That Charlie Hebdo Satirists Should Die for 'Offensive' Speech is an Outrage

At USA Today, "Paris slaughter can't silence free expression: Our view":

Cartoonists are not ordinarily people you'd think of as threatening. Their most dangerous weapon is rapier wit, artistically aimed to provoke thought. But for the thin-skinned, the intolerant and the arrogant, mockery stings more than an acid bath.

So on Wednesday, in an act of primitive brutality, Islamist radicals angered by the work of four cartoonists simply murdered them, along with other journalists and bystanders at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The satirists might be unlikely heroes, but they are heroes nevertheless — martyrs to that most fundamental of Western values, the right to free expression, which they chose to exercise despite threats and a firebombing just three years ago that might have muted others.

Their form of speech was not the easiest to defend. Like other satirical publications, Charlie Hebdo aims to be offensive, and it succeeds. The newspaper regularly mocks politicians and religious leaders of all types, including Catholics and Jews. Muslim radicals have been a recurring target.

A decade ago, Charlie republished a collection of Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed that had set off worldwide riots. Muslims sued for blasphemy and lost.

In 2011, a cover renamed the magazine Charia Hebdo, a play on sharia, or Islamic law, and said the issue was edited by Mohammed. The firebombing followed.

Undeterred, Charlie Hebdo set off an uproar again in 2012...

Keep reading.

One Suspect Surrenders to French Police: Two Others Remain at Large #CharlieHebdo

I saw conflicting reports on Twitter earlier suggesting that one of the jihadists had been killed.

But not according to the Wall Street Journal, "Charlie Hebdo Office in Paris Attacked by Gunmen; 12 Killed: Satirical Magazine Targeted in Past for Cartoons on Islam; Hollande Calls Shooting a Terror Attack":

PARIS—Masked gunmen stormed the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing at least a dozen people and decimating a newsroom that long took pride in defying the outrage—and death threats—stirred by its caricatures lampooning Islam.

The rampage shocked a nation that has been living in dread of reprisal attacks since joining the fight against Islamist insurgents in Africa and the Middle East. The attack—by gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles—triggered an outpouring of public anger at home and expressions of solidarity from around the world.

Three suspects, all Frenchmen, were identified late Wednesday, a police officer said. They are Said Kouachi, 34 years old; his brother Cherif Kouachi, 32; and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad.

Mr. Mourad turned himself in to police, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. French police released photos of the two other suspects, appealing to the public for information.

French authorities deployed a vast dragnet to search for the suspects. As part of the manhunt, special forces were mobilized Wednesday night in the city of Reims, about 100 miles east of Paris, to search an apartment, said the officer.

President François Hollande designated Thursday a day of mourning and said flags would be flown at half-staff for three days nationwide.

It is unclear whether the gunmen acted alone or were part of a broader organization. But they appeared to have planned the attack and to have been motivated by radical Islamist beliefs.

French television showed footage of two men wearing balaclavas leaving Charlie Hebdo’s offices shouting in French: “We have avenged Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie Hebdo.”

The gunmen also shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” according to a witness cited by Paris prosecutor François Molins.

The attack adds to already high terrorism concerns in Europe at a time when France and the U.K. are fighting alongside the U.S. against Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria. France has also deployed forces in the Sahara in a bid to crush radical groups there.

The shootings could reverberate more broadly across Europe, where anti-immigration politicians—including Marine Le Pen in France—are gaining popularity among voters hit by mass unemployment and a sense of social unraveling...

More.

French President François Hollande: 'This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt...' #CharlieHebdo

The French president did not hesitate to call out the attacks for the jihadist terror that they were, unlike U.S. President Barack Hussein. See, Andrew McCarthy, at Pajamas, "Why It’s So Hard for Obama to Call Terrorism Terrorism."

#CharlieHebdo Attack Proves Islamic State Projects Terror in the West

At IBD, "Paris Attack Proves IS Can Project Terror In West":

After well-armed Muslim terrorists struck the heart of Paris, killing at least 12 and wounding another 11, the Islamic State praised the attack and promised, "More will follow." The threat should be taken seriously.

In September, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned that his country's intelligence had captured several IS fighters who revealed a plot to attack transit systems in Paris and New York.

On Wednesday, it appears they hit one target, though it was the Paris office of a magazine that lampooned Muslim prophet Muhammad and not the city subway system. Still, the administration must get serious about defeating the Islamic State before it can project terrorism here on the same scale. This was not a lone-wolf attack. It cannot be written off by our leaders and the media's PC ostriches as a "one-off" act by a "deranged" individual.

It was by all accounts a professionally planned Mumbai-style attack involving a three-man cell brandishing semi-automatic weapons and wearing commando-style vests with extra magazine clips of ammo. Shouting "Allahu Akbar," the black-clad terrorists slaughtered at least 10 journalists, including cartoonists, and two police officers — one of whom was brutally shot in the head as he lay wounded in the street.

No group has formally taken credit. But less than an hour before the attack IS posted what appeared to be a related tweet. It was a picture depicting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of IS in Iraq, with a message wishing him "Best wishes." (One witness claimed to overhear one of the terrorists say they were al-Qaida in Yemen, but that's not been corroborated.)

After the attack, another IS leader gushed: "The lions of Islam have avenged our Prophet. These are our lions. It's the first drops — more will follow," he said, speaking via an Internet connection from Syria. "Let these crusaders be scared because they should be."

What we should be is angry. Not just with the terrorists, but with our leaders who have turned a blind eye to this growing Islamofascist menace. There's no mystery to these bloodthirsty bastards. They do what they say, and they do it in the name of Islam. Take them at their word. Stop ignoring the warnings they telegraph.

Neoconservative Douglas Murray: #CharlieHebdo Attack is a Threat to Each and Every One of Us

At Londons' Daily Mail, "A threat to every single one of us: The cold-blooded outrage in Paris is about our right to be free to express ourselves":

The cold-blooded outrage in Paris is not a story about one magazine or one country – and it is not just about freedom of the Press.

It is about the right of every single one of us to be free to express ourselves. And it is high time the nations of Europe woke up to how gravely that right is under threat.

Because what happened yesterday – though the most appalling incident of its kind yet – is in many ways far from unprecedented. It is just the latest chapter in a long, concerted campaign to shut down criticism and discussion of one religion, its founder and its teachings...

Hmm... "Shut down criticism"? That sounds familiar (see here and here).

But continue reading the great Douglas Murray.

VIDEO: How the Charlie Hebdo Attacks Unfolded

Via Telegraph UK:



And see, "War on freedom: France’s worst terrorist attack in a generation leaves 12 dead and shocks the world."

Kate Moss for Vogue Italia

Quick Rule 5 break between Paris jihad blogging.

At Egotastic!, "Kate Moss. Yep, still flaunting it at forty something, for Vogue Italia."

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Now THAT's life in the fast lane! Fashion icon Kate Moss kicks off 2015 modelling for motorcycle brand Matchless."

Zaid Jilani, Democrat Party 'Muslim Youth Activist', Cheers #CharlieHebdo Terrorists for 'Getting the Job Done...'

Leftists have been out of the gate with pro-jihad disinformation, exhortations, and propaganda.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Featured Muslim Youth Activist for Democratic Party Gloats Over Muslim Terror Skills."

16 Bold Covers from #CharlieHebdo

At Business Insider, via Louise Mensch:

Let's get this story trending. Absolute respect to @BusinessInsider today. http://t.co/3lMUW9zr59

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 7, 2015

.@BusInsiderAU BALLS OF STEEL you just put the entire Western media to shame. Aussie guts and glory FTW

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 7, 2015

16 bold covers from the satirical Paris magazine that was attacked today: http://t.co/LdUUziuHm3 pic.twitter.com/uf73DikV6d

— Harrison Jacobs (@Harrisonxjacobs) January 7, 2015

.@Harrisonxjacobs you, sir, are the most important voice that liberty had today, anywhere in the world. Good for you http://t.co/3lMUW9zr59

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 7, 2015

Paris Policeman Begs for Mercy Before Shot in Head at Point Blank Range #CharlieHebdo (VIDEO)

This is graphic.

At Live Leak, "Terrorists shoot officer in Paris during terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo."



Via Bare Naked Islam, "FRANCE! SCREAMING “ALLAU AKBAR” and “WE HAVE AVENGED THE PROPHET,” MUSLIM TERRORISTS ATTACK CHARLIE HEBDO SATIRE MAGAZINE, MURDERING AT LEAST 12 PEOPLE."

I'll have more coverage of the attacks throughout the night.

The Dark, Dangerous Side of Marijuana

Very dark. Very dangerous.

It's a bad drug. Bad for you. It does bad things to your mind. And it leaves a trail of bad recriminations for those in the path of abusers.

From Susan Shapiro, at the Los Angeles Times, "Cannabis crazy: It doesn't just describe the move to legalize weed. It could happen to you":

I know the dark side. I'm ambivalent about legalizing marijuana because I was addicted for 27 years. After starting to smoke weed at Bob Dylan concerts when I was 13, I saw how it can make you say and do things that are provocative and perilous. I bought pot in bad neighborhoods at 3 a.m., confronted a dealer for selling me a dime bag of oregano, let shady pushers I barely knew deliver marijuana, like pizza, to my home. I mailed weed to my vacation spots and smoked a cocaine-laced joint a bus driver offered when I was his only passenger.

Back then Willie Nelson songs, Cheech and Chong routines and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High's” Jeff Spicoli made getting high seem kooky and harmless. My reality was closer to Walter White's self-destruction from meth on TV's “Breaking Bad” and the delusional nightmares in the film “Requiem for a Dream.” Everyone believed you couldn't get addicted to pot.

Turns out I could get hooked on carrot sticks. Marijuana became an extreme addiction for me. I'm not alone. Nearly 17% of those who get high as teenagers will become addicted to marijuana, according to the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that up to half of daily marijuana smokers become addicted — an estimated 2.7 million people in the U.S...

Very dark. Very bad. And of course, the "progressive" left is pushing it, and hard.

Leftists. Destroying American society, any which way they can. It's scary sometimes, man.

A City of Mourning and Demonized Police

From Dorothy Rabinowitz, at WSJ, "Shunned by cops, allied with Al Sharpton, incensed by criticism: New York’s mayor begins his second year":

As demonstrations over the grand-jury decisions in Ferguson, Mo., and New York’s Staten Island gathered momentum, Smith College President Kathleen McCartney felt herself obliged on Dec. 9 to issue a campus-wide apology. Her offense? Having said, in a message of support for the protests, that “all lives matter”—for which she became a target of enraged rebukes charging her with insensitivity and with minimizing the concerns of blacks.

What President McCartney’s instant apology said about the moral spine and leadership on the nation’s campuses today needs no spelling out. It wouldn’t be long, however, before the impact of two nonblack lives snuffed out with murderous deliberation would come blasting into the continuing carnival of staged “die-ins,” blocked highways and chanting marchers, including the contingent shouting “What do we want? Dead cops.”

Nothing more instantly transformed the atmosphere in New York than the Dec. 20 killing of police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, shot as they sat in their police car. It broke the hearts of New Yorkers, it demolished whatever shard of public sympathy was left for the marches and denunciations of the police. The murders had, in addition, caused a glaring light to be cast on the mayor of New York, whose central campaign theme when running for the office had been devoted almost exclusively to the evils, the racial bias, in the stop-and-frisk tactic practiced by the police.

Once in office, Bill de Blasio made clear his view of the police as a power that required watching and re-education. To which end he summoned Al Sharpton , the longtime race hustler whose lifetime career pressing fraudulent bias claims, inciting racial conflagrations, was apparently no deterrent to Mayor de Blasio, who described Mr. Sharpton as the nation’s foremost civil-rights leader. The general attitudes emanating from the de Blasio administration were, the police concluded, distinctly unsupportive.

The most important cause of all for that glaring light, of course, was the fact that the two police officers had been killed by an assassin inspired by the antipolice fervor of the demonstrators and by the image of police as a major danger to young black men.

The killer had attended one of the rallies. He had also made certain that there would be no mystery about his motive. He had posted online an explicit declaration of his aim to kill the police, and of the reason: “They Take 1 Of Ours...... Let’s Take 2 of Theirs #ShootThePolice.”

This didn’t prevent immediate efforts on the part of the press sympathetic to the protests, and to the mayor, to dismiss the murders of the police officers as one more case of mental disturbance. The murders had nothing to do, really, with any response to the cases of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York—or, more to the point, with any incitement by the nonstop flow of accusations by demonstrators casting the police as racists and killers.

Much like an echo of the politically driven instinct to play down acts of terrorism as the product of mental illness, family dysfunction and life’s disappointments, regular media portraits of the murderer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, ascribed his act to a turbulent personal life and mental illness.

The idea that deranged individuals with, say, a history of disturbed relationships and a tendency to violence shouldn’t be seen as genuine representatives of a cause, an ideology, is decidedly odd if not itself a kind of deranged thinking. When the cause itself is a grab bag of pathologies, it isn’t surprising that it attracts the disturbed...

More.

Obama's Lists: A Dubious History of Targeted Killings in Afghanistan

It takes Der Spiegel to offer a hard-headed look at President Obama's criminal drone policy, or it would be criminal if it were President G.W. Bush still in office. Remember, the American MSM still gives O an epic pass.

See, "Secret Docs Reveal Dubious Details of Targeted Killings in Afghanistan":

Combat operations in Afghanistan may be coming to an end, but a look at secret NATO documents reveals that the US and the UK were far less scrupulous in choosing targets for killing than previously believed. Drug dealers were also on the lists.

Death is circling above Helmand Province on the morning of Feb. 7, 2011, in the form of a British Apache combat helicopter named "Ugly 50." Its crew is searching for an Afghan named Mullah Niaz Mohammed. The pilot has orders to kill him.

The Afghan, who has been given the code name "Doody," is a "mid-level commander" in the Taliban, according to a secret NATO list. The document lists enemy combatants the alliance has approved for targeted killings. "Doody" is number 3,673 on the list and NATO has assigned him a priority level of three on a scale of one to four. In other words, he isn't particularly important within the Taliban leadership structure.

The operations center identified "Doody" at 10:17 a.m. But visibility is poor and the helicopter is forced to circle another time. Then the gunner fires a "Hellfire" missile. But he has lost sight of the mullah during the maneuver, and the missile strikes a man and his child instead. The boy is killed instantly and the father is severely wounded. When the pilot realizes that the wrong man has been targeted, he fires 100 rounds at "Doody" with his 30-mm gun, critically injuring the mullah.

The child and his father are two of the many victims of the dirty secret operations that NATO conducted for years in Afghanistan. Their fate is described in secret documents to which SPIEGEL was given access. Some of the documents concerning the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the NSA and GCHQ intelligence services are from the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden. Included is the first known complete list of the Western alliance's "targeted killings" in Afghanistan. The documents show that the deadly missions were not just viewed as a last resort to prevent attacks, but were in fact part of everyday life in the guerilla war in Afghanistan.

The list, which included up to 750 people at times, proves for the first time that NATO didn't just target the Taliban leadership, but also eliminated mid- and lower-level members of the group on a large scale. Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents...

Keep reading.

The Cuban Archipelago

From Jamie Glazov, at FrontPage Magazine:

Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl.

—Che Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries

President Obama’s recent move to cozy up to Communist Cuba is a crucially  important moment not just diplomatically, but as a moral one in regards to human rights, dignity and justice. As we witness a Radical-in-Chief throwing an economic lifeline to a barbaric tyranny, it is our duty and obligation to shine a light on the dark tragedy of the Cuban Gulag — and to reflect on the unspeakable suffering that Cubans have endured under Castro’s fascistic regime.

Until July 26, 2008, Fidel Castro had ruled Cuba with an iron grip for nearly five decades. On that July date in 2008, he stood to the side because of health problems and made his brother, Raul, de facto ruler. Raul officially replaced his brother as dictator on February 24, 2008; the regime has remained just as totalitarian as before and can, for obvious reasons, continue to be regarded and labelled as “Fidel Castro’s” regime.

Having seized power on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro followed the tradition of Vladimir Lenin and immediately turned his country into a slave camp. Ever since, Cuba has distinguished itself as one of the most monstrous human-rights abusers in the world.

Half a million human beings have passed through Cuba’s Gulag. Since Cuba’s total population is only around eleven million, that gives Castro’s despotism the highest political incarceration rate per capita on earth. There have been more than fifteen thousand executions by firing squad. Torture has been institutionalized; myriad human-rights organizations have documented the regime’s use of electric shock, dark coffin-sized isolation cells, and beatings to punish “anti-socialist elements.” The Castro regime’s barbarity is best epitomized by the Camilo Cienfuegos plan, the program of horrors followed in the forced-labor camp on the Isle of Pines. Forced to work almost naked, prisoners were made to cut grass with their teeth and to sit in latrine trenches for long periods of time. Torture is routine.[i]

The horrifying experience of Armando Valladares, a Cuban poet who endured twenty-two years of torture and imprisonment for merely raising the issue of freedom, is a testament to the regime’s barbarity. Valladares’s memoir, Against All Hope, serves as Cuba’s version of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Valladares recounts how prisoners were beaten with bayonets, electric cables, and truncheons. He tells how he and other prisoners were forced to take “baths” in human feces and urine.[ii]

Typical of the horror in Castro’s Gulag was the experience of Roberto López Chávez, one of Valladares’s prison friends. When López went on a hunger strike to protest the abuses in the prison, the guards withheld water from him until he became delirious, twisting on the floor and begging for something to drink. The guards then urinated in his mouth. He died the next day.[iii]

Since Castro’s death cult, like other leftist ideologies, believes that human blood purifies the earth—and since manifestations of grief affirm the reality of the individual, and thus are anathema to the totality—mourning for the departed became taboo. Thus, just like Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia,[iv] so too Castro’s Cuba warned family members of murdered dissidents not to cry at their funerals.[v]

The Castro regime also has a long, grotesque record of torturing and murdering Americans. During the Vietnam War, Castro sent some of his henchmen to run the “Cuban Program” at the Cu Loc POW camp in Hanoi, which became known as “the Zoo.” Its primary objective was to determine how much physical and psychological agony a human being could withstand. The Cubans selected American POWs as their guinea pigs. A Cuban nicknamed “Fidel,” the main torturer at the Zoo, initiated his own personal reign of terror.[vi]

The ordeal of Lt. Col. Earl Cobeil, an F-105 pilot, illustrates the Nazi-like nature of the experiment. Among Fidel’s torture techniques were beatings and whippings over every part of his victim’s body, without remission.[vii] Former POW John Hubbell describes the scene as Fidel forced Cobeil into the cell of fellow POW Col. Jack Bomar...

Keep reading.

President Obama gave this horrific totalitarianism a pass, one of the biggest blows to human rights in the last 65 years.

Natasha Barnard

For Sports Illustrated swimsuit, "Natasha Barnard's Sexy Outtakes."

Fireworks Factory Explodes in Columbia

At Gizmodo, "Holy Shit, This Is What Happens When a Fireworks Factory Explodes."

The Myth of 'Learning Styles' is Likely Causing Harm

A very popular paradigm. I've listened to some of my teaching colleagues expound on it at length.

But there's little evidence to support the "learning styles" hypothesis, according to Wired, "All You Need to Know About the ‘Learning Styles’ Myth, in Two Minutes" (via Instapundit).

It's Never a Good Time for a Carbon Tax

Amen.

California just got hit with a new "carbon tax," which is supposed to cost consumer an additional $2 billion a year. And it's basically a stealth tax, part of a "cap and trade" scheme that no one knows about.

We're taxed enough already.

But see the analysis at the Daily Signal, in any case.

Movement to Stop 'Manspreading' Reaches San Francisco (VIDEO)

The most imbecilic "movement" ever devised, and of course San Francisco --- Moscow by the Bay --- would be pushing it to the leading edge.

At CBS News Bay Area, "Movement to Stop ‘Manspreading’ on Transit Reaches San Francisco."

At the clip, just talking about this makes one women get up and leave, obviously not so interested in hearing men discuss opening up space for their masculine parts. And that chunky woman at the 25-second mark? Jeez, lady, take a freakin' shower!

Also at CBS News New York, "'Dude... Stop the spread, please'."

ADDED: From Dr. Helen Smith, at Pajamas, "NYC to Curb ‘ManSpreading’":

Why is one form of sexism okay and the other not? And don’t give me the crap about the patriarchy. If you shame men in this way, you are a nasty sexist who deserves contempt.

Well, that's a good start to explaining leftist hatred. These people are depraved. And it never ends.

Egyptian Bomb Disposal Officer Killed in Giza

Looks like the bomb blew the poor f-ker's head off.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Video - Bomb disposal officer killed in explosion in Giza Egypt" (GRAPHIC).