It Happened On A Thursday

... as, often, it does.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now walking, unlike many of his victims:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, walked without a wheelchair to speak to his mother last week for the first and only phone conversation they have had since he has been in custody, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told the AP.

In a rare glimpse at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's state of mind, he told her he was getting better and that he had a very good doctor, but was struggling to understand what happened, she said.

"He didn't hold back his emotions either, as if he were screaming to the whole world: What is this? What's happening?," she said.

The April 15 bombings killed three people and wounded more than 260. Elder brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police, and Dzhokhar remains in a prison hospital after being badly wounded.

But wait- the victimhood mentality has not been fully fleshed out yet:

"I could just feel that he was being driven crazy by the unfairness that happened to us, that they killed our innocent Tamerlan," their mother said, standing by the family's insistence that their children are innocent.

The allegedly innocent Dzhokhar Tsarneav left a note explaining his actions:

Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found hiding in a boat days after the blasts, left a handwritten message describing the attack as retribution for US wars in Muslim countries, CBS News reported on Thursday.

It's rather like saying confessed and convicted killer Omar Khadr is the "accused".


Because he's Ibn Warraq:

[Orientalism, he observes] taught an entire generation of Arabs the art of self-pity — “were it not for the wicked imperialists, racists and Zionist, we would be great once more” — encouraged the Islamic fundamentalist generation of the 1980s, bludgeoned into silence any criticism of Islam, and even stopped dead the research of eminent Islamologists who felt their findings might offend Muslim sensibilities and who dared not risk being labeled “Orientalist.” The aggressive tone of Orientalism is what I have called “intellectual terrorism,” since it seeks to convince not by arguments or historical analysis, but by spraying charges of racism, imperialism, and Eurocentrism from a moral high ground; anyone who disagrees with Said has insult heaped upon him.

And there you have it. There is no fault in the perpetrator or the community but in the outsider. That is why Tsarnaev and Khadr (indeed, the entirety of the ummah) is innocent of all charges or, if they are guilty, it was the devil- the Great Satans of the globe- that made them do it. Such is believed by a willing public.


Another reason why Wynne should be fired out of a cannon:

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says she is “worried” about the chaos that has enveloped Mayor Rob Ford’s office since he was accused of smoking crack cocaine, and is willing to intervene if necessary.

I'm worried that someone stuck Ontarians with huge bills and then lied about it.


It's a good thing that Obama is worried about a country that could completely distabilise the Pacific:

The Obama Administration’s “concern” over Chinese cyber-espionage, however, was not front and center in Tuesday talks between White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Chinese military officials at the Chinese Defense Ministry. 

Indeed, according to Reuters, the topic of Chinese cyber attacks never came up. 

An excellent article on Egypt's legal persecution of Christians.


And now, in honour of Saint Joan of Arc's feast day,  Croque Madame (which is kind of French).