Apple, the Apple logo, and Mac are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Made on a Mac Badge is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., used with permission.
Times of London automotive columnist Jeremy Clarkson pans this clunker mercilessly: “A lot of people in the trendier bits of America are now switching to the godawful Toyota Prius.”
“So: it’s not beautiful, it’s not fast, it’s not particularly economical, it’s not desperately safe, and now it turns out it isn’t even bullet-proof.”
h/t: Glib and Superficial
Previous related posts:
Print This Post
South Asian-owned jewellery stores in the Greater Toronto area have been hit by a series of heists. The latest robbery featured a new disguise. Since the get-up was so successful, other crooks may use the same trick.
Abdul Rasheed Khalid was alone in his Brampton jewellery store filling the display cases with yellow gold rings and necklaces when two people, one wearing a head-to-toe black burqa, appeared outside his locked door."Salamu alaikum," the 58-year-old store owner said after pushing the entry buzzer, believing them to be a Muslim couple. There was no reply, and seconds later the pair — both males — forced him at gunpoint to the back office where he was bound with duct tape and hit several times. Then his store was cleaned out.
"Keep quiet, keep quiet, close your eyes," they said, while emptying the red velvet trays into duffel bags carried by an accomplice. Khalid caught a glimpse of the crooks. He thinks they were Pakistani or Indian.
The store is located in the same strip mall as a Peel Region police station. Police say they're doing everything they can to crack the cases and recover the stolen merchandise.
Mr Khalid's son-in-law, Imram Ahmad, suspects that young malcontents from the South Asian community are responsible for the robberies.
h/t: Dust My Broom
Previous related post: Terror suspect eluded police by wearing a veil
Print This Post
A few days ago, I blogged a new book showing that religious conservatives donate far more time and money to charitable causes than do secular liberals. The book, entitled Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, is written by Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University, who does not consider himself a friend of the “religious right” or even a conservative.
The book’s shattering of widespread misperceptions and stereotypes is already causing quite a stir. In a recent National Post column, David Frum discussed results from a few of the surveys covered by Dr Brooks.
By virtually every measure, political conservatives are demonstrably more generous, more honest and more public-spirited than political liberals.
. . .
A third survey found that people who believe that the government "spends too much on welfare" were more likely to give directions to someone on the street, return extra change to a cashier, or to give food or money to a homeless person.A fourth found that a poor family that worked for its income donated three times as much money as a family that received an exactly equal income from welfare.
It's almost a psychological rule: The more you espouse "compassion" in your politics, the more likely you are to be selfish in your personal behaviour.
A column by Dr Brooks, published at the CBS News site last April, argues that the old saying, “Anyone who is not a socialist before age 30 has no heart, while anyone who is still a socialist after 30 has no head”, is flat-out wrong.
Consider two groups of people under age 30: those who say they are liberal or extremely liberal, and those who say they are conservative or extremely conservative. According to General Social Survey in 2004, liberal young Americans are significantly less likely than the young conservatives to express a willingness to sacrifice for their loved ones. For example, progressives under 30 are significantly less likely than young right-wingers to say they would prefer to suffer rather than let the one they love suffer, that they are not happy unless the loved one is happy, or that they would sacrifice their own wishes for the one they love. (The practical implication of this is that you might want your daughter to marry a Republican.)
Young liberals were also far less likely than young conservatives to be involved in community organisations, give money to charities, or donate blood.
David Frum’s column is also posted at the American Enterprise Institute.
h/t: Acton Institute PowerBlog
Previous related posts:
Print This Post
Malaysian Muslims are so hypersensitive about religious conversions that those who become Christians live secret, double lives—sometimes for decades. Viewed as apostates and threats to Islam, they live in fear of being found out. If discovered, their families will probably cut them off, and they could lose their jobs, be physically attacked, or dragged into court.
"If people know that I've converted to Christianity, they might take the law into their own hands. If they are not broadminded, they might take a stone and throw it at me."Maria - not her real name - is a young Malaysian woman who has lived a secret and sometimes fearful life since she converted from Islam to Christianity.
Apostasy, as it is known, has become one of the most controversial issues in Malaysia today.
Maria became a Christian over a decade ago when she was 18. She says no-one forced her to convert, that she made the decision after studying different religious texts.
Christian converts can be dangerous for the church, too. If a church is believed to have encouraged or in any way suggested that a Muslim change religion, local mobs could destroy the building and attack congregants. Thus, the priest who baptised Maria did not issue her a baptismal certificate and asked her to sign a statement that the church “is not responsible” for her embracing the Lord Jesus.
"My church says if the authorities come, they are not going to stand up for me. I have to stand up for myself," she said.
Maria wants to marry her boyfriend who is also a Christian, but that is impossible. Because she is still officially a Muslim, they cannot marry unless he converts to Islam. Maria’s family, whom she has not informed of her faith in Christ, is pressuring him to do exactly that.
Previous related posts:
Print This Post
Paul Goodman, Conservative MP for High Wycombe, made a very wise and learned speech in the British House of Commons last week on the problem radical Islam presents to the United Kingdom. He drew a perceptive analogy between moderate Muslims and the democratic nationalist movement in Northern Ireland that I, for one, found very illuminating.
The leadership of the Muslim community that I know best, in High Wycombe, is moderate and sensible. The community makes a huge contribution to the town. It is well integrated into both the main political parties and it produced the first Conservative Asian mayor in the country - Mohammed Razzaq-in the 1980s. However, it is clear that nationally, and especially among the alienated young, the moderates are not making the running; the Islamists are making the running. The moderates are in a position strikingly similar to that of the Social Democratic and Labour party in Northern Ireland, which has, in the past 15 years, been outpaced, outwitted and outsmarted by Sinn Fein-IRA, with consequences that are still fully to be seen. Deferring the debate further will only allow this process to continue. When it finally takes place, which it will, it will probably be noisier and nastier than would otherwise have been the case. It is essential that the moderates grasp that the main threat of the Islamists is as much to them as to anyone else.
Mr Goodman’s speech has apparently not been reported in the British media, which I find puzzling. It deserves to be read, and pondered, widely.
h/t: Cranmer
Print This Post
John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail lays into Canadians who reject wearing of burqas while turning a blind eye to bias against women on native Indian reserves. Customs practiced on reserves are said to be aboriginal cultural traditions and therefore sacrosanct. Burqas have been defended as a Muslim cultural tradition, but the critics say they demean women. Yet, one could easily argue that systemic legal disadvantages suffered by women on reserves are even more demeaning.
[O]n reserves, the band council typically decides who gets what once a marriage ends. This is a horribly flawed process, not least because council members could be family or friends (or enemies) of either or both the husband and the wife, and unable to judge dispassionately.Although private property is prohibited on reserve, very often the house that the couple were living in is registered in the man's name, which can be enough to force the woman to move. This can happen even if there is evidence that the wife was abused by the husband. It can even happen if the children must move out with the wife.
. . .
There is a fascinating double standard here. Feminists on the left are dangerously flirting with anti-multiculturalists on the right by insisting that Muslim women assert their equality by showing their faces.But for decade after decade, these same crusaders have allowed native women to suffer abusive husbands, parochial band councils and a culture that too often claims to celebrate the maternal while acting like an old boy's club.
Why? Because those outside aboriginal culture are loathe to impose their values on it. But wearing a burka — now that's going too far.
Canadian feminists have insisted that Muslim women living in Canada refuse to wear burqas, and yet have ignored long-standing oppression of women on aboriginal reserves. Mr Ibbitson calls that hypocrisy. Who wouldn’t?
I agree with him on that, but I am puzzled by his use of the word “dangerously” in this sentence:
Feminists on the left are dangerously flirting with anti-multiculturalists on the right by insisting that Muslim women assert their equality by showing their faces.
Why exactly is it dangerous for leftist feminists to “flirt” with anti-multiculturalists? He doesn’t say. One wonders if saying that it’s dangerous to associate oneself with rightists is just John Ibbotson’s way of declaring his own leftist credentials.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I think multiculturalism is a bad idea in theory and an egregious idea in practice. Still, I do not consider it dangerous or unsettling to find myself in agreement with feminists about particular manifestations of multiculturalist dogma.
Yesterday, a Globe and Mail editorial called a UN report “blinkered” for espousing the extreme multiculturalist view that no culture is better than any other. Today, in that same newspaper, John Ibbitson claims that muticulturalism has gone too far in Canada. What’s going on at the Globe and Mail?
For access to the full column, click here.
Previous related posts:
Print This Post
Posts
