Defending the West
THE SPECTATOR – Melanie Phillips: Daniel Pipes records how a united display of public condemnation and opprobrium forced Islamist organisations in America to back down over the refusal by Muslim cab drivers to transport blind passengers accompanied by their guide dogs. Faced with a united approach by police, courts and public opinion which resulted in such cab-drivers admonished, fined, re-educated, warned, or even jailed, the Council on American Islamic Relations finally backed down. Pipes concludes:

When Westerners broadly agree on rejecting a specific Islamic law or tradition and unite against it, Western Islamists must adjust to the majority's will. Guide dogs for the blind represent just one of many such consensus issues; others tend to involve women, such as husbands beating wives, the burqa head coverings, female genital mutilation, and ‘honor’ killings. Western unity can also compel Islamists to denounce their preferred positions in areas such as slavery and Shar‘i-compliant finances.

Defending the West >>> By Melanie Phillips

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Flemming Rose on Free Speech and Radical Islam
Mr. Rose is the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten. He is writing a book about the challenges to free speech in a globalized world.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - Opinion: At a lunch last year celebrating his 25th anniversary with Jyllands-Posten, Kurt Westergaard told an anecdote. During World War II Pablo Picasso met a German officer in southern France, and they got into a conversation. When the German officer figured out whom he was talking to he said:

"Oh, you are the one who created Guernica?" referring to the famous painting of the German bombing of a Basque town by that name in 1937.

Picasso paused for a second, and replied, "No, it wasn't me, it was you."

For the past three months Mr. Westergaard and his wife have been on the run. Mr. Westergaard did the most famous of the 12 Muhammad cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 -- the one depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban. The cartoon was a satirical comment on the fact that some Muslims are committing terrorist acts in the name of Islam and the prophet. Tragically, Mr. Westergaard's fate has proven the point of his cartoon: In the early hours of Tuesday morning Danish police arrested three men who allegedly had been plotting to kill him.

In the past few days 17 Danish newspapers have published Mr. Westergaard's cartoon, which is as truthful as Picasso's painting. My colleagues at Jyllands-Posten and I understand that the cartoon may be offensive to some people, but sometimes the truth can be very offensive. As George Orwell put it in the suppressed preface to "Animal Farm": "If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

Sadly, the plot to kill Mr. Westergaard is not an isolated story, but part of a broader trend that risks undermining free speech in Europe and around the world. Consider the following recent events: In Oslo a gallery has censored three small watercolor paintings, showing the head of the prophet Muhammad on a dog's body, by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been under police protection since the fall of 2007. In Holland the municipal museum in The Hague recently refused to show photos by the Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera of gay men wearing the masks of the prophet Muhammad and his son Ali; Ms. Hera has received several death threats and is in hiding. In Belarus an editor has been sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp after republishing some of Jyllands-Posten's Muhammad cartoons. In Egypt bloggers are in jail after having "insulted Islam." In Afghanistan the 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh has been sentenced to death because he distributed "blasphemous" material about the mistreatment of women in Islam. And in India the Bengal writer Taslima Nasreen is in a safe house after having been threatened by people who don't like her books. Every one of the above cases speaks to the same problem >>> By Flemming Rose

LETTERS TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL APROPOS OF THIS ARTICLE:
Do You Have a Right to Avoid What You Don't Want to Hear?

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Danish Cartoonist Kicked Out of Hotel Over Jihadist Fears, Now Homeless
HOT AIR: Two years ago Kurt Westergaard was in his Copenhagen home drawing pictures. One of them was of the Muslim prophet, Muhammad. Now Westergaard is homeless.

Draw a picture offensive to Muslim extremists, and you might find yourself without a roof. Ask Kurt Westergaard, one of the twelve Danish cartoonists whose autumn 2005 Muhammad caricatures lead to violent protests throughout the Muslim world. He was booted from his police-protected hotel room on Feb. 15 for being “too much of a security risk.” And now the 73-year-old cartoonist and his wife are without a place to live. Danish cartoonist kicked out of hotel over jihadist fears, now homeless >>> By Allahpundit

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Islamic Fashion: The Great Cover-Up
Jakarta:


Turkey:


Iran:


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Eat You Heart Out, Ahmadinejad! Naughtiness and Daring in Iran

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’Hooks-R-Us’ Preacher of Hate Launches Yet Another Appeal Over US Extradition
DAILY EXPRESS: Islamist preacher Abu Hamza has lodged an appeal against his extradition to the United States.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that the appeal will now be considered by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith but could not say when a decision will be made.



Ms Smith signed papers paving the way for Hamza, 49, to face terror charges in the US on February 7.



There was a 14-day deadline, which was due to end on Wednesday, for Hamza's legal team to mount an appeal.



Hamza, who has served two years of a seven-year sentence for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, is wanted in the US to face charges that include providing support to al Qaida and involvement in a hostage-taking conspiracy.



The US government claims he was involved in a global conspiracy to wage jihad against the US and other western countries. Hamza Appeals Over US Extradition >>>

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Diana, the Late Princess of Wales: “There’s Something About the Way You Look Tonight” - اميرة ويلز

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Endless Love

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Gays Cause Earthquakes, Says Ultra-Orthodox Jew
BBC: An Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently.

Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the tremors had been caused by lawmaking that gave "legitimacy to sodomy".

Israel decriminalised homosexuality in 1988 and has since passed several laws recognising gay rights.

Two earthquakes shook the region last week and a further four struck in November and December. Israeli MP blames quakes on gays >>>

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Mohamed Al Fayed, the Owner of Harrods, ‘Laying Into’ the British Establishment


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The Muslim and the Christian Princess



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An Arab Perspective on the Princess: اميرة ويلز

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Why Are Americans Giving Up Their Freedom?
TOWNHALL.COM: Are Americans tiring of individual liberty?
It sure seems so. How else can you explain the proliferation of laws that regulate the most mundane aspects of our lives, and the mostly passive reaction of Americans to the ever increasing micromanagement of our lives?

Liberty has always been a tougher sell than many of us assume. We all want the freedom to do as we like, but few of us are as committed to allowing others to act contrary to our notion of right and wrong. Majorities have always sought and often found ways to impose their views upon minorities. The most vocal minorities have often been successful in imposing their will on the majority, at least for a time.

So there is nothing new about threats to Individual liberty being a daily part of our lives. What is new is that the institutional barriers to regulating our daily lives have effectively broken down. It took a Constitutional Amendment to pass prohibition of alcohol (and repeal it). Who today expects a Constitutional fight over smoking, obesity, trans-fats, or any of the myriad personal issues now under the purview of government control?

America was founded on the belief that government power should be strictly limited, because the alternative to limited power was unlimited power. The framers of the Constitution were rightly concerned that without strict institutional barriers to the expansion of government powers there would eventually be no barriers at all. Power, in any form, longs to be absolute.

Unfortunately, the concept of limited government is becoming an anachronism in today’s America.

There are no limits on what government can regulate because we have accepted the notion that there are no limits to the benefits government can and should bestow upon us. Fifty percent of health care is paid for by the government—including universal health care for all of us over 65. Your trans-fat laden donut today could mean higher taxes for me in the future. Ditto for smoking and other risky behavior. The pervasiveness of government power over our lives… >>> By David Strom

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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Barack Obama is a Fake
Image courtesy of Google Images
TOWNHALL.COM: Sen. Barack Obama's star appeal is causing physiological reactions in his supporters. Which is to say, they're fainting.

And these fainting routines are causing me physiological reactions. Which is to say, I'm throwing up.

At no less than six of Obama's recent rallies, fans have reportedly fainted. Those incidents were caught on video or audio. In each, Obama -- who never even thinks to put down the microphone or ask a campaign aide to take care of the matter -- narrates to the crowd as medical volunteers show up to minister to the stricken. In two of the videos, he picks up a bottle of water and offers it to the poor, overcome admirers.

I don't mean to suggest that all this is staged. I'm saying it straight out: It's staged. Obama is supposedly Mr. Authentic -- the man who naturally radiates charisma and magnetic charm. His pheromones are so powerful they strike unwitting audience members into a stupor. He's the Beatles. He's Elvis. More than anything, he's the new JFK, a young, vibrant leader who will lead America into a bright new future.

Riiiiight.

Obama is as fake as Pamela Anderson's assets -- the only difference between them is that Anderson's boobs have some weight. He's slicker than a Slip 'N Slide. He's more like a pedophilia-free Michael Jackson than a JFK -- he's a sort-of-black, sort-of-white guy made of plastic who lip-synchs empty lyrics to the screaming adoration of juveniles.

Obama is like JFK in one way: JFK was packaged for public consumption, and so is Obama. JFK's father, Joseph -- who doubled as JFK's campaign war chest -- used his personal connections with media members to push his son into the national spotlight as soon as John returned from World War II. John's heroic PT 109 story was printed in The New Yorker, and in 1944, it appeared in Reader's Digest. The ensuing hubbub made JFK a national figure. Life magazine featured Kennedy in 1953, March 1956 and December 1957. The December piece drooled that Kennedy "has left panting politicians and swooning women across a large spread of the U.S." Complained Sen. Hubert Humphrey, "I don't know how he does it. I get into Photoplay and he gets into Life." Obama, like JFK, is a media creation >>> By Ben Shapiro

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Some Things Are Just Too Difficult to Fathom!
Photo of Hillary Clinton courtesy of The Times
Feminists in America have got their big chance to elect the first female president. Yet they seem reluctant to do so.

The British, despite their tendency to cling to traditions, cast all fate to the wind years ago and opted for their first female prime minister in the shape of Margaret Thatcher. And, love her or hate her, no one can doubt that she made a very impressive prime minister, and she cut a very impressive figure on the world stage. Indeed, she was one of the greats in British history.

Feminists have worked hard to get places in a largely male-dominated America; yet now that they have a real chance to make a difference, now that they have a real chance to vote for change and place a woman at the top, they don’t appear to be taking it. They are running scared. But perhaps we shouldn't be very surprised, since feminists have not been very forthright in condemning the atrocities committed against women in Muslim countries, either.

Hillary Rodham Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with as a president: She has political experience aplenty, she’s got a damn good intellect, and she’s no longer the dowdy person she once was. In fact, she often looks quite stylish these days. Yet the women voters seem not to be biting, they seem not to be supporting her in great enough numbers. As a result, her campaign seems to be withering on the vine.

Barack Hussein Obama’s campaign, by contrast, seems to be going from strength to strength. Indeed, some people say that Hussein has become an unstoppable force. Personally, I don’t believe that to be the case. Not yet anyway. This is all media hype as far as I am concerned. It has to be said that Hussein has become the darling of the MSM. The MSM do have a habit of picking their favourites, and then promoting and promoting and promoting those favourites. They expose their favourites from each and every flattering angle, and then they damn the rest of the contenders. They certainly rarely stop and ask their darlings any difficult questions.

In the case of Hussein, I should like to ask him some questions of my own. As a Briton concerned about the future of Europe, and especially concerned about the growth of Islam in Europe and in the West as a whole, the following two questions would be where I would start my interrogation: 1.) Mr Obama, where do you stand on the possible accession of Turkey into the EU? 2.) What are you going to do about the growth of Islam in America? In fact, I have already emailed Mr Obama at his office for answers on these matters. Needless to say, I have yet to receive a reply.

It would appear from the results of the primaries in the States that people are more concerned with hope over substance, more concerned with youth over specifics. Hussein Obama is offering vague talk of hope and a desire to do things differently; Hillary Rodham is offering something more specific. She certainly offers experience in politics, which Obama certainly does not. It would be churlish of anyone to deny this fact. Hillary is also more transparent in her religious affiliations than Hussein Obama is.

The West is in a very difficult phase. We have a competing civilization doing its damnedest to bring our civilization down, and we have untold economic problems, too. In fact, many of our economic woes stem right from our troubles with Islam. Solve the problem with Islam and you automatically solve many of our economic problems at a stroke.

Hillary Rodham Clinton should not be ruled out of the race for the White House yet. She might yet make a good showing in Texas. We must hope that she will for the sake of America and for the sake of American voters; otherwise they might find themselves with a greenhorn as president; and this at a most difficult juncture in the history of America and the West.

By the way, I write neither as a Democrat nor as a Republican. As a Briton, I can safely say I am neither. But if it has to be a Democratic president, then let the citizens of the world be able to take comfort in the knowledge that the free world is to be led by a president of substance, by a person who knows something about politics.

©Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved

Stop Blair: Ambition to Lead Europe Meets Fierce Opposition
Photo coutesy of The Times
THE GUARDIAN: Tony Blair's hopes of becoming Europe's first president are running into mounting opposition across the EU, with Germany determined to stymie the former prime minister.

A "Stop Blair" website run by pro-Europeans has launched a petition against him; a transnational, cross-party caucus in the European parliament is forming to campaign against a Blair presidency; senior officials in Brussels are privately dismissive about the new post going to a Briton; and senior diplomats in European capitals also doubt that Blair is the right person for the post being created under Europe's new reform treaty.

"There was surprise in Berlin when Blair's name came up so soon," said a European ambassador. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany admires Blair and has "great personal sympathy for Tony", he added.

"But more generally the German political elite would be puzzled by the idea of Tony Blair. His track record on EU matters is not so great. There is unease about a Briton at the top in that job. And then personally with Blair, there's the Iraq thing."

Sources close to Merkel confirmed her opposition. "He made a lot of fine speeches about Europe but, essentially, stood on the sidelines when it came to concrete steps forward," they said. Stop Blair: ambition to lead Europe meets fierce opposition: EU track record and Iraq seen as obstacles to getting new post of president >>> By Ian Traynor and David Gow in Brussels

DAILY MAIL:
Blair faces German-led campaign to block his EU presidential bid By Ben Clerkin

ONLINE PETITION TO STOP BLAIR BECOMING EUROPE'S FIRST PRESIDENT:
Stop Blair!

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Democracy à la Suisse
Photo courtesy of the Tribune de Genève
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: BLOG: The Swiss system of referenda, as it stands now, seems to me the best option for putting in place truly democratic policies. As a very liberal person who once lived in the States, and heard stories from my other very liberal friends about how much they disagreed with the current administration's stance on issues ranging from gay marriage to abortion to gun control, I have long wondered if there was no better way of making rules than simply having the ruling party decide what was best for 300 million people. Like pretty much every other liberal person, I have watched in dismay as lax gun control laws have helped along untold numbers of school/mall shootings, and knee-jerk objections to stem cell research, on the basis that fetuses are "people", have held back advancements in the treatment of debilitating diseases. Democracy à la Suisse >>>

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Change You Can’t Believe In
Photo of Barack Hussein Obama courtesy of Google Images
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance. Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver. The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama reminds many people of former President John F. Kennedy or civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But when I hear him speak, I have to think of the crazy days of the New Economy.

It was a magical time, even for the most levelheaded of business executives. For several years, wild promises seemed to be the most valuable currency in circulation. Profits? No big deal! Experience? Unnecessary! Realism? More of an obstacle than anything else. While some entrepreneurs undoubtedly had realistic business models and administrative talent, most of them were simply peddling ideas.

World economic output grew by 80 percent in real terms between 1980 and 2000. But the value of shares rose by about 1,000 percent within the same period. The market hit its zenith on March 10, 2000, and then the bubble burst. Suddenly the billion-dollar companies listed on the NASDAQ collapsed like so many cold soufflés. These days, Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO of Worldcom and one of the stars of the new economy, no longer appears on Larry King Live. Instead, he is currently serving a prison term in Louisiana for fraud and conspiracy.

The future is a hotly traded commodity in the 2008 US presidential campaign. Voters are hungry for change and for radical departure from a present they now perceive as mediocre, especially after seven meager years under the current president, George W. Bush. A man like Barack Obama is adept at taking advantage of this yearning. He utters beautiful sentences that massage the soul, sentences like: "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and "Our destiny will not be written for us, but by us."

At his campaign appearances, Obama and his adoring supporters toss his campaign slogan, "Yes, we can," back and forth until the room is in a frenzy. His events are reminiscent of Sunday morning exchanges between a fiery pastor and his enthusiastic congregation, except that Obama's crowds are even more fervent.

But anyone able to look past the rhetoric of the 46-year-old candidate will recognize a growing sense of doubt -- doubt that Obama easily manages to quell in his next speech, or his next one after that. The senator's successes in the primaries also have a narcotizing effect. Obama defines himself as a new type of politician, as someone who refuses to be judged by the old standards. Change You Can’t Believe In >>> By Gabor Steingart in Washington

CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE:
Clinton, Obama: Homosexuality ‘Not Immoral’

WORLD NET DAILY:
Obama campaign: Mum’s the word!

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Egypt Bans Four Foreign Newspapers Over Republication of Anti-Prophet Cartoons
EDITOR & PUBLISHER: CAIRO, Egypt Egypt banned editions of four foreign newspapers including the New York-based Wall Street Journal and Britain's The Observer for reprinting the controversial Danish cartoons criticizing the Prophet Muhammad, the state-run news agency reported Tuesday.



Two German newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine and Die Welt, were also banned, according to the Middle East News Agency, quoting Information Minister Anas el-Fiqi. The papers are only sold in Egypt at newsstands specializing in foreign publications.



The issue of the cartoons, which exploded in 2006, returned to prominence recently when more than a dozen of leading Danish newspapers reprinted the 12 cartoons in a gesture of solidarity after police revealed a plot to kill one of the artists. Egypt Bans Four Foreign Newspapers Over Republication of Anti-Prophet Cartoons >>>

TEHRAN TIMES:
Insulting Caricatures an Act of Incitement to Hatred

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'I Don't Hate Muslims. I Hate Islam,' Says Holland's Rising Political Star
Photo of Geert Wilders courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Geert Wilders, the popular MP whose film on Islam has fuelled the debate on race in Holland, wants an end to mosque building and Muslim immigration. Ian Traynor met him in The Hague

A TV addict with bleached hair who adores Maggie Thatcher and prefers kebabs to hamburgers, Geert Wilders has got nothing against Muslims. He just hates Islam. Or so he says. 'Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology,' says Wilders, a lanky Roman Catholic right-winger, 'the ideology of a retarded culture.'

The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'. But he has nothing against Muslims. 'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'

Wilders has been immersing himself in the suras and verse of seventh-century Arabia. The outcome of his scholarship, a short film, has Holland in a panic. He is just putting the finishing touches to the 10-minute film, he says, and talking to four TV channels about screening it.

'It's like a walk through the Koran,' he explains in a sterile conference room in the Dutch parliament in The Hague, security chaps hovering outside. 'My intention is to show the real face of Islam. I see it as a threat. I'm trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world. On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam.'

Wilders is lucid and shrewd and the provactive soundbites trip easily off his tongue. He was recently voted Holland's most effective politician. If 18 months ago he sat alone in the second chamber or lower house in The Hague, his People's Party now has nine of 150 seats and is running at about 15 per cent in the polls. His Islam-bashing seems to be paying off. And not only in Holland. All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice. 'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star >>> By Ian Traynor in The Hague

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