Lessons on the Long Road to Hijab
by Raymond Ibrahim:
A caricature, which first appeared on CagleCartoons.com, has been making the rounds on the Arabic blogosphere, and points to how democratic elections are serving to Islamize Egypt: average women enter the ballot box — “overseen” by the Muslim Brotherhood — only to emerge thoroughly veiled, thoroughly Islamized.
Speaking of veils and the Brotherhood, here’s an interesting video of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), showing just how much times have changed.
Speaking before a large assembly, Nasser told of how back in 1953 he wanted to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, and met with its leader. (Nasser eventually learned that the only response to the Brotherhood is suppression, not cooperation, a lesson John Kerry and others in the current administration would do well to consider.)
According to Nasser, the very first demand of the Brotherhood leader was for the hijab to return to Egypt, “for every woman walking in the street to wear a headscarf.”
The audience erupted in laughter at this, then, ludicrous demand; one person hollered “Let him wear it!” eliciting more laughter and applause.
Nasser continued by saying he told the Brotherhood leader that if they enforced the hijab, people would say Egypt had returned to the dark ages (to more laughter), adding that Egyptians should uphold such matters in the privacy of their own homes.
[...]
Egypt arrests Christian over anti-Prophet posting
It’s a good thing I am a tolerant, patient, self-assured and enlightened kind of guy because if I weren’t I would be fed up to my back teeth with the intolerant, impatient, insecure and unenlightened folks of this world.
Europe cannot save the euro, nor save itself from the euro
By Christopher Booker:
It is customary at this time to act like two-faced Janus, looking back at the year that has passed while predicting what may happen in the one ahead. However, from what we have seen of the two great political fantasies of our age, it is now much easier to say what is likely not to happen. Each of these acts of make-believe has got so out of hand that a violent collision with reality is inevitable. But those who are in their grip are so locked in denial that it is only safe to predict that nothing will bring them back to earth until that nemesis intervenes.
A first prediction is that it is no longer conceivable that the sad little nonentities who preside over the affairs of the EU will be able to find any rational way out of the hole they have dug for themselves over the euro.
[...]
A Gloomy New Year’s Forecast
By IRWIN M. STELZER:
Now that you have read the results of the various economic forecasting models that have served so many so badly in recent years—they are predicting the U.S. economy will grow in 2012 at an annual rate of between 1.5 percent and 2 percent—let me offer an alternative way of looking at things. It is called ‘pick your if.’
If you believe that the recent decision of the European Central Bank to make unlimited cash available to eurozone banks for the next three years, and that the meeting next week of German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicholas Sarkozy will solve the problems created by excessive debt of some eurozone countries, you will heave a sigh of relief. You will then not have to worry whether the inevitable Greek default will be the first step towards a Lehman Brothers moment, with liquidity drying up, bank credit shrinking, and a deep recession settling over Europe, hurting American banks and exporters.
If you believe that the recent jagged but downward trend in claims for unemployment insurance foretells a drop in the unemployment rate that will be reported on Friday, and if you give weight to recent cheery numbers such as the uptick in regional indices of economic activity, you will stop worrying about the possibility of a renewed collapse in the jobs market.
If you read the recent upsurge in consumer confidence and spending to be suggesting that the demand side of the economy is ready to contribute to a more rapid recovery, you will murmur a word of thanks to the sainted John Maynard Keynes, and face 2012 with equanimity.
[...]
Building the Perfect Beast: How the Political Class & Their Cronies Rig the System
by Lee Stranahan:
The Political Class has honed a dangerous skill, building the perfect undetectable fraud machine. Americans need to learn to spot these scams for their own protection and realize that the perpetrators can come from either political party and often work in cahoots with attorneys or big business.
Think about three seemingly unconnected news stories, all examples of costly or dangerously indictable fraud machines…
The economic collapse of 2008 was caused in part by relaxed mortgage rules that allowed borrowers to get a home loan without a down payment or even proof of income in some cases.
In the Pigford settlement, claimants were able to get $50,000 checks by asserting without proof that they had “attempted to farm.”
In a move strongly supported by the NAACP and other liberal advocacy groups, the Obama Department of Justice just stopped South Carolina’s plan to put in place some minimal ID requirements for voting. Currently voters in a number of states don’t need to show any photo ID or other identity checks in order to cast a ballot.All three stories are examples of systems that have been intentionally set up with such low standards that they invite fraud. But ingeniously, they have also been set up in a such a way that makes them almost critic-proof because the lack of standards makes detection of fraud nearly impossible. When the system is questioned, the defenders, creators and beneficiaries then point to the lack of “proof” of fraud as a reason to keep the status. Thus, a self-perpetuating fraud scheme is kept alive as long as possible.
[...]
“Gender-free” Children: The Newest Fad in Public Education
By Lee Duigon:
Schools are urged to establish a “dress code to enable a student’s right to dress in accordance with their gender identity” and “the right to be addressed by one’s preferred name and pronoun” (p. 16). On the same page, the handbook recommends “access to safe restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to one’s gender identity”-in other words, teenage boys will be able to get into the girls’ locker and shower room by claiming that they “feel like a girl” today.
Schools should hire “staff with diverse gender identities and expressions” (p. 17)-yes, that seems like a good idea, doesn’t it? An even more amazing recommendation is that teachers should never address children as “boys and girls” anymore (p. 23).
“If students cling to traditional beliefs about gender,” (translation: Christian beliefs) says the handbook (p. 29), teachers ought to “challenge” them with questions-thus pitting children against adults in a debate. How often do you suppose children will win such debates? How often do you suppose they will even dare to try?
[...]
In the de-cultured gulag of Canada in which I live if I were to comment freely about this article I would be charged with a ‘hate crime’ so instead you’ll have to imagine what I think.
Walid Phares: Illogical and dangerous for Obama to release Taliban from Gitmo
by The Right Scoop:
Walid Phares says that by releasing captured Taliban from Gitmo back to Afghanistan in hopes of creating the groundwork for future negotiations, Obama is making both an illogical and dangerous move that will only show the Taliban that they can manipulate us in the future.
He says that instead of trying to win the war, Obama is trying to end the war and setting up a scenario where the Taliban could easily best us should they not keep up their end of whatever bargain we think we’ve made with them:
Liberals Remain Blind to Their Biases
By David Limbaugh:
[...]
As a conservative, I believe that many liberals proceed from good intentions, though I think their consistently horrendous results entitle us to some skepticism after a while even as to their intentions — or at least to their ability to see past their oppressive biases.
I don’t believe, for example, that they are racists because their policies harm minorities, though they often do. I don’t believe they automatically lack compassion just because their policies spread misery.
Yet many liberals do believe that conservatives are evil, uncompassionate racists because our policies don’t fit their self-serving, narrow, shallow parameters of “good intentions.”
Many leftists are so possessed by a need to be morally superior that they can’t abide the possibility that conservatives also have noble intentions. So it is that many who believe they are objective, fair, and reality-based are far less so than the objects of their scorn.
Puncture the cocoon of denial
By MARK STEYN:
Ring out the new, ring in the old. No, hang on, that should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? Not as far as 2011 was concerned. The year began with a tea-powered Republican caucus taking control of the House of Representatives and pledging to rein in spendaholic government. It ended with President Obama making a pro forma request for a mere $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. This will raise government debt to $16.4 trillion – a new world record! If only until he demands the next debt-ceiling increase in three months’ time.
At the end of 2011, America, like much of the rest of the Western world, has dug deeper into a cocoon of denial. Tens of millions of Americans remain unaware that this nation is broke – broker than any nation has ever been. A few days before Christmas, we sailed across the psychological Rubicon and joined the club of nations whose government debt now exceeds their total GDP. It barely raised a murmur – and those who took the trouble to address the issue noted complacently that our 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio is a mere two-thirds of Greece’s. That’s true, but at a certain point per capita comparisons are less relevant than the sheer hard dollar sums: Greece owes a few rinky-dink billions; America owes more money than anyone has ever owed anybody ever.
[...]
Obama’s foreign policy spin
By CAROLINE B. GLICK:
The failure of Obama’s foreign policies has been nowhere more evident than in the Middle East.
[...]
Of course, the Middle East is not the only region where the deleterious consequences of Obama’s foreign policy are being felt. From Europe to Africa, from Asia to Latin America, Obama’s determination to embrace US adversaries such as Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez has weakened pro-US forces and strengthened US foes.
So how is that that while Carter was perceived by the majority of the American public as a foreign policy failure, a large plurality of Americans views Obama’s foreign policy as a success?
Obama’s success in hiding his failures from the American public owes to two related factors. First, to date the US has not been forced to contend directly with the consequences of his failures.
Carter’s failures were impossible to ignore because the blowback from them was immediate, unmistakable and harsh. His betrayal of the shah of Iran led directly to the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and the hostage crisis. Carter could not spin to his advantage the daily stories about the hostages. He could not influence CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite’s decision to end every broadcast by reminding viewers how many days the hostages had been in captivity.
So, too, the consequences of Carter’s weakness in confronting the Soviet Union were impossible to ignore or minimize with images of Soviet tank columns invading Afghanistan dominating the news.
To date, Obama’s foreign policy failures have yet to explode in a manner that can make the average American aware of them.
[...]
The message is simple: Don’t listen to the Republican Party Establishment
Daren Jonescu:
The Republican and media Establishments have joined hands in an attempt to lead America buoyantly, triumphantly off the cliff into the bottomless pit of civilizational dissolution. They have fought their version of the good fight, prematurely creating the optics, and, if all goes well, the dynamics, of a two-man race, where in fact there are six men and a woman.
They have settled all their chips on the two candidates who are least conservative, most establishmentarian, and, in their actions and rhetoric, most pragmatic and unprincipled. And they have done everything within their considerable power to disseminate the irrational narrative that now, before a single vote has been cast, life stinks for anyone who is not in one of the two anointed camps.
So what else is new?
[...]
Our Growing Police State
By Matt Holzmann:
Last week, the FBI released its preliminary crime statistics for the first half of 2011, and across the nation violent crimes dropped 6.7% while property crimes dropped 3.7%. This continues a downward trend that dates back to the 1970′s.
Many of the violent crimes reported this year have been sensational. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and Federal Judge John Roll were targeted by a lone, crazed gunman and there were a number of other gruesome crimes. The Giffords/Roll shooting was brought to an end by a bystander. The Ft. Hood massacre on November 5, 2009, which killed 13 American soldiers and wounded 29 others was brought to an end by two base police officers using conventional sidearms and procedures. The warning signs for this terrorist attack, the first on American soil since 9/11, were ignored and yet it was the local cops on the beat who faced and dealt with a terrible crime.
Every case one can think of was resolved by conventional methods. And yet the police powers of government on a local and national level have been growing at an alarming rate. And despite a dissonant data base there is a growing trend towards militarization of police forces and of an invasive state security apparatus.
[...]
IDF’s unparalleled record of sparing civilians in counter-terrorism operations
IDF’s unparalleled record of sparing civilians in counter-terrorism operations
“If You Said You Were a Christian, They Killed You”
by Anna Mahjar-Barducci:
Nigerian Christians are under attack. On Christmas day, the Islamist group Boko Haram targeted churches in Nigeria’s capital, killing 40 innocent people. Boko Haram — literally “Western Education is a Sin ” — opposes whatever comes from the West, such as education, culture and science, and considers Christians as an obstacle to building an Islamic caliphate.
Boko Haram has recently increased its attacks against Christian Nigerians, who make up 48.2% of the country’s population. Last November, of Boko Haram killed 150 Christians and bombed 11 churches. “It was a direct attack against Christians. Members of Boko Haram asked: ‘Are you a Christian or a Muslim’ If you said you were a Christian, they killed you. […] I saw someone who was slaughtered like a lamb in front of a church,”said a representative of the Christian Association of Nigeria.
[...]
The Center for American Progress’ Jihad Against the Free World
by Daniel Greenfield:
The colors of the American flag are red, white and blue, but the colors of the Center for American Progress are red, white and green. Red for the left and green for Islam.
The Center for American Progress is not just any organization. Headed up by John Podesta, a co-chairman of Obama’s transition team and backed by a 38 million dollar annual budget, it is George Soros’ most ambitious attempt to turn his Shadow Party into a shadow government. CAP is the organization with the single greatest influence on the Obama White House and its foreign and domestic policy.
CAP is more than just another think tank; it’s a lever for shifting the Democratic Party further to the left, bought and paid for by George Soros and a roster of secret donors whose names are not made public by the secretive and powerful organization. Those who buy influence with it also get anonymity as part of the package.
But the Center is more than a rogue billionaire’s brand of progressivism turned into talking-point groupthink by Washington insiders. It is a link between the American left and the Muslim right, articulating the Islamist agenda as a vehicle for the foreign policy of the post-American left.
[...]
Arpaio fights back against those calling on him to step down
by The Right Scoop:
This is what I love about Sheriff Arpaio, that he won’t be bullied out of office. As these rhetorical thugs in Arizona are trying to ride the coattails of the DOJ’s attack by calling for Arpaio to step down, Arpaio simply responds “Never!”:
[...]
Support the Sacketts: EPA Suit Goes to Supreme Court
by Mark Hyman:
Michael and Chantell Sackett were building their dream home on less than two-thirds of an acre of land near Priest Lake in northern Idaho. They owned a small business nearby and had been looking forward to the day when they could stop renting — they purchased the property in 2005 for $23,000. In 2007, gravel was being laid in preparation for the pouring of a concrete foundation.
However, construction screeched to a halt upon the order of three agents of the Environmental Protection Agency. The property was a federally protected “wetlands,” the Sacketts were told, and they were served with a compliance order to immediately restore the property to its prior condition.
[...]
Stealth Jihad From Our Own Administration
WALID SHOEBAT:
Our friend David Wood over at www.answeringmuslims.com exposes and explains the administrations policy on Islam and counter terror. With common sense one can only deduce our president is a stealth Jihadist.
Quebec TV Host Stéphane Gendron Says Israel Doesn’t Deserve to Exist (December 29, 2011)
Quebec TV Host Stéphane Gendron Says Israel Doesn’t Deserve to Exist (December 29, 2011)
Defend Mideast Oil, But Refuse To Build Keystone?
IBD:
As our enemy Iran threatens to close a vital waterway for the shipping of oil, plans for a secure, job-creating supply from our ally Canada gather dust on the president’s desk.
The blustering threat from the quite mad Iranian mullahs and their supremely mad leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be just a bluff, but then again it might not.
It may just be an attempt to intimidate and poke the eye of an American president perceived as weak and whose failure to support and exploit the “Iranian Spring” of 2009 may come back to bite us.
These are not completely empty threats, however.
They come at a time when the economies of the U.S. and Europe are faltering, and from a regime concerned that its work on nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry them might be threatened.
Iran sees an American president who has abandoned both Israel and Iraq to their own devices.
[...]
Tax Cuts, Less-Intrusive Gov’t Help Canada Soar
IBD:
Away from the low growth and high regulation of an America under Washington’s thumb, our northern neighbor is economically strong. As 2011 ends, Canada has announced yet another tax cut — and will soar even more.
The Obama administration and its economic czars have flailed about for years, baffled about how to get the U.S. economy growing.
In reality, the president need look no further than our neighbor, Canada, whose solid growth is the product of tax cuts, fiscal discipline, free trade, and energy development. That’s made Canada a roaring puma nation, while its supposedly more powerful southern neighbor stands on the outside looking in.
On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he will slash corporate taxes again on Jan. 1 in the final stage of his Economic Action Plan, dropping the federal business tax burden to just 15%.
Along with fresh tax cuts in provinces such as Alberta, total taxes for businesses in Canada will drop to 25%, one of the lowest in the G7, and below the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development average.
[...]
Diversity, Inc.
by Victor Davis Hanson:
‘Affirmative action” was the logical sequel to the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s. The initial reasoning was attractive enough. New guarantees of equality of opportunity were insufficient to achieve the promised social parity, given the legacy of slavery and the existence of ongoing racial bias. Therefore, to counteract the effects of historical discrimination, the race of individuals must be weighed into contemporary hiring and admissions practices. The key was to avoid the word “quota.” That did not sound very “affirmative” for a program that supposedly was about growing (or “enriching”) the pie, not a crass zero-sum game of taking a college spot or a job from one person and giving it to another on the basis of race.
Second, although slavery was confined to the Confederacy, there was the general assumption that, as blacks in the postbellum era had migrated northward, they were subjected to all sorts of bias, and so the recompense was to be a national, not just a southern, obligation.
Third, it was soon clear that all sorts of groups other than blacks could lodge historical claims against the supposedly dominant “white” culture. Soon Latinos, Native Americans, and Asians likewise petitioned for inclusion in set-aside and compensatory programs. The subtext was that these groups, given racial bias, would not intermarry and assimilate as quickly or to the same degree, and would not do as well economically, as had other terribly persecuted minorities like Jews, Italians, and the Irish, who after decades of discrimination seemingly had morphed into the so-called white majority.
[...]
15-Year-Old Behind Blaze Story on Girl Scouts Speaks Out: ‘We Were So Deceived’
by Jonathon M. Seidl:
On Tuesday, we broke the story of the Girl Scouts using one of its books to direct young girls to the liberal site Media Matters to combat media misinformation. The story took off, with everyone from Fox News to the Drudge Report covering it. The girl at the center of the story was 15-year-old Sydney Volanski, who first noticed the Media Matters reference last year and left the organization over it. Now, Sydney is speaking out.
Sydney joined the crew of “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning to explain what she found and also to talk about her website, “Speak Now: Girl Scouts Website,” which she co-edits and that was set up to expose other liberal bias within the Scouts.
[...]
Look who’s heading up the Arab League human rights observers in Syria
Rick Moran:
Maybe this is why Bashar Assad finally agreed to allow observers from the Arab League into the country to monitor the implementation of the agreement that is supposed to stop the killing.
David Kenner:
“I am going to Homs,” insisted Sudanese Gen. Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, the head of the Arab League observer mission, telling reporters that so far the Assad regime had been “very cooperative.”
But Dabi may be the unlikeliest leader of a humanitarian mission the world has ever seen. He is a staunch loyalist of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity for his government’s policies in Darfur. And Dabi’s own record in the restive Sudanese region, where he stands accused of presiding over the creation of the feared Arab militias known as the “janjaweed,” is enough to make any human rights activist blanch.
[...]
ICE launches hotline for busted immigrants
By MACKENZIE WEINGER:
As states across the nation ramp up their efforts to catch illegal immigrants, the Obama administration on Thursday launched a new free hotline for people busted on violations to get help.
The hotline, run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is available 24/7 for detained individuals to phone if they think they “may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime.”
[...]
The Obama administration has declared war on law-abiding citizens and state enforcement agencies on behalf of law-breaking foreigners. Go figure.
Unfit to Print
by Bruce Bawer:
The other day I took note here of a recent New York Times feature in which several prominent figures from the worlds of law and religion were invited to answer the question: Is religious freedom in America under threat? I focused on one of the responses, entitled “A Campaign Against Patriotic Muslims,” in which Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, maintained that when it came to his coreligionists, the answer was a definite yes. Al-Marayati painted a picture of an America awash in “anti-Islam groups” and “Muslim haters” who make life difficult for American Muslims, whom he depicted as overwhelmingly peaceful, freedom-loving, and terrorism-hating. It didn’t seem to matter to the Times that Al-Marayati himself is a longtime associate of and apologist for terrorists.
[...]
The Obama administration is planning a second-term attack on gun rights
The Obama administration is planning a second-term attack on gun rights
The Islamists’ fires
Michael A. Walsh:
As if further proof were needed of the fecklessness of Western civilization when confronting savagery, consider the destruction of the Institut d’Egypte in Cairo this month. Once again, the world watched helplessly while a horde of Muslim rioters wantonly annihilated a piece of history, and thus served warning that its cultural jihad against the West will advance until we stop it.
The Institut was founded by Napoleon in 1798 during his campaign in Egypt and Syria. Its ranks have included scholars from all walks of life, dedicated to researching Egyptian culture from antiquity to the present. The building, near Tahrir Square — the center of the protests that have marked the Arab Spring in Egypt — was filled with some 200,000 rare books and manuscripts. Gone now, burned in a fire, set off by a mob, that raged for more than 12 hours.
[...]
Europe’s Inexorable March Towards Islam
by Soeren Kern:
Post-Christian Europe became noticeably more Islamized during 2011.
As the rapidly growing Muslim population makes its presence felt in towns and cities across the continent, Islam is transforming the European way of life in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.
What follows is a brief summary of some of the more outrageous Islam-related controversies that took place in Europe during 2011.
In Austria, an appellate court upheld the politically correct conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife and anti-Jihad activist, for “denigrating religious beliefs” after she gave a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam. The December 20 ruling showed that while Judaism and Christianity can be disparaged with impunity in postmodern multicultural Austria, speaking the truth about Islam is subject to swift and hefty legal penalties.
Also in Austria, the King Abdullah Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue was inaugurated at the Albertina Museum in downtown Vienna on October 13. The Saudis say the purpose of the multi-million-dollar initiative is to “foster dialogue” between the world’s major religions in order to “prevent conflict.” But critics say the center is an attempt by Saudi Arabia to establish a permanent “propaganda center” in central Europe from which to spread the conservative Wahhabi sect of Islam.
[...]
Iran raises anti-US threat level. Israel’s C-of-S warns of potential for regional war
DEBKAfile:
Thursday afternoon, Dec. 29, Tehran raised the pitch of its threats to the United States when Dep. Chief of the Revolutionary Guards Gen. Hossein Salami declared: “The United States is in no position to tell Tehran what to do in the Strait of Hormuz,” adding, “Any threat will be responded [to] by threat… We will not relinquish our strategic moves in Iran’s vital interests are undermined by any means.”
The Iranian general spoke after the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group passed through the Strait of Hormuz to the Sea of Oman and into the area where the big Iranian naval war game Veleyati 90 is taking place.
[...]
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