Policing the Schools

The LGF headline says it all "Jawdropper of the day".

A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English.

You can be arrested for being racist?

Codie was attending a GCSE science class at Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, when the incident happened. The teenager had not been in school the day before due to a hospital appointment and had missed the start of a project, so the teacher allocated her a group to sit with.

“She said I had to sit there with five Asian pupils,” said Codie yesterday. “Only one could speak English, so she had to tell that one what to do so she could explain in their language. Then she sat me with them and said ‘Discuss’.”

According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - then began talking in a language she didn’t understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher.

“I said ‘I’m not being funny, but can I change groups because I can’t understand them?’ But she started shouting and screaming, saying ‘It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police’.”

Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day.

A complaint was made to a police officer based full-time at the school, and more than a week after the incident on September 26 she was taken to Swinton police station and placed under arrest.

And there's the real kicker- it wasn't a spur of the moment thing, some sort of kneejerk reaction. I wonder what others kinds of non-Groupthink thoughts and beliefs will be outlawed next?

After questioning on suspicion of committing a section five racial public order offence, her mother Nicola says she was placed in a bare cell for three-and-a-half hours then released without charge.

I'll leave the last word to Robert Whelan of the Civitas think-tank-

"A lot of these arrests don't result in prosecutions - the aim is to frighten us into self-censorship until we watch everything we say."

Exactly.

Clinton's Big Plan

So Hillary Clinton thinks Bush is making mistakes in Iraq- not to worry though because she has three years experience on the Armed Services Committee and she has a plan to fix the problem.

She told the Daily News she had long advocated helping Iraq establish an oil trust that would assure Sunnis they had a stake in the proceeds but said the Bush administration is dragging its heels on the matter.

Of course! The jihadis will lay down their arms and embrace democracy if only Bush would make Iraq set up an oil trust. That centuries long rift between Sunni and Shia will just evaporate overnight.

Right.

A Big List

There's been much discussion of the NIE report which claimed that Iraq was causing extremism. Hugh Fitzgerald begs to differ.

Ninety-Five Other Things That Also Fuel Muslim Extremism

Some, especially in Lutheran lands, may be satisfied with these 95 theses. Others may prefer to round out the polemical embonpoint by adding another five items to the list. Still others may wish to keep adding to the list from the rich profusion of items offered by each day’s Jihad news -- items in keeping with the nature and quite unnecessary nurture of the belief-system of Islam. It took very little time to compose this list. It would not take much longer to add another hundred, two hundred, three hundred items to the list of things that “fuel Muslim extremism.”

Check the link for the full 95 items.

"Honour" Killing

I guess this guy didn't get that memo about there being no compunction in religion?

A RELIGIOUS feud between a Muslim father and his teenage daughter may have sparked a bloody domestic dispute on the Gold Coast which left the man’s wife dead and him fighting for life in hospital.

Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The girl’s mother is believed to have stepped in to protect her daughter, only to be fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Gay Pride

It's from The Onion I know but even so...

The mainstream acceptance of gays and lesbians, a hard-won civil-rights victory gained through decades of struggle against prejudice and discrimination, was set back at least 50 years Saturday in the wake of the annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade.

"I'd always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth," said mother of four Hannah Jarrett, 41, mortified at the sight of 17 tanned and oiled boys cavorting in jock straps to a throbbing techno beat on a float shaped like an enormous phallus. "Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong."

It's worth reading the whole thing.

Allison Weber, 43, an El Segundo marketing consultant, also had her perceptions and assumptions about gays challenged by the parade.

"My understanding was that gay people are just like everybody else–decent, hard-working people who care about their communities and have loving, committed relationships," Weber said. "But, after this terrifying spectacle, I don't want them teaching my kids or living in my neighborhood."

Hat tip to Clayton Cramer.

Farsi BBC

Curious. Is the British government hoping to inspire a popular overthrow of the tyrannical regime in Tehran?

The British Broadcasting Corp. announced Tuesday that it plans to launch a Farsi-language cable and satellite channel for Iran.

The BBC said the London-based television service would begin broadcasting for eight hours a day in early 2008 and would be available to anyone with a satellite dish or cable connection in the region.

The channel will be run by the BBC's international broadcasting arm, the World Service. Treasury Chief Gordon Brown said the government would supply the 15 million pound (US$28 million, €22 million) annual operating cost.

Algorithm March

Big hat tip to MadOgre for this one- a great tune with some carefully constructed choreography. And ninjas. Genius.

Khatami

I'm not at all surprised by St. Andrews university's decision to reward Khatami with an honorary degree.

Muhammad Khatami is to be made an honorary doctor of laws by Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader who is also the university’s chancellor.

The Liberal Democrat party remember is home to Jenny Tonge, the MP would said that she would consider becoming a suicide bomber herself if she were Palestinian. While she was very publically sacked over the comments after complaints from the public, she was later put forward, by then Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, to become a Baroness in the House of Lords. That happened in a rather quieter manner as a "reward for her years of service"; nevermind the expressed desire to commit mass murder of innocent civilians. You can read more about this despicable woman here.

Though Kennedy has been replaced, it seems that the Lib Dems continue to support the violent and bloodthirsty.

Labour Gives Up

It looks like Labour's new policy of governing Britain is simply to throw its hands in the air and give up.

A move to transfer criminals to open prisons is to go ahead, despite ministers admitting the policy will 'inevitably' lead to more break-outs.

The revelation came in a leaked memo which suggested Home Secretary John Reid was prepared to 'take the risk' of more prisoners absconding.

The policy is being introduced in a bid to solve the growing prison population crisis.

I mean, why build more prisons? Pah, instead we'll just let some of them escape and thus create more room for other prisoners. Genius.

The memo, from governor Fiona Radford, warned Dr Reid of the likely consequences of the policy.

He 'accepted as inevitable' that escapes would rise, according to Ms Radford, of West Sussex's Ford Open Prison.

She added: 'Ministers have apparently been briefed to this effect and are taking this risk.'

The memo also revealed ministers expected drug abuse to increase among prisoners as a result of the policy.

Again, all part of the programme. "Acceptable" escapes, "acceptable" drug abuse, and, no doubt, an "acceptable" rise in crime once they're back out on the streets, some of them with a habit to feed.

A Hint of Things To Come?

It looks like the infidel Jack Straw doesn't know his place- a spokeswoman for the MPACUK says that he "shouldn't be allowed" to comment on women wearing the full-face veil. Veil-rage is brewing in the UK as a result but all Straw is guilty of is asking Muslim women wearing the veil to consider removing it when they come to speak to him. He believes that it's best to actually see the face of the person he's speaking with.

Of course, that is an entirely unreasonable position for him to take in the eyes of the Muslim spokespeople the BBC discussed the matter with.

Interesting that this takes place so soon after another Muslim, Abu Izzadeen, shouted out-

"How dare you come to a Muslim area when you have arrested so many Muslims in this area."

"I am furious I am absolutely furious - John Reid should not come to a Muslim area, we do not want to see him."

So in the view of at least some British Muslims elected representatives should not be allowed to comment on "Muslim issues" or go into "Muslim areas". It seems that the divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK are widening as each day passes. Who knows what the future will hold?

Lone Liberal Supports Free Speech

I never thought I'd find this headline on Kos- In Defense of Michelle Malkin. Wow. Credit to the poster, ptristam, for pointing out that while he is opposed to the politics Malkin stands for, the issue of free speech should trump such partisan politics. Shame that some of the commentators there can't get beyond it. In fact, there seems to be no support whatsoever- here's a little example of some of the posts:

I don't care if YouTube shows or doesn't show this video, but it sounds pretty dumb to me. Juxtaposing images of preposterous protests over the Dutch cartoons with suicide bombings is false equivalency at best; an outright attempt to conflate at worst.

YouTube is privately-owned so they can censor whatever the hell they feel like.

But we are not in the business of legislating ethics. We leave that bullshit to the right.

Your diary reeks of bullsh*t

the problem with the diary in these lines seems to lie in the fact that the oppression by Christian theology here in America isn't touched upon.

These cartoons weren't published 35 years ago--they were published less than a year ago and are a direct affront to those practicing Islamics.

This is a woman whose every written word bespeaks intolerance. It is naive to consider her an advocate of the tolerance that free speech implies, simply because her political message happens on one occasion to be swimming with the stream of tolerance, instead of against it.

Many ideas and ideals liberalism should defend but intolerance (and the intolerant)...no, I think the line needs to be drawn somewhere.

And that seems to sum up the Kos-brigade in a nutshell- "We like free speech, but only if you're saying the same thing as us."

Blair's Appeasement

You may have heard of the IMC report released recently which announced that the IRA has changed radically and is not seeking a return to violence. The report's conclusions are an amazing coincidence considering that Blair and Peter Hain are getting impatient with the lack of a devolved government here- Blair must want to be seen to have "brogut peace" to the province before he stands down. In their view it's high time that the DUP stopped mucking around worrying about an armed terrorist organisation getting into government here. I mean, really, who do those elected representatives think they are?

In actual fact the IMC report isn't all rosy. What it does say is that the IRA is currently unable to mount a sustained campaign and that some of its command and control structures have been dismantled. It doesn't actually say that the IRA can't or won't mount a limited campaign of terrorist violence if they don't get their way. The IMC also can't say for sure that the IRA were responsible for the murder of a British spy recently but to them, and Blair's government, that doesn't seem to matter. A mere trifle.

The IMC do say that the IRA aren't "targeting, recruiting or training, or trying to procure weapons" at the moment. What they don't say is that the terrorist group are still armed- they appear to be getting what they want and they still have an unknown amount of weaponry so it doesn't surprise me that they aren't looking to buy new weapons right now. There's also no mention of the multi-million pound Northern Bank robbery which the IRA was apparently behind, but they're quick to allege that any IRA criminal activity (read, "organised crime") doesn't seem to be based on orders from above. Well, that's all right then- we've got a local mafia, still armed terrorists, questions about a major robbery (and what exactly the IRA needed all that money for) and an unsolved murder of a British agent. Not to mention the fact that security sources say that the IRA possesses the ability to go back to an armed campaign if it changes its mind.

Gee, now why would the DUP be worried about those sorts of people being involved in the government of Northern Ireland?

Optional Law Enforcement

I've blogged before about the decline of once "Great" Britain. This story is certainly a stark illustration of that sad degeneration.

A Muslim police officer was excused from guarding London's Israeli Embassy after he objected to the duty on 'moral grounds'.

PC Alexander Omar Basha - a member of the Metropolitan Police's Diplomatic Protection Group - refused to be posted there because he objected to Israeli bombings in Lebanon and the resulting civilian casualties of fellow Muslims.

In a move which has caused widespread astonishment at Scotland Yard, senior officers in the DPG agreed that that PC Basha should be given an alternative posting.

Since when do the police get to pick and choose who in this country they decide to protect from lawlessness? Will this officer protect any Jewish or Israeli people he sees in our capital from crime? Can you believe that a member of the BNP in the police would be allowed to be exempt from protecting African embassies? Are Christian officers exempt from protecting Muslim embassies?

What's happened to Britain?

Indoctrination?

So much for separation of church and state in the U.S.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by evangelical Christian students and their parents who said a Contra Costa County school district engaged in unconstitutional religious indoctrination when it taught students about Islam by having them recite language from prayers.

The court, without comment, left intact a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last November in favor of the Byron Union School District in eastern Contra Costa.

The suit challenged the content of a seventh-grade history course at Excelsior Middle School in Byron in the fall of 2001. The teacher, using an instructional guide, told students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.

She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, had them memorize and recite a passage from the Quran and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during the month of Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.

Can you imagine how quick the ACLU and others would be on the case if teachers had students pretend to be Christians for three weeks, including saying Christian prayers? Dhimmi Watch has more details on the indoctrination.

Talk about double standards. Pastorius (who wrote the original post I'm linking to) compares this case to the treatment a young girl in America recevied when she read a Bible at recess-

Amber Mangum was a frequent reader during lunch breaks at her Prince George's County middle school, silently soaking up the adventures of Harry Potter and other tales in the spare minutes before afternoon classes. The habit was never viewed as a problem -- not, a lawsuit alleges, until the book she was reading was the Bible.

A vice principal at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Laurel last month ordered Amber, then 12, to stop reading the Bible or face punishment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by Amber's mother. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, alleges that the vice principal's actions violated the girl's civil rights.

Bag's Rants

I don't know how I missed this one- Bag's Rants is a blog which I've been reading and commenting on for some time now, and I've only just realised that I don't have a link on my page. D'oh!

That's been fixed now, so why not head on over and have a look around.

Esmay Yet Again

I'd hadn't planned on visiting or writing about Dean Esmay again but I see today from Jihad Watch that he's off on another ill-informed rant.

This time it's about the topic of abrogation, where verses in the Koran revealed chronologically later supercede those "revealed" earlier. He demands, "please cite for me where the Koran says that a verse recorded later necessarily supercedes a verse recorded later. I don't think you can."

Of course, Robert Spencer does just that. And even I knew of that verse. Is Esmay deliberately lying or does he just not know what he's writing about? I can't tell.

Anyway, that's not the worst of it-

Which is why, by the way, everyone at Hot Air and Michellemalkin.com are poseurs (and possible traitors in the War On Terror) until they find a Muslim co-blogger.

Is this some new twist on the chickenhawk argument- you can't comment on Islam unless you're a Muslim or close friends with one? Absolutely bizarre. He has officially lost the plot.

Future Visions

Clayton Cramer has a very thought-provoking post up, discussing the possible solutions to the current fight against Islamofascist terrorism. Let me make one thing clear first- Cramer doesn't advocate these measures, he's merely wondering about what the future may hold if we can't get the situation in Iraq to work.

-
1. "Fortress America": We secure our borders against terrorists entering either legally (as the 9/11 hijackers overwhelmingly did), or illegally (as could easily happen across our unsecure borders). But how do we do that? The ACLU (the fourth branch of the U.S. government) already objects to enforcement of the existing immigration laws. The dramatic increase in security to actually make us safe from terrorists coming here would be impossible, unless the ACLU ceased to have the influence in currently enjoys.

Along with terrorists, we also have to worry about WMDs. It would not be at all difficult to ship all sorts of nasty weapons into the U.S., either with long period timers on them, or with one legal resident of the U.S. prepared to set off the weapon when it arrived. The current volume of international trade is huge. To adequately secure against the arrival of WMDs would almost certainly cause a dramatic reduction in international trade--with deleterious effects on the U.S. economy.

2. Make al-Qaeda happy. Unfortunately, contrary to the fantasies of the left, it is not enough to withdraw U.S. forces from the Middle East. Al-Qaeda believes that interfering with rape and genocide in Darfur is also a sign of "Crusaders" and it was Australian interference in the gang rape of girls in East Timor by Islamofascists that led al-Qaeda to the Bali bombing. (Yes, feminists, there is a philosophy more oppressive to women than Christianity.) We would have to not only cut off aid to Israel, but stand by while Iran carries out its mission of extermination. Al-Qaeda has also repeatedly stated that conflict is inevitable until all nations are Islamic. I used to think this was so absurd that I questioned this premise of the novel Prayers for the Assassin. With the way that Americans are beginning to take the short view of this matter, maybe this is only very unlikely--not impossible. poor.)

The next three possible strategies would require enormous will, not only from the U.S., but from our allies. This will does not currently exist. Would it exist if there were a Beslan incident every month? You betcha. Why, even liberals might start to figure out that playing nice with al-Qaeda doesn't work.

3. Treat Muslim nations the way they have treated every other nation. Invade them; occupy; convert their mosques into churches; send in troops with orders to kill anyone that gives them any lip; assess a special tax on Muslims; pass laws that give Muslims less legal rights than non-Muslims, not just in ways that matter (say, a ban on Muslims possessing anything more deadly than a butter knife), but in ways intended to degrade them, like the laws that Muslims nations had prohibiting non-Muslims from riding horses. (Christians and Jews could only ride donkeys.) If we were prepared to do this as vigorously as Islam did to what had been the Byzantine Empire, in four generations, Islam would be a minority religion everywhere our soldiers went.

4. A war not to change hearts and minds, but to humble Islam. Remember last year when Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested that a terrorist nuclear attack on the U.S. might cause us to use nuclear weapons on Mecca? I was horrified that he would say such a thing. The more that I think about it, the more I find myself wondering if it may come to that.

At least part of the core problem we are having with Islamofascism is that Muslims believe that they have a specially favored status before Allah--and at the same time, recognize that they are generally poor and miserable compared to the non-Muslim world--in spite of sitting on oceans of oil. These two positions create cognitive dissonance, which can force a rational person suffering it to abandon or modify one of those postions. Now, one rational response would be to solve the poverty problem by modernizing their economies. But unfortunately, Islamofascists seem more intent on destroying the economies of the West, so that this cognitive dissonance ends, because the West is as desperately poor as most Arab countries. (This may also be the reason the left is so sympathetic to al-Qaeda--they can end world poverty by making everyone poor.)

That horrifying concept of nuking Mecca? While Mecca itself isn't "special" to Islam, as I understand it, it would be difficult for Muslims to continue to hold on to this belief that they are "special" to Allah if they can't go on pilgrimage to the holy sites anymore. (The pilgrimage to Mecca is something that every Muslim is supposed to do at least once, if they can.) Such a destructive act would have to be thoroughly explained to the Muslim world to clarify its purpose: "You think that you are something special because you are Muslims? Sorry, you aren't. You won't rein in the monsters like al-Qaeda; this is a reminder that you worship a false god. Keep it up, and we'll nuke every significant religious site in the Muslim world."

5. There's one more step, if that doesn't work, and it is far more horrifying than that. Don't stop at nuking religious sites. If you are familiar with Randy Newman's satirical song "Political Science" you may think that I am being fiercely satirical. I'm not. This is a horrifying prospect--but I can see how, if Islamofascism can't be stopped by less barbarous methods, a generation from now this may be the only alternative to living in the Islamic States of America posited by Ferrigno's Prayers for the Assassin.
-

Over at Infidel Bloggers Alliance there has been a growing concern that a more radical reaction to Islamic terrorism may take place as the creeping dhimmitude and terrorist violence continues. Cramer's options seem to clarify exactly what those concerns are about. It's a pretty frightening picture of what the coming years may hold.

Huzzah!

Jurassic Park, here we come!

When paleontologists find fossilized dinosaur bones during a dig, they usually do everything in their power to protect them, using tools like toothbrushes to carefully unearth the bones without inflicting any damage. However, when scientists found a massive Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone in a remote region of Montana a few months ago, they were forced to break the bone in two in order to fit it into the transport helicopter. This act of necessity revealed a startling surprise: soft tissue that had seemingly resisted fossilization still existed inside the bone. This tissue, including blood vessels, bone cells, and perhaps even blood cells, was so well preserved that it was still stretchy and flexible.

The scientists have discovered a remarkable similarity to modern day ostriches, adding further evidence to the dinosaur-bird link. The next step is a search for proteins which may give a definitive answer to the warm blooded-cold blooded debate.

Does this discovery of soft dinosaur tissue mean that scientists will soon be able to clone a Tyrannosaurus rex? Probably not – most scientists believe that DNA cannot survive for 70 million years. Then again, before this discovery, most scientists believed that soft tissue could not survive for 70 million years either.

Precisely.

OnPoint

I've added a new link over on the right to the USCAV blog OnPoint, "offering daily counterterrorism news and discussion".

There are some incredibly good posts there from serving military members in Iraq and Afghanistan and if you like the likes of BlackFive then it's a site that is definitely worth checking out. Some very interesting reading.

Einstein

This quote over at Survival Blog caught my eye. Odd that today too it is the press and the universities who seem to be completely unable to stand up for freedom of speech when faced by the threat of Muslim violence.

"Being a lover of freedom, when the [Nazi] revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it [freedom], knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." - Albert Einstein, translated from Kampi und Zeugnis der bekennenden Kirche

Hamas Spells It Out

Hat tip to Jihad Watch-

On Friday, Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters held a peaceful rally in Gaza to denounce the state of Israel and declare that they would never recognize its right to exist.

"We ask God to punish the so-called Israel and the allies of Israel and to punish those who recognize Israel and those who called on us to recognize Israel," Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri told the crowd that thronged the Jabalya refugee camp.

"We vow to God that we will never recognise Israel even if we would be all killed," Masri told the cheering audience of men, women and children, many of whom were wearing green Hamas baseball caps and held aloft Hamas banners.

Masri, a popular young lawmaker, also aimed criticism at Fatah, a rival movement headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, saying it was trying to pressure Hamas, which now runs the Palestinian government, into recognizing Israel.

"Those people are demanding of us openly to recognize the occupation and that will never happen," Masri said.

Hamas and Fatah have held talks in recent weeks over the possibility of forming a unity government, but those negotiations now appear to have almost completely broken down.

"The protest aims to stress our rejection to recognize the legitimacy of the occupation," Masri said, referring to what Hamas views as Israel's occupation of all of what is calls historic Palestine.

So much for the moderating effect of Hamas coming to power.

Converted?

I had no idea that the New York Times had become a Muslim paper.

A French high school philosophy teacher and author who carried out a scathing attack against the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in a newspaper commentary says he has gone into hiding under police protection after receiving a series of death threats, including one disseminated on an online radical Islamist forum.

The "prophet" Mohammed? Not just Mohammed or the alleged prophet or the so-called prophet- but the prophet Mohammed. Next I guess they- and the many other publications which are doing the exact same thing now- will be adding "pbuh".

It's the Koran

My goodness, first we have a team of highly skilled intelligence analysts coming to the conclusion that a victory in Iraq will spur on the jihadis and now another set of experts have concluded *gasp* that Islamic terrorists are, in fact, inspired to conduct holy war by their religious book.

With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.

Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.

They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

Well, who would have thought it? Jihadis, who routinely record martyrdom videos reciting their reasons for committing mass murder in the name of Allah, are actually inspired by passages in the Koran. This must come as a shock to many people.

The 9/11 hijackers and the London bombers made martyrdom videos. In their last testaments, they recite the Quran while talking of their "love of death" and "sacrificing life for Allah." Seven martyrdom videotapes also were recovered by British authorities in the foiled transatlantic sky terror plot.

French documentarian Pierre Rehov, who interviewed the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it, says it's not a myth or fantasy of heretics.

He says there's no doubt the Quran "promises virgins" to Muslim men who die while fighting infidels in jihad, and it's a key motivating factor behind suicide terrorism.

"It's obviously connected to religion," said Rehov, who features his interviews with Muslims in a recently released film, "Suicide Killers." "They really believe they are going to get the virgins."

He says would-be Muslim suicide bombers he's interviewed have shown him passages in the Quran "in which it's absolutely written that they're going to get the girls in the afterlife."

I can already hear it- these analysts must have caught a bad case of Islamophobia, right? Someone better tell these chaps too-

British scholar Azzam Tamimi recently told 8,000 Muslims in Manchester, England, that dying while fighting "George Bush and Tony Blair" is "just" and "the greatest act of martyrdom." Earlier, he said it's "the straight way to pleasing Allah."

And the founder of an allegedly mainstream Muslim group in Washington – the Council on American-Islamic Relations – also has given his blessing to suicide bombings.

Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine's annual convention in Chicago, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam," according to a transcript provided by terror expert Steve Emerson's Investigative Project.

"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide," Ahmad asserted. "They kill themselves for Islam."

Osama bin Laden has encouraged "Muslims brothers" to defeat the U.S. and U.K. with suicide attacks.

"I tell you to act upon the orders of Allah," he said in 2003, "be united against Bush and Blair and defeat them through suicide attacks so that you may be successful before Allah."

Esmay Again

Dean Esmay. Where to start?

He begins by lambasting Michelle Malkin, and later in the comments, Jihad Watch, LGF and Jawa Report, for all muddling up Muslims as one homogenous whole. His charge is that not distinguishing between Muslims and radical/extremist Muslims is a very bad thing indeed.

Thing is, he does it himself in his response to Malkin's response. Here he is on Michelle-

Michelle says things like, "The Muslims clearly have no response to this, because their religion was spread by the sword, and we can see it is spread so still by the forced conversions of Steve Centani and his camera operator." Not Islamic radicals or extremists. Just Muslims.

And here's Esmay himself later in the same post-

But she did not mention that three Muslims are now on Death Row in Indonesia for the bombing in Bali. Yes, one Islamic radical got off with a light sentence of only a couple of years, but three other Muslims are sentenced to die for their horrible murder of Australian tourists and non-Muslim Indonesians.

Come on, Dean, you big Islamophobe- just Muslims, not radicals or extremists? You swine you, how unpatriotic and traitorous can you get? For more of Esmay's rather shocking use of the M-word without the "radical" disclaimer go and read his post here. Again and again his Islamophobia comes out as he repeatedly refers to the convicted Bali bombers as only being "Muslim". What better way to offend and outrage our Muslim allies around the world!

In fact, he keeps going on about "right wingers" not recognising our Muslim allies, specifically referencing Hamid Karzai and his recent comments alongside President Bush. A video that I heard about and watched over at HotAir.

Does this guy even realise what he's writing? I guess he got a lot of traffic out of his attack on Jihad Watch and wanted a little more of that limelight attention.

Mohammed's Head

Isn't it bizarre- after cartoon-rage and Pope-rage and the worry of opera-rage, news agencies around the world seem to have absolutely zero problem with actually publishing pictures of Mohammed's severed head. All right, it's not his actual severed head but it's a representation of it. Wasn't that exactly why all those Muslims around the world got so incensed about the cartoons?

Where's the rage now? Or does that need to be carefully stoked and stage-managed by various leaders to emerge? Perhaps they just don't have their supplies of German flags ready for burning yet. Some delay with the postal service probably. Maybe it's just me but a fairly inocuous cartoon of Mo with a bomb in his turban causes colossal property damage and death, but pictures of a fake severed head dripping blood gets no response at all. Doesn't make much sense.

BBC Stupidity

I am stunned- the BBC is spending an absolute fortune (collected from the television viewers of the UK via a mandatory TV licence whether or not you actually want to watch the BBC) on a new rebranding exercise.

Yesterday, BBC One revealed its new channel “identity” in a £1.2 million rebranding campaign designed to strengthen its bond with viewers who can now choose from hundreds of competing channels.

The eight 30-second films, costing £150,000 each, feature surfers, stunt motorbike riders, kite fliers and hippos, whose activities converge in the shape of a spinning circle — or a globe, to older viewers.

A further seven films, known as “idents”, will be produced, taking the total budget of the campaign to £2.25 million.

Critics believe that the BBC is spending too much buffing its image as it seeks an above-inflation increase, which could set the licence fee at £180.

What appalls me most is this-

However, with the BBC implementing cuts and redundancies, Mr Fincham was challenged to explain why he was spending the equivalent of two hours of quality drama on four minutes of self-promotional imagery.

What this blithering idiot seems to have missed is that people don't watch the BBC for the blasted clips they play before the programmes start- they watch it, or not, depending on the programmes they broadcast. Such a simple concept and yet it seems to have completely eluded him. If the BBC wants to "strengthen its bond" with viewers they would be advised to actually broadcast shows that people want to watch- instead of continual repeats, medical dramas and reality shows.

I don't watch too much TV anymore- recently I've been hooked on House, Prison Break, NCIS, CSI Miami. All American made and all broadcast on Channel 5. The only other thing I'd tend to sit down to are the excellent ITV murder mysteries- Midsomer Murders or Poirot. In fact, I can't think of anything on the BBC I do watch- the occasional movie (and there are slim pickings there too) or maybe the odd episode of Diagnosis Murder, or whatever show David Attenborough has just made. And that's it. The other channels pay their own way through advertising but I'm forced to pay for the BBC which I hardly ever watch. Even BBC radio tends to be pretty bad- most of the presenters seem to think that people tune in to hear them rather than play music. Again, nothing that can't be had elsewhere, for free, and better.

And this is what they do with the tax their receive from British TV owners- waste it on slots that show for a few seconds between the terrible programmes they broadcast.

Amazing.

Hezbollah Inspiration

Peace in the Middle East? Perhaps one day when attitudes like this change-

The tactics employed by Hizbullah against Israel provide an "attractive model" for Palestinians' armed resistance, according to a poll of Israeli and Palestinian public opinion...According to the poll, which was conducted last week, nearly two-thirds of Palestinians (63%) agree that Palestinians should emulate Hizbullah by firing rockets at Israeli cities, compared to 35% who disagreed.

The latest poll also showed that a majority of Palestinians (57%) supports attacks against Israeli civilians inside the Green Line.

NIE And More

Hamid Karzai and President Bush speaking in a very frank manner to the press- definitely a video to watch. Bush should be this forthright more often.

Here are a couple of samples from the transcript here.

BUSH: I'm not surprised the enemy is exploiting the situation in Iraq and using it as a propaganda tool to try to recruit more people to their murderous ways.

Some people have, you know, guessed what's in the report and have concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree. I think it's naive. I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe.

The terrorists fight us in Iraq for a reason; they want to try to stop a young democracy from developing, just like they're trying to fight this young democracy in Afghanistan.

And they use it as a recruitment tool because they understand the stakes. They understand what will happen to them when we defeat them in Iraq.

This statement is particularly telling- My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions. They kill in order to achieve their objectives.

And

KARZAI: We are a witness in Afghanistan as to what they are and how they can hurt. You are a witness in New York.

Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or a woman to jump off that high?

Who did that? And where are they now? And how do we fight them, how do we get rid of them, other than going after them? Should we wait for them to come and kill us again?

As HotAir notes, it's the way that Karzai delivers this which has the most impact-

It’s not so much what he says as how he says it: the long pauses, the look of utter incredulity that an educated person — from New York City, no less — might not still appreciate the stakes five years later.

I've just watched a clip on the BBC lunchtime news about the NIE leak and subsequent declassification and they completely misrepresented it. They went to pains to spell out this- The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

And then left out the next sentence- Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

So much for unbiased reporting.

Self-Censorship

I guess this proves the Danish cartoonists point- that Westerners are self-censoring themselves out of pure fear of violent retribution.

Officials with the world-renowned Deutsche Oper decided late Monday that the show -- an avant-garde remake of Mozart's "Idomeneo" -- could not go on after police warned that it could result in a violent backlash from Muslim fundamentalists. Opera officials said they were worried about a repeat of the worldwide protests that erupted this year after a Danish newspaper published cartoons satirizing Muhammad.

The tactic of the perpetually agrieved Muslims is working- complain long enough, loudly enough and violently enough and they get their way.

Clinton

So Bill Clinton becomes a little unhinged, shall we say, and declares that at least he tried to get Bin Laden.

At least he tried? So what does he call the Bush administration's overthrow of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan and the campaign that has since killed thousands of Al Qaeda operatives and driven the leadership into hiding?

That's not trying?

Director vs. Critics

Uwe Boll might not be the best director around but he sure can throw a punch-

Tired of the criticism of his films, controversial German film director Uwe Boll took on four of his critics in a Vancouver boxing ring, and ended each bout with a knockout.

Here's my favourite part of the story-

Jeff Sneider of Los Angeles, a journalist with Ain't It Cool News, went down in a technical knockout in the first round after his trainer threw in the towel.

He said Boll, 41, had told him it was just a joke, a public relations stunt.

"Then he started beating the crap out of my head," he said. "I think he's a jerk. This might be PR but I don't want to keep getting punched in the head."

Boll's films aren't terrible- but they are frustratingly on the verge of being the sorts of films that I really enjoy. Which in itself is a guilty pleasure for me- films that don't quite reach their potential are the sorts of projects I like to waste time on rewriting.

So, for his sterling perfomance in the ring trouncing film critics of all people, I will surely make an effort in future to go see his films.

Rest in Peace

I'm sad to report that the unique Col. Jeff Cooper has passed away. Somehow this news slipped past my radar and I only just picked it up. It's a damn shame- the world could certainly do with more men like the Colonel right now.

I didn't always agree with everything he wrote (most of it, yes) but his column in Guns and Ammo was always the first thing I read when each new issue arrived. His commentaries are available to read online here.

He will be missed.

UPDATE- MadOgre commented on Col. Cooper's untimely passing and he had this to say, "He has said a lot of things that are controversial, but you have to understand where he is coming from. He is coming from a better time, when men were men and women were treated with respect." And that really nails it- he really did seem to be a real gentleman. That he came from a bygone age is a terrible indictment of our current society. We may have improved our technologies but manners, politeness and civility haven't faired anywhere near as well.

Liberty

A "rather interesting" video on Blogger. Big hat-tip to Smallest Minority. What makes it even more fascinating for me is that I watched it right after a visit to War on Guns. A strong combination indeed.

Clueless

There's simply no other word for it but "clueless". I mean, really- look at the sticker on her banner. It states "Stop Dictatorship now. Support a Caliphate." Can you believe that anyone can be so uninformed? Amazing. There's another shot of the same sticker here at Flickr.

I can't make out the web address at the bottom to see who made them up. Can anyone supply that info?

Dhimmi Police

The British police seem to have completely lost the plot.

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

This week the Association of Chief Police Officers will discuss with MI5 and the Home Office whether to reveal to the panel intelligence information from the security service.

I cannot think of any other time in history where the police had to get approval from the community hosting a terrorist threat to take action. Sounds like a winning plan, doesn't it? The fact is I am utterly stunned that police will have to seek approval from any committee before carrying out anti-terror raids. If nothing else, how the hell are they supposed to act quickly on time-sensitive intelligence? And why the f**k are these people, who may even be shown information from the intelligence service, not being made to sign the Official Secrets Act? Would that somehow offend their delicate sensibilities?

LGF has details of the Muslim group involved, the MSF-

The Muslim Safety Forum (MSF) was formed by some leading concerned Muslim organisation following 9/11 and the subsequent unfair focus on the Muslim community when it came to policing activities and enforcement of anti-terror policing legislations...Consequently, the MSF came into existence in the year 2000 and had been scrutinizing police activities that have been particularly affecting the Muslim community.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but didn't 9/11 take place in 2001? So how can this group have been formed following that terrible event in 200? Is this a typo or what?

This is the group that calls stop-and-search and anti-terror raids "disproportionate policing". I guess they'll be approving quite a lot of police activity then.

They are the same group that released this statement- "The MSF has always maintained that the Police are targeting the Muslim community...Not one terror related charge has been brought as a result of discriminatory stop and searches. To date, this practice has motivated and provided justification for a right wing onslaught of violence and stigmatisation against innocent members of the Muslim community - recent evidence links the increase in hate crimes against Muslims with the Governments 'War on Terror'."

Here's a little more info on exactly who the MSF are- "The MSF is an umbrella organisation made up of national and regional Islamic organisations including: MAB, IHRC, IFE, MCB London Affairs Committee, YMO UK, Muslim College, FAIR, Amal Trust, The London Central Mosque, London Muslim Centre, Muslim Parliament, FOSIS, ISB, Muslimaat UK, Avenues School, Somali Muslim Community, UKIM, MPAC, Stop Political Terror, Muslim Directory, Ershad Centre, BanglaMedia, Iqra Trust, Association of Muslim Police, Al-Khoei Foundation, UMO, Muslim Welfare House, Women_s Relief."

MPAC, by the way, had this to say after the Forest Gate raid in London- “We can only hope the sleeping Muslims of East London will wake up and rise against the tyranny being perpetrated against our youth in the name of combating terrorism.”

Good thing they're part of the organisation being consulted about anti-terror raids then.

The MSF also protested plans by police to arrest detainees released from Gitmo-

The twenty-member Muslim Safety Forum, made up of community leaders, walked out of their monthly meeting tonight (Monday 24th) attended by Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner David Veness.

MSF chairman Azad Ali, who is also a member of the Islamic Forum Europe, told Blink the group were "seriously considering" their relationship with the police.

The advisors are angry that anti-terrorist officers plan to arrest four British detainees due to be released from US custody in Guantanamo Bay as they arrive at RAF Northolt tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

Unsurprisingly, the MSF are also in favour of Iran developing nuclear weapons-

Azad Ali: Well, it's... You're either fair, and you allow people... You know, what you have for yourself you allow for other people, or you're unfair and an oppressor. So, if I'm a fair person - if I have a house and a car, I'd expect my fellow man to have a house and a car as well, and I wouldn't stop them from getting. It's a simple answer.

Azad Ali: America, Israel - just to name two people that are physically involved in all this stuff. They're killing thousands upon thousands of people, innocent people, backed with the threat of nuclear... So, you know, if you... That's my point, it comes back to my point. If you're a fair and just person, then you would allow what you have for yourself for your other man. If you're an oppressor you wouldn't. So, in my eye, people who are hypocritical, are oppressors.

So the group charged with consulting police anti-terror activity considers the police to be unfairly targeting the Muslim community, is opposed to stop-and-search and anti-terror raids, supports one of the world's major sponsors of terrorism having nuclear weapons and opposed the questioning of terrorism suspects returned from Guantanamo. Oh yeah, and one of their member groups called on Muslims to rise up against the "tyranny" of combating terrorism.

Sure sounds like a winning team to advise the police on their anti-terror policy. Seems to me that their advice to the police will essentially be, "don't do it".

Welcome to Londonistan.

I want to know

Clayton Cramer-

What is just astonishing to me is how the left, and many liberals, just don't get it. They see George Bush as a greater danger than this crowd that wants women banned from learning to read; that doesn't just refuse to let homosexuals get married--it refuses to allow them to live; that makes the most traditional and conservative Christian denominations look like the ACLU with respect to the establishment clause.

It is a rather strange situation where leftists and many liberals, who should have the most to worry about from the increasing dominance of a fiercely homophobic, male chauvinist, anti-freedom of expression, and religiously intolerant worldview, are clearly more afraid of George Bush and Dick Cheney than they are of our common enemy.

I don't get it either. Can anyone explain it?

A Challenge

Pastorius of Infidel Bloggers Alliance has a challenge, inspired by the comments of one of the members of the LA Human Relations Commission about Maher Hathout- “I challenge you to find another party in Los Angeles who is a practicing Muslim leader who would be less controversial.”

Here's Pastorius-

There is not a single moderate Muslim political organization, media outlet, academic institution, or government of any appreciable size, anywhere in the world.

Go ahead, prove me wrong. It will make my day.

Please, please someone prove me wrong.

Okay, there it is- any takers?

Clear Thinking

Thomas has an excellent post over at Infidel Bloggers Alliance. Crisp, clear and to the point.

Virtually everyone in America, Europe and the Free World shares a single idea: atheists and evangelicals; Platonists, Greek Orthodox and Amish; Hispanics, blacks, and WASPS; Baptists, Catholics, and Marxists; hedonistic materialists, party girls, and comedians; Filipino postmen and Dutch engineers; gays, feminists, and High Church Anglican grandmothers. However, it is the nature of our times that this idea, shared by nearly everyone you know and nearly everyone they know, an idea our ancestors believed going back millennia, cannot be spoken in the public square.

This idea can be stated in many ways but it’s basically this: “Allah does not exist, Muhammad was not his prophet, and the Koran is not a holy book.”

Go read it all, for it's a great piece.

If Muslims cannot accept that most people do not believe Allah exists, do not believe Muhammad was a divinely inspired prophet, and do not believe the Koran is a sacred book, then we really are in a clash of civilizations. If Muslims in Pakistan cannot accept that the Catholic Pope will occasionally, without even trying, insult and deny Islam, then we are in for a long and terrible conflict.

Confused?

While liberals are bizarrely obsessed with George Bush's Christian beliefs and their own paranoid fears of a theocracy being established in the USA, they seem to be absolutely fine with the ravings of Iranian thug-in-chief Ahmadinejad.

The last two paragraphs of his [Ahmadinejad's] remarks revealed his steadfast and driving conviction, as previously reported in WND ,that a messianic figure, known as the "Mahdi" to Muslims, is poised to reveal himself after an apocalyptic holocaust on Earth that leaves most of the world's population dead.

I wonder what level the sheer outrage would be if a Western, Christian leader began giving speeches about the end times. Yet when the leader of a state supporting terrorism and striving after nuclear weapons begins to state that he will "pave the path" for the coming apocalypse...silence.

Those libs sure do have their priorities set out right, don't they?

Straight Talking

While the activities of certain diplomats are enough to make me feel like pulling my hair out, it seems that behind the scenes, they might not be quite so- well- diplomatic.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said that after the September 11 attacks the United States threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with America's war campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday, said the threat came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and was given to Musharraf's intelligence director.

"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf said.

Let's hope that it's a message still being broadcast to nations which harbour or support terrorists.

Heroes

I missed this one on September 11, Jim Lee's remembrance of some of the heroes of that terrible day.

CAIR Approves

LGF highlights an interesting list- who CAIR has given their "seal of approval" to. So far, that includes three quarters (76%) of Senate Democrats. By contrast, only 3.5% of Republicans are given the thumbs up by CAIR.

Perhaps something to bear in mind come election time?

O'Donnell's Madness Not Isolated

Rosie O'Donnell's comment that radical Christians are just as dangerous as radical Muslims was astonishing enough. More so for me was the audience reaction- wild clapping in support of it.

And then there's the simply bizarre defence of O'Donnell which took place on Scarborough Country. First of all, Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post tries to compare jihadi violence to the likes of Fred Phelp's and his "God hates fags" signs. So offensive language is just as bad as the brutal murder of children at Beslan, as hacking innocent men's heads off on video, as driving car bombs into markets filled with women shopping? When trying to compare the two types of extremism she even tries to contrast Muslim extremism (i.e. mass murder) with the anti-abortion and anti-condom use of some Christians. That she even tries to compare the two...well, I can't even comprehend how she can do that.

Then there's Jennifer Pozner of "Women in Media and News". When questioned on how many people had been killed in America by Christian radicals she claims to have seen the statistics for the period between '99 and 2000 (not between 99 and 2000 people as I'd originally thought)- she claims that there were 20 abortion clinic bombings and 8 attempted murders.

You find some statistics for abortion clinic attacks listed here (albeit only up to 2004) and here National Abortion Federation too. Eight attempted murders doesn't really compare to the many, many actual murders committed by Islamist terrorists. Nor is any mention made of the major difference between Muslim and Christian fundamentalists; there are no exhortations to perpetual war against unbelievers in the Bible. The Koran on the other hand has a great deal to say about how to treat infidels and how to wage war on them. The Bible also doesn't instruct Christians to chop heads off their enemies.

Pozner also seems to be completely bewildered by what's going on in the world. When the host talks about women and children being blown up she claims it's by "US bombs"; he has to explain the Sunni-Shia violence going on in Iraq.

There's also a nice Freudian slip from Pozner at the end of the interview- when asked outright if Muslim extremists pose as much of a threat as Christian extremists, she first answers, "No." That answer's quickly changed of course to a "it depends who you are".

Front Page News

If only the media weren't blinded by their Bush Derangement Syndrome, this would be front page news-

Folks in Oklahoma are readjusting to an image not typically associated with the global war on terrorism, a 73-year old great-grandmother just back from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Lena Haddix, a native of Lawton, has spent the last six months in full battle armor helping troops find snacks, shampoo and other American products at the Army & Air Force Exchange Service Post Exchange/Base Exchange in Camp Liberty, Iraq.

The personification of the Exchange's motto of “We Go Where You Go,” Haddix recently returned from her second voluntary deployment to the Middle East as a store manager. After previously volunteering to work in Kuwait, Haddix decided her work wasn't done and went back for a second tour of duty, this time to Baghdad, Iraq.

What a lady!

France and the Jihadis

Evidence, if any were needed, that the Leftist strategy of trying to appease the crocodile doesn't mean that you won't get eaten- just that you won't be devoured quite so quickly.

Deputy al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged a militant Algerian Islamist group to punish "crusader nation" France, even though it vehemently opposed the US-led war in Iraq, a newspaper said on Thursday.

So it seems quite clear that it's not the war in Iraq which is causing all this jihadist violence. Gee, I wonder what else it could be?

It [terrorist group GSPC- the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat] is viewed as a major threat by the French security services and sources quoted by Le Figaro said it had switched its focus to taking part in the international jihad -- which means holy war in Arabic -- after losing influence at home.

Many French people believe their country is less of a target for Islamist-inspired attacks because of France's stance over Iraq, but officials say that cuts no ice with militants.

It's a real puzzler, isn't it?

Pope Speaks Out

So the Pope has ruffled some Muslim feathers by quoting a 12th century leader who said that Mohammed had brought evil and inhuman things into the world such as "his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The BBC is quick to point out that Muslim anger is growing over the comments- what are they, some sort of Islamophobes?

Predictably the Religion of Taking Great Offense has condemned the Pope's remarks. Pakistan claimed that the Pope had "injured sentiments" of Muslims, in Kashmir such great offense was taken that separatist leaders were put under house arrest, the Turks claimed that he was being "hostile", the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said that the Pope's statement expressed "wrong and distorted beliefs" and in Qatar a cleric said that Muslims "have the right to be angry and hurt" by the speech.

As Jihad Watch points out, there are even efforts to prevent the spread of the news of the Pope's speech in Kashmir-

OK, so let me get this straight: the Pope says that jihad violence is against God's nature, and officials fear that in response, Muslims enraged by this insult will commit...jihad violence.

ACLU Strikes Again

Stop the ACLU has the details-

Today, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that attorneys seeking to represent indigent clients are no longer required to sign documents swearing that they are not terrorists and have no involvement with terrorist groups.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio had challenged the provision, which is part of the Ohio Patriot Act, calling the requirement unnecessary red tape that will do nothing to prevent terrorism.“We are pleased the court recognized that attorneys should not be forced to sign these ineffective and offensive pledges,” said ACLU of Ohio Executive Director Christine Link.

I'm not at all surprised that the ACLU finds it offensive to state that they aren't involved in terrorism. This is the same group that refused to accept funds because "they objected to promising that none of the funds would be used to engage in any activity that promotes violence, terrorism, bigotry, or the destruction of any state." They had that provision scrapped too.

Why object to accepting funds with anti-terror strings? Why protest so strongly against a simple oath that they are not involved with terrorist groups?

Just why does a pro-civil liberties group find it so hard to distance themselves from civil liberties hating terrorist groups?

Clooney and Darfur

So George Clooney is demanding that something be done by the UN to stop the bloodshed in Darfur. I guess it takes a year or so for a cause like this to become fashionable among the rich and famous- it wouldn't have hurt to have people like him clamouring for such action when Bush went against the UN on this very same topic in June last year to declare that it was a genocide.

Clooney remember is the same genius who says, "You can't beat your enemy anymore through wars." Of course not, George, so what are we supposed to use to stop the mass slaughter in Darfur? Harsh language?

What strikes me about this is that Clooney, and people like him, who are so intent on saving lives in Darfur- an action that desperately needs to take place- are the very same ones who protest so vigorously against the American overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. In Darfur the death toll so far is a staggering 200,000 lives lost. During his reign Hussein oversaw the deaths of well over a million.

So tell me again George- why is sending troops to Iraq wrong, but sending troops to Darfur right?

A Truther's Thoughts

LGF has a post up detailing a Truther's account of how he spent the 9/11 anniversary. The entire thing bears reading. A few choice sentences stood out for me though. Here's how he finishes his account-

Another thing I couldn’t help but notice was the respect, concern, and love that the 9/11 Truth Movement represented. And on the other side, the hate and anger and wickedness of the so called “ordinary” people. They could not debate one fact, they couldn’t talk without cursing or offending whoever they were talking to. To think that if it were them who died in the towers, and I had been there fighting for truth and wanting to know what happened to them, how unworthy they would be to protest for. I’m absolutely sure that there were good people that died in the towers, and not all evil hateful monsters like those there yesterday pretending to mourn. I dedicate my protest to any good person that died in the buildings, but it’s sad to say, those people I encountered yesterday in mass, are not worth protesting for. Next time they’re government kills them, I might just stay home and be quiet.

Which, I think, says a heck of a lot about this person. However, this other part of his tale is also worth hightlighting, especially when he talks of all the "respect, concern and love" of the Truthers themselves.

Then the hate began. Some Jew looking dude in a suit came up to me and asked “where are you from?” I said “PA”, and he said “you should go back to PA, asshole” and walked away. It took me by suprise, and I started laughing, I thought about saying “you should go back to Israel” but instead just shouted to him “you have a nice day too sir” and smiled.

Totalitarianism

Clayton Cramer makes some valid points about the totalitarian leanings of the so-called liberal. His post discusses the arrest of Christians who were handing out leaflets containing Biblical verses at a gay event. He was charged with "'threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour". You can be arrested now for being insulting?

Commentators at the site Mr. Cramer links to seem to think that preventing Christian beliefs being expoused is a good thing.

I guess they think that the groupthink must be protected at all costs, including the banning of free speech.

This is what passes for liberal thought these days?

Remember

Bin Laden's own words from October 2001-

This battle is not between al Qaeda and the U.S. This is a battle of Muslims against the global crusaders.

That's the big one, a message that needs to be repeated again and again to those who believe that 9/11 and the events that have followed are somehow caused by American foreign policy.

There's more-

The events of Tuesday, September the 11th, in New York and Washington are great on all levels. Their repercussions are not over. Although the collapse of the twin towers is huge, but the events that followed, and I'm not just talking about the economic repercussions, those are continuing, the events that followed are dangerous and more enormous than the collapse of the towers.

The values of this Western civilization under the leadership of America have been destroyed. Those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone up in smoke.

-

Jihad is a duty to liberate Al-Aqsa, and to help the powerless in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon and in every Muslim country. There is no doubt that the liberation of the Arabian Peninsula from infidels is a duty as well. But it is not right to say that Osama put the Palestinian issue first.

-

We have one religion, one God, one book, one prophet, one nation. Our book teaches us to be brothers of a faith. All the Muslims are brothers. The name "al Qaeda" was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahedeen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al Qaeda [meaning "the base" in English]. And the name stayed. We speak about the conscience of the nation; we are the sons of the nation. We brothers in Islam from the Middle East, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and as far as Mauritania.

Those men who sacrificed themselves in New York and Washington, they are the spokesmen of the nation's conscience. They are the nation's conscience that saw they have to avenge against the oppression.

The Jews and the Americans made up this call for peace in the world. The peace they're calling for is a big fairy tale. They're just drugging the Muslims as they lead them to slaughter. And the slaughter is still going on. If we defend ourselves, they call us terrorists. The prophet has said, "The end won't come before the Muslims and the Jews fight each other till the Jew hides between a tree and a stone. Then the tree and stone say, "Oh, you Muslim, this is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him." He who claims there will be a lasting peace between us and the Jews is an infidel. He'll be denouncing the book and what's in it.

Helpfully, CNN has excised all of the passages from the Koran that Bin Laden uses to justify his reasoning.

Eyes Wide Open

Michelle Malkin has a little volcabulary test.

If only more people were really aware of what all those terms meant.

Be Alert

The point has been made that Mohammed taught that an enemy should be invited to join Islam before launching an attack- invitations that have been made by Iranian despot Ahmadinejad and also by al-Zawahiri and American traitor Adam Gadhan.

Al-Zawahri spoke in the third and longest video, warning Americans of more attacks to come.

"We have repeatedly warned you and offered a truce with you. Now we have all the legal and rational justification to continue to fight you until your power is destroyed or you give in and surrender," he said. "The days are pregnant and giving birth to new events."

The indispensable Jihad Watch has more.

Remember that- the choice that Al Qaeda is offering us is surrender or destruction.

Poll Results

A poll of over 40,000 Al Jazeera viewers whose results are worth noting-

2) Do you support Osama bin Laden?
Yes - 49.9 %
No - 50.1 %

Hunt For Bin Laden

Defense Tech has an article called "How We Let Osama Get Away". It concludes by alleging that the Bush administration "let their hard-ons for Iraq and their petty infighting distract them from nailing America's number one enemy...They've shown would-be Osamas all over the world that you can attack America, and get off scot-free." Either that or they've shown would-be Bin Laden's that if they dare attack America that the US will go so far as toppling the regime harbouring them to get them. And a good number of their associates would be killed or captured in the process.

The author lays the blame for Bin Laden's evasion squarely on Bush and then goes on to add "there hasn't been a credible lead on the Al-Qaida cheiftain's whereabouts in more than two years." That's according to the Washington Times anyway. He decries the decision to pull out some Special Forces troops from Afghanistan that were hunting Bin Laden as if they were the only people capable of conducting the search. I think the men of units like the 10th Mountain Division might have something to say about that.

No mention is made of the 100,000 US, Afghan and Pakistani forces still searching for him. And there's no credible evidence that Bin Laden remained in Afghanistan for long after the Taliban were toppled- so if all those troops had been kept there, there's still no evidence that they would have been able to capture him. Despite the huge number in Russian troops in Afghanistan for a decade, the leaders of the Mujahideen were impossible to capture; and the Russians used a ruthless scorched earth policy to destroy whole villages. If such tactics failed them for a decade, is it really reasonable to blame Bush for removing a small cadre of Special Forces for the failure to find Bin Laden after only five years? I don't think so.

Defense Tech goes on to include criticism that the government employs no single man to oversee the hunt for Bin Laden. On the surface that seems like a valid enough point but there are Special Forces, Intelligence and Army detachments in Afghanistan who are already tasked with the job. They already know what the job is and are out there doing it - Bin Laden has apparently been reduced to using human couriers to communicate with the outside world. Will another bureaucrat and associated staff filling an office in Washington really make all that much of a difference to the effort currently being pursued? I'm not all that sure that it would.

Mistakes certainly have been made in the war we're currently engaged in- but hindsight is 20/20. Mistakes are always made in wars- and they are always easy to spot after the event. Whatever has been done is already done. There's no way to change the past and continually harping on about the difference that removing some SF guys from Afghanistan a few years ago may have made to the man-hunt is not at all helpful.

Perhaps the author would have been better served outlining his foolproof plan for capturing Bin Laden than criticising the massive manhunt still under way.

Walt Gaya

Walt Gaya, half of Kim du Toit's Adam and Walter Fund, is heading back into harm's way in Iraq; this time though, the former Army sniper is travelling there as a photographer. He now has his own homepage over at Michael Yon's where you can check out his first post- and there's also a podcast available too.

Surely one for your bookmarks. And let's hope that he returns home safe and sound to his family.

CRKT Ryan Plan B

My latest knife acquisition is yet another CRKT- a Ryan Plan B. It's a little fixed and partially serrated blade. The design reminds me, at least, of a kind of karambit- and the handle is marked on the back side for either an up or down grip. Of all the knives I've bought recently this is one that might be most considered a fighter, as the name implies. Despite it's two and three quarter inch edge, it's an aggressive design- and the Zytel scales provide a superb grip.

Even though my CRKT SST is the blade that I carry most day-to-day, the Plan B is rapidly gaining my favour. And it is very easy to carry. The two-part sheath system can be worn on the belt (up or down) or on a neck chain (included). I had thought that the neck chain would be fairly obvious beneath a T-shirt but it's not as it's quite a slender set-up. The only time that carry is obvious this way is when you bend over.

As for belt carry, the right-hand design actually suits me (a southpaw) great. I simply clip it to the inside of my waistband and it not only turns the grip around the right way for me but also conceals it further. It also means that I can carry at the small of my back well too with the sheath tilted over a little. The knife is just the right size for concealed carry- it even fits nicely in the front pocket of my jeans too.

I'm very impressed by this little blade; it's a good size, offers a great grip, has a suitably aggressive design and is all too easy to carry. Yet again, CRKT have come through- and yet again, this particular item no longer appears in their online catalogue. Get one before they're all gone.