Snapshots of the world:
~From Politico:
On Friday evening, the White House was glowing with pride.
The Obama administration bathed the north side of the executive mansion in rainbow-colored light to celebrate the Supreme Court's Friday ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed a constitutional right to same-sex marriage across America...
According to a White House official, the lighting was done "to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to progress and equality, here in America and around the world. The pride colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community, and tonight, these colors celebrate a new chapter in the history of American civil rights."
While most expected President Obama and other Democratic politicians to celebrate the ruling — he called it "a victory for America" in a valedictory Rose Garden speech — the decision for a White House light show came as a surprise around dinnertime Friday, though the White House had dropped hints all morning.
~Meanwhile on the outskirts of Lyon:
Near Mr. Salhi's destroyed vehicle they found a decapitated body on the ground with a knife nearby, and on the plant's gate, the severed head and a cloth with the Muslim declaration of faith written on it: "There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet..."
Mr. Molins described the victim as a 54-year-old man who lived in the area and who had employed Mr. Salhi in March.
~But don't get distracted by any of that Mohammed stuff. There's no Islam to see here - or in the Boston Marathon bombing. Just ask US Attorney Carmen Ortiz:
"The punishment that was rendered by the jury appropriately fitted the crime, a crime of terrorism, a crime that was not religiously motivated..."
Later, Ortiz said of Tsarnaev, "He didn't renounce terrorism. He didn't renounce violent extremism, and he couched his comments in line with Allah, and Allah's views, which give it a religious tone, and there was nothing, as you heard judge O'Toole say in the courtroom, there was nothing about this crime that was Islam-associated..."
She also responded to a question about Tsarnaev's references to Allah, Mohammed, and the Koran, with "That is a skewed view of the religion of Islam. That is not what Islam is all about, and so when individuals utilize that, it is a radicalized view, that ideology. It's a radical ideology, which really isn't at the heart of what is truly a peaceful and loving religion."
~But enough about this peaceful and loving religion. Back to the League of Violent Extremism. The bad news is that dozens of western tourists were shot dead lying on their sunbeds on a Tunisian beach. The good news is it's nothing to do with Islam. Just ask renowned Islamic scholar David al Cameron:
He says this terrorism is "not in the name of Islam. Islam is a religion of peace." The killers, rather, "do it in the name of a twisted, perverted ideology."
~Speaking of twisted, perverted ideologies, in Cameron's Britain, you can get a subsidy for that!
Each year Anjem Choudary earns more in benefits than a soldier does starting off in our armed forces. This is a fact I never tire of pointing out – especially to Anjem's face whenever we have the misfortune to meet. The follow-on point, which I think also worth continuing to make, is that there is something suicidal about a society that rewards its enemies better than it does its defenders.
~In other news, following the landmark Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, Seth MacFarlane made the first ceremonial career-detonating gay-marriage Tweet. And not just any old Tweet, but "the Douchiest Tweet", which I believe is a new category in the Golden Globes. As the Financial Express reporter primly tutted:
While MacFarlane and many others may see the huge decision as a joke, the gay community has struggled for a long time, even risking their lives for the right to be treated as equals.
Just as violence is nothing to do with Islam, so comedy is nothing to do with gays, got it?
Who was that lady I saw you with last night?
That was no lady, that was Caitl...
That's not funny!
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to his wedding recep...
That's not funny!
So an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar, and say, 'Is this the right way to the courthouse? We're late for our polygamy appeal.'
That's not funny!
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Allah.
Allah who?
...Akbar! [KA-BOOM!]
That's not funny, and it's nothing to do with Islam!
~George Orwell in a famous passage from 1984:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy.
Two plus two equals five. A severed head plus "Allahu Akbar!" equals "Nothing to do with Islam." Network screenings of Gone With The Wind plus Uncle Ben's rice equals blatant incitement to mass murder. A nice chichi gay couple at 27 Elm Street and a firebreathing imam and his four child brides at 29 Elm Street equals the social harmony of a multiculti utopia.
Where is this story headed? The warriors of the caliphate divide the planet into the dar al Islam and the dar al harb - the house of war. In reality, it's a struggle between the dar al Islam and the dar al Gay: Liberty in the fin de civilisation west means sexual liberty and nothing else - which is why one consequence of yesterday's decision is that freedom of expression and freedom of religion will increasingly be confined to what Justice Alito called the deepest recesses of your home.
Yet one particular demographic is ever more aggressively assertive in the name of its religion, even as prime ministers and federal prosecutors deny any such thing. So today, in Oklahoma as in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, you get up in the morning, go to work, and wind up decapitated. Oh, don't worry, it's a low risk - for the moment. And, unlike with "homophobic" bakers and florists, the implicit threat of violence ensures plenty of preemptive concessions.
Since 9/11, every western nation has dramatically accelerated Muslim immigration: "Islam is a religion of peace" isn't just a meaningless platitude, they live it.
Yet ultimately you can be either a gay-wedding society or a semi-Islamized society. By choosing both, the west will tear itself apart - and in the end it's the Islamic imperialists who have the less shaky relationship with "the very existence of external reality". What Marx called the internal contradictions of capitalism have nothing on those of "diversity".
And so the leader of the free world lights the White House LGBT as the tourist corpses are removed from their sunbeds.
~On the Hugh Hewitt show on Thursday I was scoffing at Obama's inability to use social media as effectively as ISIS, but boy, when it comes to modifying your avatar, he's right on top of it:
The White House also changed the default picture on its Twitter account to an image of the White House filled in with rainbow colors.
Good to know there's something they're on top of. And, notwithstanding their successes with the US Army website, ISIS were sufficiently respectful not to hack in and replace the new emblem with Jihadi John singing "I Can Singe A Rainbow".
~Still, we must try to stay positive in these difficult times. Tonight at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific, I'll be on C-SPAN's Book TV, talking about climate change. Michael E Mann and the gang will no doubt be accusing C-SPAN of being part of the #KochScaifeFossilFuelDenialMachine, so I hope you'll tune in. There's a repeat broadcast on Sunday night/Monday morning at 4am Eastern/1am Pacific, for all you insomniac deniers.
