Dreams Into Lightning

The fucking Jew is a racist!

Canadian author Howard Rotberg runs into some trouble.

Omar Khadr

As for Khadr's being Canadian, whatever the facts about the grenade murder, he was in Afghanistan fighting the ISAF coalition of which Canada is part. There's a name for people who take up arms against their country: "traitor."

Via GOAF, via Solomonia.

Reining In the CHRC

Ezra Levant shares the good news:

Parliament is on its extended summer holiday but news comes nonetheless of two government MPs who are opposed to the Canadian Human Rights Commission's abuses and corruption. ...

Neither [Conservative MP John] Williams nor [Conservative MP Rick] Casson could be described as "wild-eyed" MPs. Words like "deliberate" and "understated" and "considered" come to mind. The fact that each of them has seen fit to criticize the CHRC, that Williams has favourably reviewed Kay's dramatic Op-Ed, and that Casson is actually directed voters to lobby the Justice Committee, is all the more encouraging.

Reforming -- or even abolishing -- the CHRC is no longer a radical idea when men like Williams and Casson say what they've said this month.

Go read the post for details.

Good News out of Europe and Canada

EU official: Israeli Gaza action not a war crime.

(IsraelNN.com) A European Union official visiting Israel said Israeli retaliation actions in the Gaza Strip "did not constitute war crimes." European Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini also said that "Europeans should have understood Israel’s concern sooner," EJP reported.

Speaking to Israeli reporters on Tuesday in the course of his visit in Israel, he declared: "We have to take into account that the Gaza Strip has become a base from where rockets are launched every day against innocent people in Israel… Ultimately, Hamas was responsible for the conditions under which Gazans lived."

In a speech at the Herzliya Conference, Frattini, who is a former Italian Foreign Minister, said: "There has been a large-scale misunderstanding in recent years between Europe and Israel. For too long, we ignored Israel’s fears and legitimate concerns about terror, fanaticism and the refusal of key groups in the Arab camp to come to terms with Israel’s existence, let alone its legitimacy."

Canada to skip Durban conference due to expected anti-Semitism.

Canada will not take part in a major United Nations conference on racism next year because the event is likely to descend into "regrettable anti-Semitism", a top official said on Wednesday.

Officials said they believed Canada was the first nation to announce it will not attend the conference in Durban, South Africa.

A similar meeting at the same venue in 2001 was marred when Israel and the United States walked out in protest over draft conference texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state - language that was later dropped.

"(We) had hoped that the preparatory process for the 2009 ... conference would remedy the mistakes of the past. Despite our efforts, we have concluded that it will not. Canada will therefore not participate," Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said in a statement.

Jason Kenney, the secretary of state for multiculturalism, said the Conservative government was sure the conference would "showcase the same regrettable anti-Semitism" as the 2001 meeting.

"Our government sees no value in allowing Canada's participation to continue to dignify or legitimate such hateful and un-Canadian propaganda," he told reporters. ...

Remarks. Very encouraging developments from our friends to the north and across the Atlantic. It's especially noteworthy that these officials spoke in clear and unequivocal language.

Free Mark Steyn!

Free Mark Steyn!

Irshad Manji on Aqsa Parvez

Irshad Manji:

This week in Toronto a 16-year-old Muslim girl was murdered, allegedly by her own father.

Aqsa Parvez told friends and adults at her public high school that she feared what her father would do if she stuck by her decision to reject the hijab — the Islamic headscarf. She also said it’s better to live in a shelter than at home.

Nobody listened. Now she’s dead.

Moderate Muslims have warned that we shouldn’t leap to conclusions. Who knows what other dynamics infected her family, spout hijab-hooded mouthpieces on Canadian TV. Not once have I heard these upstanding Muslims say that whatever the “family dynamics,” killing is not a solution. Ever. How’s that for basic morality?

You know I could go on about the hypocrisy of moderate Muslims - the fact, for example, that Muslim Girl magazine reinforces the lie that the hijab is mandatory. This supposedly hip (and certainly glossy) publication routinely features covered girls as their cover girls. So much for representing the full diversity of the Muslim sisterhood.

Even “progressive” non-Muslims fall into this trap. ...

Read the whole thing. Go to Irshad's translations for resources.

Metric is for sissies ...

... so please welcome Five Feet of Fury to the blogroll. Here's Kathy from Canuckistan on the Canadian Islamic Congress' threat against Mark Steyn:

An excerpt of America Alone that appeared in Macleans supposedly "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt."

I dunno: I thought they were doing fine in that department without Steyn's help. ...

What more needs to be said? Go read the rest at the link.

Oh, and this is just bad. Heh.

Don't let the door hit you, eh?

Michelle Malkin: US deserters lose their Canadian appeal.

O Canada!

Here's a slightly belated Canada Day post. No grand concept or theme here, just a tribute to some of my favorite Canadians.

Irshad Manji honors Arab free-thinkers in a three-part series. Here's a quote from a Palestinian woman named Dalia:

Irshad, I'm 21 years old... I live in the West Bank... I think... And I'm honest with myself. A few days ago an online friend from the UK told me about ur book. I did check the web and downloaded the Arabic version e-book and also downloaded ur documentary 'Faith Without Fear' and watched it last night... I was happy because finally someone spoke up and said a true word...

Here in Palestine I'm accused [of] so many different things... very much like what u r accused of... being mossad or zionist and faithless. My dad thinks I'm buddhist too!!!!! Wow wow wow wow...

I was hit and shut up and abused by my own family because I think in a different way... Two years ago I escaped from home trying to get somewhere else where I can have some free space to think and talk to people... My try failed and they brought me back home through their relations with people in our great government and intelligence system...

The house was very much like a volcano at that time... They thought I went out of my mind... Or a "genni" was inside of me... And so my dad wanted to burn my books and threatened to kill me on many occasions... At that point I realized that talking to them was in vain and I decided to keep silent and think on my own...

Read the rest at Irshad's page.

Alaa says thank you to his adopted country:

I consider it a good omen that my arrival to Canada coincided just before "Canada Day", the birthday of this country; because for me and my family it is also a kind of rebirth into a new life and a new country. Now, the country of your birth is an accident that is not of your choosing; but a country that you have chosen of your own free will and that has accepted you for citizenship for your own worth, when it had no obligation whatsoever towards you, and I have not come in as a refugee nor am I a wealthy man; such a country is perhaps more deserving of allegiance. But of course, I have been long enough in this world to realise that nowhere is everything perfect, nor all people are the same. I can expect disappointments and difficulties but that changes nothing. The worst bigot that I may expect to encounter here cannot be considered but a mild case of bad temper compared to the throat slitting eye gorging hate filled types that have come to infest our poor Mesopotamia and the whole region around it. What do I have in common with these latter types? They are more foreign and repugnant to me than any monsters descended from outer space perhaps.

As I am watching the firework displays I can feel the stirring of the first feelings of belonging and affection for the new home. I pray to God who has brought me here to help me settle and succeed to become a good citizen of this land. Home is where you are made to feel at home. So on this day I want to extend my congratulations to all Canadians and above all to say:
“Thank you Canada”

Winston at The Spirit of Man has some great pictures of Montreal.

Captain Kirk was my hero growing up. Well, what happened? It looks like the Canucks have taken over space, to judge by Battlestar Galactica ... there's Canadian natives Saul Tigh, Number Six, and the very native Helo, as well as imports Sharon alias Number Eight and Dee.

And last but by no means least, this post wouldn't be complete without k.d. lang covering Leonard Cohen.