Three for the Books

Had a minor emergency this evening, so nothing especially in-depth is in the hopper....

From the Annals of Bankrupt Ideologies, we have the following three stories.

Islam, the "Religion of Peace", in Practice

Funny how executions like these happen every time Islamic scholars are in charge.

Radical Islamic militia fighters in Somalia shot and killed two people who were watching a banned World Cup soccer broadcast, a radio station reported Wednesday.

The hard-line Muslim fighters, who have banned watching television, opened fire after a crowd of teenagers defied their orders to leave a hall where a businessman was showing Tuesday's Germany-Italy match on satellite television, according to Shabelle Radio, an independent local station. It said the businessman and a teenage girl were killed.

Not even this "funny" is how such things keep getting swept under the rug while the sermonizing that we must "be tolerant" towards Moslems never lets up.

A Workers' Paradise

In Cambodia, the Communist government has done such a good job providing railway service that "the" people use makeshift sleds on the railroad tracks for the sake of having (relatively) safe, dependable, and fast transportation.

There is only one passenger service a week, and it often travels at not much more than walking pace.

So people in the north west of the country, near Cambodia's second city of Battambang, have taken matters into their own hands.

They have created their own rail service using little more than pieces of bamboo. The locals call the vehicles "noris", or "lorries", but overseas visitors know them as "bamboo trains".

A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury.

One wonders what these same people could have accomplished had their obvious creativity not been wasted by a regime following the very ideology that animates most newsmen.

I'm a peace activist ... (Pow!) ... starting now!

And finally, we have this Al Franken wannabe in New Zealand....

A New Zealand peace activist is facing serious assault charges after he allegedly punched a rock singer in London, leaving the man in a coma.

Christiaan Briggs, 30, who spent three weeks in Iraq with the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action Group in 2003, appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Tuesday to face a charge of grievous bodily harm.

Police say the incident occurred on June 22 when Briggs allegedly punched 19-year-old Billy Leeson, causing the rising rock star to hit his head on the ground.

I'm sure Briggs "felt good" after his assault -- just like his grandstanding for an indefensible, immoral, and impractical position also doubtless "feels good" to him. Not without coincidence, both the act and the pacifism harm the innocent. Such are the consequences of placing a higher priority on one's whims than on respect for the rights of others.

-- CAV