The little guy (above) is A-jad, Iranian thug-in-chief, and he's congratulating an American professor named Robert G. Morrison of Bowdoin College for having written Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, which, it seems, was chosen by Iran as a 2009 International Book of the Year in Islamic Studies.

Jay Nordlinger recently noted the acceptance of this award--horrifying enough in itself--and also linked to the even more bizarro Bowdoin College webpage that trumpets the incident as though it were a garden-variety academic achievement to fly to Tehran and shake hands with a genocidal jihadist terror master who is committed to the destruction of Israel, who possibly...

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About that appallingly callous decision to fly Air Force One around Manhattan to get new publicity shots without telling anyone: From the start I wondered why the new pix couldn't have been engineered on a computer. The jet fuel savings alone--not to mention the hot-pulse panic suffered by thousands of citizens who feared they were under another jihad attack--should have appealed to this administration.

NRO's Mark Hemingway wondered the same thing, and received this gorgeous shot (above) from a reader who spent ten minutes on Photoshop. The reader said, according to his rates, the cost would have come out to $15 for his time. 

Let's double--no, triple--no, dectuple (if that's a word) these rates for a giant retail mark-up, and imagine the new picture costing We the Taxpayers $150....

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Apology guy: Col. Richard Francey said we were "deeply saddened"--but that's not enough.

Seems that an American colonel (above) calling an authorized military raid to secure stinkin' Iraqi territory against violent attack a "terrible tragedy" isn't sufficient. More grovelling, says Iraq, and now. Reuters reports:

The Iraqi government has asked General Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, for an official apology for a U.S. raid this week that killed two people and kicked off a tide of condemnation, an official said on Tuesday.

"The prime minister sent a letter to the commander of multinational forces in Iraq condemning this act. He asked for an official apology and asked that such acts not be repeated," said Major General Qassim Moussawi, Baghdad security spokesman.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting...

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Photo: Iraq's Maliki called the US raid a "crime" that violated the SOFA. Here we go...

After a US raid in Iraq on Sunday left two dead, the word from the Iraqi government is: "Hand over those responsible to the courts." In other words: Hand over the US soldiers who participated in the raid to the Iraqi courts. For prosecution. Oh, and the detainees seized in the operation should be released while we're at it, handing over our solidiers for prosecution.

Ain't nation-building grand?

In fact, this outrageous demand of Herr Maliki presents the pure golden opportunity to pick up our marbles, our Bradley tanks and GO HOME. Leave. Goodbye and lotsa luck, you intractable barbarians, you. But no. My hunch is we will not hand over our troops (please, Lord, no), but we will indeed issue some big, fat, juicy apologies as we prostate ourselves for the fabulous privilege of remaining stuck in the Iraqi sand to fight off the local "al Qaeda" franchise--which, tragically, does nothing to fight off jihad franchises everywhere else, from Pakistan to Gaza to Brussels to Britain to--guess what?--Washington, DC. And then there's always Iran, whose responsibility for American casualties in Iraq goes unmentioned, let alone unpunished, as its centrifuges whir away...

...

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This week's column takes in an interview with Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (USA ret.) about how we can axe the Afghan albatross and contain jihad terror at the same time.

Saw an unforgettably stark photo of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Wardak province, the same province Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen visited this week: Eight robed, turbaned fighters, a sandy ridge, a cloudy sky. All that was missing was the incoming American drone strike to turn the men into dust.

Question: Should the United States call in that strike? How great a security threat to the United States do these eight barbarians pose? How many dollars, how much blood is it worth to our nation to pulverize them into that lunar-like landscape?

I recently read a military e-mail from Afghanistan that marveled over a similar scene: "As far as BDA (battle damage assessment) goes, check this one out. 2 GBU 36's (bomblets) dropped the other day on estimated 6 guys!!!! That is half a million dollars on 6 guys!!!!" The e-mailer guessed that all the sniper ammunition the jihadists have used in the whole war hasn't cost close to that.

...

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Photo: Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, Harvard '96

Here, in a Washington Times exclusive, I delved into this story of the Harvard Muslim chaplain who sees "great wisdom" in death for apostasy:

What do Pakistan's Swat Valley and Harvard University have in common?

Their leading Islamic authorities uphold the Shariah (Islamic law) tradition of punishing those who leave Islam with death.

There are differences, of course. For one thing, Shariah actually rules the Swat Valley, while Shariah's traditions, as promulgated by Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, retain a more or less theoretical caste. In a recently publicized e-mail, for example, Mr. Abdul-Basser approvingly explained to a student the traditional Islamic practice of executing converts from Islam.

As the chaplain put it: "There is great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment), and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human-rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand."

...

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Remember that "war within Islam" we're always hearing about? You know, the war between the "moderates" and the "extremists" that is far, far more important -- indeed, that cancels out and replaces -- any suggestion that a war, or even clash of civilizations, between Islam and the West is taking place? Well, the war's over.

I am referring, of course, to the capitulation of Pakistan to Swat Valley jihad, which scholar and author Andrew Bostom has pointed out occurred basically without a shot despite Pakistani leader Ali Zardari's recent boast of having  "150,000 soldiers fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan — far more troops than NATO has in Afghanistan." It also occurred without any assistance to Pakistan from any of the 56 other nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Funny how the OIC doesn't seem...

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Filip Dewinter and Frank Vanhecke spoke before the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen last week. Here, courtesy of Steen, are videos of their speeches. First, Filip (click "Read more") --



Now, Frank:



...

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Despite consensus to the contrary -- as exemplified by Chas. Krauthammer's crowing comment that "the good news is that these [pirates] are not jihadists"-- Josh London, author of the excellent Victory in Tripoli: How America's War With the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, lays out the case that Somali piracy is indeed ocean-going jihad.

Writing in the Washington Times, Josh takes the US government to task for  "treating the matter as a criminal case," arguing that "these `criminals' are jihadist Muslim pirates and must be dealt with in the context of America's larger regional...

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Let's review:



Now, the speculation is that Obama doesn't want to be seen with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu at the upcoming AIPAC conference in Washington. On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post reported:

Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday canceled his plans to attend the upcoming AIPAC summit, after it became clear that US President Barack Obama would not meet him during the conference.

Netanyahu announced that while he will not attend the conference in person, he will send a video-taped message to Washington.

A watershed disgrace if true. Certainly, this notion has been cycling around Israel circles for a while. Last week, the Jerusalem Post reported:

...

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They knew what they were after--the Gestapo (above), that is. And as Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said last week, the DHS "right-wing extremism" report "would have the admiration of the Gestapo and any current or past dictator in the way it targets political opponens." So, what to do? 

The Thomas More Law Center has decided to take action by filing suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, arguing that the DHS report "violates the civil liberties of combat veterans as well as American citizens by targeting them for disfavored treatement on account of their political beliefs."

This is the same Janet Napolitano, who, by the way, on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday told host John King that crossing the border illegally "is not a crime per se. It is civil." Just FYI: crossing the border illegally is indeed...

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Q: Who is free to smile at a cartoon?

A: Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter, both of Belgium's Vlaams Belang party, and Lars Hedegaard, president of both the Danish Free Press Society (Trykkefrihedsselskabet, if you're in the Danish know) and the International Free Press Society. Frank and Filip recently addressed the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen, where Lars presented them with autographed prints of Kurt Westergaard's famous Motoon.

It is no laughing matter that such smiles are courageous acts of defiance in this Age of the Dhimmi in which cravenness and self-suppression become ever more ordinary.

Photo: Right-wing extremists preparing for right-wing radicalization and recruitment, August 1980.

This week's column:

I've got it.

After reading and rereading the surreal Department of Homeland Security intel report on "right-wing extremism" that clearly designates conservative political dissent as part of the threat, I finally figured out why it all seems so familiar.

First, there's the report's leading villain, the "military veteran" returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the "potential lone wolf" terrorist with the lethal capabilities. That could raise goose bumps in anyone, right?

Then there are the "white supremacists" well known for their "longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion, interracial crime and same-sex marriage." (I don't get the connection either.) According to the government, we just might see a growing movement of similarly pro-life, pro-law-and-order, pro-marriage ... "white supremacists." Enough to make anyone hyperventilate, of course.

...

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This I don't get--"this" being the Obama administration's demand that Jesuit-founded Georgetown University cover up its chiseled Catholic symbols, including the IHS monogram symbolizing Jesus Christ, in preparation for Obama's Tuesday speech there, and Jesuit-founded Georgetown University's acquiesence to the White House demand. CNSNews.com has the story and lots of pictures here.

Photo: Harvard Islamic chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, '96, who believes there is "great wisdom" in the death penalty for converting from Islam.

From the Internet to the media, slowly: Yesterday's Harvard Crimson carried a story on the Harvard Islamic chaplain's support for capital punishment for Muslims who leave Islam as revealed in an email the chaplain "allegedly" wrote. (We're still at "allegedly"--although no one, including the chaplain, has disputed the authorship of the email.) I posted the story here on April 4. What caught my eye in this week's Crimson story was the "clarification" flagged at the bottom of the following Crimson paragraph:

“I believe he doesn’t belong as the official chaplain,” said one Islamic student, who asked that he not be named to avoid conflicts with Muslim religious authorities. “If the Christian ministers said that people who converted from Christianity...

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When a free press society is cyber-attcked online over its free-press fundraiser selling prints of a free-press cartoon, you know the free press is in trouble.

Welcome to our world because that, of course, is precisely what happened last week to the International Free Press Society (a group I am associated with) one day after assorted world media, from The Scotsman to Gulf News, reported the IFPS was raising funds for its free speech activities by selling a limited run of prints of the most famous of the Danish Motoons numbered and signed by artist Kurt Westergaard. 

Erick Stackelbeck of Christian Broadcast Network reports here on the "cowardly cyber-attack initiated from an unknown source" that temporarily brought down the International Free Press Society website. The Copenhagen Post report is here, ...

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The New York Daily News reports (via View from the Right) on John McCain's latest nastiness:

...On Monday's "Tonight Show," Jay Leno asked the Arizona Senator to name the new guiding lights of the Republican party, and [John] McCain was quick to rattle off a list of "young, dynamic" governors around the country.

[Sarah] Palin wasn't one of them. 

McCain singled out Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Florida Gov. Charlie Christ, Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney, McCain's chief rival for the Republican presidential nod in 2008.

In case anyone missed his conspicuous omission of Palin, McCain then...

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Somehow, this photograph of visitors examining the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum seems like an apt illustration to this PC-code-cracking essay by Israeli scholar Mordecai Nisan--just about everything you ever need to know about Islam and non-Islam. From the American Thinker (hat tip Andy Bostom):



By Mordecai Nisan

Islam's War

It is late in the global game of confrontation with Islamic Jihad. The lines of conflict have been drawn and the ground-rules for Muslim victory are in place. Yet many among the targeted governments and peoples have yet been incapable or unwilling to identify the enemy, at the gates and within the walls.



Now the entire globe is Islam's religious ambition and field of...

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Guess who the Department of Homeland Security has in its sites now?

From this morning's Washington Times (hat tip Andy McCarthy):

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines "rightwing extremism in the United States" as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

"It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated...

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Success--no, victory! US captain rescued, three Somali pirates killed. But those Indian Ocean sea lanes remain unfree, with more than 200 hostages  seized from a flotilla's worth of hijacked ships in Somali hands to prove it. What next?

This, unfortunately, is where things will get interesting. In other words, Barack Obama did not morph over Easter weekend into a presidential avenger. Had Capt. Phillips' life not appeared to be in danger--Prez O's criterion for use of force, according to press reports--the ex-hostage and his captors presumably would still be floating along. In other words, the weekend window into White House thinking--"Obama Team Mulls Aims of Somali Extremists"--didn't exactly bespeak of executive urgency about the crisis. And now? Don't be too surprised if things go into some extremely weird directions, doubtless involving stacks of international...

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As some readers have noticed, the Youtube of Robert Gibbs squirming over the Obama-Abdullah bow (linked below) was removed from the server. Here is another one you can see (while you can....):

Via Jihadwatch:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- The top U.S. general in Afghanistan reached out to influential Afghan tribesmen in regions where U.S. troops will soon deploy, apologizing for past mistakes and saying he is now studying the Quran, the Muslim holy book....

'I'm reading a very good book now about this part of the world. It's written in English, but it's all about you -- it's the Quran,'' McKiernan said to applause. Moments later an Afghan man stood up and gave McKiernan a bright purple, red and green cloth in which to wrap the translated version of holy book....

What we've got here is Mr. Rogers, not Patton, I'm afraid.

(Clockwise from top left) Captain Richard Phillips, who was recaptured after a failed attempt to escape from his Somali pirate kidnappers; Florent Lemacon, who was killed when French commandos stormed his yacht Tanit, which had been seized by pirates; and an armed pirate aboard the Tanit off Somalia. Photo: AP/AFP/Reuters

Not only did the Obama-to-Abdullah bow not occur, Somali pirates aren't holding the US Navy to a standoff. How else to interpret the White House decision to jet in a St Louis pizzamaker 860 miles from to whip up a "casual" dinner of 140 this week? According to the Daily Mail (via Mark Steyn...

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Get this:

"The activities of al-Qaeda in two of Iraq’s most troubled cities could keep US combat troops engaged beyond the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, the top US commander in the country has warned."

So reports the London Times. Now, is it just me, or do you ever get the feeling we're getting played for suckers by AQ? The Times goes on:

"US troop numbers in Mosul and Baqubah, in the north of the country, could rise rather than fall over the next year if necessary, General Ray Odierno told The Times ....

"He said that a joint assessment would be conducted with the Iraqi authorities in the coming weeks before a decision is made.

"Combat troops are due to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of June. Any delay would be a potential setback...

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Photo: Frank Ricci of the New Haven Fire Department

An important judgment on race-based governance is due from the Supreme Court soon. On April 22, the Court will hear Ricci v. DeStefano, a suit brought by a New Haven fireman--"firefighter" in postmodern parlance--against the city because it threw out the results of a promotion test based solely on the fact that there were no "African-Americans" among the top scorers, all white--"European-Americans?" except for one "Hispanic" (Hispanic-America?). As the New-York-American Times reports:

Frank Ricci has been a firefighter here for 11 years, and he would do just about anything to advance to lieutenant.

The last time the city offered a promotional exam, he said in a sworn statement, he gave up a second job and studied up to 13 hours a day. Mr....

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I first caught the idiotically pathetic, anonymously sourced White House denial of the Obama-Abdullah bow the other night on "O'Relly"-- about how Obama was merely "bending down to shake hands with a shorter man...." Are they kidding??  What a big fat lie. We can all see the bow on  the video tape. (My column on the bow is here.)

Now we can also see White House spokesman Robert Gibbs lie about the bow on video tape (click Read More) via Dakota Voice.

This is an outrage. First, Obama bows down before the "the kingdom" whose leading export isn't oil but jihad; then he asks his people to lie about it; and then his people lie about it.

What next?



 



...

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Now, that's a beautiful bow (curtsy).

It's too gorgeous a day to put up another sick-making video of Barack Hussein Obama bowing down to Abdullah, Sheik of Sharia and King of Crude, but here's my syndicated  column to wrap it up:

Chances are good you haven't heard this one: that, while in Buckingham Palace last week, milling about with G-20 leaders, the current president of the United States bowed deeply at the waist, one knee bent, on meeting the current King, so-called, of Saudi Arabia, who did not bow back. Chances are even better you haven't seen the video.

That's because Big Media, from viewer-deprived networks...

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A week or so ago, a federal judge backed off a threat to impose financial penalties on John D. Hemenway, for having enjoined the Berg lawsuit to force President Obama to release his birth records to prove his eligibility. As his daughter-in-law Margaret Calhoun Hemenway wrote here, "Instead of financial penalties, the judge issued a reprimand tinged with flippancy." Now, as we see from the letter above, it seems that Obama's lawyer, Robert (not Jack) Bauer, plans to pursue such sanctions if Hemenway won't yield his client's right to his day in appeals court.

As I read this, Obama's lawyer has already abused his privilege as an attorney because this premature threat to seek sanctions may be interpreted as a tactic to prevent Hemenway from performing his duty to his client.

I've heard of power ties; but this letter makes me think of Brown Shirts.

...

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Hate to do this to you folks, but we can't let this young hero bear all his pain alone. Watch as Marcus Luttrell tells Glenn Beck about the night last week when junk thugs shot his yelllow lab Dasy dead--the pup presented to him during his convalescence after surviving the worst day in SEAL history when 19 brave men were lost, and named for the members of the SEAL team, all dead, except Marcus: Danny, Axe, Southern boy (Marcus) and Yankee.

Roger Kimball gets today's Iron Man Award for uncapping his rapier pen yet again and dispatching more of the same self-delusional, self-extinguishing cant our universities slop out, Sorceror Apprentice style, by the bucketful,  bewitching successive generations of US citizens. Of course, there's a slight twist here: This time, it was the PC-programmed students who taught the  lesson to their profs....

Today's subject: malinging and eradicating that awesome seafarer Christopher Columbus--yes, again. Roger reports:

In its latest exhibition of anti-Americanism, the faculty at Brown University voted to rename the “Columbus Day” “Fall Weekend.” Rather lacking in poetry, “Fall Weekend,” but from the perspective of the tenured elite that anodyne moniker has the advantage of ideological neutrality. “Fall Weekend” does not commemorate a European explorer. It therefore does not honor the memory of the settlement and cultivation of the American continent and, by implication, withholds approbation of the ultimate fruit of that settling and cultivation: the founding of the United States. As Fox News reported, the Brown faculty acted in response to the clamoring of students, hundreds of whom had petitioned the university “to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values.”

...

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Just to let you know, a limited run of 1,000 prints of Kurt Westergaard's famous motoon, signed and numbered by the artist, is now for sale for $250 here. Proceeds benefit the International Free Press Society (of which I am a vice president).

 

Photo: Ronald Wilson Reagan at Normandy, June 6, 1984; Barack Hussein Obama skipped the trip for fear of giving France special treatment.  

Strange thing has happened. I am practically at peace with the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. Well, not really, but I have found a way to take the sting out. The fact is, it has dawned on me that this is not an American presidency we are living through. Why? It has become clear that BHO does not have American interests at heart. In other words, this 44th presidency of our country is in fact a kind of global-oriented caretakership--dangerous, transformative, but something I hope someday we are able to look back on as a kind of evil regency. As such, BHO's processional through Europe, the surrender of US banking sovereignty, the bow to the Saudi "king," the  pandering to Islam (perfected by GWB, folks) becomes an out-of-Oval-Office experience to behold; a chapter of horror-history happening at some weird remove.

...

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If you want to know why US policy, from Bush to Obama, is cataclysmically wrong on pushing the European Union to make Turkey a member, you couldn't do better than by reading this excellent book, A Bridge Too Far, by Philip Claeys and Koen Dillen. The authors, members of the European Parliament from the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, make the compelling historical, religious, cultural, and economic argument against Turkish membership in clear and logical prose.

Hint: It all has something to do with the fact that Turkey is a part of Islamic civilization, not Western civilization. If it joins the EU, it becomes the largest EU state, suddenly adding 70-plus million Muslims--presto--to "Europe." In other words, Creeping Sharia becomes Leaping Sharia.

My suggestion for a sequel: A Bridge Withdrawn: Why Turkey Should No Longer Be in NATO. Daniel Pipes, amplifying Carolyn Glick, broaches this novel...

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The Washington Post headline--"Most in Poll Back Outreach to Muslims"--is bad enough. That's because "outreach" is one of those gooey words that suggest concession, appeasement, and endless couch sessions to determine "why they hate us."

The poll data that pops out at me as the worst news of the story, however, are the answers to the following question:

"Q; Every religion has mainstream beliefs, and also fringe elements and extremists. Thinking of mainstream Islam, do you think mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims, or is it a peaceful religion?"

Love the way the question's lead-in statement  cues up a "tiny band of extremists" answer. But, OK--the question itself is valid: Does mainstream Islam encourage violence against...

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Make that "Harvard Muslim Chaplain Supports Death for `Apostasy.' "

Jeffrey Imm has picked up on Net chatter at Talk Islam and elsewhere over comments reportedly made by Harvard's own Taha Abdul-Basser, Class of '96 and university chaplain, regarding a disagreement among Muslim students at MIT about the Islamic position on death for "apostasy." The New York City native reportedly wrote:

I am familiar with these types of discussions.

While I understand that will happen and that there is some benefit in them, in the main, it would be better if people were to withhold from _debating_ such things, since they tend not to have the requisite familiarity with issues and competence to deal with them.

Debating about religious...

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This is a picture of Taliban fighters on a hillside at Maydan Shahr in Wardak province. That's west of Kabul, in case that helps.

My brain teaser of the day is, Should the US military kill them? In other words, how dangerous are these eight men, armed and turbaned, to the United States of America? How much is it worth to the United States of America to rid the planet of them? My military sources recently shared this following note of incredulity from Afghanistan on this very subject:

As far as BDA [battle damage assessment] goes, check this one out. 2 GBU  36's [bomblets] dropped the other day on estimated 6 guys!!!! That is half a million $$$ on 6 guys!!!! I wonder how many 50.cal rounds have been fired from sniper rifles here? I can guarantee you that it hasn't come close to half a million $$ worth in the entire country!!!

Apparently, we are getting a lot of bang...

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This week's column:

Beware, America. You are about to be duped by an alliance of Obama-niks and Bush-ites who, together, are laying the groundwork for nation-building in Afghanistan -- nation-building in Iraq having worked out so well (insert acid shot of sarcasm here). Only they are not going to call it "nation-building."

Worse, they are forging ahead without heeding the remedial lesson of Iraq: No matter how many American dollars spent, no matter how many American lives lost, it's not possible to transform an Islamic republic that enshrines Islamic law (Sharia) into an ally against Islamic jihad, even if Islamic jihad is euphemized as "extremism," "man-caused disasters" or "overseas contingency operations."...

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It's official, no doubt about it: The 44th President of the United States has bowed--and bowed very deeply--to the Saudi "King" of Sharia. Watch the video (if you can take it) via Infidels Are Cool with thanks to Stella. Bowing, scraping occurs at 53 seconds. America, what has happened to you?

Did he lose his contact? Is he about to curtsey? Kneel? What is the leader of the nationalized world doing?

...of the International Free Press Society, Lars Hedegaard. Today, the IFPS website features a series of five roughly ten-minute Youtube videos in which Lars takes on a skeptical-to-hostile Dutch interviewer in a discussion of the IFPS, "political correctness," Geert Wilders, whether free speech is "right wing," and how it is that Islam constitutes the most imminent (but not the only) threat to free speech today. 

Remember when Shi'ism was The Answer, the Way Forward to the New Day Dawning in Iraq? (For a trip down repressed-memory lane, if you think you can take it, scroll to the end of this post.) Now, in Afghanistan, there is a new It-Islam: Sufi'ism. Islam-clueless Douglas Feith has explained why in the New York Times this week, having seized on the recent obliteration by the Taliban of a shrine to a Sufi poet named Rahman Baba in Pakistan. Feith wrote:

The bombers took aim at the poet’s shrine because it represented Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that has long been predominant in India and Pakistan. The Sufism of Rahman Baba generally stresses a believer’s personal relationship with God and de-emphasizes the importance of the mosque. It refrains from exalting violence and war and praises such virtues as tolerance, devotion and love. Its practice...

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Photo: Jimmy Mizen's funeral in June 2008 in South London

Lawrence Auster has rightly drawn our attention to an unbearably tragic murder of a 16-year-old boy named Jimmy Mizen. It happened last year in a London bakery of all places where Jimmy and his older brother were standing in line to buy sausage rolls--a small homey detail that somehow hurts to read. A 19-year-old piece of scum named Jake Farhi barged into the line, and Jimmy told him:

"Some manners would not go amiss."

Some manners would not go amiss. This courtly, almost archaic locution sent Farhi into a rage which didn't end until he had hurled a heavy glass bakery dish at Jimmy's head. The dish shattered, severing Jimmy's carotid artery and his jugular vein. He bled to death on the floor of the shop in his brother's arms.

...

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More on the story behind the story on the Obama administration's Orwellian word choices. Turns out when I wrote they were boring us to death with deadening language--putting us to sleep, to be sure--I wasn't kidding. In his NRO piece today on the Obama switch from "Global War on Terror" (bad enough, sez I) to Overseas Contingency Operations (beyond garbled),  Andy McCarthy explains what's really going on:

Saul Alinsky, Obama’s community-organizing inspiration, wrote at length about words in Rules for Radicals, about their power to inspire and to enervate. “In communication as in thought, we must ever strive toward simplicity” when it is our purpose to inspire....

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Photo: The face of "volunteerism" to come?

Remember when Candidate Obama called for “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the regular military? Gave me the willies.

Well, Congress may have just brought this proto-fascist-sounding plan to life. Here, finally, is some ink on a hackle-raising "national service plan," in this case from the editorial page of the San Fran Examiner:

With almost no public attention, both chambers of Congress in the past week advanced an alarming expansion of the Americorps national service plan, with the number of federally funded community-service jobs increasing from 75,000 to 250,000 at a cost of $5.7 billion....

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This week's column, director's cut:

“Jack Bauer Meets Barack Obama…Or Does He?” Note: The message to Iran attributed to “the President” below is directly quoted  from President Barack Obama’s message to Iran of March 20, 2009.

Ba-bink…Ba-bink…Ba-bink….

The following takes place in an unseen episode of “24.”

Tony Almeda, glowering, is watching the President live on a television in a seedy bar across the street from the White House. (Agreed, there are no seedy bars across the street from the White House, but this, after all, is “24,” where a small army of African terrorists recently accessed the White House via a waterway leading to the basement….)

The President (on screen): “In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture….”

...

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Suddenly, the metaphor of the ostrich digging its head into the sand is wholly  insufficient to explain the antipathy to a perfectly sound, obviously needed bill proposed by freshman Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) to require future presidential candidates to offer proof that they are "natural-born" citizens as the Constitution requires. No one seems to want it; and Posey is even being attacked for his responsible efforts. At first glance, it would seem that the opposition is ostrich-like in not wanting to acknowledge the problem the bill addresses: namely, the permanent unease caused by Barack Obama's failure to release his vault birth certificate (and many other documents pertaining to his education and career). As one reader asked: "If he could admit to cocaine use, why is he worried about his birth certificate?"  

But the ostrich that hides its head is hiding from the truth of its...

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"Dear AIG, I quit!" is the title of Jake Desantis' fascinating letter of resignation from AIG as published in today's New York Times. An executive vice president (not of the division related to the credit default swaps that brought down the company), Desantis agreed to stay on for $1/year, he writes, and he recently received --after his first round of taxes (and before the surely unconstitutional 90% punitive bonus tax the House has passed)--$742,006.42 of the notorious $165 million the company recently handed out in "bonuses."

Question: Were all of the recipients working for nothing to restructure the company? That certainly changes the bonus-ness of the payouts (Desantis calls them "retention payments"). Of course, maybe in Obamaworld execs on the dole shouldn't be paid, period. Such three-headed monster conundrums, of course, are simply what happens in the unnatural union of government...

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First, Geert Wilders speaks out about Islamization of the Netherlands on Beck and O'Reilly; now, Filip Dewinte gets his say (below) about the Islamization of Belgium on Bret Baier's Special Report news show. Finally, the story at Fox, anyway, is the Islamization of Europe--not the rise of so-called "right-wing" "fascist" parties in Europe, which is usually the media spin on the movements these men represent. Incidentally, the reporter, Greg Burke, even went to my old haunt of Molenbeek (with police escort who advised Fox team to stay in the car). Fox's angle is welcome and significant.



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From renaming acts of terrorism "man-caused disasters", to changing Global War On Terror (bad enough) to Overseas Contingency Operation: the Obama administration's plans for us are cystalizing, particularly after Prez O's mind-numbing presser tonight. The administration is trying to bore everyone to death by employing dehumanizing lingo devoid of meaning--which is not to say that in their meaningless there is no meaning, if you know what I mean.

 

Pointing out the rift between small business and big business, former Republican Rep. JC Watts writes:

Republicans are finally waking up and recognizing what I discovered long ago: that the virtues of some in big business can sometimes be as bad as the virtues of big government. Because of this, there's always room for oversight. Not over-regulation of market activities, but oversight of the human abuse of market activities.

As I have noted--as Steve Sailer has voluminiously documented--the economic meltdown resulted from decades of  social engineering designed to create a national spread sheet of home mortgage borrowing that reflected the nation's racial make-up. (George W. Bush and Karl Rove seized on this same social engineering machinery in a disastrous effort to Republicanize incoming Hispanic populations.) Essentially, banks penalized for "red-lining" were government-compelled to make increasingly risky loans--government-  guaranteed via Fannie and Freddie. This led to the creation of those "exotic" financial instruments we read about, and the marketplace for them that became a global trading frenzy ultimately saddling the great banks of the world with "toxic" paper. So long as the housing bubble kept growing, all was well; once the bubble popped, well, you know the rest. But that's another story. Watts concludes:...

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