As usual most of the world shows such a blatant double standard with respect to Israel and frankly, everyone else that we tend not to even notice it and on occasion, like Hitler’s ‘big lie’ tend to think there must be something to it for so many to buy into it. In a way I suppose there is. Oil money and fear of terrorism by immigrants to western nations. But here are a few links which offer some clear as day thought on the matter. Of course, when the UN passed a resolution against Israel as the worlds worst actor in terms of women’s rights it was so laughable that most ignored it. But now we are down to the existential.

First, from www.thereligionofpeace.com 9 questions that should be answered before anyone can criticize the Israeli actions in Gaza. I could add quite a few myself but this is a nice list.

Next an op ed from the National Post on same subject. Pithy and spot on. It’s not that this is profound or hugely insightful. It’s that a Canadian national newspaper has the courage to make a clear moral stand. I wonder if we could find this in a British major paper or any other European one. It is worth reading even if most of us already know these facts.

As an aside,
there was an attack on an American Jewish center. I doubt this will be an isolated event. Look for more in Montreal.

Meanwhile the religion of peace advances it’s cause for world domination while nobody much notices.

The Swat Valley in Pakistan has been pretty much taken over by Taliban/Al Queda. A close look at a map and some thinking about US Canadian operations in Afghanistan plus rapidly rising tensions between nuclear neighbors Pakistan and India will show why this story deserves attention. Pakistan is losing a lot of territory to the Islamists. They are moving troops away from the allied areas and re enforcing borders with India. This creates opportunity for Islamist expansion on that front. I recently spent close to a hundred dollars I really do not have to buy a decent world map. It may have been the worlds first sub prime map loan actually. Who knew in high school physical geography would actually matter.

Also Stratfor reports more deadly mortar attacks by Islamist forces in Somalia killing ten people today alone. The amusingly named MILF continues to attack bomb and spread hatred and fear in the Philippines and the western media either ignores it or claims its a separatist group. It is not. It is a group of Islamic supremacy.

This article about Russia’s approach to Islam is quite good as well. It explains the little known use by Russia of Islamic proxy’s. The US likely did this as well during the cold war. Chechen’s where most likely funded by the US to annoy and distract resources of the Soviets during the cold war and we all know about Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen proxies for the US. However what should be evident by now to all of us is that this backfires. Not just sometimes but all the time to most of the world. Even Pakistan and Iran have used Islam as the tie that binds disparate tribes to try and create a national identity. We see how well that works in both places. Well, I suppose in a way you can say it does.

Here is an article albeit an older one from Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe on UN hypocrisy with respect to Israel. Lots of links as well and a good read. Perhaps the fact that this was written before even rumors of a retaliatory strike on Gaza makes it more meaningful.

This to paraphrase Dr. Wafa Sultan, is not a war of civilizations. Civilizations compete. This is a war of civilization against barbarism.

James Cohen for Girl on the right.

From the Nat Post:

Whenever I think of Canada’s Human Rights Commissions, which has been frequently of late, Hamlet’s exclamation “O my prophetic soul” rings in my ear. I’m not talking about my soul, but The Bard’s. It’s hard to believe Shakespeare foresaw the adventures of Canada’s social engineers, but there it is. Looking far into the future is what visionaries do.

Remember how Hamlet and his former schoolmates, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, were supposed to board a ship and deliver the letter of Hamlet’s uncle, King Claudius, to the King of England? Okay; think of the letter as the Canadian Human Rights Act of 1977. Then think of Rosencrantz as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), and of Guildenstern as the Canadian Jewish Congress.

The National Post is doing a bang-up impression of Toronto Star. For a moment, I forgot which website I was reading. In today’s Posted Toronto Blog, Barry Hertz rants about the latest Toronto shooting “tragedy” - the gangland execution-style bullet hail that took place in Lawrence Park last late last week - and blames everyone and everything except the little putz who pulled the trigger.

While I too have held some disdain for Toronto’s architectural failings (I come from Montreal and I lived in Britian and travelled Europe - Toronto is butt ugly), I never would have thought to blame the urban planners for gun crime.

Somebody is doing a good job shovelling the snow in Lawrence Heights. In a video police released yesterday, two men in dark jackets walk down a carefully cleared pathway, lined with thick white snow. They could be heading to the corner store for a litre of milk.

The guy in front turns down a side path toward a building. He pulls something from his coat pocket. It is a gun. He fires a shot. The next image closes in to a tight frame, seen from above, almost the way a movie editor might splice the scene. Only this is no movie, people. As the snow reminds us, this is Toronto the Good, 2008.

Oh the scene setting, oh the poetry. Right, so the tender-hearted urban cowboy goes on to describe the scenes from the murder footage, firing the gun (Get that part, people? Someone actually deliberately pulled the trigger to kill someone… but that’s not the point, is it?) etc.

And he then closes out his piece with the same Intro to Short Story Writing shmaltz that he opened with:

Where I live, we all shovel the snow and we all have pride. In Lawrence Heights some municipal worker shovelled the snow and then got the hell out of there, to leave the locals to die.

Relax, buddy. It’s criminals shooting criminals. I really don’t think the heavily unionized snow remover had much to do with it. He’d lose his pension, you know? And then he’d have to live in like, an ugly building? And ugly buildings, like, make people angry? It perpetuates a deadly cycle, you know, man?

National Post frees itself from the dead weight of Warren Kinsella, and within days, my good buddy Kathy is writing for them.

Works for me.

The National Post has actually found a way to be even better for us conservatives: Warren Kinsella “quit”. Yes, I put “quit” in scare quotes because, well, really. If anything it might have been constructive dismissal, where an employer downsizes a problem employee to the point where that employee finally quits. In this case, Kinsella hasn’t been seen in print much these days, only on the web edition of the Post.

No mention on whether or not he kept a red stapler…