Monday Post

There is no global warming.


The biggest news is the guilty verdict handed down at the Shafia trial.


What is (sadly) expected is the same self-pitying alleged lack of awareness from everyone's favourite victim group (not the gays this time):

The Shafia murder trial has cast a shadow over Canada's Islamic community, further tarnishing an image that has not yet recovered from the events of 911.

Muslims across the country, however, say the revelations in a Kingston, Ont., courtroom have shone a light on problematic aspects of their culture and illuminated new ways to tackle the issues.

For months Muslims say they've recoiled in horror at testimony alleging three members of the Shafia family plotted the deaths of four others in what prosecutors describe as an attempt to restore family honour.

The crown alleged three teenage Shafia sisters were killed after bringing shame upon the family by dating, shunning traditional religious garb and skipping school. The fourth victim, the family patriarch's first wife in a polygamous marriage, allegedly endured years of abuse and feared for her life in the weeks before she died.

Justice Robert Maranger, who presided over the case, noted Sunday how difficult it is to conceive of a crime more "despicable," "heinous" and "honourless."

"The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour...that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis suggested the verdict is a reflection of Canadian values and ultimately a rejection of those where freedom is denied.

"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," he said.

Rona Ambrose, Canada's minister for status of women, took to Twitter to comment: #Shafia. Honour motivated violence is NOT culture, it is barbaric violence against women. Canada must never tolerate such misogyny as culture."

While many Muslims blanch at the term "honour killing," believing it to be a misrepresentation of the faith they practice, they say the deaths of the four Shafia women reveal the need to take a stronger stand against domestic violence in the community.

Days before Mohammad Shafia, his son Hamed and his wife Tooba Yahya were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, one Ontario city launched a program meant to stop such slayings from taking place in the future.

The Family Honour Project, launched by the Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration in London, Ont., is an initiative specifically targeting the sort of violence that allegedly took place in the Shafia home.

Centre board member Saleha Khan said plans for the project were afoot long before the case came to trial, but said the story has given the initiative even more urgency.

Despite the fact that honour-based violence occurs in many different cultures besides Islam, the stereotypes revived by coverage of the Shafia trial could further isolate Muslim women, she said.

"It's really turned into an us vs. them," Khan said in a telephone interview. "It's basically created that kind of divide where...now, because of the kind of savagery that's been painted on that, people who possibly would be victimized won't come forward."

Enough.


First of all, a parent who kills his or her child incurs no penalty under Islamic law:

What's more, a manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

(thank you)



Mohammad himself had a low opinion of women and it is he who is the model of malehood in Islam:

Muhammad beat his wives.

... He (Muhammad) struck me (Aisha) on the chest which caused me pain ... (Muslim: bk. 4, no. 2127)

Muhammad's companions also beat his wives and other women.

... (Umar) found the Prophet sitting sad and silent with his wives around him. ... (Umar) decided to say something which would make the Prophet laugh, so he said, "Messenger of God, I wish you had seen the daughter of Kharija when she asked me for extra money and I got up and slapped her on the neck." God's messenger laughed and said, "They are around me as you see asking for extra money." Abu Bakr then got up, went to A'isha and slapped her on the neck, and Umar did the same to Hafsa. (Mishkat Al-Masabih: vol. 2, p. 690; Muslim: bk. 9, no. 3506, Siddiqui)
Narrated Aisha: A necklace of mine was lost at Al-Baida' and we were on our way to Medina. The Prophet made his camel kneel down and dismounted and laid his head on my lap and slept. Abu Bakr came to me and hit me violently on the chest and said, "You have detained the people because of a necklace." ... (Bukhari: vol. 6, bk. 60, no. 132, Khan)

Muhammad's companions beat their own wives.

Iyas b. Abdullah reported God's messenger as saying, "Do not beat God's handmaidens;" but when `Umar came to God's messenger and said, "The women have become emboldened towards their husbands," he gave licence to beat them. Then many women went round God's messenger's family complaining of their husbands, and he said, "Many women have gone around complaining of their husbands. Those are not the best among you." Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, and Darimi transmitted it. (Mishkat Al-Masabih: vol. 2, p. 692)

In the Qur'an Muhammad commanded that beating was part of the process for controlling a rebellious wife.

And those (wives) you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. (Qur'an 4:34, Arberry)
`Umar reported the Prophet as saying, "A man will not be asked about why he beat his wife." Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah transmitted it. (Mishkat Al-Masabih: vol. 2, p. 693)

A woman has the right not to be hit in the face.

Hakim b. Mu`awiya al-Qushairi quoted his father as telling that he asked, "Messenger of God, what right can any wife demand of her husband?" He replied, "That you should give her food to eat, clothe her when you clothe yourself, not strike her on the face, and do not revile her or seperate from her except in the house." Ahmad, Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah transmitted it. (Mishkat Al-Masabih: vol. 2, p. 691)

The husband's right to beat his wife is Shariah law in every school of Islam.

Honour killings are well-documented:

A June 2008 report by Turkey's Human Rights Directorate says that in Istanbul alone, there is one honour killing every week and over 1,000 were killed during the last five years.

In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, it is believed that three-four women are killed every month in the name of saving honour. The Palestinian Authority follows the Jordanian law, which gives men reduced punishment for killing wives or female relatives if they have brought dishonour to the family.

Similarly, Article 548 of Syria's Penal Code states that if a person catches his wife or sister "committing adultery (called flagrante delicto) or illegitimate sexual acts with another and if he kills or injures one or both of them", he should benefit from a reduced penalty which should not be less than two years in prison.

In Morocco, Article 418 of Penal Code grants "extenuating circumstances" to a husband who murders or injures his wife for "flagrante delicto". About 200 women are killed each year in such fashion in the country, as per private estimates.

According to IRIN, the news branch of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as many as 133 women were killed in the Iraqi city of Basra alone in 2006 -- of them 47 were honour killings and 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings".

Now that we have these incredibly pertinent facts in full view, let's dispense with the constant state of victimhood the Muslim community likes hiding in whenever they are caught and must face the- how shall we say?- less comfortable aspects of their seventh century culture. The coverage of the Shafias won't isolate women but bring to the fore what we have known all along and refuse to talk about- that these "honour killings" (for lack of a better term) are ugly and accepted practices and are going on as we speak. Hiding it, as Miss Khan suggests we do, isolates women from getting the help they need and keeps hidden this barbaric practice. The more we shed light on this, the more we force ourselves to admit that so-called honour killings are disgusting and the more we are likely to make (hopefully) the Muslim community face them and force them to ask what kind of lives they want to live in this (ostensibly) liberal democracy where plotting and carrying out murders is horrific. Imagine turning a blind eye to spousal abuse next door. Could we do that? Where, then, is our courage now? Perhaps we can question our cowardice and moral equivalence while we're at it.


Moving on....



PLEASE contact Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, and have him refuse to sign the prisoner transfer agreement that would have Omar Khadr back on Canadian soil and eventually freed.



China and Japan need oil:

The shutdown in Sudanese oil supply could drive up already record premiums on spot crude markets as top Sudan customers China and Japan scramble for alternatives even as they weigh the impact on oil flows of international sanctions on Iran.


South Sudan has shut down its oil output, estimated at around 350,000 barrels per day (bpd), as it and neighbour Sudan row over how to disentangle their oil industries, borders and debt.

Before the shutdown, China imported most of that volume, bringing in around 260,000 bpd in 2011, according to Chinese customs data. That loss, in addition to cuts China has made in imports from Iran as Beijing and Tehran bicker over contract terms, has left China looking for alternatives equivalent to around 10 percent of its imports, or around 545,000 bpd.

"It will be a challenge to try to meet the shortfall in supply due to this sudden disruption as the overall quantity is not really that small," said Victor Shum, senior partner at oil consultancy Purvin & Gertz said.

"Overall this is a tighter supply situation for Asian refiners."

The regional spot market is unlikely to provide much relief because of limited availability due to a spurt in demand from Japan for power generation after a devastating earthquake crippled nuclear facilities last year.

Japan is more than welcome to our oil because they don't do this:

Critics of the Sudanese regime contend that Chinese money is also supporting the country's military and its militia allies in Darfur. Human Rights First argues that, in return for access to oil fields to help motor its growing economy, China provides Sudan with Chinese weaponry such as assault rifles, heavy machine guns, and mortars. China not only is Sudan's largest economic partner, but also its "military mentor, advising its army and giving it guns," says the report. Citing U.N. and Sudanese government data, the report states that China sold $3 million in small arms to Khartoum in 2003; that number reached more than $55 million by 2006. 

Or this:

China’s censorship system is complex and multilayered. The outer layer is generally known as the “great firewall” of China, through which hundreds of thousands of websites are blocked from view on the Chinese Internet. What this system means in practice is that when one goes online from an ordinary commercial Internet connection inside China and tries to visit a website such as hrw.org, the website belonging to Human Rights Watch, the web browser shows an error message saying, “This page cannot be found.” This blocking is easily accomplished because the global Internet connects to the Chinese Internet through only eight “gateways,” which are easily “filtered.” At each gateway, as well as among all the different Internet service providers within China, Internet routers — the devices that move the data back and forth between different computer networks — are all configured to block long lists of website addresses and politically sensitive keywords.

Or maybe this:

The diplomatic sources pointed out the possibility that the attempted export of chemical weapons reagents was conducted through China, as in past smuggling cases involving North Korea. [….] As long as Beijing does not stop neutralizing the sanctions against Pyongyang, it will be impossible to prevent arms smuggling by North Korea, the sources said,...

No blood for oil.



Visit Israel. Iraq wouldn't like it. 



Because he's Ezra Levant:

And so, despite conclusive evidence of Khadr's crimes, including video footage of Khadr assembling terrorist bombs, the Obama administration offered Khadr a plea bargain. He would be sentenced to eight years for his terrorist crimes but need serve only a single year in a U.S. prison.

After that, he could be returned to Canada, where he would be eligible for full parole immediately.

That deal was accepted by Khadr on Oct. 13, 2010, but its terms were kept secret from the U.S. jury at Guantanamo Bay that still met to sentence Khadr. They handed him a forty-year sentence.

Forty years, pled down to one year. That's a 97.5% discount.

But the deal wasn't just between Obama's prosecutors and Khadr.

Canada played an essential part in issuing the get-out-of-jail-free card. Without Canada's diplomatic assurances, the promise of a transfer back to Canada, and to freedom, would have been meaningless.

Without Ottawa's nod at allowing a confessed and convicted al Qaeda terrorist back on to Canadian soil, Khadr wouldn't have accepted the plea and Obama's prosecutors wouldn't have offered it. In fact, the deal specifically promised that the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs would give Khadr a "diplomatic note" confirming their support for the plea deal.

So, Canada's Conservative government, which had for years so vigorously fought off court challenges to compel them to bring Khadr back to Canada, battling a full court press of public attacks from Khadr's personal lobby in the media, the legal profession, and opportunist politicians throughout, suddenly gave everything away in a fire sale.

Just disgusting.



Oh look- the Occupests (TM) are anti-semites. Did not see that coming.



(With thanks)



And now, a T-Rex with a lot of gumption.

Saturday Night Special

 Because it's Saturday.


Just when we thought "Occupy..." was now a corpse of some road-kill, the stench still lingers.






From the 1349 blog (DO check it out).



And now, gaze upon this cuteness:

Mid-Week Post

 

 Happy Robbie Burns' Day.

The Shafia defense lawyer paints his clients as victims of a "Kafka-esque scenario":

A young man accused of killing his three sisters and the first of his father's two wives is only guilty of being "stupid" and "morally blameworthy," but neither he nor his co-accused parents deserve to be in this "Kafkaesque" scenario, court heard Wednesday.

Hamed Shafia, 21, and his parents Mohammad Shafia, 58, and Tooba Yahya, 42, are on trial for four counts each of first-degree murder, accused by the Crown of murdering their four female relatives in a so-called honour killing. They have pleaded not guilty.

Hamed's lawyer told the jury Wednesday in his closing statement that the only reasonable conclusion they can come to is that the deaths of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, were a tragic accident witnessed by his client.

"Hamed is guilty of being stupid, morally blameworthy, but other than that, he was not responsible for the girls' death, nor were his parents and (it's) time to put an end to this Kafkaesque 2 1/2 years they've been going through since their arrest," Patrick McCann told the jury.

Really? The abused girls, who begged for help and were found with bruises on their corpses, just piled into a car and drowned themselves. Pieces of the Shafias' car headlight just happened to be at the crime scene.



Right....




This is why we peer-review science essays:

Getting a legal abortion is much safer than giving birth, suggests a new U.S. study published Monday.

Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion.

Experts say the findings, though not unexpected, contradict some state laws that suggest abortions are high-risk procedures.

The message is that getting an abortion and giving birth are both safe, said Dr. Anne Davis, who studies obstetrics and gynecology at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and wasn't involved in the new study.

"We wouldn't tell people, 'Don't have a baby because it's safer to have an abortion' -- that's ridiculous," she told Reuters Health. "We're trying to help women who are having all reproductive experiences know what to expect."

An induced abortion -- like any other medical procedure -- requires getting informed consent from the woman, said Dr. Bryna Harwood, an ob-gyn from the University of Illinois in Chicago who also didn't participate in the new research.

That means women understand and acknowledge the risks of their different options.

What makes it complicated, Harwood added, is when the law interferes and requires doctors to state information that isn't always balanced or medically sound -- usually exaggerating the risk of abortion.

The researchers on the new study combined government data on live births and pregnancy- and abortion-related deaths with estimates on legal abortions performed in the U.S. from the Guttmacher Institute, which conducts sexual and reproductive health research and education.

Dr. Elizabeth Raymond from Gynuity Health Projects in New York City and Dr. David Grimes of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, found that between 1998 and 2005, one woman died during childbirth for every 11,000 or so babies born.

That compared to one woman of every 167,000 who died from a legal abortion.

The researchers also cited a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which found that, from 1998 to 2001, the most common complications associated with pregnancy -- including high blood pressure, urinary tract infections and mental health conditions -- happened more often in women who had a live birth than those who got an abortion.

In their report, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, Raymond and Grimes write that the findings aren't surprising given that women are pregnant for a lot longer when they decide to have a baby and so have more time to develop complications.

Harwood said previous studies have also shown the safety of legal abortions.

Most abortions have typically been done surgically, she told Reuters Health. But since the abortion drug mifepristone was approved for use in the United States in 2000, the number of medically-induced abortions has been on the rise.

Both methods are now considered equally safe, she said, with the main risk -- though very small -- coming from medication- and procedure-related infections.

Depending on the state, however, doctors legally must go over the risks of abortion in language that may be misleading, researchers said, with skewed lists of possible complications. Others require a 24-hour waiting period in between the counseling and the abortion itself.

Harwood said that laws regarding what's said between the doctor and a woman seeking an abortion often hamper doctors' attempts to inform patients in a balanced way.

"It is certainly an impediment to have the state dictate my informed consent process beyond the usual," Harwood told Reuters Health.

"Abortion care and pregnancy care should not really be any different than consenting people for any other procedure."

Davis agreed that state-mandated discussions have no place in abortion counseling. She said she was glad to see the new report, which helps dispel "misinformation" and "lies" about abortion risks included in some state laws -- such as the idea that abortion is linked to cancer.

Okay....

Let's first point out that Drs. Raymond and Grimes are both pro-abortion advocates. Let's get that out of the way right now.

From an evolutionary standpoint, why would the young-bearer just up and die after reproducing? Wouldn't we all be dead at some point?

What Raymond and Grimes skim over is the lack of comprehensive abortion statistics. I'll have to work with whatever abortion statistics I can find because even though some claim the debate is finished and abortion is so super safe and legal, some people go out of their way not to compile proper statistics on it. Keep in mind that in Canada, for example, many surveys on abortion have ceased, making comprehensive statistics reporting difficult. The Centre for Disease Control (or CDC) relies on whatever statistics or reports in can compile from available information, if reported:

For each year since 1969, CDC has compiled abortion data by state or area of occurrence. During 1973--1997, data were received from or estimated for 52 reporting areas in the United States: 50 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City. In 1998 and 1999, CDC compiled abortion data from 48 reporting areas. Alaska, California, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma did not report, and data for these states were not estimated. During 2000--2002, Oklahoma again reported these data, increasing the number of reporting areas to 49, and for 2003, Alaska again reported and West Virginia did not, maintaining the number of reporting areas at 49. 

In 2001 and 2002, forty deaths were identified as abortion-related. If abortion information is gathered infrequently, how then can Raymond and Grimes make so iron-clad a statement as abortion is fourteen times safer than childbirth, a statement that couldn't hold water from an evolutionary or statistics standpoint? Did they not factor in the reported fourteen deaths, fifty-eight ectopic pregnancies and two hundred and fifty-six infections caused by mifeprostone since its approval in 2000?  Did the under-reporting of four thousand abortion-related injuries and six deaths skip their notice? This blogsite here lists American abortions deaths spanning nearly a century. Did Raymond and Grimes take any of these into account, especially given how poorly regulated abortion is and the nature of the procedure itself? A sharpened (and sometimes not sterilised) object introduced to an organ normally three inches long and so close to other organs such as the bowel and the bladder can do quite a bit of damage. Did it not occur to them that black American women account for 7.50 deaths per million legal abortions?

Maternal mortality rates in the US:

Maternal deaths are those reported on the death certificate to be related to or aggravated by pregnancy or pregnancy management that occur within 42 days after the end of the pregnancy. The maternal mortality rate has declined dramatically since 1950 when the rate was 83.3 deaths per 100,000 live births; however, the maternal mortality rate in 2005 (15.1 per 100,000 live births) was 84 percent higher than the rate reported in 1990 (8.2 per 100,000). According to the National Center for Health Statistics, this increase may largely be due to changes in how pregnancy status is recorded on death certificates; beginning in 1999, the cause of death was coded according to International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10). Other methodological changes in reporting and data processing have been responsible for apparent increases in more recent years.¹

In 2005, there were a total of 623 maternal deaths. This does not include the 137 deaths of women due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth after 42 days postpartum or the deaths of pregnant women due to external causes such as unintentional injury, homicide, or suicide. In 2005, the maternal mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black women (39.2 per 100,000 live births) was more than 3 times the rate among non-Hispanic White women (11.7 per 100,000) and more than 4 times the rate among Hispanic women (9.6 per 100,000).

The risk of maternal death increases with age for women of all races and ethnicities. In 2005, the maternal mortality rate was highest among women aged 35 years and older (38.0 per 100,000 live births), compared to 7.4 per 100,000 live births to women under 20 years of age and 10.7 per 100,000 live births among women aged 20–24 years.

There were 4,138,349 births in 2005 in the US, with the total of maternal death rates for that year six hundred and twenty-three. Indeed, the maternal mortality rate from 1982 to 1996 was approximately 7.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Maternal mortality rates have dropped substantially from 1915 to 2003.

In Canada, one of the chief diagnoses of maternal mortality (excluding Quebec) for 2002/2003-2009/2010 was diseases of the circulatory system. 

Ireland and Poland have the lowest maternal mortality rates in Europe and have criminalised abortion.

Canada and the US are industrialised nations and (excepting Ireland and Poland) have some of the lowest mortality rates in the world. Whatever maternal deaths- though tragic- do occur are chiefly due to age or some other underlying cause. The hyperbolic claims of "life-threatening pregnancies" completely miss how diagnosed and treatable many conditions are- which is why maternal mortality rates in the West are so low.

These facts are readily researchable. One can speculate on why Raymond and Grimes did not refer to them.

Abortion-related injuries are well-known, from premature babies to infertility to infection to damage of internal organs.  For some reason, this was glossed over, as well.

 

I would throw this study in the junk science pile. 

Speaking of "above the pay-grade" debates, this video sums up the State of the Union (and how rotten it has become) address:

(gracias, El Barto)



Why is something as integral and -quite frankly- as clownishly overblown as the Northern Gateway pipeline reduced to a fifteen minute session? Is that why cameras were not allowed?




"You haven't heard the last of Kim Jong-Il! I will return!"  He sure did:

Paul Evans, Director of the Institute for Asian Research at University of British Columbia (UBC), seems to think that Canada stands alone in its critique of the “Dear Leader” in being one of the few countries to remind us of the tragic atrocities committed by Kim Jong Il’s regime. He must have overlooked the strong comments made by both the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle and the Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott calling out the human rights abuses under the dictatorship of Kim Jong-Il[ii].

He also claims that Harper “violates normal canons of protocol in reacting to the death of a leader of a country with which Canada has diplomatic relations”[iii]. Canada has had no formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since May 25, 2010 and has since moved its Pyongyang office to Seoul. This suspension of Canada-DPRK relations came in the wake of North Korean aggression in the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, which killed 46 people[iv].

More importantly, Paul Evans and a number of IAR staff at UBC are members and contributors to the North Korean propaganda website, CanKor[v]. Under the section “Is CanKor for you?”, the organization queries:  "Do you wish to discover the who, what, when, where, why and how that makes the DPRK the most popular whipping boy of the international community?” [vi]

The head of CanKor, Erich Weingartner, operates out of UBC’s Institute of Asian Research. He has openly admitted that he has direct ties with the upper echelons of the North Korean ruling elite and has published a set of interview dialogues with a North Korean patriotic citizen Mr. Pak, which he later admits is an alter ego of himself which he uses to express North Korean sympathies.[vii]

It’s also unclear whether UBC students’ tuitions or taxpayer dollars are sponsoring the six professors from Kim Il-Sung University who are completing MBA degrees at the University of British Columbia.[viii] In August 2011, UBC again hosted 10 North Korean scholars at a conference organized by Donald Baker, another braintrust member of CanKor.[ix] [x]

Let these admirers of the Kim dynasty starve with the masses there. I would gladly pay for a one-way trip.




(With plenty of thanks)




And now, furry feline fury at four thousand feet. Not really- it was an escaped cat on a plane.



A furry "Occupation".

Pull the String

Why couldn’t Allen West be the first black president?

Sometimes ignorance is so stupefying it must be seen to be believed.

Like here:

Over the past decade, a number of academic studies have indicated a worrying and disproportionate trend towards negative, distorted and even fabricated reports in media coverage of the Muslim community. Recent research at Cambridge University concludes that "a wider set of representations of Islam would signify a welcome change to reporting practices. Muslims deserve a better press than they have been given in the past decade." And according to a recent ComRes poll, one in three people in Britain today believe that the media is responsible for "whipping up a climate of fear of Islam in the UK"….

An alternative inquiry is necessary to investigate what many regard as widespread and systematic discriminatory practices in reporting on Muslims and Islam in the British media. Victims – whether prominent or not – of alleged discriminatory media coverage have a right to have their testimonies catalogued and examined thoroughly by credible, independent assessors. Recommendations can then be made to improve ethical standards in the reporting of not solely the Muslim community but of all sections of society.

And here:

Like Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and secularists, some Muslims have undoubtedly been violent and intolerant, but the new exhibition at the British Museum – Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam – is a timely reminder that this is not the whole story. The hajj is one of the five essential practices of Islam; when they make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims ritually act out the central principles of their faith. Equating religion with "belief" is a modern western aberration. Like swimming or driving, religious knowledge is practically acquired. You learn only by doing. The ancient rituals of the hajj, which Arabs performed for centuries before Islam, have helped pilgrims to form habits of heart and mind that – pace the western stereotype – are non-violent and inclusive.

Where does one begin?

If reporting the numerous incidences of violence and extremism is considered “negative, distorted and even fabricated”, what would the signatories of this committee suggest? Not reporting anything at all?  I’m hardly a defender of the popular press and I believe they are, by and large, cowards when it comes to factual reporting of Islamism but reporting on yet more incidents of mass bombings, suicide attacks, honour killings and the goings-on of tyrannical theocratic states is what they do. 

Miss Armstrong’s article about the hajj is one of the most grotesque attempts at fluffery I’ve seen. Muslims (the ones I doubt Miss Armstrong will ever write about) do practise what they’ve learned. That’s the problem.

There is a reason why idolatry is a sin:

It is no simple task to erect a statue of anybody, let alone someone who presumably requires a large statue such as Kim Jong Il. In the South Korean city of Gumi, a mere 5m statue of former President Park Chung Hee cost 1.2 billion South Korean Won ($1.03 million). Kim Il Sung’s statue in Pyongyang is 24m high. For a massive statue like that to be erected, the foundations also need to be consolidated, then a road must be paved to go to the area. Lighting needs to be set in place and electricity provided all year round.

Thus, at the same time as Kim Il Sung was being publicly idolized, thousands upon thousands of people in different parts of the country were collapsing in the streets of hunger. If Kim Il Sung’s body had been cremated and scattered at sea then the North Korean people would not have starved, at least in principle.

The Kim family idolization project is not a simple comedy or a caricature, something to be laughed at like the odd behavior of an eccentric relative. North Korea cannot afford any of this, and will take the money from the people’s pockets. The opening act of the 3rd generation succession tragedy is beginning.

It reminds me of someone….

(With thanks)

On A Monday

Dragons are cool.

Say hay boke-mahn he pah du say oh, everyone.

Because he’s Salim Mansur:

The antidote to multiculturalism is promoting Canada’s own intellectual heritage. “Liberal democracy itself is a culture. It’s not some fuzzy idea. It is a culture that emanates through five centuries of historical struggle.” It places “man as the measure of all things” and the liberal struggle is the struggle for individual freedom, he said.

Adding to the “bad logic” that substituted group rights for individual ones was the “bad faith” approach by politicians who saw multiculturalism as a means to gain favour with hyphenated Canadians, Mansur said.

 Professor Mansur hits the nail on the head.

We have been so manipulated by the idea of political multiculturalism that we cannot imagine another way to live. Already in the New World we see how different ethnic and cultural populations retained segments of their former culture all the while adopting a new national identity. In that sense, multiculturalism has worked. Political multiculturalism holds that one can be separate identity whose culture is cosidered of similar if not better value than the host one while maintaining residence in a host country. How does sharia law somehow trump English Common Law? How are the Western/Judeo-Christian values we've come to depend upon insignificant compared to the values of another country one may find discriminatory? Why is  national unity too much to ask for?

Why Ronald Reagan was elected: He stated that the widely promulgated videos showing military attacks on demonstrators and a woman "with the blue brassiere" were all falsified. He said the soldiers were actually helping the woman re-clothe herself with what was provocative attire.

The other Jimmy Carter (the black one) makes a declaration above his pay-grade.

Sarah Palin rips some shreds while opining on the GOP presidential race.

Don't argue with a kingmaker.

A must-read:

Imagine a man who is the equivalent of perhaps 100,000 Osama Bin Ladens in terms of the violence he conducted in his lifetime in the name of religion.

Know that this savage individual had personally beheaded several hundred people and ordered the beheading of many, many more.

Don't take my word for it.  Do your own research and see that he had people tortured.

Know that he ordered people to be stoned for adultery.

Consider that he owned human slaves.

Note that he married a 6 year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was only 9 years old.  According to his own scriptures, he had sex with a child.

Research if you can to verify these facts - that this man invented a religion which he spread by killing people.  He was a warmonger who explicitly ordered his followers to kill Christians, Jews and other non-believers of his "religion of peace".

Note that he left behind a "holy book" which, if taken literally (and it is commanded that this book be taken literally) tells his followers that men are to have dominance over women and that they can "strike" a woman if she disobeys.

Note that where the legal system he created is being practiced in the world, women are punished for being raped - often by being stoned to death or being forced to marry their rapist.

Know that according to this man's invented religious legal system, homosexuals are to be executed by hanging.

Note that most of the religiously inspired acts of terrorism in the world today are done is his name in accordance with the teachings and legacy he left behind.

Look up the word "Al-Insān al-Kāmil" which means that "the person who has reached perfection".  To his 1.67 billion followers in the world today this man is the ideal man….

Take your pulse and see if you are already outraged, not at the information provided thus far, but at the messenger who has presented this information.

Now chose which one of the following options best describes your response:

A) That is sad and heartbreaking and I am outraged that anyone would follow this person.  I am willing to speak out against these and any other injustices in the world today.

B) I heard a Republican say something like this once and all Republicans are bad, therefore you are bad.

C) I don't care because none of this affects me personally. 

D) I care, but I fear alienation from my peers when it comes to saying anything about this.  It seems unfair, but I don't want to risk being judged by others.

E) The person who wrote this blog is a bigot and an Islamophobe who should be banned from Daily Kos.

Now ask yourself, do I have the courage and conviction to stand up for human rights even when so many people in my peer group are inclined to accept the tyranny of this system of violence and even demonize me for taking a stand?

Related: why do we want to deal with the Taliban?

More from the "religion of peace":

Suspected Boko Haram members took their terrorism to Minna, Niger State as they set ablaze a Christian missionary home, Bethany Home, and destroyed property worth millions of naira.

Although no life was lost in the attack, occupants of the home, mostly orphans and the less-privileged were rendered homeless as a result of the attack.

 Remember- we let them in. They're like vampires:

"I disagree with him, he wants elections with equal right to all, that is not Islamic"

"There is only one alternative...shari3a law...under it all will live with Justice and fairness...for Islam is not a religion of equality..."

Poor, poor Zaynab.

 

A true example of fairness:

Miss Melhem said she was first locked up in a bathroom after she ran away from home when she was 10. Police brought her home, and her father forced her to sign a statement saying she didn’t want to go back to school. Miss Melhem’s parents divorced when she was four years old, and her father received custody.

Miss Melhem is now living with her mother, Maysoun, in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem.

When she was taken outside, Miss Melhem said she was blinded by the pale winter sun. It was more sunlight than she had seen in 10 years.

‘Is that the sun? Is that the sun I was dreaming of?’ she said she asked police. Miss Melhem said the sight of so many people startled her. ‘Are those the people I was hearing on the radio?’ she asked the police.

Miss Melhem said her first request, after she was released, was for hard candy – something she had been denied since she was a child. Then she asked to see her mother.

Did we really expect anything better from these losers? Occupy protesters use Bibles as weapons — literally  and Churches Give Refuge To #Occupy Protesters; Protesters Repay By Stealing Items And Peeing On Cross

Why do "gender-equity" activists want to eliminate gender? Are they ashamed? I say yes. 

It's okay to be different in your pants, "gender equity" activists. Gaia made you that way.

The real crackpots, ladies and gentlemen:

When Sasha Laxton was born five years ago, his parents decided they wanted to avoid classifying him as either a boy or a girl.

They felt that to do so  was a kind of ‘sexual stereo-typing’ which had to be avoided at all costs.

So instead of referring to their son as a boy, they talked about him as the ‘infant’, and kept his gender secret from all but a few close friends and family until he started school.

Guaranteed to be messed up. Why do these people hate their son so much?

John Robson is awesome. Let us bow our heads and accept this.

Related: the March for Life in Washington is "smaller" than the one in Ottawa, apparently. 

Is it time to rip up the Indian Act? One cyber-scribe says yes. Emphatically so. You may need safety goggles. Or not. It's a passionate plea, is my point.

(Muchas gracias to all)

And now, Pringles made easy.

Friday Freakout

For your weekly freak-out.

Hello Kitties that must happen.

Look upon the cuteness. LOOK UPON IT!

That’s one big Koran. I could understand why someone might get angry if this one was burned.

Thou shalt not APP.

The Helix nebula is staring right at you.