The governor of Iraq’s Karbala province, Aqil al-Khazali, said on Tuesday he had suspended all cooperation with U.S. forces because U.S. security staff last week used police dogs to search government buildings.
Many Muslims consider it degrading to have dogs brought into their homes or offices.
Many Muslims are also superstitious morons: They'd rather live with the risk of explosives than have "filthy" dogs sniff out the danger.
Kate excerpts a Weekly standard article which mentions an Islamist terror camp in Canada. I have no doubt that a terrorist attack on Canadian soil will take place--it's not a matter of if but when.
In 2002, Al Qaeda specifically named Canada as being on their hit list among five other nations (US, Britain, France, Germany and Australia). Soon, Canadian presence in Afghanistan will increase and a Canadian will be in command of the Allied forces there. This could be used as an added excuse for an Islamist onslaught in Canada.
Dark days lie ahead for Canadians. Eventually, they'll have to make a choice between what is right and what is convenient.
The Democrats are digging their political graves as usual. I just downloaded and watched the two videos. I don't see how the party affiliation of those who appeared in the ads matters in any way.
A terrific post by Farooha who writes about the profound differences between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. One of the big reasons many Saudis race to Bahrain, in the Mercs and BMWs, during the weekends is to get hammered.
You see, the punishment for drinking, or mere possession of alcohol, in Saudi Arabia is a swift beheading. Bahrain, for some odd reason, allows one to live for that heinous offense. So, for those in Riyadh, and even more for those in Dammam, Khobar, and Ras Tanura, Bahrain is equivalent to Las Vegas. Then again, it doesn't take much skill or effort to be liberal compared to Saudi Arabia.
For fear of appearing racist, many Britons suspend their normal judgments when dealing with the behavior of ethnic minorities. Not only is this totally racist in itself - pre-supposing as it does that ethnics are like children, who know not what they do and must have special dispensation to behave badly - but it also ignores the fact that the other ethnic minorities, be they Jews, Chinese or Hindus, have somehow managed to both keep their culture and fit into their chosen adopted country, without feeling the need to parade around the streets like big overgrown babies, stamping their feet and ordering fatwas when things displease them.
I am in looove. The last paragraph is incredibly brutal.
Link via Tim Blair.
Wow:
The Egyptian government has ordered the slaughter of all poultry kept in homes, as part of efforts to stop the spread of bird flu in the country.
This is going to hit Egyptians very hard. Often, in that part of the world, folks keep chickens in their homes to consume the eggs and, if lucky, to sell a few to their neighbours.
It's even worse for the farm owners:
Farm owners lost millions of pounds as they had to slaughter all their chicken. This is very serious.
A friend stopped eating cakes. I asked for the reason. "Eggs go into the making of cakes" she said.
I can't imagine the sheer number of products that must have had their demand go through the floor.
WARNING to Muslims: I am going to link to an animation that will be is highly offensive to your sensibilities. And true. Just thought you'd like to know before clicking on the hilarious link.
Link via Woody.
Not one Iraqi flag is flown in Kurdistan’s capital of Erbil, which doubles as the stronghold of Barzani’s KDP. Only maps will tell you that Erbil is part of Iraq. The Iraqi flag is flown on government buildings in Suleimaniya, the stronghold of the PUK. But it’s the old Iraqi flag, the pre-Saddam Iraqi flag, the one that doesn’t have Allahu Akbar scrawled across the middle of it.
Excellent.
Great. Another reason to love the Ewoks.
Putin is using the cartoon issue to shut down a Volgograd newspaper.
Jews could never dream of threatening innocent people with inexcusable violence. Meanwhile the rest of the world is reacting to the Muslims with an amazing cowardice. Instead of a collective fury, we are pleading for forgiveness, and promising not to offend them with any more cartoons. Could anything be more perverted? The same people who are not offended by suicide bombers and terrorist killings, murder, mayhem, and destruction around the world have now decided that a cartoon... "OY VEY IS THIS TERRIBLE!"
The wolf-dog is simultaneously cute and menacing--truly an amazing creature.
Glenn Reynolds is firmly on the infidelicious side of the Force. :)
At this moment, Pakistan and India are playing an ODI match in Karachi. It's the last of a 5-match series. At the same time, what is most astonishing is that Pakistan and India are also playing in the Under-19 World Cup final! It bodes well for the future of Asian cricket to have such passionate nations face off each other on the field. The youngsters on both sides are promising to keep the competition fierce and entertaining for years to come.
Update 1:55 PM ET
The result of the Karachi ODI was as predicted: India successfully chased the tiny total of 286. Though, shockingly, the Indian Under-19s failed to chase 109; they crashed for 71 runs. They had five ducks! Anwar Ali was the main destroyer. He hit three boundaries in the match where no-one smashed more, and he took five wickets, again more than anyone else. In fact, Anwar Ali took three wickets in his first over--the second of the Indian innings.
The inexplicable tradition of Pakistani supremacy in the bowling department is still going strong.
Yakoub presents his political views. I laughed out loud after reading about what he thinks of "Security." The poor guy has yet to be mugged by reality.
For me the real treat of the night, other than getting to meet and shake hands with the Venezuelan diplomats, was in having the chance to meet and speak with Lynne Stewart. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her she is a long-time civil rights lawyer and activist who was charged and convicted by the government due to her representation of Sheikh Umar Abdul-Rahman; she has been sentenced to thirty years in prison but her sentence has been delayed due to health concerns. She called for Americans to stand in unity with the people of Venezuela and for "America to become a great country for the first time" and I also had the opportunity to share with her the case of Sheikh Ali al-Timimi.
Yeah, I bet it was a real treat to meet the person who said:
I don't believe in anarchistic violence, but in directed violence. That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support.
Such a charming lady.
Clayton Cramer: Embarrassing Things You Might Have Done When You Were Young. How could he be so stupid to think that that wouldn't, ahem, come out?
The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year?
Good point.
The second truth — one that the West needs to come to grips with — is that there is no such human persona as a "moderate Muslim." You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn't live there.
Alright.
Haters of Islam use the simplicity and elegance of its black-and-white rigor for devious political advantage by classifying the Koran's religious edicts as the cult-like behavior of fanatics. The West would win a lot of hearts and minds if it only showed Islam as it really is — telling the story, for example, that the prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings on uniquely Muslim values, or that the reason he had multiple wives was not for the sake of sex but to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war.
Question: Who was responsible for such wars?
Fact: Muhammed married a 6-year-old girl and had sex with her at age 9.
Fact: Muhammed and his followers attacked Banu Quraiza, a Jewish tribe, and were victorious against them. End result: 700 men from the tribe were beheaded and their children and women taken as slaves.
Fact: For Muslims, Muhammed is an infallible human. To them, his life and sayings are valid till the end of time.
If the West truly showed Islam as it is, then it'll horrify every rational mind. Islam has not evolved much in the past 1400 years. Logically, it is the fundamentalists who are the real Muslims. Ijaz speaks of the West winning hearts and minds which is ironic considering that his voice, in his community, is in the tiny minority.
The West is anti-Islamic to its core. Just take a peek at the laws of Saudi Arabia or Iran and compare them to the man-made statutes of America or Australia. The folks of the West unintentionally mock Islam by living peacefully among Jews, allowing women in public, tolerating different and often non-Islamic viewpoints, not supporting homosexuals with a rope, and letting alcohol consumers to live. To rub it in, these infidelicious lands are successful and infinitely attractive.
That is why the Islamists loathe the West. And for decades, these guys have been the loudest voice in the Muslim world. The events of the past few days reconfirm this sad reality.
Link via The Corner.
The Religious Policeman:
The motorcades screech to a halt, lights flashing; burly bodyguards jump out and usher their charges into the conference hall. They have been summoned here from their palaces, their holiday villas, awakened from their beds, rushed here in their private jets. This is THE big meeting of the OIC, the Organization of the Islamic Conference. So are they finally going to resolve the Darfur conflict, the Brown-Muslim-on-Black-Muslim genocide that has already claimed an estimated 300,000 lives?
You know the answer.
These people are so mean.
Link via Gates of Vienna.
In a world in which Danish cartoons insult the prophet and Disney Piglet mugs insult the prophet and Burger King chocolate ice-cream swirl designs insult the prophet, maybe it would just be easier to make a list of things that don't insult him. Nonetheless, the Muslim Association wrote to the Ann Summers sex-shop chain, "We are asking you to have our Most Revered Prophet's name 'Mustafa' and the afflicted word 'shag' removed."
Hey, why not just institute Sharia across all the lands and be done with it. I'm sure the Holy ped Prophet will be quite pleased.
If you work at a news organization and one of your producers has to do a story on WHY what you are reporting on is a story, it's a pretty safe bet that you've blown the coverage.
CNN is teh lame!
For more on these "brave" journalists, see Vodkapundit.
As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured "clash of civilizations" engineered by the Straussian neocons.
How does one even parody this antisemitic tripe?
Sara Kennedy writes to the folks at Power Line. An excerpt:
I just wanted to let you know that I had a very interesting conversation last night with Patricia Macintosh. She is a flight attendant with Omni Airlines International which handles some of the transporting of soldiers from the US to Iraq. She is older, from Birmingham England (she has lived in the US for 30 years) and decided to take these flights after she retired.
The publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad continued to send shock waves around the world Friday as protesters set fire to the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and clashed with police hours after an Islamic cleric in Pakistan offered a $1 million reward for [peacefully] killing one of the cartoonists.
Sunday church sermons have got nothing on this:
“Whoever has done this despicable and shameful act, he has challenged the honor of Muslims. Whoever will kill this cursed man, he will get $1 million from the association of the jewelers bazaar, 1 million rupees ($16,700) from Masjid Mohabat Khan and 500,000 rupees ($8,350) and a car from Jamia Ashrafia as a reward,” Qureshi told about 1,000 people outside the mosque after Friday prayers.
I'm sure the moderate and peaceful majority of Muslims will strongly disagree with this extreme imam.
Is it just me or is all this Muslim Holocaust denial cartoon shit just getting a little too… stupid to the point of being surreal?
What seems surreal to us is standard operating procedure in much of the Muslim world. In fact a large number of Muslims don't even have the capacity to deny the Holocaust. How can they when they don't even know what the word means?
Umar Lee posts details about a protest in front of a Danish embassy. That info is not as interesting as the comments--especially the first one.
Disturbing, indeed.
Hitchens basically restates an old truth: No amount of appeasement of the fanatics is ever enough.
Therefore, it is simply dumb to give up the first inch.
Seems like CNN is not afraid of the crazy Texan in the White House or his evil minions; Islamists, on the other hand...
AbbaGav on issues of child safety and "rallies."
This is by far the most despicable x-rated photo I've ever seen.
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Where do I buy one?
Kate:
Who can inform this journalist that "freedom of the press" is one thing - unnecessary provocation is another.
Ignorant whore.
Many Islamists do not hide the fact that their long-term goal is to turn Europe, step by step, into a Muslim caliphate ruled by sharia law. Alas, it looks at present as if the cartoon controversy may turn out to have been a significant step on the way to that goal. One thing is clear, at any rate: these have been the darkest days for European freedom in many a decade.
Darker days lie ahead.
Link via Dhimmi Watch.
Beautiful photos of undisturbed snow.
What's the weather like here? It's raining. It takes some quick maneuvering on the footpath to avoid the water sprays as cars whiz by. Tomorrow will be worse. The temperature will drop below zero--say hello to ice!
Carnival of the Etymologies at Done With Mirrors. I really got a kick out of the last sentence.
In late 2001 or early 2002, I was in the TV room at my Canadian dorm with three other people. We were viewing some news regarding Pakistan. I said something like, "It's sad that so many Pakis think that way." The guys in the room froze.
One of them said, "Dude, that is derogatory."
I was confused. "How is opining about what these Pakis think derogatory?"
He replied, "Don't say Paki!"
"What's wrong with that? It's just a short form."
"It's just a bad term like using the N word."
"Oh, I didn't know that...and I'm a Pakistani."
I had used such short forms many times. For example, in 1992, the Pakis beat the Brits in the Cricket World Cup final or in 1999, the Aussies vanquished the Pakis to become the cricket world champions. It's odd, and often unclear, to see some harmless word become off-limits.
... I refuse to buy a fur coat for my wife because an animal was killed to provide for a humans entertainment. It’s quite another thing that I believe that a chicken exists for the sole purpose of attaining nirvana in a tandoor.
The Greatbong always makes me laugh.
This concept of gift-giving on multiple occasions during the year such as birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, and Christmas was quite alien to me before I came to North America. In fact, my family didn't celebrate, in any way, a birthday till I was 11. The change was brought about because my siblings and I used the same ol' excuse: Hey, everyone else celebrates it!
My parents gave in. From then on, we each got a home-baked cake, gulab jamuns, candy bars, and soft drinks for our birthdays. Still, no gifts. The vast majority of my cousins in Pakistan didn't even get that much. I remember, once I asked about the age of one of my cousins. He (or she) had to go and ask his/her mother for the date! I think his/her birthday was just four days past at the time. I was surprised, "Why didn't we celebrate it?"
They didn't know their birth dates because they never celebrated it.
At present, a few friends do know my day and I've told them not to worry about it. They just smile and say Happy Birthday when the day comes or a few days later when we do meet. That's it.
As far as I can tell, the sword has the edge.
Nicholas Stix at FrontPage Mag:
Playwright Terence McNally’s new show will soon appear on Broadway. In Brokeback Mohammed, Mohammed and his early followers are depicted as homosexuals whose idea of prayer was to form “daisy chains” facing Mecca. The play could not have been produced without the support of fellow playwright Tony Kushner. McNally and Kushner have both said that they will brave fatwas against them, if necessary, in the fight against religious intolerance and on behalf of freedom of expression.
If only.
Link via Babalu Blog.
The present rulers of Washington — President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld — were known neo-con leaders and true representatives of industries like oil and gas. They wanted a new strategy to regain their lost paradise. The new strategy was to physically control the world through military might. Even before coming to power the group had launched a 21st Century Project that advocated active interventionism. The pre-emptive strike doctrine was nothing but neo-colonisation. The neo-cons, too close to Israeli interests, chose the Middle East — more specifically, Iraq — for the implementation of their project. As Bush’s interventionist approach replaced Clinton’s strategy of induced democracy, the US took upon itself the transformation to a police state — at home and abroad.
Controlling the world through military might: Attacking a tiny and poor country and in the process spending hundreds of billions of dollars.
Neo-colonisation: Again, instead of taking money, America spends cash in Iraq; the US holds three successful elections and continues to train the Iraqi security forces. Slowly, the US withdraws its troops.
Police state: The Democrats, the MSM, and the Left side of the Blogosphere rips apart President Bush everyday. Still, in the 2004 election, the Republicans hold on to their majority in the Congress and retain the White House. Just because Republicans fairly win elections, doesn't mean that America is a police state.
I bet that Dr. Ejaz is likely a graduate of the Chomsky School of Politics.
I couldn't believe what I was reading in this article.
You want to know a secret? None of the current ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards will support the full capabilities of Windows Vista.
The top-end graphics card usually fetches more than US$500. Recently, quite a few people who've been buying new computers or just a new graphics card are doing so to have a good-enough computer for Vista later this year.
We’ve been able to confirm that none of the Built-by-ATI Radeons support HDCP. If you’ve just spent $1000 on a pair of Radeon X1900 XT graphics cards expecting to be able to playback HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies at 1920x1080 resolution in the future, you’ve just wasted your money.
NVIDIA, being a GPU manufacturer was unable to discuss the plans of board manufacturers. We contacted all six of NVIDIA’s Tier-1 board partners. None of the GeForce 6 or 7 video cards available on the market, including the most recently released GeForce 7800GS, have HDCP support. So if you just spent $1500 on a pair of 7800GTX 512MB GPUs expecting to be able to play 1920x1080 HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies in the future, you’ve just wasted your money.
Ouch! If this is true, then thousands of elite buyers just got shafted.
Link via Tom's Hardware.
Munir Attaullah, a businessman, writes a most impressive column in The Daily Times. This guy really takes on the idiotic and irrational responses from the Muslim community and calmly tears them apart. A small gem:
Let me next reproduce what our own respected columnist (and my friend) Ijaz ul Hassan had to say last week. “...Freedom demands that the individual and society observe restraint in deference to the material and cultural needs and sentiments of other people and nations.” Admirable, so far. Alas! This is the follow-up sentence: “This may be difficult to grasp for most people of industrial nations whose post-colonial consciousness is muddled by the freedom they exercised to rapaciously destroy and plunder the culture and wealth of non-industrial countries.”
Such sentiments (I refuse to dignify them as arguments) leave me utterly flabbergasted and flummoxed. What, pray, is the relevance, in the present context, of the professor’s diatribe against colonialism? Is it to suggest that we know more about ‘freedoms’ and their responsible use? Sure, colonialism was rapacious and ugly and we were victims. But then is it not true that until some 50 years ago, conquering and plundering others if you had the opportunity was the universal norm for whoever could get away with it? Did we Muslims not do the same when we had our chance?
Bingo! Apparently, Mr. Hassan is a little fuzzy about the Moghul Dynasty and its conquering ways.
Cartoons don't burn tyres, people burn tyres.
Tyre burning incident #1:
Thousands of students from the International Islamic University, H-8 College, H-9 College and other schools marched from Peshawar Mor to the Diplomatic Enclave via the Kashmir Highway. At Aabpara Market, they blocked traffic and burnt tyres and effigies of head of states of countries where the caricatures have been published.
Tyre burning incident #2:
The main rally in Lahore, some 15,000-strong, was held at Faisal Chowk, while groups of 35 to 50 youngsters staged separate protests all over the city....The demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing President Musharraf, US President George Bush and European leaders. They burnt tyres and piles of wood on roads and chowks across the city.
Tyre burning incident #3:
Meanwhile, some 50,000 people protested in a massive rally on Grand Trunk Road in Gujranwala, burning tyres and shouting anti-West slogans.
Tyre burning incident #4:
And in Hyderabad, a peaceful protest called by traders was hijacked by violent mobs who ransacked shops that were not closed and threw stones at vehicles. They blocked several roads with burning tyres, burnt flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister and tore down advertising hoardings featuring foreign products.
Let me rephrase: Cartoons don't burn tyres, Pakistanis burn tyres.
Qaisar Farooq writes a letter for the Pakistanis:
Throughout the country there have been many protest rallies against the blasphemous cartoons. The protest rallies have done a lot of damage to personal property, shops, offices, etc. What kind of a picture of Islam are we showing to the world by such senseless violence?
My question to these people involved in protest rallies is, why are you not respecting the religious freedom of the minorities in Pakistan? In Sangla Hill religious parties desecrated holy Bibles, statues and altars. They damaged a church and two others were set to fire. Schools and hostels were also set on fire. The Christian community throughout the country as well as in Sangla Hill preferred to carry out a peaceful protest against the incident.
The Shias and the tiny population of Ahmadis don't fare any better.
Words of wisdom on the Cartoon Jihad from Larry Flynt.
A response from a Saudi embassy to the Cartoon Jihad:
Thank you Dana. We feel the Barbarians are the ones who mock religion. We Saudis have not threatened anyone. We have simply expressed our distaste for the mocking of religion.
Close. You see, the Saudis regime threatens its own population and spews rhetorical venom towards the Jews, Zionists and Americans. Since these groups add up to a minority of the world's population, we can more correctly say that the Saudis don't threaten most of us. Yet.
Oh, by the way, that "mocking of religion" bit is classic coming from a regime that bans Jews and incarcerates Christians for the crime of...possessing a Bible.
For some reason, I find the faux brave poses in the photo here amusing. Sigh, sometimes it's hard to believe that I was born in that city.