Saturday, February 24, 2007

Muslim apologist, thy name is coward

Raphael Israeli, a professor of Islamic, Middle East and Chinese history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem wrote in The Australian I have been researching Islam in Europe and have come to some disturbing findings about the new third Islamic invasion of Europe: specifically, the Muslim neighbourhoods that breed violence and trouble and the home-grown European Muslims who have sworn to change Europe to their tune, to Islamise it and to use violence, if necessary, to that end.

Europe needs to wake up as to the threat they are facing.
So much so that erstwhile proponents of immigration such as France, The Netherlands and Britain have had to revise their laws, introduce new restrictions and shelve the marvellous utopia of multiculturalism as simply unfeasible and counterproductive.... Some, of course, prefer to hide behind hollow slogans of "inter-communal harmony", "inter-faith co-operation" and "multiculturalism" instead of exposing Muslim violence and inflammatory rhetoric and act, together with Muslim moderates, to uproot these phenomena. Aware of the European parallel, I am neither surprised by the Muslim leaders' attempts to shut off any debate in Australia and intimidate anyone who raises his voice against such actions, nor by the Australian press complicity in that process. Only yesterday I received threats from a Chechen Islamic website. So much for civilised debate.
To have civilized debate, all praties must be civilized.

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Imposing Islamic law

Washington Times reported I saw something eerie this week. It wasn't an apparition exactly, but rather a head-spinning blur of headlines about global jihad that, rather incredibly, began to take on the unmistakable shape of a British old school tie. How? Maybe I should start by explaining it was the old school tie that came to mind first in the form of a new publication on British education: namely, a 72-page manifesto (sorry, "guidance") from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) on how British state schools might better accommodate children from the Muslim community, which, according to the 2001 census, makes up 2.7 percent of the British population.

They should not make any changes just to accomodate 2.7 per cent of the population
Did I say "better" accommodate their Muslim pupils? I mean, much, much better accommodate them. In fact, if the British were to adopt half of the MCB's recommendations for making British schooling Muslim-friendly, they might as well re-issue the 19th-century boy's school classic as Abdullah Brown's School Days. At the crux of the Muslim council's document is a call for special treatment for Britain's Muslim students that is so special as to reorient the entire British system according to Islamic law. The report kicks off with a British poll finding that religion "appears to be more important" to young Muslims than to young people of "white British or mixed heritage."
Then they should encourage the majority to be more religious, or encourage the Muslims to be more secular.
It seems to follow, then, at least according to the council's logic, that Muslim religious requirements should also supercede those of "white British or mixed heritage young people," not to mention those of the Church of England. And, so, in this report, they effectively do.....The Muslim council isn't asking the British taxpayer to create the perfect Shariah state exactly, but rather the perfect Shariah state school system.

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'Anti-Muslim' Literature Handed Out in Class

FOXNews reported "First of all, it slanders, things like, Mohammed is a 'criminal,'

Is Muhammad a "thing", or is that phrase something that can be slandered? I know what you meant to say ,but that is not what you said.
is 'demon possessed' ... that just made my blood boil," said Triaq Butte, whose daughter, Saira, participated in a ninth grade orientation seminar at Enloe High School in Wake County, N.C., where the material was distributed. Butte is a non-practicing Muslim; he said his wife is Christian and his children are taught to accept and respect all religions.
If he was a practicing Muslim I suspect he would feel differently.
"So for a person like me to feel like that — I've never been to a mosque — to feel like that … for me to feel such hideous attacks, they were not just pointing out failures or weaknesses in Islam or Muslims, they were just attacking."
If that was what they said, I would agree with you, but that is not born out by theexample presented in the aritcle.
Among the materials handed out was a pamphlet called "Jesus not Muhammad," as well as one entitled, "Do Not Marry a Muslim Man." The latter pamphlet compares parts of the Koran with those of the Bible, such as:
  • "Husband, beat your wives and deny them sex." (The book of Islam, Koran 4:34)
  • "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her." (The Holy Bible, Ephesians 5:25)
It warns women not to be lured into marrying a Muslim, even for his "dark good looks, education, financial means, and the interest he shows in you."
The quotes are both accurate, and based on them, the warning is a good one.
.... The Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote to superintendent of the Wake County Public School System, asking for an apology to the students, disciplinary action against the teacher, a review of policies regarding what outside speakers are allowed to say in class, and more diversity training.
This presentation may well have been in response to some of the teaching pushing Islam we have read about.
"It is unconscionable for a teacher at any public school to abuse his or her position of trust by forcing such hate-filled, inaccurate and intolerant materials on students," CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar wrote in the letter.
Is the Qur'an quote incorrect???

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Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike

Telegraph Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

Give it to them. They prevented Saddam from getting Nukes, and they are the obvious target for Iranian Nukes. Israel should also make it clear that if they are attacked by a nuclear weapon from any where, that they have redundant procedures in place to make sure that Mecca and Medina are both destroyed. Maybe that would give the Muslims second thoughts about attacking Israel.
To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon. A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons.

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Friday, February 23, 2007

Vilsack to end White House bid

CNN reported Democrat Tom Vilsack is abandoning his bid for the presidency after struggling against better-known, better-financed rivals, a senior campaign official told The Associated Press on Friday.

It is a shame. At least he was a former governor, and hence had experience in the executive branch. Most Dems running are just current or former Senators, who think they know how to run the country when they don't have a clue..

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Left and Right Netroots

ProfessorBainbridge blogged Meanwhile, over on the left side of the netroots, liberal bloggers plan primary challenges against moderate Democrats in Congress who depart from the left's cut-and-run orthodoxy.
What they don't realize is that they won because they were in the center. Replacing them with extreme lefties increases the chance the Republicans will win.
There is a considerable chance such efforts will be successful, at least on the House side. The national disgrace of gerrymandering has created a system in which the vast majority of House seats are safe for one of the two parties. As a result, the real action is in the primaries, which tend to be dominated by activists. As a result, we see the polarization of Congress, as GOP candidates tend hard right to win their primaries and vice-versa for the Democrats. Now the netroots plan to exacerbate the problem.

The solution seems obvious. A national system of nonpartisan redistricting designed to maximize the number of truly competitive seats. In such a system, candidates would succeed by appealing to the center rather than the extremes, which in turn would reduce the destructive influence of the rabid partisans on both sides of the net.
IMHO the way to do that is to use computers programmed to select the most compact districts possible, without any knowledge of the polotical affiliation.
Of course, I won't be holding my breath.

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Anna Nicole's Body

TMZ.com reported With tears in his eyes, Judge Larry Seidlin has ruled that the disposition of Anna Nicole's body will be determined by Richard Milstein, the guardian ad litem of Dannielynn Stern, in consultation with the three parties.

This nutcast judge kept accepting testamony on several matters over which he had no jurisdiction, so as to prolong the matter while he was on TV, because he hopes to get a job as a TV Judge, like Judge Judy. He had only one matter on which to rule, and his final ruling was to let someone else make the decision.
He strongly recommended that Anna Nicole be buried "next to her son." The guardian will make the decision as to the final resting place of Anna. All three parties were in tears, and Seidlin himself had to hold the hand of a court clerk to steady himself as he rendered the judgment.

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A World Without America

Betsy Newmark blogged 18 Doughty Street, a British group that doesn't hate America has produced an Internet ad looking at what a World Without America would be like.

Thank you. It's a telling reminder.

I agree, Betsy

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Testing Windows Live Writer

This is a test of Windows Live Writer, a blogging tool recommended by a fellow blogger, Danny Carlton

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Lower Voter Turnout Is Seen in States That Require ID

NYT reported States that imposed identification requirements on voters reduced turnout at the polls in the 2004 presidential election by about 3 percent, and by two to three times as much for minorities, new research suggests.

I wonder what the results were in Chicago, the "vote early and often" city.
The study, prepared by scholars at Rutgers and Ohio State Universities for the federal Election Assistance Commission, supports concerns among voting-rights advocates that blacks and Hispanics could be disproportionately affected by ID requirements.
Do they not have ID cards? How do they cash a check, rent videos at Blockbuster, or get on an airplane? Voter ID would actually help them if the state made them available for free or for very low charge.
But federal officials say more research is needed to draw firmer conclusions about the effects on future elections.

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Father killed family for being too western

Telegraph reported A father killed his wife and four daughters in their sleep because he could not bear them adopting a more westernised lifestyle, an inquest heard yesterday.

That is one way of handling it. Riaz, do you think this will give you a free pass to Paradise?
Mohammed Riaz, 49, found it abhorrent that his eldest daughter wanted to be a fashion designer, and that she and her sisters were likely to reject the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages..... Riaz, who had spent all but the last 17 years of his life in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan, met his Anglo-Pakistani wife when her father sent her to the sub-continent to find a husband.
A bad move. eHarmony.com would have been a better choice.
After an arranged marriage, she developed a career as a community leader in Accrington while he, handicapped by a lack of English, took on a series of low-paid jobs.

After Mrs Riaz's father died she "suddenly felt less beholden to Mohammed", a friend said. "She started to develop her own circle of friends and allowed the girls to express themselves in a more western way."
That is the problem with arranged marriages.
She began to work with women who felt suppressed by Asian culture and many saw her as a role model for young Asian women.

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Steve Jobs Has Guts

NY Sun reports Steve Jobs has guts — enough guts to speak his mind about what he thinks is wrong with public education even at the risk of harming his business interests. In a speech on Friday, the chief executive officer of Apple and Disney honcho declared: "I believe that what's wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way."

The problem with unionization, Mr. Jobs argued, is that it has constrained schools from attracting and retaining the best teachers and from dismissing the less effective ones.

And those less effective ones are teaching the children.
This, in turn, deters quality people from seeking to become principals and superintendents. "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good? Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, ‘I can't win,'" Mr. Jobs said. He concluded by saying, "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
Steve is absolutely right. It almost makes me want to buy an Apple. Almost.

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Religious Divisions within Germany: A Parallel Muslim Universe

Spiegel reported Germany's Muslim population is becoming more religious and more conservative. Islamic associations are fostering the trend, particularly through their work with the young -- accelerating the drift towards a parallel Muslim society

To heck with adopting the culture of their host country.
.... Run by the Association of Islamic Cultural Centers, known by its German acronym VIKZ, the home houses 38 Muslim adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19. They attend state schools in the morning, but otherwise live and learn in the green house.... German academics and youth experts have warned that this type of group is widening the gulf between Muslims and the rest of society.... Spuler-Stegemann presents detailed proof of her allegations. Despite assertions to the contrary, the homes were "almost exclusively devoted to Islamic teaching and practice of the faith," she wrote.
Otherwise why would Saudia Arabia support them.
They were "an unequivocal obstacle to integration." The pupils were "indoctrinated" into a "rigidly sharia-oriented" form of Islam and "immunized" against Christianity, the West and the German constitution.
A good way to make good German Citizens. NOT!!!!
She described VIKZ as an elitist organization within Islam that made sure its pupils were trained to accept strict obedience and an even stricter segregation of the sexes.... A junior-high school teacher from North Rhine-Westphalia, whose school is in the catchment area of an unofficial VIKZ home, has been observing the situation for years. She witnessed how the pupils suddenly adopted "extremely anti-Semitic and anti-American attitudes." English was seen as the enemy's language. "Today, some of them refuse to speak it at all, even if it means failing their exams." They reject the theory of evolution in biology lessons, the age of the Earth as discussed in geography, and anything remotely satirical in their German classes, she said.

The teacher made a further observation. When the boys in the home "had been reciting the Koran until 11 o'clock at night, as they did regularly," they were so sleep-deprived the next day that they simply dozed off during class.... In another regional case, the judges had to decide whether a class excursion was mandatory for a Muslim girl. In their ruling of 2002, they parroted the language of a fatwa issued two years previously. The former chairman of the Islamic Religious Community in Hesse had stipulated that a Muslim woman not accompanied by a mahram, a male blood relative, must not stray more than 50 miles from her home - because this is the distance a caravan of camels can travel in 24 hours. Camels are something of an anomaly on the German autobahn these days.
ROF, LMAO
Sympathetic judges nonetheless recommended sending the 15-year-old brother along as a mahram. Given her fear of losing her headscarf or violating other religious laws, the schoolgirl's condition, they argued, was comparable to that of a "partially mentally handicapped person." She therefore needed somebody to accompany her; otherwise, she should not be forced to take part in the trip, they reasoned.
And to make sure she did not learn anything that woold make her less mentally handicapped.
... Many more girls are wearing headscarves, and almost all the Muslim students fasted during the major Islamic holidays, with catastrophic consequences for their performance at school. "The further we get into Ramadan, the more distracted the pupils become."
Children before the onset of puberty are not required to fast, though some do. Also some small children fast for half a day instead of a whole day so they get used to fasting.
.... He cannot get through to his pupils any more, Pagel complains. "If I say that headscarves are worn less in Turkey than here, they simply counter: 'That's why we came to Germany, so that we can openly practice our religion.'"
not go to Saudia Arabia, where it will be even easier.
WhyAnd sometimes they simply remind him that - as a non-Muslim - he would be better off keeping such views to himself.
The students threatening their teachers???

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Anti-American feelings soar among Muslims

TimesOnline reported The War on Terror has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted.

They liked us better when we just ignored things like bombing the USS Cole and or our Embassy in Nairobi, rather than fighting back. We should take this into consideration when considering allowing Muslims to immigrate to this country, especailly clerics funded by Saudia Arabia.
Seven per cent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”.
We need to keep an eye on them.
In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US. Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised
We should consider that when we consider student visas and Foreign Aid.
.... A large number of Muslims supported the Western ideal of democratic government. Fifty per cent of radicals supported democracy, compared with 35 per cent of moderates.
Is that in Europe where they think they will soon outnumber the non-Muslims, and take over the country?
Religion was found to have little to do with radicalisation or antipathy towards Western culture.
That is foolishness.
Muslims were condemnatory of promiscuity and a sense of moral decay.
Then they should not come to the West, but should stay in Islamic countries.
What they admired most was liberty, its democratic system, technology and freedom of speech.
That is because they don't have those things under Sharia Law.
While there was widespread support for Sharia, or Islamic law, only a minority wanted religious leaders to be making laws.
Then they don't understand Sharia Law.
Most women in the predominantly Muslim countries believed that Sharia should be the source of a nation’s laws, but they strongly believed in equal rights for women.
They really don't understand the Qur'an or Sharia Law.
It is not only ok, but ordered, that a man should beat his wife. Qur'an 4:34 says Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.

Rights of a woman 1/2 that of a man Qur'an 2:282 says ... Let his guardian dictate faithfully, and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.
This finding indicates the complexity of the struggle ahead for Western understanding. Few Western commentators can see how women could embrace the veil, Sharia and equal rights at the same time.
I agree.

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Suicide bomber targets Afghan hospital

Yahoo! News reported A suicide attacker disguised as a health worker blew himself up at a hospital opening ceremony

Does the Qur'an have something against Emergency Rooms?
in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, wounding at least two NATO soldiers and a hospital staffer, the provincial governor said. Afghan security forces had blocked the attacker from approaching a crowd of about 150 people who had gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open an emergency ward at the main government hospital in the city of Khost, said Gov. Arsalah Jamal.

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Gore may get doctorate

Minnesota Daily Reported former Vice President Al Gore could pay a visit to the University in the near future to receive an honorary degree for his work in climatology.

You've got to be kidding. He is not doing any research, just cherry picking research done by others and hyping it.
University President Bob Bruininks spilled the beans at the February Board of Regents meeting, saying that "two of our colleges are working with Vice President Gore to provide, we hope, an honorary doctorate."
Why don't they study exactly what he has hyped, and expose it.
Gore has been in the news lately for his 2006 documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," about global warming. University spokesperson Daniel Wolter said since Gore is an expert in the subject, several colleges at the University have expressed interest in inviting Gore to speak on campus.

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The Woman in the Middle

WaPo reported The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party's left wing had already settled on their new enemy: Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), the outspoken chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

This is good. Maybe Tauscher and the rest of her Coalition will decide to become Republicans.
Progressive blogs -- including two new ones, Ellen Tauscher Weekly and Dump Ellen Tauscher -- were bashing her as a traitor to her party. A new liberal political action committee had just named her its "Worst Offender."
She is definitely a leftie, just not as extreme left as the nutroots.
And in Tauscher's East Bay district office that day in January, eight MoveOn.org activists were accusing her of helping President Bush send more troops to Iraq. Helping? Jennifer Barton, the lawmaker's district director, played them a DVD of Tauscher blasting the increase as an awful idea in a floor speech eight days earlier. "The words are fine and good, but we are looking for leadership," scoffed Susan Schaller, one of the activists.
In other words do it our way.
Leadership? Barton showed them the eight golden shovels Tauscher had received for bringing transportation projects to her suburban district, along with numerous awards she had won for her work protecting children, wetlands, affordable housing and abortion rights. "That's fine and good," Schaller repeated, "but this is about Iraq."
When you are as filled with hate as the nutroots are, you can only focus on one thing. And in this case it is forcing us to lose in Iraq, so they can blame Bush for the loss.

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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Female Pakistani minister shot dead for 'breaking Islamic dress code'

TimesOnline A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil.

And this is up to INE man to determine?
Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said. Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.

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The Other Iraq

Michael J. Totten blogged If I could distill everything I heard, saw, and learned in the Kurdistan region of Iraq into a 12-minute video, it would look a lot like this

It is a very interesting clip, and I urge all to watch it. The only problem is that it will shrink your browser window to the size of the clip, but you can maximize it when finished.
Click that link. Watch. This is marvelous work from 60 Minutes, some of the best mainstream media journalism I have seen out of the Middle East, the absolute antithesis of Diane Sawyer's useless interview with Syria's Bashar Assad last week.
I guess with NBC's rapid push from Left Leaning to extreme left, CBS decided it was time for a little objective news reporting.
I only caught one factual error. The Iraqi flag is not banned in Kurdistan. It still flies in the city of Suleimania, but it's the old version of the flag before Saddam Hussein wrote Allahu Akbar on it. 60 Minutes has done truly excellent work capturing the essence of this lovely place and these wonderful people and editing it all down into such a brief and comprehensive introduction.

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Conversation with Hillary

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for making this HotAir video available for embedding

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The war within Islam

Christopher Hitchens wrote in Slate Magazine On Web sites that offer advice to the devout, Sunnis and Shiites ask their imams and ayatollahs whether it is permitted to take the life of a member of the other sect.

If your Holy Book says it it proper to kill anyone that does not believe as you do, then such questions make sense. It is the initial premise that is inconsistent with life in the 21st Century.
On American campuses, Muslim student groups now shun one another on a confessional basis. Throughout the Arab and Persian media, moods of excommunication and denunciation are vocally expressed. Almost every day in Iraq, as has been well-reported, a mosque is blown up or a religious procession shredded by other Muslims. As is less well-reported, the same thing happens in Pakistan almost every week. And it is waiting to happen in other countries, too, as the Alawite sect that runs Syria (Alawism being a splinter of Shiism) gets ready for another confrontation with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, and as Sunni minorities in Iran become restive at the increasingly sectarian character of the Shiite dictatorship.... All over the non-Muslim world, we hear incessant demands that those who believe in the literal truth of the Quran be granted "respect."
Respect is not granted; it must be earned, and to earn it they should respect other faiths.
We are supposed to watch what we say about Islam, lest by any chance we be considered "offensive."
There is no right to not be offended.
A fair number of authors and academics in the West now have to live under police protection or endure prosecution in the courts for not observing this taboo with sufficient care. A stupid term—Islamophobia—has been put into circulation to try and suggest that a foul prejudice lurks behind any misgivings about Islam's infallible "message."

Well, this idiotic masochism has to be dropped. There may have been a handful of ugly incidents, provoked by lumpen elements, after certain episodes of Muslim terrorism. But no true secularist or even Christian has been involved in anything like the torching of a mosque. (The last time that such a thing did happen on any scale—in Bosnia—the United States and Britain intervened militarily to put a stop to it. We also overthrew the Taliban, which was slaughtering the Hazara Shiite minority in Afghanistan.) But where are the denunciations from centers of Sunni and Shiite authority of the daily murder and torture of Islamic co-religionists?
Or appreciation for the Muslims we helped in Bosnia.
Of the regular desecration of holy sites and holy books? Of the paranoid insults thrown so carelessly and callously by one Muslim group at another? This mounting ghastliness is a bit more worthy of condemnation, surely, than a few Danish cartoons or a false rumor about a profaned copy of the Quran in Guantanamo. The civilized world—yes I do mean to say that—should find its own voice and state firmly to Muslim leaders and citizens that respect is something to be earned and not demanded with menace. A short way of phrasing this would be to say, "See how the Muslims respect each other!"

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Congratulations to Emory Wheel

Congratulations to Emory Wheel for being brave enough to publish A Bestselling Author Offers a Different Definition of Jihad by Robert Spencer. Everyone should read the article.

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Muslim Bludgeoned Relatives to Death Because He Felt 'Disrespected'

FOXNews reported An enraged Iranian immigrant used a 3-pound hammer to beat his wife, sister-in-law and mother-in-law to death and then stabbed them repeatedly because he felt "disrespected," police said Monday.

I know Islam authorizes a man to beat his wife
Qur'an 4:34 says Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.
, but I dont think sisters-in-law or mothers-in-law are included, and he needs to be in a Muslim country, under Sharia law, to be able to beat his wife.
After the attack, Daryoush Ebrahimi, 55, also struck himself several times in the head with the same maul hammer he used to bludgeon his relatives, said Chicago Police Cmdr. Thomas Byrne.
Did he figure he would die a martyr, and get an immediate pass to Paradise?
"It was a very difficult scene, and that would be indicative of that type of anger," Byrne said of the two apartments where the bodies were found on the city's far North Side.

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Vote once a week

As you will notice, there is a PajamasMedia Presidential Straw Poll icon on the top of my right column.


Please click it and vote for your favorite candidate for both the Democratic and Republican Party. You can vote once a week, and if you vote here you can see how people voted at my precinct, and also how everyone voted in all of the precincts.

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Worth Repeating

I have seen this before, but I just saw it again, at Outside The Beltway | OTB

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing ?”

She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the conservative Republican party.”
Like I said, it was worth repeating

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Do you CAIR

Watch this video to learn the truth about CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations)

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Abdel Karim's family disowns him

Sandmonkey blogged Abdel Karim

Imprisoned Egyptian blogger who wrote that has stated that he believes women and men should be treated equally; that Islamic extremism is gravely hurting Arab society; and that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right.
father announced today that he is disowning Abdel Karim, and that he would like to see Sharia Law applied to his son, in which he would have 3 days to repent at the end of which if he is not repentent, he would be killed.
Mothers are happy to see their children become suicide bombers, and here a father is asking that his son be killed for rejecting Islam. With this sort of support from one's own family, is it such a surprise that some Muslims embrace Islamoterrorism?
The Father also announced that he intends to disown his son publically in court- accompanied by his Koran-memorizing 4 other children- the day of the verdict in order to "lift the pressure" that the civil society and human rights organization maybe imposing on the Court. He also called the Human Rights organizations who are fighting for his son's freedom "Chimps Rights Organizations" since "they are defending a Chimp like AbdelKarim"
As far as I know, his son just criticized Islam, he did not renounce it and embrace Judiasm, and it is the Jews that the Qur'an said became apes (Sura 7:166
who is emulating the west in "their thinking and opinions". Nice, eh?

Update: He was sentenced to 4 years in prison

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Disturbing reality buried

Licia Corbella wrote in The Calgary Sun Fear of causing offence and wilful blindness will only end the day innocent Canadians die

Fear of causing offense and wilful blindness is rampant in many countries on both sides of the "pond".
... Fully 12% of Muslim Canadians polled by Environics said the alleged terrorist plot -- that included kidnapping and beheading the prime minister and blowing up Parliament and the CBC -- was justified.... So, let's err on the side of caution here. Let's subtract the margin of error -- 4.4% -- from 12%. That comes to 7.6%, so let's say, just to be really non-alarmist, we round that down to 7%. That still means 49,000 Canadian Muslims believe conducting a terrorist attack on their own country -- Canada -- is justified......In other words, the Environics poll indicates anywhere between 49,000 to 84,000 Muslim Canadians likely would view attacks on our oilsands development justifiable, and if that's the case, it's safe to assume some portion of those tens of thousands of people might be prone to carrying out such an attack.
And how many does it take to set off a bomb, or behead the Prime Minister.

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West-Islam civilisations clash rejected

Michael Gordon wrote in theage.com.au World opinion emphatically rejects the idea that Islam and the West are heading for an inevitable clash of civilisations, according to an ambitious poll of public attitudes across 27 countries, commissioned by The Age and the BBC World Service.

That is true. It is not a clash of civilizaions, but rather a clash of civilization vs uncivilized people.
But a significant minority across the world — and a narrow majority in Indonesia — said violent conflict between Islam and the West was inevitable.
Since their religion calls for the clash,
Surah 19:4294 says Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war .... If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. [A special tax that Jews and Christians must pay to live in a Muslim country. Followers of other religions are just killed outright if they refuse to convert to Islam.] If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them. [i.e. they must convert to Islam, pay a special very high tax so they can live as second class citizens, or die.]
and since we are not willing to die or become dhimmis, they are right.
Big majorities in Australia, the United States, Canada, Lebanon, Mexico and most European countries believed common ground can be found between the Muslim and Western cultures.

There was also a consensus in most of these countries that intolerant minorities on both sides, rather than fundamental differences between the two cultures or intolerant minorities on one side or the other, were to blame for tensions between Islam and the West.
How many people have been beheaded by Christians? How many Christians have blown themselves up just to kill others?

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Cabbie Runs Down Students

4 News reported A local cab driver allegedly tried to run over two customers after a fight over religion became heated. The incident happened early Sunday morning on the Vanderbilt campus and left one man hospitalized and a cab driver arrested, said police Two students visiting from Ohio were coming from a bar downtown when they got into an argument with their driver over religion, said police.

No where in the article do they say what the argument was about, or identify the religion of the people. The fact that the driver's name was Ibrihim Ahmned might indicate something. Also he had a record of evading arrest in a motor vehicle and driving on a suspended license, and the license plate on his cab was listed as stolen.
After they paid the driver he allegedly ran them down in a parking lot.

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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Islam Is Not The Enemy, Part II

Frank Pastore wrote on Townhall the problem is, Christianity teaches the Golden Rule while Islam doesn’t. The Koran teaches that every Muslim is superior to every non-Muslim and that men are superior to women. A Muslim may treat a Jew, a Buddhist, or a Christian with respect,

But only if he ignores the Qur'an: 3:28 says Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends rather than believers; and whoever does this, he shall have nothing of (the guardianship of) Allah, but you should guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully; and Allah makes you cautious of (retribution from) Himself; and to Allah is the eventual coming.
but they will never be considered equals, for they are dhimmis, a near-slave status in Muslim teaching. This is the fundamental reason why Islam is incompatible with democracy and thereby the West. How can you have a democracy among non-equals? Let alone the fact that half of all Muslim populations are immediately excluded from the political process simply because of their gender. Either the West will cease to be the West, or Islam will cease to be Is-lam. But the two cannot blend and remain what they are. It is the defining characteristic of each that it has almost noth-ing in common with the other.

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Attacks in Baghdad down by 80%

Iraq the Model blogged Since the multiple bombings in Shroja market district on the 12th, Baghdad hasn’t seen any major attacks and there’s a tangible decrease in all kinds of attacks. Not only official statements say so (Defense ministry officials said today that attacks are down by 80% in Baghdad). It’s a reality I live in nowadays, at least in my neighborhood and its surroundings. It is also what I hear from friends and relatives in other parts of the city. We are hearing fewer explosions and less gunfire now than two weeks ago and that, in Baghdad, qualifies as quiet.

Meanwhile in Washington the Dems keep trying to stop the Surge that has created that quiet.
I agree with what some experts say about this lull in violence being the result of militants keeping their heads down for a while.
Sadr told them to do so, before he rushed to Iran.
It is also possibly the result of the flight of the commanders of militant groups. Grunts left without planners, money or leaders wouldn’t want to do much on their own.

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Therapy plan for terror suspects

Herald Sun (Australian) Terror suspects could be given taxpayer-funded counselling for being angry or having low self-esteem.

What makes you think they have low esteem. They think their religion authorizes violence to make people convert to Islam, and their objective is a worldwide Caliphate, i.e. total domination of the world. That does not sound like low esteem to me.
Under the proposal, the Federal Government would provide psychological counselling and anger management support to terror suspects and those subject to control orders.... "Some of the options considered include religious education,
They have already been given too much of that, and if you read the Qur'an (Holy Book), Hadith (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad), Tafsir (commentary on the Qur'an), Sira (biographies of Muhammad, together with the Qur'an and the Hadith it makes up the Sunnah) you will know that their religion supports what they are doing.
psychological support and assistance with issues such as anger management, low self-esteem, social identity and family separation," the AFP said, responding to a question on voluntary education programs for terrorists.

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NYT Lies Again

NYT reported The Senate on Saturday narrowly rejected an effort to force debate

FALSE. What the Senate rejected was an effort to CLOSE DEBATE (cloture) and force a vote without continuing the debate. Republicans voted to continue the debate.
on a resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, but Republican defections emboldened Democrats to promise new attempts to influence the administration’s war policy. The 56-to-34 vote in a rare Saturday session was the second time Republicans were able to deny opponents of the troop increase a debate on a resolution
FALSE. They voted to continue the debate and asked that their proposal also receive a vote. What they blocked was closing the debate and voting on just the non-binding motion of the Democrats, which would have hurt the troops in the field by giving the enemy hope that the Dems would force the Americans out when they (the enemy) could not do it, yet would have no other effect.
challenging Mr. Bush, and it came just a day after the House formally opposed his plan to increase the military presence in Iraq.

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