Digg This, Y’all!

GravediggerI nagged the Baron for quite awhile to put up a Digg link at the bottom of our posts. After much grumbling (he’s cute, but he grumbles), he finally faced the inevitable and got the necessary tag to put up. As it turned out though, he uses the site much more than I do. On occasion, he will come downstairs to tell me what is being linked, or laughing at one of the comments. For example, look at this one today from a sniffily dismissive “erikfm 49.” (the number in his nic may refer to his IQ):

Gates of Vienna is a wannabe Littlegreenfootballs hate site. Needs to be buried whenever it appears on dig.

Oh my heavens! Someone out there thinks we are an LGF imitator! Surely they jest? I’m not about to jump on a bike and ride for hours, and my geekiness extends to a passing acquaintance with html. Though now that I think of it, all my husbands (two) and two thirds of my sons are (or were) in the computer biz. I can count on family meals where much of the conversation will be in some geeky language that I will never speak or understand. And my daughter-in-law is one of them, too.

Unlike Charles Johnson my idea of exercise is gardening or using a rebounder, or chasing the Baron around the house — usually with a “to-do” list in my hand. Or, on my less-than-optimum days, lying in bed reading British crime novels, and waiting for the Black Dog to leave. He can be a persistent mutt sometimes.

But get on one of those fancy-Dan bicycles like Charles rides every day for miles and miles? No way, Jose. No bike for me unless they have balloon tires and “braking” is accomplished by the simple means of pedaling backwards. As for gearshifts, they belong in fun cars that ride low to the ground, definitely not on bikes, thankyouverymuch. A few years ago on our summer vacation we stayed on Ocracoke Island (a favorite haunt of the Baron and his college friends long before I knew them); during our stay we rented bicycles. These were “real” bikes: good old balloon tires for riding around on the very flat land of that barrier island [this was before my appointment with the fig tree, and both my knees worked well. Thus I had great fun pedaling around].

– – – – – – – – – –
But back to the Digg itself , submitted by DantThePainter, who snipped this:

You stone your mom, whip your sis, mutilate your kid; but be my friend

Our Swedish correspondent LN sent me a link to a Norwegian web page featuring a new song by the singer Åge Aleksandersen. LN translated only the song lyrics for me, and based on those I thought the song had to be a spoof, an ironic and deadpan takeoff on Norwegian dhimmitude. So I wrote to Kepiblanc … and asked him what he thought…

Submitted: 20 hours 12 min ago
Submitter: DanThePainter

There were a few friendly comments, and then the gnome showed up, dragging LGF behind him. I suppose in certain circles (or octagons, maybe) covering some of the same material Charles does, and being committed — as he is — to preventing the dhimmification of the United States while making fun of the hypersensitivity of some denominations of Muslims….I suppose that gives us similarities.

But in truth, our godfather was Wretchard. It was where we spent our time commenting when we discovered blogs, and his often brilliant analyses would turn the kaleidoscope just a bit, allowing us to see things in a new light. Wretchard’s insights created a whole new world for me and the Baron, a world we have inhabited ever since.

Thanks to Charles’ indefatigable output — helped in part by his many, many fans — he is the go-to-guy for information on the strange and outrageous doings of both the beheaders in the world and of the fifth column sneaking around in this country. Little Green Footballs is the pulse of the conservative, patriotic regular folks who refuse to take seriously the nonsense spouted by the incestuous MSM-academonia-political connections that work so hard to keep a lid on the conversation in this country. Charles is an un-maker, his efforts are a crucial component in keeping the flame alive.

That is why Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs are despicable in the eyes of the pretentious. The fearful pretentious, I might add, since they cannot bear to hear through even a sentence of those who disagree with their Utopian, socialist hallucinations. They put their hands over their ears and hum loudly in order to keep the scary truth at bay.

Imagine what Vietnam might have been had there been an internet and a Charles Johnson in that generation? Our nation would be on course now. Nancy Pelosi would be an anonymous grandmother living somewhere besides Washington, D.C. The moonbat left would be… well, it might not be period, at least in any meaningful sense. And George Soros would be known for what he is: a destablizer of countries, whose hunger for power is pathological greed.

No, Gates of Vienna is not an LGF wannabe, but thanks for the compliment what’s-your-name 49. However, if you knew us at all, you’d see we’re descended from The Belmont Club, so you’re not even close.

Now maybe a meander over to LGF is in order, just to see what I can steal…

Countries of Origin

Thanks to a tip from Zerosumgame in the comments, I looked up Gates of Vienna’s traffic statistics on Alexa. There were some real surprises there — I knew our overseas traffic was high, but the traffic from the USA is only a plurality of our numbers, not even a majority. Does that make us un-American?

Country   Percentage
United States   34.9%
Canada   30.3%
United Kingdom   14.7%
Denmark   8.3%
Switzerland   5.5%
Greece   0.9%
Cambodia   0.9%
Argentina   0.9%
Australia   0.9%
Germany   0.9%
India   0.9%
Thailand   0.9%

Traffic chart



And I knew Denmark would rank fairly high — we’re Viking-oriented here, after all — but where are Sweden and Norway? Is Fjordman without honor in his own country?

And why Canada? We don’t even write about Canada very much. What is it with all you hosers, eh?

And Switzerland! I only remember one post that we’ve done on Switzerland in the whole time since we started this blog.

I scraped the stats off Alexa and brought them into Excel to play with. When you add the population of each country (from 2004 statistics) to the table, and calculate the relative proportions of the traffic, it really gets interesting. Using the number of US visitors as a baseline and weighting for each country’s population, here are the results.

Country   Percentage   Population   Weight
Denmark   8.30%   5,432,335   1294.7%
Canada   30.30%   32,805,041   782.7%
Switzerland   5.50%   7,489,370   622.3%
United Kingdom   14.70%   60,441,457   206.1%
United States   34.90%   295,734,134   100.0%
Greece   0.90%   10,668,354   71.5%
Cambodia   0.90%   13,607,069   56.0%
Australia   0.90%   20,090,437   38.0%
Argentina   0.90%   39,537,943   19.3%
Thailand   0.90%   65,444,371   11.7%
Germany   0.90%   82,431,390   9.3%
India   0.90%   1,028,610,388   0.7%

Weighted traffic chart



I guess those Danes don’t have anything better to do than hang around here — it must be those long winter nights. Same goes for the Canadians, for that matter.

Anybody using a dialup connection will end up with an IP address based on their provider. Can something like that be at work here, skewing the statistics? I know we have quite a few Swedish visitors — are they using Danish ISPs when they log on?

Anyone who has some ideas about these statistical anomalies is welcome to hold forth in the comments.

[Nothing follows]

Let’s Be Friends

Our Swedish correspondent LN sent me a link to a Norwegian web page featuring a new song by the singer Åge Aleksandersen. LN translated only the song lyrics for me, and based on those I thought the song had to be a spoof, an ironic and deadpan takeoff on Norwegian dhimmitude.

Åge AleksandersenSo I wrote to Kepiblanc (who reads Norwegian), and asked him what he though of Åge Aleksandersen’s song. Here’s what he replied:

Sorry to say, Baron: this guy is a 112% moron. He is dead serious and wants to embrace Muslims, no matter what. If you have the text, you know how abominable this is.

As Steen says: Norway is in serious shortage of psychiatric wards.

I asked Kepiblanc to translate anything else on the page that seemed pertinent, and he kindly agreed to. But first, here are the song lyrics:

“Reaching out a hand for Islam”

Utdrag fra sangen “Æ vil vær din venn”   Excerpt from the song “I want to be your friend”
     
Æ vil vær din venn   I want to be your friend
Æ vil sitt ved ditt bord   I want to sit at your table
Elske under himmelnatt   Make love under the heavenly night
Kysses av kjærlighet   Be kissed by love
Sammen i sorg   Together in sorrow
Ta i mot liv   Receive and welcome life
A vil vær din venn   I want to be your friend
 
Du steiner dine mødre   You stone your mothers
Pisker dine søstre   Flog your sisters
Lemlester dine døtre   Mutilate your daughters
Bak slør   Behind their veils
Men æ vil vær din venn   But I want to be your friend

The page is from Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK — Norsk Riks Kringkastning). The caption under the photo reads:

He has sold more than 1.5 million albums since his debut in 1972. This is his thirtieth anniversary as a soloist. Today Åge Aleksandersen finishes his twenty-first album, “Two Steps Forward”.

An excerpt from the article itself:

Wants to befriend the Muslims of the world

This time it’s a mature Åge Aleksandersen stepping forward with his lyrics. In one of his songs “Æ vil vær din venn” [I want to be your friend] he tries to explore his tolerant attitude towards Islam.

“This is about a love so encompassing that it can’t go any further,” says Åge Aleksandersen.

“At the intersection between Islam and Christendom, it is a colossal challenge to me to remain open and try to see the good in all people.”

– – – – – – – – – –

Stretches the borders

“I have worked with this text for three or four years. One word here, one word there. Meticulously, I tried to compose a song that tells something essential about my feelings and how complicated I find them. I am prepared to go out of my way in order to reach out to those on ‘the other side’.”

“It probably won’t be a hit,” Åge Aleksandersen sighs.

“During those three or four years when you struggled with this text, a lot of things happened to the relationship between Islam and The West. We waged war against them, not once but twice. A backdrop when you wrote this song, perhaps?”

“Yes, this song is my safety valve. It’s where I can let off steam. Explore in detail. Proclaim how I perceive this.”

Kepiblanc supplies us with some additional commentary:

The rest of the article is just the usual babble about popularity, chit-chat, and promotional platitudes.

Baron, I can assure you: there’s no irony at play here. This is NRK at its worst. Norwegian political correctness and dhimmitude gone ballistic. And NRK — just like the Norwegian Government — doesn’t even know the words “irony” or “sarcasm”.

Funny thing is, the song is in Nynorsk [New Norwegian], an artificial, constructed dialect invented to protest the dominant Bokmål [Book Language] — essentially Danish. Nynorsk took some remote dialects from isolated valleys, tossed them in a melting pot and came up with a dialect almost indistinguishable from my childhood dialect of South-Jutlandish [Old Anglo-Saxon]. Talk about irony…

After reading — and translating into Danglish — this nonsense I urgently need a beer or five, be it early morning or not. It saddens me immensely to see good, old Norge going down the drain.

How about a very wet “Norge’s Wake” here at Gates of Copenhagen?

I’ll take him up on that, and raise a virtual mug of Mørkt Hvidtøl to the Vikings, the fjords, and the Old Norse who are no longer among us!

By the way — when Kepiblanc refers to “Danglish”, he is employing my term for the dialect our Danish volunteers use when they translate an article from their native Dansk (or from Norsk or Svensk) for Gates of Vienna. Danglish differs from Standard English mostly in the spelling, the punctuation — Danish has different conventions about the use of commas — and the word order. When I receive a an article in Danglish, I make the minor modifications required to put the translation into Standard English.

And Kepiblanc is being modest — his English is virtually flawless, as is that of several of our other translators.

Now I’ll let the good Swede LN have the last word:

Come on all you Muslim dudes — you gonna get love…

Watching Your Government at Work

For a lazy Saturday, here’s a website to browse and to consider keeping on hand for review or reference:

GlassesCitizen Joe appears to be a bipartisan affair. Hence their spectacles at the top of the page. The site is quite comprehensive and would make a good learning tool for those of your friends and relatives (especially relatives) who appear to be congressionally-impaired…which may include most of us by now. Not because we’re stupid, or don’t pay attention; rather, it’s the increasingly complex nature of legislation, what with each bill’s special interests riders (spinach anyone?) and fatty pork sauce. And, of course, there’s the behind-the-scenes bribing lobbying that never, ever stops. If there is a Hell, it surely looks much like the Imperial Congress of the United States of America. And like Hell, many people seem eager to go there.

You not only can’t stay on top of legislation (especially given the long turn-around the government printing office seems to have once a bill passes), but by the time you get to read the fine print, the bill you wanted to look at is making its way down the road and headed for the President’s office.

This site has a Civics 101 page and an Econ 101 page (look for the links to original sites on this page if the charts don’t seem up to date. The person maintaining this page says it’s a glitch with Excel that makes it appear to be shorted a few years).

On the home page, linked above, there is a poll concerning our actions in Iraq. It features four options, going from very right to very left.

Here is their raison d’être:

citizen Joe was founded in 2003 by two professionals – Julia Kamin and Jason Palmer — who noticed that with all the information on the web, it was surprisingly impossible to find unspun info on current policy debates. We looked in vain for a site that didn’t have a political agenda and that just offered up the facts plain and simple.

So we decided we’d create that site ourselves. After incorporating and becoming a 501(c)(3), citizenJoe expanded its team to twenty five – attracting people from the legal, business, research, media and nonprofit worlds – to sit on our boards and volunteer to contribute cJ’s content.

Most of our volunteer columnists are not journalists; they are concerned citizens who, in addition to their full time jobs, pay close attention to policy debates and are committed to clarifying the issues for other Americans. Their work is supported by cJ’s staff, student interns and freelance editors.

They’ve done a massive amount of work and have more material than you could cover in one go. As a political science reference site, it’s excellent.

– – – – – – – – – –
Congressional sealMeanwhile, for the basic de la basic explanation of our government, go to good old Wikipedia’s site on our Congress and system of government. This is an excellent place for children’s civics classes. I realize I’m talking about homeschooled children; public schools have dropped “Civics” in favor of more pee-cee classes on diversity and American imperialism. If you want to know about Harriet Tubman, the fate of the indigenous Americans, et al, just visit an American History class at your local high school. The Vietnam era is also an interesting read.

Having just finished a perusal of the book used in Li’l Kumquat’s tenth grade classes, I’m a bit uneasy. Concerned parents with children in government schools have so much un-teaching to do before they can even begin to inform their children about the real world.

Check out Citizen Joe. It makes government a bit more accessible and is managing to walk a middle line of information rather than spin.

See what you think.

The Valiant Word Warriors: Roggio, Totten, and Yon.

UPDATE: Colonel Boyd is rolling over in his grave. The generals are trying to wreak their ignorant havoc on a system that is running well without them. Maybe that’s what fuels this latest hubrstic hissy fit.

Austin Bay has the story here.

It seems that Michael Yon is being hassled by the brass – they are threatening once again to kick him out of Iraq. And it’s not the first time. Here’s AB’s report on his experience in the matter:

This is stupid. Michael Yon and Bill Roggio are the best out there. Telling Michael Yon to exit the theater is the WWII equivalent of telling Ernie Pyle to quit filing dispatches.

Everyone knows the PAO system has never been much more than mediocre — I’ve met some very smart public affairs officers and non-coms, but the system is inadequate, at times inept. Now Yon says someone wants to kick him out of Iraq. Tut. At a Pentagon lunch last fall General Pace mentioned to me the importance of milblogs. I then told him the word circulating the blogosphere was that the Army wanted to limit milblogs. Yes, there is an OPSEC argument, but read the milblogs. The soldiers posting know about OPSEC.Pace told me he would look into the rumor. No, I never heard back.[emphasis mine — D]

I suggest that General Pace look into this report from Yon.

I second the suggestion. As Colonel Boyd would say to his protegés, “do you want to do something, or do you just want to be a general?” Which is just one of the reasons that Colonel Boyd remained a colonel. But his strategy and tactics will remain pertinent to the conduct of war for generations to come. Meanwhile, pissy generals continue to throw their weight around and then, damage done, they will be gone…sans accountability. ‘Twas ever thus.

Click on Austin Bay’s link to read the punchline from Michael Yon.



Fox has posted what appears to be an introductory passage to the book Michael Yon must be hammering out during his time as a warrior-with-camera.

The Hopeless Errand They also have up the iconic image from several years ago of that Army major holding a dying Iraqi child, rushing her to the medics even as her life’s blood begins to ebb, soaking through the all-too-mortal blanket wrapped around her. That picture remains one of the most moving images of Iraq.

Yon writes honestly. He is a lyrical photographer. We compare him to Ernie Pyle but he’s more, much more than Pyle. For one thing, he was a Green Beret himself before he traded his weapons for a camera. For another, he was a reluctant correspondent in the beginning. And a third thing: he had no financial backing except his own funds and the donations he received from family, friends, and the internet. Fourth, and not least, he tells us when things are not going well – as in some of his reports from Afghanistan.

Michael Yon is not, and likely never will be, a card-carrying member of the MSM. When the war is over, it will be he (and Roggio and Totten) rather than the reporters huddling in the safety of the Green Zone whose words will be remembered. His images will bear testament in the future to what happened in a way no words ever can.

Bill Roggio has followed in his footsteps, though with more to lose: he has a family and children to provide for. But he writes well and is a magnificent citizen for being willing, like Yon, to step into the vacuum that a lack of honest reporting has left in Iraq.

Michael Totten has been a saving grace also. He writes from Iraq now, but he has covered so much. His reports from Lebanon – back when parts of it were briefly places of hope – green banners flying.

Their reporting makes you wonder what the outcome of Vietnam might have been had we the likes of Yon, Roggio, and Totten on the scene, telling us the real story.

But back then we had no precedent for Vietnam. The death-driven, self-hating elites of post-WWII had not yet come into power in Congress and academia. They met over Vietnam and they destroyed millions upon millions of people. The Killing Fields are ultimately their responsibility, as is the killing that continues in Vietnam. Those immaculately groomed academicians and political hacks, whose hands have never touched blood, are far more dangerous than the phantoms they created and that they believe in – like Dr. Strangelove, for instance.

The Yons and Roggios and Tottens are the Davids against the giants like CNN, the New York Times, and Fox. When one of the Goliaths pays at least a modicum of respectful attention, you know the media is feeling a bit shaky.

Go here for Yon’s latest post, which begins by quelling rumors that he’s “selling out” because of the Fox Report. From Baghdad he begins:

– – – – – – – – – –

Recent mention of cooperation with Fox News kicked rumor into high gear, leading some long-time readers to lament my “selling-out” to a major outlet. Simultaneously, thousands of new readers via the Fox website have little idea why my work suddenly is featured there. This dispatch will hopefully quell both concerns. My website and Iraq coverage remain independent of all financial support save that of my readers.

Here’s a brief on how I became witness to this war… [continued on his post]

Especially click on the site to see the picture he has of a decidedly metrosexual young anti-war demonstrator. The image is made less disturbing when you read Yon’s caption and summary judgment — Some people just grow up protesting, starting maybe by not cleaning their rooms. A pertinent dismissal.

Bill Roggio’s report on the first month of the new battle plan in Iraq is hopeful:

The Baghdad Security Plan is now over one month old since its official announcement on February 14. While it is impossible to judge progress over the course of one month in a complex battlespace such as Baghdad, the initial signs are encouraging. Sectarian murders, the fuel for the potential Sunni — Shia civil war, have been dramatically reduced. Before the beginning of the operation, Scores of bodies were found executed daily, now the number is in the single digits. Massive car bomb attacks, which in the past have killed dozens and wounded hundreds, have been reduced.

While the number of car bombings has increased, their effectiveness has decreased.

[…]

There have been few changes to the disposition of forces inside Baghdad over the past week. The 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division completed its deployment to Baghdad, and spread its four battalions into the Bayaa, Mansour and Doura districts. General David Petraeus announced an additional Combat Aviation Brigade will deploy to support operations. The deployment of the aviation brigade is being sped up by two months. Again, the U.S. Army still has an additional three combat brigades preparing to move into Iraq, and the deployment of the last brigade will not be complete until June. [my emphasis — D. The aviation brigade will have a telling effect once it is fully deployed. This can only help morale and effectiveness]

By the way, Bill has a daily report on Iraq. It is linked from his blog to where it appears in The Weekly Standard. Here is today’s edition

Go to Michael Totten’s essay on the new Iraq –the Kurds’ progress in the north as the other factions in the south continue killing one another. The Kurds’ initiative and productivity are so at odds with the rest of the country. But by now, if you’ve read Gates of Vienna long enough, you know it’s genetic.

Totten, like other westerners who meet the Kurds, are drawn to them. Our own correspondent in Mosul, while concerned with the Kurdish persecution of the Yezidis, still found himself drawn to them:

As for the Kurds themselves I cannot deny my affinity for them. They’re hard working (relative to Arabs) and ambitious, and everyone loves the underdog especially when he’s making the big comeback.

Totten says:

ERBIL, IRAQ – What a difference a year makes.

Fourteen months ago I flew to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, from Beirut, Lebanon, on the dubiously named Flying Carpet Airlines. Flying Carpet’s entire fleet is one small noisy plane with propellers, cramped seats, and thin cabin pressure. Only nineteen passengers joined me on that once-a-week flight. Everyone but me was a Lebanese businessman. They were paranoid of me and of each other. What kind of crazy person books a flight to Iraq, even if it is to the safe and relatively prosperous Kurdistan region? I felt completely bereft of sense going to Iraq without a gun and without any bodyguards, and it took a week for my on-again off-again twitchiness to subside.

Last week I flew to Erbil from Vienna on Austrian Airlines to work for a few weeks as a private sector consultant with my colleague Patrick Lasswell. This time I didn’t feel anything like a fool. Almost half the passengers were women. Children played on their seats and in the aisle with toys handed out by the crew. We watched an in-flight movie and ate the usual airline lunch fare served by an attractive long legged stewardess. The cabin erupted with applause when the wheels touched down on the runway. The pilot announced the weather (sunny and 60) in three languages and cheerfully told us all to have a great day. Have a great day may seem an odd thing to say to people who just arrived in Iraq, but this is Kurdistan.

Like our anonymous correspondent last month, both Totten and Yon have done pictorial essays on the Yezidis. This new essay by Totten is full of compelling images from Kurdistan – colorful, exotic, and hopeful. One can’t help but cheer them on, even while keeping an eye on what they’re up to vis-à-vis the Yezidis and the Assyrian Christians – those miracle survivors in the face of Islam.



Although I am careful to refrain from using Yon’s images without permission (I received it for the Yezidi story last month), this screen cap from Fox is probably within acceptable parameters. If that turns out not to be the case, I will remove it. One doesn’t take for free the work of an artist. As the wife of an artist, I am aware how frequently that can happen — and how offended people can be when called on it.

Wanted: Counterjihad Volunteers in Kansas City

Most of our readers are aware of Rep. John Conyers’ efforts to pass a congressional resolution against the desecration of the Koran. One of the highest priorities of Muslim interest groups in the United States is to get this legislation and similar initiatives passed. They are following multiple strategies on these issues, lobbying for legislation that bans airport profiling, agitating for rules protecting Islamic practices in the schools, and pushing for non-legislative regulations in addition to laws and resolutions. They are seeking the expansion of the definitions of “hate crime” and “hate speech”, and a blurring of the distinction between the two.

I can’t emphasize too strongly or too often that the erosion of our freedom of speech and the encroachment of sharia in our country will come sneaking into the public discourse disguised as the protection of religious freedom. Muslim interest groups will claim — and are claiming — that all their religious practices, no matter how contrary they are to the rest of the First Amendment and the Constitution in general, are protected by the Religious Freedom Clause.

The Capitol Mosque


This is a pernicious strategy which is designed to turn our Constitutional liberties into a smoking ruin. And there are people in our government, both elected leaders and those within the permanent federal bureaucracy, who are all too eager to go along with this farrago.

The next skirmish in this war is taking place next week, on Thursday March 29th, in Kansas City, under the auspices of the Department of Justice. The event sounds innocuous enough — “A First Freedom Project Seminar: Federal Laws Protecting Religious Freedom” — but the significance of the occasion is revealed by the inordinate interest in it displayed by MPAC and other Muslim advocacy groups. The fact that these organizations are anxious to get their members to this meeting and intend to have an impact on it tells you a lot about what they hope to accomplish.

Meetings between the DOJ and Islamist advocacy groups that may have led to the “First Freedom” initiative are summarized at the American Muslim Perspective:

[The January 8 meeting was attended by] representatives from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Arab American Institute (AAI), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML), and the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA).

[…]

The January 8 meeting with Attorney General Gonzalez followed a similar meeting on December 4, 2006 between prominent American Muslim leaders with key senior US government officials to discuss the state of Islamophobia in America and US-Muslim relations. It was organized by the Bridging the Divide Initiative of Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. It was co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.

The government was represented by several participants from the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and associated agencies including Alina Romanowski, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Professional and Cultural Affairs and Dan Sutherland, the Officer for Civil Rights at the Department of Homeland Security.

American Muslim leaders included: Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, Louay Safi, the Executive Director of the ISNA leadership Development Center, Imam Mahdi Bray, the executive Director of MAS Freedom Foundation, Ahmed Younis, the National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and Muqtedar Khan of Brookings Institution.

Ambassador Martin Indyk, Director of Saban Center and Stephen Grand, the Director of the US-Islamic World program also addressed the meeting. This was the first US Government and American Muslim conference on Islamophobia.

The upshot is that Justice Department policy on religious discrimination is being guided by leaders from CAIR, ISNA, MAS Freedom Foundation (co-sponsors with ANSWER of the March 17 demonstration against the war), and MPAC.

As I’ve said before, this is a Trojan horse being rolled into the heart of the United States Constitution, and we have to make our voices heard if we want to stop it.

I’m asking members of the Counterjihad, especially bloggers, to travel to Kansas City if they possibly can and attend this meeting in order to offer a counterweight to MPAC, ISNA, and all the rest of the alphabet soup that fronts for the Umma here in the USA.

If we sleep through this one, it makes it easier for them to set the agenda for the next one, and the one after, and the one after that.

Then one day you’ll wake up and find that the Religious Freedom Clause protects the right of Muslims to have separate public swimming pools for men and women, or to be guaranteed a pork-free school lunch, or not to be deployed by the Armed Forces during a conflict with an Islamic country.

In other words, America will have become just like Eurabia.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *


Christine of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (the international coalition that has recently emerged from the original 910 Group network) has compiled a pdf file of background materials on the First Freedom Project and Islamic organizations. Here’s her cover note for the document:
– – – – – – – – – –
The Department of Justice’s The First Freedom Project on religious liberty, starting next week with a March 29 public meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, may be monopolized by Islamist organizations. Other seminars will be held in Tampa, Florida, on April 25, 2007 and Seattle, Washington, on May 10, 2007. If members of other religions attend these DOJ meetings, a more balanced view can be presented. Criticism of other religions should not be criminalized, including criticism of Islam or the Koran.

Meetings between the DOJ and Islamist advocacy groups that may have led to the “First Freedom” initiative are summarized here at the American Muslim Perspective.

As conservative writer Janet Levy has noted, “Muslim leaders such as Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, insist that Muslims have a right to petition for special accommodation based on their religious beliefs as mandated by the First Amendment. In truth, no requirement exists, either in state or federal statutes, requiring that such petitions be addressed or behavior adjusted accordingly.”

Below we provide background information:

1.   A congratulatory email notice from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), stating that the DOJ’s First Freedom Project “is designed to provide additional enforcement tools for laws against religious discrimination and hate crimes.”
2.   The press release on the First Freedom Project, as provided from the ADC.
3.   A similar email notice from the Muslim Public Affairs Council on the First Freedom Project.
4.   Related Legislation: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA) , just introduced March 21 (text not available online on 3/22/07). See “Christian belief a ‘hate crime’ under plan”.
5.   Related Legislation: The “Domestic Radicalization” Amendment to the Improving America’s Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.
6.   A partial list of Kansas City events, including the March 7, 2007 charges against a Columbia, Missouri charity designated as a supporter of terrorism.
7.   A list of Islamic organizations in Kansas City, ranging from local chapters of national Islamist advocacy groups, to local mosques, schools and foundations that may be moderate.

I hope you can cover this DOJ Project and encourage more people to attend to balance the views offered.

Thanks!
Regards,
Christine
Director, The Center For Vigilant Freedom

Allah Ska Med — All Must Come Along!

In case you tend to think of Sweden as monolithically Swedish, with a few troublesome Muslims thrown in, here’s some information (several years old now, but still instructive) regarding the Swedes’ melting pot. Or, perhaps one should say, their simmering cauldron:

Origin   Foreign-born inhabitants (2004)
Finland   186,600
Serbia and Montenegro   74,600
Iraq   70,000
Bosnia and Herzegovina   54,500
Iran   54,000
Norway   45,000
Poland   43,500
Denmark   41,700
Germany   40,800
Turkey   35,000
Chile   27,700
Lebanon   21,100
United Kingdom   16,800
Thailand   16,300
Syria   16,200
USA   15,300
Somalia   15,300
Hungary   13,700
India   12,900
Romania   12,500
Vietnam   12,000
People’s Republic of China   11,900
Ethiopia   11,200
Greece   10,800
Other Nordic Countries   277,100
Western Europe   106,400
Eastern Europe   326,100
Former Soviet Union   37,800
Middle East   223,700
Rest of Asia   91,700
Sub-Saharan Africa   51,000
North America   26,500
South America   55,500
Oceania   3,500
Total Foreign-Born   1,199,300

Much like Ireland, though less drastically, and with no external pressure (Ireland had British rule and not-so-benign neglect to deal with), during the mid-19th century and well into the first third of the 20th century, Swedes poured out of the country and into America, Canada and Denmark. They were driven by crop failures and the scarcity of jobs for a rising population –

What is less well-known is the number of emigrants who returned to the home countries. This was especially true in Sweden: The re-migration of Swedish nationals from U.S. was culturally more important than the absolute figures reveal. The re-migrants often re-settled in their native parish, where their relative wealth and foreign experience ensured a prestigious position in the community. U.S. views, values and not the least world-view followed the re-migrants, ensuring a popular perception of closeness to U.S., contrary to the situation in for instance neighbouring Denmark or Finland (and contrary to the Swedish elite’s closeness to Germany and Europe).

Ah, now we begin to get some sense of the tensions existing in Sweden long before the arrival of the new immigrants, beginning in the 1960’s.

Who, precisely, was making the policies that led to the influx of the foreign-born immigrants in the table above? Do their motives – their multicultural, Europe-trumps-Sweden attitudes – begin to make more sense? And is it the case that the average Swede-in-the-street is friendlier toward America than the elites, who hate the US? (I realize that’s not saying much. The American elites hate the US).

The elites could let the tsunami begin because they lived on high ground, far above the day-to-day consequences of living with huge, unassimilated, and often mutually opposed groups of foreigners.

Perhaps Fjordman could tell us. Was it cheap labor (as is the case in America)? Was it political pressure from the countries the immigrants fled? Was it a needof the elites to see themselves as being capable of bringing in such disparate groups and making them fit into a small, relatively homogenous population?

I say “relatively” homogenous. Long before the onslaught, there were the fractures within:

Beside the Swedes, the Sweden-Finns are the largest ethnic minority comprising approximately 50,000 indigenous people along the Swedish-Finnish border, and 450,000 first- and second generation immigrated ethnic Finns. Also in the farthest North a small indigenous population of Samis live (sometimes referred to as “Lapps”, which, however, is considered a pejorative term by the Sami).

Not to mention the Jews who fled Denmark during World War II, many of whom stayed; and the Romany (gypsy) population. Like America, there is not an official Swedish language, but there are groups who languages are recognized:

Even though Sweden (similar to the United States) has no official language, Swedish dominates totally. The indigenous Finno-Ugric languages were repressed well into the 1960s. Since 1999 Sweden has five officially recognized minority languages: Sami, Meänkieli, Standard-Finnish, Romani chib and Yiddish. The Sami language, spoken by about 7,000 people in Sweden, may be used in government agencies, courts, preschools and nursing homes in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk and Kiruna and its immediate neighbourhood. Similarly, Finnish and Meänkieli can be used in the municipalities of Gällivare, Haparanda, Kiruna, Pajala and Övertorneå and its immediate neighbourhood. Finnish is also official language, along with Swedish, in the city of Eskilstuna.

Now, of course, that has been further complicated with the arrival of the various additions to the work-force, driven from their homelands by strife and ambition to settle in Sweden. Now the majority of the minority languages are Finnish, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Arabic, Persian, Spanish, English, Sorani and Somalian. These groups however, do not totally take into account the Babel of tongues coming from the political refugees — Persians, Kurds, Palestinians, Jews, Vietnamese, Chileans and Hungarians. Not to mention the Yugoslavians.

All of this is happening in a country of just over nine million people. Try to imagine the average American state coping with that level of onslaught. What a prescription for the sundering of any culture’s social fabric.

And don’t forget religion. While the Muslims make the most noise, they are not the majority, just the squeaky wheel. Islam seems to move from squeaky wheel to resentful entitlement to threat in relatively short order. So it has been in Sweden. Unlike America, Swedes are nominally Christian with a polyglot minority of beliefs and faiths. In other words, it translates into a negligible amount of attention to religious affairs:

The majority (78%) of the population belongs to the Church of Sweden, the Lutheran church separated from the state in 2000. Other Christian denominations in Sweden include Roman Catholic…, Orthodox, Baptist, and other evangelical Christian churches (frikyrkor = “free churches”). Some of the Sami practise Animism. There are also a number of Muslims, Buddhists and Jews in Sweden. It is estimated that 46-85% of the population do not believe in God.[2] An estimated 5% of the population attend church.

Is “church” meant to signify church, synagogue, and mosque? If the numbers were broken down that way, it might be quite different. It is well to remember that Swedish Jews feel threatened and some have emigrated to safety. Jews do not wear any religious paraphernalia that might lead to attacks on the street. The synagogue in Stockholm spends twenty-five percent of its revenues on security.

Nyamko SabuniWe read much about the dhimmification of Sweden by the Muslims there: Kurds, Africans, Persians, etc. But there are also hopeful signs. People are fighting their way to the fore. Take, for instance, Nyamko Sabuni, the current Integration and Equality Minister of Sweden. To coin a phrase, she’s black, she’s beautiful, and she plans to be the Prime Minister one day.

Is she controversial? You bet. The child of a Christian father and a Muslim mother, Sabuni is Congolese by birth and Swedish by choice. She is an agnostic who does not identify herself as a Muslim Swede, but a Swede of Congolese extraction. Her family moved to Sweden when she was twelve, when things were relatively calm. She is Swedish by education, by citizenship, and by her ministerial position.
– – – – – – – – – –
She wants to ban veils, genital mutilation, and all the baggage that keeps ethnic minorities — women and girls in particular — in the Middle Ages. This makes her controversial. Social critic and author Kurdo Baksi, a Swede of Kurdish origin, is one of her nay-sayers:

“I’m very disappointed that a person whom I perceive as an Islamophobe has been appointed integration minister. It’s a very bad start to the centre-right government’s integration policy,” he told Swedish news agency TT recently.

He cited her “lack of empathy in integration issues and lack of experience from the field.”

“Appointing incompetent foreign-born people is symbolic politics, but not an active policy,” he said.

He does not say in what areas she is incompetent (other than not being a Muslim – which makes her by definition an Islamophobe, not to mention an apostate). Nor does he cite what constitutes her “lack of empathy” – when you listen, her empathy for mutilated little girls and women forced into unwanted marriages sounds far more “empathetic” than his carping disapproval:

“Honor-related violence is an urgent gender equality issue,” said Sabuni, 37. “Everyone who works with it — the police, social services and women’s shelters — say that we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It’s a big problem.”

[…]

“I know there are girls who cannot choose with whom to marry. I know there are girls whose genitals are mutilated. I know there are girls whose virginity is checked before they marry,” Sabuni said. “For me it’s unacceptable that these phenomena exist in a democratic country.”

But perhaps what Baski means is that the Minister is not sympathetic to those who are cruel towards women, and she spurns Muslims’ excuses for refusing to adapt the mores of their adopted home. Nothing like being invited in and then declaring your superiority by spitting on the floor, Mr. Baski. It’s one of the characteristics of aggressive Muslims like you who make the average Swede dislike you so much.

In the end, the assimilators, the adapters like Sabuni who transcend being black – and are often unwelcome in stores and restaurants because of their color – will win. The disdainers, like Baski and the other “superior” critics, will lose, for they cannot win demographically. As soon as one group of Muslims starts to gain power, splinter groups will bring them down and demogrpahy will be irrelevant.

What Mr. Baski hasn’t learned, despite the millennia of Kurdish persecution, is that victory does not lie in oppressing back.

How does a country teach its immigrants that crucial lesson?



Hat tip: Reader LN, via email.

“Islam Intends to Consume Thailand”

This article was written by a Westerner who lives in Thailand and has intimate and extensive knowledge of the country. He has asked to remain anonymous.



The Muslim Threat in Thailand

Map of PattaniThailand’s losses in its war with Islamofascism are causing massive suffering. The puzzle is why the Thais tolerate this heartbreaking tragedy, instead of putting an end to it.

What follows is an attempt to clarify the nature of the problem, the Thai responses to it, and the prospects for the future.

I. The Suffering

First we need to grasp the scale of Thailand’s agony. Here are a few numbers collected from the CIA’s website, a Bangkok English-language wannabe newspaper, and an anti-Iraq-war website. Some of these data are certainly wrong, but not by much.

Date of US invasion of Iraq: 20 March 2003
Beginning of recent cycle of violence in southern Thailand: January 2004

Dead US military, due to combat, since Iraq invasion: 2,619.
Dead Thais, due to southern violence, since January 2004: 2,088

Note: Thai deaths may include terrorists killed by police and military units, but my sources are unclear on that question.

Recent trend in southern Thai violence, reported in The Nation (Bangkok “newspaper”): “… the number of deaths per month soared from 49.2 before the coup to 64.6 after the coup.” The military seized power in Bangkok on 19 September 2006. (Reference: Nation, 19 March 2007, page 1A.)

Population of USA: 298.4 million
Population of Thailand: 64.6 million

For every Thai, the USA has 4.5 people.

The US military adventure in Iraq has been going on for just about a year longer than the Muslim insurrection in the south of Thailand. But in the shorter history of the Thai violence, the total number of dead there is fairly close to the USA’s military combat losses in Iraq, and seems to be closing the gap.

Can we compare the effects of the Iraq and Thai insurgencies? Probably. The population disparity between the USA and Thailand means, in my opinion, that the impact on Thailand of a single death in the southern insurrection is almost five times as great as the impact on the USA of the death of a single US warrior in Iraq. If we multiply Thai deaths by 4.5 in order to show what is happening to Thailand, we can see how the suffering of the two nations actually compares:

USA: 2,619
Thailand: 9,363

Adjusting for population size allows us to get some insight into the true level of Thailand’s misery.

Now consider the duration of each conflict, remembering that the USA has been in Iraq almost a year longer than the violence in Thailand has persisted:

USA, actual deaths per month, four years: 55 Thailand, adjusted deaths per month, 37 months: 253
– – – – – – – – – –
II. Contrast Provides Perspective

Bombing in PattaniThailand is bleeding at a pitiable rate. Islam is literally savaging the nation. Yet the Thai response to the systematic murder is a bizarre calm — a passivity that is much easier to see if it is contrasted with how another nation would cope with the same problem.

Consider these facts:

1.   Iraq is on the other side of the earth from the USA.
2.   Thailand’s increasingly bloody conflict with Muslims is taking place entirely within the borders of the country.
3.   In Iraq, many Muslims are fighting alongside the USA, trying to establish a decent government. The USA is clearly not at war with Islam.
4.   Islam is at war with Thailand. In Thailand, the only peaceful Muslims are the tiny minorities that live in the midst of overwhelmingly Buddhist populations. That superficial tranquillity is imposed on Muslims in, say, Bangkok by sheer numbers of non-Muslims, not by Muslim sentiment and the teachings of the Koran and the Hadith. In the south, virtually everyone opposes the police, the military and all attempts to safeguard the small Buddhist minority. It appears that Muslim death squads are now attacking schools in an attempt to infuriate the locals, who are told (and believe) that the people killing their children are soldiers and policemen.

What do you suppose the reaction of the US government and population would be if the Thai insurrection were raging in parts of Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma? What would happen, and why?

If you were born and reared in the USA, you are qualified to answer that question. If you are a Thai, you are not qualified.

I insist that the US response to the nightmare scenario presented above would be immediate and definitive.

In Thailand, however, the insurgency is being permitted to win.

III. The Failures

The Thais literally do not know what to do. Some bleat about irrelevant economic factors; some complain about injustice, shoddy public administration, incompetent civil servants and bad policing, all of which exist everywhere in Thailand; others ruminate on cultural isolation and “second-class citizenship.” The religious character of the war remains unacknowledged, for Thais consider all religions “peaceful” and “good.”

Sometimes Thais insist that a few hotheads in the south have been indoctrinated with fake Korans and other hoax texts. The solution was obvious: once every Muslim in the south has the real Koran, the evil teachings will be exposed and peace will prevail. This nonsense springs from Thai ignorance of the Koran. That document contains all the incitements to mass murder needed to inspire fanaticism.

Former — now deposed — prime minister Thaksin was accused of trying to deal too harshly with the insurgents; true, some of his policies did upset them and their allies. In fact he tried just about everything, beginning with his instinctive attempt to buy them off. Thaksin was, after all, a typical Thai politician, which means he knows everybody can be bought. So he promised the south populace handouts, a tactic that had bought him millions of votes in the rural north and northeast of the country. When the Muslims ignored his bribe, he was utterly baffled.

Thaksin’s gentle measures included sending an astronomical number of origami birds to the south, dropping them from airplanes. No, really. He also excused the slaughter of the insurgents’ sympathisers, and approved a failed program of assassinations that may or may not have survived his time in office. Nothing worked.

The current government removed Thaksin and initiated its southern policy by apologising to the people in the south — well, just to the Muslims, but not to the Buddhist minority, whose safety the government had not been able to and still can not ensure. That demonstration of weakness produced knowing smiles in the Muslim community. Then violence rose sharply. Islamists, smiling or not, do not fear apologies and do not respect weakness.

(For details on the insurgency and the Thai political/military situation, see the excellent post at the Counterterrorism Blog)

So the Thai government is stymied. While some of the military and police are achieving limited success rounding up suspects and locating a few weapons caches, overall the situation is deteriorating.

Why?

IV. The “Reasons”

The proximate causes for this catastrophic failure to deal with Islamofascism are visible. They include:

1.   Militant ignorance. Thais literally do not want to know what Islam is.
2.   Denial. If they are confronted with the text of the Koran and the teachings of Islam, Thais refuse to believe that any major religion could be so intolerant and bloody. Anyone who provides the facts is branded a “Muslim-hater.”
3.   Fear. Effective military measures will anger the southern Muslims, Thais claim, and only make things worse.
4.   Resort to magic. Thaksin’s voodoo-like origami and the faith that bureaucratic reorganization of the Bangkok regime will cool Muslim tempers are manifestations of an irrational mindset.

V. Examples of Thai Self-Deception and Incompetence

1.   On page 4A of the same issue of the “newspaper” I quoted above, we find this fascinating item:

Malaysia to hang terrorists

Malaysia has introduced a new tough anti-terror law… mandatory death penalty… those convicted… of giving financial aid to… terrorists, would meet the same fate (hanging)… If there is no death (caused by terrorists), the convicted persons would be liable to (sic) a jail sentence of between seven and thirty years… Malaysia is currently holding over 100 people in detention under the (security law), more than 80 of whom are described as suspected Islamic militants. (Agence France-Presse)

This does not square with the officially-released statement of the Malaysian foreign minister that all Muslim nations should consider sending arms and other aid to Hezbollah, assisting that organization materially in its effort to exterminate Israel and the Jews. That Malaysian statement was strictly censored from the Thai news media (at the time, Thaksin was still in power). Thais were not allowed to learn just how bloodthirsty and hostile their southern neighbour is. Now we have Malaysian claims of total opposition to Islamic terrorism.

Censorship fosters ignorance, and that in turn makes people gullible. Even though I live in Thailand, I was aware of the ominous news from Malaysia (the Thai government was unable to block all the news websites that carried the report), so I don’t believe this recent story in the local “paper.”

Who is lying: the Malaysians? After all, they are telling the world that some folks, who may just be political opponents of the current regime, are in prison because they are Islamofascist terrorists. Is that claim true? (Hah!) Or is the Thai government misrepresenting yet again the nature of the government of overwhelmingly Muslim Malaysia? Did the generals in Bangkok plant a fake article in the press? Or how about the media giant Agence France-Presse? Can that outfit be trusted? Was it even involved at all?

I don’t know. I can only provide some guesses and ask a question.

In my opinion, Malaysia is certainly deceitful, and Thailand is willing to enable that malicious policy. Who benefits?

2.   On 20 March 2007, another English-language would-be newspaper, The Bangkok Post, published an article (page 2, section 1) summarised here:

New Islamic bill ready for cabinet

A new bill aimed at restructuring Islamic organisations… has been drafted… “We believe that when the draft bill becomes law, it will not only help douse the flames of the southern violence but also make Islamic organizations… more united,” said Mr. Nideh Waba (advisor to the prime minister) “… and chairman of the private religious schools association in the three border provinces… “

(Thai officials) “are convinced that elected Islamic leaders had failed in their duty to create a better understanding about religious principles… and spread the true teachings of Islam… “ (A government spokesman) “said the present batch of Islamic leaders were neither united nor cooperative, and that the Islamic provincial committees have never had any clear policy directions from them for the South.”

Words fail me. The breathtaking stupidity revealed in this straight-faced news item is hard to characterise; my thesaurus is not up to the challenge.

The meddlesome, bureaucratic Thai attitude toward religious congregations is not merely irrational — it approaches outright lunacy. First Thais fail to comprehend Islam, and then they propose to deal with a vicious Islamist insurrection as if it were a question of how to bring tax legislation up to date.

Would the US Congress draft legislation called “Roman Catholic Organizational Restructuring Act of 2007”? Imagine, if you can, a headline in a US paper that reads, “President to sign Presbyterian bill today,” or “Congressional committee told Orthodox rabbis are uncooperative, new legislation likely.”

Why is the “unity” of any religious community a proper matter of concern to the Thai government?

Why should pastors, rabbis, priests, monks or imams be scolded for not being “cooperative” with the government? The absurdities multiply every time I re-read this news item.

I have often said that Thais, like most people in the so-called “developing” nations, do not believe in freedom of speech or in freedom of the press. Now I must add that Thais do not understand or believe in the value of freedom of religion. Their claims to the contrary, they do not share the evolved Western conceptions of these three freedoms. Confusion and ignorance — and a failure to recognise that both are present — characterise the Thai view of freedom.

Muslims, however, are very clear on freedom.

VI. The Puzzle

Unpleasant reality seems not to impress the Thais, who cherish a short-term value system and a crippling desire to avoid conflict. No one admits that Islam is invading Thailand. Yet if the present ineffectual policies remain in effect, the flight of Buddhists from the south will grow, and the border of Thailand will be redrawn. The insurgents will eventually deprive Thailand of at least three of its provinces.

Thais cannot believe that will happen, nor can they face the fact that their implacable enemy is a death cult that will never tolerate Buddhism. Simply being a Buddhist is a capital offence, according to the Koran. Thailand has yet to learn this, let alone believe it and take it into account.

Even though I can describe these irrational responses to the horror in the south, I admit I cannot explain why the Thais prefer them over common sense.

I can only provide this absurdly inadequate explanation: there is something in Thai culture, some pernicious maladaptation, that shrinks from reporting, facing or coping with bad news. Call it denial, call it a hatred of confrontation and conflict, call it the Thai misunderstanding of the Buddhist scriptures (the local version of Buddhism is profoundly infused with Hinduism, superstition and animism) — whatever you call it, I call it insanity.

Ultimately, I can not answer the question, “What in the world is WRONG with these people?” It seems to me that whatever the flaw, it may be fatal.

VII. The Future

All will not be well when the rebellious southern provinces are torn away. For many years, Muslim men have been literally colonising the rural regions of the country north and northeast of Bangkok, taking advantage of poverty. They collect desperately poor multiple Thai “wives” (polygyny is not legally sanctioned but widely practiced) and establish mosques and Islamic schools for the resulting swarms of Muslim children. As we see in Europe, the ultimate Islamofascist weapon is demographic. The seeds of tomorrow’s insurgencies are being planted.

Islam takes the long view. Recall that Osama bin Laden is still upset by “the tragedy of Andalusia,” the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian peninsula five hundred years ago. He remains infuriated by the crusades. If it takes centuries, Islam intends to consume Thailand, the soft target inhabited by people whose religion qualifies them for decapitation.

Of course the Thais could easily prevent that tragedy. Islamic conquest is nowhere inevitable; it can succeed only when and where it is permitted to. Whatever happens, I believe Thailand’s fate will provide a lesson for the West.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

One of the great iconic images of American impotence and humiliation — along with the helicopter lifting off from the roof of the embassy in Saigon in 1975, and the hostage-takers taunting the Great Satan in Tehran in 1979 — is the TV footage of an Army Ranger’s corpse being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1992.

That abomination, that desecration, was almost too much to bear. I felt the same way then as I did about Iran in 1979: level the country, and then turn it into a parking lot.

But that’s not the way the United States conducts its foreign policy any more. The world’s pit bull insists on acting like a yappy little Chihuahua. Cut and run, then start a “peace process”. Engage in “dialog”. Send foreign aid.

Above all, don’t direct any overwhelming force against those who would mutilate, torture, and murder Americans.

And now it’s happening again in Mogadishu. But this time it’s not American corpses being dragged through the dust and flies. Today the victims are Ethiopian and Somali soldiers.

According to the story:

Somali soldierInsurgents dragged the corpses of two soldiers through the streets of the Somali capital and set the bodies on fire Wednesday after a fierce street battle killed at least seven people, witnesses and medical officials said.

An Associated Press photographer saw insurgents drag the bodies of one Ethiopian soldier and one Somali government soldier through the streets of northeastern Mogadishu and then set them on fire.

As one of the bodies was still burning, women wearing head scarves and long, loose dresses picked up stones and pounded it as a handful of young men looked on.

– – – – – – – – – –
The Ethiopian-installed government of Somalia is at pains to distance itself from Ethiopia:

Somalia’s government began the operation at about midnight Tuesday at the former Defense Ministry headquarters and plans to move forces into other parts of the capital, said Mohamed Ali Nur, the country’s ambassador in neighboring Kenya.

The operation is meant to try to stop militants from firing rockets at government installations, he told the AP.

Nur denied that any Ethiopian troops were involved in the operation.

That’s not what the Shabelle Media Network (a Somali news operation) says. It has photos of the soldiers involved, and at least one is identified as Ethiopian:

Somalia: Death toll in Mogadishu violence rises fresh battle continues

Ethiopian soldierThe death toll of today’s violence in the Somalia capital Mogadishu rises to 20 people and wounds of more than 80 others some of them seriously, medical sources say late Wednesday.

Medical officials in Media hospital in south of Mogadishu confirmed that the number of wounded people has increased. “the number of injured civilians being brought to the hospital reached to more than 80, mostly they were hit by stray round bullets and shrapnel of the artillery shells,” one health official at the hospital said.

Nine of the dead people were belonging to the transitional federal government while crowds dragged and burnt two of the government soldiers in the streets of Mogadishu.

Masked men supposedly are supporters of the ousted Islamists fought with the government troops backed by the Ethiopian forces in three locations of south and northern Mogadishu where the rival sides engaged in fierce clashes.

Today’s gun battles which were the worst since the Ethiopian backed transitional government arrived in the capital forced many villagers to flee their homes in fear of exchanging mortar and rocket shells.

Self organized local militia men could be seen in the streets of Mogadishu manning roadblocks and checking up all cars and ready to repel any government soldiers.

Meanwhile, fresh gun battle erupted northern outskirt of Mogadishu where the interim government forces clashed with local militants.

There is no immediate casualty [count] on both sides as the exchanging artilleries [are] reaching residential areas. Many people grew more concern[ed] over the fighting might spread into fresh areas.

And the captions with the photos:

The body of an Ethiopian soldier lies in the Middle of Hawlwadag road, south of Mogadishu on Wednesday 21 March, 2007 after as heavy fighting between Somali government soldiers backed by Ethiopian forces and armed Somalis opposing the transitional government takes place in the capital Mogadishu

The body of a Somali soldier lies in the Middle of Black Sea road, south of Mogadishu on Wednesday 21 March, 2007…

Whenever you read about bringing democracy to the Muslim world, remember Somalia. This is what happens in Somalia whenever the iron fist of a dictator loosens its grip.

I’m not saying that the entire Muslim world is like Somalia. I’m not saying that democracy is impossible there, nor do I deny that the vast majority of Somalis desire peace.

But whenever they are left to their own devices, this is what they tend to produce. The place is a textbook case of the behavioral sink. It makes Gaza look like the heart of civilization.

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If you follow the link to the Shabelle site, you’ll notice some interesting features surrounding the news stories there. On the sidebar and in the header, next to or above the photos of horror and mutilation, you’ll see ads for anti-Bush T-shirts. The same ads you might find on Daily Kos, or on virtually any commercial American website.

In Somalia!

There’s also a banner proclaiming that Shabelle is a “partner with Radio France”. Does that explain the anti-Bush commerce? Or is there just a perfect convergence across the entire world of moonbat sentiments?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Gently, Gently, She Leaves Us

UPDATE: Pajama Media notes that Cathy died at 2:05 p.m., Pacific Time. As the universe would have it, that’s precisely when I was writing the post below.

She had been on my mind for days and days, like an insistent tune, but I didn’t begin to write until Cathy was actually ready to leave.

Under her picture on PJM is a quotation from Ezekiel:

“Wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh. Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.

And that, as best one can express it, is the imperishable Self that will comfort her survivors.

Cathy SeippKathy Seipp is dying. She may be gone even as I write these words to bid adieu to a fine writer, a good woman.

When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, she did not rail against the cosmos. She didn’t complain that because she had never smoked “it wasn’t fair.” For her, it simply was what it was: a likely death sentence, one she would deal with as best she could.

And now Death has arrived, and waits in the wings for her to breathe her last. This, the latest posting on her blog, is from her daughter:

In hospital

posted 03/19/07 (edited Tuesday, Mar 20, 2007 07:44)

As earlier mentioned in the comments section, my mother is in the hospital. The doctor says that right now they’re just making her comfortable. She’s sedated, with painkillers among other things. Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain. The doctor says she has a couple days left. I want to thank all her readers for reading this blog, her friends for supporting her who made up “Team Cathy.” Through you all, I learned what a true friend was. I’m at her bedside now, holding her hand. I tell her she has 292 comments on the latest blog post..her last but she just squeezes my hand. She was very happy with this blog. In honor of her, if you can…support the American Lung Cancer Society and or adopt stray dogs and cats from the pound. Those were her causes. Thank you all so much. Will keep everyone posted.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who posted. As of 7:45am this morning she is still breathing and pulsing but is passing peacefully.

[By the way, the comments have increased to well over 600 by now. Understandably, everyone wants to say goodbye. —D]

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When I was a child in elementary school, I sang in the Gregorian choir our monsignor insisted on having as part of the curriculum. It didn’t matter much if you could actually carry a tune — what mattered was numbers. And since the good Monsignor was a Colonel in the Army Reserve, a Gregorian choir is what we had.

Twice weekly we practiced the timeless chant in preparation for the liturgies of the season. While the sonorous cadences of Palm Sunday made for good processional music, I was always fondest of Easter, for it had the most lilting and joyful melodies — and the loudest.

Whenever a member of the congregation died (and it was a large congregation) a group of us were called out of class to make the climb up to the choir loft to sing the Requiem Mass “for the soul of the departed.” As I stood there, perhaps chanting “Dies Irae”, I would look out over those attending the funeral and wonder idly who would be the next one to leave. Of those heads I could see, who had the shortest time left? [As you can tell, I was not the most devout of children.]
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That particular reflection stayed with me long after my years in the choir. Gathered in any large group, when things were slow — perhaps listening to a boring instructor — I would again wonder, “Who of us is the next one to go?”

When I joined the blogosphere, the same question eventually occurred to me as I perused the thoughts of those brave enough to put their words out there. Who would be the first to leave us? Cathy Seipp did not come to mind. Not at all. Not someone so vital.

And now her voice will be missed.



By the way, our beloved Gregorian choir director, a funny and gifted musician who had graduated from that very same school in 1941, still buzzes around the diocese, making CDs and raising money for her order, the Sisters of Saint Joseph.

But Sister Marie Therese is a story for the Neighborhood of God, not here — though she was the first one to tell me my gift was writing. When I asked her last year — she has email and a cell phone — to what she attributed her long life and creativity, she said that of course it was God’s will, but that she also thought it came from constantly giving away her “stuff.” On occasion, she emails me, “Want some ‘stuff’?”

That’s the hardest part of being among the survivors: figuring out what to do with all the stuff left behind

The Norwegian Government Surrenders to Muslims

The Fjordman Report
The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna. For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.



This weekend, Norway became first Western country to announce its recognition of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government. Norway was home to the original back-channel talks between left-wing Israeli politicians and the PLO which created the ill-fated Oslo Peace Process of the 1990s, and also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to PLO-leader Yasser Arafat.

Jostein GaarderThe decision to fund the Hamas-led government was accompanied by cheers from the media, including newspaper Aftenposten which praised this as a “wise” move. Aftenposten in 2006 published an essay by Jostein Gaarder, author of the bestselling book “Sophie’s World,” which called the Ten Commandments “amusing stone tablets” and said that Israel has “raped world recognition and will have no peace before it lays down its arms.” The essay was denounced as anti-Semitic by many observers, but also received significant support.

While Europe SleptDuring the Cartoon Jihad in 2006, Bruce Bawer, the author of the book While Europe Slept, described how Velbjørn Selbekk, the editor of the tiny newspaper Magazinet, had firmly resisted pressure by Muslims who made death threats. But then Norway’s Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion Bjarne Håkon Hanssen hastily called a press conference at a government office building in Oslo. There Selbekk issued an abject apology for reprinting the Danish cartoons. At his side, accepting his act of contrition and asking that all threats now be withdrawn, was Mohammed Hamdan, head of Norway’s Islamic Council, accompanied by a number of imams. As Bawer commented, it was a picture right out of a sharia courtroom, with the Muslim leader declaring Selbekk to be henceforth under his protection.

Yousef Al-QaradhawiIn a Friday sermon on February 3, 2006, Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, exhorted worshippers to show rage to the world in response the cartoons depicting Muhammad. The sermon was aired on TV. The following day, the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were set ablaze by an angry mob. A few days later, a delegation led by Mohammed Hamdan of Norway’s Islamic Council and a senior pastor representing Oslo’s bishop visited Qatar to meet Mr. Qaradhawi. The trip recieved support from the Norwegian government. Qaradhawi accepted the apology that Velbjørn Selbekk had issued on February 10.

Walid al-Kubaisi, a Muslim dissident living in Norway, warned that Yousef Al-Qaradhawi was more dangerous and influential than Osama bin Laden, and that the Muslim Brotherhood, whose founder Hassan al-Banna Qaradhawi had followed when he was young, wants the West to submit to sharia. Kubaisi reacted strongly to the statement by Mr. Hamdan that he would now give Mr. Selbekk protection:

Bjarne Håkon HanssenIt frightens me that he presents himself as an authority that can grant or revoke protection. Does this mean that [Minister] Bjarne Håkon Hanssen thinks that the next time I feel threatened because of something I have written, I should contact the Islamic Council, not the police? Sadly, the government, in their eagerness to end the current troubles, have made the authoritarian forces stronger.

Kubaisi feared that Islamists would from now on just burn something every time they felt offended about anything, and expect to get their will.
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Burning the Danish and Norwegian flagsThe status given to non-Muslim dhimmis who accept Islamic rule is technically referred to as “protected.” During the Cartoon Jihad, the left-wing government demonstrated in public that Norwegian authorities did not control the security of their citizens, and thus had to accept Muslim intervention to secure Norwegians’ safety. This amounted to the acceptance of Islamic rule according to sharia laws, a view which was subsequently strengthened by payments to Muslims both at home and abroad. Undoubtedly these payments were viewed by Muslims as jizya, the “protection money” non-Muslims are required to pay in willing submission (Koran, 9:29), as a sign of their inferior status vis-à-vis Islam.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has boasted that “Islam will Return to Europe as a Conqueror.” The spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was thus indirectly responsible for the attack on the Norwegian embassy; technically the attack could be interpeted as an act of war.

Hamas is by many viewed as the Palestinian branch of the MB. They even write this in their own charter. This means that the Norwegian government is now funding an organization that has caused physical attacks against their country. Admittedly, even the USA and Israel are doing so, too, but it is still embarrassing and worrying that Norway is part of this bribe scheme.

In the fall of 2006, Minister Bjarne Håkon Hanssen from the Labor Party called for increased immigration to Norway from Pakistan because this wuld be good for the Norwegian society. The majority of Muslims in Norway voted for the Labor Party in the 2005 general elections, which the left-wing coalition won by a very slim margin. Eighty-three percent of Muslims voted for Leftist parties.

There have even been calls for translating Norway’s national anthem to Urdu because this would be good for integration.

Kristin Halvorsen, the leader of the Socialist Left Party, began her election campaign in 2005 in the Pakistani countryside, praising all the “blood, sweat and tears Pakistanis in Norway have spent on building the country.” She is now Norway’s Minister of Finance.

The deputy leader of the party has announced that he wants to abolish private property rights. It is stated in the party’s programme that the United States constitutes the greatest threat to world peace. However, their calls to boycott Israel have had no affect on consumer attitudes.

Trond Giske and Mohammed HamdanTrond Giske, Minister of Culture and Church Affairs from the Labor Party, met with Mohammed Hamdan, the then head of Norway’s Islamic Council, a few months after the Cartoon Jihad and announced that government subsidies for the Islamic Council would be raised from sixty thousand kroner a year to half a million. That’s more than a seven hundred percent increase in a single year.

The government would also meet more frequently with the Islamic Council to “improve dialogue.” Its leader Hamdan smiled after having talked with Mr. Giske for about one hour. “We’re pretty pleased with the meeting. For us it’s important to improve contacts with the government so that we can get to know each other better.”

Mohammed Hamdan participated during a meeting with members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas at Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament, in the summer of 2006. According to him, he was only an interpreter, but his brother Osama Hamdan is a member of parliament for Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. Since the Norwegian government decided in March 2007 to continue sponsoring the Hamas-led government, this can hardly be viewed as anything but a total surrender to Islamic rule.

Muslims can spot a good dhimmi when they see one. In Bergen, Norway’s second largest city, Labor Party politician Jerad Abdelmajid threatened that Muslims would take their Friday prayers in Torgallmenningen, Bergen’s central public square. This threat occurred because Muslims would be temporarily without a mosque after March 31. Thus, if the authorities didn’t provide them with a interim mosque until the new one was finished, they would disrupt the community with public prayer meetings.

MullahKrekarIn contrast to the Selbekk case, Mullah Krekar, the former leader of the Islamic terror group Ansar al-Islam, still continues to be permitted to live in Norway — even though he has

Krekar has written a book about himself, which was published William Nygaard – a man who was dhimmified when he was shot and almost killed in the early 90s for having published the Norwegian translation of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses.

It was recently confirmed that the posts I wrote on my blog two years ago about Muslim rapes were indeed accurate. I continue to maintain that the Norwegian Minister of Justice — if not the entire centre-right government — should have resigned in 2005, when this scandal came to light.

In September 2001, the newspaper Aftenposten published statistics from the city of Oslo showing that two thirds of those charged with rape in Norway’s capital were immigrants with a non-western background. This means that a majority of rapes in Oslo are committed by Muslim men. In addition, the total number of rape cases continues to rise.

The numbers published in 2001 were publicly discussed in at least two of Norway’s three largest newspapers: Aftenposten and Dagbladet. A leading member of the Liberal Party (Venstre), Odd Einar Dørum, demanded all the numbers be put on the table: “A scumbag is a scumbag, regardless of skin color.” A few weeks later, Mr. Dørum became Minister of Justice, a position he retained for the next four years. However, any mention of these statistics disappeared.

Last year, 2006, the number of rapes in the Norwegian capital Oslo was six times higher (per capita) than they were in New York City. Such statistics are likely to worsen, as New York City has become tougher on crime, and Oslo continues to silence any discussion of the imploding issue of safety for women in their city.

Dr. Jens Tomas Anfindsen, one of two editors of the bilingual website Honest Thinking, in 2007 revealed that there was a police report from 2005 that confirmed the trends from 2001. He talked to former Minister Dørum, who denied that the government had hushed it down. Yet as Mr Anfindsen pointed out, the report was met with total silence from both the political elites and the media that year.

Why?

In 2005, when the country was about to have national elections, I wrote that the country’s Minister of Justice knew that the huge spike in rapes was intimately linked to immigration. He denounced this cultural degradation before being elected, but once in power, this official did absolutely nothing about the problem. In fact, he refused to acknowledge that it even existed during his four years in office.

Normally this would have led to calls for his resignation, or that of the entire government of PM Bondevik. When this didn’t happen, I suspect it was because both the media and the left-wing opposition parties championed Multiculturalism and wanted to keep a lid on “delicate issues” related to immigration. In addition, the left-wing parties currently in office actively courted the Muslim vote – no doubt a decisive factor in their narrow victory that year.

Statistics showing that immigrants, especially from Muslim countries such as Iraq and Somalia, were behind two thirds of the rapes in Oslo were published again by newspaper Aftenposten in 2007. It is good that these numbers were finally published. Muslim violence in Western countries includes far more than just rape. The fact that it is actually being discussed in Norway, rather than silenced, is a positive turn of events. This willingness to address the real problems makes Norway one of the better countries when it comes to public dialogue.

However, why did newspapers Aftenposten and Dagbladet as well as other media, refuse to cite the police report in 2005? This omission may have decided the outcome of the elections. Yes, they did publish the reports in 2001 and 2007, but what motivated them to let the subject drop completely in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 or 2006. After all, the numbers of rapes grew to unprecedented heights year after year.

Is it a coincidence that they finally published the numbers again after I had written several articles denouncing their silence , and that Honest Thinking had just written about it as well? I don’t know the answers, but I’m entitled to ask them to explain their silence. And if our media withholds such information from us, what other kinds of information are they withholding?

It would be unfair to say that there is no opposition to these insane policies. Erna Solberg, the leader of Høyre, Norway’s conservative (with a very small “c”) party, is a dedicated Multiculturalist who has proposed the establishment of an officially sanctioned sharia council in Norway. However, a new book by a former member of Parliament for Høyre, Hallgrim Berg, warns against Islamic plans to turn Europe into Eurabia. He discusses the growing anti-Americanism in Europe and maintains the United States is the only power in the world capable of securing freedom.

Carl I. HagenIn 2005 the police issued a mobile security alarm to leader of the right-wing Progress Party, Carl I. Hagen. Hagen had criticized Islam, and could see no similarity with the concept of morality and justice found in Christianity. He also said that if Israel loses in the Middle East, Europe will succumb to Islam next. He thinks that Christians should support Israel and oppose Islamic inroads into Europe. In an unprecedented step, a group of Muslim ambassadors to Norway blasted Carl I. Hagen in a letter. Other politicians quickly caved in and condemned Hagen, including then-Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik of the Christian Democrats.

In 2007, the Progress Party, which is one of the most pro-Israeli and pro-American parties in Western Europe, is on the brink of replacing the Labor Party as the largest party in the country. Ordinary citizens have beomce disillusioned with Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration. However, as elsewhere in Europe, the established political, cultural and media elites are firmly behind these wrong-headed policies.

Unni WikanIn 2001, Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, told Dagbladet that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was that “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

Meanwhile, Trond Giske, Minister of Culture and Church Affairs and the same man who provided Norway’s Islamic Council with a seven hundred percent increase in funds after the Cartoon Jihad, announced that 2008 would be an official Diversity Year, dedicated to celebrating Multiculturalism and “cultural diversity” in all sectors of society.

The more the state ideology fails, the more the state promotes its doomed tenets in public propaganda campaigns. China’s Chairman Mao would have been proud of Norwegian authorities.

I’m not, but then I am an ignorant Islamophobe.

A Transsexual Energy Policy?

Mona SahlinMona Sahlin is a Socialist politician in Sweden. She is pictured at right during a famous incident when she donned a veil when visiting a mosque.

Our Swedish correspondent LN has been following Ms. Sahlin’s career for years, and sent us the following article about her.

Caritas-Caritatis, or a Lady of Dubious Credibility

The Swedish Social Democratic Workers’ Party got a new and female leader last Sunday. If the Socialists come back into power after the next election in 2010, she will probably become Prime Minister.

The new leader, Ms. Mona Sahlin (50), started her career early: at seven she founded the Barbie Club, and ten years later she joined the Socialists. What is and has been typical for her is her habit of intermixing feelings and carelessness in all her doings, which means that objectivity, stringency and analytical precision get lost.

The former prime minister Göran Persson describes his party chum (1997) in quite biting terms: “What crosses her lips is not very remarkable; her strength is not in her thinking, but her ability to convey a message.” For Ms. Sahlin, minority issues have always been the big ideological topic, something that by definition requires the ruling people, the majority — the true democratic foundation — to yield.

For nine years she has always been among those leading the procession at the annual Pride Festival in Stockholm. On this occasion HBT persons (Homo-Bi-Trans-sexuals) fill the streets of the capital in order to proclaim their disposition. In an interview on the festival’s web page in the summer of 2006 she declared: “Of course I always speak about HBT in almost everything I do. It is even possible to connect to HBT questions when you discuss ‘nuclear energy’ or ‘energy policy’.”


Mona Sahlin and HBT
Ms. Mona Sahlin in her element

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In the multicultural world of Ms Sahlin it is the reverse order that is valid. Ethnic Swedes must, when searching for employment, leave room for immigrants. If two persons, a Swede and an immigrant with similar qualifications, apply for a job, according to Ms Sahlin the employer must chose the person called Mohammed. It will be counted as a ‘decisive qualification’ to have ‘another ethnic background’. (GöteborgsPosten 001022)

“We Swedes have neither culture nor history!”

She does not refrain from deprecating Sweden and its history and culture of peace, democracy, equality, and decency, plus more picturesque elements such as the midsummer celebration. When she participated in Euroturk — the Turkish Youth Association’s congress — in the spring of 2002 she said: “I believe that what makes Swedes so envious of immigrant groups is that you have a culture, a history, something binding you together. And what have we got — ‘midsummer celebration’ and such corny things.”

One of her best friends, former immigration minister Jens Orback, according to Ms Sahlin, said in connection with the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands 2004, “We must be open and generous to the muslims and Islam, because when we become the minority we hope they will treat us likewise.”

The future of Sweden does not look hopeful, nor does it inspire confidence.

"May the Truth Win!"

Sissy Willis has kindly brought to our attention the following invitation:

Climate Change Challenge

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question “That our effect on climate is not dangerous”, to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.

Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President’s prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet.

Given at Carie, Rannoch, in the County of Perth, in the Kingdom of Scotland, this 14th Day of March in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand And Seven.


God Bless America!     God Save The Queen!

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, Scotland
011 44 1882 632341
monckton@mail.com

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The article in Breitbart says that Monckton was a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher while she was Prime Minister. It quotes the Viscount:
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“A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore’s film,An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.”

Unfortunately, it’s being peddled by to these children by equally ignorant adults, led by an almost-president who himself came close to failing Earth Sciences in college.

Will Gore rise to the challenge? Or will he weenie out, just as he did for the proposed debate with Bjorn Lomborg when Gore visited Denmark in February?

Monckton’s mocking may be enough to drive Gore to address the issues, but he’s been breathing Hollywood’s fumes so long, it’s hard to predict what he’ll do with this dare for a face-to-face debate:

Monckton calls on the former Vice President to “step up to the plate and defend his advocacy of policies that could do grave harm to the welfare of the world’s poor. If Mr. Gore really believes global warming is the defining issue of our time, the greatest threat human civilization has ever faced, then he should welcome the opportunity to raise the profile of the issue before a worldwide audience of billions by defining and defending his claims against a serious, science-based challenge.”

For those of you who remember your Philosophy of Science classes, the proposed debate will echo the most famous of them all. It is a stroke of good fortune that Lord Monckton has the standing to command such a venue:

The arena of the glittering “Second Great Debate” will be the elegant, Victorian-Gothic Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which was the setting for the “Great Debate” between the natural scientist T. H. Huxley and Bishop…Wilberforce on the theory of evolution, following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Lord Monckton says he chose this historic venue “not only because the magnificent, Gothic architecture will be a visually-stunning setting for the debate but also because I hope that in this lofty atmosphere the caution and scepticism of true science will once again prevail, this time over the shibboleths and nostrums of the false, new religion of climate alarmism.”

The Greenies definitely have created a new religion of Global Freezing Warming. And the further you follow it down the dark trail, the more you begin to trip over its fundamentalist roots, its snake-handlers and hucksters and fire-breathing preachers predicting hell on earth for those who refuse to believe.

Monckton’s views, as they appear in this clip from a Wikipedia entry, are looked upon somewhat skeptically. No surprise there. However, he aims a good shot across the bow of two US senators:

Monckton has been in the news in recent months due to his skepticism of global warming. In November 2006, he published in the The Daily Telegraph a widely publicized article critical of the prevailing climate change opinions. After U.S. Senators Rockefeller and Snowe wrote a letter to the Chief Executive Officer of ExxonMobil asking him to stop funding scientists who reject global warming, Lord Monckton wrote a letter to the senators reminding them of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and calling on them to reverse their position or resign.

Did you know that in his youth, Gore considered the possibility of a calling to Christian ministry? But he had been groomed by Père Gore for politics and presidential ambitions. The idea of ‘vocation’ is one that has been largely neglected in the modern world. Now we choose what we will do with our lives – or (as has always been the case) ambitious parents choose for us.

Gore is a sad example of what happens when we ignore a calling, that quiet voice within that beckons us to the potential of our best selves. Instead of listening to his heart, former vice-president Gore listened to Daddy. He carried “honor thy father” to a sad extreme.

Let us hope he finds the courage to stand in that historic place to which Viscount Monckton has summoned him. Win or lose, this is an appointment of karmic proportions.