You’ve got to be carefully taught: Hamas television urges kids to hate and kill Jews

May 6, 2014 • 5:52 am
This is the kind of disgusting human behavior I had to face this morning. As you may know, Palestinian television regularly not only glorifies terrorists and encouragesof hatred of Israel and the Jews (they’re not the same, you know), but also does that to children. It’s pure indoctrination of young minds to hate those who are different. Here, for example is one children’s show, described to me by Malgorzata (one of Hili’s staff and co-publisher of the rationalist site Listy):
This is a daily children’s program in Gaza Strip in Hamas’ TV. Nahul is a puppet who talks to kids, and the presenters are a bit older kids. The Internet is full of those films. There were different animal-puppets over the years. Some were “killed by Jews”. You can just type into google “Hamas TV for children”. I made quite a lot of Polish subtitles to those films.
In this episode, two young girls are indoctrinated by the moderator and a giant plush bee to say that they want to “kill all the Jews”:
And here’s another one, explained by MEMRI:
MEMRI TV brings you the latest death cult children’s propaganda from Hamas, the episode of Pioneers of Tomorrow in which the evil killer bee Nahoul dies, because Israel prevented him from getting treatment for some unspecified giant bee disease. This leads to his replacement by Assud, the giant Jew-eating rabbit.
That’s not an exaggeration; watch the bit for yourself:

These clips were from a kids’ show called “Tomorrow’s Pioneers“,which apparently ended in 2009 (before that, Disney forced them to stop using a Mickey-Mouse character who egged on terrorists). But the damage is done, and, as I’ve shown before, there are similar programs indoctrinating children still being shown throughout the Middle East.

Here’s one of them—an equally odious children’s show from April of last year:

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Want more? Here are two small girls (they can’t be more than six), reciting a poem of hatred on Palestinian t.v.
A bit of it:

“Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations
Oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs,”

Now this is the Muslim equivalent of what misguided people call Islamophobia. But this is true “Judeo-phobia,” (also known as anti-Semitism), expressed not as hatred of religious doctrine, but  hatred of people—Jewish ones.

To try to be even-handed, I asked Malgorzata if there was equivalent propaganda on Israeli t.v. Her response was this:

Nothing even close to it. On Israeli TV, Arabs are presented as normal people. There is a collection of videos from Palestinian and Israeli TV showing the difference in presentation with a reward for anybody who could show a program from Israeli TV which is as hateful as those from Palestinian TV and vice versa. Nobody came for the reward. There just isn’t.

This is reprehensible, and I’d claim that anyone who thinks this kind of indoctrination is okay is also reprehensible. I need hardly say, for I’ve said it before, that Israel shoulders its share of blame for the failure to achieve peace in the Middle East. But what you can’t say is that Israel use the organs of government to teach children religiously-based hatred and a suicide death cult. This indoctrination just propagates the hatred that makes peace impossible. Remember, too, that Hamas’s charter mandates the complete elimination of Israel.

If this kind of program wsas shown on American t.v., say on children’s shows urging kids to kill Muslims, or Christians, or Jews, or Russians, or anybody else, there would be a huge uproar, and people would demand its cessation. It would be deemed child abuse and the promulgation of unremitting hatred. Imagine if Barney the Purple Dinosaur got little kids to say not only that they wanted to “kill all the Jews,” but that they were eager to do so, replacing other “martyrs”!

So why the silence when these things are inculcated in Muslim children? he double standard, of course. If Islam is largely a “death cult,” it’s this kind of stuff, straight from the Qur’an, that creates it.

 

Readers’ wildlife photographs with bonus big-cat petting

May 6, 2014 • 4:45 am

Reader Stephen Barnard has again favored us with some bird photos, but is scrupulously honest about them:

Photographers call this kind of shot “Spray and pray” — multiple shots at a high frequency, hoping that one will be good. I’m amused when someone comments, “Good timing.” It’s not easy to lock on to the focus.

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 Red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus):

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After I expressed my wish to pet a big cat, two readers wrote in recounting their own experiences doing so, and telling me how to do it. I’m grateful for this, but of course would like reassurance that these facilities are on the up-and-up, that the animals aren’t raised for hunting, are taken good care of, and so on. Lion belly rubs!

Here is some information and a photo sent by reader Colin:

I noticed that petting lion cubs is very high up on your bucket list. I know where you can make this happen, as I made it happen a few months ago. I was doing field work in South Africa, in the Kalahari dessert. We stayed in a town called Kimberley. Near there was a place called the Felidae Centre, where they keep lions and other animals to prevent them from Can Hunting (a horrible practice where rich foreigners buy cubs, bottle feed them, then return years later to shoot them). For a very small fee ($10) you get to partake in a tour of the facility. One of the first things you get to do is per a caracal, cheetah, and lion cub! It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and if you want to knock this off your bucket list, I can’t recommend this place enough. I have attached photographic proof of my claims!

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And from reader Joe Dickenson:

Responding to your recent post about lion cubs, here are some shots from a “Walk With the Lions” at a private game reserve in Zimbabwe near Victoria Falls.  These supposedly are orphaned cubs being rehabilitated.  That’s me in the first photo.  And, as a bonus, you can visit the falls.

This looks a bit dangerous to me, for those “cubs” are big.

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Tuesday: Hili dialogues

May 6, 2014 • 3:12 am

Tuesday is the cruelest day, but we have TWO Hili dialogues (the second one, a groaner, is in English only). HIli is on the local well:

A: What are you looking for on this well?
Hili: A good way to get down.

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In Polish:
Ja: Czego szukasz na tej studni?
Hili: Dobrego sposobu jak zejść na ziemię.
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A short story about three wells.
Hili: Well, well, well, what a beautiful bush.
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More on the Town of Greece v Galloway decision

May 5, 2014 • 10:14 am

If you want a quick-and-dirty, but informative, take on this morning’s execrable 5-4 Supreme Court decision allowing municipal prayers in Greece, New York, read the analysis at Religion Clause, a site devoted to church-state issues. It breaks down the justices’ decisions (there was a lot of dissent, even among the majority), while avoiding editorializing. We can do that later. (I haven’t yet read the decisions and dissents.)

The most frightening thing on there, though, was this (my emphasis):

An opinion by Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, explained their refusal to join Part II-B of Justice Kennedy’s opinion. They argued that the Establishment Clause should not be seen as being applicable to the states.

Do we need to remind Scalia, who is an “originalist” (i.e., one who adheres to what he sees as the original intent of the U.S. Constitution’s writers), what the Establishment Clause is? It’s at the beginning of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Under what interpretation is that not applicable to the states? Are Scalia and Thomas saying that although Congress can’t have make an established religion, or prohibit exercise of some religions, or prohibit freedom of the press, the states can? 
That’s insane. I look forward to reading their opinions; this is going to be juicy.
h/t: Amy

 

My New Republic piece on bungled executions (and a related radio interview)

May 5, 2014 • 8:49 am

My piece on Oklahoma’s botched execution of Clayton Lockett has been heavily rewritten, combined with some other stuff, and published by The New Republic as “The three-drug death penalty cocktail is a mess.” (It takes about 2.5 hours to rewrite a website post for a column.)

If you love Professor Ceiling Cat, who has hearts on his boots, go over and give it a click, engaging in discussion if you’d like.

Oh, and I’ll be discussing this piece (and the morality of executions) on WDEL talk radio (Delaware) at about 11:45 Chicago time (12:45 p.m. Eastern time and 5:45 p.m. London time); you can listen live here (click on “Listen Now!” at upper left). It’ll be only a 4-5 minute interview, and the start time may be off a few minutes.

“Tear down this wall, Mr. Justice Roberts”: Supreme Court allows prayer in town meetings

May 5, 2014 • 7:52 am

I dreaded this decision but didn’t have a lot of hope for any other result: the Supreme Court just allowed the town of Greece, in upstate New York, to begin its council meeting with a prayer. The rationale: “it’s traditional.”  The vote was the usual 5-4, and, if you know your Court, you can guess with 100% accuracy who voted on each side.

This just happened this morning, but the New York Times reports:

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a town in upstate New York may begin its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision, said “ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond that authority of government to alter or define.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.”

Town officials said that members of all faiths, and atheists, were welcome to give the opening prayer. In practice, the federal appeals court in New York said, almost all of the chaplains were Christian.

The pervasive Christianity of those prayers was the reason why the appeals court overruled the city of Greece, but the Supreme Court then overruled the appeals court.

The appeals court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, agreed that the 1983 decision [a ruling that the Nebraska legislature could open its sessions with prayers] did not govern the case before it.

“A substantial majority of the prayers in the record contained uniquely Christian language,” Judge Guido Calabresi wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the court. “Roughly two-thirds contained references to ‘Jesus Christ,’ ‘Jesus,’ ‘Your Son’ or the ‘Holy Spirit.’”

Welcome to the theocracy! All I can suggest now is that atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Pastafarians, and Satanists flood the legislature with prayers. Of course, that won’t happen because the prayers are almost always offered by either members of the elected body or their official chaplains.

This Supreme Court has done more to obstruct progress in this country than even the Senate and House. And of course members like Alito and Roberts were chosen for just that purpose.

When I think about how thin the evidence for a god is—much less the Christian God—and how often its existence is nevertheless rammed down our throats by the faithful, I am sickened. It’s not a good day today.