The Loon Quiz

This is actually taken from the interesting if ironically named blog “The enemies of reason” headed by Anton Vowl. See if you can get the answers to the quiz without Googling or cheating for the answers. Answers will be updated.

You simply have to guess who said the following statements – Melanie Phillips or Geert Wilders.

1. “Socialists are the most inveterate cultural relativists in Europe. They regard the Islamic culture of backwardness and violence as equal to our Western culture of freedom, democracy and human rights. In fact, it is the socialists who are responsible for mass immigration, Islamization and general decay of our cities and societies.”

2. “The nation-wrecking ideology of multiculturalism and the Marxist redefinition of racial prejudice into racism – ‘prejudice plus power ‘– which have turned our society inside out are the product of the left.”

3. “Voters have been told in effect that there is nothing standing between national suicide on the one hand and racism on the other. If you don’t want the former, you are automatically branded with the latter.”

4. “And so, the voters have had enough. Because they of course realise that Europe is going in the wrong direction. They know that there are enormous problems with Islam in Europe. They are well aware of the identity of those who are taking them for a ride, namely, the Shariah socialists.”

5. “They are areas of very high immigration where the transformation of the ethnic, religious and cultural landscape has made indigenous inhabitants feel strangers in their own country — and yet they are told they are racist for saying so”

6. “Mass immigration, demographic developments and Islamization are certainly partly causes of Europe’s steadily increasing impoverishment and decay.”

7. “Above all else, we should absolutely refuse to countenance the spread of Sharia law, which is not only inimical to our own deepest principles but aims to supplant our own laws. Yet we are turning a blind eye to the steady Sharia-isation”

8. “Just like communism, fascism and nazism, Islam is a threat to everything we stand for. It is a threat to democracy, to the constitutional state, to equality for men and women, to freedom and civilisation. Wherever you look in the world, the more Islam you see, the less freedom you see.”

9. “The problem, however, is that it doesn’t understand what Muslim extremism is. Believing that Islamic terrorism is motivated by an ideology which has ‘hijacked’ and distorted Islam, it will not acknowledge the extremism within mainstream Islam itself.”

10. “Of course, there are many moderate Muslims. However, there is no such a thing as a moderate Islam. Islam’s heart lies in the Koran.”

11. “In the war being waged by radical Islamism against the west, such symbolism [as mosque-building] is of the utmost importance and significance. It is itself a strategic weapon of cultural and religious demoralisation.”

12. “We will have to close down all radical [mosques] and forbid the construction of any new mosques, there is enough Islam in Europe.”

Tricky, no? So there you have it – Geert Wilders and Melanie Phillips. One a dangerous extremist with vile views; the other a Dutchman with silly hair.

If you enjoyed that quiz, you’ll enjoy this blog post from Blood & Treasure, who has managed to get hold of some exciting Melanie Phillips copy…

At (Civil) War with the Idiots he Created

Charles Johnson

If none of you have noticed by now there is a civil war raging in the Islamophobic Anti-Muslim blog-world. We expect to talk about this in greater detail but at least one site has dedicated itself to tracking the ins-and-outs of what they hilariously term the “Great Soap Opera.”

It has gotten to a level where web media outlets such as The Washington Independent have taken notice and started writing about it. Gawker also mercilessly ripped apart the players involved in this melodrama which pits the leader and founder of the so called “anti-jihad movement,” Charles Johnson against his former followers and friends Robert Spencer, Baron Bodissey (!) and loon blogger Pam Geller. Enjoy!

It’s hard to know what to make of Charles Johnson, the batshit crazy founder of Little Green Footballs, engendering the hatred of his even batshit-crazier former compatriots.

Johnson and his recent penchant for heretical thinking has sparked a full-on blogger civil war (and got Glenn Beck all mad), pitting stupid brother against stupid brother. The Washington Independent took a look yesterday:

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, jazz musician and Web designer Charles Johnson has devoted his blog, Little Green Footballs, to exposing Muslim extremism in and outside the United States. His targets have included the Council on American-Islamic Relations, filmmaker Michael Moore, Reuters, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Dan Rather, and the late pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie – who some LGF commenters (not Johnson) call “St. Pancake,” a tribute to the Israeli steamroller that killed her. LGF helped write the lexicon of the self-styled “anti-Jihadist” blogosphere – from “moonbat” (“an unthinking or insane leftist”) to “anti-idiotarian” (“anyone who grasps the significance of and does his or her best to combat the post-9/11 political alliance between the ‘Old Left’ and militant Islam”).

But in the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many on the right – including conservative bloggers, critics of Islamic extremism, and critics of Islam in general who used to be Johnson’s fellow travelers.

At issue is an anti-Islamic conference in 2007 organized by some of Johnson’s acolytes. Among the invited attendees were members of a Belgian political party with ties to neo-Nazism, which is a perfectly natural fit, seeing as how the conference was organized around the idea that you should hate people who are different from you. Johnson took issue with the idea of his beloved anti-Islam movement being associated with neo-Nazis, and used his blog to attack members of the movement who got to cozy with extremists.

The whole thing has gotten out of hand, he told the Independent: “I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore. It’s all a bunch of kooks.”

Well imagine that! If you organize people around the notion that all Muslims everywhere want to kill white Americans, some kooks show up at the table.

Johnson’s experience with the nutjobs-of which he is one-on the right is an object lesson in why soft-headed liberals like to keep an eye on seemingly respectable people who flirt with hatred and racism in their political messaging. Because even if those people stop short of actually saying, “Let’s round up the Muslins,” they tend to attract, and lend credence to, the people who are going for that in the first place.

Johnson should be commended for taking a stand against neo-Nazis and Glenn Beck. And he should still be condemned for spending the last eight years giving them ammunition and inspiration. If neo-Nazis are into your ideas, Charles, you might want to rethink them.

Is Media Anti-Religion? You decide

Would you believe me if I told you that a 24 hour cable news network channel while discussing the topic of how media is “anti-religion” ended up making a bigoted remark about a religion?  Of course you would because there is Fox News.

The Loon Busters at Media Matters brought to light this piece of bigotry on the O’Reilly Factor.  After discussing how Christianity is maltreated and abused in the media, Bill O’ Reilly remarked that

the media doesn’t target Muslims because they might get their house blown up.

Is that Fair and Balanced enough for you? That’s as direct as it gets folks. 

Even if it were true, which it is not, this statement is absurd on many levels.  How many American Muslims have killed a media official or “blown their house up” because their faith or their community was lampooned? On the other hand, doesn’t it make sense that since America is a majority Christian country there would be more focus on Christianity as opposed to Judaism or Islam?

The reality is that Islam and Muslims are one of the most targeted and defamed groups in America and this remark by O’Reilly is just further proof of that.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lQyHSY6jrk%5D

The Three Stooges Coming to a Campus Near You!

If you live near to, or are a student at a university you might be interested in knowing that the Three Stooges are touring college campuses nationwide, but before you get your hopes up just know that it’s not the three stooges that you might be familiar with.

We’re talking about the three stooges of the Christian Right: Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani.

These three aren’t comedic geniuses in the usual sense but rather are funny in the same way that televangelists who steal money from gullible viewers searching for a cure to their ills give you fits of laughter while at the same time making you feel sick to your stomach. You know its a charade, a concocted myth but you watch to see the theatrics of the show and the usual ‘planted’ caller who declares how the televangelist’s powers cured them of their incurable disease.

So now we have another group of individuals using and abusing Christianity in the name of profit. Former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief and expert on Christian Fundamentalism Chris Hedges describes them to a tee:

These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges—a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy—to spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience. They tell their audiences that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world’s population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims.Their cant is broadcast regularly on Fox News, including the Bill O’Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows, as well as on numerous Christian radio and television programs. Shoebat, who has written a book called “Why We Want to Kill You,” promises in his lectures to explain the numerous similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, how “Muslim terrorists” invaded America 30 years ago and how “perseverance, recruitment and hate” have fueled attacks by Muslims. (emphasis added)

In fact their tour isn’t simply limited to Christian colleges but extends to colleges and universities that have no affiliation with religion. As noted above they have spoken at the Air Force Academy and most recently (minus Anani) at Western Michigan University.

The fundamentally obvious question that seems to escape people is, “If these guys really are ‘ex-terrorists’ why are they allowed to roam free, campus to campus, lecture hall to lecture hall without being monitored or questioned by the FBI?” The logic of a lot of their supporters in answering this concludes that: if a terrorist repents and accepts Christianity they should be spared prosecution for any crimes committed beforehand.

The looniness in the case of these stooges doesn’t require a great deal of research but can be gleaned from their own words as the best material for their hilarity comes from their own mouths.

For instance, Zachariah Anani claim’s in his biography posted on Shoebat’s hate-site that:

“Every time I killed someone and two or three fighters witnessed it, they would give me a point on my chart. I carried 223 points.”Even his comrades feared him. “Although we had a sense of loyalty to each other,” he says, “we were ready to take out enemies or friends.” When a fanatical Muslim joined his regiment and began knocking on doors to wake the others for prayer at 3 A.M., Anani warned him: “I don’t want to pray. Don’t come and wake me.” When he heard the knock early the next morning, Anani picked up his gun, shot him, and went back to sleep.

LoonWatchers, we can’t make this stuff up!

According to his own admission he has killed at least 223 people and that’s only in those cases in which there were two or three witnesses. You’d think the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security would be all over this murderer but no one knows who he is or what he’s talking about. Also, what kind of insane and pathological individual non-chalantly shoots someone and then simply goes back to sleep; Anani it seems!

The other two stooges are just as bad if not worse in attempting to sell their outlandish and fantastical stories.

Kamal Saleem and Walid Shoebat

Kamal Saleem claim’s to be the descendant of someone called the “The Grand Wazir of Islam,” which  Hedges points out is “a title and a position that do not exist in the Arab world.” It can be further noted that the religion of Islam has no clerical hierarchy similar to the Catholic Church with defined positions such as the Pope, Bishops, Priests, etc. Kamal’s blooper in his bio is either a result of an ignorance of Islam and its structure or an attempt to manipulate the ignorance of his audience.

Shoebat may be the most outlandish of them all, he is also the most well known. He has in the past equated Islam with “Satanism” and “Nazism.” He also stated in front of an audience at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee that “Palestinians keep Jewish testicles and breasts in jars.”

He claim’s to have planted a bomb at Bank Leumi in Bethlehem but his story has been debunked by several sources including the Jerusalem Post and Shoebat’s own family members. Bank Leumi itself states that they have no record of a bomb attack for the time period asserted by Shoebat.

Simon Altaf, a former Muslim and a convert to Christianity was a close friend of Shoebat and along with him co-authored a book titled This is our Eden, This is our End. Altaf states that,

Walid wanted to be an ex-Terrorist to make money, pure and simple.

In the end the goal is to make money off of these speaking engagements, television appearances, and Church gatherings. This is an easy sell, after 9/11 many Americans were rightly afraid of another terrorist attack;  in this climate Anti-Muslim and Islamophobic sentiment grew making it a ripe time for someone to capitalize on the growing fear and paranoia in the country.

These three stooges hit on the jack pot and saw that there was a cottage industry developing to bash Muslims and Islam and so jumped on the bandwagon, taking their loony lies and hate-caravan all the way to the bank.