Pakistan Sentences Man to Death Over Facebook Posts

In overview, it's not surprising, but a Pakistani court has sentenced a man to death over a post on Facebook.  It's believed to be the first such incident involving social media in the world.

The details about Taimoor Raza's posts aren't known, but the Guardian reports that he got into an online debate about Islam last year with a man who was actually an undercover counter-terrorism agent.

"An anti-terrorism court of Bahawalpur has awarded him the death sentence," says a public prosecutor. Raza, who belongs to the nation's Shia minority, will be able to appeal his verdict to the nation's Supreme Court.

A perfect example of why states shouldn't be involved in religion, blasphemy laws are common in Pakistan and other muslim states.  Other men are on death row in Pakistan over blasphemy, but Raza is the first there because of online statements.  The problem, as some human rights organizations have said, is that it opens up the possibility of people being framed. It's easier to fake a post than fake something that requires credible witnesses.

Of course, we've all seen these signs before.  Source.

Something to remember as sharia laws creep into America and the anti sharia law protests last weekend. 

Steven Crowder - It's Not Time for Unity, It's Time for An Alliance

As in the Allied powers of WWII.  Steven Crowder takes a break from writing comedy for his channel to do a video on the attack in Manchester last night . 

Like most of us, I'm sickened by the murder of innocents in the UK; this time young girls.  Apparently a venue full of girls in the (I've read) 10 to 20 age group was chosen as a way to outrage westerners, because in their minds if some "westerner" goes and kills a random mooslim, that will cause the so-called "moderate" mooslims to endorse Isis and cause the battle for the end of the world they're trying to create.  That it's a sick, twisted view of the world is an understatement.

Crowder wrote an accompanying piece for the Blaze with some highlights.  

If you want to practice Islam in the inconsequential, semi-secular sense. Fine. But the only way to solve this problem is to recognize that POLITICAL Islam and anyone who follows its prescription is inherently incompatible with Western values.

That means:

Want sharia courts?  You’re not welcome.

Think it’s okay to marry a six year old?  You’re not welcome.

Think it’s okay to strike your wife for ANY reason?  You’re not welcome.

Believe in ANY kind of punishment for apostasy?  You’re not welcome.

Believe in ANY kind of punishment for “blasphemy”?  You’re not welcome.

These are the kinds of values that progressives would defend against any radical Christians who believe any of the above. And rightfully so. So why can’t we all agree on these universally? Anyone who holds any of those beliefs is by definition, incompatible with the Western world.

People are giving President Trump crap for calling them “losers.” Listen, the guy isn’t eloquent, but he’s right. These terrorists fear shame more than death. It’s why Abu Ghraib was such an outrage when American, female soldiers stripped them naked and laughed at them while dogs barked. To them, that is a far greater punishment than death or even torture. If any American received said treatment at the hands of ISIS, we’d thank the Lord above that we weren’t being burnt alive in cages. We don’t merely punish terrorists through death. We punish them through shame.

At least ONE leader is willing to give it the old college try. So today, I stand with the president of the United States instead of trying to mince words on social media and virtue-signal about how much “unity” we need. We don’t need “unity”. We need an alliance. There’s a difference.

For as bad as the attack was, Miguel at GunFreeZone posts a twitter capture that may just be worse, at least as a warning sign.

British journalist Katie Hopkins posts a message that sure lines up with my view.  "Western men.  These are your wives.  Your daughters.  Your sons.  Stand up.  Rise up.  Demand action.  Do not carry on as normal.  Cowed."  For which she's reported to the police for "inciting racial hatred" - hate speech - by SJW DarrenB.

That is probably worse than the attack itself. The attack was awful, but it’s the deliberate actions of a bunch of evil murderers trying to incite a war.  Evil is as evil does.

The response, though, is the DarrenB saying “Kill a few more of my daughters. Have you tried raping my wife?  Take over the country and I’ll be your slave.”

It's the Death of the West in one Twitter exchange. 

I'd Say A London Style Attack is Coming Here

But the fact is that "lone wolf" or "self-radicalizing" jihadi attacks are already here in the US. 

What else was San Bernardino?   Ohio State?  

The Ohio State attack followed a pattern that's becoming all too familiar; and the same pattern was in today's attack on Parliament in London.  The attacker drove a nondescript car into crowds and then came out slashing.  Nothing unusual, like the trucks used in Nice on Bastille Day; or the Christmas market in Berlin; just a plain old SUV.  It doesn't require tactical ninja training, access to a weapons cache, organizational skills or anything beyond the ability to drive and desire to die for Allah. 

It's jihad for dummies.  ISIS is proud of it.

Chances are none of us will be in an attack, no matter where we live.  On the other hand, the chances aren't very good any one of us will ever win the lotto or get hit by lightning, but someone wins the lotto pretty much every week, and that's less likely than getting hit by lightning. 

I don't have any great words of wisdom here, certainly nothing that you haven't heard before.  Stay alert.  Stay armed; and if you can't lift your hand and retrieve a gun RFN you aren't.  Consider carrying a little more capacity.  Practice.  Put in a little extra time at longer distances.  It's not all preparing for someone within 3 yards who wants to grab your stuff and get away.  Someone wanting to die isn't going to stop until you help them achieve that goal.

Kasich On Ohio State Attack, "We May Never Know..."

As details started coming in, I was leaving a comment at No Lawyers Guns and Money saying I thought it could be a coordinated terror attack. At that time, the Columbus Dispatch was still calling it a shooting.  The reason I said "terror attack" was there was an report that someone called in a report of a fluorine leak and students evacuated to a patio where they were then attacked by someone in a car.  Could it be the report was called in by the Sudden Jihadi or an accomplice to get the students into a place where he knew he could attack? 

Peter Anderson, chairman of the department of materials science and engineering, said he arrived at Watts Hall after the attack was over.

He said students told him that someone called in a fluorine leak in the building, which has lab facilities. As required during emergencies, the students congregated in the courtyard outside the building.

He said the attacker drove a car into the courtyard. “It’s where we hold our ice cream socials and when something like this happens,”Anderson said.

By the time I was reading this, 12:30-ish, there were reports of people being slashed and taken to the hospital for injuries from being hit by a car, but no reports of anyone being shot.  As the events started to be reported more accurately, it sounded more and more like the sort of "open source terror" that Isis was encouraging just last month.  Since we know he was interviewed in the campus newspaper complaining about a lack of prayer rooms on campus, I'm going with "Sudden Jihadi Syndrome" for $500, John Kasich. 

After June's Pulse night club shooting in Orlando, officials were quick to say "we may never know why the killer did this", all the time sitting on 911 audio of the killer saying he was doing it for Isis and their leader. 

In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the leadership of a couple of Florida Sheriff's Departments got together about the message that has been preached about mass shootings: Run, Hide, Fight.  Like so many of these glib solutions, it became something that was easily memorized and so became the default response of many in the Pulse nightclub.  What they did was hide in places of light concealment, like in bathroom stalls, and not cover.  The killer reloaded time after time and not once did anyone attack him.  He took his time methodically killing the victims hiding, as they were told.  Those poor folks ended up simply waiting to die and were executed for their trouble.  In its place the department came up with the "Four As":  Awareness, Avoidance, Arm, Attack. 

• Awareness means situational awareness, as pretty much all self-defense training emphasizes
• Avoidance means that if something is starting to go down and you can avoid it by running away, run away! 
• Arm means that if you can carry one, carry your gun all the time, everywhere it's permitted
• Attack means that if you must attack, attack like crazy.  If you're armed, make the shot; if you're not armed and you have to resort to impromptu weapons like a fire extinguisher, do all you can do.  

I find it hard to find fault with any of this.  If students were allowed to carry on campus, it might have gone better, but to be honest, it went pretty well.  If the jihadi really did call in a false report on a fluorine leak to get people out where he could kill them, he screwed up by not realizing there would be OSU police at the scene.  One of those officers, Alan Horujko, put down the attacker within a minute. 

OSU officer Horujko, top center, and jihadi, prone.

9/11 15 Years After

While sipping my coffee this morning, I was watching the annual ceremony of the reading of the names of the 9/11 victims in the WTC.  I don't know why it surprised me to see as much crying as I saw, but I was struck by how raw the wounds from that day still are.  From the way most mass media talks about it, it's like dim distant past, something the country is completely over.  Easy to say if it's not your loved one, coworker, or other friend that died that day. 

In going over my years on this blog, I find I've written only a few posts on 9/11.  I suppose I try to contribute something that other people don't and with the superb writers that are here in the blogosphere, I'm not sure I have much to say that's worthwhile.  I find it's one of those few days in my life where I instantly can vividly recall where I was, what I was doing, and all of the things we saw and heard.  

On that bright Tuesday morning, I was out of the office at a company that we contracted to do some testing on our radios.  As the technician and I were setting up the test, the company's secretary/receptionist came in and said the radio had a bulletin that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.  My first reaction, perhaps strangely, was that radio navigation systems can't be that wrong, it must have been a terrible accident.  Act of war did not enter my mind.  As the morning went on, a TV set was put in place and large antenna hooked up outside (there are no local TV channels).  We watched the second plane hit and quickly realized this was no accident.  That's when the thoughts of Pearl Harbor and other acts of war started.  I've heard it credited to Ian Fleming as his character Auric Goldfinger, but the saying goes, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action".  And so it appeared that day. 

In the days that followed, I learned that friends were affected by the events of 9-11, but weren't involved.  A co-worker was on business at Boeing, and had to rent a car to drive home.  A very close friend was waiting at JFK airport to fly home, and saw the attacks in real time.  He also had to rent a car and drive home.  A cousin lives within viewing distance and watched it. And now I have friends who have sons in the armed forces in Afghanistan, and others who have been in Iraq.  We need to remember we are at war, even if our enemy isn't a convenient nation-state.  You can pretend we're not at war if you'd like, but if someone swears to destroy you, it's prudent to believe them.

This post shouldn't be about me.  It's in memory of all those who died that day, and since then.  Let us really never forget.  This poster is several years old, but it'll have to do.  Remember the fallen. 

The Attempted Turkey Coup

Seems to have been a really poorly planned operation.  It's like the rebelling forces never considered they might have to fire on crowds.  I'm watching video of crowds of civilians attacking tanks and pulling soldiers out of them to beat.  At least one beheading has been reported.  But tanks are kinda hardened targets, right?  Kinda well armed.  Did they never think they might need to crank up their automatic guns and spray around themselves?  Is this their version of taking the high road?

The oddest aspect seems to be that the cleric being blamed/credited as the motivating force behind the coup, Fethullah Gulen, is living in the Pocono Mountains for Pennsylvania.  There, of course, is the usual blame/denial circle in process.  Turkey says, "Any country that stands by cleric Gulen will be at war with Turkey," and says we are failing to extradite him. 

It doesn't seem to be a surprise then that the American Incirlik Air Force Base has had its power cut and been sealed off from the outside world.  The US consulate is telling US Citizens to avoid the base.  The Turkish military is apparently denying the right to fly in and out of the base for "anti-ISIS coalition airplanes".  Does that make everyone on base hostages to the Turkish government right now?  Are they going to shoot down any US planes going into the base with supplies, or on health and welfare flights? 

What happens if Turkey tries to take over the base by force?  I think that would underline the "at war with Turkey" statement from the Turkish foreign minister. 

Incirlik houses American nuclear weapons.  They are as ready to use as any nuke deployed anywhere.  Does Turkey let ISIS become armed with American nukes? 

This could get really ugly, really fast, depending on how hot-headed the Turkish military gets. 

Incirlik - stock photo. 

Makes 'Bout As Much Sense as Anything

From the emails today, although I have seen it around:

We know that the 9/11 Mooslims went to topless bars and did other things forbidden under their religion, and we know this guy in Orlando was apparently conflicted about being gay (you've seen the "self-loathing Muslim" meme going around).  Are they allowed to eat bacon to lie to non-muslims (taqiya)? 

But it makes as much sense as anything the President or his minions have proposed.

---

Sorry for dropping off the radar.  I've been rather sick, in a totally new and different way.  Still haven't gone to the doc, but I might need to go to the urgent care place tomorrow if it doesn't get better.  Bad abdominal pain in the area right behind the bottom of my rib cage, below the sternum.  Just none of extreme symptoms they say to watch for. 

The Agendas Hit Before the Blood is Dry

It's really disgusting, you know?  Here we are, reeling from another terrorism attack, and every agenda-driven group or even person sees it as an opportunity to pimp their cause.

Some random headlines from the Daily Caller:

Reddit Bans Users, Deletes Comments That Say Orlando Terrorist Was Muslim
(Silly people - just re-posting comments from the police on the scene as if they know something)

It Didn’t Take Long For WaPo To Spin Orlando Terror Attack As A Gun Control Issue
(Of course you knew they were going to come dance in the blood - that's 100% predictable)
(Not sure if they were before or after Hillary to demand more gun control.)

ACLU Blames Christians for Orlando Terror Attack
(for not baking ISIS a cake?)

Dem. Senator Declares Orlando Terrorist Attack A ‘Public Health Crisis’
(because Gun Control)

Democratic Senator Blames GOP for Orlando Terror Attack 
(It wasn't a lone wolf ISIS-inspired terrorist!  It was a group of small businessmen!)

Orlando Shooter’s Father Claims Attack Had ‘Nothing To Do With Religion’
(Just like how when someone says "it's not about the money", it's really always about the money, when someone says, "it's not about Islam", it's always about Islam.)  (said the father who supports the Taliban)

Perhaps the most disgusting headline:
Islamic Attacks Have Now Killed Twice As Many Americans As Right-Wing Terror Since 9/11   
(First, it's not a game and we're not keeping score.  Second - wait - what Right Wing Terror attacks?  I looked at the list the quoted website is referring to and I call bullshit)

---

I typically don't go looking for information on the terrorists because these things are always tentative early in a story.  First reports are always wrong.  I never use their names because I never want to give them even the tiniest amount of the fame they're looking for.  But this one is complicated.  There are reports that the guy is an American citizen by birth, and was currently working as a security guard.  He had a valid concealed carry license (in Florida, they're called a CWFL).  To get one, applicants need to pass a Florida Department of Law Enforcement background check, submit fingerprints to trace and "demonstrate competency with a firearm" (a bit controversial because some gun show courses literally have the applicants fire a single shot).  It's reported he legally bought his two guns, which appear to be a Glock and generic AR-15, last week.  He passed the background checks they say we need.

In short, any gun control measure that would have stopped him would prevent any American with the most pristine background from buying a gun.  Only the total ban and elimination of every type of firearm in every country on earth would prevent him from getting a gun.  That's physically impossible. 

The only thing that can stop an attack like this is the department of Pre-crime from Minority Report - and that was science fiction.

My heart goes out to all the victims and families in this most-horrible of times imaginable.  I'm sorry you have to see these ass clown politicians behaving like they do.

Je Suis Sick of It

Yet again, the civilized world has to bear the depraved antics of the Muslim murderers.  Yet again, we have to bear the pea-brained apologists telling us, "it's the religion of peace" or "it's just a small minority".  Yet again, we watch the world respond with hashtags, colored light tributes, and other meaningless, feel-good wastes of time.  Yet again, it looks like we're fast approaching the time when the choice of fight, convert or die will be at our doors.

President Community Organizer said there's no way the Islamists can defeat us.  That the most they can do is annoy us or frighten us.  Stuck thinking 1st or 2nd generation warfare, when what's happening is way beyond him.

If John Robb is right in these two posts, we're in for a period that will end in either the financial collapse of the entire west or an almost-complete elimination of any freedoms.  Or both.  The only thing arguing against his point in the first link is that the Islamists don't seem to do that sort of thing.  They seem to only want to kill, not do the things that might get the reaction he talks about. 

I wouldn't dismiss John's ideas, though.  Both of those pieces are worth reading, and are fairly short.

Modern Day Pilgrims, I Tells Ya

So says the POS POTUS:

From IOwnTheWorld, via a friend's email.

It's amazingly historically naive, but what can you expect from someone who is so obviously not familiar with American culture? 

There are organizations dedicated to helping the persecuted Christian minorities away from Daesh*, and I'd much rather see those people in America than the many refugees we see in Hungary and everywhere else video comes from.  Why?  Tell me how many Christians are in Daesh?   Yeah, zero point zero.   I feel much safer with that population.  Or the Yazidis. 

*Daesh is a new term being used for the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL.  They consider it derogatory - which is a good enough reason to use the name for me.

What ISIS Really Wants

In March of this year, the Atlantic magazine published a fascinating, in-depth article by that name, on the real nature of ISIS and what we can really expect the organization to try to do.  Hat Tip to Self Sufficient Mountain Living who says a British friend mailed it to him.

It's easy for Western minds to dismiss these radical Islamists as insane, trying to establish conditions exactly the way their prophet ordered it in the Koran.  They are far from insane; they're methodically reconstructing the seventh century world as they believe they're commanded to.  They are perfect Muslims in their minds and attack anyone who believes in anything their spiritual leaders say is wrong.  In short, in the words of the subtitle of that piece:

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse.

I've stated before in various places that Islam is Satanic.  I realize that probably sounds inflammatory, especially to non-evangelicals, but all it means is that it follows tenets that are anti-Christian. Among those beliefs is that phrase "...it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse".  Christians don't believe God requires us to create the apocalypse.  God could end the world in an instant if He desired.  If you compare the biblical book Revelations to Islamic stories of the return of the 12th Imam - the Mahdi - from a well in Iran, I think it can easily be envisioned that they're talking about a similar story but from opposite sides.  Unlike the Christian end-times talk, Muslims who follow this theology believe they need to go on such a killing spree as to wash the world in blood before their leader will return.  

I'll be honest: I haven't finished the article, but I think it's worthwhile reading - if not mandatory for understanding the world in 2015.  I'll excerpt some pieces here that particularly made me take notice:

• Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world. 
• In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
• The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
  ...
  Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it.
• Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks. Muslim “apostates” are the most common victims. Exempted from automatic execution, it appears, are Christians who do not resist their new government. Baghdadi permits them to live, as long as they pay a special tax, known as the jizya, and acknowledge their subjugation. The Koranic authority for this practice is not in dispute.
• According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said. “They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.” He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”
• The Koran specifies crucifixion as one of the only punishments permitted for enemies of Islam. ... Leaders of the Islamic State have taken emulation of Muhammad as strict duty, and have revived traditions that have been dormant for hundreds of years. “What’s striking about them is not just the literalism, but also the seriousness with which they read these texts,” Haykel said. “There is an assiduous, obsessive seriousness that Muslims don’t normally have.”
• If al-Qaeda wanted to revive slavery, it never said so. And why would it? Silence on slavery probably reflected strategic thinking, with public sympathies in mind: when the Islamic State began enslaving people, even some of its supporters balked. Nonetheless, the caliphate has continued to embrace slavery [including sex slavery - SiG] and crucifixion without apology. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” Adnani, the spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”
• The biggest proponent of an American invasion is the Islamic State itself. The provocative videos, in which a black-hooded executioner addresses President Obama by name, are clearly made to draw America into the fight. An invasion would be a huge propaganda victory for jihadists worldwide: irrespective of whether they have given baya’a to the caliph, they all believe that the United States wants to embark on a modern-day Crusade and kill Muslims.
• Properly contained, the Islamic State is likely to be its own undoing. No country is its ally, and its ideology ensures that this will remain the case. The land it controls, while expansive, is mostly uninhabited and poor. As it stagnates or slowly shrinks, its claim that it is the engine of God’s will and the agent of apocalypse will weaken, and fewer believers will arrive. And as more reports of misery within it leak out, radical Islamist movements elsewhere will be discredited: No one has tried harder to implement strict Sharia by violence. This is what it looks like.
• The Islamic State awaits the army of “Rome,” whose defeat at Dabiq, Syria, will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse. [All bold emphasis added - SiG]

That's probably too much to have excerpted here, but these are important pulls.  There is no negotiation with the Islamic State.  All you have to look at is their imagery: the crucified men and children; the beheaded prisoners, including little girls barely beyond toddler age; prisoners drowned en masse, burned to death, or beheaded in lines along the beaches.  Then we find their own doctrine forbids negotiation or making peace in any way.  No, their doctrine ensures that the only response proper for the Islamic State is the same as for an invasive cancer.   Every single cell must be killed.  The author of that piece offers as one of his conclusions that a slow, continuous bleeding of ISIS might be the best of the bad solutions to dealing with them.

(by Scott Stantis)

Here We Are Yet Again

First and foremost, no matter what else, my prayers for peace and healing for the families affected by the Paris attacks.  As with any mass killing, that's the highest of priorities.  

Bayou Renaissance Man puts up a thought-provoking post on the attacks in Paris, "Paris and the pain of being human".  I trust you've read it; if not, it's worth your time.  This started as a comment over there, but as always, when a comment gets too long, one of the privileges (the only privilege?) of having this space is the ability to post longer thoughts here.

The one type of attack that is impossible to stop is the surprise attack: you have no idea what it is or where it's coming from.  After all, that's why nations invest billions in intelligence agencies: to discover those attacks before they happen.  Compound that with surprise attacks in which the attacker doesn't care if they survive, or actually wishes to die, and the number of options for an attack increases while the ability to ward them off approaches zero. 

I'd say from Isis' standpoint, Paris was immensely successful.  As of reporting I saw this morning, a mere 7 of their men - who wanted to die in the first place - achieved their goal while killing over 120 directly and emotionally damaging hundreds more.  On a purely demographic basis, they will wipe out western civilization before they run out of jihadis.  As long as they sacrifice less than 10 and take out 10 to 100x that number, they can effectively destroy Europe.  Or it can be over in fewer attacks if they use more lethal weapons.  Nuclear or Biological agents have the desired lethality that could end this within a handful of years.

As others have said, what are we to do?  We have a moral responsibility to protect our families, our societies and ourselves.  It's immoral to allow your family to die in some sort of attempt to have a moral high ground over those who attack you.  On the other hand, they want the West to attack them with overwhelming force so they can play the victim card in their civilizational jihad; "Look! The great Satan really is trying to kill all Muslims!!"  They believe the West nuking them would be a great recruiting tool.   

If we refuse to play their game and don't respond with righteous outrage to attacks on our families, what are we left with?  That we only punch back?  We wait for the next surprise attack, which is surely coming ... and then what?  Chances are the attackers will either commit suicide in the operation or be killed by police or defense forces so there will be nobody to retaliate against.  In other words, do we, as "enlightened Westerners" accept being shot first before we shoot back?  In the event of a surprise attack like these in Paris, when you don't know who's attacking or where they're coming from, is there any alternative to taking the first shot?  How many family members are you willing to lose?  Note: in my view, any number higher than zero is unacceptable.

One of the most important abilities humans have is pattern recognition.  I don't think we'd have survived a few hundred years without it.  We see the pattern behind these attacks, and that leads to the dehumanization Peter writes about.  Not recognizing the incompatibility of the societies, and trying to integrate Islam into the West is suicidal.  The "enlightened left" will bristle at this, but Western societies' morality is derived from Judaeo-Christian ethics; Islam's moral code is not.  They're inherently incompatible and if we insist on attempting to integrate Islam into Western societies we're going to have to accept a continuing number of attacks that kill hundreds of innocent people every time.  

As a people, we really need to answer the question of "so what are we to do?".  As has been said many times, the Jihadis have declared war on us.  When someone declares war on you and swears they're going to kill you, it's wise to take them at their word. 

Could Have Been Drawn Yesterday

In the email today, a friend sent this 112 year old cartoon.  Note the 1903 date at the top.

Apparently Judge was a satire magazine of the late 1800s through as late as 1947 when it ceased publication. 

Sunday Wrap Up, Tab Clearing, Miscellany and Whatever ...

This weekend, ISIS let the world know what they think about those COEXIST bumper stickers.  Now, everyone who doesn't have their head up their ass about Islam has known this forever, but it's good to see them tell the truth.  Maybe we can pass this on to those smarmy oh-so-much-better-than-you people with those stickers.  I've always said, "if you're telling me to peacefully coexist, you're talking to the wrong side".

Hat tip to The Blaze for a link to The Site Intel Group who found ISIS critical of "moderate Muslims" who met with Pope Francis. Their term of insult for non-jihadist muslims is "coconuts".

On September 25, 2015, a user by an Arabic-language username translating to “Come Come,” called such Muslims “coconuts,” a term used by jihadists to insult moderate Muslims:

I wonder how many coconuts attended today's inter-religious prayer service led by Pope in NYC. They all need to take shahadah again.

Shahadah is apparently some sort of re-proclamation of their faith, and not a 50s music cover band.  Who would've known?


I've been meaning to recommend a post to you guys for days.  357 Magnum, who regularly brings the smarts on this topic, as well as many others, has a great summary post on the radiation leaks from the Fukshima nuclear power plant.   Fear Killed After Fukushim Daiichi.  Radiation, Not So Much.  If you live with or work around someone who carried on about this like it was going to be some sort of world wide catastrophe, send them to this piece and its links.  I work with a fairly smart guy who has sucked up way too many time-wasting pieces of  YouTube apocalyptic videos.  I'll be sending him this link.

No one has died from radiation associated with Fukushima Daiichi. Say that again. NO ONE has died.

The workers in the plant AFTER the disaster will not develop cancers in measurable difference from the background rate. (Some people develop cancer, even if they have never worked in nuclear power.)

Radiation wasn't the problem, it was government incompetence and fear-mongering. 


Didn't get much done today on the many projects.  We were up at 5 to catch the morning high tide at Sebastian Inlet and after that I had to spend a few hours in cleaning the boat, tackle and everything else, getting it stowed for "next time".  Unfortunately, high tide was all I caught.  Well, that and about a thousand no see um bites.  They were wicked bad this morning.  Mrs. Graybeard, though, caught a silver mullet on a white bucktail jig.  Yes, it ate the jig, it wasn't snagged.  Rare, but I've caught one once. 

Hungary - On The Ground With the "Refugees"

A friend sent a link today to this video posted on September 5th.  Unless you speak Hungarian (I believe), don't bother with audio. 

The incident took place at a train station in Hungary, where police brought water and packages of food to the refugees.  The story was that the food and water were refused because they came from the Red Cross and the packages bore a cross instead being marked as Halal - in their native language I assume.  They would not take aid with a Christian symbol.  Several of the refugees, reported to be Syrian, can be seen throwing water bottles and food onto the nearby train tracks.  Children accepted the food only to have it taken by teens or adults and thrown away.

You will note that the population appears to be almost entirely men of military age.  ISIS?  Some other group?  Nobody knows and nobody is allowed to question that.  Bretibart reports that as this is unfolding in Europe, five of the wealthiest Gulf States have refused to take in one single Syrian refugee. 

Yet amidst cries for Europe to do more, it has transpired that of the five wealthiest countries on the Arabian Peninsula, that is, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, not one has taken in a single refugee from Syria. Instead, they have argued that accepting large numbers of Syrians is a threat to their safety, as terrorists could be hiding within an influx of people.

We're watching Europe being taken over without a single shot being fired.

Never Forget

While sipping my coffee this morning, I was watching the annual ceremony of the reading of the names of the 9/11 victims in the WTC.  I don't know why it surprised me to see as much crying as I saw, but I was struck by how raw the wounds from that day still are.  From the way most mass media talks about it, it's like dim distant past, something the country is completely over.  Easy to say if it's not your loved one, coworker, or other friend that died that day. 

In going over my years on this blog, I find I've written only a few posts on 9/11.  I suppose I try to contribute something that other people don't and with the superb writers floating in the blogosphere, I'm not sure I have much to say that's worthwhile.  I find it's one of those few days in my life where I instantly can vividly recall where I was, what I was doing, and all of the things we saw and heard.  

On that bright Tuesday morning, I was out of the office at a company that we contracted to do some testing on our radios.  As the technician and I were setting up the test, the company's secretary/receptionist came in and said the radio had a bulletin that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.  My first reaction, perhaps strangely, was that radio navigation systems can't be that wrong, it must have been a terrible accident.  Act of war did not enter my mind.  As the morning went on, a TV set was put in place and large antenna hooked up outside (there are no local TV channels).  We watched the second plane hit and quickly realized this was no accident.  That's when the thoughts of Pearl Harbor and other acts of war started.

In the days that followed, I learned that friends were affected by the events of 9-11, but weren't involved.  A co-worker was on business near Seattle, and had to rent a car to drive home.  A very close friend was waiting at JFK airport to fly home, and saw the attacks in real time.  He also had to rent a car and drive home.  A cousin lives within viewing distance and watched it. And now I have friends who have sons in the armed forces in Afghanistan, and others who have been in Iraq.  We need to remember we are at war, even if our enemy isn't a convenient nation-state.  You can pretend we're not at war if you'd like, but if someone swears to destroy you, it's prudent to believe them. 

Washington Post - Give Blacks More Votes Than Whites

Rarely do you see the SJWs state their demands for reparations quite so openly.  According to the Daily Caller:

“Racial reconciliation is impossible without some kind of broad-based, systemic reparations,” writes Theodore R. Johnson, a former White House fellow and current Ph.D candidate in law and policy at Northeastern University. “But if a pecuniary answer can’t fix the structural disadvantage — and it can’t — what can?”

The answer, Johnson argues, is simple: weighted voting, where black votes count for more than white ones. Specifically, Johnson suggests giving each black person five-thirds of a vote, to reverse the old three-fifths compromise written into the U.S. Constitution.
...
Johnson justifies his argument by saying it’s the only way to solve the “structural disadvantages” faced by blacks.

So only racism will fix racism?  Sounds like he's been studying the Federal Reserve, where they believe the cure to being in too much debt is to borrow more.  

I don't know about you, but my family is recent to this country, arriving in the early 1900s.   I'm only second generation American on both mom's and dad's sides of my family.  Nobody in my ancestry was in this country was here during the years slavery was legal.  But I'd bet just about anything that if you went far enough back, someone in my family was a slave.  Slavery was the norm in the world until the US ended it, and it's still common in much of the Islamic world today. 

So the country that not only ended slavery in its society, but almost tore itself apart in doing so, and is now almost tearing itself apart in the name of ending any hint of any "ism", this country must pay.  And cure racism by using more racism.

I call bullshit.

Read of the Day

On February 3rd of this year, ISIS released a video of their members executing Jordanian pilot Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh by burning him alive in a cage.  The world expressed outrage and disgust and then returned to being "concerned" and writing sternly worded letters.  In response, ISIS burned three Iraqis to death.

Sultan Knish points out the Muslims have been burning Jews alive as a matter of policy, and if the west does anything at all it's put pressure on Israel to release the terrorists that do it.  A sample of the stories he tells: 

The Moses family was driving on a pre-holiday shopping trip before Passover when their car was struck by a Muslim firebomb. Ofra Moses, who was five-months pregnant, wasn’t able to get her seatbelt open and burned to death. It took her 5-year-old son Tal another three months to die of his burns.

His 8-year-old sister Adi suffered severe burns as her father rolled her burning body in the sand to put out the flames. “I looked in the direction of our car and watched as my mother burned in front of my eyes,” she recalls.

She still remembers lying bandaged while her little brother screamed in pain in the next room.

Mohammad Daoud, the Muslim terrorist who did this to the family, was given two life sentences and an additional 72 years. But when the PLO demanded his release, Obama and Kerry forced Israel to comply.

This is accepted practice in Islam.  There are fire bombing attacks all the time in Israel. 

The problem is Islam. Go read. 

It's the Hypocrisy That Bothers Me Most

I'm talking about the mainstream media's reaction to Garland. 

After January's Charlie Hebdo attacks, they were full of "Je Suis Charlie" and solidarity.  Condemnation of the attackers (not full-throated loud, still tons of PC-crap).  There was some "they had it coming" talk but the strong current was blaming the perpetrators. 

Here we are barely four months later and this time the tone is virtually completely blaming the victim.  "I support free speech, BUT...";  "Pamela Geller has the right, BUT..."  The UK Mail claims to be the most widely read news site in the English language and they attacked Pam on May 3rd, literally hours after the attack, with a headline proclaiming her "long history of hatred".  The NY Times, probably ashamed to be beaten to victim-blaming, declared her to be purely motivated by hate.

Charlie Hebdo is a publication whose stock in trade has always been graphic satires of politicians and religions, whether Catholic, Jewish or Muslim. By contrast, Pamela Geller, the anti-Islam campaigner behind the Texas event, has a long history of declarations and actions motivated purely by hatred for Muslims.

To steal a quote from Mark Steyn,

The media “narrative” of the last week is that some Zionist temptress was walking down the street in Garland in a too short skirt and hoisted it to reveal her Mohammed thong – oops, my apologies, her Prophet Mohammed thong (PBUH) – and thereby inflamed two otherwise law-abiding ISIS supporters peacefully minding their own business.

To channel Heinlein, the correct way to punctuate, "I support free speech, but -- " is with a period after the "but".    Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.  As everyone has pointed out, free speech is only important when we don't agree.  The more disagreement, the more free speech is needed.  The Mail, the NY Times, NPR, Bill O'Reilly, and all the people who have started their attacks on the victim are sanctimonious, hypocritical cowards.  Pamela Geller has the nerve to stand up and know she's putting a target on her chest.  She is doing this to demonstrate just how bad the jihad problem is.

This isn't simple dhimmitude, the media being docile pets to appease their Islamic masters, for the Lamestream Media it's America's insane politics writ large.  The attack on Charlie Hebdo was OK to be against, because there were no Republicans involved.  The attack on Pamela Geller was on an American Jew on American soil; it could end up affecting the 2016 election.  "If we support her, we may end up giving ammunition to a Republican". 

Nevertheless, this is fantasy...

Me, Je Suis Pamela Geller.

Hat's Off to the Garland PD Officer

Everyone has heard that the officer who ended the "Sudden Jihadi Syndrome" attack of the two idiots in Garland wasn't SWAT, decked out in top-end, tacticool gear; he was an experienced officer.  According to reports, he used his duty pistol (I'm guessing Glock 19 just based on its popularity) to take out both *s in 15 seconds.

Bob Owens has a detailed report and has updated it as details emerge from the fog. 

At the point of the attack, the two suspects apparently drove up and opened fire upon an unarmed security guard who was accompanied by a 60-year-old Garland police officer. The unarmed guard was struck [in] the volley of gunfire. The veteran Garland officer then drew his duty-issue Glock pistol and opened fire on the suspects.

The officer killed one terrorist and wounded the other in his initial volley of return fire. Witnesses claim there was a brief pause, and then the officer fire two more shots to kill the still-moving terrorist as he appears to be reaching for a backpack. The entire event lasted 15 seconds, with heavily-armed Garland SWAT converging on the scene immediately afterward.

Pretty outstanding work on the officer's part.  Takes down one guy in the first few seconds from about 20 yards, then when the other guy starts reaching for a backpack, possibly to blow an IED or a suicide belt, he double taps him.  60 years old?  Anyone want to take odds he's been shooting for 50-some of those years? 

Bob points out an interesting detail that isn't in that quick summary.  From the evidence photo it appears the officer attacked his attackers. 

The evidence markers at the bottom of the photo above show us a remarkable story, as they denote the final locations of the shell casings ejected from the officer’s Glock duty pistol. While every pistol is different from another in its ejection pattern, and the movement of the officer and the cant of his gun precludes us from knowing exactly where he was, there is a distinct trail of shells showing that the officer was moving forward from the bottom left of the photo above towards the terrorists at the rear of the vehicle.  He appears to have opened fire from 20 yards away, and fired at least a dozen shots by the time he reached an area near the traffic cones, roughly 7-10 yards from where the terrorists died.

The post on Bearing Arms does a good job of getting more details of weapons used, and has continually swapped out better pictures as they become available.  I know the officer involved has not been identified and has asked for some time to collect himself.  That sounds like it's the first time he has had to kill someone in the line of duty.  Hat's off to you, officer, for a job well done.  I can only hope that, God forbid, I should ever be faced with that situation that I acquit myself as well as he did!