Scio, Scio

Bigotry and the Common Blog

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:43:50 -0700

I found this interesting article on National Review, and thought I'd share it. I enjoy the fact that Islam is still being preserved from criticism, even much deserved criticism. It seems that no progress has been made since the riots following the pope's call to reason at Regensburg.
Threaten enough people and I guess you get your way. Perhaps when Christians begin to cut off the heads of their detractors they will be afforded the same deference. I doubt that very much, for it often seems that anti-Christian sentiment is the last acceptable bigotry. Is it because we are "the Establishment" religion? Perhaps so. Europeans are increasingly godless and it has ever been the fashion of the American societal elite to ape Europe. Give him enough time, and the common man begins to ape the ape in a bid for the appearance of sophistication.
The other week I had the occasion to attempt a dialogue with another Voxer who had made it very clear that she didn't like my particular religion. She trotted out the usual litany of abuses committed by my Church over the years, but focused primarily on the sexual abuse scandal among the clergy. When I offered a counterpoint to her views, I was unfortunately met with "The Wall." That is, the "this is my personal view and I don't want to be criticized for it" wall. Now, I would hope that anyone who reads my piddling excuse for a blog would understand my frustration. Anything I post in public I understand to be open to criticism. Especially if I post something critical to another person's beliefs. Sometimes, I border on the insulting. I'd hate to be labeled a troll, but there is a point at which letting an accusation or a misconception stand is tantamount to agreement. So it seems I am constantly stepping on the toes of liberals, atheists, global warming nuts and even Protestants.
It's all quite frustrating, because at the end of the day the Internet just isn't real. The victories I might win are easily ignored. The points I make are suspect because the conversation begins with me as an intruder on a particular person's public space (which makes no sense to me...the Internet is hardly private). So what is the point of it all?
Well, I still believe that we can carry our principles with us even when we are completely anonymous. I feel that the anonymity allows us to engage in debate devoid of the usual obfuscations of personal pride and ego. Rhetorical tactics can still be used to great effect, but the debate can be essentially neutral without lacking substance.
What we say on the Internet actually is real and it matters. I still believe that relativism is the thing that will doom us to half-witted expressions of banal tolerance for even the worst sorts of offenses. And so I suppose I am going to continue feeling awkward and unpopular amongst my many anonymous Internet acquaintances.
Whose commentary, as always, I welcome.

The Evolution of Religious Bigotry

Courage without consequence.
By Jonah Goldberg
I just watched Fitna, a 17-minute film by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders.
Released on the Internet last week, Fitna juxtaposes verses from the Koran with images from the world of jihad. Heads cut off, bodies blown apart, gays executed, toddlers taught to denounce Jews as “apes and pigs,” protesters holding up signs reading “God Bless Hitler” and “Freedom go to Hell” — these are among the powerful images from Fitna, Arabic for “strife” or “ordeal.”
Predictably, various Muslim governments have condemned the film. Half the Jordanian parliament voted to sever ties with the Netherlands. Egypt’s grand imam threatened “severe” consequences if the Dutch didn’t ban the film.
Meanwhile, European and U.N. leaders are going through the usual theatrical hand-wringing, heaping anger on Wilders for sowing “hatred.”
Me? I keep thinking about Jesus fish.
During a 1991 visit to Istanbul, a buddy and I found ourselves in a small restaurant, drinking, dancing, and singing with a bunch of middle-class Turkish businessmen, mostly shop owners. It was a hilariously joyful evening, even though they spoke little English and we spoke considerably less Turkish.
At the end of the night, after imbibing unquantifiable quantities of raki, an ouzo-like Turkish liqueur, one of the men gave me a worn-out business card. On the back, he’d scribbled an image. It was little more than a curlicue, but he seemed intent on showing it to me (and nobody else). It was, I realized, a Jesus fish.
It was an eye-opening moment for me, though obviously trivial compared with the experiences of others. Here in this cosmopolitan and self-styled European city, this fellow felt the need to surreptitiously clue me in that he was a Christian just like me (or so he thought).
Traditionally, the fish pictogram conjures the miracle of the loaves and fishes as well as the Greek word IXΘΥΣ, which means fish and also is an acronym for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” Christians persecuted by the Romans used to draw the Jesus fish in the dirt as a way to tip off fellow Christians that they weren’t alone.
In America, these fish appear mostly on cars. Recently, however, it seems Jesus fish have become outnumbered by Darwin fish. No doubt you’ve seen these, too. The fish is “updated” with little feet on the bottom, and “IXΘΥΣ” or “Jesus” is replaced with either “Darwin” or “Evolve.”
I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.
The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing that “hate is not a family value.” But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.
As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. “Namely: It’s acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with ‘Shalom’ written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with ‘Usury’ written inside the same symbol would be an outrage.”
But it’s the false bravado of the Darwin fish that grates the most. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap, to show courage without consequence.
Whatever the faults of Fitna, it ain’t no Darwin fish.
Wilders’ film could easily get him killed. It picks up the work of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004 by a jihadi for criticizing Islam.
Fitna is provocative, but it has good reason to provoke. A cancer of violence, bigotry, and cruelty is metastasizing within the Islamic world.
It’s fine for Muslim moderates to say they aren’t part of the cancer; and that some have, in response to the film, is a positive sign. But more often, diagnosing or even observing this cancer — in film, book or cartoon — is dubbed “intolerant,” while calls for violence, censorship, and even murder are treated as understandable, if regrettable, expressions of anger.
It’s not that secular progressives support Muslim religious fanatics, it’s that they reserve their passion and scorn for religious Christians who are neither fanatical nor violent.
The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.

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The Follies of Cotillard, or: I Knew I Didn't Like the French.

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:46:29 -0800

So, once more we find that our European friends exist in a world of delusion and self-absorption. Here's hoping that this woman never wins another Oscar, ever. But even aside from that, let's hope that Europe scrapes up the resolve to save its own culture from radical Islam. It's a special kind of intellect that can observe the work of terrorists and then without irony assert that the destruction was all an inside job. Astoundingly special.

You may be aware that Mohammed is quickly becoming the most popular boy's name in Britain and France. And anyone who has followed the news in Denmark may be aware that things are getting hairy. I'd like to believe that people like Mark Steyn are wrong. I'd like to believe that a culture will, when faced with things like the Sept. 11th attacks, rally its disparate parts and commit to preserving its way of life.

But it seems that as the threat from militant Islam increases, European nations only bury their head in the sand with yet more vigor. They attack those critical to Islam as bigots, blithely refusing to do anything about the imams who preach violence and conquest to impressionable, disenfranchised young immigrants. They acquiesce to Muslim demands that demean women. A recent example? Giving tax breaks to men with multiple wives. The Archbishop of Canterbury proposes that some form of shari'a law in Britain might be a good thing. When some commentary is made, it is generally not productive. Comes to mind the Danish Cartoons -- worldwide riots erupt and still the Europeans blame themselves. They are committing cultural suicide. If only we could let them.
But in their place would rise a threat to America that is unprecedented in this age of unbelief. A militant religion that would fill the void in Europe made by the excoriation of Christianity, that would within a few generations be poised to seriously impede American influence.
Because if you think the French don't like America now, wait until the French take their cues from the imams who are preaching today.

'9/11 attacks made up, ' says French best actress Oscar-winner

By PETER ALLEN - More by this author » Last updated at 01:08am on 2nd March 2008
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Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard has accused America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks

Actress Marion Cotillard sparked a political row yesterday after accusing America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks.

The 32-year-old French actress, who received an Oscar last month for her performance as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, openly questioned the truth behind the terrorist atrocity in an interview broadcast on a French website.
"I think we're lied to about a number of things," Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends.
Referring to the two passenger jets being flown into the Twin Towers, Cotillard said:
"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."
She added that the towers, planned in the early Sixties, were an outdated "money-sucker" that would have cost more to modernise than to rebuild altogether, which is why they were destroyed.
She said: "It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."
Cotillard's stardom and increased earning power looked assured following her Oscar win.
But after her outburst, in which she also queried the 1969 Moon landings, a successful future in Hollywood appears to be in jeopardy.
She said: "Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."
Cotillard, who was born and brought up in Paris, made the comments on Paris Première - Paris Dernière, a programme broadcast a year ago.

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Stars in their eyes: Elton John and partner David Furnish cosy up to the hottest new actress in Hollywood

Celebration: Marion celebrated her win with Hollywood's A-listers - including Sharon Stone - at Elton John's party in Hollywood

At the time her remarks were largely ignored, but their appearance yesterday on the French magazine website Marianne2 comes at a time when Cotillard's profile is sky-high.
She is shortly due to fly to Chicago to star alongside Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, a gangster movie expected to be her first big money-spinner.
Cotillard's film career began in Luc Besson's 1998 film Taxi - a huge hit in France but less so around the world.
She is slowly becoming a household name in France, in a list most recently topped by her close friend Audrey Tautou and previously by women such as Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot.
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'I think we're lied to about a number of things' Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends

But Cotillard, who lives with actor and director Guillaume Canet, frequently tells interviewers she has no interest in money or prestige.
Denying that she had any kind of "Anglo-Saxon ambition", she said she prefers to "choose roles which suit me".
Despite her low-key image, Cotillard is an environmental activist who once worked as a spokesman for Greenpeace.
News of her anti-Americanism comes as Franco-American relations appear to be thawing, following Paris's refusal to show support for the invasion of Iraq.
President Nicolas Sarkozy insists he is pro-American, even supporting so-called "Anglo-Saxon" economic reforms.

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Saw McCain Today

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:07:49 -0800

John McCain made a stop in Norfolk, VA today to discuss foreign policy issues and receive some glowing praise from a number of his colleagues. Always keen to learn more about international relations and, well, see famous people, I managed to weasel my way in and was treated to a sensible, realistic acknowledgment of the threat of radical Islam. This is from some of the most knowledgeable authorities on national security in Congress.
Chief among these in my eyes was John Warner. A Southern gentleman in the truest sense, Senator Warner has been a strong advocate for the military and if he believes that John McCain will do well as the President then I am prepared to believe him.
The major point today was that we absolutely must confront radical, militant Islam. I agree with that sentiment 100%. Senator Sam Brownback made some very excellent statements, bringing the focus onto Africa where a significant amount of Muslim extremism is fomented. Brownback is also extremely prominent in the pro-life community. His endorsement of McCain puts any doubts about McCain's pro-life credits to rest.
In addition to these two men, the endorsement of former Secretaries of the Navy William Ball and John Lehman spoke volumes about their beliefs in McCain's strong military stance. Rebuilding the military is key, as the Clinton years saw too much military reduction. Rumsfeld made an error before Iraq and Afghanistan by not focusing more effort on building up force levels to avoid long, repeated deployments. But another point made today was that we must maintain the All Volunteer Force by increasing recruitment and increasing opportunities for soldiers. As McCain said, there is a market out there and young people have to know their needs will be met should they choose military service.

It is well within the interests of my region of Virginia to elect a man like John McCain.

McCain is strong on the social issues. Period. McCain is obviously strong on foreign policy (his strong language regarding Iran was particularly impressive), though conservatives still need more assurance about the illegal immigration issue. When I informed my good friend W that I was in attendance, he cut to the heart of the matter quite succinctly: "...if they serve lunch order the enchiladas. I hear they taste really good with a side of amnesty." No lunch, but it is important to keep from getting star-struck. Thanks W!
On a side note, I just saw myself on TV. Some guy blocked my handshake with McCain and the annoyance on my face is pretty obvious. I wish I had a picture. It's ok, because I did get to shake Sam Brownback's hand and let him know I appreciate his pro-life stance. He said we've got to push harder on that issue. Agreed.
I got a picture of McCain answering questions from the press, which I have provided. Forgive the quality. I didn't think I'd actually be allowed inside and neglected to bring a camera! If I can locate a bit of that video with my handshake fiasco, I'll post that too. UPDATE: Here's that video...Note the disappointed looking young man at 56 seconds in. That old guy in front of me was such a fanboy, he jostled me out of the way just to tell McCain something the man wouldn't remember in 10 seconds anyway.

McCain!

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Damn These People.

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:57:11 -0800

I was watching C-Span this morning, not ten minutes ago, getting ready to do a number on a peppermint pie leftover from Christmas. I love peppermint pie with something approaching unnatural strength. Some boring Senate thing was on the screen, but as I read the ticker I was shocked and appalled to read

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated in Suicide Attack

"Holy $#&%," I exclaimed as I rushed to the computer to gather information. My peppermint pie even now lies uncovered and half-forked into, as I rush to keep myself current.
The woman was a political entity before my time, surely. And she was pretty much fired and charged with corruption in absentia, but for a political leader to be assassinated in such a way is always a shock. These are the people who are positioned to keep things running, who are connected with the movers and shakers in any country. No matter their politics, when they are killed a country has lost a resource.
Pakistan's only hope to pull itself out of the muck of radical Islamic theocracy and into a stable constitutional state is that its political leaders are allowed to make their case without fear of being murdered. I don't believe Pervez Musharraf is responsible for this attack, but I do believe that this highlights just how much control the central government in Pakistan has. That is, not much. When (not if) this blows up into a riotous mob, Musharraf will be hard pressed to keep things from devolving into further bloodshed. He's managed to hold on so far, but now he's got a martyr on his hands.

This is big news. Big news.

Damn these people for their ignorance, and I thank God (not Allah, he's obviously been on vacation) that I live in the United States of America. Despite what its detractors say, the US doesn't kill political opposition, and we have the stability to maintain the rule of law even when the opposition is dangerously close to being John Edwards.

Update: Ha. I forgot. They have nukes, too!

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Spread the Word

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:22:18 -0800

Enjoy this article from National review, get pissed, and tell somebody. I think that even if you disagree with Steyn, you have to wonder at the audacity these Muslim groups have...and the complicity of this Canadian organization in stifling debate on the subject.

Free Steyn
By the Editors

Our readers know Mark Steyn well. His witty and learned commentary appears in every issue of National Review, and in many other English publications across the world. What Steyn’s American readers may not know is that a Muslim advocacy group in his native Canada is doing its best to muzzle him.
On December 4, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced that it had filed a complaint with three of Canada’s “human rights commissions” over an October 2006 article that Steyn had published in Maclean’s, Canada’s leading news weekly. “This article completely misrepresents Canadian Muslims’ values, their community, and their religion,” said Faisal Joseph, an attorney representing the complainants, in a press release. “We feel that it is imperative to challenge Maclean’s biased portrayal of Muslims in order to protect Canadian multiculturalism and tolerance.”

The article in question was adapted from Steyn’s recent book America Alone, which argues that Western society may be irrevocably altered — and not for the better — by unassimilated Muslim immigration. It’s no surprise that this thesis is controversial, probably in part because Steyn makes his points so well. But the real threat to tolerance here is the CIC, which would have the state impose penalties on those whose writings it disagrees with.

In doing so it only provides evidence for Steyn’s thesis. Another group of Canadian Muslims — the Muslim Canadian Congress — has said as much, denouncing the CIC’s complaint for affirming “the stereotype that Muslims have little empathy for vigorous debate and democracy.” But at the moment, the CIC’s push for censorship advances. Of the three human-rights commissions to which it submitted its complaint, two have agreed to hear the case. (The third has yet to decide.)
Since their founding, Canada’s human-rights commissions have done less to protect the rights of minorities than to undermine the liberties of everyone. To get an idea of what they’re like, consider the recent case of Stephen Boissoin.
Boissoin, a Baptist minister, learned that the Alberta Human Rights Commission was funding an initiative that described homosexuality as “normal, necessary, acceptable and productive.” Boissoin objected to this and wanted to make his views known. As he put it to a Canadian Internet publication: “[I] felt that as a taxpayer, and indirect funder of this initiative through my tax dollars, I had a right to communicate my opinion which is reflective of my religious beliefs. In an attempt to do so, I decided to potentially share my opinion at large by submitting letters to the editor in newspapers.”
The publication of one such letter brought a complaint from a “social justice” advocate, and Boissoin was dragged before the very body he had complained about — the Alberta Human Rights Commission. That was 2002. It took five years of anxiety-filled and expensive legal proceedings for the commission to rule against Boissoin. They determined that he had violated Alberta’s laws because there was, as one commission member put it, a “circumstantial connection” between the publication of the letter and an incident of gay-bashing. “Circumstantial connection” is of course another way of saying that Boissoin had nothing to do with it. One wonders in passing whether the same can be said of the Koran, and which side the commission would take if Maclean’s published a few choice Koranic passages on homosexuality.
Even if the human-rights commissions eventually rule for Steyn and Maclean’s, the proceedings will be costly, and will intimidate others who wish to express controversial views. To his great credit, one conservative Canadian cabinet minister, Jason Kenney, has spoken in defense of Steyn. Some of the Canadian press is coming to Steyn’s defense as well. We hope the chorus swells.
And we hope Americans raise their voices too. So far the U.S. media have paid little attention to the case, but it should matter to us. Steyn’s writings — even those in Canadian publications — have a large and influential American readership. We trust those readers prefer that Canada remain free.

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Your Semi-Regular Radical Islam Post

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:49:30 -0800

Father killed daughter for not wearing hijab, her friends say

Dec 11 12:56 PM US/Eastern

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Muslim Man Kills Daughter For Not Wearing Hijab

Friends and classmates of a 16-year-old girl who police say was murdered by her devout Muslim father in a Toronto suburb told local media Tuesday she was killed for not wearing a hijab.
Police said in a statement they received an emergency call at 7:55 am local time Monday from "a man who indicated that he had just killed his daughter."
The victim, Aqsa Parvez, was "rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries, but tragically passed away late last night."
Her father, Muhammad Parvez, 57, was arrested at the scene and will be formally charged with murder when he appears in court Wednesday, said police.
The girl's friends, meanwhile, told local media she was having trouble at home because she did not conform to the family's religious beliefs and refused to wear a traditional Islamic head scarf, or hijab.
"She wanted to go different ways than her family wanted to go, and she wanted to make her own path, but he (her father) wouldn't let her," one of her classmates told public broadcaster CBC.
"She loved clothes," another of her friends, Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, told the daily Toronto Star. "She just wanted to show her beauty ... She just wanted to dress like us, just like a normal person."
According to her friends, Aqsa had worn the hijab at school last year, but rebelled in recent months.
They said she would leave home wearing a hijab and loose-fitting clothes, but would take off her head scarf and change into tighter garments at school, then change back before going home at the end of the day.
The victim's 26 year-old brother was also charged with obstructing police in the investigation.

I have to say, the news is out there if you just look for it. Let's see, we had the honor killing in London a while back. Now it seems that Canada has joined the club. I anticipate that within the next two years we will have an instance of this in the United States. Maybe I just don't know about it.
Want to know the problem of Radical Islam? It's that it can grow within communities of moderate or liberal Muslims. Some young fella, maybe second generation (or first, who knows) decides his parents aren't Muslim enough, he starts going to wacky websites and then he finds himself an imam who talks up hardline Islam, pretty soon he's a fairly solid fundamentalist, the type who would read the Koran and say,
"You know what, it's right to kill female members of my family if they cause me shame. Thanks Allah!"
It's interesting.
It can happen in other faiths as well. How many ex-hippies have Southern Baptist children? Difference being that Southern Baptists only rarely engage in strangulation.

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More Fun Fun (radical) Muslim News

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:10:38 -0800

Well, as anyone who has been paying attention for the better part of this decade knows, Muslims of a certain stripe don't take kindly to anyone who doesn't follow their customs and way of life. Recently, a British woman living and teaching in Sudan was jailed for the reprehensible crime of naming a class teddy bear "Muhammed." Wait, scratch that. She didn't name it, she merely allowed her class to name it. One boy named Muhammed actually suggested the name, after his own.
What happened next, I'm not sure, but somehow this woman ended up in a Sudanese prison. Better still, she faced a maximum sentence of prison time or forty lashes. Forty lashes with a bamboo cane no wider than a finger has the potential to cause serious permanent damage.
Now, as those who pay attention expected, come the calls for her death. For her death! Who, pray tell, put out these calls? Osama bin Laden? Mahmoud Ahmahdinejad? No, nobody so grand. Local imams preached on the subject today, and afterwards their followers massed for a protest, brandishing knives and clubs and demanding this British woman's execution.
This is clear evidence of the effect of just kernels of radical Islam on a population. Where it is allowed to fester, the populace is soon consumed with a violent antipathy towards non-Muslims and a complete disregard for common sense.
The article states that many British Muslim groups have come out against this action. This is commendable! I have often lamented that the very people in the best position to quash radical Islam - moderate, pro-democracy Muslims - are nearly always silent by choice or by cowardice or by coercion. The more moderate Muslims speak out against things like this - like the Saudi rape case, like the honor killing which took place in London itself - the more progress will be made against our mutual enemy.

And why is Britain even tolerating this? Was a time when the British commandos would have stormed that prison, relations with a pissant little country like Sudan be damned. Shouldn't the lives of British subjects be protected from unjust persecution in foreign lands? This woman committed no crime, and should be freed immediately. She may not last the 15 days in that jail cell before a mob comes and carries her to her death.

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More From The Religion of Peace

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:34:28 -0800

Saudi punishes gang rape victim with 200 lashes

Nov 15 10:51 AM US/Eastern

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A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.
A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.
Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.
But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.
In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.
The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.
He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."
King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

Now I know what you liberal jackinapes will say: Oooh, aren't these our allies the Saudis? Ooooh! Well, here's news for you folks. After we stop the ones with guns we need to move on to the ones with whips.
I get into so many arguments about the superiority of Western civilization when compared to this crap. People actually try to argue that we are not superior to these animals when it comes to our laws, treatment of women and tolerance of other religions.

Give me a break.

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Back in the Saddle Again...

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:39:57 -0700

Howdy! I'm officially back from my honeymoon and ready to get plugged back into the real world. By real world, of course I mean Internet punditry!
But first, let me just say that the Bahamas are nice. Really nice. Weather was beautiful and there were plenty of touristy things to keep us occupied. We went to the Pirate Museum of Nassau, where Captain "Black" Sparrow took us on a high-energy tour of the place and repeatedly offered to watch our valuables for us. We went snorkeling and saw all sorts of fish (including a big freaking barracuda) and were introduced to conch salad. We found a random horse stable and got to go riding on the beach. We ate more conch salad. And when we weren't on land we were on a cruise ship that catered to our every culinary whim. I asked for a rare steak and got it rare, which is always a plus for me.

Anyway, round about Thursday I turned on the news for the first time and to my horror saw that our asinine Congress has decided to alienate one of the few secular Muslim states in the world. Turkey may indeed have committed genocide against the Armenians, but it is politically naive to point this out to one of our key allies in the war against radical Islam.
Or, from a certain perspective, a political masterstroke. Let's say that Pelosi & Co. actually meant to damage relations with Turkey. This would put pressure on the Bush Administration, and decrease our ability to wage war. Now we have to do the ol' soft shoe and assure our Turkish friends that we don't hold their past misdeeds against them.
If I were less controlled in my rhetoric, I would say that Congress has come as close to legal treason as they can. But I'm not saying that.
At any rate, this is old news by now. It probably amounts to nothing more than a diplomatic flap. But my concern is that certain elements in the government will promote an accumulation of these minor flaps and make things that much more difficult for us in the region. After all, it comes down to one thing: We can choose to prosecute this war to a successful conclusion or we can choose to do the opposite. I think I know where Congress stands.

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This Tuesday in September

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:50:34 -0700

Where’s the War?
The placidity of the domestic front.
By Mark Steyn

Oh, it’s a long, long while from September to September. This year, the anniversary falls, for the first time, on a Tuesday morning, and perhaps some or other cable network will re-present the events in real time — the first vague breaking news in an otherwise routine morning show, the follow-up item on the second plane, and the realization that something bigger was underway. If you make it vivid enough, the JFK/Princess Di factor will kick in: You’ll remember “where you were” when you “heard the news.” But it’s harder to recreate the peculiar mood at the end of the day, when the citizens of the superpower went to bed not knowing what they’d wake up to the following morning.

Six years on, most Americans are now pretty certain what they’ll wake up to in the morning: There’ll be a thwarted terrorist plot somewhere or other — last week, it was Germany. Occasionally, one will succeed somewhere or other, on the far horizon — in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, London. But not many folks expect to switch on the TV this Tuesday morning, as they did that Tuesday morning, and see smoke billowing from Atlanta or Phoenix or Seattle. During the IRA’s 30-year campaign, the British grew accustomed (perhaps too easily accustomed) to waking up to the news either of some prominent person’s assassination or that a couple of gran’mas and some schoolkids had been blown apart in a shopping centre. It was a terrorist war in which terrorism was almost routine. But, in the six years since President Bush declared that America was in a “war on terror,” there has been in America no terrorism.
In theory, the administration ought to derive a political benefit from this: The president has “kept America safe.” But, in practice, the placidity of the domestic front diminishes the chosen rationale of the conflict: If a “war on terror” has no terror, who says there’s a war at all? That’s the argument of the Left — that it’s all a racket cooked up by the Bushitlerburton fascists to impose on America a permanent national-security state in which, for dark sinister reasons of his own, Dick Cheney is free to monitor your out-of-state phone calls all day long. Judging from the blithe expressions of commuters doing the shoeless shuffle through the security line at LAX and O’Hare, most Americans seem relatively content with a permanent national-security state. It’s a curious paradox: airports on permanent Orange Alert, and a citizenry on permanent …well, I’m not sure there’s a homeland-security color code for “Gaily Insouciant,” but, if there is, it’s probably a bland limpid pastel of some kind. Of course, if tomorrow there’s a big smoking hole where the Empire State Building used to be, we’ll be back to: “The president should have known! This proves the failure of his policies over the last six years! We need another all-star Commission filled with retired grandees!”

And that would be the relatively sane reaction. Have you seen that bumper sticker “9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB”? If you haven’t, go to a college town and cruise Main Street for a couple of minutes. It seems odd that a fascist regime which thinks nothing of killing thousands of people in a big landmark building in the center of the city hasn’t quietly offed some of these dissident professors — or at least the guy with the sticker-printing contract. Fearlessly, Robert Fisk of Britain’s Independent, the alleged dean of Middle East correspondents, has now crossed over to the truther side and written a piece headlined, “Even I Question The ‘Truth’ About 9/11.” According to a poll in May, 35 percent of Democrats believe that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance. Did Rumsfeld also know? Almost certainly. That’s why he went to his office as normal that today, because he knew in advance that the plane would slice through the Pentagon but come to a halt on the far side of the photocopier. That’s how well-planned it was, unlike Iraq.

Apparently, 39 percent of Democrats still believe Bush didn’t know in advance — or, at any rate, so they said in May. But I’m confident half of them will have joined Rosie O’Donnell on the melted steely knoll before the Iowa caucuses. If Iraq is another Vietnam, 9/11 is another Kennedy assassination. Were Bali, Madrid, and London also inside jobs by the Bush Gang? If so, it’s no wonder federal spending’s out of control.

And what of those for whom the events of six years ago were more than just conspiracy fodder? Last week the New York Times carried a story about the current state of the 9/11 lawsuits. Relatives of 42 of the dead are suing various parties for compensation, on the grounds that what happened that Tuesday morning should have been anticipated. The law firm Motley Rice, diversifying from its traditional lucrative class-action hunting grounds of tobacco, asbestos and lead paint, is promising to put on the witness stand everybody who “allowed the events of 9/11 to happen”. And they mean everybody — American Airlines, United, Boeing, the airport authorities, the security firms — everybody, that is, except the guys who did it.

According to the Times, many of the bereaved are angry and determined that their loved one’s death should have meaning. Yet the meaning they’re after surely strikes our enemies not just as extremely odd but as one more reason why they’ll win. You launch an act of war, and the victims respond with a lawsuit against their own countrymen. But that’s the American way: Almost every news story boils down to somebody standing in front of a microphone and announcing that he’s retained counsel. Last week, it was Larry Craig. Next week, it’ll be the survivors of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear test in Westchester County. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out, a legalistic culture invariably misses the forest for the trees. Senator Craig should know that what matters is not whether an artful lawyer can get him off on a technicality but whether the public thinks he trawls for anonymous sex in public bathrooms. Likewise, those 9/11 families should know that, if you want your child’s death that morning to have meaning, what matters is not whether you hound Boeing into admitting liability but whether you insist that the movement that murdered your daughter is hunted down and the sustaining ideological virus that led thousands of others to dance up and down in the streets cheering her death is expunged from the earth.

In his pugnacious new book, Norman Podhoretz calls for redesignating this conflict as World War IV. Certainly, it would have been easier politically to frame the Iraq campaign as being a front in a fourth world war than as a necessary measure in an anti-terrorist campaign. Yet who knows? Perhaps we would still have mired ourselves in legalisms and conspiracies and the dismal curdled relativism of the Flight 93 memorial’s “crescent of embrace.” In the end, as Podhoretz says, if the war is to be fought at all, it will “have to be fought by the kind of people Americans now are.” On this sixth anniversary, as 9/11 retreats into history, many Americans see no war at all.

— Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.

I believe that nobody says it better than Steyn, so I won't try. Suffice it to say that anyone who believes that September 11th was an inside job will not be welcome on this blog should they air that view.
I get really fighting mad on this day every year.

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