The company you keep

Tasha Kheiriddin's lame attack on Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally in today's Post begins with:

... the biggest tea party Washington, D.C., has ever seen. And what a wonderland it was, with the Mad Hatter -- conservative commentator Glenn Beck -- and the Queen of Hearts -- former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- exhorting the crowd to forget politics and focus on a higher power. ...

A nasty start that sounds more like the American far left's Howard Dean than a supposed conservative.  And the column didn't rise significantly in quality from there. It's doubtful that she follows Beck's program or understands what he actually stands for.

But a good indication of Beck's character and values can be found in the company he keeps.  A Wall Street Journal editorial "Glenn Beck's Happy Warriors" provides a description of the hundreds of thousands of people he attracted to the DC rally on Saturday:

Pundits will debate whether the crowd at Glenn Beck's Saturday rally in Washington was the largest in recent political history, but it was certainly among the most impressive. ...

...  if he's judged by the quality of people of all colors that he attracted to the Lincoln Memorial, his stock can't help but rise.

One would not be able to find a more polite crowd at a political convention, certainly not at a professional sporting event, probably not even at an opera. In fact, judging by the behavior of the attendees following the event, you'd have a tough time finding churches in which people display more patience as others make their way to the exits.

... Relaxed young parents felt comfortable enough to push toddlers in strollers through the crowded areas along the memorial's reflecting pool.

Not only was the rally akin to a "huge church picnic" (in one Journal reporter's description), but one had to wonder if the over-achievers in this crowd actually left the area in better shape than they found it.

Update. Here's another interesting take on the rally [via FiveFeetOfFury]:



And Tasha K might also be interested to know that The Smithsonian Institute wants to preserve artifacts from Glenn's historic rally.

Pat Condell's latest on the GZ mosque

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Boycotting the boycotters

Ezra Levant calls for Canadians to boycott "The Gap" for its boycott of oil from Alberta oilsands.

However, in later breaking news, the Gap and Levi Strauss reportedly "clarified" that they are NOT part of any oilsands boycott.  Apparently their enviromental positions have been misrepresented by the eco-nutjobs at Forest Ethics.

Wheew! That's good. I don't buy at The Gap but I'd sure hate to have to boycott Levis.

Update. On the other hand, Ezra says that The Gap and Levis are lying when they deny boycotting the oilsands:

I like the AEG guys a lot. But The Gap and Levis speak with a forked tongue. They put out anti-oilsands comments to appeal to American lefties. And then they tell AEG what they want to hear. They're saying two different things at the same time. In other words, The Gap is lying.

It's not too shocking that a company that was built on shocking labour practices might actually fib for PR purposes, is it?

Top Ten Islamo-Fascist Apologists

This is excellent:

#10: Dupes and Useful Idiots Category – Gen. George W. Casey Jr.

#9: Shared Prize, Cover-Up Category – The Pauls

#8: Feminisogynist Category – Naomi Wolf

#7: Shared Honors, Intellectual Category – Armstrong, Esposito & Cole

#6: English Language Category: Reuters

#5: Jihadist Tool Category: Dalia Mogahed

#4: Mole Agent Category: Grover Norquist

#3: Collaborator Category: The New York Times

#2: Runner Up: Michael Bloomberg

#1: Grand Prize: Barack Hussein Obama

We need a Canadian "Top Ten". It would surely include Avi Lewis, Jack Layton, CBC, The Rabble, CTV, etc.

Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally

Some stills:

And via five feet of fury the three hour video.

Just fabulous! Estimates of rally attendance put it in the hundreds of thousands.  CNN and other MSM outlets were saying "thousands".  Needless to say the left is derisive and/or dismissive (and, most likely, terrified).

Does Islam suck?

Terrorist wannabees "unlikely suspects"

"Unlikely suspects"? Catholic grannies are unlikely suspects.  Chinese- and Indo-Canadian Buddhists and Hindus are unlikely suspects.  But Pakistani and Iranian Muslims with burqha wearing wives? I think not.

Lefty attacks locavores

Prominent left-wing news rags like the NYT routinely publish op-eds by knee-jerk, Beck and Palin hatin' lefties.  Once in a blue moon it's a reasonable article:

... the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas.

He doesn't escape backlash, though. 

Muslims distort history, subvert education

In yesterday's New York Post:

State testmakers played favorites when quizzing high-schoolers on world religions -- giving Islam and Buddhism the kid-gloves treatment while socking it to Christianity, critics say.

Teachers complain that the reading selections from the Regents exam in global history and geography given last week featured glowing passages pertaining to Muslim society but much more critical essay excerpts on the subject of Christianity.

The Muslim reading:

* “Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western Christendom.

* “Some of the finest centers of Moslem life were established in Spain. In Cordova, the streets were solidly paved, while at the same time in Paris people waded ankle-deep in mud after a rain. Cordovan public lamps lighted roads for as far as ten miles; yet seven hundred years later there was still not a single public lamp in London!”

The Christian reading:

Common Procedures used by Friars in Converting Areas in Spanish America:

* “Idols, temples and other material evidences of paganism destroyed.”

* “Christian buildings often constructed on sites of destroyed native temples in order to symbolize and emphasize the substitution of one religion by the other.”

* “Indians supplied construction labor without receiving payment.”

David Barton speaking on the Glenn Beck show attributed these distortions, in part, to the subversive activities of the Council on Islamic Education:

The Council has been accused of "pressuring American textbook publishers to revise their respective curricula to promote an extremist and revisionist view of Islam."

Critics have called the Council "a content gatekeeper with virtually unchecked power over publishers" and allege that "as a result, history textbooks accommodate Islam on terms that Islamists demand."

A report of the American Textbook Council calls the Council "an agent of contemporary censorship," and accuses it of being "in fact a political advocacy organization" that seeks to present an "Islamist" version of history.

Subversion and distortion by Islamists is par for the course. What's extremely hard to accept is that the po-mo, leftist useful idiots who infest the education system and publishing industry are permitted to let them get away with this disgusting crap.

Coal fired plants expanding in the USA

This from the same people who pronounced CO2 a pollutant and routinely slam the Alberta oil sands:

... An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups shows that more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction.

...Combined, they will produce an estimated 17,900 megawatts of electricity, sufficient to power up to 15.6 million homes — roughly the number of homes in California and Arizona combined.

They also will generate about 125 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, according to emissions figures from utilities and the Center for Global Development. That's the equivalent of putting 22 million additional automobiles on the road. ...

Minus the hypocrisy this is a good news story.

[via FOS]

Hitchens on the Ground Zero mosque (again)

Published in today’s National Post is Christopher Hitchens latest Slate column about the Ground Zero mosque project. Once he’s finished distancing himself from his intellectual inferiors’ “crass” objections (see also his earlier column) to the GZ mosque the Hitch gets down to raising some good reasons for suspicion about the true motives of the Imam behind the project:

From the beginning ... I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy.

The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets. For example, ... Regarding President Obama, he advised that:

He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 [Iranian] revolution ... a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.

Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs.

... I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy.

Another feature of my local mosque that I don't entirely like is the display of flags outside, purportedly showing all those nations that are already Muslim. ... So, before he is used by our State Department on any more goodwill missions overseas, I would like to see Imam Rauf asked a few searching questions about his support for clerical dictatorship in, just for now, Iran. ...

Good stuff, but the smug Hitchens needs to be reminded that if others hadn’t registered their legitimate outrage (some of it perhaps a mite over the top but most not and a lot of it asking the same kinds of questions he does) about the GZ mosque project no one would be talking about it at all - it would be a done deal, and Islamists around the globe would be smiling at their soon-to-be newly planted victory monument.

"SHUT UP" - the left's central rationale

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"Totalitarian socialism" .. not a variation but a redundancy

... What is "social justice"? The theory that implies and justifies the practice of socialism. And what is "socialism"? Domination by the State. What is "socialized" is state-controlled. So what is "totalitarian" socialism other than total socialism, i.e., state control of everything?

... all the rivalries within the different socialist revolutions have been won by, not the "democratic" or "libertarian" socialists, but the totalitarians, i.e., those who don't qualify their socialism with antonyms. "Totalitarian socialism" is not a variation but a redundancy, which is why half-capitalist hypocrites will always lose out to those who have the courage of their socialist convictions. (Likewise, someone whose idea of "social justice" is a moderate welfare state is someone who's willing to tolerate far more "social injustice" than he's willing to eliminate.) ...

... the rest ... .

Stop Obama!

Thomas Sowell discusses his new book "Dismantling America" :

... While the Obama administration is not the root cause of the ominous danger that faces this country at home and abroad it is the embodiment, the personification and the culmination of dangerous trends that began decades ago. ... I see [Obama] as someone who all his life has been associated with or part of a group of people who fundamentally don't believe in the principles of this country.... he always sought out the most radical people ...

Thomas Sowell states that if the Obama agenda is not stopped in the November 2010 elections, he doesn’t know how it will ever be stopped.

Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

Here's an idea for the Republicans - run Sowell in 2012.

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Muslim barbarians - part MCXXXI

Theo Caldwell writes:

Sakineh Ashtiani has confessed.

Ashtiani is the Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for the crime of “adultery,” and whose cause was championed by people around the globe. Owing to public outcry, Iran’s mullahs, in their mercy, commuted her sentence to death by hanging.

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Supreme stupidity

It's thanks to our Supreme Court that our refugee system is the mess it is. James Morton in today's Post:

Other nations -- Australia, for example -- accept refugees but keep them in detention facilities until they are processed. Australia also keeps refugee claimants offshore in centres on Manus Island or Nauru. The effect of such detention has been to limit the number of refugee claimants to Australia. Other countries, such as the United States, limit the rights on arrival of refugee claimants. In the United States low-level immigration inspectors have authority to identify and immediately remove individuals who are not eligible ...

Such mandatory detention, or summary exclusion, is not a lawful option for Canada as a result of our Supreme Court's application of constitutional rights and freedoms to refugee claimants. In 1985 the Supreme Court ruled that everyone in Canada is entitled to the protection of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result, people who arrive in Canada, regardless of their actual status, must be given a hearing if they claim to be refugees and are entitled to be at liberty in Canada unless they are a danger to the public, are known criminals or are unlikely to attend an immigration hearing.

Supreme lunacy! That ruling effectively rendered the country borderless (for everyone except legal immigrants.) It's hardly any wonder every refugee and every ne'er-do-well on the planet heads for Canada when things go awry at home. And all that yapping about human "smugglers" by our politicians and media pundits is bogus too. There's no need to "smuggle" anyone into the country. Just show up at the front door and the system rolls out the red carpet - free lawyers, free medical care and countless other taxpayer funded benefits.

Ezra Levant:

Who do you think should decide who gets to come to live in Canada?

Should it be the criminals and terrorists who smuggles hundreds of people to our shores?

Or how about three Supreme Court judges, back in 1985, who decided to give foreigners the right to sue our country under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

"Religion of peace" part MCXXX...

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2010's "record temperatures"

Lately, in the heat of summer, we've been hearing nothing but the "record temperatures of 2010" from the news and weather media. But is it true, or have they been getting their "data" from that old GISS propagandist and alarm monger, James Hansen?:

... HadCrut [...] show[s] temperatures flat over the past decade. and 2010 about 0.1°C cooler than the warmest year 1998.

... Hansen made temperature forecasts which have proven too high. Now his “measured” temperature data is pushing higher than everyone else. Would you accept the other team’s coach doing double duty as the referee? In what other profession would people accept this sort of conflict of interest?

Update: Then there's all that melting Arctic sea ice the media keeps yapping about. However:

... [2010] has been the coldest summer on record north of 80N, and temperatures have dropped below freezing ahead of the average date.

... It also appears that the summer melt season will be the shortest on record.

... PIPS shows average ice thickness increasing ...

... The South Pole will almost certainly set a record for most sea ice this season.

... Yet the press continues to spread massive disinformation about the state of ice at both poles. Who could possibly be responsible for that?

A giant waste of time and money

At the Premiers’annual Council of the Federation these bozos

gassed on about (a) saving the planet from global warming and (b) making sure Canadians don’t "waste" water, even though:

(a) Canada’s contribution to global GHG emissions is negligible (assuming "GHGs" are a problem to begin with), and;

(b) Canada has the world’s largest supply of fresh water which might explain why we’re big users of the stuff. Apparently we have to wear a hair shirt because desert dwellers need to get by with less.

Perhaps they haven't read the memo, the climate climate has gotten colder. Nor, I'd wager, have they kept up on recent research which, in part, concludes:

Climate scientists have greatly underestimated the uncertainty of proxy based reconstructions and hence have been overconfident in their models. Which means, one commenter says: "ie. they've done it wrong, and then oversold it."

[via FOS]

"Don't compare apples to terrorists"

Kathy Shaidle commenting on Charles Krauthammer's comparison of present day German Nazism with Islam.

Advice for CAGW hysterics - "Remain calm"

Via FOS:

In The Globe and Mail, columnist Neil Reynolds refers to Stanford University physicist, and 1998 Noble Prize winner, Robert Laughlin's article in the summer edition The American Scholar. Prof. Laughlin says that the geologic record suggests that the climate is beyond our power to control. Excess CO2 in the atmosphere will be dissolved in the oceans, which already hold 30 trillion tons of it. Then the excess will be transformed into limestone rocks.

From the comments to the Globe article it appears that a lot of readers prefer to remain alarmed. Though, happily, more do not.

Canadian Muslims oppose Ground Zero mosque

Raheel Raza of the Canadian Muslim Congress appeared on the O'Reilly Factor this afternoon to condemn the project to build a huge mosque near NYC's Ground Zero. She said, among many other things, that NYC "Mayor Bloomberg and other bleeding-heart white liberals don't understand ... ". An amazing performance by Raza:




Update: Five Feet of Fury, Dr. Roy, BCF, sda, The Right Scoop, LexisNexis News,

And where's the Canadian MSM on this? A search came up with zip, except for the CBC which had previously interviewed Raza. Good for the CBC (for a change). Otherwise, only on Fox!

Sexy ideas

A very interesting lecture by Matt Ridley at TED:



[via, and]

Capitalist charity

Peter Foster has fine food for thought regarding the Gates/Buffet billonaire charity giveaway:

... the week’s big news on the philanthropy front. Forty U.S. billionaires have very conspicuously pledged to give away half their fortunes, a sum which could amount to US$160-billion.

... The “Giving Pledge” initiative was announced in June by bridge buddies Bill Gates and Warren Buffet ... Mr. Buffet noted ... that “We just want the general level of philanthropy to step up.” He also revealed that the 40 pledges had come as a result of approaching “70 or 80” people on the Forbes list of billionaires.

This implies one criticism, and raises an inevitable question. The implied criticism is that businessmen have not traditionally been charitable enough. The question is: What about the contacted billionaires who didn’t pledge?

... The criticism is wide of the mark. Throughout history, the greatest capitalists have traditionally been the greatest public benefactors. ... But the central ungrasped fact was that capitalists did the most good in the process of earning their fortunes.

... As for that inevitable question about those other 30 or 40 billionaires, what did they say to Messrs. Gates and Buffet? If it was "Thank you, but I’ll take care of my own charitable contributions without being morally strong armed by you," then more power to them.

... The market system that enables certain individuals to earn billions without injuring others is almost incomprehensible to minds that still carry many primitive moralistic assumptions. These include the zero-sum suspicion that if somebody is very rich, others must have been impoverished in the process. Related to this is an almost universal tendency to bemoan income and wealth "gaps." But if capitalist wealth differentials are oppressive, then it stands to reason that the world would be a better place if Messrs. Gates and Buffet — and indeed all business billionaires — had never been born.

... several great observers of capitalist society, including Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, have noted how muddle-headed businessmen can be outside their sphere of expertise, and how easily they can be persuaded to subscribe to, and support, subversive notions.

Bill Gates in particular has wandered into the dangerous territory of "Global Salvationism," ... Mr. Gates has also allied himself with government aid programs which have been notorious failures for decades.

... what could have persuaded Messrs. Gates and Buffet to put such conspicuous pressure on their fellow billionaires, apart from making themselves look good. Perhaps it was a well-intentioned attempt to "give capitalism a good name." They might devote a tiny part of their fortunes to investigating — and addressing — why it still has such a bad one.

Pitiful Palestinians

Speaking of contemptible Muslims, here's Robert Fulford's excellent take on the perennially pitied Palestinians:

... only the Palestinians cling to their “refugee” status decade after decade. They present themselves as helpless victims of Israeli aggression. They await rescue .

..Members of other history-battered groups choose to live by an urgent ethic: Get up, get going, make a new life. Palestinians have a different approach: Sit down, wait, stay angry till the world provides for you.

... Arab governments “are rich enough to have economically solved the Palestinian refugee problem decades ago.” The 5,000 or so members of the Saudi royal family could probably handle it by themselves.

... Why haven’t they done so? They much prefer to let Palestinians remain poor. Every wretched, ill-fed and ill-housed Palestinian can be used as a living rebuke to Israel.

...The enemies of Israel have taught the world to pity the Palestinians and grant them an almost sacred position among the victims of colonialism. They deserve pity, of course, but pity for what their fellow Arabs have done to them.

However, as scummy as the Arabs have been towards them, the Palestinians are authors of their own fate. They have the power to improve their own lot, but don't because they have the same motives as their Arab sponsors and manipulators.

Malicious Muslims

Great column by George Jonas:

The much-disputed mosque near Ground Zero has been described as a test
of our commitment to liberty. ... I think it is a test of our commitment to the
wrong question.

... The question isn't whether people should be able to build whatever they like on their private properties. To this, the answer is a simple yes ... Except this isn't the question to ask about the Cordoba Initiative ... Described in news reports as a nonprofit organization whose stated goal is to promote cross-cultural understanding between Islam and the West

... The question to ask is: Can any group genuinely believe that building a mosque two blocks from where jihadists pulverized 3,000 New Yorkers nine years ago will promote cross-cultural understanding between Islam and the West?

... The answer to this question can no longer be yes for anyone non-delusional with a measurable IQ.

... So the question isn't whether Ground Zero's mosque-builders have a right to what they do, but is what they do right? The first is an obvious yes. The second, if you ask me, is a no.

... Certain plans are too insensitive and provocative to proceed from
anything but malice. Seeking to build a mosque and Islamic community centre two blocks from where the Twin Towers used to be "to promote understanding" can only be intended to add insult to injury.