From The Queen of Spades by Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin:
“And how did you fare, Souirin?” asked the host.
“Oh, I lost, as usual. I must confess that I am unlucky. I play mirandole, I always keep cool, I never allow anything to put me out, and yet I always lose!”
“And you did not once allow yourself to be tempted to back the red? Your firmness astonishes me.”
“But what do you think of Hermann?” said one of the guests, pointing to a young engineer. “He has never had a card in his hand in his life, he has never in his life laid a wager; and yet he sits here till five o’clock in the morning watching our play.”
“Play interests me very much,” said Hermann, “but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous.”
Life came from dust? Who knew?
…-
Astronomers partially answer question of where life came from: cosmic dust http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/10/10/4563768-ap.html
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.*
When I was living in London there was one man who captured my attention on Ash Wednesday every year. That man interested me because Ash Wednesday was the only day we ever saw him in church, and because he came every year on that day without fail. He arrived after the start of the service, and left before the end, he sat on his own and he didn’t interact with anybody – although that was a church which did not share the peace as vigorously as we do! He was well known to the priest as a self-proclaimed atheist academic, opposed to organised religion in all its forms and particularly the church. So one year I followed him out of the church and struck up a conversation with him as we walked down the road, and whilst other people moved out of our paths supposing us to be members of a strange secret society with the mark of the cross on our foreheads! I asked him why he came to the church every year on Ash Wednesday: and he looked straight at me and said, “because, I need to be reminded of my own mortality.”
*1st March 2006, Ash Wednesday [Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51: 1-17; 2 Corinthians 5: 20b-6:10; Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21] …- http://www.anglicancommunion.net/01-03-06.htm
State-owned companies = corporate fascism/socialism, aka the wet-dream of fascist/socialists such as Mao Strong, Paul Desmarais/Power Corp., Bombardier, Bob-John Rae, Paul Martin, Citoyen Dion, Taliban Jack, et al.
Conservative PM Harper and Minister Prentice know this.
“Hollowing out” is an euphemism/red herring for dead-end protectionism.
Free trade principles is the winner.
…-
Ottawa targets state-owned takeovers
OTTAWA, VANCOUVER — The federal government is arming itself with new tools to keep at bay state-owned companies of foreign government that use national corporations to extend their geopolitical sway, Industry Minister Jim Prentice said yesterday.
In a major speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, the powerful economic minister staked out Ottawa’s position on the growing debate over foreign takeovers, making it clear that Ottawa does not intend to create major new hurdles for foreign investors despite concerns about “hollowing out” in key sectors of the economy.
Instead, the government will target acquisitions by foreigners that might compromise Canada’s national interest, including takeovers by state-owned firms that don’t operate according to free-market principles but as agents of their governments. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071010.RTAKEOVERS10/TPStory/Business
…-
Mao Stlong China say: Led China not fol sale.
…-
State-owned companies make more money
Profits at China’s state-owned companies rose sharply in the first half of this year, rising 31.5 percent to 753.5 billion yuan ($99.7 billion), … http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/28/content_5445234.htm
Lorne Calvert’s constuiency office is not in the Riversdale riding. His nomination meeting is at the Radisson Hotel, not in the Riversdale riding. What has Lorne Calvert done for the people of his riding,RIVERSDALE? Nothing, and that is the story. A nothing Premier doing nothing.
Keifer is a cdn. He is going to jail in the USA.
If he returns to canada for a visit, and tries to re-enter the states, will he be denied entry because of his jail record.
Global Warming (Anthropogenic or not) may have some positive consequences. One of those is the opening of the Arctic to shipping & natural resources exploitation: http://www.agorafinancial.com/afrude/2007/10/09/thanks-global-warming/
Quote:
“The Arctic thaw’s more immediate and bigger impact will be as a shipping lane. Since Aug. 21, the Northwest Passage has been open to navigation and free of ice for the first time. “Analysts… confirm that the passage is almost completely clear and that the region is more open than it has ever been since the advent of routine monitoring in 1972,” reports the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The fabled Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans along the northern coast of North America. To pass through here from China on your way to Europe is about 5,000 miles shorter than going through the Panama or Suez canals.
As the Financial Times observes, “A ship traveling at 21 knots between Rotterdam and Yokohama takes 29 days if it goes via the Cape of Good Hope, 22 days via the Suez Canal and just 15 days if it goes across the Arctic Ocean.””
Via the Islamicate blog (http://www.islamicate.com/islamicate/2007/10/unveiling-men-i.html): bizarre fatwas and spiritual veils of ignorance (apologies to John Rawls).
Unveiling Men in the Arab World
In May, a lecturer at al-Azhar University in Egypt, one of the most prestigious institutions of Islamic education, issued a fatwa (religious decree) saying that adult men could breast-feed from a female colleague at work. He added that this, when done five times, establishes a degree of maternal relations between the man and woman, enabling her to remove her headscarf if veiled, before him, and legitimizes their presence together – alone – without raising suspicion of sexual relations.
…
Most men in our societies are more veiled than any of these women. A man’s veil is an abstract one, created by him at will and not imposed by God. It is a veil against freedom and education. It is a veil against new ideas and dialogue. It is this man-veil that makes him walk up to the Danish Embassy and set it ablaze, thinking that this will lead him directly to heaven. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II29Ak02.html
The Dutch Parliment denies Hirsi Ali further protection. Firstly, on a cultural level the Dutch dislike heroes and outspoken success stories, more than once have I explained to foreigners that famous national mantra “act normal, that is strange enough’. Even at the height of her popularity Hirsi Ali was disliked by most Dutchmen. She was too outspoken, disrupted the existing order even though many felt she had a valid point. Hirsi Ali herself never grasped this and took her newfound freedom literally, never finding the right note that would allow her to really fit into the ‘Dutch debate’. Secondly, on a practical level the entire approach to her – her eviction from her apartment, the questions over her passport and her security – were all dealt with in purely administrative and legal terms. Not once did moral considerations or feelings enter a string of bizarre decisions that on its surface appear to be defensible yet upon closer examination lacked any reasonable basis and merely provided an easy justification for many to expedite Hirsi Ali’s exit. Thirdly, and that is something I have more than once addressed on my own blog, the Dutch are not tolerant by nature: at best they are pragmatic, at worst indifferent. http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/the_end_of_an_affair.php
Here’s the last comment allowed on a CTV site about Coderre:
CF Mbr in Afghanistan
To all those who like to speak on my behalf, don’t. I can express my opinion just fine and don’t you dare attempt to pretend to know what I will say. How dare some of you say that MY fellow CF members that have fallen would think a certain way? One thing the military will not stand for is the tarnishing of their memory with your opinions. My fellow CF mbrs and I make sure that you have the right to express yourselves. I also have my right to express myself and don’t need someone misinformed and with their own agenda to do it for me. As for Coderre, he spent all of his time on the base, between the press tents and the mess hall. Trust me, I know.
Priceless!
Posted by: Hunter at October 9, 2007 08:59 PM …-
ou know the Liberals have got problems when Denis Coderre is their top news story three days running. http://stevejanke.com/archives/243106.php
Why academics like Stephane Dion are unsuited to the world of politics:
With all the finger pointing regarding the recent meltdown of Stephane Dion, little attention appears to be directed toward his biggest liability — Dion is an academic.
A lengthy career in academia, supplemented by precious little else, is among the poorest ways to prepare one’s self for life in politics — never mind aspiring to be prime minister.
The problem is that most academics are unable to bring a great deal of life experience to a second career in politics. From the ages of six to 30, they’ve often done little more than attend school; studying, reading, debating and writing. As they near completion of graduate school they get assistant teaching opportunities, which soon roll over into part-time, and eventually, full-time instructor positions. All of a sudden they’re nearing 40 and still eating in the student cafeteria.
This one-dimensional frame of reference tends to provide a smug, limited world view that finds little company off campus.
Like so many university professors, Dion comes across as condescending and pretentious, seemingly frustrated that these little people asking him questions are obviously much too pedestrian to grasp the complexity of what he’s saying.
As is the scholarly tradition, he is quick to dismiss ideas originating from outside the ivory tower as naïve, simplistic and reactionary.
Aloofness and elitism are common traits among academics.
Nonetheless, these fail to resonate with blue-collar workers, small-business owners and others trying to make a go of it in the real world.
It’s often noted that A-students end up working for B-students in corporations owned by C-students, who dropped out of college.
Watching an awkward, floundering Dion, it’s not difficult to see why.
Criminologist John Martin the University College of the Fraser Valley at John.Martin@ucfv.ca http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/editorial/story.html?id=6a5fde83-525f-4b0b-9eb5-1bb0f3733219
The Age of White Masochism, a long, but, excellent read by Fjordman: Guarding your identity is thus a universal human trait, not a white trait. In fact, it is less pronounced among whites today than among anybody else. Only whites cling onto the idea of universalism, everybody else sticks with their own ethnic group. In white majority Western nations it has become a state-sponsored ideology to “celebrate diversity,” despite the fact that all available evidence indicates that more diversity leads to more conflict. http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/10/age-of-white-masochism.html#readfurther
Are Citoyen Dion’s affairs your affairs?
It’s not fair, says Dion.
…-
Dion can’t seem to shake ‘l’affaire Carroll’
OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Stephane Dion spent half of a news conference on Tuesday avoiding the subject on everybody’s mind — the fate of the Nova Scotian he is firing as national director of the Liberal party. http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/951491.html
“It’s often noted that A-students end up working for B-students in corporations owned by C-students, who dropped out of college.”
Great line.
Anyone catch Rudy’s answer re Universal Health Care, last night. Something like, where would canadians go for health care.
Hey, joebf, lighten up. Go leg press a couple 1,300 lb steaks and then barbeque them. Then, you can hack some computers then laugh at police officers!
Nutbar. Seriously. You’re insane.
“It’s often noted that A-students end up working for B-students in corporations owned by C-students, who dropped out of college.”
I can’t find what pundit or self-made multi- millionaire once said that the greatest deterrent to becoming a millionaire was a college degree. Made sense to me, they aren’t the best equipped as risk takers. Look no farther than Michael Dell who dropped out of college against his parents wishes because he had his vision of a good business and decided to take that road instead.
I’m sure the sweet irony is that there are plenty of risk adverse A students with a gullible head full of useless theory that are working for the high school or college drop outs here. I’m not discounting the value of a college education either. Scratch a socialist and you’re looking at a risk adverse spoiler that prefers to live off of the originality and efforts of others.
If you notice your son or daughter’s teacher on your doorstep, campaigning for Liberal candidates
Teachers book off work to campaign
Leona Dombrowsky or Lou Rinaldi, it’s “union business” according to local teachers’ union officials.
Karen Fisk confirmed yesterday the Hastings-Prince Edward Elementary Teachers of Ontario (ETFO) has embarked on a campaign to hire supply teachers to fill in for its unionized teachers who, in turn, book off from work in local schools to work for the local Liberal campaign. http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=724553&auth=Osprey+News+Network
‘The Trouble Is the West’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam (must read)
Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.
Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.
Reason: So when even a hard-line critic of Islam such as Daniel Pipes says, “Radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution,” he’s wrong?
Hirsi Ali: He’s wrong. Sorry about that.
Reason: The international corollary to the word tolerance is probably respect. The alleged lack of respect has become a perennial sore spot in relations between the West and Islam. Salman Rushdie receiving a British knighthood supposedly signified such a lack of respect, as did the Danish cartoons last year, and many other things. Do you believe this is what Muslims genuinely crave—respect?
Hirsi Ali: It’s not about respect. It’s about power, and Islam is a political movement….- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1909242/posts
Ex-Dutch MP has drawn a death sentence
By PETER WORTHINGTON — Sun Media […]
SIMPLE CREED
Her creed is simple: “I will not submit to tyranny.” The tyranny of the moment is Hirsi Ali losing her bodyguards, which is why she’s entered the high-risk danger zone of Holland to argue her case.
People mistake courage for fearlessness — wrong.
Courage is overcoming one’s fear, not being without fear. Hirsi Ali’s courage on behalf of others is beyond dispute. Her admirers hope people will e-mail the Dutch embassy in Ottawa to plead her case — (Ambassador Karel de Beer, netherlandsembassy.ca/the_embassy) — before she too becomes an assassin’s victim. …- http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2007/10/10/4564650-sun.html
Jonathan Kay asks: What else did Naomi Klein make up in “The Shock Doctrine”?
A few weeks back, I wrote a National Post column critiquing Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. My critique was largely based on Klein’s insistence on bending every world event into her left-wing world-view. But I am wondering now whether the flaws in The Shock Doctrine don’t go deeper. To wit, at least two of the book’s chapters — the one on Russia, and another one on Sri Lanka — seem to be based on pure fantasy.
tinyurl.com/2jdln3
From a British blog called Radical Muslim.
Possible fatwaworthy sites in the Bloggersphere are many due to the array of sites that contain writings that slander Islam, therefore when I come accross particularly Islamophobic sites I bookmark them under ‘Fatwaworthy?’ Some will be well written while others will be an illogical mess, however, the common denominator between them is that they exist in part or full to spread Islamophobic opinions. Brothers and Sisters, please fell free to suggest additions to the list.
Some may ask ‘What is a Fatwa?’, while others may wonder what had made them worthy as with those deviants whom have recently linked to me in this respect. A fatwa is an Islamic religious ruling, a scholarly opinion on a matter of Islamic law. Therefore, when the Shari’ah again rules the world (inshAllah) the importance may be placed on a fatwa requiring acceptance that Islamophobic sites be peacefully shut down and no longer be permitted to exist. Untill this occurs it may be considered our duty to list such sites and even write/contact websites, media outlets and relevant officials in order to campaign for such sites be closed.
—————–
So, in this moderate muslims opinion, in ‘Religion of Peace’ world, no freedom of speech. Sites like SDA would be shut down.
—————-
We must stop these sites that contain writings that slander Islam, to detail and criticise national and global conflict, poverty, injustice, oppression, the Far Right and the BNP, Zionism, the War on Terror, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the illegal occupation and oppression of Palestine, the slaughter in Sudan and the persecution of Muslims and the current war on Islam.
Therefore I call on all transgressors to stop publishing anti-Islamic pictures, articles and blasphemous publications against Allah (SWT) and His prophet, Muhammad (SAW).
Some have asked what is the punishment for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land. It is well known that in places like Iran, the punishment for the one who insults the Prophet is Capital Punishment because it constitutes an attack against the Seal of the Prophets and the symbol of Monotheism. However, this is not Iran and therefore we Muslims are ordered to be forgiving and pardoning. The enemies of Islam will continue in their campaign of attacks and insults, especially against Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and we Muslims should continue to be aware of the enemies of Islam and warn them against their erroneous approach and the unjust and dangerous trend they are embarking on!
—————-
What’s the perscribed punishment for running a blog like Little Green Footballs (on his fatwa list)? Well, death, of course.
——————
radicalmuslim.blogsome.com/2007/04/09/fatwaworthy-in-the-bloggersphere/
Tommy Douglas: Another nail in his coffin Dept:
I just caught the last part of a news piece on Fox News about the growing crisis in Canadian Neo-natel care and lack of facilities. Interviewed a couple of moms and moms-to-be in Swedish Medical Center in Seatle and discussed how there was a lack of adequate facilities in Canada, now and in the forseeable future. Problem was also evident in Ontario and not just the west. Then they had a Canadian talking head that spouted the line that even if the special (difficult) cases are sent to the US, at least everyone in Canada gets some level of care. (The old lowest common denominator health care system)
Listening to a crying mom saying that she wants to be home with family instead of another country told me everything I needed to hear.
Tommy did you hear her? \applolgies to the Who\
Carroll resigns as Liberal party’s national director(national newswatch) …-
Comment at chuckercanuck:
Even the news anchors were having a hard time giving Dion any credit today. Synchro nailed it: “This idiot has the political instincts of a deaf, schizophrenic, syphilitic bat”.
…-
It’s hard to beat this video for raw coolness. I mean really, a Stratotanker at high speed a few feet off the ground: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6a6_1191972786
Yeah! America!!!
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7807571
[…]
CHARLIE ROSE: You know that’s one of the arguments made against the surge.
DAVID KILCULLEN: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: That’s all you were going to do, is push them somewhere else. They’ll go somewhere else and they’ll wait.
DAVID KILCULLEN: Right. Making that argument against the surge, this speaks a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of what the surge is trying to do. And let me sort of expand on this issue.
The enemy is fluid, but the population is fixed. OK? That’s the key point. The enemy can run away. The population can’t. They have houses, relatives, businesses. They live there. They can’t move. And so you can’t defeat an insurgency by fighting the insurgents, because they’ll just run away and you chase the guy around. And it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, but you’re actually destroying the haystack to find the needle. So you do this damage to the population, which alienates the population, creates a recruitment base for the insurgents, and it just creates a cycle of destruction.
The way to do it — and you know, we’ve been doing this for a long time and there’s a very solid body of understanding on how to do it — is, if you like, to comb the flees out of the dog. OK? So you get in there and you work with the population. You drive the enemy off, and then you focus on the population and you try to restructure the environment so that the insurgent can’t come back when you leave.
And that involves things like counterintelligence work, where you look for those little sleeper cells that stayed behind when you left. It involves most importantly partnering in a real partnership with the local community, where they feel their needs are being met. They make choices that they then are required to stick to, in terms of driving out extremism, or — in the case of Iraq particularly — and in terms of defending themselves. You make the population self-defending, so that the terrorists can’t or the insurgents can’t intimidate them.
That’s the fundamental activity of counterinsurgency. Because the insurgents require the enemy. The insurgents require the population to act in a certain way — support, sympathy, intimidation, sometimes just reaction to provocation, you know? And if you can take that reaction of the population away from them, it’s extremely difficult for them to achieve anything.
[…]
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2007/10/09/sutherland-plea.html
“A lawyer for Kiefer Sutherland on Tuesday entered a plea of no contest on the actor’s behalf to a charge of driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit.”
From The Queen of Spades by Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin:
“And how did you fare, Souirin?” asked the host.
“Oh, I lost, as usual. I must confess that I am unlucky. I play mirandole, I always keep cool, I never allow anything to put me out, and yet I always lose!”
“And you did not once allow yourself to be tempted to back the red? Your firmness astonishes me.”
“But what do you think of Hermann?” said one of the guests, pointing to a young engineer. “He has never had a card in his hand in his life, he has never in his life laid a wager; and yet he sits here till five o’clock in the morning watching our play.”
“Play interests me very much,” said Hermann, “but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous.”
Life came from dust? Who knew?
…-
Astronomers partially answer question of where life came from: cosmic dust
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/10/10/4563768-ap.html
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.*
When I was living in London there was one man who captured my attention on Ash Wednesday every year. That man interested me because Ash Wednesday was the only day we ever saw him in church, and because he came every year on that day without fail. He arrived after the start of the service, and left before the end, he sat on his own and he didn’t interact with anybody – although that was a church which did not share the peace as vigorously as we do! He was well known to the priest as a self-proclaimed atheist academic, opposed to organised religion in all its forms and particularly the church. So one year I followed him out of the church and struck up a conversation with him as we walked down the road, and whilst other people moved out of our paths supposing us to be members of a strange secret society with the mark of the cross on our foreheads! I asked him why he came to the church every year on Ash Wednesday: and he looked straight at me and said, “because, I need to be reminded of my own mortality.”
*1st March 2006, Ash Wednesday [Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51: 1-17; 2 Corinthians 5: 20b-6:10; Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21] …-
http://www.anglicancommunion.net/01-03-06.htm
Conservative candidate bullies non-profit “Election Prediction” web site:
http://www.electionprediction.org/2007_fed/riding/35059.php
State-owned companies = corporate fascism/socialism, aka the wet-dream of fascist/socialists such as Mao Strong, Paul Desmarais/Power Corp., Bombardier, Bob-John Rae, Paul Martin, Citoyen Dion, Taliban Jack, et al.
Conservative PM Harper and Minister Prentice know this.
“Hollowing out” is an euphemism/red herring for dead-end protectionism.
Free trade principles is the winner.
…-
Ottawa targets state-owned takeovers
OTTAWA, VANCOUVER — The federal government is arming itself with new tools to keep at bay state-owned companies of foreign government that use national corporations to extend their geopolitical sway, Industry Minister Jim Prentice said yesterday.
In a major speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, the powerful economic minister staked out Ottawa’s position on the growing debate over foreign takeovers, making it clear that Ottawa does not intend to create major new hurdles for foreign investors despite concerns about “hollowing out” in key sectors of the economy.
Instead, the government will target acquisitions by foreigners that might compromise Canada’s national interest, including takeovers by state-owned firms that don’t operate according to free-market principles but as agents of their governments.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071010.RTAKEOVERS10/TPStory/Business
…-
Mao Stlong China say: Led China not fol sale.
…-
State-owned companies make more money
Profits at China’s state-owned companies rose sharply in the first half of this year, rising 31.5 percent to 753.5 billion yuan ($99.7 billion), …
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/28/content_5445234.htm
Lorne Calvert’s constuiency office is not in the Riversdale riding. His nomination meeting is at the Radisson Hotel, not in the Riversdale riding. What has Lorne Calvert done for the people of his riding,RIVERSDALE? Nothing, and that is the story. A nothing Premier doing nothing.
Keifer is a cdn. He is going to jail in the USA.
If he returns to canada for a visit, and tries to re-enter the states, will he be denied entry because of his jail record.
On the eave of an Ontraio election, another flair up of 2 tiered policing in a Caledonia protest march.
http://www.canada.com/ch/chchnews/video/index.html
click on “protesters”
Global Warming (Anthropogenic or not) may have some positive consequences. One of those is the opening of the Arctic to shipping & natural resources exploitation:
http://www.agorafinancial.com/afrude/2007/10/09/thanks-global-warming/
Quote:
“The Arctic thaw’s more immediate and bigger impact will be as a shipping lane. Since Aug. 21, the Northwest Passage has been open to navigation and free of ice for the first time. “Analysts… confirm that the passage is almost completely clear and that the region is more open than it has ever been since the advent of routine monitoring in 1972,” reports the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The fabled Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans along the northern coast of North America. To pass through here from China on your way to Europe is about 5,000 miles shorter than going through the Panama or Suez canals.
As the Financial Times observes, “A ship traveling at 21 knots between Rotterdam and Yokohama takes 29 days if it goes via the Cape of Good Hope, 22 days via the Suez Canal and just 15 days if it goes across the Arctic Ocean.””
Via the Islamicate blog (http://www.islamicate.com/islamicate/2007/10/unveiling-men-i.html): bizarre fatwas and spiritual veils of ignorance (apologies to John Rawls).
Unveiling Men in the Arab World
In May, a lecturer at al-Azhar University in Egypt, one of the most prestigious institutions of Islamic education, issued a fatwa (religious decree) saying that adult men could breast-feed from a female colleague at work. He added that this, when done five times, establishes a degree of maternal relations between the man and woman, enabling her to remove her headscarf if veiled, before him, and legitimizes their presence together – alone – without raising suspicion of sexual relations.
…
Most men in our societies are more veiled than any of these women. A man’s veil is an abstract one, created by him at will and not imposed by God. It is a veil against freedom and education. It is a veil against new ideas and dialogue. It is this man-veil that makes him walk up to the Danish Embassy and set it ablaze, thinking that this will lead him directly to heaven.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II29Ak02.html
The Dutch Parliment denies Hirsi Ali further protection.
Firstly, on a cultural level the Dutch dislike heroes and outspoken success stories, more than once have I explained to foreigners that famous national mantra “act normal, that is strange enough’. Even at the height of her popularity Hirsi Ali was disliked by most Dutchmen. She was too outspoken, disrupted the existing order even though many felt she had a valid point. Hirsi Ali herself never grasped this and took her newfound freedom literally, never finding the right note that would allow her to really fit into the ‘Dutch debate’. Secondly, on a practical level the entire approach to her – her eviction from her apartment, the questions over her passport and her security – were all dealt with in purely administrative and legal terms. Not once did moral considerations or feelings enter a string of bizarre decisions that on its surface appear to be defensible yet upon closer examination lacked any reasonable basis and merely provided an easy justification for many to expedite Hirsi Ali’s exit. Thirdly, and that is something I have more than once addressed on my own blog, the Dutch are not tolerant by nature: at best they are pragmatic, at worst indifferent.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/the_end_of_an_affair.php
Here’s the last comment allowed on a CTV site about Coderre:
CF Mbr in Afghanistan
To all those who like to speak on my behalf, don’t. I can express my opinion just fine and don’t you dare attempt to pretend to know what I will say. How dare some of you say that MY fellow CF members that have fallen would think a certain way? One thing the military will not stand for is the tarnishing of their memory with your opinions. My fellow CF mbrs and I make sure that you have the right to express yourselves. I also have my right to express myself and don’t need someone misinformed and with their own agenda to do it for me. As for Coderre, he spent all of his time on the base, between the press tents and the mess hall. Trust me, I know.
Priceless!
Posted by: Hunter at October 9, 2007 08:59 PM …-
ou know the Liberals have got problems when Denis Coderre is their top news story three days running.
http://stevejanke.com/archives/243106.php
Why academics like Stephane Dion are unsuited to the world of politics:
With all the finger pointing regarding the recent meltdown of Stephane Dion, little attention appears to be directed toward his biggest liability — Dion is an academic.
A lengthy career in academia, supplemented by precious little else, is among the poorest ways to prepare one’s self for life in politics — never mind aspiring to be prime minister.
The problem is that most academics are unable to bring a great deal of life experience to a second career in politics. From the ages of six to 30, they’ve often done little more than attend school; studying, reading, debating and writing. As they near completion of graduate school they get assistant teaching opportunities, which soon roll over into part-time, and eventually, full-time instructor positions. All of a sudden they’re nearing 40 and still eating in the student cafeteria.
This one-dimensional frame of reference tends to provide a smug, limited world view that finds little company off campus.
Like so many university professors, Dion comes across as condescending and pretentious, seemingly frustrated that these little people asking him questions are obviously much too pedestrian to grasp the complexity of what he’s saying.
As is the scholarly tradition, he is quick to dismiss ideas originating from outside the ivory tower as naïve, simplistic and reactionary.
Aloofness and elitism are common traits among academics.
Nonetheless, these fail to resonate with blue-collar workers, small-business owners and others trying to make a go of it in the real world.
It’s often noted that A-students end up working for B-students in corporations owned by C-students, who dropped out of college.
Watching an awkward, floundering Dion, it’s not difficult to see why.
Criminologist John Martin the University College of the Fraser Valley at John.Martin@ucfv.ca
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/editorial/story.html?id=6a5fde83-525f-4b0b-9eb5-1bb0f3733219
The Age of White Masochism, a long, but, excellent read by Fjordman:
Guarding your identity is thus a universal human trait, not a white trait. In fact, it is less pronounced among whites today than among anybody else. Only whites cling onto the idea of universalism, everybody else sticks with their own ethnic group. In white majority Western nations it has become a state-sponsored ideology to “celebrate diversity,” despite the fact that all available evidence indicates that more diversity leads to more conflict.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/10/age-of-white-masochism.html#readfurther
Are Citoyen Dion’s affairs your affairs?
It’s not fair, says Dion.
…-
Dion can’t seem to shake ‘l’affaire Carroll’
OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Stephane Dion spent half of a news conference on Tuesday avoiding the subject on everybody’s mind — the fate of the Nova Scotian he is firing as national director of the Liberal party.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/951491.html
“It’s often noted that A-students end up working for B-students in corporations owned by C-students, who dropped out of college.”
Great line.
Anyone catch Rudy’s answer re Universal Health Care, last night. Something like, where would canadians go for health care.
On a lighter note …… has anyone NOT seen this
Little Example of Justice …. courtesy of Mr. Bonaduce ……
Hey, joebf, lighten up. Go leg press a couple 1,300 lb steaks and then barbeque them. Then, you can hack some computers then laugh at police officers!
Nutbar. Seriously. You’re insane.
MaryT –
Rudy Giuliani said: “If we have Hillarycare in this country, Canadians will have nowhere to go to get health care.”
(from Stephen Henderson’s debate blog, http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071009/OPINION01/71009039/1070)
“It’s often noted that A-students end up working for B-students in corporations owned by C-students, who dropped out of college.”
I can’t find what pundit or self-made multi- millionaire once said that the greatest deterrent to becoming a millionaire was a college degree. Made sense to me, they aren’t the best equipped as risk takers. Look no farther than Michael Dell who dropped out of college against his parents wishes because he had his vision of a good business and decided to take that road instead.
I’m sure the sweet irony is that there are plenty of risk adverse A students with a gullible head full of useless theory that are working for the high school or college drop outs here. I’m not discounting the value of a college education either. Scratch a socialist and you’re looking at a risk adverse spoiler that prefers to live off of the originality and efforts of others.
If you notice your son or daughter’s teacher on your doorstep, campaigning for Liberal candidates
Teachers book off work to campaign
Leona Dombrowsky or Lou Rinaldi, it’s “union business” according to local teachers’ union officials.
Karen Fisk confirmed yesterday the Hastings-Prince Edward Elementary Teachers of Ontario (ETFO) has embarked on a campaign to hire supply teachers to fill in for its unionized teachers who, in turn, book off from work in local schools to work for the local Liberal campaign.
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=724553&auth=Osprey+News+Network
‘The Trouble Is the West’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam (must read)
Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.
Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.
Reason: So when even a hard-line critic of Islam such as Daniel Pipes says, “Radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution,” he’s wrong?
Hirsi Ali: He’s wrong. Sorry about that.
Reason: The international corollary to the word tolerance is probably respect. The alleged lack of respect has become a perennial sore spot in relations between the West and Islam. Salman Rushdie receiving a British knighthood supposedly signified such a lack of respect, as did the Danish cartoons last year, and many other things. Do you believe this is what Muslims genuinely crave—respect?
Hirsi Ali: It’s not about respect. It’s about power, and Islam is a political movement….-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1909242/posts
Ex-Dutch MP has drawn a death sentence
By PETER WORTHINGTON — Sun Media […]
SIMPLE CREED
Her creed is simple: “I will not submit to tyranny.” The tyranny of the moment is Hirsi Ali losing her bodyguards, which is why she’s entered the high-risk danger zone of Holland to argue her case.
People mistake courage for fearlessness — wrong.
Courage is overcoming one’s fear, not being without fear. Hirsi Ali’s courage on behalf of others is beyond dispute. Her admirers hope people will e-mail the Dutch embassy in Ottawa to plead her case — (Ambassador Karel de Beer, netherlandsembassy.ca/the_embassy) — before she too becomes an assassin’s victim. …-
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2007/10/10/4564650-sun.html
Jonathan Kay asks: What else did Naomi Klein make up in “The Shock Doctrine”?
A few weeks back, I wrote a National Post column critiquing Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. My critique was largely based on Klein’s insistence on bending every world event into her left-wing world-view. But I am wondering now whether the flaws in The Shock Doctrine don’t go deeper. To wit, at least two of the book’s chapters — the one on Russia, and another one on Sri Lanka — seem to be based on pure fantasy.
tinyurl.com/2jdln3
using Al Gores other invention.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/05/kim-expert.html
global warming gamers , what next.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/videogames/fun-machine.html
From a British blog called Radical Muslim.
Possible fatwaworthy sites in the Bloggersphere are many due to the array of sites that contain writings that slander Islam, therefore when I come accross particularly Islamophobic sites I bookmark them under ‘Fatwaworthy?’ Some will be well written while others will be an illogical mess, however, the common denominator between them is that they exist in part or full to spread Islamophobic opinions. Brothers and Sisters, please fell free to suggest additions to the list.
Some may ask ‘What is a Fatwa?’, while others may wonder what had made them worthy as with those deviants whom have recently linked to me in this respect. A fatwa is an Islamic religious ruling, a scholarly opinion on a matter of Islamic law. Therefore, when the Shari’ah again rules the world (inshAllah) the importance may be placed on a fatwa requiring acceptance that Islamophobic sites be peacefully shut down and no longer be permitted to exist. Untill this occurs it may be considered our duty to list such sites and even write/contact websites, media outlets and relevant officials in order to campaign for such sites be closed.
—————–
So, in this moderate muslims opinion, in ‘Religion of Peace’ world, no freedom of speech. Sites like SDA would be shut down.
—————-
We must stop these sites that contain writings that slander Islam, to detail and criticise national and global conflict, poverty, injustice, oppression, the Far Right and the BNP, Zionism, the War on Terror, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the illegal occupation and oppression of Palestine, the slaughter in Sudan and the persecution of Muslims and the current war on Islam.
Therefore I call on all transgressors to stop publishing anti-Islamic pictures, articles and blasphemous publications against Allah (SWT) and His prophet, Muhammad (SAW).
Some have asked what is the punishment for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land. It is well known that in places like Iran, the punishment for the one who insults the Prophet is Capital Punishment because it constitutes an attack against the Seal of the Prophets and the symbol of Monotheism. However, this is not Iran and therefore we Muslims are ordered to be forgiving and pardoning. The enemies of Islam will continue in their campaign of attacks and insults, especially against Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and we Muslims should continue to be aware of the enemies of Islam and warn them against their erroneous approach and the unjust and dangerous trend they are embarking on!
—————-
What’s the perscribed punishment for running a blog like Little Green Footballs (on his fatwa list)? Well, death, of course.
——————
radicalmuslim.blogsome.com/2007/04/09/fatwaworthy-in-the-bloggersphere/
Tommy Douglas: Another nail in his coffin Dept:
I just caught the last part of a news piece on Fox News about the growing crisis in Canadian Neo-natel care and lack of facilities. Interviewed a couple of moms and moms-to-be in Swedish Medical Center in Seatle and discussed how there was a lack of adequate facilities in Canada, now and in the forseeable future. Problem was also evident in Ontario and not just the west. Then they had a Canadian talking head that spouted the line that even if the special (difficult) cases are sent to the US, at least everyone in Canada gets some level of care. (The old lowest common denominator health care system)
Listening to a crying mom saying that she wants to be home with family instead of another country told me everything I needed to hear.
Tommy did you hear her? \applolgies to the Who\
Carroll resigns as Liberal party’s national director(national newswatch) …-
Comment at chuckercanuck:
Even the news anchors were having a hard time giving Dion any credit today. Synchro nailed it: “This idiot has the political instincts of a deaf, schizophrenic, syphilitic bat”.
…-
It’s hard to beat this video for raw coolness. I mean really, a Stratotanker at high speed a few feet off the ground:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6a6_1191972786
Yeah! America!!!
Thank God for free speech.
http://youtube.com/user/CyberDIGIHADi
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7807571
[…]
CHARLIE ROSE: You know that’s one of the arguments made against the surge.
DAVID KILCULLEN: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: That’s all you were going to do, is push them somewhere else. They’ll go somewhere else and they’ll wait.
DAVID KILCULLEN: Right. Making that argument against the surge, this speaks a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of what the surge is trying to do. And let me sort of expand on this issue.
The enemy is fluid, but the population is fixed. OK? That’s the key point. The enemy can run away. The population can’t. They have houses, relatives, businesses. They live there. They can’t move. And so you can’t defeat an insurgency by fighting the insurgents, because they’ll just run away and you chase the guy around. And it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, but you’re actually destroying the haystack to find the needle. So you do this damage to the population, which alienates the population, creates a recruitment base for the insurgents, and it just creates a cycle of destruction.
The way to do it — and you know, we’ve been doing this for a long time and there’s a very solid body of understanding on how to do it — is, if you like, to comb the flees out of the dog. OK? So you get in there and you work with the population. You drive the enemy off, and then you focus on the population and you try to restructure the environment so that the insurgent can’t come back when you leave.
And that involves things like counterintelligence work, where you look for those little sleeper cells that stayed behind when you left. It involves most importantly partnering in a real partnership with the local community, where they feel their needs are being met. They make choices that they then are required to stick to, in terms of driving out extremism, or — in the case of Iraq particularly — and in terms of defending themselves. You make the population self-defending, so that the terrorists can’t or the insurgents can’t intimidate them.
That’s the fundamental activity of counterinsurgency. Because the insurgents require the enemy. The insurgents require the population to act in a certain way — support, sympathy, intimidation, sometimes just reaction to provocation, you know? And if you can take that reaction of the population away from them, it’s extremely difficult for them to achieve anything.
[…]
these are cool
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-9/60546.html
Rick Richman of Jewish Current Issues analyses Rice’s Road Map before Condi makes another trek to the Middle East:
http://www.nysun.com/article/64310?page_no=1