Tuesday, March 28, 2006
SERIOUS IOWANS REQUIRE FISK
Robert Fisk—who believes the use of depleted uranium in the Middle East may be causing him to remove his pullover in Toronto—now indicates his faith in the Great 9/11 Conspiracy, as Andrew Bolt reports:
He often spoke in the US, he said, and “more and more people in the audience believe the American administration had some kind of involvement”.
“I have to say before you clap (indeed, some in his audience were applauding) I don’t have any proof of that.
“I mean, the worst I can envisage is that they know something was coming and they preferred it to happen so that their strategy could be put into place.”
(Hmm. What sinister strategy would that be, Bob?)
But Fisk could not leave it even at that: “Serious people across the States are asking—people in Iowa, for God’s sake—are asking me in letters, ‘What really happened? How did those buildings fall so neatly down?’
“And I can’t answer them except to say I am in Beirut and not New York and I can’t investigate this. But there are a lot of things we don’t know, a lot of things we’re not going to be told.”
If only someone of Fisk’s forensic talent could be found among New York’s ignorant citizenry. Until then, the serious people of Iowa—people in Iowa, for God’s sake!—will puzzle over the World Trade Centre’s allegedly controlled demolition.
TARGET-RICH ENVIRONMENT
We’re a victim nation:
Australians are more likely than people in any other developed nation to find themselves the victim of a serious crime, including those of a sexual nature, a major international report has found.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in its annual report comparing the group’s members on a range of issues, found Australia had the highest rate of victimisation.
Between 1990 and the latest available figures, the number of victims of crime increased in Australia.
A possible solution: guns.
WAR OF THE WARNES
Simone Warne bowled out; Shane Warne bowls Australia to victory.
NATION SLURRED
Canada is insulted a great deal—Cuba del Norte, the land that warm forgot, line up here to do Margaret Trudeau, etc.—but it never deserved an insult so grievous as this:
“Thank you, Mr. Loney,” I would have said. “Thank you for being part of the Canadian idea that this world will become a better place only if each of us does our bit in the best way we can. And you certainly did that.”
LIFE-SECURING METHOD OUTLINED
If we want to secure our way of life, there is no alternative but to fight for it.
Read the whole thing.
KNESSET KNUMBERS DOWN
IsraellyCool is live blogging the Israeli elections. Latest news: voter turnout (30.9%) is the lowest in Israeli election history.
Monday, March 27, 2006
BIRD NOT TALKING
Guess we’ll have to wait for the trial:
A four-year-old girl has suffered neck and face wounds after being attacked by a rooster in central western New South Wales.
The girl was taken to Orange Base Hospital and later transferred to a children’s hospital in Sydney.
It is not known why the rooster attacked.
UPDATE. Reader Santina emails: “This post brought back memories of a rooster we had at the farm: Ivan the Terrible. He was a treacherous rooster of the worst kind. Always attacking you when your back was turned. Visitors were warned not to go near him.
“But one day he met his match. The fool bird tried to peck one of our mares, the lovely Odabella. You can imagine the outcome. He was attempting to peck her on her HIND legs. Well, she let fly with both barrels, and I was fortunate to witness the outcome. A flying rooster was rocketed high into the air and landed in the next paddock. An appropriate ending for such a violent bird.”
UPDATE II. Currency Lad writes: “Santina’s story is the best thing I’ve read this week.” I’ll second that.
AMENDS MADE
It isn’t easy covering an unpredictable sports event like a five-day Test match, as The Age’s Peter Roebuck illustrates. Here he is on Monday:
Bewildering tactics and wayward bowling at the start of the South African reply undid much of the hard work completed by the batsmen during the course of Australia’s long first innings. After two early wickets had fallen, the Australians lost their way, repeatedly over-pitching and also sending down numerous no-balls ... Australia played compromised and accommodating cricket. It might prove to be a costly mistake.
Then again, maybe not. South Africa subsequently lost six wickets for just 67 runs to end with a first innings deficit of 102. Roebuck on Tuesday:
Happily the bowlers made amends and a significant lead was secured.
WHEN A MAGAZINE TAKES ILL
Time magazine—a small, ecologically-aware enterprise published out of a tiny mud hut and part of a company noted for its microscopic environmental impact—warns of the Great Dooming:
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth.
Never mind what you’ve heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.
From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us.
It might be interesting to calculate the resources consumed to produce and distribute this hysterical example of enviropanic—and the environmental destruction caused by environmentalists rushing to buy it.
WALLY WATCH
J.F. Beck has an interesting update on barrister, blogger, and blustering bandwidth bandit Walter Jeremy Sear.
PART-TIME IGNORANT TERRORISTS
Dr. Aziz Dweik, Hamas-nominated Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council:
The idea, he says, that Palestinians are all ignorant terrorists is a lie cooked up by the Israelis and the Bush Administration.
A lie, you say?
“OK, yes, it happened, we did suicide attacks but now there is a truce. We deplore any action where civilians are killed, yes, including Israeli civilians. We are a moderate Islamic movement. We are not terrorists. We are freedom seekers. Please, tell your readers, please help us secure this goal.”
“BELIEVE OR GET OUT”
Muslim refusenik Irshad Manji:
My first question for my madressa teacher was, “Why can’t girls lead prayer?” I graduated to asking more nuanced questions, such as, “If the Koran came to Prophet Muhammad as a message of peace, why did he command his army to kill an entire Jewish tribe?” You can imagine that such questions irritated the hell out of my madressa teacher, who routinely put down women and trashed the Jews. He and I reached the ultimate impasse over yet another question: “Where,” I asked, “is the evidence of the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ against Islam? You love to talk about it, but what’s the proof?”
What he provided was an ultimatum: “Either you believe or get out. And if you get out, get out for good.” With my temples throbbing and my neck sweating under the itchy polyester chador, I stood up. As I crossed the partition checkpoint, I could have uncovered my head for all the boys to see, but I didn’t ... All I could think to do was fling open the madressa’s hefty metal door and yell, “Jesus Christ!” A memorable exit, I hoped.
Manji receives occasional death threats. As opposed to SUV terrorist Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, who is a death threat, although not a particularly threatening one:
I do not wish to pursue my career as a student any further because I have no desire to amass the impermanent and temporary fame and material wealth this world has to offer. However I made the decision to continue my studies and to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill so that the world will know that Allah’s servants are very intelligent.
Oh, very.
I have decided to take advantage of my presence on United States soil on Friday, March 3, 2006 to take the lives of as many Americans and American sympathizers as I can in order to punish the United States for their immoral actions around the world.
He killed exactly nobody, despite being armed with a Jeep.
TRADITION TRAMPLED
Mark Steyn applauds an historical example of multiculturalism:
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee”—the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
’‘You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
Damn imperialists.
UPDATE. Not all traditions are abandoned on the subcontinent:
An Indian couple has been ordered by Muslim clerics to separate after the man uttered “talaq” - or divorce - three times while asleep.
Robert Fisk is Indian?
CHILDREN PRAISED
A statement from former Iraq CPT hostage James Loney, now safely returned to Canada thanks to “Palestinian children”, among others:
For 118 days I disappeared into a black hole and somehow, by God’s grace, I was spit out again. My head is swirling and there are times when I can hardly believe it’s true. We had to wear flak jackets during our helicopter transfer from the international zone to the Baghdad airport and I had to keep knocking on the body armour I was wearing to reassure myself this is all really happening.
Isn’t it nice that “somehow” God’s grace saved you and equipped you with that body armour?
It was a terrifying, profound, powerful, transformative and excruciatingly boring experience. Since my release, my rescue from captivity ...
Whoa! Good catch.
... I have been in a constant state of wonder, bewilderment, surprise, as I slowly discover the magnitude of the efforts to secure our lives and freedom: Tom Fox, Norman Kember, Harmeet Sooden and myself. A great of hand of solidarity reached out for us; a hand that included the hands of Palestinian children holding pictures of us and the hands of the British soldier who cut our chains with a bolt cutter. That great hand was able to deliver the three of us from the shadow of death. I am grateful in a way that can never be adequately expressed in words.
If it weren’t for those Palestinian kids and their proven photograph-holding hostage-freeing abilities, you’d be toast. Oh, and thanks for that work with the bolt cutters, mate.
There are so many people that need this hand of solidarity, right now, today, and I’m thinking specifically of prisoners being held all over the world. People who have disappeared into an abyss of detention without charges, due process, hope for release, some victims of physical and psychological torture, people unknown and forgotten. It is my deepest wish that every forsaken human being should have a hand of solidarity reaching out to them.
Alert the Palestinian photo children!
For the British soldiers who risked their lives to rescue us, for the government of Canada who sent a team to Baghdad to help secure our release, for all those who though about and prayed for us, for all those who spoke for us when we had no voice, I am forever and truly grateful. It’s great to be alive.
Finally, due recognition. Well done.
Alhamdulillah.
Hey, at least he learned a new word. How transformative.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
INSTANT JOY
If you can read this without smiling, well, you’re one tough hombre, sir.