The Dutch authorities fear that Submission 2, Ayaan Hirsi Alis soon to be released new movie, might make the Netherlands a target of angry Muslims worldwide. The movie criticizes Muslims for their intolerance of gays. In a report published last Wednesday the countrys National Anti-Terrorism Coordinator (Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding, NCTb) warns that one must seriously take into account the possibility of an international Muslim boycott of the Netherlands, similar to the boycott of Denmark by the Islamic world earlier this year over the Muhammad cartoons.
The NCTb writes that Submission 2 has already attracted attention in the Arab world and in Iran. The Dutch authorities are working on a plan about what to do if the movie does, indeed, stir up international Muslim indignation. Controversial debates or artistic quotes about Islam in the Netherlands can be abused by radical Muslims abroad to agitate against the Netherlands, the NCTb report says. It states that the Danish cartoon affair shows how minor local incidents can rapidly escalate into violent tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims. Not only political interests but also economic interests as well as the safety of embassies and Dutch troops abroad can be in jeopardy.
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#1
These people aren't liberals. They are hedonists. That is why they are incapable of defending even liberal ideals. Never had the facilities to determine right and wrong at the personal or national level. Thus there is no line that will be crossed before they defend themselves. Run away is the only plan.
#5
At the same time as they will do nothing to defend it, the Dutch feel ever so superior to the rest of us because they are tolerant and welcoming to even the most intolerant of those who come to them as refugees. They see it as a continuation of their proud tradition of hiding the Jews in their midst from the Nazis... ignoring the many who turned on those self-same Jews for their own benefit.
#6
The NCTb also warns for possible repercussions within the Netherlands. The report says that Dutch Muslims, including soldiers in the Dutch army, are growing ever more radical. An increasing number is said to visit radical mosques controlled by the Salafi, a Saudi dominated sect which advocates a return to the strict rules of 7th century Islam.
Well, you might want to do something about removing them then, no?
#8
Is this movie the one where the little Dutch boy has his finger in the dyke?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2006 15:07 Comments ||
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#9
I really, really hope you're right, Bright Pebbles. I have lots of cousins over there still, plus the people that hid my mother and her parents from the Nazis during the war.
Sometimes I think that if you really want to know whats going on in the world, you should read The New York Times and assume the exact opposite is true. Take Saturdays article Gathering Highlights Power of the Blog for example. Author Adam Nagourney visited Las Vegas to attend the meeting of mostly liberal bloggers discussing how theyre going to change the world in an event called Yearly Kos not so inconspicuously named after the blogospheres liberal mainstay, Daily Kos.
Unfortunately, after listing and quoting some Democrat dignitaries in attendance quotes to follow for your amusement! Nagourney actually wrote (emphasis mine), Blogging is nowhere near the force among Republicans as it is among Democrats.
Really, Adam? And exactly how did you come to this conclusion? Could you provide some statistics to support this assertion, or did you pull this non sequitur out off your hat?
In reality, the data quite refute Nagourneys contentions. NewsBusters executive editor Matthew Sheffield recently compiled some statistics on this very subject that quite go counter to this report. Now, to be sure, the two most popular political blogs as measured by Alexa are the Huffington Post and Daily Kos. Yet, as the following list demonstrates, ten of the top 20 political blogs are conservative leaning:
MOST POPULAR POLITICAL BLOGS
(Based on SiteMeter data and Alexa estimates)
1. Huffington Post 530,000*
2. Daily Kos 490,261
3. National Review 355,000*
4. Raw Story 354,152
5. Free Republic 255,000*
6. Crooks and Liars 177,634
7. Instapundit.com 142,855
8. Michelle Malkin 131,645
9. Eschaton 115,447
10. Talking Points Memo 110,000*
11. Common Dreams 105,774
12. America Blog 101,450
13. Little Green Footballs 100,098
14. Firedoglake 65,888
15. Power Line 65,723
16. NewsBusters 54,899
17. Wizbang 48,475
18. Washington Monthly 43,642
19. Hot Air 39,779
20. Hugh Hewitt 35,976
However, this data dont tell the whole story. After all, the granddaddy of the blogosphere and still by far the most powerful! is the conservative leaning Drudge Report which, on a daily basis, receives more visitors than all of the top twenty blogs combined. In fact, on Friday Drudge got 12.6 million visits.
How does that impact your Blogging is nowhere near the force among Republicans as it is among Democrats premise, Adam?
Beyond this, two other extremely popular conservative websites NewsMax and World Net Daily arent figured into blog rankings because they are not considered blogs per se. Yet, their existence does pull from the total available traffic looking for conservative opinion on the Internet.
As such, when you add the daily visits of the Drudge Report, World Net Daily, and NewsMax to those of the top seven conservative blogs, these numbers thoroughly dwarf the visits to the top liberal blogs by at least a factor of ten.
This suggests that Nagourneys view of a Democrat-dominated blogosphere is as accurate as Al Gores claim that he invented the Internet.
Speaking of goofy statements made by Democrats, heres what Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) was quoted by the Times as having said about blogs: "One of the reasons I so admire them is they have the ability to spread the truth like no entities I've dealt with in recent years.
Isnt that delicious? Heres a guy that is regularly quoted and referred to quite favorably by all of the drive-by media stating that blogs spread the truth like no entities I've dealt with in recent years.
I guess from that statement, Harry, we can assume that, in your view, The New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN arent spreading the truth?
Thanks for making our case for us, Harry, and fully validating the mission of NewsBusters and the Media Research Center.
#3
Fred's had script kiddie attacks for simply ages, though. And although there have been times when he was getting nearly 10,000 hits a day, I think Rantburg is a bit esoteric for most tastes. I mean, some of us are registered Democrats, some are avowed atheists, and some of us don't own guns. ;-)
#4
I would call Rantburg a "hard news" blog. It is almost comparable to a newswire in presentation, yet is focused, without (most of) the fluff & puff stories that are the sign of a slow news day.
Also, like a newswire, it is a "collection" site, a "primary" site, with its contributors acting like a hundred editors to select links that in their opinion are the most newsworthy.
Many blogs are reliant on other blogs for their news, they don't do the surfing themselves. This makes them second tier.
Political blogs are unavoidably as much opinion as news, so while they may be more popular, it is the popularity of "CNN Crossfire", where information is just to feed the argument, rather that to stand on its own.
#6
On the site lists were everything (not just politics but games downloads music, google, purchases, the whole nine yards) is counted rantburg shares are in the 70ks which is not bad.
By Ian Robinson
Back when Yugoslavia fell into genocidal civil war, I worked with a young Croatian kid. He was built like a full-sized pickup, but he was a sensitive soul, a painter in his spare time. And what his lifelong friends had become was torturing him.
He told me these Canadian-born kids, barely into their 20s, mocked him because he refused to join their secular jihad to the fragmented Yugoslavia, to fight for the culture their parents or grandparents left behind. They called his manhood into question. They went. He stayed. When they returned, some were unalterably changed. They drank more. Lots more. When the bottle got down to the bottom couple of inches, they talked of atrocity. Not the atrocities they witnessed. The atrocities they committed.
Nice, decent, polite Canadian boys, raised on hockey rinks, maple syrup, Don Cherry, O Canada, the Tim Hortons double-double and the liberal culture of acceptance had placed the reticule of a telescopic rifle sight on civilian women and pulled the trigger. They had shot indiscriminately into occupied houses and burned villages. They hinted at darker secrets, such as mass rape.
Even after listening to these tales of soul-killing horror, my young friend felt guilty for remaining behind. At the time, an eastern paper published a feature in which one "soldier" recounted how his Yugoslavia-born mother wept and begged him not go, saying this was not his war. His reply was if she didn't want him to feel such a strong connection to the old country, she should not have sent him to a cultural school several times a week, steeping him in the language, culture and, yes, resentments of the past.
Such is the ominous and hidden face of Canadian multiculturalism. We confront it yet again today. Only this time, 17 Canadian-born or Canadian-raised men and boys stand accused of plotting a terrorist attack on Canadian soil.
More at the link...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2006 11:05 ||
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#1
to fight for the culture their parents or grandparents left behind.
All that Monday morning quarterbacking about the problems in the home country. All the "retaining culture" lessons and airing of old grievances left behind.
Til the kids take up the old "rape and pillage. kill the enemy" mentality the parents ran away from. And they're surprised?
#2
The key is to enjoy learning about the old country, its culture and language, while teaching the youngsters that we left behind the quarrels when we came here -- all of us here are Canadians (or whatever) now. I ran into that in Germany though; my lovely Croatian neighbor, who'd left over two decades previously, wouldn't speak to the sweet Serbian baker's assistant, who'd been in Germany even longer. And when Mr. Wife played soccer in high school, they elected him captain even though he had the worst soccer skills, because as an American of Polish descent, the immigrant Serb, Croat and Macedonian boys on the team felt he was the only one they could trust to deal fairly with all.
#3
Everyone has and acquires baggage. People who are actually intelligent intentionally leave some or all at each way-station - and move on unburdened. This is, unfortunately, quite rare.
President Pervez Musharraf on Friday directed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and other relevant departments to highlight the soft image of Pakistan in the country and abroad. As he spoke, the National Assembly was busy doing just the opposite. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) demanded that the house offer fateha for the soul of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. MMA legislators Maulana Ghafoor Haideri and Dr Farid Paracha wanted to call down blessings on Al Zarqawi. The speaker prevented the embarrassing situation from getting out of hand by quoting the rules, which say the house could offer fateha only on the demise of a present or former member of parliament or his relatives.
In Lahore, however, President Musharrafs favourite jihadi outfit, Jamaat ud Dawa, offered a special namaz-e-janaza in absentia for the Shia-killer from Jordan and condemned the statement by the Foreign Office that the death of Al Zarqawi was an important milestone in the war against terrorism. The prayer was led by the Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed while the congregation cried their heart out for the dead man.
That Al Zarqawi killed Shiites in Iraq did not matter, which in itself is quite revealing. Those who mourned him forgot that he also killed some Pakistanis working in Iraq. This is the kind of internal extremism that hurts Pakistan and demonstrates how most of us are involved in sectarianism despite our assertions to the contrary. The Shia party inside the MMA should have protested the folly of Maulana Haideri and Dr Paracha in asking the National Assembly to bless the memory of the man. But it didnt. And this is not all.
The High Court in Karachi recently acquitted two doctors of helping Al Zarqawi because the police failed to make a good case against them. Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed had kept Al Zarqawi in their house in Karachi and looked after him and then sent him to South Waziristan for his journey to Afghanistan. The two Karachi doctors were revealed as Jandullah members by the Jandullah leader, Ataullah. The doctors had admitted that they were members of Jandullah and that they had provided medical aid to Al Qaeda and sent men to be trained as Al Qaeda activists to Nek Muhammad in Wana through his brother. The doctors had also admitted that they had maintained their relationship with the Jamiat Talaba Islam till late.
It is our bad luck that, apart from President Musharraf, no one else in the PMLQ or opposition wants to soften Pakistans image. The opposition is advocating defiance in the face of American imperialism and, since the soft image routine is alleged to be linked somehow to the enterprise of sucking up to the United States, everyone wants a hard image instead. Of course, very little attention is paid to the national economy which desperately needs a soft image internationally to flourish. In many ways the national economy clashes with the objectives of the Pakistani national polity and its textbook nationalism. The emotion behind all nationalisms is isolationist and all nationalisms seek an external enemy to achieve internal cementation through the vision of a just war.
The economy wants peace at all cost; it abhors isolationism, and will not accept the condition of war. Also, where nationalism rejects self-analysis, the economy works only through self-analysis. The truth is that our hard image is not projected falsely by Western media. Our image is what we are, as proved by the Al Zarqawi incident above. No one is clear about what Pakistan should be not even President Musharraf, who talks of a soft image but doesnt show the will or ability to roll back the hard image and its manifestations. *
Posted by: john ||
06/11/2006 08:43 ||
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Were it not for a procedural rule, the federal parliament of Pakistan would have been praying for Al Zarqawi.
Posted by: john ||
06/11/2006 8:47 Comments ||
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John Bolton, forthright American envoy to the UN, tells Jasper Gerard Britain has to swing behind reform pronto
If you consider Donald Rumsfeld the unacceptable face of American power, you probably havent met John Bolton. Even muscular rightwingers at the Centre for Policy Studies, whom the American ambassador to the United Nations addressed in London last week, squirmed like cheese-eating surrender monkeys when he seemed to suggest countries such as Ethiopia should have reduced voting rights at the UN because they are stingy with their budgetary contributions.
But Bolton, appointed by President Bush in defiance of Congress, has one virtue even his greatest detractors could not dispute: he shoots straight. If you want to know how America really sees the world, listen to Bolton.
#9
If Bolton were REALLY gutsy - he'd turn this ..."Then he lets slip something intriguing: One of the frustrations for us is that the EU says, We cant discuss very much with you until we come to a common EU position. That may be what the EU is all about, but to us it is very frustrating....
into something that would REALLY make their heads explode by "suggesting" that if they speak w/1 voice, they should only have 1 seat.
And point out they can't have it both ways if they go ahead w/the EU.
#10
9-11 > America accepts [anti-US]Socialism-OWG or it will be destroyed; DUBYA's corollary > America rules the world or Amer's enemies will destroy America. DUBYA > AMERICA CHOOSES TO RULE THE WORLD IN THE AMERICAN WAY - NO MORE HOLDING BACK OR RESTRAINING OURSELF AS BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER TWO WORLD WARS, KOREA 1, VIETNAM, COLD WAR, AND DESERT STORM-KOSOVO, ETC. AMERICA RULES, OR AMERICA DIES!
#11
DUBYA > AMERICAN WAY > DEMOCRATIC + ECONOMIC = IFF NEED BE, THE ROGUES WILL BE DRAGGED KICKING AND SCREAMING TOWARDS DEMOCRACY, BIG MACS, MTV, ARMANI, AND WALL STREET CAPITALISM, ETAL. WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT, WANT IT OR NOT. NO CAMELS + UNEDUCATED WOMEN WILL BE ALLOWED ON THE MOON + GALACTIC DEATH STAR/ENTERPRISE D.
Few men have so richly deserved death as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He met a swifter and cleaner end than what he meted out to Arabs and Americans alike; his violence included torture and beheadings, videotaped not only for purposes of propaganda, but, one suspects, out of a near pornographic pleasure in capturing human suffering on camera. As the head of one of the most important insurgent groups in Iraq, his demise is not only an occasion for pride in the prowess of American forces, and satisfaction at retribution dealt out, but a real blow to al Qaeda in Iraq. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
06/11/2006 08:29 ||
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A very interesting (and long) read for a Sunday: the thesis is that early 2003 Iraq was far more rotted, and more seriously disordered due to Ba'athist terror, than the U.S. anticipated, and that contributed to the early failures we had in reorganizing Iraq after taking the country. He raises doubts that Iraq can be democratized because of this.
by Kanan Makiya
Kanan Makiya, who was born in Iraq, is the Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, author of The Republic of Fear (1989, rev. 1998), and founder of the Iraq Memory Foundation.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, many of us reasoned that if a successful democracy took root, then this just might establish a model that would replicate itself throughout the region, forever altering the currently highly negative image that the Arab and Muslim world has of the U.S. After all, Iraq is an overwhelmingly Muslim country, and one in which the U.S. government has invested a great deal of human and material resources.
This thesis, however, has taken some hard knocks, as democratization in Iraq has so far translated only into elections, not the rule of law. Meanwhile, levels of violence have been rising, not falling in Iraq since 2003, reinforcing the false idea held by some Iraqis that democracy is in the end a form of anarchy. The escalation of violence has been particularly significant since the Askariya shrine in Samarra was blown up in late February 2006, an action that marks the success of efforts to undermine the enthusiasm that lay behind the historic vote of December 2005.
... This week the jihad lost its top field general, but in Somalia it may have gained a nation -- a new state base after the loss of Afghanistan. And in Toronto and London the picture isn't so clear: The forensic and surveillance successes were almost instantly undercut by the usual multicultural dissembling of the authorities. If you think the idea of some kook beheading prime ministers on video is nutty, maybe you're looking at things back to front. What's nutty is that, half a decade on from Sept. 11, the Saudis are still allowed to bankroll schools and mosques and think tanks and fast-track imam chaplaincy programs in prisons and armed forces around the world. Oil isn't the principal Saudi export, ideology is; petroleum merely bankrolls it. In Britain, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and elsewhere, second- and third-generation Muslims recognize the vapidity of the modern multicultural state for what it is -- a nullity, a national non-identity -- and so, for their own identity, they look elsewhere. To carry on letting Islamism fill it is to invite the re-primitivization of the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2006 10:43 ||
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#1
Cosby has done a great service to blacks in recent years, serving to be the outspoken conscience - chastising and trying to get them off the victim plantation the Donks and welfare society built for them. Honest self-criticism is the most cleansing thing there is, and the most painful
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2006 15:41 Comments ||
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#2
COSBY's dance moves on his Show reminds me a lot of my late father, whom emulated many similar motions in his younger days. Don't know whether Dad's fun-loving moves were copied from Coz's TV shows, Dad's own, or a mix, but it made Dad a popular guy at innumerable local Guam functions.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Dutch authorities fear that Submission 2, Ayaan Hirsi Alis soon to be released new movie, might make the Netherlands a target of angry Muslims worldwide. The movie criticizes Muslims for their intolerance of gays. In a report published last Wednesday the countrys National Anti-Terrorism Coordinator (Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding, NCTb) warns that one must seriously take into account the possibility of an international Muslim boycott of the Netherlands, similar to the boycott of Denmark by the Islamic world earlier this year over the Muhammad cartoons.
