Philosophy in the Theocracy

Here's a song in honour of the UN's Philosophy Day, which this year is being held in the capital city of that most philosophically-minded of nations, Iran. (Hey, religion-based totalitarianism is a type of "philosophy," right?)

Update: The perfect game for the philosophers' down time:

Mad Men Actor Takes Virtuous Self-Abnegation to 'Green' Extremes

Actor Vincent Kartheiser (he plays Pete Campbell on the show) is so "green" that he doesn't own a car or a home with a toilet (when nature calls, he uses his neighbor's bog) and, for the sake of the "environment," he won't be having kids.

Under the circumstances, probably a good idea.

Readin', Writin', Jew-Hatin'

That's the syllabus, more or less, of the U.K.'s sharia schools. From the Daily Mail:

Children in Britain are being taught brutal Sharia law punishments, including how to hack off a criminal’s hand or foot.

So-called ‘weekend schools’ for Muslim pupils as young as six also teach that the penalty for gay sex is execution and that ‘Zionists’ are plotting to take over the world for the Jews.

One set textbook challenges youngsters to list the ‘reprehensible’ qualities of Jews.
Another for six-year-olds asks them to answer what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam. The answer being looked for is ‘hellfire’.

A BBC Panorama investigation, to be screened tonight, identified a network of more than 40 weekend schools teaching around 5,000 children, from age six to 18.

The schools – which offer the hardline Saudi National Curriculum – are run under the umbrella of ‘Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland’...

Sort of like Wahhabi jugend (or however you say jugend in Arabic), no?

Londonistan's Shambolic Mayor Sez, "Bushpinochet Stay Home!"

Mr. Hospitality he ain't.

Come Spin the Dreidel With Kathy Shaidle!

There's a Chanukah soiree/fundraiser for free speech warrior BCF. It's bound to be latkariffic!

P.C. Makes You Stupid, Pisses People Off, Fails to Keep Anyone Safe

President Obama has asked his crack security officials if they can think of better ways of screening airline passengers than accosting tots and probing granny's crannies. Alas, they cannot conceive of even a single one. From the Ceeb:

..."I understand people's frustrations," Obama said, while acknowledging that he's never had to undergo the stepped-up screening methods.

Passengers at some U.S. airports must pass through full-body scanners that produce a virtually naked image. If travellers refuse, they can be forced to undergo time-consuming fingertip examinations, including of clothed genital areas and breasts, by inspectors of the same sex as the passenger.

Obama said he's told the U.S. Transportation Security Administration it has to "constantly refine and measure whether what we're doing is the only way to assure the American people's safety. And you also have to think through, are there ways of doing it that are less intrusive."

At this point, he said, agency and counterterrorism experts have told him the current procedures are the only ones they think can effectively guard against threats such as last year's attempted Christmas-day bombing...

Used to be America had the kind of can-do attitude that could land a man on the moon. Today, they can't even figure out how to keep jihadi bombs off airplanes.

Hey, guys, it's not like you have to reinvent the wheel or anything. All you have to do is borrow/adapt the Israeli paradigm, which has already been shown to be effective. (But which, being un-p.c., will be ignored in favour of probing and groping lots more tots and grannies.)

Update: More crack "security" from TSA security mavens--flight attendant forced to remove prosthetic breast.

Quel Shockeroo--Not!

According to a new poll, most Palestinians see a "two-state solution" paving the way for a "one state solution" (the one that would "solve" Israel out of existence).

Frankly Bonkers

Those fingers down your pants.
That arms-out-legs-spread stance.
That strips you with a glance.
It's search-craft.

And you've got no defense for it.
The cry is too immense for it.
Much good would common sense for it do.

'Cause it's search-craft, silly search-craft,
And although it's broken most strict taboos.

When knickers set to 'splodiate
TSA cannot hesitate.
Reduce fatality rates for you.

It's such a crazy pitch.
"We'll keep you safe"--that's rich!
Jihad, you see's, the glitch.
We're screwed!

They, The People

Salim Mansur (I had a lovely chat with him at the Steyn event in London during which he told me about his recent trip to Israel) has a terrific column in the Toronto Sun about America and how it's our last, best hope. Here's a taste to whet your appetite:

However expansive and intrusive American government has become, the instinct of most Americans for less government as the guarantee for keeping secure their constitutionally protected freedom sets them apart from Europeans, and even Canadians, who view governments more benevolently.

It took the Obama administration barely a few months in office for enough Americans to learn how they were seduced by the language of “hope and change” and elected a president who holds ideologically the most extreme view of government as benefactor.

Big people vs. Big government: pick one, 'cause you can't have both.

Asymetrical Warfare

Al Qaeda is boasting that its most recent terrorism endeavour--bombs on cargo planes--cost little more than a piddly four g's. (The asymmetry is even more pronounced when you consider how much it cost to fabricate an underpants bomb versus what it costs to frisk or x-ray every air traveler in the U.S.)

Fatah's Fatuous Explanation

What's the "root cause" of Islamic Judenhass? According to Tarek Fatah, author of the bizarrely named The Jew Is Not My Enemy (bizarre because the book goes into great detail re how as Muslims see it, the Jew is the enemy), it's not the Koran: that scripture, he insists, is devoid of Jew-hate. No, the real source of the hatred is the "legend" of the Prophet's massacre of the Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe in Medina. And, oh yeah, Israel is largely responsible for bringing Muslim wrath upon itself and upon Jewry in general. From the Toronto Star:

...Fatah also asks: Is Israel fueling anti-Semitism? “Yes,” he writes. Israel must end its “illegal” and “immoral” occupation of Palestinian territory and push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. “Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state,” the author also states emphatically, one of the few high-profile Toronto Muslims to do so.

Among the book’s delights is Fatah’s independent and inquiring mind. In a field riddled with dogmatism, he offers fresh material and original insights.

On one hand, he documents Adolf Hitler’s odious alliance with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II. On the other, he brings to life stories of selfless heroism among Muslims saving Jews from persecution.

For Muslim readers, perhaps the toughest chapters deal with Muhammad’s slaughter of the Banu Qurayza. Fatah denounces the story as invented by influential scholar Ibn Ishaq nearly 100 years after the Prophet’s death. No archeological evidence supports it. No Jewish text corroborates it. Yet the story forms part of Islam’s Hadith literature and the Sira, the biography of the Prophet, and has come to be regarded as divine truth, Fatah says.

The problem, the author says, is that Islam lacks a tradition of questioning religious texts. So far, no Toronto imam has joined him to reject the Banu Qurayza story. So far, no mosque has invited him to speak.

Maybe not, but the Jews are sure lining up to hear him. 

The real problem, of course, is that the Koran is chock full of Jew-hate; that Islam is a triumphalist, supremacist, supercessionist religion; that its doctrines fuel Zionhass, the Jew-hate of our time; that, given the Prophet's animus toward Jewry, it is next to impossible for the majority of Muslims to accept a sovereign Jewish Israel.

That Tarek Fatah is willing to come clean about none of these truths makes his book a big, fat waste of time.