England Uses Modern Technology to Recreate Ancient Monument Destroyed by Throwback Barbarians

This is beautiful.  Daesh/ISIS thugs destroyed another priceless ancient monument; so London has erected a new one.

Drawing Mohammed: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

(My own contribution to the genre is below, the last item under “The Bad”.)

You’ll have heard about the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January, when Muslim gunmen killed the editor in chief and apparently more than a third of the cartoonists at the magazine, among others.  You may not have heard that there have already been other attacks since then, such as the St. Valentine’s Day shooting at a free-speech event in Denmark (CBS, Mark Steyn, more Steyn), or the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya.

Islamists Beheading Civilians in—America?

You know that Islamic State terrorists beheaded American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff several weeks ago, but did you know that Muslims were beheading Americans in America?

From local ABC affiliate WABC in New York, February 11th, 2013:

GRUESOME DOUBLE MURDER, MEN DECAPITATED

. . .

The victims are reportedly from Jersey City, but their remains were found buried in a town southwest of Philadelphia.

Islamists in Iraq Tell Christians to ‘convert, pay a poll tax, leave by Saturday or die by the sword’

When even NPR says Christians are being persecuted and killed off, you know it’s true.  From All Things Considered:

Trending

Mark Steyn, as usual, is must-read material.

In the Nineties, in his famous and controversial book Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples, V. S. Naipaul wrote of the eastern lands conquered by Islam that “converted peoples have to strip themselves of their past.” In the West, in the nation states that built the modern world, that process is well under way. And Islam is Europe’s future. Which is to say, for Europe, there is no future.

Christians a Plurality Worldwide, about One Third of All People

Christianity is the largest religion in the world (by a significant margin), comprising almost a third of the world’s population (about 2.2 billion).

‘One reason the western world is sliding off the cliff is because of an excess of “conventional wisdom”’

Great line from Mark Steyn:

One reason the western world is sliding off the cliff is because of an excess of “conventional wisdom” on everything from unsustainable welfare programs to climate change to Islam. Yet, at precisely the moment when we need to be broadening the bounds of public discourse, in Britain, Canada, Australia, Europe and elsewhere the same ideologically insecure political class that got us into this mess is growing ever more comfortable in regulating what the citizenry is allowed to say, read, listen to — and, indeed, think. I say nuts to that.

National Interest

As usual, Mark Steyn is must-read material.

To the Death

I recently read a very interesting article in National Review: “Ban the Burqa”, by Claire Berlinski.  Don’t assume that you’ll disagree just based on the title; in the print magazine, the piece bore the arresting subtitle “To do so is an offense to liberty; not to do so is a greater one”.  I recommend it.  It’s food for thought.

Dishonor upon Dishonor

Mark Steyn has a couple of quick thoughts on what looks like the growing trend of Muslim “honor killings” in the multicultural West—diversity is strength, don’t you know; just one more thread in our rich multicultural tapestry—and, apropos, on yet another double standard in the news media.

Update (October 1st, 2014):  For whatever reason, the two links to Mark Steyn in NRO’s The Corner above seem to have been disconnected.  One of them, or at least a related post, is here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/232016/honor-and-shame-mark-steyn

Excerpt:

I’ve noted this phenomenon many times: See, for example, here at NR, “Noor Ignored”, “Watery Graves”, “The Stranglehold of Political Correctness”, and “Headless Body in Legless Story”. But nothing changes. Multiculturalism trumps feminism, and so the media accept a two-tier sisterhood in which Muslim girls are run over, stabbed, strangled, drowned and decapitated for wanting to live like the women they read about in The New York Times and The Washington Post. No matter how novel or arresting the details of a story are, the PC blinkers go on immediately. As Miss Chesler adds:

In 2009, the gruesome beheading of Aasiya Z. Hassan was covered only five days later by the New York Times—and then mainly to explain that Islam had nothing to do with it and that anyone who believes to the contrary is misguided or prejudiced.

(Hyperlinks in original.)

Danish-cartoon-controversy Anniversary

On September 30th, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons relating to Mohammed and Islam.  One of the paper’s editors, Flemming Rose, was concerned about freedom of expression and about a growing trend of self-censorship in the West on the subject of Islam.  “That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him,” Rose explained.