Useful Reference

This piece from Andrew Bostom on PJ Media is a useful reference for the history of Islam and also for earlier writing on the subject.

Worth highlighting:

The great Orientalist David S. Margoliouth’s very balanced 1905 biography of Islam’s prophet recognized Muhammad as “ . . . a great man, who solved a political problem of appalling difficulty — the construction of a state and empire out of the Arab tribes.” Margoliouth recounted this accomplishment without “apology” or “indictment,” summarizing faithfully the images of Muhammad that emerge in the earliest and most authoritative pious Muslim biography of the Muslim prophet by Ibn Ishaq (d. 761/767), as follows:

In order to gain his ends he recoils from no expedient, and he approves of similar unscrupulousness on the part of his adherents, when exercised in his interest. He profits to the utmost from the chivalry of the Meccans, but rarely requites it with the like. He organizes assassinations and wholesale massacres.

His career as tyrant of Medina is that of a robber chief, whose political economy consists in securing and dividing plunder . . . He is himself an unbridled libertine and encourages the same passion in his followers. For whatever he does he is prepared to plead the express authorization of the deity. It is, however, impossible to find any doctrine which he is not prepared to abandon in order to secure a political end…This is a disagreeable picture for the founder of a religion, and it cannot be pleaded that it is a picture drawn by an enemy…

The entire piece underscores the real, unsentimental and unspun story of Islam - that it is a totalitarian political system in religious clothing and its founder cynically preached peace only as long as it took him to gather enough followers to declare war.

Bostom notes:

The modern Muslim scholar Ali Dashti’s biography of Muhammad, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, has also chronicled Muhammad’s “changed course” at Medina, where the Muslim prophet begins to “issue orders for war” in multiple and repeated Koranic revelations (Sura [chapter] 9 being composed almost entirely of such war proclamations — permanent injunctions against pagans, Jews, and Christians). Prior to describing some of the numerous assassinations Muhammad ordered, Ali Dashti observes

…Islam was gradually transformed from a purely spiritual mission into a militant and punitive organization whose progress depended on booty from raids and [tax] revenue….The Prophet’s steps in the decade after the hejra [emigration from Mecca to Medina] were directed to the end of establishing and consolidating a religion-based state. Some of the deeds done on his command [were] killings of prisoners and political assassinations…

and finally makes the point:

If we are silent and ignore the reality of Muhammad’s “beautiful example of conduct,” in lieu of defiantly upholding the irrefragable evidence briefly adduced herein, we are tacitly condemning Professor Margoliouth, posthumously, and all who presently understand and expound the proven wisdom of his judgments, and submissively acquiescing to the establishment of universal Islamic blasphemy law.

-- Nick

Speechless

You are.

Comments are now disabled for everything and all past comments have been deleted rather than wade through and try to decide what to keep and what to wipe. It seemed quicker and fairer to all and less vomit inducing for us considering some of the comments.

It was also dismaying to realise - naively and belatedly - that the comment string on some posts was providing a life support system for tribe warfare.

If it seems unfair, get your own blog.

-- Nick

Michael Loser

Movie director and celebrity bon vivant Michael Winner has been given 18 months to live and claims to have been researching European suicide 'clinics'.

"People should have the right to terminate their own life. I’m very happy to snuff it. I’ve had enough time on Earth. I’d be happy if someone gave me the plug to pull."

Then why don't you, Michael? You're perfectly capable of ending your own life by any number of means if you wish to do so. You are wealthy and mobile. Go to a country where guns are allowed and shoot yourself. Or just stay home and stick your head in the oven.

What's at the heart of assisted suicide for the majority of people who support it is selfishness and cowardice. Not with respect to any pain they might be going to face (though this plays a part) but with their own lack of balls enough to get on with it while they're still able to wash down a bottle of sleeping pills themselves, and an unwillingness to get while the going's good because they're not in sufficient pain yet.

No. Winner, rather than having the courage of his professed convictions and giving up a few months at the end of 76 years, wants to cling to life until it's unbearable then have some other person end it for him so he only has to sacrifice a few weeks that he wouldn't have enjoyed anyway.

Suck it up, Mike, and stop asking other people to do your dirty work for you.

-- Nick

For Appearances Sake

In Australia, the 'men of no appearance' - those not described by left-wing media outlets because they don't fit the 'correct' racial narrative - are usually 'of Middle Eastern appearance' according to the police media releases that are censored by the media. In the US, they have an additional group of 'no appearance', reported here under the headline 'Media Conceal True Nature of “Flash Mob” Racial Violence':

Relying on documents made available exclusively through a Freedom of Information Act request, we can add another face to the growing picture of racial “flash mob” violence in America. It is a face that the media have concealed from public view. This writer was forced to use the local Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to ascertain the facts about the racial identity of one of the victims of these attacks. The media concealed the identity of the white victim apparently because of misguided racial sensitivity.

An earlier (2011) article by African-American teacher Jerry Walker points out that some in the community are speaking out:

On the evening of Friday, July 29, 2011, in a district similar to the Plaza called Center City located in Philadelphia, a ‘wilding mob’ descended and brutally assaulted and robbed numerous Caucasian patrons. According to the Washington Times, “the worse injury was a man kicked in the head so savagely that he was hospitalized with a fractured skull”. According to the Times, there were four arrests including an eleven-year-old juvenile. Michael Nutter, an African American and the Mayor of Philadelphia, was outraged. According to the Associated Press while addressing the congregation of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church one week after the attacks, he stated that he was speaking as a “proud black man”. He then chided black parents for abrogating their responsibility for “doing a better job raising their children”. Addressing the young thugs he said, “You’ve damaged yourself, you’ve damaged another person, you’ve damaged your peers and, quite honestly, you’ve damaged your own race”. He continued, “Let me speak plainer. That’s part of the problem in the black community… We have too many men making too many babies they don’t want to take care of and then we end up dealing with your children.” Later in an interview with the Associated Press Mayor Nutter reiterated the point that he spoke as “a proud black man in this country”. He went on to say, “It was a message that needed to be said. It needed to be said at this time… people have had enough of this nonsense, black and white”. “This is about personal responsibility “, he concluded, “We have to be straightforward.” Mayor Nutter had many detractors within the black community disparaging his remarks. These critics, almost without exception, invariably blamed the “white man” for the existence of the ‘wilding mobs’. However there were those who supported him.

The author also predicted:

Note also that these “wilding mobs” incidents in 2010 and 2011 took place during the months April through August, warmer months when school is not in session. Be assured if a more direct, confrontational and preemptive approach is not taken by law enforcement, we will witness these violent, horrendous events again during the summer of 2012, only on a wider more destructive scale.

And he appears to have been right.  

-- Nick

Pot Calls Kettle Black

Thanks to moronic leftists, arrogant savages now lecture the civilised world:

"...Islamophobia has also become a new form of racism like anti-Semitism. It can no longer be tolerated under the guise of freedom of expression.

That's rich coming from the Muslims, the world's most vituperous anti-Semites of all.

-- Nick

A Timely Reminder

The new president of Egypt has issued a pardon:

Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya leader Mostafa Hamza, detained for terrorist activity and attempt on Hosni Mubarak’s life, released Tuesday by President Morsi’s pardon.

What else has Hamza done?

The Luxor Massacre has been mostly forgotten, but it deserves to be remembered as a template of the Islamist soul. The full horror of what happened there needs to be understood for us to understand what Morsi has just done.

As they ran past a Japanese tourist, she said, one of the men fired into the woman’s face from a range of about 15 inches. “They made us get down on our knees,” Ms Dousse said. “And then they started shooting. A man who was very heavy fell on me and the lady behind me also covered me … They shot me in the arm and leg, and then they started again shooting those who were still alive in the head. The gunmen “took all the young women, the girls, and disappeared with them. I don’t know where they went with the women, but they hurt them. We could hear screams of pain,” Dousse said. “It went on for a long time, an hour or an hour and a half. The terrorists came back again and again; they danced and sang,” she said. Among the horrors, the marauders cut off the ears and noses of several of their victims. A note praising Islam was found inside one disemboweled body. The foreign dead included 31 Swiss, 10 Japanese, five Germans, four Britons one a child a Bulgarian, a Colombian and a French citizen. The Japanese victims were four newlywed couples and an elderly couple on their second honeymoon. A statement issued in the name of Egypt’s most prominent Islamic militant group said that the massacre had begun as an effort to take hostages in order to secure the release of a leader imprisoned in New York for his role in the World Trade Center bombing. But the accounts by survivors gave no hint of any attempts to take tourists alive – only to kill and, perhaps, to butcher, them. The terrorists came back, as they sang, danced and shouted “Allah, Allah …”. It took an eternity before help arrived. Two British backpackers told last night how a screaming terrorist slit the throat of a tourist as he begged for mercy. Stuart Bentley and Paula Wainwright watched terrified from behind a pillar as the black-clad gunman first riddled the man’s legs with bullets as he tried to flee. Stuart said: “I saw three men dressed in black.They were screaming something, almost like a chant, and shooting indiscriminately. “I saw one man, who looked European, trying to run away. He was shot in the legs, rolled over and clasped his hands together as if begging for his life. But the gunman just cut his throat and began firing again.” The remains of the Luxor massacre victim Joan Turner were eventually flown back to Britain yesterday. The body of her daughter, Karina, is still missing. Behind the difficulties in identifying the bodies of the family lies the brutal fact that their Muslim fundamentalist killers had deliberately disfigured the bodies of their victims after stripping them. They had been shot in the face after they were dead.

Follow Your Heart

Self-aggrandising, morally superior Swedish advertising agency (an ad agency, for goodness sake) protests with teddy bears:

...a small Swedish plane entered (Belarus) airspace July 4, dropping hundreds of teddy bears on tiny black parachutes, the Belta news agency reports. The teddy bears carried signs reading, "freedom" and "We support the Belarus struggle for free speech." In a note it called a "legal warning and disclaimer" on its website, Studio Total acknowledges that violating military space "of a dictatorship" involves "real danger." It says: The entire campaign was paid for by Studio Total. The airplane we flew in was our own, and we piloted it ourself. We DO NOT support breaking of international law. But when it really comes down to it, the only law you should follow is your heart. (emphasis added)

You don't support breaking the law? But you just did.

Oh well, never mind, it's ok because the only law you should follow is your heart.

So if you want to abandon your children or expose yourself to minors or have sex with your sister, just do it.

-- Nick

Pointing The Bone

"I think the Indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held with every Australian."

That sounds pretty reasonable doesn't it?

No. It's apparently excuse for a riot.

Disgraceful.

-- Nora

Happy Australia Day

Here's our ubiquitous cocktail for our national day:

Aussie Beach Blond Cocktail Ingredients

1 1/2 oz White Rum
1 1/4 oz Orange Liqueur
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
3/4 oz Lime Juice
1 1/4 oz Orange Juice
1 passion-fruit pulp

Combine the rum, Cointreau, lime juice, orange juice, sugar and passion-fruit pulp in a blender with 1/4 cup of crushed ice. Blend and add further crushed ice where needed until slushy consistancy is achieved. Pour into a hurricane glass.

-- Nora

Everyone Who Ever Lived Was Pro-Gay

It's taking a bit of a liberty to assume what a dead man's views on a subject would have been.

Here, gay activists on the staff of Bloomberg chide Martin Luther King for forgetting to think of them while he was fighting for racial civil rights but then allow King the kind of 'open-mindedness' that he would have seen him on their side:

Even Martin Luther King Jr., the man the U.S. honors today, had his blind spots. The circle of human rights he gave his life to expand didn’t include everyone. Left out, for instance, were gay men and lesbians. One of King’s most laudable attributes, however, was his ability to evolve and grow, and so we imagine that were he alive today he would endorse the efforts of the Obama administration to help bring basic freedoms and protections to gay people the world over.

The fact is that King might very well have not seen gay rights as analogous to racial rights. There are good reasons to assume he would not have done and that he may have opposed many of the demands of today's homosexual lobby.

But it has been a tactic of the homosexual movement to co-opt the racial rights movement in this way, as well as to portray respected dead people as either supportive of their agenda or as homosexual themselves.

In this case, they've never been able to posthumously 'turn' the civil rights leader - it would bring a world of hurt down on them to attempt to do so as they have attempted with other historical figures.

But there's a whole realm of intellectual dishonesty in claiming he would have wholeheartedly supported them, as Ambra Nykol writes in The New Black Magazine:

A great success of liberal groups has been to disconnect the work of Dr. King with the fact that he was a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. People love to call King "Doctor" but rarely do they refer to him as "Reverend". We don't hear a great deal mentioned about King's ministry and his sermonizing from the Bible. There was once a day when "social justice" and politics were closely tied with the "black church".

Based on the fact the King was a Bible-believing Baptist (and assuming he didn't subscribe to the private interpretation methodical, choose-your-own-adventure brand of Christianity), we can deduce that he probably did not condone homosexuality as a lifestyle.

Although, Liberals will point to the fact that one of King's top advisers and organizers for the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, was an openly homosexual man as proof positive that King was in favor of homosexual marriage. The reality is, this example merely shows us that King was in favor of showing an attitude of love towards all people, regardless of their sexual orientation.

This is simply the cause of Christ. However, the philosophy of King is currently being distorted to support the homosexual agenda.

-- Nick

But Really, There's No Agenda. Honest....

The UK Mail Online reports:

Why men will ALWAYS cheat (even if they love their partners and don't want to leave them)

The headline would be more honest if it read:

Why homosexual men will ALWAYS cheat (even if they love their partners and don't want to leave them)

For the statistically flawed and intellectually dishonest 'survey' on which the story is based was conducted by homosexual activist Eric Gumby Anderson who was 'America’s first openly gay high school coach' and is now an academic in the field of sociology working in England.

On his website, he writes:

Professor Eric Anderson is an American sociologist at the University of Winchester, England. He is known for his research on sport, masculinities, sexualities and homophobia. He has been published in dozens of academic journals and is regularly featured in the popular press. His work shows an increasingly positive relationship between gay male athletes and sport, as well as a growing movement of young heterosexual men’s masculinity becoming softer and more inclusive. Professor Anderson also researches matters related to men’s monogamy and the function of cheating, men's improving recognition of bisexuality, and the increased acceptance of young heterosexual men kissing.

His Wikipedia profile shows, however, that he is no mere studier of social mores but an active participant in the manipulation of society.

With respect to the Mail Online story, Professor Anderson is flogging a book based on a survey of a mere 120 male undergraduates, and he immediately distorts the results in the direct he desires by lumping heterosexual and homosexuals together.

Many independent studies reveal the majority of partnered gay men say they are monogamous but often have other sexual partners. The average is 7 others per year.

They maintain this cognitive dissonance by defining 'monogamy' differently to heterosexuals. Thus, they are emotionally 'faithful' to their partner but have others for sex only.

Thus the picture Anderson paints - and is wilfully supported in by a compliant media that helps him hide from a largely ignorant public that he is a homosexual advocate - is that all men behave in a manner similar to homosexuals.

This is a method proposed by Madsen and Kirk in their 1980s work After The Ball, which advocated the promotion of the concept that gay behaviour was the same as straight, even where it was not, so as to redefine society's normal to the homosexual norm.

-- Nick

What a post-Christian Society Looks Like

A callous thief stole a man’s bike as he lay dying in a canal just yards away.

‘Despicable’ Adam Lowther, 22, took the bicycle belonging to Michael Houghton, 51, without stopping to help the cyclist who was lying face down in the stretch of water, an inquest heard.

The hearing was told Lowther didn’t call for help because he had run out of battery charge on his phone.

He also claimed that as he thought the man was already dead there was little point in trying to help.

Instead he simply rode off on the bike before selling it for £20.

-- Nora

Tropical Storm

It's storm season in Queensland, but we've not seen much climatic action and that's probably just as well.

Tropical Storm (serves 8)
Ingredients

* 2 cups fresh pineapple juice
* 2 cups orange juice
* 1 cup white rum
* 3/4 cup high-proof dark rum
* 3 tablespoons Campari
* Orange wedges and maraschino cherries, for garnish

Preparation

* Mix ingredients in a pitcher. Cover; chill for 4–12 hours.
* Divide among ice-filled glasses. Garnish with orange wedges and maraschino cherries.

-- Nora

Paper Tigers

It's been back to work this week at the Charles' household and we see that our local newspaper is also back to its usual tricks after its reporting staff have (more or less) sobered up from New Years celebrations.

The first story that look our eye was the piece headlined today Council bleeding Coast ratepayers dry.

According to the article, any revenue stream employed by the Gold Coast City Council is an impost on the poor benighted citizen of the city.

THE Gold Coast City Council is bleeding ratepayers dry with fees and charges that have become an almost $100 million cash cow.

The revenue grab is revealed in the council's 2010-11 annual report, which the council removed from its website after goldcoast.com.au scrutiny.

Why would the council's annual report be removed from the web site?

Consider the Bulletin's story as exhibit A.

More than $10.5 million was collected through fines, $7.2 million through parking fees, $6 million for dumping waste at the tip and almost $17 million in building and development fees.

In addition it collected $32 million in charges for jobs it was doing on behalf of water authority Allconnex.

While the council pulled in $460 million in rates, it scored another $97 million through fees and charges.

Well yes. The Gold Coast City Council serves a population of just over 593,000 people. It needs revenue form a variety of sources, not just ratepayers.

Pejorative words like 'bleeding', 'cash cow' and 'scored' put the lie to the the Bully's claims of applying 'scrutiny' to the council on behalf of Gold Coasters. It is not.

The article today is part of a concerted 'kick the council campaign' ahead of the upcoming Local Government elections locked in for late March.

If the paper wants to see an improved Gold Coast then it needs to do a little soul searching.

Over the past 10 years it has had three editors and three masthead changes, reduced its staff by a rumoured 30% and experience a real numbers fall in circulation. Back in 2001, when the population of the Gold Coast was 423,700, the paper's average circulation was 45,000.

Today, circulation can't even keep up with population growth, dropping in real terms to a paltry average circulation of just 40,593 based on News Limited's own advertiser's page.

As a matter of disclosure, Nicky and I do not work for the Gold Coast City Council although, as long-term, semi-prominent citizenry we have met all of the current councillors, senior bureaucrats and most of the mayoral aspirants.

There is nothing wrong with the Fourth Estate ensuring our elected officials are held to account, but under the current malignant malaise which afflicts modern journalism - its all about 'the mix-master', manufacturing outrage with every interview a 'gotcha' - is it any wonder that even Anna Bligh (in the only defence of her government you will see on this site) looks to deliver her message direct to the people rather than through the filter of the 'professional' media.

Thanks to the Internet and social media - a phenomenon that most journalists (and certainly Rupert Murdoch) don't understand - people don't need the reach of media outlets anymore. Every man is his own publisher.

The Gold Coast Bulletin's dwindling circulation is evidence that the rest of us consider the 'news' they bring to be of even less and less importance.

It's not too late for the mainstream media to learn the lesson, but one questions whether they can.

-- Nora

UPDATE: I found a calculator and did some sums.

In 2001 when the Gold Coast's population was 423,700 and the average circulation was 45,000, the Bulletin was bought by 10.62% of the population

In 2011 when the Gold Coast's population is 593,000 and the average circulation is 40,593, the Bulletin was bought by only 6.84% of the population.

In real terms the Bulletin's reach has gone down by almost 40%.

Solomon's Decision Made Easy

Take the child away from both of them and raise it with a heterosexual family.

Who IS the mom? Lesbians in child custody battle after one woman donated egg and the other had it implanted into womb

-- Nora

Egypt Is Next

Inch by inch:

Thousands of honeymoons will never be the same again after Islamists put pressure on the Maldives government to close them down.

The Islamists indulge in kitman:

However, former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's opposition coalition Progressive Party of Maldives said the government move was aimed at leisure business owned by some opposition members. 'We never asked for the ban,' PPM spokesman Ahamed Mahloof said. 'We wanted the liquor and massage clinics banned in inhabited islands to prevent prostitution and spread of drugs and alcohol to locals'.

Inhabited islands?

-- Nick

When Animals Attack

David Williamson is one of those playwrights beloved of high school English teachers.

His writing is workman-like, his observations of Australian society once sharp and amusing, now seem flabby, shrill, depressing.

Most likely this is because he has lost touch with his audience falling foul, as many TV scriptwriters and playwrights do, of the snobbery that treats those whose patronage provides his income with contempt.

Williamson was featured here nearly five years ago when he bemoaned in print that he had to spend time with the ignorant money-fixated hoi polloi on cruise ship holiday.

Today Williamson is at the centre of another literary slap-down with fellow foul-mouthed, leftist snob Bob Ellis whose writings lurch from arts reviews, politics and social commentary with all the finesse of a man drunk on his own ego.

Professor Bunyip (a bunyip whose turn of phrase is a bubbling wellspring of sharp social observation and quick wit compared with the stagnancy of thought from the likes of Williamson, Ellis, FitzSimons and Hardy) has the background here:

WHAT with the spigot of mates’ moolah turned off, elderly onanist Bob Ellis must have a bit too much time on his hands these days, as he has stepped up those exercises in automatic writing which The Drum finds so agreeable. And since that humble vessel is insufficient to the outpourings of such a cascading ego, Bob also has been alerting the world to his continued presence via a recently launched blog. Things are going well for Blogger Bob, who has not yet learned to link, but who nevertheless celebrated 1000-or-so daily page views by noting his site “just might attract some advertising, from cinemas and theatres, for instance.”

Idle hands are said to do the devil’s work, and Bob’s stubby digits would seem to be the proof of that. Where once Mrs Palm’s ten daughters were able to occupy their few empty moments extracting cheques from a Palm Beach letterbox – cheques drawn against the taxpayers’ account and authorised by NSW Labor pals and his crow-eating cobber, ousted SA Premier Mike Rann – their secondary joy just lately would seem to be the needling of another august presence in the pantheon of Australia’s artistic elite, the fantastically revered playwright David Williamson. Oh, and his missus, Kristin Williamson, is just a bit peeved as well, which is entirely understandable. Even without reference to that billiard table, what respectable matron could tolerate in silence assertions by her hubby’s critic that she and he once fused themselves into a three-day lump of sweaty, socially aware, artistic flesh?

Although the good professor warns against rubber necking at the train wreck to come one is compelled to trawl through the wreckage to see if it is as bad as it appears.

It is.

-- Nora