Reading for a lazy Tuesday

While I try to work on my several research projects, here's some reading to counteract the taqiyya you hear from your TV sets and from the lefty mouths around you.

1) Ignorant opinion is unquestionably on the rise and, from my perspective; there are dozens of examples daily that prove my claim. However the most absurd of these examples, the one employed by government officials, academics, and political candidates, is “Islam is a religion of peace.”

Let me parse this remarkable statement. It is agreed by people who know nothing about Islam that most Muslims do not commit violent or terrorist acts, ergo the religion is peaceful. But that is a classic non sequitur. Most Germans in the 1930’s did not embrace the excesses of Nazism. Most Chinese did not subscribe to the slaughter of millions during Mao’s Long March. Most Russians did not support Stalin’s purges.

It usually takes a minority to start a revolution or “killing fields.” The key feature of radicalization in any religion or political movement is the silence or seeming acquiesce of the majority who are mainly moderate.

When the moderates say I didn’t realize what was happening or it is not any of my business, problems result. A minority controls a majority when the minority acts and the majority waits. It may indeed be true that the majority wants to go about its business without resort to extremism, but that is irrelevant. It is the meaningless fluff that makes us feel better and is meant to diminish a vision of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam..................

2) The French parliament passed a law Tuesday prohibiting wearing a full-face veil in public, meaning a ban will come into force early next year if it is not overturned by senior judges.

The Senate passed the bill by 246 votes to one and, having already cleared the lower house in July, the bill will now be reviewed by the Constitutional Council, which has a month to confirm its legality. The text makes no mention of Islam, but President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government promoted the law as a means to protect women from being forced to wear Muslim full-face veils such as the burqa or the niqab.

3) Living in the Province of Mild, a.k.a. Ontario, I always marvel at places like the Province of Wild, a.k.a. British Columbia, where passions are sufficiently stirred to get people out, taking action against the government. Sure, protests got hot and heavy in Ontario in the 1990s, but they were held by unionized provincial civil servants, with buses available to ferry them to the legislature at Queen’s Park to scream at Premier Mike Harris. Hey, I’d sport a sandwich board for the day, if I could get a free trip to Toronto; the legislature is conveniently located next to one of the best shopping strips in the country.

But the ordinary angry Ontario voter, taxpayer, or person-without-subsidized-transport is unfortunately out of luck — and seemingly uninterested — in shouting down his or her politicians. I know this first hand, after attempting to mobilize the masses to protest Premier Dalton McGuinty’s health tax, on behalf of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, in 2004. Alas, only a few hundred souls turned out on the lawn of Queen’s Park, with most of them taking shelter from the scorching heat under a canopy of shady trees (which made the crowd look even sparser, to the delight of the Toronto Star)......

4) A Toronto man allegedly used online dating services to meet single women — some of them senior citizens — and scam them out of $1.5 million, Toronto Police said Monday.

The 49-year-old man typically pretended to be a businessman or a venture capitalist as he targetted women across the country, police alleged. “The investigation was initiated when a widowed senior from Vancouver complained she was bilked of her life savings, forced to sell her home and live in a rented apartment,” police said.

Det. Tom Hartford, of the fraud unit, said the accused met some of his victims on eHarmony. “He portrays himself as an investor and a do-gooder who donates a large portion of his money to orphanages and other charites,” Hartford alleged.   Two of the alleged victims who have been identified so far claim to have been engaged to Sanmugam, police said. The parents of those two women were also allegedly targetted. Hartford said the mother of one fiance was convinced to take out another mortgage on her house.“He told her he’d invest the money and she’d make enough to pay for her autistic son’s medicines,” he alleged.........