Taliban Analogy #FAIL

Via Ross, a New Yorker article of surpassing ignorance:

Tehrik-e-Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, is a closely held, profit-making enterprise organized on religious principles. One of its principles, announced as public policy in July, 2012, is that children should not be inoculated against polio, because the vaccines violate God’s law. So sincere are the Taliban’s religious beliefs that its followers have assassinated scores of public-health workers who have attempted to administer polio vaccines in areas under Taliban control or influence.

If the Pakistani Taliban, aided by clever lawyers, organized a closely held American corporation, and professed to run it on religious principles, might its employees be deprived of insurance coverage to inoculate their children against polio? And would the Supreme Court, by the five-to-four decision issued on Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores and in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, endorse such a move?

Let us count the ways . . .

Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the government must meet a two-pronged test before it can “substantially burden” the free-exercise rights of American citizens:  it must (1) demonstrate a “compelling government interest” and (2) impose the “least restrictive means” available to pursue that interest. 

Whatever the importance of birth control to individuals, the interest of the government in preventing pregnancy doesn’t strike me as especially compelling.  (My reading of Hobby Lobby is that the Court expressed similar skepticism without reaching a judgment, and went on to rule on test #2.  But others have read it differently.)  In contrast, preventing pandemics is the very definition of a compelling government interest, and I have no doubt the Court would recognize that.

Which brings us to least restrictive means. Google confirms my recollection:  the government already, and for my entire life if not the lives of my parents, provides free vaccines in public health clinics.  So it already has in place a less restrictive means of providing vaccines than forcing employers to pay for them.

Ironically, if the New Yorker really wanted to use vaccinations to make a case against RFRA, it would attack the exemptions given on religious grounds to individuals from the otherwise mandatory (for public school enrollment) schedule.  (I’m personally in favor of such exemptions.  While I do not share the skepticism of, for instance, Vox Day, I have yet to see a compelling cost-benefit analysis that quantifies the interest of the public in the vaccination of any particular individual against his wishes.)  But that, of course, would undermine the New Yorker’s attempted point, that people preserving their religious freedom in the conduct of their businesses is somehow uniquely troublesome.

As a further irony, the New Yorker inadvertently makes a compelling argument against Muslim immigration. Religious accommodation becomes progressively more difficult the more society’s demographics stray from its Protestant-and-Protestant-inflected-Catholicism-with-a-sprinkling-of-Jewish core.  If that sounds too ethnocentric, let me cast it more generally:  diversity+proximity=war+tyranny.  What happens when FGM comes to America?  Will the government show a compelling interest?  Will it even want to?  I’d answer “yes” and “I sure hope so” to these questions, but I have difficulty articulating a rationale that doesn’t start with you sick raghead bastards.  Far easier to keep such people out.

Don't Drink and Play with Fire

Oh boy.

Note to would-be avengers of American servicemen everywhere: whatever delusions you may have notwithstanding, you are unlikely to effect a blow for liberty or much of anything else while under the influence of (if Randy Linn is to be believed) 45 beers.

Having got that out of the way, the most aggravating part of courtroom theater is where the judge takes it upon himself to lecture the defendant:

U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary told Linn that his acts were an attack on all places of religion and that the mosque was a symbol of peace.

Wrong on both counts. Linn was not attacking "all places of religion" or even religion in general. He was attacking Islam, as he himself made clear. And the mosque in question is not a symbol of peace, but rather a symbol of Muslim colonization of and ambitions with respect to America.

"You are no better than the terrorists or extremists you sought to punish," Zouhary said.

Prosecutors said Linn drove about two hours from his home to suburban Toledo on Sept. 30 and broke into the mosque where he poured gasoline on the rug and lit it on fire.

Obviously, Judge Zouhary should get out of his cave on Mars and acquaint himself with the terrorist goings-on here on earth. Millions of Christian victims of Muslims would be so lucky to only lose a prayer rug.

This whole business will give talking points to Muslims and their, um, coat-holders in the media about how awful they're treated, but utterly fail to make them return to their own countries.

AFGHANS: QURAN-BURNING SOLDIERS TO FACE TRIAL [in Afghan courts]

So says Worldnet Daily.

U.S officials were unwilling to state emphatically that the soldiers would not be turned over to the Afghan legal system for burning the Qurans.

William Speakes, a spokesman for the Pentagon said, “It would be premature to speculate at any potential outcomes. Any disciplinary action if deemed warranted will be taken by U.S. authorities after a thorough review of the facts pursuant to all U.S. military law and regulations and in accordance with due process. We have made no commitments beyond that.”

Is there anything the Obama administration does that cannot be understood by assuming that it hates America?

Headlines of the Times

From the Daily Mail:

'Woman on a Tram' to spend Christmas behind bars 'for her own protection' after court views video of her alleged racist rant

The page has a link to another article

Mulsim girl gang who kicked young woman in the head while yelling 'kill the white slag' escape jail after judge hears 'they weren't used to drinking because of their religion'

Pretty much all you need to know about modern Britain.

Modes of Religion

In the movie Traitor,  Don Cheadle plays a Sudanese-American Muslim working deep cover to penetrate an Islamic terrorist network.  

Since I’m recommending the movie, I don’t want to give away too many plot points.  But the movie nicely illuminates several analytical points I want to make about religious psychology.

Religion – any religion, really, but especially Islam in our present historical moment – exists in at least two psychological modes.  On the one hand, there is “true” religion, or elite religion as I have referred to it in earlier posts.  This is religion at its purest theological essence.  My own religious tradition, orthodox Presbyterian, excels (and is recognized to excel) at addressing the central tenets of Christianity:  “what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man”, in the words of the Westminster catechism.  On the other, there is religion as an expression of ethno-cultural nationalism, less an ethical code or spiritual insight than a component of in-group loyalty.  It is this second mode at which Islam as practiced especially among expats (and perhaps among Russian Orthodox) succeeds wildly and at which American Protestantism fails.  Indeed, one reading of the New Testament is that Christianity was in its essence a reaction against the extent to which Judaism had become little more than a shibboleth, elevating circumcision and other symbolic gestures of loyalty to the ethnic Jewish community above true righteousness.  (Arguably, it is in this mode that Judaism persists to this day.)*

It is in this context that I want to recall the John Updike novel Terrorist, about a half-Arab young man in New Jersey who falls in with a radical cleric and volunteers to become a suicide bomber.  The novel was criticized for presenting an inauthentic portrait of an actual terrorist as far as its central character was concerned, which is true – but I think that’s the point Updike was making by showing the tension between Islam as a theology (as represented by the young man) and Islam as an expression of ethnic nationalism (as represented by his confederates).  Ultimately, the elite nature of the young man’s faith is precisely what makes him back away from executing his plans.**

Similarly in the movie Traitor.  Cheadle is far more of a devout Muslim in the elite sense than the Arabic terrorists he his trying to stop, who are motivated by anger at the “crimes” of Westerners against their people (the precise nature of which are never elaborated).  This particular aspect is perhaps overplayed, and I was especially disappointed that the Christian FBI agent (Guy Pierce) is only shown in religious observance at the point of duress.  Why is it that Hollywood is willing to portray devotion to an alien religion in a positive light but feels the need to mute that devotion when the subject is a Christian?

That said, the movie is about as right-wing as a terrorism movie of  this caliber could hope to be.  There isn’t a treacherous white Christian who turns out to be the real bad guy (although the movie makes a couple of feints in this direction).  “Racial profiling” gets handled far more lightly than we would expect, and indeed, the movie explicitly shows the danger posed by immigration since the terrorist network infiltrates the U.S. on student visas.  Although the ethnic origins of these terrorists look far more ambiguous than is likely in the real world, they and their moles inside American intelligence are for the most part obviously Arabic or African.

The movie may not break any artistic ground, but it squarely hits what it aims at.  It invests the audience in the characters, creates plenty of suspense and just enough action, and keeps us guessing throughout.  So, two thumbs up.

* Just to clarify:  as an ethno-nationalist myself, I tend to see the absence of in-group solidarity in American Christianity as a shortcoming, and am almost uniformly disappointed with the church’s haphazard and incoherent forays into politics and policy.

** Also just to clarify:  it is not the business of American policy, and surely beyond its competence, to attempt to cleave “true” Islam from “nationalist” Islam.  In point of fact, nationalist Islam has become such the dominant mode that our endless appeals (a la Gen Petraeus) to an allegedly “authentic” non-terrorist version is surely beside the point.  Perhaps because I can identify with Islam’s nationalist aspirations that I can recognize how dangerous it is when allowed to flourish on our shores.

CAIR and Hamas

From Pajamas Media:

Last Thursday, I reported here exclusively at PJM on a DOJ memo dated March 31, 2010, from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. The memo effectively ended the prosecution of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Omar Ahmad — in addition to the prosecution of other prominent American Muslim leaders — for helping support the Hamas terrorist organization. This decision, according to my source, was not made based on the overwhelming evidence that had been compiled over the past decade by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, but was made due to potential political embarrassment for the Obama administration and out of fear of inflaming the American Muslim community.

But another troubling claim came out during our interview: “Muslim outreach” programs by U.S. government agencies to terror-tied Islamic groups have directly interfered with ongoing terrorism investigations’

The DOJ’s behavior here is not especially surprising.  I had pretty much decided that our government – Democrat and Republican – is led by quislings, so everything else is just coloring in the details.  But I am surprised at CAIR.

That CAIR, Hamas, Al Qaeda share the same goal – to a first approximation, the destruction of Western Christendom and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate, notwithstanding the different specific fronts at which they attack us – is obvious to anyone not blinded by political correctness.  But CAIR, at least momentarily, forgot the way terrorist organizations and political organizations work together.  By itself, terrorism, defined as the premeditated attack on non-combatants by non-state actors, almost never “works”:  almost all Western governments have standing policies never to negotiate with terrorists, and we seldom violate those policies.  But what they will do is what we are in fact doing:  respond to terrorism by finding political organizations that advertise themselves as advancing the interests, by non-violent means, of the same demographic from which the terrorist organization draws its members and surrender to them, concession by concession.  So while the terrorists seldom achieve power in the sense that its leaders replace the existing government, it wins on policy by seeing its objectives granted to an organization seeking identical ends.

CAIR has fulfilled its role in this symbiotic relationship quite well.  But it would ordinarily have been exceedingly risky for them to have formal ties with Hamas.  I say “ordinarily” because for one thing there was a chance that the USDOJ would have done its job and enforced the law against CAIR.  But for another, the popular tolerance for seeing their self-government surrendered will not survive the widespread realization that the “good Muslims” to whom they are surrendering are in fact the very same Muslims who are murdering them.  CAIR should have realized this.

As it happens, CAIR’s allies at USDOJ are covering for them.  But it could have gone badly.

Boo W.

From Fox News:

[Former President] BUSH:  [The U.S.-Afghan Women's Council] is big because it will have an impact over the years. The idea of liberating women, empowering women, encouraging women, educating women in Afghanistan is all part of laying a foundation for lasting peace.

My concern of course is that the United States gets weary of being in Afghanistan, it is not worth it, let's leave. And Laura and I believe that if that were to happen, women would suffer again. We don't believe that's in the interests of the United States or the world to create a safe haven for terrorists and stand by and watch women's rights be abused.

The Republican party, or at least the conservative faction of it, needs to state plainly what you my readers already know:  George W. Bush is a liberal.  He’s a liberal now, he was a liberal as President, and his policies reflected that liberalism.

This is no mere matter of score-keeping.  Loyalty to Bush has kept important segments of the Republican Party from openly identifying the cause of the housing crisis:  the dismantling of lending standards that allowed poor minorities to borrow money beyond their means and inflate the housing bubble in the process.  And the party’s failure to criticize those policies allow the policies to continue even today.

Pleasantly SurprisedUPDATE: Expectations Met

In all honesty, after yesterday’s events in Mazar-e-Sharif, I had this post already written in my head.  It was going to be titled “Profiles in Cowardice” or “Be-TRAY-us Redux”, which tells you most of what you need to know about where my baseline expectations have fallen.

So you can imagine my gratification when I heard this during the COMISAF standup:

Well, obviously what took place in Mazar is tragic, horrific, reprehensible and beyond any comprehension by any religion and it was good to see President Karzai put out a condemnation statement last night, along with of course the NATO secretary general and many others.  The fact is that this event in the United States, which drew all of about twelve people, never would have drawn interest out here had it not been for the way it was echoed and highlighted, and that is a tragedy in and of itself frankly.  We’re going to have to watch very very carefully to see if this escalates elsewhere in the country now, keep our finger on the pulse of various events . . . .

Again, this is a very worrisome development.  I’m not sure what repercussions it will have for the international community.  I think we need to ensure that it is the first topic on the senior security shura today, so for DCOS STRAT  Engagement, please make sure that we would like an explanation from the Minister of Interior what is being done, what has been done, what will be done.  We need to contact the religious leadership we have established relationships with.  Tell them that they need to do some serious soul searching because it is my impression that elements of the religious establishment are the ones that fanned the flames on this and poured gasoline on it, and frankly, they probably have to do, again, a bit of internal examination to ask themselves if this was something they want to be associated [with], is this something their religion stands for in Afghanistan and so forth.  There is a fine line between a peaceful demonstration and violence in this country.  And they obviously – their actions at the end of the day – got out of control.  It’s interesting, because President Karzai has cautioned once or twice, he’s noted that peaceful demonstrations don’t always stay that way in Afghanistan, and yet this is how this came about . . . .

But indeed, there’s got to be some serious soul searching here by people who are supposed to be giving moral guidance to citizens of this country.

Now, while the boss of course put some thought into this – he’s nothing if not careful – keep in mind he was speaking extemporaneously without a prepared text.  Obviously, this was not the speech I would have given; I was over my illusions about the true essence of Islam by September 12, 2001.  But note what he did not do:  he did not attack Terry Jones for exercising his constitutional rights, he did not try to play both sides by calling for “mutual tolerance” or any of the multi-cult phrases of national suicide.  He instead put the blame squarely where it belonged, no equivocation.

Well done, sir.

UPDATE: I noticed P4 giving a press conference Sunday. Here he is "protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States." Pathetic. (H.T.: månesteiner in the comments.)

Happy Geert Wilders Day!

Randall Parker (H.T.:  H.S.):

Geert Wilders is on trial this week in the Netherlands for using his basic right to free speech (said right not recognized in the Netherlands) to advocate against the Islamization of the Netherlands. It occurs to me we should choose a day when all bloggers who support a basic right to free speech ought to write posts protesting the prosecution for Geert Wilders.

Since Wilders is on trial this week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I propose Thursday October 7 as the day to write posts excoriating the Dutch government for this unjustified and unfair prosecution of Geert Wilders.

Isn't it great how we could defeat the purpose of having democratic elections by criminalizing the publication the other party’s platform? Your party's platform, I mean, not my party's platform.

Evil.  But I respect the skills.

How to Know When Your Country Has Been Occupied, Part . . .

I lost count.

H.T.: Ace.

Profiles in Cowardice: Gen. Petraeus Edition

From CNN:

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Monday criticized a Florida church's plan to burn copies of the Quran on September 11, warning the demonstration "could cause significant problems" for American troops overseas.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan," Gen. David Petraeus said in a statement issued Monday.

Where was Gen Petraeus’ sensitivity to religion last May:

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan.

Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion.

According to the military officials, the Bibles were sent through private mail to an evangelical Christian soldier by his church back home. Reuters says the soldier brought them to the Bible study class where they were filmed.

The lesson here is simple:  peace and tolerance are for losers.  The official policy of the U. S. government is allocate respect in direct proportion to a group’s willingness to kill people and break things.

This lesson is not lost on our adversaries.  How long will it be lost on us?

UPDATE:  Professor Hale weighs in.

Sands Of Passion - Episode 1

As many of you have no doubt observed, my real life has intruded upon both blog reading and blog writing of late. So if anyone already called attention to this, my apologies.

The History of Terror in One Easy Lesson

A friend in the Armed Forces sent me this list of terrorist incidents, allegedly taken from government anti-terrorism training.  With a few of my own additions:

Historical Example	Year	Location(s)	Individual/Group	Attack Method(s)
Fort Hood Shooting	2009	Fort Hood, TX	Nidal Malik Hasan	Automatic Weapons Fire
M/V Maersk Alabama	2009	Off the Coast of Somalia	Somali Pirates	Ship Boarding / Hostage Taking
Christmas Day Bomber	2009	Detroit, MI	Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab	PETN Explosives
Mumbai Terrorist Attacks	2008	Mumbai, India	Lashkar-e-Taiha	Assault Weapons / IEDs
Serena Hotel	2008	Kabul, Afghanistan	Taliban	Vehicle-Borne IED, Suicide Vest, Automatic Weapons Fire, Grenades
Islamabad Marriott Bombing	2008	Islamabad, Pakistan	Harkatul Jehadul (Suspected)	Vehicle-Borne/Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing)
Fort Dix Plot	2007	Fort Dix, NJ	Muslim Extremist Terrorist Cell	Automatic Weapons Fire
London Subway Bombing	2005	London, England	Muslim Extremists (possibly linked to Al-Qaeda)	Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing)
Thomas Hamill	2004	Balad, Iraq	Multiple Insurgent Groups	Hostage Holding
Madrid Subway Bombing	2004	Madrid, Spain	Muslim Extremists (possibly linked to Al-Qaeda)	Backpack IED
Camp Pennsylvania	2003	Camp Pennsylvania Kuwait	Hasan Karim Akbar	Grenades, Weapons Fire
DC Sniper	2002	Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C.	John Allen Muhammad, Lee Boyd Malvo	High-Powered Rifle/Sniper
Bali Nightclub Bombing	2002	Bali, Indonesia	Jemaah Islamiyah	Vehicle-Borne/Backpack IED (Suicide Bombing)
Paradise Hotel and Civilian Airline Attack	2002	Mombasa, Kenya	Al-Ittihad al Islamiya With Al-Qaeda Support	Vehicle-Borne IED, Surface-To-Air Missiles
Los Angeles Airport Shooting	2002	LAX, CA	Hesham Mohamed Hadayet	Small Arms Fire
Singapore Plot	2001	Singapore	Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, Moro Islamic Liberation Front	Explosives Comprised of Ammonia Nitrate
US Anthrax Attacks	2001	New York, NY Washington, D.C. Boca Raton, FL	Unknown	Biological Weapon
Shoe Bomber	2001	Paris, France	Richard Reid	C-4 Explosives
United Flight 93	2001	Shanksville, PA	Al-Qaeda	Skyjacking of passenger jet liner
USS Cole	2000	Aden Harbor, Yemen	Al-Qaeda	Vessel-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing)
African Embassy Bombings	1998	Nairobi, Kenya El Salaam, Tanzania	Al-Qaeda	Vehicle-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing)
Deir el-Bahri	1997	Luxor, Egypt	Al-Gamd'a al-Isamiyya & Jihad Talaat al-Faith	Automatic Weapons Fire
Japanese Ambassador's Residence	1996	Lima, Peru	Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA)	Hostage Holding
Khobar Towers	1996	Dahran, Saudi Arabia	Dahran, Saudi Arabia	Vehicle-Borne IED
Tokyo Subway Attack	1995	Tokyo, Japan	Aum Shinrikyo	Chemical Weapon
Oklahoma City Bombing	1995	Oklahoma City, OK	Timothy McVeigh	Vehicle-Borne IED
World Trade Center Bombing	1993	New York City, NY	Ramzi Yousef, et al.	urea nitrate-hydrogen explosion
CIA HQ Shooting	1993	Langley, VA	Mir Aimal Kasi	Automatic Weapons Fire
CAPT Nordeen	1988	Athens, Greece	November 17 (N-17)	Vehicle-Borne IED
Pan Am 103	1988	Lockerbie, Scotland	Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi	Explosives
La Belle Discotheque	1986	Berlin, Germany	Libyan and Syrian Governments	Suitcase IED
Edward Pimental	1985	Rhein-Main, Germany	Red Army Faction	Vehicle-Borne IED
Zona Rosa	1985	San Salvador, El Salvador	Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front	Small Arms Fire
TWA Flight 847	1985	Athens, Greece	Lebanese Radicals	Skyjacking of passenger jet liner
Achille Lauro	1985	Egypt	Palestine Liberation Front	Cruise ship hijacking
Terry Anderson	1984	Beirut, Lebanon	Hezbollah (with Iranian Support)	Kidnapping/ Hostage Holding
Marine Barracks Bombing	1983	Beirut, Lebanon	Islamic Jihad Organization (under direction of Iran)	Vehicle-Borne IED (Suicide Bombing)
CAPT Tsantes	1983	Athens, Greece	November 17 (N-17)	Gunshot from Passing Motorcycle
Albert Shaufelberger	1983	San Salvador, El Salvador	Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional	Small Arms Fire
General Dozier (part 1)	1981	Verona, Italy	Red Brigade	Kidnapping
General Dozier (part 2)	1981	Padua, Italy	Red Brigade	Hostage Holding
Stockholm Syndrome	1973	Stockholm, Sweden	Jan Erik Olsson	Hostage Holding

For those of you keeping score at home, I count 29/42 perpetrated by Muslims, 9/42 by communists (the last being in 1996), and 4 miscellaneous. 

A few quibbles:  Dozier gets counted twice.  We can quibble about whether the insurgent attacks in Iraq (combined under “Thomas Hamill”) are appropriate on this list.  Finally, I’m not sure what Aum Shinrikyo is doing here.  If we’re going to count terrorism by foreigners against foreigners on foreign soil, the list would necessarily be a lot longer.

On the other hand, the original list neglected several:  the Christmas Day Bomber, the Fort Hood shooting, the Los Angeles Airport Shooting, the Shoe Bomber, the 1993 WTC bombing, the CIA HQ shooting, the Lockerbie bombing, and the Achille Lauro hijacking.  Weird.

Still, though, a pretty comprehensive look at who our enemies are.

Religion of Peace? Or Mere Gangsterism?

Via AmericaBlog, a video example of Taliban justice in Pakistan.

The internet has its full quota of shock and horror at this video, so let me offer a different thought: by Taliban standards, this girl got off easy. My understanding is that Islamic law calls for death by stoning of alleged adulteresses, and those so accused are routinely murdered by their families even in Western countries. Yet this girl escaped with only a beating, and one she could walk away from.

It's an old story at this point, but somewhere I read an alternative narrative: the girl had rejected the advances of a Taliban warlord. So the accusation of “an illegal sexual relationship” was his revenge.

On the Opening Ceremony

Did it occur to anyone else that the tragic death of Nodar Kumaritashvili received more recognition from Olympic Officials than they've given the Munich massacre in the last forty years?

More News from the Religion of Peace

Muslims behave badly. Even when they are Americans. Even when they wear our uniform.

FORT HOOD, Texas – A soldier opened fire at a U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas on Thursday, unleashing a stream of gunfire that left 12 people dead and 31 wounded. Authorities killed the gunman, and apprehended two other soldiers suspected in what appears to be the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military base.

The shooting began around 1:30 p.m., Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said at a news conference. He said all the casualties took place at the base's Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening.

"It's a terrible tragedy. It's stunning," Cone said.

A law enforcement official identified the shooting suspect as Army Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan. The official said Hasan, believed to be in his late 30s, was killed after opening fire at the base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Why do we suffer these people to live amongst us?

Prime covers the story.

UPDATE: Ralph Peters opines at the NY Post.

Outrage of the Week

. . . and it's only Thursday.

A bit of background on this story: evidently, the USAF conducts periodic inspections of its installations to ensure that they are in compliance with all regulations, programs, and policies. These are called "Unit Compliance Inspections" or UCIs, and are a pretty big deal. They occur every few years and a base will typically spend several months in intense preparation for one.

I received an email from a friend stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH. They are undergoing a UCI this week, pursuant to which they are conducting anti-terrorism exercises for the benefit of the inspectors.

According to my contact, the first paragraph of today's exercise bulletin reads:

FBI announced yesterday they had added “liberty DEFENDERS”, an Ohio based group to the domestic terrorism watch list. This group, to date, has been a non-violent organization based on beliefs that the federal government exercises too much control over state governments and civil liberties. Historically, this group has used special interest lobbyists and underground news letters to spread their ideologies and voice their discontent with the federal government.

Right. Because we all know, now that Jesus is president, that the only people complaining about civil liberties violations are terrorists.

What a travesty.

More News from the Religion of Peace

From the Washington Times:

Christians in Pakistan are feeling increasingly insecure after several violent attacks by Muslim extremists in the past two months.

In one case, eight Christians were burned to death by a Muslim mob after reports that the Muslim holy book, the Koran, had been desecrated.

Growing Talibanization of the country and a blasphemy law in place for two decades make non-Muslims, especially Christians, easy targets for discrimination and attacks, Christian and human rights activists say.

"The attacks on Christians seem to be symptomatic of a well-organized campaign launched by extremist elements against the Christian community all over central Punjab since early this year," Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Chairwoman Asma Jehangir said at a press conference last month.

Thought for the Day

Via Age of Treason, The Daily Telegraph reports:

Tourists are being warned to steer clear of Asian hornets that are colonising France, after swarms of the aggressive predators attacked seven people.

Tanstaafl observes:

Odd . . . that even though all of the trouble-making Asian hornets were born and raised in France nobody has started calling them French hornets, nor do they pretend they can't or shouldn't notice any difference from the indigenous hornets. Curiously, the article also fails to emphasize that not all of the Asian hornets are trouble-makers. Nor does it assert that they are France's greatest strength, that France is a nation of insects, or that the undocumented migrant hornets are just coming to do the jobs French honeybees won't do.

Made my day.

On Getting Chucked from a French Swimming Pool

French Muslims are back in the news:

French pool bars Muslim woman for 'burquini' suit

A Muslim woman garbed in a head-to-toe swimsuit _ dubbed a "burquini" _ may have opened a new chapter in France's tussle between religious practices and its stern secular code.

Officials insisted Wednesday they banned the woman's use of the Islam-friendly suit at a local pool because of France's pool hygiene standards _ not out of hostility to overtly Muslim garb.

Under the policy, swimmers are not allowed in pools with baggy clothing, including surfer-style shorts. Only figure-hugging suits are permitted.

That's true. I went to the public (i.e. non-hotel) swimming pool in Istres ten years ago. I came out of the changing stall (they didn't have changing rooms, only stalls) wearing American style trunks. I think I had barely got my feet wet when a lovely French girl [sigh] lifeguard came over to chat. She figured out pretty quickly that I was American, and in broken English told me that street clothes were not permitted in the pool. I tugged out the edge of the lining to show that it was a swimsuit, but she pointed to the speedos that the other male swimmers were wearing and indicated that this was what was expected. She told me -- and this is a direct quote -- "some French men are . . . dirt?"

"Um . . . do you mean 'dirty'?" I offered helpfully.

She then went looking to see if they had any swimsuits in the lost and found that I could wear. Yeah, kinda personal, but I was a hardcore swimmer back then, and I counted on the chlorinated water killing anything, you know, dirty.