Thursday, October 29, 2009
What was Obama thinking?, by Francis Chartrand
In the wake of the debacle of Chicago's rejection as the Olympic venue for the 2016 summer games, the question probably occurred to most Americans: What was President Obama thinking when he dramatically personalized the U.S. bid by joining his wife in Copenhagen to appeal for the selection of his adopted city?
Apparently, the answer lies with the hubris that has characterized Obama's ascendancy. To be sure, most politicians have outsized egos. It is not just an occupational hazard; it seems to be a necessary character defect for many of those willing to submit themselves to the often nasty bump-and-grind of elective politics.
Still, Barack Obama has long seemed in a class of his own when it comes to his self-confidence, seemingly born of a charmed life of extraordinary opportunities and, by and large, a lack of accountability for his actions. In this case, his arrogance appears to have caused him and his handlers to believe that, by taking the unprecedented step of having an American president show up in person to lobby the International Olympic Committee (IOC), his rock-star status would assure Chicago's selection.
It is clear that, in the aftermath of the IOC's decision to eliminate America's Windy City in the first round of voting and to select instead Rio de Janeiro, this rejection was not only a stunning personal failure for "The One," (a title Obama's admirers seem to have embraced as much as his critics). It amounts to a repudiation of the United States, contributing - whether intentionally in this instance or not - to the sort of "diminishing of our country" that I have previously described as one of three elements of the "Obama Doctrine." (The other two are "undermining of our allies" and "emboldening of our enemies.")
A far more important exercise in "What was Obama thinking?" arises from another of his recent, dubious diplomatic initiatives: Last week, the United States joined Egypt in sponsoring a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council - the odious anti-Western, -U.S. and -Israel organization which the Obama administration recently had this country rejoin. For the first time, America has taken a leading role in promoting an international threat to its citizens' constitutional right to freedom of speech.
As the incalculably important JihadWatch.org's Robert Spencer reported over the weekend: "[The resolution] calls on states to condemn and criminalize ‘any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.'" [Emphasis added.]
Spencer adds: "It also condemns ‘negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups,' which is of course an oblique reference to accurate reporting about the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism - which is always the focus of whining by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other groups about negative ‘stereotyping' of Islam."
Writing on the left-wing HuffingtonPost.com, blogger Eugene Volokh expresses deep concern about the extent to which such a resolution could translate into a mortal threat to the U.S. Constitution's foundational guarantee of freedom of expression:
I'm worried that the Executive Branch's endorsement of speech-restrictive ‘international human rights' norms will affect how the courts interpret the First Amendment, so that over time, ‘an international norm against hate speech ... [would] supply a basis for prohibiting [hate speech], the First Amendment notwithstanding.' And that worry stems not just from my fevered imagination, but from the views of Prof. Peter Spiro, a noted legal academic who is a supporter of this tendency. That's not fear-mongering on his part, but hope (hope-mongering?) and prediction. So anything that an Administration does to endorse international speech-restrictive norms might well have an effect on our own constitutional rights as well.
Again, the question occurs: "What is Obama thinking?" The fact that his policies are tracking with those of the Muslim Brotherhood and others seeking to promote the supremacist and seditious program authoritative Islam calls Shariah is not news (at least to readers of this column).
What is news, and deeply troubling at that, is the fact that President Obama and his administration are now formalizing this ominous alignment in international forums like the Human Rights Council. According to the past writings of Harold Koh, the former Yale Law School dean who is now the U.S. government's top authority on international law and its application domestically, "norms" like the new Human Rights Council resolution should supercede U.S. laws and even the Constitution.
The Ethics and Public Policy Center's extraordinary Ed Whalen cites a 2004 essay by Koh, entitled "International Law as Part of Our Law," as approvingly setting forth the transnationalist view that "Domestic courts must play a key role in coordinating U.S. domestic constitutional rules with rules of foreign and international law, not simply to promote American aims, but to advance the broader development of a well-functioning international judicial system." Toward this end, Koh believes that, in several circumstances, it is "appropriate for the Supreme Court to construe our Constitution in light of foreign and international law."
The conclusion seems inescapable: In yet another expression of the President's arrogance, he and his administration are in the process of willfully promoting an agenda at odds with not just the Constitution but the larger national interest. Unlike the Chicago Olympics fiasco, however, in the case of "hate speech," it is the American people and Congress that must repudiate him.
Link
Labels: Francis Chartrand, Freedom of expression, Obama, United States
Barbara Kay, Want to run for political office without scrutiny in Montreal? Just put on a happy face - and a hijab, by Barbara Kay
Montreal's mayoralty race is heating up as the November 1 voting day swiftly approaches. Former separatist militant Louise Harel of the Vision Montréal party, thought to be the front runner over somewhat lacklustre federalist incumbent Gérald Tremblay, is now battling her way back after being forced to jettison her closest collaborator, Benoit Labonté, when credible allegations of Labonté's involvement in contract-linked corruption surfaced last weekend.
Harel should have more than Labonté's dubious character to contend with in the public forum. She should be explaining why a known supporter of Islamist militancy is running for office under her aegis. A certain Najat Boughaba is a candidate for Vision Montreal in the riding of St Léonard West. I met Boughaba two years ago at a fund-raising dinner she organized for the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), where the keynote speaker, notorious Taliban apologist, journalist Yvonne Ridley, spoke glowingly of Hizbollah ("I wish I had the [Hizbollah] flag with me tonight"), officially designated in Canada as a terrorist organization. Boughaba does not deny her deep involvement with the openly Islamist CIC (from which she now discretely distances herself). CIC, readers will remember, was the prime mover in the attempt to sabotage free speech via Human Rights Commission complaints against journalists Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn.
On her website Boughaba claims to adhere to Quebec values of "peace, liberty and equality," but many associations on Boughaba's c.v. contradict such facile lip service to democratic values. For example, Boughaba was an active member of the Centre Communautaire Musulman de Montréal (CCMM). In 2006, following the arrest of 17 alleged terrorists in Toronto (some of them found guilty), Boughaba, under the name of Najad Moustapha, took part in a press conference organized by the CCMM, at which they read a fatwa urging the media to transmit Islam's message of peace drawn up by their spiritual guide, Iraqi ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani who, a few months prior to the conference, had announced on his website that all homosexuals, both male and female, should be executed "in the worst possible manner." (Curiously, the fatwa against male homosexuals was removed from the site, but not the fatwa against females; in any case, the ayatollah has never revoked his condemnation of either.) Moreover, according to Islamist watchdog www.pointdebasculecanada.ca, the CCMM published on its own website a warning to the effect that girls who did not wear the hijab ran the risk of being raped and having "illegitimate children."
Boughaba was also the editor in chief of a Montreal newspaper, Sada Almashrek (Echo of the Orient). This newspaper celebrates the teachings of theocratic totalitarian Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Iranian Islamist revolution, and regularly publishes paeans to Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbollah. According to www.pointdebasculecanada.ca, a text published under Boughaba's editorial aegis accused Liberal Party deputy Fatima Houda-Pépin, a democratic Muslim, of promoting hatred of Muslims.
Most worrying of all though, it was on Boughaba's editorial watch that a poem was published in her newspaper that attacks the principle of freedom of expression, and which labels "unveiled" heritage Quebec women as "whores." Here is the incriminating excerpt (my translation): "Who gave you the right to speak/to bark like the dogs in the streets, to insult/ to judge and to utter insanities and curses/ this is not freedom of expression/ so stop speaking of democracy/ if you conduct yourself like a tyrant...My hijab is not a handkerchief/ it is my skin/ my modesty, my dignity, my respect/ And if you, old-stock immigrant [woman]/ if you have neither faith nor law/ and you have spent your soiled youth/ passing from one male body to another/ that at least is not the case for me."
You don't need to be a literary critic to deconstruct the contempt for ethnic québécois this poem exudes. And yet the editor who published it - Boughaba - was chosen to go to Hérouxville shortly thereafter to speak about Islamic values and explain to alegedly xenophobic québécois how to get along with the "Other." In an ironic aside, this poem was published days before the famous 2007 Hérouxville lifestyle code was released, yet the "poet," Haydar Moussa, several times publicly declared that the poem had been written "in reaction to" the code, a demonstrable impossibility. And yet the same Haydar Moussa was invited to be a member of the Hérouxville delegation.
To say that Louise Harel did not do her due diligence on Boughaba - or alternatively did, but was so eager to attract a token Muslim to her team as a showcase for her multicultural credentials that she didn't care what it revealed - is the understatement of the year. It goes to show once again that when a hijab goes on one politician's head, objectivity, judgment and democratic principles fall out of all the politicians' heads around it. If you read French, you can get a much fuller account of Najat Boughaba's insalubrious associations and democratic shortcomings here.
Link
Labels: Barbara Kay, Hostile races, Montréal
The family supports the state of vulnerability, by Sally W. Olds and Diane E. Papalia
Families that combine a number of risk factors such as poverty, under-education and young mothers are more likely to experience difficulties in terms of parenting. The stress associated with living conditions (economic pressures, isolation, single parenthood, etc..) Weakens the capacity of parents. These become less friendly, more irritable and less effective in resolving problems with the child (Lavigeur, 1989). Traditionally, psychologists and social workers are often more focused on the problems of families rather than their strengths (Lavigueur et al., 2004).
This work culture fosters a negative perception of families in poor circumstances. Stakeholders tend to think that "if they really wanted, they could escape." They then come in families with a number of negative stereotypes that affect not only the solutions they propose, but also the parents' attitude towards the intervention. Indeed, it is not uncommon for these families to be wary. Because they feel judged as inadequate and they fear that their child placed in foster care, these families offer some resistance to the proposed intervention.
This negative attitude towards parents in poor circumstances may also be present among educators and teachers. Children from poor backgrounds are already a negative label when they are in kindergarten, which could affect the family-school relationships (such mésotémique.) But the collaboration and communication between family and school is crucial for the successful integration of children into school (MSSSQ, 1998).
One of the possible solutions explored in Quebec in recent years is to try to change the view of stakeholders on vulnerable families, instead of seeing only the shortcomings of young mothers must take time to consider their strengths. This approach to empowerment, the process by which a person or group takes control of his life.
In this perspective, intervening with mothers discuss their needs. The support may involve providing information on child development, help the young mother's efforts to return to school or to find accommodation. The establishment of such links fosters a sense of power to the mother on her own life, which in turn influence their parenting behaviors.
Psychology of Human Development - 6th edition, p. 158.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
New leader of the ADQ - Taillon by the skin of teeth, by Mathieu Boivin
QUEBEC - Gilles Taillon won the race for leadership of the ADQ in the skin of the teeth with only two votes separated the Éric Caire, who led the first round but eventually finished in second place in the second ballot .
The former number two of the ADQ has received 1 957 votes against 1 955 for the current member of The Peltrie.
This gives him a victory with 50.03% of the votes of 3 912 members of the ADQ, which had bothered to vote telephone.
Mr. Taillon admitted that this was "an end run Hollywood, but it ensures that the narrow victory gives it legitimacy desired.
"I won by a small margin, but I won," said the 64 year old man, who fights against cancer of the prostate. "I accept the victory with more humility than the race was too tight."
Note that Éric Caire took the lead in the first round of voting, with 1 631 votes against the 1 571 Mr. Taillon. Came third with 710 votes, Christian Lévesque has been eliminated, and the second choice votes of his supporters have been compiled to make a winner by simple majority.
And this time it's Mr. Taillon who came in first.
"It's hard, I put my heart into this campaign and there is nothing funny about not winning, admitted Mr. Caire, 43, in press briefing. Throwing Money recent past, but this is not enough. This is the result, and I submit."
So even if a different voice alone would have given him victory, he did not intend to request a recount or review any result. "My intention is to join me and work with the new leader," he said.
Game Plan
For his part, Christian Lévesque said he was pleased with the race he led. "I was the least experienced candidate, but I am proud of our game plan," he said.
He also reached out to Mr. Taillon, ensuring that "we will not let him alone because there is a large field work to do."
Only 29% of 13 500 members that currently have the ADQ in the election. The three candidates agreed that the turnout was disappointing, but all argued that the direct vote of nearly 4 000 members represented a more democratic process than "400 or 500 delegates in a convention in traditional leadership.
Gilles Taillon intends to meet the six current members of the ADQ next Tuesday and appoint a new head of the parliamentary wing during the following week.
He would not confirm that he would entrust this role to his political lieutenant, the member for Shefford, François Bonnardel. Recall that it is the member Sylvie Roy, who has been interim head of the party after the departure of Mario Dumont in early March.
It is also too early to know what are the responsibilities he confided to his rival Éric Caire, but in a video aired before the release of results of the vote, Mr. Taillon has hinted he would take good care of economic records. Mr. Caire is now spokesman for the ADQ in health records.
Exercising leadership
Mr. Taillon known to have a lot of work to do, after a race where the exchanges were sometimes virulent between him and Mr. Caire. "It will be for me to exercise political leadership," he admitted, but I'm a guy who always wanted to work as a team and I will remove with my two colleagues."
More generally, the new ADQ leader noted that "the ADQ is a party with a tradition and I intend to continue this tradition, adjusting to the fashion of the day. I'm going to bomb in the next few days (he will undergo radiation therapy) and then hopefully come back in great shape."
The former member for Chauveau not believe urgent to get elected to the National Assembly. Il se donne en effet jusqu'à un an et demi pour « rebâtir le parti ». He gives hiself to a year and a half to "rebuild the party." But if an election should be called "within eight to ten months in a district near his home in Ottawa or" in Argenteuil, for example, there willingly be seeking the votes, he said.
Recall that the riding of Argenteuil is currently owned by former Labor Minister David Whissell. He chose to resign from the Cabinet rather than sell its 20% interest in a paving company that gets government contracts.
Anyway, Mr. Taillon hoped that Premier Charest would elegance not to oppose the Liberal candidate if trying to get elected.
Link
Labels: Action Démocratique du Québec, Mathieu Boivin, Québec
Monday, October 12, 2009
According to Mohamed Elmasry slavery under Islam = good as Christianity and = not good, by Jonathan Kay
This just in from former Canadian Islamic Congress chief Mohamed Elmasry: Islamic slavery wasn't all that bad.
Writing in The Canadian Charger — a newly formed internet-based grab bag of anti-Western articles published by hard left Canadian activists — Elmasry works hard to distinguish the evils of Christian slavery from the purportedly enlightened race-mixing that resulted from its Islamic equivalent.
Some snippets: "Islam, with no church, teaches that all humans, irrespective of their gender, skin color, and ethnic origin are capable of doing good; there is no original sin. The One God is the Lord of all, not of special people or tribe … Islam and Africa have made something of each other that is quite extraordinary … Islam teaches that slaves, who were then the result of wars, Africans or not, should be treated well and set free as soon as possible … Islam also teaches that slaves can buy their freedom in-kind. Thus many of them excelled to be teachers and even scholars … Islam teaches a slave is a victim of circumstances who should be helped to be free and treated fairly in the mean time. Trading in slaves is a sin. This is in contrast to the teachings of the Bible, 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.' … The Arab Muslims called Africans Zanji (hence the island of Zanjibar or Zanzibar), Habashi (from Habasha, Arabic for Ethiopian) or Sudani (Arabic for black). Such names “were not derogatory but simply ethnographic … Some [slaves] achieved high rank and status …" And so on.
The basic theme is that Islamic slavery — to the extent it was bad at all (and it's not really clear that Elmasry thinks it was) — was an enlightened, almost consensual, win-win exercise in regional multiculturalism. In his characteristically absurd elevation of Islam over Christianity, he makes no mention of the fact that religious Christians led the abolition movement in the West — while slavery persisted wholesale in the Arab world until late in the 20th century, and still survives in parts of Islamic Africa, including Sudan. Indeed, one wonders what the Christian tribespeople from southern Sudan who have been abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and enslaved by Arab Muslims in recent years would make of Elmasry's historical fantasies.
It's amazing, isn't it? Our Christian leaders seem to do nothing but apologize these days — for every historical sin under the sun. But here you have a man who recently led the most prominent Muslim activist group in Canada, and he thinks it's just dandy that his Arab forebears colonized and enslaved great swathes of Africa over the course of many centuries — a colonial situation that essentially persists in Sudan and regions of the Maghreb.
Remember this the next time Elmasry or one of his fellow travelers denounces Western "imperialism."
jkay@nationalpost.com
Link
Labels: Canada, Christianity, Islam, Jonathan Kay
Sunday, October 11, 2009
My name is Simon Deng, a Christian, a former slave in Sudan, victims of Jihad, by Annie Lessard and Marc Lebuis
"At 9 years, I was abducted into slavery and given to an Arab family. My people have been subjected to mass murder, slavery, systematic rape, religious persecution, famine imposed, dislocation, exile. We are the victims of what Khartoum has called "a holy war against infidels." How long will the world let the infidels be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of jihad? How long will the world be silent to avoid offending the killers and defenders of slavery? "
Former slave Simon Deng South Sudan has managed to escape and reached the United States where he received political asylum. Human rights activist, he gives lectures around the world on the situation in Sudan, where black Christians and animists are victims of slavery and forced Islamization.
Today, Algeria had called on Arab countries to enter the Security Council of the United Nations to oppose the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir last week to answer charges of crimes against humanity.
In 2006, Simon Deng made a presentation at a symposium organized by an NGO on the victims of jihad.
Slavery is not the past ..., blog Ketibi, January 14, 2006
On April 18, 2006, while the Commission on Human Rights UN was preparing once again to reject a resolution condemning the actions to pressure Sudan on Islamic countries, three NGOs organized a symposium in conjunction with the Committee on the "victims of jihad".
In front of a room moved to tears, Simon Deng has told how he had been enslaved - because black and Christian - by the Arab Islamist regime in Khartoum:
My name is Simon Aban Deng. I am Sudanese shiluk of the tribe, by the Christian religion. My people have been subjected to mass murder, slavery, systematic rape, religious persecution, famine imposed, dislocation, exile. We are victims of genocide, physical and cultural. We were wiped out as human beings because belonging to a different culture. All that we have not stumbled upon by accident: we have been and remain victims of jihadist regime in Khartoum.
During the two genocides committed by the Islamists, our losses have been enormous. From 1955 to independence in 1973, 1.5 million Sudanese Christians have been eliminated by the pro-Arab government in Khartoum. From 1983 until the recent peace treaty, 2 million people in southern Sudan were killed in what the regime in Khartoum has called "a holy war against infidels". Yes, I am an infidel according to their definition. I think many of you are too. We, the blacks "infidels" of the South, Christians and other non-Muslims, we refused to obey Islamic laws, we refused to be Arabized.
I was kidnapped and given to an Arab family as a "gift"
For this reason, ladies and gentlemen, I have been a victim of Arab slavery in Sudan. At nine years, my village was raided by Arab troops paid by Khartoum. As I ran to take refuge in the bush to escape the massacre, I saw my childhood friends being shot down. The old and the sick were burnt alive in their hut. The Arab troops were eventually find me. I was kidnapped and given to an Arab family as a gift. When you look at me, ladies and gentlemen, you see a gift? Do I look like an object or product?
Now is the turn of Darfur.
I was a child slave for several years. I was beaten repeatedly for a yes or a no. Sometimes a whim of my children "master". I worked hard and I had to endure many humiliations. As a child I had loved in my family, I had to get used to sleeping with animals and clean the ground where I slept. I ate the leftovers in the plates of my "master". I got up first and went to bed last, after having completed all the chores. The life of a slave was like hell, but there is no shame in being a slave, it is not a choice. The one who should be ashamed is the one who proclaimed himself the "master". If anyone should feel shame, it is the fundamentalist Muslim regime in Khartoum and its allies in the Muslim world. It is important never to forget that the African Christians of southern Sudan are victims of Islamism. The war against us has been and continues to conduct in the name of jihad.
There are 2 or 3 million refugees from South Sudan. They are treated like dogs. They are not even considered citizens in Sudan because citizenship is based on religion and that only Muslims are entitled. The Africans 'infidels' of this nation are not considered full citizens, while nearly 90% of the population is black.
This is the great challenge of Jihadists in Khartoum: Sudanese and Arabs, they wanted to impose an Arab culture in a country largely populated by blacks. They have done their work very effectively with weapons supplied by their friends in the Arab world. When they committed their genocide against us in the South, the world simply looked away. When millions of black Africans were slaughtered and hundreds of thousands of Sudanese children were enslaved, the world was indifferent. Even the UN has turned its back. Now is the turn of Darfur. Some observ, but most are used to not watch ...
How long will the world let the infidels be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of jihad?
Ladies and gentlemen, I ask this as a victim of slavery in Sudan: How long murder, slavery, religious persecution, systematic rape, starvation imposed and "the ethnic and religious cleansing" going they continue? When those who have the power to act and stop these crimes will they do?
I ask for my fellow Christians and animists in southern Sudan. My voice is their voice. How long will the world let the infidels be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of jihad? How long will the world be silent to avoid offending the killers and defenders of slavery?
Link
Labels: Children, Darfur, Saudi Arabia, Sudan
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Kamal Meddane, the most dangerous young offenders in Quebec, by Marie-Eve Marineau
Kamal Meddane today became the youngest criminal in Quebec, and one of the youngest in Canada to be declared a dangerous offender by a judge, an exceptional sentence, the heaviest in the Criminal Code.
Judge Patrice Hurtubise has made the decision this afternoon in the Youth Division of Montreal. Kamal Meddane was 14 when he committed his first sexual assault. At 16, he relapsed, this time with great violence. At that age he refused an initial therapy for sex offenders. He has refused three in total.
At 17, while on probation followed, he made three new victims. Most of its victims are teenagers from 13 years to fragile tunes chosen at random from a bus or a subway station. He forced one of them watching him masturbate. He has violated another without a condom.
In these last three cases, he pleaded not guilty. After trial, the judge Hurtubise has been convicted of any assault. The Crown, represented by Sylvie Lemieux, then asked the judge to impose an adult sentence, what the judge has consented. This is why in the media he can be identified, even if he committed his crimes while he was still a teenager.
Judge Hurtubise has ordered the imprisonment of Meddane indefinitely. He will serve at least seven years in prison and will be evaluated every two years to determine if he is fit to go out or not.
The young man has a "deviant sexual sadist type," according to psychiatrist Louis Morissette was evaluated at the request of the Crown. He uses violence and humiliation for assaulting teenage and pubescent female. Meddane has no mental illness or drug problem or alcohol. The young man was a dunce at school and refused all approaches proposed for finding a job. It has a "high opinion of himself" and lack of empathy, according to the doctor.
Meddane had been held since his arrest in April 2007. He is awaiting trial in another sexual assault case before an adult court this time. His mother and brother were in the courtroom this afternoon, and one of his victims. His mother collapsed in tears at the sentencing.
See also:
The Crown wants to declare a young offender rapist to be controlled by Christianne Desjardin, (La Presse May 21, 2009)
Excerpt: "It rewarding to me to see that victims might be afraid," he said yesterday. Initially, it was touching. But over time, attacks have increased in severity up to rape. Eldest of eight children, he lived with his family in a five-bedroom in Montreal North.
Link
Labels: Hostile races, Marie-Êve Marineau, Montréal
Friday, October 02, 2009
Tribute to Pierre Falardeau
"I won’t pass not for other things because, but I just know that these struggles there, it's very difficult struggles, and it's hard to make it an dit won’t be done the next day, and it is those who won’t earn discouraged that will win.
Struggles for independence, the Greeks, it took them 500 years. The Palestinians are not out of the hole, but what do you want they do? That they drop?
If we collectively decided to abandon, there is a price to pay for it. If you chose to crash, if you chose to lie, the world will wipe their feet on us. When a people die, it dies a long time. And this is painful, it hurts. Which means that if you decide to leave, to give up, it will be long and tough. You need to be tough. "
- Pierre Falardeau, on the show of Tout le monde en parle, October 26, 2008
Labels: Québec
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