Five by Five

Europe waits for Germany to come to the rescue | Anatole Kaletsky: Economic view - Times Online

2009-05-18T16:53:00.002-04:00

I heard on TV yesterday, in an interview with a Brit journalist with an American socialite, that the world financial crisis is the fault of the USA – as the presenter put it, “you lot”. It has seemed to me from the start that the EU is a fundamentally unstable construct and my observations overseas has been that they have tried to emulate the conspicuous consumption of the Americans without the elevated productivity of the American economy.

Now, I have finally seen an analysis from within the EU that confirms my beliefs, despite the rhetoric blaming the US for all the ills of the Old World. Apparently:

“Last Friday the European Commission published what were arguably the most catastrophic economic statistics produced by any official institution in the capitalist world since 1945…What these statistics confirmed is that the credit crunch has been a far greater disaster for Germany and most of continental Europe than for the US and Britain. In fact, it is Europe that faces a genuinely unprecedented economic crisis, whereas the recessions in America and Britain are broadly similar in scale to the ones of the past three decades.”
Europe waits for Germany to come to the rescue Anatole Kaletsky: Economic view - Times Online

Essentially, the powerhouses of the EU economy have been buoyed up by bad loans from wealthy Europe to developing Europe. As the fictions of these loans becomes apparent a credit crunch causes crises in many of the European “provinces”. This can usually be dealt with by instituting draconian economic and fiscal policies but that is no longer possible because everyone now uses the common Euro. Unless Germany bails everyone out there will be a crash beyond the memory of everyone alive. The only ones who will be cushioned against it will be Britain because they did not jump headlong into the Euro.

God bless the Euro-sceptics! and thank goodness someone is willing to speak with honesty. Let’s just hope that those who are trying to scapegoat the USA don’t push for revenge for their failed economy.

Christ's Two Great Commands

2009-05-12T22:49:00.002-04:00

The Bible is the Word of God:

Mt 22:36 “[Jesus], which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

The only problem is that the Word of God was written by men. Let’s assume that all of the Bible was inspired by God. It was then proclaimed and taught by prophets who were men and who had men’s prejudices and agendas. It was then written down by other men with men’s prejudices and agendas. It was further edited by other men with men’s prejudices and agendas.

In the end, we have a God who “hates” gay people.

You know, I don’t think God “hates” gay people. I don’t think God “hates”. I also think that God made gay people the same time he made straight people. I don’t think God screwed up. I think that people who took the Word of God made it say that God “hated” things that were not conducive to the survival of tribes when there was a pressure to increase populations. Gay people don’t normally do that.

So, how do we figure which parts of the Bible are true expressions of the Word of God? Look at the Two Great Commandments and use them as a filter for the rest of the Bible. Jesus himself gave us the key to this when he articulated the Two Great Commandments. Passages that speak of what and whom God “hates” does not pass that test.

We are told of a lot of things and people that God “hates”. I believe that Jesus’ words have a very significant consequence to such interpretations.

One Small Step for Mankind

2009-01-17T11:14:00.002-05:00

Finally!!! The Canadian Ministry of Justice has been directed to review Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. This has been used to shut down Freedom of Speech for a long time contrary to its intended purpose. Albertan Reverend Stephen Boissoin has a lifetime ban on speaking in public about his beliefs about homosexuality (recall that he is a clergyman supported by scripture). The same post discusses the CHRC's determination that true invective by an Imam is not worthy of censure.

The nature of Section 13 is vile. If people feel the need to spout hatred then it should be the obligation of all people to challenge and shame them. To have the State silence them is an act of political and social laziness and drives them underground where they attract the most violent adherents.

Cudos to Prime Minister Harper. Let's hope it works out.

Democracy in Action

2009-01-11T19:04:00.000-05:00

It has occured to me that an election is, primarily, an opportunity for a people to take responsibility for what is done in their name.
It has often been said about the American hypocracy regarding the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Apparently the fact that the Palestinians elected them is supposed to give them legitimacy that overrides their pledge to annihilate Israel. When they declared themselves absolved of all agreements and treaties with Israel the Palestinian people were still supposed to see the benefits that depended on those treaties - like the taxes and tarifs collected by Israel for the PA.
No. When a people elect a terrorist organization that doesn't recognise the right of Israel to exist that doesn't legitimize the Hamas terrorists; it delegitimizes the Palestinian people themselves. They laid down with the dogs and were surprised to find that they have fleas.
I, For one, hope the fleas bite hard and make the Palestinians act like adults next time. I'm not, however, holding my breath.

Sent from my wireless handheld device / Transmis de mon appareil portable

NO!!!!!! Not the UN!!!

2009-01-08T16:08:00.002-05:00

Bert Raphael, in the Globe and Mail, praises Lewis MacKenzie for an insane idea:

Finally a voice of reason and logic from someone who has been there and knows the facts on the ground: I refer to the article by retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie suggesting that a solution to the Israeli-Hamas war is the deployment of a strong and armed UN force in Gaza (What Is The UN Waiting For? Deploy A Strong Force To Gaza - Jan. 6). If the United Nations gave the force the power to disarm Hamas and ensure that only humanitarian goods and not guns entered Gaza, the current problems would be solved.

I'm not sure what is more dizzyingly ludricous: suggesting that the UN would pass a resolution to protect Israel against Hamas when their man on the ground is Richard Falk , or anyone with a memory longer than a week would suggest that the son of Oil-for-food would be a good idea.

MacKenzie notes that:

Hamas makes no secret that, aided and abetted by Iran, it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Any idea of a ceasefire in the current fighting leading to a change in Hamas's dedication to Israel's elimination is naive to the extreme.

and he is right but what is also extremely naive that an organization that would put 17 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to the 47 Member Hunam Rights Council has no true mandate to represent any solution leading to peace in the Middle East and will certainly not make any effort to guarantee the continued existance of Israel. MacKenzie is right on one point and his article would have been adequate if he had left it at:

"The UN Security Council and member states should be ashamed."

CUPE Ontario Embarasses Themselves Again

2009-01-08T15:47:00.001-05:00

Sid Ryan has shown himself, again, to be a true idiot and Arab apologist by proposing a ban on Israeli scholars in Ontario Universities.

"In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general," said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario.

He further illustrated his bigotry by making the standard Islamist comparison between the Israelis and the Nazis (that one never gets old):

"Attacking an institution of learning is just beyond the pale," CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan said last night. "They deliberately targeted an institution of learning. That's what the Nazis did.

What Sid forgot is that the Nazis also banned people from working who did not pledge allegiance to their chosen dogma - which interestingly also included a hatred of Jews. Sid notes that the ban would not include people who were born in Israel and emigrated, just visiting scholars. So, presumably he is not concerned if one of your grandparents on your mother's side was a.... One thing he did not include was if the ban included Israeli Arabs who did not explicitly condemn the university bombing. Hmm...something to think about.

Sid did eventually did apologize for Nazi thing. Apparently, “(i)t was never (his) intention to hurt or cause offence to anyone. (He) was attempting to draw attention to the terrible bombing of a learning institution. (He) got caught up in the emotion and the comparison (he) used was hurtful and completely beyond the pale.” He still wants to ban the Israeli scholars who don't explicitly condemn the Arms Factory Bombing.

Apparently he still feels it is important for Israel to stop trying to prevent Hamas trying to push the Jews into the sea. I suppose that is why Sid was awarded the Canadian Arab Federation's Social Justice Award.

I would fight for his right to believe and say that. I do not, however, believe that Sid has the right to be heard or to continue to be supported as the President of CUPE Ontario. It disgusts me that the people who maintain him there have access to our young people and the ability to pollute their minds with their vile invective.

How Dare the Israelis Bomb a Mosque

2009-01-06T19:48:00.001-05:00

Because it was a Munitions Depot!!!!

Islamic University of Gaza

2009-01-06T13:41:00.001-05:00

Why would the Israelis target an institution of higher learning in a supposed operation against Hamas?

This is the type of question asked by Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Akram Habeeb, who tells us "that IUG is an academic institution which embraces a wide spectrum of political affinities".

This is where kidnapped Israeli soldier Cpl Gilad Shalit spent months before being relocated. Fatah themselves reported that in February 2007 the Palestinian Presidential Guard stormed the university and "confiscated weapons and ammunition. Palestinian TV aired footage of dozens of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, rockets, and assault rifles, as well as thousands of bullets, that Mr. Abbas’s officials said had been found inside the university."

Far from the war crime that it has been painted in The Nation with groups of students being hit trying to find a way home from the University (Note that "There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday" was reported by a BBC Jounalist in Gaza though reference to that statement seems to have disappeared from the BBC Site) the IUG is an established arms factory and depot and is an obvious military target.

And let's talk about that The Nation article by the cretin Richard Falk, but later...

Proportional Response

2009-01-04T11:19:00.001-05:00

I have just decided that I need to change my position on "Proportional Response". I have, until now believed that Proportional Response would be a totally irresponsible policy for Israel that would be equivalent to trading death for death until only one side is still standing. I realized today that proportional response is nothing like that and it is reasonable with the following guidelines:

Base "proportional" on the inverse of Article 7 of the Hamas Charter (related by al-Bukhari and Muslem): "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (the Cedar tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
End the "proportional response" when the inverse of the Hamas goal (expressed by Hamas leader Fathi Hammad in Gaza on 2 January 2009) is met: "We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity"

This was expressed well by (nom de plume) Higgs Boson at Daniel Pipes site (responding to Pipes "Israel's War on Hamas: A Dozen Thoughts" as:

Proportional Response --
Hamas' stated goal : Total destruction of Israel and death of all Jews.
Israel's stated goal : Total destruction of Hamas
/ Q.E.D.

There is No Such Thing as "Truce" for Israel

2008-12-31T16:19:00.002-05:00

“BY THE time we’re finished, there won’t be a Hamas building left standing in Gaza.”
Israel’s deputy chief of staff, General Dan Harel, to a group of mayors from towns close to the Gaza Strip on 29 December 2008 (The Economist)

There are protests by Palestinian sympathizers, most of them of Palestinian or Arab extraction, around the world against the disproportionate force employed over the last few days in Gaza. DISPROPORTIONATE?!?!?! What the hell is proportionate to the indiscriminate use of Qassam rockets at Israeli towns for years? Every time I have heard a Palestinian or Arab speaker talk of this on the radio the speak of Fireworks being shot into Israel. Bullshit. Qassam may not be Tomahawk missiles but they are definitely not fireworks.
Why would the Israelis agree to a truce with Hamas? Hamas doesn't believe in Truce for any reason other than regrouping and rearming when they are losing. Whenever Israel unilaterally tries to disengage they see a dramatic incease in attacks.
Note that the August 2005 Unilateral Disengagement was closely followed by the highest levels of Qassam activity to date and that has been maintained to the present day. What is the incentive for Israel to make concessions or agree to a "truce".
No. Israel must rebuff calls for a Gaza Truce. The onus is on Hamas to stop firing rockets as a first step to peace and that is unlikely. The only way that they will have a moment of peace is to drive Hamas into the ground. They will then have to take it upon themselves to keep Hamas down because the rest of the world has shown a distinct lack of resolve to do so.

The Loss of Freedom

2008-12-27T11:46:00.001-05:00

George Jonas has written a piece on the fate of freedom in the West as we transit from a Classic Liberal to a Modern Liberal society. His post is pretty rambling but his warning is clear - we need to protect basic freedoms and beware of the incursion of false "human rights" that are really individual sensibilities that are rammed down the throats of others.
George has managed to escape from two frightful events in his lifetime - the occupation of Hungary by the Soviet Union and marriage to Barbara Amiel. In the first he became painfully aware of the dangers of the unquestionable sensibilities of the moral elite overriding the rights of anyone to question or debate popular myths and what "everyone knows". We are in serious danger of tredding that path with Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The "right" to not be offended masked as being targeted with "Hate Speech" represents a slippery slope to true authoritarian oppression.
I wrote earlier about the Canadian Human Rights Commission inconsistency in a ruling in Montreal recently compared to the gag order issued to Reverend Stephen Boissoin in Alberta. Social misfires, such as statements that offend others, need to be dealt with socially - if someone offends you shun them. But for the State to issue a gag order on otherwise free speech is an abomination in a "free" country. It is only a short step to including criticism of the government as offensive (or "hate") speech. I believe that the argument that homosexuality (or other things) is blasphemous is wrong. I, however, will defend with my life the right of wrong people to say that it is. They may even be right; I only believe that I argue from God's side of this argument.
Just to be clear, the CHRC finding that the writings of imam Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti do not represent hate speech against identifiable groups is dead wrong. The ruling gagging Reverend Boissoin is also dead wrong. The difference is that imam Al-Hayiti must have the right to argue his hate and that must be vociferously refuted in the same that the view of Reverend Boissoin must be refuted, not gagged.

Opposition Doesn't Like Senate Appointments

2008-12-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

"Harper’s Senate appointments called 'obscene'" reports the Juliet O'Neill in the National Post. What she didn't report until well into the story is that the epithet was issued by New Democratic Party MP David Christopherson. To them all Senate appointments are obscene.
The criticism of the appointments is not restricted to the NDP on ideological grounds or by the Liberals on the grounds of lost opportunity. Conservatives have also come out against them on ideological grounds and that is a sad, short sighted position. As idealists both the NDP and the those conservatives have a single-minded view of the governing of the Nation.
The NDP wants to do away with any mechanism of "second thought" so that, at any opportunity they can practise their social experimentation that has always been the goal of Progressivists. This trial and error method, which considers frequent failure as an acceptable means to an utopian dream, is hampered by an Upper Chamber that has to consider the misery that is caused by ill-conceived schemes of social engineering. It must be abolished. In fact, let's make the Canadian Parliament even more unstable and bring in Proporational Representation and give every fringe group control.
The Liberals saw the possibility of scamming 18 seats in the Senate when they were out of power and it made them sick with delight. At least, not being idealists in any sense of the word, they are calm, if disappointed. They can wait and fight another day.
The conservative idealists who think of the appointments as a betrayal are the saddest subset of them all. They are willing to forego the possibility of a duly elected and responsible Senate for decades in order to stick with the ideal of not appointing unelected Senators ahead of a possibly defeat in January. This attitude was well elucidated by Don Martin in his bitter diatribe in the National Post:

Instead of reforming it, Mr Harper has reconfirmed the Senate as the pigpen for party has-beens, cast-offs, party bagmen and political pals with a couple honorable mentions thrown in to make the Conservative rebalancing project go down a little easier.

Now Martin has his own peccadilloes related to Mike Duffy's appointment but this "baby with the bathwater" attitude is why the Reform Party was never able to govern and shouldn't have.
The reason that I have voted Conservative since 2001 is that they approach politics with principles, unlike the Liberals. They don't, however, stick to an ideology and damn practicality just to make themselves feel righteous. When ideologists fail they are able to blame the betrayers and infidels. They are never around to pick up the pieces.

Is Don Martin a Little Bitter?

2008-12-23T10:42:00.001-05:00

Don Martin has made a pretty transparent "always a bridesmaid..." diatribe in his "Full Comment" article in the National Post regarding Conservative Senators and, in particular, Journalist Senators.
Apparently,

"(t)here’s always professional squeamishness when journalists are granted a juicy patronage plum from the government they are paid to objectively cover."

Martin goes on to ~~suggest~~ state that,

"Whether real or imaginary, journalist appointments by government are viewed as the reward for obedient conduct, a perception further tainted by having Mr. Duffy’s appointment lumped in with a trough-full of patronage payoffs for Conservative fundraisers, defeated candidates and party toadies."

Mike Duffy is the most - one of the few - balanced journalists in Canadian Broadcasting. This is acknowledged by all parties and for this alone he deserves such an honour. His judgment will be a welcome honour in the Senate. I will comment on the flurry of bitching about the ethics of these appointments in light of Stephen Harper's view on the Senate in another post and Don Martin's comments will figure in that.
It seems to me that Don Martin's greatest real concern about Mike Duffy's appointment is that it did not go to Don Martin.

Mind Boggling Inanity at the CHRC

2008-12-20T20:48:00.003-05:00

There is not much I can say about the ridiculous decision by the CHRC to reject a complaint filed by Marc LeBuis regarding hate speech from Montreal imam Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti against gays, women and Jews that hasn't been said by Firey Spirited Zionist, Mark Steyn, or Ezra Levant except to say that it is wrong to say, as Al-Hayiti says, that:

Homosexuality is a "perversion"
Homosexuals "spread disorder on earth"
Homosexuals and lesbians should be "exterminated in this life"
"Homosexuals caught performing sodomy are beheaded..."
"It is because of this religion of lies [Christianity], which goes against human nature, that the West is now full of perversity, corruption and adultery..."
Jews "spread corruption and chaos on earth."
Most Jews "seek only material goods and money, apart from that, they have nothing..."

and he should be shunned from polite society for saying these things. I would defend his right to make an ass of himself by saying them - as I would for Reverend Stephen Boissoin who wrote a letter entitled "Homosexual Agenda Wicked" to the Red Deer Advocate. He received a lifetime ban on speaking in public about his beliefs about homosexuality. Read the letter at the link. It is nothing like the vitriol of Al-Hayiti.

So the lesson is, if you are Muslim you have a right to free speech. If you are not, particularly if you are Jewish or Christian beware not to dislodge your gag.

Perhaps something positive will come out of it all. Ezra Levant reports that support for the repeal of Section 13 of the Human Rights Act is getting louder and wider. Perhaps the hypocrisy of Jennifer Lynch and her band of zealots at CHRC should finally be looking through the classifieds.

Coalition playng Spin-The-Bottle with Democracy

2008-12-09T18:27:00.002-05:00

In the same vane as I posted earlier, the CPC is definitely concerned with the disregard for democratic due process displayed by the Opposition Parties, particularly the Liberals. This from the National Campaign Chair:

Stéphane Dion has resigned as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and by extension, of the Liberal/NDP/Bloc Coalition. In yet another stunning and unprecedented demonstration of Liberal contempt for our democratic rights, they've decided to appoint a new leader in his place.

Not only was the Liberal/NDP/Bloc Coalition not elected to govern this country , but the person who would become Canada's Prime Minister wasn't even the leader of a federal party during the last election and may not even be elected by the Liberal (or any) party's membership .

The Liberals have decided to parachute Michael Ignatieff into the position of Prime Minister, and one thing is clear: Canadians didn't elect this coalition to form a government , and they most certainly didn't elect Michael Ignatieff as Prime Minister .

The Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition would be a disaster for Canada's economy, and for our democracy.

Nobleman vs. Doberman

2008-12-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

This is actually the title that Lawrence Martin used to lambaste Stephen Harper about his difficult times ahead with "Sir Michael" (Ignatieff) at the helm of the Liberal Party. Apparently, "Mr. Ignatieff will move cautiously, easing off on any coalition commitment," and "...cannot probably help but move his party's numbers upward."

On the other hand the vile Conservatives will be reduced to "berat(ing) Mr. Ignatieff as an egghead and beat him up for signing the coalition pact. But his being new to politics means the fire-breathing Harper will have less ammunition on which to base cheap attack ads."

How about a lack of concern for the discipline of democracy? Having signed on - once you agree it doesn't matter that you were hesitant - to the failed Socialist/Separatist Putsch Mr. Ignatieff is soon to be annointed by a process that is even a step further removed from the elitist procedure that usually governs Liberal conventions. Following the British model of the Parliamentary Party selecting the leader they have effectively shut out the West in the determination of the next leader.

Let's not forget that the Putsch was about to appoint Stephane Dion as Prime Minister - about the only thing about which there was significant concensus during the election was that this should NOT happen. It seems that reversing the slowly strengthening support that the Conservatives are building is justification for just about any mechanism besides seeking a democratic mandate. It would seem that this is because that is the path that is least likely to accomplish their rise to power. Does this sound like a story from the Russian Court of Tsar Alexander I? Perhaps that is because that is where his family came into prominence. Michael Georgievitch Ignatieff might be the son of the fifth son of a Russian Count but it would appear that this apple did not fall far from his noble tree.

I don't think that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives will be starving for issues upon which to criticize the New Liberals.

What is Freedom

2008-12-08T19:56:00.000-05:00

What does freedom mean in a real context? Most thinkers trace the development of the idea, in modern times, from Thomas Hobbes, through John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and others. These fellows approached freedom from a highly theoretical direction and, with the exception of Hobbes, considered "freedom" to be from Government interference. Only Hobbes considered that freedom might be from an external influence other than the sovereign government and he considered only the threat from a chaotic anarchy.
It seems to me that there are numerous agencies who can threaten our freedom and a strong government is as likely to be our protector as our oppressor. That is why it was developed.
I will post ideas and arguments here on this subject. I hope for lively debate.

Liberal Collapse

2008-12-08T18:44:00.000-05:00

I just watched Martha Hall-Findley talking on CTV about the exciting events in the Liberal Party. They have decided that it is too important that they be able to meet the challenge of tearing apart the elected government to elect their next leader by a democratic process. They are going to do the British model of election by the "parliamentary party".

Of course, as an anti-Liberal, I think I should be celebrating this. There are almost no Liberal MPs from the West so this will further isolate the Libs from the West and make it a truly regional party of Ontario.

The rhetoric of "Harper is a dictator who will face the wrath of the people" is getting pretty tiresome and is quite contrary to the polls. They suggest that a Harper-led Conservative Party would win a majority if there was an election now. I don't think that would be a likelihood soon. The way the Libs are going I am pretty sure that they would want to assume power without the inconvenience of a general election. They have demonstrated their distaste for that inefficient technique already now, haven't they?

Sent from my wireless handheld device / Transmis de mon appareil portable

The Failed NDP/Bloc/Liberal Putsch

2008-12-07T21:33:00.002-05:00

It would seem that, in the interest of getting into government or disrupting the responsible operation of government, Jack Layton and Stephane Dion will stop at nothing.
While it is true that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives did not get a majority to govern a few weeks ago they did get, by far the largest number of seats and the country sent the Liberals a resounding message:

"We do not want the Liberals in government and we definitely do not want Stephane Dion to be the Prime Minister."

Apparently, the three amigos (Jack Layton, Stephane Dion, and Gilles Duceppe) are wiser than the people of Canada and are willing to override the error to put Dion in the chair - not the driver's chair exactly because both Jack and Gilles (I like that) would have veto authority on all government decisions.
Really can't blame Duceppe. He is very honest about the fact that he is not in place to look out for the best interests of Canada. Dion is a Dupe who is punch drunk and should be put away in a confortable room to convalesce. Jack Layton is the evil driver behind this one - I'd bet on it. He looked like a teenage boy with his first boner in the news conference where they signed their pact.
I read somewhere that Jack Layton is evidence that the Devil exists and is sowing mischief in the world. A truer statement has not frequently been made.
Stephen Harper has been criticised for not being cooperative with the Opposition and doing things their way. He is a bully for governing like he has a majority because the Liberals don't have the courage to defeat him. This assumption has been very accurate for quite some time and Harper has been able to work his way through his entire agenda of promises fromt the 2006 Election. For him to govern otherwise would have been to negotiate from a position that was not as strong as he was in. That would be not only stupid but incompetent.
Harper was elected because Canadians had had enough of crooked Liberal management and the fiscal policies of the NDP would be utterly disasterous. It would be utterly irresponsible to use policies that he believed to be untenable when he had the option not to. He didn't and he was right.
Stephen Harper is the right man to be the Prime Minister of Canada.

The Challenge of Kosovo

2008-02-22T19:25:00.004-05:00

Well, they have done it. And three permanent members of the Security Council have recognized them. Kosovo is one of the worst candidates outside of Africa to become a viable state. It is unbelievable that the disastrous consequences to a world order that depends on nation-state stability are not recognized by these countries upon whom that order depends. The message of such a successful manoeuvre is that every ethnic minority on the planet can declare themselves sovereign with no consideration to their ability to manage as mature states. In the case of Kosovo (from Caroline Glick):

Its forty percent unemployment is a function of the absence of proper economic and governing infrastructures.
In November 2007, a European Commission report detailed the Kosovo Liberation Army's failure to build functioning governing apparatuses. The report noted that "due to a lack of clear political will to fight corruption, and to insufficient legislative and implementing measures, corruption is still widespread... Civil servants are still vulnerable to political interference, corrupt practices and nepotism." Moreover, "Kosovo's public administration remains weak and inefficient."..."The composition of the government anti-corruption council does not sufficiently guarantee its impartiality," and "little progress can be reported in the area of organized crime and combating of trafficking in human beings."
The prosecution of Albanian war criminals is "hampered by the unwillingness of the local population to testify" against them. This is in part due to the fact that "there is still no specific legislation on witness protection in place."
In 2006, John Gizzi reported in Human Events that the German intelligence service, BND confirmed that the 2005 bombings in Britain and the 2004 bombings in Spain were organized in Kosovo. Furthermore, "the man at the center of the provision of the explosives in both instances was an Albanian, operating mostly out of Kosovo...who is second ranking leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Niam Behzloulzi."

As Glick points out, supporters of Kosovo claim that as victims of "genocide," Kosovar Muslims deserve independence. But if the Muslims in Kosovo have been targeted for annihilation by the Serbs, then how is it that they have increased from 48 percent of the population in 1948 to 92 percent today? Indeed, Muslims comprised only 78 percent of the population in 1991, the year before Yugoslavia broke apart. In recent years particularly, it is Kosovo's Serbian Christians, not its Albanian Muslims that are targeted for ethnic cleansing. Since 1999, two-thirds of Kosovo's Serbs - some 250,000 people - have fled the area.

There have been clearances and massacres in that area ever since the Ottomans moved into the neighbourhood in 1389, taking over in 1455. What is needed here is a period of healing and normalization, supported by the international community, not a demonstration of the principle of the Wakf, the belief that any land that has been in Muslim hands belongs to Islam into perpetuity. Ask Spain. They know that they are on the Radar for the loonies to re-establish Andalusia. God help us if this goes much further.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Doesn't Get Britain

2008-02-21T18:29:00.003-05:00

Who would have thought that the Head of the Church of England would fail to understand why people want to live in Britain.

I have read a number of stories about the Archbishop Rowan Williams' comments that the adoption of aspects of Shari'a law was "unavoidable". It occurred to me that it was entirely possible that the writers had missed some important contextual aspect of his speech. Then I found a copy of the full text of his lecture on Islamic Law in Britain and got the full blast of his intent. It is a bit of a tough slog as he is quite obtuse in his pseudo-dialectic. I really do not feel that he wants to Islamize Britain but he fundamentally fails to understand why it is Britain is a place that people want to live and want to go to and live.

The Archbishop of Isengard, as I have come to think of him, appears to be under the typical Left Wing belief that we in the West have stumbled on a great place to live in a land of milk and honey through no effort of our own or our ancestors. We [that is our ancestors] haven't gone through tremendous difficulties to arrive at a model of society that permits us to live in conditions where even our poor and disadvantaged would be envied as aristocrats by most of the world. It is this ludicrous assumption that leads to the equally banal conclusion that British Common Law as "A" form of Law but it is not the only form of law that should be considered in Britain.

What he the other of his ilk of moonbats don't realize is that British legal tradition is the reason that the most successful Western societies are able to advance and foster the dynamic flow of ideas and energy that drove us to the top of the food chain. We are not locked in the 7th century because we did not limit ourselves to Shari'a based medievalism. The Islamic world regressed from their Golden Age because they reverted to the primitive tribalism that forbids modern interpretations of Shari'a and growth beyond the desert.

Don't get me wrong. It is not that Shari'a would merit the force of law outside of the dusty oil patch if it modernized. The real basis of the success of the West is that the Law is based on the secular enlightenment principles that moved it forward and permitted the modern liberal democracy. There is not place for a legally binding decision from anywhere other than the legally constituted State. That includes Shari'a Courts, the Orthodox Jews that the good vicar harped on about or any other non-state agency. There is nothing wrong with people freely going to a priest, rabbi, or imam to mediate a disagreement but when the resulting decision becomes legally binding that is Wrong! The province of Ontario rightly came to that conclusion when the same question arose. All religious legally binding arbitration was banned in September 2005.

Ontario moves ahead one step. Canterbury's Britain moves two steps back. I thank God that the Archbishop has none of the authority that some of his predecessors had.

Canada's Role in Afghanistan

2008-02-15T22:23:00.002-05:00

Captain's Quarters lauds the French entry to the NATO Combat Mission in Afghanistan and it is nice to see that the French finally have a leader with a soul but the story is more complicated on the Canadian side with the need to have some Opposition support to do the right thing - something that the opposition Liberals and NDP are loath to do. After a comprehensive study by a Liberal Privy Councilor who is now in private life both parties feel it is best to ignore the recommendations and stick to their old rhetoric.

"After touring NATO headquarters, Afghanistan and receiving hundreds of submissions, the independent commission (headed by former Liberal Foreign Minister John Manley) created by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to advise his government on the way forward is not expected to recommend any significant scaling back of Canada's commitment of 2,500 soldiers in the Kandahar region, or any profound change in their current marching orders." (National Post)

It seems that the way should be clear to maintain the mission until the job is finished, except that the current Liberals have a solution based on their polls and an ideology whose goal is to regain power rather than to do an important job right. They are stuck in a fictional paradigm that Canada's military are not war fighters but peacekeepers. They are happy to screw the people of Afghanistan and make a mockery out of the sacrifices of countless service people and their families including 78 soldiers killed in action in order to be seen to be upholding a nonsense notion of Canada's role in the world.

Happily disregarding the report, not prepared by some Conservative hack but by one of their own acting in his capacity as a lifetime Privy Councilor, the Liberal Leader Stephane Dion writes to the Prime Minister:

"The Liberal plan is consistent with our long-standing position that Canada's mission in Kandahar must change in February, 2009. It brings clarity to our goals in Afghanistan by placing a greater emphasis on stronger and more disciplined diplomatic efforts, and striking a better balance with respect to the reconstruction and development efforts that will be essential to creating a stable Afghanistan."

Manley's report recommended that the government get tough on the parts of NATO who have not been carrying their weight against the greatest threat to the Alliance since the fall of the Iron Curtain. It did, however, recommend that Canada continue to fight to maintain their gains. The Liberals feel that the "mission must be about more than the military: There is no
exclusively military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan so our
efforts must be balanced between defence, diplomacy and development." Clearly we have missed all our opportunities to negotiate a peaceful solution with the nihilist Taliban who, despite their every attempt to destroy all that has been built for the people of Afghanistan, really want to see the development succeed.

The NDP under Taliban Jack Layton want to withdraw all Canadian Troops immediately regardless of the disaster that would result for the people of Afghanistan. After all, there can't be a war if we don't fight, right. Jack is the fellow who has consistently cooperated with the Taliban by insisting on surrender and withdrawal every time a Canadian soldier is killed - ensuring the next attack will occur. Without Jack's participation, the IEDs would be worthless. This is, of course, the party that (as the CCF) insisted until 1942 that we pull out of WWII.

Why is all this important? Because, without the support or abstinence of one of the Opposition Parties the Government cannot pass a resolution on the future of the mission. The NDP will not play grown-up and the Liberals would rather play politics. The Manley Report brought the French in but the Liberals want us just to switch places with them in the Coward's Section.

Canterbury and Other Tales From the Dark Side

2008-02-15T11:57:00.002-05:00

I just read Kathleen Parker's article "Canterbury and Other Tales From the Dark Side" in (JWR). I thought it was spot on. I particularly liked the reference to Mordor:

"One does not have to be anti-Islam to be concerned as radical Islam clashes with Modern Europe. One does have to be blind - or in dangerous denial - not to be concerned that threats and violence from religionists, coupled with incremental accommodations and submissions by the soon-to-be "formerly" dominant culture, are leading to a darker age.
Is that the land of Mordor in the distance?"

This gave me the picture of Rowan Williams as the Archbishop of Isengard. Unfortuately, I don't see a Mithrandir in the wings waiting to rescue the Anglican Communion from this misguided dolt. It is sad, too. I used to like to be an Anglican.

Canadian vs Islamist Values

2008-02-13T21:37:00.003-05:00

"There's a widespread belief in the public that people don't want to hear offensive speech all the time. But to some degree, we have to permit it in our society if we're going to have freedom of speech."

That was the thought that Richard Bronstein publisher of the Jewish Free Press after he came to an agreement with Syed Soharwardy to withdraw his complaint at the Alberta Human Rights Commission. That perfectly summarizes the whole point that Ezra Levant has been making in his very public dispute with the same commission. The whole point of Levant's defense is that Canadians have a foundational right to free speech within some very limited criminal restrictions.

Levant and Bronstein did not try to incite violence and they said nothing slanderous. They did offend some people who think that no-one should criticize Muhammad because Muslims are not supposed to criticize Muhammad. There seems to be a belief, not just in Canada, that ethnic minorities - most often lately this means Muslims - have a right to not be offended. No-one has a right to not be offended. Multiculturalism doesn't mean that Canadians who have been in Canada are required to accommodate everyone else's sensibilities while new arrivals are not required to adjust their expectations to our society.

While Soharwardy has now dropped the complaints his comments to the CTV in 2006 show how little he understands the paradigm he lives in here in the free West:

Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada said publishers of the cartoons should apologize and added that they are abusing freedom of the press.
"They have to apologize in the newspaper, and they have to condemn their action, and they have to come to our centre and apologize to our congregation, too," he said.

It is Soharwardy who should apologize to Levant, Bronstein, and everyone in Canada who believes in the importance of a constitutional democracy and to whom a Sharia based society would be intolerably offensive existence.

Levant's oddessy and his brilliant responses to the AHRC can be seen here.

Danish Solidarity

2008-02-13T12:32:00.007-05:00

So here is the item that inspired me to start writing again. The link goes to Captain's Quarters, one of my favourite sources of information and dialogue on contemporary issues. The issue in this place is the plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the author of the cartoon at the right. As reported by CNN, Danish papers have demonstrated solidarity with Westergaard and Jyllands-Posten over the fundamental Western Rights to Free Speech and Freedom of the Press.

I can't think of anything more important than this issue and the need to defend our society against the constant attacks on the fabric of Western society by the minions of Islamofascism. It will not stop until the world has submitted to the harsh Salafist interpretation of Sharia law. Live and let live is not an option. I have supported this since I first read about the animal furor that occurred in response to the cartoons (see the marker at the sidebar), I use Danish products when I can, and I push the issue whenever I can. I strongly recommend that anyone who values our Western way of life do the same and that anyone who has a forum to do so links to the Captain's Quarters post linked in this title or to the Michelle Malkin post here.

This really is worth everything that we stand for. Watch in the near future for posts about the Canadian shame at the Alberta Human Rights Commission where Ezra Levant, former publisher of the Western Standard, is defending his right to Free Speech after publishing the Danish Cartoons in the WS.

Return From the Fog

2008-02-13T12:26:00.002-05:00

It has been a while since I commented here. I am an engineer, not a journalist, and I have been a little overwhelmed by the time it takes to express myself frequently in this Blog. From now on, I will try to comment when I see something that irks me or inspires me without spending enough time on each one to write a thesis.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See

2007-09-25T12:03:00.002-04:00

I just watched the subj video on Youtube and I found it to be quite frightening but not in the way the author intended. His oversimplification was to the point of distoriton and it is the type of distortion that is used to force political action in a direction that is not usually in the best interests of humanity.

Wonderingmind42 asks if anyone can find errors in his work. There are several errors:

1. He assumes that GCC is caused by human action. There is significant evidence that this is not true. In this case the Manmade/True/Yes square is not "money well spent" since that money was spent on measures against irrelevant (or perhaps not driver) activities. Massive resources are squandered and we are left dealing with a new global climate reality that we have not prepared for.

2. He assumes that GCC is reversable/stoppable. In this case Manmade/Nature is irrelevant. The result of this logic error is that The action taken in the True/Yes square results in a happy face when, indeed the action that needs to be taken, for a Natural/True/Yes square, is to learn how to best deal with the new global climate reality. In this case, the action taken for the Manmade/True/Yes square would have the same result as the Manmade/True/No square.

3. As noted by RichieSmooth in an earlier comment, "global recession ... is as bad as the true/no option. Your health and quality of life can go down just as much, you've simplified the downside of false/yes too much."

This kind of oversimplification and silencing of dissent as the GCC Movement is doing usually results in disaster. Hopefully, reason will prevail this time.

Liviu Librescu

2007-09-07T14:18:00.002-04:00

I have been meaning for sometime to put something up in honour of Prof. Librescu. The text below is from Wikipedia. It is the most concise summary of this great man's life. Rarely is it so obvious what G-d's purpose in life is for a person. Liviu Librescu was truly an agent of the Lord. G-d bless him and thanks be to G-d for him.

Liviu Librescu (August 18, 1930 - April 16, 2007)was a Romanian born and educated Israeli-American scientist and academic whose major research fields were aeroelasticity and aerodynamics. His last academic position was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech. The 76-year-old Holocaust survivor was shot and killed in the Virginia Tech massacre while holding off the gunman at the entrance to his classroom so his students could escape through the windows.

Liviu Librescu was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in the city of Ploiesti, Romania. After Romania allied with Nazi Germany in World War II, his father, Isidore Librescu, was deported to a labor camp in Transnistria (World War II region), and later his family, along with thousands of other Jews, were deported to a ghetto in the Romanian city of Focsani. Liviu as a boy was interned in a labor camp in Transnistria. Some sources report that he was taken to a Soviet labor camp. Speaking to Israeli Channel 10 TV the day after his death, his wife Marlena, who is also a Holocaust survivor, said, "We were in Romania during the Second World War, and we were Jews there among the Germans, and among the anti-Semitic Romanians." Speaking to BBC after his death, his son Joe said Liviu did not wish to talk much about that period of his life. Dorothea Weisbuch, a cousin of Librescu living in Romania, said in an interview to Romanian newspaper Cotidianul: "He was an extraordinarily gifted person and very altruist. When he was little, he was very curious and knew everything, so that I thought he would become very conceited, but it did not happen so; he was of a rare modesty."

Liviu Librescu survived the Holocaust, and was repatriated to Communist Romania and became an accomplished scientist. He studied aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, graduating in 1952 and continuing with a master degree at the same university. He was awarded a Ph.D. in fluid mechanics in 1969 at the Academia de Stiinte din România. From 1953 to 1975, he worked as a researcher at the Bucharest Institute of Applied Mechanics, and later at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Aerospace Constructions of the Academy of Science of Romania.

His career stalled in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to the Communist Party of Romania and was forced out of academia there for his sympathies towards Israel. When Librescu requested permission to emigrate to Israel, he was fired from his job. In 1976, a smuggled research manuscript that he had published in the Netherlands drew him international attention in the growing field of material dynamics.

After years of government refusal, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the Librescu family an emigration permit by directly asking Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu to let them go. They moved to Israel in 1978.

From 1979 to 1986, Librescu was Professor of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University and taught at the Technion in Haifa. In 1985, he left on sabbatical for the United States, where he served as Professor at Virginia Tech in its Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics from September 1, 1985 until his death. He served as a member on the editorial board of seven scientific journals and was invited as a guest editor of special issues of five other journals. Most recently, he was co-chair of the International Organizing Committee of the 7-th International Congress on Thermal Stress, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, June 4, 2007 to 7, and was scheduled to give the invited keynote lecture there. According to his wife, no other [Virginia Tech] professor has ever published more articles than Librescu.

Death and legacy

At age 76, Librescu was among the thirty-two people who were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre. On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho entered Norris Hall Engineering Building and opened fire on classrooms. Librescu, who taught a solid mechanics class in Room 204 in the Norris Hall during April 2007, held the door of his classroom shut while Cho was attempting to enter it. Although he was shot through the door, Librescu prevented the gunman from entering the classroom until most of his students had escaped through the windows. He was struck by five bullets , with a shot to the head ending his life. Of the 23 registered students, one, Minal Panchal, died.
A number of Librescu's students have called him a hero because of his actions. One student, Asael Arad, said that all the professor's students "lived because of him." Caroline Merrey, a senior, said she and about 20 other students scrambled through the windows as Librescu shouted for them to hurry. Merrey, previously seated in the rear of the room while next to the windows, stated that she was the third student to leave Norris 204. Merrey said that "I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for [Librescu]." Librescu's son, Joe, said he had received e-mails from several students who said he had saved their lives and regarded him as a hero while many newspapers also reported him as the hero of the massacre.

Following the murder of Librescu, his son Arieh contacted the Chabad movement to secure that his father's body would be treated according to Jewish law and that the body was released immediately for Jewish burial in Israel. With the assistance of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the body was released on April 17 and brought to New York via police escort. On April 18, Librescu received a funeral service at a Jewish Orthodox funeral home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York City, New York and on April 20, he was interred in Israel. In his native Romania, his picture was placed on a table at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, and a candle was lit. People laid flowers nearby.

Marlena Librescu stated that her husband's favorite Jewish commandment was that Jews should light Shabbat candles. On Friday eve April 20, 2007, the Chabad movement spearheaded a campaign to light Shabbat candles. Following the funeral, the Chabad on Campus Foundation announced their intention to establish a chapter in Librescu's name at Virginia Tech.

The murder took place on the day of Israel's commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). On April 18, 2007 U.S. President George Bush honored Librescu at a memorial service held at the US Holocaust Museum to a crowd that included many Holocaust survivors:

That day we saw horror, but we also saw quiet acts of courage. We saw this courage in a teacher named Liviu Librescu. With the gunman set to enter his class, this brave professor blocked the door with his body while his students fled to safety. On the Day of Remembrance, this Holocaust survivor gave his own life.

South Korea Taliban as Foreign Affairs Ministry

2007-09-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

In a brave move to resolve the hostage crisis in Afghanistan the South Korean government of President Roh Moo-hyun has hired the Taliban to kidnap and kill people who travel to Afghanistan to help bring the country out of the catastrophic anarchy inflicted by the Taliban since they seized power in 1995. As part of the deal the Taliban have take ownership of South Korea's sovereignty over their Foreign Policy, a role that they and their partners al-Qaeda assumed in Spain in March 2004.

While Roh might interpret his actions differently, it is rare that one is permitted to determine one's historical epithet. It is, however, certain that the success met by the Taliban in its dealings with Roh's government will ensure that they use similar tactics in the future. They would be fools not to and they have indicated positively that they will. Further, the success will encourage the Taliban to take more bold actions against Afghan civilians, aid workers, and other caring civilized people with anticipated impunity and the money awarded them by the South Koreans as part of the deal will enable them to fund paramilitary activities against the troops trying to bring a semblance of order to the country.

Korea was once a great nation whose influence was formational to the development of the Japanese civilization and who maintained independance in the face of attempted invasions from the Mongols and Japanese as well as constant pressures from neighbouring China. How truly pathetic that they should fall so far as to roll over for a bunch of bandit dogs in the backward sticks of a tribal hinterland.

The streets of Seoul are truly paved with the blood of their betters. May they long hang their heads in shame.

Spain cathedral shuns Muslim plea

2007-08-08T14:25:00.000-04:00

I was looking over some letters I have written in the last few months about the double standard by which the Dar al-Islam and the West are judged. While conversion to Islam is encouraged of South Korean Christian prisoners of the Tabiban as they wait to be murdered and an Egyptian former Christian is denied permission to convert back to his original faith. Christians and Jews - in fact all non-Islamic religions - are forbidden to build places of worship in Saudi Arabia. Muslim authorities routinely deny that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is a Jewish Holy site, seeming to claim that it came into existance with the onset of Islam or that the kings, prophets, and patriarchs of the bible were Muslim.

Within this environment the BBC lambasts the Roman Catholic bishop of Cordoba in southern Spain for the religious insensitivity of his rejection of an appeal from Muslims for the right to pray in the city's cathedral, a former mosque.

The BBC discussed at length the request of Spain's Islamic Board to share the Mezquita, the Cathedral in Cordoba, as "an ecumenical temple where believers from all faiths could worship". While this might seem to be a reasonable request to someone who does not consider the worship of a different religion within the confines of a Catholic Cathedral to be a desecration it should be considered within context, which the BBC story does not provide.
While the the short article noted three times, the history of the Cathedral as a former mosque, it doesn't mention even once the name of the Cathedral, officially the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin.

Nor did the story address the Islamic practice after conquest of desecrating existing religious sites and replacing them with mosques. Such notable examples are the Tejo Mahalaya, a hindu temple-palace which is now known as the Taj Mahal, the most holy site in Judaism which is the site of the Temple of Solomon but is now the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Visigothic cathedral of St. Vincent which was razed to build the Aljama Mosque - the very site of this story.

Most interestingly, the Aljama Mosque episode began with a determination by Tariq ibn-Ziyad, who occupied Cordoba in 711, that the Cathedral would be used as a shared place of worship. This was eventually determined to no longer be acceptable, the Christian portion was expropriated and St. Stephen's was destroyed.

Within the context of history the hesitation of the Bishop of Cordoba is understandable.

Cambridge University Press Offers Its Submission

2007-08-08T12:33:00.000-04:00

This is really frightening!

The Cambridge University Press is the oldest publishing and printing house in the world. It received its Royal Charter in 1534 by Henry VIII. Its charter authorizes it to print "all manner of books" and it has been a paragon of academic and intellectual leadership since its inception.

Until now. Now CUP takes its publishing direction from Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz a Saudi billionaire whose charity Muwafaq is designated as "an al-Qaida front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen" by the US Treasury Department and the Sheikh himself as a "specially designated global terrorist."

How did this come about? CUP published a book, "Alms for Jihad: Charity And Terrorism in the Islamic World," by J. Millard Burr, a former USAID relief coordinator, and the University of California history professor, emeritus Robert O Collins. In the book they detail who has funded the radicalization of Muslim populations in South Asia, Indonesia, the Balkans, Western Europe and, North America. They show who funds the mosques and Islamic centers that in the last 30 years have set up shop on just about every Main Street around the planet. The book was received with positive critical reviews with even the Globe and Mail calling it "The most comprehensive look at the web of Islamic charities that have financed conflicts all around the world."

The problem is partly that the leader of this web is Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz who was the personal banker to the Saudi royal family and head of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, until he sold it to the Saudi government and Sheikh Mahfouz doesn't like his dealings with the enemies of the West being public knowledge. The rest of the problem is that English libel law overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff so when Bin Mahfouz' attorney Laurence Harris filed suit in the UK against the UK publishers they capitulated completely. They have pulped all unsold copies of the book and asked libraries to take it off their shelves. They even sent a letter to the Sheikh saying:

"Throughout the Book there are serious and defamatory allegations about yourself and your family, alleging support for terrorism through your businesses, family and charities, and directly.

"As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your family, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false."

This despite the fact that the information was not manifestly false. According to The Terror Finance Blog "'Alms for Jihad' is properly sourced, with hundreds of references. And Burr and Collins provided Cambridge University Press with all their materials on bin Mahfouz' al Qaeda and Hamas financing, contrary to the false statements by both bin Mahfouz' and Cambridge University Press attorneys."

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld has shown, in her defense of her right to publish "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It" that Americans cannot be bullied out of their First Amendment rights by foreign courts. Unfortunately, Cambridge University Press didn't have that protection.

One wonders if Justice David Eady, the judge common to both the "Funding Evil" and "Alms for Jihad" cases, required the publishers at CUP to make the Shahadah. If the British People don't start to take back their rights to publish the truth they will soon be lining up to make an obligitory Shahadah, "I testify that there is no god but Allah..." though, with protectors such as Justice Eady, it might just become implicit to being British.

Dalhousie Honours an Arsepluck

2007-08-03T12:50:00.000-04:00

May 25, 2007 I was sitting in the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax at my son's graduation from Dalhousie Law School. The speech from the recipient of the Legum Doctor (honoris causa), Prof William Schabas, seemed a little flaky in that he referred to his fight to establish the inalienable right of all people to peace and that, to that end, he had established offices all over the world. It seemed typical of a liberal that he had responded to a need he had identified by establishing a beauracracy.

Just the other day, however, I discovered a new dimension to Prof Schabas. I was perusing a post at The Torch and it struck me that one of the people who had written to the International Criminal Court to investigate the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan for War Crimes was this same wingnut. I recognized him because he is the director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway. The letter was instigated by Michael Byers, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who is a senior policy advisor to the federal NDP who wrote a defence policy discussion paper for the NDP in the spring of 2005. He is a strong proponent of distancing ourselves from the USA in defense matters.

What is Schabas role in this? It is not clear if he is a happy participant in a stunt that was clearly designed to play to the tune of the debate going on in Commons the week of the letter allowing the NDP to state that there had been complaints to the ICC about the CF in Afghanistan or if he was a dupe of Byers' to lend credibility to the stunt that was lacking in a PoliSci Prof/Political Hack but it was a cheap and dirty trick to play on people who put their lives on the line by people who respond to human rights issues by setting up offices around the world.

I am offended that I was made part of honouring this arsepluck by attending my son's convocation.

South Korea "Submits"

2007-08-03T12:42:00.000-04:00

I heard the term "root cause" on the radio today with regards to the Taliban abduction and murder of South Korean Christian aid workers and I had to look into what the "root cause" for the situation was. I found the source of the story through Michelle Malkin's August 2, 2007 post.

Sure enough, as reported in the English version of The Chosun Ilbo, it was the US's fault again:

At a meeting of the Uri Party on Wednesday, Rep. Park Chan-suk said, "The root cause of the hostage crisis lies in our dispatch of troops to Afghanistan. While the Koreans are suffering, the U.S. stands firm on the principles. It's irresponsible and it's a betrayal of one of its allies." Uri Chairman Chung Se-kyun said, "The U.S. should not remain a mere bystander."

Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea a quotable pacifist group has labeled "the Bush administration the "main party" responsible for the abduction of 23 Koreans by the Taliban." I think that their reasoning for this was the irresistable pressure that President Bush applied to Bae Hyung-kyu and his group to risk their lives and to go into Afghanistan without telling them:

that the Taliban don't want the conditions of normal Afghans between Kandahar and Kabul to improve,
that the road between Kandahar and Kabul is so dangerous that it makes the DMZ between North and South Korea look like the Epcot Centre, and
that anyone travelling in an Islamist controlled region under the banner of Christianity is considered to be a proselytizer and is subject to death.

Wait a minute...the Bush Administration didn't send these people there any more than than they sent the Christian Peacekeeper Teams there. They are just expected to pull their asses out of the fire when everything goes pearshaped on them. I'm not just ranting about this! The same group said, "On Wednesday, the group in a press conference threatened a "massive" candlelight rally unless the U.S. starts negotiations with the Taliban immediately."Fortunately, the families of the captured Aid Workers have not bought into the rhetoric:

Lee Jeong-hoon, a representative of the families, said on Thursday, "Since an anti-American demonstration could have a negative influence on the negotiations for the release of the hostages, we have made efforts to avoid being involved in any such demonstrations." "An anti-American movement could be what the Taliban want," Lee said. "We rejected suggestions by some anti-American groups to hold a candlelight vigil and march to the U.S. Embassy in Korea."

Yes!! That is exactly what the protests for disengagement from Afghanistan are doing. Dealing with them as real people legitimizes them and makes them stronger. It emboldens them to go into schools and kill little girls for being out of their homes and it ensures that this "hostage crisis" will happen again. Meanwhile the Korean government has engaged in a remarkable round of moral equivalence:

Korean hostage negotiators have agreed to direct talks with Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan, a purported spokesman for the Islamists militants told DPA Thursday. The news agency quoted Qari Yousuf Ahmadi as saying Korean Ambassador to Afghanistan Kang Sung-ju spoke directly by phone with his Taliban counterpart.

His Taliban counterpart??!! Is Kang Sung-ju a murderous terrorist? That is the only counterpart that the Taliban have in the real world. How can they even say that? This is what Lee Jeong-hoon was talking about. Every inch that these people are given emboldens them to take the next. Their stated goal is to bring their version of Sharia law to the world and they use every concession received as a launching pad to the next while treating every concession given as a temporary tactical retreat. It is an eternal struggle for them to force the Submission of everyone to the authority of Islam.

Every time an atrocity is not met with overwhelming force it rewards them with another inch. Al Quaeda has already taken over foreign policy for Spain when they were elected to that office as a result of the 2004 Madrid train bombings. They now seem poised to take over that position in South Korea. How is it that countries can rail on about the evil USA dictating foreign policy to them and then jump onto the Islamist bandwagon as soon as they say "Boo"? Once they cede their foreign policy to Islamofacsists it is a short hop to total "Submission". For Spain this will simply be a re-reconqista but for South Korea it will be something new.

Negotiation with Animals

2007-08-02T15:17:00.001-04:00

Jack Layton and the NDP want to start peace-oriented discussions with the Taliban in Afghanistan. These are the same people who murder adolescent girls for the crime of going to school. How do you negotiate with that??!! Do you tell them that this is wrong??!! If you have to then there is not basis for discussion.

The NDP and thier advisors advocate an unconditional rejection of violence that makes them smugly think of themselves as noble, as enlightened, but in reality it is nothing less than abject moral capitulation to evil. Unconditional rejection of self-defense, and defense of people like these Afghan girls, because they think it's a supposed surrender to violence, leaves no resort but to beg for mercy or offer appeasement.

Evil grants no mercy, and these animals are evil, and to attempt to appease it is nothing more than a piecemeal surrender to it. Surrender to evil is slavery at best, death at worst. Thus, the unconditional rejection of violence is really nothing more than embracing death as preferable to life.

Those who embrace this path of death will achieve what they embrace, if not for themselves then for their children. The right, the absolute necessity, of overwhelming response against anyone who initiates force against you is fundamental to survival. The morality of a people's self-defense is in its defense of each individual's right to life. It's an intolerance of violence, made real by an unwavering willingness to crush any who would launch violence against you. The unconditional determination to destroy any who would initiate force against you is an exaltation of the value of life. Refusing to surrender your life to any thug or tyrant who lays claim to it is in fact embracing life itself.

If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own life, then you are merely like a mouse trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.

Layton's predecessor, Alexa McDonough, said much the same a week after the WTC attack on 11 September 2001. She felt that an international court should mete out the punishment. Current advisors of the NDP want the same courts to mete out punishment to our own soldiers in Afghanistan rather than to the Taliban and al Quaeda. (more on that later) You can't wag your tongue at such people and offer it the justice of a civilized court. They don't acknowledge our concept of justice.

Even as the Taliban as killing off one Korean teacher after another people are calling for negotiation and talks with the captors. This was the tack that was taken by Karzai in March to secure the release of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, an Italian journalist who had been captured by Taliban forces, a tactic that significantly encouraged this abduction. However, Cheong Wa Dae (S Korean Office of the President) also ruled out the possibility of military action against the kidnappers. "There is no change in the stance that without our government's consent, there will not be any military strategy to solve the issue," Cheon Ho-seon told reporters. Nothing can be more misguided. This event is the direct result of Karzai's capitulation and that of the Spanish left wing government's after their last election.

If, hoping to appease it, you willingly compromise with unrepentant evil, you only allow such evil to sink its fangs into you; from that day on its venom will course through your veins until it finally kills you.

Compromising with murderers, which is precisely what these people are suggesting, grants them moral equivalence where none can rightfully exist. Moral equivalence says that you are no better than they; therefore, their belief - that they should be able to abduct, torture, rape, or murder you - is just as morally valid as your view - that you have the right to live free of their violence. Moral compromise rejects the concept of right and wrong. It says that everyone is equal, all desires are equally valid, all action is equally valid, so everyone should compromise and get along.

Where could you compromise with those who abdut, torture, rape, and murder people? In the number of days a week you will be tortured? In the number of men to be allowed to rape your loved ones? In how many of your family are to be murdered?

No moral equivalence exists in that situation, nor can it exist, so there can be no compromise, only suicide. To even suggest compromise can exist with such men is to sanction murder.

Some comments on negotiation with murders was paraphrased from Terry Goodkind's "Naked Empire".

Why Are We In Afghanistan

2007-07-28T23:22:00.000-04:00

As noted by Kate at Small Dead Animals there really is a reason that we are in Afghanistan.

1. Millions of girls are back in school with 400,000 new female students starting school for the first time this year;
2. Over 100,000 women benefited from micro finance loans to set up their own business;
3. Over a quarter of parliamentarians are women;
4. Over 7 million girls and boys are in school or higher education;
5. 83% of the population now has access to medical facilities, compared to 9 percent in 2004;
6. 76% of children under the age of five have been immunized against childhood diseases;
7. More than 4000 medical facilities opened since 2004;
8. Over 600 midwives were trained and deployed in every province of Afghanistan;
9. GDP growth estimates of between12-14% for the current year;
10. Government revenues increased by around 25% from 2005/06 to 2006/07;
11. Income per capita of $355, compared to $180 three years ago;
12. Afghanistan is one of the fastest growing economies in South-East Asia;
13. Over 4000 km of roads have been completed;
14. Work has begun on 20,000 new homes for Afghans returning to Kabul;
15. Over 1 billion square metres (roughly 32 km X 32 km) of mine contaminated land cleared;
16. 10 universities are operating around the country, against one (barely functioning) under the Taliban; and
17. 17,000 communities benefited from development programmes such as wells, schools, hospitals and roads through the Government’s National Solidarity Program (NSP).

Of course this directly contradicts comments by Taliban Jack Layton in early July that, “It’s the wrong mission; it’s not working; it’s not going to accomplish the goals.” Unless he missed the point, each of the seventeen points above were not true before we went into Afghanistan. If we leave or "scaleback" before the nascent Afghanistan government is ready to defend itself then they will not be true anymore in a year.

Why is it that we never hear these points from the CBC?

Taliban Jack Layton

2007-07-28T23:12:00.001-04:00

Taliban Jack Layton has been doing his best to get Canadian soldiers killed again. Every time there is a death or serious injury he rewards the insurgents with such PR releases as this in the Edmonton Sun July 4, 2007:

“The prime minister needs to engineer a scaleback of military operations in Afghanistan in the face of mounting civilian and military deaths, NDP Leader Jack Layton said Wednesday shortly before news that six more Canadian troops had been killed.
Layton said Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to show leadership by urging the United States to stop high-altitude bombing in the war-torn country and withdrawing Canadian troops from what he characterized as a hopeless mission.”

So TJ thinks that when the going gets tough the tough bugger off. All the Taliban have to do is hit the Canadians a few more times and he should be able to convince the Canadian people to pull out immediately. It makes you wonder if Jack will be awarded an Honourary Mullah title for services to al Quaeda.

Jack has promised Mullah Omar that his party will ensure the issue is front and centre in coming federal byelections and he added the only way to peace is through negotiation. He urged Harper to take a lead role in establishing a peace process.

I am trying to remember when it was that anyone on the Taliban side has indicated that they are interested in negotiation. Perhaps it was when they hung a woman and her son outside their village for the crime of teaching in a school.

In his final nugget of wisdom Taliban Jack excreted:

“Students of history will know that all major conflicts are resolved, ultimately, through peace-oriented discussions. . . . And that’s what needs to happen here.”

Clearly Jack is not a student of history. WWI was resolved through "peace-oriented discussions". The result was WWII, the continued distrust of the West by China that exists to this day, most of the problems in the Middle East... The list goes on. WWII was resolved by destroying the war making ability of the enemy. The result is a Europe that co-exists as Union and a Japan that leads the world in manufacturing and is integrated with the world economy as a full partner.

The only thing that resolves conflicts with monsters like the Taliban, al Quaeda, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is superior force and the resolve to use it to the end. Anything less is seen as degenerate weakness of an infidel who must be crushed and brought to submission.

As one of the greatest philosophers of freedom and liberty, John Stuart Mill said:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing
is worth a war, is much worse.
Jack Layton's war on Canadian Soldiers is a truly ugly thing.

Left Wing Space Cadet Marches Against Ayaan Hirsi Ali

2007-07-27T16:18:00.000-04:00

I could not believe the load of tripe that I heard from Marilyn Churley, the former Ontario NDP MPP and Cabinet Minister and federal NDP nominee in Beaches—East York (Toronto) for the next election on Michael Coren the other day. Responding to comments about the shameful excuse for an interview that Avi Lewis hit Ayaan Hirsi Lewis with on the CBC (see it at this link) she said in at minute 1:45 of this clip that she was not ashamed of the treatment he levelled at Hirsi Ali.

This wouldn't be so bad if she were distancing herself from him but she was defending him and agreed with his tactics. During an entire nine minutes and twelve seconds of the tirade his vitriolic abuse was rapid fire but at minute 5:06 of this clip she said that she didn't see him belittling her. It is one thing to stand up and proclaim that such a woman doesn't deserve common respect and decency but to claim to have seen the attack and deny it happened is a little unbelievable, even for the NDP. To see for yourself, see here where I show the "interview".

The final laugh was when Ms Churley objected to the criticsm of the Lewis family - which include such luminaries as father Stephen Lewis who travels the globe blaming the west for the problems of Africa, mother Michele Landsberg, grandfather former NDP leader David Lewis, and wife Naomi Klein whose anti-globalization manifesto "No Logo" became quite a successful logo - by calling them heroes who have done more for Canada than anyone else at minute 4:00+ of this clip. I guess that "Harper" and "Bush" must be shot down at any opportunity but the stars of the Left are above criticism. Such is on the way to Fascism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

2007-07-27T14:59:00.000-04:00

I have a new hero. I have heard for some time and read about a woman, who was born in Somalia and fled to the Netherlands, became an educated writer, outspoken critic of Sharia states and Islamist behaviour in the west. She has lived under threats of death from Islamist authorities and extremists since her picture "Submission" came out in 2005. As a result of this ten minute video her partner in the production, Theo van Gogh, was brutally murdered and a death threat pinned to his chest with the knife used to butcher him.

This is a woman who has been through extreme hardship since childhood and suffered severely under the laws and traditions of Islam. For the audacity of proclaiming herself a free woman and criticizing such Islamic practices as she has survived she is branded an apostate who must be killed.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali became known to me in more than a passing sense during an interview with Avi Lewis on his programme "On the Map". Avi Lewis has not lived a life of hardship. He is a spoiled and pampered, and apparently relatively uneducated, child of Leftist globetrotter Stephen Lewis and journalist Michele Landsberg. I say that he is relatively uneducated because the most detailed bio I could find stops the narrative of his education by saying that he attended Upper Canada College. In other words, he went to High School.

Lewis' treatment of this heroic woman was childish and embarassing to anyone whose taxes are wasted on a government broadcaster that would field this trash. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's responses, on the other hand, were even and dignified. This enraged Lewis to the point he started speaking in tongues. By calm responses to Lewis' attacks she exposed him as the idiot he is and destroyed the cliché Leftist fare that he spewed. The Left's showpiece came to a gunfight armed with a knife.

Click "Play" below and enjoy the show.

Religion Is the Cause of Extremism, Violence, and War

2007-07-26T21:52:00.000-04:00

It seems that every time I look up there is someone proclaiming their Atheism, and then going on to chastise the rest of us for our belief in God. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have written books about how silly Faith is - not just silly but, as Dawkins put it, "Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense." Hitchens is a proponent of a similar idea that religions hurt people because of the religious wars, fatwas, and interfaith violence.

Globe and Mail columnist and chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, Sheema Khan, insightfully and accurately assessed liberal open mindedness as, "Of course we are open-minded, so long as your world view agrees with ours." The idea that a strong faith is the sign of a simple mind is close-minded and childish. It characterized my opinion when I was a young adult and it surprised me when my classmates maintained that attitude as I grew up.

This argument is flawed. Violence and murder of the sort noted above don't require Religion to stir up extremist passions. Crimes have been committed in the names of nationalism, communism, racism and animal rights; atheist dogma was a the heart of the cult of Ayn Rand and anti-religious persecution in the Soviet Union; and Fatwas are being issued daily to those who don't follow the strict doctrine of Global Warming. It is not the religion that causes the damage. Most religions teach peace and love of one's neighbour. The damage is caused by the overwhelming desire of some to exert control over others - it is a political issue.

If all religions disappeared tomorrow there would be any number of causes to fill the void. This whole spiritual nihilism is akin to saying that the cause of the anarchist would benefit anyone but a prospective strongman. The object of violence in the name of religion or any other cause is to reduce the control of the legitimate authorities and permit the leader to assume control in the manner of a warlord. It has nothing to do with spreading the word of God.

Sheema Khan's column in the Globe and Mail 12 November 2005

Separation of Church and State as a State Religion

2007-07-02T19:05:00.000-04:00

Sheema Khan, in her column in the Globe and Mail 12 November 2005, laments the de-institutionalization of faith-based arbitration as a condescension from liberal do-gooders refusing to permit Muslims to choose to use this or a civil family court.[1] She phrases her argument as a freedom of religion issue in the same manner as the French ban on the display of religions symbols in state schools in the name of separation of church and state.

The term "Separation of Church and State" has been widely mis-defined in this sense. The French have decided that the principle demands that Muslim girls should not be able to wear the hijab in school (thus limiting the access to state schools for Muslim girls whose faith demands its use). It should be noted that the same law prohibits the visible wearing of the Cross for Christians and of the yarmulke for Jewish men. They have pushed an important enlightenment idea into enforcement of a state atheist "religion".

The dissolution of faith-based arbitration as a tool of the courts was not a similar action. There is no ban on the use of clerical arbitration in any civil dispute. They simply do not, and should not, have the force of law. A person's faith is a matter of his or her own heart. When it acquires the ability of coercion that belongs to the state for the maintenance of order then it becomes a matter of someone else's heart. There is no freedom of religion in that. That is a move away from the secular nature of Western Governance and toward the theocratic nature of a Sharia based society, the goal of the Wahhabi schools of Saudi Arabia who are already the majority funding sources in Islamic Schools in the West.[2]

[1]Sheema Khan's Column in The Globe and Mail 12 November 2005
[2]The Wahhabi Invasion of America

Allow the Palestinians to Grow Up

2007-06-25T18:37:00.000-04:00

The Canadian Media, led by the CBC, poorly reported the events that led up to and followed the Israeli action in Jericho where they laid siege to and eventually took custody of several terrorist prisoners from the jail where agreement between the PA and the state of Israel (the Ramallah Agreement) determined that they would be incarcerated. The Israeli action has been described as aggressive and provocative without noting that the prisoners in the Jericho jail were supposed to have been held as prisoners and not honoured guests by the terms of the Ramallah Agreement.

Beyond relaxing all rules in the jail, as they did, for the six prisoners Hamas indicated that they planned to release them counter to the Ramallah Agreement. Mahmoud Abbas suggested that he might not block the move as if he had any control over the Hamas government. He blamed the British and American monitors for leaving the jail rather than disregarding their own safety in a situation where the Palestinian people and particularly their government are acting without respect for agreements designed to provide the sense of security required for a lasting peace.

Given the breakdown of the Ramallah Agreement the Israelis were perfectly justified in recovering the security to their people that had previously been afforded by that, now dishonoured, agreement. That the response by the Palestinians was the pandemonium that has occurred proves that the move was necessary.

The pro-Palestinian position, "How could they be expected to do anything less," is patronizing in the extreme and demeans all groups who are placed in difficult positions and don't resort to sending high velocity, warfarin coated fragments into school yards and cafes with the help of a suicide bomber. It suggests that, for this subset of the human race, it is acceptable for anger to be resolved by mass murder. This is not a condition that would be accepted in civilized society and to accept it here is to exclude the Palestinians from civilized society and place them squarely in the “Noble Savage” category – how very Victorian and Imperialistic of them.

The Palestinians need to be dealt with as equals on the world stage with the respect and dignity that implies. The first step is for them to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and protect itself. They renounced and acknowledgement of that when they elected Hamas as their government and they plunged themselves back into their dark ages. They need to renounce terrorism - the indiscriminate murder of innocents in order to highjack the peace process - and start dealing with Israel as they would wish to be dealt with.

As long as the Palestinians deal in a medieval manner with their neighbours they cannot and should not expect any other treatment from them.

The Source of Islamofascist Hate

2007-06-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

Reported in Captain's Quarters, Kevin Brock, the Deputy Director of the new National Counterterrorism Center, told the AP that he doesn't believe the invasion and war in Iraq can be blamed for the threat reports that come into his center each day.

The idea that Al Qaeda and the rest of the Islamofascists hate the US because of the invasion of Iraq or the invasion, for that matter, of Afghanistan is ludicrous. They hated us enough to hit the World Trade Centre twice (the second time successfully) and American targets around the world long before Afghanistan or Iraq happened. It is silly that Brock still even has to say this.

As General Rick Hillier the Canadian Chief of the Defense Staff, has said, "These are detestable murderers and scumbags, I'll tell you that right up front. They detest our freedoms, they detest our society, they detest our liberties." They would reduce our society to rubble simply because they can't control it.

That is why they set up in Afghanistan. At the beginning of the war against the Taliban Afghanistan had a political structure virtually identical to eleventh century Europe - a high level of anarchy where the biggest bully called the shots. If they could erode the confidence of the West in their governments and reduce our society to that level of anarchy they would happily stroll in and impose their barbaric Wahabi form of law. God help us if we should lose this struggle.

Taliban Afghanistan was rough but it would pale in comparison to what we would face here once humbled by the likes of bin Laden and Zarqawi.

Islamic Responsibility

2007-06-25T13:37:00.000-04:00

Islam as a peaceful religion? Certainly there is a lot of peace taught in the Quaran and I believe that most Muslims are peace loving people who just want to live in peace and harmony with the non-Muslim world. It is also true, however, that the Prophet slaughtered an entire tribe of Jews near Medina before he Conquered Mecca - without a fight because of his demonstration of ruthlessness. It is also true that most of the terrorists currently active in the world proclaim a bastardization of Islam.

A lot of regular Muslims have called for the death of Danish cartoonists in some sort of Islamic Justice because they have "blasphemed" Islam. These are the same people who would blaspheme Christianity's central tenet of the Trinity without trying for a moment to understand it. This is the same people who descrated the most sacred place in Judaism - the Temple Mount - by building a mosque over it. Read what the Bible and see what God (Yahweh) thinks of other religions building altars on his sacred sites. This is the same people who similarly descrated Hindu temples in India by building mosques over their levelled foundations. Muslims have nothing to say about others "blaspheming" their faith.

With respect to World War II, have you ever heard of Haj Amin al-Husseini? He was the Grand Muffi of Jerusalem. He spent much of the war in Berlin as an honoured guest of the Third Reich where he had a significant part in the development of the "Final Solution" - all for the right of Palestinian Muslims to take care of the "Jewish Problem" in Palestine themselves. He developed Palestinian Nazi units for the Balkans and the Yugoslavs wanted him prosecuted for war crimes after the war but, because of his immense popularity in the Middle East they were denied. Middle Eastern Muslims were significant collaborators and partners in the Holocost and, as such, bear as much responsibility for their history as anyone in Europe.

The Holocost was not a European event separate and apart from a peaceful world of the Prophet. It is time that Islamic apologists own up to that and quit spouting lies that place themselves on a pedestal they don't deserve. Only after that - not the abandonment of Israel by the West - will there be a peaceful co-existance. I am not, however, holding my breath waiting for this mass weaning of from the addiction to self-righteousness.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/616