saturday crumbs

I don't know of many people who need bodyguards to protect them from Christian extremists.

Via Hot Air by way of LGF.

And I am a big fan of Laura Ingram by the way. She should get her own tv show.
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Want to feel uncomfortable? Check out the five worst online dating videos. As a single woman, I almost can't watch. Well, at least they are kind of famous now. Money quote: "No one’s saying that some people don’t deserve love. But for some people you just get the feeling that given the opportunity they might squeeze love a little too tight and kill it."
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The NYT endorses John McCain just as the Senator from my home state hires Juan Hernandez, an open-borders advocate. A few comments on statements from the NYT editorial:

We have shuddered at Mr. McCain’s occasional, tactical pander to the right because he has demonstrated that he has the character to stand on principle.

So the fact that someone stands on the ideals of the right means they have no principles? I guess only when they go against what the NYT editors think is the truth.

He was an early advocate for battling global warming and risked his presidential bid to uphold fundamental American values in the immigration debate.

Don't get me started on global warming (hey - I recycle and have a programmable thermostat), but when did we all decide on what we believed about the immigration debate? Amnesty did not work in 1986 and it will be even worse now. If we let anyone into the United States, then how can we prevent criminals or terrorists from crossing the border? Michelle Malkin follows the Hernandez story and makes my point.

things that scare me

Europe without basic freedoms could become our problem. An excerpt from Native Revolt: A European Declaration of Independence, a blog at The Brussels Journal.

Although the EU warns against "Islamophobia," those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the Middle East are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries.

This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as "crime," but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given "hunting licence," granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims. It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up about 10% of the population in France, they make up an estimated 70% of French prison inmates.

Read the whole thing, even if it is hard to stomach at times. Hattip Instapundit, and he has as associated book recommendation as well.

Violence against women is another big concern of mine. For the most part I feel like I can protect myself and that I live in a fairly safe environment, but I've had training and plenty of studly man friends. I'm no feminist, but you would think they would be up in arms about this kind of thing. Evan Coyne Maloney agrees:

A Saudi woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped and then beaten by her brother has been sentenced to 90 lashes — for meeting a man who was not a relative.
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In the 1980s, scores of activists and celebrities spoke out quite publicly against the racial aparthied system in South Africa. But today, an apartheid of gender exists throughout much of the Middle East, and these activists are largely silent.

Associated article from MSN here.

If you value your free speech and basic freedoms, do not let these issues fall through the cracks, because when we realize that the problem is bigger than we thought, it may be too late.