Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Free Speech Solidarity


With the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard on the occasion of the arrest of his would-be Muslim assassins.
Compliments to Jyllands-Posten.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A token of our Roman Heritage

And now, a little something different, for a change. When those nasty Romans weren't out conquering the world, they stayed home, engaging in all manner of domestic pursuits, or they travelled to faraway vacation spots for fun. This little gem was struck during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the 2nd emperor of Rome, and the Caesar mentioned in the Christian Bible's New Testament. Tiberius was himself a notorious debauchee, living in self-imposed and libidinous exile on the picturesque island of Capri, in his cliff-top villa, miles away from Rome. This bronze coin, or token, is 24 mm across, or about the size of a U.S. quarter. It is thought by some that this particular token, and others like it, were used in multi-ethnic brothels, to purchase various services. Just go to the room with the XIII on the door. Thus did the Romans transcend the language barrier. Artfully. It sold at auction in April of 2006 for 15,000 Swiss francs ($11,632.00). Enjoy.


Friday, January 18, 2008

Living by the Islamic Golden Rule

"The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects the kafirs dishonours the Muslims... The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam."

Sufi saint Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624), letter #163

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Time to Purge the D.O.D. of Muslims?

The dismissal of analyst Maj. Stephen Coughlin from the U.S. Department of Defense is covered here at Jihad Watch. Maj. Coughlin was one of the most highly placed individuals in the U.S. defense establishment to have a sound, and un-corrupted understanding of the role of jihad warfare in the ideology that is Islam. Now he will be gone, ousted at the behest of muslims who have penetrated the highest reach of our government. How can we even hope to understand the jihadist war being waged against the non-muslim world, let alone emerge victorious when situations like this are allowed to occur or are in fact sanctioned? Just as Sargeant Hasan Akbar tossed genades into the tents of his commanding officers on the ground in Iraq, and when the 911 jihadis drove a 757 into the building, there appear to be muslims attacking the Pentagon, only this time they have been invited in through the through the front door. Is there anyone at the top of our government with a clue? Should we continue to call it the Department of Defense, or could it be better described as the Department of Let's Not Risk Giving Offense?

I guess the pathetic Adam Gadahn, his pal Zawahiri and their ilk have friends in high places.



Update: Jihad Watch has posted an excellent summary of the issues involved in this case. See it here.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Doctrine of Constant Combat

This is a piece of a slide show at the International Herald Tribune which illustrates the point noted by Patrick Poole in his FrontPageMag.com article The Parisian Intifada and “The Project” which can be seen here.
And a funny new arabic word has come into my vocabulary: muqawama, the doctrine of constant combat.
Here's another picture from the slide show, this one of a smoldering public library in Paris. Infidel libraries have been a target of the Muslims from the beginning, since the rightly-guided Caliph Omar commanded the final destruction of the library of Alexandria as a part of his conquest of Coptic Egypt in 640 A.D. "The contents of those books," said he, "are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not. If they are, the Koran is sufficient without them; if they are not, they are pernicious. Let them, therefore, be destroyed." Hence, the precious and irreplaceable papyrus and palm leaf manuscripts kept there were burned by the clever Muslims to heat the public baths for themselves over a period of six months. That library, created at the instigation of Alexander the Great, was the vast storehouse and repository of the assembled knowledge of thousands of years of Western and Mediterranean civilization, from the pharaohs to Archimedes to St. Jerome and beyond.
Omar's cultural descendants are here, today, doing the same work. Mr. Poole lays it out in the context of the "Project" of the Muslim Brotherhood:
1) Muqawama, whether in Israel or in the West, is seen as part of the larger global jihad;
2) Little emphasis is placed on territory;
3) Death is seen as an advantage;
4) Battle is almost
(always) conducted amongst civilians.
The French intifada is taking place not only in the heart of France, but in the heart of Europe itself. Much like the 9/11 attacks that were directed at the financial and political centers of America, both symbolically and really, the constant campaign of violence by Muslims throughout Europe are intended to extend the global jihad to the deepest centers of the West. But rather than confront the West militarily, the battle against Western civilization that they have already enjoined is going to take place in the banlieues, not the battlefield. Various instruments of violence are being used, ranging from crime, rioting, and as we see in Paris today, urban warfare. Terrorism is currently used only occasionally to initiate peak periods, but we can expect its increased use as the conflict continues.
The difficulty for us on the working end of the “Civilization-Jihadist Process” is that our leaders have steadfastly refused to understand the nature of the threat and the interrelation between what is happening in Paris, France and Khandahar, Afghanistan. While different methodologies are being used, the endgame is still the same: the establishment of the global caliphate through jihad. We must come to terms with strategy and operations of radical Islam in the West, the manner in which they manage conflict, and realize the immanent nature of the threat already in our midst – a lesson the French are learning first-hand.
Until we do, the strategic planning of the forces of the global jihad, as expressed in “The Project” and other Muslim Brotherhood planning documents, will continue to meet with unimpeded success.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Defining the Terms of Debate

Daniel Larison writing in the recent on-line issue of The American Conservative makes some trenchant and crucial points with respect to the terms "Islamofascism" and "Islamophobia" in his recent article. A sample:
Like the perjorative term from which it derives, Islamofascism means whatever the person deploying it wants it to mean. It is ultimately not an attempt at description or explanation but a demon word designed to generate visceral, irrational reaction. This is precisely the opposite of the careful, deliberate, and informed responses we need to cultivate. And since it obscures the actual nature of jihadism, it is not simply a crime against the English language but a dangerous source of misunderstanding.
“Islamophobia” is a word favored by both jihadist apologists and the conventional enforcers of “tolerance” and opponents of “hate speech.” Attributing acts of violence to Islam, criticizing practices in Islamic countries, or even associating the name of Islam with crimes carried out in its name draw the charge. It, like other thought-policing labels, is a tool for defining the limits of speech and shutting down critical thinking while securing select groups from reasonable inquiry and political opposition. The term implies irrational fear and loathing and classes an entire perspective as nothing more than hatred, denying to critics of jihadism their rationality and so denigrating them as being less than fully human. Control of debate, indeed, control over whether there will even be a debate, is the goal.
"Term Limits", the title of his article, is a rather unfortunate choice of words, as it is intended to be a witty means of describing the way the terms of the debate over Islam serve to limit the scope and direction of that debate. Thinking instead that it was referring to a tired issue pertaining to domestic office-holders, I almost skipped the article entirely. I'm glad I didn't.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Power Line: Osama's Call For Unity Goes Unheeded


For those of you who don't read Power Line, this may be one reason why you should. While there are philosophical and historical reasons why we shouldn't be in Iraq, there are temporal reasons why its good that we are at this time. John H. at Power Line neatly summarizes a few of them.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The velvet underground - Femme fatale (live)

I've had a crush on Nico from the from the time I was 15 or 16 years old. Hers is a fascinating story, but ultimately culminating in her accidental death in 1988 at age 50 on the island of Ibiza where she had lived off and on. I prefer not to think about her long and tawdry descent into a heroin addiction. Images of her from those times look as though her soul has spilled out of her eyes and on to the floor into a shrinking puddle of muddy pond water. Here, though, on one of my favorites, she is bright-eyed, vulnerable and sexy as hell. Like I remember her.

Blogger won't let me do a link within a video upload, so for more on Nico, paste this into your browser: http://smironne.free.fr/NICO/bio.html

Saturday, October 13, 2007

PATHETIC


According to an official statement: "This is the first time that the Empire State Building will be illuminated for Eid, and the lighting will become an annual event in the same tradition of the yearly lightings for Christmas and Hannukah."
Another word that comes to mind would be ignominious. In strict muslim societies only muslims are allowed to wear green clothing as an indication of their superiority. For a non-muslim, wearing green was punishable by death. Christians and Jews were relegated to not-green and in addition had their own religion-indicating colors of clothing and mandatory cloth patches to identify them as non-muslims in the islamic heirarchy of being. This was a fashion innovation the Nazis stole and used in the 1st few years of their 1000 year reich.
Green is the symbolic color of Islam. Green was also the color of the banners used on the battlefield when conquering and enslaving our cultural ancestors, the Egyptians, the Judeans and the Greeks, and the color of the first Islamic flag. And Mohammad's turban.
Now it is for non-muslims to become the color of capitulation and cultural self-abnegation. If only we hadn't made them so angry they wouldn't have attacked the twin towers. Or something like that. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.