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March 15, 2010

Community cohesion

Two weeks after Dispatches, a Channel 4 current affairs program, revealed entryism by the Islamic Forum of Europe as it attempts to take over, amongst other things, the Labour party in Tower Hamlets, the IFE rebuttals to the piece include one directed at Channel 4's undercover reporter, "Atif."

It is a threat.

Last week, however, the organisation showed its true face.

“We’ve tracked you down,” said the IFE’s community affairs co-ordinator, Azad Ali, in a webcast targeting the Channel 4 reporter “Atif”, who went undercover at the IFE’s headquarters, the East London Mosque, filming the group’s true views – and its boasts that it controlled the local Tower Hamlets council. “Yes, Atif, we’ve got a picture of you and a lot more than you thought we had. We’ve tracked you down to different places. And if people are gonna turn what I’ve just said into a threat, that’s their fault, innit?

Mr Ali’s words sit strangely with his role as an official advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, and to the police, but perhaps his annoyance is understandable. The undercover reporters filmed him saying: “Democracy, if it means not implementing the sharia, no one’s going to agree with that.”

Attacks on churches, gay people, Jewish history tours and a Hindu association - not to mention race attacks on white people; this "community cohesion," I do not think it means what you think it means.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:28 AM | Comments (0)

Against the Dry Bones paradigm

Belmont Club claims, entirely correctly, the Middle East "peace process" is really a process: a mime show of appearing to do something.

The perverse nature of the “peace process” is driven by the unstable strategic environment of the Middle East. The existence of fundamentally undemocratic and aggressive states like Syria and Iran, coupled with the multiplicity of nonstate terrorist actors like Hezbollah and Hamas, is incompatible with the survival of a state like Israel, which for historical reasons is paranoid about its existence. It’s a puzzle in which the pieces won’t fit until they are machined down to slot in. No lines drawn on a map, no handshakes on the White House lawn, no pious statements of goodwill alters the key fact that something has to be the grinder and some parts have to be ground down. To speak of the Palestinian-Israeli process is to look through the wrong end of the telescope. Just as one cannot understand Lebanon without understanding Syria and Iran — and indeed the entire Sunni-Shia schism and its attendant politics — so too is it impossible separate the “Palestinian” problem from its context.

It’s not the settlements that are the problem, it’s the region.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)

Coffee Party Group Therapy Session

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)

Andrea: Nai-velik

Also: Bulgarian dancehall comin' at ya'.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2010

Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé: Telephone

Ladies and germs, the greatest pop music video not featuring Gwen Stefani since 1982 (hat tip to Agent Bedhead).

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

Illuminating Hadrians Wall

Illuminating Hadrians Wall, from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway.

The airborne had the best overall view, but crowds who shrugged off the chill after sunset and clustered round each flare were rewarded with an awesome sense of the past. Flickering into life on the Whin Sill crags, above the twilit forest and marsh to the north, the 500 lights recreated the ancient border between civilisation and the barbarians.

The Guardian calls it a recreation. I call it foreshadowing.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

Vroom

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Luxist rounds up the 2010 Geneva Motor Show featuring the Italians (ace), the Germans (boring Porsches)*, the French (French) and the rest including the extraordinarily tasteless Bufori Geneva (Australian).

I particularly enjoy the Stile Bertone Alfa Romeo Pandion Concept (above).

* But I repeat myself.

More: 2010 Alfa Romeo Pandion. Images.

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To celebrate the Alfa Romeo centenary, Alfa Romeo and Bertone have collaborated on this Pandion concept car. Alfa Romeo asked Bertone to make their interpretation of the 'Biscione' which is prominently featured in the Alfa Romeo badge. The name comes from a unique bird of prey in the Osprey family.

The most unique trait of the Pandion is its side windows which extend down to the front wheel arch. Like the Pandion bird, the doors open up in a gull-wing fashion.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

Memories of Potemkin

Blazing Cat Fur reports from above a Hezbollah Potemkin Village on the border between Israel and Lebanon.

It's Mayberry - Hezbollah Style complete with schools and houses - and no people, the roofs however have been thoughtfully designed to accomodate snipers. I didn't see any cats either which tells you all you need to know about these monsters;)
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

Notice the time

The BBC cites a former inmate on a Muslim takeover of British prisons and a former prison officer claiming the underworld gangsters who used to keep discipline and order were no longer in charge.

"It hurts as a Muslim to have someone disrespect my religion. If we deal with him one time, with violence, and show him what time it is, he will never disrespect our religion again," he said.
...
"Islam is a very sensitive matter. And the screws don't understand that. I respect what the screws do but they've got to understand our ways, where we're coming from," he added.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

By a happy coincidence

We are tired of him too.

“Big first year leaves Obama tired,” the AP’s Julie Pace wrote on December 29 of last year. “After a sleepless, overnight flight to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama made a not altogether surprising admission. He was tired.”
...
And according to London’s Sunday Telegraph, the president’s decision to not welcome British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last March with the customary press conference and State Dinner was not a result of a deliberate slight, rather POTUS was pooped. "People say he looks tired more often than they're used to," said an anonymous strategist.

Feeble. This is the man in whom the American public decided to entrust the defense of the Republic and, no small thing, the former Dominion to its north.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

Paris Hilton meets Lady Gaga at the Nokia 5800 Launch

Lady Gaga is right: Stars Are Blind is a great pop record.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

Yanica & Vali ft. Aso: Dve v edno

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2010

The Frost Report: An Understanding of Class

And: The Frost Report on Class in full (Part 1).

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)

The seed of the Church

John Hinderaker says it is "open season" on Christians and most Christians don't care.

Do you remember the "massacre" at Jenin? Of course: Palestinians initially claimed that 500 had been killed, but it turned out that there was no massacre after all. In Nigeria, on the other hand, no one disputes that more than 500 Christians were slaughtered by Muslims. So where is the outrage? I don't know what denomination those Nigerian Christians were, but Lutherans are the most numerous Christian denomination in Africa. I'm a Lutheran, but I have never heard a single word from any church source, local or national, about the mass murder of African Christians. No one seems to care.

The Eloi claim to be superior to the Morlocks because the Eloi abhor violence. They will not raise their voices in anger, still less lift a finger, at the news their fellow Eloi have yet again been slaughtered.

More or less what happened in the first round. And then the Crusades.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

Justice for everyone

All ten Jewish communities ethnically cleansed from "Arab countries" following the rebirth of the state of Israel have at long last some hope their government will represent their interests.

These are (some of) the refugees the Left neither knows nor cares about.

The plight of the estimated 856,000 Jews who were forced to leave Arab countries after the establishment of the State of Israel has played a minimal role so far in negotiations for Middle East peace. But on February 22, the Knesset adopted a law under which any Israeli government entering into peace talks must use those talks to advance a compensation claim for those who became Israeli citizens.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)

Brilliant but not smart

Something I had meant to post this comment left to a post at Gates of Vienna some time ago. Does anyone else think we are living through the last days of Melnibone?

Christian Europe? No longer. Now it's Enlightened Europe... so enightened that it has betrayed every single one of its principles.

With mixed success we've been coasting on our religious heritage all these years... a tough glue, but the Enlightenment solvent has pretty much cleared it away. Now we're free - where perhaps a decent society shouldn't ought to be: family, life, morals, notions of sacred... and powerless on all the most important issues.

Against an incredìbly crafty and powerful force that has weathered 1400 of history (most of it fighting Christianity) we place our trust in an Islamic version of an "Enlightenment" which has reduced us to the state of our present Universities, birth crises, vulgarity, broken homes, wishy-washy convictions.

They're dumb but they're not stupid, we're brilliant but we're not smart.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

Treme

By David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

Malina: Strast

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2010

Islam has failed Europe

Douglas Murray debates Tariq Ramadan on the motion "Europe is Failing its Muslims".

One of the two clerics who whipped up hatred against Denmark around the world, in the wake of my colleague Flemming’s commission of depictions of the historical figure Mohammed, arrived in Denmark from Lebanon in the 1990s. He went to Denmark because he has a disabled son. The country which he came from could not look after his child but he knew that Denmark would. And it did. He repaid the society by inciting hatred and violence against it. When such cases can be repeated ad nauseum, it should hardly even have to be pointed out how obscene the motion Flemming and I found ourselves debating really was.

It is grotesque to argue that Europe has failed its Muslims. It has been made repeatedly obvious that it is Islam that has failed Europe, indeed that it is Islam that has failed Muslims.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)

Dispatches: Britain's Islamic Republic

An Islamist conspiracy to take over Tower Hamlets via the local Labour Party is only news to Channel 4. Even so, kudos for British Leftists belatedly taking notice of the problem. But then, having infiltrated and subverted the entire education system, all of public broadcasting and vast swathes of the civil service, British Leftists know entryism when they see it.

Take the time to watch this and by all means pass it on.

Related: ABC News belatedly discovers the Jawa Report and a years long hunt for Jihad Jane. Those pesky kids!

"There are certainly many others out there who are more eloquent and appear to be more dangerous from the way they talk," a man calling himself Rusty Shackleford told ABC News.

"I'm a blogger, but also an activist against violent Islamism. One of the things we do is try and pressure Webhosts to remove Websites that belong to terrorist organizations. An example of this would be the dozen or so times we've successfully had the Taliban's website removed. The websites sometimes pop back up, sometimes not," Shackleford said.
...
Shackleford and other contributors to JawaReport and sites like it noticed YouTube had become a hub for videos and comments in support of violent extremism and attacks against the West and its allies, leading to the creation of the YouTube Smackdown.

Shackleford said the groups identify videos in support of violent Islamism and pressure the Web site to take them down, "as they would child pornography or other obscene material."
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)

Utterly noncontroversial in their social circles

Ann Coulter channels Kathy Shaidle, taking a poke at "leading conservative lawyers."

Like Hollywood actresses, lawyers need to believe they're noble and courageous to help them forget that they are corporate drones doing soul-destroying work, which mostly consists of making photocopies.

Defending terrorists gives status-conscious attorneys a chance to get standing ovations at the annual ABA convention -- much like promoting "global warming" makes climatologists feel like they're saving the world, rather than studying water vapor.

Defending terrorists, supporting Barack Obama as a "conservative." You get the drill.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)

No more exceptions

Conrad Black makes a number of corrections to Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru. There are a very few times when a view of American history makes more sense when seen from north of the border. This is one of those times.

The authors write: “We are a nation of Franklins.” I don’t think so. Franklin was the principal architect of one of the greatest triumphs of statesmanship in modern history: America’s enlistment of Britain to evict France from Canada and of France to eject Britain from America, without which the colonists would not have won the Revolutionary War. America’s precocious manipulation of the world’s two greatest powers was brilliant, but not exactly heroic.

That said, Black is concerned about America's heroic mythology largely insofar as it exacerbates America's current problems; read the whole thing.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)

Great moments in repartee

By way of taking a poke at the wets affecting deep horror at recent remarks by Nigel Farage in Brussels, Frederick Forsyth cites Parliamentary precendent (via Andrew Stuttaford).

Over 200 years ago an outraged Lord Sandwich rose purple-faced in the House to shout at an opponent. “Wilkes, you will die either on the gallows or of the pox.” “That,” drawled John Wilkes without a pause, “must depend on whether I embrace your Lordship’s principles or your mistress.”

Terribly rude but what a put-down. We should have more like that, not less.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:52 AM | Comments (0)

Kinderwette Star Wars

Sophia Heesch identifies Star Wars figurines with her mouth.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)

Brad Sucks: Making Me Nervous

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)

March 11, 2010

Killer deals

An Israeli ad agency has re-enacted the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai in a new for Mahsanei Kimat Hinam supermarket commercial (hat tip to Lumpy, Grumpy and Frumpy, who points out such a commercial would never be made in Canada).

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:28 AM | Comments (1)

Words matter

Here is how Nico Hines, writing for The Times, describes the would be death of Rajib Karim.

A British Airways computer expert charged with terror offences planned to take advantage of a strike by BA staff to become a temporary member of the cabin crew, a court heard today.

Rajib Karim, 30, from Newcastle upon Tyne, faces three charges under counter terrorism legislation. He is accused of two counts of planning suicide bombings and his own martyrdom.

I am certain Karim thought of himself as a shaheed, or "witness", a jihadi concept frequently mis-translated as "martyr." But a real martyr? He is no such thing, of course. The shaheed does not sacrifice himself for others, he sacrifices himself as an offering to a demon who delights in direct proportion to the unwilling sacrifices the bomber would drag with him to the underworld. A witness to nothing but his own shabby grievances, Karim is no martyr.

The Times should know better. This may be the first time in history a civilization will stand or fall on the issue of misplaced courtesies.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:27 AM | Comments (1)

Why, yes, I would like fries with that

Reading: Today's young workers, it appears, believe they deserve jobs with big salaries, status and plenty of leisure time - without having to put in the hours.

They were found to value leisure time far more highly than older members of the workforce and were much more likely to want a job with an easy pace and lots of holidays. They were also less likely to want to work overtime.

Generation Y are much more likely than previous generations to see work as simply a means of paying the bills.

Writing: They can't read, can't write and think the world owes them a living.

Growing numbers of British school-leavers have 'attitude problems' and believe the world 'owes them a living', a Tesco boss warned today. Youngsters too often turn up late for work and interviews and fail to see the importance of dressing neatly and working with others, said Lucy Neville-Rolfe, director of corporate and legal affairs.

Many also struggle with basic maths and English as exams become easier and schools fail to properly enforce discipline.

Rithmetic: Teenagers who complete two weeks' work experience at a McDonald's restaurant will be awarded a qualification worth up to a B grade at GCSE.

Youngsters will be offered the 'certificate in work skills' for completing a ten-day programme which includes flipping burgers, serving customers at the tills and cleaning the dining area.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

Subterranean operations

As the world's superweapons projects move underground, DARPA has pondered a means of navigating through huge enemy underground bases in the absence of GPS: Sferics-Based Underground Geolocation (S-BUG).

DARPA boffins have noted that one of the few kinds of wireless signal which can penetrate underground is low-frequency radio. Unfortunately such signals are quite hard to generate at the required power levels. A network of lo-freq RF nav stations widespread enough to offer decent accuracy would probably be impossible to deploy.

But the right kind of signals are generated naturally by lightning strikes, which cause the emission of "atmospheric" ("sferic" or "spheric") radio pulses. An underground receiver could perhaps be built capable of detecting sferics from lightning bolts hitting the surface hundreds of miles away. It could be informed of the positions of the strikes over LF comms by a single specialised surface base station, similarly far off, and thus calculate its own position from sferic data coming in from several directions.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

The Jersey Shore Presents: Inglourious Basterds - The Line Up

Via Agent Bedhead.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

Gorillaz: Stylo

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2010

A Victorian rave

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It is difficult to convery the precise degree of annoyance I feel at missing out on the Thames Tunnel Tour and Fancy Fair at London's Brunel Museum.

For two days only on 12th and 13th March, the Thames Tunnel, which stretches from Rotherhithe to Wapping, will re-open to the public for the first time in 145 years to mark the end of London’s EAST Festival.

Due to unprecedented demand, tickets for the Tunnel tours have now sold out however there are still places left for the Fancy Fair, a recreation of the original 1852 party hosted to celebrate the opening of the tunnel. Audiences are promised strange and wonderful Victorian characters, cosmoranic views, aerialists, jugglers, historic food and drink and music powered by steam. As Robert Hulse, the Director of the Brunel Museum has stated, “This is not just the birthplace of the tube system, it is the site of a Victorian rave!”

Wikipedia: Thames Tunnel.

The Telegraph: Top 10: Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great surviving structures.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

Swan song

Alexander McQueen's last collection.

Sixteen outfits were 80% finished at the time of Alexander McQueen's death and were completed by his design team.

More.

Etc: Chanel autumn/winter 2010/11 collection celebrates global colding.

More hot Wookie action.

Also: London Fashion Week's top looks for Autumn/Winter 2010.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:07 AM | Comments (1)

Cretinism on this historic level is comparatively rare

Christopher Hitchens considers one of the most astoundingly stupid and nasty documents ever to have landed on his desk.

As descendants of the Prophet, these individuals feel personally insulted, emotionally distressed and defamed by your newspaper's re-publication of the drawing. They have therefore retained my law firm and instructed me to approach you …

Not so longer ago, this sort of language would have been cause for ridicule, and the threats a cause for war. At some point, vigilantism is going to take the place where the law used to be. At the moment, it is a war of every one against every one and Danish newspapermen have been comprehensively disarmed.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

Armed Occupation Act

The Florida Armed Occupation Act of 1842 (5 U.S. Statutes 502) was passed as an incentive to populate Florida. The main terms of the Act read like public policy via Robert Heinlein.

The Act granted 160 acres (0.6 km²) of unsettled land south of the line separating townships 9 and 10 South. (a East/West line about three miles (5 km) north of Palatka and about ten miles (16 km) south of Newnansville) to any head of a family as long he satisfied the following conditions:[1]

* be a resident of Florida and not having 160 acres (0.6 km²) of land in Florida when asking for the permit;
* get a permit from the Lands Office;
* he or his heirs reside for five consecutive years on the grant ;
* clear, enclose and cultivate 5 acres (20,000 m2) of land during the first year;
* build a house on the lot during the first year;
* the land should be two or more miles away from a garrisoned military post.

The last statement implied that the person should bear arms for his own protection.

Actually, the last statement implied the new homestead is the functional equivalent of a garrisoned military outpost; a redoubt of civilization held by force against Nature and against the barbarians.

A lot has changed in the world in 170 years. There has been a bigger change in our souls.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

Lynching Republicans

Otherwise known as the forgotten supressed history of the Democrat party: following the Civil War, 1300 white Republicans and 3500 black Republicans were lynched by the Ku Klux Klan (via Mitchieville).

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. C The Slide Man: Cha-Cha Slide

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2010

Meet the Gribble

The_Gribble.jpg

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:28 AM | Comments (1)

Ka-ka

In a whirl of limbs and with eyes bulging, the woman is helped to a squat in the ramshackle shed and starts cackling maniacally like a terrified chicken.

"Kaaaa! Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka," she screams and stutters, her right arm bent in front of her.

In related news: Tears, joy greet Michaëlle Jean in Haiti.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean is flanked by husband Jean-Daniel Lafond and Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin at Ste. Trinité Episcopal Cathedral, where she was baptized.

Je me souviens: Les felquistes.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest

Captain Devindra Sethi discusses India's growing maritime defense capabilities, including the Shaurya missile, Akula-II class submarines, INS Arihant and a dedicated naval satellite for the Indian Navy.

One little fact about their new MiG-29K fighters struck me in particular. Until the carrier INS Vikramaditya is ready for them, the MiGs will be on post off the west coast of India.

The twin-engine aircraft, capable of covering a tactical radius of around 2,000 kilometers and fitted with beyond-visual-range missiles, will provide potent air cover to the naval fleet in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. The aircraft is also capable of air-to-air refueling, which enhances the time on task.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

Happy Winners

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:23 AM | Comments (1)

Gramophonedzie: Why Don' t You

Hat tip to Jeff.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)