Saturday, February 18, 2006

IBA Cartoon Winners



Check the link for all the winners. http://ibloga.blogspot.com/
"David and Mohammed."

Iran Cartoons Loom


A contest we might all enjoy.

Cartoonist Teases Ahmedinajad to 'Test' Iran

By Foreign News Desk, Istanbul
Published: Saturday, February 18, 2006
zaman.com


The Iranian newspaper that launched an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust as retaliation for the satirical drawings insulted of Mohammed will go through "a test of freedom of expression."

A Portuguese artist will take part in the contest of the Iranian paper Hamshahri with a caricature ridiculing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. He is drawn as visiting a museum in the well-known concentration camp Auschwitz and says the only explanation to the deaths in this summer camp is bird flu.

The caricaturist, Augusto Cid, said he does not know whether his work "suits the spirit of the contest," but the real reason he will participate will be "to test the freedom of expression in Iran."

In the meantime, the organization of Journalists with No Boundaries asked the release of the seven journalists from Algeria, Syria, and Yemen who are still under arrest for publishing the cartoons. In Russia, a newspaper published in Volgograd was closed down for publishing cartoons of the three monotheistic religions and Buddha.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20060218&hn=29914/
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If you have Iran cartoons to post, please feel free to send your links here and I'll post what I can.


http://www.deviantart.com/view/29251256/.

The Message is Unclear?


Mittwoch, 15. Februar 2006

Karikaturen-Irrsinn
Der Führer in Pakistan

Frauen demonstrieren am Mittwoch in der pakistanischen Hauptstadt Islamabad gegen die Mohammed-Karikaturen. Was genau sie mit dem Plakat sagen wollen, bleibt unklar.

(Foto: T.Mughal/dpa)
http://www.n-tv.de/634520.html


One must wonder about the conclusion stated above. "What the message is is unclear." How can one be so aggressively stupid and still manage to feed and dress oneself? But here we are, German state television produces such idiocies, and they are the powers that tell us what our public beliefs should be. The message is unclear? Then let's make it clear to the intelligentsia that the door is thatta way.

More Mo Views

A round-up of cool things that we haven't been organised well enough to post in a more timely fashion:

http://muhammadandme.blogspot.com/

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1898359

laughyourheadoff.org./

http://www.novatv.nl/index.cfm?ln=nl&fuseaction=artikelen.details&achtergrond_id=8350&CFID=2735238&CFTOKEN=57221010
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Friday, February 17, 2006

Dag Confesses at Last.


Cleric offers reward for killing Prophet cartoonist
17/02/2006

A Pakistani cleric offered a 1.5 million rupee (€28,000) reward and a car for anyone who kills the cartoonist who drew Prophet Mohammed.
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=173063192&p=y73x63898/
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Alright, I confess. I drew the cartoons of Mohammed. I'm now going to kill myself. Please send the check to my mailing address, 8 Rechov Olitzion, Yaffo, Hated Zionist Entity. Thank you.

Yup, I'm killing myself right now. It really hurts. Send that cash, fellow, I'm dying. The pain. The pain. I'll never draw again cause I'm dying. I think I'm already dead. Is the money in the post yet? I'm pretty dead already.

Blue Scarf Thursday Meeeting


Our meetings here in Vancouver, Canada go very well. Our schedule is from 7-9:00 pm, and yet each week they go longer than the week before, this time till midnight when the doors closed on us.

I'd like to report that we sat down in a darkened corner and plotted the over-throw of the bad guys, that we talked in hushed tones and kept our eyes open for the secret police and worried about gangs of jihadis bursting in with knives drawn; but the truth is we sit and have a lot of fun chatting, discussing what we might do if we can find more people interested in making this movement as personal a one for them as it is for us.

On the light side, our meeting began well enough, and soon we were approached by a hesitant woman who appeared anxious to join us. I invited her to sit, even though she wasn't wearing a blue scarf. She did sit, and she then proceeded to invite us to an Amway meeting. We politely declined, of course, but that's not a problem for Amway ladies. So we invited her to come back after her Amway meeting with her friends. But that too is not the Amway way. She did leave when a gaggle of beggars made their way to us and crowded around her. From then, sans beggars, we had our meeting as planned.

On the dark side, we missed out on a great deal never again having to pay retail.

One of our number is happy to announce a personal achievement that we are all proud of him for. He's not at liberty to tell us the details, and it's not something we can post publicly anyway, but his accomplishment is unique and significant.

Much of our discussion focuses on Islam as a retrograde ideology that we want to know more about even though we know a great deal already. We ask whether there is a spiritual component to Islam like there is, for example, to Christianity. We couldn't think of any significant thinker in the Muslim world to refer to. Some of us feel that Islam is a banal orthopraxy, a matter of mere behaviour according to set rites and daily rituals that is empty of intelligence and what most of us would think of as religion itself. However, we don't simple throw up our arms and kill innocent people sitting next to us because we don't know more. We'll consult till we find out one way or another. Sufism won't suffice, it being a minority report at best. Is the Sunna religious or simply a codified tribal rite gone insane?

We share personal experiences of Islam and Muslims. We have many of those "A-ha!" moments when we do. Most of us have a deep intellectual knowledge of Islam, and with the addition of personal experiences shared and discussion and questioning of our assumptions we come to a clearer understanding of what we know and what we thought we knew but find we can know more about.

Regardless of how we feel about Islam as a religion (as such) we are solidly in agreement that we intensely do not like socialism in any of its manifest forms. In that sense we are "conservative."

Being conservative in Canada at this time is a confusing term due to the Conservative government in power as of recently. We are not in agreement with much of what passes for Conservativism. It means that many conservative people such as we are lumped with quasi-conservatives who don't share any core beliefs with those of us who are in a real sense, classical Liberals. This is significant for us because when we ask who are our natural allies, we cannot say they are the Conservatives. The conservatives are a collection of liberal wankers. Thus, we seem to be the "extreme Right."

The last time I looked, I thought I was a kind of middle of the road normal guy, but in today's terms I'm on the far side of Attila the Hun.

That brings us to our relationship with the population as a whole, most of whom don't care one way or another about Islamic jihad in its aspects from da'wa to demographics to intimidation to outright murder. Rightly so, given that most people are content to live their personal lives as personal. Most people will do what they must to make their lives as good as they choose. Social activism is hardly a passion for most or even many. In fact, for those of us meeting on Thursday evenings, social activism is a far cry from anything we'd choose if the circumstances weren't so drastic and immediate.

So, looking at what the situation is, that most people are in their private living modes and not willing to look up from the ground, we consider who is. Those who are social activists are the media, the academics, and the professional politicians. They are, in effect, a small minority of extremists. There I neither joke nor exaggerate. These are careerist socialists who live and die by government. They receive their funding and their status from socialist organisation, all paid for by the people and the productive economies. In return we get control ideologues at a micro level. They not only have nothing better to do, they have nothing else to do. And worse still, they have the silent acquiescence of the majority of the population here. Few love these beasts but few care enough to challenge them.

We do agree that the majority of people would prefer a less constrictive government, at least from the viewpoint of those from below, as it were. We find that it is the children of high privilege who desire more and more socialism for those below, meaning the rest of us. However, most people are terrified by the idea of the "extreme Right." I know I am. I nearly shot myself when I shaved this morning. I scared the hell out of myself seeing an extreme rightist in the mirror. But then I came to my senses and brushed my teeth. Shave first, brush teeth second, wash face third. That's as wild and weird as I get. It could be seen as extreme, I guess, but so far there's no laws against it.

We concluded, then, that we must find a way to discredit the intelligentsia to allow for the voice of the majority, those who are under a pall of fear of offending against the set order of public discourse. Most people, we find from voicing our own opinions and anecdotal evidence, are sick and tired of the dictatorship of political correctness. Most people, given a moment of privacy, would spit when they hear the word "multiculturalism."

Here, for me at least, our discussions become very interesting and foreign to my understanding. As one might expect, some of our number are Christians. Do not panic. Yes, we sit with Rightwing extremist Christians. Many have the idea that the average Christian is as terrifying as a Muslim from Afghanistan on the warpath. A Rightwing extremist Christian must therefore be more terrifying than bin Laden himself. Well, I'm sorry to have to deflate that illusion. No, I'm pleased very much to know for myself that our resident Christian is exceptionally bright and personable. Even more, he is significant to our group's understanding of our situation regarding what I so euphoniously term Left dhimmi fascism and its jihadi proxies.

From a conservative Christian approach we find that our favorite whipping boys such as nationalism and tradition are not the flimsy and dirty things we think they might be. Lo, I find my floor is scaly after an evening of hearing for the first time a real account of the intellectual version of Rightwing extremist Christianity. I have much to rethink in these regards, and I'll leave that till I've thought about the ideas I've encountered. Suffice it for now to suggest that all is better than one would have expected or hoped for.

The conclusion I wish to leave us with is that our meeting again didn't come to a floor-plan for the coming new order. We meet, we discuss, we learn new things about our world. In time we'll attract new members to our group who will undoubtedly make ours a great movement for the future even in the face of jihad and the continued rampage of the false idols of multiculturalist dystopia.

We do have friends out there in the greater world. We will continue to meet in public till the majority op people realise they can speak freely and demand change for the better, a return to the right to own their own lives and privacy in the face of government interference and upper-class socialist hobbyism. As we meet, and as our meetings continue to grow in membership we'll be able to connect and compare ideas further, and from there we'll have a chance to have a great impact on the nature of our own lives.

One thing that is important to leave us with is that this Blue Revolution began in France. We are not French, and we have no connection to them. We do have an affinity for those under the yoke of fascist control, and we can see from their experience what our nations can become if they aren't already: fiefdoms run by an elite class of bureaucrats. We see too the growing rage, and even an outright hatred, a virulent hatred, of the government and controlling social caste in France. Before our nations come to that state we must act to regain sense and sensibility in our nations. We can do so by continuing to meet, to gather more and more people who are angry and unsettled but nervous and timid. We will meet again next Thursday.

We have much to discuss.

Blue Scarf Meeting

We not only survived, we met from 7:00 pm till midnight. I'll have more to post in the morning.

Makers and Wreckers

"Nearly two-thirds of fourth- and eighth-graders nationwide still score below grade level -- called "proficient" by NAEP -- in both math and reading."

"His world had shrunk to a hut in a crumbling village. He was prepared for even that to crumble away further, once the faith was served."

V.S. Naipaul, Among the Believers, Penguin: p. 89.

Two views of reality, one from America, the other from Pakistan.

The United States has one of the most successful economies in the world, one of the most successful cultures in the world, and over-all the highest standard of Human development in history. And yet, the majority of our students tested in grades four and eight can't read or do math at their expected levels. What does this tell us about the future?

I argue that it doesn't tell us the world is going to Hell in a hurry: I argue that it tells us that if America is a better place than most, which it demonstrably is, then the rest of the world must really be the pits. How we treat our children tells us what kind of nation and culture we have. If our concern is that our children are not achieving well enough in school we see that we are prepared to make sacrifices to ensure they do better in the future. We have to look at the over-all picture of the future to see what that competition is. We obviously do care. So we have to be smart in knowing what we send our children to face in the world to come.

Below we have a short excerpt from Pew Research. We'll follow this with a look at Pakistan and we'll link to a story of Palestinians.
****

State of Education: Who Makes the Grade?

by Kavan Peterson
Stateline.org
January 26, 2006

Schools spend fewer dollars per student in Utah than in any other state, but more fourth-graders there improved reading and math scores over the past decade than in more than half of the states.

Maine, for example, spends nearly twice as much on a comparable student population -- $9,300 a student vs. $4,800 in Utah. But fewer Maine fourth-graders improved their math scores -- and their reading scores actually declined in the past decade.

Both states ranked just above the national average on 2005 national reading and math tests, known as the National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP. But Utah stands out for its success in boosting the number of students to pass the tests since 1992, the first year of state-by-state NAEP testing, despite ranking dead last for spending.

Because of lackluster academic gains for the nation as a whole, education analysts increasingly are focusing attention on standout states where test scores show more students passing than a decade ago. The most recent NAEP scores released in October showed that despite strong gains in fourth-grade mathematics since 1992, students aren't reading much better than a decade ago. Nearly two-thirds of fourth- and eighth-graders nationwide still score below grade level -- called "proficient" by NAEP -- in both math and reading.

In Utah, only 19 percent of fourth-graders scored proficient or better on math in 1992, but nearly twice as many -- 38 percent -- passed in 2005.

Utah students' academic success is due in part to the state's lower-than-average population of minority and non-English-speaking students, who historically score lower. But state education officials also credit their efforts to raise state academic standards, such as by aligning classroom curricula with standardized tests and holding schools accountable for student performance.

"Our state has really been paying attention to national experts who over the past 10 years have said that focusing on aligning standards and strengthening accountability is every bit as important as new money," said Utah Superintendent of Education Patti Harrington.

It's difficult to prove what actually makes one state outperform another. Key factors such as per-pupil spending and student demographics vary widely, even among top-performing states.
http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=5
****

I have no experience from either direction of child-rearing, but I think there is a push among many parents to raise their children to survive, perhaps to thrive in a competitive world. In the West we are anguished that our children are not achieving their intellectual potentials, and therefore they will not be as successful as they would otherwise be. We do more, we spend more, we demand more of our children and the education systems to make them more competitive, more likely to succeed in the world. And when they reach adulthood we let them go, as well-prepared for life as we could provide.

What are we doing though? What kind of world do we think we live in? Johnny and Sue aren't only in competition against Jimmy and Jane for high-paying jobs. They must also compete against Mohammed, Abu, Omar, Uthman, and Ali. Our children must also compete against people who will murder them without a second thought. Our first order of business must be to raise our children to survive. To do so we must learn that lesson too.

There's little good in fretting over our children's math scores if millions of savages will swarm over them and kill them in years to come. As we look at how we might improve our children's reading comprehension scores we must at the same time examine our world and find out what it is we value that makes it worth reading and doing our sums. We must examine how we approach learning, how we see our future and the future of our children. We must examine the lives of others with whom our children will compete in the world at large. We have to comprehend and do the math:

We spend too much time and energy worrying about the frills of education, in sensitivity and sentimentality training to notice that we are falling apart as a modernist identity. Those few children we have are valuable, and not to be squandered on wars and conflicts between civilizations. But if we raise our children to be stupid in our footsteps, then our children will not be prepared for the world that awaits them. When our children go into the world they will find, perhaps too late, that many others around them are right evil bastards who can't read and add at all, and they won't stop to sympathise before they kill our own. We raise our children to do well within our own contexts, but we must pay attention to the larger picture, one we often seem not to see clearly.

these are our children's competitors. Below I'll continue with my explanation of philobarbarism and how we do a disservice to our children and those others by sentimentalising the evil that besets the world as a whole.

PAKISTAN

Honour killings of girls and women

Introduction

"The right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions."
Hina Jilani, lawyer and human rights activist
.

Women in Pakistan live in fear. They face death by shooting, burning or killing with axes if they are deemed to have brought shame on the family. They are killed for supposed 'illicit' relationships, for marrying men of their choice, for divorcing abusive husbands. They are even murdered by their kin if they are raped as they are thereby deemed to have brought shame on their family. The truth of the suspicion does not matter -- merely the allegation is enough to bring dishonour on the family and therefore justifies the slaying.

The lives of millions of women in Pakistan are circumscribed by traditions which enforce extreme seclusion and submission to men. Male relatives virtually own them and punish contraventions of their proprietary control with violence. For the most part, women bear traditional male control over every aspect of their bodies, speech and behaviour with stoicism, as part of their fate, but exposure to media, the work of women's groups and a greater degree of mobility have seen the beginnings of women's rights awareness seep into the secluded world of women. But if women begin to assert their rights, however tentatively, the response is harsh and immediate: the curve of honour killings has risen parallel to the rise in awareness of rights.

Every year hundreds of women are known to die as a result of honour killings. Many more cases go unreported and almost all go unpunished. The isolation and fear of women living under such threats are compounded by state indifference to and complicity in women's oppression. Police almost invariably take the man's side in honour killings or domestic murders, and rarely prosecute the killers. Even when the men are convicted, the judiciary ensures that they usually receive a light sentence, reinforcing the view that men can kill their female relatives with virtual impunity. Specific laws hamper redress as they discriminate against women.

The isolation of women is completed by the almost total absence of anywhere to hide. There are few women's shelters, and any woman attempting to travel on her own is a target for abuse by police, strangers or male relatives hunting for her. For some women suicide appears the only means of escape.

Abuses by private actors such as honour killings are crimes under the country's criminal laws. However, systematic failure by the state to prevent and to investigate them and to punish perpetrators leads to international responsibility of the state. The Government of Pakistan has taken no measures to end honour killings and to hold perpetrators to account. It has failed to train police and judges to be gender neutral and to amend discriminatory laws. It has ignored Article 5 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which it ratified in 1996, which obliges states to "modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women" to eliminate prejudice and discriminatory traditions....
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA330181999
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We are rightly concerned about our children's progress in school. We provide them with the best we can. We must also look at what they will face in the world we leave them. If we raise well-educated children who end up dead at the hands of a massive swell of illiterate and innumerate jihadi maniacs we will have failed in our primary duties as adult custodians. Reading comprehension and math skills are not enough. We have to teach what we know: that to survive we have to be aggressive and strong enough to raise our children and protect them from murder. We must abandon our sentimentality and look to our own children first. If we do not do that, all else is meaningless.

Look at this to see what Our children face: http://www.pmw.org.il/ASK%20FOR%20DEATH.htm
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Thursday, February 16, 2006

Burning Man Festival, Not Mohammed, no Qur'ans.


Burning Man Festival Aug. 28- Sept. 4, 2006.
Blackrock City, Nevada, USA

We are pleased to announce that this year's annual Burning Man Festival in Blackrock City, Nevada will not feature a replica of Mohammed, and we will not be fueling the fire with Qur'ans. Please disregard any suggestions that this is not the case. The figure for this year's festival is not Mohammed. We will not burn Qur'ans.

Dag.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Blue Scarf Meeting.


We will have another Blue Revolution meeting Thursday. They spring up across the world, America lagging behind somewhat at this time. Below we post again the principles of the revolution as written by Claude Reichman, the French representative of the movement. Following that, an update from our correspondent in Paris.

The threats of Islam continuously worsen our lives. We must organise ourselves and our communities to halt Islam in the West. We must meet our fellow citizens and neighbours to make a stand for our culture and our rights. We need desperately a Anti-sharia Neighbourhood Watch in every community.

If we are to preserve our lives, to preserve our culture and our democracies, we must impose democracy on our own cultures. Our politicians fail us. They consort with Muslim terrorists, take their money by the sackful, as we saw recently with Bill Clinton and Al Gore and who knows who else, and the politicians
at the EU level threaten the people with imprisonment for exercising their rights to free speech. Citizens are threatened with beheading by Muslims in London. In Paris, mobs of Muslims control the streets while the police are helpless to disband them.

Our culture has been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremist ideologues. It's time we organise ourselves to take it back from them to restore
reason and sanity to our lives. The left is not an ideology of peace. It is an ideology of elitist control.

Some of us are mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more. Open you eyes.

Here is Claude Reichman:



"What's the point of the Blue Revolution?"

I'm often asked this question and the answer is simple:

The Blue Revolution seeks to liberate speech for the many French who desire to peacefully express their profound rejection of the ruling political class which is increasingly disconnected from the realities and the aspirations of a people desiring to live freely and in peace,and who find themselves today marginalized before so many attacks on the part of politicians."

"As I see things, I would separate these attacks into 4 categories which could of course, be subdivided further:

1) Attacks against our nation and our identity:
Immigration-invasion, continual guilt about our history, praise of multiculturalism;

2) Economic Attacks:
Taxes, fees, Nanny-State, rigidity of work codes, privileges of those in civil service;

3) Freedom-killing attacks in daily life:
Discrimination laws, homophobia laws, reduction of freedom of expression;

4) Attacks against essential values:
Depraved justice where the guilty are treated as the victims; we must retrieve notions of personal responsibility, merit, respect for life, respect for private property, democratic rights.

The Blue Revolution therefore intends upon liberating the speech of the people on these subjects/themes.

The revolution takes place outside the political parties that members may belong to, so that it can better propose a program that we hope will carry forward the wishes of the Blue Revolution for profound changes, thereby allowing our nation to avoid succumbing [to these attacks]."

****

Below is a short piece from Sebastien:

Here's a little update of what seems to be going on in France, please feel free to take what you wish and report on your blog.

The site France-Echos which came down just over 2 weeks ago is back up and seems to be stronger than ever. They are reporting 10,000 unique visitors a day, which is 4,000 more than before the Cartoon mania begun. This may go down, but if you compare Jihadwatch which if my memory serves me correctly, reports 30,000 unique visitors a day, then this French language site is clearly doing very well.

At the bottom of each post there is a logo saying, "please print and send to your deputy." So, while I have been guilty of having not sent anything, there are clearly people who have.

Philippe de Villiers, a centre right politician from the MPF (Extreme Right if you are French) is making very interesting statements in the media which closely resemble those of Claude Reichman. Here's a little update of what seems to be going on in France, please feel free to take what you wish and report on your blog.

Slightly changing the subject, a very popular online polling organisation has published the results of poll asking people which groups of people they like or dislike the most. The results are here http://www.expression-publique.com/expression-publique/resultat.php?adresse=proximite

73 % of those who replied, feel distant or very distant to Muslims

This is obviously as unscientific as any poll can be. But as they are being asked via the Internet no one will look over their shoulder before answering.

I guess people don't feel particularly close to moderate Muslims either.

There is a "Support Denmark" demonstration coming soon, which is uniting all the disparate groups who share the same anger against our political class. Link here: http://www.france-echos.com/agenda.php#158

Kind Regards,

Sebastien
****

France today faces the end of its existence as a Western nation. France, a world leader in the revolution of Modernity that is our life and heritage as Westerners, is facing ruin and rule by criminal gangs from the top and the bottom. As bad is Sweden, is Norway, is Belgium, is Spain. This is the time of the rule of the beasts.

Paid apologists are taking from the West its revolutionary gains of democracy, individualism, of privacy. Man is reduced to a farm animal controlled by the elites, their rule enforced by thugs. This situation will not improve of its own. We must organise ourselves to take back our revolutions of Modernity. If we care to continue as democratic nations then we must put a stop to this corrosion from above and below.

We can do so by organising and meeting each other to express out solidarity in public.

We will be at McDonald's on Thursday from 7-9:00 pm. We will meet. We will organise our resistance to the dhimmitude and the appeasement of those who would destroy our lives. No sharia, no dhimmitude, no Islam.
.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

April In Paris


Paris in April 2006 will be under a pall of smoke from burning cars, burning buildings, burning passions; and the City of Lights, on fire from a thousand vantage points, will erupt into madness.

Below we have a brief history of France over the past 200 odd years, beginning with Sarkosy's pledge to bring order and peace to the cities under seige by Muslim criminals.

We'll work our way back in time to the May Riots of 1968.

We'll look at the Paris Commune of April, 1871.

We'll see some of the Paris Commune of 1848 in June.

We'll see the beginnings of the French Revolution in May of 1789.

The riots that began in Paris last October and that ended in more or less in November are germinating for the coming Spring. We can see this pattern in France of civil stife in the autumn and its fermentation over the cold months until it erupts in the warm.

France will burn.

April in Paris. And May. And June. And July. And August. And Sept. And then it just might well continue on till Novemeber like it did last year.

Two months. What will start the riots this time? And will there be a curfew to calm down the scum? Will youths and men of Middle Eastern appearance be confined to their sweaty and stinking little hovels in the ghettos from sundown till morning?

Muslims know they can burn and rape and kill with impunity. They did so last Autumn. They burnt 10,000 automobiles and shot policemen.

April in Paris. And May. And June. And July. And August. And Sept. And then it just might well continue on till November like it did last year, but this time things will be different because this time there will be a clear winner and a clear loser.
****


Hundreds of riot police sent to crime hotspots

AP, Paris
Tuesday October 25, 2005
The Guardian

The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has announced plans to deploy hundreds of riot police in tough neighbourhoods to crack down on crime.

"Some thugs act like they own their neighborhoods. We have to change our methods," Mr Sarkozy told the newspaper Le Monde, saying that about 9,000 police cars had been hit with stones this year.

Seventeen companies of riot police plus seven squadrons of mobile gendarme units will "intervene in small, specialised groups", he said. A spokesman said the changes would take effect today in the Parisian district of Argenteuil.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1600025,00.html
****

December 5, 2005 Issue
Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative
The Battle for France

The riots aren’t about social justice but who will rule.
by Paul Belien


On Thursday night, Oct. 27, two teenagers, Ziad Benna (17) and Banou Traoré (15), fled into an electrical power substation in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. They were hiding from police who had entered the suburb to investigate a robbery. Why the boys fled and climbed over the three-meter fence of the power station is unclear. The result, however, was something every moderately intelligent schoolboy could have foreseen: they got electrocuted.

When the fire brigade arrived to retrieve their bodies, something happened that every moderately intelligent French politician could have foreseen. Neighborhood gangs attacked the firemen and police officers and went on a rampage, setting fire to dozens of cars. The same thing happened during the following nights, when schools, shops, and restaurants were also set ablaze. At first the media did not devote much attention to the rioting. These things happen every day in the predominantly immigrant and largely Muslim neighborhoods surrounding every major French city.

Only one week earlier Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had declared in Le Monde: “Violence in French suburbs is a daily fact of life. Since the beginning of the year stones were thrown at 9,000 police cars and each night 20 to 40 cars are torched.” For some years, vehicle burning has been a favorite way to celebrate New Year’s Eve. If only 30 cars are set ablaze on an ordinary night and just 300 on New Year’s, the French police consider the situation to be “stable.” http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_12_05/cover.html

****

Paris, April, 1968

Paris:- Sunday, 3. May 1998:-

This informal chronology of the 'Events of May 1968' in France begins in November 1996 with students who were demanding the 'internationale situationniste,' taking control of the leadership of the association of students in Strasbourg.

[....]

22. March - At Nanterre University, the administrative tower is occupied by 150 students, who say they are anarchists. Courses are suspended until 1. April.

12. April - The attack on student leader Rudi Dutschke in Germany results in riots there and supporting demonstrations in France.

27. April - Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 23, student leader at the University of Nanterre, is arrested.

2. May - Prime Minister Georges Pompidou leaves for official visits to Iran and Afghanistan. Courses at the faculty of letters are suspended at Nanterre after incidents there.

3. May - Police clear the courtyard at the Sorbonne. Violence in the Quartier Latin results in more than 100 injured and 596 arrested.

4. May - Courses at the Sorbonne are suspended. The UNEF and the Snesup call for unlimited strikes.

5. May - Courts convict 13 demonstrators; give four jail terms.

6. May - Battles in the Quartier Latin: 422 arrests; 345 police and about 600 students are hurt. Students at universities throughout France pledge support.

7. May - At the tomb of the unknown soldier at Etoile: 30,000 students sing the 'Marseillaise.'

9. May - The Minister of Education forbids the re-opening of the faculties.

10. May - Night of riot in the Quartier Latin: police assault 60 barricades. 367 are hospitalized of which 251 are police; 720 others hurt and 468 arrested. Cars burned were 60 and 188 others were damaged. The Minister of Education says of the protestors, "Ni doctrine, ni foi, ni loi."

11. May - The major unions, the CGT, the CFDT and the FEN, call for a general strike on 13. May. Back in Paris, George Pompidou, announces the re-opening of the Sorbonne, also for the 13. May.

13. May - The general strike puts hundreds of thousands of students and workers in the streets of Paris; the Sorbonne is occupied by students.

14. May - The National Assembly discusses the university crises and the battles of the Quartier Latin. President Charles de Gaulle leaves for Romania. Workers occupy Sud-Aviation in Nantes.

15. May - The theatre de l'Odéon is occupied by 2,500 students and the Renault factory at Cléon is occupied by workers.

16. May - Strikes hit other factories throughout France, plus air transport, the RATP and the SNCF. Newspapers fail to be distributed.

18. May - President de Gaulle arrives back from Romania, 12 hours earlier than expected. Cinema professionals occupy the Cannes Film Festival. Major French directors withdraw their films from competition and the jury resigns, closing the festival.

19. May - At the Elysée palace, President de Gaulle says, "La réforme, oui; la chienlit, non"

20. May - An estimated 10 million workers are on strike; France is practically paralysed.
http://www.metropoleparis.com/1998/318/chron318.html

****

Paris, April, 1871

The term "Paris Commune" originally referred to the government of Paris during the French Revolution. However, the term more commonly refers to the socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 (more formally from March 26) to May 28, 1871.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
****

The Paris Commune 1871
April 12, 1871


This morning, April 11 at 7:00, the cannons still rumbled, but the defenders of the Commune, solidly set up in their positions, have nothing to fear from the enemy.

The damages they caused have been repaired.

The well-commanded National Guard is full of confidence,

All worry has ceased.

Formidable barricades are going up from the Porte de Neuilly to the Champs Elysées.

All is calm at our forward positions.

Our lines are stronger than ever and ready to support an attack by the Versaillais, if one dared to occur.
*

When on March 18 the people of Paris made a revolution to the cry of "Long Live the Commune" it was in order to re-conquer all civil, political and economic rights, to preserve its weapons, its rifles and cannons that had served to defend Paris against the foreigner and which must, by remaining in its hands, ensure all the conquests of the Revolution.

So let the men of Versailles not come here talking of granting us a municipality of Paris, for that is not what it's a question of.

We want, we'll have, we have proclaimed and founded the great Paris Commune. We will maintain it, we know how to defend it, to se it triumph, or to die for it.
April 13,1871

This morning the royalists began again the attack on Clamart. The fighting is rapidly spreading. Like yesterday, it is the fort of Issy that appears to be the objective of their movements.

MacMahon commands the Versaillais, the movement was foreseen yesterday by general Dombrowski. He is carrying out strategic movements that will make the enemy dearly pay for his brazen aggression.

The word had spread in Paris that General Eudes had been wounded. We are in a position to formally deny this information.

Genral Eudes paid with his person in yesterday's combat, but happily he is safe and sound.

The gendarmes, the police, and the Chouans of Charette and Cathelinau were less vigorous in this morning's attack. Yesterday's defeat demoralized them a bit.
*

We are actively working at transforming the Place de la Concorde into an entrenched camp. We have already begun digging deep entrenchments at the entries of the main streets, at the Quai Cours-de-la-reine, the Rue Royale, and the Rue de Rivoli, which will be blocked by high and solid barricades.

Other works will be executed around the Champs Elysées.
April 14, 1871

Since last night we are in complete possession of Neuilly, where General Dombrowski yesterday began a full-fledged siege. The chouans have been dislodged from all their positions, and our columns, ready to go on the offensive, at the hour we go to press occupy the bridgehead.
*

Decree
The Paris Commune,

Considering that the imperial column is a barbaric monument, a symbol of brute force and false glory, an affirmation of militarism, a negation of international law, a permanent insult on the part of the victors to the vanquished, a perpetual attack on one of the three great principles of the French republic, Fraternity,

Decrees:

Sole article: The Column of the Place Vendome shall be demolished

The Paris Commune
*

Since yesterday Artillery Captain Caillau has taken command at the Porte de Maillot.

He has excited to the highest degree the zeal of the soldiers in charge of the pieces.

But in another area he is poorly seconded, for having asked for workers to repair during the night the damages caused by the enemy batteries, he didn't obtain what he asked for.

A few engineering officers came, but they established a barricade at the rear of the Porte de Maillot that is ridiculous as a form of defense, and at the same time very dangerous for the besieged, for it is entirely made of stone, so when a shell falls on it many pieces of stone are thrown out in all directions.
April 15, 1871

At midnight the enemy attacked the fort of Vanves and was pushed back. At the current time all is calm

— G. Cluseret

The Commune authorizes Citizen Gustave Courbet, president of the Painters, named in General Assembly, to as quickly as possible reestablish the museums of the city of Paris in their normal state, to open the galleries to the public, and to encourage the work usually done there.

To this effect the Commune authorizes 46 delegates, who shall be named tomorrow Thursday, April 13, at a public session at the school of Medicine (Great Amphitheatre) at exactly 2:00.

In addition, it authorizes Citizen Courbet, as well as the assembly, to reestablish, with the same urgency, the annual exhibit on the Champs Elysées.

Paris April 12, 1871

The Executive Commission
Avrial, F. Cournet, Celescluze, Felix Pyat, G. Tridon, E. Vaillaint, Vermorel
April 16, 1871

April 15 7:30 am: The commandant of the fort of Grand Montrouge and General Eudes announce that they successfully fought all night, that they pushed back five enemy attacks.

A large artillery detachment will be joining the garrison of the fort.
*

Yesterday at 1:00 pm a Company of Vengeurs de Paris passed on the Boulevard Monmartre, escorting a hearse decorated with red flags transporting to Pére Lachaise Cemetery the mortal remains of a young man of 17, Duval, who signed up to fight against the government of Versailles and killed in combat the day before yesterday at the forward positions of Moulin-de-Pierre, before Issy.

Mortally struck by two bullets to the head, this courageous and valiant child of Paris fell while crying out: Vive la France, Vive la Commune!
*

The construction has begun on the scaffolding that will be used in dismantling the Vendome Column.
April 17, 1871

Theatre directors went yesterday to the Commune asking for authorization to open their theatres to organize benefit performances for the widows and orphans of those who have died for the Republic.

The request was favorably received. The Theatre de la Porte Saint Martin will open the march and in a few days will put on a brilliant show with the participation of the principal artists of the capital.
April 18, 1871
Letter from General Dombrowski: April 16, 1871

Citizens:

The siege of Neuilly advances little by little.

We have occupied the whole of a new quarter, taken three barricades.

At one of them we took a flag of the Pontifical Zouaves and from another one that seems to be American.

The parquets of houses taken, covered with large pools of blood, bear witness to the fact that the enemy suffered great losses.

In order to more vigorously carry out the operations I need more men, artillery and munitions.

The troops' sprits are good. The National Guard is making progress, and is getting used to fire, privations, and shows a remarkable enthusiasm.

Salut et Fraternité

Dombrowski
*

Order:

In order to avoid accidents on the streets of Paris the former rule on horsemen is once again in effect.

It is forbidden to all horsemen, military staff officer or civilian, to circulate at a gallop on the streets of Paris.

The National Guard, the civil police, and the population are charged with execution of the present order and the arrest of delinquents.

The commanding general of the place: P-O.
April 19, 1871

Three small attacks on Vanves and Issy

Few losses

All is well

Intermittent fusillade

Very calm night

— Eudes
*

The Versaillais were pushed back yesterday at 2:00 in the morning.

They had attempted an attack on the fédérés who still occupy Asnières. We had the sorrow of losing a Mexican general who had spontaneously put his sword at the service of the Commune.
April 20, 1871

Order:

The Citizen Delegate for War learns that barricades are being constructed the plans of which haven't been submitted to him, and that promises of high salaries are being made for this work. These high salaries will not be paid.
*

At Neuilly yesterday the affair was lively. But General Dombrowski arrived, and soon everyone was in place, the National Guard assembled, the officers led their men and the positions were retaken.
*

The Professional Chamber of Tailors:

In order to respond to the decree of the Paris Commune of April 16, the chamber believes itself obliged to make a fraternal appeal to the professional chambers of workers, as well as all the existing workers' societies, in order to immediately convoke a meeting to name delegates charged with carrying out an inquiry on the organization of labor, which is called for by said decree.

Never has a more favorable occasion been offered by a government to the laboring class. To abstain would be to betray the cause of the emancipation of labor.

The secretaries:
Dupire, Verbeck
April 21, 1871

Yesterday was extremely satisfactory.

The attacks by the Versaillais were pushed back at all points.

The National Guard took a magazine of military equipment and provisions at Asnières.

The losses of the Versaillais were out of all proportion to ours.
*

Versaillais dress as National Guards and fire from houses.
April 22, 1871

8:00 a.m. — Firing begins again with a new fury.

100 shots are fired precipitously. The barricade of the Rue Peronnet, behind which the Versaillais are sheltered with machine guns, has just been penetrated.

The boutique of Citizen Claise, dairyman, was set on fire by a cannon ball.

The artillerymen are heroic.
*

The Commune has just published its program, which the reactionary journals have been calling for in the hope that it will be embarrassed to formulate it.

This program, as simple as it is practical, reasonable, and moderate, will remain in history as the most beautiful moment of good sense and practical capacity that the working class has ever demonstrated.

It would have been impossible to more clearly formulate, with greater precision and clarity, the demands of the Parisian populace, and we are convinced that this program will have the marvelous effect of rallying to the Commune the great majority of the population of Paris... From this point on, the cause defended so courageously by Paris has been won in public opinion. And since it is after all this latter that triumphs, we have no doubt in the definitive success of the Commune.
April 23, 1871

The enemy is losing ground with every passing minute. His fire has been extinguished at several points.

We become aware of the retreat of the Versaillais by the aim of their projectiles.

The projectiles land further and further from our ramparts.
April 24, 1871

Neuilly: Calm night. 7:30- a strong fusillade opens the engagement.

The fighting is lively and the melee is about to become general when the 1st Belleville Battery arrived at the theatre of action and fired at a short distance.

The Versaillais disperse and flee in all directions.
April 25, 1871

The newspapers have published that the Central Committee, having fulfilled its mission, has dissolved itself. This story is completely false. Like the National Guard, of which it is emanation, can only disappear along with liberty. It hopes that this response will suffice for its detractors.
April 26, 1871

It is said in the newspaper of Citizen Jules Vallès:

In the garden of the Legion of Honor more than 500 kilos of silverware were found buried that General Eudes had sent to the mint.
April 27, 1871

7:30:The fusillade begins, the cannon roars and the machineguns crackle.

The fight is engaged from the Porte Maillot to Asnières.

8:00 - The firing becomes more intense, the machine guns play a more active role.

The fédérés advance, causing great losses to the enemy.

All is well.
*

Project for a decree:

The Paris Commune:

Considering that the calumnies that are circulating among a certain public are of a nature to hinder defense and to raise the provinces up against Paris;

Given that the defenders of Paris are accused of pillage by agents provocateurs;

Given that in a well-constituted government police work should be done by the people themselves;

Decrees:

Art. 1 - Any citizen spreading word of pillage without immediately denouncing it to the authorities will be arrested, and if the fact is false, punished as a slanderer.

Art. 2 - Any citizen suspected of knowing of a true case of pillage and who will not have made this known to the competent authorities, shall be arrested as an accomplice and condemned to the same penalty as those truly guilty.

Art. 3 - The National Guard is charged with the execution of the present decree.
April 28, 1871

The Commune was proclaimed at Le Mans.

The garrison fraternized with the people.

Two regiments that were called for from Rennes in order to suppress the people of Le Mans did the same.

Cuirassiers arrived. Surrounded by the people they were forced to lay down their arms.
April 29, 1871

The bombardments from the forts in the south continue.

We respond vigorously and keep at a distance the Versaillais who are sheltered behind the woods of Clamart and Chatillon.
*

All night the detonations from both camps rivaled each other in intensity.
April 30, 1871

War to the Executive:

I return from visiting Issy and Vanves. The defense of the fort d'Issy is heroic. The fort is literally covered in projectiles. While at the fort of Vanves I witnessed a ferocious musket combat between Versaillais. It lasted three quarters of an hour. Meudon is in flames.
*

The executive commission,

In execution of a decree relative to night work in the bakeries.

After having consulted the bakers, owners and workers,

Decrees:

Art. 1 — Night work is forbidden in bakeries effective Wednesday May 3;

Art. 2 — Work cannot start before 5:00 am.

Art. 3 — The Delegate for Public services is charged with the execution of the present decree.

Paris April 28, 1871.
*

The fight continues across the entire line.

Yesterday a lively affair took place at the bridge of Ansières, from which the Versaillais were forced to abandon by retreating to the station.
*

8:00 am:

The Freemasons from the suburban communes, banners at their head, passed through the gates to go to the demonstration which is to take place at 10:00 in the courtyard of the Louvre.

Everywhere their passing is saluted.

Their arrival produces an indescribable enthusiasm.

So compact is the crowd that circulation on the Rue de Rivoli is completely stopped.

100,000 men are there.

We shall see if Thiers will stay say that this is a handful of dissidents.

http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/documents/paris-libre.htm

****

Paris, June, 1848

The Republican Government got time to mature its plans against republicanism, and to organise its military force against labour. Thousands of workers were taken on in the workshops, and middle class poets talked enthusiastically and sang ecstatically about the Era of Labour. But all the time the government was quietly drafting its forces into Paris, removing from Paris all the city regiments and replacing them with battalions from remote country districts, perfecting its artillery, and calmly preparing to crush the workers should they persist in their idea that the Republic ought to regard them as its children, not as its slaves. Eventually when all was ready the government began to dismiss men in thousands from the National Workshops, and to form brigades of workers to be removed from Paris ostensibly to work at canal construction in the provinces.

One of these brigades was formed of 14,000 men, almost all of whom were Parisians, and members of various local Labour clubs. In addition to this wholesale removal of workers to unfamiliar provinces, the government on the 22nd June, 1848, summarily dismissed 3,000 more on the pretence that they were not born in Paris, and ordered them to leave the city at once. Money and tickets were supplied to them to pay their lodgings along the road to their birthplaces.

Out of this deportation sprung the Insurrection of June, 1848.

About 400 of the deported workmen returned to the city that evening and paraded the streets, calling upon their comrades to resist the plot of the government to destroy the Labour forces. In the morning the sound of the generale, the popular drum beat to arms, was sounded, and barricades began to be erected in the streets. All the working class districts rapidly rose, and the insurgents fortified their quarters so rapidly and skilfully that it was quite evident that astute minds had been busy amongst them preparing to meet the schemes of the government.

At the Porte St. Denis the fighting began. The barricade here was stormed alter the soldiers had been twice beaten off. At the Porte St. Martin and at several other points similar fights took place, at each of them the soldiery stormed the barricade. But at each of them it was found that after the barricade had become untenable the insurgents were able to fall back behind others that had been prepared for the purpose, and when the troops sought to pursue them they were met by a galling and terrible fire from all the side streets and houses. The insurgents had seized houses which commanded the passage of the streets, but were still so retired that they could not be swept from the front, and had prepared their house in the most scientific manner. The front walls were loopholed, the entrances were barricaded with furniture, boxes, trunks, and obstacles of all kinds, the party walls were cut through so that only one man at a time could pass, and as fast as one house was taken in desperate hand-to-hand fighting they retired through this passage to the next.

Some of the houses were compared to rabbit warrens, full of holes and galleries, and in every corner death was waiting for the soldiers. Windows were blocked with mattresses and sandbags, and marksmen fired from behind them, and women were busy casting bullets, raining slates and stones on the heads of the troops, carrying arms, and tending the wounded.

Before nightfall the troops had been driven back at numerous points, and the roar of artillery was heard all over the city.

Next morning it was found that most of the barricades destroyed during the day had been erected again during the night. To enumerate here the places and districts fortified would be a useless display of names, but sufficient to say that the insurgents had drawn a huge semi-circle around a vast portion of Paris, had erected barricades in a practically continuous line all along their front, had carefully prepared the houses and buildings at tactically strong points, arid were now applying to their service everything within their lines that foresight or prudence could suggest.

Two great buildings served as headquarters in the various districts. The headquarters of the North were in the Temple, those of the South in the Pantheon, and in the centre the Hospital of the Hotel Dicu had been seized and held as the strategical bureau of the whole insurrection.

Meanwhile the soldiers in overwhelming numbers were being rushed to Paris from all the provincial centres, and as France was then at peace with all foreign powers the whole force of the army was available. General Cavaignac issued a proclamation that

“if at noon the barricades are not removed, mortars and howitzers will be brought by which shells will be thrown, which will explode behind the barricades and in the apartments of the houses occupied by the insurgents.”

No one heeded his threat, and on the next day the fighting re-commenced. But the shortage of ammunition on the part of the insurgents told heavily against them, and in addition, as the government had all along planned, the soldiers brought to Paris outnumbered the armed men in revolt, as well as being possessed of all the advantage of a secure source of supplies.

The first fighting at the Clos St. Lazare was typical of the whole and therefore the following description from the pen of an eye-witness is worth reproducing. He says:–

“The barricades in advance of the harriers were as formidable as regular engineers would have constructed, and were built of paving stones of a hundredweight each, and blocks of building stone cut for building a hospital, and weighing tons. The houses covering them were occupied. The tall houses at the barriers were occupied and the windows removed. The houses on the opposite side of the Boulevard were, moreover, in the possession of the rebels and manned with marksmen. What formed, however, the strength of their position was the perforation of the wall of the city which is twelve or fourteen feet high, at intervals of eight or ten yards for a mile in length, with several hundred loopholes of about six inches in diameter. During all Saturday and Sunday a constant and deadly fine was kept up from these loopholes on troops who could hardly see their opponents.

“The defenders ran from loophole to loophole with the agility of monkeys. They only left the cover of the high wall to seek ammunition, of which they had only a scanty and precarious supply.”

It was only when the insurgents’ ammunition gave out that the artillery became formidable. Then it was able to pound to ruins the building in which the insurgents were awaiting their attack, and to gradually occupy the district so cleared of its defenders.

By the 25th June all fighting had ceased in Paris. The isolation of that city from all provincial support, combined with the overwhelming number of the soldiery had won the day.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1915/rw/june1848.htm

****

Paris, May 1789

05-05-1789 The French Estates-General meets at Versaille, the first such meeting since 1614.(*)

06-17-1789 The Third Estate (commoners) of the Estates-General meets separately and declares itself to be a National Assembly. King Louis XVI closed their meeting place, so they repair to the tennis court at the Louvre (Jeu de Paume). (*)

06-20-1789 Members of the National Assembly take oath not to disband until a constitution is established.

06-27-1789 Louis XVI legalizes the National Assembly, permitting all three estates to meet together and vote per capita.(*)

07-14-1789 Parisian mob storms Bastille Castle, then functioning as a royal prison, hoping to find arms. The mob kills its governor, the Marquis de Launey, and releases its seven prisoners (none of whom are political prisoners). (*)

08-04-1789 During the night, equality of rights throughout France is proclaimed. (*)

08-14-1789 Nobles and clergy in the National Assembly, out of fear, renounce their privileges, thus ending feudalism in France.(*)

August, 1789 Adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen. (*)

10-05-1789 Parisian mob marches on Versailles. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are relocated to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they are confined.

06-20-1791 to 06-21-1791 Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to flee in disguise from France, but are apprehended at Varennes, and are brought back to Paris.(*)
http://www.txdirect.net/users/rrichard/napoleo1.htm
****

Will France endure a period of madness and riot? Will the French pay off the Muslims? What about April of 2007? And April, 2008? And April, 2009?

Terrorist Elmasry's Vile Filthiness

He was behind the push to impose Shari'a onto Canadians in Ontario, and he promotes murder and mayhem against civilians, but whoa, don't upset the man by publishing cartoons of Mohammed, murder and child molestor prophet of the fascist poligion that is Islam. He might cut off your head. This terrorist arsehole now wants to sue a publisher in Canada. What next? Well, likely he'll murder somone. He is a terrorist.

Muslim leader accuses Cdn publisher of hate crime

Updated Tue. Feb. 14 2006 11:30 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The national leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress [Mohamed Elmasry] wants an Alberta-based magazine charged with distributing hate literature after it published controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

[....]

He said the cartoons propagate a negative stereotype of Muslims, and the decision to publish them goes against the will of the Canadian people and "actually affects the well being of minorities in this country."

Elmasry also said the Muslim people have been unfairly targeted, and said he believes the magazine would have acted differently if the cartoons were anti-Semitic.

Muslim leader accuses Cdn publisher of hate crime

.
****

Appearing on an October 19 panel discussion on The Michael Coren Show -- on the topic "What is a terrorist?" -- CIC president Mohamed Elmasry was asked whether any Israeli over the age of 18 is a valid target of Palestinian attacks. Elmasry replied: "Anybody above 18 is part of the army." Host Michael Coren offered Elmasry an opportunity to clarify, asking: "Anyone in Israel, irrespective of gender, over the age of 18 is a valid target?" "Yes, I would say," Elmasry responded.

A professor of engineering and an occasional contributor to the Globe and Mail and other newspapers, Elmasry reiterated his position to the Globe and Mail, stating: "Israel has a people's army and a draft and therefore they should be considered legitimate targets. They are part of the occupying power, and Palestinians consider them targets for suicide bombers as well as other means." Elmasry has since said that he regrets "that my comments were misunderstood and, as a result, caused offence."
http://www.honestreporting.ca/English/Muslim-Leaders-Statements-Affirm-National-Posts-Position.html

October 27, 2004
Muslim Leaders' Statements Affirm National Post's Position


Found! The Moderate Muslim!

Give Us this Day Our Our Daily Bread

Obscurantists and biblioclasts abound across the political spectrum with nary a pause for thought, and today's celebration of sentimentalist "sensitivities" gives them yet more fuel to fire up the unimaginative, more fire to fuel the slack-jawed and the angry wrecker-drones of Modernity. Some resist, those revolutionary figures few know of, fewer read, and most hate by rote. Roger Shattuck is dead. Cindy Sheehan is alive. William Blake is dead, but you live.

The uncredited picture across the top of each page here shows William Blake's "Elohim Creating Adam."

What should we know, and how do we know what we should not know? That is the birth of tragedy. That is the nature of the telos of Man.


Roger Shattuck, 1923-2005
On the passing of a great man-of-letters.

This article originally appeared in
The New Criterion, Volume 24, January 2006, page 3

It is with sadness that we note the passing of our friend Roger Shattuck, teacher, poet, essayist, and literary observer par excellence. Roger was the sort of man-of-letters one reads about but scarcely encounters any more: literary to his fingertips, but graced with manly common-sense and instinctive independence of mind: a gentleman in the highest sense of that retired epithet. Roger was never part of any school or clique or movement. He regarded fads like deconstruction with amused distaste: something to hold one's nose about while disposing of it quickly and with as little comment as possible. His most famous book, in some ways his best, was also his first: The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I (1958), a quirky, seductive, utterly original romp through the work of Henri Rousseau, Alfred Jarry, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire. Roger made connections—made sense—out of themes and continuities that no one had sensed before but that now seem obvious. Roger's mind was omnivorous, as at home in anthropology and moral philosophy as it was in literature. He wrote on Proust; on "the Wild Boy of Aveyron," the feral child discovered in France in the nineteenth century; and all manner of literary controversy and incident.

One of Roger's most thoughtful and ambitious (and by accident most contentious) books was Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (1996), which began with the arresting question: "Are there things we should not know?" Today, shallow intellectuals bandy about words like "subversive" and "transgressive" as terms of endearment. But the age-old uneasiness about the subversive potentialities of unfettered knowledge reveal a recognition that knowledge can bring unhappiness and ruin as well as insight and liberation. This thought is embedded in countless myths and stories, many of which Roger anatomizes in the course of his book.

Since the Enlightenment, it has been increasingly difficult for us in the West to give much credence to or even properly to understand the kind of moral-religious criticism that Augustine (for example) mounts against unfettered curiosity. We are increasingly secular creatures who rankle at the very prospect of there being "limits" to knowledge, let alone ones prescribed by any human agency. It is one of Mr. Shattuck's most impressive achievements to have been able to bring readers back behind this Enlightenment assumption and reanimate the kinds of questions posed by Augustine and the many authors he discusses, from Homer and Aeschylus to Milton, Melville, Montaigne, and Molière. In the "applications" part of his book, Roger concentrates on three cases studies: the decision to build and use the atomic bomb in World War II; the human genome project and the prospect of genetic engineering; and the question of whether certain extreme forms of pornography (the Marquis de Sade furnishes his chief text) ought to be controlled. Where do we find the authority to say the limit should be just here? Or here? Or here? There are no simple answers to the urgent quandaries that Mr. Shattuck illuminates in this impressive study. We must be grateful to him for bringing the questions to life once more. As the eighteenth-century aphorist G. C. Lichtenberg once observed, "Today we are trying to spread knowledge everywhere. Who knows if in centuries to come there will not be universities for re-establishing our former ignorance?"

http://www.newcriterion.com/archives/24/01/roger-shattuck/
****

The movie still above shows Alex the Droogie experiencing "the Ludovico Treatment" in A Clockwork Orange.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Hey, Mo, you boy-slut!


People write to me sometimes and they say hey, Dag, you dawg, are you makin' up some of this stuff sometimes and I say hey, I say no way sometimes.

Why, I like I, I got this note today that I couldn't have made up so fast cause I just got it:

Dear Mohammed,

Fatima just got a box of gerbils and a new pair of stiletto heels.

Mo., you naughty boy-slut, join us again while Fatima gets naked in this small room and steps on the little furries in her panic. Ooh! Ooh!.

Swish me, Spanky, I'm feeling Muslim all over.

Your secret admirer, Dag.

The Blue Revolution


Charles translated the following post from Claude Reichman, organiser of the Blue Revolution in France.

"What's the point of the Blue Revolution?"

I'm often asked this question and the answer is simple:

The Blue Revolution wants to liberate speech for the many French who desire to peacefully express their profound rejection of the ruling political class which is increasingly
disconnected from the realities and the aspirations of a people desiring to live freely and in peace,and who find themselves today marginalized before so many aggressions on the part of Statesmen."

"As I see things, I would (scheme? Separate?) these aggressions along 4 axis which could of course be subdivided further along multiple aspects:

1) Aggressions against our nation and our identity:
Immigration-invasion, permanent repentance, praise of multiculturalism;

2) Economic Aggressions:
Taxes, fees, Nanny-State, rigidity of work codes, privileges of those in civil service;

3) Freedom-killing aggressions in daily life:
Discrimination laws, homophobia laws, reduction of freedom of expression;

4) Aggressions against essential values:
Depraved justice where the guilty are treated as the victims; we must retrieve notions of personal responsibility, merit, respect for life, respect for private property, democratic rights.

The Blue Revolution therefore intends upon liberating the speech of the people on these subjects/themes.

The revolution takes place outside the political parties that members may belong to, so that it can better propose a program that we hope will carry forward the wishes of the Blue Revolution for profound changes, thereby allowing our nation to avoid succumbing [to these aggressions]."
http://revolutionbleue.over-blog.com/article-1835884.html
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Isalm is Not the Religion of Peace

Islam is not

The Religion of Peace

Sunday, February 12, 2006