“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
Here first is a STRATFOR report which is quite well done and actually offers a decent analysis as well as report what both sides claim took place.
Below, a Reuters report where I have added a couple of facts myself. This report is so poorly done as to be fiction as it bears little to no resemblance to any facts on the ground.
Here is a rather excellent example of why the world thinks as it does about the state of Israel.
By Barry Rubin
Along Israel’s border with Lebanon, east of Metulla, some bushes were pushing in on the border fence. The fence is set in slightly from the border precisely so that Israeli soldiers can work on it. The IDF called UNIFIL and informed the UN that this work was going to be done today so that they could tell the Lebanese army that there was no aggression going on but just routine maintenance. Soldiers from UNIFIL came to observe and can be seen standing next to Israeli soldiers in the photos. Photographers were also standing by to film the operation.
But Lebanese soldiers opened fire on the Israelis who were working and in no way acting aggressively. The fact that journalists were standing next to the Lebanese soldiers shows that they knew Israel was going to do this maintenance and were observing. After the Israeli soldiers were ambushed, they returned fire. One Israeli officer was killed, another seriously wounded; three Lebanese soldiers, and a Lebanese (?) journalist were killed.
So how did Reuters and Yahoo report this? By saying that Israeli soldiers had crossed into Lebanon and been fired on, thus implying the Lebanese army was acting in self-defense! Other news agencies merely reported: Israel says the soldiers were inside Israel; Lebanon says they were on Lebanese territory. Continue Reading →
When the state closes a school for teaching a foreign language, wouldn’t that define fascism?
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A decision to immediately revoke the operating permit of a private Quebec elementary school — one that consistently turns out high-performing, fluently bilingual youngsters — over its English-language policy triggered Friday a promise of fiery, unyielding refusal.
The Laval-based l’Academie Lavalloise’s core policy of providing 30 per cent English curriculum — from kindergarten through Grade 6 — was cited as one factor for the shutdown by Quebec’s education ministry.
Under Quebec regulations, that’s forbidden in a French-language primary setting.
Ministry officials sought to shutdown the arts, maths and language-rich school just three weeks before classes are set to resume Aug. 23, triggering a “panic” among parents, said Albert DiFruscia, president of the parents’ committee.
The timing, he said, makes it “just impossible” to place the students in other private schools.
Air security won’t ask for veiled Muslims to prove ID
By Brian Lilley and Bryn Weese, Parliamentary Bureau
Last Updated: August 1, 2010 5:16am
OTTAWA – Frequent flyers know the drill: take off your shoes, surrender your tweezers and pack your shampoo in those little plastic baggies before lining up for the naked body scanners. But lift your niqab? Apparently not.
QMI Agency can reveal that neither airlines nor security services are asking Muslim women to lift their veils and prove that the face beneath matches their photo ID.
The issue came to light through a video taken by Mick Flynn of Bradford, England. Flynn was boarding a flight at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport when he witnessed two women with their faces covered board an Air Canada Heathrow bound flight without being asked to remove their veils.
In fact, in the video that Flynn has posted online, a man traveling with the group hands in all the passports and is the only one to interact with airline staff while two veiled women simply walk through.
“I complained at the desk — and again as I boarded the plane — asking if the pilot was happy that two women boarded without being identified,” Flynn told QMI Agency. “Both members of staff whom I spoke to were flustered and clearly embarrassed.”
Flynn’s communication with Air Canada and his video posting have resulted in a threatened lawsuit from the airline. As for answers from the company about security procedures, their response reveals holes in Canada’s air security.
“Airline passengers have already undergone multiple security checks before arriving at the boarding gate,” Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told QMI. “A final check is made at the gate prior to boarding in order to confirm passengers on the flight.”
Air Canada says it is capable of checking identification in a private room away from the check-in counter, but said the real responsibility for security measures lies with CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency.
Not so, says CATSA.
Greg MacDougall, a spokesman for CATSA, tells QMI that their guards are primarily looking for metal, weapons or other banned material, not ensuring that veiled faces match passport photos.
“We don’t have concerns with that. We have concerns with the fact if the person has any metal under their clothing,” MacDougall said.
A former CATSA employee, who, until recently worked as a frontline screener, tells QMI: “We were never allowed to ask anyone with a veil to lift it. It is their religion.”
Frontline workers for several airlines say that any checks, if they happen at all, would likely happen at the check-in desk, not at boarding or security.
Most airports have wide gaps between where baggage is checked and the secure portions of the airport.
Transport Canada says there should be no confusion: “The airline must be able to verify the identity of all passengers before they are allowed to board,” the department said in a written statement.
Lawyer David Harris of INSIGNIS Strategic Research says Canadians should be concerned about what he deems preferential treatment.
“Full veiling has been a boon for those participating in criminal and terrorist operations,” Harris said pointing to the story of Mustaf Jama.
Jama, a Somali national with a long criminal record, was wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of police constable Sharon Beshenivsky. As police closed in to arrest the career criminal, Jama was able to escape back to Somalia by wearing a full veil and boarding a flight at Heathrow airport.
Harris’ call for lifting the veil is backed up by two Muslim groups often at odds with each other, the Muslim Canadian Congress and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Canada.
“You cannot allow a person wearing a mask to be in the perimeter of an airport,” says Tarek Fatah of the Congress. “If you don’t want to take off the mask, take the TTC (public transit) to Cairo.”
“Women who wear the niqab are not constrained by the religious belief from removing their veil for legitimate reasons, and security is one of them,” said Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of CAIR-CAN.
Gardee admits that Canadian officials may be reluctant to deal with this issue head-on due to concerns about political correctness. “It’s something that needs to be addressed,” Gardee said.
Gardee says it would be preferable if female staff were able to conduct any screening that involved removing the veil but adds that if female staff are not available, the women must still be forced to remove their niqab.
As this article does not name the people arrested, nor describe any of the circumstances that would normally be included in a news piece like this, I feel safe in guessing that:
1. It was Muslims rioting…
2. It was because the EDL people who were arrested on the rooftops protesting the opening of a megamosque in Dudley that no one wanted and government is forcing on people.
From Dudley news:
VIOLENT disorder broke out in Dudley last night as cars were attacked with baseball bats and reports of gunshots being fired.
The incident happened on the forecourt of the car wash in Stafford Street at around 7pm.
Police were called after witnesses saw a group of men smash cars parked outside premises, just off Wolverhampton Street.
Officers arrested a 37 year-old man at the scene, on suspicion of violent disorder and possession of an offensive weapon. He continues to help police with inquiries this morning.
A second witness later reported that gunshots had been heard in the vicinity around the time of the disorder.
At this stage, it is not thought that anyone was injured during the incident.
Detective sergeant Glenn Marriott from the Sandwell and Dudley team of Force Criminal Investigation Department said: “We are treating this incident very seriously, as it appears that those involved in the disorder were obviously in some kind of dispute and had access to weapons.
“We are continuing to conduct specialist searches at the scene today, and will be interviewing the man arrested at the scene.
“Stafford Street and Wolverhampton Street are busy thoroughfares and I would urge anyone who was passing the area at all from around 7pm last night to come forward and pass on any information you may have to the investigating officers.”
Roads in the area are open as normal this morning, however the affected business premises remains closed.
Sergeant Chris Fox from Dudley police station said: “Incidents such as this cause concern for local people and we will be carrying out patrols in the area to reassure residents and traders over coming days.
“Thankfully, this kind of disorder is unusual and we will be speaking to people in the area as part of inquiries to try and identify those involved.”
Anyone with information to help the police investigation is urged to contact Team 9 of Force CID at Harborne police station on 0345 113 5000 or call the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
H/T Fjordman
Transgendered people need more protection, the Liberal Party has announced, adding it proposes that the hate crime law be clarified so that it is clear that it also applies to this group.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/06/concentrating-on-essentials.html
Meet Pop, a two-and-a-half-year-old Swedish child whose parents are refusing to say whether the apple of their eye is a boy or a girl. Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few — those who have changed the child’s diaper — nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information. In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3582
The Swedish Green Party state explicitly that the concepts male and female are “socially constructed” and forced upon all human beings. In order to reach the new world order, it is paramount that all such artificial identities are broken down. This should be facilitated by the education system and specially trained teachers. They believe that “all human beings” should be free to choose whatever name they desire. By this they appear to mean “gender” as well. They want everything to be “gender neutral,” not only marriage ceremonies but identity cards.
Baltimore police say John Wagner and Lavelva Merritt were “hunting to rob someone” on Sunday night.
Around 11:30, they ran into Stephen Pitcairn.
The Jupiter man, a Johns Hopkins University researcher with dreams of finding the cure to breast cancer, was walking on Baltimore’s north side talking on the phone with his mother.
Wagner and Merritt found their perfect, distracted “someone,” police said in court records filed Tuesday .
Even after he followed the two career criminals’ orders, police allege that one of them stabbed him in the chest. All the while his mother, Gwen Pitcairn, listened as her son – just two days shy of his 24th birthday – pleaded with the robbers .
Afterward, the pair went home, apparently so proud of what they had done they bragged to witnesses, saying they had robbed and “hurt” a “white boy,” according to the court records.
Pitcairn was pronounced dead around midnight at John Hopkins Hospital.
On Monday morning, a police SWAT team raided Wagner and Merritt’s place at 2700 Baltimore Ave. and arrested the pair without incident. Police found blood at the front door, bloody shoes and Pitcairn’s brown wallet and iPhone in the house. Continue Reading →
Leftism joins forces with Islam. Again.
Please click here to Gates of Vienna for more commentary than I feel comfortable offering.
I for one, have never bought the notion that the wearing of the burqa is a benign expression of one’s religion and have long argued that it is in fact, only one tenet of sharia. As we can see, despite the fact that the majority of Britains polled do not support the wearing of the burqa, the government has no intention of supporting, nor defending their concerns against those Islamists who dream of Britain as an Islamic state, working diligently to realize this seemingly inevitable outcome.
Farooq Murad of the Muslim Council of Britain, pointed to the spread of mosques and sharia, or Islamic law, as positive signs of the greater freedom Muslims are given in this country. He says, ” There’s a great British sense of fairness and justice. We can have great pride in what a tolerant country Britain is, looking at the growth of mosques, and how nearly more people eat halal meat than don’t.”
He warned, ” any moves to restrict the expression of Islam by banning the veil or blocking the building of minarets would alienate the Muslim community and threaten social cohesion”.
From The Telegraph U.K.
Damian Green said such a move would be “rather un-British” and run contrary to the conventions of a “tolerant and mutually respectful society”.
He said it would be “undesirable” for Parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.
His comments will dismay the growing number of supporters of a ban. A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal. Continue Reading →
Thank god that at least one culture with a healthy sense of scientific inquiry is not self-hobbled by political correctness, where truth takes a back seat to what political philosophy requires to be true. H/T to Fjordman for finding this excellent article from the Economist, I very much look forward to the highly predictible results of this investigation. For those who cannot wait, I would suggest preparing yourselves for it by reading the excellent book, ‘Human Accomplishment’ by Charles Murray which does a historical enquiry of all human achievement in order to know the same thing.
Below, an excerpt from the Economist:
But the organisation is involved in even more controversial projects. It is about to embark on a search for the genetic underpinning of intelligence. Two thousand Chinese schoolchildren will have 2,000 of their protein-coding genes sampled, and the results correlated with their test scores at school. Though it will cover less than a tenth of the total number of protein-coding genes, it will be the largest-scale examination to date of the idea that differences between individuals’ intelligence scores are partly due to differences in their DNA.
Dr Yang is also candid about the possibility of the 1,000-genome project revealing systematic geographical differences in human genetics—or, to put it politically incorrectly, racial differences. The differences that have come to light so far are not in sensitive areas such as intelligence. But if his study of schoolchildren does find genes that help control intelligence, a comparison with the results of the 1,000-genome project will be only a mouse-click away.
At the moment this frenetic activity is paid for mostly by regional development grants and loans from state-owned Chinese banks, but Dr Yang hopes to go properly commercial. The Hong Kong operation will work partly as a contractor, and Mr Wong hopes to persuade biologists around the world to send their samples in and have them sequenced there rather than relying on their own universities to do the sequencing. Whether the BGI’s researchers can turn their mass-produced DNA sequences into new scientific insights and bankable products remains to be seen, but the world is watching.
From The Daily Mail U.K.
By Daily Mail ReporterWCs at Rochdale’s Exchange shopping centre will include two Nile pans alongside traditional western toilets when they reopen following a refurbishment.
The pans differ from western toilets as the user is able to squat over them, rather than sitting.
They are preferred by some members of the Asian community for cultural reasons and were installed to give staff and customers the option of using them.
The decision to install pans in the ladies and gents toilets came about after centre management attended a cultural training course with community activist Ghulam Rasul Shahzad. Continue Reading →
It seems that Canada had yet another attempt at a Muslim honour killing of a daughter. The good news is Canada’s clear, unmitigated, non-politically-corrected, not-culturally-relativist (even if the good minister for women’s affairs cannot pronounce that word properly) policy making it perfectly clear that killing people is unacceptable and being a matter of culture or religion does not make it OK.
And below, the statement from the good minister for women’s affairs. As usual for these times, it takes a conservative to set truly liberal policies.
HERALDSUN… What an offensive corruption of our curriculum. Children are to be taught the fabled best of Islam and the imagined worst of Australia to blind us all to the real challenges Islam poses even to a country that’s peacefully integrated the many more Buddhists here:
EVERY Australian school student would be taught positive aspects about Islam and Muslims – and that Australia is a racist country – under a proposal by an education think tank.
The plan is outlined in the Learning From One Another: Bringing Muslim Perspectives into Australian Schools booklet, published during the week by the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies.
It says there is a “degree of prejudice and ignorance about Islam and Muslims”, and Australian students must be taught to embrace difference and diversity.
The booklet refers to the al-Qai’da of Osama bin Laden as “a famous name” synonymous with the traditionalist movement in Islam. It makes no reference to terrorism.
It says “most texts used in Australian English classes still have a Western or European perspective”.
How impudent for a largely immigrant community, comprising a very small minority, to demand English classes now be taught more from their perspective rather than the communal perspective of the country to which most chose to come – a communal perspective that reflects the values and institutions that have made this country worth coming to in the first place. It is particularly offensive in that the host nation is demonised as racist while the very real and in some cases lethal challenges posed by the newcomers are glossed over.
This National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies document is the well-meaning – but dangerously foolish and deceptive – work of Dr Eeqbal Hassim, a former research fellow in Islamic Law at the University of Melbourne, and Jennet Cole-Adams, director of Curriculum Services at the Australian Curriculum Studies Association.
Most tellingly, it has only passing and vague references to Islamic terrorism, which is the key explanation for Australia’s alleged “racism” towards Muslims – something that might in many case might be more properly described as a natural caution, and one limited to Muslims here than to Buddhists or any other largely immigrant group that seems curiously immune to our “racism”. There is no mention at all of the Islamist killings of some 100 Australian in Bali, or of the Muslim terrorist plots in Australia itself, which have seen 20 people jailed.
Here is the document’s reference to Islamist terror groups, suggesting that Islamist terrorism is created by Western arrogance more than any sickness within Islam itself or Arabic cultures: Continue Reading →
Once again, we see that actual gay rights in Toronto take a back seat to hatred of Israel and arguably Jewish people, and of course, the compulsory pushing the leftist party line. I hope that homosexuals in Canada are deeply ashamed by this. If not ashamed, then please organize a nice big public gay pride march in Gaza, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia and Iran. I will gladly help fund raise to get you all over there for it.
By the way, I know that Vlad has some gay readers who would find this segment of the gay community in Toronto and in general to be sad and disgusting. I look forward to your comments and no aspersions are meant to be cast your way.
