No-tilla

Iran has announced it has cancelled its, ahem, "aid flotilla" to Gaza due to "Israeli threats".

Widdle Shahid Wannabes Sing

The newest song sensation in the Arab world isn't Kesha, isn't Miley, isn't Lady Gaga. It is, gaga, though--in the meshugeneh sense, not the Poker Face sense. It's a tune sung by a choir or adorable moppets who think it would be the best thing ever to kill some Jews and die as martyrs.

Quel toe tapper.

Culture Vultures

You gotta love Canada, where tone-deaf crones, volunteer employees for the Good Intentions Paving Company, supply the entertainment for those in training to create "a culture of human rights". From the Montreal Gazette:

MONTREAL -Virginia Salist Silayo clapped her hands and sang loudly with the other members of her group. Her voice, strong and joyful, was one of many with a distinct accent, as she stood side-by-side with 12 other human rights workers, all from different countries, at John Abbott College on Wednesday.

A native of Tanzania, Silayo is taking part in the annual International Human Rights Training Program (IHRTP) run by Equitas, a Montrealbased human rights centre. 

"This is priceless for us," Silayo said. "We are learning how to create a culture of human rights in our own countries by integrating what we learn here back home."

The goal of the program is to help human rights workers from various countries improve the work they do within their own organizations and help them effect change worldwide.

"The program is meant to reinforce the ability of rights workers to promote human rights values and to explore ways to change attitudes and behaviours that don't reflect those values," said Ian Hamilton, executive director of Equitas. "It's more than knowledge and skills, it's about living human rights, it's a culture."

This was the 31st edition of the IHRTP, which has trained over 3,000 activists worldwide over the years. During the three-week program, rights workers share their experiences with one another and explore such issues as how to influence their governments and the international community.

"We don't focus on the Canadian experiences of human rights," Hamilton said. "We want our participants to learn from each other, and get them thinking that education is a lot more than just sitting a group of people down and talking to them."

Artistic expression through song or visual arts can be very effective in mobilizing people and helping them understand the message of human rights, he added.

In keeping with that belief, Equitas invites members from the Raging Grannies to put on a human-rights-themed songwriting workshop during the program each year...

Oh, gawd. As someone who has endured the Grannies' witless warbling on more than one occassion, I think I'd rather pass a kidney stone.

Here's one of my many contributions to "human-rights-themed songwriting"--an "homage" to Canada's "cultured" "Human Rights" Commission and raging head censor, Jennifer Lynch.

Move Over, Taylor Hicks

Young imam contest a hit in Malaysia

The Audacity of Jihadi Tenacity

Daniel Pipes calls Time Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad's bald admission in court that he's a soldier in Allah's army "jaw-dropping". It's rare, writes Pipes, for jihadis to plead guilty from the get-go. As a rule, they "save their skin by pleading not guilty or plea bargaining." Not Faisal, though. He was completely up front about his mission and its rationale:

The judge asked Shahzad after he announced an intent to plead guilty to all ten counts of his indictment, "Why do you want to plead guilty?" a reasonable question given the near certainty that guilty pleas will keep him in for long years in jail. He replied:

I want to plead guilty and I'm going to plead guilty a hundred times forward because – until the hour the U.S. pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government – we will be attacking [the] U.S., and I plead guilty to that. 

Shahzad insisted on portraying himself as replying to American actions: "I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing [of] the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attacks," adding that "We Muslims are one community." Nor was that all; he flatly asserted that his goal had been to damage buildings and "injure people or kill people" because "one has to understand where I'm coming from, because … I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier."

Clearly, Shahzad knows who he is and what motivates his actions. Barack Hussain Obama, on the other hand...not so much. As Pipes writes, underscoring Obamaian fecklessness, the president has essayed the jaw-dropping trick of editing the jihad out of the jihad,

preferring such lame formulations as "overseas contingency operations" and "man-caused disasters."

Lame--and dangerous. A lot like that see-no-jihad COIN strategy, in fact.

"Diversity" Paves the Road to Serfdom

Yesterday we were treated to the sound of David Miller, Toronto's lefty mayor, blithering on about "diversity." Toronto, he told the world's media who had assembled in town for the G20, is an extremely "diverse" city; so "diverse," he boasted, that we have people here from every country in the G20.

In other words, we have diversity up the ying yang. What he didn't explain (obviously because he didn't feel the need to; because "diversity" is seen to be akin to motherhood and the environment) is how and why "diversity" is good in and of itself--beyond the obvious and delicious benefit of having a more "diverse" choice in restaurants, I mean (that Somali halal take out kebob shop--scrummy!).

In today's National Post, Christopher Hitchens skewers the notion that "diversity" is necessarily a net benefit to society. "The more 'diversity' we impose on society," he writes, "the more uniformity is needed to protect everyone's feelings." (I am reminded of the great Kate's quip that the opposite of diversity is university.) Hitchens quotes Saul Bellow, who invented a fictional business--"The Good Intentions Paving Company"-- to describe "diversity" and its antecedent "multiculturalism" and other squishy feel-good ideas foisted upon us by the virtuous:

I have borne the fortunes of this notorious business in mind while writing this essay, in the course of the composition of which no animals were harmed. Of course I understand that behind the rhetoric and practice of multiculturalism there often stands the admirable ideas of an etiquette of good manners for a various and plural society, and the no-less-noble ambition for the redress of many past wrongs. But in a way, it is precisely this slightly surruptitious aspect of the argument that has become the most objectionable to me. Since when has it not been the case that censorship is justified because it protects minors, or the innocent? Since when has authority not claimed, when imposing trammels and curbs on liberty, that it does so for a wider good and a greater happiness? And since when have such soothing, admonitory, morally superior policies not been reinforced by the threat that, if they are not observed voluntarily, then will be backed up by the ruthless use of force?

Better watch your step, folks. The Good Intentions Paving Company is putting the finishing touches on the "diversity" sidewalk, and the cement is still tacky.

Brothers in Arms Without Borders OR One Big, Unhappy Ummah

With the last two of the Toronto 18 having had their day in court (both were found guilty), the Toronto Star offers a thumbnail sketch of each and every member of this rogue's gallery. What immediately strikes you--aside from the cutesy nic each one has been given (the Gun Runner, the Student Farmer, etc.), as if they're characters in some HBO servies or Quentin Tarantino film--is that they came from so many different places; from countries you'd expect them to come from--Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and Iraq--but also from unexpected places--Fiji and the West Indies.

The common denominator of this "broad strata" (a police official's risible description of the 18 when they were first arrested and authorities professed to be baffled re what might have bound the "disparate" group together) is that each and every one of them came to Canada and, while here, succumbed to the siren call of jihad.

Sharia Is 2 Die 4

This one goes out to the thickest people in the land, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid:

Give me some queers
Who have sh*t 'tween their ears
Who will fight for the right to trash Jews.
Give me some queers
Whose good sense disappears
And they soon will appear in the news.
Elbow to elbow with Hamas and Hezbo
They march with great pride 'gainst 'partheid.
When sh*t 'tween-eared queers
March 'til sharia comandeers.

We'll Always Have Toronto

I've decided that Queers Against Israeli Apartheid should be called Queers Against Casablanca Waters.

My rationale comes from the following exchange in the famous Bogie flick:

Rick: I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.

To bring it up to date:

Queers: We came for the Israeli apartheid.
Jews: Apartheid? What apartheid? Israel is a democracy.
Queers: We were misinformed.

Hence Queers Against Casablanca Waters, something which, like Israeli apartheid, does not in fact exist.

A Lim for Him

A general named Stanley McChrystal
Shot off his mouth like a pistol.
His strategy's COIN
But now he is goin'.
Who will axe him? The boss whom he dissed'll.

QuAIA Victory: A Post Mortem

How surprising is it to see Pride parade officials fold like the flimsiest paper tent in the face of  "progressive" rage about a ban on the big lie--"Israeli apartheid"--at this year's event? About as surprising as it is seeing a plethora of nekkid folks with lots of tats, piercings and dangly bits at the festive gathering. In other words, no surprise at all.

That said, I think it's vital to examine what occurred here, and see if it offers lessons for the future. There are two ways of approaching it. The first is to applaud Martin Gladstone, the gay chap who spearheaded the banning of the Israeli apartheid smear. Gladstone said it had no place in the parade, and he worked tirelessly to get organizers to see his P.O.V.--with a little help from those who control the purse strings at the city level, and who made parade funding contingent on the non-existence of the smear (which, really, is only fair, given the non-existence of Israeli apartheid). However, that did not result in the queer "progressives" going gently into the good night: if there's one thing Israel-bashers are, it's relentless, and there's no way that this community, which, you should pardon the expression, "prides" itself on being "edgy" and "confrontational" and "in your face" was going to accede to the edict. Not when its "progressive" bona fides were on the line. What ensued was a hue and cry that, ironically, ended up giving greater publicity--and perhaps even greater credibility--to QuAIA. They became the powerless, embattled champions of  "free speech" (even though, clearly, they are no such thing), while Parade officials were perceived to be kowtowing to those (an insidious Zionist lobby?) who hold all the power, all the money, and all the cards. Really bad optics, wouldn't you say?

Thus the second approach--and the right one in such circumstances, I think--is to let the Israel-loathers go ahead, but to answer it with (and here I quote Alan Borovoy again) effective invective. That way, there's far less chance that the Zion-trashers will be able to claim the moral high ground by depicting themselves as the victims, the underdogs, and be handed a PR victory. And something that would have remained a little deal won't be blown up into something immense.

I think I'm on fairly solid ground here. After all, who would have even heard of David Ahenekew if we hadn't gone ahead and made a huge deal over some of his ignorant remarks?