Archives for February 2006

Rally with Hitchens at the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24
Stand up for Denmark! Why are we not defending our ally?

Gringo Unleashed translates an article in which Manuel Gutiérrez Fierro equates Bush = Hitler, U.S. = Israel, Mexicans = Palestinians. Gutiérrez doesn’t stop at being ridiculous, he rolls right along into hysteria.

Lost Budgie and Dumb Ox post about how Hospital Staff Executed Patients To Facilitate Hurricane Katrina Staff Evacuation. Shameful, and I hope all those involved are prosecuted.

One article from Art
U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review

Maria’s articles
I still have a heavy cold, but Maria recommended Zicam and I’m felling well enough to make a round-up of the articles she sent. I highly recommend Zicam.

On dhimmitude
Needed: Mature, Moderate Muslims: The cartoon rage is infantile
Oslo under the rule of Sharia

Crazy first ladies
Maria’s favorite columnist, Bert Preluski, writes about Voices from the left

However, if there’s anything worse than having to listen to these shnooks screaming to the choir, it’s having to listen to the ladies on the left. I refer to the sisterhood that includes the likes of Susan Estrich, Teresa Heinz-Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Allred, Barbara Boxer, Cindy Sheehan and, of course, Hillary Clinton. Each and every one of them has a voice that sounds like fingernails raking a blackboard.

I don’t want to suggest that their voices are all alike, aside from the fact that each has the power to make your ears bleed. Some, after all, are whinier than others, some are harsher, while a few are so nasal you’d think that Estrich, for instance, must have adenoids the size of grapefruits.

Last Sunday the NYT had an article about the character Jean Smart plays in 24, The First Lady Is Seriously Off Her Rocker, where

Howard Gordon, one of three executive producers of “24,” freely admits that the original model for Ms. Smart’s character was Martha Mitchell, the volatile wife of Richard M. Nixon’s attorney general, John N. Mitchell, known for her late-night calls to reporters outlining outrageous theories about conspiracy in the Nixon White House, a number of which turned out to be true. The Nixon administration response — just as in the fictional Logan administration — was to label Martha Mitchell as “unstable.”

My memories of Martha Mitchell aren’t all that recent (and yes, if memory serves me, she was an unstable woman), but Mr. Gordon could also seek inspiration in the persent from watching Hillary’s tirades, or Nancy Pelosi’s rantings.

On the Dubai port controversy
Look at the airports. Why would terrorists bother with seaports?
So, 3 Muslims walk into a port …
White House: Tone deaf or brain dead?
NRO Symposium: Port Insecurity? On the Dubai port deal
The Bush Isle of Thanatos
They are all profilers now

Other articles
California postpones execution indefinitely
BAD IDEAS FOR STOPPING IRAN

Wrong Answer
Deny this!
U.S.-German Flare-Up Over Vast Nazi Camp Archives

Tempers are flaring over a United States demand to open to scholars and researchers a huge repository of information about the Holocaust contained in the files of the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany.

Based in part on documents gathered by Allied forces as they liberated Nazi concentration camps, the stock of files held by the organization stretches for about 15.5 miles, and holds information on 17.5 million people. It amounts to one of the largest closed archives anywhere.

BOSNIAN ‘RAT’ IS FINALLY TRAPPED
The most likely victim of a hate crime in the U.S. is a poor, young, white, single urban dweller

Don’t holler out ‘Remember Chappaquiddick!’ while Ted Kennedy is present.

On February 11, 23 yr-old Ilan Halimi was found

naked, handcuffed, and bleeding profusely. He was incapable of speaking. His entire body – or “80% of it,” according to police – had been butchered. He died of his wounds on the way to the hospital, just a few minutes after he was discovered.

He had been kidnapped three weeks earlier (emphasis mine)

The French attorney general believes Halimi was targeted “because he was Jewish and thus, as a Jew, presumed to be rich.” One teenage gang member admitted having put out a cigarette on Halimi’s face “because he didn’t like Jews.”

It seems, however, that the Barbarians’ anti-Semitism went much further. Mr. Fofana and other core gang members may have been close to a local mosque. According to one witness, verses from the Koran were recited while Halimi was tortured.

Halimi’s mother

accuses the police of missteps that led to her son’s death. She revealed to Haaretz yesterday that the police told the family to ignore the gang’s attempts to contact them for five critical days, after which Ilan was found near death outside the city. She also accuses the police of ignoring the anti-Semitic motivation in the case in order not to alienate Muslims.

Replying to Mrs. Halimi’s words, the police have stated (link in French) that this is a “difficile, fastidieuse et délicate”, a “difficult, exhaustive, and delicate” investigation. The Times (UK) reports that Jews claim police hid killers’ motive to appease ghetto.

Last night’s France2 newscast started with the question, “Was Ilan Halimi killed because he was Jewish? We don’t know yet,” while the the banner called it “La hypothese antisemite” — the anti-Semitic hypothesis. Reuters does one better and refers to “the gang led by an Ivory Coast immigrant with a Muslim name“. The Beeb skirts the issue with their video ‘Racist motive’ to French kidnap (go to right sidebar, under video), which doesn’t mention the word Muslim.

Instead, France2 and the Beeb are looking for barbarians. The barbarians in question (link in French) is one of many gangs that terrorize the banlieus (i.e., housing projects). Gang leader Yussef Fofana,a Muslim, has left France and apparently gone to Ivory Coast

Fifteen people, aged 17 to 32, were arrested last week in connection with the death. Five have since been released

French investigators headed to Côte d’Ivoire on Tuesday.

While the Paris Public Prosecutor said that “no element of the current investigation could link this murder to an anti-Semitic declaration or action”, Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy has stated this was clearly a hate crime motivated by anti-Semitism (both links in French). Sarkozy also revealed that Salafist and pro-Palestinian documents were found during house searches.

Additionally, The investigating magistrate, Corinne Goetzmann is now conducting her enquiry on the basis that the evidence so far points to “premeditated kidnap, incarceration, criminal conspiracy, and murder, on the basis of the victim’s membership of a particular religious group“.

This is not the first anti-Semitic kidnapping in the recent past:

“We know that a few months ago a 16-year-old Jewish girl was kidnapped,” the family says, “but her parents decided not to go to the police and paid 100,000 euros in ransom.”

This tf1.fr article (in French) also states that Halimi’s sister Ruth had told

police officers “that there were at least three other attempted kidnappings of young Jews, but they persisted in stating that the motives were purely criminal, because they fear to revive confrontations with the Moslems”.

The Times (UK) also states that seven of the suspects arrested

are alleged to be part of a loose gang of young estate-dwellers who had already made six unsuccessful kidnap attempts against residents of Paris. Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, told Parliament yesterday that four out of the six [prospective victims] were Jewish.

The France2 video (available only until 2PM EST today) interview doesn’t show Mrs. Halimi’s face — raising in my mind the question, is there fear of retribution over her statements?

Ilan Halimi was buried last Friday at the cemetery of Pantin, near Paris

My prayers are with his family.

At the blogs:
Brussels Journal
Atlas Shrugs
No Pasaran
An Unsealed Room
Adloyada
Little Green Footballs

Update, 6:45PM This evening’s France2 newscast finally declared the murder an anti-Semitic crime.

(technorati tags Ilan Halimi, France, Nicholas Sarkozy, anti-Semitism)

I’m sick with a heavy cold today and blogging will be light, but don’t miss today’s WSJ editorial, Sins of Commission: Human rights lose at the U.N. again U.N.’s Human Rights Commission’s report on Guantanamo (which the report’s authors didn’t even bother visiting)

Instead of a Commission composed of 53 member states, the Council would consist of 45. Now there’s a bold step. The U.N. also appears ready to drop the two-thirds majority requirement in favor of a simple majority, lowering the bar to membership. And a modest proposal to exclude countries under legally binding “Chapter VII” U.N. sanctions (as Iraq was before its liberation) has been excluded, presumably because it’s too tough on the world’s worst regimes.

Instead, the U.N. proposes distributing seats according to what it calls “equitable geographic distribution”: 12 seats to Africa; 13 to Asia (including the Middle East); eight to Latin America; five to East Europe and seven to the so-called West European and Others Group, which includes the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.

Thus the two groups that contain the greatest proportion of liberal democracies are allotted the smallest number of seats. By contrast, in 2005 only nine countries in the whole of Africa were rated “free,” according to Freedom House. In Asia and the Middle East, only about a dozen of 54 countries are free, and that’s if you’re counting Tuvalu, Palau, Nauru and Kiribati.

Put simply, this structure not only fails to exclude abusive regimes from membership in the Council, it actually guarantees them their seats. And it is rigged against the very countries whose opinions about human rights might be other than blatantly hypocritical.

As I’ve said before the UN is beyond reform.

For additional reading on another subject vital to our times, Pajamas Media has the WMD files. Read every word, because the MSM won’t be publishing this anytime soon.

(tecnhorati tags United Nations, WMDs, Iraq)

First, the new:
Straight from AlJazeera, Economic war on the U.S.? Iran, Venezuela join forces

Iran and Venezuela joined forces to undermine the U.S. dollar

Last year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that his country’s plans to move its foreign-exchange holdings out of the dollar into the euro, calling for the creation of a South American central bank designed to hold in euros all the foreign-exchange holdings of the participating countries.

On the other hand, Iran started since 2003 demanding oil payment in euros, not dollars, although the oil itself was still priced in dollars. The Islamic Republic has already announced plans of opening the Iranian Oil Bourse in March, challenging by that the NYMEX (the New York Mercantile Exchange) and IPE (London’s International Petroleum Exchange).

And now the old: As I have pointed out before, The Islamic regime [of Iran] assists Venezuela with its nuclear program (via Atlas Shrugs, who posts this morning on Iran’s Nukes Get Religious Clearance). Chávez claims he’s developing alternative energy sources to ready his country for the post-petroleum era (article in Spanish).

On further Hugo news, this should come as no surprise to long-time readers of this blog: Chavez may end presidential term limits. Small wonder that he’s become UNESCO’s bizarre hero (link via Maria).

Continuing his usual diplomatic approach, Hugo Chavez last weekend accused former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar of forming part of a supposed plan directed by the United States in order to destabilize Venezuela, and referring to US Secreatry of State Condoleezza Rice as “girl”, warned her “don’t mess with me”. His speech was peppered with derogatory racist and sexist terms, which I won’t repeat here.

Don’t miss the latest on Hugo’s arms race.

The Economist, while trying to put a favorable light on Hugo, admits that (emphasis added)

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s public infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals, is crumbling. A deficit of 1.5m housing units is widening. Only a quarter of the 110,000 new houses needed each year are being built, because of the public sector’s incompetence and its unwillingness to involve the private sector.

Mr Chávez argues that capitalism is the source of all evil: poverty, inequality and corruption are all laid at the door of “savage neoliberalism”. But his seemingly rich and strong state is a hollow shell, says Mr Barrios. In Mr Chávez’s Venezuela, institutions count for little, and all important decisions are taken by one man.

With the help of some Cuban and Iranian friends.

Prior posts on the Iranian connections to Latin America here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Update: Don’t miss Alexandra’s post on A Recurrent Nightmare To Civilization

Update 2: Paxety has a post on the weekend meeting between Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the Speaker of the Majlis (the Iranian Parliament) and Fidel. Update, Tuesday Feb 21 More commentary.

(technorati tags Venezuela, Iran, Cubazuela)

Great news this morning:
U.S. marines recovered about 50 people from under the rubble at the school in Guinsaugon village. The US marines and Taiwanese teams are using life-detecting sonar equipment in the search.

The search for survivors from the landslide that swamped the farming village of Guinsaugon – killing up to 1,350 people – had focused on the school because of unconfirmed reports that some of the 250 to 300 children and teachers may have sent cell phone text messages to relatives soon after the disaster Friday.
. . .
“We know there’s something down there,” U.S. marine Lt. Richard Neikirk said as he pointed to a spot under a big boulder, where seismic sensors detected sounds.

“The farther down we went, the signals grew stronger.”
. . .
There was no visible sign of the school. Rescue workers were digging at two places – one that was believed to be the original site of the school, close to the mountain that collapsed Friday, the other 200 metres down the hill, where the landslide could have carried it.

Last week the US had sent the USS Essex and the USS Harper’s Ferry to assist in rescue and relief efforts after the mudslides in the Philippines.

As Phil said,

If this story doesn’t illustrate the U.S. military’s dedication to humanitarian efforts wherever they are needed in the world, I don’t know what does.

In Iraq,
a story from that arm of the vast-right-wing-conspiracy, UPI: Iraq forces are making major progress that should provide a new degree of legitimacy and popularity to the Iraqi government and allow the Coalition to reduce its forces

Cartoon jihad:
Cartoon Protests Leave 15 Dead in Nigeria,
reads the AP headline. What’s missing is the word Christians (emphasis mine):

Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing at least 15 people in the deadliest confrontation yet in the whirlwind of Muslim anger over the drawings.
. . .
Thousands of rioters burned 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order, Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi said. Iwendi said security forces arrested dozens of people in the city about 1,000 miles northeast of the capital, Lagos.

There were more than 15 dead: The Reuters story says Death toll in northern Nigeria riots rises to 28, with 207 wounded. The attacks coincide with terrorist attacks on an oil pipeline in Southern Nigeria.

Meanwhile, (via TigerHawk, Agence France Press says Muslims ransack two churches in Pakistan over desecration of Koran. The headline forgot to mention the churches were burned, not simply “ransacked”.

Michelle Malkin has a map tracking the Cartoon Jihad. Riehl World View is Challenging the MSM.

Maria sent this article, ‘The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state’

Fine with me,
Bin Laden: I’ll Never Be Captured Alive. Wasn’t he just offering a truce?

Maria’s other article
It’s time to evict the U.N.. I say, move it to Strasbourg.

(technorati tags Philippines, muslim cartoon, Denmark, jyllands-posten mohammed, muhammad cartoon, Iran, Islam, United Nations)

Back in the olden days Oscar nominees were photographed to look glamorous

Nowadays Oscar nominees are photographed to look like characters critters out of the Sci-Fi Channel:

George Clooney on the cover of today’s NYT Sunday Mag. Check out the slide show, if you think I exaggerate.

And while on the subject of movies, ShrinkWrapped writes about How Ideological Bias Destroys Reality Testing: Yet Another NY Times Example

(technorati tags Movies, Gary Cooper, George Clooney)

https://faustasblog.com/2006/02/2077/

Books you should read, my choice, and today’s carnivals
Today I’m starting a weekly feature: Books you should read, featuring one book you should read. As a rule, these will be books that are pertinent to the war or to current events.

My first selection was recommended to me by Sigmund, Carl and Alfred:

Islam expanded through war and opression, and that is its legacy. The editor review featured by Amazon says,

This unique, extensive compilation includes Muslim theological and juridical texts, eyewitness historical accounts by both Muslim and non-Muslim chroniclers, and essays by preeminent scholars analyzing jihad war and the ruling conditions imposed upon the non-Muslim peoples conquered by jihad campaigns. The Legacy of Jihad reveals how, for well over a millennium, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—non-Muslims who were vanquished by jihad wars, became forced tributaries (called dhimmi in Arabic), in lieu of being slain. Under the dhimmi religious caste system, non-Muslims were subjected to legal and financial oppression, as well as social isolation. Extensive primary and secondary source materials, many translated here for the first time into English, are presented, making clear that jihad conquests were brutal, imperialist advances, which spurred waves of Muslims to expropriate a vast expanse of lands and subdue millions of indigenous peoples. Finally, the book examines how jihad war, as a permanent and uniquely Islamic institution, ultimately regulates the relations of Muslims with non-Muslims to this day. Scholars, educators, and interested lay readers will find this collection an invaluable resource.

The descriptions of Islam’s history in Dr. Bostom’s book are hard reading, but essential to a knowledge of the history of Islam. Meticulously documented enough to qualify as an academic book, it is absorbing and fascinating to the average reader. I can’t stress enough that it’s a must-read.

My choice:
Faced with this,

I choose this:

Carnival time

Carnival #40 is hosted by The Opinion Mill, in the Twilight Zone!

(technorati tags books)

https://faustasblog.com/2006/02/2076/