2010 Fousesquawk "Jerk of the Year"

It's that time of year again, the day we have all been waiting for.

New Year's Day?

No. It's time to name the Fousesquawk 2010 Jerk of the Year Award. As in previous years, it is a hard choice because there are so many jerks out there, and there are many deserving of 2010's Golden Penguin. Hell, the whole MSNBC news team could have easily won. However, there can only be one winner, so, without further ado....





the envelope please.

The winner of the 2010 Golden Penguin for Jerk of the Year goes to..........

Janet Napolitano, ladies and gentlemen.


Last year at this time, Janet was telling us "the system worked" over the Christmas bomber. (The "system" worked because the airplane passengers swarmed the guy.) But that was last year, so she gets a pass. This year, however, Janet was running around like a chicken with her head cut off warning us about right-wing tea-partiers, North Dakota militiamen and returning war vets. She opposed the Arizona immigration law even though as former governor of that state, she knew the desperation they were in. She argued for the DREAM Act as if that were necessary for homeland security. She instituted these ridiculous airport pat-downs while refusing to use intelligent screening procedures. The Mexican border is a battle zone, but Napolitano sets up "Environmental Justice" seminars and task forces.

Hopefully, she won't retain the award in 2011. If that happens, we may all be dead

Campus Watch Report on UCLA Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl

Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl

Are you ready for another university Middle East Studies professor? Campus Watch is featuring a report on a speech by UCLA professor Khaled Abou El Fadl on the subject of Shariah and what it means for the West. The article is written by Cinnamon Stillwell and my friend Eric Golub (of Tygrrrr Express). The last time Eric attended a lecture at UCLA, a Middle East studies professor told him he "had his Zionist hat screwed on too tight". (Eric is Jewish.)

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/10523

Well, what's a professor if he can't ignore the supposed thesis of his talk? According to Campus Watch, Fadl's real thesis was to go after all those "Islamophobes" out there who have criticized shariah law and don't think it would be a great idea in the US. Apparently, he neglected to tell the audience what Shariah is all about and what kind of impact it has or would have on the West.

Such is what passes for education in academia these days. Whatever happened to the good old lesson plan?

But if you really want to put it in perspective, take a gander at this video produced by Stand With Us. It was filmed at good old UCLA.



There you go. These must be students in Professor Fadl's class.

Two Articles by Zuhdi Jasser

Dr Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a true moderate Muslim, has written two recent articles which I find quite noteworthy. The first concerns plans by Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to hold hearings on Islamic radicalism within the US. The second is Dr Jasser's take on the recent decision by the Justice Department to take up the case of a Muslim school teacher who was denied leave to go on the Hajj.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_muslims_must_look_in_the_mirror_g6HY8SYPEtYo8gHubxnNhI

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-jasser_27edi.State.Edition1.16fc395.html

I would hope that Rep. King would invite Dr Jasser to testify. Rather than listening to the likes of CAIR, ISNA and MPAC, Jasser is the kind of Muslim our government (and us) should be listening to. His words make sense.

Nigel Farage Tells the EU What He Thinks Of Belgium

Nigel Farage, a British representative to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, thinks the whole idea of the EU is a big joke. He also doesn't think much of Belgium. Here is what he had to say a few months ago on the subject of Belgium taking over the rotating presidency of the EU. (Hat tip to Europarl)

Another Terror Plot Foiled in Scandinavia

Danish police have arrested five men, four of whom were residing in Sweden. The men were planning to attack the Jyllands Posten offices, the news organ which published the Danish cartoons. (You'd better read about this quickly. The mainstream American media won't spend a lot of time on this.)

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/12/29/denmark-arrests-suspected-planning-terror-attack/

Swedish police conducted a search of at least one residence outside Stockholm. The below report (in Swedish) is from the Svenska Dagbladet.

http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/fem-misstankta-terrorister-gripna_5835983.svd

"Five persons were arrested yesterday in Denmark suspected of preparing a terrorist crime . Four of the persons are Sweden residents and three have Swedish citizenship. Police suspect they were planning to attack the local Jyllands Posten office in Copenhagen. Wednesday evening SAPO (Swedish Security Agency) carried out a search of the residence of one of the suspects outside Stockholm."

For you University of California at Santa Cruz Community Studies majors, the suspects are not, I repeat, not named Sven, Oly, Jan, Hendrik and Olaf.

The Swedish blog, Jihad i Malmo describes the suspects as two Tunisians, Two Lebanese and one Iraqi between the ages of 26-44.

Speech Codes at Indiana Purdue University

Beware of what you read while on a university campus. This is what happened to a student at Indiana Purdue University in Indianapolis . (Hat tip Pajamas Media)

http://thefire.org/article/9255.html


He didn't say anything. He was observed reading a book with KKK in the title.

He was guilty of racial harassment according to the university's head of the Affirmative Action Office.
This is a result of the speech codes of so many American universities.

Of course, it all depends on who the victim group is and who the perpetrator group is. While many universities are seeing true hate speech on their campuses on a regular basis, if it is directed toward whites or Jews, people just turn their heads. If the perceived perpetrator is white and the perceived victim group is black, Muslim or Hispanic, it's call out the cavalry. Should it not be equal for all?

I remember when I was researching my book on the creole language  Papiamentu and wanted to get information on Joel Chandler Harris and the Uncle Remus stories. To get the material, I had to go to a special section of the UC-Irvine library and sign for it-and read it in the library. Of course, those materials were deemed racist (which they were not) in the 1960s and disappeared from many college library shelves. At UCI, they were hidden in a special section of the library.

Thank God nobody reported me checking these materials out. Why, my career might have been ruined.

And this guy was reading a book about the KKK (which was not even complementary toward the KKK) and some bureaucrat-or should I say victocrat- in the university finds him guilty or racial harassment.

Well, in the end, cooler heads prevailed. The student was "cleared". I wonder if the Affirmative Action official was fired or disciplined.

Nah.

Wikileaks and the Involvement of the Syrians in the 2006 Cartoon Riots

(Hat tip to Hot Air)



"Good news, mein Fuehrer. Wikileaks is releasing the secret protocols of the 1939 Soviet-German non-aggression pact. It proves the Soviets wanted to gobble up Eastern Poland.  We are saved!"


Hot Air reports that  the Wikileaks documents are not all bad for our side. It seems a lot of people are going to be embarrassed-like the Assad regime in Syria, which apparently had a lot to do with the  Danish cartoon riots in that country in 2006.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/28/wikileaks-document-alleges-syrian-government-role-in-2006-cartoon-riots-embassy-attacks/

So apparently, when an Arab leader says, "riot", they riot. How thoughtful of the Syrians to protect the French embassy, don't you think?

Speaking of France, the French periodical Le Monde has named Julian Assange as their Man of the Year.  (I wonder if they ever named Pierre Laval Man of the Year.)

Meanwhile back in the US, the mad-hatters at MSNBC are singing the praises of Mr Assange, who has disclosed not only classified documents, but has also divulged names of covert operatives, informants, and private cooperation between the US and members of other governments because the people have the right to know everything.

Yet, it wasn't so long ago that those same mad-hatters at MSNBC were crying  for the scalps of Karl Rove, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and "Scooter Libby" because they had "blown the cover" of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, who was long removed from any covert role and was connecting Xs and Os at Langley. Never mind that it was Richard Armitage who had leaked the info carelessly and fessed up to it. For the first time in recorded memory, MSNBC anchors were law and order advocates worried about the security of the CIA.

It all comes down to whose ox is getting gored.

Florida Security Council in Paris- Films Street Prayers

Tom Trento, head of the Florida Security Council was recently in Paris to attend an international conference of people opposed to the growing Islamization in Europe. By that, I don't mean that Europe has a large Muslim immigrant population. Rather the concern is that there is a concerted effort to bring shariah law to Europe.

I have posted previous videos of the regular Friday prayers that are conducted on a public street in Paris, a street where people reside and have businesses. While in Paris, Tom made the below video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Btc9qMALg

So what is the issue here? Certainly, Muslims have the right to conduct their Friday prayers. Nobody would argue with that. The question is do they have the right to take over and barricade an entire block-in violation of the ordinances- and then dictate to outsiders that they may not take pictures or make videos?

It is my understanding that these crowds are an overflow from a mosque located on the site. It looks like the Muslim community needs a bigger mosque (maybe Saudi Arabia will build it for them). My question is; where are the Paris political leaders? It seems that instead of finding a solution, they are simply choosing to ignore it.What are they afraid of, that there will be charges of Islamophobia if they shut this activity down? UN condemnation, perhaps? Are they afraid of a riot? Are they afraid of inviting another terrorist attack? My guess is all four.

How do you think Paris officials would react if someone like Billy Graham decided he was going to have a speaking event on the Champs d'Elysee, have his own security control the street, and not even ask permission of the city? How far would that get?

This is a situation where the true moderate Muslim leaders should step in and decry this activity that is intruding on the lives of Paris citizens and, of course, stoking outrage from Frenchmen. It is they who should take the necessary steps to end this problem.

If they won't the city should, but don't hold your breath. After all, we are talking about France here.

Still Think J Street is Pro-Israel?

If you still think J Street is a pro-Israel lobby, you may want to read this link from Mere Rhetoric.com about founder Daniel Levy. (The below two links are a few months old but hardly  outdated.)

http://www.mererhetoric.com/2010/10/05/j-street-co-founder-daniel-levy-israel%e2%80%99s-creation-an-act-that-was-wrong/


Yes, George Soros and all, this is the organization that was founded as a leftist alternative to AIPAC (which does support Israel). The problem is that J Street seeks to mask its intentions. You may remember that President Obama's State Department liaison for anti-Semitic matters, Hannah Rosenthal, came from J Street. Her first act was to travel to Israel, where she proceeded to trash the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren (putting herself in distinguished company, namely the UC-Irvine Muslim Student Union). According to some, Rosenthal is more concerned about Islamophobia than anti-Semitism.

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/07/time-to-get-rid-of-hannah-rosenthal.html

(Hat tip to Israelmatzav)

To a non-Jewish observer like me, this is all quite confusing.

Open Letter From OCITF re: Olive Tree Initiative

The OC Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism has written an open letter to the OC
Jewish Federation, Rose Project and UC-Irvine  Hillel urging them to disassociate themselves from the
Olive Tree Initiative.


http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/3522

Bill Van Esveld and Human Rights Watch

Bill Van Esveld works for Human Rights Watch. He is also one of the contacts in the Middle East for the Olive Tree Initiative. Here is a sampling of his writings on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-van-esveld/yes-war-does-have-rules_b_737625.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-van-esveld/the-blockade-of-gaza-two_b_224340.html

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=122689#axzz19Gnvmkf0

The below article (Jerusalem Post) features an interview between the writer and Esveld.

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?ID=190514&R=R1

"Bill Van Esveld, a Human Rights Watch researcher who has written reports about violations in Gaza by both Israel and Hamas, said that a few weeks after Operation Cast Lead, he was examining the destruction in Khuzaa, a village about a half-kilometer from the border, when residents warned him not to stray too far.


“The IDF had sheared off the edge of the town, knocking down a row of houses. The residents told me, ‘Don’t go over there; stay on this side of the rubble or you’ll get shot.’ That’s when it came home to me,” he said.

Since then, in various parts of Gaza, some civilians were “shot in broad daylight, when the only thing ‘unusual’ about them was that they were young men,” Van Esveld continued.

Noting that many of them were picking up scrap metal, a valuable commodity, as the IDF bans metal imports because they’re used to build tunnels and weapons, he said it’s easy to mistake a man holding metal bars for a man holding a gun.

“You can’t just take a shot at anyone who picks up a big tube – that’s what they do for their livelihood,” he said. “Some of them [who look from a distance like they might be armed] could be scavengers, and some of them could be shooters.”

And what about the Human Rights Watch? They reportedly document human rights abuses by both sides of the conflict. Are they fair and impartial?

http://www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/israel-and-occupied-territories

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/09/26/israel-extend-settlement-freeze

http://cifwatch.com/2010/07/09/hrws-subjectivity-or-mena-behaving-badly/

In the below Wikipedia entry, HRW has been accused of having an anti-Israel bias:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watch

I am not taking issue with any of Esveld's claims. Far be it from me to argue the word of one who is on the scene, which I am not. My question is whether Esveld and HRW favor one side or the other. Why is that important? Only because Esveld is another on a list of individuals who are meeting with OTI students on their trips to the Middle East. Is there really a balanced view of the conflict being presented to the students? That is the question at the center of the debate surrounding the Olive Tree Initiative.

Napolitano to Travelers: Deal With it.

Janet Napolitano has made her latest ridiculous pronouncement on those silly TSA body searches.

Deal with it.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/26/napolitano-used-airport-pat-downs/?test=latestnews

Of course, there is no update on whether Janet has decided whether Muslim women will be exempt or be able to pat themselves down.

Of course, there was another lame excuse for National Intelligence director James Clapper's being "out of the loop" about the arrest in the UK of 12 terrorist plotters. He was pre-occupied with the Korean situation and reducing our nuclear weapons for Russia's benefit. I guess Clapper is not what we would call a "multi-tasker". But, what the Hell; the "people who counted" were aware. I guess Clapper doesn't count.

Speaking of no new updates, wasn't it a couple of months ago Eric Holder said they were "nearing a decision" on where to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

"Uhhhh.....yeaaaah."

Sleep soundly, Fousesquawkers. We'll never know what hit us.