Six Days

It Gets "Interesting"

2006-03-11T16:42:00.000+11:00

This has been a week with a number of rather "interesting" (in the Chinese sense) developments. Some good news, mostly not, and interesting all round. Also yet another act of censorship, and call for solidarity.

The EU is seriously considering religious defamation laws, according to Agora's translation of a recent Jyllands-Posten article. Having flirted with Nazism, Communism and neo-Napoleonic nanny-statism, do the Eutopians now want to go back to medieval theocracy? Not the old monoculture, mind you, but a strange new kind that presumably respects all religions simultaneously? Or will it be a monoculture after all ? How the content of the Koran will be handled, defamatory as it is to Christians and Jews is anybody's guess, although the Germans have already decided to see for themselves. How the pro-freedom-of-speech Danes will react to EU imposed censorship is another interesting question.

The Germans, as mentioned, may be putting the Koran on trial.

The Czechs have uncovered some unpleasant truths. Muslims, are, as usual, miffed.

Pakistan (remember them?) and Spain (responding to deadly Islamist intimidation by becoming uber-dhimmis) are together lobbying for an anti-"religious defamation" measure from the UN. Why is this a problem ? We all know how the West's lefties revere the UN and bow to "international law". Once such a "UN law" is passed (no the UN is not a legislature, no matter what you hear on SBS), all a country will need is a left wing government and then its game over, even if blasphemy laws were not legislated locally. We will then see legislated dhimmitude by default in any Western nation without a spine, and a minority of nations rebelling against the UN. This minority may not include the US, judging by recent White House and State Dept reactions to the MoToons.

Mark Steyn is no longer writing for UK papers. Jumped ? Pushed ? Why ? I dunno. But an unfortunate development regardless.

In a previous post I linked to a rather interesting article from the Telegraph in the UK. This article explored the dangers of self-ghettoised Muslim communities establishing islands of their own culture in the UK and working towards self-rule and Sharia Law. The article quoted Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo. a former Muslim and expert on Islam. The article is good, and worth reading, and I am reprinting it below. This is because it no longer appears on the Telegraph web site, where it has been replaced with a notice:

This story has been removed for legal reasons

(Filed: 19/02/2006)

It is not in the Google cache either. Naturally, this cannot stand ! Like the MoToons, and the Manifesto, this needs to be reprinted far and wide. So here it is [Hat Tip: Mike Jericho]

ENGLAND:
The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state
By Alasdair Palmer
The Telegraph Group February 19, 2006
For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries."
They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.
"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.
"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."
Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.
"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue.
"For someone with such strong and uncompromising views, Dr Sookhdeo is a surprisingly gentle and easy-going man. He speaks with authority on Islam, as it was his first faith: he was brought up as a Muslim in Guyana, the only English colony in South America, and attended a madrassa there.
"But Islamic instruction was very different in the 1950s, when I was at school," he says. "There was no talk of suicide bombing or indeed of violence of any kind. Islam was very peaceful."
Dr Sookhdeo's family emigrated to England when he was 10. In his early twenties, when he was at university, he converted to Christianity. "I had simply seen it as the white man's religion, the religion of the colonialists and the oppressors - in a very similar way, in fact, to the way that many Muslims see Christianity today."
Leaving Islam was not easy. According to the literal interpretation of the Koran, the punishment for apostasy is death - and it actually is punished by death in some Middle Eastern states. "It wasn't quite like that here," he says, "although it was traumatic in some ways."
Dr Sookhdeo continued to study Islam, doing a PhD at London University on the religion. He is currently director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. He also advises the Army on security issues related to Islam.
Several years ago, Dr Sookhdeo insisted that the next wave of radical Islam in Britain would involve suicide bombings in this country. His prediction was depressingly confirmed on 7/7 last year.
So his claim that, in the next decade, the Muslim community in Britain will not be integrated into mainstream British society, but will isolate itself to a much greater extent, carries weight behind it. Dr Sookhdeo has proved his prescience.
"The Government, and Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, are fundamentally deluded about the nature of Islam," he insists. "Tony Blair unintentionally revealed his ignorance when he said, in an effort to conciliate Muslims, that he had 'read through the Koran twice' and that he kept it by his bedside."
He thought he was saying something which showed how seriously he took Islam. But most Muslims thought it was a joke, if not an insult. Because, of course, every Muslim knows that you cannot read the Koran through from cover to cover and understand it.
The chapters are not written to be read in that way. Indeed, after the first chapter, the chapters of the Koran are ordered according to their length, not according to their content or chronology: the longest chapters are first, the shorter ones are at the end."
You need to know which passage was revealed at what period and in what time in order to be able to understand it - you cannot simply read it from beginning to end and expect to learn anything at all.
"That is one reason why it takes so long to be able to read and understand the Koran: the meaning of any part of it depends on a knowledge of its context - a context that is not in the Koran itself."
The Prime Minister's ignorance of Islam, Dr Sookhdeo contends, is of a piece with his unsuccessful attempts to conciliate it. And it does indeed seem as if the Government's policy towards radical Islam is based on the hope that if it makes concessions to its leaders, they will reciprocate and relations between fundamentalist Muslims and Tony Blair's Government will then turn into something resembling an ecumenical prayer meeting.
Dr Sookhdeo nods in vigorous agreement with that. "Yes - and it is a very big mistake. Look at what happened in the 1990s. The security services knew about Abu Hamza and the preachers like him. They knew that London was becoming the centre for Islamic terrorists. The police knew. The Government knew. Yet nothing was done.
"The whole approach towards Muslim militants was based on appeasement. 7/7 proved that that approach does not work - yet it is still being followed. For example, there is a book, The Noble Koran: a New Rendering of its Meaning in English, which is openly available in Muslim bookshops.
"It calls for the killing of Jews and Christians, and it sets out a strategy for killing the infidels and for warfare against them. The Government has done nothing whatever to interfere with the sale of that book.
"Why not? Government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred, to criminalise the glorification of terrorism, yet they do nothing about this book, which blatantly does both.
"Perhaps the explanation is just that they do not take it seriously. "I fear that is exactly the problem," says Dr Sookhdeo. "The trouble is that Tony Blair and other ministers see Islam through the prism of their own secular outlook.
They simply do not realise how seriously Muslims take their religion. Islamic clerics regard themselves as locked in mortal combat with secularism.
"For example, one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they
are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.
'Islamic clerics do not believe in a society in which Islam is one religion among others in a society ruled by basically non-religious laws. They believe it must be the dominant religion - and it is their aim to achieve this.
"That is why they do not believe in integration. In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future - and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate."Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, there will be no advertisements showing naked or semi-naked women, and so on.
"That plan, says Dr Sookhdeo, is being followed in Britain. "That is why you are seeing areas which are now almost totally Muslim. The next step will be pushing the Government to recognise sharia law for Muslim communities - which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "violating the rights of Muslims" to deny them sharia law.
"There's already a Sharia Law Council for the UK. The Government has already started making concessions: it has changed the law so that there are sharia-compliant mortgages and sharia pensions.
"Some Muslims are now pressing to be allowed four wives: they say it is part of their religion. They claim that not being allowed four wives is a denial of their religious liberty. There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time - and stay married, in sharia law, to all four."The more fundamentalist clerics think that it is only a matter of
time before they will persuade the Government to concede on the issue of sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that.
"Dr Sookhdeo's vision of a relentless battle between secular and Islamic Britain seems hard to reconcile with the co-operation that seems to mark the vast majority of the interactions between the two communities.
"Well, it isn't me who says Islam is at war with secularisation," he says. "That's how Islamic clerics describe the situation.
"But isn't it true that most Muslims who live in theocratic states want to get out of them as quickly as possible and live in a secular country such as Britain or America? And that most Muslims who come to Britain adopt the values of a liberal, democratic, tolerant society, rather than insisting on the inflexible rules of their religion?"
You have to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and their self-appointed leaders," explains Dr
Sookhdeo. "I agree that the best hope for our collective future is that the majority of Muslims who have grown up here have accepted the secular nature of the British state and society, the division between religion and politics, and the importance of allowing people to choose freely how they will live.
"But that is not how most of the clerics talk. And, more significantly, it is not how the 'community leaders' whom the Government has decided represent the Muslim community think either.
"Take, for example, Tariq Ramadan, whom the Government has appointed as an adviser because ministers think he is a 'community leader'. Ramadan sounds, in public, very moderate. But in reality, he has some very extreme views. He attacks liberal Muslims as 'Muslims without Islam'. He is affiliated to the violent and uncompromising Muslim Brotherhood."He calls the education in the state schools of the West 'aggression against the Islamic personality of the child'. He has said that 'the Muslim respects the laws of the country only if they do not contradict any Islamic principle'. He has added that 'compromising on principles is a sign of fear and weakness'.
"So what's the answer? What should the Government be doing? "First, it should try to engage with the real Muslim majority, not with the self-appointed 'community leaders' who don't actually represent anyone: they have not been elected, and the vast majority of ordinary Muslims have nothing to do with them.
"Second, the Government should say no to faith-based schools, because they are a block to integration. There should be no compromise over education, or over English as the language of education. The policy of political multiculturalism should be reversed."The hope was that it would to ensure separate communities would soften at the edges and integrate. But the opposite has in fact happened: Islamic communities have hardened. There is much less integration than there was for the generation that arrived when I did. There will be much less in the future if the present trend continues.
"Finally, the Government should make it absolutely clear: we welcome diversity, we welcome different religions - but all of them have to accept the secular basis of British law and society. That is a non-negotiable condition of being here."If the Government does not do all of those things then I fear for the future, because Islamic communities within Britain will form a state within a state. Religion will occupy an ever-larger place in our collective political life. And, speaking as a religious man myself, I fear that outcome."

[Update 15/3/2006]

Looks like the editor responsible for publishing the story has herself been fired from the Telegraph.

Dark times indeed.

Our Taxes: Spent on Censorship or Just Being Wasted ?

2006-03-10T16:39:00.000+11:00

It is becoming almost routine that this humble blog with its meagre 20 or so visits a day should be graced every two weeks or so by none less than the Australian Federal Department of Communications and the Arts, the body responsible for monitoring internet content.

Their visits are never pleasant, and the mystery still in my mind is: Is this an investigation of the kind of content on the site (not hosted in Oz, so leave me the hell alone please) or is this some slacker at the DCATA with nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon than to surf the Web at OUR expense ?

(Department Of Communications And The Arts)
Australia, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
WebPage
10th March 2006
16:16:04
Six DaysNo referring link
10th March 2006
16:38:02
Six DaysNo referring link

Have any of my fellow anti-Dhimmi ozbloggers attracted similar attention? (This is addressed to the two or three of you who might visit this site from time to time...)

Should I give this individual a chance to comment (that's what the comments field below is for) before I report him to his employer for wasting our tax money, and giving me the Orwellian jitters ?

While we are on the topic of Government departments: at least our dear visitor doesn't work at the Deparment of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. That deparment needs a "Humanitarian" and "Multigender" in the name too. Then at least they would spell "DHIMMIA" properly...

Koran Indicted - Germany Awakes ?

2006-03-09T17:00:00.000+11:00

Many of us have been waiting for the inevitable collision between the emerging raft of religious vilification, "tolerance" and blasphemy laws, and the Koran, holy book of the intended beneficiaries of these new laws.

There have been a number of near-misses.

The recent Abu Hamza trial in the UK introduced the "Koran defence", where Hook's lawyers argued that whatever the vile terror sponsor and hatemonger might have said, it was merely his interpretation of the Koran. For some reason, all present seemed to think that this was the end of the matter, and while Hook went to jail for stirring hatered (not an outcome I support either), there was no further enquiry into the presument innocence of the Koran itself.

Somehow, the Koran always manages to evade scrutiny and censure.

In the "Catch the Fire Ministries" case in Victoria, the defendants were prevented from quoting from the Koran to support their case, as this would constitute further intolerance of the kind they were accused of in the first place.

In the UK, recently overturned "religious tolerance" laws were of concern to a Muslim community, who lobbied government to ensure that the Koran would be explicitly excempt: they knew full well how compatible the Koran is with modern notions of tolerance !

This opportunity did not go unnoticed by at least one group that did promise to put the Koran on trial if the laws were to be passed. Fortunately they were not.

And still we have not had a public airing of the Koran before a court, media and public. That is until now. A German attempt three years ago failed, but it is being launched again, across the country.

Looks like Germany is waking up fast. [Hat Tip: Agora]

A broad alliance of grass-roots movements have gone to the prosecutors of several states to hinder the dissemination of the Quran. According to the indictment, the Quran is not just a religious and historic book, but also a political book, which is incompatible with the constiution.
Berlin
At the prosecutor’s office at Gorch-Forck-Wall 15 in Hamburg, an unusual letter was received Monday morning, containing an indictment filed this weekend. The indictment targeted the Quran, charging that the holy book of the Moslems, according to the accuser, is incompatible with the German constitution.
“Support Denmark!”
The accuser is “Bundesverband der Bürgerbewegungen (BVB)”, which concerns itself with, in its own words, “defending basic rights and freedoms” against Islam. The extensive international furore, allegedly caused by the Muhammed cartoons, has made clear the relevancy of the alliance. Its homepage is decorated with a Danish flag with the words “Support Denmark! Defend the Free World.” superimposed on it.
The indictment has been filed in several states, including Hamburg, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bayern and probably more.

In several talkshows on German TV, conservative politicians have pointed out that the Quran is incompatible with the German constitution. The Turkish-born writer Serap Cileli said on January 29 this year that “the Quran must be considered a historic document. It is not compatible with our constitution and Human Rights.”
Now the alliance wants the matter tried at
the courts.
Potent Political Book
The author of the indictment in Hamburg, Jutta Starke, says that the Quran was reported to the police two or three years ago, but that the report was dismissed on the grounds that it was a book of only historical interest.
“The evenths of the last months have made clear that the Quran isn’t just a historical book, but very much a potent political book, a thing which we document extensively in the indictment,” Jutta Starke says.
She says it is a task of sisyphean dimensions to inform the media, politicians and churches of the true intentions of Islam in the enlightened world of the West. “We are grateful to Jyllands-Posten that discussions about Islam have now become possible,” says Jutta Starke.
“You suffer for all of Europe and that’s why we find it indecent that Europe hasn’t loudly, in unison, taken a stand for Freedom of Speech against the laws of the Quran.”
The indictment consists of five pieces of paper and a number of appendices. The indictment says that it is not against Islam’s spiritual message, but against the judicial and political message.
The decisive count of the indictment “is in the Quran’s status vis a vis the Federal Republic of Germany’s constitution”. In the appendices to the indictment, 200 points have been listed “where the Quran is against and claims itself above the constitution.”
The Quran has an Answer to Everything
It is pointed out that the Quran to Moslems is the end all, be all in matters of faith, in matters of society and state and in the discourse with people of different views. The Quran says that it is the words of Allah. According to the views of several, including leading, Moslems in Germany, it is
literally and absolutely true at all time and in all places, the indictment says.
The newly elected German-born chairman of the Moslem Central Council of German, Ayyub Axel Köhler, is quoted in the indictment:

“A constitution after the principle of the division of powers into the legislative, the executive and
the judicial powers, is nowhere to be found in the Islamic theory of the State. From an Islamic viewpoint, this is obvious, since the laws - the laws of God - in the form of sharia, are already made and thus no legislative power is needed, in that sense of the word. Only Allah is the legislative power.”
Muslim Chancellor
A prominent Moslem, Ibrahim El-Zayat, is quoted as saying that he thinks it is possible that “the Federal Chancellor in 2020 is a Moslem, born and raised in Germany, that the Federal Supreme Court has a Moslem judge, and that a Moslem representative will be on the Federal Radio/TV Council to secure the Moslem citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed rights.”
“This land is our land
and it is our duty to make positive changes. With the help of Allah, we will make it a paradise on Earth, by making available the Islamic ummah (ED: Islamic community) and all of mankind. Allah doesn’t change the situation of a people till the people have changed the situtation,” El-Zayad is quoted as saying.
Violence against the Infidels
The indictment is against the 200 verses of 114 suras (ED:chapters) of the Quran that are not compatible with the constitution, including demagoguery, incitement to murder, murder and
mutilation, war, acceptance of thievery against infidels, meaning all non-Moslems. Verses are also pointed out where the equal rights of men and women are not upheld and where people of different faiths are oppressed.
Example: “The unbelievers among the People of the Book (Jews and Christians): They are
the vilest of all creatures.” (Sura 98:6)
According to the indictment that paragraph violates Article 4 of the Constitution and Paragraph 166 of the Penal Code

Now if only all those places afflicted with blasphemy and "tolerance" laws were to launch something similar. Oh to see such a case in Victoria!
I do not want the Koran banned : I want the laws themselves to be overturned, the Islamists to stop using these laws as cover, and most importantly for the Koran to get a good airing in the process, along with "moderate" Muslim sentiment in light of such developments. Lets see where this goes.

Kufr Aleikum,
Fingers crossed...

Web Sites and Voltaire Plays

2006-03-09T10:23:00.000+11:00

Brussels Journal reports that Euroislam.info, a German hosted site has been shut down for publishing the Motoons. This is not the first site to be forcibly shut down. The last one was shut down by the Swedish Government.

With the World turning upside down all too rapidly, it is not surprising to see France moving to the forefront of European anti-dhimmitiude, even as Jean-Marie Le Pen allies with Islam against Jooooooooos.

A play by Voltaire : "Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet" was NOT banned in a French town. The Mayor showed spine and called in police instead! Voltaire, a figurehead of the Enlightenment, the man who said "I disapprove of what you say but I will die for your right to say it" is naturally offensive to Muslims.

After "pleading" with authorities, Muslims resorted to rioting which the Mayor described as "quasi-insurrectional". It pays to note that prominent "moderate" Tariq Ramadan was opposed to the staging of the play.

This follows the censoring of a Marlowe play in Britain due to content that was offensive to Muslims. Other attacks on European culture include calls for destruction of Renaissance frescoes which depict Mohammad in hell, a scene from Dante's Inferno presumably also offensive to Muslims.

It is not just about cartoons. It is about our whole culture. The sooner we realise this and stop retreating the better.

More disturbing things on the horizon: Gleefully, bending over since the Madrid bombings, Dhimmi Spain joins with moderate-key-ally-in-the-GWOT Pakistan in calling for an international anti-blasphemy law via UN resolution. This one scares me more than Paki nukes.

Also from Western Resistance: Members of State Muslim Body in Italy Refuse to Condemn Terror. A small surprise here. Usually they redefine it to mean the stuff that the US and Israel do, and then condemn that.

Finally, here is a little something for those who think that blasphemy laws are a good thing, that the poor darling Muslims are victims to be pitied and that terror is just a cry for help:

Declaration of theTreaty of Umar, 2006
In submission to political Islam:
We shall not create or publish any art to be displayed in any public forum that is offensive to any Muslim.
We shall not write articles, books or essays that criticize political Islam.
We shall not give a full report on the violence of political Islam around the world nor mention
jihad.
We shall show respect towards political Islam and defer to Islam’s demands on political, cultural and public issues.
We declare that the First Amendment does not apply to political Islam.
We shall criticize our civilization, but never criticize political Islam.
We shall find fault with ourselves when political Islam commits violence.
We shall change our laws and customs in accordance with the wishes of political Islam.
We shall not study the Koran, the life of Mohammed (the Sira) or the Traditions of Mohammed (the Hadith).
We shall not teach the history of political Islam’s 150 million victims.
We shall not teach how Islam sold African slaves to the world and enslaved Europeans and Asians.
We shall only teach about the “Golden Age of Islam” .
We shall not criticize the payment of the jizyah (foreign aide) to Islamic countries.
We shall keep our gates wide open for Muslim immigrants.
Whoever criticizes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall be declared a bigot and attacked.
We submit to political Islam and as dhimmis we seek the protection of Islam.

A Taxonomy of Moderates

2006-03-08T19:59:00.000+11:00

This article is based on correspondence in response to the following statement:

"the idea of defining Islamism in terms of the priority of common/sharia law is *very* elegant."

Defining Islamism: A Necessary Condition?

The definition of Islamism in terms of the priority of Sharia over the Secular State and the Rule of Law (or their equal co-existence) is a useful definition of Islamism, and provides a necessary, but insufficient condition for defining "moderates", as explained below. This definition can also be subverted by relativistic arguments, limiting its rhetorical value.

The State is Not Allah

Arguably, the main purpose of the US right to bear arms is as a countermeasure in the event where the state becomes something that the people can no longer tolerate. Obviously, there is some "self-evident truth" that to some Westerners at least sits above the state itself. We are not a secular theocracy, with the State as god. That is Fascism/Communism. We are still a nation of individuals, and we value our individuality more than the contracts we create to facilitate it, though we value these quite dearly indeed. Out of these contracts we forge a state.

Anticipating Trouble

This does not to refute the definition of Islamism provided previously, which is in fact useful. I am merely anticipating the inevitable and flawed counter argument, which is already leveled: that our societies are evil and corrupt, even by our standards (so many lefties are all too ready to agree here) and that in challenging our law with their Sharia Muslims are no more guilty that any "freedom fighters" in the past. Yes, I know that this is an odious argument, and that there is a huge difference between Sharia and any Western notions of common law, or even leftie notions of an ideal utopia (of a non-relativist variety). This counter argument does not hold substance, but consists of the kind of rhetorical sludge that no logical razor can hope to cut, at least not in any effective, eloquent way, one that that would unambiguously end the argument in the eyes of "Joe Average-Intelligentsia" ("Joe Chardonnay-Sixpack...") And so the relativistic rot of our society continues...

Islamists, Literalists and the Mainstream

Some facts worth remembering who considering the definition above: It is not axiomatic. It derives naturally from mainstream Islamic adherence to the Koran as the complete, final, perfect and literal word of God, the person of Muhammad as the perfect example, and Islamic jurisprudence of 300 years after his death as the only source of interpretation. The definition is thus subsumed by the definition of "literalist". This means that all mainstream Muslims are Islamists by this definition, and those that are not Islamists are sinners, heretics or traitors by the basic standards of their culture.

"Negative Moderates"

This is well worth remembering, because it means that "moderates" may be merely lax in their faith, or ignorant of its tenets. As we have seen countless times, this means that in times of crisis, where they turn to their family, community and culture for strength, they must turn against the supremacy of the Secular State and its Rule of Law. This is an important point: the "moderate by default" is a potential Islamist, and this is the path of many a suicide bomber, who were seen to be assimilated, westernised and hedonistic, but suddenly turning towards their faith (with the support and acclaim of their families and communities) and then taking the next logical steps that piousness, holy texts and religious leaders demand. Lets call these poor or lax moderates "negative moderates". Most of the "youths" rioting in France last November or Sydney beaches last December would be "negative moderates". So would many members of FATAH, or Iraqi Baathist insurgents, and any number of unveiled, fashionably dressed Al Jazeera reporters. Negative moderates are not necessarily our friends.

"Positive Moderates"

"Positive moderates" would be a small minority of moderates indeed, those who are educated in Islam, and take a clearly non-literalist, pro-Enlightenment stand. This may include some members of sects like Ahmaddiyah and more tolerant Sufis, as well as a number of prominent individuals. Sadly, these are all considered heretics and worse by the Muslims mainstream. There is even a handful of prominent positive moderate religious leaders. These tend to be disenfranchised, and their claims of wider mainstream appeal false and counterproductive. Probably unintentionally, they legitimise the Islamists (ie the Muslim mainstream) by claiming far more acceptance within the Ummah than they actually receive, and providing the well-meaning Western intelligentsia with the evidence of the kinder, gentler, friendlier Islam that they so desperately crave. The leadership and Islamic bona fides of such people are not taken seriously by the overwhelming majority of their "fellow" Muslims, because almost none of them want to challenge the supposed perfect, literal, complete and final nature of the Koran, nor to tolerate any such challenge from others. Having said this, Irshad Manji's stand in the Manifesto against Islamism is courageous and commendable, as are the tiny "Free Muslims Against Terror" in the US, the emerging Democractic Muslim movement in Denmark, and "Ni Putes ni Soumises" in France.

It should be mentioned that the most Positive of Positive Moderates are not Muslims at all, but rather ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina and Salman Rushdie. Perhaps Positive Moderates are in the last stage of denial...

Uses and Challenges

The above definition of Islamist is thus a useful benchmark for the determination of true moderate Muslims. It falls short of a sufficient condition for "moderation". It also fails to provide an easy method of distinguishing positive moderates from negatives. It may not be a sufficient condition, but it certainly serves as a necessary condition: anyone who sees a role for Sharia law in society, and at any point puts it above the rule of law of a secular state is not a moderate. Sadly, the definition is also complicated by the practice of taqiyya.

Is Tariq Ramadan a moderate by this definition alone ? Possibly, especially with a selective reading. Is this really his agenda ? Are there examples to the contrary ? Indeed. Is he an Islamist ? In my book, certainly. The counterargument is that there are plenty of Christians who are guided by their religious sentiments in their activism and lawmaking. This is true, but we never call these people "moderates", and are often quick to call them "fundamentalists", sometimes unjustly. This is not a complete argument, unless one wants to label all religiously motivated legislators, judges and activists as "fundamentalists".

A more difficult and subtle argument would return to the sub-legal basis of Western culture: to me it is obvious that there are aspects of Reconstructed, Post-Enlightenment Western Secularism, as well as mainstream Protestantism, Catholicism and Ashkenazi Judaism which dovetail naturally with Western notions of common and natural law, while Sharia does not. Exploring this topic in detail is a task beyond me, but one I leave open to the great legal and philosophical minds out there.

Kufr Aleikum !

Miffed

2006-03-06T14:22:00.000+11:00

An Open Letter to Unelected, Moustached Pseudo-Moderate President Musharraf of Pakistan (A nuclear capable, proliferating, terror sponsoring state under official Sharia Law... Does anyone even remember?)

Dear Mr Musharraf,

May I call you Pervez ? No ? That's OK. You have a whole lot more medals than me, and I have never actually grown any kind of moustache, let alone one as prodigious as yours. May I call you "Mush" ? No ? WHY NOT ?

Congratulations

Before we get down to business please allow me to congratulate you on your many successes. It takes real genius to overthrow a democratically elected government in a military coup and still be the darling of the White House and State Department, lauded as a key partner in the Great War on Terror, especially given the track record of your country in this little enterprise.

Now as it happens I am not such a big fan of democracy, at least not in your country, given the kind of elected Islamists that you rub shoulders with every day and enjoy pretending to oppose. Your dictatorship is yet another lesser of two evils, and one I would be even happier about were you truly the secular moderate that our media keeps talking about. Now I may be a simple blogger and not versed in such matters, but it seems to me that while Murbarak in Egypt fought tooth and nail against allowing the Muslim Brotherhood anywhere near elections, your post-Sept 11 reaction to a similar situation in Pak was very much the opposite. Hey, the White House can't argue with democracy, right ? Well done. Instant bad cop ! And there were all those unsophisticated idealistic types thinking that secular moderate dictators do things like repeal Sharia law, and try to modernise their country. A great secularist and modernist, an ally in the Great War on Terror, you joined in the standing ovation offered to Mahatir Mohammad in his speech that set the tone of the New Anti-Semitism, but all too passe nowadays. And you are still Ally Number One. True genius.

Your country is found to be the largest nuclear proliferator through government channels, and the father of your atom bomb runs the racket? Big deal, he is a national hero, untouchable !

And speaking of those nukes. Iran's (hopefully) as-yet-non-existent nukes are scaring the pants out of even the Euroweenies, but noone seems too worried about the country who made it all possible, and has developed warheads and delivery capability.

And what a country ! The country that was the Taliban's main supporter, and now the hideout of choice of Al Qaeda's top brass. The country that reluctantly pursues "terrorists" in the West while letting them train and mount attacks in the East. The country that is still a Waqf, regardless of the secular state that Jinnah had in mind. How the heck did you pull all that off ?

How many inept, halfhearted attacks did you have to mount against terrorists living happily in your Tribal Areas ? Not many, but enough to justify keeping US troops out so they could not do the job ?

You are a very clever man, and I refuse to believe those lies about you. I refuse to believe that you are politically outmaneuvered by Islamists in government. You allowed them to be elected in the first place. I refuse to believe that your military intelligence service the ISI may be riddled with Islamists but I wonder how you could stay in power without them. Coups like yours are usually accompanied with purges. So perhaps the ISI's allegiances are not such a problem for you after all, but you get to blame them when things go bad. I refuse to believe that you of all people would not know where Bin Laden is. I refuse to believe that you would not be a competent man in charge, with trusted, competent people working for you. People who could be counted on to stage the odd fake assassination too...

But this is not why I write you you today.

Unfair...

It has come to my attention that you have provided a number of blogs some undeserving publicity. Those blogs had the distinction of being the main targets of attack by Islamist hackers. It would appear that hackers are not just malicious angry nutcases, they do useful things like pass their hate lists on to sympathetic governments.

Mr Musharraf, I work a day job, do an unmanageable amount of volunteer work and thanklessly maintain this blog, whose readership consists of a very small number of like minded nutcases, an Australian government Department concerned with free speech (they think there should be less of it), and the occasional Islamist doing a google search on "blogs by people I should be beheading". I work hard Mr Musharraf, and my work is largely thankless, with no help from you.

Admittedly, these blogs are better written, researched and visited than mine. In fact, my blog is probably going to be the subject of upcoming BBC lifestyle series "What Not to Write", hosted by a pair of well dressed post-menopausal bitches with caffeine addictions and a flair for humiliating people. But this is hardly the point. Or maybe, this it is the point. Yes, these 12 blogs that you have so kindly provided free publicity to may well deserve the attention that mine lacks. This is why, Mr Musharraf, I am begging, indeed, imploring you for a break. Please, oh pretty please with 77 Virgins on Top (see, I'm open minded), please

PLEASE BAN MY BLOG !

If you cannot see your way clear to doing this, could you please ask someone in your Ministry of Telling People What to Think to explain to me what else I would need to do to qualify. Its not like I haven't already done plenty.

Do I need to insult the Prophet ?

Hey, Mohammad is, like, and old dead guy who liked little girls! (And a few other things to boot...)

Do I need to call for a new cartoon competition ?

I hereby call upon both of my regular readers as well as any Government Departments and Islamoloonies visiting Six Days to send me some challenging pictures of Mohammad celebrating the Kama Sutra and the variety of farm animals that may have been found in Medina in 600 AD.

Do I really need to go as far as a catalogued compendium of Motoons throughout history ? Its not fair. Just because Zombie did all this work.

Hey, if you don't ban me, can I at least please get a fatwa ? My friends would be so, like, jealous.

Just Good Friends

Failing all of this, I ask you, Mr Musharraf to at least visit Six Days now and then. I look forward to your visit and your comments, and would be more than happy to put your blog up on my blogroll as well. As we get to know each other email addresses may be exchanged too. Finally, as I get to know you, I may even welcome you to join me over a couple of Carlsbergs in the local pub. Incidentally, that is where it stops, much as I may admire your power, your political genius, your interest in blogging and your well sculpted moustache. Given the reputed tastes of your good friends the Pashtuns, and the previously mentioned tell-tale moustache, I must emphasise that I would not actually share any of your other possible tastes, common as they are in Dar-al-Islam. For this, I blame the West's ready availability of unmarried, uncovered women, lessons about "stranger danger" delivered to us as children and a relative absence of farm animals. Sorry, but I have been corrupted away from what what you would probably call nature and towards decadent Western heterosexuality. I blame pornography, loose morals, secularism, the human rights of women, and the human rights of horny teenage me. I also blame a succession of Catholic girls, but that is an entirely different if delightful story (What is it with them and Jewish men?). But, as I said, we can still be good friends. If I misunderstood you then apologies, but you cannot be too careful when dealing with someone called PERVEz...

Otherwise, if you still find yourself in the market for neocon studmuffin, you may want to look up this guy.

Thanks and Goodbye

So thanks for taking the time to read this. I look forward to seeing your new blog too. Please forgive the brevity of this rant. I gotta go now and do more stuff to stop you and your ilk from destroying all that we in Dar-al-Harb hold dear.

Kufr Aleikum,

Ben Ze'ev

Manifesto

2006-03-01T18:31:00.000+11:00

This just in from some of the biggest names in anti-dhimmitude. Lets see if the cowardly media that failed to print those cartoons will also shy away from printing this manifesto. If this courage can be found, I do not expect a generous reception from the ROP. Just as with the pictures, it falls to every blogger out there to reprint it and I am doing my humble bit.

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.
We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas. We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.
12 signatures
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq
Presentations:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from somilian origin, is member of Dutch parliement, member of the liberal party VVD. Writter of the film Submission which caused the assasination of Theo Van Gogh by an islamist in november 2004, she lives under police protection.

Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer from iranian origin, exiled in France is a novelist and an essayist. She's the author of "Le nouvel homme islamiste , la prison politique en Iran " (2002). She also wrote novels such as "Chemins et brouillard" (2005).
Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review who defend liberties against dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on « laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l'épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq : discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité in 2005.
Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosoph, born in Algeria, engaged against all the XXth century « ism » (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of La Barbarie à visage humain, L'Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse, and more recently American Vertigo.
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally best-selling author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith" (en francais: "Musulmane Mais Libre"). She speaks out for free expression based on the Koran itself. Née en Ouganda, elle a fui ce pays avec sa famille musulmane d'origine indienne à l'âge de quatre ans et vit maintenant au Canada, où ses émissions et ses livres connaissent un énorme succès.

Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor from iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the author of several articles and books on islam and islamism such as : Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy and Glaobalization and Civilizations.

Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National Secular Society's Secularist of the Year award.
Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called « Destroy Taslima » and to be persecuted as « apostate »
Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, Germany's Author of the Year Award, the European Union's Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova,
and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been translated into over 40 languages.
Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the danish citizens targeted by islamists).
Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq , author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam : Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.
Antoine Sfeir
Born in Lebanon, christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed french nationality to live in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director of Les cahiers de l'Orient and has published several reference books on islamism such as Les réseaux d'Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la République face au communautarisme (2005).

This comes at a time when Europe is falling to its knees before their new overlords. Douglas Murray has just been to the anti-dhimmi conference in Holland commemorating Pim Fortuyn, the father of political anti-dhimmitude. He explores this sad state of dhimmitude in Eurabia, and mentions Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of the signatories in the manifesto.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making
trouble.
Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.
All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.
Those of us who write and talk on Islam thus get caught between those on our own side who are increasingly keen to prosecute and increasing numbers of militants threatening murder. In this situation, not only is free speech being shut down, but our nation’s security is being compromised.
Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.
Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.
The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.

Because I love you all and do not want you to leave without some amusement, here is a recently televised frank and honest exchange between a sane woman and an Islamist bigot, care of MEMRI [Hat tip: LGF]

The Head of the Arab League Agrees with Me !

2006-03-01T07:56:00.000+11:00

What an honour to have one's views supported by none less than Amr Moussa, Head KleptoLoony of the Arab League.

Arab League chief says cartoons part of anti-Islam battle

(DPA)27 February 2006 AMMAN - Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa on Monday considered the Prophet Mohammed’s cartoons as part of a “battle against Islam” rather than a symptom of conflict among civilizations, and urged Arab parliamentarians to put pressure on the United Nations to come up with a “strict” solution to this problem.

As I said before, our most important weapon is our freedom of speech, because without it we cannot bring the others to bear. Amr understands this too. This is why he would like our freedom of speech taken away by an enlightened UN.

“I don’t think the issue pertains to an inter-civilization conflict. We have to mention the issue in its real perspective - it is a battle against Islam,” Mussa said at the opening session of the Arab Parliamentary Union (APU) conference at the Dead Sea resort in Jordan.

We agree again ! Amr thinks that there is a battle against Islam, at least its unreconstructed, literalist mainstream Sunni and Shia varieties. Well, the nasty anti-Western militant kind of Islam certainly seems to be doing its best to create a battle against itself at the moment, and poor ole moderate Muslims are being forced to choose sides. It is an interesting matter to investigate how much closer the Muslim mainstream is to their militants than they are to us... Amr does not think that this is a clash of civilisations and I agree, the clash is between Civilisation and Islamic Barbarism. We agree on so much, but we just support different teams.

A war with Islam. All those poor moderate Muslims caught in the middle...

This also goes back to the old question "what is a moderate Muslim anyway" ? Red Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London (currently suspended for making anti-Semitic comments, but back in the saddle in a month's time) invited this guy to England as his personal pal. Sheikh al-Qaradawi is a moderate muslim because... Ummm... Well... He thinks that there should be no suicide bombing except in "Palestine". And homosexuals should be killed. And so should apostates. Never mind, he is still best friends with Anti-Semitic Leftie London Mayor Ken. This may be because the definition of "moderate" has never been nailed down unambigously, and still leaves much to be desired. It is in fact merely a means of rehabilitating an ideology which is extremist in the broad sense, while marginalising some token members, the most extreme of the extreme. The more numerous, influential and still very dangerous ones are thus rehabilitated. The key question is:

Moderate with respect to what ? - Moderate with respect to Islam is not the yardstick we should be using. Moderate should be with respect to Civilisation. The yardstick is actually quite simple: Does the candidate for the label "moderate" agree that the rule of law of a secular state takes precendence over Islamic Law in all matters? Simple. How many moderates do we have now ?

Back to Sheikh Qardawi, Here is what the dear moderate has been saying lately:

They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say "the Temple," we should say "the Al-Aqsa Mosque." If they say: "We glorify the Sabbath," we should say: "We glorify the Friday." This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win.
<...>
Everything will be on our side and against Jews on , at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: "Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him." They will point to the Jews. It says "servant of Allah," not "servant of desires," "servant of women," "servant of the bottle," "servant of Marxism," or "servant of liberalism"... It said servant of Allah."When the Muslims, the Arabs, and the Palestinians enter a war, they do it to worship Allah. They enter it as Muslims. The hadith says: "Oh Muslim." It says "oh Muslim," not "oh Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian, or Arab nationalist." No, it says: "Oh Muslim." When we enter under the banner of Islam, and under the banner of serving Allah, we will be victorious.

Nice. Remeber, this guy is a "moderate", a key face of international Islam . And then they complain about some war being declared AGAINST Islam...

Meanwhile, in "Moderate" Turkey with its now established Islamist government, Mein Kampf is a best-seller, and the anti-Semitic, anti-American film "Iraq-Valley of the Wolves" is the number one film, the most expensive Turkish production even made. Viewers in Germany have jumped up at the end of the film and shouted "Allahu Akbar".

In "Moderate" Indonesia new laws are tabled to placate a growing Islamic movement (all moderates ! really!) that will clamp down on public displays of affection, adultery and revealing clothing. If it passes, say goodbye to the Bali holiday...

Irving Shows Some Scary Insight

2006-02-27T21:00:00.000+11:00

Yep, he is actually a Left Winger and so is Hitler. And he likes the Guardian too. [Hat Tip: Talleyrand]

For My Russian Speaking Friends

2006-02-27T20:56:00.000+11:00

Otherwise find a Russian friend of your own and get them to translate it for you. Worth it.

Good Morning From Keith

2006-02-25T10:13:00.000+11:00

Keith must have been reading something other than Jyllands-Posten this morning...

- Ben Ze'ev

It's 5 in the morning and I'm into the third coffee of the day. Lots to do this weekend but an hour or two reading newspapers first seemed like a good idea.
Nope--madness lies in that direction.

Headlines:

"Global warming the biggest worry, Clinton tells forum "
Former American president Bill Clinton told 600 of New Zealand's top business people their greatest worry in the world was global warming.
Not a looming recession. Not a tax system which steals from the productive and gives to parasites. Nope, that damned .0001% rise in average temperatures is some places. Maybe.

"Drought-hit Britain may face water rationing "
See above.

"Tamahori ordered to clean-up Hollywood "
Is that clean up as in: pick up the garbage or clean up as in exterminate self-absorbed lefty moral relativist film makers who can't bring themselves to say anything good about their own culture? Is there a difference?

Air NZ to slash almost 500 more jobs as profit plummets ››
Never mind the mortgage payments--see Bill's advice.

Teachers: Report card ban challenged (by New South Wales government)
Heaven forbid that parents should be allowed to know how their kids are doing--report cards would let them know how their teachers are doing too and we couldn't possibly allow that.

Village flooded by manure
Sounds like Bill Clinton is visiting there too.

9.46pm President 'leading Uganda poll'
Amazing.

Killing of Jew 'not anti-Semitic'HE calls himself the "Brain of the Barbarians". But France's most wanted man, gang leader Youssef Fofana, has denied accusations anti-Semitism motivated the kidnapping, torture and killing of Ilan Halimi, a Parisian Jew.Not amazing.

Turtle lost at sea
Riiight......

£150m teenage pregnancy failureI knew IVF was expensive, but 150 mil?

Beijing warns cardinalChina has warned the newly-appointed Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, a leading critic of Beijing, not to mix religion with politics.
But it's apparently ok to mix politics with religion.

Blair to create minister for social exclusion
words fail me.

-Keith

Blasphemy Law in Action: German Dhimmitude / Talleyrand's Lazy Butt Kicked

2006-02-24T04:31:00.000+11:00

Insane. The German blasphemy laws that is, not the poor anti-dhimmi on the wrong end of them. I have for some time now wanted to see the entire Koran printed on toilet paper. Looks like someone had a similar idea.

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - A German court on Thursday convicted a businessman of insulting Islam by printing the word "Koran" on toilet paper and offering it to mosques.
The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred van H., was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for five years, and ordered to complete 300 hours of community service, a district court in the western German town of Luedinghausen ruled.

Here is a recent debate on freedom of speech and offence laws at Silent Running involving yours truly. Pitch in. Talleyrand, this means you ! (And lets see some articles too!)

[Update: 24/2/2006] The butt kicking worked beautifully. Talleyrand may be many things, but it will be a while before I call him lazy again. Here is a sample of his Napoleonic-era Gallic genius:

Irving is scum but he should be freed.
Austria, Belgium, Czech Rebublic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland all have laws against denial of the Shoah. Is this a good idea?
I could give some purely practical objections of course.Firstly, court cases like this provide the majority of all of Irving’s publicity, and he gets free worldwide airtime for weeks everytime some new action against him is started. Secondly, of course these laws don’t stop holocaust denial, they just push it underground. Thirdly, as Ben Ze’ev points out, these laws in fact fuel conspiracy theories about the Jews. Fourthly, in most of the countries that ban such speech, it is primarily a way of merely avoiding embarassment about their history. Fifthly, when you ban books like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, you in fact make it more difficult for anyone to actually understand what happened, i.e. you reduce historical comprehension by covering over history.

And then of course in the current situation, the ban is most annoying: the reason the Iranian newspaper called for a cartoon competition on the holocaust was because they knew that by calling attention to this subject, they could all have a laugh at the European’s claim to be supporters of free speech. They are trying to say, look, if you guys believe in free speech, then
why is it that suddenly we aren’t allowed to say certain things when it is about the Jews? Sounds like a) a conspiracy b) like you guys are hypocrits when you go on about freedom of speech.

Free speech is worth recommending to all of the above countries, speech that would include even the right to make quite wild-sounding claims about certain historical events. These countries mess around much more with free speech (and even with speech on the internet) than
one is generally aware of. The reason you see people like Chomsky also supporting the right of holocaust deniers for example is that he knows that the kind of speech in which he engages (calling every President since WWII a war criminal) is possible only in a society that radically supports freedom of speech. The left relies on this freedom just as much as the right: in how many countries in the world could you imagine someone running a film nationwide basically slandering the President for 2 hours in the runup to an election? And yet Michael Moore was able to do this without retribution in the US. And then even sit in the Republican get-together in NY in the weeks before the election with a shit-eating grin on his face. And what happened to him? He made a lot of money. That’s the kind of freedom of expression that we believe in, and it is a freedom of expression that all sides of politics get something out of.

Of course, Tony, the people of Austria or France or whatever have the right to decide that they want to live in a land without radical freedom of speech, but our job here is to tell them why we think they should change their minds…

Talleyrand's next challenge:

SEND SOME FUCKING ARTICLES TO SIX DAYS !!!

Or I will publish that film of you, Dominique de Villepin and the donkey...

Antidote

2006-02-22T22:43:00.000+11:00

This is one way to deal with the grim tone of the previous article... Yes, the tragicomic tradition at Six Days continues, and we have had a few too many heavy articles of late ! So:

First of all, sometimes it takes a purple Hell-cow called Reginald to tell it like it is. (Assisted by a cute, sign-waving Hell-slug) Turn up the sound, and do not play this one at work ! [Hat Tip: Silent Running]

Secondly:

(I recognise Miss Piggy, Porky Pig and Piglet, but who the heck is the pig on the left, anyway? Does anyone know?)

Then there is this.

As has now been well established by the Western press, five months ago a vicious right-wing propaganda rag in Denmark, possibly edited by a cryogenically preserved Nazi collaborator, sought specifically to denigrate Islam by commissioning a series of unspeakably horrible caricatures that baselessly portrayed Islam as having a tendency towards violence and intolerance.
Now, Muslims are not normally a people to congregate in mass protest and burn flags, hurl stones or break things. But this unprovoked act of cultural aggression (coming, as it did, out of the blue and occurring in Islam’s heartland, Denmark) was simply too much to take. Therefore, after five months of consideration, it was decided to make an exception for this case, and spontaneous protests broke out.
So it’s settled then. Had not the Jyllands-Posten newspaper committed its unforgivable violation of Sharia law, everything would be peaceful in the world. What we have here is a clear case of direct cause and effect, well isolated. That’s why the protestors targeted their anger narrowly at the newspaper in question and did not use the occasion to let loose a general pogrom of anti-Western, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, anti-American and anti-Moderate rioting.
Oh wait, now that I think about it, that’s exactly what happened. After a suspicious pause that lasted longer than Joe Biden’s first set of hair plugs, the offended masses erupted in anger at the newspaper, Danish foods, the Prime Minister of Denmark, all the rest of Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, the principle of Free Speech, Israel, the Red Cross, the European Union, Christian churches, their own governments, Catholic Priests, the United States, Christian children, Ronald McDonald, and (of course) Kentucky Fried Chicken.
What? The United States cannot be on that list! Our brave State Department, always at the tip of any retreating spear, issued a condemnation of the cartoons and declared that free speech carries with it the responsibility not to say anything controversial. Plus, 99% of America’s media refused to even show the cartoons without more pixilation than they would provide for a daytime broadcast of “Caligula, The Larry Flynt Cut.”

Read it all. Go on.You know you want to...

Meanwhile, I need not remind you of this! I for one found the tune rather catchy, and was quite disappointed that it ended just before a rather sweet, female vocal piece, also partly in Italian. Yes, am still a sucker for that stuff... Imagine then my joy at finding the entire song, lyrics and all! Alas, no self-beating mullah, just the finest Europop beat, in English and Italian with the Rumanian word "haiduk" thrown in for good measure. Yes, I have been blogging to it. Got a better soundtrack? Send me the link!

Finally, if you read the Ashura link you will notice some belligirence towards a thankfully long passed St Valentine's day. Well, someone out there has decided that some quid pro quo is in order. I wonder if the Muslims will think of a lame arse reason to ban March 20 too. Even better if it falls on some Shia Imam's martyrdom day, or Ramalamadingdong or Eid-al-Goatfuck or something...

More from Keith: Title Edited

2006-02-22T21:45:00.000+11:00

The Greatest Weakness

It is notably ironic, a tragedy of classical proportions: the greatness of the West is such that only we ourselves can do ourselves in, and we appear to have collectively decided to do so. To Talleyrand: any discussion of Western strategy should start here. As I said in the previous article, this is our greatest, and possibly only problem. I am reminded of Bismah in the Hindu epic tale Mahabharata. Bismah, a noble warrior blessed by the Gods is given the gift of choosing the moment of his own death. He is thus unbeatable in battle. Finally, at the entreaties of his enemies the Pandava whom he admires, Bismah agrees to be killed on the battlefield the next day. Arjuna, the Pandava archer takes advantage of the opportunity and brings the old man down. The allegory is ugly, and painfully true to our present situation.

I cannot bring myself to include the title that Keith gave to the next article, which my heart wants to refute as my head cannot. If Keith insists I will include the title after all. I do hope that Keith will agree that however grim things are, however obsessed the postmodern bastard children of the West are with enabling their own humiliation and however deep the grave that the suicidalist monsters have dug for us all, we cannot but maintain our love for the West, our heritage, achievements, culture. We cannot but maintain faith in our victory and we cannot but persevere in opposing the enemies of the West, internal or external, weakened or ascendant. To do so in times of triumph is nothing. To do so in darker times is the true moral test. This is the only lesson that our enemies have to teach us.

-Ben Ze'ev.

Title Censored for Reasons of Morale, To be Restored at Keith's Request

Coalition forces have been spectacularly successful in Iraq and Afghanistan, whatever impression the MSM may prefer to convey. There has been no attack on American soil since 9/11 and Australia has so far escaped terrorist attacks on the home front.

But the truth is that the radical islamists don't need one.

A quick look at the leading European countries will demonstrate why.

Britain: Islamists have infiltrated local councils and schools, gnawing away at freedoms once taken for granted. They dictate what is taught about Islam to children and insist on special treatment for the children of Muslims, even when that "special treatment" affects all kids in the school. Radical Muslims take to the streets to protest the Danish cartoons in clearly illegal (for other Britons) terms while the police stand by and do nothing. Local councils ban patriotic demonstrations by people who demand an end to appeasement yet either allow or at least turn a blind eye to other ethnic groups demonstrating against..Whatever is flavour of the day.

France: Violent demonstrations, intimidation, thuggery, robbery.....The list goes on. The answer from French politicians is to call for more talks with the Muslim community.

Germany: Numerous radical islamist terrorist cells are uncovered.

Norway: Over 80% of rapes are committed by Muslim youths yet the media is strangely silent.......

I could go on, but the picture is clear.

Why is this so? The answer is at once both simple and unfixable, in this writers opinion.
At least three decades of leftist schoolteachers have succeeded in producing generations of kids with no real knowledge of--or pride in-- their culture and it's achievements. They teach a history of the white European male as a colonising oppressor, as a creature who should apologise for his culture which is inferior to any other.
These teachers have learned to parrot whatever academic Marxist/feminist bullshit is currently in vogue and to inflict it on their students. Integrity, courage, loyalty, honour....Are all to be derided, sneered at by the smug and superior.
The smug and superior by virtue of never having to have earned an honest living or look true evil in the eye. One assumes.
And the Western media is complicit in this. They can be no other way, since they're largely the product of the same morally bankrupt worldview, mired in moral relativism and what in an age when Men walked the earth used to be called cowardice.

-Keith

Western Strategy 101 : The Patient is Suicidal

2006-02-22T03:24:00.000+11:00

Talleyrand has recently asked "what is our strategy?". Stated in this manner, this question introduces a couple of unwarranted assumptions. The analysis of those assumptions and a qualified restatement of the question will be a topic of a later article, one of an ongoing series that will attempt to provide an answer.

However qualified the question, it is even more important to identify the problem before any meaningful answer may be provided. This in itself is a complex matter, and here we need to look at ourselves, our adversaries, any other parties to the conflict and the strengths, weaknesses, resources, ideologies, strategies, tactics and agendas of all involved. These issues will be topics for later articles which I keep promising and delaying for various reasons. In the meantime, some very powerful articles have been recently written about the key, perhaps only real problem faced by the West, the one problem that if solved would grant immediate access to the only resource lacking in the West, will. The key problem is one of the West's self-hatred, its intellectual and moral collapse, its "Suicidalism".

One of the most succinct and cutting analyses of what ails us is the brief article "Suicidalism" by "Armed and Dangerous". This article is usually my opening shot to any leftie or "mainstream centrist" (unwitting leftie dupe) that I may be debating.

The most important weapons of al-Qaeda and the rest of the Islamist terror network are the suicide bomber and the suicide thinker. The suicide bomber is typically a Muslim fanatic whose mission it is to spread terror; the suicide thinker is typically a Western academic or journalist or politician whose mission it is to destroy the West's will to resist not just terrorism but any ideological challenge at all.
But al-Qaeda didn't create the ugly streak of nihilism and self-loathing that afflicts too many Western intellectuals. Nor, I believe, is it a natural development. It was brought to us by Department V of the KGB, which was charged during the Cold War with conducting memetic warfare that would destroy the will of the West's intelligentsia to resist a Communist takeover. This they did with such magnificent effect that the infection outlasted the Soviet Union itself and remains a pervasive disease of contemporary Western intellectual life.
Consider the following propositions:
There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West's history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only
the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by
identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But "oppressed" people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist's point of view, and make concessions.
These ideas travel under many labels: postmodernism, nihilism, multiculturalism, Third-World-ism, pacifism, "political correctness" to name just a few. It is time to recognize them for what they are, and call them by their right name: suicidalism.

"Armed and Dangerous" has now followed up his earlier efforts with "Gramscian Damage" ,an even more brilliant exploration of the theme of Suicidalism, and the development of Western self-hatred. He also provides some predictions of likely consequences. This article goes some way towards addressing Talleyrand's question regarding strategy. This article is also a great one to throw at lefties that buy into cultural relativism, but still think of themselves as Marxists. It challenges them to address the problem of sustaining a society based on cultural relativism, even if one is desirable. The simple argument is that such a society is doomed to be eaten alive by the most aggressive, uncompromising form of absolutism that it tolerates.

The most paranoid and xenophobic conservatives of the Cold War were, painful though this is to admit, the closest to the truth in estimating the magnitude and subtlety of Soviet subversion. Liberal anticommunists (like myself in the 1970s) thought we were being judicious and fair-minded when we dismissed half of the Right's complaint as crude blather. We were wrong; the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss really were guilty, the Hollywood Ten really were Stalinist tools, and all of Joseph McCarthy's rants about "Communists in the State Department" were essentially true. The Venona transcripts and other new material leave no room for reasonable doubt on this score.

...

The first step to recovery is understanding the problem. Knowing that suicidalist memes were launched at us as war weapons by the espionage apparatus of the most evil despotism in human history is in itself liberating. Liberating, too, it is to realize that the Noam Chomskys and Michael
Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.
Brittingham and other have worried that postmodern leftism may yet win. If so, the victory would be short-lived. One of the clearest lessons of recent times (exemplified not just by kaffiyeh-wearing western leftists but by Hamas's recent clobbering of al-Fatah in the first Palestinian elections) is that po-mo leftism is weaker than liberal individualism in one important respect; it has only the weakest defenses against absolutist fervor. Brittingham tellingly notes po-mo philosopher Richard Rorty's realization that when the babble of conflicting tribal narratives collapses in exhaustion, the only thing left is the will to power.
Again, this is by design. Lenin and Stalin wanted classical-liberal individualism replaced with something less able to resist totalitarianism, not more. Volk-Marxist fantasy and postmodern nihilism served their purposes; the emergence of an adhesive counter-ideology would not have. Thus, the Chomskys and Moores and Fisks are running a program carefully designed to dead-end at nothing.
Religions are good at filling that kind of nothing. Accordingly, if transational progressivism actually succeeds in smothering liberal individualism, its reward will be to be put to the sword by some flavor of jihadi. Whether the eventual winners are Muslims or Mormons, the future is not going to look like the fuzzy multicultural ecotopia of modern left fantasy. The death of that dream is being written in European banlieus by angry Muslim youths under the light of burning cars.
In the banlieus and elsewhere, Islamist pressure makes it certain that sooner or later the West is going to vomit Stalin's memes out of its body politic. The worst way would be through a reflex development of Western absolutism, Christian chauvinism, nativism and militarism melding into something like Francoite fascism. The self-panicking leftists who think they see that in today's Republicans are comically wrong (as witnessed by the fact that they aren't being systematically jailed and executed), but it is quite a plausible future for the demographically-collapsing nations of Europe.

Finally, "The Adversary Culture - The Perverse Anti-Westernism of the Cultural Elite", a recent article by Keith Windschuttle, also addresses the problem of Western self-hatred and the postmodern penetration of our culture that has made such suicidalism possible. This article is a great analysis of the scholarly roots of this disease, with a strong Australian perspective. The only issue I have with the article is that it really should have been two articles. The first part deals directly with Western self-hatred. The final third of the article deals with the related, but separate problem of Islam and its recent confrontation with Western freedom of speech.

Windschuttle offers no direct answer to Talleyrand's question, but underlines the importance of finding one, and quickly.

Today, we live in an age of barbarism and decadence. There are barbarians outside the walls who want to destroy us and there is a decadent culture within. We are only getting what we deserve. The relentless critique of the West which has engaged our academic left and cultural elite since the 1960s has emboldened our adversaries and at the same time sapped our will to resist. The consequences of this adversary culture are all around us.
The way to oppose it, however, is less clear. The survival of the Western principles of free inquiry and free expression now depend entirely on whether we have the intelligence to understand their true value and the will to face down their enemies.

Finding the way to oppose suicidalism is the most difficult and important goal we have, perhaps the only real goal. Once this goal is achieved all the other issues of the day are minor headaches, easily solved with our enormous and growing wealth, genius and and military might.

Why I am not Celebrating Today's News from Austria

2006-02-21T09:28:00.000+11:00

A friend emailed me this link today with the subject line "heh heh heh". I do not share his joy. Why would I not be pleased that a Holocaust denier of David Irving's calibre is put away ? Ok, I am a little pleased at an emotional level. Neverthelss, it is important to recognise that Irving's conviction is a step in the wrong direction.

This is because freedom of speech is the most precious weapon in the Western armoury. Without it, we cannot bring the other weapons to bear. I will not reiterate the dismal state of freedom of speech in The UK and other parts of Europe, as well as in Victoristan, ostensibly still a state of Australia (expecting some serious Sydney-bashing from Nilknarf and other Melbournabad bloggers here :) )

Freedom of speech is also vital because it shows our enemies for what they are. Forcing them to moderate their speech does not moderate their agenda, it only makes it smoother and more effective.

As Blair's Law (named after uber-blogger Tim Blair) takes greater hold, and the moonbat leftists, Islamists and Holocaust-denying (or Holocaust-celebrating, or, strangely, both simultaneously) Nazi fascists all congeal into a grand anti-Western alliance, it is important for the world to hear their increasingly dissonant and insane rhetoric, and for us to be able to say exactly what is wrong with their ideas, and the people who hold them.

Irving's conviction is a sop to those otherwise sane, sensible people who know the Holocaust for what it is, but whose pain and sense of justice may blind them to more immediate and frightening threats, and force them to forget the value of key freedoms and institutions. Those who applaud Irving's conviction provide political capital to those who would try Oriana Fallaci for insulting Islam, ban the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons or convict Daniel Scot and Danny Nalliah in Victoristan.

I could find no better case against the jailing of Irving than this recently taken picture:

I would rather Irving was not jailed, but instead photographed marching alongside these ladies, or freely attending Holocaust-denial conferences in Iran. The important thing is not to punish him, but to discredit him. Noone can do this better than Irving himself, but only if he is given the key human rights of free speech, and freedom of association.

Hi Thought Police!

2006-02-20T18:18:00.000+11:00

They are at it again, even as I write this !
Hi regulators of supposedly free speech! Care to leave a comment for a change ?

proxy.dcita.gov.au (Department Of Communications And The Arts)
Australia, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
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20th February 2006
18:11:14
Six DaysNo referring link
20th February 2006
18:13:21
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20th February 2006
18:17:44
Six Days: Cousin Josh sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/
20th February 2006
18:18:16
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Honesty in Advertising?

2006-02-20T11:14:00.000+11:00

The Aussie "Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs".
DIMIA for short.
A fitting homophone of the adjective "dhimmier", which according to the Six Days Dictionary means "More Dhimmi than Thou". Won't a Certain Demographic be pleased.
They probably do not get the joke, which is well and truly on them regardless...

Another Look at Europe

2006-02-20T10:09:00.000+11:00

Europe may be waking up quite nicely after all. Perhaps Eurabia is not as foregone a conclusion as Oriana Fallaci and Bat Ye'or suggest in their despair. The theory is that while European leaders pontificate about responsible limits to freedom of speech, a revolution in underway in political attitudes, immigration policy and the management of existing Muslim communities. The argument is that recent dhimmitude on the part of European leaders is Western taqiyya, an attempt to get our own hudna while we sort out what needs to be done. Lets see where this goes. Colour me "cautiously optimistic".

The Muslims refused to assimilate. They were expelled. This was the story in Europe 400 years ago. We are watching the sequel today. Europeans are rarely welcoming to outsiders, even when the outsiders are blond and blue-eyed and come from the country next door. When the outsiders are un-European, swarthy and Muslim, they are tolerated at best. When some Muslims also insist that Europeans stop acting like Europeans, on pain of death, European tolerance comes to an end.
In the clash of cultures between secular Europeans and extremist Muslims, there can ultimately be no compatibility or compromise, only loss by one side or the other of the absolute values it holds dear. European capitulation on European soil, where they remain the dominant majority, is unlikely: Europeans revel in their liberty to mock religion, to poke fun at sacred cows, to be outrageous, even to offend.
European leaders have reacted to the Muslim upset over the cartoons two ways. publicly and to buy time, they seek to calm the protesters by deploring the abuse of freedom of speech. More significantly, they seek to preserve their societies by legislating Western norms, by tightening or ending immigration from Muslim countries, by enabling the expulsion of radical imams and other Muslim activists, and by raising the spectre of mass deportations.

Downunda's very own John Howard has also launched an assault against extremist Islam. He distinguished Muslim culture from that of previous waves of migration, criticised the practice of jihad as unique to Muslim culture, and the level of misogyny well above that of other migrant groups. All well and good. Even if he mentions that Lebanese have integrated well in Australia, without the important qualification "Christian", while most Muslim-related problems in Australia, such as the recent Sydney riots seem to be generated by the Lebanese Muslims.
Of course, Howard was compelled to once again mention that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are nice, moderate, yadda yadda yadda. Ameer Ali takes issue with Howard's comments, and notes that the proportion of Jihadis is quite tiny. This puts him at odds with compatriots who estimated the proportion of Salafi/Wahhabi Muslims in Australia at 10%, hardly a tiny or irrelevant minority.

Interestingly, this would also make Aussie ROP followers quite different to their British counterparts, 40% percent of whom support Sharia law in the UK. This is all well and good, you might say, Sharia is just a harmless cultural artifact. Bullshit. Two points: they are free to follow Sharia anyway. What they want is an official imposition of Sharia law.
It comes as no surprise then that Patrick Sookhdeo, a leading British analyst, believes that
'The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state' in the UK.

The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.
"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."
Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.
"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."

More frighteningly, a very similar percentage (37%) of UK Muslims agree that UK Jews are valid targets in the "struggle for justice in the Middle East" (ie destruction of Israel.). 37% of UK Muslims support targeting their fellow countrymen, women and children purely on the basis of their race, as part of a campaign against a completely different country ! (Yes, most Jews, like yours truly are NOT RELIGIOUS AT ALL. We are a RACE, the religion is OPTIONAL ! Some of us are Buddhists, for Chrissake...).

While the call is made in Britain, action has been taken in France. A Jewish man was kidnapped and tortured to death by a gang of Muslims. This gang who had attempted to kidnap Jews in the past, quoted passages from the Koran to the victim's family, and suggested that they "go to the synagogue" to get ransom money (which the gang rejected in any case. Perhaps money wasn't the issue).

Naturally, French authorities were quick to rule out anti-Semitism. It remains to ask whether the anti-Semitism so reflexively ruled out was that of the kidnappers, or their own.

The charge of anti-Semitism is invalid, you see, because the torturers were not pretending to be Palestinian jihadis. They were pretending to be Iraqi jihadis.

Looks like Le Pen has chosen anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism above the cancer eating away at his country. He has stretched out his hand to the Islamists. An anti-Semitic, fascist/Islamist alliance in France. And so soon after the Ramadan Intifada. Who would have thought. Le Pen has the support of 25% of France, and now plans to add the Muslim 10%. Sarkozy is now France's only hope.

Finally, Mike Jericho has printed a very interesting call for help from a woman in France. Read the comments too.

I am a French woman of European stock, an author, a Christian, whose freedoms are threatened by the invasion into France of millions of Muslims who are imposing their laws and their violence on our society. This urgent appeal is to save my homeland, its culture, its centuries-old civilization and its European population, all in peril because of the treasonous conduct of our leaders. We did not fight Nazism, we did not sacrifice our men in the French Resistance, only to abandon our country to this new, more virulent form of Nazism.
I am a woman living in a country where women are veiled or raped. I am an historian who has been persecuted by the police for writing of our Celtic ancestors, while our President hammers away that we are of Muslim origins! I am a novelist, but today it is wrong to prefer Flaubert or Proust or Victor Hugo. In America, many of you have seen 'Les Miz' based on Hugo's novel. Did it not inspire you to preserve your freedoms?
I come from poverty, worked hard at school and never committed an act of violence. The grand-daughter of a Spanish immigrant who fought at Verdun, daughter and niece of WWII resistance fighters, one of whom was in General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division at the time of our liberation from barbarity, I sing our national anthem and I honor our flag which has been replaced in some French cities by the Algerian flag! I point with pride to our Celtic, Roman and Frankish origins, our kings, our knights, our heroes, our cathedrals, our Christian faith, our writers and musicians and artists and scientists. They are trying to make us bend to Islamic law. In school I studied our constitution, not the Koran!
I am sorrowfully aware that many of you feel that France deserves her lot. I beg you not to confuse our leaders and our appeasers who have sold out their country with patriotic Frenchmen who love their country. If Jacques Chirac did not help you in Iraq it is because one cannot serve two masters, and in France Islamic law is master. We have reason to believe that Chirac's daughter Claude is married to a Muslim and that Chirac himself may have converted! We have been muzzled for decades, cowed into silence, as we watch our country move towards
extinction. If France is lost, the Western world is lost. Americans! Your brothers, those of European origin, those whose roots and civilization are the same as yours, are being killed all over Europe: in France, England, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Scandinavia, even in Australia! Here in France, if you speak of preserving Western civilization you risk imprisonment. If you say you are a victim of anti-white racism, you are told there is no such thing.

I Take It All Back!

2006-02-15T22:53:00.000+11:00

A clarification of the last post, and some apologies, retractions and corrections.

Point 1: Islamist pronouncements can be helpful, interesting and persuasive. They can change one's mind about religious issues, the defamation of historical figures, Kuffar festivals and the public display of haram behaviour. Case in point below.

Point 2: It pays to actually read the stuff one links to in one's blog.

Point 3: St Valentine would have kicked both Santa's and the crippled Mullah's asses from the North Pole to the Holy City of Qom and back again.

Point4: St Valentine was an anti-dhimmi reconquisatador mensch! St Valentine's Day is thus celebrated rather inappropriately, except in as far as it flaunts haram stuff the ROP don't particularly like. Perhaps this just as well !

Muslims Advised Not To Celebrate Valentine's Day
KUALA
TERENGGANU, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Muslims in the country, especially lovers, have been advised not to celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow.State Islam Hadhari Development Committee Deputy Chairman, Muhammad Ramli Nuh said celebrating the Day could be regarded as recognising the enemies of Islam because Valentine or Valentinus took part in planning and attacking Cordoba, once a well-known centre of Islam in Spain, causing its downfall.He was speaking to reporters after opening the seminar on Understanding of Tasawwuf Nusantara at Universiti Darul Iman, Malaysia, here, today.Muhammad Ramli said although not many couples
celebrate Valentine's Day in the state, the state government wished to remind that the celebration should not be held including in hotels.He reminded hotel managements to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of the people.

Anti-Dhimmi Reconquistador Mensch !!! (Assuming the Islamists are telling the truth of course)

Non So Che Fare A Diventare Cosi - Shiite Ashura Rave Party - The Six Day Whine

2006-02-15T21:32:00.000+11:00

That Rave Party

Everyone else is linking to this, so why not! In the absence of more profound or structured comment, essay or pieces of news, please enjoy crippled Shiite self-flagellation and ad-nauseum anguish at the slaughter of Imam Hussein in Ad 700 something by those mean Sunnis (What? it wasn't the Jooooooos?).

Clash of Civilisations

A thought occurs: who would win a fight to the death between Santa Claus and a self-whacking crippled Mullah on speed ? And could you even tell the difference between combatants after the hats come off ?

A Stalemate

As Henry Kissinger once remarked: "It is a pity that they cannot both lose". And before Talleyrand launches into one of his protracted probing inquiries: no, I do not give a shit about Santa either! Hah ! Now go stick THAT in your Jyllands-Posten and numerous sympathetic outlets worldwide !

Readers Possibly Offended

Offended? Good. Gonna issue a Christ-wah on my poor Jewish tush ? Go right ahead, turn-the-other-cheeksters ! I have insulted your Holy Gift Bringer ! So get with the program, no one gets to Father Christmas but past me first ! Come on, post-Christian Western consumerists ! Rebuke me to death !

Now stand back, and watch the streets of the West seethe with gullible present-addicted children and their guilt-ridden parents baying for poor old Ben Ze'ev's blood...

Three Way Struggle, Speculation on a Saint

Now, what if St Valentine were to join the battle? (Does anyone even know what he looked like, how adept he was at unarmed combat against menacing fat bald guys with large sacks or religious frenzy, or what the heck a Catholic saint would have to do with a smooch festival?)

And here I have offended a Great Religion. Whoops...

A Competition

To explore this and other topics haram in our decadent Kuffar culture, I am hereby declaring an anti-Santa and anti-St-Valentine cartoon competition right here on Six Days. Do your worst !!!! Bwa ha ha ha ha !!!!

Incidentally, it would appear that my dislike of St Valentine is shared by the most insistent sixth

of the world's population. Could it be that they would actually use their mighty super- powers of violent protest, boycott, terror, lies, hypocrisy and frenzied self-flagellation with metal implements for good rather than evil ? Could they put the horror of Feb 14 to rest ? If so, send me a turban and call me Ibn Dib.

So, feeling mighty pissed off and a tad anti-Semitic yet? Wanna tear the Jew a new one ? Don't bother, that is yet another literary and artistic field that we excel in....

... unfortuntaly this is far too true and not always funny...

Free Speech Bounded, Cultural Icons Explored, Italians Mentioned

Not going to allow any defamation of Jesus in the Competition though. I don't do that to family.

Surprisingly Christmas is even less relevant than St Valentine's day, but I will note that the last two have been the worst ever.

And yes, even brief snippets of dumb Italian lyrics in multilingual techno nonsense accompanying footage of Shiite self-harm still elicit way much more emotion than is appropriate, necessary or desired.

Damn those Italians. They build their cars well, and their women better. You don't forget either in a hurry. Happy fucking post-Valentine's day.

Kufr Aliekum,

Ben Ze'ev: clearly not at his best.

PS, on a more serious note, some seriously good news.

PRINCETON, NJ Following the election of Hamas as the Palestinian Authority's ruling party, Americans have grown more pessimistic that peace will ever be achieved in the Middle East, and increasingly sympathetic toward the Israelis. American opinions of the Palestinians had been improving in recent years, but now are among the worst Gallup has ever measured. Most Americans do not believe the United States should give any financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority regardless of its stance toward Israel and most say the United States should conduct diplomatic relations with the Palestinians (only) if they recognize Israel as a nation.
Hamas secured a majority of seats in the latest Palestinian parliament, raising worldwide concerns about what the militant organization, considered by many nations to be a terrorist group, might do with governing power. By a 2-1 margin, Americans now say there will never come a time when Israel and the Arab nations will live in peace, according to the annual Gallup Poll on World Affairs, conducted Feb. 6-9. The 65% to 32% split compares with a roughly 50-50 split last year. The current reading on this future peace measure, along with one other reading from August 2001, represents the most pessimistic Americans have been since the question was
first asked in 1997.

Keith Asks: Who Will Defend the West?

2006-02-14T22:16:00.000+11:00

Today Crusader Rabbit aka Keith asks an important question, and uncovers some ugly truths. Six Days gets one, or possibly two new contributors, depends on how you look at it. The world continues to accelerate past rapid reruns of 1933, 1936 and 1938 towards Armageddon 1.0.

Rant Du Jour (Du Six Jours?)

Keith asks who will defend the West. Who indeed? As the world goes to hell, the leaders of the West fall all over themselves to apologise, show sensitivity and censor any criticism of a certain religion whose contribution to our society and general sensibilities are apparently worth sacrificing 300 years of Enlightenment and some of our core freedoms and values, as well as a functioning, prosperous and safe society with a future. Naturally, many of us feel despondent, though Tom Paine of Silent Running makes a very eloquent call to arms with "Paine's Theorem - It's All One War!". Lots of other goodies on this podcast, including an interview with a Real Moderate Muslim (Eureka!). It's a podcast. Listen to it.

Obscenity and banal hatred know no bounds when the ROP is not the object of derision. While Leunig may not be responsible for submitting the cartoon into Iran's horror of a competition, it is no fake. He certainly drew it.

Amid the gloom there is some good news today. Lets hope Ehud and Tzipi don't squander this one like they have all other recent opportunities.

I had almost succeeded in forgetting that today was St Valentines day, which has been crap for very sound personal reasons. Then again, there was this which amused me. Like I need a goyishe saint's day to feel rotten anyway.

Bienvenue Ã Six Jours,Monsieur de Talleyrand

I have a number of related issues for future discussion, some in answer to points raised by Talleyrand. This will appear in a while. Blogging will be sparse in the near future, for reasons that may also be revealed soon. Incidentally, if Talleyrand is reading this, I remind him that he is invited as a regular contributor. While he asks more questions than he answers, this is perfectly acceptable and welcome. In fact, Keith and I can be rather angry ranters, so a calm Socratic voice may be just what the doctor ordered. I remind Talleyrand that by accepting this welcome he performs the modern day equivalent of joining us behind the barricades, of standing up and being counted, of taking a side, even if he only chooses to question and ponder as he stands there.

Meet Ben Ze'ev

Six Days is now becoming crowded, so yours truly needs a nomme de blogge to distinguish him from Keith and Talleyrand. In the tradition of Semitic anti-dhimmis (Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or) I adopt the patronymic Ben Ze'ev. Six Days is the blog, Ben Ze'ev is the guy who isn't Keith or Talleyrand. "Ze'ev" means "Wolf". "Ben" means "Son Of". Hi.

And don't call me "Ben" cause that is just silly.

Enough, as they say, about me. Over to Keith:

Who Will Defend the West?

This is no finely crafted post in the manner of a Lileks or Mike Jericho, more some idle thoughts after a long day's work and more than a few beers. So bear with me.
Recently I started a new job and it involves working closely with a German guy--an immigrant to New Zealand--in his thirties. Nice person. Good at what he does and an asset to his new country in terms of his skills.
And my first real chance to listen to the "European view" of the world at first hand.

That view chills me to the bone.

This person (let's call him Klaus) has a constant refrain which consists of "it's the law" or "it's a safety issue". He sees almost everything in terms of what's "allowed" and what is safe. He sees regulation by government as the answer to every problem facing society.
Needless to say, he's also very good at the bureaucratic stuff that goes with the job and he hates the U.S.A. with a passion. Believes that guns have no place in the homes of citizens.
Klaus believes that a safe, law-abiding life is the ultimate expression of humanity, that those canine incisors he wears--the product of millions of years of evolution--can be made to vanish by a few carefully crafted EU resolutions. He doesn't just say these things, he believes them with all the certitude of the person raised in almost perfect safety and comfort. What the rest of the world, that part which doesn't share this Utopian vision thinks, is simply ignored.

In other words, he's the Perfect European, subservient to the State and an individual only in terms of his musical and cinematic tastes. (Although even those appear to be unremittingly mainstream for his age). The embodiment of the lemming-like mentality that's allowed a bunch of unelected bureaucrats to trash a thousand years of European history and impose Orwellian thought control on the citizens (subjects?) of the member States.

So who will defend the West? Who will go to the barricades if necessary to defend free speech? Who will die if necessary to ensure liberty for future generations?
The rows of white crosses at Normandy, those heartbreaking rows upon rows upon rows of young lives given for freedom are a historical aberration, apparently.
Klaus will man no barricade. Will stand against no enemy. Will always find a law or a justification to look the other way when the trains roll with their human cargo to the gas chambers or the gulag again. And I don't think for one minute that Klaus is an exception. He represents Man made in the image of the bureaucrats and intellectuals and petty functionaries who have grabbed control of most Western societies, the same people who would just as happily shuffle paperwork for another Stalin or another Adolf.

The Precipice: will the EU fall ? / Egyptian Cartoons:The Blogosphere's Greatest Scoop ?

2006-02-09T21:28:00.000+11:00

Very Bad News

The only thing with this picture is that the guys up the back should be EU bureaucrats. Not terrorist assholes, but their most willing stooges. This is what I fear most. Who could believe that our gagging was so near ? [Hat tip: Tim Blair's merry band of commenters]

All because of some dangerous, ignorant, smug, miseducated, decadent, self-destructive, blind, cowardly, pompous, sycophantic, spiteful, self-hating fascist bastards.

You are thinking that this is not "our" gagging because it is the EU?
First they came for the Europeans...

Plans for a European press charter committing the media to "prudence" when reporting on Islam and other religions, were unveiled yesterday.

Franco Frattini, the European Union commissioner for justice, freedom and security, revealed the idea for a code of conduct in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. Mr Frattini, a former Italian foreign minister, said the EU faced the "very real problem" of trying to reconcile "two fundamental freedoms, the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion".
Millions of European Muslims felt "humiliated" by the publication of cartoons of Mohammed, he added, calling on journalists and media chiefs to accept that "the exercising of a right is always the assumption of a responsibility". He appealed to European media to agree to
"self-regulate".
Accepting such self-regulation would send an important political message to the Muslim world, Mr Frattini said.

Very Good News

The EU's monstorous dhimmitude almost, but not quite spoils my glee at what may just be the greatest scoop ever grabbed by the blogosphere. This scoop is orders of magnitude more significant than the cartoon fraud perpetrated by Danish Imams, and should invalidate all the rage that the ROP has been directing our way for the last few weeks. It is bigger than Rathergate. It may also place the intrepid Egyptian Sand Monkey in all kinds of danger. Lets make sure he stays safe by protesting loudly if the Egyptians do anything to him.

The story is: An Egyptian newspaper published the cartoons in October, during Ramadan to boot! Was anyone boycotting Egypt ? No. Were there riots, protests, anger ? No. Then Egypt boycotted other people for letting their newspapers do pretty much the same thing. Hmm. Does anyone see a problem here ? Murbarak is going to look pretty bad, and may take it out on the Egyptian blogosphere to prevent a repeat . I worry for the poor little monkey, he is a gifted blogger, and one of Egypt's minority of sane people. I hope he skips the country soon.

Lets also hope that this story helps Europe regain its self-respect, and tell Frattini where he may insert his media regulation proposal.

Kufr Aleikum, I leave you with the strangely inoffensive Egyptian Cartoons...

Kudos Tim, Kudos Janet, Kudos...Andrew ????

2006-02-08T22:12:00.000+11:00

Today I decided to add some new cartoons that between them span my thoughts on the current crisis. Perhaps the newspapers that were too "sensitive" and "nuanced" to print the original twelve might consider printing some or all of these.

Exhibit A to the left is a new Mohammad cartoon that has appeared in the French press, in the Weekly Satirical Charlie Hedbo. [Hat Tip: The Dumb Ox]

The cartoon caption reads "Mohammed overwrought by the fundamentalists", The old pedophile is crying, saying "It's hard to be loved by such idiots". Fatwa pending.

[Update 9/2/2006 : Chirac, walking proof that the entire Eurabia thesis is correct, never misses a chance to play the dhimmi while another French newspaper prints the cartoons! This is a major victory. We all remember what happened to the editor of France Soir...]

The next one speaks to the hypocrisy of what passes for business as usual in the government controlled Middle Eastern press. Want to see some real ones ?

Want to see some more ?

Still not convinced ?

In light of the above, we are fortunate indeed that such difficult times have not prevented newspaper editors from maintaining their strict codes of ethics, and upholding the key values we associate with the best practice of the journalistic profession. Yes, we are talking the bedrock values of Western Culture here. Indispensable values. Values that allowed the Enlightenment to blossom forth from the shackles of oppression and ignorance. Yes, those values are apparently tolerance, sensitivity, respect for religion, compromise and cultural understanding. All those things that the founding fathers of the Enlightenment showed to the Kings and Church of their time. Or perhaps there is another explanation for all this?

To be fair, it is all well and good for anonymous amateur blogger Six Days to say what he likes. The lives of editors and journalists are threatened. They are prominent, and risk their jobs, lives, and families. Nevertheless, some journos still stand up for what they believe. Tim Blair published the pictures on his blog. This is an act of great courage. My respect for him continues to grow. Sadly this is not enough. It is important that his actions be recognised for what they are, and Australia be seen as taking a stand. Sadly, the arbiters of this are the offended Muslims themselves. Unless the Muslim world is condemning us over the cartoons, we have not done enough to stand up and be counted! They seem to think that governments are responsible for what newspapers print, but they have chosen to ignore the blogosphere.

Janet Albrechtsen has also taken a clear and principled stand. (and is blonde and Danish to boot!) She refers to the Caliphate of Victoria as "Victoristan" in the article, when all the other blogs call it "Brackistan". Hmm... Hi Janet!

Closer to home, Victoria's religious vilification laws are working in ways that make the place look like an Islamic state-in-waiting. Recall the two Christian pastors hauled into a Victorian court and threatened with jail time for daring to criticise Islam. Publish these cartoons south of the Murray in Victoristan and you too might be charged with religious vilification. It's a state overflowing with rights. But freedoms - such as free speech - are thin on the ground.

Andrew West of all people has shown an unusual degree of sense. (Cannot find a link to his article, but it makes me want to hug the annoying leftie) [Update: Thanks for the link, Manny!]

The cartoons that have so offended Muslims around the world were not worthy of publication in the first place. They're not really funny and are little more than a gratuitous provocation. But the violent opposition of Muslim zealots now demands that the media in western liberal democracies publish and be damned.
There is an uncompromising first principle at stake here: Muslims, and the adherents of any other faith, living in liberal societies must accept that, in such societies, a critique of religion, however juvenile and insulting, is not only permissible but intrinsic to democracy. You must have the right to tell me that what I believe is bunkum (as so many do on this site so often!).

But no Aussie newspaper will publish the cartoons. Nope, not the Australian or the Bulletin. Not the Daily Telegraph or Herald Sun. Nor even Quadrant. At least not yet.

I urge Tim Blair, Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew West and all other good folk of the journalistic profession that still have a shred of integrity to take out a full page ad in a major newspaper, and publish the cartoons IN THEIR NAMES. If refused, write an article about it. OR BETTER YET:

Here is what the staff of one newspaper did when the editor pulled the cartoons

[Hat Tip: Pajamas Media]

The editorial staff of the alternative weekly New York Press walked out today, en masse, after the paper's publishers backed down from printing the Danish cartoons that have become the center of a global free-speech fight.
Editor-in-Chief Harry Siegel emails, on behalf of the editorial staff:
New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial
cartoons that have been used as a pretext for great and greatly menacing violence directed against journalists, cartoonists, humanitarian aid workers, diplomats and others who represent the basic values and obligations of Western civilization. Having been ordered at the 11th hour to pull the now-infamous Danish cartoons from an issue dedicated to them, the editorial group consisting of myself, managing editor Tim Marchman, artseditor Jonathann Leaf and one-man
city hall bureau Azi Paybarah, chose instead to resign our positions.

Read the whole thing. If only there was more of this.

I leave you with something that is unfortunately not a cartoon at all, but so clear, twisted and bizarrely comical that it qualifies as one. If I showed it to you six months ago you would not have believed me,particularlyy if I said it was a photo from the centre of London. The scariest bit is not the terrorist (yes terrorist. Read the placard. A terrorist is one who promises unexpected deadly violence if his demands are not met. This guy definitely qualifies.). Watch what the copper on the left is doing. That's right. Nothing...

Kufr Aleikum.

[Update 9/2/2006] Egyptian Paper Printed Cartoons in October!

Yep, it gets even more bizarre!

Looks like Dar-al-Islam should also... Boycott Egypt ??? [Hat Tip: LGF] Egyptian Sandmonkey has found that prominent Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr had printed all of the cartoons all the way back in October, during Ramadan to boot ! So where were the rampaging mobs ? Sad thing is, Murbarak probably will apologise to his co-religionists and punish the journalists responsible... A principled stand in support of Al Fagr should be organised NOW.

Al Fagr should be lauded by the free press of the West, and their example followed. Yes, I do realise that they probably had no intention of being brave, and are probably regretting their decision and shaking in their boots. Nevertheless, this precedent must be exploited, and these people protected as best we can manage.

Goodbye, Kufr Aleikum, Happy Ashura

So goodbye for the day, Kufr Aleikum good readers and, Happy Ashura, The Shia commemoration of the slaugher of Imam Hussein and his companions. With Shia, your Islam is even martyrer ! (Is that a word?)

Six Days is celebrating Ashura by blogging and going to work (bugger I am running late...).

Others celebrate it in more traditional ways. I leaves you with these piccies of Ashura festivities. They can't drink, they can't mess with loose women but these guys sure know how to mass-self-mutilate in a frenzied rage, and they have all these cool implements!

Its good clean family fun ! Kids and mums can join in too!

Дадим отпор душителям всех пламенных идей!

2006-02-08T10:21:00.000+11:00

Russia: a stand is taken.

This reaffirms that Russia is part of the West, something that the West needs to remember better in future. They were successful enough to penetrate through to America, but they are 100% European, Western, Judaeo-Christian, and have contributed to Western science, art, technology, literature, philisophy, music and other edifices of our civilisation. So what if Russia lagged behind the West in leaving Feudalism, and then totalitarianism. Was Germany any less a part of the West under the Nazis ? Politics can change quickly. Culture changes very slowly. A shared history does not change at all.

As for what the title means: see here for words to a WWII song that is even more relevant to the West now than it was to Russia then.

Dances with Lefties

2006-02-08T00:15:00.000+11:00

Brick walls headbutted!
Success moderate if any. Satisfaction greater...

(note to self)
Must write more on own blog.
Must write more on own blog.
Must write more on own blog.
Must write more on own blog.
etc.

(Must check spelling, grammar, etc in any case. For once !)

"Hi, I'm Six Days, I've been blogging on my own blog for about 10 minutes now, and must continue to fight the urge to vent spleen at Islamists or proselytise to lefties on other blogs at the expense of this post-Shakespearean masterpiece of mine. I am taking it one post at a time, and I guess blah blah blah blah blah. thanks Commenters Anonymous for changing my life".

Nope, not gonna work, beyond help on all counts...

Complain, Complain...

2006-02-08T00:10:00.000+11:00

Heh...

[Hat Tip: LGF]

Solidarity

2006-02-06T06:38:00.000+11:00

[Hat tip for banner: Krusadin' Keith]

This post will remain at the top of the blog until this thing blowns over, or at least until a prominent member of the Australian MSM posts the cartoons. My money is on Tim Blair. Scroll down for new posts.

Well, if the Aussie MSM won't print 'em, at least some Aussie blogs will!
C'mon Tim Blair, Uber-Blogger extraordinaire and MSM journalist to boot !
Put them on your blog at the very least ! Print them in the Bulletin ! Put the Seppos, Poms and Moose Chasers to shame !
Come on Miranda Devine, Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew Bolt, Piers Ackerman, come on The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, The Australian !
Why the deafening silence ?

In the meantime, this may have to suffice. If readers can find me a nicecompact image containing all 12 cartoons in their entirety, (rather than just the Pedophile Prophet's sorry face) please send it on and I will post it too [Update: Found it!].

The Queen of Denmark, Margarethe II, is no dhimmi !

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark has called on the country "to show our opposition to Islam", regardless of the opprobium such a stance provokes abroad.

Meanwhile, speaking of queens, if you really want to see offensive, (and hilarious) check out Big Gay Jeff's International Offend A Muslim Day at Beautiful Atrocities. A sneak preview:

[Update 6/2/2006]

Tim Blair is a Mensch

Tim Blair is the only MSM journalist in the non-NZ Anglosphere with cojones ! Now for real Aussie pride, we say today timblair.net, tomorrow The Bulletin !

Tank Stream Is Pumping

The quality at Tank Stream has picked up substantially. Maybe because the uncouth, tasteless and devil-may-care Wombat has not been writing, and we have finally heard from the heretofore silent non-mammals of the outfit, Gekko and Toad.

Gekko the Lizardoid has a rather wry view of the commercial dimension of the Cartoon Crisis, with his heart definitely in the right place. Cane Toad's conversations with his alarming imaginary friends also takes the Cartoon Crisis to hilarious places. Now lets see the boyz 'n' da Stream PRINT THE CARTOONS like good RWDB bloggers.

Hi to the critters at Tank Stream, go Wombat ! But what does the Wombat have against the Toad, anyway ? The Bandicoot can a bit of a dork though... Hey Keith, maybe they need a Rabbit ?

Blogger Down and Other Coincidences: Saracens at the Gates?

Also, we had the interesting case of Blogger Down for about 5 hours yesterday. So was LGF, and with the same behaviour. Tim Blair also had some trouble with logins. Today LGF is down again.

The timing is interesting, Nilknarf tells me there have been attacks on Jihad Watch and several other sites. Looks like today's Gates of Vienna are our firewalls, and the Saracen horde stands there as before...

[Update 6/2/2006]

Boycott Marsupials, Kiwis and Tatooine!

Oh good grief... I did warn people about that Wombat.

What Happened in London

2006-02-05T07:13:00.000+11:00

Keith aka Crusader Rabbit sends today's post on the recent Muslim"day of anger".

Here are the accompanying pictures [Hat tip: LGF]. This is not Tehran, but London two days ago, at a protest that attracted 500 rather candid members of the ROP, who have decided that honest intimidation beats "Religion of Peace" taqiyya. For this at least I am grateful. Am still waiting for mainstream Muslim leaders to condemn this display of Islam's true colours by an "unrepresentative tiny minority of extremists". Does any media organisation have the balls to ask Muslim leaders what is worse, the cartoons or the display above ? No, what is worse is when we stand by and tolerate all this crap. Case in point: the pic with the London bobby standing around doing bugger all while a terrorist (is there any other word?) openly threatens Europe with its own Sept 11. Free speech ? As Keith says, London police have arrested a man for calling a police horse gay. So no, not free speech. Just a different set of law enforcement standards, one for politically correct (or else!) dhimmis, and one for their new overlords.

Over to Keith

!This is from Timesonline :

Gathering storm as protests hit Britain

LEADERS of radical British Muslim groups threatened a campaign of protest last night as demonstrations spread from Europe to the Far East.
A crowd of several hundred demonstrated outside the Danish Embassy in Knightsbridge, with protesters repeatedly shouting: “UK you must pray, 7/7 is on its way.”

And we all know what form "protests" from radical Muslim groups take, don't we? Why is the reference to "7/7" not classified as "hate speech" in Tony Blair's Britain? Or is hate speech merely a tool to silence dissent by those who oppose dhimmification of their country? And what are radical British Muslim groups doing outside jail, where they belong?

...organisers in Britain gave warning that their protests would accelerate over the weekend, with BBC offices a target for their wrath.

Which is a measure of the sheer stupidity of these people--the BBC is the best friend they have in the West.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, condemned the decision by some media outlets in Europe to republish the cartoons, calling it “insensitive, disrespectful and wrong”.
He said that freedom of speech did not mean an “open season” on religious taboos, and he praised the British media for what he called their “considerable responsibility and sensitivity” for not publishing them.

According to this loathsome little Blair poodle, (the man who only recently praised the mad mullahs of Tehran) it is "insensitive, disrespectful and wrong" to publish some cartoons, but he was silent when British imams called for the death of Salman Rushdie, when imams preach hatred of the West, when imams at a London mosque call for jihad against the West, when the Mayor of London hosted a function for radical Palestinians......No wonder he praised the British media--they're well along the road to dhimmi status.

A radical Islamic cleric who lived in London until he was banned from Britain called for the killing of broadcasters and newspaper editors who showed insulting cartoons of Muhammad. Omar Bakri Mohammed issued his instructions in a religious fatwa from his hideout in Lebanon. He said that the first to be murdered should be the editor of the Danish newspaper that first
published the drawings.
His followers in Britain who helped to organise yesterday’s rowdy demonstration in London supported his demands as they called for more terror attacks to emulate the July 7 suicide bombers. However, the number of protesters was fewer than organisers expected and there were no other significant protests in the capital.

Bold mine. No further comment necessary.

Police refused to act on complaints from passers-by to order the demonstrators to take down banners praising the British-born terror bombers as the “Fantastic Four”, saying that their job yesterday was to ensure that the protest by 500 Muslims passed off peacefully.

Read that last paragraph very carefully. The police, who are perfectly prepared to arrest a student for calling a police horse "gay", the police, who visited a woman who had said during a media interview that she didn't think homosexual couples were suitable adoptive parents
and warned her about "hate speech", refused to act on complaints from the public about a demonstration that clearly called for violent action. At least two laws were being clearly broken right under the noses of the police, yet still they refused to act. The claim that they were there to ensure that the protest "passed off peacefully" can then mean only one thing--that they were there to protect the very people calling for more bombings against the people of London.

Apologies, Explanations, Redirections and a Correction

2006-02-05T07:05:00.000+11:00

I tried to post some pictures from yesteraday's Islamist protest in London. Blogger did not allow me to do so, citing technical trouble. Curses! An upcoming post (hopefully tomorrow) will have a lot more to say about at least one of the placards that was seen at this rally.

As for the lack of blogging lately:

Folks, I have been writing, but on other people's blogs, and have also spent a bit of time commenting on Six Days, so take the time to read comments here. Some very astute readers, some incoherent raving Islamists and yours truly all mixing it up.Neuvo-Uber-Blogger Manny (ask him about how many hits he has been getting lately) posted my detailed justification for a characterisation of the Prophet Mohammad which featured prominently as the title of a recent article on Six Days. Oh all right, I never get tired of repeating it:

Mohammad Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile ! One Islamist commenter (an old acquaintance) called this a childish joke, so I decided to provide some deadly serious evidence to the contrary. Do read the original article, and do look at the comments, where four different Islamists made their feelings rather clear, while presenting little, if anything that could be called a logical argument.After a number of requests from readers, here are some links to recent Six Days raves (check the comments sections or simply scroll down as necessary) and take the opportunity to check out these other blogs, and to give certain people a piece of your mind.

Mostly I have been free riding on Mike Jericho's blog. I extend my invitation to him to return the favour. Kudos to Mike, gifted and passionate commentator and researcher. Also meet Right Wing Death Bogan Nilk, and the fearsome Tiberius:

http://mikejericho.blogspot.com/2006/02/new-banner.html http://mikejericho.blogspot.com/2006/01/someone-hand-them-tissue.html http://mikejericho.blogspot.com/2006/01/mild-suggestion.html

Also freeloading somewhat off the good Kiwi folk at Silent Running. Listen to their weekly podcasts, they are GOOD!

http://silentrunning.tv/?p=683#comments

http://silentrunning.tv/?p=679#comments

http://silentrunning.tv/?p=662#comments

Finally, if you want to go leftie-baiting where the lefties actually have some rudimentary logical ability and insight, as well as a sense of humour, there is this:

http://armagnacd.blogspot.com/2006/01/hamas-and-democratic-peace-theory.html

Go forth and make em see the light!

Finally, I need to make a correction to a previous post, where it was stated that HAMAS had taken the "destroy Israel" from its list of stated goals. In fact, they have done no such thing. All they did was not make this part of their charter too obvious in their election program. This is all that the article was referring to. Of course the rest of their rhetoric and ongoing violence means that the good folk of Gaza, Judea and Samaria should have known better, particularly if they were voting for these people.

In terms of popular mandate, the "Palestinians" are still more accountable for HAMAS than the Germans ever were for Hilter.Since I am on a roll, lets recap the deal with HAMAS:

1. It is their stated objective to destroy the State of Israel.

2. They make no distinction between civilian and military targets

3. They are prepared to use all means, including suicide terror intentionally targeting civilians, makeshift rockets and tunnelling to fight Israel wherever and however possible.

THUS HAMAS is thus in a state of total war with Israel.

4. The majority of Palestinians voted for HAMAS to lead them. Of the remainder, many voted for secular "resistance movements" that also do not recognise Israel and support or perform terror. Thus an overwhelming majority supports total war with Israel.

5. (Incidentally) A remaining minortity supports a more subtle form of total war where diplomacy is used as a weapon. While Israel is officially recognised, one thing is said in English and another in Arabic, streets are still named after suicide bombers, children are still taught the virutues of hatered and suicide, and clerics still spew hatered on state sponsored TV. An implausibly deniable "armed wing" is still supported and funded, but disowned. Terror is subcontracted to the "armed wing", as well as HAMAS, Islamic Jihad and other nasties.

THUS:The Palestinian people have overwhelmingly declared unending total war with Israel, with no quarter possible, and any truce declared only temporary, and only for the duration in which it is to HAMAS's advantage.Israel is thus in a state of total war with the Palestinians, a total war that Israel did not declare. It is fully within its rights to act in a total war context. When it happens, it should take about 60 seconds, not Six Days...

Good News: A Cartoon Spectre Haunts Europe !

2006-02-02T06:36:00.000+11:00

[Hat tip for piccie, and for being Danish and proud: Viking Observer]

Tom Paine at Silent Running gave a great account of the Perfect Storm that had engulfed cyberspace over the last several days. Apart from the search engine hits that so many of us have been getting from a seething Muslim world, as well as curious Danes, there was a hacker war against Danish newspapers, and possible retaliation against the Jazeeroid press.

Sadly, it appeared that the editor of Jyllands-Posten had apologised, and that Europe had been humiliated, and its freedom of speech beaten down with a blunt Oil Weapon. I was not happy to say the least.

BUT THEN:

Good old Charles at LGF made my day with the good news this morning! Am shamelessly reposting the material, with snippets of Six Days wisdom.

Looks like Europe may have found its spine after all. Demark does not stand alone.Not that I was ever too worried about the Saudi boycott of Danish beer, bacon and blondes!

Here come the French! (Well, the good ones anyway. Who would have thought ?)

A French newspaper has reproduced a set of Danish caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have caused outrage in the Muslim world.
France Soir said it had published the cartoons to show that “religious dogma” had no place in a secular society. Their publication in Denmark has led to protests in several Arab nations.
Responding to France Soir’s move, the French government said it supported press freedom - but added that beliefs and religions must be respected.

Re. that last bit in bold:

All silver linings have a black cloud in France. Of course we could always count on the French Government to show that they are dhimmi fascists masquerading as democrats. Beliefs and religions must be respected ? Why ? Does this apply to Nazism, Communism, NAMBLA, cannibalism, the Thuggee death cult ? What about dislike and suspicion of France ? And what is it about religion that makes it off limits ? Well, nice to know that some French journalists have more cojones than Prime Minister Barry Manilow With A Girls Name. Also a far cry from Napoleonic secularism. Lots more to say about this one, reader Talleyrand may be interested in discussing further...

And the Italians!

I used to love the Italians. Maybe I still do. But that's all personal.

Berlusconi was very clear about the real issue after Sept 11. Political correctness forced him to tone down, but he made things very clear about the differences between our civilisation and Islam's, well, absence thereof.

This is the country of Oriana Fallaci. The food, women and sports cars are superb. It would not be the West without Italy.

And Spain!

Atoning for post-Madrid bombing dhimmitude ? Nice to know that there are good people everywhere, even in one of Europe's worst retro-dhimmi states.

And the Dutch!
Well, this is long overdue. The Dutch are the first and strongest anti-dhimmis of Europe. These are the guys who elected Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders and Iron Rita Verdonk.

And even the Germans ! (The Germans? Oh dear...)

This one made the Jerusalem post. Listen to this:

Two German newspapers on Wednesday reproduced controversial drawings depicting the Prophet Muhammad, with one of them arguing that a “right to blasphemy” was anchored in democratic freedoms.
The drawings were among several published in a Danish paper in September that sparked outrage and boycotts in Islamic countries. The pictures were also shown in a Norwegian magazine last week. ...
But the German Welt daily put one of the drawings showing the prophet’s turban transformed into a bomb on its front page on Wednesday. It said the picture was “harmless” and expressed regret that the Danish Jyllands-Posten daily had apologized for causing offense.
“Democracy is the institutionalized form of freedom of expression,” the paper said in a front-page commentary. “There is no right to protection from satire in the West; there is a right to blasphemy.”
The Berliner Zeitung daily also printed two of the caricatures as part of its coverage of the controversy.

You tell 'em, Die Welt ! Now if only places like Victoria, the UK, Norway, Sweden and France had the same vision of the West as the brave editors of Die Welt. Compare and contrast the bold bit above with the earlier comment from the French government. Am waiting patiently for a Sarkozy/Le Pen power sharing agreement. And this is coming from a Jew with no illusions about what else Le Pen stands for. See how much I like Chriac, Disco Boy and the whole neo-Napoleonic Eurabia project?

And The Norwegians!
- have provent to be whiny pussies with the exception of Edgar Kokkvald, the man all search engines in Dar-al-Islam are pointed at. Nevertheless, even their Prime Minister is showing more backbone than expected (Still whiny, but at least a grudging admission that freedom of speech exists):

Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg expressed regret.
"We cannot apologize for something written by newspapers in a country with freedom of expression like Norway," Norway's NTB news agency quoted him as saying on Tuesday. "But I am sad that this may have been hurtful for many Muslims."

And Hungary! (Don't bother with the link, it is in Danish. Luckily we have a translation from the Viking Observer, along with all the latest on the crisis in Denmark and overseas, and the related cyber-war)

Says the Hungarian foreign minister:

"To us, freedom of speech is a cornerstone of a functioning
democracy". The arab reaction is "unfitting".

Wait till the Rest of New Europe tells the A-rabs how they feel about being gagged ! 45 years of Soviet rule makes one very protective of the right to criticise, ridicule and abuse, especially when the target is a set of ideas, and an oppressive one at that. Who next: Poland ? The Czechs ?

Now the Paleos have been expelling Danish, Norwegian and Swedish (Why the Swedes?) from their pseudo-state hellhole, presumably in a brilliant PR stroke designed to piss off the kinds of Scandinavian moonbat dhimmis who would go out of their way to support these maniacs. They combined this great PR move with masterful burning of the Danish flag, guaranteed to make them even more friends in Eurabia. A fatwa has been issued against Danish troops in Iraq.

Are they now also going to expel Dutch, German, Italian and Spanish moonbats ? Will they burn the flags of the various countries standing up to them, or just the EU flag to make things simpler? The good folk of the EU will hopefully have a good thinks about who they are funding. This is gonna be fun to watch...

Predicted Robert Fisk Line: "If I was HAMAS I would have expelled me too"...

I have no words

2006-01-31T21:18:00.000+11:00

This used to be an occasionally funny blog. Sometimes ponderously heavy, sometimes pompous and sometimes light, offensive, ironic, whatever. I had fun. Recent mass visits by the cheerleaders of today's most vile idea have kicked the humour out of me and left me lost for words. They were almost all out for blood, and searching for one name. Almost to a man they were out to get one Edgar Kokkvald, a man whose deadly sin was to call for the rights of cartoonists to draw 1300 year dead prophets any way they pleased. A man who was ultimately risking so much in vain, because his native Norway caved before terror anyway. As did Denmark.

For my brothers and sisters in this struggle, and all good men and women of the West, or unwilling prisoners outside civilisation who may stumble on this site, I share with you the image that for me defined this war. For those who don't know, the man's badge reads "Spetznaz", short for "Voiska Spetzial'nogo Naznocheniya", the Special Forces of the noble Russian Federation. You can all guess where and when this photo was taken. The man in the picture is most likely alive, as is the baby. Thank God and little else.
For the rest of you I have no more words. I have no more words, thoughts, tears for you. Or prayers.

The Royal Treatment

2006-01-31T07:21:00.000+11:00

Murray at Silent Running sums it up well. He also has this great picture of my Cousin Josh saying what needs to be said. [Hat Tip for piccie: Murray]

It would appear that this wee little blog has attracted a perfect storm of unwanted attention. First it was Saudis and a few other Gulfies.

Then it was the Department of Communications and the Arts (the Aussie thought police). Not their first visit...

Look what we get now!

Syrians, Iraninans and HRH the Ruler of Dubai, OH MY !!!!

(H.h. The Rulers Court - Dgirp)

Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 0 returning visits

Date Time WebPage
30th January 2006 19:55:08 Six Days
search.yahoo.com/search?p=Edgar Kokkvold&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-img-t&x=wrt
30th January 2006 19:55:43 Six Days
search.yahoo.com/search?p=Edgar Kokkvold&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-img-t&x=wrt
30th January 2006 19:56:21 Six Days: Kuft Aleikum Good Guests ! And remember: Mohammad Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile
sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/

(Falconstream)

Tehran, Tehran, Iran, Islamic Republic Of, 0 returning visits

Date Time WebPage
31st January 2006 01:56:05 Six Days
search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Edgar Kokkvold &FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0
31st January 2006 01:58:45 Six Days
www.blogger.com/profile/15679452
31st January 2006 02:00:14 Six Days: Kufr Aleikum Good Guests ! And remember: Mohammad Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile
sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/
31st January 2006 02:00:56 Six Days: Kufr Aleikum Good Guests ! And remember: Mohammad Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile
sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/
31st January 2006 02:05:48 Six Days: Kufr Aleikum Good Guests ! And remember: Mohammad Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile
sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/

(Deployment Of It Knowledge In Syria)

Dimashq, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic, 0 returning visits

Date Time WebPage
31st January 2006 05:10:52 Six Days
search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=Mohammad cartoons&fr=slv1-msgr&b=31

Incidentally, our old friend the strange Saudi site that has been monitoring us daily for months is still at it.

(Dubai Point Of Presence For Dth Platform)

Ar Riyad, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 3 returning visits

Date Time WebPage
31st January 2006 00:30:12 Six Days
No referring link

Kufr Aleikum !

I am still wondering how Six Days is getting through their muttawa firewalls. Don't they want to protect their poor subjects from haram blasphemous material like Six Days ? Or are they ALL muttawa ?

The news is not all dire however. It would appear that we are also attracting many Danish visitors, mostly through the article "Viking Courage and True Moderate Muslims". Hold fast, Denmark, we stand with you.

Incidentally, it would appear that the Palestinians have endeared themselves to the Danes this morning by burining the Danish flag. [Hat Tip: Silent Running]

I can really see the Danes recognising HAMAS and making that EU money flow now...

[Update]

Sadly, I spoke too soon. Those Eurabians do not take long to show their true colours.

Kufr Aleikum Good Guests ! And remember: Mohammad Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile

2006-01-29T09:34:00.000+11:00

What's with the pictures ?
As I said, The Prophet Mohammad (his enemies be upon him) Was a Murderous, Thieving, Rapacious, Lying, Psychotic Pedophile. (A more cogent and detailed justification for this characterisation here) . And a large number of The Prophet's fan club are visiting this site. Hence the pictures. A reminder of some things they find unpleasant. I like that.

Also this absolutely hilarious music/video clip (turn up the sound!), [Hat tip, LGF]

Six Days has enjoyed an increasing number of hits over the last two days. While I would like to thank our dear readership, and acknowledge our new Crusading Contributor, as well as regular commenters Keith, Stewie, Manny and Cynic, and hits from an increasing number of linking blogs, the fact is that most of the new attention comes from a direction that would never elicit a kind word from me. Here are some examples:

shabnet0-104.shabakah.net (Shabakah Net)
Saudi Arabia, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
WebPage
29th January 2006
09:06:14
Six Days search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=cartoon%2b prophet mohammad&first=81&FORM=PERE8

(Emirates Internet)
Ash Shariqah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
WebPage
29th January 2006
03:29:59
Six Days search.yahoo.com/search?p=Edgar Kokkvold %2B mohammad %2B picture&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&x=wrt

lhd673.emirates.net.ae (Emirates Telecommunications Corporation)
United Arab Emirates, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
WebPage
29th January 2006
00:27:40
Six Days search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&FORM=AS5&q=Edgar Kokkvold

(Zajoul For Advanced Telecommunication)
Saudi Arabia, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
WebPage
28th January 2006
15:28:10
Six Days: January 2006 http://www.google.com.sa/search?hl=ar&safe=active&q=defaming
28th January 2006
15:31:58
Six Days: January 2006 http://www.google.com.sa/search?hl=ar&safe=active&q=Jyllands-Posten
28th January 2006
15:40:57
Six Days: January 2006 http://www.google.com.sa/search?hl=ar&q=Jyllands-Posten
28th January 2006
16:34:45
Six Days search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&FORM=AS5&q=Edgar Kokkvold
28th January 2006
16:36:55
Six Days search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&FORM=AS5&q=Edgar Kokkvold

So what is all the fuss about ?
All of these intrepid investigators from the gulf wanted to know about Edgar Kokkvold, possibly about to join the ranks of Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and hopefully not Theo Van Gough. What is it about poor Edgar ? His Courage, and his support for the principle of free speech.

Last week, a number of Norwegian papers decided to support Denmark by publishing the controversial cartoons. They, too, have received death threats from Muslim radicals. Nevertheless, the general secretary of the Norwegian Press Association, Per Edgar Kokkvold, has said that he supports the decision by the Norwegian papers to publish the Muhammad cartoons. Muslim organizations in Norway have suggested that the media should be obliged to respect Muhammad and offered to give them some lessons about Islam, but Mr Kokkvold has another suggestion: Perhaps the Islamic Council in Norway should invite its members to a course about freedom of expression. “We have to stand up and fight for freedom of expression every single day. Freedom of expression is not something which comes as an appendix to other human rights, it is the premise for the other rights,” he said.

Sadly, Norway itself has yesterday dropped its trousers and bent over before their Mohammedan Masters in the Gulf. Denmark stands alone. That this is inexcusable is clear. This is further remarkable because Norway is an oil producer. The Gulf are competitors, not the local dealer with their next fix. So why the kowtowing ? Who knows...
Local Christian groups are also competing with their governement for the title of dhimmi-in-chief.

The letter Norway Foreign Ministry sent to its ambassadors in the Middle East was reflected in the press as well. The Ministry apologized for the uneasiness in the Muslim World caused by the newspaper's publication.
The letter sent to the ambassadors signed by the Ministry's Representative Anne Lene Dale read that Norway is deeply saddened for the unease a Norwegian newspaper caused in the Muslim world by publishing the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The cartoons published do not contribute to the inter religious activities, the letter further read. "It would be useful to state clearly that the Norwegian government condemns all kinds of actions and statements that pressures and insults people for their religion and race. Tolerance, mutual respect, and dialogue are the basic values of the Norwegian society and they are the foundation of our foreign policy."
The public opinion had reacted against the cartoons by the Magazinet with Christianity-based publication for insulting the Prophet Mohammed. The Church Charity Organization condemned the newspaper and made the declaration acknowledging that these publications hurt "Muslim brothers and sisters".
The Norwegian press also condemned that such a newspaper defending religious values published cartoons with insults to the Prophet Mohammed and interpreted the publication as "childish and unnecessary."

So Denmark is on its own. Our free speech is threatened worldwide. Meanwhile Iran is racing towards a nuke, HAMAS runs Judea, Samaria and Gaza, we are addicted to Gulf oil, Pakistan has nukes which it proliferated with impunity, and any new democracy in the Middle East is a victory for Islam.
Also, there is already no freedom of speech in the UK or Victoria.
As I said before, freedom of speech is our most vital resource. Seeing Islam for what it is happens to be the West's most powerful weapon. We cannot bring the others to bear without it.

[Update 30/1/2006]

Krusadin' Keith, our Rhodesian Rabbit-in-Residence, has added some pictures above, and has some more words to say to our new visitors, who are coming thick and fast from all over the Gulf, Egypt, and sadly parts of the Dar-al-Harb. Interstingly, it would appear that Six Days is getting past the mutawwa firewalls of Gulf Countries ! Let Feedom Reign...

Over to Keith:

Two pictures [added above - ed.] --one of a schoolchild dying as the result of the bombing of a schoolbus.The other is of the Horsehead Nebula, taken by the Hubble space telescope as it peers back towards the dawn of time and the birth of stars. Opposite ends of the spectrum of humanity.

I'd like to add a word in the ear of those visitors:

Almost EVERYTHING you use on a day-to-day basis, you owe to the Enlightenment (go look it up) and Western civilisation. From the computer you're using to the means to generate electricity, from the manufactured goods you consume to the cool air from your air conditioners. Damn near everything.Your adherance to a primitive and barbaric religion means that you will never join the modern world.

You may think you already HAVE joined the modern world because you enjoy the outward trappings of civilisation. But in fact you're no better than a goatherder. And that may be an insult to a simple, harmless goatherder.You've taken the fortuitous gift of oil under the sands of your region andsquandered it.Western geologists discovered it. Western engineers designed a way to tap it,transport it and refine it. You and your kind have been paid countless billions of dollars for a century for something you had no idea was there and had nothing to do with developing. With the huge profits from oil you've built damn-all of your own.

You have to rely largely on Western and Asian architects to design your buidlings and Western engineers to make them possible. Almost every aircraft that flies into your airports is a triumph of Western technology and Western freedom.Your best hospitals rely on Western specialists and nurses.You have achieved nothing, except to bring your primitive, nihilistic murdering habits to the doorstep of the West. A measure of your profound stupidity and hatred of civilised values is the fact that you would willingly destroy that which elevates your lives to something a little more enriching than herding goats and stoning women to death.You had enough money to build a space shuttle or a Hubble space telescope. To feed and educate your kids properly. To bring some relief to those parts of Africa and Asia that don't have a fraction of the natural wealth you enjoy. Instead you chose murder and war.

Update [30/1/2006- 8 pm]

More than double the usual number of visitors today, and most of them from the Middle East, looking for evidence of defamation of their prophet, who is apparently too much of a wuss to stand up for himself, and whose God is too insecure to tolerate detractors.

More menacing was another visit from the Aussie Thought Police.

(Department Of Communications And The Arts)
Australia, 0 returning visits
Date
Time
WebPage
30th January 2006
13:00:52
Six DaysNo referring link

This is not the first time. Their last visit was far more thorough, and zeroed in on my rant on free speech of all things. It would appear that a blog that gets 25 hits on a good day is worthy of their attention. As I said before, your tax money, probably at work.

To Love the Bear: Counter-Jihad or Cold War Continued ?

2006-01-28T11:00:00.000+11:00

Lets forget HAMAS for a minute and focus on something far more interesting and world-changing: Iran.

Popular mandate: check.

WASHINGTON — Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. The poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran’s Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it
to build nuclear arms.

Sayonara, mullah? Sadly not quite. The popular mandate is surprising and welcome, but far from sufficient. There is the little matter of global energy interests, not just Iran's own huge oil production, but the potential destruction of oil production and supply across the Gulf. There is also Russian support for Iran (remember the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal)? Russia has no illusions about Iran, but must choose the lesser of two evils. Recent belliigirence by the US - including the Orange Mistake, cynical interference in Ukrainan politics that moved Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence - is a far more clear and present danger to the Russian Federation than even Iranian nukes aimed at Southern Russia (now in range) or Chechen rebels trained in Iran. Russia has gone so far as to build nuclear reactors for Iran, provide diplomatic cover for Iran's Manhattan Project and supplying Hamas with Grad Missles, Syria with Strela anti-aircraft systems and god knows what else to Iran. They do all this even while Arab jihadi terrorists (call them Al Qaeda if you like) fight side by side with Chechens and other Caucasian Muslims against Russia, causing horrific slaughters of civilians larger than any in Israel, culminating in Beslan.

This may seem contradictory but actually not too surprising given that Great War on Terror has been about containing Russia as much as it has been about fighting Islamism. The last four years have seen US troops placed in almost all ex-Soviet republics, forming a ring of steel around Russia. The Baltic states are in the EU. Ukraine is no longer a friend of Russia, and the future of the strategic Black Sea fleet in Sebastopol in the Crimea is uncertain. Passage to the Russian enclave of Transdniestr is not secure, and the Russian community there is in danger.

So, the solution is simple: the if the US wants to win WW IV they must put WW III on hold, and do what they did in WW II: make an ally of Russia against something far more sinister.

There is a counterargument to this, and that is that nothing threatens the security of the US like the Russian nuclear arsenal, and that forcing Russia to dismantle it has always been the main if unstated goal of US security policy.

The counter-counter argument here is that Russians are not suicidal. The question is not how many nukes they have but rather how likely they are to use any of them, and under what circumstances. Meanwhile the President of Iran seems to be actively working towards the end of the world, and lauds violent "martyrdom" as a worthy death, and the mullahs are racing towards their nuke...

A Time To Choose

2006-01-26T23:56:00.000+11:00

The US cannot keep their fantasy going anymore. Their democracy project has already spawned an Islamist constitution for a previously secular Iraq, and Islamist government for same, and large Muslim Brotherhood gains in Egypt. Now HAMAS, an offspring of the latter group, has won the "Palestinian" Authoritiy elections.

Mike Jericho has put it well

I will never recognise a state whose people elect a terrorist group to represent them. There is no Palestine. On a side note, does this mean - officially - that leftists have to stop saying that in Islam, terrorists and their supporters are a "small minority of extremists"?Because this outcome would kinda prove that I've been right all along.

The issue is, how will the US face this reality ? They are finally facing a stark choice: Either they admit that democracy can be a really bad idea when "The People" are themselves not so nice, or they start negotiating with terrorists. Compromises may be expected on both sides, and the fact is that the US was happy to negotiate with Yasser Arafat's PA, and Abu Mazen's PA. With a bit of spin doctoring, even HAMAS may be rehabilitated for US palatability, even as their jihad continues.

The correct lesson here is that democracy is only good in as far as it expresses the will of the people. It is an article of misguided and dangerous blind faith to suggest that the will of the people is itself good. There are several remedies that can be applied to a dysfunctional and dangerous culture, but self-determiniation is definitely not one of them, especially not self-determination as dictated by the will of a people with some very scary intentions. Democracy is like a handgun: something powerful, dangerous and very much a privelege. Not something you entrust to an unsupervised child, or a repeat violent offender.

Let us hope that the right inferences are drawn, and the right action taken.

Sadly, there is little reason for such hope. And I have not even mentioned the rather more "accomodating" attitudes of the EU, the UN and Russia...

Thanks

2006-01-26T13:29:00.000+11:00

Today is Australia Day. I take this opportunity to express gratitude and love for my adopted country, a model to the whole world. I am grateful for its welcome, and hope I have contributed sufficiently in return. I cherish this great, big, rich, sunburn, vibrant, cosmopolitan, diverse and highly tolerant land, there is no country like it.

I still do not fully understand your sports obesession, your tall poppy syndrome and dry humour. I still have difficulty with anti-intellectualism and the majority's proud ignorance of anything but sports, celebrities and the real estate market. I do not understand these things because you have grown up in paradise, and I had not. These are my faults, not yours. I would never ask that you change to accomodate me. This is neither my right nor my desire.

Australia, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Take it from a wog that belongs to more minorities than he cares to mention, who had to learn your language, adopt to your customs, and find his way through freedom and opportunity when all he knew was totalitarian grey.

You are strong. If your ignorant, backward, racist, totalitarian neighbours reject you it is due to their faults not yours. You stand by your friends and greater culture, and this is a virtue. You acquit yourself well every time you answer a frend's call to arms, and that is pride. You are slow to anger and this is refinement. You have rule of law and this is civilisation. You have a vibrant economy that becomes freer every year and this is prosperity. Your women are free and this is joy. Your streets are for the most part are safe and this is freedom.

I am grateful to Australia much as it still perplexes me. I love it, celebrate it, and hope that Victoria re-joins it one day.

Fun in France: Blue Revolution Protest Today!

2006-01-26T09:16:00.000+11:00

Claude Reichman's Blue Revolution in France has still ro receive much attention in the MSM or the blogosphere. I wrote about them some weeks ago. Today, the 26th of January, is the day that the Blue Scarves are expected to protest in French Cities.

Here is an auto-transalation of the Blue Revolution Manifesto.
(Apologies if the material below is a little nonsensical. This is the result of automated translation from the French. French readers can read the original article)

Why the blue Revolution? Because the French political situation is completely blocked and that it rests from now on to the people to be made hear. The politicians are neither blind nor deaf. But they do not see and hear only what they want well. And as the media are failing, nothing comes to undeceive them, if not of time to other the result of an election, than they hasten to forget in order to prepare the following one.
The politico-media system is so well locked that no new political force can appear. So dissatisfaction and anger cannot borrow any more of another channel but the democratic despair, which appears by a massive abstention with the elections, or the violence, which seriously disturbs the life of the French and whose sequence can lead in the worst case, i.e. from the civil war.
The immense majority of the citizens only aspires to work and live in peace. It became impossible today for a number unceasingly growing of them, which are confronted with unemployment and the insecurity.The Socialists and the parliamentary line have alternated with the capacity for thirty years. And during these thirty years the situation of the country did not cease being degraded to lead to the current catastrophe.
This dramatic failure is due to the fact that these two camps make about the same policy. And all indicates that this false alternation will continue. In 2007 the French will be able to elect only one president and a parliamentary majority Socialists or UMP. In other words, nothing will change!
Under these conditions, the explosion is certain, and nothing says besides that it will not occur before the next electoral expiries.This is why it is urgent to act. The exasperated French must show themselves and be made hear. The means that we propose obtained from the results in Ukraine, with the orange Revolution, and obtains some regularly in Japan, where the employees, rather than to launch out in strikes who harm to them very as much as with their employers, raise an arm-band as a sign of dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, French authorities are mercilessly cracking down on pork soup kitchens for the poor. That's right, the provision of traditional French cuisine to needy French people is racist, because it excludes Muslims and Jews. Not that the latter group would actually care. I am waiting to see an example of actual Jews actually complaining about this. For the record, this Jew says BRING ON THE BACON !

Heck, after a Le Pen/Sarkozy victory in 2007 I want to see the French legilature mandate that bacon essence be added to the water supply, and sprayed in a fine mist over France, the "Palestinian" "Occupied" Territories and Mecca while they are at it !

Finally, Sarkozy is proposing yet another jingoistic bandaid idea, more evidence that he is courting the right wing vote while refusing to suggest any serious solution to France's growing problem with the You-Know-Whos.

PARIS -- French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed a citizen volunteer force to fight growing crime and hooliganism spilling from the urban ghettoes of the country. The "citizens' reserve" would be unpaid and patrol the "sensitive areas," he said.

Critics immediately pointed out that such a force would have no legal authority and no weapons to resist aggression in the areas where they might be considered police informers. The proposal comes a day after Mr. Sarkozy announced a plan to create a railway force of 2,540 police and paramilitary gendarmes that would secure trains across various jurisdictions.
The need for such a force arose after a mob of more than a hundred youths, thought to be North African immigrants, terrorized passengers on atrain running from Nice to Lyon in southern France on New Year's Day.
On Sunday, a group of young rappers occupied the small Chenay-Gagny railway station, immobilized a Paris-bound train and blocked other lines until they were dispersed by a
tear-gas barrage.

What is really needed is mass deportations, onus of responsibility on community and religious leaders, and revocation of citizenship for those who behave in an antisocial manner and do no consider themselves part of the broader society in any case. Does Sarkozy have the balls for that ? I don't know, but Le Pen does.

Is Sarkozy moderating his rhetoric to attract the Villepin vote, while using blogosphere savvy to court the Le Pen vote ? Or is he a tough-talking (by French standards only) dhimmi wuss ? Time will tell.

The West Has Lost Its Nerve

2006-01-25T20:49:00.000+11:00

[By Crusader Rabbit, edited slightly at his request]

The West has lost its nerve.

It has become a trite mantra, especially -although not exclusively-from the Left that the West is unbeatable on the battlefield, but cannot win the war against terrorism by military means. That position is at least arguable. What the West can do is lose the war at home. Let us be clear here: by"terrorism" I refer to radical Islamists, the action wing of Islam.

The failure of nerve of the West has its roots in several things. The first of these is the rise of an affluent class, which has been released from the brutal imperatives of working long hours for comparatively little money. They are free to adopt pet causes and pose as rebels against the values their parents once held. Since their parents were by and large struggling to bring up families on limited incomes, struggling to pay the mortgage on the family home while at the same time doing their best to give their kids a decent education, their values tended to be conservative. They had to be.

The rebellion against those values could thus only move one way:to the left. At the same time there was a "feminization" of the workforce. More and more families became two-income households and the inevitable result of that was to devalue women's contribution in building a stable and nurturing family home. The process was aided and abetted by radical feminism which denigrated the role ofwomen in the home.

The increased participation of women in the workforce was not entirely a good news story in the workplace either. And here is where I am going to cop some abuse. These are of necessity generalisations and I have no intention of defending or arguing every nitpicking point, ok?

Female teachers, from kindergarten onwards have brought to their jobs an amazing level of ignorance in differences between boys and girls in terms of their development. It is no accident that boys are falling steadily further and further behind girls at school, because schools employ a disproportionate number of female teachers. Young boys need male role-models and they need to be engaged by those subjects that interest them. Kindergarten teachers who ban very young boys from playing "cowboys and indians", who fret about male bullying while being too blind or stupid to recognise the equally vicious non-physical bullying that girls are prone to, who set texts for a class to read that are perhaps engaging to girls but mind-numbingly boring to boys - these teachers have caused an enormous amount of damage.

The ideals of "courage, duty, honour" are masculine ideals. I am not at all saying that women cannot also value these ideals. But I believe that these are essentially masculine, and that any man who doesn't value them is much less of a man for it. It is exactly that--"courage, duty, honour" that the trendy lefties, the lofty intellectuals of our age and every smart-arse scam artist who makes it big in politics denigrates.

For the West to make a stand against those who would destroy it we need more than bullets and bombs, more than good intelligence inputs, more than airport luggage screening.

We need confidence. The confidence to stand up and say that Islam has no place in the West. To say that a religion based on a paedophile prophet who preached murder and amputation and the second-class status of women is an abomination to all civilised values. In short, we have to make a value judgement. Derrida is dead. The whole filthy business of moral relativism also needs to be buried.When followers of a religion rape and bomb and shoot schoolchildren we have no obligation to try and sort out which followers of that religion are prepared to commit such an outrage from those who aren't. It is Islam's problem, let themfirst fix it and then come knocking on the door of civilisation for admission. Confidence, people. In a great civilisation and the values it embodies.

The Rabbit Cometh

2006-01-25T20:27:00.000+11:00

I welcome a new addition to the Six Days crew. Please welcome Crusader Rabbit, who is much more of the former and far less of the latter. He is too modest in what he will allow me to say about him, but there is a little that I can share with you.

Without giving anything more away, I will say that it is an honour to host such a contributor. I look forward to plenty of regular contributions from him, the first of which will be presented to you shortly.

Anyway, here is what little declassified intel I can share with you:

Crusader Rabbit:

Australian, ex-African.
Ex-army.
Spent the past few years in the Northern Territory and Torres Straits living in remote communities.
Old. grumpy.
A passionate believer in Western civilisation and its values.
Now living (possibly temporarily) in New Zealand.

Here is what I said to CR when I invited him to blog, which took some convincing. This is a message for all of you non-writing lurkers out there:

Every voice counts, and yours is more eloquent than you give yourself credit. The fact is that when you type "Islam" into Blogger search, you get mostly anti-dhimmitude. This is a small but vital victory, made possible by the plurality of right wing voices on the blogosphere.Add your valuable voice. your confidence will grow in time.
...
Add your valuable voice. Not that you do not do so already, in valuable, thoughtful comments on other blogs. But do take that next step.This is not about shyness or vanity, eloquence or awkwardness. This is about nothing less than saving civilisation.

I say the same to all of you more generally: do not be silent, your online voice is a political lever, a weapon, a tool of change. You are educated, literate, interested, informed. AND YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

So add to the critical mass. Push Google, Yahoo, Blogger etc and finally the MSM and ultimately the West in the direction that you want it to go in ! This is even more important than voting...

So go get writing!

Why I Detest the BBC

2006-01-25T05:35:00.000+11:00

This is why Britain is done for, and yet another reason why we should all be grateful for Mike Jericho's return to the blogosphere.

It is inconceivable that religion has become the new race, and that in some places certain religions are now beyond reporoach by law. Why is it possible to criticise, ridicule and fear Nazism and its followers, but not Islam ? Why is the addition of supernatural irrationality to a murderous, oppressive and intolerant ideology just grounds for its continuing impunity ? Why must intolerance be tolerated ? Why is this applied unequally, with Christianity continuing to draw the media's contempt?

Obviously, the powers that be in the UK think that even asking such questions is verboten.

Returning to the matter of the Beeb, here is why they are reality-challenged Jazeeresque enemy cheerleaders living in denial. [Hat Tip: At the Zoo]

The Beeb is surprised that Iraqis and Afghans are among the most optimistic people in the world. I am not surprised they are surpised, particularly in light of the above article from Mike.

I do wonder how surprised they really are though. I in turn would be surprised if the Beeb were not a actually a little ticked off, and feeling a little betrayed by these good people who it was hoped would stand against the evil British Government oppressors paying the BBC's bills.

Countering the Beeb, Jazeera, Al Manar and Hezbollah TV, as well as Their ABC here in Oz, here are reasons to be cautiously optimistic about Iraq. Incidentally, the 10 day gap in IED deaths is a real mystery to me. Does anyone know the reason ? Or is this an accounting error ?

Finally, here is a Beeb interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. [Hat Tip: Dhimmiwatch] Listen carefully to the interviewer's tone, especially at the beginning of the interview.

NSW Police Force Grows a Pair : What Next ?

2006-01-24T19:06:00.000+11:00

This is the most interesting news all week, and it comes from our very own Sydney of all places!
Yes, the Conservatives won in Canada and that is good, but the news below is nothing short of ASTOUNDING....
While neither Iemma, nor Moroney, nor any other senior figure in the Police Force will admit that the Police response to the Cronulla aftermath was pure limp-wristed appeasement, at least the signals are strong that appeasement is at an end.

Iemma has been busy with window dressing , too little, too late. [Hat Tip: A Western Heart]

Superintentent McKay on the other hand is ready to call a spade a spade. Maybe Iemma has some spine after all, and if not then some independently-minded senior copper does, and this is perhaps even better.

Most tellingly, it looks like a certain demographic and its spokesmen are being held to account by none less than senior police!

Superintendent McKay complained yesterday that only five people had come orward to help police since that footage was released last week. He had expected 100. "Senior members of the Arabic community need to really have a close look at themselves and start … identifying these people. The only people that know these people out there are members of the Middle Eastern community … They need to stand up and … be held accountable for the actions of people in the community."
When the Herald later asked to whom he was referring to, a spokeswoman identified Mr Trad, the president of the Islamic Friendship Association, as one who could do more to identify culprits. Mr Trad denied shielding criminals, saying: "This is unfair. I am dumbfounded by it really. I spent most of Saturday helping the police."
He accompanied Ahmed Jajieh, the one man interviewed over the Cronulla bashing, to a police station on Saturday. Mr Jajieh told them he had helped protect the bashing victim, known as Steve B, from 30 attackers, but police are frustrated because they believe he may have known some of them. Mr Trad said he was contacted by the family of Mr Jajieh, whom he called "this hero", and agreed to accompany him for a voluntary interview. Mr Trad said he had met Mr Moroney and offered to find Islamic youth leaders who would help identify men in the video. The Lebanese Muslims Association president, Ahmad Kamaleddine, also took offence at Superintendent McKay's remarks.

Of course they took offence. The difference is, the public no longer buys this kind of deflection, and even Iemma has been forced to take notice.

What will be interesting, and perhaps frightening is the response from the Lebanese Muslim community if they see all appeals to "tolerance" fail and are forced to deal with a police force and community calling their leaders and spokespeople to account. Names will have to be named, real cooperation will have to be extended, responsibility will have to be shouldered, parental attitudes, religious sermons and schooling will be scrutinised.
What will the reaction be when anger and cries of "victim" do not wash ?

There will be another undercurrent, and we have already seen this in Denmark.
The target will not be freedom of speech, but another weapon against dhimmitude: an empowered police force. The weapons will however be the same.

A three pronged assault:

Violent Initimidation: violence and threats against politicians, journalists and policemen, senior and frontline.

Lawfare: Legal cases levelled against all of the figures listed above through the Australian legal system.

International Intimidation: Appeals to the UN, Arab League, Organisation of Islamic States, ASEAN, economic and diplomatic isolation of Australia, use of the Oil Weapon etc.

Lets hope that Australia is as resolute before this onslaught as Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands have proven to be so far. What if we do not bend before this onslaught ?

One surprising side effect is that Moderate Muslims worthy of the name actually start coming out of the woodwork and becoming part of the solution.

But what else is there to expect ? The rest does not look so rosy. The dishonour brought to a Muslim minority used to getting its own way may be too much to bear. (great article, btw. [Hat Tip: Dr Sanity] )

Honor killings of women are all too common in Arab culture, and importantly are not dissuaded by the tenets of Islam.

Other expressions of the shame culture that are obvious is the rampant psychological projection and refusal to accept responsibility for the atrocities committed in the name of Islam. Not only are we regularly subjected to imams, religious leaders, and leaders of Muslim states stating even now that 9/11 or the London bombings were not committed by Muslims; they also regularly blame the Jews for such acts. In this way they can avoid the shame that taking responsibility for evil.
Additionally, the emphasis by CAIR and other Muslim organizations in demanding that any statement that criticizes or even suggests blame or responsibility by Islam for terror, be retracted or apologized for, is also just a part of the shame-avoidant dance that leads the culture into the blurry realms of delusion.
Finally, it is not surprising that the most murderous thugs espousing religious ideals as they brutally cut off the heads of infidels are hidden behind masks and dare not reveal themselves to the world. I suspect that on some deep level they know that their "pride" in their sick behavior would be more difficult to boast about if they were not anonymous. "If no one knows it is me committing these acts, then I am not shamed," after all.

Will the Muslim community, leaders and all become model citizens? Will they start delivering their miscreants into the arms of the law, and educating them to behave better ? Perhaps. Past behaviour, and religious teachings regading the treatment of fellow believers may indicate otherwise.

The result may be an escalating cycle of denial, violence, lawfare and attempts to defame Australia on the international Arena. The latter two may become increasingly weak and eventually die down as the wider community and politicians close ranks. Muslim violence and threats may continue to escalate. This would be followed by the wider community's outrage and further scrutiny and pressure on the community in question.

Perhaps noone will notice when at some point the line will be crossed from common or garden violence to the "T" word. In fact, that line may already been crossed at Maroubra...

The logical conclusions of this may be rather scary. I hope that our police and other security services are prepared. Bombings and assasinations have been committed in places like the UK and pre-Van-Gough-murder Netherlands, where the government and police have shown far less resistance and appeasement was the order of the day. What will be the Jihad's payback to a city that shows backbone ?

2006 may be be a testing year for Sydney, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and the greater Dar-al-Harb.

Viking Courage and True Moderate Muslims

2006-01-21T11:10:00.000+11:00

The Jyllands-Posten affair continues to reverberate. Recent developments include Islamic international action against Denmark. For a moment, it looked like Denmark might crumble. Comments by the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller seemed to indicate that he had given in, and ignited a frenzy of truimphalism in the Muslim World.

Luckily, this hollow "victory" (actually some superficial and failed diplomacy) was short-lived. In fact, Denmark's heroic Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen made it clear that he was shocked at the ungrateful and mendacious behaviour of his supposed countryment of Muslim faith.

“I am speechless that those people, whom we have given the right to live in Denmark and where they freely have chosen to stay, are now touring Arab countries and inciting antipathy towards Denmark and the Danish people”

Misrepresent they did, even adding three new and rather crude cartoons to the original twelve.

But now it appears that Denmark is not caving after all. An appeal against the cartoons has been overtunred by the Danish public prosecutor. They have now taken the case to the EU court of human rights (presumably their human right not to hear criticism of their 1300 years dead prophet trumps any human right to free speech)

A recent article in the Brussels Journal shows that in Denmark and Norway at least, the Vikings are very much alive and Eurabia will be fought, stopped at the gates and perhaps even defeated. Recent events show that Scandanavian fortitude is alive, kicking, increasingly confrontational and consistently truimphant.

Norways' cartoonists have taken up the struggle, and the Norwegian Press Association is right behind them, serving Islamists who would re-educate Western journalists a well-deserved slap.

Last week, a number of Norwegian papers decided to support Denmark by publishing the controversial cartoons. They, too, have received death threats from Muslim radicals. Nevertheless, the general secretary of the Norwegian Press Association, Per Edgar Kokkvold, has said that he supports the decision by the Norwegian papers to publish the Muhammad cartoons. Muslim organizations in Norway have suggested that the media should be obliged to respect Muhammad and offered to give them some lessons about Islam, but Mr Kokkvold has another suggestion: Perhaps the Islamic Council in Norway should invite its members to a course about freedom of expression. “We have to stand up and fight for freedom of expression every single day. Freedom of expression is not something which comes as an appendix to other human rights, it is the premise for the other rights,” he said.

Most importantly: real Moderate Muslims in Denmark are finally speaking out about the far from moderate leadership that represents them. They want to be Westerners first and Muslims second. Inshallah, their voices will be heard around the world, and true Moderate Muslims will join the right side of the Clash of Civilisations. One wonders if their courage was made possible by that of their non-Muslim compatriots.

Instead of the Danish government surrendering to Muslim radicals, moderate Danish Muslims are now speaking out against the extremists. A group of Muslims in the Danish city of Århus intend to organize a network of Muslims who do not want to be represented by
fundamentalist Danish imams or others who preach the Sharia laws and oppression of women. “There is a large group of Muslims in this city who want to live in a secular society and adhere to the principle that religion is an issue between them and God and not something that should involve society,” said Bünyamin Simsek, a city councillor and one of the organizers. Århus witnessed severe riots after the publication of the cartoons in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten last Autumn.
In Copenhagen, too, moderate Muslims are speaking out. Hadi Kahn, an IT consultant and the chairman of the Organization of Pakistani Students in Denmark (OPSA), describes himself as a modern Muslim living in a Western society. He says that he does not feel he is being represented by the Muslim groups. When he goes to the mosque for Friday prayers he says the imam does not say much that is useful for him. “We have no need for imams in Denmark. They do not do anything for us,” he says. According to Mr Kahn the imams are not in touch with Danish society. He says too few of them speak Danish and too few of them are opposed to stoning as a punishment.

Hold fast Scandanavia. Let us hope the rest of Europe learns from your examples. And may Sweden come to its senses before it is too late...

Another one, this time with critters !

2006-01-20T20:33:00.000+11:00

Welcome to the Sydney Blogosphere, Tank Stream !

Looks like they set up quite recently, and had the good taste to link to Six Days. They had the questionable taste of naming themselves after native animals (and a Cane Toad) and the poor taste to be the only ones commenting on their own blog. Early days, I suppose. Most importantly, they appear to be no dhimmis.

And so a new Harbour City RWDB blog with an obscure name is apparently born!

Now cut out the undergraduate humour and actually write something.

Must say I like the cut of the Wombat's jib.

Deary deary me...

Islam Beheaded: Pure Distilled Anti-Dhimmitude

2006-01-20T19:23:00.000+11:00

Occassionally one comes across an article that states a vital fact articulately, concisely and mercilessly, and provides much needed clarity on a difficult topic. "Islam Beheaded" by David Wood in FrontPage magazine is one such article. This is an article to bookmark, frame, and send to all incredulous friends still in the shackles of dhimmitude. One key contribution of the article is a clear presentation of the moral doublethink present in the Muslim mindset. This dissonance is a result of Islam defining Mohammad to be the human moral standard. Another key issue highlighted concerns Mohammed's good deeds, and how they are to be correctly judged in light of his more nefarious mass slaughter, rape, plunder and insanity.

Muhammad's empire of faith has managed to thrive in the modern world for one simple reason: Muslims have kept Muhammad's dark past a secret. Indeed, they have gone beyond keeping it a secret; they have somehow convinced themselves (and many others) that Muhammad was an outstanding moral example, perhaps even the greatest moral example of all time. Perpetuating this fraud has been, in my opinion, the most stupendous deception in world history.
True, there are plenty of instances in Muhammad's life that one could view as the deeds of a moral individual, and Muslims are quick to point out his acts of charity and his dedication to prayer. However, in assessing the overall character of a man, we must take into account all of his actions, not just the ones that support our feelings about him. For instance, suppose I become convinced that the greatest person in history was a man named John Gacy. I could point to his charity work at local hospitals, to his activities in the Boy Scouts and the Jaycees[2], to his patient endurance of numerous physical ailments, to his community activities such as neighborhood barbecues and other social gatherings, to his generosity to others, to his dedication to his family, and to his outstanding work ethic, which made him one
of the pillars of his local business community. Yet, if I am to make a case for the moral superiority of Mr. Gacy, I must not leave out the fact that he raped, tortured, and murdered more than thirty boys and buried them under his house.

[...]

Muhammad was guilty of countless murders and of torturing his victims. He robbed caravans and participated in the slave-trade. His persecution of the Jews bordered on genocide. His polygamy went beyond that which even his own revelations permitted (though he did receive a revelation saying that this was okay for him). One of his wives was a nine-year-old girl, whose earliest duties in Muhammad's house included the constant task of washing the semen stains off his clothes. At times he believed he was demon-possessed or under the effect of magic. He was known to be suicidal. He admittedly received a message from Satan and delivered it to the people as if it were from God. He declared that women have half the intellectual ability that men have, that it is okay for men to beat their wives, that most of the inhabitants of hell are women, and that, even if a woman somehow makes it to heaven, her eternity will consist of standing in a corner, waiting for men to sexually enjoy her.
These details about Muhammad raise a very important question: What does a prophet have to do before Muslims will be willing to question whether he is truly the greatest moral example in history? Normally, when we say that someone is a moral person, we mean that he doesn't commit acts such as robbery and murder. Yet Muhammad did all these things and much more. It appears, then, that Muslims are using the term "moral" in a very unique way. In this uniquely Muslim sense of the term, the word "moral" is defined as "whatever Muhammad does." Thus, if Muhammad were to chop off the heads of hundreds of people (which he did), this act would still be defined as a moral act, since Muhammad did it, and anything Muhammad does is, by definition, moral.But this raises another important question. If God's greatest prophet is free to take part in murder, robbery, genocide, and slave-trading, can we really point a finger at people like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and say that they are evil? They killed many innocents, but so did Muhammad. Saddam tortured countless people, but so did Muhammad. In fact, one could make a case that Osama bin Laden is morally superior to Muhammad, for, while bin Laden killed thousands of people, he didn't sell their wives and children into slavery, or have sex with a little girl, or marry more than a dozen women.
The truth about Muhammad has been one of the world's best-kept secrets. For centuries, it has been virtually impossible to raise objections about the character of Muhammad in Muslim countries, for anyone who raised such objections would (following the example set by Muhammad himself) immediately be killed. Outside the Muslim world, there has been little interest in Islam, and those who have been interested have typically relied on modern Muslim reports about Muhammad, such as the above passage from Mawdudi. But things have changed. Now many people are interested in Islam, and Muslims aren't able to silence everyone. Moreover, with the advent of the Internet, it is now impossible to keep Muhammad's life a secret. The facts about the founder of Islam are spreading very rapidly, and Muslims are frantically scurrying to defend their faith. But the information superhighway is paving over the ignorance that has for centuries been the stronghold of Islamic dogma. In the end, Islam will fall, for the entire structure is built upon the belief that Muhammad was the greatest moral example in history, and this belief is demonstrably false.

Read It All.

Read it, send it, memorise the arguments and investigate all linked articles (there are many).

Here are all the anti-dhimmi arguments you need to enrage Islamists, confuse lefties, convert the general public and get the attention of the Thought Police, particularly if you live in freedom-deficient places like Victoria or the UK.

So:

Mohammad was not a nice man. Islam is not a nice religion. Muslims, well meaning or not, are associating themselves with some inexcusably nasty teachings that are absolutely NOT comparable with any other major religion.

And don't give me any of that crap about the Crusades either.

1. Find me a case of Jesus acting on the same moral level as Muhammad, or suggesting that murder, rape, plunder are good things to do. Crusaders were NOT following Jesus' teachings. The Vatican may not have been either. This does not make Jesus like Mohammad, or Christianity anything like Islam.

2. Islam conquered the Levant, Middle East, along with North Africa and a good chunk of Central Asia 300 years before the crusades. The Crusades were a failed small scale reconquista of Christian territory. The Holy Land is NOT Dar al Islam !!! What, the Christians had no right to it either ? That means that the rightful inhabitants are... What, right of conquest and settlement over generations is final ? That still means that the rightful inhabitants are...

3. We do not need to deal with Richard the Lionheart or a horde of bloodthirsty knights. We need to deal with Bin Laden and up to 1.2 billion accomplices and cheerleaders, an Oil Weapon, and a growing number of nuclear missles of increasing range, in a growing number of ROP countries.

4. The real problem with so many Christians is not their propensity to take off on Crusades. The problem is how like their peaceful, beatific, moral Jesus and unlike the Crusaders they have become. Great guys to have as your neighbours but lousy in a global conflict, turning cheeks when other religions prescribe the extraction of eyes and teeth. But some of them do get it.

Thought Police: Home and Abroad

2006-01-18T18:29:00.000+11:00

Well, after less than two months, and a reading public of , um, dozens?, looks like this blog has already attracted the attention it apparently deserves. Today we had the honour of receiving some extensive attention from none less than the OZ Government's Department of Communication, Information Technology and the Arts. These are the guys who look into any complaints that you good readers care to make about objectionable material on the Internet.

Anyway, imagine my surprise to see the following on my meagre traffic statistics:

proxy.dcita.gov.au (Department Of Communications And The Arts)
Australia, 0 returning visits
Date Time WebPage
18th January 2006 12:31:59 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 12:43:29 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 12:47:43 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 12:54:26 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 13:52:04 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 13:55:16 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:02:15 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:04:57 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:15:58 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:19:49 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:21:28 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:25:48 Six Days No referring link
18th January 2006 14:25:55 Six Days: Gagging Us sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/

18th January 2006 14:27:34 Six Days: Gagging Us sixdaysmore.blogspot.com/

18th January 2006 14:30:30 Six Days No referring link

That's right folks, your tax dollars, quite probably at work.

You will note that:

This individual felt compelled to press "refresh" every two or three minutes. A tad obsessive perhaps ?

They took a well-deserved, Government-regulation lunch break, and were dilligent enough to return to work in 58 mintues, donating 2 minutes of their valuable time to important Government business.

They initially satisfied themselves with constantly reloading the home page of the blog, perhaps because they could not believe what they were reading, or were paralysed in politically correct rage. The really interesting bit is towards the end of their walk on the wild side, where, most ironically, they homed in on the article titled "Gagging Us", which they felt compelled to refresh only once.

Ironically, "Gagging Us" is about the loss of freedom of speech, and the use of Thought Police along with "tolerance" and "hate speech" laws to silence essential debate...

IF this was instead an innocent, friendly visit from a well-meaning individual misusing their work computer for private purposes (highly doubtful):

1. Welcome to Six Days, please drop a comment to let me know what you think of the site !

2. Shame on you for goofing off at work. Doesn't your Department have important work for you to do?

Otherwise:

Hi, please leave a comment anyway, and please let me know what was so objectionable and why. Lets talk about this. Perhaps you may even convince me, and I will amend the matter in question.

Perhaps this was all to be expected. This blog has attracted some rather odd attention for a long time. Every day, without fail, for as long as this blog has had a statcounter, we receive a home page scan from a rather curious visitor: The ISP is in Dubai, but the origin is in Ar Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Perhaps this is some poor Western schmo looking for a glimmer of truth behing the Great Anti-Kufr Firewall of Saudi Arabia. Then again, they did get past the firewall, didn't they ? Perhaps it is the kind of guy whose job it is to keep the firewall up in the first place.

So, a heartly Kufr Aleikum from Six Days to any muttawa who might be monitoring this site with such relentless and unnatural interest, and a "Hi, Welcome to Six Days, what the hell are you doing in Saudi, are you insane?" to anyone otherwise innocently curious.

Bravado aside, yes, if anyone is wondering, this kind of thing does upset me.

You Go, Girl !

2006-01-18T18:05:00.000+11:00

Yesss !

[Hat Tip: Dean's World]

Nice to see something appropriate in this arena for a change. Not holding much hope that aything will come of it, but a nice gesture regardless. Almost makes me reconsider some of my utter contempt for the Nobel Peace Prize...

A Norwegian parliamentarian has nominated Ayaan Hirsi Ali for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize (article in Dutch). Christian Tybring-Gjedde, who is conservative, argues that there is no better candidate. "She fights for equality, equal treatment, freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of religion with its life as commitment", he told Dagsavisen newspaper about the Dutch moderate-conservative parliamentarian, feminist, and atheist.

Twisting the UN's Arms

2006-01-15T10:11:00.000+11:00

Some interesting news on the UN front.

Look like Iran will finally be referred to the UN Security Council. Not that sanctions should worry the oil-rich loonocracy, but even this is surprising.
It also looks like Russia and China are not standing in the way. How could this be ? The American Thinker has a theory: the US has collected much information from Iraq, and it includes the goods on the leaders of the rest of the Security Council. Good heavens, is the US blackmailing the rest of the Security Council to clear the way for the American geopolitical agenda ? The next steps in the Iran saga will be a good indicator.

Here’s a thought. The US has a big cache of documents showing that Chirac and de Villepin received Oil-for-Food moneys from Saddam, contrary to their own laws. So did Putin. So did the Chinese. The US could leak some interesting stories to the international press, probably enough to defeat de Villepin’s election run for president of France, and to embarass Putin in Moscow. Even China’s corrupt politicians might get a little nervous. The Communist Party has been known to turn on corruption when it becomes too public.
The US has now had four years to study 2 million documents from Saddam’s secret archives. A lot of Baath Party torturers must have been eager to talk to the US, just as the Nazis were eager to cooperate after WWII. There must be thousands of Kurds and Shiites out there gunning for their old Baath enemies. So there must be a steady flow of intelligence about Oil for Food and a lot of other Saddam-era influence buying
abroad. It defies belief to think that we just haven’t asked anybody how Saddam managed to buy at least three of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
Would it be silly to think that we have the goods on Chirac and Putin? Do we know who was bought off by Saddam’s oil in Beijing? Has Dr. Rice been dropping quiet hints in her travels to those places?

John Bolton has made a formal complaint to Kofi Annan regarding the UN's shameful annual "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People", an event attended by Kofi Annan as well as General Assembly President Jan Eliasson and Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov, the Security Council president for November.
The event featured a prominently placed map of the Middle East, sans Israel, just like Mahmoud Ahemarmageddon of Iran has in mind.

The Weekend Australian has a great article on John Bolton. This is far from glowing acclaim, but paints a picture of exactly the man that Washington, and the entire Western World needs to represent the US at the White House. Lets hope that a miracle shifts the US congress, and that Bolton can indeed be re-appointed in 2007.

Interestingly, HAMAS has removed the destruction of Israel from its list of official goals. Not that this is likely to stop being their real goal, announced in rallies and worked towards with suicide bombs, missiles, funding of "Martyr"'s families and the dehumanising militarisation of their children. Looks like they want that funding from the US pretty badly too. All that semtex costs money.
Hopefully the US has more sense than to open its coffers to a terrorist organisation merely because their most obscene goal is no longer explicit. There is still the matter of their being a terrorist organisation.
Sadly, this token gesture is probably more than enough for the remainder of the "Quartet", whose less than explicit objectives are probably not too different from those of the born-again HAMAS.

Moderating Islam

2006-01-14T11:13:00.000+11:00

Manny asks if Islam can be moderated.

I would suggest some further questions to consider including:

What do we really mean by moderate ? Is it up to the Islamic world to define this term, or do we need our own definition ?

How influential and enfranchised are true moderates ? What does the Islamic world think of the likes of Irshad Manji ?

Does Islam even WANT to moderate ? Are the segments of the population that want to moderate large, influential, prepared to face the dangers that a movement to true moderation would require ? Would a truly moderate segment even remain of the same religion as the rest, and which way is the influence stronger (experience shows "moderates" becoming Wahhabi suicide bombers. Have seen less extremists becoming moderates. This is consistent with the radicalisation of the Islamic world since the relatively secular 60s)

Does it help to moderate even 50%, if a remaining 50% remain as they are, or radicalise further ? Is moderation in Algeria and Morocco sufficient if a nuclear armed Pakistan and Iran radicalise even further ?

What if the moderates are already a majority, but they allow radicals to pose as their spokesman, to act as their religious leaders and scholars, and they all identify politically on key issues, and worse, present as a united block for voting purposes in Western countries ?

What if the moderation process is occurring, but far too slowly ?

What if the only impetus for true moderation is external ? How do we IMPOSE moderation ?

A final thought: The most robust critics of Islam are ex-Muslims.(Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina,Salman Rushdie)

There are far fewer truly vocal and honest moderate reformers. The disenfranchised, irrelevant Irshad Manji comes to mind. So does the well-meant but extremely poorly attended "Muslims Against Religious Terrorism" march in Washington, boycotted by all major Muslim organisations in the US. Stephen Shwartz, Sufi, is certainly no radical, and undrestands the need for reform. A well meaning apologist for Islam, he addresses the problems of the radical side, but could be more honest about the inherent fundamentalist nature of the religion, and the inflexible attitude resulting from it, combined with the rather disturbing Koran passages that are enshrines as the literal, final, perfect and eternal word of God.

I have not seen any of these reformers taken seriously by mainstream Muslim religious figures. I have however seen them derided and rejected by many rank and file Muslims. They would probably not be very safe in much of the Islamic world. The works of would-be reformers like Manji and Schwarz are largely for Western consumption.

The net effect that such Western-based would-be reformers have is thus rather negative, however well meant. All their efforts go towards convincing us that there are these interesting, vibrant moderate reformers in the Islamic world. None of their efforts affect the Islamic world itself. They are thus effectively propagandists and apologists for unreformed Islam, if only because the only audience they have is a Western world desperate to see evidence of the moderate Islam that it wants to believe in.

History shows that the most effective moderator of Islam was Kemal Mustafa Ataturk. He was neither kind, nor understanding, but rather militantly, aggressively secularist and Westward looking. Perhaps this is where any moderation process would need to start. I would also suggest that Ataturk did not go far enough to address the divinely literal nature of the Koran. He addressed the social issues, but not the theological ones, thus paving the way for the current Islamist resurgence, and the current Islamist government. Perhaps externally imposed, government mandated theological reform, and aggressive secularisation may be the only realistic, effective option.

[Update: 15/1/2006]

A timely article by the relentless Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch: "What is a Moderate Muslim?"

Good News You May Have Missed

2006-01-13T22:58:00.000+11:00

Here is a roundup of things that make me cautiously optimistic. You would have to look quite hard to find some of these even on the blogsphere. Forget finding most of them anywhere on the MSM.

1. US Military IED Deaths in Iraq seem to be falling. Only 11 for the 13 days of January. By recent trends, this is a badly needed improvement. Not that this diminishes the pain of the families and friends of the fallen. Also note the overall fatality figures, which also appear to be falling, with IED deaths an increasing proportion of total fatalities.

2.On a related note, an Israeli company has used nanotechnology to create armour five times stronger than steel! [Hat Tip: Worldtribune]
Lets hope they succeed, and produce copious quantities of the stuff soon.

3. Type "Islam" into Blogger search and look at the results. Pages and pages of them. On one key topic at least the blogsphere is the sheer antithesis of the MSM. Maybe this tells you a lot about MSM bias, and the nature of blogging. Maybe the "Islam is Peace" types do not need to blog. They have the media and goverment departments spreading that crap already.
In any case, I am smiling.

4. The Blue Scarves and their Blue Revolution have not got much attention in the MSM or the blogsphere. (This is a comments page, so use the "find" function to look for all related posts on this page by typing the search word "blue"). Find out about them. Hopefully they will change France. You might want to buy a blue scarf of your own after you read this stuff.
The Blue Revolution Website (in French)
An English Translation (From Google translator, so not too good...)

5. While most takes on Denmark focus on the Government's apparent surrender to Islamofascist bullying, here is a rather more optimistic take from Gates of Vienna [shtreimel tip: Manny]

6. Speaking of Jyllands-Posten, there is now another Islam-related cartoon crisis brewing in Norway. [Hat Tip: Jihad Watch]

7. The Pentagon is finally taking Islam seriously (yes, this was all over the blogsphere. Where did it go ? This is VITAL !) Here is what the moonbats think about this.

8. Iran, Ahmedinejad, "peaceful" nukes... Even Canada wants to refer them to the UN Security Council! Of course, China and Russia will see that nothing is done, but then even Canada will look like fools unless they tell the UN to stick it, and go with good ole Intra-Western Unilateralist ass-kickin'.

9. Khaddam, former Syrian VP, accuses Assad directly of ordering Hariri murder. Goodbye Assad, and the whole Baath tyrranokleptocracy. Lets hope noone in the US State Department allows the Muslim Brotherhood to replace the Assads...

[Update at an ungodly hour barely 14/1/2006]

Cynic writes:

With regard to good news #9 I read in a Brazilian online news site (Portuguese)
http://noticias.terra.com.br/mundo/interna/0,,OI830671-EI294,00.html

that a majority of the Lebanese Parliament rejected a plan drawn up, without Lebanon's participation, by the Saudi king, Egypt's Mubarak and baby face Assad for Lebanon to normalize its relations with Assad.#7. You should qualify who these moonbats are:Louay M. Safi,Mohamed Elmasry,Iqbal Jassatand of course the useful foolish dhimmis manning the RoPbot stage.

10. I have long awaited the time when Western gays and feminists would wake up to their compatibility with Islam. Gays in particular have yet to show a general awakening in this regard, and while they pour scorn on relatively harmless churches, they ignore a religion that actively persecutes gays abroad and has made gay capitals such as Amsterdam no longer gay-safe. While notable gays such as Pim Fortyn have been anti-dhimmi pioneers, they have been lone voices, and the gay community outside the Netherlands is still very much a part of the left wing rainbow.
It was heartening therefore to see that one British gay group at least has a somewhat different view, for which they are getting in trouble:

(check out their site www.galha.org and search for "Islam".)

It was laughably ironic then to see that two days ago Sir Iqbal Sacranie himself is being investigated for homophobia by the British thought police, because in the UK freedom of speech does not exist. [Hat tip: Silent Running]

(note that there are a few gay anti-dhimmis on the 'sphere, some of them absolutely hilarious)

11. Abu Hamza aka "Hook" is finally on trial

12. Uhh, I can't really call this good news, can I? Oops...

13. Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored clergy gives us wonderful ammo right on Saudi TV. Where are the loud, unequivocal voices of condemnation from the rest of the Muslim world ?

Save this link in your "nice things Muslims say about us" folder. Send this to anyone who promotes that old "tolerance" garbage. Or anyone who thinks that the Saudis are our allies.

This is good news because even when the evil Zionists/Halliburton/GitMourge W. McBushitler/Zeta Reticulans/Easter Bunny/anyone but Muslims attack on Sept 11, impersonate jihadis in Iraq and force Muslims wordwide to wear tinfoil under their scullcaps to evade the evil ZioNeoCon mindrays they still somehow fail to damage the reputation of Islam as much as Muslims do themselves.

There will be cries of "these guys are not real Muslims" etc. That's nice. Then they need to explain to us why 80% of US mosques have been allowed to be taken over by the Saudi version of Islam...

14. In Australia's State of New South Wales (the state where Sydney is located) recent riots have reminded everyone about the P in ROP. The response by the police has been undrewhelming to say the least, and this has been the case for quite a long time.

The State government is the Labor (Leftie) party, which relies on ROP votes. The opposition Liberal party(John Howard's party. They have the federal government, but not NSW state. Liberal = conservative, believe it or not!) has taken an interesting step. The leader of the State Opposition, Peter Debnham, has said what many Sydneysiders have long thought: that the police are too soft on Middle Eastern crime (Read Muslim Middle Eastern crime. The very large Christian Lebanese and Coptic communities are no trouble). He also suggests that this might be because of the relationship between certain communities and the Labor party, something even Blind Freddy can see (this is an Australian expression meaning that the thing is bloody obvious).
Debnham has indeed opened a can of worms, and is being called to account by the State Government and the head of the State Police. I am confident that Debnham will present all the damning evidence needed, and I hope that Tim Priest will assist him in this matter.

15. Pope Benedict XVI is under no illusions that Islam is ready for reform. We get this second-hand from a friend of his, and there have been no subsequent refutations. This was a soft, tactful yet clear approach taken by the Pontiff, who is proving to be a real mensch, unlike the last dhimmi...

I will post more good news as it arrives.

Exchanging Pleasantries with an Islamist

2006-01-11T22:04:00.000+11:00

I have recently had the pleasure of exchaging some thoughts with an Islamist from Pakistan. The entire thread may be of interest, although I confess that I was repeating myself towards the end there, partly because said Islamist did not seem to hear or understand what I had to say.

I include below a copy of my last post on the thread.

I think that this exchange should speak for itself in terms of the gulf not just in ideas and values, but of what passes for discourse, logic and analysis in the two cultures. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you my last headbutt at a rather thick wall:

(Maybe someone who speaks Urdu would be so kind as to translate this post? It is important that people like Tit understand the message here. It may in the end save his poor life, and that of his countrymen and co-religionists from US and allied military might)
Tit,
Your lack of logic, inconsistent conspiracy theories and other mindless, fanatical shit is exactly the problem here.The problem is mainly yours, I might add, keeping you stupid, poor, sexually twisted, angry, powerless, deluded and, as I keep trying to helpfully point out,increasingly unsafe.
The last point is the case because the problem is also sadly the West's, and the governments of civilised countries will be forced to deal with this issue with this rather sharply sooner or later.
The problem is certainly not just you, it is your whole barbaric, misogynistic, murderous and intolerant 7th century religion and culture, in which civilised people are a small and frightened minority, most of whom are desperate to get out. It is not your fault, you have been brainwashed and it is the death penalty if you try to leave the religion (not that you even
realise that you should of course)
So, lets take it slowly now, just one more time, becuase you still do not get it (perhaps it is your English, maybe ask someone with better English to translate this for you ?):
1. Civilised world:
US Nuclear arsenal: tens of thousands of warheads, thousands of strategic warheads. Also British, French, Israeli, Indian arsenals. All countries having problems with you Islam.Lets not forget the Russian arsenal either, they are having some trouble with you guys as well.
NONE of this has been used on Islamic targets. Yet.
2. Islam:
Pakistan: Maybe 20 warheads, all accounted for.Iran: maybe one or two nukes already, one on the way. Al Qaeda: maybe some ex-Russian suitcase nukes.None of this has been used on civilised targets. Yet.
Eight years ago section 2 was zero. Now it is growing, and look at what a wonderful peaceful, civilised place Pakistan is, and how secure and localised Pakistani nuclear technology was kept, and how much justice Muhammed Kadeer Khan has recieved for flagrant proliferation.And look at the nice things the people of Pakistan have to say about us, and their growing confidence in taking us on militarily !We have certainly learned from that.You are quite right, you are far too full of faith and commitment to a rather frightening, violent creed. I am sure that there are people in the Pentagon who have taken good notice of how willing you guys are to die as long as you take some of us down with you, how much you hate us, and how important it is for you that we go down.It must thus be increasingly insufferable to individuals in positions of power in the West to allow you guys to play with nuclear toys.

Now read the Belmont Club article I linked to earlier in this thread, and ask yourself whether your Faith and Commitment are really assets, when all you are doing is trying to convince the West that you will never be civilised, that you are obsessed with war and conquest, that you believe us to be evil, deserving punishment and ready to fall. While the meagre Islamic nuclear arsenal is small it is certainly growing, and you are capable of enough mischief with it already.
The massive Western nuclear arsenal sits unused, but ready.So too do stockpiles of hardly used Fuel Air Explosives (remember the Daisy Cutter at Tora Bora?)In fact, there has been precious little use of napalm, cluster munitions, tank flechette rounds, howitzer artillery and many other weapons that would change the odds in Iraq or Gaza in a jiffy, and transform things.So, to reiterate, we (the West) have been very nice to you (Islam) indeed. There are plenty of depths we will not sink to, even to our detriment. Can you say the same ?The difficulty in Iraq is that civilians are being spared, and solid rules of engagement observed. The US is fighting house to house where Assad the Elder would have just levelled the city. (cf Hama)
Saddam and Assed know what language an Islamic population undrestands. The Americans choose so speak a more enlightened language, and you interpret this largesse as weakness. More the fool you, their patience is not infinite. The Israelis pulled out of South Lebanon because it is very hard to target guerillas behind human shields without hitting civilians. It would have been a whole lot easier to depopulate South Lebanon with carpet bombing, but Israel is far too humane and noble for that. Israel can turn South Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank into smouldering slag heaps in hours. And that is without using nukes. But they are too civilised, too humane to do something like that. Yet.
Civilisation has no shortage of weapons. We also have, at present, a huge supply of decency and humanity. It is not infinite. Do not mistake Western kindness for weakness. Do not mistake Western transparency and democratic politics for impotence. Do not mistake our lack of militancy to a lack of commitment. Hitler did the same, at his peril. We have been through this before. Our leaders do take a while to sort things out. We leave our decisions to appointed politicians and beurocrats, and our fighting to well regulated armies with fearsome weapons. This is more than enough.We do not need to join militias and go on jihads. Westerners have faith and commitment too, to something more proven, powerful and tangible than your false god and his murderous pedophile prophet. All we need to do is assess, persuade, vote, and then stand back and watch.
So Learn. Quickly.

Too harsh ? I suspect that the message did not sink it. Nice to try regardless. And I am genuinely interested in saving the poor fellow's life, and those of his co-religionists, before someone in the Pentagon or Kremlin gets an itchy trigger finger after the next Sept 11, Beslan, 7/7, Seder bombing etc etc etc and presses The Button.

Scary ? I am saying that in all matters of violence, I rely purely on my democratically elected governement and military, and those of allied civilised countries . I am not planning or condoning any illegal or vigilante act of any kind. I am a peaceful, law-abiding citizen of a country that is part of a fearsome culture, the West. My democratically elected politicians and Army do my fighting for me. Thus the most forceful acts that I perform are voting and persuading others.

Hateful ? Look at how Germany and Holland are now treating prospective ROP citizens. CIFA at the Pentagon is finally studying Islam as a strategic motivator (What tooke them so long?). Most importantly, watch what France will do, after the 2007 elections...

Racist ? I have a problem with a specific ideology and culture, not a race. I should be free to say what I like about ideas, and what I thing of those who hold them. Individuals are free to change their ideologies and cultures. This is why Islamophobia (a good word, actually) is not racist in the least.
Why can we criticise ideologies like Communism and Nazism but not Islam ? Why can all sorts of mockery and criticism be levelled at Christianity and Christians, but not Islam and Muslims ?

Religion of Peace Recruits Peaceful Youths for Peace Operations in Iraq. From Sydney !

2006-01-07T13:27:00.000+11:00

If true, this comes as a terrible shock for two reasons. First of all, as everybody knows Islam is a Religion Of Peace (tm), athough far fewer may actually know why this is so, and fewer still see any reason to enquire.

Secondly, Islamic Youth in Sydney have recently shown their exceptional devotion to Peace by reminding everyone of what life would be like without it. It is therefore clear that they would be the last to engage in any jihad related hijinks in Iraq. Jihad is, after all, a personal struggle that has nothing to do with warfare, as 1300 years of peaceful Islamic history clearly demonstrate.

Finally, we all know that the noble insurgents in Iraq are doing quite well, thank you very much, and have no need for South West Sydney cannon fodder, nor for their money with its images of infidel kangaroos and an unveiled Queen Elizabeth.

There is of course a concern that the wider Australian community might fall for vicious rumours spread by official diplomatic representatives of newly-democratic countries. Diplomats, like bloggers, have no checks, balances or ethics, unlike reputable journalists at Al Jazeera and Al Manar, or certain Imams who go to Lebanon and then praise suicide bombing.

Luckily unelected self-appointed ROP representatives of obscure but nicely named organisations with the word "Friendship" in them are on hand to remind us that black is the new white. Even better, Your ABC thinks that they are among the small number of imporant people to interview under these circumstances, and they are ready to put to rest any vicious rumour. All Australian Muslims against Zarqawi ? Great ! Does this include the 10% who are Wahhabi/Salafi/Deobandi/JustPlainFuckingLooni ?

Keysar Trad from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia
says allegations of fundraising in Australia to support the insurgency were raised 12 months ago and were found to have no substance. Mr Trad says anyone in Australia who knows of active support for Iraq's Al Qaeda leader should immediately take such information to police. "If you speak to any Muslim, they will tell you that they disown Zarqawi, that Zarqawi is really a dirty word to most Muslims in Australia," he said.

Only because Zarqawi is losing, or because he kills Muslims along with evil infidel Americans. And even then I am taking it with a 1 ton mega-grain of Dead Sea salt...

Aux Armes Citoyens - The Blue Scarves

2006-01-07T12:35:00.000+11:00

Good things are beginning to happen in Eurabia. Solid anti-Dhimmitude in Germany is confronting the incompatibility of unreformed Islam and Western values, as well as the conflict of interest between allegiance to a Western state and the superior allegiance to a barbarous 7th century Ummah.

Less noticeable, but perhaps even more encouraging is the grass-roots stand taken by French citizens against the invasion of their country. They have had enough of riots, car-burning, rapes, no-go areas, and a hostile population in their midst. Will blue scarves become the new must-have fashion statement for the discerning global counter-Jihadnik ?

Pray for Arik

2006-01-06T08:33:00.000+11:00

The M Word, The G Word.

2006-01-06T08:19:00.000+11:00

Here is an interesting perspective on the kid-gloves approach we have seen to date in the poorly named GWOT.

I am not in full agreement with this article, in light of one issue that the author overlooks, a weakness arising from this curious phenomenon. The article is a little too optimistic about Western resolve and capability to mobilise, especially in the European context, which is closer to low-level civil war. The penetration of security forces is another complicating factor not considered in the article.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly recommend this challenging, well written and highly controversial read.

Gerard Jackson Keeps Fighting Victoristan Dhimmi Laws

2006-01-06T07:31:00.000+11:00

Gerard Jackson made waves with a recent article in BrookesNews, titled "Muslim Bigots Impose Blasphemy Laws on Victoria". In his uncompromising article Mr Jackson challenged Victoria's anti-free-speech laws by blashpheming against Islam and daring the Dhimmi State's Equal Opportunity Commission and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to act against him, as they did against Danny Naillah and Daniel Scot.

Not content with the subsequent response he received from EOC's CEO, Mr Jackson has fired another strongley worded volley this week.

The courageous Mr Jackson is a frontline warrior in the West's most crucial battle: the right to identify, discuss and criticise dangerous ideas and their followers, along with their compatibility with our culture, and their allegiances.

Swami SixDays Reads The Future

2006-01-04T19:09:00.000+11:00

Everyone is making predictions for the New Year and they are all wrong. Here is what will happen in 2006:

1. Iran's Mahmud Ahmedihejad deposed for his ambigous, concilliatory position towards the Zionist entity. Following the Guardian Council's exclusion of the entire population of Iran, no presidential candidates remain. Finally, a Shaboom-Shaboom 3000 nuclear missile is elected President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The first order of business, a Presidential visit to Paris is averted by swift diplomatic action by Dominique de Villepin. Dominique de Villepin and Shaboom-Shaboom 3000 marry. This is all Bush's fault.

2. Cindy Sheehan converts to Islam. She carries on exactly as before.

3. Stephen Spielberg makes a movie about a Mossad operation to liquidate a Western peace activist in Gaza. The inner turmoil of an anguished Catepillar bulldozer wins an Oscar for Best Piece of Heavy Machinery.

4. The Iraqi constitution has a "fuck the USA, fuck the Jews" clause, and the new governement votes to take orders from Shaboom-Shaboom 3000 in Iran. Parliamentary debate in parliament consists of arguments regarding whether the USA and Jews should be fucked in a Shiite or Sunni manner. Women are oppressed every tuesday. Goats can vote, women cannot.The White House hails this as a major success. US troops have to ask nicely before they are allowed to fire at anyone. For a change, this actually IS Bush's fault.

5. No evidence of interplanetary life discovered. This is clearly Bush's fault, though opinion is divided between "The Aliens Won't Visit While Bush is Around", "Bush lied Aliens decided not to visit" and "Bush Conducts Intergalactic Massacre".

6. Hamas and Sharon negotiate new Gaza buffer zone. After negotiations Sharon fixes the new buffer zone at the Suez Canal. Much fun with Fuel Air Explosives ensues in the Parking Lot Formerly Known as Gaza, which then falls blissfully silent.

7. Afghanistan switches off strategically vital Goat Pipe to Russia, leading to massive goat crisis. Russian Goat Minister runs away to Israel, tried in absentia. Ukraine lends Afghanistan collection of "Girls gone Wild" videos in exchange for the favour.

8. Manny converts to Neo-Groovism thanks to his heathen new ipod. His blogging remains just as earnest.

9. The MSM continues to ignore the blogsphere.

Gagging Us

2006-01-04T17:45:00.000+11:00

Small Fears

I am not frightened of "terror". I am rather more concerned about terror's cheerleaders' wholesale penetration of our society, and their accomodation by suicidalist elites. I am appaled by the resulting breakdown in law and order, in Sydney, Paris, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and a disturbingly increasing number of places. I am even more appaled by the elites' willingness to blame themselves for "racism" even as imams call for the rapes of unveiled girls and a rape epidemic sweeps unwitting countries, applaud suicide bombing and openly call for Sharia law in our countries.

I worry about this as much as I worry about the diplomatic and economic clout of a large UN voting bloc in control of an oil weapon and now even nuclear weapons.

What Matters Now

The attempt to silence us is far more worrying that any of these other developments. None of the problems described above are insurmountable if we can discuss, debate, criticise freely, and demand that our governments do what must be done.

This is an attempt to prevent an honest investigation of the religion of Islam, and how it pertains to terror and Islamist militancy. (Incidentally, why has it taken so long for the Pentagon to finally ask questions about the Islamic roots of Islamic warfare, and why do they need to conduct an extensive study to find what they could have found by browsing www.jihadwatch.com ?)

Without our voices, without our right to reason and criticise, we cannot awaken our sleeping and self-hating compatriots. We cannot face the other dangers outlined above. This is why gagging us is the enemy's current main priority, and must be the thing we fight most strongly against.

The gagging process is one of intimidation on three fronts, one of violence, one of what many strategists are now calling "lawfare", the use of our own institutions against us and one of diplomatic bullying when the other two fail. In addition, there is a disturbing trend among the EU and the UN in siding with Islamists against free speech. The forces arrayed against Denmark for refusing to bow to Islamist demands provides many of the cases in point in this post, which relies on a concise and lucid account by Patrick Goodenough in Townhall.com [Hat Tip: Tom Paine at Silent Running]

Intimidation through Violence

It could be argued that every act of terror, every kindnapping and every beheading is intimidation through violence. This is certainly true, and concessions are extracted with every hostage release. While it could be argued that these are matters affecting distant regions, we need to consider some facts close to home.

Concessions from Terror

After September 11 politicians were falling over each other to attend mosques. After Madrid, the pullout of Spanish troops from Iraq was swift, final and unapolagetic.
After 7/7 the governement formed a number of Muslim advisory groups.
Sounds like terror working to me.

Concessions from Rampage

Not all violence in question is the work of bombers, kindnappers, snipers and beheaders. Not all of them carry the Koran. Riots in France, Britain, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and Sydney are carried out by "youths" bearing molotov cocktails, iron pipes and firearms, and directed against their host culture. The results tend to be more "understanding" and "tolerance", while the hands of police remain tied.

Fear of Speaking or Publishing

There is a price to be paid for criticising Islam in the West, even when the law permits it. Theo Van Gough was the first prominent casualty of this trend, Salman Rushdie fell afoul of Islam more than a decade before. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders are under 24 hour protection after receiving numerous death threats. And then there is the matter of Jyllands-Posten. How did the whole thing start ?

The newspaper first asked caricaturists to submit ideas after three
artists turned down a request by a Danish children's author to illustrate a new
book on Mohammed. The artists had refused, fearing that doing so would put them
in danger.

Were they right in their fear ? Well, after Jyllands-Posten asked some brave cartoonists to stand up for free speech, there were death threats, angry protests and

As far away as Pakistan, local media carried reports saying
Islamists were offering rewards to anyone who killed the cartoonists. The
reports prompted the Danish government to amend a travel warning, advising
citizens planning visits to Pakistan.

So writers, cartoonists and journalists are forced to conduct self-censorship, for fear of offending a lawless, dangerous and murderous segment of the population. Only the bravest will challenge this self-imposed constraint.

Lawfare

Street violence is enhanced by legal intimidation. The law is used to bully, silence and punish those who would criticise the Prophet, his teachings and those who follow them, or those who would investigate, question and oppose their agenda.

Back to the Dark Ages: Legislated Self-Destruction

In an age of supposed enlightenment and rampant hyper-secularism, it is surreal to see such a scramble to legislate what could only be described as blasphemy laws. It is now illegal in many enlightened Western countries for its citizens to freely criticise certain opinions and beliefs and those who hold them.
This situation belongs in the dark ages, not in an age of free speech.
The Australian state of Victoria has its Racial and Religious Tolerance Act which has acted as a blasphemy law in the case of "Catch the Fire Ministries".
The UK is about to pass its own version of these laws. In all cases, there is only one community that asks for, or benefits from these laws, and it is proposed by a Labor governement with a heavy reliance on that constituency.
Western states are busy legislating their own destruction.

Intimidation

The use of lawfare against critics of the ROP has led to a number of prominent cases, the Victorian case is mentioned above. Italy too has ridiculous medieval laws, perhaps due to its relationship with the Vatican. This is why Oriana Fallaci is facing the charge of "Defaming Islam" in an Italian Court.
The number of such prominent cases is thankfully small, and they are rarely successful. Sadly, the objectives of such cases are met even when they are unsuccessful.
They serve as a warning to any who might attempt the same thing.
In France, Michel Houellebecq was tried for calling Islam a "Stupid Religion". While acquitted, he has himself said that he will be the last to dare say such a thing.
Lawfare as a form of intimidation works by preventing prudent, intelligent individuals from venturing onto risky territory. Thus the most cogent voices will stray on the side of caution, and Islam will be safe from deep criticism in Italy, France, the UK, Victoria and a growing number of Western states.

Diplomatic Bullying

Another interesting perspective of the Jyllands-Posten case is that it serves as a wonderful case study of that special case where there is no basis for lawfare, and the goverment does not back down to intimidation. The heroic stand taken by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been met with challenges and threats from diplomats of 11 Muslim countries (including a number of prominent "moderates"), the Organisation of Islamic States, and the Arab League.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing 57
Muslim states and territories, issued a memorandum on January 1 accusing the
Danish government of "indifference" after Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
declined to intervene in the dispute.Rasmussen called it a matter of freedom of
speech, echoing the reasoning of the newspaper at the center of the row.
Jyllands-Posten had said it wanted to test the limits of free speech at a time
it was under threat because of the influence of radical Islam.The OIC dismissed
the free speech argument, saying in its statement this week that the publication
of the cartoons "was meant to disturb and infuriate Muslims, and could not be
considered as an innocent behavior falling within the scope of freedom of
expression in which everyone believes."Claiming that the publication "has
offended hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world," the organization
announced that the governments and cultural organizations in all OIC member
states had been asked to boycott a forthcoming cultural project on the Middle
East, partly funded by the Danish government.Last week, foreign ministers of the
Arab League mandated the 22-nation bloc's secretary-general, Amr Moussa, to take
up the issue directly with the Danish government.In a declaration, they voiced
"surprise and indignation over the Danish government's reaction, which was
disappointing, despite the political, economic, and cultural bonds with the
Muslim world."Not only did Rasmussen refuse to take up the matter with the
newspaper, he also declined to meet with a delegation of ambassadors from 11
Muslim nations who wanted to discuss the "tone" of the debate over Islam in
Denmark."As prime minister I have no tool whatsoever to take actions against the
media, and I don't want that kind of tool," he said at the time.

There is no respect for freedom of speech or Danish sovereignty. There is not even any understanding of the limits of the powers of a Prime Minister of a liberal democracy. There is only the bullying power of the most backward and dangerous fifth of the world.

Alongside terror and lawfare comes diplomatic brute force, applied as a blunt instrument against the very fabric of Danish society, democracy and freedom.

Subverting International Institutions

The most frightening development is the subversion of key international institutions to the Islamist agenda. It is frightening when given a choice between freedom of speech and medieval blashpemy laws, key UN and EU representatives are eager to ditch the former in the name of the latter.

After being approached by the OIC, U.N. high
commissioner for human rights Louise Arbour told the Islamic bloc in a letter
that she had asked U.N. experts in religious and race issues to investigate."I
understand your concerns and would like to emphasize that I regret any statement
or act that could express a lack of respect for the religion of others," Arbour
said.Franco Frattini, the vice president of the European Union's executive
Commission, told the Jyllands-Posten in the run-up to Christmas that while he
"fully" respected freedom of speech, the cartoons were adding to "growing
Islamophobia" in Europe.

The fear is that institutions such as the International Criminal Court, as well as the unfortunate but still overwhelming moral imprimatiur of the UN will force nations such as Denmark, and more enlightened states of Australia to adopt the gag on criticism of Islam and its followers.

This is the most immediate challenge facing the West today. Gagging laws must be fought tooth and nail. Gagging insitutions must be exposed for the cowards and collaborators that they are. Intimidation and terror must be answered loudly at the ballot, in the opinion pages, in conversation with compatriots. We must NOT remain silent. The silencing of the West is our Stalingrad, our Rorke's Drift, our Vienna. It is our last redoubt. God help us if we fail here.

Iran's Nukes : Even the Guardian Can See It

2006-01-04T15:28:00.000+11:00

It is a serious matter indeed when Al-Guardian is the one to break the story on Iranian nuclear misdeeds. Normally one to osculate the orifices of every Islamist state, organisation or loonbag, the Grauniad has in its wisdom broken a story on the Bleeding Obvious. [Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs] Happily, some home truths are delivered:

The Iranian government has been successfully
scouring Europe for the sophisticated equipment needed to develop a nuclear
bomb, according to the latest western intelligence assessment of the country's
weapons programmes.
Scientists in Tehran are also shopping for parts for a
ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe, with "import requests and
acquisitions ... registered almost daily", the report seen by the Guardian
concludes.
The warning came as Iran raised the stakes in its dispute with
the United States and the European Union yesterday by notifying the
International Atomic Energy Authority that it intended to resume nuclear fuel
research next week. Tehran has refused to rule out a return to attempts at
uranium enrichment, the key to the development of a nuclear weapon.

Note that this report comes from European intelligence agencies, produced for the benefit of European leaders.
Of course, we have had reams of increasingly alarming evidence presented for months by Israel, the US, Iranian dissidents and other bodies, while the response of the EU has been the urgent need to hold more talks, and make more concessions. If negotiations fail, so does the whole raison d'etre of the EU. Their "soft power" turns out to be a failure, and we cannot have that now can we (unless the French are meddling in the Ivory Coast that is). One compelling bit that is going to be happily ignored by suicidalist Europe is this one

The document lists scores of Iranian companies and institutions
involved in the arms race. It also details Tehran's growing determination to
perfect a ballistic missile capable of delivering warheads far beyond its
borders.
It notes that Iran harbours ambitions of developing a space
programme, but is currently concentrating on upgrading and extending the range
of its Shahab-3 missile, which has a range of 750 miles - capable of reaching
Israel.
Iranian scientists are said to be building wind tunnels to assist in
missile design, developing navigation technology, and acquiring metering and
calibration technology, motion simulators and x-ray machines designed to examine
rocket parts. The next generation of the Shahab ("shooting star" in Persian)
should be capable of reaching Austria and Italy.

Not that this should get in the way of EU priorities, including good old Bush bashing, prosecuting Oriana Fallaci, damning the Danes for excercising free speech, appeasing Paris rioters, suggesting that European women cover up so as not to provoke Muslim men to rape them and most importantly further negotiations with Iran, and further concessions.

The closer Iran gets to a deliverable nuclear weapon,and the more outragous and brazen their anti-semitic rants, the more they crack down on their dissidents, women and Western music - the more they obviously want to be loved, and embraced by the tender bosom of the EU.

Now that neo-Islamist Turkey (no.1 bestseller: "Mein Kampf") is about to join the EU, perhpas Iran is sure to follow. After all, isn't Iran a democracy, just like Turkey ? Don't they have oodles of oil? Aren't they such great scientists, developing marvellous things that glow in the dark, produce mushroom clouds and can fly all the way to Rome ? Isn't Iran an Indo-European nation, and thus culturally close to Europe ? Isn't this the best way to avert Iran's nuclear ire ? Bloodless conquest is, after all, so, uh, bloodless...

You think I am kidding ? You think this sounds too implausably insane ? Just watch the craven Islamofellating bent-over dhimmi leaders of Eurabia... Five years ago, if I told you about the blatantly Eurabian dhimmi shit that they have pulled since 9/11, would you have believed me?

Iran is proving to be the greatest ideological/military horror since Hitler's Germany. All the ingredients are there. A great military power, humbled in a long war of attrition, where Western capitalists conspired against it. Now playing brinkmanship with a West that appeases it, even as it arms towards a point of no return, led by a charismatic, fearless and hate-filled anti-semitic loon who is happy to roll the geopolitical dice every second day, and watch the West blink yet again.

But Ahmedinejerkoff is far worse that Hitler. Hitler actually wanted a victory for Germany. He was evil and he wanted to win. Ahmedinabuttjabber is far far more scary. He is millenerian loon hell bent on bringing about the coming of the Mahdi: ie the end of the world. Apparently the Mahdi appears when there is much strife in the world, and some of his devotees want to create this strife to bring him back. Does Ahmedingbat really care if Iran goes up in smoke ?

News the MSM missed

2006-01-04T11:58:00.000+11:00

Manny provides a very good outline of important recent events largely ignored or misunderstood by the MSM.

He also investigates MSM bias by omission.

Converting Lefties: Stealth or Smackdown

2005-12-30T13:11:00.000+11:00

Why Bother?

It is important that we do more than rant and rave on blogs. We have to regularly engage members of the non-blogsphere public in debate, to inform and convince them. Much is at stake, so this work is vital. It is difficult but ultimately satisfying, and one of the best things that you could be doing out of uniform.
The trouble is, more often than not you run into some pretty solid leftie opposition.

Logic vs Dogma

The task of leading lefties to the truth through facts and logic is analogous to using scientific arguments to convince creationists of the folly of their ways. While the approach appears reasonable, it is fraught because you actually have no common ground.
You discover that while you hold logic and reason as axiomatic, the other side will use or discard this technique as they see fit, because a whole other set of axioms hold for them
This is why arguing with lefties is extremely frustrating and often counterproductive.
One key distinction between the Creationists (Hi Manny !) and the Lefties is that the former group are consistent, honest and clear about the intellectual framework within which they operate. The latter is only honest in that the confusion they present is a true reflection of the incoherent, postmodern leftist crap that passes for a world view in their tiny little heads that Allah hath bereft of reason.

Lefties by Default

Further, most of these will deny that they are lefties at all, and in fact that they are "centrists", who vote Labor and read the Guardian and SMH. They will also deny that they are postmodernists, feminists or under-informed. One has said to me "I do not only read left wing stuff. I read the Economist!". The Guardian is centrist and the Economist is token right wing. Enough said.

There are essentially two ways to debate these people, but before we get into that lets discuss what the debate would try to achieve.

How to do it: Objectives

We would all like to turn hippies, Islamists and Kofi Annan into Right Wing Death Beasts at the drop of a dhimmiwatch.com URL. But sadly things do not usually work that well.

The first thing to realise is that there is a firewall installed in the minds of most lefties (and lefties-by-default). This clever little device automatically shuts out anything that sounds politically incorrect, and challenges the holy cows of multiculturalism, "Peace", the UN, dialogue, the plight of the "Palestinians" and other more subtle forms of Western middle-class self-hatred brought to you by Moore, Pilger,Chomsky, bin Laden and the boys at the KGB.

Any penetration beyond the firewall is a victory. The target leftie is then motivated to think, research and explore. The process may be lengthy, but the results are wonderous.

How do we get past the firewall ? Well, there is stealth and frontal assault.

How to do it: Stealth

No matter how eloquent, insightful and well-informed you are, this will almost all be in vain if the firewall is activated. So go under the radar. The trick here is to become an irrefutable authority in their eyes, without blowing your cover. This one is great if you have the discipline. This is not hard either, because most middle class types in Australia at least think that the definition of intellectual is one who has read some Chomsky, or at least seen "Fahrenheit 911", and most importantly agreed with it. They will have scant detailed knowledge of anything of importance, and even less experience with original thought, or indeed elementary logic.

One axiom that many lefties follow is that there is no such thing as an intelligent right winger. I have sadly heard one say as much.
This is great, it makes it so much easier to get under their radar.

All you do is listen patiently to their crap, and then demostrate more knowledge on any given topic than them, and almost agree with them on points

Leftie: The whole war in Iraq is a colossal disaster. So many innocent people killed by Bush yadda yadda yadda.
You: Yes, it is a shame that the IED death rate has gone up so much due to the use of shaped charge explosives, and the people of the Euphrates basin are probably not having a good time what with their towns becoming battlefields between the US/Iraqi forces and the resistance, especially now that the Islamists and local tribes have turned on each other. History shows that conflicts with more than 2 sides are particularly nasty for civilians yadda yadda yadda.
Leftie: Wow, you know so much about this... Did you see "Farhenheit 911"
You: (silently : "Must..Not...Throttle... Leftie... Bimbo...") No, although I am concerned about the free pass given to Saudi Arabia by the Bush administration
Leftie: Yeah, they are totally in cahoots, did you know that Saudi oil money paid for a palestinian baby-blood powered Zionist nuclear reactor and evil mind ray machine to be built in the centre of the Al Aksa Mosque ?
You: Yes, I understand they are using this machine to brainwash unwary members of the Australian middle class, forcing them to read the Sydney Morning Herald and other right wing Zionist propaganda... We should all be wearing tinfoil-lined colanders on our heads.

and so on.

Actually, you should not pander to them too much, but the last bit was too good to resist...
The point is, you will win the leftie's respect as an educated, intelligent person with their own mind. Only then you tell them what you really think, and do so subtly.

It helps to come in from their favourite directions. Give them feminists like Ayan Hirsi Ali. Give them the multicultural angle on Saudi Arabia. Give them the fact that Amsterdam is no longer safe for gays, and that the great anti-dhimmi Pim Fortuyn was himself quite proudly gay. Give them middle eastern blogs like Iraq the model. They will wake up. I have watched it happen a number of times.

Conversion by stealth is a slow, difficult and morally challenging process. But this is the one that yields the best results. Manny is far better at this than I am. Sadly, I usually end up doing the other one...

How to do it: Frontal Assault

What can I say ? I am a sinner, and this approach is actually far less effective, but much more satisfying. This is the Ann Coulter approach. Here you go as scary, over-the top and ad-hominem as you like, and pretend to be a caricature of the right winger everyone expects, only with a fair bit of content and style.
Its only advantage is that it gets the leftie angry enough to start researching, thinking and attempting to argue. Actually, this method is usually not great at all, unless you hve an audience, who are not as far gone as the leftie himself.
Another advantage of the frontal approach is that it is important to show that a non-idiotarian opinion exists. You may not change anyone's mind, but at least you will remind them that there are still people out there with the unthinkable point of view. It is one thing for people to disagree with you. It is another thing for them to not even be able to conceive your point of view, or recognise it as acceptable.
It is also a personal approach: you get to show people that right or wrong, we have more fun while the lefties have parted ways with their sense of humour decades ago.

I leave you with an example of an enjoyable though perhaps counter-productive frontal assault.

Update 30/12/2005:

Manny is not necessarily a creationist after all! Creationist or not, I am still not telling him about the the "sheet with a hole in it" thing. Then again, he compared me to the blogologically departed Fjordman, so we should be nice to him.

Sarkozy: The Candidate,the Blog and the Announcement - the Medium is the Message

2005-12-29T23:19:00.000+11:00

The Content Is a Non-Issue

I have no idea what "positive discrimination" is, and I cannot speak French. There. From this Beeb report (blech) it appears that whatever "positive discrimination" is, it involves legislation, it may concern the anonymisation of CVs (how do you anonymise and de-ethnicise interviews ? or do you abolish them altogether?), and it definitely does not involve ethnic quotas, one of the more odious aspects of "reverse discrimination". In fact, this is all political hot air, a non-statement, a motherhood appeal to the mushy sympathies of the French public, while actually giving nothing of substance away to a Muslim underclass on whom he has effectively declared war. The content was a sop to swinging voters who need to hear this kind of pap and do not read blogs. But if they are so imporant, why not just release the statement on the MSM like any other politician? Because the content of the message is far less relevant than the medium.

Taking Le Pen's Base

The real issue is: A presidential candidate, of one of the most influential countries on earth, has chosen blogs as the medium to launch a key message.
He is fighting for a growing and radicalising right wing base that he wants to recover from Le Pen, an openly racist, anti-semitic and radical individual, who has recently justly boasted that all his predictions are coming to pass, and that the governement has been forced to finally adopt his recommendations. Admiration for Le Pen grows and this is the constituency that Sarkozy must grab while still retaining some voters closer to the center. Sarkozy will thus target anyone concerned with immigration who is not a complete Nazi. He is going for Le Pen's constituency.

And it looks like the non-Nazi right in France is even more alienated by their MSM and also forced to live on the blogsphere. Their MSM makes our Anglo MSM look like Rush Limbaugh on Meth.

The Medium is the Message

Thus the medium is the message here. The impossible trick executed so well by the deft Sarkozy is to present agreeable motherhood content to the politically central MSM addled masses, while staying on message and paying respect to the medium of the far more astute right, who know harmless rhetoric when they see it.

My hope, indeed prayer is that this is the first of a growing number of cases of right-wing politicians acknowledging the importance of the blogsphere to their base.

If this works, two good things flow from this (I hope):

1. The Blogsphere becomes noticed and recognised as a respected information source by the wider public and the MSM. How many educated people do you know who have never read a blog ? The blogsphere readership will hopefully increase dramatically, at the MSM's expense. Specifically, political patronage will mean that right wing blogs will have to be presented, if only to be criticised. For the blogs, there is no bad publicity, and the truth will out.

2. Politicians will have to consider issues as they are framed on the blogsphere, and the MSM will no longer be able to dictate debate with soundbytes, and agenda driven selection and framing of issues. The rules and whole format of debate will change.

Of course, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one".

Six Days: Looking for Agendas, Making Wild Predictions - Paranoid As Ever

It's my blog and I'll speculate wildly if I want to. Here goes:

This is not the first time that Sarkozy has posted on a blog, and the previous appearance, intentionally low key (comments on a political blog) was all but ignored by the MSM. The fact that the MSM did not even blink last time did not stop Sarkozy from going one better, and making his key announcement using the online medium.

Noticeably, the above Beeb report does not cite its source. We all know the degree of love that much of the MSM has for the blogsphere. A likely escalation strategy on the MSM's part would be backlash-by-omission, where sources will simply not be cited, followed by the belittling and attempted marginalisation of blogs, something we see from time to time today, followed by attempts to enforce and regulate the blogsphere by increasingly embattled and paranoid MSM journalists and executives.

Good night.

Update 30/12/2005 :

This whole thing should be a hat tip to Manny, who called to alert me to this breaking story late last night while I was enjoying myself under somewhat unprintable circumstances. He assured me that it will be "all over the blogsphere" and urged me to stop whatever I was doing (for the sake of my soul, presumably) and hurry back to the chaste comfort of my PC. Sadly, this story is still not all over the 'sphere. Manny is absolutely right in that it should be.Please also note that as a true Anglosphere patriot Manny has banned French comments on his blog !

Manny now wants to know about the whole Jewish "hole in the sheet" thing but I am going to keep him in suspense for now.

Dhimmiwatch has a rather different angle on this story. They see it negatively, and are concerned that Sarkozy might actually be pandering to the ROP community. Even if they are correct, the "medium is the message" issue is still valid, and this is still an overall GOOD THING.

A Silent Epidemic, A Frighening Response

2005-12-29T17:56:00.000+11:00

Found an important and disturbing FrontPage magazine article by Sharon Lapkin. Here is what I took away:

A Meeting of Cultures:

In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations.
In Norway and Sweden, journalist Fjordman warns of a rape epidemic. Police Inspector Gunnar Larsen stated that the steady
increase of rape-cases and the link to ethnicity are clear, unmistakable trends.
Two out of three persecutions for rape in Oslo are immigrants with a non-Western background and 80 percent of the victims are Norwegian womenIn Sweden, according to translator for Jihad Watch, Ali Dashti, “Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls, have become commonplace.” A few weeks ago she said, “Five Kurds brutally raped a 13-year-old Swedish girl.In France, Samira Bellil broke her silence – after enduring years of repeated gang rapes in one of the Muslim populated public housing projects – and wrote a book, In the hell of the tournantes, that shocked France. Describing how gang rape is rampant in the banlieues, she explained to Time that, “any neighborhood girl who smokes, uses makeup or wears attractive clothes is a whore.”

A Plea for cross-cultural Understanding:

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

A Nuanced, Tolerant Response:

This phenomenon of Islamic sexual violence against women should be treated as the urgent, violent, repressive epidemic it is. Instead, journalists, academics, and politicians ignore it, rationalize it, or ostracize those who dare discuss it. In Australia, when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney’s Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, “That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald.”

A Proposed Solution (The Punchline !):

Oslo Professor of Anthropology, Unni Wikan, said Norwegian women
must take responsibility for the fact that Muslim men find their manner of dress provocative. And since these men believe women are esponsible for rape, she stated, the women must adapt to the multicultural society around them

Oh... My ... Fugging... JHVH...
I wonder what the "anywhere, anytime, wearing whatever I like" crowd of "reclaim the night" feminists would make of all this.
Read the whole stark, damning thing, another great FrontPage magazine article. And send to a leftie feminist, if you still keep such company.

[yarmulke tip: dhimmiwatch]

UPDATE:

In a further cross-cultural coup of mutual understanding and tolerance arising from this very post, the Aussie blogsphere's Number 2 Ann Coulter fan (but not in THAT way, unlike the No.1 fan), the Gentle Jensenite Gentile for Geezus Manny finally found out what a yarmulke is.

Now the "sheet with a hole in it" is another matter entirely, and a question for another day...

Fighting the Last Propaganda War (And Losing. And not Learning)

2005-12-28T07:06:00.000+11:00

Daniel Pipes is a man at odds with the neocons and the White House. One point of disagreement is the issue of democratisation of the greater Middle East.

Another, perhaps even more important one is the war of ideas, which Dr. Pipes tells us we are losing, as we attempt to re-fight the Cold War. The key issue here is that the Cold War model does not apply for a very simple reason:

The people of the Soviet Block did not trust their leaders. Most yearned to be liberated from the social and economic hell of Communism and preferred risky, illegal and rarely available Western information sources, which the authorities would jam, block and punish heavily for. The majority of the population of the Soviet Block were in fact prisoners who wanted out, or welcomed the West to liberate and reform them.

The sad thing is, that the media holding the same priveleged position in the Arab and Muslim world is not Western media but the likes of Al Jazeera and Al Manar...

There is an exception, and that is Iran. In Iran we have a Cold War scenario, and a golden opportunity. Most of the population feels more affinity with us than with the oppressive, authoritarian regime that they are forced to live with.

Lebanon may also be moving in a better direction, but I reserve judgement for now.

Sadly, this does not hold in the rest of the Muslim world, especially the Arab world. This applies not only to the Greater Middle East but also to the Arab diaspora. A different model applies: while most Arabs hate their leaders, they hate the West even more, and see hope, if any only in Islamism, or home-grown conspiracy theories.

While many are familiar with the brilliant, witty, informative and brave pro-Western bloggers of Iraq and Egypt, we can see from recent elections that they represent an enlightened though impotent sliver of the population, while Islamists win big.

Daniel Pipes presents an eloquent summary of the situation, and a rather plausible though challenging solution:

Unlike the Soviet bloc, the Muslim world lacks not access to
reliable information but interest in it. The reasons are many but perhaps the
most salient of them are a disposition to
believe in conspiracy theories and an attraction to
totalitarian solutions. Rather than try to purvey
information to Muslims, State (and its counterparts elsewhere) should instead
assert the case for liberal, secular, and humane values. More than facts, the
Muslim world needs to understand the basics of what makes the West thrive – and
thereby be inspired to emulate it.

I trust that the powers that be are taking heed.

Securing The Harbour City: Sydney as Beslan

2005-12-27T12:08:00.000+11:00

I sincerely hope that someone sufficiently important, and far better qualified than me somewhere in Canberra has given this some serious thought. I admit that they probably have. I sincerely doubt that anyone in the State government has.

Note: In this article I am definitly NOT calling for any violence or indeed any extra-judicial or vigilante action by anyone. Indeed, all I call for is appropriate vigilance on the part of authorities, as is my right as a citizen.

I am not presenting an imminent or likely scenario, nor suggesting that a majority within any ethnic or religious group is involved in criminal or terrorist activity.

Nevertheless, I am prudently and rationally considering the possibility of a low-probability, high-impact security crisis, such as September 11, presenting some evidence, and asking some questions regarding security risks. I do this in the public interest.

My questions concern only the capacity of our Government, law enforcement and security agencies to prevent or deal with an unlikely, but arguably possible and highly damaging scenario. The only outcome I seek is that those bodies raise awareness, and monitor the situation. I do not seek to promote conflict between groups in the community, and acknowledge that most Muslims and Lebanese in Australia are law abiding.

The material below presents a number of rather disturbing threads following the Sydney riots that I hope will be addressed by appropriately qualified, informed and motivated individuals. This post is not so much a thesis as a set of questions, many raised by other individuals, in other circumstances. I invite readers to provide answers to factual and statistical questions, and to address any inaccuracies in this post. This post is a call for discussion, and the threads are not woven together as tightly as I would normally like. I would dearly like to be reassured that I am overreacting to what I see as a potential catastrophe facing the security situtation in Sydney.

All this began when I reflected on the Sydney riots in light of comments made by Mark Steyn regarding the admittedly far worse situation in Paris.

Now go back to that bland statistic you hear a lot these
days: ‘about 10 per cent of France’s population is Muslim’. Give or take a
million here, a million there, that’s broadly correct, as far as it goes. But
the population spread isn’t even. And when it comes to those living in France
aged 20 and under, about 30 per cent are said to be Muslim and in the major
urban centres about 45 per cent. If it came down to street-by-street fighting,
as Michel Gurfinkiel, the editor of Valeurs Actuelles, points out, ‘the
combatant ratio in any ethnic war may thus be one to one’ — already, right now,
in 2005. It is not necessary, incidentally, for Islam to become a statistical
majority in order to function as one. At the height of its power in the 8th
century, the ‘Islamic world’ stretched from Spain to India, yet its population
was only minority Muslim. Nonetheless, by 2010, more elderly white Catholic
ethnic frogs will have croaked and more fit healthy Muslim youths will be
hitting the streets. One day they’ll even be on the beach at St Trop, and if you
and your infidel whore happen to be lying there wearing nothing but two coats of
Ambre Solaire when they show up, you better hope that the BBC and CNN are right
about there being no religio-ethno-cultural component to their
‘grievances’.

This got me thinking. We hear the figure of 2.5% Muslim thrown around in Australia. But what is the proportion in Sydney ? It appears to me that a disproportionate number of Muslims, particularly Lebanese are in Sydney.

Further along Mark Steyn's line of reasoning, what proportion of Sydney's young male population (15 yrs +) is in this demographic ?

Now, for the really scary question, which I need your help with:

What proportion of Sydney's firearms, illegal or otherwise are in the hands of "Men of Middle Eastern Appearance" ? Most Australians have never touched a gun, and our gun laws are very strict indeed. So, another question is, what percentage of the non-Muslim population of Sydney is armed ? A further breakdown by estimates of police, private security and illegal firearms posession would be very interesting to see. Anyone got the numbers ?

Judging by anecdotal evidence from the recent riots (not the one-off joke at Cronulla, but the real retribution riots that followed for days thereafter) it would appear that at least a segment of the "Middle Eastern" population is rather well armed. The cliche of pistol-wielding Lebanese gangs has become so common place that it is a running joke among that community, and regulalry expressed on shows like "Fat Pizza". Anecdotes aside, we have much more solid evidence for such concern from the likes of eminent ex-cop Tim Priest.

So, we have a population with Middle Easterners with handguns. This is not too much of a problem if the handgun wielders are untrained, and if indeed handguns are the end of the matter. This is because the police and other security services are in fact trained, and have much more powerful and accurate weapons at their disposal.

Sadly, recent evidence shows that the NSW Police may indeed be outgunned in some circumstances. Reports from the day of the Cronulla riot say that Police stood by as a crowd of thousands gathered, and that handguns could be seen in the crowd, and were brandished from cars that sped off en masse to Maroubra and Cronulla. We also know that Police at Punchbowl were given orders "not to antagonise" the crowd there. Sounds pretty outgunned to me.

And what of training ? This is the unknown. How many local Lebanese have trained with Hezbollah, PFLP, or their village militia ? How many have participated in Lebanon's recent civil war ? (Quite a few, if one talks to taxi drivers). How many are "Palestinian",with much of the population trained in assault techniques, demolitions, AK-47 and handgun techniques ? I have no answers here, but dearly hope someone is looking into this. More importantly, how many are experienced, qualified trainers? If so, are any spreading combat firearms techniques (suppresive fire, squad maneuver tactics) to the local population?

Finally, there is the issue of more powerful weapons. There is anecdotal evidence of automatic weapons use by this demographic. Some reports cite the 1998 attack on a police station as having been carried out with an automatic weapon. I accept that this instance at least may have been an exaggeration, although a semi-automatic rifle is worrying enough, and trained troops prefer to use assault rifles in semi-automatic mode. "Spray and pray" is a tactic of conscripts and untrained thugs. Have there been other instances involving confirmed posession or use of submachineguns or assault rifles ? Do any readers know the facts on this ?

Further, I am most concerned about the confluence of what appears to be street thuggery with something much more coherent and sinister.

Case in point: Clichy-sous-Bois. This is where recent seemingly spontaneous riots that spread accross France were started by what we are assured were merely disaffected "youths". It comes as little surprise that soon after this very area should also witness the following.

French counterterrorism agents arrested three suspects in a network
with alleged ties to al Qaeda in Iraq, seizing guns, explosives and detonators
in a sweep north of Paris, officials said Thursday. The overnight roundup in the
suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois stemmed from information culled in investigators'
questioning of 25 suspects detained in a similar anti-terrorism sweep Monday,
officials said. "Thanks to questioning, a stash of arms has been discovered,
which shows how serious this affair is," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told
reporters. "A certain number of terrorists, in order to finance their
activities, are involved in organized crime."

And this is the main point. Clearly there is a link between organised crime and the Jihad. How deep is this link in Sydney. Does Sydney possess similar caches of assault weapons and explosives ? Funny thing, explosives. They are no good unless one is TRAINED. I ask again: how many TRAINED potential terrorists/urban guerrilas do we have in Sydney, do they have access to miltary weapons, are they training others, are they coordinating and, most importantly, are they being watched ?

Assuming that the Police, including the Tactical Response Group are outgunned, what remains are a number of Australian Army and Navy bases and barracks around town.
These bases are effectively the only massive stores of military grade weapons and men and women who know how to use them.
Given a nighmare scenario, these bases may be the only strong points in the city, and the main centres from which authorities will be able to project power in the short term.

Are there contingency plans in place that call local barracks and bases to restore order, and possibly fight a local jihadi/criminal insurgency ? Do these plans specifically take into account well-armed, well-trained urban guerillas that may use suicide tactics, hostage taking and are intent on as much carnage as possible ? Have they learned from Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and, most importantly Beslan?

Al Qaeda et al are insane, but they are no fools. They probably know the crucial role of Sydney military bases in any "Sydney as Beslan"scenario.
Any nightmare scenario as described above could begin with strikes at military bases.
We have seen what suicide teams can do to well defended compounds in Saudi Arabia, where coordinated commando tactics and massive suicide bombing penetrated and demolished a number of seemingly impregnable fortresses.
The Americans have learned the hard way, and their bases and strong points remain secure after massive losses such as the attack on UN headquarters in 2003.

Are Sydney's military bases and barracks safe from massive suicide truck bomb/commando combined assault ?

The last is seemingly the least worrying, at least because a Beslan-style attack does not really need military bases to be taken out.
But, this is something the Jihadis would have to do if they wanted to take over the entire city...

Someone please tell me why I should not worry.

Talibanukkah?

2005-12-26T17:38:00.000+11:00

Now I am no fan of the suicidalist trend in Reform Judaism. But neither am I an observant Jew. I am just another Western shmuck, too cynical to be called a neoconservative, who just happens to be Hitler and Bin Laden's favourite machine gun fodder. So my efforts, however principled they may appear, amount to little more than cynical self-preservation, extended to my family, friends, and the wider Western culture of secularism, free enquiry and blondes in g-string bikinis. Oh, and I really enjoy jokes like these.
Anyway, I promised a friend that I would post this as a bit of "fair play" after the Cousin Josh piece that I worry may result in someone's lynching by respectable Christian folk (but they won't lynch me, I am anonymous, bwa ha ha ha ha!)
so here goes, disclaimers and apologies aside:

Consider: A backward, warlike and fractious theocratic state becomes part of a global system due to the intervention of one of the local hyper-powers. These geo-bullies are bearers of Western Culture and its science, technology and social advances. The hyperpower is no democracy, but does carry the legacy of that system, and many of its thinkers are concerned about the wellbeing of all humanity.
Most of the inhabitants of said theocratic state are quite eager to embrace the new and enlightened culture. Even some religious leaders are eager to adapt to the new order, and enjoy its cultural, social and sporting activities.
But all is not well. A provincial religious leader is offended by all this, and declares war, first on his assimilationist compatriots, and then on the occupying power. The religious leaders of this sect are also its most ruthless men of war. The wonders of globalisation are fought against valiantly by a growing army of religious maniacs. The rebels ask "Apart from education, sanitation and irrigation, what else have the hyperpower done for us" ?
The desperate colonial power is forced to take harsh measures, but none as harsh as those employed by the theocratic resistance against their assimilationist brethren. Any atrocities commited by the resistance are ignored. Those commited by the colonial power, perhaps invented or exaggerated are used to great effect as propaganda. Finally, the colonists and their imperfect enlightenment are ejected. The story of the oppression and atrocity wrought by the colonists is remembered. The real story of their positive contribution is not remembered, as the story is written by the victorious theocrats.
Later another colonial power defeats the first one, and takes the theocratic state over again, this time to stay, with theocratic unrest continuing. The theocrats scare the crap out of generations of leaders of the hyperpower. They develop a reputation for being the baddest troublemakers in the empire.

This described two historical situations: Can you guess what they are? I will give you a clue: one has elephants, the other Hind Attack Helicopters in essentially the same role. The effectiveness of the RPG-7 rocket propelled grenade against a charging war elephant, a natural question arising from this analysis, has not been adressed before to my knowledge. There you go folks. Ground breaking strategic analysis and historical parallels with your latkes.

The moral to the story:

1. Just because our ancestors were backward religious maniacs does not mean we cannot enjoy latkes.
2. The fact that our ancestors were extremely violent talibanesque badasses is actually cool, worth a chuckle, and definitely worth extra sour cream on your latkes.
3. The dreidl was never fun. Ask any Jewish kid. I mean, what's the point ? Further, it is only margially more relevant to Channukah than elves and reindeer are to the Virgin Birth.
4. The quietly magical ceremony of the Channukah lights is still one of my favourite Jewish moments
5. It does not have to make sense
6. You can spell Hanuka any way you like.
7. I am still accepting Christmas presents.

Happy Chanukah.

The White House : Exporting Democracy, Losing Iraq, Strengthening Iran, Fighting For Islamism, Ignoring Ataturk's Lesson at their Peril

2005-12-26T09:41:00.000+11:00

The American government have turned democracy into their sole exportable virtue, and neglected the more important ones, those that make a society worth living in, and ensure that democracy is sustained, healthy and transparent.
This neocon obsession with democracy uber alles has borne bitter fruit in the recent Iraqi election. The foundations of Islamism are already enshrined in the constitution. This was inexcusably permitted on the American watch. Recent parliamentary elections have produced what many of us expected: an Islamist government.

Adding insult to moronic self-inflicted injury, Iran's leading hard-line daily helpfully points out that

“Of the 275 seats in Iraq’s new parliament, 140 will belong to
pious Islamists, 60 will be occupied by Kurds with excellent ties with Iran, and
40 will belong to Sunni Arabs, most of whom want a sovereign, Islamist state”,
the daily Kayhan’s Saturday editorial noted. “The new government – including the
President, the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the armed forces and the judiciary –
will emerge from this new assembly”.Kayhan said the election outcome will
“increase pressures, both inside and outside the U.S., on [President George W.]
Bush to withdraw American troops from Iraq”. “Bush will have to give in and
withdraw the bulk of his forces from Iraq in the next few months”, the daily,
which reflects the views of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote.The
paper listed the consequences of American withdrawal from Iraq, describing the
current situation in Iraq as “the biggest crisis America has faced in recent
decades”.

This comes as no surprise to critics of the suicidal march of democracy cult that has swept the White House and otherwise sane neo-conservatives. Why are the Americans spending blood and treasure on creating and strengthening more implacable Islamist enemies? Why are they strengthening Iran ?Why are they tying up all their political capital to do these stupid things, preventing themselves from dealing effectively with the rise of Socialism in Latin America, and, indeed, fighting the Islamist threat effectively world wide ?

The US should be robustly helping Islamic people grow up, and reform Islam, or abandon it. What is needed is good old enlightened paternalism, to teach some very backward people what it means to be civilised, with consequences for those who do not want to play ball. The US should be bleeding Islamism not bleeding for it.

This is the process that Kemal Ataturk subjected Turkey to, and this is the best solution for the greater Middle East.

Democracy is the very dangerous icing on a very tricky cake, a prize for those few who have mastered the art of being a responsible, civilised state. It is a very dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Even relatively sane and civilised democracies vote themselves out of existence. In fact, the mixture of Islam and democracy is even now causing the former to chip away at the latter in Turkey, which is going backwards on all measures of rule of law and enlightenment, due to its Islamist-by-very-poor-stealth governement.

Democracy should be the last enlightened institution that is given to a backward country riddled with religious fundamentalism, riven along sectarian lines, lacking any rule of law and used to generations of despotism.

Even in Lebanon the democracy is little more than a joke for two reasons: when voting is along sectarian lines there is no democracy: there are only cynical competing interests. There is no general debate about what is best for the country. Most importantly, few will change sides, or consider politicians on their merits.

In the fight against the greatest threat to freedom since Communism, the US refuses to learn, and Europe refuses to even accept that a lesson is required.

Evidence from Iran, Turkey, Malaysia and Algeria shows us that unreformed Islam is not compatible with democracy or other civilised social institutions.
In fact, France, Sydney, Denmark, The Netherlands, Israel and Sweden demonstrate that enlightened civilisations absorb and enfranchise large numbers of unreformed Muslims at their peril.

We are sowing the seeds of peril. That the self-haters do this is contemptible. That those who should know better are doing this is surreal, and equally inexcusable.
The years ahead presage a very dangerous and escalating global conflict, one that smarter men would have nipped in the bud long ago, and perhaps still can.

Cousin Josh

2005-12-25T10:12:00.000+11:00

Happy Birthday Cousin Josh

Today is the birthday of my distant Israeli cousin Yehoshuah ben Yoseph, or Josh as I refer to him. A strange, charismatic and contradictory character, he was a bit of a hippie like many Israelis of his age group. This is perhaps unusual for someone born during a security operation in the West Bank, raised in the Arab Triangle, and living near Kinneret and the Golan Heights. More characteristically he was one tough cookie, a traveller as well as a charmer and even a bit of a ladies man. He also kept rather eclectic company, called bullshit when he saw it, and was often accused of spinning some bullshit of his own. A true Sabra Israeli.

Arguably someone whom one would not be too ashamed to have as a relative.

Josh came to a sticky end. He crossed a buch of guys that between them evolved into one of today's most feared and brutal organisations. That's right. He crossed the Jewish-advised Italian outfit who ran the place . Josh should have been more careful in his actions, and his choice of friends. Of course, it is claimed that he carried out a program of intentional self-sabotage in those crucial final days. The outcome of that episode is still hotly debated.
But today is his birthday, not the anniversary of his demise. So lets focus on his legacy, and his message.

Much has been said about Josh by those that are not his relatives. I do not presume to be able to add anything here.

It is also important to put Josh into another context.
He is certainly not the last great Israeli enterpreneur. Nor is he the last heretical Jew to leave a mark on Western Civilisation for better or for worse (Disraeli and Spinoza come to mind for the former, Marx and Trotsky the latter)

What message do I take from Josh ? Well, as it happens, I don't. But that does not prevent me from respecting him as a family member, and holding similar respect for those who decide that his ideas were valuable. Nor does it prevent me from wishing him and them well on his birthday, which for them is an important event for some reason.

So what is the point here ? The point is, that for some of us there really isn't much of a point.
How would some of my Josh-worshipping friends feel if I started worshipping one of their cousins, and perhaps even taking offence when they made light of the whole thing ?
So getting closer to the point, I do not seek to deride or mock Josh-worhippers in any malicious manner, but ask their leave to enjoy my annual ironic take on their obsession with my odd hippie cousin.

And now the point: best wishes to my Josh-worshipping friends. Peace and goodwill towards all men means that I tolerate your kind but insistent proselytising, and you tolerate stuff like this post, and even manage a chuckle or two.

Most importantly, you may be pleased to know that I am still prepared to scoff down your Chrismas pudding, happily accept your presents and snog comely well-wishers under the mistletoe.

You get to play with a dreidl, eat latkes and light a menorah if you like.

Happy Chanukah !

Update 30/12/2005

Thanks to links from Tom Paine at Silent Running and Zev, this is by far the most popular post on the blog. Those interested in a different take on Judaica may also enjoy some unexpected parallels between two very distant times and places quite relevant to the current Festival of Lights.

PJ Media Quotes 6DM. 6DM Criticises PJ Media (Constructively)

2005-12-24T11:17:00.000+11:00

Beaming with pride I note that Pajamas Media has actually named this site, linked to it and included a quote from yours truly !!!!

Or at least tried to. The Six Days quote is indeed from this article.
However, the link is broken, and points to USS Neverdock. I have asked them to fix it.

More importantly, I have some constructive criticism for Pajamas Media, which I think deserves a "C" : great effort, but could have done a LOT better, and fallen far short of what some of us thought were the key objectives of the venture. (And nothing to do with the broken link above!)

Before I offer unsolicited criticism to Pajamas Media, I must say that I am in utter awe of Charles Johnson of LGF, Roger L Simon and all the other great names that have united in this enterpise.

And then... Well... What to say ? Not a lot really.

Have they really made a splash after their launch ? Judge for yourself. [Hat tip: Blogpulse]
Are they still growing in influence? Does not look like it.
Friends I speak to agree that there is nothing very compelling or grandiose about the PJ Media site. We all surf it occasionally, and leave quickly, less than overwhelmed. The debates and blogjams are not particularly compelling, and the non-PJ blogsphere does not seem to take them too seriously either.

I personally spend much more time on reading PJ's contributing blogs than on the PJ Media site itself. I also found myself wishing that Charles spent more time on LGF, where volume has slipped, no doubt due to his involvement in the new venture.

These criticisms are all in terms of the PJ media presence in the blogsphere. As such, they are not as relevant as another, far more important issue.

The real question is:

How well has Pajamas Media penetrated the Manistream Media ?

Those of us who waited with bated breath for the release of PJ media were hoping to see something that projected the blogsphere's issues, opinions, terms of debate and citizen journalistic fact-check-your-ass style onto a complacent mainstream media.

Has PJ media succeeded in this, even a smidgeon ? Perhaps it is early days, but I am not convinved that any headway has been made here.

This is not to damn a Herculean effort by a very admirable bunch of people. Rather, the question should be asked: what needs to be done to take online citizen journalism's content, style and discipline to the Mainstream Media ? How can this effort be defined, implemented and measured?

I would suggest that one measure of success is the extent to which PJ media is a true media company, with MSM outlets, and relationships with newspapers and TV channels. These relationships need to be a two-way street: the MSM must be an outlet as well as a source.

Perhaps this is already part of the plan, and the merry PJ crew are already making strides in this direction. I sincerely hope so, and wish them every success.

[Update 26/12/2005] They fixed it !

The Greatest Wank of All is Happening to Us

2005-12-23T22:24:00.000+11:00

Multiculturalism

Today it is fitting to reflect on that greatest wank of them all, multiculturalism, and the false dichotomies that Australians have been forced to swallow in the last few weeks. It is the pre-Christmas period, my life has suffered a recent tragicomic hiccup (I am sure the comic part will come to me in a decade or so), Christmas is not looking great and I am going to rant, spellcheck and preview be damned.

First of all: What the hell does "Multiculturalism" mean, anyway ? The "other M-word" is poorly defined. What happens is we take "Multiculturalism" away from A Sunburnt Country? Do I as a wog lose any of my civil rights ? No. Do I lose the right to eat my Mum's wog cooking ? Nope. Does the Thai restaurant up the road have to close down, and I no longer get my betel nut parcels (yum) ? No again. Do I have to give up the martial arts ? (They can take my .... dead cold hands...from my... dead cold hands... ) NOOOOOOOO ! (jumping spinning heel kick to the head of monocultural enforcement nazi)
Do I lose my right to practice the religion of my forefathers ? Nope. In fact, I can also be a Hindu, Rastafarian and Wiccan too. Simulataneously if I so choose.

So what is this multiculturalism thing again, exactly ?

Meanwhile, there seems to be a debate as to whether Australians are "for" or "against" it, although none of us are entirely sure what "it" is.

Is it our taxes going to SBS, extensive interpreter programs and other facilities ensuring that certain communities never bother to learn the language or integrate ?

Is it us turning a blind eye to communities with active non-assimilation programs ?

Is it our embrace of non-elected tribal leaders, clerics and godfathers as "community leaders" ?

Is it a two-track legal and citizenship model (handouts, leniency before the law) , as enjoyed by the Aboriginal community, and soon to be extended to the "Middle Eastern Appearance" (Read Muslim) community ?

Another issue with the whole debate is that we are either "for" the M-monster or against it. Hence we either accept that all cultures are equal, nice, and welcome, or we are monocultural fascists.

The main problem here is that there seems to be no room in the debate for saying the following:

Most cultures are ok. They are welcome. Some (a very small number) are not. We are very tolerant. Being tolerant etc. are hallmarks of OUR culture. Australia, multicultural and all, is a culture in its own right. Other cultures are welcome guests, and welcome parts of Australia as long as they contribute positively, and are not hostile to the wonderful, tolerant, prosperous and generous culture in which they live. If a culture is openly hostile and aloof it is invited to admit its problems and work to correct them. If it does not do so, it is invited to leave, like the unpleasant drunk that walks into your party univited, eats all the canapes, drinks most of the whiskey and then starts picking fights.

Also, religions are not races. In fact, cultures are not races. Religions and cultures are ultimately sets of beliefs, ideas and values. As such, they are rightly subject to scrutiny, and the demographic groups composed of individuals that describe themselves as of a particular culture or religion are also collectively open to criticism. It is incumbent on those groups to distance themselves, loudly, repeatedly, consistently and unequivocally from those who would paint their culture or religion in a poor light. It is also incumbent on them to ensure that anyone identified as a leader in their community who is not a paragon of virtue is quickly, loudly and unambiguously ostracrised. Anything less justly tars all members of the culture with the same brush, and calls them to account collectively.

We cannot condone the mistreatment of women, or the active alienation of new generations of Australians by religious leaders and parents with aberrant and backward ideologies. We cannot condone this, even when women have been brainwashed into believing that this is their choice. We cannot condone a culture that imports hatreds and vendettas from overseas.
We cannot condone the creation of an unemployable population, with little regard for the law, let alone the wider society.
We cannot condone a culture that is anything less than deferential, grateful and contributing positively to Australian security, prosperity, freedom and reputation.

Finally we cannot and must not allow the creation of parasitic, seperatist and hostile ghettos within our community. Any homogeneous cultural group associated with such behaviour has some explaining, and self-correction to do.

The other big problem with multiculturalism is that it calls for extreme self-hatred among the sweet, generous, and enlightened members of the host culture. When was the last time you saw a real celebration of Anglo-Saxon culture ?

Meanwhile, there are plenty of voices demanding that our politicians admit how racist we all are. The very flag of this nation is described by some of them as a symbol of racism.

Multiculturalism celebrates all cultures, but damns the Western, Anglo-Saxon culture that was enlighted and tolerant enough to make it all possible in the first place.

Multiculturalism does not admit that it is itself a form of Western cultural imperialism, unpalatable and unreciprocated by the less enlightened cultures that it upholds as paragons of virute while beating up on itself like a manic Opus Dei penitent.

We have much to be proud of, including our tolerance and diversity.

We need Multiculturalism to sustain tolerance and harmony the same way that the Aztecs needed to slaughter thousands of victims every year to ensure that the sun would continue to rise in the morning.

Update:

In a vital addition to the above post, Manny spotted a spelling error and I corrected it.Thanks Manny ! Am I the one looking bad here ? Heck, he confused Danes with Dutch! Ha ! All I did was invent the "Aztects". In today's battle of the error checkers, I claim victory, and expect him to buy me a beer.

There are plenty more spelling errors where that one came from, let me tell you. So keep looking. First prize for the most diligent spelling pedant is a (Male.VERY Male.) Stalinist Half-Ape Superwarrior, and an all expenses paid romantic date for the two of you.

Update 2:

Cynic found a spelling error. An amorous triple-Y chromosome Stalinist Half-Ape Superwarrior is making its romantically unstoppable way to show him the time of his pajama-clad life ! (most bloggers are a "him", and we right-wing death beasts like to generalise !!!!)

Viva Weblogistan !

2005-12-23T17:32:00.000+11:00

Could blogs bring down the schitzophrenocracy of Ahmedijabbathehutt and his mad mullah masters ?
[Hat tip: LGF]

I did not realise that

if Iran, under the repressive rule of the ultraconservatives, is silencing
the sound of Western pop, in another area of its culture, a wild cacophony of
voices has erupted. The blogosphere is exploding. In Iran there are now more
than 100,000 active blogs or weblogs, individual online diaries covering every
conceivable subject, from pets to politics. Farsi is the 28th most spoken
language in the world, but it now ties with French as the second most used
language in the blogosphere. This is the place Iranians call “Weblogistan”: a
land of noisy and irreverent free speech.

Good luck, and may the truth set them free, and the mullahs packing. I looking forward to drinking Shiraz wine with miniskirted dark eyed beauties in a bar in Tehran, klezmer band optional.

Just Desserts

2005-12-23T15:18:00.000+11:00

Ha Ha Ha Ha. Ouch. Can't stop laughing. [Hat Tip: Dhimmi Watch]

Austrabian Intifada

2005-12-14T04:51:00.000+11:00

Apologies for some of the previous post, which I leave for all to see. I apologise for jumping the gun, and accusing the Cronulla mob of targeting all wogs willy nilly. Nope, they were very precise in their focused rage. Not that I condone what they did. But just saying...
Not happy about the presnce of neo-nazis at the event either.

Nevertheless, it is important to get some much needed persepective on that day's events, and the outrages that followed.

Here is an eyewitness account that puts paid to much of the crap dished out by the media
(from that indespensible blog "A Western Heart")

More to the point: Sydney is going to hell in a handbasket. Our legal system is still very much an enabler of the neanderthal thugs that are taking over this city. The police have adopted a two-tiered approach to law enforcement: can you imagine the coppers going baton-crazy on the Leb gangs with the same gusto that they applied to Aussie lads at the train station ?
What were the cops doing standing around Lakemba mosque as thousands gathered, with some of these suddenly pious masses openly brandishing Glock pistols ? What are the cops afraid of ? Is it a politically correct media, that labels them racist if they act, or a judiciary that gives the offenders a slap on the wrist if anything at all, and releases them back on the street, with even less reason to fear the police, and a culturally enforced bent for revenge ?

Most importantly, what sort of city are we going to become when the only real protection to be had is from the likes of the Bra Boys, Comanchero bikies, and Neo-Nazis ?

What happens when these folks also cotton on to the weakness of the police, and start enjoying community support as the Bra Boys have already done in the past few days. Koby Abberton negotiating with Keyser Trad ? please !

Case in point: Belfast. Both the Catholic and Unionist militants are nothing more than criminal thugs. But their ruthlessness, violence and disdain for any law other than themselves has put them in charge, and spoiled their city for decades.

Another case in point: Russia, or just about any other third world country, where the police is just another gang, and often not far from the stronges one.

How do we hope to remain a world capital? Indeed, how do we hope not to degenerate into a third world rule of the jungle ?

The only hope is that the Liberal opposition abandons any pretense at political correctness, and commits itself to tackling the problem, South West Sydney votes be damned. The multicultural vote will not be as uniform as some suicidalists in the Labor party may hope. There will be plenty of wogs of all stripes in support of any real politial counter-offensive to the Lakemba Intifada, includng me, my family, my friends and coutless others besides.

Subhuman Thugs Score Own Goal

2005-12-12T08:58:00.000+11:00

A month ago I was telling everyone that what happened in Paris will come to Sydney in due course. I did not expect it to happen so soon, nor did I expect that inbred rednecks would prove to be everything that Lefties believe of us right wingers.

Yesterday's mob at Cronulla could not have done more against their own cause, and more to support the biggest problem that faces Sydney, if not Australia and the West as a whole. They beat up some people whose only crime was swarthiness, and Mediterranean style. They smashed an ambulance, and injured ambos. They let ROP spokesmen run the usual victim line, and tarred all "wogs" with the same brush.
That means that I am as much a target of their ire as any Muslim Lebanese homie.

A word of advice to the stupid, racist waxhead thugs: You were right to point out that a craven, lawless and malevolent part of the community that is indifferent or hostile to our nation, culture and way of life has been marauding our beaches, while our politicians did nothing.

You were right to suggest that our beachgoers deserve protection.

And then you blew it.

Your tiny little sea-monkey brains did not even conceive that "Middle Eastern looking" people like Greeks, Italians, Serbs, Christian Lebanese and Ashkenazi Jews from Russia might be very sympathetic to your cause. Which of these groups got bashed in Cronulla yesterday ?

A clue: you can spot Christian Mediterraneans. They do not try to imitate US gang members. They dress with style. They do not practice endemic misogyny: they will be out with pretty girls of their own culture, their neighbours, sisters and cousins. Girls that will moderate their behaviour. They will not roam in all male homie packs, with one or two slack-jawed drugged out blonde blue eyed "hos" in tow.
Most Meditteranean cultures allow their pretty girls out to strut their stuff, enjoy their lives and let their menfolk know that women are to be respected. Most Mediterranean cultures love this country, and are Australian first, and whatever else second. Most Mediterranean cultures in Sydney are painfully aware of the problems that one particular Mediterranean culture is causing in Sydney.
Heck, there are civilised Muslims out there too. Guys who live an honest, friendly life. Girls who do not wear the veil and party hard. Folks who find fun in something other than drag racing and gang warfare. You may just have to look harder. A whole lot harder.

What the waxheads have done is ensured that Iemma (member for Little Beirut) will not take an unequivocal stand against the main culprits here, and that their community will cry victim as always, rather than admit that there may be a problem. Thanks to the worst segment of the great Anglo-Celtic culture of this country, the politicians and media have now handed a free pass and a victim card to the initiators of the crisis that has spread accross South Western Sydney and now affects Sydney beaches.

The tragedy is, there is still no sane and prominent voice calling for a solution to the ongoing and growing problem of a lawless, racist and malevolent minority in our culture, whom a judge had recently described as "a cancer".