Dinah Lord

Want to Pledge allegiance to your flag?

In this Vermont School you'll have to leave the room.  Wouldn't want to offend the Commie American haters now, would we?  (h/t The Patriot Room)

The brouhaha in the school began in September, when parent Ted Tedesco began circulating petitions calling for its return as a daily practice in the 19th-century schoolhouse, which has 55 children in grades kindergarten through six.

School officials agreed to resume the Pledge as a daily exercise, but not in the classroom.

“We don’t want to isolate children every day in their own classroom, or make them feel they’re different,” Principal Michaela Martin said.

Instead, starting last week, a sixth-grade student was assigned to go around to the four classrooms before classes started, gathering up anyone who wanted to say it and then walking them up creaky wooden steps to a second-floor gymnasium, where he led them in the Pledge. . . .

Somalia: Indian Navy sinks pirate ship

Thar she blows!

An Indian navy warship has sunk a Somali pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden, the world's most treacherous waterway, after the renegades threatened to attack the frigate.

The clash happened as pirates claimed to begin negotiations over a ransom for the Saudi super-tanker that was seized nearby on Saturday with two Britons aboard. The Sirius Star, which is carrying at least $100 million worth of oil, is the biggest ship ever to be hijacked.

INS Tabar, an Indian frigate dispatched last month to the area to protect the country's merchant fleet, sighted the pirate vessel late on Tuesday. Indian officers said they spotted pirates moving on the deck with rocket propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons.

"On repeated calls, the vessel's threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship," the Indian Navy said in a statement.

"INS Tabar retaliated in self defence and opened fire on the mother vessel.

"As a result of the firing by INS Tabar, fire broke out on the vessel and explosions were heard, possibly due to exploding ammunition that was stored on the vessel."

“From what we see in photographs the pirate vessel is completely destroyed,” a senior officer said.

Two speedboats were seen leaving the ship so it looks like the scurvy dogs will live to pirate another day.  Congrats to the INS Tabar.  They are doing a helluva job.

al-Zawahiri calls Obama a 'house negro'

but he hearts Malcolm X.

Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri is criticizing Barack Obama in a new message, calling him a demeaning racial term implying that the president-elect is a black American who does the bidding of whites.

Al-Zawahri says in an audio message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X. He calls Obama a "house negro."

The audio plays over still pictures of al-Zawahri, Malcolm X praying, and Obama with Jewish leaders.

In the first public al-Qaida comment about Obama's electoral victory, al-Zawahri adds that Obama's plan to shift troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.

The full text of his message (and it's a doozy) can be found below.  Read such interesting tidbits like:

First, a message of congratulations to the Muslim Ummah on the American people’s admission of defeat in Iraq. Although the evidence of America’s defeat in Iraq appeared years ago, Bush and his administration continued to be stubborn and deny the brilliant midday sun. If Bush has achieved anything, it is in his transfer of America’s disaster and predicament to his successor. But the American people, by electing Obama, declared its anxiety and apprehension about the future towards which the policy of the likes of Bush is leading it, and so it decided to support someone calling for withdrawal from Iraq.

Obama's granny celebrates.

(Not to be confused with the typical white grandmother, the one who raised him and whose funeral he skipped.)

Our fellow citizens at work...

How Obama got elected.  (h/t Hot Air)

The poll surveyed over 500 self-professed Obama voters and has an MOE of 4.4%, with 55% having a college degree and over 90% having a high-school diploma.  It asked 12 multiple-choice questions; only 2.4% got at least 11 correct. Only .5% got all them correct.

• 57.4 could NOT  correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by  guessing)
• 81.8 could NOT  correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25%  chance by guessing)
• 82.6 could NOT correctly say that Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
• 88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
• 56.1 % could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).And yet…..

• Only 13.7% failed to  identify Palin as the person their party spent $150,000 in clothes  on
• Only 6.2% failed to  identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
• And 86.9 % thought  that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though  that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Shocka! Hitler only had one ball.

And we don't mean tennis.

It was from a groin injury at the Battle of the Somme.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, "Balls, said the Queen.  If I had them I'd be King."

UK: Re-establishes intelligence links w/ Syria

Seems to me they are just inviting the wolf into the hen house...wonder how Lebanon is feeling right about now.

Britain re-established high-level intelligence links with the Syrian authorities as David Miliband made his landmark visit to Damascus yesterday, according to senior Syrian officials.

The move, first raised earlier this year at a meeting in New York between the Foreign Secretary and his Syrian counterpart, Walid Moualem, was a key objective of the Syrian visit. The newly revived intelligence relationship could be hugely beneficial to Britain. Syria is known to have one of the best intelligence-gathering systems in the Middle East, in particular in tracking the movements of Islamic extremists into Iraq and around the region.

Canada: Muslimas reach settlement w/ UPS

The infamous Canadian Human Rights Tribunal strikes again.  Remember when they tried to lynch Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant?  God help me, but I read this and the first thing that came to my mind was the phrase 'stupid bi&ches'

(h/t The Religion of Peace)

Eight Muslim women who filed a human rights complaint against the United Parcel Service (UPS) over the dress code have settled with the company.              

According to the Toronto Star, the case was heard before a Canadian Human Rights tribunal, Monday morning.  The terms of the settlement will not be released.

The women, all devout Muslims,  lost their jobs in 2005 because they refused to hike their skirts above the knee over their long pants.  They alleged discrimination.

UPS said the ankle-length skirts were a safety hazard as workers climb ladders up to six metres high.  (per Dinah:  this is where the stupid bi&ch part comes in)

A follow up to King Abdullah's interfaith conference

Saudi Arabia:  Asian immigrant sentenced to cleaning mosques for skipping prayers.

A Saudi civil court has ordered an Asian immigrant to clean mosques next month during this year's Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca after religious police caught him skipping Friday prayers several times, Saudi daily al-Watan reports. The man will have to clean five mosques along the highway into Mecca twice daily for eleven days, the court ruled.

The Ministry of Islamic Affairs will be tasked with checking if the immigrant obeys the court order. If he fails to do so, the court has warned that he will be tried before a criminal court.

Canadian Muslim sentenced for firebombing Jewish School. 

Azim Ibragimov, 25, pleaded guilty earlier this year to firebombing the Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys School in Outremont in 2006 and attempting to attack the Snowdon YM-YWHA (Young Men's–Young Women's Hebrew Association) the following year.

He also pleaded guilty to uttering threats in the form of letters that claimed the crimes were committed in the name of Islamic Jihad, a militant group that vows to destroy Israel and set up an Islamic Palestinian state.  The letters also hinted there were more incidents to come.

The arson attack was racist and hateful and amounted to terrorism, Quebec Judge Gilles Cadieux said in his long ruling issued Monday at the Montreal courthouse. Ibragimov has 10 months left to serve, given the time he has already spent in detention and then will be on probation for three years. His defence lawyer had requested a suspended sentence.  (outrageous says Dinah.)

Pakistanis arrest 2 Christian boys for blasphemy.

Toba Tek Singh police arrested two Christian boys from a village in Gojra tehsil on charges of blasphemy on Tuesday, a private TV channel reported. According to the channel, Rasheed Masih and Babu Masih had been charged in March 2007 with desecrating posters carrying the name of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The police had registered a case under Section 295-c of the Pakistan Penal Code against them after riots broke out in the town and the houses of some Christians were also attacked. However, the two boys had not been arrested until now.

Somalia: Tanker arrives in Haradheere

No surprise, the Pirates are all hopped up on khat. This makes for challenging negotiations, I'm sure.  Like negotiating with a meth addict.

The Guardian.

Residents of Harardheere reported seeing two dhows sail out towards the captured tanker yesterday. About 18 men boarded, carrying food and qat, the narcotic leaf chewed by many Somali men.

Meanwhile the shipping company awaits to be contacted by the Pirates.

The Herald

A statement issued by Salah Kaaki, president of Vela International Marine Ltd, the vessel's owner, said: "Our first and foremost priority is ensuring the safety of the crew.

"We are in communication with their families and are working towards their safe and speedy return.

"Vela continues to monitor the situation and co-ordinate with the relevant embassies at this time. Vela is awaiting further contact from the pirates in control of the vessel."

As the price of oil goes up a dollar on news of the ship's capture.

Daily Mail

But the danger of these modern-day brigands goes far beyond a jump in oil prices.