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February 2007
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Mosques Down Under

Mar 20, 2007

Australian News:

A LEADING Muslim cleric has blamed the devastating drought, climate change and pollution on Australians' lack of faith in Allah.

Makes perfect sense.

A Sunday Herald Sun investigation also found clerics railing against "evil" democracy, vilifying Jews and Christians and encouraging jihad and polygamy.

And in a popular DVD selling locally, a foreign sheik exhorts Muslims to take control of Australia by out-breeding non-believers.

Later:

Behind the closed doors of some Melbourne mosques and bookshops, sheiks push for Sharia law, declare Islam at war with the "sick" West and gloat that September 11 boosted Muslim numbers.

Link via Junk Yard Blog.

Posted at 06:28 PM in World War III | | Comments (2)

Kill Knut!

Mar 20, 2007

The lunacy of the animal rights lobby:

Berlin Zoo's abandoned polar bear cub Knut looks cute, cuddly and has become a front-page media darling, but an animal rights activist insisted Monday he would have been better off dead than raised by humans.

"Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws," animal rights activist Frank Albrecht was quoted as saying by the mass-circulation Bild daily, which has featured regular photo spreads tracking fuzzy Knut's frolicking.

"The zoo must kill the bear."

Otherwise, it would be "unnatural" -- and thus evil -- for the humans to take care of the bear. How utterly asinine.

More links and commentary at Bidinotto.

Posted at 06:20 PM in General | | Comments (8)

Mentally Handicapped

Mar 19, 2007

Spiegel Online: A Parallel Muslim Universe.

ietmar Pagel, principal of the Hector-Peterson High School in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, actively seeks dialog with his students. But with increasing frequency, he and his colleagues feel they are banging their heads against a brick wall. "Lots of our adolescents have a fundamentalist outlook on life," he says. 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."

In addition, zero food and water during the day is not healthy for young kids.

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.'" And sometimes they simply remind him that - as a non-Muslim - he would be better off keeping such views to himself.

Aren't they cute?

Link via LFG.

Posted at 03:01 PM in World War III | | Comments (0)

The Uncouth, Uniracial, Spartans

Mar 18, 2007

Neal Stephenson talks about the surreal nature of many 300 reviews. He mentions one of the big criticisms of the movie:

All of the good guys are white people and many of the bad guys are brown. (How this could have been avoided in a film about Spartans versus Persians is never explained [...]

It gets worse.

But such criticisms aren’t really worth arguing with, because they are not serious in the first place — and that is their whole point. Many critics dislike “300” so intensely that they refused to do it the honor of criticizing it as if it were a real movie. Critics at a festival in Berlin walked out, and accused its director of being on the Bush payroll.

Thermopylae is a wedge issue!

Damn you, Frank Miller (for writing the comic in 1999)!

Posted at 08:52 PM in Pop Culture, USA | | Comments (0)

No Pity For Pakistan

Mar 18, 2007

Osman Samiuddin from Cricinfo:

First, an apology to the Irish: what follows is meant in no way to take anything away from what must be one of that immensely warm, tiny nation's greatest sporting achievements. They outplayed Pakistan with bat, ball, mind, body, soul and all else that goes into the winning of cricket matches.

More:

And we apologise to you for our captain Inzamam-ul-Haq's disgraceful yet revealing post-match comment that kismet was not with Pakistan; kismet or fate, Inzamam, had nothing to do with it and to say it did degrades a mighty performance.

Gotta love that fatalism!

[...] by losing to Ireland, by getting knocked out of the World Cup barely five days after it began, throwing out of the window in five days what was supposed to have been three years of preparation and somehow contriving to make even the doomed World Cup class of 2003 appear champions, is cause enough to churn out that most hackneyed of literary cliches - the cricket obituary.

Related articles
Cricinfo: Lowest point in Pakistan cricket, say former players.
Kamran Abbasi: Shamed by the shamrock: an open letter.

Update
I just got back from work and found that Rezwan had left a comment about ... the death of Pakistan's cricket coach!

Bob Woolmer died at the age of 58.

Posted at 11:25 AM in Cricket | | Comments (4)

What a Dunce

Mar 16, 2007

The Terror Finance Blog via Dhimmi Watch:

Tariq Ramadan, the so-called “moderate” Islamic “intellectual”, was briefly detained and charged for “insulting a public agent” on Sunday at Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle International Airport, while in transit to London.

From informed police sources, we have learned that when Ramadan tried to enter a prohibited area, a young policewoman stopped him. He began shouting at her and was then taken into police custody; the officer filed a complaint against him.

How insensitive of France to have female authority figures! Don't they know that that can really hurt the fragile feelings of Muslims?

Posted at 10:08 PM in General | | Comments (2)

Zero Deterrence

Mar 15, 2007

Solly Ganor:

“I have to tell you something which very few of you seem to comprehend.” He continued, “Your bungling war against a few thousand Hezbollah fighters which you should have crushed no matter what, considering the importance of the outcome, has created a completely new situation, not only for this area, but globally. Your inept leadership totally misunderstood the importance of winning this war."

Later:

“What can we do against this type warfare?” I asked him. “Well, you Israelis, should better prepare yourself for another round against Hezbollah. It will not be long in coming. It depends on the Iranians to give the word. This time you will have to destroy Hezbollah no matter what the cost may be."

Posted at 06:13 PM in World War III | | Comments (2)

"A Lot of Work to Do"

Mar 15, 2007

Mark Steyn writes about his experience with radio talk show callers:

King and Gandhi’s strategies would not have been effective against fellows who gun down classrooms of Russian schoolchildren, or self-detonate at Muslim weddings in Amman, or behead you live on camera and then release it as a snuff video, or assassinate politicians and as they’re dying fall to the ground and drink their blood off the marble. Come to that, King and Gandhi’s strategies would not have been effective against the prominent British Muslim who in a recent debate at Trinity College, Dublin announced that the Prophet Mohammed’s message to infidels was “I am here to slaughter you all.” Good luck with the binding non-violent conflict resolution there.

And at that point there’s usually a pause and the caller says something like “Well, that’s all the more reason why we need to be even more committed to non-violence.” Or as a lady called Kay put it: “We have a lot of work to do then so that some day a long way down the road they won’t want to slaughter us.”

Link via Tim Blair.

Posted at 05:51 PM in USA, World War III | | Comments (2)

"The Hidden War" Against Iran

Mar 14, 2007

BBC:

Javad Shamaqdari, a cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it [300] was "plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization".

He branded the film "psychological warfare" against Tehran and its people.

Who knew the Iranians were so fragile?

"American cultural officials thought they could get mental satisfaction by plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization," he said.

"Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the US initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture.

"Certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

So, sneaky of them. They made a movie about an event that occurred 2500 years ago -- so that no-one would notice their evil designs. But thanks to Javad Shamaqdari, we know the truth!

This is not the first time Iran has protested over its portrayal in films made in the West.

There was outrage over the 2004 epic Alexander which showed the Macedonian general easily conquering the Persian Empire.

That's what happens when trained soldiers, led by a brilliant tactician, go up against a bunch of ragtag yahoos. Shame on you, Hollywood!

Link via Natalia Antonova.

Posted at 06:24 PM in History, Politics | | Comments (2)

Canadian Soldier Attacked...in Canada

Mar 14, 2007

CTV via Smash at Michelle Malkin:

A soldier honoured for his military valour in Afghanistan is wondering why strangers beat him up in his hometown bar this past weekend.

What happened:

He says he'd been in the bar only about 20 minutes late Friday, visiting with a childhood friend who introduced him to people as a war hero, when he was suddenly struck from behind with some type of object. Four men jumped him and began beating on him.

"They were saying 'What kind of hero are you now?'," Fitzgerald's mother Arlene told CTV News.

His condition:

The weapons instructor at CFB Trenton had his foot broken in three places and needed 10 stitches to close a cut above his right eye. Fitzgerald, 27, also suffered a broken nose and two black eyes in the Friday night attack.

He speaks:

"They don't realize how good we have it here in Canada and what we're trying to help the Afghan people have," he said of his attackers.

Ontario Provincial Police have arrested 21-year-old Travis Baldwin, a Morrisburg resident and hockey player, and charged him with aggravated assault. An investigation is ongoing.

I hope his recovery goes well. The thugs should get the maximal punishment for the crime.

Posted at 05:04 PM in World War III | | Comments (4)

Little Love For Wal-Mart

Mar 14, 2007

MSNBC:

Debbie Brinkman didn’t plan on being an anti-Wal-Mart activist. In fact, as a Republican, she felt it was “kind of against my politics to be fighting this.”

But when the Littleton, Colo., resident heard there were plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter across from a large and popular park — and within sight of her own front door — she felt she had little choice but to get involved.

NIMBY to the max.

The reasons behind the efforts vary widely. Some activists, like Brinkman, say they don’t oppose Wal-Mart in general — they just don’t think Wal-Mart belongs in that particular spot in their community. Others, like Carole Heerman of Woodland, Wash., worry that a Wal-Mart will hurt the town’s other businesses, including her own. Still others, like Michael Funke of Bend, Ore., oppose Wal-Mart because they think its workers should get better wages and benefits.

The opposition boils down to:

  1. Again, NIMBY.
  2. Some people are afraid of competition. "Hey, the town folks ought to pay high prices to keep me in business!"
  3. They don't like the pay of Wal-Mart workers. Why anyone would care what one employer pays to its employees is beyond me. A company can pay either the minimum wage, minimum wage times a million or anything in between. If these people really care about the suffering Wal-Mart workers, then perhaps they can donate some of their own hard earned money to them. No-one is standing in their way.

Later:

Some community organizers have accepted money from union labor groups and other anti-Wal-Mart interests, such as grocers who stand to lose business from Wal-Mart competition.

Shocking!

“Costco has been an example for us of what we would like Wal-Mart to do,” said Funke, of Bend.

Funke, my man, if you don't like Wal-Mart, then don't shop there. Why are you trying to take that option away from the rest of society?

In Woodland:

[...] others complained that they currently have to drive as far as 20 miles to get things like kids’ sports uniforms, and said their cash-strapped families could use the bargain prices.

“Why not let Wal-Mart come in, and those who don’t want to shop there can go somewhere else that they like?” resident Shirley James asked.

Yes!

Posted at 03:21 PM in Economics, Politics, USA | | Comments (4)

Two Converts Quarrel

Mar 13, 2007

Akram's Razor uses an explicitly false title for this post. (Update: He changed the title.)

The first comment by Abu Sinan is, um, amusing:

This guy is the mirror opposite of some converts to Islam. He so badly wants to be American/Western, but he never will be. About time he realises this.

So, a Pakistani-born fellow (regardless of his/her religion) can't be or can't become an American. Okay. Later on:

Like these self hating converts to Islam, he completely misses the point. One can be 100% Muslim and still be American and or European.

How does that jive?

I don't get this self-hating business? If a Christian were to convert to Islam and talk about Christianity in a negative manner, then would that mean that s/he is self-hating? So, one can only truly love the self if one embraces the religion/culture one was born in?

That seems pretty idiotic.

He will someday realise that as a born and bred Pakistani he will never be 100% American or 100% Western. He will never be able to get away from that fact no matter how much he tries.

Of course, I can't let go of my background. Like everyone else, I didn't have a choice of where I was born. So, my Pakistani family and upbringing will always be a part of me.

I actually feel sorry for the guy. It must suck to hate yourself that much. I worry for his mental health and his safety. These types of people often hurt themselves and or kill themselves.

I also worry about my safety. Though, not in the way you think.

Lets pray the guy comes to accept the fact that there is no "inner American" in him and that he is, was and always will be a Pakistani.

Too late for that.

He is like Michael Jackson, whom I dont think can accept he is black. Who knows, maybe they use the same methods to try and become white.

Race and ideology; some people just can't separate the two.

My acceptance and defense of Western Civilization is being compared to ... not enjoying one's skin color.

I feel so hurt.

Posted at 04:46 PM in World War III | | Comments (16)

ODI no. 2531

Mar 13, 2007

World Cup: West Indies vs. Pakistan.

West Indies scored 241 runs in their 50 overs for the loss of 9 wickets.

The Pakistanis are at 17/2; they shouldn't even bother with the top order -- just send in the middle order to start the innings.

Update
The Pakistanis unveiled a most depressing batting performance. Only one person scored a fifty and the entire team was bowled out for 187 runs. The strike rates were way too low for an ODI game. Only Malik (62) played sensibly...he simply didn't get any support.

The Pakistanis don't have the firepower to advance in this tournament. To be fair, Shahid Afridi, out of this game because of disciplinary action, can tip the scales in their favor.

Posted at 03:15 PM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

The West Is To Blame

Mar 13, 2007

Svend left quite a few comments in this post. They're unintentionally comical and very illuminating. A few gems follow.

On criticism of Islam:

Many observers have noted the striking similarities between today's Islamophobic rhetoric and the demonizing rhetoric used against Jews and Blacks by Nazis and Klansmen, respectively. It's a pretty elementary insight actually.

I think that the rhetoric employed against Islam is comparable to the one used against the National Socialists, the fascists and the Japanese in WWII. It's about ideology -- not racial makeup.

I had mentioned a few hadith which showed that Muhammad agreed with the killing of apostates from Islam. Svend replied:

Ah, a hadith hurler. I don't pay attention to that when Muslims do it, so forgive me if I tune out.

I asked him how the West is denying liberty to Muslims. He replied:

Hmm, for starters by imposing foreign rule and apartheid on Muslim societies for 2 centuries during the colonial era. Then, after the end of the colonial era, supporting every manner of bloody dictator and tyrant in the name of containing Communism. Then encouraging a conflict between Arabs and Israelis that gives despots an excuse to postpone political reform in the name of wartime unity. Pumping Afghanistan and Pakistan full of weapons and extremism--in fact, creating the modern phenomenon of Jihadism--and then walking away once the USSR folded. Etc. etc.

I talked about sharia in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Svend replied:

Could it possibly, just possibly, be due to their cultural, historical and economic circumstances, especially given how radically different they are from most other Islamic societies? And this shariah you're referring to is redneck shariah that has little in common with Islam's legal tradition, which is not only supple and complex, but compares quite favorably with modern Western law. But, again, one of the big problems is that it was not allowed to develop naturally over time (as did Western law) thanks to Colonialism.

Read it all.

Update
Svend says:

Yes, it's much easier to discuss Muslims as natural-born savages who, unlike all other human beings, are unaffected by history or circumstance. Let's just exterminate the brutes!

The only thing funny here is how cliched and shallow the arguments of you and your comrades-in-bigotry are.

You are the only one who is mentioning mass murder. The rest of the commenters and I didn't say anything about murdering Muslims.

Repeatedly, you bring up the asinine argument that Muslims are a race; to speak up against their ideology is to call them "natural-born savages"; thus we are calling for their extermination.

Somehow, speaking up against German National Socialism, Italian fascism, and Japanese militarism was equivalent to calling for the extermination of the Germans, Italians and the Japanese?

Learn to construct an argument before hurling words like "shallow" and "bigots".

Posted at 02:14 PM in World War III | | Comments (12)

"Enemies of Islam"

Mar 12, 2007

Akram's razor on the recent Secular Islam Summit:

No doubt many lucrative careers in Beltway punditry will be launched as a result of the MSM's fawning attention to this trivial gathering, but the event it won't make an iota of difference in the real world.

Well, perhaps that's too uncharitable.  It might well succeed in changing the world in one critical respect:  It could help to postpone Islamic reform by giving rank and file Muslims yet another reason to (wrongly) suspect all Islamic reformers of being in league with the proverbial "enemies of Islam" in the West.

Later on:

I'm sure their real audience--neocons, Islamophobes, secularists and others with an agenda to discredit Muslims and their viewpoints in the public eye--will be eagerly hanging on every word. I'm reminded of a memorable Dave Chappelle skit about a confused Black Klansman given to scorching denunciations of "niggers" who hasn't realized his own race due to being blind.  Many of these counterfeit community activists exhibit comparably self-hating ideas and schizophrenic alliances.

Ain't he classy? By the way, what does "self-hating" mean? Does a person who is born in a Muslim family and then later leaves Islam -- and is vocal about the issue -- hate him/herself?

I do understand the schizophrenic part: Western liberty and Islam don't mix.

Update
Svend, the author of the post mentioned above, left a couple of comments. I have replied to them. Click on the "Permalink" and/or scroll down to read it.

Posted at 05:38 PM in World War III | | Comments (60)

Holy Calumny, Batman!

Mar 12, 2007

Indigo Jo Blogs:

Islamophobia Watch drew my attention to an article by Barbara Smoker, former president of the National Secular Society, in the latest edition of the Gay Humanist Quarterly.

Something tells me he doesn't like what she has to say.

[...] Barbara Smoker offers up the usual facetiousness which is typical of secularist attitudes to religious sensitivities, with a bit of ignorant bigotry any Jihad Watch or LGF goon could have come up with.

Goon? I prefer lizard, thank you very much.

To summarise it for the sake of our visually impaired friends, Smoker tells us that, at a recent debate at the Oxford University Union (a debating society), she, along with Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who published the notorious cartoons, opposed a motion that "Free Speech should be moderated by respect for Religion".

Yay!

The Danish cartoons were not an attempt at civilised debate, but contained deliberate insults and slurs. Three of them show a sort of stereotypical nasty Arab, fierce and grizzly with an unkempt beard with a bomb in his turban in one case and two goggle-eyed veiled women behind him in another, as if this was what the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) really looked like.

Mr. Yousuf Smith could draw out the "true" Muhammad and showcase the result to the world. How about it?

I should add that, in a Danish context, Muslims are not a powerful population; as elsewhere in Europe, they are ghettoised, politically under-represented and suffer discrimination. It is not debate and it is not satire; in our country, at least, satire tends to be aimed at politicians and other powerful people, not at minorities, even privileged ones like the Jews.

So, by that logic, cartoons about Muhammad should only be printed in Muslim-majority nations? Since then, it'll be "legitimate" satire, right?

If a "satirical cartoon" linking Blacks with apes or cavemen were published, and then spuriously justified with references to black drug dealers or gangsters, there would be outrage, and justifiably so.

So? How is making fun of a religious figure similar to condemning an entire race?

If the children being taught Islam are taught explicitly that suicide bombing is against Islam and is not a path to martyrdom at all, as a lot of Muslims actually believe, then this possibility is averted unless the children choose to ignore what they have been taught, or unless the children are living in a context of dispossession, occupation and widespread oppression and disruption of daily life by an outside invader.

My heart bleeds for all those oppressed Muslims who carried out terrorist attacks on 9/11 in America, on 3/11 in Spain, on 7/7 in Britain...

The answer lies in the fact that neither the Taliban, with their bizarre hostility towards women, nor al-Qa'eda, nor the Badr Corps are typical of Muslims anywhere. In no other country are women forced (by law) to wear the burqa as seen in Afghanistan or denied medical treatment or education by law.

Perhaps, he can explain this bizarre "anomaly" from March of 2002:

Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers.

15 girls died in the fire because they didn't escape the building with a fully covered burqa.

Laws banning satire on religion are not on the table, and any Muslim who seeks to have such laws introduced should consider that many of us are not above lampooning aspects of our fellow citizens' religions. We are one minority among many, and cannot expect special treatment in that regard.

That sensible passage was marred by what followed:

Rather, we object to calumny, and a calumny against the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) is a calumny against all of us, and when it concerns violence, it causes understandable distress.

Calumny against us all? Speak for yourself.

If you cannot see that, you are an idiot.

Which is way better than being a wretched Muslim.

Posted at 05:04 PM in World War III | | Comments (2)

Letting Go Of Umreeka

Mar 12, 2007

Nimbu talks about a friend:

His dad was hell bent on him becoming a doctor and figured if he paid enough dollars, a Pakistani med school would grant him admission and boom, a doctor! Now the problem here is that this mutual friend was born and raised in the US. Although he had visited Pakistan a few times on family trips, he was 100% American. He loved skateboarding, Depeche Mode, New Order, had long hair, loved computer games, just like me.

While we were sad to see him go, we were happy that he was becoming a doctor; the Holy Grail for any Pakistani parent. A few years passed and when he returned, he looked like a Taliban Mulla.

Uh oh.

Posted at 02:06 PM in General | | Comments (0)

The Religion That Must Not Be Named

Mar 12, 2007

"Terrorists Proving Harder to Profile" via Jihad Watch:

The demographics of those being arrested are so diverse that many European counterterrorism officials and analysts say they have given up trying to predict what sorts of people are most likely to become terrorists. Age, sex, ethnicity, education and economic status have become more and more irrelevant.

Oh, I can think of one common characteristic.

Posted at 01:03 PM in World War III | | Comments (4)

I Want Sex And I Want It Now!

Mar 11, 2007

The Dawn Patrol:

The more I learn about sexually active young adults, both the supercharged "hookup" generation in their late teens and 20s, and the bored "whatever" generation in their 30s, the more I believe the overriding reason they seek premarital sex is nihilism — and that nihilism is built upon fear.

The short but potent post has attracted a lot of comments.

Posted at 12:46 AM in General | | Comments (16)

Epic Dimness

Mar 10, 2007

This reviewer of 300 is simply clueless. The last paragraph:

[...] keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule - never compare anything to Hitler - it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a "300" screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again.

Check out how Dana Stevens starts the review:

If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.

Of course. If a movie -- based on the events of 480 B.C. -- doesn't quite jive with your modern political views, then that makes it a horrible cinematic experience.

Links via Rotten Tomatoes via Winds of Change.

Posted at 04:14 PM in History, Pop Culture, USA | | Comments (6)

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