Quick Roundup 70

Islam: Too "Intolerant" for a (Recovering) Multiculturalist

This account by a man who very nearly converted to Islam -- until he was appalled by what he read in the Koran -- makes the following observation.

I was raised to value the virtue of tolerance. However, TOLERANCE CAN ONLY BE EXTENDED TO THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO RETURN THE FAVOUR!!!! The tolerant can accommodate all cultures except cultures of intolerance. These either have to be contained by law and kept out of the public sphere, or, very regrettably, broken apart by force if there is any threat that the intolerant sect might start hurting people.

There are many, many things I disagree with in this essay, but I found it remarkable that even someone so confused about so many things could see that respect for the rights of others is not a part of Islam.

Noam Chomsky: Blatantly Evasive

Awhile back, I said the following of Noam Chomsky: "[T]o Chomsky, America is the terrorist state, his unfortunately prolonged existence as a free man to the contrary." And now, a commentator attacking him from the left says basically the same thing.

[I]s that really what you see, Mr Chomsky, from the window of your library at MIT? Is it the stench of the gulag wafting over the Charles River? Do you walk in fear of persecution and murder for expressing your dissident views? Or do you make a damn good living out of it? The faults of the Bush administration will not be changed by books such as Failed States. They will be swept away by ordinary, decent Americans in the world's greatest - if flawed and selfish - democracy going to the polls.

Ouch!

The Unholy Alliance vs. Having a Good Time

The voluntary dhimmitude of multiculturalism in Germany leading up to the World Cup was annoying enough. It has now, unfortunately, polluted the triumph of an athlete on the field.

Many Egyptians were not pleased with the Israeli flag waving at the World Cup this weekend.

Ghana's John Pantsil who plays professionally for Hapoel Tel Aviv, kept his pre-World-Cup promise, and waved an Israeli flag after his team's second goal against the Czech Republic.

So if you play in Israel and wave its flag in celebration, you're hurting lots of fragile souls in the Middle East. A few may even explode here and there. What are these idiots doing even watching the World Cup in the first place? Isn't soccer un-Islamic?

Oh. But I forgot. The fact that anybody, anywhere might be living their life in blissful oblivion to the ravings of Mohammed's followers is even more un-Islamic. I guess that until soccer is eradicated completely, the world's millions of Moslems will be there to keep an eye out lest anyone enjoy the game too much.

Would someone please tell me why the hell Ghana apologized for this!

Governor Blanco calls out the Guard.

The inept governor of Louisiana now knows how to call out the National Guard. Too bad she still doesn't understand when she should do so, or have a grasp of the proper use of a couple of other parts of her government: the police and the criminal justice system.

Acting at the mayor's request, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday she would send National Guard troops and state police to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a bloody weekend in which six people were killed.

"The situation is urgent," Blanco said. "Things like this should never happen, and I am going to do all I can to stop it."

Except act to fix the revolving-door court system in New Orleans. Thanks for taking Louisiana one step closer to becoming a garrison state, moron! Showboating, and temporary measures will not make the Big Easy's crime problems disappear. Worse still, this sets a very bad precedent. It is not the job of the military to perform law enforcement on a daily basis.

Awhile back, Nicole Gelinas reported on the man-made nature of this emergency.

The Big Easy had a short break from its normal murder rate after Katrina. According to statistics released last week, New Orleans had nine murders in the last quarter of 2005, down from 64 in the previous year's final quarter. But murder has begun to accelerate in recent weeks as drug-dealing criminals come back to the city, often having found themselves unwelcome in tougher-on-crime cities like Houston, to which they had evacuated. Since last Saturday alone, New Orleans has booked four new murders.

If New Orleans wants a chance to lure back its vital working class and middle class, the city's new mayor must stop this violent-crime resurgence. Otherwise, middle-class evacuees will stay put -- and the time and money that New Orleans, Louisiana, and the federal government will spend building modern levees, as well as new housing and schools, will be wasted. [bold added]

I agree. With leadership like this, every dollar -- government-confiscated or not -- spent on this recovery is being wasted.

How to Insult a Criminal in Houston?

Just ask him if he's from New Orleans!

By late autumn, New Orleans's underclass wars had come to Houston. The Big Easy's style of crime isn't what Houston is used to. Houston gangs -- which include international drug traffickers -- are violent, to be sure, but their violence makes a rough kind of sense, having to do with money, position in the gang hierarchy, and the ruthless protection of turf and of affiliates. Though New Orleans's gangs, like Houston's trafficin guns and drugs, their main concern seems to be violence for the sake of violence. "Murders are just the way this group of individuals resolves conflicts," notes James Bernazzani, the FBI's special agent for New Orleans, who has studied New Orleans's gang culture carefully. "They graduate from theft to robberies to homicide" as they move through adolescence, he reports. One Houston police officer who has done prison details since Katrina mused to me that "hardened Houston criminals" have complained to him of how gratuitously violent the prisoners from New Orleans are. "That's an insult," Houston prisoners snarl when someone asks them if they are from New Orleans. [bold added]

On the one hand, I'm disappointed that New Orleans chose not to address its crime problem in its recent mayoral elections. On the other, I'm quite happy to see these scumbags beginning to leave.

-- CAV