CUANAS: 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Party!

Things are getting a little out of control here at the Pastorius Manshion.

Happy New Year Everybody.

Pre-Futurism:
The
Island
Of
Dr. Moreau

We've all, probably, heard of Genetically Modified Foods:

What are Genetically Modified (GM) Foods?Although "biotechnology" and "genetic modification" commonly are used interchangeably, GM is a special set of technologies that alter the genetic makeup of such living organisms as animals, plants, or bacteria. Biotechnology, a more general term, refers to using living organisms or their components, such as enzymes, to make products that include wine, cheese, beer, and yogurt.

Combining genes from different organisms is known as recombinant DNA technology, and the resulting organism is said to be "genetically modified," "genetically engineered," or "transgenic." GM products (current or in the pipeline) include medicines and vaccines, foods and food ingredients, feeds, and fibers.

Ok, so what happens when we start using Recombinant DNA Technology on animals? Or, have we already?:

Two firms seeking a patent on an embryo cloning process have denied accusations by Greenpeace that they are creating "human-pig'' hybrid embryos, as the debate over 'therapeutic cloning' continues.

Reuters reports that according to Greenpeace Germany, the European Patent Office in Munich has received a patent application (No: WO99/21415) from US-based BioTransplant Inc. and Australian firm Stem Cell Sciences which allows for the production of human/animal embryos.

"The application shows that the firms have already transferred cell nuclei from human fetuses to egg cells from pigs and cultivated the resulting embryos for around a week in the laboratory," Greenpeace said in a statement.

"Society should not reward these Frankenstein scientists with patents," it added.

Chief executive officer of Melbourne-based Stem Cell Sciences, Peter Mountford told Reuters that his company had indeed put a human cell nucleus into a pig's egg. This nuclear transfer method involves scraping the nucleus out of an egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus, which contains most of the genetic material, from another cell. The process, if done correctly, re-programs the nucleus and it starts to divide as if it were a fertilised egg. In effect, it regresses back to the very first stages of life.

These cell masses could be a source of embryonic stem cells, which have the power to become any type of cell in the body at all, including nerve cells, blood cells or organ cells. Stem Cell Sciences said it had shown last month that this could be done, using mice.

The same technique was used to create Dolly the sheep, the first cloned adult mammal however in this latest case, Stem Cell Sciences, working with a team at Monash University, has used a pig's egg cell and the nucleus from a human cell.

After the nuclear transfer the cells divided, 4 or 5 times, to create a mass of either 16 or 32 cells. Mountford said the experiment proved that human and animal cells could be fused for the purpose of therapeutic cloning.

The researchers expressed aim is to find alternatives to organ donation, however as to the whether they are making human/pig hybrid embryos, it seems to be a matter of semantics.

"The application clearly asks for permission to patent a process enabling the transfer of a nucleus from one species into another species and the production of a transgenic embryo, , and there does not appear to be any restriction on whether the donor or recipient cell is human," science legal expert Dr Dianne Nicol from the University of Tasmania told ABC Science Online.

"It depends on what you define as a human embryo."

It depends on what the definition of "is," is. Such will be the questions of the future. How will we define what it is to be human? Who is human and who is not? How do we treat one who is only part-human? Less than half-human?

And, is not a "person" who contains the remnant of humanity in his behavior more human than a fully human being who behaves like an animal?

This post is, admittedly, alarmist in nature. I write it this way not because I expect our moral challenges to be drawn in such crude terms, but because the big black lines around the cartoon drawings of a comic book sometimes serve to express futuristic ideas better than discussion about nuances that have yet to be established.

The truth is, ever more subtle shades of "is-ness" will define what it is to be a human being. Questions of semantics will become more important in helping us retain what we will stand on the precipice of losing.

In the end, words may be all that will remain of our humaness. The words that tell our story, and nothing else.

Thanks to Eyes All Around for sending me the article on the human/pig embryo.

We Hold
This
Truth
To Be
Self-Evident
Sharia Is
The Opposite
Of Freedom

65% of Palestinians support terror attacks against the United States and 80% want Sharia law instituted in their land. Ok, it's time to shut down their hopes and dreams, my friends. Such ideas should not be allowed to turn themselves into an official state:

A poll carried out in the Palestinian Authority shows 65% support for Al Qaeda terror attacks on the United States and European countries - the biggest donors to the PA. The poll comes at a time when US and European funding of the Palestinian Authority is at an all-time high.

With elections due to be held next month and the Hamas terror group gaining significantly in municipal elections and polls, the survey further illustrates the desire of a majority of PA Arabs to establish an Islamic state, similar to Iran. A whopping 79.9% of Palestinians would like the PA to follow Shari’a - Islamic religious law. Included in the figure are 11.3% of the respondents, who would like to see Shari’a supplemented by the laws of a PA Legislature.

“What is striking is the willingness of Palestinians to turn against even the Western countries upon whom they are so totally dependent in order to progress,” said Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Director Itamar Marcus.

“The poll underscores what PMW has been documenting for years - the profoundly negative impact hate education has had on PA society ... Palestinians are not in direct conflict with the US, and certainly have counted on the Europeans as active allies. And yet an overwhelming majority desire to see Europeans and Americans killed by a religion-based terror organization.”

If we were to allow such ideas to become the foundation of a new state, it would mean we do not believe in our own Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Friday, December 30, 2005

A Bridge
Through
The Coldness

We had friends over tonight for a New Years Party. Everyone brought an object of some sort which was supposed to symbolize their year. I didn't bring anything, because I forgot. But, somehow, that was the right thing. Because, in a lot of ways, I'd rather forget this year.

I haven't brought it up, but I have been suffering a freaking ridiculous back injury, and a lot of pain. On top of that, there were business setbacks. For the first time in my life, I failed at something in the business world.

So anyway, I found myself telling my friends my sad story, only to realize that within the past few months, everything has been turning up rosy for me. My back is better (I'm actually able to go to the gym again), my business has picked up, I've got my big writing opportunity, and my family is, as always, extremely supportive of me.

And yet, the truth is, I did experience the year I experienced, and it was confidence-shaking, and it did come when I'm in my early-40's, and I am beginning to feel the autumn-cold of a midlife crisis coming on.

All these changes assailing me. It's life and life only.

Ah, who cares? Just gotta press on. Don't let your victories go to your head, and don't let the losses go to your heart.

Just take the bridge through the coldness, and wait for the spring, and the New Life to reveal itself, as it always will, even in the midst of a midlife crisis.

She Could
Scream,
And
Who Could
Blame Her?

Dymphna at Gates of Vienna recounts the story of Nour Miyati, a Filipino woman who went to Saudi Arabia to work as a maid. She was basically used a sexual and laboring slave, until her owner's wife found out about the arrangement, at which point she was savagely beaten and then dumped in front of a hospital.

When word leaked out about this crime, the Saudi Arabian governmentn acted as if they were going to do something about it. But, that hasn't happened.

There is more to the story, and you should go read it here, but I just wanted to post Dymphna's concluding remarks, because I think they are an excellent example of righteous anger, and they should serve as a challenge to any of us who are tempted to look the other way when evil is done, so that we can go on benefiting in the practical, everyday world:

And let me tell you something, President George Bush. If you ever hold hands with one of these degenerates again…then I pity you. You, sir, know better than anyone — since you are privy to information not available to the rest of us — what horrors these Saudi princes are. If you do not speak out before you leave office, then God have mercy on your soul. It would take an immensity only God possesses to forgive you for colluding with them in the name of whatever policy you have in place.

The
Pre-Future:
The Melding
Of Computer
And Brain

In the future brain and computer will meld. Our brains will be wired directly to the internet via wireless, or satellite. The speed of computing, and of the servers at the gateways to the internet will increase exponentially, so everyone will be able to retrieve and send information at incredibly fast speeds. Human beings will achieve a kind of omniscience.

Let's look at some of the technology, already being developed and used, which will eventually bring about such a world.

From the BBC comes the story of a paralyzed U.S. man who is being given the ability to manipulate objects around him by thinking. How? A chip implanted in his brain, reads his thoughts, and sends messages to his household appliances:

A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind.

Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001.

The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.

The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.
Mind over matter

He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home.

Scientists have been working for some time to devise a way to enable paralysed people to control devices with the brain.

Studies have shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.

Recently four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, were able to move a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes that pick up brain waves.

Mr Nagle's device, called BrainGate, consists of nearly 100 hair-thin electrodes implanted a millimetre deep into part of the motor cortex of his brain that controls movement.

Wires feed the information from the electrodes into a computer which analyses the brain signals.

The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements, offering the user an alternative way to control devices such as a computer with thought.

Professor John Donoghue, an expert on neuroscience at Brown University, Rhode Island, is the scientist behind the device produced by Cyberkinetics.

Mr Nagle has also been able to use thought to move a prosthetic hand and robotic arm to grab sweets from one person's hand and place them into another.

Professor Donoghue hopes that ultimately implants such as this will allow people with paralysis to regain the use of their limbs.

The long term aim is to design a package the size of a mobile phone that will run on batteries, and to electrically stimulate the patient's own muscles.

So, we can see the melding of brain is already happening here at outset of the 21st century. Currently, we can download information directly from the brain to computer. Can we go in the other direction? Can information be fed into the brain from a computer in a way which the brain can understand?

Yes, apparently, we can:

US and German scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again.

It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear.

Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret.

So, we can see, human beings are already able to translate information from and to the brain.

What will it be like for individual human beings to have access to all available knowledge? What will a human do with practical omniscience?

The
Peaceful
State of
Palestine:
Palestinian
Policemen
Storm
Gaza-Egypt
Border

A Palestinian youth is seen through an Islamic green flag that reads: ' No God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah.'

Policemen storm border? Huh? Well, they did. And, for once, no one is even attempting to blame this one on the Jews. At least, not so far. Read all about it:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian policemen angry over the killing of a fellow officer stormed the Gaza-Egypt border crossing Friday, firing in the air and forcing European monitors to flee and close the crossing for several hours, officials said.

About 100 policemen stormed the Rafah compound and took up positions alongside border patrol officers at the customs section of the crossing, Palestinian security officials and witnesses said.

Hours after the European observers — responsible for monitoring the crossing and ensuring the terms of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement are upheld — fled, Julio De La Guardia, spokesman for the monitors, said the situation had been brought under control and the border would be reopened later Friday.

It was not immediately clear how the incident was resolved.

The policemen who stormed the border crossing were friends and family of an officer killed Thursday in a family feud in Gaza, Palestinian security officials said. They said no Palestinian officials would be allowed to leave Gaza until the gunman responsible was executed, according to officials.

The policemen shut the border's main gate and fired in the air when a car carrying an unidentified Palestinian official tried to enter the compound. The chief Palestinian security officer at the crossing asked the policemen to leave, but they refused.

The border had been closed because according to the Israeli-Palestinian agreement the crossing cannot operate if the European contingent is not present, said De La Guardia.

Palestinians are frustrated over the increasing lawlessness in Gaza and the West Bank, which could force Abbas to confront militias behind much of the violence, especially as he heads toward a January parliamentary election. The Hamas militant group poses a serious challenge to Abbas' ruling Fatah movement in the vote.

Of course, Abbas was supposed to have "confronted" the militias behind the violence long ago, as part of his obligations under the Road Map for Peace. But, if it takes lawlessness within his own society to accomplish a good thing, then fine.

Do something, Mahmoud. Jeez.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Something
Rotten
Against
Denmark

The EU and the UN are calling Denmark to account for why they would have the nerve to publish cartoons making fun of Mohammed:

The Danish cartoon case is becoming a never-ending story, which shows that freedom of speech no longer exists in Europe. After the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations and the Council of Europe, the European Union is now the fourth multinational organisation to lash out at the Danish government for not calling a Danish newspaper to account for publishing caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Franco Frattini, the vice-President of the European Commission, called the publication of the twelve cartoons [see them here] “thoughtless and inappropriate” in a time when animosity towards Islam is on the rise. According to Frattini, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, the cartoons foment hostility against Islam and foreigners:

“Honestly, these kinds of drawings can add to the growing Islamophobia in Europe. I fully respect the freedom of speech, but, excuse me, one should avoid making any statement like this, which only arouses and incites to the growing radicalisation.”

According to the author Robert Spencer the EU reaction shows that the EU recommends dhimmitude:

“Instead of praising Rasmussen for his defense of Western values of free speech, the EU is demanding that he stand down and adopt their policy of appeasement.” What the whole affair has so far proved is that Denmark is one of the last Western countries where freedom of speech still exists.

“I am a Catholic myself, and if anyone had created a drawing of a holy Christian symbol with a bomb and a message about death, I would personally take it as an insult,” Frattini said. Does he really? Frattini became European commissioner last year because the European Union vetoed the Catholic Rocco Buttiglione because as a Catholic the latter disapproved of homosexuality and abortion.

Meanwhile, the UN has taken its action against Denmark a step further by asking the Danish Prime Minister for “an official explanation.”

U.S. Teen
Runs Off
To Iraq By
Himself

Meet 16 year old Fariss Hassan, a Junior at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Farris' parents were born in Iraq, but he grew up here in the U.S. His interests? Democracy and Immersion Journalism.

They must be passionate interests, because the kid ran off to Iraq by himself to report on what's going on:

Given his heritage, Hassan could almost pass as Iraqi. His father's background helped him secure an entry visa, and native Arabs would see in his face Iraqi features and a familiar skin tone. His wispy beard was meant to help him blend in.

But underneath that Mideast veneer was full-blooded American teen, a born-and-bred Floridian sporting white Nike tennis shoes and trendy jeans. And as soon as the lanky, 6-foot teenager opened his mouth — he speaks no Arabic — his true nationality would have betrayed him.

Traveling on his own in a land where insurgents and jihadists have kidnapped more than 400 foreigners, killing at least 39 of them, Hassan walked straight into a death zone. On Monday, his first full day in Iraq, six vehicle bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing five people and wounding more than 40.

The State Department strongly advises U.S. citizens against traveling to Iraq, saying it "remains very dangerous." Forty American citizens have been kidnapped since the war started in March 2003, of which 10 have been killed, a U.S. official said. About 15 remain missing.

Hassan's extra-mile attitude took him east through eight time zones, from Fort Lauderdale to Kuwait City. His plan was to take a taxi across the border and ultimately to Baghdad — an unconventional, expensive and utterly dangerous route.

It was in Kuwait City that he first called his parents to tell them of his plans — and that he was now in the Middle East.

His mother, Shatha Atiya, a psychologist, said she was "shocked and terrified." She had told him she would take him to Iraq, but only after the country stabilizes.

"He thinks he can be an ambassador for democracy around the world. It's admirable but also agony for a parent," Atiya said.

Attempting to get into Iraq, Hassan took a taxi from Kuwait City to the border 55 miles away. He spoke English at the border and was soon surrounded by about 15 men, a scene he wanted no part of. On the drive back to Kuwait City, a taxi driver almost punched him when he balked at the fee.

"In one day I probably spent like $250 on taxis," he said. "And they're so evil too, because they ripped me off, and when I wouldn't pay the ripped-off price they started threatening me. It was bad."

It could have been worse — the border could have been open.

As luck would have it, the teenager found himself at the Iraq-Kuwait line sometime on Dec. 13, and the border security was extra tight because of Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary elections. The timing saved him from a dangerous trip.

"If they'd let me in from Kuwait, I probably would have died," he acknowledged. "That would have been a bad idea."

He again called his father, who told him to come home. But the teen insisted on going to Baghdad. His father advised him to stay with family friends in Beirut, Lebanon, so he flew there, spending 10 days before flying to Baghdad on Christmas.

His ride at Baghdad International Airport, arranged by the family friends in Lebanon, dropped him off at an international hotel where Americans were staying.

He says he only strayed far from that hotel once, in search of food. He walked into a nearby shop and asked for a menu. When no menu appeared, he pulled out his Arabic phrase book, and after fumbling around found the word "menu." The stand didn't have one. Then a worker tried to read some of the English phrases.

"And I'm like, 'Well, I should probably be going.' It was not a safe place. The way they were looking at me kind of freaked me out," he said.

It was mid-afternoon Tuesday, after his second night in Baghdad, that he sought out editors at The Associated Press and announced he was in Iraq to do research and humanitarian work. AP staffers had never seen an unaccompanied teenage American walk into their war zone office. ("I would have been less surprised if little green men had walked in," said editor Patrick Quinn.)

Wearing a blue long-sleeve shirt in addition to his jeans and sneakers, Hassan appeared eager and outgoing but slightly sheepish about his situation.

The AP quickly called the U.S. embassy.

Embassy officials had been on the lookout for Hassan, at the request of his parents, who still weren't sure exactly where he was. The 101st Airborne lieutenant who picked him up from the hotel said it was the wildest story he'd ever heard.

Hassan accepted being turned over to authorities as the safest thing to do, but seemed to accept the idea more readily over time.

Most of Hassan's wild tale could not be corroborated, but his larger story arc was in line with details provided by friends and family members back home.

Dangerous and dramatic, Hassan's trip has also been educational. He had tea with Kuwaitis under a tent in the middle of a desert. He says he interviewed Christians in south Lebanon. And he said he spoke with U.S. soldiers guarding his Baghdad hotel who told him they are treated better by Sunni Arabs — the minority population that enjoyed a high standing under Saddam Hussein and are now thought to fuel the insurgency — than by the majority Shiites.

His father, Redha Hassan, a doctor, said his son is an idealist, principled and moral. Aside from the research he wanted to accomplish, he also wrote in an essay saying he wanted to volunteer in Iraq.

He said he wrote half the essay while in the United States, half in Kuwait, and e-mailed it to his teachers Dec. 15 while in the Kuwait City airport.

"There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction," he wrote.

"Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will."

U.S. To
Begin
Phased
Pullout
From
Iraq

Troops will be reduced from the current level of 160,000 to approximately 138,000 by March. The troops who will be leaving will be those whose services are no longer needed having been replaced by Iraqi security forces.

Hmm, wasn't that the plan all along? Yes, reading back over the past couple years of news, I'd say, yes, that was the plan.

Do you think the Democrats are going to fall all over themselves taking credit for this?

Heh. You can bet your ass they will. In fact, Associated Press makes an opening salvo in the battle for historical revision in this very article:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - The U.S. will carry out planned withdrawals of American troops in Iraq only from regions where Iraqi forces can maintain security against the insurgents, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said Thursday.

Gen. Peter Pace said the current force of 160,000 would drop to below 138,000 by March, then U.S. commanders on the ground would work with the Iraqi government to determine the pace of future pullbacks in areas that have been secured by local security forces.

"The bottom line will be that the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police will gain in competence, that they will be able to take on more and more of the territory, whether or not there are still insurgents in that area," he said in an interview with a small group of reporters, including The Associated Press, aboard a military plane en route to the United Arab Emirates.

Amid congressional pressure and growing public opposition to the war, the Bush administration last week announced plans to reduce U.S. combat troops in Iraq to below the 138,000 level that prevailed most of this year.

(Pastorius note: Nice try, AP.)

The number of American forces in Iraq was raised to about 160,000 to provide extra security during the October referendum and December parliamentary elections, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said those extra troops would be leaving soon.

The exact size of the additional troops cuts has not been announced, but senior Pentagon officials have said the number of American troops in Iraq could drop to about 100,000 by next fall.

With the handy-dandy calculator my Father-in-Law just gave me for Christmas (CUANAS is slowly, but surely moving into the 21st century, folks), I can calculate that this is a 14% reduction in troops.

Now, the question becomes, what the heck are we going to do about Iran?

Pre-Futurism
Wooly
Mammoth
DNA
Partially
Decoded

The future is coming at us so fast we need to make decisions about how to handle it right now before it slams into us and knocks us completely unconcious:

Scientists have pieced together part of the genetic recipe of the extinct woolly mammoth.

The 5,000 DNA letters spell out a large chunk of the genetic code of its mitochondria, the structures in the cell that generate energy.

The research, published in the online edition of Nature, gives an insight into the elephant family tree.

It shows that the mammoth was most closely related to the Asian rather than the African elephant.

The three groups split from a common ancestor about six million years ago, with Asian elephants and mammoths diverging about half a million years later.

Mammoths lived in Africa, Europe, Asia and North America between about 1.6 million years ago and 10,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch.

The woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, with its covering of shaggy hair, was adapted to the extremes of the ice ages.

The DNA of several extinct ice age mammals, preserved in permafrost, has been analysed before, but not in such detail.

"It is the longest stretch of DNA [decoded to date] from any Pleistocene species," said Professor Hofreiter.

Maternal line

The team of researchers - from Germany, the UK, and the US - extracted and analysed mammoth DNA using a new technique that works on even the tiny quantities of fossilised bone - in this case 200 milligrams.

Some 46 chunks of DNA sequence were matched up and arranged in order, giving a complete record of the mammoth's mitochondrial DNA - the circular scrap of genetic material found outside the cell's nucleus.

It is passed down the maternal line with small but regular changes, giving scientists a window into the past.

Although the bulk of an animal's genetic information is found in the nucleus, mitochondrial DNA is particularly useful for studying the evolutionary relationships between different species.

The complete mitochondrial DNA of an extinct animal has been sequenced before but only for the flightless bird, the moa, which died out about 500 years ago.

Dan Bradley, an expert in ancient DNA at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, said the research was "a bit of a landmark".

"Most ancient mitochondrial DNA projects use just small parts of the mitochondria," he said.
Alternative view

In a separate piece of research, published in the journal Science, a team reports sequencing some of the nuclear DNA from 27,000-year-old Siberian mammoth remains.

Again, novel techniques were used to get at this genetic material which is normally less prevalent than mitochondrial DNA.

Hendrik Poinar, from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues took their sample from an animal's jawbone.

In contrast to the Nature paper, the Science team says its work shows the ice age beast to have been more closely related to the African elephant; its genetic material was 98.5% identical to nuclear DNA from an African elephant, the group said.

Note that "novel techniques were used" in both cases to extract and decode the DNA. More novel techniques will be developed in the future. We will accelerate in our ability to perform such miracles.

Jurassic Park, here we come.

What will we do?

A Vacation
In Libya?

Thanks to Papa Ray for sending this article over to me. It's written by Michael Totten for the LA Weekly. The LA Weekly, for those of you who don't live here, is one of those anti-American freebies that you find in incense stores, and coffee shops near colleges. It's actually a well-written and informative magazine, but let's face it, they hate the hand that feeds them, so it's a pleasant surprise to see them publishing something by Totten:

When you visit another country, it’s hard to get a feel for what it’s actually like until you leave your hotel room, go for a walk, take a look around, and hang out while soaking it in. Not so in Libya. All you have to do there is show up. It will impose itself on you at once.

My Air Afriquiya flight touched down on the runway next to a junkyard of filthy, gutted and broken-down Soviet aircraft in an airport otherwise empty of planes. When I stepped out of the hatch into the jetway, I came face to face with three uniformed military goons who scrutinized me and everyone else from behind reflective oversize sunglasses.

Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, mastermind of the 1969 Al-Fateh Revolution (a euphemism for his military coup), Brother Leader of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, greeted arrivals in the passport-control room from a menacing, almost snarling, gold-gilded portrait. A translated overhead sign (rare in Libya) said “Partners Not Wage Earners.” In other words: Don’t expect to be paid.

A bored official glanced at my visa, rubbed his face, stamped my passport and pointed me toward my first Libyan checkpoint. A man in an untucked button-up shirt, with a cigarette jutting out the side of his mouth, waved me toward a metal detector. He hadn’t shaved in two days. I walked through. The alarm screamed and I braced for a pat-down. He just stood there, took a long drag on his cigarette and stared bleary-eyed into space over my shoulder. I guessed that meant I could go. So I did.

There were no other planes coming or going, so it was easy to find my ride. His name was Abdul. He wore a snazzy black-leather jacket and a Western-style goatee.

“Welcome to Libya!” he said as he led me into a parking lot the size of an Applebee’s. “We’re really busy right now. This is Libya’s high season.” They must shut down the airport entirely during the low season.

Read the rest.

Ahnold
The Idiot

In Europe, Arnold Schwarzeneggar is a joke. How do I know? Because, my very intelligent, yet incredibly stupid European family members revile him, and pour all kinds of sarcasm on him on a constant basis.

But, let's see now, if I recall correctly, when Schwarzeneggar took office about 18 months ago, he was saddled with a deficit of $30 billion; larger than the budgets of many states.

And, what is the deficit now?

Wait, there is no deficit?

There's a surplus? A FIVE BILLION DOLLAR SURPLUS?

But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but ...

How could that be? He 's an idiot.

God, who is the idiot?

I remember telling my ever so intelligent European relatives, "Don't be so quick to heap ridicule on the guy. Everything he has ever touched has turned to gold."

And, they laughed at me.

I'm sure I will never hear an apology.

The
Jihadi
Idea
Of
Sacrifice

In the Christian world, we sacrifice for our families. In the world of the Jihadinazis, they sacrifice their families:

MULTAN, Pakistan - Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family’s “honor” — a crime that shocked Pakistan.

The 40-year old laborer, speaking to The Associated Press in police detention as he was being shifted to prison, confessed to just one regret — that he didn’t murder the stepsister’s alleged lover too.

Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives each year in this conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said Wednesday such “honor killings” will only stop when authorities get serious about punishing perpetrators.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in more than half of such cases that make it to court, most end with cash settlements paid by relatives to the victims’ families, although under a law passed last year, the minimum penalty is 10 years, the maximum death by hanging.

Ahmed’s killing spree — witnessed by his wife Rehmat Bibi as she cradled their 3 month-old baby son — happened Friday night at their home in the cotton-growing village of Gago Mandi in eastern Punjab province.

It is the latest of more than 260 such honor killings documented by the rights commission, mostly from media reports, during the first 11 months of 2005.

Bibi recounted how she was woken by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the mouth of his stepdaughter Muqadas and cut her throat with a machete. Bibi looked helplessly on from the corner of the room as he then killed the three girls — Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4 — pausing between the slayings to brandish the bloodstained knife at his wife, warning her not to intervene or raise alarm.

“I was shivering with fear. I did not know how to save my daughters,” Bibi, sobbing, told AP by phone from the village. “I begged my husband to spare my daughters but he said, ‘If you make a noise, I will kill you.’”

“The whole night the bodies of my daughters lay in front of me,” she said.

Uh, Did I
Wake Up
In Another
World
This
Morning?

The "Quartet" of international supporters of the Road Map to Peace have come out in support of good vs. evil:

The four international supporters of the Middle East peace process said Wednesday that the next Palestinian Cabinet should not include members of Hamas or other militant groups committed to violence.

The statement by the so-called quartet did not name Hamas, but said a future Palestinian Cabinet "should include no member who has not committed to the principles of Israel's right to exist in peace and security and an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism."

The quartet, which has drafted a Middle East peace plan known as the road map, includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

Hamas is participating in parliamentary elections for the first time and its popularity among Palestinians has grown considerably. Opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza show it is ahead of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah party ahead of the Jan. 25 election.

Fatah appeared to improve its prospects Wednesday by overcoming a split within the organization and submitting a unified list of candidates.

Israel wants to keep Hamas out of the election process since it has carried out suicide bombings. Israel has warned it will not negotiate with any Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

In its statement, the quartet said there is a "fundamental contradiction" between militia activities and building a democratic state.

There must have been steps leading up to this declaration by the Quartet, but I am so stunned that I can't think of what they may be. Let's see;

John Bolton
Democratic Elections in Iraq
The discrediting of Kofi Annan and the UN paradigm because of the Oil-For-Food Scandal
The Gaza pullout and the revelation that a Palestinian State, as is presently consituted is a recipe for disaster
The prospect of Hamas members sitting cloaked and with weapons displayed in the halls of the UN

I don't know. This is stunning. After so many years of hearing, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," I just can't help but be surpised. Joyful, but surprised.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

CUANAS
Announcement,
Part II

Back on November 14th, I made the following announcement:

A big opportunity has presented itself, which means I am going to have to cut back on blogging for awhile. For the next few months posting will be light; usually, just one or two posts per day.

Well, I'm happy to say that, while I did not end up cutting back on posting (I'm actually in the throes of a serious blog addiction), I did actually finish the work I needed to do, in order to take advantage of the big opportunity.

So, what is the big opportunity? An agent, with very good connections, liked something I wrote, and asked me to expand it into a larger project. Cool, huh? It's a fictional work, and it has nothing to do with what I write about here on CUANAS.

And, by the way, let's all face facts here, I am not the greatest writer in the world. Someone is going to have to clean up my shit big time, but I have a pretty good idea, and that's why I've actually stumbled upon this cool opportunity.

When I originally made the announcement, I hadn't wanted to talk about what I was going to be doing, because I know how easy it is as a writer to talk about the brilliant thing you are going to write, only to never actually log a chapter, or verse. I wanted to be a doer on this, not a talker.

Well, now I'm done with the hard part. It's really up to other people at this point. Either they like it, or they don't. We shall see.

Cox
and
Forkum

Check 'em out.

The Pre-Future

I'm going to start a new topic here on CUANAS, and I will revisit it often from now on. What is it? The future. Actually, this is not a wholly new topic for me. Many of you may have read my posts on Pre-Futurism.

To put it simply, I believe we are on the verge of a major change in what it means to be human. The technologies we are currently developing, and which we will soon develop, based upon the research being done, will present us with physical and ethical challenges unlike any we have ever encountered in the past.

One of the problems we will encounter is the acceleration of change which is the result of the exponential growth brought on by the reality of Moore's Law. New technologies will be coming at us so quickly that we will not be able to think through the physical and ethical implications until well after the technologies have changed our everyday lives.

This is why I have proposed the idea that we are no longer living in the Postmodern Age, but have instead moved into what I call the Pre-Future Age. The issues we are dealing with, or that we need to deal with, are the ethical and physical realities that will soon be slapping us in the face.

In the article below, Ray Kurzweil discusses the Exponential Growth of Change, and what it will be bringing our way in the near future. From KurzweilAI.net:

"In considering the genesis of Moore's Law, I put 49 famous computing devices over the past century on an exponential graph. From this exercise, it became apparent that the acceleration of computing power did not start with integrated circuits, but has continued through multiple paradigm shifts(electromechanical calculators, relays, vacuum tubes, transistors, and finally integrated circuits).

"Moore's Law was not the first, but the fifth paradigm, to provide exponential growth in computing. The next paradigm, which will involve computing in three dimensions rather than the two manifested in today's flat chips, will lead to computing at the molecular, and ultimately the subatomic level. We can be confident that the acceleration of computing will survive the well-anticipated demise of Moore' s Law.

"There are comparable exponential trends underlying a wide variety of other technologies: communications (both wired and wireless), brain scanning speeds and resolutions, genome scanning, and miniaturization (we are currently shrinking technology at a rate of 5.6 per linear dimension per decade). Even the rate of technological progress is speeding up, now doubling each decade. The mathematical models I've developed over the past couple of decades to describe these trends, which I call the law of accelerating returns, has proven predictive of the developments we've seen during the 1990s. From these models, I believe we can be confident of continued exponential growth in these and other technologies for the foreseeable future.

"By 2009, computers will disappear. Displays will be written directly onto our retinas by devices in our eyeglasses and contact lenses. In addition to virtual high-resolution displays, these intimate displays will provide full immersion visual virtual reality. We will have ubiquitous, very-high-bandwidth wireless connection to the Internet at all times.

"Going to a web site" will mean entering a virtual reality environment -- at least for the visual and auditory sense -- where we will meet other real people. There will be simulated people as well, but the virtual personalities will not be up to human standards, at least not by 2009. The electronics for all of this will be so small that it will be invisibly embedded in our glasses and clothing.

"By 2029, as a result of continuing trends in miniaturization, computation, and communication, we will have billions of nanobots -- intelligent robots the size of blood cells or smaller -- traveling through the capillaries of our brain communicating directly with our biological neurons. By taking up positions next to every nerve fiber coming from all of our senses, the nanobots will provide full-immersion virtual reality involving all five of the senses. So we will enter virtual reality environments (via the web, of course) of our choice and meet people, both real and virtual, only now the difference won't be so clear.

"Just as people today beam their images from little web cams out onto the Internet for others to share, many people in 2029 will beam the full stream of signals coming directly from their senses onto the web. We will then be able to experience what other people are experiencing, à la John Malkovich. Of course, the everyday lives of many such experience beamers may not be all that compelling, so there will be plenty of prerecorded experiences we can plug into. Beyond just the five senses, these shared experiences will include emotional responses, sexual pleasure, and other mental reactions.

"Brain implants based on these distributed intelligent nanobots will extend our brains in every conceivable way, massively expanding our memory and otherwise vastly improving all of our sensory, pattern-recognition and cognitive abilities.

"Oh, and one more thing: we'll live a long time too. The expanding human life span is another one of those exponential trends. In the eighteenth century, we added a few days every year to human longevity; during the nineteenth century we added a couple of weeks each year; and now we're adding almost a half a year every year. With the revolutions in rational drug design, genomics, therapeutic cloning of our own organs and tissues, and related developments in bio-information sciences, we will be adding more than a year every year within ten years. So take care of yourself the old-fashioned way for just a little while longer, and you may actually get to experience the remarkable century ahead."

Well, what do you think of that? The natural human response is to reject these ideas as preposterous. Many Christians, and people of other religious traditions, will reject what Ray Kurzweil says here because because such realities will invade the sector of godhood.

Yes, that's true.

However, in the Judeo-Christian tradition we, supposedly, believe we were created in the Image of God, meaning we were created to be rational, creative beings, like God. I think we must decide, do we really believe God created us in His Image, or don't we? And, what does it mean, if not that we have tremendous creative ability?

If you look at human history you will see that the evidence is that man can do just about anything he sets his mind to. There are limitations of time and space, meaning everything takes time, and we can not create something from nothing (for matter is the essence of space), as God can. However, I believe, it is the height of foolishness to think that man will not achieve many of the things Kurzweil discusses here in this article, and more.

We have to get ready. These powers that are coming our way present extreme moral challenges. There have been many Christians lamenting the fact that Chrsitianity has not been at the forefront of societal change for several centuries now. The reason for that is too often Christians have rejected change, and have instead immersed themselves in tradition. I say we Christians, as well as brothers in Abraham, need to start thinking seriously about the future so that we can help our brothers and sisters of the human race deal with changes coming our way.

Yes, we need to help them, as well as ourselves.

You Don't
Issue A Fatwa
On Me,
I Issue
A Fatwa
On You

I don't know why my man, Elmer's Brother, isn't posting this stuff over at IBA, but oh well. Anyway, check out his post on Fatwas:

I guess there is a Fatwa Management and Research System for all your fatwa needs. This system must employ a lot of people. Sometimes fatwa's are issued for what seem like mundane matters. There is Fatwa Online for the computer literate or when you open a bank you might want to consult the The Fatwa & Shari'ah Supervision Board. If you don't like what an author says you can do what Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did:

"I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death."

FATWA issued February, 1989against Salman RushdieThe moderate Muslims are trying to change who has control over the issuing of fatwas. You know what I say "fatwa chance" of that happening.It's becoming known as the war of the fatwas: the dizzying exchange of proclamations between Islamic moderates and militants on what it means to be Muslim.

The duels have been waged everywhere from pamphlets to cyberspace. (more)For those of you who don't know:

fatwa (Arabic): Legally binding, religious ruling/proclamation or

A fatwa (Arabic: فتوى) plural fatāwa (Arabic: فتاوى) , is a legal pronouncement in Islam, issued by a religious law specialist on a specific issue. Usually a fatwa is issued at the request of an individual or a judge to settle a question where ’’fiqh,’’ Islamic jurisprudence, is unclear.

A scholar capable of issuing fatwas is known as a Mufti.

Because Islam has no centralized priestly hierarchy, there is no uniform method to determine who can issue a valid fatwa and who cannot. Some Islamic scholars complain that too many people feel qualified to issue fatwas.

Different Islamic clerics can issue contradictory fatwas. The effect depends upon whether or not this takes place in a nation where Islamic law (sharia) is the basis of civil law.

Go read the rest.

Thanks to Always on Watch for sending that over to me.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Over 100
Cars Burn
In Paris
On
Christmas Eve

The rioting in France has continued unabated. Especially in the City of Lights, on Christmas Eve. From the International Herald, via Pedestrian Infidel:

Cars have continued to burn every night since the riots ended, including more than 100 across France on Christmas Eve.

America
Preparing
For Strikes
On Iran?

The German newspaper, Der Spiegel, is reporting that Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, was recently in Turkey requesting assistance, and warning the Turkish government to be prepared for attacks on Iran, and Syria:

During his recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey.

Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria.

Goss, who came to Ankara just after FBI Director Robert Mueller’s visit, brought up Iran’s alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons. It was said that Goss first told Ankara that Iran has nuclear weapons and this situation was creating a huge threat for both Turkey and other states in the region.

Diplomatic sources say that Washington wants Turkey to coordinate with its Iran policies.

The second dossier is about Iran’s stance on terrorism. The CIA argued that Iran was supporting terrorism, the PKK and al-Qaeda.

The third had to do with Iran’s alleged stance against Ankara. Goss said that Tehran sees Turkey as an enemy and would try to “export its regime.”

Security Watchtower, the source of this information, says to take this report with a grain of salt. It seems to me the idea that Iran already has nuclear weapons is inconsistent with America's stated opinion on the matter. However, America's stated opinion could be the smokescreen.

Whatever the truth is, Iran faces an attack from either America, or Israel, imminently.

And, as the Astute Blogger points out, American political emissaries have been spending an undue amount of time in Turkey lately.

Give Gaza
Back To Egypt

Felix from Red State.org was kind enough to leave me a link to an article he wrote which proposes a solution to the Middle East Conflict; Give Gaza Back to Egypt:

Now that Israel has disengaged from Gaza, what next for this strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea where more than million Palestinian Arabs live? The plan, which is chiseled in stone and accepted as the only way to proceed by UN Security Council, the EU, and the US., is that Gaza will become part of the new Palestinian State. That state will also someday include whatever parts of the west bank Israel eventually disengages from. A new Palestinian State--make that County--will be started. Israel has a State--a Country--ergo the Palestinians must have one.

I think I know the recent history of Gaza, but do feel free to correct me. The land area we now call Gaza was, prior to 1948, part of Egypt. The people living there were Moslems, spoke Arabic, and had many of the same customs and traditions as other Egyptians. During the 1st Israel/Arab war in 1948, some of the Arabs living in the area that was to become Israel left for Gaza and joined the existing Gaza Arab population.

Depending on one's reading of history, the Arabs either fled from Israel in fear because of the war or left Israel upon the urging of Arab leaders (the idea being for them to return after the Arabs won the war). In the 1948 war, Israel could have taken over Gaza, but chose not to.

Then in 1967, when Israel swept into the Sinai Dessert, it also took Gaza. In the early 1980s, when Israel was giving the Sinai back to Egypt, as part of its Peace Agreement, Israel offered to give Gaza back to Egypt but Anwar Sadat said no.

At the risk of sounding not-with-the-program, I think the best outcome is for Gaza to become a demilitarized part of Egypt, like it was before. The new Palestinian State will be a perpetually unhappy place, always defined by its grievance with Israel. It will be divided into two parts from day one, with the in-between area being their former and current enemy--Israel. The Palestinian leadership is either the corrupt and ineffectual PLO or Islamofascist groups such as Hamas of Islamic Jihad. It will likely become more lawless than it is now.

If I were a current resident of Gaza, and was given a choice between being a citizen of the new PLO State or Egypt, I would opt to be a citizen of Eqypt. Part of a "normal" or "real" country. Give me my Eqyptian passport and let's get on with life. I understand that Egypt has to be persuaded to take the area.

There may be historical instances of solving border disputes between two countries (which is what I think this is) by creating a 3rd country in the disputed area, but I can`t see that improving the situation in the case of Gaza. Since we are all for promoting Arab democracy at this time, how about a referendum for the people of Gaza?

Question: Do you want to join Epypt? Let's see what happens.

Well? The first thing that comes to my mind is, Egypt doesn't want Gaza for good reason. When Israel vacated the Gaza Strip, as I understand it, there was some negotiation before Egypt would even agree to take control of the border.

Unfortunately, no one wants to govern the Palestinians, and they don't seem to want to govern themselves.

Professor
Solves
Decades-Old
Math Problem

From Associated Press:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia is being recognized for solving a math problem that had stumped his peers for more than 40 years.

Hofmann became curious about the problem as an undergraduate when a professor introduced him to it.

The professor was unable to solve the problem. Hofmann, 47, would have more success when the problem began to take over his life in 1996. Until he solved it in 2000, it was the last thing he thought about before he went to bed and the first thing he thought about when he woke. He spent two to eight hours each day on the problem, working periodically with several colleagues.

"I could be out for a bike ride, and I would be thinking about it," Hofmann told The Kansas City Star. "Sometimes I would be doing something, get an idea and have to stop ... and write it down."

The problem, known as Kato's Conjecture, applies to the theory of waves moving through different media, such as seismic waves traveling through different types of rock. It bears the name of Tosio Kato, a now-deceased mathematician at the University of California-Berkeley, who posed the problem in research papers first written in 1953 and again in 1961.

Part of the problem, called the one-dimensional version, was solved about 20 years ago. Though it was a breakthrough, work remained. Hofmann solved the problem in all its dimensions in a 120-word paper that he wrote with several colleagues — Pascal Auscher, Michael Lacey, John Lewis, Alan McIntosh and Philippe Tchamitchian.

"Philosophically, the reason research in math matters is that by pursuing math ideas that are deep and interesting for their own sake, you will get real-world applications in the future," Hofmann said.

"It is like making investments."

Theodore Slaman, chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of California-Berkeley, said solving a problem as old as Kato's Conjecture "is like finding the Holy Grail."

"Once you have solved it, people believe you have an understanding of an entirely new area. The longer a problem has been around, the more cachet associated with solving it."

It would be nice to think that one of us, who spends his or her time wracking our brains thinking about the Middle East conflict, might someday come up with the answer to that decades-old problem.

It seems to be the most difficult equation in the history of mankind.

Vlad
The Impaler,
Part II

Over at the Infidel Blog Alliance.

Palestinian
Munich Terrorist
Rebuffs Spielberg's
"Prayer for Peace"

Little Steven is trying so earnestly to make the world a better place, but those gosh darn terrorists are making it awfully hard:

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg’s new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

The Hollywood director has called “Munich,” which dramatises the 1972 raid and Israel’s reprisals against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his “prayer for peace.”

Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but did not take part and does not feature in the film. He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.

“If he really wanted to make it a prayer for peace he should have listened to both sides of the story and reflected reality, rather than serving the Zionist side alone,” Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Daoud said he had not seen the film, which will only reach most screens outside the United States next month. But he noted that Spielberg arranged previews in Israel, where some have accused “Munich” of lacking historical accuracy.

“Spielberg showed the movie to widows of the Israeli victims, but he neglected the families of Palestinian victims,” said Daoud. “How many Palestinian civilians were killed before and after Munich?” ...

“We did not target Israeli civilians,” he said. “Some of them (the athletes) had taken part in wars and killed many Palestinians. Whether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier.” ...

“When I chose a long time ago to be a revolutionary fighter I prepared to be a martyr. I am not afraid, because people’s souls are in God’s hands, not Israel’s,” he said.

Ah, the cold, hard slap of reality. Think it will knock some sense into him?

Not a frickin' chance.

Eliminating
Schwarzeneggar

The Germans were ever so angry at Arnold Schwarzeneggar for signing the execution orders of "Tookie" Williams. Check out their response. From No Pasaran:

A poll by the local newspaper found that over 70 percent of the public opposed removing Mr. Schwarzenegger's name from the stadium.

... (his) name was removed from the arena in a sort of uncontested divorce between the California governor and the town council, which had been horrified that he rejected pleas to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, former leader of the Crips gang, who was executed by the state of California two weeks ago.

The Schwarzenegger name has, as it were, been erased. The new name is now simply Stadion Graz-Liebenau (a district of Graz), though there were other proposals. One was to name the stadium after the Crips, the gang that Mr. Williams founded ...

Seventy percent of the population opposed the idea, but the government went ahead with the elimination of Schwarzeneggar's name anyway. Now, that's what you call a nuanced Democracy.

And, don't you just love the intelligent Euro idea of naming the stadium after the Crips?

You see, the Euros have a very sophisticated culture. If ever you don't understand their behavior, it's because you are just a stupid American.

Why Israel
Must Exist

In the leadup to the Holocaust, even America rejected the Jews. From the Jerusalem Post:

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't the first bloody-minded tyrant to propose that Jews just go away, elsewhere, even to Alaska.

In his day Hitler tauntingly invited the world's democracies to take his Jews, if they were so concerned about them. He knew that for all their high-minded rhetoric, these countries wouldn't accept his provocative challenge. After 1938's Anschluss, their representatives met in Evian-les-Bains, on Lake Geneva's French shore, to decide what to do with Nazism's desperate victims, pounding on their gates in search of asylum. They never even called them Jews, lest they incur the Fuehrer's wrath.

It turned into a great Jew-rejection fest. Britain bristled at any suggestion of allowing Jews into Eretz Yisrael, mandated to it to administer as the Jewish National Home. Forerunners of today's Palestinian terrorists made sure endangered Jews wouldn't be sheltered here and His Majesty's government appeasingly acquiesced. The vast empty spaces of Canada, Australia and New Zealand were likewise off-limits. American humanitarianism consisted of tossing the undesirable hot potato into the international arena, because the Jews weren't wanted in the Land of the Free either, Indeed FDR toyed with the notion of shipping German Jews to Ethiopia or Central Africa. The UK favored the jungles of Venezuela or Central America.

The competition was on: who'll suggest a more remote and less hospitable exile in which to dump those whom the British Foreign Office labeled "unwanted Jews." The motivation wasn't much more beneficent than Hitler's initial choice of Madagascar.

Mussolini was the one who changed direction northwards. Instead of exposing Berlin's urbane Jews to the rigors of the tropics, he opined that the Siberian Arctic might be a preferable hardship. Coincidentally or not, Washington soon thereafter launched plans to deposit Jews in Siberia's adjacent neighbor, Alaska - then an American territory. The fact that Alaska wasn't a state theoretically offered a technicality via which to circumvent immigration quotas for 10,000 refugees who'd be put to work in wilderness-development projects.

Some decried this as a glorified penal colony - perhaps something along the lines Ahmadinejad had in mind when he recently expanded on his earlier relocation promotions. Beyond initial German and Austrian real estate, Ahmadinejad now adds the compelling attractions of Alaska.

Again, now as then, Alaska is proposed as a dumping ground. Ahmadinejad may not give a hoot about the first attempt to unload Jews in Alaska, but for the record it ought to be noted that the well-intentioned bill, sponsored by Utah Senator William King and California Congressman Frank Havenner in March 1940, failed to save a single Jew.

It was vehemently opposed by Alaska's only (non-voting) delegate to Congress Anthony Dimond on the grounds that "foreigners cannot be assimilated in Alaska and will constitute a threat to our American civilization."

Read the rest.

Thanks to J, from Justify This, for sending this over to me.

Point

Joe Citizen.

Israel In
British Guiana?

Belmont Club posts this article entitled "After Munich", from Time Magazine circa 1938:

Just before leaving London to visit Paris this week, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons that he is once more appealing to Adolf Hitler to continue the Munich work of "appeasement" in general.

In so doing he revealed what may yet prove to be the most important international event since Munich, the efforts which the British Government is making to find a home for Germany's Jews. Having queried all the colonies, he revealed that the Governor of Tanganyika has put at his disposal 50,000 acres on which to settle Jewish men, their families to follow if the...

How is it that we can't find a home for the Jews that the world will approve of? Why must the world contest the Jews right to live, their right to exist? Why is it that the world is so set against the people the Bible calls the Chosen People of God?

Interesting questions to ponder, huh?

Land For
Peace:
Sounds Like
A Good Idea
To Me

Elder of Ziyon has a good idea:

I have a very proportionate solution of my own to the problem of Palestinian Arab terror, and it is all based on the famous "land-for-peace" formula. Since the entire world seems to accept the concept of Israel ceding land for peace, it stands to reason that the converse should be true as well: if there is no peace, Israel should take more land!

Every terror attack should have a response from Knesset: one square kilometer of "Palestinian" territory will be irrevocably annexed by Israel for every dead Israeli, and it will be named for the victim. All the rest of the land will remain up for negotiation but the Palestinian Arabs would see their dream of a terror statelet dry up in direct response to every terror attack.

There is no freedom, without responsibility. There is no truth, without accountability.

Monday, December 26, 2005

France
The Rage
Is Asleep

From Little Green Footballs:

BONDY, France “Burn!” A knot of young men join their voices in a battle cry as they edge closer to the silhouette of a parked Mercedes, some of them aiming what look like handguns, others reaching for lighters.

In the harsh light of an underground parking lot in this grim suburb northwest of Paris, the guns and lighters are imaginary - but the sense of aggression is real. As one of the young men films with a digital camera, the others move to the angry beat of music blasting out of an open car door, echoing into the dark December night.

They sing about the riots that erupted two months ago, about being Muslim and about not feeling French in France. For them the unrest is not over, it is waiting to break loose again.
“The quiet is deceptive,” said Bala “Balastik” Coulibaly, 24, of nearby Clichy-sous-Bois, his eyes scanning the deserted parking lot from deep inside his sweatshirt as he took a break between two songs. It was in Clichy that the accidental death of two teenagers on Oct. 27 set off three weeks of rioting in immigrant neighborhoods across France.

Since then, the whiff of gasoline and tear gas has disappeared. But the calm is fragile, impatient and tinged with the cynicism of youths who fear being let down again by a political class that allowed mass unemployment and social exclusion to accumulate over three decades in the poor suburbs ringing France’s big cities.

“The rage in the suburbs is only asleep,” said Balastik, a French youth of Mauritanian origin who has been jobless since dropping out of school seven years ago and is dreaming of a career as a rapper with his band, Styladone.

My advice to the French is, you better not play those Maurice Chevallier records too loudly, so as not to wake up the sleeping "youths."

Best to stick with good ole' Marcel Marceau, these days.

Vlad The Impaler

Go to Infidel Blog Alliance and check out my new post, Vlad The Impaler.

Israel Believes
The Collapse
Of The
Palestinian
Authority
May Be
Imminent
Part II
Abbas Is
Hospitalized

Could've been something he ate.

Boy, that Abbas has been hospitalized sure is interesting coming on the heels of the post below:

RAMALLAH, West Bank : Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas was hospitalised urgently in Ramallah, medical sources said.

The sources did not provide any additional information about his health condition or the reason for his hospitalisation.

It could be he has the runs, or it could be the beginning of a coup. Of course, we have no idea, yet.

Peaceful
State
Of Palestine
Watch

Israel believes the collapse of the Palestinian Authority may be imminent:

JERUSALEM - Israel is prepared for a possible "collapse" in the Palestinian Authority that could render Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas incapable of imposing law and order, a senior official said Sunday.

"We are prepared for a possible collapse in the Palestinian Authority that could risk seeing Mahmud Abbas unable to impose law and order on the ground as well as within his own Fatah party," the source told AFP.

"At this point, Mahmud Abbas is so weak in relation to Hamas that he is unable to implement the smallest decision," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pity.

UPDATED
Jihadis Hit
Russian Stores
With Poison Gas
Story Comes
19 Days Later?
Something Strange
Is Going On

Gas capsules with timers attatched have been found in St. Petersburg stores. In one store they went off:

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) - Gas capsules with timers attached were found in stores in Saint Petersburg, the Russian city where dozens of people fell ill after inhaling an unknown gas that spread through a store, officials said.

"The devices that were discovered consisted of capsules of gas with a strong garlicky smell. Clocks set to the current time were attached," a spokesman for the Federal Security Service in Saint Petersburg told AFP on Monday.

Only in one of the three stores, all belonging to the Maksidom chain, did a capsule release gas, officials said. Dozens of people felt sick after inhaling the substance, with 16 hospitalised.

Russia has been criticized for being too brutal against the Islamists in Chechneya. It is clear that they have not been brutal enough.

Where is Vlad the Impaler when we need him?

UPDATE: In trying to find a photo for this story, I came across the one above, which was accompanied by the following text:

Russian police patrol near a block of flats that was destroyed earlier in the day by a gas explosion in northeast Moscow, on December 7. Dozens of people have been hospitalized in the northern Russian city of Saint Petersburg after inhaling an unknown gas that spread through a store in the city.(AFP/File/Yuri Kadobnov)

This is a very strange story. Let me be clear about this. The AFP/Yahoo headline for this story was "Gas Capsules With Timers Found In Russian Stores." I was going to run with a similar headline, when I found that, in the body of the AFP article, one of the capsules had actually exploded, hospitalizing sixteen people.

Then, I find the picture with this text. A whole block of flats were destroyed? People were hospitalized after inhaling poison gas? And, this isn't the headline news internationally? In fact, it has been hidden by a rather inocuous headline, and it has been hidden for nineteen days.

What is going on?

UPDATE II: CNN is reporting the gas had a "garlicy" smell, indicating that it may be Mustard Gas, or Arsine, both of which are lethal chemical agents.

UPDATE III: J, at Justify This, points out that Chechen schoolgirls seem to have been hit by a chemical attack as well, just a few weeks ago. Authorities were "baffled" as to what could have been the cause.

Nuclear Iran:
A Case
For War

Atlas Shrugs has a very important post up today, making the case for war against Iran. I'm not going to steal it, as I stole her photo yesterday, so I'm just going to say,

Go read it, please.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Happy Chanukah
Stealing Beauty

I have a little rule for myself here at CUANAS. When a blogger has a scoop, or something particularly original on their blog, I do not post it until the next day. But, I hope Pamela, at Atlas Shrugs doesn't mind, because in this case, I think this photo is just too beautiful not to steal.

My apologies, Atlas.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

"Isn't There
Anyone
Who Knows What
Christmas
Is All About?"

... the perpetually depressed Charlie Brown bellowed in the 1966 cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Linus, in response, recited the following:

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them,
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
(LUKE 2:8-14 )

And, that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

Friday, December 23, 2005

The Wise Men

They recognized the signs of the times.

Iranians
In England
Protesting
Against
Liberal
Appeasement of
Iranian Regime

From Azarmehr, via the Drunken Blogger:

British Iranians staged a silent picket outside the Lib Dem HQ, in Cowley Street, Millbank. The picket was in protest at remarks made by Lib Dem Baroness, Emma Nicholson, in the European Parliament, who referred to the Islamic Republic as "an advanced form of democracy in the region".

The protesters, mostly professional, took time off work and braved the cold London weather, and stood outside the Lib Dem HQ, handing out leaflets - see below - to passers by and Lib Dem members who were visiting the party HQ.

After about one hour, a Lib Dem official first protested to the police that the protesters are using a residential property to display their posters, but the police reassured the official that the owner has given her consent after speaking to the protesters.

Soon after, the Lib Dem chief executive, Lord Chris Rennard, stepped out of the HQ to speak to the demonstrators. The demonstrators explained that Baroness Nicholson's constant support for the Islamic Republic is providing the mullahs with a lot of undue credit and propaganda.

Lord Rennard was told any comparison of the Islamic Republic with other countries in the region is an absurd comparison. The Iranian people have struggled for the last 100 years for freedom of speech and an accountable government. The analogy would be to tell a Chinese dissident that the Chinese government is not as bad as North Korea or the Pol Pot regime!

"No comparison with other countries in the region is relevant" Lord Rennard was told.

Lord Rennard was also reminded about another Lib Dem peer who had said "Human Rights in Iran should not be compared with Western Human Rights standards but with that of the region.

"There should be no classifcation of Human Rights", the demonstrators told Lord Rennard. "Human Rights is universal and it should not be classified by race or region".

Lord Rennard agreed and then asked what the protesters' demands were.

"We need a clear statement from the Lib Dem party on what their policy towards the Islamic Republic is. Do they support Emma Nicholson or do they distance themselves from her? If we do not have a satisfactory answer we will continue to campaign amongst British Iranians not to vote for Lib Dems and will stage hunger strikes outside the Party HQ" The demonstrators told Lord Rennard.

Lord Rennard promised to contact Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem Shadow Foreign Secretary and try to get a clarification on the party's policy on the Islamic Republic.

The protesters then thanked Lord Rennard and said they will await the reply by Sir Menzies Campbell. Lord Rennard however refused to give a statement to the journalists covering the event.

Man, oh man, Libs the world over can't tell the difference between good and evil. What's up?

Look at what they do to women in Iran.

Yes, that's right, they are burying her, so she can not escape when they begin stoning her to death.

That's the official policy of the government that Emma Nicholson called "an advanced form of Democracy in the region."

The
United States
Of Islam

Elder of Ziyon (a very fine blog, from whom I stole the title of this post) questions whether Iranian President Ahmadinejad is attempting to make Iran as an Islamic superpower:

It is not easy to understand the motivations behind Iran's Ahmadenijad (see "Towards a psychoanalysis of Iran" and "Media analyzes Ahmadinejad - and gets it wrong"). It is tempting to denounce Ahmadenijad as a madman, or to come up with explanations that are incomplete. The real explanation is surprisingly simple:

Ahmadenijad is positioning Iran to become a world superpower, and to a great extent he has already succeeded.

What makes a superpower?

Part of it is military might, to be sure, but a more important component is the ability to lead. Ahmadenijad's rhetoric is not aimed at his people; rather he is stepping into the vacuum that the Islamic world has had for decades - trying to become a leader in the war against Islam's enemies.

There is a strong religious component to this desire, as I have mentioned before and as this article spells out very well, but it appears that Iran's president is aiming not only to make Iran the religious center of Islam, but the political center as well.

How does one assert political leadership of the Muslim world?

Take the one issue that all Muslims agree on (the destruction of Israel) and outdo all of the others.

Take on the undisputed existing world leader, showing bravery where everyone else is frightened.

Create the most powerful military in the Islamic world, one that now threatens the West.

Strengthen industry and scientific R&D to become technologically independent of the enemy:

Improve economic and political ties with more neutral countries. (A significant percentage of the Iranian news agency's stories are about economic initiatives with Europe, Asia and Africa - Iran hardly feels isolated even after its verbal provocations.)

Attack the enemy militarily (Hezbollah, Iraq)

(It is worth emphasizing that while the Arab world has become anti-intellectual and anti-science, the Iranians are anything but. In many ways their path to superpower status is similar to the US' path - military, economic and technological might. )

Looking at the world map with this perspective, Iran's "bloc" already includes essentially the entire Arab world, much of Africa, Pakistan, North Korea and probably Indonesia. Russia and China are pretty much neutral, although some former Soviet republics are solidly in the Islamic camp. India may not be Islamic but it has more Muslims than any Muslim country. And as European countries becomes more Islamic and remain dependent on Islamic oil, it is not entirely clear that they are solidly in the US camp in this battle - a significant part of their population is very sympathetic to an anti-Western viewpoint.

Iran is not only aiming at increasing its power, but in isolating the US as well.

Nuclear capabilities, along with missile technology, will cement Iran's leadership status as the world's second superpower.

Isolating the United States? Is that possible?

Well, we are just a few elections away from having no significant allies in the War on Terror. Take out Tony Blair, John Howard, and Silvio Berlusconi, and we are isolated when it comes to our geopolitical goals. Russia and China are selling Iran the technology for their nuclear facilities, as well as the missile systems to launch them. Meanwhile, France and Germany are trying to lay low in hopes the Mullahs won't get angry with them.

There is only one solution to this problem. The Iranian government must be done away with.

The Left
Comes Out
In Favor Of
An Absolute
Freedom
To Bear Arms

Let's see if the Left tries to turn this into another scandal:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials have secretly monitored radiation levels at Muslim sites, including mosques and private homes, since September 11, 2001 as part of a top secret program searching for nuclear bombs, U.S. News and World Report said on Friday.

The news magazine said in its online edition that the far-reaching program covered more than a hundred sites in the Washington, D.C., area and at least five other cities.

"In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program," the magazine said.

The report comes a week after revelations that the Bush administration had authorized eavesdropping on people in the United States. U.S. President George W. Bush has defended that covert program and vowed to continue the practice, saying it was vital to protect the country.

Senior U.S. officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, have repeatedly said Islamic militants appeared intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction for an attack against the United States.

Mueller said in February he was "very concerned with the growing body of sensitive reporting that continues to show al Qaeda's clear intention to obtain and ultimately use some form of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-energy explosives material in its attacks against America."

An FBI spokesman declined to confirm or deny the U.S. News and World Report article and said, "We can't talk about a classified program."

"The FBI's overriding priority is to prevent, disrupt and defeat terrorist operations in the U.S.
All investigations and operations conducted by the FBI are intelligence driven and predicated on specific information about potential criminal acts or terrorist threats, and are conducted in strict conformance with federal law," he added.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said the report, coupled with news of the domestic eavesdropping, "could lead to the perception that we are no longer a nation ruled by law, but instead one in which fear trumps constitutional rights."

(Pastorius note: Of course, if CAIR gets it's way, we will be a nation ruled by Sharia, which is much, much worse than anything supposedly going on in the U.S.")

"All Americans should be concerned about the apparent trend toward a two-tiered system of justice, with full rights for most citizens, and another diminished set of rights for Muslims," it said in a statement.

At its peak, the effort involved three vehicles in the Washington area monitoring 120 sites a day, nearly all of them Muslim targets such as prominent mosques and office buildings selected by the FBI, it said.

The program has also operated in at least five other cities -- namely Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle -- when threat levels there have risen, it said.

One source quoted by the magazine said the targets were almost all U.S. citizens.

Vice President Dick Cheney was among those briefed on the monitoring program, the publication said.

The United States Government has no right to monitor whether it's citizens are carrying concealed nuclear weapons. It is a violation of the 2nd Amendment.

The only way there gonna take away my nukes is to pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

Senate Democrats
Drag Feet On
Condemnation
Of Iran For
Holocaust Denial

Senator Lugar - All American Jew-hater?

Atlas Shrugs has a great post up this morning about how Senate Democrats watered down a condemnation of the state of Iran for Almadinejad's statements denying the Holocaust:

More surprising is that Senator Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee had not cosponsored either resolution.

We learned that a majority staffer objected to condemning the entire government of and the call for a referendum with international observers.

He reportedly said that we should be condemning President Ahmadinejad (vs. the entire government) and that Iran just had elections and they chose the current leader."

That is a stunning statement coming from a presumably educated man. Iran's Mullahs pick the candidates for each election, and then if, during the course of the campaign the candidates say anything the Mullahs do not like, they fix the election at the ballot box. Read Atlas' post for details.

The fact is, everyone in politics ought to know this. I'm just a dumb musician, and I know it. How is it that Senator Lugar doesn't know what a dumb musician knows?

But now, I'm going to tell you something else Senator Lugar, apparently, doesn't know. Iran's Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki declared just a week ago that Holocaust denial is the official policy of the Iranian government:

Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Friday that remarks made earlier this week by the country's president that the Nazi mass murder of Jews during World War II was a "myth" was the official Iranian government's position on the issue.

"The words of [president] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust and on Israel are not personal opinions, nor isolated statements but they express the view of the [Iranian] government," Mottaki said. Ahmadinejad made the Holocaust remarks on Wednesday while it was in October he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

"The Palestinians or Islamic nations can not be forced to pay for the injustices the Europeans believe they committed against the Jews," the minister said speaking at Tehran airport after a visit to Pakistan.

"The Europeans have to understand that the current Iranian government doesn't have any intention to play the role of someone who listens without having the right to reply," he said adding that if Europe wants to have relations with Iran "it has to learn to listen to our opinions and take them into account."

Somehow, I doubt that Senator Lugar is truly ignorant of these facts. It's his job to know what's going on in the world. I have a job, and this isn't it, and yet, I find the time to learn these things.

Atlas suggests the possibility that Ahmadinejad's statements have opened the door for all the anti-Semites to come blazing out of the closet with no shame.

Yes, maybe Senator Lugar simply hates Jews. Maybe that's it. There is little in the way of any alternate rational explanation, is there?

Busy With
Christmas
Stuff Today

By the way, how did Yeshua get to be such a white little baby?

Thursday, December 22, 2005

God Of Wonders

... Beyond (and within) our galaxy
You are Holy, Holy
The Universe declares Your Majesty
Holy, Holy

Lord of Heaven and Earth
Hallelujah to the Lord of Heaven and Earth

Osama's Niece
Is A
Hottie

And, she's a model. I mean, what can you say:

She's not the model niece Osama bin Laden's looking for - but she is modelling.

This is how Wafah Dufour, the al Qaeda leader's niece, will appear in the January 2006 issue of GQ magazine.

Dufour, who took her mother's maiden name after the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, is an aspiring musician struggling to make a name for herself.

She says she has never met Osama bin Laden.

"Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him," she said in the article.
"There are 400 other people related to him, but they are all in Saudi Arabia, so nobody's going to get tarred with it.

"I'm the only one here."

One of the foundational ideas of the West is that the individual is supreme. We are endowed by our Creator with rights, and inherent dignity as human beings. As such, we are not defined by our ancestry, or the land we hail from, but instead, we are known by what we do with our lives.

Well, Wafah here is a model. That's fine. She may be a good person, or she may not. But, clearly, she has unchained herself of the shackles of Sharia. And, that, I believe, is a brave step.

Good for her, on that count.

I Am Legion,
For We
Are Many

2... (they) met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
3Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
4Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
5And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
6But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
7And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
8For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
9And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
10And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
11Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
12And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
13And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
- Mark 5: 2-13

So it is with anti-Semitism. The spirit took up residence in Germany, and when it was confronted by America in World War II, it begged leave, and fled into a herd of swine, and is now poised to throw itself into the sea and drown.

Think on this story, as you read the following from Neo-neocon:

... the sad--and very ironic--fact is that it's no longer necessary to have Hitler's reach to be able to threaten a great number of Jews, due to the establishment of the state of Israel and the relative ease of acquiring nuclear weapons these days. Iran, of course, is very well-positioned geographically and militarily to represent a credible threat--if not now, then very soon.

Hitler had to go to great lengths to gather the Jews from their respective countries in Europe to murder them, but he was more than willing to make the effort. Today, however, thanks in great part to that effort of his, the Jews are more or less gone from Europe. They are also more or less gone from the Arab world, and from some of those non-Arab Moslem countries (such as, for example, Iran) in which they previously had a significant presence.

The upshot of it all is that the Jewish population of the Old World is now largely concentrated within the tiny confines of Israel, and if Iran gains atomic weapons it would be far easier to exterminate those Jews than it was for Hitler, although the consequences could be even graver for the world, since Israel itself has a nuclear capacity.

Many theories have been advanced over the years for the strange and enduring phenomenon known as anti-Semitism, but the one constant is that it is relatively constant, cropping up over and over in varied guises and locations, waxing and waning rhythmically, but always reliably present.

So the words of Iran's President no longer surprise me with their resemblance to Hitlerian rantings. And it's no surprise, either, that one of Ahmadinejad's themes is Holocaust denial, although one would think it could just as easily be Holocaust approval.

Holocaust denial, always reprehensible, is somehow more understandable in Europeans than in someone such as Ahmadinejad. After all, Europe bears more of the guilt for the Holocaust; therefore it stand to reason that Europeans would have more motivation to want to wash their hands of any association with the Holocaust by declaring it a fabrication of those wily and nefarious Jews.

But Holocaust denial has spread to Arab countries, and of course to Iran. The reasons are not completely clear, but it seems to go with the territory of anti-Semitism itself. After all, if one desires to hate Jews and to blame them for all manner of evil, and at the same time one imagines there's a need to be sympathetic to victims (and to elevate the Palestinians as victims extraordinaire), then the Jews have to be discredited as victims. They must have no sympathy whatsoever in order to become the villains of the piece. And to do that one must deny that the Holocaust ever occurred--so that their re-victimhood may be safely contemplated, and with a clear conscience.

It's a sad and not-too-well-known fact that the development of virulent anti-Semitism in the Arab world, a 20th century phenomenon (which Iran now seems to have "caught"), was in fact a direct result of Nazi influence in the Middle East during the 30s (see this book by Bernard Lewis on the subject).

Nazi propaganda is probably the underlying source of this sort of thing--both in the Arab world and, by a sort of contagious spread, in Iran.

The Allies who liberated the camps made some documentary films of the horrors they found there, because they felt the need to prove what had happened. Some of these films were shown at the Nuremberg trial and some were shown in movie theaters of the time:

General Dwight D. Eisenhower anticipated that future generations might find it hard to believe the horror that they found when Nazi Germany was liberated by the Allies. He ordered that both the Ohrdruf camp and the Buchenwald camp be preserved for several weeks in the state in which they were found and German civilians in nearby towns were forced to visit the camps to view the piles of rotting bodies.

American soldiers, newspaper reporters and Congressmen were also called in as witnesses to the Nazi atrocities. But it was the British who had the biggest impact on the public conscience when they released their newsreel film of Bergen-Belsen to movie theaters around the world in the last days of the war.

Eishenhower was indeed prescient when he anticipated that future generations might find it hard to believe the horror of the Holocaust. He did what he could to document it. But the need to deny seems to be stronger for many people than the evidence (when I was Googling to find information about the films of the camps, for example, a plethora of Holocaust denial sites came up).

Some deny, I suppose, because they don't want to believe such horrors are possible. But many deniers have a different purpose for their denial, and it's a Hitlerian one, I'm afraid: to demonize the Jews once again, and to try to pick up where he left off in their annihilation.

They deny because they are compelled to do so by indwelling spirit of almost absolute hatred of the Jews. Why the Jews? Why God's chosen people, of all the people on Earth? Ponder that question.

Is Muslim
Rioting
The Result
Of Economic
Forces
Or Is It
The Result
Of Islamic
Ideology?

Today is rip on the Left day, here at CUANAS:

A hurricane exposes the poverty of America's inner cities, and the champions of big government make political hay out of it. Riots lay bare the underclass in Paris's suburbs, and the French are astounded that such a thing could exist in their country

Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and others seized on the New Orleans issue to blame the Bush administration for causing or exacerbating that city's poverty. This took an amazing amount of chutzpah, considering that New Orleans and Louisiana are longtime strongholds of their own political party.

In fact, Democrats have long controlled almost all of America's inner cities. The Brookings Institution recently ranked the 50 largest cities in the United States according to their concentrations of poverty. A quick check reveals that the 10 cities with the highest concentrations of poverty have Democratic mayors, with the exception of New York City (whose Republican mayor is something of an anomaly in a Democratic-dominated city).

By contrast, the few Republican big-city mayors hail mainly from cities with the least concentration of poverty.

So why is there so much unemployment in America's inner cities and in France's suburbs? It is largely because onerous government regulations dissuade employers from offering jobs to low-skilled people.

Probably the biggest barrier to job creation for the low-skilled is the minimum wage. This problem is most pronounced in France, where the national minimum wage is about $9 per hour. It is a no-brainer why unemployment among rioting Muslim youths is so high: French employers do not consider their skills valuable enough to justify paying them $9 per hour. Not helping the situation are the country's rigid labor laws, which make businesses even more reluctant to hire.

So the solutions advocated by the champions of big government produce a pull/push effect: the poor get pulled into certain areas, and employers get pushed out. Poverty deepens.

Unless that cycle is broken, expect a continuation of poverty in America's inner cities, and additional manifestations of discontent among France's underclass.

American Muslims do not riot. Why? There are two big reasons,

1) They generally are not unhappy in America, because they have opportunity

2) They don't have sufficient numbers to riot effectively

What am I saying?

I'm saying the riots in France are partially the result of the fact that Muslims exist almost entirely outside of French society because of the lack of opportunity provided by the French political system,

and,

I am saying that Muslims usually exist almost entirely outside of any Western society they live in, by their own choice.

In other words, I don't think America's political system will make us immune from Muslim rioting. I simply think our system will put off rioting.

And, it is likely that any Muslim rioting that does occur here in America may be squelched by the integrated Muslims themselves.

Since When
Are We
Not Allowed
To Spy On
Calls
Coming
Into The U.S.?

As per usual, the Astute Blogger lays it out clearly:

For years, the Dem/Left has been deriding the Iraq War as an "unnecessary diversion" or "blunder" while CLAIMING that they were GUNG-HO on the GWOT and would have preferred if Bush had kept this nation's focus on the war against al Qaeda and in Afghanistan.

But, their current attacks against Bush's aggressive use of NSA capabilties to intercept suspected al Qaeda communications into and out of the USA PROVES that they are LYING ON THIS COUNT, TOO.

If the Dem/Left is not willing to use the NSA to intercept foriegn intelligence on international calls into the USA, and insists that this intel gathering for miltary use MUST be subordinated to a FISA judge's court order (as if the president was not fit to order it on his own - as CinC) then they are not fit to assume responsibility for defending the USA or Free World.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

I Dream That I Can Fly

Muslims
Hold
Explosive
Prayer
Meeting
In Ohio

Two explosions rocked a Mosque in Cincinnati:

Two explosions caused minor exterior damage at a mosque complex about two hours after evening prayers, and federal agents joined the investigation. No injuries were reported and police hadn't found any witnesses to the Tuesday night explosions at the Islamic Association of Cincinnati mosque. ...

One explosion damaged an overhead glass panel in a front entryway at the mosque, and the other damaged a door on a porch at an adjacent house. ...

The mosque is about a mile from the University of Cincinnati campus and near several churches and Hebrew Union College.

I hate it when this happens at my church.

Europe
Appeases
Muslims
By
Coming Out
Against
Free Speech

Maybe, if I curl up and play dead, those mean old Muslims will leave me alone.

The Council of Europe officially criticizes Denmark for publishing cartoons of Mohammed:

The Council of Europe (CoE), an organisation of 46 European countries, has criticised the Danish government for invoking the “freedom of the press” in its refusal to take action against “insulting” cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The CoE Committee of Ministers discussed the case during a meeting in Strassburg last week.

In a statement the Committee said that “a seam of intolerance within Danish society is noted […] in certain media” – a reference to the Danish cartoon case. (...)

The CoE added that it is also concerned that “[Danish] legislation, such as the reform of the Aliens Act, and policy, such as the Government’s policy towards integration, may contribute to a climate of hostility towards different ethnic and religious groups.”(...)

The case escalated into a major diplomatic crisis, even though, apart from the Danish press, it has been hardly been reported upon in the international mainstream media.

There were violent protest demonstrations and strikes against the cartoons in the Indian state of Kashmir and in Pakistan, after which Denmark warned its citizens not to travel to Pakistan. Egypt cut off its talks on human rights with Denmark while the Egyptian Grand-Imam Muhammad Said Tantawy condemned the Danish government. Tantawy is the religious leader of Egypt, appointed by the Egyptian president, and chancellor of the prestigious al-Azhar University, one of the Sunni Muslims’ most important centers of learning.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised his Danish colleague during bilateral talks last month (and other consequences).

(...)Instead of supporting their government, 22 prominent Danish former career diplomats criticised Prime Minister Rasmussen this week. (...)Their criticism, however, did not impress Rasmussen.

The letter by the former ambassadors was “very misguided and sad,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman Troels Lund Poulsen said yesterday. “They are willing to compromise freedom of expression by taking a moral stand."

(...)Meanwhile, Carsten Juste, Jyllands-Posten’s editor, has welcomed efforts to end the cartoon controversy. Moderate Muslim groups in Denmark proposed to stop demanding apologies from JP and organise a “celebration” to show the moderate side of Islam. Juste welcomed the idea. “I consider it a chance at reconciliation,” he said.

“While it’s important to protect freedom of speech, there is also a need among Danes to gain more knowledge of Islam and Mohammed.”

Sounds like Carsten Juste is about to cave in. Who would want to live under a hail of death threats:

Death threats have forced daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten to hire security guards to protect its employees. Journalists and editors alike have received threats by email and the telephone. Editor Juste said the cartoons had been a journalistic project to find out how many cartoonists refrained from drawing the prophet out of fear.

'We live in a democracy,' he said. 'That's why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures. Religion shouldn't set any barriers on that sort of expression.'

Or, maybe not, huh?

Syria Signs
Pact
With Iran
To Hide
Nukes

Iran and Syria reach a nuclear agreement:

Report: Syria agrees to hide Iran nukes

LONDON -Syria has signed a pledge to store Iranian nuclear weapons and missiles.

The London-based Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Iran and Syria signed a strategic accord meant to protect either country from international pressure regarding their weapons programs. The magazine, citing diplomatic sources, said Syria agreed to store Iranian materials and weapons should Teheran come under United Nations sanctions.

Iran also pledged to grant haven to any Syrian intelligence officer indicted by the UN or Lebanon. Five Syrian officers have been questioned by the UN regarding the Hariri assassination, Middle East Newsline reported.

"The sensitive chapter in the accord includes Syria's commitment to allow Iran to safely store weapons, sensitive equipment or even hazardous materials on Syrian soil should Iran need such help in a time of crisis," Jane's said.

The accord also obligated Syria to continue to supply the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah with weapons, ammunition and communications. Iran has been the leading weapons supplier to Hizbullah, with about 15,000 missiles and rockets along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The accord, negotiations of which began in 2004, was signed on Nov. 14 and meant to prepare for economic sanctions imposed on either Iran or Syria. Under the accord, Jane's said, Iran would relay financial aid to Syria in an effort to ease Western sanctions in wake of the UN determination that Damascus was responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

These guys are determined to enact their evil plan. Who will thwart them?

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

A "Quirky,
Off-Broadwayish"
Musical
About
Pedophilia?

Variety seems to like the idea.

The two idiots in the photo here look like they'd be perfect for a part in the production.

Jacques: "Oh Thank heavens, for ze little boys"

Hugo: "They grow up in the most delightful way."

Stalin
Ordered
Creation of
Half-Man/Half-Ape
Super
Warriors

(Sigh):

THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine". The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialisation: new cities, architecture, and a new egalitarian society (Pastorius note: What the ...?) were being created.

The Soviet authorities were struggling to rebuild the Red Army after bruising wars.

And there was intense pressure to find a new labour force, particularly one that would not complain, with Russia about to embark on its first Five-Year Plan for fast-track industrialisation.

Mr Ivanov was highly regarded. He had established his reputation under the Tsar when in 1901 he established the world's first centre for the artificial insemination of racehorses.

Mr Ivanov's ideas were music to the ears of Soviet planners and in 1926 he was dispatched to West Africa with $200,000 to conduct his first experiment in impregnating chimpanzees.

Meanwhile, a centre for the experiments was set up in Georgia - Stalin's birthplace - for the apes to be raised.

Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail.

In a way, Stalin and Ivanov were simply ahead of their time. In the future, we will have such warriors, but they will be far more amazing than what these two envisioned.

The reason I posted this, though, is because it just goes to show how insane Stalin truly was, and I think everyone needs to know. Every new shred of evidence pertaining to his insanity needs to be brought out into the open.

Many on the Left supported this man, just like they support the policies of complete lunatics (George Soros, Michael Moore, Yasser Arafat) today.

Something
Is
Very
Wrong
In Iraq

Election results came in ten days ahead of schedule in Iraq, and there is something very, very wrong. From Pajamas Media:

The election commission last night announced shocking preliminary results of the elections in 11 Iraqi provinces. The results “after counting 89% of the votes in Baghdad showed that the UIA [United Iraqi Alliance, the main religious Shiite coalition -- ed.] won 1,403,901 votes, the Accord Front [also referred to as Iraqi Consensus Front; main religious Sunni Arab group -- ed.] won 451,782 while Allawi’s list [Iraqi List, secular -- ed.] won 327,174”, said a spokesman of the election commission.

These results when final will grant the UIA many more seats that what was expected, something that obviously upset the Accord Front. Four leaders from the Front are holding a press conference right now in Baghdad and they strongly rejected the announced results. Tariq al-Hashimi and Adnan al-Dulaimi, the two leaders of the Front are asking the election commission to “reconsider these results or redo the election in Baghdad…

The election commission already changed its opinion about the results they announced yesterday.

Ferid Ayar, another senior official in the commission appeared in a press conference less than an hour ago and “corrected” the vote-count of the UIA by cutting away 100,000 votes from it. Now the UIA has nearly 1,303,000 instead of 1,403,000! This is still not final result, said Ayar.

Reading the results in some detail on al-Sabah this morning, some of the numbers caught my attention; I’m talking here about the number of votes achieved by local small lists or individual candidates in the Southern provinces.

The numbers I read were simply ridiculous and here are a few examples from Maysan:

-Lawyer Abdulwahid al-Lami is from the Lami tribe, the biggest in a province that runs by tribal relations. This candidate won 5 votes, yes 5 votes!

This means this man didn’t even the votes of his own family…it doesn’t make sense. It is as if the man paid 1 million dinar for each vote since the registration fee for candidacy is 5 million dinars. Heh.

-Sheikh Raheem al-Sa’idi was also running from Maysan and he’s a local sheikh of a big tribe that has many thousands of members in the south. This sheikh won 17 votes only!

A usual sheikh is married to at least 3 wives and has dozens of children, brothers and cousins and this one won 17 votes only!

The reason why such numbers are totally ridiculous is because for any party or candidate to register, the commission asks them to bring 500 signatures from supporters!

It is clear that many parties and candidates were marginalized and betrayed by the election commission. What the commission announced in the above update is just a futile attempt to relieve the growing tension in Iraq.

You know the old saying about the horse and the water, and the decision to drink.

The United States can not allow this to happen. Our $250 billion, gallons of blood, and tested will are insulted by this farce. This is why we have to impose our will in Iraq, the way we did in German, and Japan after WWII.

Their society needs to be completely rebuilt. We need to change their culture, their religion, and their laws.

That's what we did to Germany and Japan. Why the hell are we not doing the same in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Monday, December 19, 2005

The
Knowledge
Of
Good
And
Evil

Do
"Lebs Rule
The Street"
In
Australia?

Below you will find an article from the Australian magazine Quadrant. Quadrant looks to be the Australian version of National Review, or maybe somewhat like a conservative version of the New Yorker. They review books, publish poetry, and do conservative political commentary, as well as commenting on cultural events.

I go into this, because this article about the rise of Middle Eastern crime gangs in Australia is so stunning in it's claims that, at first, I was wondering if I was reading some sort of white supremacist propaganda.

No, apparently not. This article was written by former police Detective, Tim Priest and appeared in the February 2004 edition of the magazine. In other words, this was well before the current rioting in Australia broke out. Check it out:

Two uniformed officers stopped a motor vehicle containing three well known male offenders of Middle Eastern origin, on credible information via the police radio that indicated that the occupants of the vehicle had been involved in a series of break-and-enters. What occurred during the next few hours can only be described as frightening.

When searching the vehicle and finding stolen property from the break-and-enter, the police were physically threatened by the three occupants of the car, including references to tracking down where the officers lived, killing them and “fucking your girlfriends”. The two officers were intimidated to the point of retreating to their police car and calling for urgent assistance.

When police back-up arrived, the three occupants called their associates via their mobile phones, which incidentally is the Middle Eastern radio network used to communicate amongst gangs. Within minutes as many as twenty associates arrived as well as another forty or so from the street where they had been stopped. As further police cars arrived, the Middle Eastern males became even more aggressive, throwing punches at police, pushing police over onto the ground, threatening them with violence and damaging police vehicles.

When the duty officer arrived, he immediately ordered all police back into their vehicles and they retreated from the scene. The stolen property was not recovered. No offender was arrested for assaulting police or damaging police vehicles.

But the humiliation did not end there. The group of Middle Eastern males then drove to the police station, where they intimidated the station staff, damaged property and virtually held a suburban police station hostage. The police were powerless. The duty officer ordered police not to confront the offenders but to call for back-up from nearby stations. Eventually the offenders left of their own volition. No action was taken against them.

In the minds of the local population, the police were cowards and the message was, Lebs rule the streets.

Later in the article, Mr. Priest analyzes the current situation in France and says he sees similar trends in Australia:

MANY OF YOU would have heard of the horrific problems in France with the outbreak of unprecedented crimes amongst an estimated five million Muslim immigrants. Middle Eastern males now make up 45,000 of the 90,000 inmates in French prisons. There are no-go areas in Paris for police and citizens alike. The rule of law has broken down so badly that when police went to one of these areas recently to round up three Islamic terrorists, they went in armoured vehicles, with heavy weaponry and over 1000 armed officers, just to arrest a few suspects.

Why did it need such numbers? Because the threat of terrorist reprisal was minimal compared to the anticipated revolt by thousands of Middle Eastern and North African residents who have no respect for the rule of law in France and consider intrusions by police and authority a declaration of war.

The problems in Paris in Muslim communities are being replicated here in Sydney at an alarming rate. Paris has seen an explosion of rapes committed by Middle Eastern males on French women in the past fifteen years.

The rapes are almost identical to those in Sydney. They are not only committed for sexual gratification but also with deep racial undertones along with threats of violence and retribution. What is more alarming is the identical reaction by some sections of the media and criminologists in France of downplaying the significance of race as an issue and even ganging up on those people who try to draw attention to the widening gulf between Middle Eastern youth and the rest of French society.

That is what we are seeing here. The usual suspects come out of their institutions and libraries to downplay and even cover up the growing problem of Middle Eastern crime. Why? My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that these same social engineers have attempted to redefine our society. They have experimented with all manner of institutions, from prisons to mental institutions and recently to policing.

Thou
Shalt
Not
Murder

A person named Chuko left a comment on my Tookie post denouncing the death penalty.

Here is my response to him:

I am a believer in the death penalty. The idea that my tax dollars go towards feeding murderers makes me sick to my stomach. I wouldn't feed a murderer myself, so why would I want my money to do it without my permission?

Would you invite a murderer into your home and feed him?

And, just in case you don't know, the literal translation of the Hebrew in the 10 Commandments is, "Thou shalt not murder," not thou shalt not kill. There is a difference between killing and murdering. It is ok to kill a person who is intent on doing evil. For instance, it would have been wise for people in the German government to have killed Hitler. It would be wise for somone to put a bullet through Ahmadinejad's brain today.

If there was a man raping and beating your daughter, it would be wise for you to kill him before he killed her.

Understand?

The problem is, many people don't take murder personally enough, because it's not their daughter who has been murdered. If you put yourself in the place of the loved ones of the person murdered then you would understand.

It's not about vengeance, it's about justice.

We can not justly, as a society, feed murders.

Supreme
Ayatollah
Says Iran
Will Win
Nuclear War
Against
Israel

Iranian Supreme Ruler, Ayatollah Rajsanjani has declared that Iran would win a nuclear with Israel. Interesting that he is contemplating a war with weapons he, supposedly, doesn't have, and doesn't intend to have. From Atlas Shrugs:

Supreme Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said last Friday that the Muslim world would win a nuclear exchange with Israel, aggravating fears Tehran's quest for atomic weapons indeed has one purpose: the annihilation of what it calls the Zionist “cancer.”

“[The] application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel - but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world,” Hashemi-Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the government-controlled Iran Press Service.

The spiritual leader, who wields ultimate power in Iran, made the comments during a prayer service in Tehran. It was the first time an Islamic leader of such prominence openly suggested a nuclear attack against the Jewish state, media analysts told the IPS.

Speaking to Fox News a day earlier, US President George W. Bush said his administration also views Iran as a true existential threat to the Jewish state.

“I'm concerned about a theocracy that has got little transparency, a country whose president has declared the destruction of Israel as part of their foreign policy, and a country that will not listen to the demands of the free world to get rid of its ambitions to have a nuclear weapon,”

Bush told his interviewer.“I called it part of the 'axis of evil' for a reason,” the president added.

However, the most serious punitive diplomatic measure being discussed is Iran's exclusion from the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament scheduled to take place in Germany next summer.

I'm sure that scares the Iranians. No Soccer. No Peace.

Maybe, after they've launched their nukes, the Euros will blame themselves for having denied Iran the right to play soccer in the Olympics. Maybe they could even write a UN resolution condemning themselves.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

John Coltrane

A Love Supreme

I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee, O Lord.
It all has to do with it.
Thank You God.Peace.
There is none other.
God is.
It is so beautiful.
Thank You God.
God is all.
Help us to resolve our fears and weaknesses.
In you all things are possible.
Thank you God.
We know. God made us so.
Keep your eye on God.
God is. He always was. He always will be.

No matter what... it is God.
He is gracious and merciful.
It is most important that I know Thee.

Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, throughts,fears and emotions--time--all related...all made from one... all made in one.

Blessed be his name.

Thought waves--heat waves--all vibrations--all paths lead to God. Thank you God.
His way... it is so lovely... it is gracious.
It is merciful--Thank you God.
One thought can produce millions of vibrations
and they all go back to God... everything does.
Thank you God.

Have no fear... believe... Thank you God.
The universe has many wonders. God is all.
His way... it is so wonderful.

Thoughts--deeds--vibrations,
all go back to God and He cleanses all.
He is gracious and merciful... Thank you God.
Glory to God...

God is so alive.
God is.
God loves.

May I be acceptable in Thy sight.
We are all one in His grace.
The fact that we do exist is acknowledgementof Thee, O Lord.
Thank you God.

God will wash away all our tears...He always has...He always will.
Seek him everyday.

In all ways seek God everyday.
Let us sing all songs to God.To whom all praise is due... praise God.
No road is an easy one, but they allgo back to God.

With all we share God.
It is all with God.
It is all with Thee.
Obey the Lord.

Blessed is He.
We were all from one thing... the will of God...
Thank you God.--

I have seen ungodly--none can be greater--none can compare
Thank you God.

He will remake... He always has and Healways will.
It's true--
blessed be His name--
Thank you God.

God breathes through us so completely...so gently we hardly feel it...
yet,it is our everything.
Thank you God.

ELATION--ELEGANCE--EXALTATION--All from God.
Thank you God.

Amen.

-John Coltrane (December, 1964)

How
To
Wake
Up

The European Union is threatening to withdraw aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas wins in the January elections:

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Sunday warned that the EU could halt financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas wins January's Palestinian elections and fails to renounce violence.

"All the political parties have the right to be part of the elections, but there is a certain code of conduct that has to be accepted by everybody," Solana told reporters during a visit to Tel Aviv. "It's very difficult that parties who do not condemn violence...can be partners for the future."

According to Solana, an administration including a party which failed to clearly reject violence and recognize Israel's right to exist could not continue to receive EU funding.

"It would be very difficult for the help and the money that goes to the Palestinian Authority to continue to flow," he said, according to news agencies. "The taxpayers in the European Union, members of the parliament of the European Union, will not be in a position to sustain that type of political activity."

Excuse me, while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

The
Fundamental
Tenet Of
Western
Civilization

With all the things that have happened over the past few years, 9/11, Beslan, 3/11, the London bombings, the Bali bombings, seemingly countless suicide attacks in Israel, the Paris Riots, the Birmingham Riots, the Danish Riots, the bombings in the Phillipines, Israeli airliners shot at with surface-to-air missiles, etc., etc., etc., it is very tempting to hate Muslims.

The past few days have been particularly rough on those of us who love and support the Jews and the Jewish state, what with Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, and calling the Holocaust a myth. Considering that the man is about to aquire nuclear weapons, we must conclude he plans to destroy Israel. And considering the fact that he is receiving no real opposition in the Arab world (only people criticizing his comments for being ill-advised) then, once again, it would seem we have reason to descend into the dark land of hatred.

The other day, commenter Sissyblue said, "I have to remember that these people really are victims of a vicious ideology, and not hate the people."

I'm glad she said that, because if do allow ourselves to simply fall into hatred of Muslims, then we are forgetting the ideals for which we are fighting this war, and for which we have fought wars since the inception of this country, namely, to end the enslavement of human beings.

A few days back I had some particularly scathing comments for Robert Spencer. I have learned that, for some reason, I have an almost infinite capacity to read of Islamofascistic atrocities, and somehow not let it effect my mood. But, give me one American compromising the ideals, or dignity of America, or of Western Civilization, and my blood boils.

I know Robert Spencer is a reasonable man. I love Robert Spencer. I think he is brilliant, and I agree with most of what he says. But, Robert Spencer does not seem to believe our war will be a success, because he doesn't believe Democracy can be established in a Muslim country.

This is in direct contradiction to the stated intention of his website, which is to inform the public of the doings of the Jihad, so that we can confront Muslims, get everything out in the open and encourage them to effect needed changes within their religious theology.

I do think that his lack of faith in our fellow human beings betrays his lack of agreement with the fundamental tenet of Western Civilization, which is that we are created in the Image of God, and, as such, we are created to be free and creative beings. Freedom is our right as humans, and we long for it in our hearts.

That is Western Civilization. That is what we are fighting for. That is what we have to place our faith in.

That tenet trumps all ideology, whether it be Islam, Nazi, American slavery, or good ole King George.

You know, that tenet was why Ronald Reagan knew we would beat Communism. Ronald Reagan knew that the desire for freedom beats in the breast of all men, so he knew that given the knowledge of freedom, and the choice to create it, the people of the Soviet Union would choose Democracy over Communism.

We must stick to our ideals here.

YARGB had a great post today, it was entitled Bush's Plan, and here is the body of the post. You guys all know this one, but, check it out, as it pertains to our current plight, and as it has pertained to the thread of the American project:

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. "

Sounds like a good plan. It certainly beats the hell out of hating people, and doubting ourselves and the rest of humanity.

Charles
The Great

From Atlas Shrugs:

Charles Johnson changed the course of human events. His influential blog was the spark for thousands of us to get involved, harness our considerable energy, politically activate, and start blogs. I owe Atlas Shrugs to Charles. And Bush is still in the White House and Charles had a hand in that too. Not just because of the fraud Dan Rather and the LLL media tried to perpetrate on the American people just weeks before the election, but for calling out the media, dhimmis, idiotarians for their mendacity - everyday.

I just want to say, yes, I agree with Atlas. She goes on to say Charles history will be written. Yes, it will. As Hugh Hewitt says, The rise of the Blogosphere is the Information Reformation. It is the great Democratization of news and opinion. No longer do we have to go to the priests of the media for our news. Now, we can report, dissect, and give our own opinions. And, they are heard.

Historians will take note of this phenomenon, because it is only going to get bigger and bigger. Therefore, they will write about the early bloggers, and about the evolution of the blogosphere. Charles, Roger, Glenn, and very likely Atlas herself, will be remembered.

Yes, Little Green Footballs was the first blog I read. Shortly after, I learned about Roger Simon, and The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, and BlackFive, and many others. And soon, I started my own blog, because that's what blogs do. They breed more blogs.

Dag and I were discussing the idea, yesterday, that the rise of the Blogosphere can also be compared to the invention of the printing press. In the same way as that invention gave average people access to information that, previously, only scribes and aristocrats had, now the blogosphere has made it so that not only can everyone read, but now everyone can publish.

And I, and many others may not have ever started if it weren't for Charles and the great community he has started up over at LGF.

Ariel
Sharon
Suffers
"Minor Stroke"

Let's hope it is minor:

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a mild stroke Sunday, but his condition quickly improved and his doctor said he was expected to be hospitalized for a few days. Sharon aides said he still was in control of the government.

Sharon never lost consciousness and his condition quickly improved, said Yuval Weiss, deputy director of Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital. The premier was expected to be released after undergoing tests, he said.

"Initial checks showed he had a light stroke and during checks his condition improved. He was always conscious and didn't need any surgical intervention," Weiss said.

Sharon is human, so I do feel bad for him and his family, but at this time in history, he is so much more than just a man. He is the best hope we have, other than George Bush, that someone will take out the Iranian nuclear facilities.

Let's pray that he will be ok.

The
Islamofascists
Who Stole
Christmas

A report on the violence in Sydney, Australia from Democracy Frontline:

There are so many police out at local beaches that people are keeping away. When I drive around the suburb I often see a police car here and there.

There was one assault at Maroubra beach last night at midnight- and how the police did not catch the attackers I don’t know - but there is only a passing reference to it in the link below which makes me think that it might have been MEA guys.

Well what a great time everyone is having. Sydneysiders crowd the beaches in summer but now we have surreal scenes like the one (to the side). And a Christmas Carols concert which was meant to be held at Coogee, near Maroubra, was cancelled due to the sense of threat.

In fact quite a lot of Chrismas carols concerts have been cancelled especially in the Muslim areas of Sydney.

But ‘Peace rallies’ and universal brotherhood PC style are the theme of the moment and they will come out with war fuzzy statement quicker than rabbits breed.

Well I am all for peace but forgive me for thinking that there was something sinister in the words of the Muslim fellow who said to a terrified Maroubra resident running away last Sunday ‘This place belongs to us now”.

In case you missed it, the reason Australians are canceling Christmas carols concerts is because of this:

Shots Fired at Christmas Carolers. World Yawns.

"Sydney's Catholic Archbishop George Pell said bullets were fired at a school staging Christmas carols in Sydney's west on Monday night."A school staging Christmas carols! Where is the outrage?

Yesterday police gathered to protect a mosque that was not attacked. What does that tell you about the police priorities? (And you can bet if shots were fired at a mosque it would be headline news around the world, complete with riots in Pakistan.)

Of course, the reporter doesn't have the slightest idea who could have fired the shots. The notorious 'white supremacists'? Neo-cons? Crypto-Zionist agitators?Meanwhile the potential for violence increases. "

Police also said they found 30 Molotov cocktails and crates of rocks stockpiled on rooftops, as hundreds of local surfers gathered at Maroubra Beach." Tick tock.

While most of the lazy media rewrites the same 'Australia-as-racist-society' stories, at least one guy gets it.

"There is so much more to this than racism. And we're fooling ourselves if we pretend otherwise. ... Recognising human nature means that multiculturalism, though a fine sentiment, can only work if we unite behind a core set of values."

Yes, the violence goes on in Australia. I forgot about it the last few days, because I have been so upset about Ahmadinejad.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Nightmare

U.S. And
Europe
Step Up
Planning
On Iran

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with an increasingly hard line from Iran, the United States and Europe have stepped up planning for tougher diplomatic action should Tehran follow through on threats to resume critical nuclear activities, according to U.S. officials and European diplomats.

The U.S. and its European allies are seeking agreement among themselves on precisely when Iran's nuclear program will have progressed to the point that the matter should be taken to the U.N. Security Council and what kinds of sanctions might be pursued there, the officials and diplomats said.

Tehran insists it only aims to produce civilian nuclear energy. Allies say the program is to produce weapons.

Russia, which is building Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr in southern Iran, remains a serious impediment. The United States fears that weapons grade plutonium could be extracted from the Bushehr reactor once it goes on line.

The United States and major European nations -- Britain, France and Germany -- have long threatened to bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

But negotiations appear at an impasse and new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has alarmed the world with aggressive calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

"Increasingly, we feel the Iranians are just not interested in any sort of privately negotiated solution to this problem, that what they are interested in is a political confrontation over it," one European diplomat told Reuters.

Under the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed, member states are guaranteed the right to develop a full nuclear fuel cycle but are banned from making weapons.

The Bush administration is under growing pressure from Congress and pro-Israel groups to soften its stance toward Tehran. They want the nuclear issue referred to the U.N. Security Council, where sanctions could be imposed.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph, who oversees nonproliferation issues, was in Europe this week for meetings that included discussions on Iran.

U.S. and European experts are to meet Iran next week to see if negotiations can resume, but the outlook is pessimistic.

"I think there are a lot of different pieces moving toward an interesting point on Iran, especially the nuclear piece," a U.S. official said.

A pro-Israel advocate said administration officials "are considering harder approaches. Things are moving on a faster track."

A second European diplomat said while there was a U.S. trend to "toughen the position" on Iran, some Europeans preferred to keeping trying to draw Russia into a unified position.

Efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program would suffer if the issue was moved to the Security Council and the council was too divided to take action, some analysts said.

U.S. officials say if the Security Council discussed Iran's nuclear program, sanctions would not be imposed immediately, while the council tried other diplomatic pressures.

Also under discussion is what the United States and other states would consider their "red line" -- the point at which Iran has crossed into a dangerous activity that cannot be tolerated.

"We cannot achieve anything until we are certain we see things the same way," the second European diplomat said.

Iran froze work at its Isfahan nuclear facility in late 2004 under a deal with Britain, France and Germany but resumed uranium conversion in August 2005.

Tehran has threatened to go further and begin uranium enrichment, the most sensitive part of the nuclear cycle. The United States, Britain, France and Germany generally agree any further steps would be unacceptable but Russia is more lenient, officials said.

Wow, what a nest of vipers quoted in that article.

Anyway, I've got a question. If we know that Iran will produce it's Uranium at the Isfahan, or Bushehr facility, then why does everyone keep saying there are hundreds of targets? Iran can't build a nuclear weapons without uranium, so why can't we just bomb those two facilities?

Does anyone know the answer to this?

I have to wonder if maybe we are acting like it's a very difficult job, so that Iran will think we think we can't do it. So, they will be left wondering.

Attack On
Ahmadinejad's
Security
Entourage
Leaves
Two Dead

It looks like there are people trying to kill the Iranian President before he does what he says he's going to do:

The local driver and one of Ahmadinejad's bodyguards were killed, on Thursday evening, in southeast Iran near the City of Zabol after an attack against the Presidential motorcade. Another bodyguard has been seriously injured during the shoot out.

Ahmadinejad who had started a tour of the Sistan-Baloochestan province, since Wednesday, was not in the car at the time of the attack. He returned to Tehran, on Friday, after making a speech on the need to increase the security in Iran and especially in the province.

Official press is declaring that the ambush was set by "Armed Bandits" which is the usual label used to qualify armed opponents to the Islamic regime. The Islamist Jomhoori e Eslami daily, close to the Supreme Leader, is stating:

"In the armed clash, the driver of the vehicle, a local member of the security service, and a president's bodyguard were killed, while another bodyguard was injured".

Rumors are stating that worried circles inside the Islamic regime's itself might have been involved in somehow communicating the necessary information for the identification of the vehicle to the assailants.

Interesting times.

Thanks to Sissyblue for leaving me the link.

Friday, December 16, 2005

What
Should
We Do In
Response To
Ahmadinejad?
...
Remember

More on Ahmadinejad, from Research:

"For the third time in a week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust is a "myth" that Europeans have used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world..."

Ahmadinejad said that Western leaders "have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets."

Reactions on the sickening comments from the Iranian president.

Iranian president's comment on Holocaust stirs anger in Germany

Germans in government and out Thursday condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's dismissal of the Holocaust as a Western myth as the world continued to denounce the Iranian leader and warn that his statements could have broader consequences...

Thilo Meyn, 43 "I thought, my God, he's a Nazi, I couldn't believe that again the world was faced with a Nazi as a head of state. It's beyond comprehension."

Germany:Chancellor Angela Merkel says the statement are "incomprehensible."

Members of the Bundestag, the German parliament, demand an official condemnation. Foreign Minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier added that Iran must "understand that the EU patience is not endless." He also warned that Iranian president's comments "would burden" Iran's negotiations with Germany, France and the United Kingdom regarding the production nuclear power.

Hannelore Kaiser, 72, a walker a the central memorial was especially appalled that a national leader would question what so obviously had been proved.

"Maybe because I saw it as a child, I don't have a need to question that it happened.

"Every German should come here, then, to remind them. Everyone should remember the horrible results of such hatred. If not, it will happen again."

Have any of you, when you learned of the atrocities of history, ever promised yourselves, that you wouldn't allow such to happen, if you had anything to say about the situation?

Well, now is the time. You must stand up and say, "No." It's time to say, "Never again."

Tell everyone you know.

I Found
What I
Thought
I'd Missed
The Whole
World
In Our Kiss

Did I
Just See
Green Rays
Coming
Out Of
His Head?

Roger Simon on Iranian President Ahmadinejad:

To us (relatively) normal folk, it's hard to imagine that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually believes there were green rays coming out of his head (or some such), but if he does, we better start taking some of his threatening statements at face value. Think about it - it's going to be like having a paranoid schizophrenic as head of state, sort of like Caligula but with nuclear arms.

Yes, that's my concern as well. However, I wonder if it's paranoid schizophrenia, or purposeful evil acting through the agent of a human being.

Ahmadinejad is such a bizarre apparition on the continuum of history, even Al Jazeerah sounds worried:

Rhetorical hostilities between Iran and Israel have grown sharper with Iran's defence minister warning that any Israeli attack would provoke a "swift and destructive" response.

"The policy of the Islamic republic of Iran is completely defensive, but if we are attacked, the answer of the armed forces will be swift, firm and destructive," Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Friday.

He was responding to a question about Iran's reaction in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, already under scrutiny as international unease grows over the Islamic republic's nuclear intentions.

"The doomed fate of (Iraqi ex-president) Saddam (Hussein) must be a lesson for officials of the usurping Zionist regime," Najjar added in a reference to the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 in which around a million people were killed.

A heated verbal exchange has intensified between the Jewish state and Iran over a series of anti-Israel outbursts by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

In October the President Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and this week he described the Jewish Holocaust as a "myth".

European leaders warned in a draft statement on Friday that Ahmadinejad's statements could be grounds for sanctions against Iran.

"The EU condemns unreservedly President Ahmadinejad's call for the eradication of Israel and his denial of the Holocaust and the European Council is gravely concerned at Iran's failure to build confidence that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful."

Israeli officials and politicians, meanwhile, have openly discussed the possibility of an attack on Iran, either alone or with other countries, that would aim to cripple Iran's nuclear development capabilities. Defence Ministry official Amos Gilad said on Sunday that Israel has not ruled out a military strike against Iran if it advances further toward nuclear weapons.

Israel is also acquiring dozens of US warplanes with long-range fuel tanks that would allow them to reach Tehran and return without refuelling.

Iran denies that it seeks nuclear bombs, saying its programme is confined to electricity generation. But the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said it cannot give Iran a clean bill of health because of incomplete data.

What are we watching here? It seems to me we are entering one of the strangest chapters of human history.

Pentagon
Realizes
There Might
Be A Little
Problem
With Islam

Maybe, just maybe (hat tip to Papa Ray):

Washington's policy-makers have been careful in the war on terror to distinguish between Islam and the terrorists. The distinction has rankled conservatives who see scarce difference.

A little-noticed speech by President Bush in October gave them some hope. In a major rhetorical shift, he described the enemy as "Islamic radicals" and not just "terrorists," although he still denies that radicalism has anything to do with their religion.

Now for the first time, a key Pentagon intelligence agency involved in homeland security is delving into Islam's holy texts to answer whether Islam is being radicalized by the terrorists or is already radical. Military brass want a better understanding of what's motivating the insurgents in Iraq and the terrorists around the globe, including those inside America who may be preparing to strike domestic military bases. The enemy appears indefatigable, even more active now than before 9/11.

Are the terrorists really driven by self-serving politics and personal demons? Or are they driven by religion? And if it's religion, are they following a manual of war contained in their scripture?

Answers are hard to come by. Four years into the war on terror, U.S. intelligence officials tell me there are no baseline studies of the Muslim prophet Muhammad or his ideological or military doctrine found at either the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency, or even the war colleges.

But that is slowly starting to change ...

Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Now military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad.

"Today we are confronted with a stateless threat that does not have at the strategic level targetable entities: no capitals, no economic base, no military formations or installations," states a new Pentagon briefing paper I've obtained. "Yet political Islam wages an ideological battle against the non-Islamic world at the tactical, operational and strategic level. The West's response is focused at the tactical and operation level, leaving the strategic level -- Islam -- unaddressed."

So far the conclusions of intelligence analysts assigned to the project, who include both private contractors and career military officials, contradict the commonly held notion that Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked or distorted by terrorists. They've found that the terrorists for the most part are following a war-fighting doctrine articulated through Muhammad in the Quran, elaborated on in the hadiths, codified in Islamic or sharia law, and reinforced by recent interpretations or fatwahs.

"Islam is an ideological engine of war (Jihad)," concludes the sensitive Pentagon briefing paper.

Wow, that's good news. Click here to read the rest.

Since I knew this three year ago, I feel I am more than qualified to tell the Pentagon what needs to be done.

:)

Here's what we've got to do. We need to beat them, and beat them, and beat them some. And then, when they ask us to please stop, we need to beat them even harder. We need to beat them until they are thoroughly humiliated, until everything they thought they knew about the world, is turned upside down. They need to think black is white, and up is down.

And then, we need to tell them that there will be no more preaching of Jihad against the infidels. There will be no more burqas or subjugation of women. There will be no more Sharia law, or stoning of gays, or adulterers.

Do I sound crazy?

Consider this, that's how we beat the Nazis and the Japanese in World War II. After we were finished beating them, we enforced ideological change in their countries. We didn't allow the preaching of Nazism, or of emperor-worship, and we made sure they changed all their school curriculum, and religious literature.

Why are we not dealing with the Islamic Jihadi ideology the same way?

Why?

The Black
Book
Of
Saddam
Hussein

Lost amid the Bush-bashing is the story of Saddam Hussein's atrocities, from No Pasaran, and the Australian:

The youngest Hakim detained was only 14. His father and two brothers, together with 13 other relatives, were executed within the first weeks of detention. He and the rest were held in Abu Ghraib, 22 in a cell that measured 4mx6m. There was no running water and a hole in the corner served as a toilet. Recounting his detention in the book, Abdoul al-Hakim says:

"The worst moments? It was all terrible, but the worst was the fear of being executed. Each time we heard the lock turn we were silent; it could be the moment to leave, for me, for another. I am angry with those who mix the crimes of the Americans with those of Saddam when they are not comparable."

WITH the trial of Saddam Hussein under way, those in the God-damn-America camp find themselves uncomfortably wedged. Should they justify their opposition to the war by downplaying Saddam's crimes while sheeting home blame for the present turmoil to the US and its allies? Or do they opt for the defence of moral equivalence, conceding that Saddam was indeed a monster but those US presidents who once backed his regime, including George H.W. Bush, are the real monsters.

The best riposte to this warped analysis is a scholarly and sober 700-page volume recently published in France, of all places. Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam's regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism.

The writers - Arabs, Americans, Germans, French and Iranian - have produced the most comprehensive work to date on the former Iraqi president's war crimes, assembling a mass of evidence that makes the anti-intervention arguments redundant.

"The first weapon of mass destruction was Saddam Hussein," writes Bernard Kouchner, who has been observing atrocities in Iraq since he led the first Medecins Sans Frontieres mission there in 1974.

The obsession of many journalists and commentators with the fruitless hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has meant much of the evidence of Saddam's atrocities in liberated Iraq has been under-reported. Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

"There is no secret about these mass graves," Stoyke writes. "Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence."

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead

Abdullah Mohammed Hussein was a soldier fighting in the mountains when Iraqi troops took the Kurdish village of Sedar and deported three-quarters of the inhabitants, including his mother, his wife and their seven children. They were taken to a concentration camp at Topzawa and from there some were taken to an execution ground near the archeological site of Hatra, south of Mosul.

The remains of 192 people have been found, 123 women and children and 69 men, among them Abdullah's wife and three of their children. There is no trace of his mother and the other four children. They were victims of the genocidal Anfal campaign, which sought to exterminate the Kurds.

Between February and September 1988, 100,000 to 180,000 Kurds died or disappeared. The bombing of the Kurdish village of Halabja with chemical weapons including mustard gas, tabun, sarin and VX on March 16, 1988, which killed 3000 to 5000 civilians, was the most publicised of these atrocities because it occurred near the Iranian border and Iranian troops were able to penetrate with the assistance of Kurds, filming and photographing the victims.

Halabja was not an isolated case however. Saddam used chemical weapons at least 60 times against Kurdish villages during Anfal.

Etc., etc., etc.

It's a big book, and it puts to shame all those who opposed the war. Every word is a condemnation and an articulation of the lack of compassion the American Left has shown.

The fact is, we knew of these crimes before the war. This book, simply, details them more explicitly.

The deepest parts of hell are reserved for those who would do nothing in the face of evil.

Sometimes
You Just
Gotta
Love Your
Enemy
"I Guess
You Can
Say They
Get Fucked
To Pieces"
Edition

A Muslim man tells us how he really feels about Swedish babes. From Dymphna at Gates of Vienna:

“It is not as wrong raping a Swedish girl as raping an Arab girl,” says Hamid [link is in Swedish]. “The Swedish girl gets a lot of help afterwards, and she had probably fucked before, anyway. But the Arab girl will get problems with her family. For her, being raped is a source of shame. It is important that she retains her virginity until she marries.”

It was no coincidence that it was a Swedish girl that was gang raped in Rissne – this becomes obvious from the discussion with Ali, Hamid, Abdallah and Richard. All four have disparaging views on Swedish girls, and think this attitude is common among young men with immigrant background.

“It is far too easy to get a Swedish whore…… girl, I mean;” says Hamid, and laughs over his own choice of words. “Many immigrant boys have Swedish girlfriends when they are teenagers. But when they get married, they get a proper woman from their own culture who has never been with a boy. That’s what I am going to do."

"I don’t have too much respect for Swedish girls. I guess you can say they get fucked to pieces.”

Like I always say, you just gotta love your enemy, when he tells you the truth.

Thanks, Hamid.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Journalist
In Iraq:
"Everything
I Thought
I Knew
Was Wrong"

An extraordinary article from a journalist who went to Iraq and had his mind changed:

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Maybe not wrong, but certainly different than the picture in my head.

I liken it to this; It was real struggle for me to choose to see the Harry Potter movies. I had read the books and loved the pictures I had in my mind of the details I read. I didn’t need to see a movie; I had a movie playing in my head of exactly how I perceived the stories.

I had similar notions about Iraq, Mosul, the war and what exactly soldiers do. And it was handily shattered like glass today by a group of soldiers, half of them younger than myself.

There are houses of this city that by Fairbanks standards are luxurious. Or at least they were at one time. They are ornate and gated and in neighborhoods with schools, stores and mosques.
They are also ghosts of what they once were. They are still lived in, but after years of war and lack of many basic municipal services, the houses look spent and tired around the shutters.

There is garbage on the streets, in yards, in open areas. There is a stench. There is grime. But there are also people.

They are vivid, unlike their surroundings. They are excitable and friendly and conversational. They live in conditions I hope I don’t have to experience in my own life. Yet, if my neighborhood saw two wars, the breakdown of the national and local governments and decline of municipal services, I’m not sure I wouldn’t be in the same boat.

I still haven’t seen U.S. troops engaged or encounter car bombs or explosives. But I did see them play backgammon with some local police and Iraqi soldiers. I saw them take photos with more locals and make jokes mostly lost in translation. They gave advice and expertise to local troops on how to conduct a neighborhood patrol. They drank the local customary tea, and many admitted they’ve become addicted to it. They know several locals by name. I didn’t hear one slight or ridicule of a very distinct culture.

One soldier mentioned it might be a good idea to clean up the trash around one polling place, and another commented on the status of women in the culture, but they were nothing but respectful, friendly and buddy-buddy with the Iraqis they mingled with today.

And this is good stuff.

More than anything in the last few days I’ve heard from soldiers and commanders that people back home don’t quite get it. They don’t see the real picture. They don’t get the real story. Some of them, like Lt. Col. Gregg Parrish, look seriously pained in the face when he says only a part of the picture is being told; the part of car bombs and explosives and suicide bombers and death. It’s a necessary part of the picture, but not a complete one, he says.

I’ve listened to the soldiers and Parrish about the missing pieces of the puzzles that don’t reach home. My selfish, journalistic drive immediately thinks “Perfect. A story that hasn’t been told. Let me at it.”

But I have a slight hesitation; I need to keep balanced. I can’t be a cheerleader, even if I have a soft spot for the hometown troops, especially after the welcome they’ve shown me. I still need to be truthful and walk the centerline and report the good or bad.

But then I realize it’s not a conflict of interest. If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one. It takes a minute to wrap my mind around it, as a news junkie that became a news writer. The great, career-making, breaking news stories usually don’t have happy endings; they usually revolve around disturbing news, deceit and downfall. Nasty political doings. Gruesome crimes and murders. Revealing secrets.

But I’ve come upon something that is none of those. Not this aspect of it. There are politics to this war and controversies and investigations. But there is another side.

Notice how the journalist's first inclination was that to report something positive about the American military was the equivalent of not being objective. This is the poisonous ideology which has infected the whole of Western media. And, finally one of them not only admits it, but realizes it's wrong, and changes.

Hallelujah!

The
Purple
Finger
Beats
Fate

Lots of great coverage on the Iraqi election over at Pajamas Media. This is from Iraq the Model (hat tip Redneck's Revenge):

The polls closed in all centers 90 minutes ago!

The IECI had a press conference half an hour ago that pretty much summarized today’s events. From watching this press conference and analyzing the reports we received today we can say that the following points represents the most important findings:

-Security was much better than last time in January and there were only a few minor incidents.-It was clear that the IECI and its multi-thousand strong staff did a wonderful and exceptional job in such a hard time to make the election go in the best way possible.

-The Iraqi Army and police were successful in giving our people the opportunity to vote in a peaceful environment.

-The total registered voter-count was 1,000,000 higher than in January after adding Iraqi citizens who were born in 1987.-15, 5 million+ Iraqis cast their votes in more than 30,000 station spread nationwide.

-All the assassinations and intimidation that preceded the election could not stop the process.

-There have been strict measures to make sure that all ballot boxes and station are in compliance with the standards of the IECI and now it’s their-IECI-duty to make sure that no boxes were replaced or manipulated.

-The presence of the press and representatives of political bodies and civil society organizations was profound although there were limitations on the presence of media workers. But however, the process was being watched 600,000 eyes!

-The IECI distributed 5,000,000 posters nationwide to educate the population on the process and encourage Iraqis to vote.

-2 million brochures were distributed to inform the people on the technical and moral aspects of the election.

-Countless numbers of conferences, lectures and workshops were held to educate the people and encourage them to vote.

-Almost all the defects that took place in some regions today were basically cases in which voters couldn’t find their names in the voter-lists.

-Counting the votes has begun in all stations and the results will be collected and conveyed to the provincial offices to be later conveyed to the IECI HQ in Baghdad.

After an eventful day with for the voters the polling stations closed their doors at 5 pm while the voters were still arriving!

We met the IECI officials in one of the stations and we asked him about this day and the efforts the IECI made to assure the success of the voting, he replied:

"it was really a big day and it turned to be a celebration just like the Norooz day.

Then he added I'm extremely happy that I can't even feel tired.

We have also noticed some interesting events and gestures in Babil today; things like:

-Several polling centers distributed sweets and soft drinks to the voters while men and women cheered and sang celebratory songs.
-An election official refused to let the governor of Babil cast his ballot until he showed his id cards!
-Some voters marked their choices with blood by pricking their fingers in a demonstration of patriotism.
-The city council in Hilla (the provincial capital) arranged to bring 125 buses to move voters from their homes to the polling station.

Meanwhile, if you haven't eaten recently, go read the vile sputum dripping from the lips of the Euros and Brits who are angry with us for "imposing Democracy at gunpoint," which they say is an oxymoron.

Hey idiots, have you ever heard of Germany?

Damn it, Euros, take a frickin' history class or something. Jeez, what do you do, sit around playing with your croissants all day long?

But then, on the positive side, the BBC actually published an article acknowledging the progress of Democracy in Iraq:

"This Is Stability At Last"

Men and woman came, many carrying small children, and in the street outside the school they formed silhouettes, in swirls of dust on a warm autumn day in Baghdad.

One voter said: "This is stability, at last".

Another, with tears in his eyes, told me: "This is the beginning of a new Iraq. I am so happy."

Iraqis are known for their spontaneous, and often poetic eloquence.

Ali al-Musawi, a Shia Muslim originally from Sadr city said: "Iraq is like a ship in a storm being tossed form left to right, and now we need a new captain to take us to land and to safety."

One man hoped the election would bring an end to the occupation, but this would depend, he said, on maintaining unity.

"Stability can only come from unity. When we have stability," he said, " then the Americans can go."

The Iraqis understand the strategy and policies of the War on Terror better than the American Left.

This is a day when we can be proud as Americans, and feel joy in our hearts for our brothers and sisters in Iraq.

More Calls
For Israel
To Be Wiped
Off
The Map

This time, it's the Muslim Brotherhood calling for the death of Israe. And, they say it's coming soon:

CAIRO - Israel is a “cancer” in the Middle East and its peace deal with Egypt should be submitted to a referendum, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brothers said in an interview published Thursday.

“I declared that we will not recognize Israel which is an alien entity in the region. And we expect the demise of this cancer soon,” Mohammed Mehdi Akef told the state-owned English language Ahram Weekly.

What do you think makes Mr. Akef so sure?

Plato
And
Intelligent
Design

I saw this quote from Plato's Philebus in the comments section over at Always on Watch. The subject matter which was being discussed was whether Intelligent Design Theory is simply a way to sneak Creationism into the classroom, or if the idea that there is a creator is foundational to Western thought itself:

SOCRATES: Did not the things which were generated, and the things out of which they were generated, furnish all the three classes?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the creator or cause of them has been satisfactorily proven to be distinct from them,--and may therefore be called a fourth principle?

PROTARCHUS: So let us call it.

SOCRATES: Quite right; but now, having distinguished the four, I think that we had better refresh our memories by recapitulating each of them in order.

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: Then the first I will call the infinite or unlimited, and the second the finite or limited; then follows the third, an essence compound and generated; and I do not think that I shall be far wrong in speaking of the cause of mixture and generation as the fourth.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

Interesting, huh? Discuss.

Let's Pray
She
Votes
To Get
Out Of
That
Burqa

The Iraqis are voting today, and the turnout is big:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqis voted Thursday in one of the largest and freest elections in the Arab world, with strong turnout reported in Sunni areas and even a shortage of ballots in some precincts. Several explosions rocked Baghdad throughout the day, but the level of violence was low.

The heavy participation in the parliamentary voting by the Sunnis, who had shunned balloting last January, bolstered U.S. hopes of calming the insurgency enough to begin withdrawing its troops next year.

But much depends on whether the sides, after the votes are counted, can form a government to reconcile Iraq's various communities, or merely fan the current tensions.

The large turnout forced the Iraqi election commission to extend voting for one hour, until 6 p.m. (10 a.m. EST) as long lines were reported in some precincts, said commission official Munthur Abdelamir. Results will be announced within two weeks.

Democracy is taking it's tentative baby steps in the Arab world. We can be proud parents now, but who knows what the teen years will bring.

The
Catastrophe
Of
European
Appeasement

From the German paper Die Welt, via Atlas Shrugs:

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany in that part of Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo and we Europeans debated and debated until the Americans came in and did our work for us.

Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians. Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore 300,000 victims of Saddam’s torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, to issue bad grades to George Bush. A particularly grotesque form of appeasement is reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by suggesting that we should really have a Muslim holiday in Germany.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies. It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great military conflicts of the last century—a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only spurred on by such gestures, which will be mistaken for signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society’s values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China. On the contrary—we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in tolerance, which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why? Because we’re so moral? I fear it’s more because we’re so materialistic.

I hear it from my Euroean relatives all the time. Americans are cowboys, always looking for a war. America is belligerent. America is a great danger to the world.

In order to prop up these beliefs, they invent elaborate fantasies, that we are imperialists, only interested in oil, in serving the interests of a relatively minor corporation called Halliburton, that we do the bidding of the "Jewish lobby."

They forget that we stuck our hands into two of their wars, and pulled them out of the clutches of disaster. They forget that without America's help there would be no more Western Civilization. Playtime would have been over long ago.

They tell me they have learned the wisdom of living beyond war. They have learned that you need to work out problems through communication and negotiation, by consensus, through diplomacy, multi-lateralism, (etc., etc., etc.), never realizing that all those words are simply variations on the same old word; appeasement.

They appeal to my sense of compassion, telling me I don't know what it has been like for Europeans to have had their continent wrecked by the ravages of wars they brought upon themselves. They tell me America doesn't understand, and yet we footed the bills, we lost the blood, we STILL HAVE OUR SOLDIERS STATIONED THERE TO THIS DAY.

There is a sense in which Europeans are like whiny, irresponsible adolescents angry that we won't let them borrow the car on Saturday night. Yes, that seems an apt comparison, in that they want us to take care of them, but they want to bitch at us when responsibility encroaches on their desolate desires.

But, an even better way to understand the Euro-mindset is to imagine an old lady, living alone, in a high-rise tenament apartment paid for by welfare, waddling around in a bathrobe, mumbling to herself about the good old days, while the stove catches fire and burns the entire building to the ground.

Europe, thy name is senility.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

The
Art
of
Waking
Up

Could it be that the Pentagon is waking up to the fact that all is not well in Dar al-Islam?

Four years into the war on terror, U.S. intelligence officials tell me there are no baseline studies of the Muslim prophet Muhammad or his ideological or military doctrine found at either the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency, or even the war colleges.

But that is slowly starting to change as the Pentagon develops a new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists through its little-known intelligence agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA, which staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at home and abroad.

CIFA also supports Northern Command in Colorado, which was established after 9/11 to help military forces react to terrorist threats in the continental United States.

Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Now military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad.

“Today we are confronted with a stateless threat that does not have at the strategic level targetable entities: no capitals, no economic base, no military formations or installations,” states a new Pentagon briefing paper I’ve obtained. “Yet political Islam wages an ideological battle against the non-Islamic world at the tactical, operational and strategic level. The West’s response is focused at the tactical and operation level, leaving the strategic level — Islam — unaddressed.”

So far the conclusions of intelligence analysts assigned to the project, who include both private contractors and career military officials, contradict the commonly held notion that Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked or distorted by terrorists.

They’ve found that the terrorists for the most part are following a war-fighting doctrine articulated through Muhammad in the Quran, elaborated on in the hadiths, codified in Islamic or sharia law, and reinforced by recent interpretations or fatwahs.

“Islam is an ideological engine of war (Jihad),” concludes the sensitive Pentagon briefing paper. And “no one is looking for its off switch.”

Why? One major reason, the briefing states, is government-wide “indecision [over] whether Islam is radical or being radicalized.”

Grace Is
Light
Through
A
Window

Marc Chagall

Sometimes
You Just
Gotta
Love Your
Enemies
Cat's
Out Of
The Bag
Edition

My blogbrother J, from Justify This, had an astonishing post yesterday which brings us the news that Iranian President, in running off his mouth again, this time let the big cat out of the bag. What could he have said that is even more noteworthy than his calls for Israel to be wiped off the map?

Well, get this:

--“The Palestinian movement does not belong to a certain geographical region, rather, it is a movement that will define the future fate of Islam on behalf of Muslim Umma and this is the very reason why Islam’s enemies are so sensitive toward the Palestinian issue” said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a meeting with leader of Palestinian movement, Hamas in Tehran.

The president saying that the issue of Palestine is the issue of the entire Muslim Ummah stressed that it was the duty of all Muslims to be at the service of the Palestinians’ cause.

“Victory comes from God and the secret for gaining victory over enemies is trusting in God and maintaining earnestness,” he added.
Link...

Like I always say, you just gotta love your enemies when they tell the truth. Thanks, Ahmadinejad.

J comments:

I think it might be worth adding that it is unlikely Ahmadinejad used the word 'G-d', rather he would have used the word Allah. This is an important distinction. Why you may ask? Because the Islamic deity [Allah] calls for the extermination of Jews, whereas in Christianity and Judaism, G-d says to love the Jews. Thus Allah and G-d are not the same.For more information on the deceptions of Islam, why Allah is Satan and "Jesus" of the Muslims is the anti-Christ, click here for a very informative audio clip.

Yeah, go ahead, click there.

Is The
Beast
Rising
From
The Sea?

From the BBC, via my friend the Fu2rman, today we find that Iranian President Ahmadinejad is at it again; banging on Israel. He really is relentless, isn't he?

Iranian leader denies HolocaustIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has courted further controversy by explicitly calling the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry a "myth".

"They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets," he said.

On live TV, he called for Europe or North America - even Alaska - to host a Jewish state, not the Middle East.

Israel swiftly denounced the president's comments.

"We hope these extremist comments... will make the international community open its eyes and abandon any illusions about this regime," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP news agency.

Speaking to thousands of people in south-eastern city of Zahedan, Mr Ahmadinejad brushed aside criticism of his views, saying it was orchestrated by supporters of Israel.

"If someone were to deny the existence of God... or prophets and religion, they would not bother him. However, if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews' massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can," he said.

Israel's spokesman said the Iranian president's latest remarks reflected a "perverse vision of the world held by this regime".

BBC Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the Iranian press has wholeheartedly endorsed the president's views, calling them logical and less passive than the approach of previous Iranian governments.

The Fu2rman comments:

So the Iranian press has wholeheartedly endorsed his views. Is anyone else concerned about Iran yet?

If you have any doubt that this is Hitler incarnate, think again.

The Fu2rman suggests asking the people around you if they are aware of Mr. Ahmadinejad's belligerance. And, he points our, of course, they are not.

We are living in a very extraordinary time right now, and people are concerning themselves with Tookie, and Snoop, and Survivor, etc., etc., etc.

Meanwhile, it looks as if the Beast is rising up out of the ocean. The plans are being laid for the temple to be taken over. The Beast will attempt to set up his abomination of desolation in the very heart of God's land.

Are all these things just quaint old metaphors, or will we allow them to become reality?

Will we allow the man who thinks he is the Mahdi (the Islamic Messiah) to destroy the state of Israel, and claim it for Allah? Will we allow this maniac to set up his maniacal rule (Sharia) in the land of milk and honey? Will Sharia rule, or will Freedom rule?

"Anyone
Who
Doesn't
Appreciate
What
America
Has Done
And
President
Bush
Go To Hell"

Atlas has the video.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

"The
World
Is On
The
Verge
Of
Change"
Says Iran's
President

Defending his tirade against Israel, wherein he called for the country to be "wiped off the map," Iranian President Ahmadinejad uttered the following words (from Al Jazeera, via Atlas Shrugs):

"The world is on the verge of change, and more than before we can hear the sound of this present, unstable order breaking down," the student news agency ISNA quoted him as telling a conference entitled Supporting the Islamic Revolution of Palestine.

"If the massacre of the Jews in Europe is true and used as an excuse to support Zionists, why should the Palestinians pay the price?" he added, repeating a comment that has widely been interpreted as support for deniers of the Holocaust.

"Western policy in regards to Palestine has always been in favour of the Zionist regime and harmed the Islamic world, and they cannot be the mediators and judges on the issue.

"All Islamic countries must strive to change the Islamic world's stance after 60 or 70 years in a passive state," he said.

Elected on a platform of restoring the purity of the Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad's stance has already worried European countries seeking to strike a deal over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.

Despite its fiery rhetoric, the Iranian government says its nuclear programme is merely designed to meet domestic energy needs.

Let's see, he denies the Holocaust, calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map," builds nuclear weapons, and declares the world is on the verge of major change. But, we're supposed to think there's nothing wrong.

United Nations Nuclear watchdog, Mohammed El-Baradei says everything is ok, and we don't need to do anything about the Iranian threats. In fact, he warns that we shouldn't:

Elbaradei warns Israel on attacking Iran nuclear facilities

London, Dec 11, IRNA-Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohammad Elbaradei warned the Zionist regime Saturday on any military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Following his recent Noble Peace Prize and speaking to an Oslo daily Afetnposten he said "There can be no success in thwarting any nation' access on nuclear program by attacking their facilities because military forays will merely delay their programs, but they will come back after a while and want to take revenge."

He further called for nuclear states to set a good example for other nations.

Mohammad Elbaradei who won the Nobel Peace Prize said some nations tell others that nuclear programs are not good for you but at the same time they opt for continuation of their nuclear activities.

On a question on whether he believes in the existence of what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls nuclear apartheid in the world, he said "I call it an unequal security system."

"Iran is in a region where some nations are not its friends and this a reason that it feels unsecured."

He also referred to the latest inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities saying that there are still questions on Iran nuclear program, adding but "I have not found anything indicating that Iran is pursuing uranium enrichment to build nuclear weapons."

Do you ever get the feeling that the Nobel Peace Sweepstakes-winning El-Baradie is working for the other side?

John
Murtha:
War
Hero

If he walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then he must be a ... war hero?

PHILADELPHIA - Rep. John P. Murtha on Monday rejected the Bush administration's characterization of the war in Iraq, calling it a fight against insurgents, not terrorists, and he said it was a battle the United States could not win militarily.

Murtha, a Democrat from Western Pennsylvania, reiterated his call for the withdrawal of American troops, speaking in Philadelphia about an hour after President Bush spoke a few blocks away.

Murtha said the United States was seen by Iraqis as an occupier. Being in Philadelphia, he drew a comparison to the American Revolution. He said that if the French had remained in the infant United States after the Revolutionary War, "we'd have thrown them the hell out of here." That's how Iraqis are reacting now to the presence of U.S. troops, the 73-year-old congressman said.

"The Iraqis are not against democracy," he said. "They are against our occupation."

"Iraq is not the center of terrorism; it's the center of an insurgency, and that's a big difference," Murtha said.
"It's not going to get better with us over there," he said. "They'll let us fight forever."

"I say, it's up to them."

Original claims about biological and nuclear weapons proved untrue, American troops were not provided enough manpower or equipment, and the fight has now devolved from a liberation to an occupation, Murtha said.

And such basics of life as electricity and oil production remain very low, he said.

Well, let's look at how the Iraqis themselves say they feel about the "occupation."

1. Most living conditions are rated positively,
2. 70% of Iraqis say their own lives are going well,
3. Nearly 2/3 of Iraqis expect things to improve in the year ahead,
4. Over 60% of Iraqis feel very safe in their own neighborhoods,
5. 61% of Iraqis say local security is good,
6. Average household incomes have soared by 60% in the last 20 months,
7. 70% of Iraqis rate their own economic situation positively.

Sorry for the cliche, but, Murtha is entitled to have his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts.

So, the question is, since Murtha is making up a reality that he knows is not there, then what is he? Is he a war hero? Or, is there another name that might be more appropriate?

Uh,
About
Those
72
Virgins

JMJ, my blogbrother at the Infidel Blog Alliance, ponders, as any man would, the delectable mysteries of the 72 Virgins:

Why exactly 72 virgins (or whatever the number is) ? Why not 71 or 73?
Does eternal bliss = (1) virgin every hour x (3) days straight! Its the only "72" calculation I could come up with. Or maybe the cosine of pie = 72???
Once all 72 are eventually non-virgins, are they still “available” for any future fun? Or by definition, does that mean ... :(
So if you are shit outta luck after 72, is the potential suicide bomber aware of this small but very important fact? I don't know about you but this would definitely affect my decision making process. I'm usually pro-choice but this would surely make me pro-life…Mine!!
Does one need to get married to these virgins before one can actually have sex with them?
If not, would that be a sin?
Can one actually commit a sin in heaven? Especially if this was all set up by, you know, the big man.
And if it is a sin, do you then lose all your "privileges" and are you now headed "elsewhere"? What an ironic and unexpected turn of events that would be, huh?! I just hope these people have really thought through all the possibilities before the "big bang".

And finally, and this really is the big one for me, what if, (drum roll please) ......SEX DOES NOT EXIST......in the after life? Suicide Bomber Recruiter to Suicide Bomber after the fact - "Well, ummm, gee....Sorry 'bout that. I guess it was just a small misunderstanding. Forgive me please????"

Australia
Has
Declared
War
On
Rioters

Australia does in three days, what it took the French three weeks to do:

SYDNEY has declared war on all rioters after more than 48 hours of lawlessness and admissions from both the police and Muslim leaders that they have been unable to control the angry mobs of young men.NSW Premier Morris Iemma announced a series of new police powers, including increasing the penalty for rioting from five years to 15, as the number of officers on the streets was trebled.

At dusk last night, an extra 450 highly mobile police and 20 dog-squad units were patrolling the hot spots in suburbs across Sydney as communities braced for a third night of violence.

The additional police powers will go before a special sitting of parliament tomorrow.

They include allowing police to establish "lockdown zones" where officers can search people and vehicles at will; and powers to confiscate vehicles driven by those who are seen to be involved in rioting.

Mr Iemma, who was elevated to the top job five months ago, has vowed to "take back the streets".

"These criminals have declared war on our society and we are not going to let them win. I won't allow Sydney's reputation as a tolerant, vibrant international city to be tarnished by these ratbags and criminals who want to engage in the sort of behaviour we've seen in the last 48 hours."

Sadly, and predictably, this makes Muslim leaders angry, and they are making threats:

Islamic leaders have warned that the race-related violence is symptomatic of a deep-seated racism in Australian society and could lead to the radicalisation of young Muslim men.

On Monday night, several thousand men met at Lakemba Mosque, where leaders urged them to keep the peace. Their calls were ignored, however, and 11 men were arrested after a second night of violence in Cronulla that left seven people injured, one of them a police officer.

Bats and iron bars were seized and police found a cache of Molotov cocktails.

Police are also now investigating bullet holes found in the cars of several staff members at St Joseph the Worker Primary School in South Auburn after a Christmas carols service on Monday evening. Parents and children were abused by a group of young men of Middle Eastern appearance and gunshots were heard during the service.

This morning my wife asked me about the rioting in Australia. "What are the Aussies doing about it?" she asked.

"Exactly what you'd expect Aussies to do," I told her. "They're kicking butt."

It's true, isn't it. The Aussies are living up to my image of what Aussies are; tough mofos.

Jihadis, emboldened by their victory over the French, got carried away and thought all of Western Civilization would roll over and cede ground. No, it won't work that way, and the Aussies are exactly the wrong people to pick a fight with.

Another place the Jihadis might want to avoid is the American South, and parts of the North. There are large Muslim communities in Texas and Michigan, for instance. But radicals in those communities might want to think twice before burning and looting, because those are two places where a lot of no-nonesense Americans own big ole' guns, and they aren't afraid to use them.

My blogbrother, Jonz, has an important editorial on the racial aspect of the rioting. Here's an excerpt:

Racism was on the streets last weekend. No doubt about it. White supremacists alleged to have links to neo-Nazis admitted they brought in more than 100 people to join the rampage at Cronulla. Young men used their bodies as billboards to read: "We grew here, you flew here". This is racist and it's wrong. Vigilantes bashing young men and women is criminal. But grabbing hold of Hansonism every time racism rears its ugly head and tarring the whole crowd with the same racist brush gets us nowhere.

Recognising human nature means that multiculturalism, though a fine sentiment, can only work if we unite behind a core set of values. Unfortunately though, that policy has become a licence for rampant cultural relativism. We are loath to criticise any aspects of cultures (except our own) for fear of sounding terribly judgmental and unfashionably un-multicultural.Instead, culture is talked about only as an excuse for abhorrent behaviour so that the offender becomes the victim. Last week, a convicted gang rapist claimed he assaulted a 14-year-old girl because she was not wearing traditional Muslim dress and he thought she was promiscuous. Pointing to cultural differences, the 27-year-old Pakistani-born man said: "I believed at the time I committed this offence that she had no right to say no. I believed I'm not doing anything wrong."

YESTERDAY a colleague emailed me from New York. The young lawyer - her family lives in Brighton-Le-Sands, a bayside suburb north of Cronulla in Sydney - wrote: "While I agree there is no justifying excuse for the violence and breakdown in order that occurred at Cronulla, it needs to be put in context. Unless you live in an area like Cronulla, Brighton-Le-Sands or Bondi, you have no idea what it is like to have one's suburb regularly inundated with large groups of young Muslim men from the western suburbs who proceed to shoot people [as has happened in Brighton], intimidate people, regularly threaten people within their vicinity with violence, drive around in large groups screaming abuse at people from cars with their music blaring, regularly brawling, etc."

This young woman recounted that all of the girls in her family (except the youngest) have been "subject to harassment inflicted by groups of these men - comments on our appearances, racist comments on our Australian background, unwanted touching, being followed while walking home by groups of men in cars (I was once followed all the way home - have never been so scared in my life), sexually explicit remarks while alone, with friends or with boyfriends, unwanted called-out invitations to have sex with groups of them, etc".

What is the proper reaction to such to such a clash of "cultures?" (Quotation marks are their because I don't think lawlessness deserves to be called a culture.) Random mob violence is not the answer. But, the answer is not to allow the abuses to continue.

What is the answer? I have no idea.

Does
Tookie
Know
It's
Christmas
Time
At All?

Out here in Cali, we had one of our rare encounters with real justice, and good government last night when, we the people executed Tookie Williams the founder of the Crips gang, who have been responsible for the murder of over 10,000 people in recent years.

Because it is the Holiday season, and he's been dipping into the spirit, my friend the Fu2rman is making a list and checking it twice, but, when it comes to Tookie, he finds himself unable to come up with any ideas:

I was pondering what to get Tookie Williams for Christmas. Maybe some new blue bandanas, a new shotgun, or a cake with a file in it.

And then I realized, there's no need to worry about it, Tookie is no longer with us.

Oh and the madness that went on outside of San Quentin.

Jesse Jackson, the racial demagogue-turned-wannabe Death Row gawker, is desperately lobbying to be one of Tookie Williams' execution witnesses, according to cable news reports.

Rev. Jackson did not know the names of Williams' victims when asked by KFI-AM radio talk show hosts John and Ken.

I was listening to [KFI host] John Zi[e]gler, he actually asked Jesse Jackson the names of the victims on a couple of occasions and his microphone was taken from him by Judge Mathis (the TV judge) and broken. He also was pushed by Jackson supporters, after that happened he was forced away from Jackson by Sheriff's Deputies.

That was not all, the Rev. was also babbling something about the legal lynching being illegal, and how John Zieglar was guilty of that...???

Of course I'm paraphrasing, I can't understand Jackson sometimes.

Not that his concepts are over my head, I literally can't understand what the man is saying! It's no kind of english I am familiar with.

You see, Jesse, a lynching is defined as an execution without authority, or process of law. Tookie had his due process in abundance.

At any rate, at 12:35 am, Tookie was pronounced dead.

So, if the wicked ole' Tookie at last is dead, what do we get him for Christmas? Well, I've got an idea:

12 tons of dirt
11 worms-a-wiggling
10 little pebbles
9 twigs and dead leaves
8 pincher bugs
7 fly-by droppings
6 slimy slugs
5 fake gold rings
4 decomposing birds
3 French turds
2 copper pennies
and
a big ole' pine coffin

How's that?

Monday, December 12, 2005

Middle
East:
Judenrein

Like Nazi Germany, the nations of the Middle East are working to make sure their lands are free of Jews:

I'm still waiting for the international outrage. I'm still waiting for my colleagues in the news media to jump on the story. I'm still waiting for Americans to recognize the way the story illustrates the root cause of conflict in the Middle East.

I refer to last week's story of how WND's Jerusalem bureau chief, Aaron Klein, was denied entry to Syria because he is a Jew.

As I prepare this column for publication, not one other news agency in the world has reported on it.
Why is this story so significant?

Because it so perfectly illustrates why we continue to have conflict in the Middle East between Arabs and Israelis.

This is not a conflict between two sides with legitimate grievances and competing interests. It is a conflict, at its core, between a nation that asks only to live in peace with its neighbors and a racist, hate-filled group of nations and peoples who seek only the destruction, the annihilation, the extermination of all Jews from the Middle East.
It may seem a trivial matter that one Jewish reporter was denied entry to an Arab police state. But it's part of a much bigger picture.

Why were Jews evacuated from the Gaza Strip last summer? Because the Palestinian Authority, which seeks to create a state of its own, insists that no Jews may live within the borders of the future land of Palestine.

Why did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week say that Israel itself should be relocated to Europe? Because his non-negotiable demand is that no Jews should be permitted to live in the Middle East – at least not in a state of security and freedom.

Why did U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week preside over a conference in New York in support of a Palestinian state in front of a map of the Middle East that showed Israel wiped off the face of the earth and replaced by a state of Palestine? Because that has always been – and always will be – the goal of the extremist, anti-Semitic haters who hide behind the face of "Palestinian self-determination."

Like my friend Someguy always says, "The movement for Palestinian statehood is but an attempt at the continuation of the Holocaust, by other means.

And then, there's this, from Atlas Shrugs:

Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old Testament: over 700
Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran: 0
Number of Arab leaders who visited Jerusalem when it was under Arab rule(1948 to 1967): 1
Number of Arab refugees who fled the land that became Israel: approximately 600,000
Number of Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries: approximately 600,000
Number of U.N. agencies that deal only with Palestinian refugees: 1
Number of U.N. agencies that deal with all the other refugees in the world: 1
Number of Jewish states that have existed on the land called Palestine: 3
Number of Arab or Muslim states that have existed on the land called Palestine: 0
Number of terrorist attacks by Israelis or Jews since 1967: 1
Number of terrorist attacks by Arabs or Muslims since 1967: thousands
Percentage of Jews who have praised the Jewish terrorist: approximately 0.1
Percentage of Palestinians who have praised Islamic terrorists:approximately 90
Number of Jewish countries: 1
Number of Jewish democracies: 1
Number of Arab countries: 19
Number of Arab democracies: 0
Number of Arab women killed annually by fathers and brothers in "honor killings": thousands
Number of Jewish women killed annually by fathers and brothers in "honor killings": 0
Number of Christian or Jewish prayer services allowed in Saudi Arabia: 0
Number of Muslim prayer services allowed in Israel: unlimited
Number of Arabs Israel allows to live in Arab settlements in Israel:1,250,000
Number of Jews Palestinian Authority allows to live in Jewish settlementsin Palestinian Authority: 0
Percentage of U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolutions condemning an Arab country for human rights violations: 0
Percentage of U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolutions condemning Israel for human rights violations: 26Number of U.N.
Security Council resolutions on the Middle East between 1948 and 1991: 175
Number of these resolutions against Israel: 97
Number of these resolutions against an Arab state: 4
Number of Arab countries that have been members of the U.N. Security Council: 16
Number of times Israel has been a member of the U.N. Security Council: 0
Number of U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel: 322
Number of U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning an Arab country: 0
Percentage of U.N. votes in which Arab countries voted with the United States in 2002: 16.6
Percentage of U.N. votes in which Israel voted with the United States in 2002: 92.6
Percentage of Middle East Studies professors who defend Zionism and Israel: approximately 1.
Percentage of Middle East Studies professors who believe in diversity on college campuses: 100
Percentage of people who argue that the Jewish state has no right to exist who also believe some other country has no right to exist: 0
Percentage of people who argue that of all the countries in the world, only the Jewish state has no right to exist and yet deny they are anti-Jewish: approximately 100
Number of Muslims in the world: more than 1 billion
Number of Muslim demonstrations against Islamic terror: approximately 2

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

This
Is Not
Australia

Yesterday, News of Eurabia began reporting that rioting has begun in Australia. The rioting - which can and should be characterized as gang violence, and vigilantism, between white Australians, and Lebanes Muslims - was sparked by an incident where a group of Muslims descended on two beach lifeguards and beat them badly:

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Ethnic tensions erupted Sunday into running battles between police and a mob of thousands of youths, many chanting racial slurs, at a beachside suburb in southern Sydney.

At least three people were arrested and several injured in alcohol-fueled fights. Television images showed police protecting an ambulance being pelted with beer bottles and a group of young women attacking another woman.

Other youths stamped on police vehicles and police officers fought back with batons and pepper spray.
The behavior, "is nothing short of disgusting and disgraceful," said Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin. It's certainly not the Australian way."

"What has been occurring on some fronts is that people of Middle Eastern backgrounds that have been seen in the Cronulla area, a swarm of the crowd has approached these people with vile abuse, in the most un-Australian way," Goodwin said. "We have a number of reports of persons that have been assaulted."

A police spokesman commenting on usual condition of anonymity said three men, aged 16, 29 and 34 were arrested and were being questioned after fights erupted among some 5,000 people who converged on Cronulla beach in southern Sydney.

Many youths were carrying beer bottles, waving Australian flags and chanting racist slogans following reports that youths of Lebanese descent were responsible for last week's attack on two of the beach's life guards.

Well, the rioting has now entered it's second day. There is an excellent report by Thomas the Wraith at the group blog Infidel Blog Alliance:

Cronulla, Day 2
Local media reported a "terrifying escalation" in the conflict, as 70 car loads of Lebanese youths arrived in the predominantly white suburb of Cronulla - the flashpoint for yesterday's running battles - intent on revenge.

The Sydney Morning Herald described how the youths began smashing up shops and cars with baseball bats and threatening passers-by. There were more disturbances in the neighbouring suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands where bricks were thrown at passing cars.

Around 600 people, some armed with pistols and crowbars and summoned by mobile phone text message, gathered to confront one another on Maroubra Beach, in a mainly white suburb to the south of the city.

One resident, who didn't want to be named, said about 50 cars had swept into the area, disgorging men of Middle Eastern appearance who begun wrecking every car in sight with baseball bats.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is blaming the violence on White Supremacists. Thomas the Wraith questions this assertion:

Are these (the Lebanese Muslims) the white supremacists Howard is so concerned about? Probably not.

Note that the 'white supremacists' spared the nearby Korean community of some 60,000.

"There is no chance that this riot will spread to Korean residents," said a representative from the Korean Society of Sydney. He seems pretty confident. You'd think that Koreans would be quite worried if indeed there were thousands of angry white supremacists roaming the streets like it was Berlin in the 30s.

Color me crazy, but could it be that despite claims by Howard and the media most of the Aussie rioters are not in fact neo-Nazi or white supremacists? Are most of these people in fact locals extremely angry at what they see as continued harassment and generally intolerable behavior by members of the Lebanese immigrant community?

Instead of condemning the rioters with a broad brush, shouldn't the authorities try to understand the root causes of the unrest?

The fact is, I have seen some news reports that have said that the Aussies have been chanting racist slogans. I believe that is true. They are probably calling the Lebanese Muslims something close to the equivalent of towel-heads. But, that doesn't exactly mean that these Aussies natives are "white supremacists" does it?

As Thomas notes, if they are not attacking the Koreans (or the Filipinos, or the Aboriginals, for that matter) then they aren't purely motivated by racial anger.

What happens to people when they become very angry is, they sometimes cease making fine distinctions. In other words, instead of saying, "We are going to scare those thugs (who always just happen to be Lebanese) who keep attacking us at the beach," they may say, "Let's go kill those towel-heads."

I think it is regrettable that it takes on a, seemingly, racist dimension, because it distracts from the issue, which is that too often the governments of Western countries are choosing to not honor their responsibility to protect their citizenry.

When this happens, it is understandable that, eventually, the citizenry will take matters into their own hands.

On Thomas' personal blog, he notes some examples ot the "White Supremacist" outrage, which were published as "Letters to the Editor" in Aussie newspapers:

Yes there is a bigger cultural problem. I am sick to death as an anglo australian female of being stared at disgustlingly, stalked by cars walking down my own street, intimidated on trains at the shopping centre and now at the beach. Unfortunately those displaying this bullying behaviour happen to be young middle eastern men. - Tracey, New South Wales (NSW)

Incidents like the one at Cronulla have been simmering for a long time. The ugly scene at Cronulla is only the tip of the iceberg. This will get worse. People are fed up. - Jodi, NSW

I am 21 years old and I am not a rascist person. I went to an all girls school and hated the fact that I had to see 'Aussie suck, lebs rule' enscribed on our school desks. ... Aussies are defending the Aussie man's right to live freely how we used to before gang violence was brought in from overseas. I agree with the riots and why they are fighting because no one will do anything to protect Aussie's - all government seem to care about is protecting everyone else except their own! - Cheryl, NSW

There's more where that came from. Go read them.

See
What
Freedom
Can Do

A recent poll says 71% of Iraqis say life is good:

An opinion poll suggests Iraqis are generally optimistic about their lives, in spite of the violence that has plagued Iraq since the US-led invasion......Interviewers found that 71% of those questioned said things were currently very or quite good in their personal lives, while 29% found their lives very or quite bad.

When asked whether their lives would improve in the coming year, 64% said things would be better and 12% said they expected things to be worse.

However, Iraqis appear to have a more negative view of the overall situation in their country, with 53% answering that the situation is bad, and 44% saying it is good.

But they were more hopeful for the future - 69% expect Iraq to improve, while 11% say it will worsen.

The BBC News website's World Affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says the survey shows a degree of optimism at variance with the usual depiction of the country as one in total chaos.

The findings are more in line with the kind of arguments currently being deployed by US President George W Bush, he says.

And here's what ordinary Iraqis say, when asked, about what they think of the U.S. invasion and "occupation" (nation-building) of Iraq:

The US invasion was a really good thing and the presence of the US troops is really important now......

The US troops were really welcomed at first because they helped us to get rid of Saddam, but people have started complaining about their behaviour, they cause much trouble to Iraqis these days especially in the streets and I hope that we don't need them in one year......

I don't want US troops in Iraq forever but we need them for the meantime and I think we need one or two years before we can depend on ourselves......We always wished that someone would save us from Saddam's regime and the US troops did that. I really don't want them to leave for the time being.

Meanwhile, the media and their poodles John Murtha's, Cindy Sheehan, and Michael Moore, continues to lie and say that America is evil, and that we have done a bad thing.

Today
Is The
Day

Iraq is voting today and Iraqis are celebrating:

Iraqis are preparing to vote under tight security to elect a 275-member parliament that will run the country for the next four years. The election will be the first under the new constitution ratified in an Oct. 15 referendum and will complete the steps toward democratization following the ouster of Saddam Hussein's government.

Monday's Iraq speech is Bush's third, part of a campaign to win support for the mission, with most Americans saying in polls that they disapprove of his handling of the war. The final address in the series is planned for Wednesday in Washington.

In his first two speeches, Bush claimed new strength for both Iraq's troops and economy, while acknowledging difficulties caused by continuing violence. His speech Monday focused on the political progress and his determination to help Iraqis build institutions for a lasting democracy, aides said.

The president was arguing that, like the Americans who gathered in Philadelphia for the constitutional convention in 1787, Iraqis are showing their resolve to govern themselves.

Voter turnout will be an important benchmark for success in Iraq, particularly among the disaffected minority Sunni Arabs who have been the foundation of the insurgency. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, predicted Sunday that Sunnis would turn out in large numbers, win 40 to 55 seats in the assembly and become more involved in government.

"Politics will become more important, and our hope and expectation is that violence and use of the military means will become less important," Khalilzad told ABC's "This Week." "Although I do not anticipate that that change will take place very quickly. In the best of circumstances, it will take time and will change incrementally."

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Showdown
Iran

Ariel Sharon has told the military to be prepared for strikes against Iran by the end of March:

ISRAEL’S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.

The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.

Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern.

The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran.

A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.

Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years.

“Israel — and not only Israel — cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” Sharon warned recently. “We have the ability to deal with this and we’re making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.”

Cross-border operations and signal intelligence from a base established by the Israelis in northern Iraq are said to have identified a number of Iranian uranium enrichment sites unknown to the the IAEA.

Since Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, “it has been understood that the lesson is, don’t have one site, have 50 sites”, a White House source said.

If a military operation is approved, Israel will use air and ground forces against several nuclear targets in the hope of stalling Tehran’s nuclear programme for years, according to Israeli military sources.

It is believed Israel would call on its top special forces brigade, Unit 262 — the equivalent of the SAS — and the F-15I strategic 69 Squadron, which can strike Iran and return to Israel without refuelling.

“If we opt for the military strike,” said a source, “it must be not less than 100% successful. It will resemble the destruction of the Egyptian air force in three hours in June 1967.”

Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the Israeli military intelligence chief, stepped up the pressure on Iran this month when he warned Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, that “if by the end of March the international community is unable to refer the Iranian issue to the United Nations security council, then we can say the international effort has run its course”.

The March deadline set for military readiness also stems from fears that Iran is improving its own intelligence-gathering capability. In October it launched its first satellite, the Sinah-1, which was carried by a Russian space launcher.

“The Iranians’ space programme is a matter of deep concern to us,” said an Israeli defence source. “If and when we launch an attack on several Iranian targets, the last thing we need is Iranian early warning received by satellite.”

Russia last week signed an estimated $1 billion contract — its largest since 2000 — to sell Iran advanced Tor-M1 systems capable of destroying guided missiles and laser-guided bombs from aircraft.

“Once the Iranians get the Tor-M1, it will make our life much more difficult,” said an Israeli air force source. “The installation of this system can be relatively quick and we can’t waste time on this one.”

This needs to be done. Bravo to Israel for deciding to do what Bush probably couldn't pull off because of the opposition he has received from both sides of the aisle.

There is a possibility that such an attack will be the start of a very large regional war, with multiple Arab nations lining up against Israel. On the other hand, even the Saudis are alienated by Iranian President Almadinejad's rhetoric, so it is also possible that an attack could be acceptable in the same way the American desctruction of the Hussein regime was.

Art Show
Traces
Anti-
Semitism
In
Political
Cartoons

Reuters is reporting on an art gallery in London which seems to be attempting to get at the truth:

LONDON (Reuters) - Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitic if it uses the same kinds of images as those long used to attack Jews?

That question will be posed by an exhibition of anti-Semitic art appearing in London early next year and inspired in part by a three-year-old British political cartoon that showed a naked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian baby.

The exhibition, using images from a Jewish doctor's private collection, will be held at a London gallery that was fiercely criticized by Israel and Jewish groups when it gave its top annual award to the Sharon cartoon.

"What's the boundary between legitimate political criticism and racist propaganda? It is difficult to determine. But I think it's a question of using the same language," said Simon Cohen, the doctor who is putting his collection on display.

"People have been picturing Jews killing babies, eating babies for hundreds of years. They should be aware of what the significance of using anti-Semitic images is."

Certain themes persist in anti-Semitic imagery and can be found in the Middle Ages, 19th century Europe, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and contemporary Arab media.

Cohen has images of Jews portrayed as hairy apes, bloodsucking spiders and greedy merchants. Infanticide, as depicted in the Sharon cartoon, is a common theme, he says.

His collection includes a 15th century German print that shows Jews taking a child's blood, and another from France about the same time that shows a Jewish serpent with children's legs hanging from its jaws.

He also has a Palestinian cartoon from 2001 of Sharon eating a bowl full of babies with a fork.

Cohen had been thinking for years about mounting an exhibition of his collection to show the public how persistent anti-Semitic images have been over the centuries.

The Sharon cartoon by artist David Brown for Britain's Independent newspaper helped persuade him: To Cohen, anyone who failed to see the cartoon as anti-Semitic must be ignorant of the history of such images.

Cartoonists say it is acceptable to target individual politicians, even with strong imagery, as long as they do not malign Jews as a group.

"It doesn't use a stereotype. It's about an individual person, not a race," Brown said of his work, which is based on Francisco de Goya's painting of Saturn eating one of his sons.

"Because some people are offended does that automatically mean it's anti-Semitic? No," Brown added.

The artist said he feared some people used the charge of anti-Semitism to intimidate political critics.

"Some people might have been genuinely offended. Other people might have used this to force cartoonists to censor themselves," he said.

When the cartoon appeared in 2003, the Israeli Embassy said it repeated the charge of "blood libel," a medieval anti-Semitic myth that Jews used non-Jewish children's blood in rituals.

Britain's Press Complaints Commission ruled that the cartoon was not anti-Semitic, and the Independent's editors said any offense was unintentional.

But the furor grew louder when Brown was later given the top prize at the Political Cartoon Society's annual awards.

Israeli newspapers wrote editorials about it, and Natan Sharansky, an Israeli cabinet minister at the time, stopped by the society's gallery to discuss anti-Semitism in political art.

Tim Benson, who runs the Political Cartoon Society, said the judges -- mostly other cartoonists and cartoon enthusiasts -- had picked Brown's image because of the heated response.

"People recognized it because of the Israeli Embassy. They voted for it because it had an impact," he said.

(Pastorius note: See, it's even the Jews fault that people picked the anti-Semitic image as the winner.)

"That's the kind of work he does. He tends to use graphic imagery, whether it's Blair or Bush or Sharon or whoever," said Benson, a professional historian who is also Jewish but who says this is irrelevant to his position on the cartoon.

For Cohen, the Political Cartoon Society's gallery seemed the perfect venue to hold his exhibition. He was happy to find that Benson -- who insists there is nothing wrong with Brown's cartoon -- was enthusiastic.

"We disagree completely about everything, but I like working with him," Cohen said.

Cohen said he expects to show the Brown cartoon in the exhibition, although Brown said he had not yet been approached for permission."

After Brown received the award, the Political Cartoon Society's gallery received furious e-mails. One called the gallery "a bunch of Nazi swine" while another dubbed its prize "the Joseph Goebbels award" after the Nazi propagandist.

Several compared Brown's drawing to the cartoons of Der Stuermer, the Nazi propaganda newspaper. Bound volumes of Der Stuermer will appear in Cohen's exhibition.

Brown says the comparison is unfair.

"These people must never have seen those cartoons," he said. "The Stuermer cartoons are littered with stars of David and Hebrew writing, whereas I make a specific point about an individual and his policy," he said.

He deliberately avoided drawing the Israeli flag in his cartoon, since it bears the star of David, a religious symbol.

So, we can see that the artist had his reasons.

Reporting
From
Behind
Enemy
Lines

I received the follwing email from a man living in Spain the other day:

Hello, I am (name deleted per request), this is NOT my real name, as I cannot trust my Government. The investigation about the bombings in Madrid 11/3 has not been very transparent, and people who critizise the Government must be very careful.

In a demonstration against the negotiation with the terrorist of ETA two militants of the Popular Party were detained without any proof, because of apparently having hurt the Minister of Defense (Mr Bono, socialist). Later, data revealed that they never had stroke at him and that they were chosen just becuse of their quality of being militants of Popular Party. Very disturbing.

We are living a half-dictatorship in which Ministers critisize opnely the journalists who are not of the same ideas, with names.

Yesterday, the Socialist party defended the freedom of expresion of the ideologues of jihad in the Parliament.

You can also read this piece of information (it's in English):
http://www.spainherald.com/2005-11-24news.html#2111

This is more horrible than all media are shown. I know that you would think that I am exagerating but you can browse that digital paper, that by now is the only one that is telling the truth. It's a right-wing publication that is contributing to inform us in a very disgusting panorama with the general media being more socialist than the socialists themselves.

This sounds like something one would have heard coming out of Eastern Europe in the 1970's. It is hard to believe one must live in fear of their government in Spain. However, I offer this in a spirit of inquiry. I would love to know what other Europeans think about this.

Iran
Invites
U.S.
To Bid
On
Nuclear
Plant

In a baldfaced appeal to the stereotype that all America cares about is money, Iran has invited the United States to bid on a project to build a nuclear power plant:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Sunday offered the United States a share in building a new nuclear power plant in an apparent effort to curb U.S. opposition to its atomic program.

"America can take part in international bidding for the construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said at a news conference.

Asefi was apparently talking about a 360-megawatt light water nuclear power plant in southwestern Iran, which the head of the country's top atomic organization announced plans to build on Saturday.

Iran also wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by building nuclear power plants with foreign help in southern Iran.

Relations between both countries have been severed since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Washington also imposes unilateral sanctions on Iran, preventing U.S. companies from doing business in Iran.

Yes, they have been severed. And, a fact, seeminly, little known by the American and European people is that America stopped buying oil from Iran in the mid-90's because we consider their regime belligerant and anti-human rights. France and Germany buy oil from Iran because anything goes with them. But, "it's-all-about-oil," money-hungry America does not.

Interesting, huh?

Gee, what do you think our response will be to their invitation?

Explosions
At
London
Oil
Depot
Called
Accidental

Hmm:

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, England - Explosions at one of Britain's largest oil depots jolted an area north of London early Sunday, hurling multiple balls of fire into the sky, shattering windows and blanketing the area with smoke. Police said the blasts, which injured 36 people, appeared to be accidental.

But the powerful explosions felt throughout a large swath of southeast England including London, 25 miles away, rattled nerves in a country still jittery over terrorism after deadly transit bombings in July killed 52 people and four suicide bombers.

The oil depot is near Luton Airport and some residents reported hearing an aircraft flying low overhead shortly before the first explosion at around 6 a.m. But police said there was nothing to suggest a plane was involved.

"All indications at this stage are that this was an accident," said Frank Whiteley, chief of police in Hertfordshire, the county where the depot is located. "However, clearly we will keep an open mind, as with all investigations, until we can confirm that for certain."

Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have threatened to target fuel depots.

Police said 36 people were injured, four of them seriously.

"Around 6 a.m. as we were sleeping, there was a mighty explosion — a thunderclap that woke me up," said Neil Spencer, 42, who lives less than a mile from the terminal. "It was fireball after fireball — truly amazing."

Police said many roads and highways had been closed.

"There was a loud boom and the house shook violently," said Duncan Milligan, of Hemel Hempstead, who said the blast woke him up. "I am about three miles from where the explosion took place but I can see flames high in the sky and smoke billowing everywhere. There is clearly a building on fire near the motorway and police and emergency services are everywhere."

Local resident Richard Ayers said a massive column of smoke rose into the air and said the force of explosions had blown the roofs off houses near the oil depot.

"It is like it is doomsday," he told the BBC.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Anniversary

My wife and I went out tonight to celebrate our Anniversary. We went out to the best restaurant we've ever treated ourselves to, and we drank way too much Pinot Noir, and Champagne, and then we stumbled around downtown for awhile, and watched the young people having a great time.

Beautiful.

As the years go by, I love my wife more and more.

I am a blessed man.

A
Little
Bit Of
Perspective

Historians give us a little bit of perspective on what we often see as frightful times:

ALBANY, N.Y. - Terrorist attacks, a war in Iraq and natural disasters aren't so bad compared to other tough times in America's past, from the Revolutionary War to the Cold War, history professors say.

Asked to compare eight difficult periods of the nation's history, 46 percent of the 354 professors who responded to a nationwide survey agreed the current era was the least trying. The Civil War, 55 percent said, was the toughest.

Researchers at the Siena Research Institute of Siena College came up with the survey after hearing students comment they felt today's era was one of the most trying in America's history.

"It's an issue of perspective," said Thomas Kelly, a professor emeritus of history and American studies at Siena who helped conduct the survey, which was released Thursday.

"With very few exceptions most generations have confronted enormous kinds of problems and have to greater or lesser degrees coped," he said.

Next to the Civil War — which threatened the nation's very existence and cost the lives of more than 600,000 people — the poll found the Revolutionary War and the Great Depression to be the most trying, followed by Vietnam and the Cultural Revolution, World War II, the Cold War, World War I and today.

Kristina Hicks, 20, a Siena junior, said that while it's true most of today's Americans have not had to sacrifice like previous generations did, she disagrees with the poll's findings.

"I definitely think today is one of most trying times," she said. "When I read about things like 9/11 and the war in Iraq in textbooks, it doesn't actually portray the whole picture of what happened."

Dan Reisner, a 21-year-old Siena senior, ranks the current era in the middle, saying the destruction of the World Trade Center changed his world view.

"I never thought we were under threat until I saw 9/11," he said. "It was very shocking. Times are definitely more dangerous now. Terrorism is constantly getting worse."

Kelly said the shock of the 2001 terrorist attacks was felt especially hard by today's college students, who were in their early or middle teenage years at the time.

"For young people, life is very visual," Kelly said. "There are few things as visual as the twin towers falling."

The survey was mailed to each of the roughly 2,500 American colleges and universities with a history department, Kelly said.

Palestinian
Soccer
Players
To Be
Punished
For
Heinous
Crime

What did they do? What in God's name did they do?

They played in a "Peace Match" with Israeli players (hat tip to Elder of Ziyon, a fine blog):

The Palestinian FA plans to punish players under its jurisdiction for participating alongside Israelis in a 'Peace Match' in Barcelona, an official said on Wednesday.

A 'Peace Team' of Israeli and Palestinian players lost 2-1 to Barcelona at the Nou Camp last week in front of 31,820 spectators, including many dignitaries.

'The Palestinian FA will form a committee to investigate the players who participated in the match ... everyone involved will be punished,' senior FA official Jamal Zaqout told Reuters.

'We act in accordance with the attitude of our people who are against normalisation (of relations with Israel) before the end of the occupation,' Zaqout said, referring to Israel's hold over lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war. (Elder of Ziyon note: And Reuters of course can read his mind that he was only referring to the '67 borders. - EoZ)

Fifteen Israelis, including many internationals and 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank joined up for the match sponsored by Israeli statesman Shimon Peres's Centre for Peace foundation.

A Peres Centre spokeswoman said the Palestinian FA's reaction was 'irresponsible and annoying'.

'The Peres Centre together with its Palestinian partner, the Abu Sukar Centre, received the blessing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and (his senior security adviser) Jibril Rajoub for the match,' spokeswoman Michal Eldar said.

'The match in Barcelona was an unprecedented event in which we managed to convey to the world the message of peace and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians,' she said.

A spokesman for the Israel FA (IFA) said it had approved the participation of its players.

Israel's FA has been generally supportive of its Palestinian counterpart, which became a full FIFA member in 1998.

The IFA helped Palestinian players receive permits to leave Gaza for overseas matches when Israel controlled the coastal territory before pulling out last September.

The government of Israel helps the Palestinians, but when some Palestinians perform a nice gesture towards Israel, then the government of the Peaceful State of Palestine punishes the Good Samaritans.

Why do you think that is?

Our
Sisyphean
War

We fight a war in Afghanistan. We free the Afghanis from the terrifying Taliban regime. We help them write a constitution, and establish an elected government. And what do they do? Well, for one thing, they have arrested and jailed a magazine editor for questioning Sharia Law; specifically, the practice of stoning people to death for adultery:

Now they want to put him to death — Mohaqeq Nasab, the Afghan editor already sentenced to two years hard labor for "blasphemy" against Islam. Now, Afghan prosecutors want to put him to death. Why? The Muslim editor of Women's Rights magazine published articles in post-Taliban Afghanistan that criticized aspects of Islamic law, including the penalties of stoning for adultery, amputation for theft, and death for leaving Islam.

"Sometimes the whole religion and the rules of the religion were attacked," explained Muhammed Aref Rahmani, who sits on Afghanistan's council of Islamic scholars. Attacked? "For instance," Mr. Rahmani told the Chicago Tribune, "he says one woman should be equal to one man, as a witness in a case, which is completely against our religion."

Oh, may it never be. Women equal to men? No, no, God no.

Islam has many laws and rules which are simply inhuman. These Islamic laws can not be tolerated. We still have an army in their country. We should go and get that man out of prison, and we should tell Karzai that what his government has allowed is not acceptable, and that they'd better get back to work rewriting the laws and the constitution.

Here are some aspects of Islam which need to be removed from practice across the face of the Earth:

1) Stoning and mutilation as punishment
2) Burqas - and any Sharia rule which dictates, in any way, that women are less than men
3) physical Jihad
4) anti-Semitism - the idea that Jews are the sons of apes and pigs

After we had completed our military victory in World War II, we set about remaking German and Japanese society. We outlawed the preaching of Nazism in Germany, and we outlawed the teaching of Emperor-worship in Japan.

We should do the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then, in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia after that.

We can not push the stone of Democracy up the hill only to have it roll back down on top of us.

Kiev
University:
"Close"
Israel

From Atlas Shrugs:

Vladimir Matveyev: Iran's president, who wants to see a world without Israel, has a vociferous ally in Ukraine.

A Kiev-based university that already has gained international notoriety for its anti-Zionist propaganda and anti-Semitic publications now wants the United Nations to "close" Israel.

The call came in November from the Interregional Academy for Personnel Management, known by its Russian acronym MAUP, whose leadership said the United Nations should revoke its 1947 resolution on the creation of a Jewish state.

"Mankind lived without the State of Israel exactly 2,670 years, but after the second of its creation all the world feels a constant aggression of the old 'sons of the devil,' " according to a university statement, published last month in the school newspaper, supporting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent call to destroy Israel.

MAUP in recent months has become a major purveyor of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. But the silence until recently of Ukrainian authorities -- many of whom have ties to the university -- has led to criticism from the local Jewish community, international Jewish organizations and Israeli officials.

Atlas' commentary is priceless:

So we see the cockroaches come out of the woodwork now that President Ahmadimaniac let the cat out of the bag. This has happened, before. History stuttering. The cancer has returned (not that it ever left, remission). It doesn't go away on its own. Never has, never will.

And, just what are the Jews supposed to do, if Israel is closed?

What is this devil that keeps chasing the Jews to the ends of the earth?

(The photo is from a "Peace Rally" in San Francisco, CA. Thanks to Zombie.

Jihad
Watch:
Dhimmis
Of The
Year?

I love Jihad Watch. There is no more tireless, all-seeing eye trained on the international Jihad being waged on Western Civilization than Jihad Watch. But, they do dumb stuff. For instance, the day before the first Iraqi elections, Hugh Fitzgerald was calling for American troops to pullout. Yes, that's right. He believes so little in the possibility that the brown-skinned Iraqis are like all of the rest of us in wanting to be free, that he thinks it is a lost cause. He offers no solutions. Just pullout.

And what has Jihad Watch done to anger me this time?

Well, they have a poll up today where we anti-Jihad people can vote for Dhimmi and anti-Dhimmi of the year. George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and Tony Blair are all listed on the "Dhimmi" ballot, but we do not have the opportunity to vote for them as anti-Dhimmis.

What have Robert Spencer, or Hugh Fitzgerald, done that has put them more on the line than George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, or Tony Blair? Bush, Rice, and Blair all staked their entire political careers on fighting against the Jihad. All that Spencer and Fitzgerald have done is sell books.

I'm sure they also receive death threats and, therefore, I do admire them as warriors, but they are also revealing themselves to be small-minded propagandists.

I call on Jihad Watch to amend their ballots. I will vote for George Bush as American anti-Dhimmi of the Year. And, maybe, while they are at it, they ought to put their own names on the ballot under Dhimmi of the Year, for the fact that some of their rhetoric undermines the President, and thus, makes it harder for him to accomplish the things he would clearly like to accomplish in the War on Terror.

For instance, DESTROY THE REGIMES OF SYRIA AND IRAN.

Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald ought to be ashamed of themselves. I buy all of Spencer's books. I love the guy, but anyone can make a mistake, and he has. And, he deserves to be castigated and shouted down for this.

Down with you, Spencer. Down with you, and the camel you rode to work today.

George
Bush
Cures
Iranian
Folly
While
The Pope
And
Michelle
Malkin
Look On

Click on photo for larger image.

Can't See
The
Forest
...

Scientists have struggled to understand our place in the galaxy:

Astronomers can provide detailed images of beautifully swirling galaxies millions of miles away. It's our own galaxy they haven't been able to get their arms around.

"It's clear that the Milky Way has a structure like those, but it's hard to tell being in it," said Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Now, a team of astronomers has taken an important step toward mapping the Milky Way by accurately measuring the distance to the star-forming region W3OH in the Perseus spiral arm, the nearest arm to us. This long strand of stars streaks out of the Milky Way's disk in the same manner as others seen in galaxies across the universe.

Until now scientists had difficulties figuring just how far away spiral arms are, and various measurements and techniques had discrepancies ranging by a factor of two.

The new results are from a telescope nearly the size of Earth. The astronomers used the Very Long Baseline Array, taking observations from several telescopes stretching from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands, to create the resolution of a telescope nearly 5,000 miles in diameter.

"We have established that the radio telescope we used, the Very Long Baseline Array, can measure distances with unprecedented accuracy--nearly a factor of 100 times better than previously accomplished," Reid said.

In doing so, they determined that W3OH is 1.950.04 kiloparsecs away. That's about 36,000,000,000,000,000 miles.

Although the VLBA has extremely high resolution, the source objects need to be very bright and compact. Spiral arms are just that--bright clouds of star-forming gas. In particular, this team focused in on a cloud of methyl alcohol surrounding a newly formed star.

"We measured distance by the simplest and most direct method in astronomy--essentially the technique used by surveyors called triangulation," said team member Xu Ye.

This technique, also known as parallax, comes straight out of a high school geometry textbook. In this case, the researchers used the changing vantage point from the Earth as it orbits the Sun to form one leg of the triangle. Then, they calculated the star's distance by measuring the change in its position as Earth orbits the Sun.

The astronomers found that this young star is actually moving around the Milky Way in an orbit that is about 10 percent off from being circular. It appears to rotate slower than other stars in circular orbits and is falling toward the center of the Milky Way.

Although scientists don't really understand the details of spiral arm formation, these observations support the "spiral density-wave theory." This theory suggests that a combination of gravitational instabilities and shear forces--a result of the outer edge of the galaxy moving slower than the inner--cause material to cluster and eventually shoot off in an arm.

The researchers are now shifting the VLBA's gaze toward three other spiral arms where they will look at about a dozen star-forming areas similar to W3OH.

This research is detailed today in the online version of the journal Science.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Alone
With ...

by Marc Chagall

Bangladeshi
Jihadis:
Wear
The
Burqa
Or Die

Jihadis in Bangladesh are demanding, under threat of death, that all women, Muslim and non-Muslim, wear the burqa:

DHAKA (Reuters) - A banned Islamist militant group blamed for a series of bombings in Bangladesh has threatened to kill women, including non-Muslims, if they do not wear the veil, a statement said.

The statement by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen came hours after Thursday's suicide bomb attack in a northern town that killed at least eight people, the latest of a series of blasts blamed on militant groups in their campaign for an Islamic state.

"Women will be killed if they are found to move around without wearing burqa (veil) from the first day of Jilhaj," the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen said in the statement sent to a Dhaka newspaper office.

Jilhaj refers to the Arabic month beginning early January.

"Women, including non-Muslims, are hereby advised not to go out of home without burqa. Seclusion has been made compulsory for you," said the statement in Bangla language, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Friday.

This is the world of the Jihadi. We must resist it at all costs. The burqa is slavery for women. You see that they order the women to wear the burqa, under threat of death.

In other words, they have no choice. That's slavery.

There is nothing opaque here. They are making it very clear for us. There is no room for slavery in this world.

See my post on the Burqa from this morning.

Iranian
President
Is So
Crazy
Even The
Saudis Are
Concerned

News of Eurabia has video of Iranian President Ahmadinejad telling about the mystical experience he had while speaking at the United Nations. No, that's not a figure of speech. This is a real world leader, who is about to aquire nukes, having a mystical experience, a vision of himself surrounded by a heavenly light.

He has also told confidantes that he believes he is the Messiah.

Really. Go check out the video.

But, that's not all folks. Good ole' Ahmadinejad has spouted so much crazed rhetoric lately that the Saudis are officially pissed. The Pedestian Infidel has the story.

You
Decide

The other day, Muslims in Britain held a controversial conference in a large sports arena. More than twenty-thousand Muslims showed up and cheered the speakers. It was the biggest gathering of Muslims in Europe since the Moors armies were turned back at the Gates of Vienna.

Carol Gould reported it this way.

Ted Belman reported it this way.

And, the Times of London reported it this way.

Hmm, two to one. Which side do you believe?

Germany
Summons
Iranian
Envoy
Over
Holocaust
Remark

The German Foreign Ministry is not happy about Iranian President Ahmadinejad's recent denials that the Holocaust had happened:

The German Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had summoned Iran's ambassador to protest against suggestions by Iran's president that the Holocaust might not have happened and that Israel should be moved to Europe.

Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said at a government news conference the decision to deliver a formal protest to Iran's envoy in Berlin was meant to show that Berlin was taking the president's comments very seriously.

"We have summoned the Iranian ambassador," Jaeger told reporters. "When one summons an ambassador, then you signal the start of something in diplomacy, that there are grounds for serious discussion."

The remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a news conference in the Saudia Arabian city of Mecca, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map", which sparked widespread international condemnation.

Historians say six million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust. Regarding this widely-accepted view, Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA as saying on Thursday:

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" he said.

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe -- like in Germany, Austria or other countries -- to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it."

It sounds to me like Reuters isn't exactly sure the Holocaust happened either. What do you think?

Anyway, kudos to Germany for summoning a diplomat. Now, let's see if anything happens. Once again, what do you think?

An Afghani women begs on the street with her child.

There,
Yet Not
There

The Burqa dehumanizes women. It is a tool which instantly turns a living, breathing human being into a slave. When the shroud goes over the face of a human being, they are dead to the world. The human being, so enshrouded, can see out through the veil darkly, but no one can see in.

She is windowless, and alone.

(The photograph accompanying this post is the view of a human being from inside the death shroud of a burqa.)

From Act International:

"Women you should not step outside your residence. If you go outside the house you should not be like the women who used to go with fashionable clothes wearing much cosmetics and appearing in front of every men before the coming of Islam."
--- Edict (religious decree) announced by the Taliban’s "Religious Police".

Two months back, I was on an assignment in Afghanistan. Defying another Taliban edict - this one banning taking photographs of "any living thing" - I looked for ways to illustrate how three years of drought and 22 years of war had affected the lives of men, women and children in Afghanistan.

In an environment created by the edicts restricting the behaviour of women it was difficult to get a single picture of women. Basically, I had to "steal" such pictures while pretending to be tying my shoelaces, looking the other way or trust my luck in accidental drive–by snapshots from car windows.

In the end, I tried another approach; one I felt more comfortable with. This approach did not force me to try to cheat the women within range of my lenses and, it even appeared truer to my own experience of travelling as a male in Afghanistan.

Over 14 days, I had next to no interaction with Afghani women and saw only three women’s faces directly. As a sort of compensation, I started focusing my lenses on some of the traces of the women I glimpsed or sometimes just missed where ever I went – villages, streets, bazaars, hospitals, clinics or restaurants and mosques.

Traces of the millions of Afghan women concealed by the rules of the Taliban, the cloth of the head to toe long blue Burqa, local traditions and in some cases the 4 to 5 meter high mud brick walls surrounding their own homes.

What
Are You
Going
To Do
About It?

Nobel Sweepstakes winner Mohammed el-Baradei says the world is losing patience with Iran:

OSLO, Norway - Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei said Friday the international community is losing patience with Iran over its nuclear program. ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he hopes the outstanding nuclear issues with Iran will be clarified next year.

"They are inching forward and I'm asking them to leap forward," said ElBaradei, who shares the award with the IAEA.

He said he hopes outstanding nuclear issues with Tehran will be clarified by the time he presents his next report on Iran in March, because "the international community is losing patience with the nature of that program."

"The ball is in Iran's court. It is up to Iran to show the kind of transparency they need to show," ElBaradei told reporters.

He encouraged European negotiators to continue talks with Iran.

You see, things are not going well, so we should do more of the same.

Do you ever get the feeling Mohammed el-Baradei is on the other side?

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Babylon

Song by
David Gray

Only wish that you were here
You know I'm seeing it so clear
I've been afraid
To tell you how I really feel
Admit to some of those bad mistakes I've made

If you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt

Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Babylon, Babylon

Sunday all the lights of London
Shining

Sky is fading red to blue
I'm kicking through the
Autumn leaves
And wondering where it is you might be going to

Turning back for home
You know I'm feeling so alone
I can't believe

Climbing on the stair
I turn around to see you smiling there
In front of me

If you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt

Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now

The
Wedding

by Marc Chagall

Great
Moments
In The
History
Of The
Islamic
Revolution

Ah, the enlightened vision of the Ayatollah Khomeini:

"A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate. If he penetrates and the child is harmed then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however would not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl's sister."

The complete Persian text of this saying can be found in "Ayatollah Khomeini in Tahrirolvasyleh, Fourth Edition, Darol Elm, Qom"

Hat tip to Always On Watch.

London Mayor's Friend Sheikh al-Qaradhawi
Says Jews Set Traps

Leading Islamist Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, a man London Mayor Ken Livingstone has praised repeatedly, blames Jews and "satans" for the problems of his fellow Islamic Jihadis:

"We are now under a siege that resembles the Siege of the Trench, the Siege of Akhzab.
"But we will be victorious, Allah willing - despite the traps set by Judaism and the Crusaders, and despite the deeds of those who set traps and who deceive.

"He decided that the only treatment they merited was to have their fighters killed, their women taken captive, and their property seized as booty.

"Some Orientalists claim that Muhammad was cruel to the Jews, but this is how determination should be.

"I pray for Allah to open our brothers' eyes, to make the present in Iraq better than the past, and the future better than the present. I pray for Allah to protect Iraq from overt and covert civil strife, to protect it from the evils of divisiveness and racism, and to protect it from the whispers of all satans, the human satans, the satans among the djinn, the American satans, and other satans."

Mayor Ken Livingstone has great friends, doesn't he?

Anyway, I'm not a Jew, but I've got to get back to setting those traps. There's an awful lot of them, you know.

How Do I Look?

Hope you like the new template.

A big thanks to Blueslord at News of Eurabia, for all the help in getting this new template up and running. I'm just about the most html-retarded person in the world, so the help was very much needed.

Thanks, bro.

Iranian President:
Let's Not Kill The Jews
Let's Send Them To Europe

In statements which will probably end up winning him a Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian President Ahmadinejad has outlined his solution to the Jewish problem:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt that the Holocaust occurred and suggested Israel be moved to Europe.

His comments, reported by the official IRNA news agency from a news conference he gave in the Saudia Arabian city of Mecca, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map," which sparked widespread international condemnation.

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?"

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe - like in Germany, Austria or other countries - to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it," he added.

'Jews have no roots in Palestine'

The
Camp
of the
Saints

In 1975, a French writer named Raspail wrote a novel which eerily predicted what would eventually become of France:

Raspail first published this haunting and apocalyptic novel, Le Camp Des Saints (The Camp of the Saints) in France. In 1975, it was published in America, where it was compared to Camus's The Plague and to Swift's Gulliver’s Travels. The book imagines a flotilla of millions of immigrants traveling from the Ganges to France. The similarities between the fictional France of the novel and the France of today are easy to spot.

Consider the plot. An all-powerful, multi-culturalist intelligentsia, having taught France that it must atone for its racist crimes, swiftly joins compassionate French Christians in ecstatically welcoming the mass invasion that brutally destroys France. The solicitude of white Frenchmen—the priests, intellectuals, student activists, and prostitutes who wish to embrace and assist the implacably angry new arrivals—is repaid by death. And terror: The immigrants loot everything in sight. They murder for new apartments. France is run into the ground. Raw and relentless, the novel is as brilliant as Orwell’s 1984.

No, couldn't happen.

The United Nations Comes Out
Against Free Speech In Denmark

The United Nations is rushing to the aid of Muslims who are offended by the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of Mohammed:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights understands the concern in Muslim countries over the 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and expects UN experts on racism to deal with the matter.

At the same time as Islamic countries in a meeting in Mecca are going to discuss joint action against Denmark, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has involved herself in the discussion.

The leader of the UN's work on human rights is saying in plain words that she is concerned over the drawings that Jyllands-Posten printed in September, expressing "apologies" for statements and actions demonstrating a lack of respect for the religion of other people.

In a letter to the 56 member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), she states: "I understand your concerns and would like to emphasize that I regret any statement or act that could express a lack of respect for the religion of others".

In a complaint to the High Commissioner, the 56 Islamic governments have asked Louise Arbour to raise the matter with the Danish government "to help contain this encroachment on Islam, so the situation won't get out of control."

Two UN experts, on religous freedom and on racism and xenophobia, are said to be working on the case. The Islamic governments have expressed satisfaction with the reply from Louise Arbour.

Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has stated that he neither can nor wants to interfere in the freedom of speech of Danish media, has confirmed that he is aware of the letter to the UN High Commissioner, but has got no comment to it.

So, a Danish newspaper publishes cartoons poking fun at Mohammed. Muslims get angry and protest. In fact, they rioted. Muslim countries make complaints. And then, the UN decides they are going to intervene.

This is a matter of free speech. The United Nations wants to curb free speech in Denmark. What the hell?

And, once again, it's all because Muslims are angry. Let's recap. Muslims are angry about Piglet. Muslims are angry about "Jewish cookies." Muslims are angry about the Star of David.

Who cares what Muslims are angry about? Think about it. Piglet. If you can get angry about Piglet, then the anger is just in you, and it has nothing to do with anything outside you.

We can not appease such people. If we do, we will end up having to cut off our own limbs to appease them, because eventually it will be particular body parts which offend them. Can you imagine which body parts they'll start with?

Oh yes, and before I forget, screw the United Nations.

Now that I think about it, I have a solution to this whole problem. Take a Koran, grease it up, and shove it up Kofi Annan's ass.

How's that? Don't say I don't ever offer solutions here on CUANAS.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Skylimbs

by
Joe
Citizen

Loneliness

By Marc
Chagall

Red
Cross
Creates
New
Emblem
To
Enable
Israel
To Join

Muslims hate Jews so much that they can't stand to have the Star of David appear as logo of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent. The debate as to whether to allow Israel to become a participating nation has been going on for years. At one point Cornelio Sommaruga, the head of the International body was asked why Israel was not a member nation. His answer: "If we're going to have the Shield of David, why would we not have to accept the swastika?."

Well, finally, today, it appears Israel will be able to participate. But, the Star of David can not be used as a logo:

GENEVA (AFP) - Geneva Convention member states decided by a two-thirds majority to create a new emblem that would enable Israel to join the international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, diplomats said.

A total 125 countries took part in a vote, with 98 voting for and 27 against with 10 more abstaining.

Most of the hostile votes were from Arab and Muslim countries.

Talks which started Monday and were originally scheduled to end Tuesday ground on into Wednesday and then Thursday as negotiators tried to overcome objections by Syria, which traded jibes with Israel about who was to blame.

The new "red crystal" emblem would join the Red Cross and Red Crescent and ease the way for Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA - Red Star of David) organisation to become part of the international emergency service and humanitarian network.

The MDA is officially unrecognized in the Geneva Conventions, signed by 192 countries including Israel, because its emblem does not conform with longstanding rules allowing only a cross or a crescent.

Abdul Rahman Attar, head of the Syrian Red Crescent, had told journalists his country was still demanding an agreement on humanitarian aid in the Israeli-occupied Golan heights as a condition for approving the new emblem.

Syria says Israel is neglecting the health needs of the 25,000 Syrian citizens