Love thy ego as thyself. —Leonard Peikoff

My copy of The Concept of Benevolence by T. A. Roberts, in the series New Studies in Practical Philosophy, was deaccessioned from a university library. The librarian took advantage of the fact that it had not been borrowed since October 17, 1977, only four years after its publication, to disembarrass his institution of yet another book so uselessly cluttering up the library shelves. It was carefully endorsed with ugly withdrawal stamps to reduce its resale value to an absolute minimum. Perhaps the librarian was a follower of Ayn Rand, the apostle of selfishness, who did not want youth corrupted by stray thoughts of altruism. Going from the loan history of the book (and from my casual observations of British youth), there was never much danger of this, but it is always better to be safe than sorry and therefore to treat selfishness as if it were an endangered species.

Ayn Rand was never, in fact, much appreciated or very influential in Europe; at the height of her fame in America, where her books sold by the million, her name was not one to conjure with on the other side of the Atlantic. She was much read by middle-class young Indians of the time, however, as well as by Americans, and she is now coming back into fashion globally. I confess that enthusiasm for her is to me utterly mysterious, and the excellent new biography by Ann C. Heller does not clear up the mystery but, rather, deepens it.[1] Able and gifted people (not the least of them Alan Greenspan) were captivated both by her writings and her person, but the picture of Rand that emerges from Ms. Heller’s book is all the more damning because the biographer is obviously fair-minded and, indeed, something of an admirer of her subject.

Clearly, Rand was a most remarkable person, admirer and detractor must agree. She was born in St. Petersburg in 1905 into a middle-class Jewish family that hovered uncertainly between prosperity and persecution, but that nevertheless managed to penetrate into the higher echelons of Russian society. (Vladimir Nabokov’s sister was a childhood friend of Rand’s.) The Bolshevik Revolution deprived the family of everything. They fled to the Crimea in the hope that the advancing White armies would restore their fortunes, but, with the final victory of the Reds, they returned home, to live—like everyone else—in sordid and oppressed penury. At the age of twenty-one, Rand (alone of her immediate family) managed to escape to America.

There, with a determination truly admirable and heroic, she transformed herself into a writer. Although she wrote in English, and her two most famous books are American in subject matter and location, she remained deeply Russian in outlook and intellectual style to the end of her days. America could take Rand out of Russia, but not Russia out of Rand. Her work properly belongs to the history of Russian, not American, literature—and nineteenth-century Russian literature at that.

Rand’s virtues were as follows: she was highly intelligent; she was brave and uncompromising in defense of her ideas; she had a kind of iron integrity; and, though a fierce defender of capitalism, she was by no means avid for money herself. The propagation of truth as she saw it was far more important to her than her own material ease. Her vices, of course, were the mirror-image of her virtues, but, in my opinion, the mirror was a magnifying one. Her intelligence was narrow rather than broad. Though in theory a defender of freedom of thought and action, she was dogmatic, inflexible, and intolerant, not only in opinion but in behavior, and it led her to personal cruelty. In the name of her ideas, she was prepared to be deeply unpleasant. She hardened her ideas into ideology. Her integrity led to a lack of self-criticism; she frequently wrote twenty thousand words where one would do.

Rand believed all people to be possessed of equal rights, but she found relations of equality with others insupportable. Though she could be charming, it was not something she could keep up for long. She was deeply ungrateful to those who had helped her and many of her friendships ended in acrimony. Her biographer tells us that she sometimes told jokes, but, in the absence of any supportive evidence, I treat reports of her sense of humor much as I treat reports of sightings of the Loch Ness monster: apocryphal at best.

A passionate hater of religion, Rand founded a cult around her own person, complete with rituals of excommunication; a passionate believer in rationality and logic, she was incapable of seeing the contradictions in her own work. She was a rationalist who was not entirely rational; she could not distinguish between rationalism and rationality. Of narrow aesthetic sympathies, she laid down the law in matters of artistic judgment like a panjandrum; a believer in honesty, she was adept at self-deception and special pleading. I have rarely read a biography of a writer I should have cared so little to meet.

Continue reading here.

From the Swedish edition of the Local

Sweden’s National Public Employment Agency (Arbetsförmedlingen) has been fined for discriminating against a Muslim man who had his benefits withdrawn after refusing to shake the hand of a female CEO.
According to a ruling in the Stockholm District Court on Monday, the agency has been ordered to pay 60,000 kronor ($8,000) to the man after it withdrew him from a labour market training scheme when he refused to shake the hand of a female CEO at a firm with which he was seeking work experience. The court ruled that the agency was aware that the man's religious convictions prevented him from shaking hands with women he did not know.

The company elected not to offer the man an internship, later arguing that the decision was taken due to his lack of appropriate skills and experience.

According to Swedish law, after probable cause has been established for a case of discrimination, the onus is on the opponent to prove that it did not take place.  The court ruled that the agency had not been able to prove that the decision to withdraw him from the programme was not connected to his religion and thus ordered the payment of 60,000 kronor in compensation for violation of religious freedom.

There was no comment facility to this article which is a shame. I like to know what people think.

By Adam Schreck, for AP:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The world's tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks.

[...]

The precise cause of the $1.5 billion Dubai skyscraper's temporary shutdown remained unclear.

In a brief statement responding to questions, building owner Emaar Properties blamed the closure on "unexpected high traffic," but then suggested that electrical problems were also at fault.

"Technical issues with the power supply are being worked on by the main and subcontractors and the public will be informed upon completion," the company said, adding that it is "committed to the highest quality standards at Burj Khalifa."

Despite repeated requests, a spokeswoman for Emaar was unable to provide further details or rule out the possibility of foul play. Greg Sang, Emaar's director of projects and the man charged with coordinating the tower's construction, could not be reached. Construction workers at the base of the tower said they were unaware of any problems.

I haven't ever read of any jihadi threats against the Dubai skyscraper, and don't know of any Qur'anic justification to damage the property, as long as Dubai's rulers are considered sufficiently Muslim.  But maybe this was an allusion to a Mossad or CIA plot, or some other blame-the-kufar conspiracy theory.  I think shoddy workmanship and incompetence is a far more likely explanation.

[...]

The opening date had originally been expected in September, but was then pushed back until sometime before the end of 2009. The eventual opening date just after New Year's was meant to coincide with the anniversary of the Dubai ruler's ascent to power.

There were signs even that target was ambitious. The final metal and glass panels cladding the building's exterior were installed only in late September. Early visitors to the observation deck had to peer through floor-to-ceiling windows caked with dust — a sign that cleaning crews had not yet had a chance to scrub them clean.

Yemen Al Qaeda Urges Jihad, Wants Red Sea Blocked

Filed at 3:24 p.m. ET

SANAA/DUBAI (Reuters) - The Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda called for a regional Muslim holy war and a blockade of the Red Sea to cut off U.S. shipments to Israel, a further sign of the group's ambitions to mount new strikes outside its base.

Yemen is in the throes of a major crackdown on the global militant network's regional off-shoot, which grabbed the world's attention when it claimed a failed bomb attack on U.S.-bound plane in December.

Western powers and neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, fear that Yemen's growing instability as it struggles with northern Shi'ite rebels and southern secessionists, may allow al Qaeda to strengthen its operations.

"The Christians, the Jews, and the treacherous apostate rulers have pounced on you ... you have no other way out from this plight other than to wage jihad," the wing's deputy leader, Saeed al-Shehri, said in an audio tape posted on a website often used by Islamist groups.

Shehri, a former inmate of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay from Saudi Arabia, was one of 30 al Qaeda members that Yemen claimed to have killed in an air strike in December but this was later denied by the global militant network.

Shehri also said the Yemen-based wing's failed bomb attack on the plane to Detroit on December 25 had been carried out in coordination with network leader Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attack in January, weeks after al Qaeda in Yemen said it was behind it.

Shehri called on Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab insurgents to help block a narrow strait at the mouth of the Red Sea that separates Yemen from the Horn of Africa.

"At such a time the Bab (al Mandab) will be closed and that will tighten the noose on the Jews (Israel), because through it America supports them by the Red Sea," Shehri said.

The area across the strait from Yemen is far from al Shabaab's territory.

Hours after the recording was issued, Yemen's top national security body held a meeting headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and said "all necessary measures will be taken to maintain security and public order and control outlaw elements," state media reported.

CLASHES IN NORTH

Fighting in the north of the poor Arab country, where about 40 percent of the population survive on less than $2 a day, continued on Monday, state media reported. The rebels said on their website they had blocked attempts by army forces to advance near the northern city of Saada and other fronts.

The website said Saudi rockets had killed two children and wounded two others and that Saudi warplanes carried out nine air strikes in northern Yemen by mid-day on Monday.

There was no immediate official response from Saudi Arabia, which was drawn into a five-year conflict between the Yemeni government and the rebels three months ago when the rebels seized some of the kingdom's territory.

Yemen said on Saturday it had handed the rebels a timetable for implementing the government's cease-fire terms, a week after rejecting a truce offer from the insurgents because it did not include the promise to end hostilities against Saudi Arabia.

A Yemeni official told Reuters on Monday that the government had received a response from the rebels, but declined to give further details as to the nature of the answer.

"The government is still studying the response," the official said, declining to be identified.

The insurgents said they staged their cross-border raid into Saudi Arabia because the kingdom had been allowing Yemeni troops to use Saudi territory to launch attacks against them.

Saudi Arabia declared victory over the rebels last month, but has continued launching air strikes and rocket attacks against the insurgents, who say they have now quit Saudi land.

Yemeni forces also fought rebels in the north on Monday, inflicting "heavy casualties" on the insurgents, the defence ministry's online newspaper September 26 reported.

Listen here.

Watch here, for one example, this Lebanese journalist solemnly explaini how the Unitted States deliberately caused the earthquake in Haiti, as a trial run of its new "seismic warfare."

From the East London Advertiser and the Daily Mail

MUSLIM pupils as young as eight at an East End school hailed September 11 hijackers as "heroes" and said they wanted to be Islamic bombers when they grew up, a tribunal heard today.
Former Christian teacher Nicholas Kafouris told how he was faced with anti-Semitic and anti-Christian remarks from pupils at Bigland Green Primary School who openly praised the twin tower bombers as "martyrs".

Mr Kafouris, 40, told how one pupil said to him, ‘Don’t touch me, you’re a Christian’, when the teacher accidentally brushed against him with his arm. Others said, ‘We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up', and 'the Christians and Jews are our enemies, you too because you're a Christian', he added.  Mr Kafouris, who had taught at Bigland Green Primary School, in Tower Hamlets, East London, for 12 years, said there was a change in attitude of pupils at the school - where the majority of pupils are Muslim - after the World Trade Center attacks.

According to the most recent Ofsted report 'almost all' the 465 pupils at the school are from ethnic minorities and a vast proportion do not have English as their first language.  Mr Kafouris, a Greek Cypriot, said pupils told him, 'We hate the Christians' and, 'We hate the Jews', despite his attempts to stop them.

The teacher is now suing his former school, the headteacher, and the assistant head for racial discrimination after they failed to take action about the comments made by pupils to him.

He had filled out a 'Racist Incident Reporting Sheet' but claimed the headteacher Jill Hankey dismissed his concerns. In a statement submitted to the Central London Employment Tribunal he said: 'Miss Hankey proceeded to excuse and justify the pupil's behaviour, conduct and remarks to me as if I had no right to be offended by the child's remarks and conduct. He added: 'I felt the head's behaviour and conduct towards me amounted to direct religious discrimination against me which I considered most offensive.  I was intimidated in the way she spoke to me which indicated, “Don't come back with such issues again”.'

He said: 'In late November and December 2006 a number of unacceptable and blunt racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian remarks were being made by various children in Year 4 where I taught, such as, 'We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up”,  “The twin tower bombers are heroes and martyrs”, “We hate the Jews”, “We hate the Christians”, “The Christians and Jews are our enemies, you too because you're a Christian” - directed to me personally.  'Some children were expressing delight at the death and killing of people of other cultures and religions: In the last week of November 2006 a child was talking about stabbing another child and I told him this was dangerous talk and that a lawyer had recently been stabbed by teenagers; his reply was:, “I'm glad that man died”, 'Why?' I asked. “Because he's a Christian and English and we're Muslim”.'

Mr Kafouris said he again tried to speak to the headteacher about it.  He said: 'The head's response was hostile and offensive again. The very first thing she said to me was: “Oh you again! You're the only teacher that reports these things! Nobody else does!”. 'Four times she repeated: “It's because of your lack of discipline that they're saying these things”.'

His case against Tower Hamlets Borough Council, Miss Hankey, Miss Coleman and Bigland Green School opened today.  Former pupils of the school will give evidence. The case continues and is expected to last for 11 days.

Bigland Green School is yards from the Mosque and Madrassah known by several names including the Darul Ummah Masjid and the Da'watal Islam. It is a big complex in a former  school and has ambitions. According to an article in the Architects magazine Building and Design which I can no longer access unless I subscribe,  architects have been engaged to produce plans for a modern twist on the Islamic tradition for a new Mosque and madrasa on that site.  Never mind the brickwork, what are they teaching?

I went out this morning in a hurry and completely forgot to give advance notice of this programme on at 9pm this evening and the next 3 weeks on BBC2.
This is a BBC report HT Alan

Two young British Muslims who have served short prison sentences for terrorism offences have spoken frankly about their views to a new BBC documentary investigation into the extent of the radicalisation of Muslims in the UK.  The views of Rizwan Ditta and Bilal Mohammed, two young Muslims born and brought up in Halifax, West Yorkshire, will be anathema to the vast majority of the British people including many British Muslims.

The two are close friends. Both received prison sentences for possessing material likely to be useful to terrorists, most of it downloaded from the internet. Ditta was sentenced to four years and Mohammed to two. Both had pleaded guilty.  Mohammed has the dubious distinction of being the first to be convicted under the new offence of glorifying terrorism. Mohammed says that he was welcomed home with flowers and presents. He claims that none of the Muslim community views him as a terrorist. 
"They gave me support and comfort, saying everything is alright. Don't worry, you didn't do anything."

Ditta and Mohammed are the angry voices of an extreme element of young British Muslims today. MI5 believes there are about 2,000 extremists in the UK who pose a potential threat. The fact that these two were prepared to talk on camera for the BBC documentary series Generation Jihad is remarkable.

Sir Norman Bettison, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire - home to three of the 7/7 bombers and Britain's youngest convicted terrorist, Hamaad Munshi - draws a clear distinction between innocently searching the internet for information on Islamist extremism and doing so with a terrorist purpose in mind.

The law, as subsequently clarified, says that there has to be reasonable suspicion that possession was for a terrorist purpose. His prognosis for the future is not encouraging. What our documentary series refers to as Generation Jihad is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
"I think it's a generation of treatment to prevent the infection spreading and I think that will take us probably 20 years," he said.

The treatment will need surgery in my opinion, and maybe the social equivalent of radio and chemotherapy. 
Update - I have watched episode 1. All it did was make me very cross. Apart from showing me views of Saville Town where my husband's family lived for a time it told me nothing I didn't already know, perpetuated the Mohammed al Dura myth, and took the 'small minority of extremists' line.

I like the Daily Mail report of this best.

Commander Ali Dizaei, 47, was sentenced to four years in prison for misconduct and perverting the course of justice at London's Southwark Crown Court. A jury found he attacked Iraqi Waad al-Baghdadi before arresting and attempting to frame him.

The sentence spells the end of the Iranian officer's controversial 25-year career. It also signals the humiliating demise of Britain's most controversial ethnic minority police officer, who has brazenly challenged any attempt to bring him to book over a series of alleged misdemeanours.

He emerged unscathed from a string of earlier inquiries, including a multimillion-pound undercover operation examining claims of corruption, fraud and dishonesty.  Dizaei had also been accused of hijacking the issue of race and using it for his own ends.

But his attempt to frame a young businessman who pestered him for payment over a website exposed him as nothing more than a bully and a liar who abused his position.

The Crown Prosecution Service said his actions had been all the more 'deplorable' because of his high rank.

And Met Chief Sir Paul Stephenson declared he deserved his punishment after his 'disgraceful' acts, which had damaged the reputation of the entire police service.

The jury heard Dizaei met Mr al-Baghdadi by chance in the Persian Yas restaurant, run by the officer's friend Sohrab Eshragi, in Hammersmith Road, West London, on July 18 2008. Mr al-Baghdadi, 24, approached Dizaei and asked for £600 he was owed for building a website showcasing his career, press interviews and speeches. This angered Dizaei, who had just eaten a meal with his wife after attending a ceremony at New Scotland Yard for new recruits.

The officer confronted the younger man in a nearby sidestreet where a scuffle took place and Mr al-Baghdadi was roughly arrested and handcuffed. Prosecutor Peter Wright QC said Dizaei told Mr al-Baghdadi he would 'f*** up your life' and had 'ten witnesses' who would back him up.  In one of two 999 calls Dizaei asked an operator for 'urgent assistance' before starting to arrest Mr al-Baghdadi.

When officers arrived, Dizaei handed them the metal mouthpiece of a shisha pipe, held on Mr al-Baghdadi's key ring, and claimed he had been stabbed with it. But a doctor at Hammersmith police station concluded that two red marks on the officer's torso were probably self-inflicted and did not match the pipe.  Dizaei told colleagues he had been attacked, leaving Mr al-Baghdadi in custody for 24 hours and ultimately facing prosecution.  When Mr al-Baghdadi was told he would not face any charge, he complained about his treatment and Dizaei's web of deceit slowly unravelled.

Giving evidence, Mr al-Baghdadi . . . said many people were scared of the Metropolitan Police officer because of his status in the Iranian community.  The jury also heard that Dizaei rarely paid for his meals and left his unmarked car on a double yellow line while at the restaurant.

In his defence, Dizaei said he feared he was being targeted by his own colleagues because of his role as president of the National Black Police Association.The senior officer represented Tarique Ghaffur as he threatened to sue former commissioner Sir Ian Blair for discrimination and bullying.

Nick Hardwick, who leads the IPCC, branded Dizaei a 'criminal in uniform' who threatened the reputation of the entire police service. He warned other corrupt officers that 'nobody is untouchable' and said the case will strengthen the resolve of those charged with flushing out dishonest police employees.

Born in Tehran in 1962, Dizaei was brought up in a family steeped in policing with a father who headed the traffic police and an assistant commissioner grandfather.

He claimed police work was his destiny and joined Thames Valley Police after attending boarding school and City University Law School. As politicians and senior officers worked hard to increase the number of ethnic minority recruits, Dizaei was tipped to become the first Asian chief constable.  He continued to study, eventually earning a PhD and adding the title 'Doctor' to his police business card.

In 1999, Dizaei joined the Metropolitan Police and was promoted to superintendent, based in Kensington, South-West London. It was the year the force was accused of institutional racism after the inquiry into the handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. izaei was by then vice-chairman of the National Black Police Officers Association (NBPA) and cutting a dash with his smart clothes and glitzy lifestyle.

But he was suspected of corruption and became the subject of what was to become the most expensive inquiry into a single officer. Colleagues investigated him under the codename Helios over allegations he used drugs and prostitutes, and was spying for Iran. In 2001 he was suspended until his acquittal at the Old Bailey in 2003. A second trial linked to claims he made false expenses claims was dropped at the last minute.

The Metropolitan Police said the inquiry cost the taxpayer £2.2 million. Dizaei argued that the figure was more like £7 million.

September 12, 2007: Dizaei is suspended by the Metropolitan Police Authority's professional standards sub-committee. It emerges he is the subject of three inquiries. They focus on the use of his company credit card, the Yas incident and claims he gave inappropriate advice to a defence solicitor representing a woman involved in a fatal hit and run.

September 19, 2007: Members of the Metropolitan Black Police Association (MetBPA) say they have no confidence in top officers. They say colleagues are 'appalled' at the suspension of Dizaei whom they believe is the victim of a 'sustained witch-hunt'.

December 17, 2007: Dizaei files a claim of racial discrimination against the Metropolitan Police and accuses former commissioner Sir Ian Blair and MPA chief executive Catherine Crawford of colluding to suspend him.

May 21, 2009: Dizaei attends Bishopsgate police station to be charged with misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice over the clash at Yas restaurant. The allegations follow an investigation by the IPCC.

August 5, 2009: Dizaei pleads not guilty at Southwark Crown Court. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC sets a provisional trial date for November 30.

September 24, 2009: Substantial damages are paid to Dizaei over false claims he is a bigamist.

November 20, 2009: Dizaei is cleared of misusing his corporate credit card by an inquiry led by Dorset Chief Constable Martin Baker. It finds no evidence he acted dishonestly or without integrity.

December 28, 2009: A Sunday newspaper pays compensation to Dizaei over false claims of security breaches involving an illegal immigrant.

January 11, 2010: The trial opens at Southwark Crown Court.

February 8, 2010: Dizaei is found guilty of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice. 

Watch, and listen, here.

Partout en Europe, la température continue à monter dans le débat sur l'identité nationale par Joseph Facal

Par Point de Bascule

Des nouvelles du front
Par Joseph Facal
Publié dans josephfacal.org, le Journal de Montréal et de Québec
Le 3 février 2010

Je suis de retour en Espagne. Partout en Europe, la température continue à monter dans le débat sur l'identité nationale. Ça part évidemment dans toutes les directions. En Espagne, vient de débuter le premier procès de gens accusés d'avoir organisé un tribunal islamique clandestin ayant décrété la condamnation à mort d'une jeune femme. En Italie, des députés avancent la malencontreuse idée d'ajouter la croix chrétienne dans le drapeau italien.

En France, il est acquis qu'un projet de loi encadrant le port de la burqa sera présenté. La burqa, c'est le vêtement qui recouvre intégralement le corps et la tête des femmes, à la différence du niqab qui laisse une fente pour les yeux.

Un récent sondage révélait que 65 % des Français souhaitent l'interdiction de la burqa. Ils voudraient cependant qu'elle soit interdite partout, ce qui n'est pas ce que prévoit le texte qui sera débattu. On l'interdira dans les institutions publiques, les transports en commun et à la sortie des écoles.

Le président Sarkozy ne s'est pas réfugié derrière les «experts» : la burqa, a-t-il dit, «n'est pas la bienvenue» en France. Toutes les religions doivent se pratiquer avec une «humble discrétion». L'héritage chrétien, a-t-il ajouté, a laissé des traces si profondes en France que le confronter directement exposerait les autres religions à un rejet massif.

Revenant sur les réactions outrées au référendum dans lequel les Suisses votèrent pour l'interdiction de nouveaux minarets, il demanda tout simplement : «qu'auraient choisi les Français si on leur avait posé la même question ?»

Combien de femmes portent cet habit ? On estime leur nombre à environ 2000 dans toute la France. Près d'un Français sur deux admet ne croiser une femme ainsi vêtue que «rarement», voire «jamais». Mais ils en font une question de principe : celui de ne pas accepter un symbole qui n'est pas religieux, mais politique, et qui incarne l'asservissement de la femme et le rejet de l'Occident. Quand un principe est en cause, qu'il y en ait 20, 200 ou 2000 ne change rien.

Cette semaine, sort aussi en librairie le témoignage-choc de l'artiste Bérengère Lefranc. Française de souche, elle a porté la burqa pendant un mois. Pour voir. Son expérience sociologique a immédiatement tourné au cauchemar, mais elle a tenu le coup.

From an article by Noah Pollak: 

"Meet Gita Sahgal, the head of Amnesty’s gender unit. She went public with her disgust after spending two years in a failed effort to separate Amnesty from Begg:

“I believe the campaign [with Begg's organization, "Cageprisoners"] fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights,” Sahgal wrote in an email to the organisation’s leaders on January 30. “To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment.”

No kidding. But this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Amnesty responded to her going public by suspending her. The excellent British blog Harry’s Place has posted her statement:

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when a great organisation must ask: if it lies to itself, can it demand the truth of others? For in defending the torture standard, one of the strongest and most embedded in international human rights law, Amnesty International has sanitized the history and politics of the ex-Guantanamo detainee, Moazzam Begg and completely failed to recognize the nature of his organisation Cageprisoners. …

The issue is a fundamental one about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination and fundamentally undermine the universality of human rights.

Or, as a British blogger puts it, “upholding concepts of due process and women’s rights may not be best served by strolling along to Downing Street hand in hand with Moazzam Begg, a Salafi Islamist who has attended Jihadi training camps in Afghanistan and Bosnia.”

Listen here.

From The Sunday Times:

GOOGLE is developing software for the first phone capable of translating foreign languages almost instantly — like the Babel Fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

By building on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation, Google hopes to have a basic system ready within a couple of years. If it works, it could eventually transform communication among speakers of the world’s 6,000-plus languages.

[...]

However, some experts believe the hurdles to live translation remain high. David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University, said: “The problem with speech recognition is the variability in accents. No system at the moment can handle that properly.

“Maybe Google will be able to get there faster than everyone else, but I think it’s unlikely we’ll have a speech device in the next few years that could handle high-speed Glaswegian slang.

“The future, though, looks very interesting. If you have a Babel Fish, the need to learn foreign languages is removed.”

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the small, yellow Babel Fish was capable of translating any language when placed in the ear. It sparked a bloody war because everyone became able to understand what other people were saying.

Some people, David Crystal included, may actually wish to learn foreign languages, and possibly for pleasure rather than profit. Let's have a look at this "automated translation" by running the last couple of paragraphs of the Sunday Times article through Babelfish. Here they are, translated into German and back into English: 

„The future, although, looks very interesting. If you have a Babelfish, the necessity to learn foreign languages removed.

“In the leader of the Trampers to the galaxy, the small, yellow Babelfish was capable of of each possible language of translating, as put into the ear. It transmitted a bloody war, because everyone became able to understand what other people said. 

There you go, English as she is spoke.

From Irish Central

A Muslim man has gone to the High Court in Ireland demanding that he be allowed bring in his second wife to Ireland.The native of Lebanon, where polygamy is allowed, says his polygamous marriage must be recognized.

Liam Egan, a member of the Muslim Public Affairs Congress, told the Irish Sunday Times the man was being discriminated against unfairly. “It is draconian to treat this family differently,” said Egan. “Ireland discriminates against Muslims seeking citizenship by asking them to sign an affidavit. The state should not be interfering in families like this. It is silent on adulterous affairs but the moment you try and do something honourable by bringing a woman into a marriage, even a polygamous marriage, there is an issue.”

The man first entered Ireland some years ago and claimed political asylum which was granted. It is believed there are numerous other cases involving second or even more wives awaiting the court's verdict.

He is getting anything but sympathy from the Irishmen and women in the comments section. General opinion is that he is abusing the privilege of asylum with his demands and should be returned to where he came from.

Sultan Knish is one of few clear-eyed pundits who sees what is at the core of Islamic doctrine that motivates the unkindest cuts by home grown Muslims in the West; killing innocent unbelievers under the diktat of Jihad.

In this Op-Ed on his blog, "Who are the Real Infidels? " Sultan Knish articulates a compelling and trenchant attack on the concept of kufr or infidel in Islamic doctrine - the hated unbelievers, us.  Instead Sultan Knish turns the concept of infidel under Islam on its head. He drives home the underlying point of this Op-Ed that the very acts of terror commited against us by these self-motivated Jihadis makes them the infidels in our midst and not the victims.

It is a powerful indictment of the Islamic Canon and those obsessive multiculturalists mired in the myopia of political correctness that it is only a limited few extremists among the billions in the 'peaceful' Muslim ummah, who attack us.

Note these excerpts from Sulatn knish powerful jeremiad:

Infidel - from the latin infidelis. Fidelis, Faithful, Loyal, True. Infidelis, Unfaithful, Disloyal, Untrue.

Hasan, like so many other Muslim terrorists, including Bilal Abdullah, the British born Muslim doctor who carried out the 2007 Glasgow airport attack, Alaa Abu Dhein who murdered 8 students in a Jerusalem Yeshiva or Leeds born Mohammad Sidique Khan, who carried out the 7/7 bombings, proved himself the true infidel-- incapable of gratitude, loyalty or human feelings toward anyone outside his murderous ideology. These men demonstrated that being an Islamist precludes being a good citizen of any non-Muslim country, and that their spoken word and sworn oath, their professional obligations and personal connections have no worth whatsoever. Truly no creature is as worthless an infidel as the fervent Muslim who believes in no higher duty than murdering those who have refused to accept the supremacy of his religion and culture.

While the Arabic Kufr is often mistranslated as "infidel" in practice means anyone who is a non-Muslim by way of rejecting the authority of Islam and the revelation of Mohammed. To become a Muslim is as simple as reciting the Shahada, the twelve word statement by which one accepts the supremacy of Islam's deity, Allah and its prophet, Mohammed. To refuse to do so, regardless of whether you live in Bombay, Tokyo or North Dakota, marks you as a Kufr, as a rejecter of Islam's authority over all mankind.

By marking Mohammed as the last prophet to mankind, Islam makes Sharia law and the Koran uncontestable. Mankind has two choices, the same two choices that the people of the Middle East had when Mohammed's hordes poured down on them with a lust for murder and loot in their hearts, to recite the Shahada or die. When a suicide bomber detonates himself aboard an airplane or a grinning bearded terrorist slashes the throat of his unarmed captive or a grim group of Madrassa students armed with AK-47's open fire in a public square, they are following that same momentum that demands either acceptance of Islam or death.

The war against Israel, the war against Europe, America, China, India and every non-Muslim country on the globe, which has had the misfortune of being cursed with a Muslim minority, follows that same exact narrative in which Muslims wage war against it to make supreme the Koran and the religion of Mohammed. Though this war may be dressed up in class warfare rhetoric and nationalism, it is ultimately a religious war being fought by way of terror, much as Mohammed's followers originally fought it. Its mandate is religion. Its endgame is religion. And from the religion of Islam it draws its absolute supremacy over all human norms, dissolving all obligations and oaths in the name of Allah and his prophet.

Muslims consider themselves oppressed, but what of it? The armies of Nazi Germany considered themselves oppressed, even as they ground Europe under their heel. The Communist dictators in every land took power on the back of movements formed to fight oppression. Countless hundreds of millions were murdered in the name of the oppressed. Mohammed certainly considered himself oppressed, and the graveyards of the middle east are filled with the whitened bones of the men, women and children who "oppressed" him.

And so middle class doctors in the US and the UK plot murder because they are "oppressed". Oppressed by living in countries to whom they feel no loyalty, from whom they have taken everything, and which they would rather kill than leave. That dissonance between the benefits they take in and the loyalty they do not feel marks their oppression. An oppression they can only resolve through mass murder. Rather than abiding sincerely by the values of the country in which they live or leaving it, they instead demand at knifepoint, that it follow their values instead.

This is the nature of the Muslim Infidel who takes but never gives. Who swears false oaths and takes on hollow obligations, who lies easily in the name of his deity of death, who pays no heed to any laws, but his own. The genius of Mohammed lay in his dissolution of all laws in favor of his own, thereby upending all old laws, treaties and obligations. To recreate oneself all a man had to do was recite the Shahada, and he would immediately be on the right side of a new and bloody law.

The endless plaint of Muslim victimization is a cynical ploy by those who wish to rule, rather than be ruled. The Muslim in non-Muslim countries typically enjoys more freedom than he does at home. And that is his complaint. He is not free to force women to walk a pace behind him, to beat his children and murder his daughters if they disobey him, and to know that all non-Muslims are beneath his feet. And what good is freedom to him if he cannot have these things?

Tolerance humiliates the Muslim, for in his storied past it was always he who had the choice to extend tolerance to the Kufr who were his social and political inferiors. The Muslim does not wish to be tolerated, he wishes to be obeyed. He does not want his beliefs respected in a plurality of beliefs, thereby equating them with the horrid beliefs of those he despises. He wishes that Islam alone be recognized as a true and unique belief, as the one true faith for all mankind. For by recognizing this, he becomes superior through it.

The Muslim Infidel has little investment in the Constitution or any international declaration on human rights, for he does not want all men to be equal. Such a notion is absurd and offends his sense of propriety. His idea of freedom is not the freedom to co-exist, but the freedom to be superior, to take what others have and to know that he is better than them. It was of such men that Mohammed built his horde of killers, looters and rapists who turned a once thriving region into a backward morass of fear, ignorance and poverty. It is of such men that the hordes of Islamists draw from when there are throats to be cut in Asia or Africa. For there are always men who want to toss out the old rules in favor of new ones that favor them.

By embracing Islam, the Islamic Infidel wins the legal and moral right to be unfaithful, cruel, barbaric, sadistic and a thousand other things-- so long as he does them, at least putatively, in the name of Islam. There is no deity but Allah, cries the Muslim, and Mohammed is his prophet. Meaning that he has sown up the ownership of the Creator and assured the inferiority and the rightlessness of all who do not cry likewise. Cry Allah for Mohammed, and you have automatically become superior to all the Kufr. But that cry is the cry of the faithless infidel, who populates the lands of the Kufr and mimes his friendship until the day he sees his chance and his hand fumbles for his bomb belt.

Muslim Day is coming again to Florida's State Capitol in Tallahassee on March 10th and 11th, 2010.  I was privileged to be among the several speakers at a press conference arranged by the Anti-Terror Coalition organized by Tom Trento and the team from the Florida Security Council.  Watch the video of the 2009 event and read the media coverage.  The concern is that Muslim Brotherhood front groups led by former Tampa CAIR chapter head, Ahmed Bedier, who formed United Voices for America, will once again mislead state government officials and legislators that Muslim human and civil rights encompasses all minority groups in Florida. Not true. These Muslim Brotherhood groups have an agenda to further the cause of Sharia in America and thereby dominate Constitutional guarantees under our bill of rights.  I will be speaking again during the anti-Terror coalition rebuttal conference to Muslim Day in Tallahassee.  Look for more details on this event on this blog.

MUSLIM ADVOCACY DAY 2009

A COMPREHENSIVE REPORT 

       

Tallahassee, FL
March 10, 2009 
 

From The Sunday Express

Israeli cartoonist Dry Bones has done Z Street a favor. This cartoon,"Expanding J Street",  is a call to arms to oppose the instant grass roots activism effort of  J Street following its 'merger' with 36 Brit T'zedek v Shalom chapters around the US.  As the Dry Bones cartoon trenchantly makes clear the J Street message is anything but pro-Israel, it is anti-Israel. Z Street co-founder Lori Lowenthal; Marcus, who is also on the board of University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) Hillel in Philadelphia, opposed the Hillel chapter decision to rent its facility so that J Street's executive director Jeremy Ben Ami could web cast  an address to more than 15 former Brit T'zedek chapters around the country.  Imagine these 'instant' J Street chapters on every Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) Israel Action Committee of Jewish Federations across the US.  Z Street representatives should be  on each one of these community outreach groups for equal time to rebut the presence of J Street local representatives. The quality of that possible effort was clearly shown in  what Marcus and others did who organzied a counter educational program at Steinhardt Hall on the UPENN Campus last Thursday night in Philadelphia featuring Dr. Mitchell Bard of Myths and Facts and the Jewish Virtual Library.  That in my view should be duplicated at every opportunity to get the Z Street message out there to counter J Street anti-Israel grass roots activism at meetings of  Israel Action Committees of JCRCs across America.  Kol Hakavod (all honors in Hebrew) to  cartoonist Dry Bones and Lori Lowenthal Marcus of Z Street for issuing their respective calls to arms against the likes of anti-Israel Jeremy Ben Ami and J Street.

Dr. Richard L. Benkin, reports  from Delhi about the abrupt breakoff in talks between Pakistan and India about the jihad against innocents in Mumbai in November 2008 perpetrated by terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba will allegations about logistical support from elements on Pakistan's intelligence service- the ISI.  This has thrown into serious doubt whether any joint talks will be productive. To the contrary, Pakistan may be in the dock of world opinion about being an enabler of islamic terrorism in south Asia.  What follows is Dr. Benkin's report.

_____________________________________________________________

Of course, on this Sarah Palin makes perfect sense. 

And if Iran is not bombed, and acquires nuclear weapons, with all that that will imply about American fecklessness and ineffectiveness, then he is very likely not to win. And that, in turn, means that it is likely that a candidate far less worried about global climate disruption (anthropogenic global warming) will be elected President, with no Chu, no Holdren, no Hansen. If Barack Obama cannot be made to care sufficiently about the need to prevent Muslim states, peoples, groups, from acquiring weapons of mass destruction (and working to prevent Pakistan from being able either to deliver, or transfer, what "Islamic bombs" it has managed to produce, by threatening the end of all aid, and complete destruction of its pitiful economy), perhaps he can be made to care if he realizes that little will be done to ameliorate climate distruption if he does not destroy the nuclear project of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Deal, or No Deal?

States are asserting their rights once again, as they should. Michael Boldin writes at the Tenth Amendment Center (h/t: Sunlit Uplands):

Around the country, twenty two states are currently considering a bill known as the “Firearms Freedom Act.” This bill declares that guns, accessories, and ammunition made within a state, sold within that state and kept in that state are not subject to federal laws or regulations under the “Interstate Commerce Clause” of the Constitution.

Montana and Tennessee passed a Firearms Freedom Act into law in 2009, and a number of states are moving that direction in the 2010 legislative session. In South Carolina, where a Firearms Freedom Act was also introduced in 2009, some representatives have taken things a step further.

NULLIFYING GUN REGISTRATIONS

Introduced in the South Carolina General Assembly this week is House Bill 4509 (H4509), which if passed, would make law that “no public official of any jurisdiction may require registration of purchasers of firearms or ammunition within the boundaries of this State.”

No caveat for regulations under the commerce clause. No caveat for types of firearms either. This bill says NO to all gun registrations – period.

The principle behind such legislation is nullification, which has a long history in the American tradition.

In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote in response to the hated Alien and Sedition Acts:

“The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government”

and

“where powers are assumed [by the federal government] which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them”

In short, nullification means this: The state is taking a position that a particular federal law is unconstitutional, and thus, the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

But nullification is much more than just mere rhetoric. To nullify a federal law in practice requires active resistance to it by the people and the state government.

INTERPOSITION

In the Virginia Resolution of 1798, James Madison wrote of the principle of interposition:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

Here Madison asserts what is implied in nullification laws – that state governments not only have the right to resist unconstitutional federal acts, but that, in order to protect liberty, they are “duty bound to interpose” or stand between the federal government and the people of the state.

H4509 includes strong language to assert this principle:

Federal agents have flouted the United States Constitution and foresworn their oath to support this Constitution by requiring registration of the purchasers of firearms and ammunition, and these requirements violate the limits of authority placed upon the federal agents by the United States Constitution and are dangerous to the liberties of the people

(B) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no public official of any jurisdiction may require registration of purchasers of firearms or ammunition within the boundaries of this State.

(C) Any person violating the provisions of this subsection (B) is guilty of a felony and upon conviction must be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both.

A GROWING MOVEMENT

Supporters of such legislation point to laws passed by other states that have effectively nullified federal laws around the country. Fourteen states have now defied federal laws on marijuana. And, two dozen states have refused to comply with the Bush-era Real ID Act, rendering that 2005 law virtually null and void today.

Guns, national ID cards, and weed might be just the early stages of a quickly growing movement to nullify other federal laws seen as outside the scope of their constitutionally-delegated powers. In states around the country this year, bills have been proposed to defy or nullify federal laws on health care, use of national guard troops overseas, legal tender laws, cap and trade, and even the process of collecting federal in