The face of a true massacre, one which the world has seen fit not to protest. One which does not tempt British academics and Canadian unions into boycotts. One which does not stir the United Nations into investigating, or Terje Larsen into decrying.,

It’s the Tiananmen Square massacre. You cannot watch this without being outraged. (H/T: Instapundit.)

How do you listen to your CDs?

A very long time ago, a friend taught me a brilliant rule to follow for whether or not you buy a CD: If you like three songs, you will probably like the CD. If you like fewer than three songs, you won’t like the rest of the CD. I’ve found that rule to be pretty much foolproof. I also tend to be very picky with the CDs that I actually buy. Well, and then there’s the obsessive part of my sometimes obessive-compulsive behavior: I have, on more than one occasion, gotten so enamoured of a song/artist/CD that I’ve gone out with minutes to spare before closing time just to buy a CD from the record store. The last time I got that obessed, I discovered that a local music store stocked the CD that I wanted, and went there on my way home from work that day.

In any case. I tend to listen to an entire CD, from beginning to end. If I’m listening in my car (I tape them; I never got a CD player for the Jeep, what with it being a super-easy target for thieves), I will rewind the tape to the first song if it isn’t already there. And sometimes, I get out of the car and pop the CD into the player at home and start it exactly where the tape left off.

Do you listen to your CDs in order? Or are you a shuffler?

I’m planning on getting an iPod, but I don’t think I can ever really be a shuffler. When I hear one song by an artist, I tend to want to hear more songs by that artist.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed that this seems to be true for all folk music CDs I own, but only about half the rock CDs. The three-song rule works for the harder stuff, but I confess there are more than a few songs that I skip on my rock CDs, and almost none on the folk CDs.

So. How do you listen to your music? Are you a serial musicologist, or do you flutter from group to group?

This week’s Shire Network News is up. My topic is the one I expanded upon in this post: The academic boycott of Israel by people who are using the model that was deemed unacceptable for the South African boycott — which they pretend to emulate.

Haveil Havalim is at Jack’s Shack this week. That is a really cool name. Y’know, nothing very fun rhymes with Meryl. Beryl? Big deal, a gem.

The Carnival of the Cats is at TacJammer.

And all is well with the world, because after extensive searching, I have found the author of that haunting song One Life To Live played during Todd’s execution. It is “Forsaken (Todd’s Song)”, compossed and sung by Michal Towber. Hey, OLTL producers: Get it onto a CD. Fast. I wasn’t the only one asking for it.

And to think, I was about to give up. Ha. I still got it.

I can tell you now that since the day when that “fanatic terrorist group” attacked in Damascus I was in the state of unbearable tension. The silence of official Damascus was deafening and worrying.

But all is well that ends well, and today we can start breathing normally, all services are resumed. We got the word via Al Jazeera finally.

US, Israel blamed for Syria attack.

The accusation came a day after security forces were reported by Syrian media and officials to have fought Muslim fighters near the defense ministry in a gun battle that left four insurgents and a police officer dead.

No worries, folks, the Elders are at your service.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

I have been looking at the CNN article Toronto terror plot foiled — Canada, and something bothered me for a while.

TORONTO, Ontario (CNN) — Canadian police said on Saturday they had halted a “real and serious” terror threat in and around Toronto. Twelve men and five youths said to have been inspired by al Qaeda were arrested in the operation involving hundreds of officers, authorities said. The group was “planning to commit a series of terrorist attacks against solely Canadian targets in southern Ontario,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said at a news conference.

It was difficult to put a finger on the source of that vague discomfort.

• Was it the mention of Canada in conjunction with Toronto in the headline? Hardly, after all geography is not the strongest point of an average US citizen, so the editor, probably, just decided to make sure.
• Was it the fact that, aside of participating in policing Afghanistan, Canada is a very PC country and steadfastly refused to join US in Iraq? After all, why bomb them? But, after some thought, I have discarded this one too.
• Was it the picture of that suspect’s curly hair, pointing out his “Middle Eastern appearance”? Nah…

And then I got it. It is very simple, one has only to connect the dots. It is Ontario!

CUPE in Ontario votes to boycott Israel.

The Ontario division of Canada’s largest union has voted to support an international campaign that is boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. Delegates to the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario convention in Ottawa voted overwhelmingly Saturday to support the campaign until it sees Israel recognizing the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. The Ontario group represents more than 200,000 workers.

Besides the utter stupidity of the reason for that boycott (after all, Israel has recognized the Palestinians’ right to self-determination quite a few years ago), the question that intrigues me now is: what is the cross-section between the 200,000 workers and these “Twelve men and five youths” from the previous news item?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Is it possible that Europeans are finally coming to their senses?

New public opinion surveys conducted among “opinion elites” in Europe show that support for the Palestinians has fallen precipitously, according to a leading international pollster, Stan Greenberg.

Now, let’s think. What could possibly be changing the mind of the European elites?

He singled out France as the country where attitudes had changed most dramatically. Three years ago, 60 percent of French respondents said they took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of that 60%, four out of five backed the Palestinians. Today, by contrast, 60% of French respondents did not take a side in the conflict, and support for the Palestinians had dropped by half among those who did express a preference.

Greenberg said the figures were still being finalized, and so did not go into further details. But shifts such as these, he said, represented “an incredible pace of change,” with significant consequences.

What was it that happened in France to change their minds? Here’s hint: Muslim “youths” rioting. And it turns out that this may well have been the wake-up call that Europe needed:

At the root of the change, said Greenberg, was a fundamental remaking in Europe of the “framework” through which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed.

Three years ago, he said, the conflict was perceived “in a post-colonial framework.”

There was a sense “that Europe could cancel out its own colonial history by taking the ‘right’ side” - the Palestinian side. Yasser Arafat was viewed as “an anti-colonial, liberation leader.” The US was seen as a global imperial power, added Greenberg, and the fact that it was backing Israel only added to the “instinctive” sense of the Palestinians as victims.

[...] Today, by contrast, the Europeans “are focused on fundamentalist Islam and its impact on them,” he said. The Europeans were now asking themselves “who is the moderate in this conflict, and who is the extremist? And suddenly it is the Palestinians who may be the extremists, or who are allied with extremists who threaten Europe’s own society.”

An increasing proportion of Europeans are concluding that “maybe the Palestinians are not the colonialist victims” after all.

The funniest thing in the article? Greenberg was so shocked by the change in numbers that he did some of the poll again, to make sure he wasn’t wrong.

I think the constant attacks by Muslims on Western nations, and the constant discovery of Muslim citizens of Western nations willing to blow up their fellow citizens because of “the treatment of Muslims worldwide” — always the reason they give for killing innocent Westerners — is finally making Europe realize that there is a threat within its borders. And that threat is not the Jews.