…resume shortly. I was out of the country on vacation and I’m still trying to catch my breath.

Sometimes you really don’t need to expound very much when others do it with so much more aplomb, mastery, and credibility.

TORONTO – The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) is urging the Cordoba House Initiative to abandon its proposed Ground-Zero Mosque in New York in the face of outrage expressed by large segments of the American population calling the proposal an act of ‘fitna’ or mischief.

In a letter to Imam Faisal Rauf that will be delivered on Tuesday, August 10 by MCC’s board member Raheel Raza, the MCC says, “Many Muslims suspect that the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation, to thumb our noses at the ‘infidel.’ We believe the proposal has been made in bad faith and, in Islamic parlance, is creating  ‘fitna,’ meaning ‘mischief-making,’ an act clearly forbidden in the Qur’an.”

Muslims who dare to challenge the rigid, hateful, and, too often, deadly orthodoxy of Islam are courageous souls, and Ms. Raza exemplifies this reality. Her unflinching analysis and bold willingness to confront a dangerous supremacist ideology that has remained unchanged for 1,400 years comprise an inspiring act of goodness and bravery. Islam is in dire need of reform, and Muslims who put themselves on the line in this endeavor are true heroes to the cause of freedom and human rights.

The inimitable Greg Gutfeld, however, has another idea about how to handle this arrogant and cold act. {Hot Air}

So, the Muslim investors championing the construction of the new mosque near Ground Zero claim it’s all about strengthening the relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.

As an American, I believe they have every right to build the mosque – after all, if they buy the land and they follow the law – who can stop them?

Which is, why, in the spirit of outreach, I’ve decided to do the same thing.

I’m announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I’ve already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

This singularly funny man appears to be quite serious about this. If so, I hope they invest heavily in security/surveillance.

Also see: American Islamic Forum for Democracy

UPDATE 11:20: Ms. Raza on O’Reilly tonight:

Journolist-o-Rama!

(Click for largification.)

From Ed Morrisey today: Journolisters debate, endorse gov’t control of Fox News

Pakistan, you’ve got bigger issues than Everybody Draw Muhammad Day to worry about when it comes to satanic infidel technology: No. 1 Nation in Sexy Web Searches? Call it Pornistan

They may call it the “Land of the Pure,” but Pakistan turns out to be anything but.

The Muslim country, which has banned content on at least 17 websites to block offensive and blasphemous material, is the world’s leader in online searches for pornographic material, FoxNews.com has learned. …

Pakistan is top dog in searches per-person for “horse sex” since 2004, “donkey sex” since 2007, “rape pictures” between 2004 and 2009, “rape sex” since 2004, “child sex” between 2004 and 2007 and since 2009, “animal sex” since 2004 and “dog sex” since 2005, according to Google Trends and Google Insights, features of Google that generate data based on popular search terms.

The country also is tops — or has been No. 1 — in searches for “sex,” “camel sex,” “rape video,” “child sex video” and some other searches that can’t be printed here.

(emphasis mine)

Sick, sick, sick. There are times when I privately despair of the ongoing plunge into decadence here in the west. Not so much right now…

Am Yisrael chai. {The Blogmocracy}

You think I’m kidding? NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA’s orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

“When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering,” Bolden said in the interview.

Because, really, the self-esteem of angry and petulant adherents to a backward anti-science ideology is imperative to America’s space exploration interests. This president and his well-staffed cadre of liberal clowns cannot stand the idea of America leading the world in any realm. They squirm at the very idea of American ingenuity, triumph, and exceptionalism, and this latest hat-in-hand antic is just the latest example.

And always with the “vast Islamic contributions to science” canard… If I remember correctly, the last momentous scientific innovation to come out of the Islamic world was the pendulum; ten centuries ago.

This ill-conceived feel-good liberal claptrap about making people feel good, rather than letting them do it themselves, is exactly what one should expect from an administration of ersatz leaders. These people are utterly incompetent at running anything, getting results that matter, and moving beyond concocting spurious utopian schemes.

UPDATE July 6, 2010 5:30 PM: And now, a word from the land of the sane…

“NASA … represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity,” Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com. …

He also said that while welcome, Muslim-nation cooperation is not vital for U.S. advancements in space exploration.

“There is no technology they have that we need,” Griffin said.

And that inferiority — a self-imposed inferiority born of centuries of retrograde social constructs and thinking — is what pains the Obama administration so deeply, thus necessitating this inappropriate use of NASA for a campaign of bowing and scraping to people who hate us.

God bless this great nation of ours. Declaration of Independence

]]> http://libergraphica.com/?feed=rss2&p=414 0 http://libergraphica.com/?p=410 http://libergraphica.com/?p=410#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:10:19 +0000 patricius http://libergraphica.com/?p=410

No better time than the present. Pope appoints Archbishop Fisichella to lead Council for New Evangelization {Hot Air}

Vatican City, Jun 30, 2010 / 11:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Among a flurry of announcements from the Holy See on Wednesday, the Holy Father officially nominated the current head of the Pontifical Academy for Life to lead the recently announced Pontifical Council for New Evangelization. Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella will lead the Church in the formidable challenge of re-evangelizing the “secularized” countries of the world. …

The plan to create the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization Archbishop Fisichella will be heading was announced by Pope Benedict from the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-walls in Rome on Monday during the celebration of First Vespers for the eve of the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The council will aim to address the “progressive secularization” of historically Christian areas of the world.

The Pope said then that it will have “the important task of promoting a renewed evangelization in countries where the first announcement of the faith has already resounded and Churches of ancient foundation are present, but are living (through) a progressive secularization of society and a sort of ‘eclipse of the sense of God’.”

Heaven knows that such action is long, long overdue. One can only hope that we are not yet too far gone. A time to lean on faith indeed.

Meanwhile, not far from where ground will soon be broken for a new house of worship for the religion of peace… Remains of 72 People Found at World Trade Center Site {Hot Air}

New York City officials say a renewed search this year of debris in and around the World Trade Center site has recovered 72 human remains.

The sifting of more than 800 cubic yards (612 cubic meters) of debris recovered from ground zero and underneath roads around the lower Manhattan site began in April and ended Friday.

The greatest number of remains – 37 – were found from material underneath West Street, a highway on the west side of ground zero. The new debris was uncovered as construction work made new parts of the site accessible.

The city began a renewed search for human remains in 2006. More than 1,800 remains have been found.

Some have been matched to previously unidentified 9/11 victims.

Never forgive, never forget.

What do you call an angry American who gets fed up enough over the idea of Papa Jihad still squandering good air that he flies to Pakistan to strap on a sword and a side arm to hunt the dirtbag down himself? Badass, is what you call him. More specifically, you call him Gary Brooks Faulkner.

An ailing American on a solo mission to kill Usama bin Laden was going for his “last hurrah” when he flew to Pakistan to hunt the master terrorist, but he was detained by Pakistani police before he found his prey.

Gary Brooks Faulkner, a 50-year-old construction contractor from Colorado, was picked up in a remote forest near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border carrying a pistol, a 40-inch sword and night-vision equipment, according to Pakistani police. …

When Pakistani police picked up Faulkner on Sunday he carrying a book containing Christian verses and teachings and told them he believed God would help him find and kill bin Laden.

Walking around Jihadland with little command of Urdu, white skin, and Christian literature… This guy has no fear. Zero. And he’s so ill that he needs dialysis three times a week. This man is inspiring, and he makes me proud to share citizenship with the same country as him. I’m sure some would deride him as a nut or revile him because of his past run-ins with the law. I think he knows just what he was doing, and I think that whatever his past sins are, he has now found redemption.

Check out Shepard Smith’s interview with his brother, and share with me the uplifting feeling of sheer awesomeness that comes from realizing that there are still everyday American heroes among us. By the way, you just know what he wanted to do with that sword if he got his hands on that bastard — no Miranda rights, and no painless expedience of a drone-deployed Hellfire rocket — just a lowlife jihadi sheik’s godawful ugly head parting ways with its body.

UPDATE 10:19 PM: Here’s a nice profile on Mr. Faulkner from WSJ via Allahpundit.

UPDATE June 20, 2010, 12:48 PM: Inside One American’s Hunt for Bin Laden {Hot Air}