Is a beauty pageant winner. Oh, sweet irony.

After two grueling years in prison, Iranian teen Nazanin Fatehi was released today and spared from her original death sentence following an international campaign spearheaded by former Miss World Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam.
Emotions ran high at the entrance gate of Evin prison, where 19-year-old Nazanin Fatehi was greeted by supporters and reunited with her family. Nazanin had a very emotional reunion with her family members. She could not believe that this day had arrived. She cried in her mother’s arms and embraced her siblings and father.
[…]
Fatehi was initially sentenced to death for murder by a court in Iran after she stabbed, in self-defense, one of three men who attempted to rape her and her 15-year-old niece in a park in Karaj, a suburb of Tehran, in March 2005. She was 17 at the time. On June 1, 2006, following extensive international pressure and media coverage, Iranian Head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi announced a stay of execution and a new trial. During the new trial on January 10, 2007, the five judges presiding over the case found inconsistencies with the testimonies of the male witnesses and unanimously overturned the charge of premeditated murder.
Although the court recognized that Fatehi acted in self defense, it ruled that excessive force was used. Therefore, the court asked Fatehi to pay “diyeh” (blood money) to compensate the family of the deceased — a judgment that her lawyers, Shadi Sadr and Mr. Mostafaei, vehemently oppose and will appeal.

And recognition is owed to MP Belinda Stronach as well, for helping with a “generous” donation towards the $43,000 US bail fund.

The six-year-old boy screamed and shook his head to avoid the razor blade. But his father held him firmly as Hajj Khodor parted the boy’s black hair and sliced his forehead three times with the blade.
Ali Madani’s cries became more violent as blood gushed from the wound, covering his small, terrified face. His father and a few other men, waving daggers, broke into a religious chant, recalling how the seventh-century Shiite Muslim saint, Imam Hussein, was decapitated, his head placed on a lance.
In marking the holiest day of Ashoura, some Shiites believe children should learn at an early age about Hussein’s suffering, which is at the heart of their faith.

A survey of 1,003 British Muslims finds;

[…] 37 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds said they would prefer to live under Sharia law compared to just 17 percent of the over-55s.
The same number of young Muslims said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools while 74 percent said they preferred Muslim women to wear the hijab headscarf in public.
Among the over-55s, the figures were 19 percent and 28 percent on the same questions.
A small overall minority (seven percent) said they “admire organisations like Al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West”. The figure was highest among younger people (13 percent) but just three percent among older people.
In general, more over-55s felt they had as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad (71 percent), but that fell to 62 percent among 16- to 24-year-olds.
Mirza said: “There is clearly conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not.

…previous

It has become rather fashionable these days to question what exactly it is
that you get when you plunk your money down for a service or product. Are you
uncomfortable with the notion of drinking coffee that has been picked by child
labour working under dangerous conditions? Well then, you can pony up a bit of
extra cash and enjoy a delicious cup of fair
trade coffee, fair trade products having been certified to have been
produced in a most politically correct manner. Worried about investing in a
company that exploits the marginalized citizens of some third world nation? If
so, ethical investing has
been created with your peace of mind, in, um, mind. Your returns from ethical
investing may not be as great, but hey, you’re doing the right thing.

But what about when you fill up your vehicle with fuel?

When you fill a vehicle with fuel produced in Canada, you’re paying for
health care, national infrastructure, a bit of looney
social engineering, and the occasional
award for freaks who like to splatter
their bodily fluids all over public places. Now contrast this to oil
products from Arab nations. When you buy Saudi oil, you’re helping the rulers of
Saudi Arabia finance the export of a death
cult that likes to
put homosexuals to death, brutalize
women, and turn
young men into walking bombs who kill innocent civilians in night clubs and
cafes. You’re literally putting a
jihad in your tank (note: link NSFW and offensive to many) each time you buy
Saudi oil.

Canadian oil is, dare I say it, much more progressive than Saudi oil,
and I feel that it warrants a premium price as a result. Ladies and gentlemen, I
proudly present the concept of "Correct Crude". All those fast-living
Albertan oil workers notwithstanding, profits from Canadian crude products
are obviously invested in a much more socially correct manner, and it’s time we
started charging accordingly for them.

I’m just sayin’.

The item you are looking for (mosques in UK) is here. (Or continue scrolling down)

Part one from the UK Channel 4 documentary Dispatches: Undercover Mosque”

(Direct link)
Part Two
Part Three
Via LGF.

Margaret Wente comments making the Little Mosque on the Prairie more realistically Canadian:

So what would make this show more true to living in Canada? Regrettably, the cute imam would have to go. The redneck radio host would be shut down by the CRTC, and the townsfolk, instead of reacting to the mosque with fear and loathing, would invite everyone in it to join an interfaith group. Instead of calling the terror hotline, the village idiot would chuck a rock through the mosque’s window. A Muslim from Egypt would be tossed into jail indefinitely on secret evidence. The convert to Islam (here played by Sheila McCarthy who only wears her head scarf in the mosque) would be dressed in black from head to foot. And the Muslim versions of Archie Bunker and Meathead would have a hilariously incorrect debate over the existence of that pesky state of Israel.

And the redneck radio host would be fined by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.

Iran is set to execute a teenage girl for taking the life of one of three would-be rapists;

One would think that just about anyone, in this country, anyway, would oppose a teenaged girl’s being hanged for an act of self-defense. Yet, among those who raised a hue and cry about Saddam Hussein being “taunted” before being hanged for the murders of thousands, there has been a strange silence about Nazanin’s case. It is a bit troubling that so far, all of the liberals who have weighed in at the Forum have been hostile to the idea of asking Ellison and CAIR to use their influence on Nazanin’s behalf. Why is this, exactly?
[…]you can telephone Keith Ellison’s office at (202) 225-4755 (fax is (202) 225-4886). You can call CAIR at (202) 488-8787, fax them at (202) 488-0833, or email at info@cair.com.
I think most people believe that moderate Muslims world-wide need to stand up against the insanity that now prevails in countries like Iran. This strikes me as a good opportunity for moderate Muslims to show that they do not accept the precepts of Sharia and have no desire to impose them here or elsewhere.

Read the whole thing.
The contact info for the Canadian Islamic Congress is here.
Contact these people, too – since the womens’ issue currently “top of mind” is the firing of the Canadian Wheat Board president. (I guess “Adrian” could be a girl’s name…)

Now, here’s a plot twist we’re not likely to see.

On the swearing in of Keith Ellison, first Muslim elected to Congress;

“Though it is SUPREMELY ironic that the Koran used will be one that belonged to Jefferson – shores of Tripoli, baby.”

*

From Turkey, we find what happens when Islamism meets women in the workforce:

The shepherd, referred to only as “A.G.” in reports, arrived at the Konya Testing Hospital complaining of swollen testicles, and was sent to get ultrasound tests, but was refused service by two female doctors wearing headscarves. The shepherd later had to have one of his testicles removed by operation.

Bill Roggio – “Islamic Courts leadership unaccounted for; foreign fighters captured fleeing to Kenya”;

The Kenyans have reinforced the border and have captured ten foreign fighters of the Islamic Courts crossing the border at Libol, about 100 miles west of Kismayo. “The fighters, suspected by Kenyan security agencies to double as financiers of the Islamic Courts Union, were intercepted while fleeing Somalia in a four-wheel drive vehicle,” reports Shabelle. “Eight had Eritrean passports while two had Canadian passports, police said.”

Emphasis mine.
Via pacemakerdoug in the comments.
More at CBC

The year in review.

While the war against al-Qaeda is largely seen as a fight in Afghanistan supported by a police action in certain countries, there is a very hot war occurring in many countries. Al-Qaeda and its allies have initiated hot wars in lesser known countries such as the Philippines, Chechnya, Somalia, and Algeria. Thailand is fighting a serious insurgency against ill-defined groups of Muslim insurgents which haven’t been definitively connected to al-Qaeda or the Southeast Asian powerhouse Jemaah Islamiyah, but we don’t believe in coincidences.
Iraq, which is often dissociated from the war, is a major theater for al-Qaeda, as both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have stated in numerous communications. Afghanistan has seen its bloodiest year since the U.S. invasion in late 2001. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have fought the Pakistani government to a standstill and have taken over portions of the country. The countries of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Bangladesh simmer, and continue to serve as support bases for al-Qaeda’s activities.

And the year just beginning;

The last stronghold of the Islamist rebels in Somalia, the town of Kismayo, has fallen. The victory may yield an unexpected prize: three Islamic terrorists who are believed to be responsible for the embassy bombings of 1998. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi says, “If we capture them alive we will hand them over to the United States.”
Islamist rebels are fleeing, and the government of Somalia is calling on the U.S. for air and sea surveillance to prevent them from escaping.
Al Qaeda’s purported victory over the U.S. in Somalia during the 1990s gave the terrorists a big lift. At the moment, though, the tide there is be running the other way. The stunning swiftness of the Islamists’ collapse won’t do much for their recruiting