Daimnation!

2003-06-25T16:31:00.001-03:00

I'm listening to President Bush's press conference right now. Barring any major revelations over the next 20 minutes, it's kind of anticlimactic; not that I believed he was going to announce Osama bin Laden's capture, but I'm not really hearing anything I haven't already heard. I think Bush comes across as a pretty sincere guy, but more than a little exasperated about his allies' refusal to deal with Saddam Hussein once and for all. (That makes two of us.) I wish he was a bit more forceful. When one reporter asked him - twice - whether the capture of Saddam Hussein was an essential component of victory, he didn't even make reference to the fact that no one captured Hitler in 1945, and that certainly didn't make World War II a failure. One more thing: once again, Bush missed an opportunity to come clean about the way his nation supported Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. After 9/11, the President himself said America should try to remain humble, and I think it would do wonders for his cause if Bush just admitted, "Yes, to our shame, we supported the guy once. So did France. So did Russia and Germany. And that's why I think we - not just America, but also our allies - have a special responsibility to end Saddam's reign of terror. As a nation, we must be willing to admit when we've done something wrong, and to take the responsibility to make things right." Update: Geez, even the folks at The Corner don't seem particularly impressed.

2003-06-25T16:31:00.000-03:00

More charming scenes from York University: [Miriam Levin, a Jewish student] said she was accosted when she tried to drive on to school property first thing in the morning. The protesters were picketing entrances to the school grounds and blocking traffic: "I told the guy, 'Making me 20 minutes late for class isn't helping the people in Iraq,' and then he started calling me a terrorist and an occupier." She said she could not understand why the man was shouting anti-Semitic remarks at her until her friend, Hannah Wortsman, observed she was wearing earrings with a Star of David design. [...] It was when the line passed a booth set up by the Young Zionist Partnership and the Canadian Alliance that a confrontation occurred. Students who ran the booth claim protesters shouted insults before charging them. "Hundreds of people basically swarmed three people," said Paul Cooper, president of the Zionist group. He said only a few people were confrontational, but everyone else "watched and did nothing to stop it." Duff said his group did not instigate the incident, saying it began with name-calling from the booth. "We attempted to keep moving. Our message was we shouldn't be distracted, but the goal of those people who set up the booth was to disrupt and distract us today." Yaakou Rath, campus president of the Canadian Alliance, said the protesters initiated the confrontation and ended it by pushing him and others: "They chose to attack me and I'm identifiably Jewish, but they didn't attack Paul [Cooper], who's not, and that's scary," Rath said. He said the group also stole the booth's U.S. flag and tried to set it on fire. To all you people who carry around signs reading "Bush is Hitler" and "Zionism is Nazism," rub your few brain cells together and think about this: when the real Nazis got started, they weren't wealthy businessmen, media magnates or military leaders. They were a bunch of violent, thuggish misfits, parading through the streets and terrorizing anyone who dared to disagree with them - and members of one religious community in particular. There's a lesson there, though I doubt you have the intelligence to figure it out. (via InstaPundit)

2003-05-20T19:42:00.000-03:00

The move has been made. Go to www.damianpenny.com for the new blog. I'm free from Blogger! Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!

2003-05-20T16:23:00.000-03:00

This (sniff, sob) is the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me:
What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla (via Sasha & Andrew)

2003-05-20T08:02:00.000-03:00

The new Daimnation! is coming The URL is ready. The host has been bought. Movable Type has been downloaded. I'm just in the final stages of figuring it out, and before long I'll have broken the chains of Blogspot tyranny forever.

2003-05-20T07:48:00.000-03:00

We should have seen this coming: a few slack-jawed idiots have trouble figuring out The Matrix is a work of fiction, they kill people while trying to "escape the Matrix," and now the film's producers are being blamed: The producer of The Matrix films has dismissed stories linking the movies with violent behaviour in the US. It follows reports that fans had acted out real-life crimes inspired by the sci-fi hit. In doing so they were apparently copying the film's plot to "escape" the Matrix - a computer-generated world controlled by machines. However, Joel Silver, in London to promote The Matrix Reloaded, said the films were "fantasy". [...] In a report in the Washington Post, the film was named by two alleged killers, a woman from Ohio and a man from San Francisco. They had each reportedly killed their landlord but had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Before long, they'll be putting warnings at the beginning of each film, telling the audience that the work they're about to see is a work of fiction and that they shouldn't kill anybody after seeing it. It's coming, folks.

2003-05-19T20:50:00.000-03:00

Landsberg's still at it The Toronto Star's ultra-leftist columnist - er, make that the Toronto Star's most left-wing columnist - is defending her previous column praising conspirokook Barrie Zwicker. She says the National Post's editors ("a staunch voice for Bush America [which] brooks no dissenting voices" - a pretty astounding statement for an employee of the Star, a paper which brags about its refusal to employ any writers to the right to Sheila Copps) only savaged her to divert attention away from their own troubles. Landsberg has only been a conspiracy kook for a week, and she's already mastered Riveroian logic; just as the Jews had Mossad agent Chandra Levy whacked to divert attention away from the 80 billion Arabs they kill each week, the Post is only thrashing Landsberg so people won't notice how much money it's losing. Landsberg also says the people who wrote her angry letters "didn't come up with a single argument or documented fact." Scroll down to my May 14 blog entries and you'll see the e-mail I sent to the Star in which I illustrate the similarities between Zwicker and Holocaust deniers, and note the work Bill Herbert has done debunking the kwazy konspiracy kooks' work. Either Landsberg never saw my letter, or she's lying. You'll just have to draw your own conclusion about that one. You'll also have to draw your own conclusions about this timeline Landsberg mentions in her article, which purports to show how the armed forces were in on the whole thing because they didn't shoot down any of the planes. (The site, needless to say, links to "What Really Happened", the even more blatantly anti-Semitic Rense.com, and other kook sites of even less renown.) A question I've never seen put to the conspirozoids: even if fighter jets had been scrambled in time to intercept the hijacked airliners, what, exactly, were they supposed to do? We're not talking about a Piper Cub flying over Death Valley here. These were four large planes, with hundreds of innocent people on board, travelling over the most densely populated area of the United States. Had the planes been shot down, there almost certainly would have been fatalities on the ground. Can you imagine the outcry from the Riveros and Rupperts if the jets were destroyed before any suicide attacks were carried out? (Do a Google search on "TWA Flight 800" and you'll get the idea.)

2003-05-19T15:03:00.000-03:00

Other potential violations of the Geneva Conventions: - Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis" (This one-hit wonder makes Michael Bolton sound like Solomon Burke) - Roseanne sinigng the U.S. National Anthem - "Shoot the Dog," George Michael's coldly recieved "protest" song - Mariah Carey's "Dream Lover" - Christina Aguilera's "Dirrrty" - Jann Arden's remake of "Stand by Me" (one justifiable exception to the right of free expression: you shouldn't ever be allowed to cover "Stand by Me") - Corey Hart's version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" ("dey wouldn't let poo Rudolph join in any rainda games")

2003-05-19T14:15:00.000-03:00

The BBC says the rescue of Jessica Lynch was staged by the Americans. Bill Herbert and several other bloggers, who actually know something about military weaponry and special-forces tactics, say the BBC is full of crap. Who you gonna believe? I didn't get a chance to write anything about this when the story broke, but I remember thinking, "you know, the lefties are going to be more outraged by this than by the discovery of mass graves all over Iraq." Just as they consider the 1990 babies-thrown-from-incubators hoax a greater moral outrage than Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait. (One "occupation," curiously, which they never got too upset about.) Update: Wilbur Smith - whose blog I hadn't heard of before, but which I'll be reading a lot from now on - deserves most of the credit for debunking the BBC's story.

2003-05-19T12:56:00.000-03:00

Fisk the fraud? Britain's Private Eye notes that on April 2, Fiskie filed dispatches from two different Iraqi towns - and it was almost impossible for him to have been in both places on the same day. The satirical magazine further notes that the Americans had already entered one of the cities at the time Fisk was supposedly there, reporting that they were nowhere in sight.

2003-05-19T12:39:00.000-03:00

It's a holiday up here, and the Toronto Star takes time off from shilling for the Kwazy Konspiracy Kooks to explain the origins of Victoria Day. It's beautiful outside - and I'm in the office, preparing for a couple of trials. Life is one depressing defeat after another, until you just wish Flanders was dead.

2003-05-19T12:24:00.000-03:00

A blockbuster in today's Washington Post: Al-Qaida has obtained weapons from members of the Saudi National Guard. But don't worry: our Saudi allies are "investigating" the matter. (They've been aware of this illicit arms trade for quite some time, but say nothing has been done because of - I love this - "bureaucratic inertia".) This is a good time to draw your attention to this excerpt from Mark Steyn's The Face of the Tiger, posted on his website: There are only two convincing positions on the House of Saud and what happened [on 9/11]: a) They’re indirectly responsible for it; b) They’re directly responsible for it. There’s a lot of evidence for the former — the Saudi funding of the madrassahs, etc. — and a certain amount of not yet totally compelling evidence for the latter — a Saudi ‘humanitarian aid’ office in the Balkans set up by a member of the royal family which appears to be a front for terrorism. Reasonable people can disagree on whether it’s (a) or (b) but for Americans to argue that the Saudis are our allies in the war on terrorism is like Ron Goldman’s dad joining O.J. in his search for the real killers. [...] Instead of presenting Prince Abdullah with Israeli–Palestinian peace proposals, Americans ought to be handing him US–Saudi peace proposals: clean up your own education system and stop destabilising Asian Muslim culture, for starters. Washington (and London, too) needs to figure out what it wants from Saudi Arabia and whether it’s likely to get it from King Fahd and his bloated clan. We already know one thing we’re not going to get: the Taleban had two major allies before 11 September, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and it’s clear the royal house has no inclination to do a Musharraf. If the West has a medium-term aim in the Middle East, it ought to be the evolution of Arabic Islam into something closer to the more moderate Muslim temperament of Turkey or Bangladesh. I know, I know, all these things are relative, but even that modest goal is unattainable under the House of Saud.

2003-05-18T15:43:00.000-03:00

Is this a sick joke? Is Bill Herbert pulling our leg? Did C-SPAN actually interview the Grand Dragon of the Kwazy Konspiracy Kooks, Michael Rivero?

2003-05-18T11:36:00.000-03:00

A new low, even by Palestinian genocide-bomber standards: the animal who killed seven Israelis on a Jerusalem bus yesterday was disguised as an Orthodox Jew. I'm not sure what more to say. What more needs to be said? Update: the bomber who killed a Jewish settler in Hebron the other day also disguised himself as an Orthodox Jew. I can hear the IndyMidiots now: "they have no choice but to dress up as Jews, because the zionazis will arrest any Arab who tries to get on a bus." By the way, these are the same people who threw a major hissy fit because the war in Afghanistan started during Ramadan. (Syria and Egypt launching a war of annihilation against Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973, of course, was perfectly okay.)

2003-05-15T23:12:00.000-03:00

Victoria Day weekend, when summer officially begins, starts tomorrow. I'm taking Friday off and joining my folks in Terra Nova for a couple of days, so posting won't resume until Sunday. Before I go, let me leave you with the peaceful, inspiring words of Yasser Arafat: "In this day of mourning, the Israeli state was founded as a result of a colonial conspiracy and was established on Palestinian lands whose residents were expelled and massacred," said Arafat. In a speech broadcasted by the Palestinian Authority-run local channel, Arafat said that he will not "accept humiliation and Israeli colonialism and the Israeli aggression carried out against Palestinians and their holy sites." Israel must withdraw from all the lands it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their homes, he insisted. "For the past 55 years, martyrs, have fallen for the sake of the homeland, freedom and the return of the refugees," he said in the speech from his offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "Every Palestinian refugee knows that his identity will be restored to him only upon the return of his homeland, and he will not be submissive to a patron." [...] Arafat condemned what he described as "the subjugation of the land and the holy places by the Israeli occupation." He said he welcomed peace as the "strategic choice of the Palestinian nation" but accused the Israeli "rule of strength" of delaying peace initiatives in the region.

2003-05-15T13:47:00.000-03:00

"Heh."

2003-05-15T10:40:00.000-03:00

Steyn not fired? Mark Wickens and Kathy Shaidle both recieved letters from the Post saying Steyn's recent absence can be explained by his vacation, and that he has definitely not been fired. I certainly hope that's true, but Steyn's recent comments in the "letters" section of his website make it clear that he's royally ticked off with the direction in which the Aspers are taking the paper - and he says nothing at all about any vacation. Update for Colby Cosh readers: yes, this post was written before Mark Steyn's vacation was mentioned on his website.

2003-05-15T06:55:00.000-03:00

The U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia says the Saudis ignored American requests for additional security just before the Riyadh bombings: Saudi Arabia ignored repeated U.S. requests to tighten security around residential compounds housing American citizens before this week's terror attacks, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia said Wednesday. "We continue to work with the Saudis on this, but they did not, as of the time of this tragic event, provide the additional security we requested," Robert Jordan said in an interview on CBS' The Early Show. Jordan said the U.S. government asked the Saudis for the security improvements "on several occasions." U.S. Embassy spokesman John Burgess added that Saudi officials had provided extra police patrols around the compounds after the United States made the request for more security. But the patrols stopped after two days. The death toll for the attacks stands at 34. And in a staggering example of how the Americans will bend over, time and time again, for their Saudi "allies," the FBI is scaling down the number of agents it had planned to send to Riyadh from 12 to 6, because of concerns over Saudi "sensitivity." Update: the Germans have expelled a Saudi diplomat for alleged ties to Al-Qaida. And the Saudi Defence Minister admits he funnelled millions of dollars to an Islamic "charity" which, according to a CIA report, funded Al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan. Memo to the Democrats: for God's sake, make the Bush administration's ties to Saudi Arabia a major election issue. Until there's a major reckoning with that festering sore of a "kingdom," there will never really be justice for the 3,000 who died on September 11.

2003-05-14T18:07:00.000-03:00

If this is true, I'm never buying the National Post again. Ever. Sure, I'll read Blatchford, Fulford, Feschuk and Welch on their website. But the Aspers will never get another cent from me, that's for sure. I can't wait for Maude Barlow and Antonia Zerbisias to protest this blatant example of an owner interfering in his newspaper's editorial decisions. (Yeah, right. Fire a left-wing writer, and they'll scream bloody murder. Fire a right-wing writer, and they'll probably give you a medal.)

2003-05-14T10:26:00.000-03:00

I never thought I'd say this, but...God bless you, Richard Simmons: "People have been frying foods since Jesus was on this planet, and there is always going to be greasy, fried, salty, sugary food. It is up to the individual to walk in and say, I don't want those fries today. I have 40 pounds to lose. It is not the fault of the fast food people, and anyone who's trying to sue the fast food places needs a therapist, not an attorney. You have to make your own decisions. That's what the freedom in America is all about."

2003-05-14T10:17:00.000-03:00

Is anyone else getting as sick of Hannibal Lecter as I am? (Let me start a serious argument by saying Silence of the Lambs was a good film, but seriously overrated.)

2003-05-14T09:11:00.000-03:00

More debunking of the Michelle Landsberg column on Barrie Zwicker and 9/11, from Bruce Rolston. Notable fact: a Canadian was in operational command of NORAD that day - which means Zwicker and his fellow conspirazoids, who insist fighter jets weren't scrambled until two hours (or 50 minutes, or 3 weeks, or whatever) after the jets were hijacked, are slandering one of our own officers. Update: Zwicker defends himself in this letter to the Star, in which he compares the Bush administration to the Nazis. He even uses the word "cabal," just like Tam Dalyell. Here's a letter I sent in response. (Sadly, the Star limits its letters to 300 words, so even if it's printed it will almost certainly be cut.) Sir - It's deeply ironic that Barrie Zwicker, upon being compared to a Holocaust denier, defends himself by saying he's "just asking questions". After all, this is the same argument David Irving makes whenever he's confronted about his theories on the the Nazi extermination of six million Jews. No one, of course, would say Zwicker doesn't have a right to "raise questions" about 9/11. But like the typical Holocuast denier, Zwicker has exhibited shocking intellectual dishonesty while promoting his theories about what happened on that horrible day. Several internet pundits - most notably the gifted Bill Herbert, whose work can be read at http://mckinneysucks.blogspot.com - have pointed out the holes, fallacies and blatant lies in the work of Zwicker and other 9/11 conspiracy theorists. For example, Michelle Landsberg unquestioningly repeats Zwicker's staggering allegation that fighter jets were not scrambled until two hours after the 9/11 airliners were hijacked. NORAD's official records show that fighter planes had taken to the air in a matter of minutes - as anyone who watched the news on the morning of September 11 will recall. I can see Zwicker's response already: "why should we believe that? These records could easily have been faked." It's the conspiro-freak's standard response when confronted with contrary evidence. Barrie Zwicker is a charlatan and a fraud, blinded by pathological hatred for the United States, and the Toronto Star should be ashamed of itself for giving credence to his ridiculous, paranoid fantasies. A final point: in his May 14 letter, Zwicker compares the Reichstag fire to the 9/11 attacks, and the Bush administration to the Nazis. Of course, in the early years, the real Nazis were not wealthy members of the establishment, but a militant, disaffected rabble, blinded by pure hatred for the Jews, who called for the violent smashing of the existing order. Kind of like the radical "activists", on the far left and far right, who eat up Zwicker's theories like candy.

2003-05-14T08:48:00.000-03:00

A Kuwaiti-born Canadian citizen might have been involved with the Riyadh bombings: A group of al-Qaeda terrorists, which includes a Canadian believed to be on the run in Saudi Arabia, is suspected of planning or taking part in a series of bombings that killed at least 21 foreigners in Riyadh. Abdul-Rahman Mansour Jabarah, a 23-year-old who spent his adolescence in St. Catharines, Ont., was fingered by Saudi authorities as one of 19 al-Qaeda fugitives who disappeared into the capital after a shootout with authorities last week. Yesterday, a top Saudi official confirmed that some of those 19 fugitives were thought to have taken part in Monday's bombings, in which at least nine attackers were also killed. [...] Mr. Jabarah, who was born in Kuwait, immigrated to Canada in 1994 and later became a citizen, is the only Westerner among the 19 suspects that include 17 Saudis and a Yemeni. "We are aware of the media report and we're checking with the Saudi authorities," said Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Department, responding to Prince al-Faisal's published remarks. Mr. Doiron said that Saudi officials had told their Canadian counterparts earlier that there was no evidence linking the 19 suspects to Monday's attacks. Jabarah's younger brother, Mohamed Mansour Jabarah, is being held by the Americans for his alleged connections to Al-Qaida.

2003-05-14T07:31:00.000-03:00

Newfoundland and Labrador v. Canada (Minister of Fisheries) Grimey is musing about taking legal action against the federal government for its negliegent management of the Newfoundland fishery over the past 50 years. That Ottawa has been shockingly negligent and incompetent gets no argument from me, but it's hard to see how this one could possibly succeed. Can you imagine the flood of legislation which would result? (Newfoundland itself would probably be sued by Labradorians for its mismanagement of resources in that part of the province, for one thing.) Of course, this is all about electioneering more than expanding Ottawa's duty of care toward Newfoundland. Grimey discussed this lawsuit at a fishermens' rally in Badger's Quay - my mother's hometown! - to which the local Tory MHA, Harry Harding, was not even invited.

2003-05-14T07:16:00.000-03:00

Another mass grave has been found in Iraq, this one possibly containing 3,000 people killed during the Shia uprising in 1991. I wonder if Al-Jazeera is going to broadcast footage of the bodies? I'm not holding my breath, unless they can somehow blame this on the Americans.

2003-05-14T07:08:00.000-03:00

The "Iraqis" are a bit late jumping on this Nigerian scam - where they send you an e-mail asking you to send them money in exchange for the right to help them smuggle millions of dollars out of the country, to which you're entitled to a share, honest - but this morning I have seven messages in my inbox from "EL Mustapha," who claims to be "personal aide to the Iraqi minister of education and research. Dr Abd Al-khaliq Gafar. That died in the war." The curious part: guess what country "Mustapha" is holed up in right now? (Hint: his listed e-mail address is "el.mus@voila.fr.)

2003-05-13T16:39:00.000-03:00

Of all the bloggers I joined in that Right Wing News seminar the other day, Allison Kaplan Sommer - the only participant who actually lives in Israel - was the only one I had not heard of. Here's her blog, and it's excellent.

2003-05-13T14:03:00.000-03:00

Frothing commie-turned-conspirozoid Michele Landsberg gets savaged in today's National Post. (via Kathy Shaidle) It doesn't appear to be online, but a reader advises that Michael Bliss, one of Canada's leading historians, compared Landsberg and Barrie Zwicker to Holocaust deniers in a letter to the Star.

2003-05-13T09:59:00.000-03:00

Be afraid, New York. Be very afraid. Thanks to a massive Air Canada seat sale, my brother and I are coming down in late August. (Actually, we're flying to Boston and then taking a train to NYC, so we get to hang out in both cities for a while.) I started this blog largely because of 9/11, and almost two years later I'm about to fly into the airport where most of the hijackers departed, and then make a long-overdue visit to the WTC site. Fitting, in a way. And I hope to meet up with lots of bloggers and readers while I'm there.

2003-05-13T08:41:00.000-03:00

More Riyadh developments from Sky News: - 20 people have been confirmed dead, including 10 Americans, an Australian and the son of Riyadh's deputy governor. At least two children were killed. The final death toll could be as high as 50. - at least 160 people, including 5 Britons, were injured. - one of the four attacks targeted a British school.

2003-05-13T07:47:00.000-03:00

If you ever meet Juan Pablo Montoya, and he offers you a ride home, think twice about taking it.

2003-05-13T07:45:00.000-03:00

Another reason to hate the government of Syria: now it's sending out spam to advertise a "Touristic Meeting for Businessmen & Investors." Anyone else get this one?

2003-05-13T07:30:00.000-03:00

"McCarthy's witch hunt made the world safe for witches," reads the title of Robert Fulford's latest column. Case in point: Superman: Red Son, a new comic book series in which Superman grew up on a collective farm in the Ukraine and fought for Stalin's USSR. Yeah, I know, this is meant to be an ironic commentary on the character, or something. (The Post's Jeet Heer notes, "the storyline is actually a sly comment on contemporary world politics, where the United States dominates the globe like an unchecked giant. Just as President George W. Bush is willing to bomb any country that could challenge American hegemony, the Soviet Superman uses his strength to gain global dominance." Har, har.) So, when can we expect DC comics to come out with Aryan Superman, in which the character came of age in 1930s Germany, fends off the D-Day invasion and single-handedly wipes out the Jews? (For the record, Stalin came frighteningly close to carrying out genocide against the Jews in his later years, not that you'll ever hear this mentioned anywhere outside a ~~Jew~~ "neoconservative" rag like the Weekly Standard. Pointing out such a thing is "McCarthyism," I guess.)

2003-05-13T07:09:00.000-03:00

10 Americans are among the dead in Riyadh. No word on any Canadian casualties yet. Interesting, that this comes just a few weeks after the Americans announced they were closing their bases in Saudi Arabia. The presence of U.S. troops in the country has been one of the Islamofascists' biggest grievances for years...and this is how they respond. (Stand by for the inevitable conspirozoid bleating about how this is an Amerikkkan set-up, to give them an excuse to keep troops in the country.)

2003-05-13T07:02:00.000-03:00

The federal Tories won an Ontario by-election yesterday, comfortably ahead of the second-place Liberal candidiate. The Alliance came third. This gives the Tories 15 seats in the House of Commons, bumping the NDP back to fifth place. (I guess Svend Robinson nominating Rachel Corrie for the Nobel Peace Prize didn't give his party the boost he expected.) Figures. Every time I'm about to give up on the federal PC party for good, they go ahead and do something like this.

2003-05-12T23:36:00.000-03:00

Speaking of Jayson Blair, I predict he'll end up at the Daily Mirror with Peter Arnett. I can see the front page now: "FIRED BY THE 'LAND OF THE FREE' FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!!! Okay, actually he was fired for making shit up, but...uh...BUSH IS WORSE THAN HITLER! FREE MUMIA!" (By the way, has anyone seen Peter Arnett since his brilliant prediction that the Americans were getting bogged down in Iraq? Maybe he's working on a big story about how that mobile bioweapons lab was actually making Baby Milk and delivering it to the happy children of Ba'athist Iraq, before the Yanks ruined everything.)

2003-05-12T23:28:00.000-03:00

Irony Alert!!! You're not going to believe what website, in reporting on the Jayson Blair/New York Times scandal, actually savages the Times for Walter Duranty's cover-up of Stalin's crimes. (Oh, sorry, I forgot...Stalin wasn't a "real" socialist.) For the record, it looks like these guys actually defend Jayson Blair. (That's what I gather from my brief glimpse of this semi-coherent article, and you'd have to buy me a lot of books from my Amazon Wish List to make me read the whole thing in detail.) Which is understandable. Who would have more sympathy for blatantly falsifying the news than people who think Granma is a reputable news outlet?

2003-05-12T21:40:00.000-03:00

Nearly an hour after the first reports from Riyadh, there's still nothing on CNN. As for Canada's taxpayer-supported, multi-million-dollar "news" channel, why doesn't it just change its name to CBC FashionFileWorld and be done with it? Unbelievable. Americans and Canadians could be dead at the hands of Al-Qaida - and the story is being completely ignored. What is wrong with these people?

2003-05-12T20:44:00.000-03:00

Major terror attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: initial reports say there were three explosions in three different locations, all appearently directed at Westerners living and working in the country. No word on casualties yet. A detail in this BBC report that I hadn't previously heard: there are 19 Saudi, Yemeni and Iraqi militants on the run in Saudi Arabia, at least one of whom has a Canadian passport. Update: AP notes that the attacks occurred on the eve of Colin Powell's visit to Saudi Arabia. There are almost certainly deaths and injuries. (Note that the story refers to Saudi Arabia as the "birthplace of Islam," thereby giving the Wahabbis more credibility than they deserve.) Drudge says a fourth explosion has been reported. Amazingly, there's nothing about this on CNN yet. (Nothing on CBC Uselessworld either, but that's to be expected.) Update II: Jesus Fucking Christ, it's worse than I thought: CNN has been reporting on the freaking Laci Peterson case for the past 10 minutes, if not longer.

2003-05-12T14:39:00.000-03:00

A Los Angeles-based Muslim group, Project Islamic HOPE, is protesting X-Men 2 because the villain is seen wearing a ring with "Allah" engraved upon it. I haven't yet seen the film, and I have no idea what the offending scene is like. But the Agence France-Presse report featured in the Arab News notes, for no discernable reason, that the movie was made by "Jewish director Bryan Singer." Whether AFP, the Arab News or Islamic HOPE is emphasizing Singer's religion, I can't say. It wouldn't surprise me to see the "civil-rights" group bringing it up, or the Jew-hatin' Arab News to throw in that seemingly extraneous detail. (Jews control Hollywood, you know.) But if AFP, a reasonably well-respected wire service, feels that this is somehow relevant to the story, that's infinitely more disturbing than a scene in a fictional film.

2003-05-12T13:38:00.000-03:00

Expatriate Newfoundlander Michael Demmons is taking donations for the Royal Canadian Legion in Fredericton. (As reported a few days ago, rising insurance rates might force them to cancel their Remembrance Day parade.)

2003-05-12T10:01:00.000-03:00

Worst. Blog. Ever. (And no, I have not forgotten "Warblogger Watch".) There's too much inanity to list here, but this totalitarian, CounterPunch-reading dimwit rants about Dubya's stupidity despite his own inability to use the "shift" key or spell "Blair" properly. And, of course, there's the inevitable complaint about "fucking Jews". (Well, it's actually "fucking jews," since this guy doesn't use capital letters. And the whole thing is obviously a mistake, because anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, it really isn't.) This one truly must be seen to be believed. Enjoy. Update: on second thought, his spelling of "Blair" - "Bliar" - could be deliberate. But with people like this, you never know.

2003-05-12T07:12:00.000-03:00

The Daily Telegraph says the Congo is on the brink of genocide, and the few UN peacekeepers presently stationed in the country are completely powerless to stop it. Left-wingers would say the Americans are hypocrites because they won't intervene, after making lots of lofty humanitarian claims for the war in Iraq. Right-wingers would say this shows the complete, utter uselessness of the United Nations, which hasn't even given its hapless peacekeepers the right to open fire when civilians come under attack. They would both be right (the latter more than the former, since it would be almost impossible to argue that the Congo poses any kind of security threat to the United States). For God's sake, somebody has to do something.

2003-05-12T07:01:00.000-03:00

I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. The Americans find a trailer in northern Iraq, painted in army colors, featuring all the equipment needed to make chemical and/or biological weapons, and completely scrubbed down - and the Daily Fisk says no "smoking gun" has been found. Not to trivialize the Holocaust, but after World War II, if we found crematoria and gas chambers all over Germany, but couldn't actually find the bodies of anyone who'd been killed in them, would that mean we hadn't found the "smoking gun" that a mass extermination of human beings had taken place? Madness.

2003-05-12T06:59:00.000-03:00

I joined Charles Johnson, John Little and others in a bloggers' symposium on the Israel-Palestine conflict yesterday, moderated by Right Wing News's John Hawkins. Check it out.

2003-05-12T06:43:00.000-03:00

Mark Steyn, in an interview with Enter Stage Right, says "by 2010, Arafat, the Assads, the Ayatollahs and the loopier factions of the House of Saud will all be gone." Let's hope he's right.

2003-05-11T23:46:00.000-03:00

No. Fucking. Way. I had a horrible nightmare earlier this evening. I was watching the season finale of Survivor: Amazon, and Jenna won the million dollars. By a 6-1 vote. With Christy - Christy! - actually voting for her. It was just a bad dream...wasn't it?

2003-05-11T15:52:00.000-03:00

American military investigators say the mysterious trailer found in northern Iraq was almost certainly a biological weapons facility. (In theory, they concede, it could have been used to make vaccines or other benign substances - but why would such a facility be mobile, painted in military camoflauge and equipped with "scrubbers" to contain emissions?) It's amazing how little attention the corporate, military-run, unquestioning-of-authority American media is giving this story.

2003-05-11T15:31:00.000-03:00

Why do I even bother? I can rant and rave about Barrie Zwicker's dishonesty and half-truths on this blog all I want...and it seems like it's all for naught, since Michele Landsberg gets space in Canada's highest-circulation newspaper to write a love letter to Zwicker, rehashing nearly every "damning inconsistency" about 9/11 Zwicker was able to lift from Michael Ruppert and Michael Rivero. ("Why did the United States Air Force fail to scramble interceptor jets — in defiance of all long-standing rules and well-established practice — for almost two hours after it was known that an unprecedented four planes had been hijacked?") Arrrrrrrgh. (Here's Bill Herbert's debunking of the "no-planes-scrambled" allegation. He also notes that Ruppert claimed the Air Force waited only 50 minutes from finding out about the hijacking to launch fighter jets, so God only knows where Zwicker and Landsberg are getting "two hours." Before long, they'll probably start saying there were no fighter jets launched on 9/11, and that the ones we saw on TV were just computer-generated.) (Hat tip: RBB)

2003-05-11T11:58:00.000-03:00

Another LGF scoop: the Libyans are demanding the Simon Wiesenthal Center's NGO status at the UN be revoked because it dared to criticize their appointment as head of the UN Human Rights Committee. And in another one of these little twists that would be completely unbelievable if you weren't familiar with the UN, member states - including Russia - are lining up to support the Libyans. I am thisclose to urging Canada to pull out of the UN altogether. I'm dead serious. The organization is beyond repair.

2003-05-11T11:16:00.000-03:00

Call your mother!

2003-05-10T23:54:00.000-03:00

Just how morally blind is Ed Asner? Check this out. Unbelievable.

2003-05-10T22:23:00.000-03:00

A blockbuster in The Sunday Times: employees of Al-Jazeera were working for Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis went so far as to call Al-Jazeera “a mobilised instrument of our propaganda.” Unfortunately, the full Times story is not available to us furriners outside of Britain. (Damn you, Murdoch!) If anyone can send me the story, I'll be forever grateful.

2003-05-10T22:14:00.000-03:00

The convergence of far-right and far-left continues: delusional conspirozoid Michael Ruppert, whose "9/11 timeline" has been slashed to ribbons by Bill Herbert, was given a full hour on Vision TV on March 16, 2002, hosted by Barrie Zwicker (surprise!) and featuring an Anglican Church-affiliated "peace" activist (one of several such ultra-leftists who've driven me away from the church in which I was raised). Later that year, Ruppert was the guest of honor at a "Real History" conference in Cincinnati - sponsored by neo-Nazi David Irving. It's getting harder and harder to tell these people apart. Update: an anonymous coward in the comments section says Ruppert cancelled his appearance at Irving's conference after finding out who he really was. So this probably isn't a good example of left-right convergence after all - though the freak's letter to Irving says he cannot confirm that Irving is a Holocaust denier, showing that his reading skills can't be much better than those of Antonia Zerbisias. (Zwicker's endorsement of Michael Rivero is still a good example of socialist-fascist convergence, though.) And I'm not fat. I'm "big-boned."

2003-05-10T21:34:00.000-03:00

Every time I read about something like this, homeschooling looks just a little more viable. If I ever have kids, that is. Speaking of homeschooling, Eric "I wish Rush Limbaugh went deaf" Alterman has been mocking a homeschooled 14 year-old who didn't like his book. You're a real man, Eric. What's your next target? The Special Olympics?

2003-05-10T19:17:00.000-03:00

Eminem, who has no qualms about parodying the likes of Moby, Christina Aguilera and "The Real World" in his songs and videos, is a coward and a hypocrite. (via Drudge)

2003-05-10T17:04:00.000-03:00

"I am entitled to admire a man who brought Germany work, bread, peace, honour and a place in the sun...there is more to Adolf Hitler and his government than Jews, Auschwitz and violence. The violent acts were committed as wartime measures." - Ernst Zundel "Not many people know it, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer. ...Hitler - there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon! TWO coats!!" - "Franz Liebkind" (Kenneth Mars), The Producers (via Marduk, whose son celebrated a birthday yesterday.)

2003-05-10T16:02:00.000-03:00

Grimey's first test: angry fisheries workers thrashed the Corner Brook DFO office during yesterday's "occupation." The RNC says charges will likely be laid. Now that Roger Grimes has encouraged fishermen to break the law (though he's backpedalling, sort of), will he intervene? Stay tuned.

2003-05-10T15:58:00.000-03:00

David Irving, "intellectual" hero of Holocaust deniers and Jew-haters everywhere, has posted Antonia Zerbisias's latest column on his website. I do not believe Antonia Zerbisias hates Jews. Really, I don't. But she's chosen to lie down with dogs, and now she's waking up covered in fleas. Couldn't happen to a nicer person. Update: Charles Johnson has removed the link to Irving's site, and I can't really blame him. Shark Boy, who found it in the first place (and was also thrashed in Zerbisias's column, for a quote posted by one of his readers), still has it. Irving even copied the Toronto Star's logo design onto his webpage - much to the delight of the Star's lawyers, no doubt. The Star has always been insufferably smug about its commitment to "social justice" and fashionably liberal causes, and I have no doubt their staffers love to call their National Post competitors "Nazis". And David Irving is a big fan. That's friggin' hilarious. Update II: it just gets better and better. Irving named Robert Fisk "bravest journalist of the year" in 1998. (via Tim Blair)

2003-05-09T19:55:00.000-03:00

Further to the Barrie Zwicker post below: the intrepid Bill Herbert has already debunked this "Project for a New American Century" nonsense. Twice. (His permalinks are bloggered, but scroll down and you'll find what I'm talking about.) Zwicker's dishonesty is absolutely staggering. And I have no doubt his paranoid Marxist ranting is subsidized by my money, via the incomprehensible soup of federal and provincial agencies that finance television shows like his. Shame on you, Vision TV.

2003-05-09T13:33:00.000-03:00

Lots of stuff about the Newfoundland fishery, and the coming constitutional showdown, from Colby Cosh and Ron Knowling. Disgruntled fishermen and plant workers are occupying the DFO office here in Corner Brook today. I saw them marching down Main Street as I drove to work this morning. (The drivers stuck behind them must've been really happy.) And one fisherman, Bernard Martin of Petty Harbour (where they filmed the 1976 Jaws rip-off Orca, and where you can spend a night at the "Orca Inn"), is bravely speaking out in favour of the cod closure on conservation grounds.

2003-05-09T11:47:00.000-03:00

When I was attending law school in New Brunswick, I attended a PC convention and got into an argument with Elsie Wayne over "smut" on television. (According to one of her aides, Degrassi High was encouraging children to go out and get pregnant.) She hasn't changed much. Isn't this the sort of thing that just got Rick Santorum into so much trouble? (via Kathy Shaidle)

2003-05-09T09:06:00.000-03:00

Remember Barrie Zwicker? The ultra-left Vision TV "media critic" (what is it with people who call themselves "media critics," anyway?) is still preaching about a ~~Jewish~~ "neoconservative" conspiracy to let 9/11 happen, complaining about Bush's "squelching dissent at home" (at one point, the Dixie Chicks' Home fell to #5 on the country charts!) and basically making shit up: More than half of the U.S. budget now goes to the merchants of death. Between 2004-2008, the U.S. government will spend about 2.1 trillion dollars on defence - out of a total of over 12 trillion dollars. Using the exact figures on the OMB website, the percentage of the budget spent on defence is more like 17%. Hey, "more than half," 17%...who can keep track when you're trying to save the world from the Amerikkkan imperialists?

2003-05-09T08:43:00.000-03:00

Here's a fascinating bit of Orwellian rhetoric from Britain, where regulators are considering whether to allow Fox News to remain on the air. A bloke from the "Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom," says freedom of expression will be threatened if the Fox News Channel isn't banned - although, of course, he's "not in favour of censorship." I'm not making this up. Julian Petley, the chairman of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, called on the commission to act against Fox News. "The commission has set a precedent by revoking Med TV's licence, so I don't see how it can't have Fox taken off [Sky] as well. "I'm not in favour of censorship but Murdoch would like to do with British television news what he has done with newspapers, which is to force people to compete on his own terms. "So if we allow into Britain the kind of journalism represented by Fox, that would bring about a form of censorship by narrowing the range of views and a coarsening of the level of debate." If that's not enough to send your irony detector into the stratosphere, the Guardian also supports forcing Fox off the air. "We don't want biased news over here," reads the editorial. I have to lie down for a while.

2003-05-09T07:58:00.000-03:00

This passage in a disturbing Christian Science Monitor story about regrouping Taliban forces may be the real story: In Kabul, former Taliban Supreme Court Justice Salam says that the Taliban's chief support now comes from Afghanistan's powerful neighbors - Russia, Iran, and Pakistan - who are suspicious of America's continued presence in the region more than 18 months after the collapse of the Taliban. "The Russians are not happy with the US presence here, and neither are Iran, Pakistan, and even China," says Salam, who has traded in his black and white Talib-style turban for a more common brown turban, to blend in with the townsfolk. Russia gives money and weapons to the opponents of the central government, he says, and so do the intelligence agencies of Iran and Pakistan. Another expert doubts Iran or Russia is supporting the Taliban, but is deeply suspicious of Pakistan - purportedly ruled by a "pro-American" government.

2003-05-09T07:41:00.000-03:00

British judges and lawyers may no longer have to wear these horsehair wigs when they appear in court if new proposals are accepted. (Here in Canada, even judges don't have to wear the wigs, though we still have British-inspired robes for appearances in Supreme Court. But I get asked about them all the time.)

2003-05-08T19:53:00.000-03:00

Provincial Justice Minister Kelvin Parsons (who used to work at my law firm) says people who fish for cod illegally will be prosecuted. And Tory leader Danny Williams is calling on fishermen not to take part in a "protest fishery," though he's emphasizing potential legal consequences and not any conservation concerns. (Alas, any Newfoundland politician who suggests this moratorium might be necessary would be committing political suicide.) The top story out here today is Grimes's demand that the Terms of Union, which Newfoundland signed upon joining Canada in 1949, be amended to give this province joint control over the fishery along with Ottawa, which presently maintains exclusive jurisdiction. Every party in the House of Assembly supports it. So do I. I'm not sure Newfoundland would have managed its fishery any better than Ottawa did - but I guess we'll never know now, would we? We're the only province with no jurisdiction over its most valuable natural resource, and that's a disgrace. But it's just not gonna happen. Former premiers Brian Peckford and Clyde Wells (another former partner with my firm) both demanded joint management of the fishery, and both failed. Of course, both also won provincial elections after making this a major issue (Peckford in 1982, Wells in 1993) - which may explain Grimes's sudden enthusiasm for the idea. If by some miracle we could get jurisdiction of the resource, and if the fish stocks recover, that would be wonderful. But we've fallen for too many lost causes in the past, only to keep getting our hopes betrayed, time and time again. And I think we're just setting ourselves up for another fall.

2003-05-08T19:36:00.000-03:00

Sari Stein has photos of the Israeli Independence Day rally in Montreal. Evidently a great time was had by all, despite the presence of "anti-Zionist" demonstrators and Lucien Bouchard.

2003-05-08T14:05:00.000-03:00

The chill wind of censorship is blowing! Call Tim Robbins!

2003-05-08T13:19:00.000-03:00

If I had just a little more time, I'd savage Antonia Zerbisias's latest mental drippings, in which she bemoans the lack of "outrage" over Rachel Corrie's death, thrashes "Likudnik" bloggers like Charles Johnson for what they've written about her (of course, she does not deal substantially with evidence that her death was accidental, or that Corrie was a major terror-apologist), hints at a Zionist media conspiracy to cover up Israel's atrocities, and claims Charley Reese as a source - a source who's been hassled by the evil Zionist media watchdogs, naturally. (First Mikey Rivero and now Charley Reese...how long before we see Zerb citing David Duke and Amiri Baraka in her columns?) Fortunately, I've sent it to Charles and I know he won't let me down. Go get 'em, Charles! Kill! Kill! (Hat tip: Kathy Shaidle)

2003-05-08T08:48:00.000-03:00

The Jews created SARS: so says a Sudanese editorial cartoonist. And I'm sure he's not the only one who believes it.

2003-05-08T08:43:00.000-03:00

Ottawa rewards rioters Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault has mused publicly about raising crab quotas for New Brunswick fishermen after they rioted earlier this week, and now some Newfoundlanders are wondering if they'll have to do the same thing: Ottawa's willingness to increase the crab quota in New Brunswick, even after fishermen burned boats and torched a fish plant, is fuelling frustration among jobless cod fishermen in Newfoundland, a federal committee was told Wednesday. So far, the fishermen thrown out of work by the recent closure of cod fisheries off northeast Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have protested peacefully, said Earle McCurdy, president of Newfoundland's Fish, Food and Allied Workers union. A bigger crab quota has been discussed since December and federal Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault is still prepared to offer it despite a weekend of violent protests in the port town of Shippagan, N.B. "I saw four different fishermen interviewed on TV last night and each one of them said it seems . . . we've got to step up our tactics because that's what it takes to get the minister to open up," McCurdy told eight members of the Commons fisheries committee. "I was flabbergasted when I heard (Thibault's) comments . . . I'm really concerned about how the discontent is going to manifest itself over the next few weeks." Compare Thibault (not to mention Roger Grimes) to New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord - who, according to CBC Radio (no link), is calling for criminal charges against the rioters.

2003-05-08T08:32:00.000-03:00

Disgraceful: members of the Royal Canadian Legion in Fredericton, New Brunswick, may have to cancel this year's Remembrance Day parade because of skyrocketing insurance rates: The Royal Canadian Legion in Fredericton may have to cancel its annual Remembrance Day parade because soaring premium rates are emptying the coffers, fast. Two years ago, the Fredericton Legion got $2 million in liability coverage for $2,600. This year, for the same policy, the insurance company wants $13,000, an increase of 500 per cent. For branch manager Diane Villers, that was out of the question. Instead, she says the Legion took a liability policy of $1 million. And therein lies the the problem: "The city's insurance company insists we have $2 million liability in order to hold our parades throughout the year." Some New Brunswick Legions are also seeing a 500% increase in their insurance premiums this year if they want to keep serving alcohol. Madness.

2003-05-08T07:57:00.000-03:00

Jonathan Freedland, a sometimes-tolerable Guardian columnist, on the Dalyell affair: Tam Dalyell would have us believe that Bush stands against Yasser Arafat because the Jews made him do it - when the reality is that Bush has his own post-9/11 reasons for seeing all terrorism as an indivisible phenomenon that the US can never again indulge. There is a wider lesson to draw from this sorry episode. In a way Dalyell is an easy case, because he presented his views so baldly. He did not completely hide behind "Zionist" or "Likudnik" euphemisms, but spoke instead about Jews. In so doing he clearly crossed the line between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism and made himself easy to condemn. But not all such anti-Jewish feeling expresses itself so directly. A search of the BNP's own musings shows that even they - the fascists and racists of our age - do not call themselves anti-semites. They too claim merely to be anti-Zionists. Now of course anti-semitism and anti-Zionism can be neatly distinguished, and many learned minds do so all the time. But it's worth wondering if that distinction cuts much ice at street level - where anti-Jewish incidents in Britain have gone up by 75% compared with the equivalent period last year. If Zionists are constantly accused of having dual loyalties, of wielding untold power, of pursuing a secret agenda to reshape the world, all classic charges long hurled at the Jews, then one has to wonder whether one is hearing the same racist slur now voiced by Tam Dalyell - just expressed less openly. Read it all. (via Sully)

2003-05-07T23:42:00.000-03:00

Boy, the "complete destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage" didn't last long, did it? U.S. Customs agents, working with military and museum experts at the National Museum in Baghdad, have recovered nearly 40,000 manuscripts and about 700 artifacts, government officials announced in Washington Wednesday, leaving perhaps only a few dozen key pieces missing. The museum was looted after the city fell to U.S.-led forces last month, but there has been disagreement since then about how many and what kinds of items were taken. U.S. officials believe some valuable pieces were taken by professional thieves. Agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs (ICE) said that so far they have photos and documentation to confirm only 38 items from the museum are still missing. Although they suspect additional pieces may have been stolen, they declined to speculate on the scope of the additional uncatalogued items that may have been looted. But the far left is nothing if not persistent, and now that this latest meme has been proven to be grossly exaggerated, I'm sure they'll just find something else. (I can't wait to see the first NaziMedia posting claiming the Americans knew there was never any serious looting, and that this whole thing was just a set-up. That's just something the military-industrial complex does.) (via LGF)

2003-05-07T17:16:00.000-03:00

The smoking gun? Well, the Pentagon says it's too early to use that loaded phrase (pun intended), but it looks like that "mobile bioweapons facility" found in northern Iraq is the real deal: A mobile laboratory found in northern Iraq apparently was used to produce biological agents, a senior U.S. military official said. "Experts have been through it and they have not found another plausible use for it based on the equipment on board,'' Stephen Cambone, Pentagon undersecretary for intelligence, said. [...] Cambone said U.S forces found the tractor-trailer April 19 at a Kurdish checkpoint near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. "It was painted in a military color scheme and found on a heavy equipment transporter that is typically used to carry tanks,'' he said. An Iraqi defector who briefed U.S. intelligence said the trailer was suspected of producing three kinds of biological agent, including anthrax, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Admiral Lowell Jacoby said. The trailer's size, configuration and the equipment within -- a fermenter that's typically "used for growing cultures'' and an air filtration system that obviates the need to exhaust gases -- are "very similar'' to the mobile labs U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell described in his presentation to the United Nations Feb. 5 on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Cambone said. "It does not appear to perform any function beyond the production of biological agents,'' he said. He said the vehicle had been scoured with "a very caustic substance.'' Testing to date has been "only on the surface, those things we can reach.'' Because I'm such a nice guy, I'm going to save our favorite idiotarians some trouble, and write their upcoming columns for them. Robert Fisk: "That's it? Thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children dead, Iraq's cultural heritage completely looted and the complete break down of order that Saddam, for all his excesses, provided...for one trailer? I expect more angry Iraqis to beat me up any day now, and they'll be right to do it." Any Guardian columnist: "Surely if the inspectors had been given more time, they could have found this." Any CounterPunch columnist: "This is the greatest war crime in the history of the world, even worse than the alleged murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, who were put in power by Bush's grandfather." John Pilger: "Why should we believe this is real? The Gulf of Tonkin affair makes it clear that the Yanks are not above faking this sort of thing, to justify their evil grab for oil and world domination." Michael Rivero: "Lavon! Lavon! Lavon! Lavon! Lavon! Lavon!" International ANSWER: "Free Mumia!"

2003-05-07T10:50:00.000-03:00

Offered without comment: An advance party of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan is walking the streets of the capital unarmed because the government has not yet signed a routine agreement under which NATO peacekeeping troops are allowed to carry weapons. The Canadians are being guarded by German soldiers while they are in Kabul. [...] "It's a screw-up," said Leon Benoit, the defence critic for the Canadian Alliance. "Afghanistan is an extremely dangerous place and it's going to get even more dangerous. By leaving our soldiers without the ability to defend themselves, the government has put them in danger." John McCallum, the Defence Minister, dismissed the criticisms as "nonsense" and said the Canadian team in Kabul is well protected by their German escorts. "I think this is a total non-issue," Mr. McCallum told reporters. "It is a small group of reconnaissance people. They are very ably guarded by German troops, our partners, who are obviously armed. It is a question of getting the diplomatic agreement signed.

2003-05-07T10:33:00.000-03:00

"The Military-Industrial Complex" This flash presentation, which allows you to run the cursor over a map of the world and "draw blood" (except for the US and Western Europe, on which dollar signs flash) is meant to be a searing indictment of the way we evil Westerners make weapons and use them to murder poor people, I guess. Just one problem: two of the largest arms exporters in the world, Russia and China (which, together, supplied Saddam with about 70% of his weapons), are included among the "bleeding" nations. But I'm sure that was just an oversight. (Notice, as well, that you can "draw blood" when you run the cursor over Israel - though this guy probably thinks of it as "Palestine," which would explain it. More curiously, nothing happens when you run the cursor over Cuba. Try it yourself.) Update: to see what I'm talking about, you have to hit the sixth button at the bottom of the page.

2003-05-07T07:45:00.000-03:00

Johann Hari's usually excellent Independent columns (now there's a phrase I never thought I'd use) are no longer available unless you're willing to pay for them. But his latest, which discusses the development of political parties and debate in liberated Iraq, begins with this curious phrase: The gung-ho conservative press is now only interested in the Iraqi people as bad news: either they are mutating into evil, money-grabbing asylum-seekers as they cross the Channel, or they stay at home and become looting thugs. Excuse me? It's the conservative media which has been demonizing the people of Iraq? WTF? News flash, Johann: it's papers like yours which plug the idea that Baghdad is being looted into total oblivion; papers like yours which say Iraqis "aren't ready" for democracy; papers like yours which say Muslims can't control their rage about the Israel-Palestine issue, and that we have to appease them at all costs, because they can't be reasoned with. We right-wing hawks have been trying to give Iraqis - and the rest of the Middle East - the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Your Guardipendent colleagues, by contrast, are the ones who want to keep them poor and backward, mainly so they can give themselves a reason to feel guilty.

2003-05-07T07:24:00.000-03:00

Roger Grimes insists he's not encouraging Newfoundland fishermen to break the law. He's just going to use all his power to make sure they suffer no consequences if they do. Why can't people figure that out? Closer to home, Opposition Leader Danny Williams accuses Grimes of being reckless, and failing in his duty to uphold the law. "This government shirked that responsibility when the premier enticed people to break the law." But Grimes says he never encouraged anyone to break the law; only that he supports any form of protest that gets the fishery opened. After question period, Grimes repeated his claim that provincial officials will not help prosecute anyone caught fishing illegally, and his government will stand with the fishermen. "I'm telling you we will find a way to defend, and support and protect the people involved in this because we are so convinced that they are right." Grimes won't say what those measures are, but his government will help if fishermen are arrested. Meanwhile, the head of the fishermens' union says he's had discussions with Grimes about a "protest" fishery: The Fish, Food and Allied Workers union is supporting controversial comments from Premier Roger Grimes. He says his government will try to protect anyone who defies Ottawa by fishing for cod in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the fishery has been closed. Grimes said he'll even go so far as to introduce provincial legislation to permit a limited cod fishery in the area. The premier's promise isn't new to Earle McCurdy, the president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers, who says the two have talked about a possible protest fishery since Ottawa announced the cod closure nearly two weeks ago. Pathetic. Grimes reminds me of Zarko the troll, from Zach Cohen's blog, who regularly questions whether the Holocaust happened and accuses Jews of running the US government, but recoils at any suggestion he's anti-Semitic. Neither of them are willing to take any real responsibility for their comments.

2003-05-07T07:15:00.000-03:00

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee invited Rabbi Michael Lerner, a Palestinian supporter who also believes Israel has a right to exist, to address an upcoming conference. Now some members are circulating a petition demanding that this "Zionist" not be provided with a forum. The invaluable Marduk has the details.

2003-05-06T14:47:00.000-03:00

A question: why is it that the same people who scream the loudest about "a woman's right to choose" and "reproductive freedom" are the same people who can instigate a serious discussion about whether poor people "have a moral right" to have children? Just askin'. (For the record, I do think abortion should be legal, at least until the fetus is viable outside the mother's body. But some of the more radical elements of the "pro-choice" movement are more accurately called "pro-abortion," given their seeming enthusaism for the procedure.)

2003-05-06T09:44:00.000-03:00

Dalyell digs deeper The British MP, who accused Tony Blair of being in thrall to a "cabal" of Jewish advisors (some deemed "Jewish" merely by having one Jewish ancestor, kind of like the Nuremburg laws), is trying to explain his remarks. He told the Guardian he only used the word "cabal" to describe Bush's Jewish advisors, not Blair's. What's all the fuss, then? Mr Dalyell's critics took exception after it was claimed that he felt Mr Blair was influenced by a "cabal" of Jewish advisers. But Mr Dalyell said he used the word cabal only in reference to the Bush administration, not Downing Street. "The cabal that I referred to was in the US," he said. "That is the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. I was thinking of [Paul] Wolfowitz, [deputy defence secretary], [Richard] Perle, [John] Bolton, assistant secretary of state, [Douglas] Feith, [Ken] Adelman, [Elliott] Abrams and [Ari] Fleischer, [Mr Bush's press secretary.] Those people drive this policy." Fleischer? Ari fucking Fleisher? Bush's spokesman, who by the very nature of his job parrots what Bush tells him to, rather than the other way around? He's part of the Jewish cabal? Dalyell says it's "preposterous" to accuse him of anti-Semitism, because he's visited Israel and stuff. (At least he didn't say, "I can't be anti-Semitic, since Arabs are Semites too.") Well, excuse me, you commie piece of shit, if you're angry about being labelled "anti-Semitic," maybe you should have thought twice about cherry-picking every Jew (or half-Jew, or one-eighth Jew) who works for Bush and Blair, regardless of their roles, and deeming them a "cabal". Are you sure you went far enough, Tom? Isn't there a Jew working in the White House cafeteria somewhere? The Wanker adds that Dalyell might face a "race hatred" inquiry for his comments. I oppose such inquiries on strictly libertarian grounds, and personally, I think Jews should be happy people like Dalyell are free to say things like that. At least they can know who their real enemies are. (via Marduk)

2003-05-06T08:45:00.000-03:00

Mobile bioweapons lab found? Fox News reports that Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq might have found a vehicle with equipment used for production of anthrax. I emphasize the word "might," because we've been burned by several stories like this since the fall of Baghdad. Personally, I think the invastion of Iraq was justified even if no Iraqi WMDs are discovered, considering what has been found in the country. But I'd like nothing more than a nice, big WMD find, just to stick it in the lefties' faces. (Mind you, they'll certainly dismiss it as a CIA fake.) If the find is confirmed today, after a typically smug Gwynne Dyer column on the subject ran in my Western Star, I'll probably achieve nirvana.

2003-05-06T08:00:00.000-03:00

Some extraordinary behavior on the part of Newfoundland premier Roger Grimes: Premier Roger Grimes says his government will support and try to protect any fisherman who defies Ottawa by fishing for cod in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the fishery has been closed. He says people are so frustrated by the fishery closure that an illegal protest fishery would be understandable. Grimes says his government isn't encouraging people to ignore the ban, but it will try to protect those who do. "If they themselves feel that aggrieved we will support them to whatever extent we possibly can within the realm of the provincial government." Grimes says if fishermen are charged, provincial justice officials won't help Ottawa with the prosecution. "We're not going to be facilitating federal officials trying to prosecute decent law-abiding respectful Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are so aggrieved and so offended by this decision that they might even break the law," the premier says. [emphasis added] Who does this guy think he is? George Wallace? Is he going to stand on the courthouse steps, surrounded by riot police, to prevent federal Crown prosecutors from entering the building? (The federal Department of Justice has sole responsibility for fisheries prosecutions, as opposed to most criminal matters, which are prosecuted by the province.) Aside from Newfoundland's unfortunate federal cabinet representative, Gerry Byrne, every politician in Newfoundland has come out strongly against the cod closure. The Tories passed a resolution to that effect at their weekend convention, and while I haven't heard NDP leader Jack Harris oppose the closure, he'll almost certainly toe the NDP-affiliated fishermens' union line. Nobody, it seems, is willing to accept the possibility that there's hardly any bloody cod left, and that any cod fishery would almost certainly have a catastophic effect on what few stocks remain. But no politician has gone so far as Grimes, who knows he's toast in the next provincial election, and has seized his one shot at staying in power. Newfoundlanders have a soft spot for "saviors" who will fight injustice in Ottawa, and that's clearly what the premier has in mind. The Royal Commission on Newfoundland's Place in Confederation (aka the "Blame Canada" commission) issues its report early this summer, so expect a provincial election is early autumn.

2003-05-06T07:48:00.000-03:00

The Washington Times says the French government has been helping Iraqi Ba'athist officials escape to Europe: The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned. An unknown number of Iraqis who worked for Saddam Hussein's government were given passports by French officials in Syria, U.S. intelligence officials said. The passports are regarded as documents of the European Union, because of France's membership in the union, and have helped the Iraqis avoid capture, said officials familiar with intelligence reports. The French support, which was revealed through sensitive intelligence-gathering means, angered Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials in Washington because it undermined the search for senior aides to Saddam, who fled Iraq in large numbers after the fall of Baghdad on April 9. "It made it very difficult to track these people," one official said. A second Bush administration official said, "It's like Raoul Wallenberg in reverse," a reference to the Swedish diplomat who supplied travel documents to help Jews escape Nazi Germany in World War II. "Now you have the French helping the bad guys escape from us." Fuckers. Why on earth would the French do something like this, aside from pure, unadulturated spite? (Why do the French do anything, aside from pure, unadulturated spite?) (via InstaPundit)

2003-05-05T22:30:00.000-03:00

A revealing exchange.

2003-05-05T15:24:00.000-03:00

The end of the Post as we know it? Fans of the National Post, Canada's admirably conservative alternative to the Globe and Mail, should be concerned about Ken Whyte's recent firing as editor-in-chief. David Frum, for one, has resigned as a regular Post columnist: The paper was the brainchild of Conrad Black, the ex-Canadian media mogul who also owns the Daily Telegraph and the Chicago Sun-Times. Ken was Black’s protege; Ken in turn hired Newland, a devout Roman Catholic with the build of a Royal Marine. Newland was English, as were many of the paper’s first editors, and they gave the paper a very un-Canadian verve and sass. Brilliant as the paper was editorially, it never quite worked as a business. The immediate problem was the collapse in advertising that hit all North American newspapers early in 2000. The deeper problem was the impossible economics of home delivering a national newspaper in a country where only 24 million English-speakers live spread across five time zones. In two transactions, Black sold the National Post to the Winnipeg-based Asper family. Unlike Black, a highly intellectual conservative, the Aspers never seem to have felt much zeal for the National Post’s mission. They were television entrepreneurs, and in Canada television is an industry closely regulated by the federal government. Its regulation of television gives the Canadian government a very disturbing leverage over media companies involved in both television and print--like the Aspers’ CanWest group. Earlier, the publisher of another CanWest paper, the Ottawa Citizen, was fired for permitting his reporters and editorial writers to continue working on the Chretien finance story. Soon after the Aspers assumed full control of the National Post, that paper’s investigation of Prime Minister Chretien’s finances also ceased. [...] Everybody who has ever loved the Post has to wish the new management team well. It’s not the joyous, fearless paper it was--but it still beats the competition and for the time being at least it remains the closest thing to a dissenting voice that Canada has. But it’s one thing to wish the paper well; another to continue to work for it. On Saturday, with a breaking heart, I resigned my weekly column in the paper. Don't expect Maude Barlow or Antonia Zerbisias to complain about the owners' interference in the Post's editorial line.

2003-05-05T13:09:00.000-03:00

America's worst judges Law.com has a feature about American judges who were booted from the bench over the past year. My favorites include the one who insisted on smelling defendants' hair before every trial to ensure they weren't carrying drugs, and the judge who arranged with a restauranteur to take his kids away from his ex-wife - on Christmas morning - in exchange for the restauranteur buying shrimp from the judge's marina. It just goes to show you that the system is only as good as the people working within, and that judges can be assholes just like anyone else. (Except for the judges before whom I regularly appear, of course. They're all wonderful.)

2003-05-05T08:38:00.000-03:00

Mass grave in Iraq People said the full extent of the horrors committed by Saddam wouldn't be made clear until after he was gone, and now the truth is coming out: a mass grave, containing dozens of bodies of Shi'ites who rose up against Saddam in 1991 (and were so cruelly betrayed by the first Bush administration and the "international community"), has been found. It won't be the last.

2003-05-05T08:03:00.000-03:00

Constructive criticism from readers of Moorewatch.com.

2003-05-04T19:29:00.000-03:00

What? You mean to tell me Syrian President Bashar Assad lied to Colin Powell about the closing of Palestinian terrorists' offices in his country? Hard to believe, I know, but that's what the New York Times is saying: Militant Palestinian groups in Damascus challenged today American statements that Syria had cracked down on them, and Syria's government sidestepped the issue, refusing to confirm one of the few concessions that seemed to emerge in a weekend visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Powell, after meeting on Saturday with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria in Damascus, said here at a news conference that there had been "some closures" of offices belonging to the groups. The State Department identified the organizations, which it lists as terrorist groups, as Hamas; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command; and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Syrian government today declined to confirm the news, though. "You have to ask him what he meant," said Bouthaina Shaaban, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, referring to Mr. Powell. "I'm really not entitled to answer." She took umbrage at the issue of the offices, which have been a longstanding concern of the United States. "We are more interested in what he said about a comprehensive peace rather than what he said about offices," she said. "This visit was one step in that direction, and the dialogue is continuing. And the Syrians and the United States understood each other better after this visit." [...] As for Hamas, the office in Syria is on the outskirts of Damascus and consists of a modest apartment in a residential building. An iron gate protects the door, and visitors must remove their shoes. A representative, speaking by phone, said he was not sure what was happening, and suggested that he was under some restraint. "I don't know if it is closed or not," he said. "If I am here, it doesn't mean it's open." But a Hamas spokesman also commented from Lebanon about the announced closing. "I haven't been informed of any such thing," Reuters quoted the Lebanon head of the group, Usama Hamdan, as saying. "The Americans know well that our presence is part of the Palestinian refugee presence in Syria and Lebanon." Islamic Jihad and PFLP officials also denied any knowledge of a Syrian "crackdown". (To be fair, the Times reports a reduced staff presence, and a vaguely defined sense of unease, in the militant groups' offices. But they're almost certainly laying low until Colin Powell - and American reporters - go home.)

2003-05-04T12:16:00.000-03:00

I wish my free speech rights could be trampled as badly as that of the Dixie Chicks. After all the controversy, all of the hand-wringing over the "stifling of dissent" and "suppression of criticism" in libertarian media outlets like CounterPunch and the Arab News, the Chicks' concert in Orlando attracted one protestor. And about a half-dozen people tried to sell their tickets. That's it. So, how have these poor, oppressed dissidents fared since their lead singer thrashed Bush in front of a British audience? They've suffered no serious decline in record sales (their latest CD, Home, is back atop the country charts), none of their shows have been cancelled, they got a spot on prime-time television to whine about all the criticism they've gotten (yeah, it was only ABC, but that's still a major network for the time being), they got to pose nekkid on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and their status as free-speech "martyrs" is forever assured among the Bush-is-Hitler crowd. Not too shabby. The radical left should be a little bit ashamed of themselves for the way they've tried to portray this as a sign of how Amerikkka is turning into a fascist state where no criticism of the government will be tolerated. Indeed, the likes of Mikey Moore have already begun changing their tune and have started using the Chicks as an example of how Bush and his supporters don't speak for "real" Americans. If they're aware of the irony, they're repressing it.

2003-05-04T00:18:00.000-03:00

Someone forgot to tell Labour MP Tom Dalyell that the far left is only opposed to "Zionists" rather than Jews. In a Vanity Fair article about Tony Blair, Dalyell is quoted as saying Blair is "unduly influenced" by Jewish advisors: The author then quoted Labour Member of Parliament Tam Dalyell, the longest serving member of the House of Commons, as saying he thought Blair was unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisors. Margolick said Dalyell named Peter Mandelson, a former Blair cabinet member, Lord Levy, Blair's chief fund-raiser and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, an Anglican who has a Jewish grandparent. The "anti-Zionist" mask slips again. (via Andrew Sullivan) Update: it's even worse than I thought. According to The Sunday Telegraph, Dalyell - known as "Father of the House" in Britain because of his decades of service - is not only unrepentant about his comments, he's pointing the finger at influential American Jews as well: Yesterday Mr Dalyell, the MP for Linlithgow, told The Telegraph: "I am fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism but, if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran . . . then one has to be candid." He added: "I am not going to be labelled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz. But the time has come for candour." The Prime Minister, Mr Dalyell claimed, was also indirectly influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and Ari Fleischer, the President's press secretary. "They very much have captured the ear of the President of the United States. I said [to Vanity Fair] I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why," Mr Dalyell said. Interesting, that Dalyell's children worked on an Israeli kibbutz. It's hard to believe these days, but the left supported Israel during its early years, when it was trying to build itself as a happy model socialist state. Only when the Jewish state abandoned socialism, and when it had to gall to win the 1967 war, did the left turn against it. (See Joshua Muravchik's excellent Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism for the whole, sad story.)

2003-05-03T17:44:00.000-03:00

The impossible has happened: Atlantic cod off the coast of Newfoundland, basis for what was once the most bountiful fishery the world has ever known, has been placed on the endangered species list. The designation has no force in law, but it's a mortal blow to fisherman demanding the recently announced cod moratorium be lifted. What can I say? As much as I sympathize with Newfoundlanders who've had their livelihood so cruelly taken away, it's hard to oppose a moratorium when there's no fucking fish left. (In a perverse irony, the same fishermen who thrash federal scientists for failing to predict the early-1990s cod collapse now thrash them for being too pessimistic.) Still, I think the blow wouldn't be nearly as cruel had Ottawa taken one-tenth of the effort to combat foreign overfishing than it's taken to keep Newfoundlanders away from their own resource. That Spanish and Russian trawlers are allowed in Canadian waters at all (for "historical" reasons, if you can believe it) makes a mockery of the promise that Newfoundlanders would be full partners in the Canadian confederation.

2003-05-03T17:24:00.000-03:00

Tex is back from his Canadian vacation, and his flood of idiotarian hate mail hasn't stopped. (But are my eyes decieving me, or did he actually buy a CD from Canada's unlistenable, popular-in-1998 animated novelty band, "Prozaak"? Tex, Tex, Tex...I thought you had better taste than that.) Speaking of antidepressants (properly spelled, this time), Michael Coren admits to regularly taking Paxil for anxiety-related disorders. So do I, for a (relatively mild, thank God) case of obsessive-compulsive disorder - and, like Coren, I'm not ashamed at all. It's been a tremendous help to me, and I have no regrets about using the medication - though stories about Paxil withdrawal symptoms for people trying to wean themselves from the drug cause me some concern.

2003-05-02T16:48:00.000-03:00

If you needed definitive proof that Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch is a repository for deluded, mentally unstable wingnuts, here it is: Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs, and his constant references to "evil doers," in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations - the anti-Christ. People close to the Pope claim that amid these concerns, the Pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament. Before he became Pope, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla said, "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel." The Pope, who grew up facing the evils of Hitler and Stalin, knows evil when he sees it. Although we can all endlessly argue over the Pope's effectiveness in curtailing abuses within his Church, his accomplishments external to Catholicism are impressive. According to journalists close to the Vatican, the Pope and his closest advisers are also concerned that the ultimate acts of evil - the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - were known in advance by senior Bush administration officials. By permitting the attacks to take their course, there is a perception within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that a coup d'etat was implemented, one that gave Bush and his leadership near-dictatorial powers to carry out their agenda. Isn't it fascinating to see these ultra-left extremists, who've spent the last 25 years savaging the Pope, cynically using him as a moral figurehead because of his opposition to war with Iraq?

2003-05-02T12:46:00.000-03:00

Something to keep in mind, next time you see Danny Glover doing one of his cute 'n cuddly MCI commericals: Glover, Harry Belafonte and about 160 other useful idiots of even less renown have signed an open letter "to the conscience of the world" defending the Cuban government against recent criticism of its human-rights crackdown. MCI has it all wrong. Glover shouldn't be plugging the "Neighbourhood" long-distance plan, but the "Neighbourhood Committe for the Defence of the Revolution" plan.

2003-05-02T11:13:00.000-03:00

Oh, the irony: while Muslim writers are trying to portray Muslims as irrational, violent fanatics (see below), Charles Krauthammer - the very model of an evil Zionazi Fifth-Columnist Jew - has written a column suggesting that Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims are not irrational, violent fanatics: Of course there are telegenic elements among the Shiites who would like fundamentalist rule by the clerics. But even the majority of Iranians oppose the rule of the mullahs and consider the Islamic revolution a disaster. The Shiite demonstrators in Iraqi streets represent a highly organized minority, many of whom are affiliated with, infiltrated by and financed by Tehran, the headquarters for 20 years of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. These Iranian-oriented Shiite extremists are analogous to the Soviet-oriented communists in immediate post-World War II Italy and France. They too had a foreign patron. They too had foreign sources of money, agents and influence. They too had a coherent ideology. And they too were highly organized even before the end of the war. They too made a bid for power. And failed. [...] Moreover, Shiism is not a hierarchical religion like Roman Catholicism. It is extremely decentralized. Among the Shiite majority itself are myriad ideological and political factions. Islamic scholar Hillel Fradkin points out that Khomeiniism -- the seizure of political power by clerics -- is contrary to centuries of Shiite tradition and thus alien and anathema to many Iraqi Shiites. Does this mean that Jeffersonian democracy is guaranteed in Baghdad? Of course not. But the United States is in a position to bring about a unique and potentially revolutionary development in the Arab world: a genuinely pluralistic, open and free society. Keep that one in mind, next time the IndyMidiots accuse Krauthammer of being an "anti-Arab racist".

2003-05-02T10:25:00.000-03:00

If you're prone to fits of blind, violent rage, I don't recommend you read this apologia for British suicide bombers Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif by Muslim journalist Fuad Nahdi in (where else?) The Wanker. It's not their fault that they launched a murderous attack against innocent civilians, of course. The evil occupation of land thousands of miles away from their home made them do it. And unless the Israelis agree to let themselves be slaughtered like good little Jews, Muslims will launch more attacks - in Britain. If we are to understand what is going on we need to scrape away the layers of rhetoric and euphemism, put to one side events of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, and come to the running sore of Palestine. The western conscience, troubled by anti-semitism, is reluctant to look too critically at Israeli behaviour towards a colonised Muslim population. But unless the Palestinian voice, and the Muslim voice that echoes its pain, is listened to, there will be no understanding of what happened to Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif. Instead, we will be subjected to more banal rhetoric about "evil" Islam and the motiveless nature of fundamentalist terror. The reality is that Muslims - including the majority of those in Britain - are enraged about Palestine. Angry about the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements on confiscated Arab land. Furious about decades of military rule on behalf of Jewish conquerors over resentful Christian and Muslim populations. Furious about the perpetuation of colonial-era racism and apartheid-style zoning laws. Furious about the plight of Palestinian refugees. Furious about the conquerer's control of the third holiest place in Islam. Our scriptures counsel endless patience. Were it not for Islam, the anti-western rhetoric and violence would be out of control. Yet, some of us have been tipped over the edge. The message carried in the deeds of these angry young people is that, yes, Islam forbids suicide and killing civilians, but they are now so angry about Palestine that they are going to set these principles aside. The result has been a perversion of faith. A "perversion of faith"? Then I don't think it's us you should be lecturing, lady. It's Islamic militants and their supporters, who counsel an endless gospel of murder, hate and xenophobia, whom you should be lecturing. They're the ones who are despoiling your religion, not us. In the 36 years since the fall of Jerusalem, the Muslim voice has been deeply radicalised. You find this everywhere - from the scholarly pulpits of Al-Azhar to the mosques of Birmingham and Derby, where young people speak only of Palestine. It is the great religious transformation of our age. And if you talk to these new zealots, you will find that anger over Palestine has been the catalyst which radicalised them. Perhaps this has been the most far-reaching consequence of Zionism: the radicalisation of the Muslim world. Like most Muslims, I can't stand it. I lament the passing of a culture focused on God more than on community. I miss the smiles, tolerance and wisdom of the older sort of Muslim. And like most Muslims, I know that the war on terrorism and the Iraq war is not part of a solution, but merely the acceleration of incomprehension and revenge. Nahdi probably doesn't realize it (and will probably denounce me as a "Zionist" for pointing this out), but she's doing more to reinforce the stereotype of the violent, irrational, extremist Muslim than, say, Daniel Pipes ever could. Are the Palestinians living under a rough occupation? Absolutely, though they almost certainly would have earned their own state by now were it not for the endless violent, grossly anti-Semitic incitement that emerges from "official" Palestinian schoolrooms, broadcasters and mosques. But millions of people around the world are oppressed, under conditions infintely worse than what the Palestinians are going through. Much of this oppression, frankly, is at the hands of Muslims themselves - ask any Christian in the Sudan, for example. And where are the Christian suicide bombers? Where are the armies of militant Christian fundamentalists, inciting their followers to kill Muslims? (Franklin Graham is really the worst example most Islamofascist apologists can find, and his rhetoric doesn't even come close to what passes for normal discourse in the Arab world.) Where are the Tibetan Buddhists, demanding violent retribution against the Chinese? Why are Muslims somehow the only people on earth who are unable to control their anger? I don't believe Islam is an inherently violent faith. Frankly, for all their talk about how "Islam means peace," it seems like the Muslims have conceded its an inherently violent faith. It's time for Muslims to take some responsibility for what their bretheren are doing in the name of Islam - to say, without reservation, that murder and hatred are unacceptable and blasphemous, regardless of the circumstances - and I'm completely fucking sick of being told it's all my fault.