Pious Agnostic

I read this account of the Fabulous Flying Imams, and I have to ask: where is the video?

I have to assume that the airport gate area and plane interiors are monitored by video cameras. (If they are not, then shouldn't they?)

Roll the tape. It'll either show these guys to be harmless, fuzzy little teddy bears, or it'll show the other thing.

If I saw the man below throwing that very sharp chunk of concrete at me, I'd feel pretty threatened.

But, as Charles Johnson points out, AP routinely describes these thugs as "youths throwing stones," a phrase designed to intentionally downplay the deadliness of such a missile.

And, what the hell is that little troll in the lower left doing?

Just for the sake of comparison, this is what the phrase generally describes:

Death for Somali Muslims who shirk prayers

Somali Muslims who fail to perform daily prayers will be killed in accordance with Qur'anic law under a new edict issued by a leading cleric in the Islamic courts union that controls Mogadishu.

The requirement for Muslims to observe the five-times daily ritual under penalty of death was announced late on Wednesday and appears to confirm the hard-line nature of the increasingly powerful Sharia courts in the capital.

"He who does not perform prayers will be considered as infidel and Sharia law orders that that person be killed," said Sheikh Abdalla Ali, a founder and high-ranking official in the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia.

"Sharia law orders the killing of any Muslim person when he fails to perform prayers," he said in an address at the opening of a new Islamic court in Mogadishu's southern Gubta neighbourhood.

Ali added that it was the duty of every Somali to implement the provisions of Sharia law, which when fully accepted would allow "everybody to enjoy life based on peace and prosperity".

Pious gratitude to: lgf

Who is the most famous Islamic cleric of the last 50 years? Of course, it's the old Ayatollah Ass-a-holla himself, right?

So, if anyone can answer that burning question, "Is Islam the religion of peace," it'd be him, right?

Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!

There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

Thank's for clearing that up, man!

Pious gratitude to: lgf

The Elephant in the Room

Over the weekend, Canadian authorities apparently smashed a frightening plot involving Islamic terrorists who planned a series of bombings against sites in southern Ontario. Instinctively, the mainstream media went into its now-familiar coverage template, Phase One of which avoids like the plague any mention of the fact that accused terrorists are Muslims.

Read it all.

Update:  More pachyderm metaphors found here:

I drove back from yesterday's news conference at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto in the northeastern part of the city, but honestly, I could have just as easily floated home in the sea of horse manure emanating from the building.

So frequent were the bald reassurances that faith and religion had nothing — nothing, you understand — to do with the alleged homegrown terrorist plot recently busted open by Canadian police and security forces, that for a few minutes afterward, I wondered if perhaps it was a vile lie of the mainstream press or a fiction of my own demented brain that the 17 accused young men are all, well, Muslims.

But no. I have checked. They are all Muslims.

London police search for 'suicide vest'

British police were searching for a "suicide vest" laced with dangerous chemicals after a raid of the alleged bomb factory yielded two suspects but no vest.

Police think the vest has been made and will be set off at a busy bus or train station, or in a crowd watching a World Cup game in a local pub, The Times said.

Law enforcement officers wearing oxygen masks and chemical protection gear raided the London house after receiving a tip that the vest had been assembled.

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about; no doubt the raid was based on faulty intelligence. Such unprovoked agression is what we've come to expect from the Bush/Blair/Howard troika.

Pious gratitude to: Powerline

HOW TERRORISTS THINK

To al Qaeda, Islam is about death: Just days before the bombings in Turkey, Moussaoui chillingly declared, "Jihad Strike - Ramadan is the Jihad month where all the Mujahids increase their operations (especially suicide ones) . . . no drink, no food, no woman, only blood."

al-Qaeda Suspect's son charged with kidnap

The woman, believed to be a Habib family relative, was dragged out of a car parked outside Bankstown TAFE just after midnight on November 5.

The youth held the victim while Hassam wrapped masking tape around her mouth and head, Parramatta Local Court was told.

The youth tied electrical wire around the woman's wrists before he attempted to put her in the car boot.

The Sudanese penis-panic is amusing to our sensibilities, but Mark Steyn puts it into perspective in this column.

[A] week after the Malaysian Prime Minister told an Islamic summit that their "enemies," the Jews, control the world and got a standing ovation from 56 fellow Muslim leaders, it's useful to be reminded that the International Jewish Conspiracy is comparatively one of the less loopy conspiracies in the Islamic world. That said, they'll probably figure out a way to pin the disappearing penises on some or other agent of Zionism. After all, according to reports in Middle East newspapers, Israel laces Arab chewing gum with secret hormones to make Muslim men hot for Jewish babes who turn out to be Mossad agents.

It is, in that sense, the perfect emblematic tale of Islamic victimhood: The foreigners have made us impotent! It doesn't matter that the foreigners didn't do anything except shake hands. It doesn't matter whether you are, in fact, impotent. You feel impotent, just as -- so we're told -- millions of Muslims from Algerian Islamists to the Bali bombers feel "humiliated" by the Palestinian situation. Whether or not there is a rational basis for their sense of humiliation is irrelevant.

On several sites, I've found links to this story, a personal story of American Muslim anti-Semitism and crazyness:

By then, all thirty patrons of the club were looking at us. And I wasn't getting very warm smiles at this point. I thought about my chances of making it out of there if I really said what I was thinking.

I believe Masood knew what I was pondering because he didn't let me think too long: "Maybe you should go, Matt."

Poll: 75% of Palestinians support Haifa restaurant attack

It's all very well and good to say that most Palistinians are terrific people that just want to raise their families in peace. But the truth is that 3 out of 4 think that murdering 28 people out having dinner in a nice restaurant is a fine thing to do.

Do they really love their children? If so, why do they do things like this?

LGF reports that Palestinians Stone Israelis at Temple Mount

About what you'd expect.