Saturday, November 29, 2008

A Hindu Man Explains..

..."Why I hate Islam."

All you worshipers of Gandhi, where are you on the question of Islamism now?

And the Grand Prize of Iraqi Oil Goes To...

...George Bush. Oops. Sorry. Wrong tape. Try this one instead.
"Frank A. Verrastro, director of the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he thought the announcement of the Chinese deal would open the door to the announcement of some of the other oil deals that Iraq has been negotiating recently.

The announcement of a Chinese deal first, rather than a deal with a major Western petroleum company like Shell or Chevron, would send a positive signal, Mr. Verrastro said.

“Iraq is going to deal with China, as well as the U.S., as well as the U.K.,” he said. “It shows that Iraq is going to reach beyond a select group of companies.”
Iraq is a sovereign country, folks. Too bad your mindless prater won't be validated.

And while I'm at it, here's a little history of the whole Iraq thing, starting with the Clinton/Gore administration.

h/t commenters at Gateway Pundit.

Barcepundit Following the Carnage in Indian

A good summary is at this Spaniard's blog: Start here then follow his links at the very bottom of that and subsequent entries. Lots of links from his site, too, making the coverage very thorough.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Today I am a Jew

Little did I know that my last three postings would be connected the way they are. None of the articles I read, and certainly none of the ones I embedded into my post about the Islamist attack in India, mentioned the fact that a Jewish center was deliberately targeted in addition to the hotel. And then I comment on the old bugger, David Ahenakew, with his "Jews are a disease" ideology. Even more disturbing, this morning I was searching through old posts and came across a zinger of a condemnation of the Palestinians and their inability to deal with history.

The Rabbi's little boy, only two years old and now an orphan, kept asking for water. Did you know the Hebrew word for water is "maim" and the Arabic word is "mai"? These two peoples are cousins, for God's sake. They trace their ancestry to the same patriarch, Abraham.

What is it with this crazy world and this sick hatred of Jews? These people with such an indomitable spirit, who have contributed so many great artists, musicians, writers, inventors, scientists and thinkers to the world? And why, especially, do the adherents of the religion of Mohammed, the descendant of Abraham, have such an appalling degree of it? Why? Why? Why?

Ahenakew's Trial

I actually feel a bit sorry for this old thug. It is true that he accomplished some good things for First Nations people in the country while he was spewing his vile bigotry and gutter language. But, I can't help but think that this article just goes to show that he and his followers are just a well oiled excuse generating machine (aka Indian Industry) and are not above making things up:
"Bighead had a different recollection from previous witnesses of when the interview between Parker and Ahenakew occurred. Bighead said the interview took place about 10 minutes after her father finished speaking at the conference; Parker had previously testified that he waited about an hour, until two other speakers finished, before approaching Ahenakew. FSIN Chief Lawrence Joseph, meanwhile, has said Parker approached Ahenakew immediately after Ahenakew spoke.

Under cross-examination, Bains played the conference videotape in which Parker can be seen walking past the podium after the morning's speakers had finished and the lunch break was announced."
You see, if he and the movement he spawned hadn't been such confrontational, lying, loudmouth bigots things could have turned out a whole lot better for a whole lot of First Nations people who are still at the bottom of the heap, thanks to their services as platforms being necessary for the Indian Industry to step on. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Indian movement needs a Dr. Martin Luther King whose vision can inspire everyone to overcome this festering problem.

Back to You, Pakistan

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Resisting American Imperialism

Jihadis strike again at the heart of the American Empire. Oh, wait. It's the other way around.

Hostages Freed at Mumbai Hotel

Blowback expected:
"The White House held a meeting of top intelligence and counter-terrorism officials, and pledged to help the Indian government."
[---]
"The attacks have come amidst elections in several Indian states and exposes the governing coalition to the charge that it has failed to combat terror..."
"The Indian navy says its forces have boarded a cargo vessel they believe to be linked to the attacks, the Associated Press news agency reports. Navy spokesman Capt Manohar Nambiar says the MV Alpha had recently come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan."
"Gordon Brown condemns Mumbai Terror attacks and promised that Britain will offer "all necessary help" to the Indian government." (More leader statements at the link.)

And Australia, Japan, Russia and Pakistan.

Barrack Obama experiences baptism by fire.
"Brooke Anderson, the national security spokeswoman for the president-elect, Barack Obama, said: "These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism.

"The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks. We stand with the people of India."
What sort of "change we can believe in" is on his menu, I wonder. But I digress.

Meanwhile, starving Zimbabweans now face a cholera epidemic.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Weekend Post Brewing

As I'm puttering about this morning, getting ready for work and what not, I'm also listening to Dennis Prager. He's interviewing the nefarious Howard Zinn, "Professor Emeritus" of American history. The man is so full of shit, it's mind boggling. Anyway, when I have the time this weekend, I will tear his bullshit apart.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Okay. Now I've Seen Everything

I was checking out sitemeter to see where my blog's visitors came from today and I found someone had visited from Los Angeles and had actually transliterated my page.

How cool is this:

留茬跳躍redneck

母乳喂養,掃盲和愚

有趣的。

.幾天前, Saskboy張貼在胡說八道, 這一言論的生產者約翰葛姆雷顯示,泰米羅伯特。 羅伯特是演說對新任命的領導人的薩斯喀徹溫省綠黨,琥珀瓊斯和她的外貌,與嬰兒拖車,在政治活動舉辦的立法機關。 ".我只是讀完羅伯特的言論,我有很多更好地利用它,僅僅是“過時的關於母乳喂養的意見” 。在我看來,正確的羅伯特的言論,有一個詞語概括了她的論點,即黃色瓊斯曾使用嬰兒作為一個支柱,以評分的政治布朗尼點通過媒體和這樣,她是從事性剝削。.因此,綠黨沒有更多的聖地比任何其他的政治團體。

I guess there's no equilvalent for either "redneck" or "Saskboy" in the Chinese language.

Canadian Arrested in Iran

Accused of spying.
"Also reported was the arrest of Hossein Derakshan, a Canadian Iranian who pioneered blogging in Iran and was called the "blogfather" there. Derakshan was a backer of the theocracy in Iran, but believed it should reach out to Israel. He visited the Jewish state in 2006 and wrote about it on his blog.

Derakshan returned to his native Iran from his adoptive Canada last month and various media reported his arrest this week. A Web site reported that Derakshan confessed to spying for Israel."
More here

I wonder if this is also, at least in part, a "nose thumbing"directed at Canada for their foreign policy stance on the Mad Mullah's regime.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Iraq the Model

Apologies to Mohammed and Omar for using their blog name, but this news is extremely gratifying. Maybe the Fadhil brothers are right. Iraq will be a model for the Middle East.

Iraqi MP Acquitted for Travelling to Israel

Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Distant Mirror

UPDATE: I forgot to mention something about Malcolm Muggeridge. One of the things he said during one of his television appearances that impressed me and made me think was a criticism of the main stream media. I can see why he would want to criticize.

(Apologies to Barbara Tuchman)

Telling the Truth About the Ukrainian Famine

Two British men, both now dead, received the Ukrainian Order of Freedom on Saturday, for their role in reporting the truth about Ukraine during the Stalinist Russia era. I remember one of these men, Malcolm Muggeridge, from his occasional appearance on television, a socialist and atheist as a young man, he later became a devout Christian. The other is Gareth Jones.

Their award came late because, as the article states:
"They told the truth when all around them their press colleagues were inadvertently (or, in one case, deliberately) misleading the public."
This is an excellent example of media's complicity, of their willingness to be influenced by political ideology or to be sycophants rather than news gatherers and truth tellers, and most distressingly, to suppress the voices that do report the truth.

So what did they report on?
"As the world now knows (although it took more than half a century and the opening of Soviet archives to confirm), approximately 10 million people were deliberately starved to death by the collectivization policies pursued by Joseph Stalin."
[---]
"The Moscow press corps was then led by Walter Duranty of The New York Times. For two decades, Duranty had been the most influential foreign correspondent in Russia. His dispatches were regarded as authoritative; indeed, Duranty had helped to shape U. S. foreign policy. His biographer has demonstrated that Duranty's reporting was a critical factor in FDR's 1933 decision to grant official recognition to the Soviet Union. When the Pulitzer Prize committee conferred its prize on Duranty (in 1932, at the height of the famine), they cited his "scholarship, profundity, impartiality, sound judgment and exceptional clarity."

Duranty, an unattractive, oversexed little man with a wooden leg, falsified facts, spread lies and half-truths, invented occurrences that never happened and turned a blind eye to Stalin's man-made famine."
Why does this have a familiar ring to it? Well worth the read.

h/t Uncle Meat

Directly related: Setting the Bar

h/t Sleepy Old Bear

The Trouble With Aboriginal Rights

First of all, only a small portion of the people on the planet can claim to have aboriginal rights and some of them are not, in fact, the original occupants of the land upon which they may stake their claim. Why should a handful of people have special rights that the vast majority of the people on this planet do not enjoy?

Secondly, it seems to be based solely on where these people happened to be when European explorers and settlers stumbled upon them. Europeans are far from being the first peoples to expand their territory, invade others, push them aside and take control. A short cruise through a general world history book will reveal many, many invasions by foreigners and subsequent development of empires, especially in Asia and the Middle East. So why don't any of the peoples that were suppressed and conquered by these various and sundry conquistadors and empire builders get to stake an aboriginal rights claim? Is it only when white folks do this stuff that it can form the basis of legitimate grievance? Shall we take this a step further and call this race based law?

Truth be told, the origin of the doctrine of aboriginal rights rests in the words of Medieval Popes and Catholic theologians, Pope Innocent IV and one Francisco de Vitoria being among the most important. These were people with a conscience, driven by Christian sensibility - notions of justice and charity and what not - who wanted to secure the protection of the vulnerable peoples living in a simple existence, many of whom possessed only the most primitive of technologies, that Spanish and Portuguese explorers were discovering. In other words, the idea underpinning the entire aboriginal rights agenda is based on what might be considered patronizing today.

Be that as it may, the idea came to permeate the thinking of virtually all European colonial administrations to one degree or another and can been seen expressed in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, in the British insistence that treaties be signed with these sorts of peoples throughout their empire and was central to the gradual emergence of the notion that Indians needed to be wards of the state, as expressed in repeated passing of legislation in Upper Canada during the mid-1800s.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

More on Media Bias

Internet More Trusted Than TV and Print Combined
"These results are good fodder for Fox in defending its claims of being "Fair and Balanced" -- it's also interesting to note that more people in the poll described themselves as Democrats than Republicans -- but the majority of Americans seem to also have little faith in the media at all."

Victory in Iraq Day



People who care about Iraq and about truth are celebrating today. Today, November 22, 2008, has been declared Victory in Iraq Day.

Check out the blogs listed on Zombie Time. I especially like this one.

These immortal words from a great American President are also there:
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
Don't you wish the Democrats still had this sort of commitment to principles?

Related (click to enlarge):



Suddenly, From Out of Nowhere..

...CAIR cares!!!!!

Hypocrites!!

Organizations like this usually step in their own doodoo. But will the MSM notice? Will they ask CAIR why this sudden change of tone?

Reverend Boissoin and Free Speech

UPDATE: The experiment widens. This should be interesting.
=================
Two of the blogs I visit regularly are providing a place where the free expression of opinion of this multifaceted issue about Alberta's Human Right's Commission are bursting with interesting debated. To stimulate the debate, both bloggers posted the now infamous letter from Reverend Boissoin to the Red Deer Advocate so you can read it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

To take part in the debate, go check out the comments at Blazing Cat Fur and Ezra Levant.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Side-Splitting, Belly-Jiggling, Gut-Busting Funny

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (except maybe for anal retentive leftards) For some good-natured, irreverent, side-splitting laughter go read the Dinosaur's thread on renaming of selected blogs. Post your own in the comments. This has to be at least as good as the ever proliferating Best (you name it) Blog awards.

The Things I Write...

..when I'm sleep walking. I don't remember writing this, but it sure could have come from my fingertips hitting my keyboard.

Iraq War: Right Time, Right Place, Right War

We had to go to war, because the only sure way to ensure our national security is to drain the swamp of terrorism: to finally begin the process of wrenching the Arab world from a culture of backwardness, oppression and hatred toward the West.
[---]
Too many forget that there was massive support for the war in 2003: from left to right, Democrats and Republicans; and if many of our European allies did not support going to war in early 2003, their intelligence services were supporting the views of our own multi-agency analyses: that Saddam had WMDs, a belief Saddam almost undoubtedly nurtured in order to overawe his Iranian neighbors.
[--]
WMDs were the primary reason we went to war. Others include Saddam's genocidal campaign against the Kurds and his infringement of the no-fly zone, which violated the armistice that had halted the fighting in 1991 and gave the Powers opposing him the legal right under international law to resume hostilities.
[---]
The reality is that Saddam would have had to have been removed at some point, and the decrepit state he held together by terror was bound to blow apart. Better sooner than later to get a head start on taking on a country at the heart of the Arab world and Arab mythology that had been fomenting terrorism, oppressing its people and otherwise helping to sustain a collective Arab culture that is a petri dish for terrorism.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

More Media Bias

When I first saw this, I thought this is probably another example of media cherry picking sound bites to manufacture a particular spin, but maybe I was wrong.


Check out this explanation.

John Ziegler Responds to the Attacks Provoked by www.HowObamaGotElected.com

India Rising

Three cheers for the Indian Navy. They have vapourized a major Somali pirate ship off the coast of Somalia. Take a stroll through the comments, too. There are some good points, with which I heartily agree (see 2, 3, 7, 10, 16, 17, 24, 29, 32, 47 and 52), and some that are highly instructive (see 36, 39, 44, 45, 49 and 50).

More on Somali piracy here.

Section 13 Resolution P203



The Kelowna Lake Country delegate delivers the rationale behind the resolution. His summary is excellent. How can anyone other than the NDP, members of the grievance and victimology industries, and assorted young liberals who are more inclined to support the doctrine of political correctness than classical liberalism, be against this?

h/t Ezra Levant

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Speaking of Islamofacsists..

Halls of Macadamia has an interesting post. Follow the link for some good analysis on how al Qaeda uses the American/Western media to manipulate American/Western audiences. Will the MSM wake up to this now? They can only practice duplicity for so long before it comes home to roost and in this case, because the message is anti-Obama, I'm sure they will finally "recognize" it for what it is. The MSM has a lot to answer for.

Canada, You Do Me Proud

Iran Official Slams Canada Over UN Human Rights Resolution

A Canada-sponsored United Nations resolution denouncing the human rights situation in Iran could deprive that country of chances for “fair” ties with the Islamic Republic, a source from Iran’s Foreign Ministry told the official IRNA news agency in an interview today.
[---]
“Canada’s hostile action toward the Islamic Republic of Iran is deserving of an appropriate response,” the source added."
Oh. We're so offended.

h/t Dr. Roy's Thoughts

More on Challenging the Indian Industry Orthodoxy

There's this entry from The Idea File blog, that contains a little snippet. Speaking of Widdowson's arguments, the blog owner Janet Ajzenstat (Emeritus Professor, Political Science, McMaster University) has this to say:
What bothers me about the position she opposes is the implicit - and often explicit - argument that liberalism/ rationalism/scientific thought is inherently oppressive and imperialist. The practical consequence of this is not only polarization, but also the message given to native people (especially students) that engaging in fields based on rationalist/scientific method is selling out to the oppressor (sorry, “the Other”). They’re not considered “real Indians” if they accept this mindset. And, if they do, they risk “assimilating” their people into mainstream society, which is also racist.

So the real cost of this postcolonial claptrap is the intellectual stagnation of generations of aboriginal students.
Right on!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Dan Rather Redeems Himself

An indictment of the state of journalism in the 21st century.



h/t Xanthippa's Chamberpot

Challenging the Indian Industry Orthodoxy

Regular readers may remember a posting from a couple of weeks ago that I called The New Indian Mythology: Part 1.

Balbulican, who has all the hallmarks of a captain of said industry (I'm betting he's either in the legal wing, the academic wing or the consultancy wing), and I got into a heated argument and he mentioned the name of an academic who I had never heard of. Her name is Frances Widdowson. Of course, if Bal condemns her and puts her on the same plane as Thomas Flanagan, then she's probably on to something, and I must check her out. So, I've ordered her book Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: the deception behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation and after I read it, I will be writing about it here. The blurb about her book (at the link) suggests her take on things is similar to mine, but alas, the poor woman is a Marxist, so we will probably differ in some respects. There's also a brief article by her in PDF format here, which I haven't read yet and a group of links to articles in the National Post. I find this one particularly interesting. The author, Joseph Quesnel, is "appropriately" pilloried here by some of Canada's screeching Marxists. Note the overly generous use of the words "extremist", "right wing" and "racist". Yawn.

But anyway, here is a thread on a blog in which Widdowson and others describe an encounter (to put it mildly) that she had with another Indian Industry dupe at an academic conference. Read it. It will send chills up and down your spin. Academic freedom has been killed by the Indian Industry and anyone who dares to speak that truth is threatened. We have a long tough road ahead, folks.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Obama's Threat?

A bit ahead of what I predicted, but none the less very good news for Iraq!!!

Iraq's Government Approves Security Pact with US
Iraq's Cabinet overwhelmingly approved a security pact with the United States on Sunday, ending prolonged negotiations to allow American forces to remain for three more years in the country they first occupied in 2003.
[---]

"It's the best possible, available option," said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. He was referring to the conflict between Iraq's desire for full sovereignty and control over security and its need for American support and cooperation to achieve that goal.

Al-Dabbagh described the pact — intended to supplant the U.N. mandate expiring Dec. 31 — as an "agreement on the withdrawal of U.S. troops," and Washington welcomed the Cabinet's approval.

[---]

"I'm optimistic that this agreement will be passed through the Council of Representatives (parliament)," spokesman al-Dabbagh told Associated Press Television News. But he added: "You cannot guarantee 100 percent approval of anything."

Barring unforeseen developments, the document should receive the support of the 85 lawmakers of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, the 54 Kurdish lawmakers and most of the 44 lawmakers in the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who commands the loyalty of 30 lawmakers, urged parliament in a statement Sunday to reject the agreement "without the least hesitation." The statement was read by a top al-Sadr aide on Iraq's al-Sharqiya Television.

Honestly, I thought it would go right down to the wire as nearly every other significant event has since the handover of sovereignty to Iraq by Paul Bremer on June 28, 2004.

I suspect that Obama's threat to pull troops out may have put more pressure on the negotiations to get the deal done before he actually takes office. Now, let's hope he doesn't screw it up!

Note that Iran, its proxy, Syria, and its fatboy Muqtada al-Sadr all oppose the deal. Quelle surprise!!

Here's another article on it, from the British paper, The Telegraph.
...the Iraqi government could cancel the agreement if its own forces became capable of controlling security earlier.

"That matches the vision of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. The Iraqi side would not mind withdrawal when the readiness of its forces is achieved."

Well, duh!! That's been Bush's position for a very long time.
The Iraqi government is grown increasingly confident of its own ability to keep order. Violence has dramatically reduced in the country over the past year and Iraqi forces now have command in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces. October's death toll was the lowest since the invasion.
The Iraqi parliament now has to approve it. Expect raucous debate and posturing.

Next up: Provincial elections:
"The Iraqi people want these elections. The forthcoming elections are rightly viewed as an opportunity to establish a more inclusive sectarian balance and shape a new political landscape and are the most significant political event in the forthcoming months,..."
Go, Iraq!!!!

Another One Bites the Dust

30-year low for N. Hemisphere tropical cyclone activity

The 2007 and 2008 hurricane seasons had the least tropical activity in the Northern Hemisphere in 30 years, according to Ryan Maue, co-author of a report on Global Tropical Cyclone Activity.

"Even though North Atlantic hurricane activity was expectedly above normal, the Western and Eastern Pacific basins have produced considerably fewer than normal typhoons and hurricanes," he said.

Maue's results dovetail with other research suggesting hurricanes are variable and unconnected to global warming predictions, said Stan Goldenberg, a hurricane researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


Saturday, November 15, 2008

YAHOOOO!!!

TORIES VOTE TO REPEAL SECTION 13!!!!! Now, please, Mr. Harper, let this be more than a Conservative Party Convention resolution. Turn this into action when the government resumes seating. This section must go and, not only that but the Human Rights Commissions must be overhauled and made into real courts where due process is assured. In the meantime, the victims of Section 13 must be compensated.

h/t Ezra Levant

A Saudi Awakening?

UN conference rejects religious terrorism
"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon read the declaration near the end of the two-day meeting which was initiated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and brought 14 world leaders to New York including President Bush, the heads of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Israel's president.

"King Abdullah's initiative has come at a time when the need for dialogue among religions, cultures and civilizations has never been greater," Ban told a news conference. "The challenge now is to go beyond the powerful, positive words we have heard."
This is interesting, but excuse me for being skeptical. After all, Saudi Arabia supplies textbooks to Mosque run schools around the world, which teach that Jews and Christians are "apes and pigs". If it is genuine, it is in large part because of George Bush's courageous and farsighted vision concerning democratizing the Middle East and the brutality shown to the entire world by those within Islam who reject democracy. Compare his words, delivered at the same conference to the textbooks' message:
"We believe God calls us to live in peace — and to oppose all those who use His name to justify violence and murder."
[---]
"People who are free to express their opinions can challenge the ideologies of hate," he said. "They can defend their religious beliefs and speak out against those seeking to twist them to evil ends. They can prevent their children from falling under the sway of extremists by giving them a more hopeful alternative."
Since it was said at the United Nations, and convened at the behest of the birthplace of Salafi extremism, I'm more inclined to suspect it was just so much hot air, as is just about everything else in that organization and as the article shows, everyone knows how to mimic the age old platitudes of the United Nations founding principles, especially those, such as the House of Saud, who have no history or intention of ever living up to them. However, there is one small sliver of hope. I would like to believe Eboo Patel's take on this one:

Saudi Hypocrisy or Saudi Tolerance?
"Sometimes the external articulation of a message sets of(sic) a string of internal changes.

Consider America during World War II, fighting across Europe to free the Jews while its own swimming pools and water fountains were segregated. Americans were too smart to stomach their government's hypocrisy for long. The American external message of freedom during World War II played a crucial role in catalyzing our internal Civil Rights Movement.

Maybe King Abdullah, by articulating the central Muslim value of religious pluralism on the world stage, will find the citizens of his Kingdom demanding that he implement it at home."
He could be right, and if he is, I'm betting that was part of the strategy. After all, given the times, with our shrinking planet, criss-crossed as it is with global communications technology, if the Saudi King can use the exalted United Nations to proclaim his supposed "tolerance" of other faiths, he has surely released the genie from the bottle and there is no putting it back. Remember what Condi Rice said about the meaning of diplomacy.
“Diplomacy is not a synonym for talking. True diplomacy means structuring a set of incentives and disincentives to produce change in behavior.”
And just maybe, it has something to do with isolating Iran, the worst bastion of religious intolerance on the planet.

The New Indian Mythology: Part II

Myth #2 - Indian warfare consisted of counting coup, period.

So sez my niece, who is taking a Native Studies class at the U of S. Yeah right. Poor girl never would have known she was being fed a pile of bullshit by her "prof" if I hadn't blown my stack during the conversation I had with her. See part 1 here. But how many innocent and wide-eyed young 20-somethings swallow this bullshit lock stock and barrel, without knowing that they are being indoctrinated, not educated? If the growth of the Indian Industry over the past forty years is any indication, their numbers are legion by now. Most go on to graduate never knowing what a crock they have been fed.

So what is the truth? First of all, in its formative years, and to its credit, the Indian Industry quite rightly took great pains to condemn the all too common assumption that all North American Indians were the same and the prototypical Plains Indian wearing the feathered head dress whooping down on the hapless settler with a hail of arrows shot from primitive bows was the standard. No, the nascent Industry rightly said. On so many levels that was an ignorant stereotype promoted, to its great shame, by Hollywood.

But please, that was darn near 40 years ago that that point was made. Will you now examine your own stereotypes and hold them up to the same glare of scholarly research, fer chris sake!! Or is scholarly research such a foreign and risky proposition that, unlike the courageous Indian warrior, you dare not go near it for fear of discrediting your industry?

Every scholarly account of the "counting coup" phenomena clearly shows that it was a Plains Indian cultural practice. It was not universal, and as my previous entry, The New Indian Mythology: Part 1 shows, blood, gore and killing were part and parcel of Indian warfare elsewhere, just as much as counting coup was a common, but by no means only, feature of plains Indian warfare. Capturing and enslaving the enemy, and what we would today call terrorism, was also a common practice in many parts of pre-contact North American warfare. Killing in wars and revenge killing were part and parcel of a Warrior Society's duties.

But the most cogent points to be made about counting coup need further elaboration than just that. Quotes from these articles on the topic, brief and to the point, make clear why counting coup was a source of such great prestige. (Emphasis added.)

From the first article:
"Any blow struck against the enemy counted as a coup, but the most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior, with the hand or with a coup stick, then escaping unharmed. Counting coup could also involve stealing from the enemy. Risk of injury or death was required to count coup."
From the second:
"Risk of injury or death was involved, should the other warrior respond violently."
So Miss Native Studies expert-paid-with-my-tax-dollars-to-indoctrinate-my-niece, how could counting coup be such a great source of prestige, without taking into account the great "risk" involved in pulling it off? In that respect, it was no different than any other form of warfare. Without the invariably very great risk of death and injury that is inherent in any war at any time in any culture, counting coup would count for nothing. Got it?

It was a source of prestige because the warrior managed to get extremely close to the enemy and escape without getting killed, ergo, getting killed was the norm. The man who had been touched and let the coup counter get away was shamed, as any great warrior would not have allowed that to happen. Being able to get that close and escape unscathed was the great exception, hence, its prestige.

No. The coup counter always lives to tell the tale around the camp fire. (Another manifestation of counting coup, by the way, was the "recounting" of the episode to the folks back home during storytelling time and inspiring other young warriors to bravery in the face of the enemy, which itself was another source of prestige.)

It's really not that hard to understand. What is hard to understand, is why the myth is so persistent. Well, no. I guess it isn't that hard to understand. It's the wages of political correctness, pure and simple.

Changing of the Guard

Don't you wish the whole world could follow this example? The changing of the guard in the White House marked by a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the back. Yes, lefties, America is a great civilization and a shining example to the world.

Laura Bush

..is one classy lady. I'm going to miss her and boy, does Michelle Obama have some very large shoes to fill.

The Origin and Nature of Human Rights



h/t Xanthippa, who is writing an excellent series on freedom and human rights.

New Birthplace of Civilization?

Stoneage Temple May Be Birthplace of Civilization
"It's more than twice as old as the Pyramids, or even the written word. When it was built, saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths still roamed, and the Ice Age had just ended."
[---]
"...no evidence of permanent settlement has been found at the site, although there are remains of butchered animals and edible plants.

Schmidt and his colleagues say no evidence of permanent settlement has been found at the site, although there are remains of butchered animals and edible plants.

However, all of the bones are from wild animals, and all the vegetation from wild plants."
[---]
"Wild grain ancestral to modern wheat grows nearby..."
It dates from 11,500 years ago, before humans had begun to grow domesticated grains and animals, and is the oldest human built holy place to yet be discovered.

And sorry, Iraq, it's in what is now Turkey. The locals say the ancient city of Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, is nearby, but that doesn't jive with everything previously known about Ur which IS in Iraq, not Turkey. Anyway, who doesn't want to be able to claim "the Birthplace of Civilization" is in their backyard? Think of the tourist dollars$$$$$. In any case, it is "smack in the middle of the Fertile Crescent."

Friday, November 14, 2008

Iraq Progress Report

Iraqi Sunni guards join Shi'ite government payroll
"It's pay week for the patrolmen who helped flush al Qaeda militants out of their Baghdad neighborhoods. Only this time, it is the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government that is paying the mainly Sunni fighters, rather than the U.S. military.

Putting the fighters, many of whom were once insurgents, on the payroll of a government they once fought is seen as a major test of reconciliation as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw.

The Iraqi army began paying them at dozens of stations opened this week throughout Baghdad.

The U.S. military says the fighters number 100,000, about half of them in Baghdad province. The government took charge of the Baghdad fighters last month and plans to take on those in other parts of the country in coming months."

U.S. troops to quit Iraqi cities in strategic shift

"The U.S. is on track to complete its shift out of all Iraqi cities by June 2009. That is one of the milestones in a political-military campaign plan devised in 2007 by Gen. David Petraeus, when he was the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and his political partner in Baghdad, Ambassador Ryan Crocker. The goal also is in a preliminary security pact with the Iraqi government on the future U.S. military presence."
[---]
"Brig. Gen. Martin Post, deputy commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq, where the Sunni insurgency has sharply abated — if not almost disappeared — since 2007, said Monday his outfit is shutting down the U.S. base at Fallujah. The U.S. headquarters elements there are moving to al-Asad air base, a large but remote facility in the vast desert halfway between Fallujah and the Syrian border.

'There's been a big effort to move all the Marine forces out of the cities," Post said in a videoconference with reporters at the Pentagon. "And so as you go throughout, from Fallujah all the way up the Euphrates River Valley, up to al-Qaim — where we used to have Marines actually living in the cities — we've pulled them all out.'"
The War is Over and We Won
"Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. troops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport."
Just what is it that Barack Obama has vowed to do? RTWT

What Are They Afraid Of?

Check out The Spirit of Man. The glorious Islamic revolution just doesn't seem so glorious, does it?

Meanwhile, next door, Iraqi interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, is standing firm:
"Iraq's interior minister has criticized the country's politicians for not approving an agreement that would allow U.S. troops to operate in Iraq after the end of the year, and called their continued presence crucial.

"The security agreement is important for Iraq to ban and stop foreign influence and interference," minister Jawad al-Bolani said in an interview Wednesday. "The Iraqi people need this security agreement."

Bolani, one of the few top Shiite leaders to speak publicly in favor of the deal, said Iraqi politicians should declare their stances on it.
"They should be outspoken," he said. "You have to have a clear vision" that can be articulated."
It's hard to know which way the wind will blow. Obama has his work cut out for him.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

A Declaration of Support

From Bear Diaries and many other places:

The Conservative Party of Canada is holding their Policy Convention this weekend and resolution P-203 has been put forward for consideration. The resolution reads as follows:



Modify HRC Jurisdiction

PROPOSED BY VICTORIA AND KELOWNA - LAKE COUNTRY

iii) The Conservative Party supports legislation to remove authority
from the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal to regulate,
receive, investigate or adjudicate complaints related to Section 13 of
the Canadian Human Rights Act.



I, as an individual, this blog and numerous other bloggers are in support of Resolution P-203 and we put forward the following statement of support (Updated 11/11/08):



RESOLUTION P-203: DECLARATION of SUPPORT

We strongly support those members of the Conservative Party of Canada who seek to repeal Sections 13 and 54 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Sections 13 and 54 of the Canadian Human Rights Act are a direct attack on the freedom of expression guaranteed to us under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The provisions of these sections allow the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to prosecute anyone alleged to have said or written something “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” whether there is a living, breathing victim or not.

Vague concepts such as speech or writing “liable to cause hatred or contempt” are the basis of expensive state-funded prosecution of individuals. The statute provides no objective legal test for “hate” or any objective means of determining what constitutes “contempt”. As a result, the CHRC is used by various groups and individuals, as a risk-free taxpayer funded method to silence their critics and those they disagree with. CHRC investigators have testified that that “freedom of speech is an American concept” and therefore not valid in Canada. Such statements are contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but are standard operating procedure at the CHRC.

Commissioners of the Canadians Human Rights Tribunal, who are not judges and are often not even lawyers, have held that “truth” is not a defence against prosecution under Section 13. Intent or fair comment are also not defenses. In fact, there is not a single listed defence under Section 13! Because of the lack of any defenses, the Tribunal has a 100% conviction rate since 1978. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal routinely ignores the principles of fundamental justice, such as the rules of evidence, and these kangaroo courts, even allow hearsay evidence. The CHRA provides for each Tribunal to make up the rules as they go.

Every journalist, writer, Internet webmaster, publisher and private citizen in Canada can be the subject of a Human Rights complaint for expressing an opinion or telling the truth. Given the ambiguity of Section 13, it is virtually impossible for any individual to determine if they might be in violation of Section 13. Arbitrary censorship and punishment are wrong, and cannot be justified in a free society.

Please support Resolution P-203, and preserve Canadians’ Charter right to freedom of expression.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mohammed Fadhil Sums It Up

Anyone who has watched events unfold in Iraq following the toppling of the Ba'athist regime will likely know about the blog Iraq the Model. Run by three brothers, and later just two, it remains one of the best sources for news and opinion from Iraq.

Mohammed, the best writer of the bunch, is now writing for Pajamas Media and has weighed in on the impact of the recent American elections on Iraq and people in the Middle East in general. It's an excellent read.

On a similar vein, long time freelance journalist Michael Yon writes a good one about the end of the Iraq war and the road ahead in Afghanistan for Barack Obama. Frankly, I don't think Obama will be up to it. I hope I'm wrong.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Lest We Forget

Just got back today from an extra long weekend in Calgary visiting my two favourite little people:



Driving back I listened to several radio broadcasts about this special day. I am reminded of my father and his generation and what they did. For these two beautiful little girls who have a bit of his genes in them, let us not forget their sacrifice. I repost this entry from July 1, 2008.
"There is a letter my father sent home from Holland dated October 13th, 1944 in which he says:
"We are right in there pitching to beat hell and having quite an exciting time. We always manage to find a house or barn to sleep in, if we can get one with a basement, so much the better. As I write there are jerry shells whizzing around and landing quite close. About five minutes ago, just as I was finishing writing to Punch [his brother] one of the few remaining doors was knocked off our house by shrapnel. Before we came in the old man and old lady (between 70 and 80 years old) were both killed in the house, they chose not to evacuate and that was the result. All of the houses are smashed up and most of the civies have evacuated, quite a few dead jerries lying around.

We are on high ground overlooking the front and have a grandstand view of the battle up ahead. We have a wonderful artillery barrage and swell support from the Typhoons and Spits of the R.A.F. and R.C.A.F. They sure make a grand sight with their rockets, bombs and cannon. No air opposition and very little flak."
Of course, my dad was putting on a brave face. He sustained shrapnel in his leg during one of those battles and, according to my mother, after the war for a long time, he would have nightmares in his sleep. For many years afterward he and my mother exchanged letters with a Dutch couple with whom he had stayed during the war. To this day, the Dutch have a special place in their history for the brave Canucks who slugged it out beating back Hitler in those terrible times."
To my two little sweethearts, may you always enjoy and cherish the freedoms so many of us take for granted and as you grow older may you also pause on this special day and be grateful.

Good videos at The Torch.

And some great stuff at Celestial Junk!

And more at Dust My Broom.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

The New Indian Mythology: Part 1

Back a week or so, I wrote this piece about the meaning of words. It was, in part, a rant about the Indian Industry's quite successful attempt to convince the world that the every utterance of the word savage throughout the history of European contact with indigenous North Americans is evidence of the most vile form of racism.

That, of course, is wrong on many levels and I could go on, but this particular entry today is about one member of the academic wing of the Indian Industry and a particular myth that this member is teaching my niece's class at the University of Saskatchewan, namely, the history of scalping. Specifically, this "professor", and I use the term loosely, is teaching that Europeans taught Indians to scalp.

Anyone with access to academic journals may be able to read my principle source for this thesis, if they can find a paper entitled "The Unkindest Cut, Or Who Invented Scalping?" by James Axtell and William Sturtevant, published in the William and Mary Quarterly, July, 1980 issue. It's a killer, as it lays to rest every single silly piece of the Indian Industry's politically correct double speak. If you can't get access to that, try searching for the book The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, which is a collection of essays by ethnohistorian, James Axtell.

Axtell draws upon both primary and secondary historical documents, as well as ethnological, linguistic and archeaological evidence, including evidence from human remains that date prior to the arrival of any European at North America's shores. As he says:
"The new myth is understandable as a product of Indian activism and white guilt feelings. However, the factual basis for the novel concoction seems to have been non-existent in the late 1960s - or, for that matter, at any other time in the twentieth century."
He lists numerous secondary sources, in English and German, that any academic worth his salt, would have to have consulted if he were to write on the subject, sources which exhaustively document the primary sources that speak to the custom of scalping. And he also cites some of those primary sources from the earliest European accounts of contacts with Indians, one being Jacques Cartier, famous to Canadian history, who, on his second voyage up the St. Lawrence River in 1535, was shown "the skins of five men's heads, stretched on hoops, like parchment". They were, apparently, the scalps of Micmac (who still live on the East coast of Canada and the upper American seaboard in Maine), who were "continually at war" with the Iroquois.

Although this is a very early date in the contact between Europeans and Indians, the more important piece of information in Cartier's account is the fact that, only 43 years after Columbus's famous landing in the Caribbean, and 38 years after John Cabot "discovered" Newfoundland, the Iroquois already had a tradition of taking scalps during war and had informed Cartier that their war with the Micmacs had been ongoing for some very long time. Axtell cites numerous other written accounts of scalping from places as far from Micmac/Iroquois territory as Florida and the accounts of Spanish explorer, Hernando De Sotos and his men.

Back to Canada in 1603 and 1609, Samuel de Champlain witnesses scalping ritual among the Algonquin. Well into the first third of the seventeenth century, more and and more accounts of first contact, the primary sources, contain descriptions of war practices including scalping and various elaborate rituals and customs accompanying it, which Axtell presents in summary form.

Surely, if scalping had been introduced by Europeans, it took very little time to be adopted and thoroughly integrated into the cultural practices of many different tribes across a wide stretch of territory in which Europeans were greatly outnumbered, and in most places, even absent. In fact, Axtell asserts that a characteristic shared in most of these European accounts is an "expression of surprise at the discovery of such a novel practice".

In other words, nothing of the sort existed in the memory of the European explorers who were scouting around America's eastern coastline. By comparison, the cultural integration of the practice amongst Indian tribes, was so deep that the rituals were highly varied from one culture to another, including the widely worn scalplock, a special arrangement of the hair customarily worn by adult Indian men on the East coast, which "possessed ancient religious meaning among most tribes":
"If the whites had taught the Indians to scalp one another for money, there is little reason to believe that they were also cozened into making it easier for their enemies by growing partible and portable locks. Something far deeper in Native culture and history must account for the practice."
But actual historical accounts from European witnesses are only part of what Axtell calls a "wall of evidence to the contrary". Even more damning to the Indian Industry's rhetoric is the linguistic and archaeological evidence. Words describing the noun "scalp" were known in several European languages in the seventeenth century and earlier, but turn the word into a verb, describing an action, which is what scalping is, and it was necessary to use a variety of words close in meaning: to carve, engrave, scrape, scratch, skin, flay, excoriate. On the other hand, to quote Axtell:
"...the Indian languages of the East contain many specialized expressions referring to the scalp, to scalping, and the victim of scalping....implying considerable antiquity for scalping."
He further elaborates on the significance of this fact from a linguistic science perspective, but to make a long story short, the rich and varied abundance of words in the Indian languages implies the practice of scalping originated in North America. And finally, the archeaological evidence consists of the discovery of human skulls dating to pre-Columbian times, with the characteristic scars on the bone that could only have been produced by a scalping.

Case closed.

So why are Native Studies Departments still getting away with this nonsense, and why are public funds being used to support it? Is teaching lies supposed to make Indians feel good about themselves? If so, why not tell the entire truth, which is that all cultures have brutality in their past. No one comes through history with lily white hands.

No, I think my readers know where my sentiments lie. It is more likely meant simply to stifle academic inquiry and further the cause of the Indian Industry, both inside and outside of academia.

Anyway, come back often. Axtell is certainly not my only source. I have been a student of Indian and White relations for nearly forty years. I've read copiously through both primary and secondary sources, and have accumulated a large library on the topic. Throughout those forty years, I have also lived and worked with First Nations people. Rest assured, there will be other installments of the New Indian Mythology to come. The academic wing cannot stop me.

The Christian Right...

UPDATE: Little did I know that a mere two days ago Ezra Levant had posted this on his blog. A perfect example of violent fury, except this one has the force of the state behind it. Truly, truly frightening.
=====================
...and this God thing occupy the minds of many lefties to the point of pathological obsession, especially when they imagine that George Bush is one such vile creature. The mere mention of the word God issuing from George Bush's mouth summons up violent fury. Here then are some examples of what would certainly be viewed as right wing Christian speak today if the standard were applied equally to all who use the frightening word. (Right wing Christians? Are there any other kind? /sarcasm) I wonder how these poor souls (is the word "souls" allowed?) would have reacted to the words of these famous men and women?

"This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past." Aristotle
"God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed." Saint Augustine

"One and God make a majority." Frederick Douglass
"At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice." Albert Einstein

"God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us." Gandhi

"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays." Soren Kierkegaard

"I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land." Martin Luther King Jr.
"I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
Abraham Lincoln

"Women was God's second mistake." Friedrich Nietzsch
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."Oscar Wilde
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." Voltaire
"To believe in God is impossible. Not to believe in Him is absurd." Voltaire

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." Alice Walker
"I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least." Walt Whitman
"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature." Frank Lloyd Wright
Check out this one, too.

Well, that should be enough for now. I'm sure all these folks are, or were, as dangerous as they are evil.

And on a related note, I rather like these words by Charles Darwin:
"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic. "
There are some things we simply cannot know, such as whether or not there is a God, a Creator of all things; things that include the process of evolution, the vast universe and the notion of time without beginning or end. To declare oneself an agnostic is to admit there are some things you cannot know so you remain open to further enlightenment. To declare oneself an atheist is a cocksure statement which, at its essence, is the very definition of bombastic arrogance.