2 days ago: Two unidentified Afghan Women chat with each other a few minutes before they were executed by Taliban in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on late Saturday, July 12, 2008. Taliban fighters told Associated Press Television News that the two were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors at a U.S. base in Ghazni city.

2 days ago: Local people watch two Afghan women shot and killed by Taliban in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on Sunday, July 13, 2008. Taliban fighters told Associated Press Television News that the two were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors at a U.S. base in Ghazni city.

Question insultante, à tiroirs, que l’on voit revenir de façon obsessionnelle dans tous les médias en Amérique ou en Europe.

Insultante pour les noirs, catégorisés selon la couleur de leur peau et non la qualité de leur programme politique.

Question insultante pour les républicains, qui sont incriminés préventivement de racisme. Pourquoi pas les démocrates? Mais parce que les démocrates ont répondu explicitement “oui” en choisissant Obama pour candidat à la présidence. Donc les seuls qui ne seraient pas “prêts”, c’est le parti opposé, les républicoins, pardon républicains. On les rend coupables de ne pas rendre les armes devant la théophanie du messie. Toute critique sera du racisme.

Autre tiroir: si le Messie n’est pas élu, la réponse sera tout prête: “Il est noir, les Américcains sont racistes”. Ce qui dispensera de se poser d’autres questions, comment par exemple s’il n’était pas BEAUCOUP TROP À GAUCHE pour un pays qui préfère le centre-droit.

Dernier tiroir: en ramenant tout à la question de la race, on efface la question du programme politique d’Obama. Est-il bon, mauvais ou moyen pour l’Amérique aujourd’hui? That is the question, éludée par l’irritant “Est-ce que l’Amérique est prête à élire un noir?”

La couverture du New Yorker est supposée se moquer des soi-disant stéréotypes de la droite sur Obama. La campagne d’Obama ne rit pas.

Selon la BBC:

A BBC drama has triggered a barrage of complaints after it showed gruesome images of a Muslim being beheaded.

Bonekickers, about a group of archeological sleuths, depicted an extremist Christian decapitating a man with a sword.

Iraq handing out cash to people on the streets

The handouts by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and a handful of other top officials are authorized _ as long as each goes no higher than about $8,000, and the same people don’t get them twice. Aides say they are meant merely to ease the pain a bit, and are motivated by a belief that better conditions will lead to more security.

S’il n’arrive pas à mieux avec les médias hyper favorables…

Obama holds a statistically insignificant 47% to 46% advantage. Today is the first time that McCain’s support has moved above 45% since Obama clinched the nomination on June 3.

Why Islam Is Unfunny for a Cartoonist

The arrest of a controversial Dutch cartoonist has set off a wave of protests. The case is raising questions for a changing Europe about free speech, religion and art.

By ANDREW HIGGINS
July 12, 2008; Page W1

Amsterdam

On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor’s office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle.

“I never expected the Spanish Inquisition,” recalls the cartoonist, who goes by the nom de plume Gregorius Nekschot, quoting the British comedy team Monty Python. A fan of ribald gags, he’s a caustic foe of religion, particularly Islam. The Quran, crucifixion, sexual organs and goats are among his favorite motifs.

(Lire la suite…)

A burqa-clad woman attends a gathering with her children at the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad July 9, 2008. About 2,000 Islamist women gathered at the Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital on Wednesday and vowed to raise their children for holy war, days after a suicide bomber killed 18 people after a similar rally.

Via GP

A new law has been passed by the Iranian parliament extending use of the death penalty to online crimes. Previously, only people charged with insulting Islam or drug trafficking had been sentenced to death.In accordance with the new law, bloggers and website editors can be sentenced to death for crimes such as promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) reported.

Blogging about subjects such as minority rights and freedom of speech and religion has already carried a risk. In 2005, blogger Mojtaba Saminejad was tried before a local court in Teheran charged with insulting the prophets, which carries the death penalty. He was eventually acquitted. Last year, two Kurdish bloggers were sentenced to death on charges of subversive activities against national security, spying and separatist propaganda.

An NRO Q&A

Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, childhood was a phase, adolescence did not exist and adulthood was the fulfillment of youth’s promise. No more,” Diana West writes in her book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. West is worried that “eternal youth” is “fatal” and recently took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: You note that more adults watch the Cartoon Network than CNN. Surely, you’ve seen Jack Cafferty. Is this really a problem?

Diana West: Not if that were the only statistic out there indicating a seismic cultural shift in sensibility has taken place that has made us more adolescent and less adult.

Other such factoids include: the average video gamester was 18 in 1990; now he’s 33; the National Academy of Sciences has redefined adolescence as the period extending from the onset of puberty, around twelve, to age 30. And, leaving CNN aside, here’s another cartoon statistic: One third of the 56 million Americans who sat down in 2002 to watch SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon each month were between 18 and 49 years old. (Nickelodeon, incidentally, thought its core demographic group was the six- to eleven-year old set.) These older fans may be chronological grown-ups, but their taste reveals an affinity for kidstuff their forebears didn’t share and almost certainly wouldn’t understand. The point is, aspects of the maturation cycle have stalled, leading to significant changes not only in pop culture, but in ourselves as a people.

(Lire la suite…)

A Clayton County man faces murder charges in the strangulation death of his 25-year-old daughter early Sunday over what police said was her desire to end an arranged marriage.

Chaudhry Rashad, 54, apparently became angry during an argument in which the victim, Sandela Kanwal, told him she wanted out of the marriage, Clayton police spokesman Timothy Owens said.

L’alliance islamiste-gauchiste

par Daniel Pipes
National Review, 14 juillet 2008
VO: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5720«Voici deux pays frères, unis comme les doigts de la main», déclarait le socialiste Hugo Chávez pendant une visite à Téhéran, en novembre dernier, pour souligner son alliance avec l’islamiste Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Le fils de Che Guevara, Camilo, qui a aussi visité Téhéran l’an passé, a affirmé que son père aurait «soutenu le pays dans sa lutte actuelle contre les États-Unis». Ils imitaient ainsi Fidel Castro qui, pendant une visite rendue en 2001, déclara à ses hôtes qu’«en collaborant, l’Iran et Cuba pourrait mettre l’Amérique à genoux». Pour sa part, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez («Carlos le chacal») a écrit dans un livre intitulé L’islam révolutionnaire que «seule une coalition de marxistes et d’islamistes peut détruire les États-Unis».

Et il n’y a pas que les gauchistes d’Amérique latine à discerner un potentiel dans l’islamisme. Ken Livingstone, l’ex-maire trotskiste de Londres, embrassa littéralement le fameux penseur islamiste Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Ramsey Clark, ex-ministre américain de la Justice, a rendu visite à l’ayatollah Khomeiny et lui a offert son soutien. Noam Chomsky, professeur au MIT, s’est rendu auprès du leader du Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah et a approuvé la décision du Hezbollah de conserver ses armes. Ella Vogelaar, la ministre hollandaise de l’Habitat, des Quartiers et de l’Intégration, est si bien disposée envers l’islamisme qu’un critique, le professeur d’origine iranienne Afshin Ellian, l’a appelée «la ministre de l’islamisation».

(Lire la suite…)

eXc n’hésite pas à contredire Radio Suisse Romande

The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance.