You know what I always say: It never ends.

The Cartoon Jihad of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage never ends.

Our latest conflagration has Egyptian (of course) sharia-enforcers (dubbed “conservatives” by BBC dhimmis) in a frenzy over a Coptic Christian businessman’s tweet of what they consider a lewd photo. The offending photo was…a joke image of Disney’s Mickey and Minnie Mouse in Muslim garb. As usual, few Western media outlets have the balls to show the images, which have floated around the Internet for years (see Minnie in a niqab above).

The businessman has apologized (of course), but the pretext is set — and you can be sure to expect the usual round of fatwas, protests, riots, and jihadi plots.

Naguib Sawiris has apologised for what he said was “joke” that was not meant to be taken seriously. The cartoons had been widely circulated already on the internet.

But 60,000 people have already signed up to Facebook pages condemning him, while 15 lawyers from the Salafi movement, a purist Islamic sect that has been rising in influence in Egypt in recent years, have petitioned the prosecutor general to take a case against him for insulting religion.

Humor at Islam’s expense? Allah must be avenged!

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Not a joke: BEHEAD ALL THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM.

Remember?

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Just so we have things clear, tweeting gag photos of Muslim Mickey and Minnie is an insult to Islam, but turning Mickey Mouse into a Jew-bashing, terror-inciting children’s propaganda tool for Hamas is a-ok!

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Bonus Mickey Mouse-bashing Saudi cleric video:

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By the way: Senior Leader of Al Qaeda Group Captured While Dressed as Woman

senior leader of an Al Qaeda-linked terror group has been captured in northern Afghanistan dressed up like a woman — the latest in a recent series of cases involving male militants disguised as females, the U.S.-led military coalition said Tuesday.

A joint Afghan and coalition force apprehended a senior figure from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and two of his associates during a nighttime operation Monday in Kunduz city, NATO said.

…”The leader attempted to disguise himself as a female by wearing a burqa, which is an all-enveloping cloak worn by some Muslim women,” the coalition said in a statement. “In the last two months there have been several instances of targeted males wearing burqas in attempts to disguise themselves in order not to be caught by Afghan-led forces.”

Two Iranian brothers living in exile in Canada have a band called Blurred Vision. They recently received permission from Pink Floyd founding member Roger Waters to re-make “Another Brick in the Wall” as a protest against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime in Iran.

The video features footage of the post-election crackdown against student protesters, and also features a woman who bears some resemblance to Neda Agha-Soltan.

I read something about this in the late spring/early summer but this morning is the first time I’ve seen the video, which is available as an iTunes download. Proceeds from each sale go to Amnesty International.

I’ve had issues in the past with Roger Waters continually putting Reagan, Thatcher and Bush on par with real evil in the world, as well as Amnesty’s not-so-subtle accusations that a US that has certainly done it’s share of watering the seeds of freedom around the world with the blood and sweat of heroes is itself a human rights nightmare. However, in this instance, the outrage is well-directed, so credit where credit is due to all involved parties on this one:

(h/t Lady Liberty at Gateway Pundit)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Last night, a community board in Manhattan approved a mosque/sharia-compliant “party space” at Ground Zero, two blocks from where the 9/11 hijackers mass-murdered thousands and brought down the World Trade Center.

Enraged 9/11 families protested the move and spoke truth to power:

After four hours of public debate, members of Community Board 1 finally voted 29-1 in support of the project. Nine members abstained, arguing that they wanted to table the issue and vote at a later date.

The board has no official say over whether the estimated $100 million mosque and community center gets built. But the panel’s support, or lack of it, is considered important in influencing public opinion.

Holding up photos of loved ones killed in the Twin Towers and carrying signs such as, “Honor 3,000, 9/11 — No mosque!” opponents of the proposed Cordoba House on Park Place called the plan an insult to the terror-attack victims.

“That is a burial ground,” said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Al Santora, referring to the fact that victims’ remains were scattered for blocks.

Santora’s 23-year-old son, Christopher, was the youngest firefighter to die that day.

“I do have a problem with having a mosque on top of the site where [terrorists] can gloat about what they did,” said Santora, with his wife, Maureen, by his side.

About 150 people attended the emotional Greenwich Street meeting, were some shouted down others as they took their turns.

More background from Allahpundit.

The indefatigable Debra Burlingame exposed the man behind the mosque complex, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who deceptively calls his development a “fun house.” Read here and watch this:

Debra met with the Soho Properties partners, Sharif and Sammy El-Gamal, owners of the corporation that bought the property with $4.85 million in cash. They refused to disclose their investors “on the advice of our attorneys.” According to Debra: “They showed us a professional rendering of the plans. It’s not a 13-story building. It’s a 15-story building and the mosque, accommodating 2,000 congregants, will be on the TOP FLOOR, with a commanding view of the entire Ground Zero site. On the ground floor, clearly printed, were these words: “Elevator to mosque.”

How far they have come:

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As Debra said last night: “I am actually, in a way, glad that this has happened, this controversy, because finally, maybe, Americans, New Yorkers will start asking questions. Top of the list: What is Shariah?”

Read Andrew McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad. It’s about sabotaging America from within.

Lan astaslem: Arabic for “I will not submit/surrender”

It’s that time again: Time for the Muslim religious police to crush Saudi lovers’ fervor for that cursed threat from the West — Valentine’s Day.

Fight Sharia! Send Pajamagrams and Vermont Teddy Bears.

As Feb. 14 approaches, the police begin inspecting gift shops for items that are red or are intended as gifts to mark the holiday — a celebration of St. Valentine, a 3rd century Christian martyr — which is banned in Saudi Arabia. Such items are legal at other times of the year, but as Valentine’s Day nears they become contraband.

At best, shops caught selling Valentine’s gifts are ordered to get rid of them. Some salesmen have been detained for days.

The Valentine’s Day prohibition is in line with the ascetic Wahhabi school of Islam that the kingdom follows. Marking Christian holidays is banned in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and a country where non-Muslims are banned from openly practicing their religion.

Celebrating any holidays but the two most important for Muslims — Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr_ is taboo because they are considered “religious innovations” that Islam does not sanction. Even birthdays and Mother’s Day are frowned on by the religious establishment.

As Feb. 14 approaches, newspapers reprint a fatwa or religious edict issued by scholars a few years ago, declaring “eid al-hob,” Arabic for the feast of love, a “Christian, pagan feast” that Muslims should not celebrate. Teachers remind students they must not mark the festival, and girls are warned against wearing anything red.

Nevertheless, Valentine’s Day quietly creeps into the capital, Riyadh: While gift stores don’t trumpet their Valentine’s wares, they acquire a deep red hue as shelves are stocked with artificial flowers, heart-shaped frames and other knickknacks.

(link)

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Previous: V’day 2008…Saudi men arrested for flirting
Fight sharia: Celebrate Valentine’s Day; Update: Burn, baby, burn
V’day 2007…Valentine’s Day: Hearts and darts
V’day 2006…Next, they came for Valentine’s Day

As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about as Hank Paulson’s Treasury Department presides over the behemoth, expanding bank/insurance/auto/all-purpose bailout, Frank Gaffney sends up a warning flare:

The U.S. Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah – the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.

As reported in this space last week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt set the stage with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. His stated purpose was to promote the recycling of petrodollars in the form of foreign investment here.

Evidently, the price demanded by his hosts is that the U.S. government get with the Islamist financial program. While in Riyadh, Mr. Kimmitt announced: “The U.S. government is currently studying the salient features of Islamic banking to ascertain how far it could be useful in fighting the ongoing world economic crisis.”

“Islamic banking” is a euphemism for a practice better known as “Shariah-Compliant Finance (SFC).” And it turns out that this week the Treasury will be taking officials from various federal agencies literally to school on SFC.

The department is hosting a half-day course entitled “Islamic Finance 101″ on Thursday at its headquarters building. Treasury’s self-described “seminar for the policy community” is co-sponsored with the leading academic promoters of Shariah and SCF in the United States: Harvard University Law School’s Project on Islamic Finance. At the very least, the U.S. government evidently hopes to emulate Harvard’s success in securing immense amounts of Wahhabi money in exchange for conforming to the Islamists’ agenda. Like Harvard, Treasury seems utterly disinterested in what Shariah actually is, and portends.

Unfortunately, such submission – the literal meaning of “Islam” – is not likely to remain confined long to the Treasury or its sister agencies. Thanks to the extraordinary authority conferred on Treasury since September, backed by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the department is now in a position to impose its embrace of Shariah on the U.S. financial sector. The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury’s purchase of – at last count – 17 banks and the ability to provide, or withhold, funds from its new slush-fund can translate into unprecedented coercive power.

Concerns in this regard are only heightened by the prominent role Assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari will be playing in “Islamic Finance 101.” Mr. Kashkari, the official charged with administering the TARP fund, will provide welcoming remarks to participants. Presumably, in the process, he will convey the enthusiasm about Shariah-Compliant Finance that appears to be the current party line at Treasury.

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Previous:

“Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance”
Coming to America: Muslim-only banks?

Thank you and congratulations, Mark Steyn, for standing up for the West. (Steyn is a fellow member of the Islamophobia Dirty Dozen!)

The verdict in the outrageous sharia “hate speech” case is up at Mark’s site.

From Kathy Shaidle:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MARK STEYN NOT GUILTY OF “FLAGRANT ISLAMOPHOBIA,”
SAYS TRIBUNAL

AUTHORS OF NEW BOOK ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONS
CALL VERDICT THE EXCEPTION WITHIN A SYSTEM
STACKED AGAINST THE ACCUSED

TORONTO (October 10, 2008) — Today, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal handed down a not-guilty verdict in the case of Maclean’s magazine and its columnist Mark Steyn.

The case, prompted by charges of “flagrant Islamophobia” made against Steyn and Maclean’s by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), focused critical attention on Canada’s controversial Human Rights Commissions. Today, the Tribunal ruled that Mark Steyn and Maclean’s did not violate the human rights of the complainants merely by reporting facts and accurately quoting sources.

The Steyn trial, along with other lesser known but equally troubling cases, are chronicled in the new book The Tyranny of Nice: How Canada crushes freedom in the name of human rights, written by Kathy Shaidle and Pete Vere (www.TyrannyOfNice.com)

Authors Kathy Shaidle and Pete Vere commented today on the verdict in the Steyn & Maclean’s case:

“Unfortunately, this decision is only a partial victory for Mark Steyn, Maclean’s magazine and every other writer and publisher in Canada.

“This Kafkaesque trial cost taxpayers dearly, while many Canadians struggle to make ends meet. More importantly, it cost Canada its international reputation as a free, just and tolerant country. While Steyn and Maclean’s won, most defendants are found guilty; the HRCs boast of a nearly 100% rate of conviction.

“We can only hope that this case and all the others chronicled in our book will help make the continued existence of Canada’s out of control, draconian Human Rights Commissions an issue in the coming federal election.

“If elected Prime Minister, what will Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton or Elizabeth May do to rein in the powers of human rights commissions and protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press?”

Stay vigilant.

Lan astaslem: Arabic for “I will not submit/surrender”

Ed Driscoll has an interview with Shaidle and Vere about “The Tyranny of Nice.”

Workers at Tyson Foods’ poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day, but will instead take the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr in the fall.

A recent press release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) stated that a new contract at the Shelbyville facility “implements a new holiday to accommodate the … Muslim workers at the plant.”

The RWDSU stated that “the five-year contract creates an additional paid holiday, Iidal Fitil, a Muslim holiday that occurs toward the end of Ramadan.”

Eid al-Fitr falls on Oct. 1 this year.

…The press release stated there are approximatly 700 Muslims working at Tyson, but Mickelson said that Somalis only represent approximately 250 of the 1,200 employed at the plant, a little over 20 percent of the workforce.

“All Team Members who have completed their probationary period are eligible for all eight paid holidays including Eid al-Fitr,” the Tyson spokeman said.

The union also claimed that in addition to the observance of the Muslim holiday, “two prayer rooms have been created to allow Muslim workers to pray twice a day and return to work without leaving the plant.”

Check out the comments section at the end of the article for a taste of the local (and growing) backlash against Tyson.

The Times-Gazette reporter, Brian Moseley, has a background piece on his story that’s worth reading. After noting how quickly the story has spread across the wires and the Internet, he writes:

So what do I think about all this?

Clearly, the accommodations given to the Muslims have upset a great many people here and across the county, especially if they believe, as many apparently do, that their traditional values are being suppressed in the name of cultural diversity and political correctness. More than one person has told me that their tolerance only goes so far, and this is obviously one of those times.

I have stated my opinions about the refugee issue itself before. It is my personal opinion that the drive to bring so many refugees to America are not prompted by just good will or concern for the plight of these poor people, but instead for the millions of dollars in federal grants that are available for settling them in this country. According to Chris Coen, who is trying to help out refugees of all nationalities, there is a lot of money to be made in this “profession.”

I also need point out that it would appear that some of these refugees are being used for other reasons. I find some of the allegations about these employment arrangements to be awfully similar to this sort of thing, and it should not be tolerated.

I also have to say that I do not feel that I am “obsessed” or “fixated” with the topic of Somalis living here, as one blogger believes. The refugees have lived in Shelbyville for the past four years, and no one has even addressed the issue until the T-G published the series in December of last year.

I would also have to suggest that the blogger’s opinion is quite possibly influenced by the fact that she makes her living by working with the Nashville refugee community, as she states on one of her other websites.

I am simply reporting on what happens when hundreds of people from a totally alien culture suddenly move to a small town in the rural south — both the good and the bad. I can not control how people are going to react to my stories.

In closing, I’ll just say that I’m going to continue to keep looking into the various issues surrounding our new neighbors so that our community can stay informed. That’s what we’re here for. And that’s what I’m going to do.

I have a feeling it won’t be long before CAIR comes knocking on his paper’s door.

Al-Jailani was deported to Yemen in 2004. He was accused of domestic abuse in the home, and the children were taken out of the home. With the support of CAIR, al-Jailani’s wife pressed to have the children returned to her, and won. She took them on vacation to see their father in Yemen, and he decided (and was supported by Yemeni law) to keep them there and send his wife back to Ohio alone.

I certainly don’t feel any sympathy for the motley collection of far-left interest groups who made al-Jailani a poster boy for their anti-deportation crusade, and found themselves betrayed by Al-Jailani. Like the Gitmo lawyers who find themselves tapdancing around the fact that so many of their poor, misunderstood little lambs get sprung from US custody and return to the battlefield, I’ve long stopped giving these groups credit for noble intentions or good judgment.

I feel a great smoldering contempt for the Portage County, Ohio child welfare authorities who had recognized that Al-Jailani was an abuser, his wife was an enabler, and that the children needed to be removed from that environment. Under pressure from CAIR and their allies (as well as Al-Jailani’s wife), and threats of being branded Islamophobic, they knuckled under and overrode the assessment of the case worker who recognized the problem.

And though her position is a terrible one, Al-Jailani’s wife Michelle Swensen comes off like a naive and useless fool. She was a victim of abuse at his hands and was warned by the case worker that the children could be detained in Yemen, but she chose to stand by her violent, terror-linked man. Not only did she fight the county and allow herself to be used as a political prop by the anti-American Left, she naively ignored the county’s warnings and lost her children as a result.

Read it, and weep, and be sure to note this detail about the movement to fight Al-Jailani’s deportation:

Amazingly, it was those allegations of his connections to al-Qaeda that his supporters used to oppose his deportation, claiming that he would be tortured for his terrorist connections if he were returned to his native Yemen. Today Ashraf Al-Jailani is now a high-ranking Yemeni government official in the Ministry of Oil and Minerals — a previously unknown form of torture.

Wow, I never saw that one coming. I’ll bet Yemen-blogger Jane Novak is shocked, too.

More on the Al-Jailani children here.

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{Post by See-Dubya. I talked about another of Patrick Poole’s investigations here.}

The Dallas Observer has a new, in-depth piece on the last days of Amina and Sarah.

Read it all. You will be particularly disgusted by their mother’s treachery–and not surprised by their brother Islam’s.

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Previous:

“My dad found out abt mina and is goin to kill us.”
Relative of murdered Dallas girls: “This was an honor killing;” father abused daughters
The search for Yaser Abdel Said
Honor killings in Dallas? Muslim father sought in murders of young daughters

The lawsuit “is governed by the law of Afghanistan,” Presidential Airways argued in a Florida federal court. “Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders.”

If the judge agrees, it would essentially end the lawsuit over a botched flight supporting the U.S. military. Shari’a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work.

Well, choice-of-law disputes are insanely complex, especially in international cases. And Blackwater’s lawyers are doing their thing, which involves arguing the rules in their clients’ interests in court no matter what the cost to society of the rulings they seek and the precedents they establish.

But this strikes me as more than a bit galling coming from Blackwater, which pushed so hard for immunity from Iraqi jurisdiction as a condition of operating in Iraq. In fact Iraq was pretty angry about the hard-fought exception and threatened to revoke it. But Blackwater (and the US) demanded it in order to do their job and protect their contractors on the ground.

And now that their procedures in Afghanistan have attracted a lawsuit from the families of soldiers they were protecting, it’s an about face:they’re all about the sharia.

I’ve defended contractors against the left’s incessant sniping before, but I can’t really defend begging to submit to sharia like that. Pick a legal system, Blackwater, and stick with it.

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{Post by See-Dubya}

According to VA blogger Black Velvet Bruce Li, Connolly even “derisively” dismissed criticisms of the Islamic Saudi Academy at the meeting. Which is not surprising, given the close relationship between Connolly and CAIR which BVBL describes.

Well, turns out there’s a lot more to the story of the Islamic Saudi Academy, according to PJM’s Patrick Poole:

According to a local news report [video] on June 3, the female student reported her claims to her teachers, and a report on the matter was drawn up by the teachers and the school’s principal and submitted to administrators. But when the allegations reached the desk of school director Abdullah Al-Shabnan, he didn’t believe the girl and failed to report the sex abuse claims to law enforcement within the 72 hours required by state law.

See the video report on that coverup here. That’s awful, though it doesn’t really count toward Connolly’s judgment because the story broke after his vote.

The story of ISA valedictorian Abu Ali, however, has been around a while. Says Poole:

This is far from the first time that the Islamic Saudi Academy has received unwelcome public scrutiny. Just a few days ago, the academy’s 1999 class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, had his 2005 conviction upheld by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on charges that he joined Al-Qaeda and had plotted to assassinate President George W. Bush. Abu Ali was sentenced to 30 years in prison. As noted by Evan Kohlmann at Counterterrorism Blog, Abu Ali had joined an Al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia while studying at the University of Medina, and one of his Al-Qaeda co-conspirators was killed in a shoot-out with Saudi authorities.

There’s even more scary stuff about ISA from Poole. Black Velvet Bruce Li says:

You better believe this is going to be an issue in Gerry Connolly’s congressional campaign. It’s bad enough having a county supervisor who embraces these folks. Having that person become a United States Congressman is utterly ridiculous.

UPDATE: Still more on star pupil Abu Ali at the House of Jawa.
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{Post by See-Dubya}

The authors of a 12th-grade text on Quranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed.
…

More generally, the panel found that the academy textbooks hold the view that the Muslim world was strong when united under a single caliph, the Arabic language and the Sunni creed, and that Muslims have grown weak because of foreign influence and internal divisions.

Well, there’s a wrinkle: it’s a private school, but it’s leasing its land from Fairfax County, Virginia. A month ago Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to renew the school’s lease.

I italicized “unanimously” because that means the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors must have voted for it, and he’s already on my list. His name is Gerry Connolly and as I noted the other day, he wants to keep Fairfax County a welcoming sanctuary for illegal aliens.

And he’s running for Congress, as a Democrat.

Connolly won his primary on Tuesday, and he’ll face Republican Keith Fimian in the general election. I expect the sterling judgment Connolly showed in approving the lease of public land to Wahhabi High will be an issue in the campaign.
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If he gets called on it, Connolly can always try saying “Hey, it could be worse. Look at Britain!”
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UPDATE: LGF links to an MSNBC poll asking whether you think the school should be closed, the textbooks should be amended, or it should be left open because “one way to teach tolerance is to show tolerance”.

Right now common sense is prevailing–in the poll, if not in Northern Virginia–but you can click through and help make it a landslide.

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{Post by See-Dubya}

The principal who allowed it has been reassigned. Via the Houston Chronicle blog:

Our neighborhood reporter, Thayer Evans, received this terse announcement from Friendswood ISD late Wednesday:

Robin Lowe, Friendswood Junior High Principal, has accepted another administrative position effective immediately.
The process for a new junior high principal has begun.

…Details have been trickling out. In a letter apologizing to parents and community members on Saturday, Superintendent Trish Hanks said the presentation was in “response to an incident that occurred between students at Friendswood Junior High School and the perception and fear that it caused to some involved.” She also said CAIR considered it a “hate crime.”

Take it with a grain of salt.

CAIR hopes to give their presentation at other public schools.

You’ve been forewarned.

More here.

Yoo-hoo, ACLU?

Andrew Coyne’s blogging it.

Free Mark Steyn invokes William Wallace.

Get all your Steyn Online here.

Previous Steyn/Canadian blogger posts here.