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ArchivesWednesday1 February 2006British Liberty (1215 - 2006)
Hang on, what are you talking about, you ask. The revised bill was defeated. The key amendment from the House of Lords stands. It's a victory for free speech and liberty in general. This is a time for popping champagne corks. Codswallop. This is an appalling defeat for liberty. True, the government has been defeated in its attempt to overturn the House of Lords' amendments to the bill, but those amendments were like putting a finger plaster on a severed leg. By obtaining this "victory" we have still allowed the Religious Hatred Bill to pass into law. We have ceded the principle that the government can outlaw what we say, what we think, and what we feel. Even with the amendments, it is still an offence to speak your mind. The bill in its amended form is a classic example of the middle ground fallacy. In a choice between cutting a man's head off and not cutting his head off, Parliament has settled for cutting him in half. What a marvellous world New Labour has given us. Once upon a time an Englishman's home was his castle and his conscience was his own. There was a time when a man could live his whole life without having a thing to do with government unless he broke the law or petitioned the courts. Then in the 1980s free speech had to be curtailed in the interests of public order and in the 1990s it had to be reined in again to fight "racism." And now under New Labour it has been made clear that our thoughts, our very emotions, are the government's to control as it sees fit and the descendants of free-born men must now look over their shoulders for fear of being overheard and denounced for committing thoughtcrime. I wish that I was wrong about what is happening to the land of the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, and the Mother of Parliaments, but when a law, even an amended one, is made that can face someone with seven years in prison for making a "reckless" joke about religion, then we are deep in Orwellian territory. This bill in whatever form has the same flaws as the earlier Racial Hatred Bill. It attempts to provide protection for things that the law already forbids. A threat is a threat and is punished as such. An assault is an assault and is likewise punished. It doesn't matter tuppence what the threatener's or assailants opinions are, no matter how repellant, or who he offends. It is what he does. At least in the case of race there is the tenuous point that skin colour is an objective fact, but in the case of religion you are outlawing an opinion about someone else's opinions. But in both cases you are outlawing thought. Worse, this was a law that addressed no real problem. Britons are not at one another's throats over religious divisions. Even the battles between Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland were more convenient labels for political factions, not a replay of the Thirty Year's War. The IRA never claimed to be the sword of the Pope, nor would the Vatican have had them if they'd offered. The only faction which declares war against other religions in Britain comes from Jihadist Muslims who carry out suicide attacks in the middle of London, attempt to blow up aeroplanes with shoe bombs, run off to join Al Qaeda, and try to murder decorated British soldiers because they fought terrorists in Iraq. And what staggers the imagination is that these maniacs are the staunchest supporters of the law because they can use it as a weapon to attack anyone who tries to criticise them.
And we weren't at war then. Now we are. We face an enemy who have proven in both word and deed that they want to kill and enslave us and New Labour conveniently ignores that vital fact so that they can kowtow to the EU and curry favour with the most extreme elements of an increasingly vocal Muslim minority and to Hell with our ancient liberties. Even moderate Muslim groups are aware of this. This bill didn't need amending. It needed killing. One of the functions of the monarchy is to watch out for the interests of the people against a tyrannical government. If Her Majesty gives the royal ascent to this bill, then she will be grievously failing in her duty to her subjects. Thursday2 February 2006Grim Milestones Reach Grim Milestone
This sort of thing says much more about the press than it does the war. It's one of those incidents where I want to buttonhole the editor who decided to run that story and ask him just what is so newsworthy about it. That soldiers die in war? That's tragic, but it's also what one expects in a war. It's a dog bites man story. That so many soldiers have died? This is not Isandlwana and 5000 men were not killed in one battle because someone forgot the cutters to open the ammunition boxes. One hundred in almost three years of fighting a load of suicidal fanatics has to count as one of the lightest casualty rates in history. Why do you refer to these as "nightmare numbers?" Do you know that the British lost 2700 men on the beaches of Normandy? That 700 more died in training for D-Day? Why did you rush to get juicy anti-war quotes from the grieving parents? Do you, sir, have some other agenda for your magic number? What might that be, sir? To make every news story into an anti-Coalition screed? To improve your chances on embarrassing Tony Blair or President Bush by hoping your own country loses as many soldiers as possible? To encourage the enemy into thinking that Britain will cut and run? To undermine the war effort? To sap civilian morale? There is a word for that sort of thing. In fact, there are several, but this is a family site. Defeatist Nostalgia
In 1968 Walter Cronkite handed the North Vietnamese Communists victory on a plate when he declared the war lost-- right after the US smashed the Viet Cong in the Tet Offensive, but in doing so Mr. Cronkite turned the mainstream media from a news service into a political party, so Ms. Amanpour's pronouncement is less an objective assessment than a policy statement. Tip o' the hat to the Officer's Club, which has a perfect photo and headline to match Ms. Amanpour's character and ego: "I am Become Cronkite, Destroyer of Wars." Reality Check
"I am shocked, shocked that the IRA has held on to its weapons." Daring Move
This is excellent news for the Navy and Britain. Five more of the Type 45s are on the ways, HMS Dauntless, Diamond, Defender, Dragon and Duncan, but whatever their capabilities they are not enough. One Type 45 may be able to outgun a fleet of Type 42s, but it can't be in two places at once. We not don't need fewer and better ships. We need more and better ones. Tres Bien!
This is exactly the sort of thing Old Europe must do to protect its freedoms. It may sound absurd to have a stare down over a load of caricatures, but if you don't draw the line in ink now Europe will be drawing it later in blood. Update: I guess it was too good to be true. This just in from the BBC,
Well, at least the French had one day when they acted like men and not mice. Pass the Vichy water, please. Electric Scuba
Oh, well. At least they're in good company. WHY!?!
Like decaffeinated coffee, the reason for doing such a thing escapes me entirely Very Good, Jeeves.
Given that it looks rather like an anime battle robot I suspect that launching missiles and striking silly, pretentious poses are also part of its programming. Tip o' the hat to Samizdata. Bleedin' Satellites!
This development has been condemned by some space engineers who say they faint at the sight of resin. Highland Kitties.
Now if we could just get the boars to move from Devon to Scotland or vice versa we could solve at least one of the problems. You've Got Crabs
Britain is doing it's part to help out our Norwegian neighbours to combat an invasion of giant crabs. It seems that back in the heyday of the Soviet Union Stalin introduced giant red king crabs into the Barent's Sea-- possibly for food, possibly as the nucleus of an invincible army of atomic mutant crabs. I'm not sure. Since then, however, the crabs have multiplied and migrated into Norwegian waters where an estimated 50 million of them are now threatening fish stocks. And how is Britain helping to fight this menace? Atomic depth charges? SBS forces equipped with electric laser spear-guns? No. Britain is battling the crabs by helping the Norwegians eat them. All across the British Isles restaurants are bringing in emergency supplies of stock pots, crab mallets, and butter, as in the case of Chef Pascal Proyart of Knightsbridge's One-O-One restaurant,
Such sang froid in the face of battle is admirable, but it is rumoured that if the posher restaurants have to carry the burden, it will not be enough despite the fact that the Grenadier Guards are being trained in emergency cordon bleu techniques to act as kitchen reinforcements. Ephemeral Isle has been informed by sources that the government plans to introduce legislation that will make crab and chips a mandatory part of all menus and that crab burger recipes are under development at Porton Down. But all of this is only the first step. Remember that there are 50 million of the pincered little bastards, so break out those lemon wedges, tie on those bibs, and select a crisp little white wine. Have a crab supper for victory! Friday3 February 2006Grim Milestones in perspective
I was happily surprised to see this piece in the BBC by a military historian who points out that the casualty rate for British soldiers in Iraq are the lowest of any British military conflict in the past century; the only lower one being the Happy Fluffy Fun Bunny War of 1947. Auntie actually lets this sort of thing slip through from time to time when the editors nod and they lapse into practicing journalism, but as Mike Jericho points out, they make up for this with counterbalancing the feather of Truth with a hod of propaganda bricks in the other pan. Cartoon Controversy
Sadly, the editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, where the cartoons were first published, has admitted defeat. In a New York Times interview he said,
This isn't just idle speculation. The Brussels Journal reported that one leading Norwegian cartoonist noted for mocking Christianity has learned his lesson about trying the same thing with the Religion of Peace and has become a good little dhimmi,
Those threats are not idle, as this British Muslim group makes plain.
The new BBC logo Update: The BBC is doing its usual dance to cover up its self-censorship in this hand-wringing piece about how important it is to respect religion and not give offence to others-- a sentiment that the Beeb seems to have discovered rather late in the day. They reinforce this with a number of side articles of the "See? It's no big deal," variety, such as this one where a carefully picked selection of "moderate" Muslims and happy multi-culti Danes "debate" the issue. Notably absent in all this is the elephant in the living room, which is the fact that there are Jihadists out there who will act out their "offence" by committing murder and that this entire row started because a children's author couldn't find an illustrator who would draw a picture of Mohammed for his book because the artists were afraid for their lives. Update: Meanwhile, Jack Straw has hit a new low in dhimmitude as he tries to make a virtue out of cowardice by praising the British media for being "responsible" by refusing to show the public what the controversy is all about. Where, one might ask, was Mr. Straw asking for "responsibility" when the BBC aired the Jerry Springer Opera in its entirety despite protests from Christians offended by Our Savior running about in a diaper. Oh, that's right. The Christians weren't threatening to behead anyone with a dull knife. Maybe someone should explain to Mr. Straw that there is a vast gap between being responsible and caving in to homicidal fanatics. Update: "Homicidal fanatics?" That's a bit thick, isn't it, old boy? Think so? In London today there was a march by Muslims in protest of the offending cartoons. This "moderate" group,
Or this lot reported by The Times,
In Indonesia the protester were more direct,
In Gaza the call was,
Little Green Footballs has photos from London of these charming sentiments,
And then there's this gem,
This is indeed about responsible journalism. The only responsible course is to show some courage, stand up to the Islamofascists, and tell them that dhimmitude is not an option. The Strange Ride of Susan Osthoff II
The only reason she hasn't been arrested is probably because that would mean the Germans would have to admit having paid that ransom they always denied paying. Monday6 February 2006Whistling in the Dark
Meanwhile, Jordan has done France one better. Not only was the editor of a paper that printed the offending cartoons fired, but he and another editor have been arrested for "insulting religion." And just to show that the battle isn't just in the Middle East, a Muslim lawyer in Norway has demanded that the country adopt "anti-blasphemy" laws. Mr. Abid Q Raja said,
Translation: What you Lutherans need is a good dose of sharia to keep you in your place. In Britain the only law being talked about by the Tories is incitement to murder. They want to know why the Muslim protesters carrying signs saying things like "Slay those who insult Islam" aren't being arrested. According to Mr. David Davis, the shadow home secretary,
In response to this a senior Scotland Yard officer said,
Courtesy of Jawa Report For the BBC, though, it was business as usual. Auntie has determined that the real story isn't about a load of Jihadists demanding with threats of violence to impose sharia on the West, but how all this is affecting Muslims for whom all of this sort of "just happened." For example, there is this story about Asghar Bukhari, chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, who condemned the protesters saying,
Which is quite commendable, but since many Muslim leaders have a tendency to say one thing in English and exactly the opposite in Arabic, I'd be a lot more at ease if the BBC had taken the trouble to provide more context on the gentleman and looked a bit into his track record. Is he being honest? Duplicitous? And if honest, do his words carry any weight? Given the fact that after 7/7 Mr. Bukhari was on record as saying that condemning suicide bombers depends on who is being bombed, some investigation is called for. Then the BBC was off to a local mosque to see how the Faithful were dealing with the dreaded backlash that never seems to materialise no matter how fervently predicted. My favourite qoute in the piece is,
Then there is this choice plum by Robert Plummer, BBC News business reporter, whose article "Firms feel pain of people power" has got to win the price from the most blinkered headline of the week. Mr. Plummer seems not to have noticed that little matter of a bloody terrorist war being waged against the West and apparently believes that the Muslim boycott against Denmark as one with such trendy lefty causes as refusing to buy chocolate from Nestle because it so heartless as to sell infant formula to the Third World. In addition to the Nestle campaign, Mr. Plummer also points to the pressure brought against Barclay's Bank to disinvest in South Africa to protest against apartheid, environmentalists harassing Disney World Hong Kong into taking shark's fin soup off the menu, and boycotts of French wine in an attempt to halt French nuclear testing. It is interesting that Mr. Plummer makes no mention of the much more recent boycott against France because of its shameful actions in the run up to the Iraq War, but perhaps only leftist causes need apply for his imprimatur. Of course, Mr. Plummer does miss that tiny little detail that in none of his examples were the participants backing up their demands with threats of bloody murder nor were one of their supporters a nation of crazed Islamofascists bent on getting the bomb before the next Hajj. Mr. Plummer should spend a few minutes listening to Australia's Sheik Fehmi El-Imam, the general secretary of the Board of Imams of Victoria. This is a man who should be running a protection racket. He's got the delivery down pat.
"You don't want to buy one of our posters? That ain't very healthy, guvnor. You know that caf that burnt down? They didn't 'ave a poster. And the pub 'round the corner wot got done over? They didn't 'ave a poster nivah." Over at The Times, Jasper Gerard says that Islam is not the religion in Britain that is being blasphemed against-- and for a very nasty reason.
Mark Steyn enlarges on this topic,
And to give some historical perspective, zombietime.com has a compilation of images of Mohammed from both the Islamic and non-Islamic world that indicate that there is more than a small dose of hypocrisy in the current outrage. Tuesday7 February 2006The Cartoon War
The Danish embassy in Tehran has had firebombs thrown at it and in a bit of poor planning the Austrian embassy was also attacked. This is surprising given the "well-planned spontaneity" that the Groaniad noticed in Beruit. However, in a refreshing turn of events, a Muslim group has set up a web site to apologise for the actions of their more excitable fellows,
Well done and if more truly moderate Muslims stood up to the Jihadists and made themselves heard we'd be halfway toward winning this war. Another apology has come from the man who wore a fake suicide bomb belt in London the other day, though his apology was more about causing distress to the families of the victims of 7/7. Again, this is a good thing, but I am still appalled and amazed that the police allowed this man to walk around unhindered. The moment he got off the bus he should have been in a sniper's crosshairs and told to get on the ground NOW! One apology we don't need however was from the BBC saying how sorry it was for not bowing to Islam and fleetingly showing the infidel cartoons on television. Of course, not everybody is in an apologetic mood. Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical North London cleric, prefers the more traditional approach and has called for the cartoonists to be executed-- after a fair trial under sharia law, of course. If Western countries refuse to co-operate, Mr. Mohammed says that they must “face the consequences.” Why this man has been neither arrested nor deported remains a mystery to anyone sane. Maybe it's the same logic that made a South African court conclude that the way to handle death threats against an editor who published the cartoons is to ban said cartoons. Of course, they could have been simply following Jack Straw's lead in the Neville Chamberlain act-alike contest,
"Holy Prophet?" When did Straw convert? Powerline has the best rejoinder to this,
In the Without a Clue category we have Tehran's Hamshahri newspaper, which is running a competition for the most offensive Holocaust cartoons. According to Farid Mortazavi, the paper's graphics editor,
Aside from the hidden assumption behind his statement that the Evil Jews are behind the Danish cartoons, Mr. Mortazavi is missing an important point. Muslim newspapers are notorious for printing some of the most vile, racist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian cartoons imaginable on a daily basis, whereas in the West cartoonists have been terrorised into dhimmitude. The Western media running despicable pictures coming out of Dar al-Islam would be as newsworthy as reprinting Hamashari's weather column. Newsworthy is the one thing that the BBC's John Simpson does not think the Cartoon War is. In this column he dismisses the whole thing as a tempest in a teapot; comparing it to the Salmon Rushdie affair with the conclusion that the latter didn't really amount to anything and the current controversy "has mostly been non-violent." That may be true on the Planet Zongo, but here on Earth we recognise that the fatwa against Mr. Rushdie is still in effect, that the reaction of the Western government and press to his death warrant was one of shameful silence, that the Rushdie affair was of a piece with the unrecognised war of Islamofascism that had been waged against civilisation since 1979 and have left thousands dead and cities in flames, and that most people would hardly call five or six dead over the weekend, blazing embassies, death threats against and arrests of editors, men in hiding for fear of their lives, and calls for a "real holocaust" in the streets of London scarcely qualifies as "non-violent." Simpson goes on to compare the demand that the West kowtow to the Islamists to the laws that some European countries have against virulent anti-Semitic literature and Holocaust denial. He neatly ignores that fact that only some countries have that prohibition, that it is a very controversial law that most Anglophone countries will have nothing to do with, that such laws are usually on the books in countries that either ran or shamefully collaborated with the Final Solution, and that if the shelves of Muslim book shops that stock The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are anything to go by, the enforcement is rather selective. Perhaps it isn't surprising that the Man Who Liberated Kabul would say things like,
No, Mr. Simpson. That isn't an insult; it's a threat. Please learn the difference. Meanwhile, back in Denmark, Copenhagen rues its lost tolerance as the multiculturalism train comes to a wheezing halt. Sometimes waking up to the fact that bending over backwards to please your enemy invites contempt rather than love is a hard thing to do. This dose of reality would be good news, but Theodore Dalrymple says at Cato Unbound that Old Europe is fighting against a massive loss of self-confidence induced by a smothering welfare state that may doom any attempt to raise a fight against the Islamofascists,
What Mr. Dalrymple does not address is that some people have gone over to the other side. Over at Gateway Pundit there is a rundown of comments from the Angry Left, who have concluded that it's All Chimpy Bushitler's fault, but Slate isn't going to be outdone. In the spirit of lighting a candle rather than curse the darkness, Amanda Schaffer has a helpful, and dead serious, article telling Al Qaeda operatives how to avoid wiretaps. And I thought that the cartoons were supposed to be the satire. Wednesday8 February 2006The Cartoon War II
A Norwegian military base in Afghanistan was attacked by "demonstrators" with stones and hand grenades. British troops were called into the fire fight that ended with four protestors dead. Another Norwegian, a student in Syria, got caught up in the anti-Western demonstrations there and thanks to a Syrian "friend" suddenly found himself the centre of attention,
But the outcome wasn't quite what the film version would have been,.
The protests have spread to Nigeria, where MPs took part in burning Danish flags and over in Dubai, Kofi Annan is saying that the Scandinavians should apologise for all the trouble they've caused. Tomorrow he's going to tell rape victims they should apologise for wearing short skirts. In London, the "suicide bomb" protestor is back in prison. It seems that his little escapade violated his parole for drug dealing. The police have appointed a special squad to "look into" the London protests (I would have thought a list of addresses would suffice), but Simon Heffer wonders if this "softly, softly" approach is not the best or most honest,
On the swings and roundabouts front, 8,000 copies of a student newspaper at Cardiff University were seized after it ran the Danish cartoons, but in America the Philadelphia Inquirer has run them without apology. Anthony Browne has a rundown on the diplomatic front and over at the Spiegel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician under a Muslim death threat, has an interview with some remarkably frank talk,
But at least the book-buying public isn't intimidated. Kåre Bluitgen's The Koran and the Life of the Prophet Muhammad, the children's book that started all this, is flying off the shelves. Meanwhile, the BBC is building its bubble thicker and smaller, though not without its critics. Paul Reynolds has a piece that portrays those who demand a firm stand for free speech as "right wing," which is in Beebspeak means "beyond the pale." But the most interesting thing is how the BBC follows the conviction of "controversial" Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri for solicitation of murder. This conviction has taken years to move through the courts and has ended with a paltry seven-year sentence, which should be a major talking point if Britain expects the courts to act as the first line of defence against terrorists, but the BBC feels that it is much more important to find out the opinion of Muslims about the conviction and the doings down at Finsbury mosque. The idea of seeking the opinions of infidel Britons, the targets of Abu Hamza's murderous dreams, doesn't seem worth the effort. Abu Hamza is a purely Muslim matter and the conviction has nothing to do with the kaffirs, just as the Cartoon War has nothing to do with the larger Terror War. Bias, blinkers, or cringing? Not that it matters. I mean, it's not like there are terrorist training camps in Britain, is it? Question is, is this the opening salvo of a true clash of civilisations? I'll leave that to Lee Harris and David Pryce-Jones to discuss. Thursday9 February 2006Cartoon Roundup
In
Tehran there was a twofer protest against both the Danish cartoons and
Britain helping to report Iran to the UN Security Council regarding Iran's
nuclear
Though we suspect that they'd settle for "sacrificing" the lives of a few British diplomats instead. In other developments, the Cartoon War has spread into cyberspace. Muslim hackers launched a coordinated attack against one thousand Danish web sites, defacing their home pages with everything from calls to boycott Danish goods to, in the BBC's weasel words, "threats of violence." Speaking of boycotts, has anyone realised that the Muslim boycott of Danish ham and bacon is a bit like a killer whale boycotting bananas? And on Planet Zongo, the BBC continues to refer to the current events as a "row" despite the fact that your average "row" doesn't involve threats of beheadings and attacks on military bases and embassies. Meanwhile, the real "Chirac Doctrine" has reasserted itself as the French President handed down this little gem of wisdom,
M. Chirac now owes me a new laptop, as my old one is now soaking with sprayed tea and toast. For a man who leads an aggressively secularist nation and who has made his career out of pounding the convictions of others into the ground to say this is brass of the purest order. It is even more appalling when a French satirical magazine that printed the cartoons was only able to do so after dodging a court injunction on a technicality. In America, some journalists are actually showing some spine, such as at the alternative paper The New York Press, where the staff walked out after the publisher refused to run the cartoons. Editor-in-Chief Harry Siegel issued this statement:
The New York Times, on the other hand, is deep in doublethink territory. It ran an editorial saying that it will not print the Danish cartoons because the Times refuses to indulge in "gratuitous assaults on religious symbols," and the next day it runs a picture of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung. But that's just insulting Christians, so it doesn't count. In Denmark, Danish Muslims are split over the Cartoon War with the more moderate elements saying,
Surprisingly, the most radical voices came from within the government's own integration think tank with Ahmad Akkari of the Islamic Faith Society handing down this veiled threat,
And your female staff can collect their burqas at the door. Back in Britain the They Just Don't Get It Award goes to the Muslim Action Committee, which met in Birmingham to demand that printing pictures of Mohammed should be made illegal. Over at National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg discusses a major blind spot that the West has developed over the Cartoon War,
Finally, according to satirical site The Chaser, even Homer Simpson has learned not to mess with Mohammed. And this just in:According to Michelle Malkin, Iran has decreed that henceforth Danish pastry will be called Mohammed pastry, which should go well with a report in the same post that a British school is banning hot cross buns as "religiously offensive." I wonder how long it will be before the Faithful discover that the Croissant was allegedly invented to celebrate Budapest's victory over the Muslim Turks in 1686? After the Cartoon War will we have the Food Fight? Friday10 February 2006Weekend Cartoon Update
Given that the MAC is the group that wants Britain to outlaw the publication of pictures of Mohammed, we're taking their pronouncements with a very large grain of salt. Meanwhile, Samizdata reports on the effectiveness of the Buy Danish campaign with a translation from an article in Børsen,
Out East, Malaysia has demonstrated what is really at stake by suspending indefinitely the licence of the Sarawak Tribune for publishing the Danish cartoons. In Norway, the What The ****? prize has been won by the Muslim Al-Jinnah Foundation, which has reported the Christian weekly Magazinet to the police on the grounds that the publication's decision to run the cartoons endangered Norwegian lives by enraging Muslims. No doubt we'll soon be seeing courts punishing rape victims. Oh, wait, they already do that. But don't imagine for a moment that the EU is sleeping on the job. The European Commission has decided to take firm action in response to attacks on freedom of the press. They plan to abolish it. America isn't going to be forcing "press codes" on anyone at the moment, but from the small town of Stoughton, Mass we have a perfect examples of a legitimate objection and of craven dhimmitude. Town Manager Mark Stankiewicz was so moved by scenes of Muslim violence that he took it upon himself to fly a Danish flag beneath the US flag at the Stoughton town hall. A veteran objected on the legitimate grounds that the Danish flag was being improperly flown. However, the Stoughton No Place for Hate Committee objected much more strenuously out of fear that flying the Danish flag would cause adherents of the Religion of Peace to attack the town. Motto of the SNPHC: Please don't hurt us! We won't do it again! For an historical perspective, Wretchard at he Belmont Club points out that the offending cartoons were published last October in an Egyptian newspaper without any fuss. And Eve Garrard at Normblog examines the moral equivalence argument and why it doesn't fit here. Richard Burton: Dead, Yet Still Working
I See, Tell Me More
Warning: The robot may be more screwed up than you are. Hippocrates Spinning in His Grave
Can't keep people from cutting themselves up for kicks? Then give them clean scalpels! Swings and Roundabouts
I can't speak for the octogenarians, but as a fortysomething with a three-year old, I don't think the Finns understand what a parent's time is like at a playground. I always take along a flask of tea when I take my daughter for an afternoon on the swings in the deluded belief that I'm just going to sit on a wall relaxing while she burns off enough energy to crash the moment she gets home. In practice, I'm pushing her on the swings, hauling her up the boatswain chair ride, rescuing her from the precarious curvy ladder thingee, warning her not to go down the slide while three other little girls are having a conference at the bottom, being the second man on the seesaw, and generally making sure that we get through the afternoon with nothing being broken. The tea remains undrunk and when we get home it is Daddy who does the crashing. Sitzplinker
How do I know this? Look here. It's Alive!
Not bad for off the peg. Why Trace When You Can Track?
Spoil sports Dim Bulb
With these sort of advantages and clever marketing one would expect that the free market would soon work its way through and the incandescent bulb would go the way of the gas mantle. But that isn't good enough for some environmentalists who want people to buy fluorescents whether they want to or not by taxing regular bulbs. At least Matt Prescott is a more honest little totalitarian in that he wants incandescents to be banned outright. Ah well, "That which is not forbidden is compulsory." The Pink Paradox
However, the Royal Navy is now embarked on a campaign to recruit more homosexuals into the service. This, too is seen as a great victory, but one with an obvious paradox that escapes the gay rights lot. Given that homosexuality is not something that is visible on the surface (even Quentin Crisp was celibate for the last thirty years of his life) the only sure way of finding out which team someone bats on is to ask him. In other words, a person's sexual proclivity is a private matter that is not a private matter. Sauerkraut: Is There Nothing It Can't Do?
I enjoy a nice, big plate of bratwurst and sauerkraut washed down with a cold beer on occasion while most of my friends and family curl their noses at the very thought of it, so this has a certain tinge of ironic satisfaction for me. Dinna Goo to th' Lochs!
These Celestial interlopers are a fearful lot. They are not only the size of a dinner plate, but each one comes equipped <gravely, ominous Scottish accent> w' a greet airy clawr. </gravely, ominous Scottish accent>.
Hammer House of Public Safety
You won't be able to get them to take a bath, much less lark about on the canal banks. Monday13 February 2006Monday Cartoon Update
Destroy, destroy, destroy; that's the way to prove to everyone that Islam is the Religion of Peace. Still there was some humour to be found, such as this gem of a sign.
First they came for the strudels and I said nothing, then they came for the éclairs, and I said nothing... Worse, what happens when the cartoon Jihadist notice this?
Fortunately, sharia has been denied as Danish schoolchildren in Copenhagen are now being served non-halal meat after years of dhimmitude, and the anti-boycott is ticking along nicely, as shown by this site, which lists recommended Danish products. I suggest the pork and beer, just to be doubly annoying. And if you want to be REEEAAALLYY annoying, keep visiting the page that has been described as "like the hamster dance, but blasphemous." In London, the march of 100,000 Muslims attracted only 5,000 and the organisers tried to so hard to make it a peaceful march that they printed a gross of the most anodyne placards imaginable; right down to using the blue and white colours associated with the "generic" brands of the 1970s. The whole "United Against Incitement and Islamophobia" theme seemed a dead cert to fit into the victimhood slot, but then it turned out that some people couldn't keep their mouths shut, such as Dr. Azam Tamimi, a senior figure in the Muslim Association of Britain, which staged the event, who said that unless the West toed the line there would be "fire throughout the world." Then the Daily Mail came out with a report that the Muslim Association of Britain had ties to terrorist groups. It also didn't help when the imam at the mosque where the 7/7 bomber hung out had the bad timing to praise the terrorists and to call them "children of Al-Faisal;" a fellow cleric who is doing a stretch for incitement to murder and refers to non-Muslims as "cockroaches." With friends like these, etc. Algeria ran true to form by "detaining" the editors of a weekly that published the Danish cartoons, and Sweden showed all the backbone of a sea slug by closing down a web site that ran a Draw Mohammed competition. But the BBC says that this was a "far-right" web site, so that's okay. Try googling the BBC web site for "far-right" some time. You'll get 29,600 results. Then try "far-left." You'll get 494. Hmmmmm. Maybe that's part of the reason why John Simpson got such a fisking over at Rottweiler Puppy. Der Spiegel gives some perspective with a rundown on anti-Semitic cartoons in the Middle East, and Mark Steyn comments on the latest target of Muslim outrage: a blowup male sex doll called Mustafa Shag. He also makes a very pertinent point about moderate Muslims who always seem strangely silent,
The moderate Muslims are where the pivot point in this war is going to rest. A recent opinion poll has shown that the British public is overwhelmingly against the vitriolic protest we've seen over the past weeks, but another poll by the BBC had the interesting result that the majority of Muslims in Britain want the country to remain Christian. No doubt they realise that enjoying the freedoms that they do means preserving the religion from which they sprang rather than the one that produced the society that the moderates escaped from. |