From Dawn in Pakistan:

Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen are the only countries that continue to impose the death penalty on people younger than 18 when they committed a crime. The United States outlawed execution of juvenile offenders in 2005.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the United Nations, which holds its annual General Assembly next week, to pressure for greater protections for children.

'We are only five states away from a complete ban on the juvenile death penalty,' said HRW's Clarisa Bencomo. 'These few holdouts should abandon this barbaric practice so that no one ever again is executed for a crime committed as a child.' All states have ratified or acceded to treaties ensuring that children are not sentenced to death, HRW said, but the five in question allow the punishment in certain cases.

According to the HRW website, in Pakistan, the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance of 2000 bans the death penalty for crimes committed by persons under 18 at the time of the offense, but authorities have yet to implement it in all territories. With only 29.5 percent of births registered, juvenile offenders can find it impossible to convince a judge they were children at the time of the crime. Pakistan executed one such juvenile offender, Mutabar Khan, on June 13, 2006. 

According to AFP, Iran executed 26 of the 32 juveniles put to death since January 2005. Iranian law allows such penalties for girls of at least nine and boys of 15 or older, the report said. Six juvenile offenders have been executed there this year, the report said.
 

Read the pdf file here:

After the billions and billions -- so much of it disappearing when Arafat died, and more having gone to Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan, Saeb Erekat and all the other Fatah warlords and their children living in the West -- already sent by Infidel lands, the demands for more and still more continue, to the most spoiled group of "refugees" in the world, who fill the UNRWA rolls (no one is ever removed simply becaues he dies), a group that has taken, and taken, and used up fully half of all the sums allocated by the U.N. to the hundreds of millions of refugees in the world. And meanwhile, the rich Arabs -- who did nothing to deserve their wealth -- wallow in their trillions, in their 747s, their palaces, their grotesque skyscrapers, their shipments from Fauchon and Hediard, their trillions of dollars in arms purchases, their hundreds of billiions in financing mosques and madrasas and campaigns of Daw'a all over the Western world, and no one asks them to show that the concept of Umma includes a little sharing of that fabulous unearned wealth, with their recently-invented "Palestinian" brothers, the shock troops of the Jihad against the Infidel nation-state of Israel: 

UN, NGOs request $664.4m. aid for Palestinians

United Nations humanitarian agencies and NGOs appealed to donors on Wednesday for $664.4 million to fund humanitarian aid programs in the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.

Speaking at a press conference in east Jerusalem, UN and NGO representatives told reporters that the money was needed for over 230 projects, ranging from food and cash distribution to agriculture, education, and health and sanitation works.

The UN's humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard warned that the Gaza Strip was rapidly becoming a "welfare society" and said that some 80 percent of Gazans were currently living off of international aid.

"Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territory continue to face a crisis of human dignity," Gaylard said. "The continued erosion of livelihoods and the denial of basic human rights together are compelling Palestinians to become more and more dependent on international aid."

Gaylard added that the need for such aid in the Gaza Strip had increased in the aftermath of the IDF's Operation Cast Lead last January, and that the UN was facing "difficult challenges" in meeting such needs "due to the Israeli import restrictions from the blockade and the lack of political progress."

Gaylard also called on Israel to lift the current blockade on the Gaza Strip, halt the demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and ease movement in the West Bank.

"If the funding is not met with a freeze on house demolitions, evictions, and the construction of the [security] barrier, or if the blockade on Gaza isn't lifted, [the money] won't make much difference," Gaylard added.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post after the conference concluded, Christopher Gunness, the spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said, "It's absurd that we are asking the world community to pay hundreds of millions of dollars not just to mitigate the effects of the occupation, but of collective punishment."

Gunness said his organization "is appealing for a quarter of a million dollars in Gaza, and that is because collective punishment has forced hundreds of thousands of people below the poverty line this year alone."

He added that the number of Gaza residents living in abject poverty had jumped from 100,000 to 300,000 over the last year.

"And we're asking the world community to pay for it," he said.

Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

Look here.

This statue is so wonderfully un-Islamic that it would be churlish to complain. Let Indonesia, "the most populous Muslim nation in the world" blah blah, put up all the statues it wants of anyone it wants: Obama, Tiger Woods, Dr. Seuss, Ernie and Bert. . Let the dour al-qaradawis and zakir-naiks rage. And let the theme of Islam as a vehicle of Arab imperialism start to be discussed, in various versions of Bahasa, all over the place.After all, who has endured more directly the cruelty and viciousness of Arab Muslim masters more than all those women and girls from Indonesia, both the ones who work in Saudi Arabia and who make it back alive to Indonesia, and the ones who work in Saudi Arabia and don't.

In the original version of this song, the one Jeanette Macdonald first made famous in Ernst Lubitsch's "Monte Carlo" (in which she played opposite Jack Buchanan), in 1930, the lyrics are:

"Beyond the blue horizon/Lies the rising sun." 

But when she sang this song, in the middle of a war, as part of a USO tour, to American soldiers who were fighting not only the Nazis but also the adherents of Kodo, from the Land of the Rising Sun, that phrase had to be changed. And so it was.

She now sings: 

"Beyond the blue horizon/Lies the shining sun." 

Years quickly passed. Gody  promchalis' (as Pyotr Leshchenko sang the other day). And now it is back to the original lyrics.

A good song to put up, when you are enduring  round-the-clock unassuagable insomnia.A way of pretending you look forward to the dawn.

Tiger Woods surely wants desperately right now to play golf. Devoutly would he wish that there were a golf tournament -- no, a dozen tournaments -- that he could be playing in, playing in non-stop and seriatim, or even simultaneously --  at this point it hardly matters. He just wants to be out on the green, any green or mondegreen, both far from and deep within the madding crowd, among all those welcoming and inoffensive lies. He wants to be seen to be in love right now, with what, next to himself, has always been his steadiest and truest love: golf. 

"No red nor white was ever seen/So am'rous as this lovely green." 

He would wrap his cold heart in a player's hide, and hope to ride out the storm.

At least, that's my brittle take. That's my groatsworth of wit.

The mainstream British press has not taken this up yet, not even the Daily Star who usually keep a close weather eye on Amjem Choudary and his minions. I found it on the Pakistan Christian TV website.

I have managed to find a cache of the Islam4theUK website for this forthcoming 'event'. I don't care a tinkers cuss for their copyright. Here it is in full, before it disappears.

THE BIG DEBATE :: JESUS4SHARIAH (18/12/09)
Jesus4Shariah Campaign

Jesus (Eesa (as)) was the penultimate Prophet sent by God (Allah) to bring mankind out of the darkness and hegemony of man-made law, into the perfection and beauty of divine law.

Sadly, his character is one of the most controversial in the world today, with Jews rejecting him and Christians elevating him to the blasphemous status of son of God or even God Himself; Muslims on the other hand venerate him as one of the most important Messengers of God, who will return one day, break the cross and prove to the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) the truth of Islam.

In light of this, Islam4UK, a platform for Al-Muhajiroun, have decided to launch a unique campaign in the run up to Christmas, challenging Jews and in particular Christians to an open debate on the true message of Jesus.

This event has been booked for 18^th December 2009, precisely one week before Christmas Day and we hereby call out to all Christian leaders in the UK to come forward and defend their claim to Jesus on this special day, if they sincerely believe they are on the truth.

If you or anyone you know are interested in participating in the debate and would like to know more about arrangements for the day please contact Abu Yahya on 07961577221.

You will also witness several articles as a precursor to this event, outlining the life of Jesus (peace be upon him) and his mission, in light of the Qur'an and Sunnah. Indeed, as Muslims we believe that Jesus was a Muslim, and moreover that if he were alive today, that he would reject the evil bureaucracy of man-made law and wholeheartedly embrace the divine law (Shari'ah)of the Final Messenger sent to the whole of mankind, Muhammad (saw).

Contact Information:

General Enquiries: 07961577221 (Abu Yahya)

Media Enquiries: 07956 041 034 (Abu Rumaysah)

No venue is yet announced. They soon quick rearranged the Sharia4theUK march in October into a low profile rally in Walthamstow when they were challenged.
23 years ago it was a banner across the Lea Bridge Road mosque which read "God is only one, HE HAS NO SON" which made me realise that Islam is not a religion with which one can easily agree to differ.
I hope this latest effort by Islam4theUK will be the wake up call needed to the well meaning Jews and my fellow Christians, the sort who intend to stand in solidarity with the Harrow Mosque against SIOE on Sunday, that Islam, as my father in law once put it "Is not the Church of England, just without Hymns Ancient and Modern".
Funny thing, some people of Harrow declare that the borough is happily multicultural and intends to stay that way, yet I don't hear of the Hindus and Sikhs of Harrow, a hard working and law abiding group if ever there was, standing with the Mosque. What do they know that the Christians and Jews don't yet?
Here's where they find out. I find the above assertions incredibly offensive.
I think push will soon come to shove in our dealings with this incompatible ideology.

Amil Imani, my colleague at Former Muslims United, spoke with me after his exhausting 36 hour stint during the massive student-inspired demonstrations in Iran this week. In addition to his cogent commentary, he has been an active conduit for translating Twitter and Facebook postings in Farsi by Iranian demonstrators and getting those to mainstream cable news outlets like CNN and Fox News. We have been discussing the emergence of a groundswell of opposition throughout Iran to the Islamic Republic.

He noted that student demonstrators were flying Iranian rather than Islamic Republic flags and were shouting slogans against Ayatollah Khamenei and the ruling mullah clique. Imani believes that the statements of Ahmadinejad about the jeopardizing of the return of the twelfth hidden imam from the holy well for the Mahdists in Qum bespeaks of  ‘panic’ at what is occurring among the clerical and political regime leaders in the Islamic Republic.

Imani sees these truculent demonstrations in Iran as the rise of increasing demands for a secular republic to replace the corrupt tyrannical reign of the Mahdists mullahs.

He forwarded an email by an observer showing the depth of this resentment of Iranians in the Tehran, region of the Mullahs, Ahmadinejad, the Basiji para-military goons and the Revolutionary Guards.

My Dear fellow Iranians,

I have just come back after 2 weeks visit to our imprisoned land. Let me make one thing completely certain, MOST EVERYONE HATES (With a CAPITAL H) this Murderous regime. For 2 days I chartered a Taxi and traveled throughout the city of Tehran. From Rah-Ahan in South Tehran to Tajrish and Niavaran up north, and from Narmak in the East to Amir Abad in the West of this City and had conversations with ordinary people, and make no mistake about it, at least 9 of out 10 people that I was able to talk with HATE Khomeini, Khamenei and above ALL Ahmadinejad. Even people whom I could trust that are on government pay roll or are current members of either Basij or IRGC dislike/hate this tyrannical Regime. There is a simple reason for this, the regime has lost every ounce of legitimacy that it had among even its own supporters, and the regime knows it very well.

The economy is even in worse shape than 3 months ago; young and old are stressed out and fear for the future. Situation is beyond Explosive, and even the Mullahs and the higher ups in the IRGC command structure know that they are sitting on top of a RAGING Volcano. If any of the regime's apologists have any doubts about what I had said here, then I would suggest to them to hop on a plane and go and find out for themselves.

Nobody in Iran, and especially the wonderful young men and women of our country has anything but curses to say about Khomeini and Khamenei. The regime is eating its own people and Khamenei/Ahmadinejad Gang is arresting and humiliating the members of Rafsanjani Gang on a daily basis.

As I told to both the young men and women in Iran, the current situation for this regime is not sustainable, and hence the Day of Reckoning is fast approaching. Simply said; People are MAD as Hell, and are not going to take it anymore.

Salutations to ALL the True Sons and Daughters of Iran. 

Mehdi2009

And it is not just in major urban areas that there is resentment and opposition against the corruption and vote fraud in the June election, it has also taken root in the rural areas that account for 32 percent of Iran’s 70 million population.  Witness these results of polls taken in Iran’s rural areas published on the InsideIran blog:

The two post-election polls showed that 39 percent of the youth and 23 percent of the older age group who had voted for Ahmadinejad now regretted their vote. The stated reasons for this: the raping, killing, and torture of young men and women who had participated in demonstrations after the June elections and the realization that Ahmadinejad was to blame for the economic situation. Interestingly, the September poll showed that 63 percent of the anti-Ahmadinejad youth group, who were in a major city in June and July due to work, joined demonstrations. Another 22 percent said they would have liked to join but were working, though all said they wore green wristbands. One respondent, a 22-year-old Mousavi supporter, who wore the green wristband that has become the signature of the opposition, told me: “Look, I am not educated and I don’t understand politics the way you do. This village has a population I think of around 8,000. My guess is Ahmadinejad got 50 percent of the votes. He is not as loved in the provinces, or at least here, as much as city folk think he is. I personally know three-hundred people from amongst friends, family, and acquaintances who voted for Mousavi. Now they say in our entire village only 43 people voted for him. Do they take me for a fool?”

Today’s Wall Street Journal had a column, “Iran’s Democratic Moment” by Amir Taheri that resonates these developments that could shake the very foundations of the Islamic Republic.

The various opposition groups that constitute the pro-democracy movement have already called for another series of demonstrations on Dec. 27, a holy day on the Muslim Shiite calendar. Meanwhile, the official calendar of the Islamic Republic includes 22 days during which the regime organizes massive public demonstrations to flex its muscles. Since the controversial presidential election last June, the pro-democracy movement, in a jujitsu-style move, has used the official days to undermine the regime.

On Jerusalem Day, Sept. 18, officially intended to express anti-Semitism, the opposition showed that Iranians have no hostility toward Jews or Israel. One popular slogan was "Neither Gaze nor Lebanon! I only give my life for Iran!" Another was "Leave Palestine alone! Think about our Iran!"

On Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, the opposition distanced itself from the regime's anti-American rhetoric. The democrats instead expressed anger against Russia and China, which are perceived as allies of the Islamic Republic. One slogan was "The Russian Embassy is a nest of spies!"

The chant “Death to Russia” also joined the more typical “Death to America” chant On November 4. The slogan raises questions as to whether Russia has decided to elevate its assistance to Iran in a bid to influence U.S.-Russia negotiations.

“Most significantly, the movement that started as a protest against the alleged rigging of the election that gave a second term to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been evolving. The crowds' initial slogan was "Where Is My Vote?" and the movement's accidental leaders, including former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi, tried hard to keep the protest confined to demands such as a recount of the votes and, ultimately, a runoff in accordance with the law.

The slogans of the protestors are no longer about election fraud. Today they include "Death to the Dictator," "Freedom Now," and "Iranian Republic, Not Islamic Republic!" One slogan is a direct message to President Barack Obama: "Obama, Are You With Us or With Them?"

In short, the protestors no longer regard the present regime as the legitimate government of the country.

It is clear the democracy movement is in no mood for deals with Mr. Khamenei, who they castigate for having betrayed his constitutional role of arbiter by siding with Mr. Ahmadinejad even before the official results of the election were declared. The demonstrators now burn his effigies; tear up posters showing his image, and chant violent slogans against him. One popular slogan goes: "Khamenei is a murderer! His guardianship is invalid!"

Is this a "hinge moment" in Iranian history as Taheri comments that could see the 30 year nightmare of the Islamic Republic end and a secular republic rise in its place?

Imani thinks it could be. But, as he says, it needs a push from the US in the form of gasoline and financial sanctions that could crack the faltering economy and possible end the regime. To that point we note that the US House of Representatives has scheduled a floor vote on the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act for next Tuesday. Getting your Members of Congress to pass  that would be an important message of support for Iranian demonstrators seeking regime change. It is also time to get rid of Islamic Republic apologists in the US like Trita Parsi of NIAC who has promoted dialogue with the Mullahs in the feckless Obama White House. That would clear the way possibly for US support to assist in creating a civil society in Iran.

“It is bad enough to have the end-of-the-worlder zany Mullahs’ itchy fingers on the nuclear trigger. The idea brings to mind images of the long-prophesied and dreaded Armageddon. What is worse is to be lulled into believing that the ever-dishonest Mullahs are actually sincere in honoring their commitment to abandon the quest for their nuclear holy grail while they continue to do so and reap the huge side benefits for their “concession,” Imani articulates.

Addressing President Obama, Imani says, “the Mullahs’ regime of Iran poses an existential threat to not only the Middle East, but to the entire world. The Mullacracy is sinking. Don’t throw it a lifeline by making a deal with it. Any concession the Mullahs make is not worth a rat’s tail. Deal with the 50 million or so Iranians on the ground. They are yours and the world’s surest bet for ending the Islamists’ menace for good.

The Washington Times has a report on the 5 Virginia residents detained in Pakistan as possible al Qaeda recruits in which CAIR blows it horn that they contacted the FBI about these ‘missing young men.’  That’s a new twist for the defamed Muslim brotherhood front that figures prominently in the book, Muslim Mafia co-authored by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry. Ibrahim Hooper and Nihad Awad, CAIR founder, allege that the families of these young men, all carrying US passports, contacted them to find out why they went missing and CAIR in turn contacted the FBI. Here are their comments in this Washington Times report:

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said the five men raised concerns among their families when they left the country unannounced in November. After leaving, some of the men made calls back to the United States and the overseas ring raised additional suspicions.

The five all live in Northern Virginia and are acquaintances, but Mr. Hooper would not give additional information about the men to protect their families or compromise the ongoing investigation.

"The Muslim community took the lead in bringing the case to law enforcement authorities," Mr. Hooper said.

Nihad Awad, CAIR's national executive director, said at a Washington news conference that he had seen an 11-minute video left behind by one of the men, all reportedly 25 or younger. He said that in the video, the man "made references to the ongoing conflict in the world and that young Muslims have to do something."

"The video's about 11 minutes and it's like a farewell. And they did not specify what they would be doing. But just hearing and seeing videos similar on the Internet, it just made me uncomfortable," Mr. Awad said.

Johari Abdul-Malik, a local imam who is president of the Muslim Society of Washington, D.C., said family members saw nothing suspicious in their behavior.

"From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized," Mr. Abdul-Malik said.

The CAIR spokesmen comments appear to be disingenuous. But then Hooper and Awad are past masters at spreading taqiyya

The five suspects probably all grew up and attended radical mosques in Wahhabi Alley in northern Virginia like Dar al Hijrah. Dar al Hijrah was the nexus where radical American born Yemeni Imam Anwar al –Awlaki had preached and recruited for terrorist groups.

Why should we be surprised that Wahhabi Alley Mosques like Dar al Hijrah that spawned Fort Hood mass shooter, the Jihadi Major Hasan, wouldn’t also be the source of al Qaeda and Taliban recruits and future home grown terrorists?  We shouldn’t. 

The real danger is that these five young Muslim Americans were carrying US passports and that is troubling. Note what a US military intelligence official said in this Washington Times report:

The U.S. military intelligence official said Pakistan told the U.S. of the arrests Wednesday. He added that getting five American recruits would be a major coup for al Qaeda or any other Islamist jihad group.

"[CIA Director] Michael V. Hayden, [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike] Mullen and others have long said that al Qaeda was recruiting and training Westerners and people familiar with the West," the military intelligence official said. "U.S. passports are especially prized."

The enormous value of Americans to al Qaeda means that the group takes extra care with U.S. recruits. However, the military intelligence official explained, this also makes it difficult to determine at what stage of training the group may have been.

Michael Cutler, a former Immigration special agent and critic, had this comment in an email:

As you read the news article, please pay special attention to the way that terrorists often use false names or alter their names in order to hide in plain sight as they go about their preparations to carry out terrorist attacks.

The use of false names is a component of how immigration fraud is often perpetrated. I have been doing everything in my power, ever since I decided to speak out about the way that terrorists and criminals have become adept at gaming the immigration system in order to conduct their crimes of extreme violence against their innocent victims.

Immigration fraud was what made the terrorist attacks of 1993 in our country possible, first at the CIA in January 1993 and then, just one month later when terrorists planted and detonated a powerful truck bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center that left 6 innocent people dead, hundreds injured and an estimated one half billion dollars in damage inflicted on that iconic jewel of the Manhattan skyline.

As I have also noted, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the agency of the Department of Homeland Security that is charged with adjudicating all of the various applications for immigration benefits including the conferring of resident alien status upon aliens and even United States citizenship. That agency has been blasted in a succession of reports of investigations conducted by the GAO (General Accountability Office) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) which is the "Internal Affairs" unit for every government agency.

Something is going on in American Mosques and it is spawning homegrown Jihadis. Note that this revelation follows  the recent indictments by US prosecutors in Minneapolis of Somali American émigré recruiters for Somali terror group al Shabaab who appear to have close connections to local area Mosques. According to a recent report by the Mapping Sharia project of the Center for Secuity Policy, three quarters of American Mosques are funded by Saudi Wahhabist groups espousing Jihad Islamic doctrine. That is the ideological soil that is nurturing the rise of home grown American recruits for Islamic terror groups. Will our politically correct counterterrorism programs and immigration enforcement programs do anything to deter this?  Somehow given the current outreach to the Muslim umma by President Obama, we sincerely doubt it.
 

Historian Andrew Roberts' address to the Anglo-Israel Association is reproduced in full here (with thanks to Alan). It ends with the following:

It seems to me that there is an implicit racism going on here. Jews are expected to behave better, goes the FO thinking, because they are like us. Arabs must not be chastised because they are not. So in warfare, we constantly expect Israel to behave far better than her neighbours, and chastise her quite hypocritically when occasionally under the exigencies of national struggle, she cannot. The problem crosses political parties today, just as it always has. William Hague called for Israel to adopt a proportionate response in its struggle with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2007, as though proportionate responses ever won any victories against fascists. In the Second World War, the Luftwaffe killed 50,000 Britons in the Blitz, and the Allied response was to kill 600,000 Germans – twelve times the number and hardly a proportionate response, but one that contributed mightily to victory. Who are we therefore to lecture the Israelis on how proportionate their responses should be?

Very often in Britain, especially when faced with the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli bias that is endemic in our liberal media and the BBC, we fail to ask ourselves what we would not do placed in the same position? The population of the United Kingdom of 63 millions is nine times that of Israel. In July 2006, to take one example entirely at random, Hezbollah crossed the border of Lebanon into Israel and killed 8 patrolmen and kidnapped 2 others, and that summer fired 4,000 Katyusha rockets into Israel which killed a further 43 civilians. Now, if we multiply those numbers by nine to get the British equivalent, just imagine what we would not do if a terrorist organization based as close as Calais were to fire 36,000 rockets into Sussex and Kent, killing 387 British civilians, after killing 72 British servicemen in an ambush and capturing a further eighteen? I put it to you that there is absolutely no lengths to which our Government would not go to protect British subjects under those circumstances, and quite right too. So why should Israel be expected to behave any differently?

There has hardly been a single year since Brigadier-General Deedes established AIA in 1949 when a speaker has not been able to say that Israel faced a crisis, and on some occasions – in 1956, 1967, 1973 and especially in the face of the present Iranian nuclear programme today – these were existential. At a time when Barrack Obama appears to be least pro-Israeli president since Eisenhower, the dangers are even more obvious. For there is simply no way that Obama will prevent Ahmadinejad, perhaps Jewry’s most viciously outspoken and dangerous foe since the death of Adolf Hitler, to acquire a nuclear Bomb.  

None of us can pretend to know what lies ahead for Israel, but if she decides pre-emptively to strike against such a threat – in the same way that Nelson pre-emptively sank the Danish Fleet at Copenhagen and Churchill pre-emptively sank the Vichy Fleet at Oran – then she can expect nothing but condemnation from the British Foreign Office. She should ignore such criticism, because for all the fine work done by this Association over the past six decades - work that’s clearly needed as much now as ever before – Britain has only ever really been at best a fairweather friend to Israel.

Although History does not repeat itself, it’s cadences do occasionally rhyme, and if the witness of History is testament to anything it is testament to this:

That in her hopes of averting the threat of a Second Holocaust, only Israel can be relied upon to act decisively in the best interests of the Jews.
 

I knew that somewhere in Obama's Nobel Prize speech, a certain word would appear, up close and personal.  That word is: "Humility." And when Obama, "with great humility," humility of the easiest because purely rhetorical kind, acknowledged receipt of the prize I, listening to the radio, felt my eyes glisten as I silently acknowledged to myself that I had guessed correctly. Yes, I know what you are going to say. You're going to say that it was obvious, that anyone could have predicted it, that I'm silly to feel any satisfaction at all, much less feel proud of myself.

But I do.  In all humility, I do feel proud of myself.

Listen here.

Muslims want to get their hands on a stone. This time it isn't to lapidate some hapless rape victim, but to preserve "Egyptian" identy. Ben Macintyre in The Times:

The first sight of the Rosetta Stone was so remarkable that the Napoleonic Army, it was said, immediately snapped to attention: “It halted itself and, by one spontaneous impulse, grounded its arms.”

Quelle surprise! You could knock me down with a white feather. Anyway, back to our muttons.

An edict in honour of Ptolemy V, the Macedonian-Greek Pharaoh, written in three scripts, deciphered by a British and a French scholar, the stone not only unlocked the written secrets of Ancient Egypt, but stands as a vivid symbol of how intellectual changes move with physical artefacts, by conquest, colonisation and trade, but also through the free, borderless exchange of ideas.

This object — partly Hellenic in origin, Ancient Egyptian in provenance, the subject of Anglo-French scholarship and an object of universal reverence and importance — is now the focus of a furious repatriation debate.

Zahi Hawass, the formidable secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has demanded that the stone, which he calls an “icon of Egyptian identity”, be returned from the British Museum to Egypt. “We own that stone,” he told al-Jazeera television recently. “The motherland should own this.”

For Dr Hawass, and many others in so-called “source” countries, this is a simple issue of restoring looted cultural property: “For all of our history, our heritage was stolen from us. They [the British Museum] kept it in a dark, badly lit room until I came and requested it.”

There are several objections to this, beginning with what he means by “we” and “the motherland”. Modern Egypt did not exist in 1799, let alone in 196BC, when the stone was carved. Unlike some controversial items in Western museums, the stone was not smuggled away, but handed over to the British as part of a legal treaty, signed not only by the French and British, but by the Ottoman Government in Egypt.

As for the absurd notion that it was undervalued and poorly exhibited: the Rosetta Stone has been on almost continuous, prominent display since 1802, the single most visited object in the entire museum.

But more than that, the Rosetta Stone is an emblem of universality, and a product of the multiple cultures that existed in the 2nd century BC, in what we now call Egypt. Dr Hawass, a brilliant and inspiring defender of the past, has selected the wrong object over which to fight a narrow, nationalistic political campaign for “repatriation”.

Macintyre doesn't mention Islam - how little people think about Islam and how much they ought to - but surely a compelling argument against giving the stone "back" to Egypt is the way Muslims view the products of jahilia, the age of "ignorance" before Islam. Perhaps Dr Hawass is "a brilliant and inspiring defender of the past", but if he, or his successor, or the Egyptian government  falls to "adult onset Islam", the Rosetta Stone may go the way of the Bamiyan Buddhas.

If Dr Hawass is serious about preserving the legacy of ancient Egypt, perhaps he should campaign against the oppression of the Copts, who are the true Egyptians.

While we're on the subject of finders keepers, message to the Greeks on the Elgin marbles: bugger off, Greek style.

And don't get me started on the scone of Scoon, or I'll come over all Sellar and Yeatman.

From their 1970 album Ode to John Law. You don't get many blues/prog rock songs about Mary Queen of Scots.
Maggie Bell vocals, Les Harvey (brother of Alex the sensational, tragically died on stage in 1972 after an electric shock of a dodgy mic) Colin Allen on drums. He and Bell will be touring in the spring with Zoot Money in the British Blues Quintet. 

For Paul Eluard, Nusch, and friends (Man Ray, Roland Penrose, et al.) picnicking on the grass, see here.

See stern Albrecht immortalizing himself here.

Receive the unseemly message  here.

Watch, and listen, here.

Maliki delays meeting with Gates

Parliament seeks answers on bombings

By Elisabeth Bumiller and Marc Santora, New York Times  |  December 11, 2009

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived yesterday for talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but the prime minister said he was too busy to see Gates because he had to defend himself before a Parliament outraged by a recent series of bombings.

US defense officials insisted that Maliki had not rebuffed the defense secretary, but it was not until late yesterday, hours after Gates landed in Baghdad, that they said Maliki had agreed to see him this morning. Gates’s aides scrambled to rearrange his schedule.

“He certainly doesn’t consider it a snub,’’ said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “He completely understands and respects that the prime minister of this country has to be accountable to the Legislature.’’

Maliki, who is facing elections in March, is under political pressure from rivals who accuse him of security failures following the bombings. He met feverishly for more than six hours yesterday with lawmakers incensed by the five coordinated bombings on Tuesday that, US commanders said, killed 127 people.

Maliki spent part of that time pleading with lawmakers to set aside political differences that he said were undermining security, according to some who took part in a special session of Parliament called after the bombings.

The prime minister, they said, spent a good while blaming Americans for policies that he said were undermining security.

Gates did meet with the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, for more than an hour and told him, according to Morrell, that “the bombings are a tragic reminder that it’s not over yet.’’

Gates was not in Baghdad “to point out any flaws’’ in Iraqi security in response to the bombings, Pentagon officials said, although Lieutenant General Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the second-ranking US commanding general in Iraq, told reporters that “there were vulnerabilities that were exposed by the terrorists, obviously.’’

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for insurgents linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, yesterday claimed responsibility for the bombings, saying in a posting on its website that it would “uproot pillars of this government and to demolish its corners.’’ The group also claimed responsibility for large-scale bombings in Baghdad in August and October.

Pentagon officials traveling with Gates and US military officials in Baghdad said the bombings would not alter plans for the withdrawal of more than 50,000 US troops from Iraq next year.

One concern Maliki raised in the meetings with Parliament, lawmakers said, was that the Americans have released thousands of prisoners as they prepare to withdraw and turn responsibility for detainees over to the Iraqis. Maliki, according to the lawmakers, said he believed that many of those former prisoners had returned to violence.

Despite his attempts to ease the political furor that erupted after the attacks, Maliki’s rivals were relentless in their criticism.

Mohammed Salman, a Sunni lawmaker, said Maliki placed all the blame on rules put in place by the Americans and the Parliament’s failure to make changes. “Iraqis should not expect anything from today’s session,’’ he said bitterly. 

From The Times
A Muslim man was jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years today after being convicted of conspiracy to murder by plotting with Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the convicted ringleader of the foiled plan to blow up passenger jets.
Adam Khatib, 23, of Walthamstow, east London, was found guilty yesterday by a majority of 11 jurors to one following a two-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court.
Judge Mr Justice Calvert-Smith labelled Khatib “Ali’s lieutenant”.
He told him: “The gravity of your offence is extreme,” adding: “You are clearly a character capable of being charming. However, you are immature, attention-seeking and cold-hearted.”
Co-defendant Nabeel Hussain, 25, of Chingford, east London, was jailed for eight years.
The third co-defendant, Mohammed Shamin Uddin, 39, of Stoke Newington, north London, was jailed for 15 months for one count of possessing materials likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
He was also jailed for a further five years and nine months, to run consecutively, having pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm.
Prior to sentencing the trio Mr Justice Calvert-Smith echoed the words of Mr Justice Henriques who sentenced Abdulla Ahmed Ali and three other conspirators, Assad Sawar, Tanvir Hussain and Umar Islam.
He said: “The plot to murder passengers and crew on seven airliners was the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction.”
He added: “There was every likelihood that this plot would have succeeded without the intervention of the police and security services.”

Remember those analogies you get in tests?

Hand is to glove as foot is to ball/boot/mouth.
Up is to down as back is to front/back/side/stairs/ladies' chamber.

Journalists use them a lot, and they are nearly always limp. Asking "Can Britain Rise Above the Latte?", Chloe Lambert milks the analogy format and demonstrates that she is to The Times as bears are to the woods.

As with wine, over time we have learnt about coffee’s origins and how it is made. Starbucks may be the chardonnay of the Noughties — once considered the height of sophistication, now somewhat falling out of favour.

[...]

Latte is to coffee what Stock, Aitken and Waterman is to music.

Stock, Aitken and Waterman are the Liebfraumilch of the 80s, and possibly the new black.