timeimmortal

Now this is a contest fit for a Canadian!

With a rich history of mediocrity, Canada has always celebrated the average, whether it’s handing out 91 television awards in a country with two major networks (plus Global!), or proudly proclaiming to anyone who will listen that Dave Thomas, Shawn Ashmore and that guy from the Friends spinoff are Canadian.

Because really…if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re not actually a Canuck.

more cat pictures

Islamist blogger (and Pickering, Ontario nuclear power plant worker) Shaukat Khawja — also known as Rehmat, owner/operator of the Rehmatpedia blog — has had some very…interesting things to say in the past, but I’ve a feeling that this latest offering of his (put not on his blog but in the IslamUnity.net forums) might just take the cake. If nothing else, it at least confirms a suspicion that I’ve had about the guy for a while: underneath any pretense he might have established about being committed to peace and mercy (the name “Rehmat”, if memory serves, means “mercy” or “kind”), he’s just your typical anti-Jewish bigot.

Choice samples from his latest include:

Jew elites always played a major part in great wars and reactionary movements. They’re known for tricking the both parties in a conflict. For example, Jews funded most of Crusades against Muslims and Jews; Jew sided on both sides of American Civil War; they were behind French Revolution and Communist Revolution in Russia – and they declared war on Nazi Germany, while 150,000 German Jews were serving Nazi Army and some Zionist terrorist groups were having honeymoon with Hitler and Mussolini regimes.

Jew elites, eh? You mean, like this?

Okay, Photoshoppery aside, Shaukat is here saying more or less the same thing that got Mel Gibson into trouble a couple years back: “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”. Now, to be fair, I’m sure that Jews probably did fight in e.g. the American Civil War, and then on both sides. But that is because such conflicts transcend religious considerations — neither the Civil War, nor the French or Russian revolutions or World War II were about religion, and did not have any real religious significance. Even the Crusades were more about politics and territory than they were about religion. And in such conflicts, people of the same religious stripe might well end up on opposite sides of the field of battle.

Case in point: there currently Muslims serving with e.g. NATO forces in Afghanistan, and who do battle with the Muslims in the Taliban.

Shaukat claims that he doesn’t need to prove this — or any other — statement made in the list of his that I have linked to, and yet the claim made above is hardly sufficiently self-evident to be able to stand on its own. Where is the evidence of Jewish funding of e.g. the Crusades against their own people?

Nazis never killed six million Jews. It’s 20th century’s biggest hoax – which has only flourished under government protection in several western countries.

Nazis are known for killing several million of Gypsies, Christians and Jews under their rule – but the largest victims were Gypsies. Even Auschwitz museum in Poland now have reduced the figure of Jewish killed by Nazis as 2.5 million.

Ah, Holocaust denial — pretty much a staple of Islamic discourse, unfortunately.

The problem with it is: the Nazis themselves were reasonably good book-keepers; we know from their own documentation that approximately 6 million Jews were murdered in various ways in the 1930s and 1940s. The figure of 2.5 million Jews that Shaukat gives is reflective of the number of Jews killed in Poland alone. And again, many of these deaths were documented and/or witnessed; the figures are not baseless.

Holocaust denial is ostensibly a punishable offence in Canada (not something I agree with, but that’s another matter). Strangely, however, I very much doubt that Shaukat is going to be charged with anything over this utterance.

September 11, 2001 attack on WTC and Pentagon was an inside terrorist job – conceived by Israeli Mossad, CIA and pro-Israel politicians and government officials.

Ah, the World Trade Center conspiracy. Another canard, and again a common staple of Islamic discourse.

There’s other stuff, some of it laugh-out-loud wrong, but these are some of the highlights. I think there’s room for one more, and that’s good…because of all the things Shaukat has asserted about Jews in his latest post, here’s my personal favourite:

Jews have the most powerful Jewish Lobby (AIPAC, ADL, AJC, etc.) in the US - which works for the interests of Zionist Israel instead of the US.

Here I had thought that the Hindu Jewish lobby was the most powerful. It appears, O Reader, that I have been grossly misinformed about the size thereof.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

When Christopher Hitchens gets right down to it, he can be one heck of a grand journalist. Yes, when the discussion topic shifts toward Religion, the atheist in him seems to get the better of his good sense, and he seems unable to sort out reason from anger. But when he just sets himself to the task of journalism, he can produce some truly amazing work.

I understand that in the U.S. right now, there is a huge debate going on over the interrogation methods used by U.S. intelligence gatherers when trying to extract information from captured jihadis, and whether those methods include or count as torture. It should be noted that the Church condemns torture as a grave moral evil, which it indeed is, and this is more or less the tone of the debate in the U.S. as well; on one hand, there are people arguing that it is a legitimate method of extracting information, and on the other there are people saying that it is wrong.

Into the middle of this comes Mr. Hitchens. The skillful journalist decided that there was only one way to get to the truth about waterboarding: experience if first-hand. And so he did.

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning -— or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and -— as you might expect -— inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

…The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Yeah, it’s torture.

Good on Hitchens for doing his level best to fully understand the process of waterboarding, and good on him for being so candid in his writing about it afterwards. This is an issue which needs to be brought to light and resolved, because it is unconscionable that the U.S. employ such techniques in its attempts to root out terrorism. Barbarity is for the enemy, not for those who supposedly value freedom.

At least, I assume this visit was from Rehmatpedia blogger Shaukat Khawja, who is known to be an employee of Ontario Power Generation, specifically at their nuclear power generation facility in Pickering, Ontario.

Number of Entries: 19
Entry Page Time: 2nd July 2008 04:57:15
Visit Length: 1 hour 53 mins 24 secs
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Returning Visits: 0
Location: Mississauga Ontario Canada
Hostname: ity1.ontariopowergeneration.com (192.75.48.150) [Label IP Address]
Entry Page: www.timeimmortal.net/2008/06/30/rehmat-resorts-to-threats-now/
Exit Page: www.timeimmortal.net/2008/06/30/rehmat-resorts-to-threats-now/
Referring URL: No referring link

Duly noted!

The Anchoress raises a good point: many people fear exploring Religion — Christianity especially — too closely, for fear that in so doing they might encounter something which would force them to change their thinking, and perhaps even require them to acknowledge that something exists “beyond” them. The human illusions of permanence and control are difficult ways of thinking to overcome, even when one comes face to face with the Creator God who is above all other things; for many, it is too frightening a concept to dwell on.

This is, perhaps, especially true both of the Incarnation of Christ and of the Eucharist, which is a direct revelation and experience of Him.

[The human being, in all ages of history,] resists the consequence of the mystery made flesh, for if this Event is true, then all aspects of life, including the sensible and the social, must revolve around it. And it is precisely man’s perception of being undermined, no longer being the measure of his own self, that places him in the position of refusal.

The Anchoress notes a strange thing: doubt is almost sacrosanct to the skeptic and the agnostic, and yet doubt itself must not be cast into doubt. It is perhaps fortunate, then, that Christ will patiently grant people many chances to overcome their fear of certainity.

Grace and I went to see the fireworks last night, and while we were waiting (Edmonton fireworks never start on time, except on New Year’s) for the show to begin, we got to talking about the state that Canada was in. In particular, Grace wondered what, exactly, the men and women Canada has sent to fight in e.g. Afghanistan are really fighting for. Obviously, they’re fighting to establish and preserve the Agfhan government…but what is it about Canada that is worth their sacrifice?

There’s a lot about this country that’s pretty great, to be sure. We are (more or less) a democracy, and Canadian citizens enjoy a reasonable degree of freedom, especially when compared to other nations in the world. The climate is decent (it’s been hot, lately, but one expects that in summer…and a couple strategically-placed fans around the apartment seem to at least partially mitigate the worst effects thereof). We are a fairly prosperous nation, with a good economy. And evidently, there must be something about Canada that thousands of immigrants every year see as being worthwhile — why else would they uproot themselves and, in many cases, their families and move here from halfway around the world?

At the same time, though, there’s much about Canada that is anything but great. We are tragically soft on crime, and far too many unborn Canadians never see the light of day due to the fact that abortion law in Canada is practically non-existent; in most jurisdictions, it’s perfectly legal to terminate a baby at pretty much every stage of development prior to actual birth. Our culture, in pace with most Western cultures, has slipped further and further down the well of moral depravity, especially in regard to various sexual “preferences” and “lifestyles”. And while we are ostensibly a free people, that freedom can be (and has been) severely curtailed in many instances — thanks to human rights commissions, even human rights that Canadians supposedly possess as per the Charter that is the foundational document for this nation’s governance have been stripped away to suit the whims and demands of activists and the too-easily-offended.

And Grace and I came to the conclusion, standing there waiting for the fireworks, that about the best we could reasonably say about Canada is that it’s a good place to live, but that it could be better. And we both came away wishing that we didn’t have to think about the country that has been our home in such terms.

Over in Europe, and in the U.S. as well (and probably here in Canada, although it has not yet been publicized to any extent), a “rape epidemic” is in progress, as more and more immigrants from various (primarily Islamic) nations come to the West and attempt to impose their values onto the predominant culture. Most recently in Brussels, Belgium, the example of a woman who was assaulted for not wearing “the veil” (e.g. the hijab) can be found, over and over again. In the U.S., there is the recent example of the Said sisters, two honour killing victims. In Canada, we have the sad case of Aqsa Parvez, also an honour killing victim.

In a way, this sort of thing shouldn’t come as a surprise to us. Beginning with Pierre Trudeau’s attempt to re-invent the image of what Canada was, our societal attitude has moved steadily leftward, toward the socialist and multicultural ideals that are now so pervasive in every aspect of Canadian society. And somewhere along the line, we lost something — we lost confidence and courage, specifically. We now lack the confidence and the courage to say to those who immigrate here that they have come to a nation that does not necessarily follow the ways of “the old country”; indeed, we have bent over backward to reject all the many positive things about Canada’s founding heritages in a misguided (and ultimately false!) effort to pretend that every culture in the world is equal.

And yet we know that not every culture is equal, and that some cultures are, frankly, barbaric or inferior by comparison to our own. Any culture that would give sanction to a father to murder his daughter solely on the basis of her style of dress has no place in Canada, until and unless it is willing to give up that aspect of itself. And people from that culture have no place in Canada until and unless they are willing to give up that aspect of their heritage. To claim that such views can somehow be wedged into the “cultural mosaic” of Canada is, ultimately, to give the culture of Canada over to its destruction.

Even more that just rejecting those imported cultural attitudes that are incompatible with what Canada stands for, however, Canada needs to work to re-elevate itself about the level of “it could be better.” Canadian society needs to stop being so limp-wristed where dealing with crime is concerned. It needs to stop being so permissive where sexual immorality is concerned. It needs to stop encouraging its people to be thin-skinned complainers by providing them a forum (in the HRCs) to effect government-mandated financial ruin on those with whom they disagree. And along the way, it might just do well to add the right of private property into the Charter.

Canada needs to be worth fighting and dying for again — it needs to be more and better than it is now, if for no other reason than to give purpose to the sacrifices it demands of its men and women in uniform. Is it really worth the sacrifice, to die for a country that could be better?

It’s Wednesday, and Muslims are offended again. This time, the object of their ire is a new advertisment for the Tayside (that’s in Scotland) police force which advertises the service’s new phone number for “non-emergency” calls.

The advert in question, pictured below, features a cute little puppy sitting in a policeman’s hat. And owing to the fact that dogs are considered unclean in Islam, this postcard advert “has sparked outrage from Muslims.”

Yes. This image:

…has sparked outrage.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Strangely, I’ve not heard any news of Muslim outrage over the blatant discrimination and oppression of women that is evident in e.g. the following:

(for reference: that’s a picture of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the woman who is apparently his wife — Iran’s “First Lady”, so to speak)

Also lacking: Muslim outrage over e.g. the honour killing of Aqsa Parvez and other daughters of Muslim parents over essentially trivial matters (Aqsa herself was murdered for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf, the hijab).

It’s bad enough that the Muslims complaining about this advert don’t have the presence of mind to realize that they are a minority group with no intrinsic right to force their views or beliefs on anyone else, let along on the society to which they have come. As Mark Shea points out, they just “can’t seem to get it through their infantile heads that the rest of us are not obliged to bother our heads about their particular cultural taboos.”

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: ‘My concern was that it’s not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

‘It was probably a waste of resources going to these communities.

‘They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they’d seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn’t have done it.’

I usually give up alcohol for Lent, O Reader, and I usually try and observe the tradition of eating fish on Fridays during that time as well. A lot of Catholics do the same. How many of us, do you suppose, have ever expressed “outrage” that bars continue to feature happy hour specials and deals on steak sandwiches on Friday evenings? Yeah…didn’t think so. And while I’ve heard more than a few hilarious jokes from Jews about the impact of eating pork on one’s mental prowess, how many Jews do you suppose have ever expressed outrage over seeing coupons for bacon in the flyers that get delivered to their houses on a weekly basis?

But evidently, Muslims in and around Tayside evidently are not familiar with the concept of maturity in faith.

And the police are apologizing for this? Where’s that Scotch spirit? Where’s that Celtic fire? Where is someone — anyone — with the courage to say to Mr. Asif and all the others who have filed complaints about this advert: “This is Scotland. Sod off and deal with it. The advert stands, your grubby traditions be damned.”

Update: There is hope!

Mr Asif’s comments have won little support among the public or Dundee’s Islamic community.

Last night Mahmud Sarwar, trustee of the Scottish Islamic and Cultural Centre and the Dura Street mosque, appealed for calm.

He said he had no problems with the postcard and called on homeowners and local businesses to display them as it is in the public interest.

“I’ve not heard anything about that from members of the community,” Mr Sarwar said.

“I was round some shops today and at the mosque and nobody has said anything about it.”

Mr Sarwar said that religious sensitivities would prevent him from displaying the postcard on a building of religious significance but there was nothing to stop them being displayed in shops.

“There is not a dog—it is just a picture,” he said.

More like Mahmud Sawar, please!