Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Is Europe Waking?

Papal Apology

UPDATE: A powerful and moving statement by Phil Fontaine.
"Our struggle has reached a decisive moment. While the past must never be forgotten, our destiny lies in building a future with enduring foundations, the cornerstone of which must be forgiveness."
This is a man I could respect and admire. How unlike the statement issued by Lawrence Joseph following Harper's apology on behalf of the Canadian government!
--------------------------------------------
Pope apologizes for church abuses in Canada
"The pope met with Phil Fontaine, national chief of Canada's Assembly of First Nations, along with Weisgerber, the archbishop of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Fontaine hailed the pope's stance, telling Canada's CBC television: 'We can now close the book on this issue of apologies'".
Let's hope so, Mr. Fontaine. It will be a hard pill for the Indian Industry to swallow, though.

Taliban Getting a Drubbing

Pakistan retakes key town: kills over 50 Taliban

Does anybody know how many Taliban have been killed altogether in the various fronts where the various state armed forces are up against them? I know the number killed by Canadian forces exceeds exponentially the number of Canadian troops killed. We just need to stay the course, folks, The One not withstanding.

Walid Shoebat on Pajamas TV

Starting at 3:47.

Note what he says about The One and the Turkish army vis-a-vis Europe.

Corrupt UN Money Pit Continues

Even the Oil-for-Food scandal!! Headed by a man from Iran!!!

Monday, April 27, 2009

Okay. Is This Really True?

News of this scumbag's arrest has been rumoured so many, many times now, I just sort of say, ya. Uh,huh. But this time the Iraqi government has confirmed it. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has been captured. But, somehow, I still don't believe it.

Gateway Pundit has pics.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Speaking of Great Empires

Check our this great series on empire builders:

Engineering an Empire

I've always been interested in how empires rise and fall. Technology and social organization lie at the core of this question. I'm especially fascinated by the rise of China, and within that broad panoply of dynasties, the most interesting is the era of Cheng Ho, or Zheng He, as his name is written in this series. Although a mere commoner, not an emperor, his expansion of Chinese influence through his famous voyages of exploration and conquest during the Ming Dynasty amount to a spectacular reminder that European "imperialism", or as lefties are fond of pretending, American imperialism, is hardly the only example of the quest for global hegemony in history on this planet.

Check out that particular video here.

Here's more.

Melanie Phillips

Describes the decline and fall of the once "Great" Britain.











Saturday, April 25, 2009

Europeans Learn a Bit From Those Who Know

Nonie Darwish and Tawfik Hamid speak to the European Parliament (Scroll down to April 24th)

Darwish:
“The hatred was mainstream, it was preached in the Mosques, schools, in theater, TV, movies – everywhere we were taught to hate the Jews…”

“Money was never given to build housing or factories, it was always to fund organizations such as the Fedayeen in the 1950's and Hamas today.”

She further emphasized the dire consequences of Europe engaging Hamas:

“The conflict is not over land anymore. Listen to what they are saying in Arabic to their citizens. They are subjected to daily indoctrination to kill Jews wherever you find them.”

“There are many moderates in the Arab world, which want to end the hate speech, but engaging Hamas would weaken them. By talking to Hamas we say that terrorism and violence are the way of doing things. If Hamas will receive legitimization, it will mean that the Hamas methods work."

"We cannot continue to tolerate intolerance. It is not a virtue – it is gross negligence".
Hamid:
Dr. Hamid's exceptional knowledge of the jihadi mindset led him to the following conclusions:

"Hamas are liars, they say they are not anti-Semitic and are not religious organization, while the name of their organization is called the Islamic Resistance Movement and their flag says 'no god aside of Allah and Mohamed is a prophet of Allah' – the sentence one states to become a Muslim."

“Accepting and legitimizing Hamas is an obstacle to peace. If the international community tells Hamas that via terrorism and killing civilian we will still legitimatize you, why would they turn to the Path of Peace?”

“Only when the international community will have a clear a strong stance against Hamas demanding they hold to the three conditions, only then will Hamas turn to the path of Peace.”
Mr. Galloway and Saskboy are collaborators. 'Nuff said.

Shillary Changes Her Tune



That was then.

This is now.

Three Years, Six Months

...and a bit to go.

After reading this, I am pleading with Americans to correct your course come November, 2012. Seems like an eternity, though.

The One has proven to be one of the biggest disasters ever to sit in the Oval Office. His mistakes, gaffs, stupid appointments, flip-flopping hypocrisy and downright naive behaviour is one of the scariest things I have witnessed on this planet in a long, long time. And it hasn't even been four months since he took the reins.

God help us all.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Six Years On

"Although his relatives in the political establishment try to sweep their reliance on the Americans under the rug, Hakim does not paper over an unpleasant fact that religious parties pretend doesn't exist on the anniversary of Hussein's fall: Iraqis were too weak to overthrow their tormentor.

"Sometimes we say the change came from the Iraqi people, but it didn't come from us," Hakim says, perched in his chair with a green Koran, a laptop and a printer on his plain wooden desk.

Hakim wears thick tinted glasses and an inky black turban, and his face is framed by a frothy white beard. A green Islamic scarf drapes his shoulders. Speaking about the U.S.-led invasion, he becomes animated and compares the country before that to a drowning man.

"God made the stranger attack this strong regime, and we will not forget the good deeds of the Americans," he says. "We can't neglect or ignore this role
."
If you can stomach it, there are videos (chapters 1 through 4) here showing some of the atrocities from that nightmarish era.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Miss California Takes a Stand

and sticks by it. How refreshing. She refuses to bow to political correctness. Here's another woman with beauty of character.

And that Hilton character lambastes her saying she "should have left her politics and her religion out". Well, excuse me, dingbat. You are the one who asked her the politically charged question. How did you expect her to answer it? Her answer, by the way, was diplomatic and respectful, which, whether you agree with her position or not, you have to admit is another indication of the beauty of her character.

Hey, I'm not one for beauty contests, nor do I object to civil unions between gays, but why are people who believe that the male-female factor needs to be accorded proper recognition seen as such pariahs? That's not anti-gay. It's pro the institution that brings forth and cradles (when it works well) the continuation of the generations.

Just kinda shows you where the extremists reside. Support my views or be hypocritically and viciously castigated. Really!

The Farce in Geneva

More from Roger Simon on the "all racism, all the time" - a-hem - "anti-racism" conference.
"The UN wants everyone to go away and forget this conference as quickly as possible. The institution has received a horrible dose of publicity that led even the usually idolatrous BBC to raise a skeptical eye. --- here in the small city of Geneva especially, the UN is a machine, a money machine that brings in a significant proportion of the local GNP. No wonder the Swiss President, despite much criticism, was eager to shake the hand of the Iranian leader. --- Middle Eastern despots are cash cows for Geneva and the proximity of the UN to the local banks is no accident. --- the African-American (Shelby) Steele made some telling points that were taken up by the others --- implying that racism had diminished significantly and was now being used as an excuse for failure. It had become, in Steele’s words, a “distraction.” And that anti-Semitism was the biggest distraction of all, an obsession that turned people away from their own problems and prolonged them."
Kinda reminds you of Balbulican and the Indian Industry machine, doesn't it.

Videos here:

Walk Out

Sharia and Jihad

Please, please, please take down that despicable organization. The Swiss and New York be damned.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

1984 Redux

The clowning of Ahmadinejad.
"Because I had a press pass, I was able to attend Ahmadinejad’s press conference immediately after the walkouts."
[---]
"Ahmadinejad drones on and on, of course. Listening to him answer questions is terrifying and instructive at once."
[---]
"Language is turned upside down. Everything is its opposite. “Democracy” is totalitarianism. “Human rights” are oppression. “Freedom” is repression. Your head starts to spin. I think I remember from 1984 that Winston Smith got a headache listening to that kind of language."
[---]
"It’s one in the morning here in Geneva. I am looking out the hotel window to make sure he is gone. What remains as a question is who allowed Ahmadinejad to speak at this conference in such a prominent position?"


Who, indeed.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

What to do? What to do?

Maybe Monday would be a good day to do this. Ahmadinejad will be out of the office. But then again, maybe it would be good if he was at home when it happens.

Yes!! There is a God!!

UPDATE: And New Zealand, too!
------------------------------------------
Boycott blow for UN racism forum
"A major UN conference on racism looks to be in disarray as more countries confirmed they will not take part.

Australia and the Netherlands joined the US, Israel and Canada in boycotting the Geneva talks. The UK is sending a delegation, but no senior official.

The move is over concerns about anti-Israel and anti-Western bias. Iran's president, who has denied the Holocaust, is to address the meeting."
Boycotts hit UN racism conference
"...Italy and Sweden have also announced they are boycotting the conference..."
And here's why:

Hijacking Human Rights: The Demonization of Israel by the United Nations
"The lead UN human rights body for six decades was the Human Rights Commission. For its last 40 years before it was abolished in 2006, it adopted resolutions critical of specific states. One-third of them were directed at Israel alone. Not one ever targeted such abysmal human rights records such as those of Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, or Zimbabwe. The Human Rights Council has more than doubled that ignominious record. To date, 70 percent of all country-specific resolutions and decisions have been directed at Israel."






Saturday, April 18, 2009

Hezbollah Planning Mubarak Overthrow

Sometimes you just gotta root for the dictator you know. The alternative could be so much worse.

Islam, Yesterday and Today

A great series of videos on the history of Muslim conquest (and, in section 5, the idiots who make excuses about it):















You might also want to view this supplement to episode 1 on the fall of Constantinople:

Susan Boyle's Beauty

Aw, Stan...

This morning I was listening to the Shire Network News' Podcast goes naval on pirate butt, which of course was all about the week's news. The broadcast closed with a less than stirring rendition of Stan Rogers' Barrett's Privateers. Being a Stan Rogers freak, I immediately did a search on YouTube and voila! No one can do it better than Stan and the boys themselves.



Aw, Stan. Why did you have to leave us so soon?

Friday, April 17, 2009

Nuke Annihilator: If not now...

...perhaps next week?

Israel stands ready to bomb Iran's nuclear sites

Why it was just the other day that Iamadinnerjacket mocked the West:
"In response to U.S. President Barack Obama's "outstretched hand," as he expressed in his April 1, 2009 speech, Ahmadinejad emphasized that the West was weak, and could not force anything on Iran."
[---]
"nearly 7,000 centrifuges are spinning today at Natanz"
The One better pull his hand in or it might get blown off.

Speaking of Videos

Geert Wilders has promised a new video, Fitna II, on "the impact of mass migration from Muslim countries on Western society." h/t Gates of Vienna


And again, all hail the mighty Danes for standing up against Islamofascism and with those who are fighting it.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Freedom Fighters Three

UPDATE: Final (third) video is up and posted below. h/t Dr. Roy again.

Kathy Shaidle, Salim Mansur and Ezra Levant, speaking to a "sold out" crowd in London, Ontario.








Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Update on Galloway

Ahah!! Galloway has his charity accounts frozen back in Mother England.

RTWT

h/t Dr. Roy

Iraqi Stock Exchange

Wow!! Should have invested when I was thinking about it.



h/t Iraq The Model

Other items of interest about Iraq:

Iraqis hold ceremony to bury victims of Saddam's Anfal genocide. World is silent.
"Saddam Hussein murdered 182,000 Iraqis during the Anfal campaign in the early 80's. This was more than Al-Qaeda and insurgents managed to kill over the past 6 years of war."
New Alliances Emerge in Advance of Iraq Elections
Negotiations Raise Possibility That Politicians Could Bridge Ethnic, Sectarian Divides
"...the jockeying after the Jan. 31 elections indicates that politicians are assembling coalitions that cross the sectarian divide ahead of parliamentary elections later this year, a vote that will shape the country as the U.S. military withdraws.
[---]
"The negotiations and deal-making mark a departure from politics that have hewed almost exclusively to ethnic and sectarian lines, fomenting the discord that brought Iraq to the precipice of civil war in 2006 and 2007."
Keep going, Iraq.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

250 Years Ago Today

...the world lost the composer of this beautiful music:








To me, this and other music from the longhairs represents the grand pinnacle of European civilization. It's been downhill ever since.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

That'll Never Do

A Captain of the Indian Industry admonishes an Indian for not being Indian enough. I mean, gosh. What will happen if the legions of potential clientele dry up? Can't let that happen, now can we.
"At least as posed in this post, you’re looking at it purely in terms of personal profit. If you felt some sense of personal identification with the culture, or a need to assert it, you might - but in this blog, at least, you’ve made a pretty strong effort to push away any identification with Aboriginal culture with both hands. So why even talk about it?"
(Plugs ears. Goes nananananananananananana!)

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Worst Interviewee in History

Poor Jian Ghomeshi.



h/t Pat Dollard

A Study in Contrast

Compare this guy to the fascist goon I wrote about here and here.



This man deserves a lot of respect. Persecuted in Europe for speaking the truth! I hope Wilders does a speaking tour in Canada. I'd sure go and see him if I could.

h/t to The Further Adventures of Indigo Red for the video.

Something I Missed

Speaking of Frances Widdowson, her book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, has apparently been nominated for the Donner Prize. It's in the running with four others, one of which is Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, by Tarek Fatah. I'm pulling for Fatah's book, but either one would make me a happy camper.

Tired Old Meme Spewing Machine

Another goody from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. This one's a clip from a CBC news broadcast. Listen to the questions posed of Angus Toulouse and then listen to his answers. Listen to him again. And again. And again. That's right. He evades the questions with tired old rhetoric, blaming the Indian Act, blaming non-fulfillment of treaties, etc., etc., etc..

Well, sorry. I ain't buying it. Numerous attempts have been made to amend the Indian Act over the past forty years, but it's organizations like the Assembly of First Nations and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations that consistently oppose those attempts. Don Sandburg points out one such instance that happened not that long ago, under Jean Chretien's administration.

That's why this has also been the topic of much discussion. Local cronyism is the bedrock upon which the Assembly of First Nations was built. The old guard both on reserves and in the national organization need the Indian Act as it exists in order to deflect attention from their own cronyism. Living in your mother's basement is very comfortable, thank you very much. We don't don't want to be independent and self-reliant. We don't want to be democratic. After all, that would mean losing access to the band funds that we use to line our pockets.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Aboriginal Self Government and the Indian Industry

After the exchange between myself and Peter somebody and Balbulican at Saskboy's place, I went looking for some good sources that address the bankruptcy of the modern Indian Industry. There's a whole bunch of meaningless crap out there on the net that amounts to just so much brainless bombast and bluster, like this little gem. Created by the false constructs of the past thirty or so years of the said Industry, it's going to take a long time to dismantle it. Even some of the more serious attempts at history, like this site, contain some questionable statements. I ask you, do the first two paragraphs on that website lead you to believe that Treaty 6 was signed before the Indian Act was passed? That's the impression it gives me. If you get that impression, too, be sure to read on, because I intend to set it straight.

I take heart, though, in the fact that folks like Balbulican and Peter whatever his name is, go ballistic and start spraying the tired old "racism" scatter shot all over the place whenever someone stands up to it. That suggests to me that The Industry has seen the writing on the wall and they understand that their livelihoods, as captains of The Industry, are increasingly under threat. The accusation of racism is more and more becoming a silly joke, being, as it is, a pathetically transparent attempt to intimidate those who challenge the orthodoxy upon which The Industry rests.

One of my favourite places to go for reliable information and for perspectives from people who are not afraid to stand up to The Industry is the Winnipeg think tank, the Frontier Centre of for Public Policy. Since Balbulican finds fault with Frances Widdowson, I thought I would give her a plug by pointing out this audio file of a speech she delivered at a Frontier Centre event. In it she describes the Indian Industry. When asked where you find who is in the Indian Industry, Widdowson answers:
"Follow the money. That's where you can find them. You know, the law firms and the residential schools dispute. One law firm from Saskatchewan made $100,000,000 out of that dispute. That is just outrageous."
That's these guys, in case you're wondering. The legal profession is one of the kingpins of The Industry. There's money to be made in grievance huckstering, and by God, they'll make sure no one's grievances are ever completely settled or forgotten because they are always ready to manufacture more.

You have to wonder about Peter's work, too. Ten years in research and teaching on themes such as the "nationhood" of Treaty 6 Indians. Sounds to me like he's priming the grievance industry pump. Either that or counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. There's also money to be made in historical revisionism. The academic wing of The Industry has been working on this task for several decades. A favourite plank in the platform of the academic revisionist's wing of The Industry would have us believe that the negotiations of the prairie numbered treaties, Treaty 6 in particular, was conducted between two parties of equal stature - the "nation to nation" meme. However, there is no shortage of documentation from eyewitnesses and, from the negotiators themselves, that put the lie to that myth. However nice it may have been for the Cree, the plains Indians in the 1870s were not negotiating from a position of equal power. The quotation at the top of this page is from the principal interpreter at the Treaty 6 negotiations, Peter Erasmus, a Halfbreed. (That's what they were know as then, guys. The Metis were French, not English. Save your accusations of racism for someone who will be intimidated by it.) Erasmus was fluent in Cree and English. Chief Ahtahkakoop, whose words Erasmus recalled, are quoted there. Ahtahkakoop was a strong proponent of accepting the terms of the treaty. Erasmus' recollections of that event and many others in his life were gathered together and published in the early 1970s in a book known as Buffalo Days and Nights. It is interesting that in that memoir, Erasmus ponders whether the Indians misunderstood the intent of the treaties.

Indian Act of 1876 received Royal Assent on April 12th of the same year that Erasmus acted as interpreter for the negotiations of Treaty 6. In other words, that is the date on which the Indian Act became law. Upon passage on that date, it was made applicable to the North West Territories, which any half baked Canadian student should know, was the territory covered by most of what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta. All of the territory of what was to become the Treaty 6 region later that year, came under the Indian Act on that date, a full four and a half months before the negotiations of Treaty 6 began. This hardly supports the contention that the Treaty negotiated at Fort Carlton in the fall of 1876 was an act of two "nations" negotiating an international treaty - the old Nations make treaties - Treaties don't make nations meme that the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian "Nations" is so fond of regurgitating over and over. Although the Indians may very well have thought they were negotiating nation to nation, that meme is wrong for a whole bunch of reasons, not just because it mis-characterizes the nature of the negotiations that took place at Fort Carlton, but because, in fact, treaties do "make nations" just as much as they make nations disappear. Perry Bellegarde should dust off a world history book once in a while, instead of just listening to his crony echo chamber.

In any case, as far as the Canadian government was concerned, they were extinguishing Indian title to a portion of the British Empire, the way a proper government would do if they were expropriating any subject's land. How else do you explain the imposition of the rule of an Act receiving Royal Assent on territory several months before treaty negotiations even began.

Back to the Frontier Centre of Public Policy. Another great piece is this interview with Calvin Helin. His words are very wise. He prefers Glasnost and Perestroika rather than knee-jerk accusations of racism and his ideas have a far better chance of creating a real opportunity for self government. There are more and more people like Helin emerging who are going to push the Indian Industry aside. More power to them.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Here I Go Again

...stumbling on a video series about faith and atheism. As I've said before, I'm a sucker for this stuff. I love a good debate about the meaning of faith and God and atheism.

Start here:



and go all the way to number seven.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Excellent Article About Middle Eastern Hypocricy..

...and the MSM complicity in the matter.
"To understand the reality of the Israeli-Arab/Muslim conflict, take the picture produced by the mainstream media and turn it 180 degrees."
In my younger days, I had sympathy for the Palestinians. The creation of the state of Israel was done by others far away and promises to the Pals went poof. But they long ago lost my sympathy. Even though Israel has done many stupid things over the years, especially the settlements, they pale in comparison to what the Pals continue to do at the behest of their Arab and Muslim puppeteers. I hope Netanyahu will take some decisive action and change the dynamic in the region.

Yuck!

Mothers plan breastfeeding protest in Calgary pool
"The women say it's their right to breastfeed wherever they want to, but the lifeguards at the southwest Killarney pool have asked them to get out of the water or use the change rooms for nursing."
I know all that chlorine and shit is supposed to kill bacteria and shit, but the thought of breastfeeding a baby in an environment where other people piss and shit and spit....well just yuck!! Poor little tykes have the misfortune to have been born to an idiotic mother.

Friday, April 03, 2009

The Concept of Nationhood

This posting isn't going to mean much of anything unless you go read this thread on Saskboy's blog. After you've done that you can come back here and read the rest.

First of all, Peter is ascribing modern interpretations to words, events and people who lived 350 years ago when he talks about the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). The modern concept of nationhood is newer than that. Not only that but he has a pretty sketchy view of more recent history.

Yes, the Cree stopped the telegraph line construction in 1876, and they understood there needed to be an agreement before they would allow their land to be infiltrated by Europeans. After all, they knew there had been treaties signed in Manitoba a few years earlier, and they were also well aware of what was happening to Indian land south of the Medicine Line. But a sense of territoriality and nationhood don't amount to the same thing.

On the other hand, if Peter is suggesting the Indians respected the sovereignty of other groups any more than anyone else did, he's dead wrong. Those very Cree, for example, had several generations earlier lived in the forest and, after acquiring guns and superior trade goods from the HBC, had pushed others out of that part of the prairies and further west. In fact, most of the tribes that live in Saskatchewan today are not indigenous to the territory they now occupy.

For their part, the Canadian government simply wanted to avoid an Indian war such as what was going on south of the border, and prevent the Americans from taking over what is now Western Canada. It was mutually beneficial to enter into treaty. But when the negotiations of Treaty 6 actually began in the late summer of 1876, the Canadian government's negotiators' threat that the Indians would not be able to hold back the tide of settlement so they'd best settle with what they were being offered was the truth and the Indians knew it.

They knew that they were bargaining from an extremely weak position. Why do you think they insisted on a medicine chest, assistance in learning how to farm (actual farm instructors rather than just tools) and assistance in the time of famine and disease? Treaty Six is the only one where those items were raised during the negotiations. The Treaty Six Indians knew their livelihood was disappearing, and in fact, it was only a few short years after the treaty was negotiated that the buffalo disappeared from the Northern plains and those very same Cree fell victim to famine, saved only by the aid delivered, however miserly, by the Canadian government. You have no nation, if you can't defend it.

When I hear the oft repeated meme today that the treaties were negotiated by two nations, implying as it always does, that those nations were of equal stature, I both laugh and cry. It is a total lie. A people on the verge of starvation who knew full well that their way of life was disappearing, who had neither the means nor the knowledge to adapt to a different lifestyle without the help of some other people, were hardly in a position of strength from which to negotiate "nation to nation", no matter what the concept may have been to a nineteenth century nomadic tribe.

In the modern era, by which I mean the 1960s to the present, the idea that Indians thought of themselves as "nations" in the modern sense simply did not exist until they discovered the Royal Proclamation of 1763, in which Indians are referred to as, among other things, "nations", and that happened only after the Federal Government made thousands of dollars available to Indian Bands to research land claims so outstanding debts of the same could be settled. Having then discovered that they were "nations", the content of the Royal Proclamation subsequently became grossly over stated.

The Proclamation was an edict issued by King George III compelling his subjects in what was to become the United States of America to quit stealing Indian land. Not only did it not work, but it was one of the measures against which the rebellious young colonies revolted when they issued their famous Declaration of Independence. You can read more about it here. What the modern Indian movement will never admit, though, is that the Royal Proclamation also refers to Indians as tribes. I think you can imagine that the meme "tribe to tribe" doesn't quite have the same cachet.

I challenge Peter to find any documentation that would support that contention that Indians thought of themselves as "nations" prior to the 1970s. Tribes, perhaps. Peoples, perhaps. But not nations. In fact, the absurdity of some of the claims put forward by the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians during the 1970s and early 80s gives ample testimony to that fact.

Did you know that at one point they were demanding a place in the United Nations for each of the more than 600 Indian "nations" in Canada? Understand that each and every reserve is now called a Nation, whether there are 30 people or 350 people who belong to it. Only a tiny handful of First Nations have populations that would garner them even "city" status today, let alone the status of a nation. It's rather funny. Had the FSIN achieved this goal, the United Nations would suddenly have grown from a body that then consisted of roughly 150 real "nations" representing what was then five or six billion people world-wide, to an organization with fully 750 "nations" by adding what amounted to only 2% of Canada's population or a mere 1/6000th of the global population as it stood at that time. Such was the political sophistication of Indian leadership then. No, Peter, they did not understand the concept of nationhood, and the fact that every reserve in Saskatchewan is now referred to as a "First Nation" is proof positive that they still haven't got it.

Arabs for Israel

I've mentioned Nonie Darwish before on this blog. She is a woman worth watching. Today, on one of my daily reads I find this interview of her (go to the 2:24 minute mark). It's always interesting to learn more about a person who one considers a hero. Darwish, Egyptian born, apparently, is the daughter of an Egyptian military intelligence officer, who was killed by Israel. She grew up in Gaza during the time when it was "occupied" by Egypt. At the 5:02 mark, she has some interesting things to say about what Arab children were taught in school during that era and, more to the point, what was omitted from the curriculum. I doubt whether that has changed.

Notice, too, she says pretty much the same thing that I said in this post and she is sooo 1000% right about the failure of Arab countries to develop their own societies or use their money to help resettle and build a healthy economy for the Palestinians. They are simply using the Pals for their own aggrandizement. Anyone who has watched the Middle East for as long as I have, will know that by now.

At any rate, it was interesting to learn that she has started a group she calls Arabs for Israel and she has a blog by the same name. Check it out. You might want to read some of the letters from Arabs on her blog, too. Very illuminating.

She has a new book, too, about the growth of Sharia in the Muslim world: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.

Speaking of school curriculum, here's an audio file of and interview with Palestinian Walid Shoebat, who has followed the same life path as Darwish.

I Don't Know About You..

...but this moves me to tears:



and this drives me nuts:

Don't Touch: Michelle Obama Abandons Protocol With the Queen

The later was all over the news and the blogosphere yesterday. It was like the coverage of the rent-a-riot mob that the MSM always fixates upon every time there is a meeting of the G7, G8, G20 or whatever. Stupid fluff instead of substance.

I, for one, was glad that the Queen and Michelle Obama felt an instant attraction to one another and what the hell's wrong with that. And if Michelle Obama can inspire a group of school girls, whose ethnic origins appear to be from the far flung corners of the British Empire, to aspire to great accomplishments through the attainment of superior education, then a good old fashioned British hip hip hooray and three cheers for her.

Long live the British Empire and her eldest break-away child for showing us that world can unfold as it should, despite the media's attempt to turn every triviality into fodder for the gossip mills. I'm betting these girls will remember that event for the rest of their lives and the ones that actually got to touch Mrs. Obama will, well, not wash their hands for several days and will look back on that brief moment ten, fifteen years hence, when they graduate cum laud from Oxford, or wherever, and remember it for what it was - a pivotal point in their young lives. And I'm pretty sure the Queen wants the same for them, too. And who knows. Maybe she won't be washing her hands for a day or two either, because those hands shook the hands with the first African-American First Lady.

The Queen has lived through the better part of a century, which saw the emergence of African Americans from bitter legally entrenched discrimination, at the same time as she was presiding over the dissolution of the British Empire, "granting" independence to former colonies. Perhaps in the Queen's mind, that handshake and the hug may have been a powerful symbol of the recognition that justice does prevail. The Brits are known for their sense of justice, after all. Indeed, their legal system in emulated around the world.

None of which is to say that I am a fan of Barack Obama's policies as president, but really, all negative all gossip all the time is just soooo unreal.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Earth Shattering News

...according to the Globe and Mail.

Stephen Harper misses photo. Retake required.

Oh well. At least it isn't the one billionth report about the rent-a-riot that always shows up at these events.