Does Islam Mean Peace?

The NY Times boldly takes on the Big Question - is Islam inherently violent? Their nuanced take will surprise no one, but it is interesting nonetheless. And the recent speech by Egyptian President el-Sisi calling (yet again) for an Islamic reformation finally gets noticed by the Times:

Raising Questions Within Islam After France Shooting

...

The rash of horrific attacks in the name of Islam is spurring an anguished debate among Muslims here in the heart of the Islamic world about why their religion appears cited so often as a cause for violence and bloodshed. 

The majority of scholars and the faithful say Islam is no more inherently violent than other religions. But some Muslims — most notably the president of Egypt — argue that the contemporary understanding of their religion is infected with justifications for violence, requiring the government and its official clerics to correct the teaching of Islam.

“It is unbelievable that the thought we hold holy pushes the Muslim community to be a source of worry, fear, danger, murder and destruction to all the world,” President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt lamented last week in a speech to the clerics of the official religious establishment. “You need to stand sternly,” he told them, calling for no less than “a religious revolution”. 

On the other hand...

Others, though, insist that the sources of the violence are alienation and resentment, not theology. They argue that the authoritarian rulers of Arab states — who have tried for decades to control Muslim teaching and the application of Islamic law — have set off a violent backlash expressed in religious ideas and language. Promoted by groups like the Islamic State orAl Qaeda, that discourse echoes through Muslim communities as far away as New York or Paris, whose influence and culture still loom over much of the Muslim world.

“Some people who feel crushed or ignored will go toward extremism, and they use religion because that is what they have at hand,” said Said Ferjani, an official of Tunisia’s mainstream Islamist party, Ennahda, speaking about the broader phenomenon of violence in the name of Islam. “If you are attacked and you have a fork in your hand, you will fight back with a fork.”

So we are all forked.

Comments

[JerryRigged]

First

[Old Lurker]

Gag me.

[Jeff Dobbs]

The majority of scholars and the faithful say Islam is no more inherently violent than other religions.

It's true. It is the West that makes/has made Islam violent. The history of hegemonic colonialism, the decadent cultural hedonism, the oppression and poverty.

It's the lack of celebration for their contributions to the US space program.

The failure to provide universal healthcare.

And global warming. Especially global warming.

This is what makes Islam so violent.

Others, though, insist that the sources of the violence are alienation and resentment, not theology.

"It's not surprising, then, Muslims get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or bombing people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
--stuff Obama (almost) said

[Extraneus]

They argue that the authoritarian rulers of Arab states — who have tried for decades to control Muslim teaching and the application of Islamic law — have set off a violent backlash expressed in religious ideas and language.

Decades?

In reference to the Islamic slave trade of Americans and Europeans by the Barbary states, Jefferson asked Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, by what right he extorted money and took slaves in this way. He answered:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.[119][120]

--Thomas Jefferson

Quotations on Islam from Notable Non-Muslims

[JiB]

I am on iPhone w/o Adblock and on the right margin I get an ad for Muslima.Com an international match making community for Muslims👳

[narciso]

happy birthday, Marlene and Mr. Frau.

question if the DCRI is not monitoring this cell, than who are they monitoring, can the press be this shallow, to be surprised with this, from 9/11 to Madrid to London to Mumbai, there has always been more than one cell.

[Extraneus]

I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.[8]

--Alexis de Tocqueville

[Extraneus]

As the essential principle of his faith is the subjugation of others by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be dispelled, and his power annihilated. They [The Russians] have been from time immemorial, in a state of almost perpetual war with the Tatars, and with their successors, the Ottoman conquerors of Constantinople. It were an idle waste of time to trace the causes of each renewal of hostilities, during a succession of several centuries. The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force. Of Mahometan good faith, we have had memorable examples ourselves. When our gallant [Stephen] Decatur ref had chastised the pirate of Algiers, till he was ready to renounce his claim of tribute from the United States, he signed a treaty to that effect: but the treaty was drawn up in the Arabic language, as well as in our own; and our negotiators, unacquainted with the language of the Koran, signed the copies of the treaty, in both languages, not imagining that there was any difference between them. Within a year the Dey demands, under penalty of the renewal of the war, an indemnity in money for the frigate taken by Decatur; our Consul demands the foundation of this pretension; and the Arabic copy of the treaty, signed by himself is produced, with an article stipulating the indemnity, foisted into it, in direct opposition to the treaty as it had been concluded. The arrival of Chauncey, with a squadron before Algiers, silenced the fraudulent claim of the Dey, and he signed a new treaty in which it was abandoned; but he disdained to conceal his intentions; my power, said he, has been wrested from my hands; draw ye the treaty at your pleasure, and I will sign it; but beware of the moment, when I shall recover my power, for with that moment, your treaty shall be waste paper. He avowed what they always practised, and would without scruple have practised himself. Such is the spirit, which governs the hearts of men, to whom treachery and violence are taught as principles of religion.[68]

--John Quincy Adams

[NKvirusedand back]

When is TomM going to state the simple truth; the Left hates christians and religious jews... literally hates. The Left detests Islam, but they fear Jihadis more than they detest Islam so we get this vommitous moral equivalency from the NYT which is a deliberate denial of the reality of Islam, both its scripture and its conduct since its founding 15 centuries ago.
Perhaps TomM is far more clever than I can discern and he's already doing that through irony and sarcasm.

[Ben]

'Rally 'round the flag, boys'. Excuses, excuses for righteous and justified violence. When war-mongers want company they promote the cause. How many wars have been waged simply out of a nativist notion of Nationalism/patriotism? Defending the Homeland is the hue and cry for the little people as they are manipulated with half-truths and outright lies.

If nationalism were a feature of the ME, the blood lust would be framed on that basis. But the only feature of the ME that has any gravitas is their religion, so it makes sense for war-mongers to exploit in their recruitment of soldiers. But try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's still a minority that swallows that flounder whole. OTOH, our own nationalism has a majority of deluded souls.

[narciso]

now we're getting somewhere:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11333776/Charlie-Hebdo-suspect-mentored-by-Abu-Hamza-disciple.html

[Threadkiller]

National-Islam isn't nationalism.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country

[narciso]

this is the connection that they don't spell out:

http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=354248

[henry]

A couple tips from our lurker in frozen Chitown:

Nebraska Supreme Court clears Keystone.

DeBlasio bans styrofoam food containers.

The first ends Obama's wait for the states carp, the second gets at all the coffee drinkers.

[kaiserderden]

a cult founded on violence, expanded by violence and kept relevant today by violence ...

[henry]

Narciso, He was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2013. That truth in sentencing think works as well in Europe as here.

[Threadkiller]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2902379/IRS-issues-21-PAGES-mind-numbing-instructions-Americans-calculate-owe-new-Obamacare-taxes-including-4-page-list-definitions.html#ixzz3OKsyPcfE

Turns out the Quran isn't the only publication that will incite a riot.

[NKvirusedand back]

Time for ObummerCare repeal. The December jobs report is lousy for the nation and its people. Wages are falling, people who have dropped out of the labor market total 93M adults, the labor participation rate has collapsed, and underemployment is stuck at a far worse level than before the 08 financial crisis. So what helps add real jobs and increase wages? Open Borders?... uh no. ObummerCare mandate repeal and corporate tax rate reform and profit repatriation rate will provide both a short term supply side boost and reduce the long term cost of employment. Shall we Repub Congress?

[NKvirusedand back]

@10:06-- simple truthes.

[jimmyk]

And there is this (even if it is @CNN):

Benjamin Ramm @BenjaminRamm · 1h 1 hour ago

According to @CNN, the French policewoman shot dead yesterday was in the vicinity of the intended target of attack: a Jewish primary school.

[narciso]

which links up with this lead:

http://gotnews.com/breaking-charliehebdo-suspect-part-plot-free-algerian-jihadist-behind-95-bombing/

[Iggy]

--The majority of scholars and the faithful say Islam is no more inherently violent than other religions.....Others, though, insist that the sources of the violence are alienation and resentment, not theology.--

So the two choices among the smart set are, it isn't inherently violent at all, or alternately, it isn't inherently violent at all.

Those two fanciful choices do make the world much more amenable to a resolution of the problem, the only drawback being it's not a world that actually exists.

[boris]

"The Left detests Islam, but they fear Jihadis more than they detest Islam ..."

Speaking in broad brush terms this is not true. The left obviously respects militant Islam. They share many root philosophical postmodernisms. The left has a different sharia in mind ... watermelon-sharia is what the left wants.

Watermelon-sharia is more compatible with Islam-sharia than it is with liberty.

[Miss Marple]

They have closed all Jewish shops in the area of the grocery which has the hostage situation.

Yemen confirms one of the brothers fought for al Qaeda.

Security guy says the French, nor we, are prepared for multiple attacks like this.

(Sorry I dropped coverage for a while. I had to get 2 boxes packed and to the UPS store for pick-up.)

[rse]

On islam, I think Andrew Bostom's book on Sharia vs Freedom is very good.

Secondly on community colleges, there is one currently in virtually every community and the costs of funding it as a source of "good jobs" in communities where the school district and the local hospital are the other sources of "good jobs" continues the tradition in many geographic areas where the entire economy is largely funded by taxpayers living somewhere else or debt incurred somewhere else.

Hard for the typical Congreesman to say no or those from less propserous states in the Senate.

Community colleges are a key component of how WIOA is to work and this continues the assumption that the credential or industry badge is held by a diverse spectrum so the workforce must reflect that diverse spectrum or discrimination is assumed.

Beasts made a sarcastic reference to Marxists at the cc level but the community organizer who most inspired bo apart from Alinsky is Harry Boyte. Boyte was put in charge of creating a Democracy Alliance through the community colleges by the White House in January 2013. It was part of the release of A Crucible Moment report I talked about in my book.

All of this simply furthers the Boyte/ bo shift to what is termed a cooperative commonwealth model for society and the economy. It is also Marx's end-stage Human Development Model that the UN has explicitly adopted as its post-2015 vision globally.

The one where ICT is assumed to allow a shift to a global economy that is all about meeting needs and where the collective can bind the individual. The UN has brought the Club of Rome in and I have all the docs including the vision for shifting the law to force the vision. It comes out of Harold Lasswell's work at Yale Law as well as Richard Falk's WOMP work.

[jimmyk]

The left obviously respects militant Islam.

Yes, how different is Bill Ayers, now a "respected" professor, from these Jihadists?

[Miss Marple]

Trib had warned of terror threat by French brother in 2005

http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/7523279-74/kouachi-houser-lawyer#axzz3OFjykiY8

[Miss Marple]

http://heavy.com/news/2015/01/amedy-coulibaly-hayat-boumeddiene-kouachi-brothers-jewish-supermarket-hostage-charlie-hebdo/

5 facts on Amedy Coulibaly.

Also, there is a woman with him at the deli.

[narciso]

when I researched the mosque, that was the linked piece, that came up,

[Soylent Red]

this is the connection that they don't spell out:

Both Said and Cherif have had training with AQAP, either in Yemen or Syria. One or both have at least tangential linkage to the Khorasan Group. Cherif was convicted of being a member of the 19th Arrondissement Group, which has members currently fighting in IS.

The latest two or three installments on Long War Journal lay out the linkages pretty well and paint a picture of a pretty well-organized AQ/IS-affiliated cell operating in France, traveling freely to various hotspots to get training or operational experience, and then returning to France. The likelihood is that they are returning to train others, who then dispatch to various hotspots, etc. Wash, rinse, repeat. Remember all of that when the "lone wolf" theories start popping up, and later when the Boston Marathon trials get going.

If only there was some common denominator among all these shady organizations and people we could use as an indicator. Something... /sarc

[jimmyk]

Coulibaly is apparently the one who killed the policewoman yesterday, possibly interrupting a plan to target a Jewish school. It all fits.

[Miss Marple]

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/010815-733901-america-ushers-in-islamic-immigrants-while-france-pulls-up-welcome-mat.htm

US Muslim immigration at full speed ahead while France has second thoughts.

[jack is Back!]

Test

[NKvirusedand back]

The Left are regulatory state fascists and the Jihadis are theocratic fascists. But the mentality by which they get to those points is very different, and for now the means the use are very different. The Jihadis are like the medievil Crusaders, they mean to impose Sharia to gain eternal paradise, of course the temporal power in the meantime is nice. Ayers believes the majority of his fellow leftists are fools for not understanding that ultimately the Left will have to use violence to attain Leftopia. Right now if the Left and the Jihadis had it out, the Jihadis would use AKs, RPGs and IEDs, the Leftists using sarcasm and social media wouldn't last long.

[MarkO]

The insidious result of media self-censorship and adopting a proposed “no offense” policy in public discourse is that the evil that flourishes in Islam escapes a full airing. The power of free speech is that those whose ideas are outrageous are permitted to expose themselves.

If we learned anything from the Gruber Confessions it was that Obama prefers to obscure himself and his policies. He began his presidency with an unprecedented attack on a major press player, Fox News, in an attempt to chill the press.
Hannity, for whom I have nearly no tolerance, took a bold step and gave a microphone to Anjem Choudary. He represents the enemy. Unlike so many others, he boldly admitted, if not trumpeted, the goals and methods of the Mohamatans.

I quote:

“You’re saying you do not believe in freedom of speech, you don’t believe in freedom of expression, you believe in Islamic fascism, that people must abide by your laws,” Hannity said.
“Actually, as a Muslim, we believe that sovereignty and supremacy belongs to God and therefore we believe in submitting to the commands of God,” Choudary said.
Hannity asked him, “So you’re saying anything offensive about the prophet Muhammad should be illegal and it should be worldwide?”
Choudary told Hannity that in Islam, that carries capital punishment.
Hannity pressed, “But every country should adopt that, and it’s convert or die? It’s either you agree with us or we will go into your newspaper and we will slaughter you, we will put a fatwa out on you?"
Choudary reiterated that he wants Sharia Law everywhere. He said that all women should “of course” cover up in public, and that both adultery and “sodomy” should be punished by death.
“I still think you’re an evil SOB, but I really want people to hear you,” Hannity said as he ended the interview.

[Soylent Red]

They share many root philosophical postmodernisms.

Both are nihilistic death cults, populated with psychotics and moral deviants.

[narciso]

note how Carlos Slim's obfuscates the same story,

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html?_r=0

[narciso]

in this version, it was the new guy that came up with the jail break, but that doesn't explain how he served under a year,

http://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-hebdo-suspects-take-hostage-after-shots-fired-1420793234

[RickB]

"Both are nihilistic death cults, populated with psychotics and moral deviants."

And the NYT still can't figure out what happened when they intersected in the CH offices. Keep petting Mo's Mopes NYT, I'm sure they won't bite you.

[Janet]

Richard Fernandez ~
"But France is not alone. Western Europe is awash with Jihadi fighters returned from the wars. “An estimated 1,600 come from just three of the U.S.’s closest allies in Europe—the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Passport holders from those nations do not need visas to enter the U.S.”

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2015/01/09/endgame/

[Jeff Dobbs]

Miss Marple:
Sorry I dropped coverage for a while.

No worries. It has been marked on your time card. Your JOM paycheck will reflect the absence.

That said, the JOM style guide sternly frowns upon all apologies. Even if this one was in line with the JOM HR manual in the section covering absences without prior notification.

[Miss Marple]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11329976/Paris-Charlie-Hebdo-attack-live.html

Updates every 90 seconds.

Gunfire heard near airport on Fox!

[Miss Marple]

Wow, sounds like a full-scale battle!

[narciso]

so they were warned, by among others, the Algerians, who are the real experts in this matter, I remember a post around the time of the In Amenas siege,

[Jane]

Gunfire and bombing noises at the factory.

[Miss Marple]

Smoke rising from behind the bare trees.

[Thomas Collins]

Even if one takes the social sciency alienation and resentment meme as one's approach, statist multi-culturalism doesn't cut it. Ted Robert Gurr was a social scientist who studied terrorism exhaustively. He concludes that it is not poverty, but damaged expectations of upward mobility, that is a significant factor in causing people to turn to terrorism. The credentials of the 9/11 jihadists and most others involved in jihadism, support this view. A multiculturalist statist body politic inherently is a drag on upward mobility. So if the social sciency types really believe alienation and resentment is the problem, they would support a life, liberty and pursuit of happiness body politic and turn against the statist multicultural approach.

Ultimately, the biggest problem, of course, is Islamic theology itself. Whether or not the Islam practiced by jihadists is true Islam, the message our leaders need to hear is this: It's the theology, stupid!

[Miss Marple]

Local color comment: There are a heck of a lot of squirrel nests in the bare trees through which the camera is shooting to get shots of the smoking building.

[Threadkiller]

Passport holders from those nations do not need visas to enter the U.S.”

JATFI.

Since Obama won't stop travelers coming in from Ebola ridden countries, I don't expect him to take any action here. But it would be a clever single page Bill for congress to draft and set on his desk.

"All persons coming from these countries get secondary scrutiny before they get entry to the US. Coming here is a privilege not a right."

[reliapundit]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TX4RK8bj2W0

Nasser attacking the mb

[Miss Marple]

More shots fired. And explosions.

[narciso]

much facepalming all around,

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/01/09/live-blog-multiple-situations-ongoing-around-paris/

that Carlos Slim's piece had to be by David 'Abbott' Kirkpatrick

ditto Don Tomas, Atta was educated but had few prospects as an urban planner back in Cairo,

[MarkO]

It's a war.

[Patrick in Michigan]

How's a person supposed to email you, if the email bounces?

[James D.]

TK, the problem is that the Dems, starting from Zero and all the way down the line, don't believe that "Coming here is a privilege, not a right."

The even worse problem is that far too many R's don't believe it, either.

[Threadkiller]

A California newspaper will continue to use the term "illegals" to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term.

The Santa Barbara News-Press's front entrance was sprayed with the message "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" in red paint, sometime either Wednesday night or early Thursday, according to the newspaper's director of operations, Donald Katich. The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word "illegals" alongside a story on California granting driver's licenses to people in the country illegally

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/08/california-newspaper-office-vandalized-over-use-illegal-immigrant-label/

Its not fair is everywhere!

[Threadkiller]

Indeed, James.

[boris]

"the mentality by which they get to those points is very different"

Shortsighted.
From Postmodern Jihad:

THE RELATIONSHIP between postmodernist European leftism and Islamic radicalism is a two-way street: Not only have Islamists drawn on the legacy of the European Left, but European Marxists have taken heart from Islamic terrorists who seemed close to achieving the longed-for revolution against American hegemony. Consider Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, two leading avatars of postmodernism. Foucault was sent by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera to observe the Iranian revolution and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

To view the left and Islam as completely separate entities that occasionally seem to attack JudeoChristian culture in a random unconnected way is shortsighted.

[Miss Marple]

From Sky News on the scene:

[Miss Marple]

boris,

I am reminded that some of the people from Ferguson were going to the Palestinian territory last week.

[Miss Marple]

Six explosions counted at grocery, press told to move.

[Soylent Red]

So if the social sciency types really believe alienation and resentment is the problem, they would support a life, liberty and pursuit of happiness body politic and turn against the statist multicultural approach.

It still wouldn't work. The central tenet of Islam (the meaning of Islam itself) is "submission." Submission to the will of Allah in all things.

Sounds nice vis religion of peace, etc. etc. right? Until you build a civilization out of it. Then you have a run in with "insh'allah", which is literally "if God wills it." While we have a lot of people who will amend sentences with "God willing," we as a culture don't subordinate self-determination to the concept.

Traditional Islam is like a bunch of welfare queens sitting around the house, bitching about how the man has kept them down, while never lifting a finger to find a job, or God forbid, build a business. Because prosperity is just supposed to fall out of the sky for them. All the while they are sponging off the civilization they detest.

And to one degree or another, most Mohametans think this way, particularly in the Middle East, where there is no compassionate Western welfare state to keep them alive and bitching. The religion is the sickness. In the end, the detestable fatalism Islam demands turns to resentment and homicide. The only way to avoid this outcome is to live your life outside the strict requirements of Islam.

[Janet]

My laptop is so crap...can't watch any videos.
Anyway...turned on the TV to see if there was coverage & there was Charlie Rose blathering about how "significant" it was that Charlie Hebdo was gonna have a massive printing of their next issue. Rose & his woman guest were smiling.

It makes me sick. PBS won't show cartoon images of Mohammad.
I didn't think my disgust for our media could go any lower...

[Jane]

Supposedly the brothers are dead - deli still alive.

Squirrels have nests?

[jack is Back!]

I thought for sure it would end in their mosque, where it all began in reality. But alas the shootout is now complete in a printing plant. Hostage is free and the Kouachi brothers are dead.

2-0 good guys.

Now lets make it 4-0!

[jack is Back!]

According to the tweet from Paris Match, at least 3 hostages in the Hypercacher Supermaché have been escorted out by the police.

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Societe/Une-fusillade-et-prise-d-otages-Porte-de-Vincennes-686144

[Miss Marple]

Jane,

http://www.wvdnr.gov/wildlife/magazine/Archive/04Winter/clumps_of_leaves.shtm

Explanation and picture in link.

Squirrels build nests and they are social so usually there are several in nearby trees.

[jack is Back!]

La prise d'otages au supermarché Hypercacher de Vincennes a pris fin vendredi après l'assaut du RAID. Tous les otages ont été libérés et Amedy Coulibaly, le tueur de Montrouge et preneur d'otages, aurait été tué.

All hostages have been released after the assualt by RAID (the counter-terrorism SWAT team for France). Couilbaly is dead.

[narciso]

one presumes this is the whole cell, as with Boston, had they watched them before,
there would be 15 people who would be alive today.

[Miss Marple]

Remarkable performance by the French! Kudos to their police and counter-terrorism forces!

[Miss Marple]

Hit and run,

Absenting myself for a bit.

No apologies.

LOL!

[narciso]

yes, they did an excellent job, but the larger question, this just over three years ago

http://islamineurope.unblog.fr/2011/12/24/construction-de-la-grande-mosquee-addawa-geree-par-le-recteur-larbi-kechat-un-futur-foyer-de-lislam-radical-politique-a-paris/

[sbw]

Squirrels do have nests. Nests are where they squirrel things away.

[jack is Back!]

On the lighter side of this situation: French Salesman "shook hands" with Suspect.

http://www.thelocal.fr/20150109/i-shook-his-hand-frenchman-on-run-in-with-suspect

It seems he was to have a meeting with the printing plant manager and both he and one of the brothers came to the door shook hands with the salesman and told him to leave. Police business.

[Marlene]

Thanks for the birthday wishes,rather trivial in light of everything happening. We're going to spend a quiet evening,just like the Duchess of Cambridge and her husband. Ha,Ha. It is also her birthday.
HB to Mr.Frau.

[Dave (in MA)]

Because prosperity is just supposed to fall out of the sky for them. All the while they are sponging off the civilization they detest.

Like Speedbump Tsarnaev, the "stay at-home dad" and his shoplifting Mama.

[jack is Back!]

Front page photo from Le Figaro of the hostages being escorted by police.

http://www.lefigaro.fr

[Thomas Collins]

Soylent, I agree that a self-evident truths body politic won't cut it in much of the world. I'm referring to the approach I think the Western nations should take. I realize that even in the Western nations, statist multiculturalism has embedded itself so deeply that self-evident truths has a hard slog. As to how to deal with the Mahometan bodies politic, calling Andrew Jackson and Curtis Lemay!

[Jeff Dobbs]

I really don't care about the Panthers at all, even though they are essentially now my "local" team.

But I'll root for them this week because Seahawks root for Obamacare

The White House ... tabbed Seattle's two biggest stars for a PSA on the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as "Obamacare"...

In a video released Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and cornerback Richard Sherman encourage people to visit HealthCare.gov to promote enrollment in the ACA or to renew their coverage.

I didn't watch the video. But if Sherman said something like, "I'd especially encourage Cam Newton to ensure he's covered before Saturday" - I would appreciate it.

(but since Cam had the truck accident only several weeks ago, probably not a good idea . . . but dang if he's not just about the only name anyone would possibly recognize on that offense)

[Thomas Collins]

Re Soylent's 11:21 AM and Dave (in MA)'s 11:52 AM posts: I guess Sharia Law doesn't prohibit welfare checks from being mailed to Islamic neighborhoods and then cashed by the Mahometans.

[NKvirusedand back]

Well done French SWAT team.

[Jim Miller]

Miss Marple - Those might be rooks' nests. (I remember how surprised I was to see them on my first trip to Europe. Take a look at the Wikipedia article on rooks for an example. Or, even better do an image search.

Jane - Squirrels do sometimes make nests. Do an image search for examples. Because squirrels are territorial, you'll only see one to a tree, and no others in the trees around it.

[Buckeye]

French should announce that police shot the jihadis with ammo soaked in pig's blood.

[narciso]

Reuters is reporting, from one of their police sources, four hostages are dead,

[Extraneus]

I don't see what's so great about the French SWAT team killing these creeps. It doesn't scare anyone else into not avenging insults to their prophet. Free speech is still chilled.

Now if France retaliates further by deporting 10,000 people from where these dudes lived...

[NKvirusedand back]

The SWAT showed skill and professionalism, that's all they could do. Deporting Jihadis? That's a matter of policy for elected officials. Hollande? No chance. Marine Le Pen or Nik Sarkozy? perhaps.

[Captain Hate]

Have any sports stars told 404 to GFY when he's asked them to shill for his commie schemes or does he just ask the really dumb ones?

There's a deer lying down in the snow behind my yard just chewing its cud. I'm pretty sure it's not Hobbler because it looks thicker through the shoulders like a buck. It's probably too big to be Junior but I'm going out there to throw some walnuts and an apple to it; but that's all because I'm not crashing through any fish ponds today.

[henry]

A new hostage situation in Montpellier, France.

This time a jewelry store.

[NKvirusedand back]

Deportations? It appears La Belle France is in civil war.

[Janet]

toonophobia

I think I'm gonna print this & put it on my "purse" (along with USA flag,the Gadsden flag, the Arabic letter nun, & assorted pins)

[narciso]

yes, the Ewok had it on his twitter first, this is where they set that novel I mentioned earlier,

[Michael (fpa Patriot4Freedom)]

Great job by the French anti-terror specialists.

Sadly, looks like the murderous jihadi bastard in the grocery store killed four of his hostages.

This better not become the "new normal" for people in France.

[Appalled]

Captain Hate. He may be the terror of the Left, but he is nice to Bambi.

(My Mom, who lives in NE Ahia, but not in the Winter, really would prefer all the deer to go away. She gardens. The deer enjoy the extra food.)

[Extraneus]

This is just what these guys had hoped and prayed for.

It took 1500 cops to take them out... Airport and Jewish schools closed... A whole city cowering in fear... The entire world watching...

They're bigger heroes now than they were yesterday. Meaning, even more of their brothers wish they were them.

[Janet]

note the cartoon is from 2006- http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000783.html

I should send a copy to Charlie Rose.

[NKvirusedand back]

The Left and Walker. You can smell their fear: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-lefts-pathetic-attempt-to-catch-scott-walker-in-a-gruber-moment/article/2558421?custom_click=rss&utm_campaign=Weekly+Standard+Story+Box&utm_source=weeklystandard.com&utm_medium=referral#!

[Jane]

Thanks for the squirrel info. I thought they all lived on my bird feeder.

It seems to me the French police did an excellent job. They brought Shemp in early to cover. That bums me out.

[Janet]

"Muslim rage is not a strength. When Muslims riot screaming in the streets every time they're offended in some way, this is not the mark of a strong faith but a weak insecure one. So weak and insecure that it cannot turn the cheek or look down from a superior position of belief in the true God. Instead like all pagan savages it goes into a murderous rage because inside its worshipers know they are not the servants of a living God who can avenge all insults, but of a faith cribbed from Jews and Christians by an illiterate bandit who proceeded to win convert by terrorizing everyone who didn't join his gang of bandits."

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/01/lets-laugh-at-islam.html

[Michael (fpa Patriot4Freedom)]

Janet - Bless you for your sensibilities, your sense of moral outrage, and your great pictures/cartoons.
You rock, girl ! ! !

[Captain Hate]

(My Mom, who lives in NE Ahia, but not in the Winter, really would prefer all the deer to go away. She gardens. The deer enjoy the extra food.)

There are two reasons I'm nice to Hobbler (who was behind the next door garage when I went out and then came in my back yard to munch down baby carrots and walnuts before the driveway plower scared her off; she took a poop so she's obviously getting some caloric intake): She's handicapped and because of that she doesn't go to the side of my house where my tomato plants thrive. The squirrels on the other hand...