It seems Toronto is harboring another war-dodging, yellow spined, America-hating cretin who thought joining the National Guard would be like basket weaving at summer camp.

U.S. army deserter Corey Glass smoked a cigarette during a break in his Immigration and Refugee Board hearing yesterday and hoped he'll avoid time behind bars.

"I hope I don't have to sit 20 years in prison," said Glass, who fled the U.S. to resist fighting in Iraq and is seeking refugee status in Toronto. "And I hope it helps make something happen with someone admitting the war is illegal."

But there are legal hurdles to clear for Glass, 23, before he can be granted his wish and avoid imprisonment in the home country he has no plans to return to.

His lawyer, Jeffry House, is arguing that the war in Iraq violates international law and therefore Glass should not be punished for refusing to take part in an illegal war.

I can hear the violins. Especially since he's unlikely to serve more than a few months or a year in prison if he returns home and pleads guilty to cowardice.

He misses his parents and three siblings, who support his decision to flee, but Glass says he will not go back to the U.S. if his claim is denied here.

"I guess I'll have to find out what I have to do then and start looking for other countries," he said.

Try France, kid. They have a long and distinguished history of cowardice. They may make you their new king. Or mullah, anyway, given the direction they've taken.

Labels: War on Terror

Tomorrow I will be taking a train into my past. I will be hurtling along the tracks to Montreal, to face people I haven't seen in years. I'm terrified, but I must go.

Nanny died.

She wasn't my grandmother, but I came to regard her as such. On that terrible day when I was five, and my mother took me out to the rotting stump in front of the Cottage to tell me Grandma had gone to Heaven, my little heart broke for the first time. As I sobbed and wailed, my friend TG came and put her arms around me, and said, in her little six-year-old voice, "You can share my grandparents." And I did, in all the years that followed.

When I was six and I split my head open on an end table, Nanny was the one who washed the blood away and kept me calm till my parents could be located. When TG and I were in school together, I often had lunch at her house (Grandpa made great soups). When my parents died, she was there - with pastries and pies, with hugs and a place to escape to if I needed it. She made a kickass hot pepper jelly that I would devour during turkey dinners at the Cottage. I was lucky enough to be at her 65th wedding anniversary party in 2000, when the letter from the Queen was read out, congratulating the couple on their longevity. When I got married, she gave me the lovely crystal wine goblets that I still use today. I last saw her 3 years ago, when Mr. Right and I were visiting from Scotland. I made it a point to go visit her, and I'm glad I did.

Nanny saw my whole life. And on Saturday morning, I will pay tribute to hers. For this I will make the journey into my past.

Rest in peace, Nanny. You had a good long life, and you didn't suffer. In the end, it's all any of us can ask for.

Labels: Ghosts, Personal

Not that y'all care or anything, but I have been irritating all my friends lately by waxing poetic about the most perfect pair of pajama pants evah that I bought at Old Navy on Monday. A bargain at $14.99, I bought them a size too large so they hang nicely over my ample posterior. Soooooft cotton. Black, with a pink rose on the left hip. I couldn't wait to get home today and slip out of my suit and into my wonderful pj pants. I think I may ask to be buried in them when I die.

So yes, it's true. I blog in pajamas.

Labels: Blogging, Clothes

I nearly peed when I saw this bit of retro hilarity on YouTube. I am truly a child of the 80's.

Labels: YouTube

I read last night of the "death threats" against blogger Kathy Sierra. I feel for her, as I've been the recipient of threats, too. There's a price of 72 virgins on my head for the first Muslim whackadoo that gets to me. I've also had to deal with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up from creepy dudes who troll the Internet looking for women to sicken. And I'm not alone.

But I'm also not an Internet coward. I'm not going to stop blogging, or even lay low. I report my threats to the authorities, I double-bolt the door, and I keep on blogging. I'm not the only one. Sure, it's mostly females that have to deal with the sexual deviants, but we're all open to some form of 'net intimidation. If you blog politics, or terror, or religion, or anything more powerful than knitting patterns, you will piss someone off, and maybe they will threaten you.

Because I'm a woman, I'm subjected to different kinds of threats and taunts. If I was a fat guy, I would be unremarkable. But because I'm a fat chick, my detractors would often prefer to point that out instead of arguing a real point. It's the easy way out, like calling someone nigger. It means you can't come up with anything better than that. I get comments about how I need to "get some", which is hilarious when you think of who we're talking about here!

Yet it doesn't deter me, and for the most part I don't complain about it. I don't bore you with details of my death threats, received on an almost weekly basis. It's really none of your concern how much time I spend talking to law enforcement, or complaining to my husband about how terribly terribly hard it is. I suck it up, and keep on blogging.

As much as I sympathize with her, it seems to me that all Kathy Sierra has succeeded in doing is making us all out to be a bunch of weak wallflowers. Everyone's talking about how horrible it all is. If you don't like blogging because it comes with side effects (like most addictive substances), then quit. But for heaven's sake, don't ruin it for the rest of us.

Am I the only one who thinks this is all leading to a book deal?

Labels: Blogging

Today the word came out that Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary, has cancer of the liver. My father died from the very same thing - colon, spread to liver.

My mother, on the other hand, died when her cancer spread to her bones, much the way Elizabeth Edwards' has.

No matter your political stripe, please join me in praying for the comfort of, if not the lives of, these two people. They have a hard road ahead of them, and they shouldn't have the potholes and sharp stones of partisan politics in their paths to make the journey worse.

Labels: Cancer, Health, Politics

Normally I leave stories about Yemen to my blog sister Jane, but this one caught my eye.

Security forces have been called in to tackle riots at a Yemen gas plant where a copy of the Koran is said to have been desecrated, security sources say.

Unrest began after a French engineer at the terminal in the south-eastern port of Belhaf allegedly "defiled" the book.

Hundreds of rioting workers burnt cars and a helicopter at the French-run facility, sources told news agencies.

Unconfirmed reports say four Yemenis and a Frenchman were injured in the unrest and the engineer was evacuated.

Yemen LNG, which is partly owned by the Yemeni government, confirmed that clashes had taken place but only spoke of "undefined damage", according to a press release reported by The Associated Press.

"After a fight between a French engineer and another who is Yemeni, the Frenchman - to enrage the Yemeni - threw a Koran on the floor in an offensive way," a local official told AFP news agency, requesting anonymity.

The same agency said earlier that a Yemeni had been killed in the unrest.

Oh for the love of... How can the apologists keep insisting that these Islamic animals can live side by side with us in the civilized world? Some Frenchman throws a book, and a riot breaks out? It's a BOOK! Just a book. I wouldn't be dancing for joy if someone messed with a Bible, but I'm sure as heck not going to torch a helicopter. Maybe if devout Muslims were allowed to read more than that one book in their lives, they wouldn't be so obsessed. Most religious people - of all faiths - recognize that the book merely holds the words. It's how you live them that's important. Of course, to the idiots of Islam, starting a riot IS living the word.

Labels: Islam, Koran, Yemen

Let me give a little tip to Canadians and Americans alike that spend a lot of time on the Internet:

You are not alone. And when you say things like Kill the President and Behead the Prime Minister, your nerdy MySpace buddies aren't the only ones reading. You aren't the only one reading the words Jihad and Allah in your email.

My threads have been read time and again by the Department of Homeland Security, the RCMP, and my Internet provider. I'm watched constantly, even though I'm not a threat. Why? Because I use the buzzwords. They have to watch me. It's not a big deal, because I'm on the right side of the law. I'm with the good guys. They know I'm not actually going to kill the president, even if their sooper seekrit search engine flags those words here and sends them looking.

But for all you commie, anti-establishment assholes, get a grip. Your nonsense isn't funny, it's illegal.

Internet ramblings about Stephen Harper on the blogsite of an Alberta man found an attentive but not overly appreciative audience with the RCMP.

As a result, Patrick David Fenton is to be sentenced May 30 for threatening the life of the prime minister.

Fenton, 25, pleaded guilty in court in Canmore Wednesday to a single charge of uttering threats to cause death.

Fenton's lawyer says the whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

"He had an online blog and frankly he intended it as satirical," Tyson Dahlem said yesterday from his office in Canmore, 120 km west of Calgary.

Dork.

Labels: Canadiana, Internet, Politics

A Muslim cleric who whipped up a storm last year when he told his Sydney flock that women who don't wear the veil invite rape has been endorsed as the supreme leader of Australia's 300,000 Muslims.

Clerics from around the country meeting in Sydney decided Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, 67, should keep the post of Mufti of Australia that he has held since 1988.

Prime Minister John Howard last year urged Muslims to dump al- Hilali, as did New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma.

Earlier this year al-Hilali raised the ire of Australians when he said Muslim migrants had a greater entitlement to the country than those who arrived at the time of colonial settlement.

"We came as free people, we bought our own tickets, we are entitled to Australia more than they are," al-Hilali told a television station in his native Egypt.

Howard called on Muslims to show a willingness to join the mainstream by ditching their controversial leader.

Al-Hilali, an Australian citizen, has been censured before for his extremist views and each time the Muslim community has closed ranks behind him.

He made international headlines when he told the congregation at Sydney's largest mosque that a woman in revealing clothes was herself to blame for sexual assault "because if she hadn't left the meat uncovered the cat wouldn't have snatched it."

After the remarks, 34 Muslim community organizations signed a petition urging al-Hilali to defy calls for him to stand down.

The Aussie Muslims have made their choice. Now they have to live with any consequences of that choice, including mosque raids, terror arrests, deportations and so on. They were given the chance to deny terror and Muslim brutality, and they turned their backs on that choice.

Once more we must ask, where were the "moderate Mulsims" during all this? Where was the outcry? Where were the letters to parliament denouncing the cleric and asking that he be removed?

Could it be because there is no moderation in Islam? It is an all or nothing religion. You either live by it, or you die from it. Now if only the rest of us would accept that, we might have a chance of putting a stop to it.

Labels: Islam, Religion

Common sense has prevailed in Quebec, where Muslim women will have to show their faces before voting in tomorrow's election.

"What's at stake here is the integrity and, as I said, the serenity of the electoral process," Mr. Blanchet said at a press conference. "Since yesterday, the chief electoral office has received numerous emails and numerous telephone calls that have raised concern about inappropriate actions being taken at the polls. Suggestions were also made, notably on the Internet, that voters should show up at polling stations with covered faces or in silly disguises."

Quebec has had issues in the past with voter fraud (remember them being ridiculed back in 1995 for having the roll of every cemetery voting YES in the referendum, yet they still lost?), and the idea of letting Allah's whores show up in disguise was raising the ire of many Quebecois.

Earlier this week Mr. Blanchet, the top civil servant in charge of running Quebec elections, said that women wearing the niqab, a full-face veil that leaves only the eyes exposed, or the burqa, a head-to-toe covering, could vote without exposing their faces if they brought photo identification to the polling station and a second person vouched under oath that they were who they claimed to be. He made the ruling in accordance with a Quebec law that wasn't necessarily designed for that purpose. After the Journal de Montreal uncovered the story, outrage erupted--fuelled by concerns an exception for Muslim women would facilitate fraud, such as people casting multiple ballots or without being qualified.

Labels: Canadiana, Immigration, Islam

Daylight has found me here again
You can ask me anything, but where I've been
Things that used to matter seem so small
When you're looking for a soft place to fall

Don't misunderstand me, baby, please
I didn't mean to bring back memories
You should know the reason why I called
I was looking for a soft place to fall

Looking for a soft place
Nothing more than a small taste
Of a love that ended long ago
Looking for a place to hide
A warm bed on a cold night
I didn't mean to hurt you
No, no, no

Looking out your window at the dawn
Baby, when you wake up, I'll be gone
You're the one who taught me after all
How to find a soft place to fall

You're the one who taught me after all
How to find a soft place to fall

Labels: Music

For your blog-reading pleasure (and because there's no damn way I'm passing up this opportunity), RightGirl is heading off to the sunny beaches of Oahu in 28 1/2 days. How does this benefit you? Well, I'll be somewhat of a guest of the military establishment on the Island, including a very special tour of Camp Smith.

You see, for the past five years, all eyes have been on the Middle East in the War on Terror. How many of you are aware of the work that PACOM (Pacific Command) have been doing in places like the Philippines? How many of you are aware that we are facing an Islamic threat from there just as much as we are from the desert? And that the joint staff of PACOM are regularly sent to the Pacific Rim to clear out and rebuild areas? These guys should not be forgotten while - just like the Muslims are wanting - we're facing East.

You may ask "How did RightGirl get such a plum assignment?" The answer is simple: I'm RightGirl. I believe that if you don't ask, you don't get, and that a little chutzpah goes a long way. So I made arrangements with some very dear military friends of mine to fly out there. They said if I was willing to fly 5000 miles by myself just to talk about the Pacific Rim WoT (and get a tan), they'd take care of all the arrangements on the ground. So for the bargain price (well, sorta) of a plane ticket, I'm getting a week in Hawaii. Some days being me isn't all bad.

Labels: Blogging, PACOM, Travel, War on Terror

Oh, the dramas that unfold in a public healthcare provider's office - the frustrations, the anger bubbling to the surface - like some great sociology project. Waiting, endless waiting. Our time here has no value. We may be the patients, but the doctor answers only to the government. Ironically, I discovered on Tuesday that the doctors have since taken to referring to us as "customers" - a label that denotes a relationship based on commerce and trade - yet the principles of customer service do not apply here, for we are not the ones paying the bill.

Everyone's time is precious and should be respected, whether you are retired, or a lawyer billing $500 an hour who must turn down an client, or a caregiver who must arrange for someone to look after your elderly parent. Double-bookings, triple-bookings – it doesn't matter if the "customer" is unhappy - the bill will still be paid. The wait is long, and we are all equal in the neglect and abuse we endure. The physicians are free to treat us with indifference, and we must meekly accept. You see, we have no choice.

In our country, a pregnant woman may choose, almost up to the moment of birth, to end the life of her baby. After all, it's her body, right? But what about my body, and my choice? Why can't I choose to see a doctor who will respect my needs and my time?

After a three hour wait for my 3:30 appointment, which of course I left the office early for, I was presented with a $49 bill for the sick-leave note I required for my absence last week. It was a fee I didn't mind paying, but the doctor's office - though happy to charge for such "luxury" services - does not accept credit cards or even have a debit machine. Like a bookie or the dealer at the corner of Dundas and Yonge, this was a strictly cash business. I was asked - politely - by the (harried) receptionist to go downstairs, cross the street and walk half a block to the nearest bank machine, the final insult being that the receptionist did not have the $11 change for the three twenties I handed her. The doctor herself actually had the nerve to ask - after my three hour wait - if I could go down to the shop in the lobby for change. As a testament to her obviously effective treatment of me for anxiety, I neither burst into frustrated tears nor strangled her. Instead I gave her a firm "no", that after such a long wait I would most certainly not be willing to run and fetch my own change.

How did we come to this point? Surely Tommy Douglas did not have that disrespectful scenario in mind when he introduced us to the so-called wonders of socialized medicine. Surely he didn't see Canada in the same category as Cuba, where the public service is mandatory and private competition is not only discouraged but illegal. Our system is broken. The sacred cow at the heart of "Canadian-ness" has become a monster - a mad cow. It's time to slaughter the beast and start fresh. There is nothing Canadian about this kind of treatment.

Labels: Canadiana, Health

Saturday was Bug's second birthday. I can't believe he's two already! I went to Bark & Fitz to get him a special toy, and found the perfect one. Something we'd enjoying playing with together.

Hillary: The chew-toy.


I'm With Stupid - Heh. No shit.


Short leash for Bill (the book cover reads "It Takes a Village: To Do My Hair")


Good doggy

Labels: Election 2008, Hillary Clinton, Politics

Charles at LGF posts that Montreal is a hotbed of terrorist financing and planning. Babe, whatever you're reading in the papers, you don't know the half of it. I watched it happening at a time before 9/11, when no one thought twice about such things. Two words, Charles: Import/export. Those are the businesses they set up when they come to Canada, and that's how they are able to move large sums of money back and forth to the Middle East without scrutiny. Until now, that is. Thankfully.

You want to see real terrorist planning? Check out the communities living in Laval. These are the real financiers, in their big houses, in their little enclaves, doing business with Canadians and then going home to plot against us.

When the raids come to Montreal, look for the words "rounded up in a community just North of Montreal". That's Laval. Mark my words.

Labels: Canadiana, Islamic Terror

Harper was in Toronto to speechify the populus. It was nice to see him again, but I think I'm getting too old for these screaming rallies. Or maybe, after the week I've had of hiding in the house, standing for two hours in a noisy, crowded, darkened room was a bad idea.

"Legend says that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. And last year, you, the grassroots members of the Conservative party, drove the Grits out of Ottawa. Now that's something worth saying cheers to."

Labels: Canadiana, Politics

My stack runneth over with unread books. I'm just not getting through them as fast as I'd like.

I'm halfway through Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, which is a fantastic read. There were points where I was just cringing while reading it, and had to put it down. Ver disturbing.

I have The Listening Heart: Vocation and the Crisis of Modern Culture by A.J. Conyers, which was sent for review. Must get to that one next - it's only fair.

Kathy gave me Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork for Christmas. I've yet to get to it.

I still have Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride, which I've had since October.

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, by Robert I. Sutton, PhD. How could I resist with a title like that?

Steve Emerson's Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US. Typical RightGirl fare.

Freakonomics. Been wanting to read that one for a while. *sigh* Someday, I hope.

Ian Burama's Murder in Amsterdam, about the killing of Theo van Gogh.

There are others, but the stack was getting so high that I had to take them out for safety reasons. They'll be in the next stack, I'm sure.

What's in your stack?

Labels: Books

The whiskey must be flowing in Newfoundland for St. Patrick's Day, because I just got the most pathetic bit of hate mail I've seen in a while. Normally something so uninspired usually comes from someone who has English as a second language (and while the average Newfie can be quirky in their speech, they do still speak English!).

It turns out that this tired statement

You are obviously an ugly fatty who's not getting any action from any attractive guys sweetheart

is from Lib-left criminal lawyer Averill Baker from Mount Pearl Park, Newfoundland. The whiskey and screech must be so plentiful that Ms. Baker didn't notice my email policy to the side of the screen. Oh well, not my problem...

Just think. Someone in Newfoundland is going to need a lawyer for something. Someone who can not only present the facts of the case clearly, but who can win over the jury with a breathtaking closing argument.

Based on the unsolicited email I received, they will probably want to call someone other than Averill Baker.

Labels: Canadiana, Email, Law

From EM comes an excellent post on things Khalid Shaikh Mohammed confessed to:

*Assembling an international coalition of terrorists, murderers and thugs
*Crocs shoes
*The Cory Kennedy-CobraSnake breakup
*Casting Hayden Christiansen in Star Wars
*Trying to steal Whitney Houston away from both Bobby Brown AND Osama
*Changing Martha Stewart's stock information
*Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
*Insane Clown Posse and their entire, unwashed fan base
*Being the inspiration for A Million Little Pieces

And a whole lot more.

Labels: Islamic Terror, War on Terror

But there is one for Belsan.

Suspected members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States, counterterror officials said Friday, in a cautionary bulletin to police. An FBI spokesman said, "Parents and children have nothing to fear."

Asked about the alert notice, the FBI’s Rich Kolko said, "There are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern," although law enforcement agencies around the country were asked to watch out for kids' safety.

Be afraid.

Labels: Islamic Terror

Linda has a roundup of girls named Rachel murdered by Palestinians in Israel. Why? Because the brainwashed are busy canonizing the idiot Rachel Corrie - AKA St. Pancake.

Who knows. Maybe someday I'll be crossing the street in downtown Toronto, busy traffic, not looking both ways, and I'll be hit by an Iranian cab driver. And maybe someone will decide to celebrate me for being an idiot, and punish all Iranian cab drivers around the world for the misfortune that befell me when I walked in front of a cab. Why not? If someone can walk in front of a steamroller and be celebrated as a hero, surely the same applies to anyone who does something stupid in a dangerous situation?

Labels: Islamic Terror, Israel, Middle East, Palestinians

Unbelievable. The British no longer wait to be forced, threatened, coerced or even asked to subject themselves to the rules of Islam. Instead they race headlong into dhimmitude by tearing away pieces of their own culture and traditions.

Little Red Riding Hood ... Hansel and Gretel ... the Three Little Puppies?

That's what one British school renamed the traditional Three Little Pigs story for a school play, so as not to offend Muslims in the community, London's Daily Mail reported.

Organizers of the children's musical theater performance changed the lyrics' character's names in a move some — including Muslims — are saying went too far.

"The vast majority of Muslims have no problem whatsoever with the Three Little Pigs. It's always been the traditional way of telling the story and I don't see why that should be changed," Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra from the Muslim Council of Britain told the Daily Mail, saying the name change was "bizarre."

The Muslims are laughing at them. What would Churchill think if he saw this suicidal behavior? What must the Queen think?

I must remember, when next we visit my in-laws in Britain, to wear hijab. The locals seem to prefer it.

Labels: Dhimmitude, Europe, Islam

Kateland reminds me that today is EATA PETA Day.

So tonight we're having thick juicy Angus steaks, with a side of sauteed vegetarian. They're grain-fed, you know.

Labels: Food

As I mentioned, I'm having a rough week. So this morning, lying in bed, I began listing my favorite comfort films from over the years. In no particular order, here they are.

Heathers - 1989
The Thing Called Love - 1993
Gone With the Wind - 1939
My Man Godfrey - 1936
That Hamilton Woman - 1941
A Shot in the Dark - 1964
Lady Sings the Blues - 1974
Pride of the Yankees - 1942
When Harry Met Sally - 1989
Dark Victory - 1939
Goodbye Again - 1961

Labels: Movies, Personal

a clever Persian girl figures out how to beguile a blood-thirsty misogynist Persian mullah who likes to bed virgins and execute them

Kate's running a contest. Go over and put yours in the comments.

Labels: Iran, Middle East, Movies

Evah.

Oh, and the post itself is good, too.

Labels: Blogging, Islam

I haven't read LaShawn in a few weeks, so I missed this when she posted it last week. It is the story of Phyllis Chesler, a former professor of (what else?) Women's Studies who married a Muslim and moved to Afghanistan. What she found there challenged her liberal thinking, to say the least.

Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such "colourful tribal customs" are absolutely, not relatively, evil.

Indeed.

Labels: Afghanistan, Islam, Middle East, Religion

Feeling a little fragile tonight. Had a storm hit last night that I wasn't expecting. Seems all this sleeping was leading to a major anxiety attack that totally broadsided us. It was only a year ago that I began taking my anxiety medication. It appears to have stopped working. And now, for the first time in over a year, this terrible feeling is back. I'm just trying to ride it out, and remind myself that it will pass. It always does.

Now if only my goddam doctor weren't on Spring Break......

Labels: Health, Personal

I'm not the mothering kind, but should I ever breed, there is no doubt I would stay home to raise my kids. And here is yet another good reason why.

Young babies will be assessed on their "crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing" under a new national curriculum for under-fives published today.

Staff in every nursery in England will monitor children from birth on their progress towards a set of 69 Government "early learning goals". These goals cover the skill levels expected of five-year-olds in reading, writing and rudimentary maths.

Parents' groups attacked the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, which will be a legal requirement for all childminders and children's centres from September 2008.

Margaret Morrissey, from the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "I think it's really sad that we have reached the point now where instead of reducing children's stress we have increased it.

"Will nurseries be worrying more about children reaching these targets than caring for our children?

"It worries me that we are expecting children to reach these targets when they have not even had their first birthday."

Horrific. Kids of the latter generations have already missed out on the real education and love the receive by having a mother at home (or in my case, a Nana). Now those mothers, already feeling guilty for abandoning their kids to daycare, will be made to feel worse if the babies don't squeal at the right pitch. Who comes up with this junk-science?

As one of the commenters of the story put it

Moral: don't put your baby in a nursery; look after it yourself. If you can't do that, it probably means you shouldn't have had the poor mite in the first place.

Labels: Europe, Oddities, Science

An earworm that will have you humming it all day...

Ain’t gonna follow no child molester, sex offender, prophet pretender.

Ain't gonna follow no child molester,

Islam is not for me.

Labels: Islam, Music

John's mother passed away. Instead of grieving, he is celebrating her life with humor and love. This is by far the very best tribute to a mother I have ever read.

Labels: Blogging

I cannot even comprehend this woman's strength - even after having met her. Captain Ed is incredibly devoted to her care, and my thoughts and prayers are with them both until the new kidney is in.

Labels: Blogging

In the past 3 days, I don't think I've slept much less than 50 hours. In the past month, I have slept through my alarm no less than 4 times. I'm either becoming a housecat, practicing for death, or maybe there's a scientific explanation.

Anyone? WTF? Is it barometric pressure? Am I not getting enough red meat (I eat it at least once a week)? I'm not depressed (for once). I'm to frickin' old and married for mono!!

Oh well. That post just sucked all the energy out of me. Time for a nap.

Labels: Health, Personal

On this day three years ago, 191 innocent people were murdered in the name of Allah while they were on their way to work in Madrid. That is Islam. That is the religion of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed.

Remember.

Labels: Europe, Islam, Islamic Terror

This is an interesting story, and I hope it signals a trend.

One of the top Islamic leaders in Iran accepted Christ and left the country after facing death threats and imprisonment, according to an Iranian pastor living in the U.S.

The imam watched satellite programming supplied by TBN Nejat TV (www.nejattv.org), according to Reza Safa, founder and president of Harvesters World Outreach. TBN Nejat TV is the first all-Christian network in the Persian language, broadcasting 24/7 into Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.

The imam called one of the phone counselors connected to TBN Nejat TV and prayed to receive Christ in early February. "The man has been watching our TV programs for the past two years," Safa noted. "He said he has believed since he began watching the programs but his salvation was sealed through his confession."

"This man knows all the verses of the Qur'an by heart," he added. "After he began watching, doubt began in his heart about the Islamic faith." The man spent nine months in prison after he questioned the violence of radical Islam. Following his release from prison, he faced numerous death threats and escaped the country.

Several other religious leaders may follow suit. "He knows four other high-ranking imams that are in the same condition and want to leave Iran," Safa said. [emphasis mine]

Interesting, but they don't give the imam's name. Is that because of security fears, or because the story isn't true? I tried running it through Snopes, but came up empty. I would really like to believe that even Islams leaders have had enough of the violence and are seeking a home in Christ.

Labels: Islam, Religion

Anyone planning on attending the Gathering of Eagles in DC next weekend, be aware that the moonbats will be armed with paint (obviously not caring about the damage that could do to our gentle and tortured environment).

They want to spray paint the Vietnam Memorial. Veterans may want to bring their rifles for spraying the sprayers. Or not. You know - just putting it out there....

Labels: Military

Paul Rempel brilliantly shows us how the average person can do like Al Gore and David Suzuki to help the environment:

We ate at a Mexican food restaurant in Kitsilano last night and today I am suffering from the physical symptoms of that. Luckily, I have solved the problem by purchasing several methane emission credits from my neighbors, who hate Mexican food. After haggling over the price of the credits, we appointed an independent arbiter who decided on a fair price per mega-tonne of methane emitted. Just another day as an environmental crusader.

Godspeed, man. You're a modern day saint.

Labels: Environment

Wow. Frederico Fellini and Sigmund Freud would be pleased to know that Canada now has a television station geared towards men called Spike, and one geared toward women called Slice. The imagery in my head is rockets blasting off, trains going through tunnels...

Labels: Oddities

I have been trying to come to terms with a few things over the past few days. Ann Coulter's "faggot" remark at CPAC is one of them. I was there last year when she made the "raghead" comment, and I remember the outrage of everyone in the room, myself included. But how can I revile her for her cheap shots when I take so many of my own?

Yesterday, the arch-fiend Robert McClelland made a hard-core anti-semetic remark in the comments section of his Blahg:

When the State starts rounding up my Jewish neighbours, I’ll speak up.

Not me. People like Klownsella, Chernyuk and Smeagol the Jew have taught me it's not worth getting involved. When next they come for the Jews I doubt I'll even be able to muster up a "what a shame".

This caused both the left and right of the blogosphere to gasp in collective horror. Cherniak called for McClelland's head on a pike, and it was handed to him by the NDP. As disgusted as I was with Robert, I couldn't help but think of how last summer the Blogging Tories and the Conservative Party could have done the same to me. They didn't, but they could have. My views of Islam may be similar to what others are thinking, but most of them will never say it.

Just the other day I was defending people's rights to say whatever they please in the blogosphere. How could I condemn him? Yet, how could I not? So I emailed Kathy, who would prefer to give McCelland a soapbox to stand on while he proves what a filthy Jew-hater he is. Anti-semitism is rife on the left, and it needs to be exposed - so let Bobby Boy expose himself all over the place. Kathy was finally able to help me put into words the confusion I had been feeling over Coulter and McClelland:

They have a right to say anything they want and so do we. I wish she hadn't
said it at CPAC, but I also think that being sent to rehab for saying
faggot is worse than saying faggot -- and a leftist would think the
opposite of course.

My concern is that Jason the Hall Monitor and Co. on both sides are trying
to clean up the blogosphere and make it into something it isn't. It isn't a
newspaper or tv show. Swearing and nudity or whatever have their place (a
submarine, the walls of an art gallery) but aren't appropriate everywhere
(church, the super bowl half time show). Blogging is its own space where
certain rules don't apply. In my opinion as one of the pioneers who doesn't
like to see blogging being professionalized and sanitized.

So Robert can say what he wants on his blog, but Coulter should have been
more circumspect at CPAC. Then we say so. What I sense is something far
more insidious that anything Robert or Coulter can say and that is the
stuck up little twerps like Jason and Kinsella and their faux outrage over
other people's opinions and the not-far-off call for censorship.

A place for everything and everything in its place. I said something similar last year about Coulter. I thought that what people say in the privacy of their own homes with friends (or on their blogs) is one thing, but what they say to a room full of impressionable university students who will be leading us tomorrow (CPAC) is quite another.

So let McClelland spew his vitriol against the world's most persecuted religion, and let me attack their attackers. In the meantime, let's send Annie to finishing school.

Labels: Anti-Semitism, Blogging

..."What would you do if you won the lottery?"

My answer? "Buy a great big gas-guzzling Hummer and drive it up and down in front of David Suzuki's house all day long."

The woman sitting next to us on the subway looked over, laughed, and said "I couldn't agree more!"

Labels: Environment, Personal

Hell of an ultimatum! The Religion of Peace has set its collective 7th Century sights on a tiny ancient religious sect in Iraq, and is calling for them to either convert to Islam or die.

The Mandaeans are pacifists, followers of Adam, Noah and John the Baptist.

They have lived in what is now Iraq since before Islam and Christianity.

More than 80% have been forced to flee the country and now live as refugees in Syria and Jordan.

We're busy listening to Al Gore weep hot toxic tears for the polar bear - of which we have plenty, and besides, the meat is terribly stringy - but there are less than seventy thousand of these Mandaeans left in the world. Fair enough, cultures die out. Dying is a part of living. But murder is just plain wrong.

Nine-year-old Selwan likes watching cartoons and playing football.

But he is too scared to leave his flat. The other children tease him.

He has burns all down the side of his face and on 20% of his body.

He was kidnapped by Islamic militants who forced him to jump into a bonfire - because he is Mandaean.

I meet Luay. He is too scared to be identified and does not want to use his full name.

He was dragged off the street by armed men and forcibly circumcised - a practice not allowed in the Mandaean religion.

He is 19 and is now unlikely ever to find a bride from his own faith.

Worse, he was forcibly converted. That means in the eyes of those same extremists if he now declares himself Mandaean he is apostate.

That makes him a traitor to Islam, who may be murdered. He says he will not be safe in any Muslim country.

The Dean Esmay's of the world can bury their heads in the sand for fear of offending their friends named Ali. But this truly is a clash of civilizations. The peaceful being forced at the point of a sword to join the violent - or die.

Labels: Islam, Middle East, Religion

I've been meaning to get to this story all week, and I do apologize for my slack blogging. Sometimes real life intervenes.

Last summer I wrote some things about Islam that people went totally nuts over. I was written up in the National Post as a bigot in an echo chamber - though the idea of an echo chamber was totally wrong, given the amount of people who were so vociferously disagreeing with me. I put up with incoherant commenting from people who either didn't know english, or who were too unintelligent and foaming to string words together properly. I dealt with an in-box full of death threats from all over the world. And I thought "So be it." I didn't expect the world to agree with me. I didn't expect a bunch of yes-men, even if this is my own private site. I could have switched off the comments or required registration. I could have put up a list of arbitrary rules that would have stifled my readers and visitors right to their own opinion.

So imagine how sad and disgusted I was earlier this week when I read that Dean Esmay had shut down discussion and criticism at his own site. I wasn't a regular reader of Dean's, so it didn't affect me very much. But one of my fellow Cotillion sisters, Jane, has bowed out. She isn't anti-Islamic the way I am, but she doesn't like being told that she can or can't write something a certain way if she so chooses. Dean's own wife, Rosemary, has walked away from his blog, because she does believe we are in a clash of civilizations, and will not be silenced by his arbitrary rules.

Dean is now effectively blogging to hear his own voice. He has told his commenters that they must either walk in lockstep or leave. I won't do that to you. There have only been a few people that I've needed to ban because they were sick bastards or they were threatening. I object strongly to many things about Islam, including categorizing it as a legitimate religion instead of a cult. You have the right to object to me.

Labels: Blogging, Islam

The bodies of 14 policemen were found Friday northeast of Baghdad after an al-Qaida-affilated Sunni group said it abducted members of a government security force in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police.

How do we know the charge is bogus? Because if it were real, the woman would have been killed, not the Iraqi police.

Labels: Iraq, Middle East, War on Terror