedious B website (my bolds):

Friday, February 28 marked the 6th annual Sister 2 Sister Conference. This year over 200 grade eight girls from nine Regent Park and surrounding communities' schools participated. The full day conference is for womyn by womyn with the main goal of making connections with positive female role models and acknowledge the incredible womyn leaders in the community.

Do you know anyone who isn't a radical feminist/Marxist who spells it that way? I shoor don't. (Hey, if the Tedious B can change the spelling of common words, so can I.)

Here's a poetic tribute to the board's embrace of politicized spelling:

My mind is reelin' and spinnin'
'Cuz the Tedious B spells it "womyn."
This radical word
Is clearly absurd
And will lead to scholastic oblivi'n.

Update: The Urban Dictionary 'splains that "womyn" is

the feminist/lesbian spelling of "woman". also has political implications. not all feminists/lesbians use or even like this term, but it's been claimed as a subtle empowerment thing by both groups in general.   

A subtle empowerment thing, eh? All of a sudden, I feel a song coming on:

We are "womyn" with a "y"
'Cuz we don't need any guy
To define us and malign us with an "e".
Were we "women" we would be
Sans a shred of dignity,
At the mercy of the bad patriarchy.
Yes, we're empowered--
Even tho' some wear the veil.
No, we haven't cowered
And our cause will prevail.
If we want to
We'll misspell everything.
We are strong (strong)!
We're unassailable!
We are "womyn"...

Bizarro Header Du Jour: 'Get in!': Father who had his penis chopped off by gipsies posts monster fry-up picture on Facebook after leaving hospital - but still faces months of surgery

Only in the U.K., eh?

I will now endeavor mightily to stifle the overwhelming impulse to say something about "sausages".

Historian Simon Shama: The "Occupation" Will Be the End of Israel

Actually, Si, the "occupation" of Israel by Jews (the only "occupation" the Zion-loathers really care about) is what makes and will perpetuate a living Israel.

If anything will spell the end of Israel, it will be a combo of leftist busybodies like Kerry, Obama and their interminable "peace process" along with J Street-type Jewtopians for whom "justice" for Palestinians (the victims di tutti victims) is all consuming.

Pretty Much Describes Most Lefties in the U.S.

Online Survey Reveals Hispanics Possess a Limited Understanding of Obamacare, Despite Being in Favor of the Plan

"J-Streetophobia" Is an "Ailment" of the Sane

Those who would silence people who disagree with them (and who believe in a robust, no holds barred discussion) pathologize--and thereby stigmative--their opponents in the hopes that they'll be too embarrassed by their "phobia" to partake in any debate.

And "J-Streetphobia"? It's a faux pathology invented by faux Zionists.

Whatever You Do, Don't You Dare Draw Michael Mann With a Bomb in His Hat!

The blasphemy of climate change "denial" is not to be tolerated!

Wanted: New UN Special Raporteur. Must Despise Israel and Believe Ferverently in the "Sacred Palestinian Cause"

Oh, look--the position's been filled.

Justin Trudeau Is "Writing" His Memoirs

And by "writing" I mean he's getting someone who can actually write to write it for him.

I predict it'll be an even less riveting read than his predecessor Iggy's self-pitying snoozeroo.

Jewish School Teacher in Paris Beaten by Muslim Thugs Recounts the Horror

This is sickening:

A Jewish teacher who was attacked by anti-Semitic assailants in Paris last week recounted the harrowing attack, in which he said three North African men beat him savagely and drew a swastika on his chest after he left a kosher restaurant. 

The man, identified only as "David," spoke to the New York-based Jewish newspaper The Algemeiner, which published several photos of him with two black eyes, as well as pictures of the crude Nazi symbol he said was scrawled on him as a sick "marker."

"Often my family and friends who are still in France tend to ignore the rise of anti-Semitism and its danger, but this recent video shows that it’s real.”

“They started to curse me out: ‘dirty Jew,’ ‘death to the Jews,’ ‘son of a b****,’ etc.," the man said of the March 20 attack. "Then they started to beat me up,” David says in a clip before breaking down in tears. “I was hit on my face, I got my nose fractured… And then one of them took something out of his pocket, I thought it was a knife… It was a marker… And this is what they did to me (showing his chest), a swastika as they were screaming ‘dirty Jew.’ ”

Identifying them as "North African" is part of the problem. It is redolent (it stinks, actually) of a cringing political correctness that dares not identify the root of the problem--Muslim antipathy toward Jews that's written into Islamic texts and which has reached new heights of hysterical hatefulness because, in defiance of those texts, Israel exists and thrives.

O-Care Goes to the Dogs

If only it did since, as this bloke notes, dogs actually have better health insurance plans than humans do.

Update: Top 8 Wacky O-Care Ads



Iran Press TV Conspiracy Buff Says He Knows Who's Behind the Disappearance of Flight 370

It's the CIA fer shure!

17--Count 'Em, 17--News Companies Support FOIA Lawsuit Against Hockey Stick Graphologist Michael Mann

The science may be "settled," but that's only because the "settled science" proponents have settled on non-transparency as their M.O.:

A group seeking access to climate scientist Michael Mann’s emails through Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) has a surprising new group of news media allies.

From wire agencies to liberal Atlantic Media, Inc., 17 news groups have supported the release of documents, according to Columbia Journalism Review. 

“Organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 17 news organizations, including National Public Radio, Dow Jones, and The Washington Post, submitted an amicus brief in November, supporting the group’s rights to Mann’s emails,” CJR said. Other groups include Politico, Associated Press and Reuters, Gannett Co. which owns USA Today, and News Corp.

Notably absent from that list are, not surprisingly, "CNN and The New York Times." For those two media outlets, the refusal to question the adamancies of climate science and an aversion to scrutinizing Barack Obama's flimflams go hand-in-hand.

And I'm sure that, just like Lois Lerner, another aficionado of non-transparency, Prof. Mann has absolutely nothing to hide. It behooves us to point out, however, that someone who is so thin-skinned that he's suing Mark Steyn for dissing him and his stick in an insulting way, but who at the same time has a Janus-faced response to the media spotlight, i.e. basking in it when it's worshipful but shunning it when it isn't, can hardly be described as someone with a firm grip on the moral high ground.

The above described media pile on against Prof. Mann and how he's brought it on himself brings to mind a famous biblical quotation: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind." That final bit was borrowed for Inherit the Wind, the title of the play, and then a movie, about the Scopes Monkey Case. I guess that's fitting, given that the Steyn prosecution is being framed as Scopes redux (although I, for one, have hesitated to see it like that).

Here Comes Mummy's Boo Boo

A mom from Toad Suck, Arkansas (hey, wasn't where Petticoat Junction was set?) was thrown into jail when she decided to, um, suck back brewskis and breastfeed--at the same time:

A mother, who was thrown in jail and charged with endangering the welfare of a child after breastfeeding her baby while drinking, said she didn’t know she was possibly breaking the law.  

“I did drink. I did breastfeed,” Tasha Adams told ABC News’ “20/20” in her first on-camera interview. “I didn’t know it was illegal. If I knew it was illegal, I wouldn’t have done it.”  

Last week, Chuck Clawson, the deputy city attorney for Conway, Ark., dropped Adams’ child endangerment charge because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove she had one too many drinks to care for her child.

 

The 28-year-old is a stay-at-home mother to her three children: 6-year-old Cal, 2-year-old Hyd, and 8-month-old Ana. Adams and her family live in Toad Suck, Ark., a small town where alcohol is banned. But unlike Toad Suck, Conway, Ark., is not a dry town...

Do I sense a new TLC reality show in the offing?


A family that's not from Toad Suck, Ark.

Next Year in Sevastopol?

Before Crimea Was an Ethnic Russian Stronghold, It Was a Potential Jewish Homeland

Those Are Our Only Two Choices?

Thomas L. Friedman lays 'em out for us:

The legitimacy of China’s leaders today depends, in part, on their ability to make their country’s power system greener so their people can breathe. Putin’s legitimacy depends on keeping Russia and the world addicted to oil and gas. Whom do you want to bet on?

Actually, I want to bet on neither. I want to depend on ourselves and on the abundant natural resources--the oil, the natural gas--were have in our your backyard.

I want to bet on the Keystone XL pipeline. Too bad Obama and Friedman, those brainiacs, refuse to do the same.

Speaking of betting, Tom's the one who bet big on the Arab Spring--and lost his shirt. Naturally, he's forgotten all about it since he starts this column with this "insight":

One thing I learned covering the Middle East for many years is that there is “the morning after” and there is “the morning after the morning after.” Never confuse the two.

The morning after a big event is when fools rush in and declare that someone’s victory or defeat in a single battle has “changed everything forever.” The morning after the morning after, the laws of gravity start to apply themselves; things often don’t look as good or as bad as you thought. 

It took an awful lot of mornings after the morning after for Tom to wake up and see that the Arab Spring was a big old bust. I wouldn't bet on his being any smarter on the subject of Russia, China and renewable and non-renewable energy.

Why Does Michelle Obama's Mama Live at the White House?

The digs are fine and the livin' is easy?

Official Jews Still Clueless About Free Speech

This CJN article is so poorly written that's it's a challenge to untangle exactly what it's about. After two complete read-throughs, here's my conclusion: it amounts to support for the government, which wants to pass an anti-"cyber-bullying" law, and which, since it would extend our already far too extensive "hate speech" laws, sounds to me like terrible idea to me. Once again, however, Official Jewdom is lining up on the wrong side of the free speech issue. It wants the law to pass because it thinks it will protect Jewry from "racist and xenophic" hate speech/propaganda. On the other side--the side that wants to defend free expression--are a bunch of pro-Palestinian advocates who are worried that, should the law pass, they won't get to express their Zionhass (they wouldn't call it that, but I would), and who, somewhat hysterically and pathologically, believe that the law is nothing more that a Conservative government conspiracy to silence them and other critics of Israel.

You would think that by now the Jews would have figured out that those "hate speech" laws do not protect them; that, in fact, what they do do is end up silencing Jews and empowering their enemies, especially those of the Leftist/Islamist persuasion who despise the Jewish state and its supporters. You would think that at some point--maybe, say, after B'nai Brith Canada endured a lengthy "hate speech" prosecution -- they would have twigged to the reality that state efforts to hobble free speech are not only not, as they say, good for the Jews, they are catastrophic for the larger society. How so? They result in society having to mind its manners and stifle its "blasphemy." In other words, in a free society becoming less free and, ultimately, not free at all.

That is something that sails right over the head of the Official Jew quoted in the CJC piece. Re the pro-Palestinian group's concerns,

“These people must also think Elvis, JFK and Marilyn Monroe are residing on a desert island somewhere,” Richard Marceau, CIJA’s general counsel and senior government adviser, said in a phone interview from Ottawa.

He emphasized what is being proposed as a change to Bill C-13, the federal government’s proposed cyberbullying law, “is nothing new. It just brings into line, with several provincial antibullying and hate laws, section 718.2, subsection A, subsection I of the Criminal Code of Canada.”

Well, if those particular sections and subsections are involved, I guess there's nothing to worry about. ;)

I realize that the Nazis trash-talked the Jews, and then murdered them during the Holocaust. But isn't it a better idea to allow our local Zion-loathers to bloviate away in their uber-zany manner so that A) we can see that they're crazy and B) we are free to rebut them?

When, oh, when, will Official Jews finally figure out--and, yes, I realize that for them it's counterintuitive--that climbing aboard the Shut Up Express is not the way to go?

Arabs Reaffirm Their Total and Permanent Rejection of Israel's Jewishness, Blame Israel and Not Their Own Rejectionism for Lack of "Progess" in "Peace Talks"

Never let it be said that the Arab League is short on chutzpah--or blindness.

Finally, Reform Jews Who Manifest an Exquisite Sense of Social Justice and Who are Endowed With a Heightened Sense of Victimhood Find a Tribe They Can Identify With

Hint: it ain't the Jiouxs.

Now Playing: Ice Planet Delingpole

James Delingpole interviews Mark Steyn here.

The Real Rape Culture on Campus--in Egypt

Watch what happens when a comely blonde dares to stroll through a Cairo campus sans sharia shroud--the lads can't control their goatish tendencies.

Dress Up "Fun" on Campus

Masked Hamas "protesters" strut their stuff at the Palestinians' Al Quds U.

Jimmy Carter Thinks That Israel Seeking Recognition as a Jewish State Means It Wants to Force All Israeli Arabs to Become Jewish

Old and senile or steadfastly Zion-loathing and malign (or maybe both)?

The Oslo M.O. Is Waaay Past Its Due Date (And Altogether Ooky)

And that, writes J.E. Dyer, means

[I]t’s time to just say it. The obsession of Barack Obama and John Kerry with forcing along a discredited and unproductive “peace process” involving the Palestinian Arabs and Israel is weird – even creepy.

That said, it's no more creepy than, say, telling people that you have the power to personally turn back rising oceans and bring health care coverage to all of America's uninsured.

Speaking of creepy...:

It's creepy and obsessive,
Revolting and excessive,
Extremely unimpressive,
"Peace process" lunacy.

It's turned into a cudgel.
Obama thinks a nudge'll
Push Bibi so he'll budge.
It's "peace process" lunacy...

Puppy Update: Sleepless in Toronto

The new puppy--he's now 9 I/2 weeks old--is mostly a joy. During the day he's happy, playful, as sweet as can be, and, of course, adorable. Temperament-wise, he's much calmer than our first two dogs. He is already being trained to do "sit" and "down," and is picking it up fairly quickly. He recognizes his name, never wanders when I take him outside to do his business, and follows me up the deck stairs once he's done.

Here's the problem--and it's a doozie: He still hates his crate. And his interminable yips, moans and cries when he's placed there at night have translated into much sleeplessness for me and my husband. (My teenaged son, thankfully, has somehow managed to sleep through it all.)

The days and days of sleeplessness have triggered a wicked case of insomnia--mine. I've have trouble with sleeplessness in the past; at the best of times, my sleep is a delicate thing. However, I haven't experienced this kind of insomnia--the kind that feels as though an electrical current is running through you; the kind that takes on a life of its own and is thus next to impossible to curb--in 17 years.

So if you happen to notice more typos than usual in my blog posts, or if my thoughts seem more scattered, or if my productivity suddenly declines, you'll know why.

Crimea a River Jordan, Baroness Warsi!

The Zion-loathing British peeress is convinced that Israel's actions vis-à-vis the Palestinians are just like Putin's vis-a-vis Crimea.

In the Lead Up to Obama's Visit, Saudi Arabia Refuses to Issue Visa to Only One Member of the White House Press Corps

It's the Jewish one who, although he's an American who has never resided in Israel, writes for the Jerusalem Post.

You can understand the Saudi king's feelings. He doesn't want any Jew/Zionist cooties to pollute his holy-shmoly turf.

If press corps members had any stones/spine/integrity, they would condemn such egregious Jew-hate and decline to go along unless their Jewish colleague could, too.

But since, obviously, they don't (have any s/s/i), they won't (decline to go).

Bizarre--Obama Does Biz With Oz Corporate Welfare Gazillionaire But Won't Sign Off on Keystone

Australia's richest person, a mining magnate, managed to snag a ton o' cash from the U.S. government on the understanding that she would purchase mining and rail equipment from three American companies. This corporate welfare, as some are calling it, is expected to result in 3,400 American jobs.

Here's an idea, though. Obama could green light the Keystone XL pipeline without having to fork over a single American penny, and, voila, there would be "shovel ready" jobs galore.

And Then There Were 7

It's official--Russia's outski.

Arafat's Is a Moveable Tomb

A guide tells a contingent of visiting Jewish Harvard students that old Yasshole's grave will be relocated to Al Quds just as soon as Jerusalem is a goner.

When You Compare the Challenges Faced by Chicks in the West and In Afghanistan, There's No Comparison

Kaboom--that's the sound of Diana West detonating the nauseating pieties of the UN's International Women's Day. Here she describes how it went down in Afghanistan, where an American military chick patted herself furiously on the back for prevailing in the face of male-caused roadblocks even as she failed to see the Islam-based challenges chicks in Afghanistan confront:

In pre-withdrawal Afghanistan, the celebration of International Women's Day took place inside the heavily guarded New Kabul Compound. It was an upbeat event, at least according to a Defense Department report, featuring several laudable and prominent Afghan women doctors, who naturally talked up education and the need to retain post-Taliban gains made on behalf of women in Afghanistan. Tragically, the State Department's most recent report on the shockingly low state of human rights in Afghanistan reveals that such gains for women -- not to mention children, boys and girls alike -- are already mainly on paper only. As the armed utopians withdraw, the dust of tribal Islam settles.

The elites who take International Women's Day seriously, however, probably won't ever notice. Consider the one American woman who spoke at the Kabul event, Rear Adm. Althea H. Coetzee. As director of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, operational contract support, Coetzee has a big job, a hefty salary, status and power that few women -- or men, for that matter -- achieve anywhere in the world. But she, too, the Defense Department report noted, took to the same podium as the Afghan women who preceded her, to speak of her "challenges beginning with her graduating in the sixth class of women at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985."

Poor thing. I wonder what the Afghan women really thought of Coetzee's "challenges" -- being among an early class of women at the elite military academy -- in comparison to the challenges of their countrywomen -- violence and degradation suffered at the hands not only of criminals and outlaws, but, as the State Department report makes plain, policemen and judges and other officials, too. As "international women," they all can relate, right? 

Some U.K. Muslims Upset About Infidels Adopting Muslim Kids--But Given Islam's Stance Re Adoption, Maybe They Shouldn't Be Such Big Cry Babies

Here's what's got 'em all hot and bothered:

LONDON – The British Muslim community has been facing growing challenges surrounding adoption and foster caring after the religious minority was shocked by a recent decision to allow placing a young Muslim girl permanently into the care of a lesbian couple.

“If it is always preferable to place a child with carers who share a similar ethnic and religious background, realities on the ground do not always put us in a position to do so,” Faith Harlow, who works as a social worker in East Sussex, told OnIslam.net.

According to Harlow, demand has been growing every year for Muslim carers to come forth.

 But, really, how feasible is that?

“Many Muslims are very religiously confused when it comes to adoption and foster-caring. But beyond that there is a real problem of social stigmatization, a fear associated with caring for a non-blood relative.” Imam Abdullah Shah from London told OnIslam.

Oh.

Zionist Metis Ryan Bellrose Says He's Fed Up With Palestinians and Arab Muslims Trying to Make Common Cause With Him and His People

Wow. Just...wow!:

When someone invokes the experiences of Native North Americans in order to claim commonalities with us, it’s almost always in order to demonise another country. In the majority of cases I see, it’s Arabs or white people trying to demonise Israel, first by calling them colonisers, and second by inferring that they stole the land on which they built their state. The irony should be obvious. 

What I have learned after years of study is that if there is one people in the entire world who can legitimately claim commonalities with us, it is not the descendants of 7th century conquerors who were ascendant for 600 years, until the past century, when the cycle was reversed. The Arab Muslims who dominated the region after conquering it are the furthest thing from my people. Rather, our fraternity here is with the people who only recent underwent a real genocide and who have still managed to maintain their cultural integrity. That people are the Jewish nation. I do not say this lightly; it comes after years of research, years of speaking to and listening to survivors both of residential schools and the Holocaust. It is not a comparison of tragedies, nor is it a contest; rather, it is about empathy and understanding through common experience.

Thanks for that, Ryan. You made my day.

The Ceeb's "Avuncular Old Lefist Coot" Michael Enright Disses Corporate Deadbeats

The don't pay any taxes!, he fulminates:

“When you are hunched over your dining room table in coming weeks,” said [Enright] “buried in paper, your stomach in knots, and your head swimming, here’s a sobering fact: 26 of the most powerful and profitable Fortune 500 companies paid zero dollars in federal income tax for the five years 2008 to 2012.” Boeing, General Electric, Verizon — all paid “nothing” in income taxes. “And the craziest part,” added Mr. Enright, “it wasn’t illegal. No one is going to jail.”

Here's another "sobering thought," one which the old leftist coot chose not to share with his similarly-minded  audience--in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook also paid no income taxes.

I guess in oldcootworld, though, that doesn't count.

The Best Little Kebab Shop in Malaga

A great place for a tasty lunch--with a side of jihad:

Spanish police also arrested Chafik Jalel Ben Amara Elmedjeri, a Tunisian immigrant previously arrested in February 2006 for recruiting jihadists to fight American troops in Iraq. 

Elmedjeri, a specialist in forging documents, is also known for operating one of the best kebab shops in Málaga. Terrorism analysts say this points to another problem: many of the tens of thousands of kebab and shawarma shops operating in Spain and other parts of Europe may be using their business proceeds actively to finance global jihad in Syria and elsewhere.

One wonders how many--if any--kebab/shawarma shops in Toronto and other North American cities have a similar business plan.

Wishful Thinking

Is Hamas finally losing its grip on Gaza?

Our "Friends," the EU

With friends like the EUnuchs, who needs Obama?

"Iran and Hamas Bury the Hatchet"

Unfortunately, it's not in each other.

Zionhass At Northeastern U.

Not a pretty picture--and a clear-cut case of macroaggression (h/t: VR).

Update: Re pervasive campus Zionhass, Richard Cravatts cites the words of journalist Khaled Abu Tomaeh:

What was Abu Toameh’s conclusion about this misdirected effort to support the Palestinian cause? “What is happening on the U.S. campuses,” he wrote, “is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the ‘occupation’ as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel.” And, he added, “we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.”

Nick Cohen: The Climate Change Deniers Have Won

But wait--he thinks, all in all, that's a bad thing:

Climate change deniers are as committed. Their denial fits perfectly with their support for free market economics, opposition to state intervention and hatred of all those latte-slurping, quinoa-munching liberals, with their arrogant manners and dainty hybrid cars, who presume to tell honest men and women how to live. If they admitted they were wrong on climate change, they might have to admit that they were wrong on everything else and their whole political identity would unravel. 

The politicians know too well that beyond the corporations and the cultish fanatics in their grass roots lies the great mass of people, whose influence matters most. They accept at some level that manmade climate change is happening but don't want to think about it. 

I am no better than them. I could write about the environment every week. No editor would stop me. But the task feels as hopeless as arguing against growing old. Whatever you do or say, it is going to happen. How can you persuade countries to accept huge reductions in their living standards to limit (not stop) the rise in temperatures? How can you persuade the human race to put the future ahead of the present?

Well, maybe if the science was based on something other than flawed computer models that have been tweaked to produce an alarming result people would be willing to put up with the prescribed punishment, I mean remedy.

As for the idea that the quinoa-deploring "deniers" have won--try telling that to Mark Steyn, who's being sued for libel by one of the world's foremost scientific Chicken Littles (a man who is far more "committed" to his cause than any so-called denier).

BTW: quinoa--yum!

Update: A true believer in the climate science scare thinks the whole thing has become "political," but in a decidedly one-sided way:

One possible interpretation [as to why Republicans aren't on board with the "settled science"] is that Republicans are just plain worse than Democrats at absorbing and understanding science. That's absurd, and Democrats who reach that conclusion will only make this debate harder to resolve. 

Another possibility is that Republicans are being deceived, whether by their news outlets, their opinion leaders or their political representatives. That's a tempting conclusion, but it feels too limited. Sure, liberals and conservatives watch different television stations, but they're not living in different countries. The gaps picked up by Gallup suggest some deeper division. 

A third interpretation is that political preferences have leaked into the perception of fact. Republicans may conflate the existence of climate change with the need for more government. Rather than relax their objection to government, maybe it's easier to look for reasons to think that climate change isn't happening, or isn't serious. 

Maybe easing Republicans' resistance to the idea of climate change will require easing their resistance to the idea of government as an occasional force for good.

Maybe so. And maybe being able to see that the left has politicized the science for their own ends will require easing resistance to the idea that Republicans are invariably and inherently blind/wrong/wicked.

Pervy Koran Teacher in the UK Gets a Suspended Sentence Because His Wife Doesn't Speak English and He's the Family Breadwinner

How, er, lenient of the court. One wonders how "considerate" it would have been had the man in question taught, say, Torah instead of Koran.

"Microaggression" Is the Latest Mega-Wacky Campus Fad

Despite conceding that a recent case of "microaggression" on a university campus was way overblown, the "m" word--it supposedly describes covert racism that is so subtle that it's barely perceptible and yet is considered so insidious that it MUST. BE. ROOTED. OUT. NOW!-- is making great strides these days. See, for example, this, this, this and this and it becomes immediately clear that, in the absence of genuine racism, universities, those little enclaves of totalitarianism and conformity, have had to settle for a war on manufactured hatred--a hate that exists solely in PC-addled minds.

Sigh. It kind of makes you long for the days when the kids swallowed goldfish and tried to cram as many warm bodies as possible into a phone booth.

Who's the Most Odious Zion-Loather on the Planet?

I hereby nominate Richard Falk, a man who exemplifies "human rights," UN-style:

A U.N. human rights investigator accused Israel on Friday of "ethnic cleansing" in pushing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and cast doubt that the Israeli government could accept a Palestinian state in the current climate. 

He spoke against a backdrop of deadlocked peace talks and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem which Palestinians say is dimming their hope of establishing a viable state on contiguous territory. 

Israel says Palestinian refusal to recognize it as a Jewish state is the main obstacle. U.S. President Barack Obama this week pressed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to help break the impasse, saying both sides must take political risks before the April 29 deadline for a framework deal. 

Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, told a news conference that Israeli policies bore "unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing".

Spoken by a creep whose thinking manifests unacceptable characteristics of far leftist know-nothingism and the over-the-top hatred of a Jew-loathing Jew.

Update: Exactly how crazy is Richard Falk? He's so bonkers that he blamed the Boston Marathon terrorism on Israel.

The Truth About Jihad

You know that blather about jihad primarily involving an individual's personal struggle to follow God's lead?
 
Not so.

"Silver Lining" Playbook: Malaysia's Mysterious Missing Airplane Makes the Country Go All Squishy and Interfaithy

Here's a "good news" story that'll melt the heart of the iciest skeptic:

The imam cupped his palms before his face and invited the congregation to pray. “Oh Allah, return to us those who are lost. Oh, Allah, grant safe passage to MH370,” he said.

The prayer was not unusual. The setting was.

Gathered in the courtyard of a shopping mall in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, the Muslim religious leader was followed by a Christian reading from the Bible, then a Buddhist monk, a Hindu and finally a Taoist priest echoing the imam’s pleas before hundreds of worshippers in a largely Muslim country where religious intolerance has been on the rise.

The baffling mystery over the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with 239 people on March 8 has united Malaysia, a nation of numerous ethnicities, as never before in recent memory.

Tuesday night’s interfaith ceremony would have been inconceivable 11 days ago in the country of 28 million people where religious differences and bigotry have often been on open display. For Malaysians the sight of non-Muslims bowing respectfully as Imam Hilman Nordin said prayers from the rostrum was an incredible step toward unity. While there have been interfaith prayers before, they have always been without a Muslim representative.

Malays, who account for about 60 percent of the population, are almost exclusively Muslim. Chinese, who are Buddhists, Christians and Taoists, represent about 21 percent, while Indians, who are Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, are about 7 percent...

Gee, I wonder how long it'll last:

Muslims have been at loggerheads with Christians and Hindus in recent years, and some sermons last month identified Christians and Jews as enemies of Islam. Hard-line Muslims have called for the burning of Bibles and in January firebombs were thrown into a church compound. A few years ago, a group of Muslims stomped on the severed head of a cow outside a Hindu temple. Cows are sacred to Hindus.

Not bloody long, I predict.

Louisiania "Meanies"

They're depriving the poor of their "right" to have somebody else pay for their tattoos and mani-pedis:

BATON ROUGE, La. –  Louisiana welfare recipients will be prohibited from spending the federal assistance at lingerie shops, tattoo parlors, nail salons and jewelry stores, under new limits enacted by state social services officials.

The Department of Children and Family Services announced the emergency regulations late Thursday. They cover the Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program — commonly known as welfare benefits — and the Kinship Care Subsidy Program.

Both programs pay cash assistance to low-income families for items like food, clothing and housing.

DCFS Secretary Suzy Sonnier said the agency decided to ban the use of electronic benefit cards, which work as debit cards, at stores that don't sell items that are considered basic needs for families...

Hey, for some people, tats, French manicures and Victoria's Secret are a necessity. Why should these folks be deprived simply because they don't have the means to pay for them?

My Puppy's Grandpa

This is him:

Shocking--a Not-Entirely-Anti-Israel Story Makes It Onto Ceeb Radio

How did this one ever slip through?

A Heidegger Higgledy-Piggledy

You can find it here:

Higgledy-piggledy
Herr Rektor Heidegger
Said to his students
To Being Be True
Lest you should fall into
Inauthenticity
This I believe—
And the Führer does too!

Considering that Hannah Arendt was once the Herr Rektor's lover and that she almost singlehandedly rehabilitated his reputation after the war, it seems only proper that she have a higgledy-piggledy, too:

Higgledy-piggledy
Heidegger's pupil she
Said Eichmann's evil
Was awf'ly "banal."
Blamed her own people for
Their own destruction and
Shilled for her H.—
She was that sort of gal!

A Little Misunderstanding Re How to Say "Kiev"

Newstalk 1010's news reader chick gave me a chuckle, so I thought I'd share it with you:

The news chick is doing her best.
But, sorry, I have to protest.
She seems to believe
That it's pronounced "Keev,"
And it isn't, it needs to be stressed.

Still Footloose After All These Years

30 years on, Kevin Bacon still has the moves.

Has the Rob Ford-Obsessed Toronto Star Been Sharing the Mayor's Crack Pipe?

No? Then how to account for this, an editorial insisting that there's wiggle room for Ontario's Preem 'Leen (who, were she a CEO in the private sector, would have been handed her walking papers long ago for financial mismanagement/sheer incompetence) to raise our taxes?

A Little Misunderstanding Re the the Totalitarian Ayatollah's Triumphalist Mindset

Obama and Peres--they're two of a kind in that they just don't capiche:

Earlier this week, President Obama sent a celebratory message to the people and the leaders of Iran on the occasion of the Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The annual videotaped presidential missive was very much in the spirit of the administration’s policy toward Iran emphasizing not only holiday cheer but also a belief in the need for the U.S. and Iran to resolve their differences, especially with regard to the nuclear negotiations now going on. In doing so, the president went even further than previous statements about the talks in which he said he supported a peaceful Iranian nuclear program and predicted a deal that would strengthen the economy of the Islamist regime. Israeli President Shimon Peres also sent his own equally conciliatory message to Iran that emphasized peace. 

But if either leader were expecting a friendly reply from Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they were disappointed. Speaking earlier today to commemorate the holiday, Khamenei brushed off conciliation, attacking the idea of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, questioning the Holocaust and vowing to triumph over international sanctions...

You mean the well-wishers' well-wishing and wishful thinking isn't enough to wish away Khamenei's malicousness?

I know: next time they should try saying "pretty please with sugar on top." That's sure to turn the Ayatollah's frown upside down. ;)

A Little Misunderstanding Re the FGM Helpline

British authorities have decided to forgo prosecuting a helpline caller:

In another [case], a suspect contacted an FGM helpline to request the procedure for his two daughters after misunderstanding the purpose of the service for victims.

The droll Mr. Steyn comments:

Oh, dear. What an unfortunate "misunderstanding". The gentleman had called the Female Genital Mutilation Helpline thinking it was a helpline set up by Her Majesty's Government to help you find someone to genitally mutilate your daughters. In the rich, vibrant diversity of the modern multicultural state, it's easy to see why the poor fellow might make that assumption. Just give it a couple more years, sir.

Years? In terribly "accommodating" Old Blighty, I give it a couple more months, tops.

Those Were the Days My Friend, We Thought They'd Never End

Spengler looks back at America's Reaganite past, when the land still had cojones and spinal fortitude.

Jewish Student Org Hillel Sponsored That Visit By Harvard Students to Arafat's Tomb? WTF!!!

The story just keeps on getting better (i.e. worse).

Dog Daze

I'm so sleep deprived due to an adorable puppy who has no love for his crate (mind you, he does seem to be getting more used to it; last night he stayed in it for several hours without much complaint) that I read this as "Chinese dog breeder sells Taliban mastiff twins to property developer for $3 million."

My little pup weighs around 13 lbs. I wouldn't care to speculate about the combined weight of the year-old mastiffs.

The new owner had better have two gigantic crates--and fingers crossed that the massive ones aren't averse to them.

Going by photos of the hyper-hirsute breed, I'd say he's going to need a really good vacuum cleaner, too.

Well, That's One Way to Get Delicious Israeli Take-Out in Nearby Gaza

Israeli military have uncovered the largest-ever Hamas terror tunnel. Its mouth is "hundreds of meters" inside Israel.

Litigious Climate Scientist Michael Mann's Highly Selective SLAPP-Shtick

I don't get it--Mark Steyn writes a brief blog post that's dismissive of Michael Mann's hockey stick graph and gets SLAPPED with a Mann-caused lawsuit. But back in 2010 climate change skeptic A.W. Montford published an entire book in Steyn's vein--The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science; it was Amazon U.K.'s #2 best selling climate book that year--and no suit ensued.

Here's Wikipedia's synopsis of the best-seller:

The Hockey Stick Illusion first outlines a brief history of climate change science with particular emphasis on the description of the Medieval Warm Period in the first IPCC report in 1990, with its inclusion of a schematic based on central England temperatures which Montford describes as a representation of common knowledge at that time, with global medieval temperatures apparently higher than modern temperatures. He then argues that a need to overturn this "well-embedded paradigm" was met by the 1998 publication by Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes' of their "hockey stick graph" in Nature.^[8] The book describes how Steve McIntyre first became interested in the graph in 2002 and the difficulties he found in replicating the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) using available datasets, and further data which Mann gave him on request.^[9] It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the National Academy of Science and Edward Wegman and hearings held on the graph before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.^[10] 

The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls "Climategate". Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in The Hockey Stick Illusion. Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the peer review process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other paleoclimatologists' published works.^[11]

Why no SLAPP crap re that cheeky tome, Professor Mann?

FYI, the infamous alarmist is predicting--in Scientific American, no less--that in 2036 "global warming will cross a dangerous threshold."

Oooo. Scary.



Update: An article on the Newsweek site may shed light on the reasoning behind Mann's lawsuit:

The suit filed by Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, claims that the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) libeled him in a pair of articles in which they stated he had manipulated climate data and that the fraud had been covered up by his employer, which said its investigation concluded he had done nothing wrong. To make the point, the CEI writer, Rand Simberg, drew a comparison between Penn State's handling of abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky - the university's longtime assistant football coach convicted as a child molester - and its review of Mann's work. 

"Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data," Simberg wrote in the article Mann says is libelous. 

Mark Steyn, a writer with National Review Online, wrote about the Simberg article and tossed in his own thoughts. While at first openly shying away from the Sandusky metaphor, Steyn called some of Mann's most prominent work "fraudulent" - a graph of historical temperatures showing rapid rises in modern times, which is widely known as the "hockey stick." Then Steyn returned to the references to the child molester. 

"Graham Spanier, the Penn State president forced to resign over Sandusky, was the same [person] who investigated Mann," Steyn wrote. "And, as with Sandusky...the college declined to find one of its star names guilty of any wrongdoing." He went on to say that the investigation "was a joke." 

Ugly stuff. Accusations of scientific fraud, lies, cover-ups and then comparisons with some of the most horrific crimes imaginable. Because of the prominence of his research in climate change science, similar - though rarely so caustic - attacks had been leveled at Mann for years by skeptics. But circumstances had changed. Not only had the two writers gone further than most by creating an equivalence between Mann and an infamous child molester, but they appear to have done so at the worst possible time.

Why is this suddenly "the worst possible time"? Could it be because most Americans are no longer taking the eco-alarmist bait, thus imperiling the influence and reputation of Mann and his climatology confreres? That's how it sounds to me, anyway:

For months before those articles, Mann and other climatologists had been speaking among themselves about the need to start fighting back against the attacks on their work and their character. The science is on their side, they argue, and by not responding aggressively against the skeptics, they have allowed the discussion to become derailed. And if critics have slandered or libeled them, they shouldn't stand for it. 

"If we don't step up to the plate, we leave a vacuum [for] those with an ax to grind," Mann says, while cautioning that he would not specifically address the lawsuit. Mann has no doubt some critics are advancing their positions honestly, but he believes that responding to bad-faith attacks on climatologists and their work is "a call to arms to our fellow scientists. We should not apologize for trying to inform that discussion." ...

"Inform" it? Or dominate it?

Update: It occurs to me that Steyn wouldn't be in this pickle if Mann were a professor at some other university. Were he on the faculty of, say, UCLA, Simberg and Steyn would never have thought to allude to Jerry Sandusky, formerly of Penn State, where Mann continues to work. But for that unserendipitous pairing, Mann would likely not have had the ammo (feeble as it is) to launch his court action.