Still on Canada, an educational look into the workings of some rather twisted and hateful minds. “Hateful chatter behind the veil” traces through cyberspace the digital footsteps left by the wives of some of the terror suspects arrested in Canada on June 3rd.

The whole article is worth reading, but here are some selection.

MISSISSAUGA — When it came time to write up the premarital agreement between Zakaria Amara and Nada Farooq, Ms. Farooq briefly considered adding a clause that would allow her to ask for a divorce.

She said that Mr. Amara (now accused of being a leader of the alleged terror plot that led to the arrests of 17 Muslim men early this month) had to aspire to take part in jihad.

“[And] if he ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad, then i want the choice of divorce,” she wrote in one of more than 6,000 Internet postings uncovered by The Globe and Mail.

Wives of four of the central figures arrested last month were among the most active on the website, sharing, among other things, their passion for holy war, disgust at virtually every aspect of non-Muslim society and a hatred of Canada. The posts were made on personal blogs belonging to both Mr. Amara and Ms. Farooq, as well as a semi-private forum founded by Ms. Farooq where dozens of teens in the Meadowvale Secondary School area chatted. The vast majority of the posts were made over a period of about 20 months, mostly in 2004, and the majority of those were made by the group’s female members.

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Ms Farooq, on jihad:

There is nothing casual about Ms. Farooq's interpretation of Islam. She reiterates the belief that jihad is the "sixth pillar" of the religion, and her on-line postings are decidedly interested in the violent kind. In the forum titled "Terrorism and killing civilians," she writes a detailed point-by-point explanation of why the Taliban is destined to emerge victorious in Afghanistan

Ms. Farooq on homosexuality:

Ms. Farooq's criticism is often directed first at other Muslims. When another poster writes about how he finds homosexuality disgusting, Nada replies by pointing out that there are even gay Muslims. She then posts a photo of a rally held by Al-Fatiha, a Canadian support group for gay Muslims. "Look at these pathetic people," she writes. "They should all be sent to Saudi, where these sickos are executed or crushed by a wall, in public."

Mariya's (wife of alleged leader Fahim Ahmad) wishes for Israel's jews:

In a thread started by Mr. Fahim's wife, Mariya, marking the death of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi after an Israeli missile strike, Ms. Farooq unleashes her fury: "May Allah crush these jews, bring them down to their kneees, humuliate them. Ya Allah make their women widows and their children orphans."

By the way, they certainly did not get it from their parents:

While his daughter has used her Internet forum to lament the end of the Taliban, Mr. Farooq is a firm supporter of Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Many of the soldiers he serves at CFB Wainwright will eventually be joining the mission.

Ms. Farooq's feelings towards the ever-tolerant and all-accepting Canada:

Ms. Farooq's hatred for the country is palpable. She hardly ever calls Canada by its name, rather repeatedly referring to it as "this filthy country." It's a sentiment shared by many of her friends, one of whom states that the laws of the country are irrelevant because they are not the laws of God.

In late April of 2004, a poster asks the forum members to share their impressions of what makes Canada unique. Nada's answer is straightforward.

"Who cares? We hate Canada."

Ms Jamal's paranoia (Ms Jamal is 44):

"You don't know that the Muslims in Canada will never be rounded up and put into internment camps like the Japanese were in WWII!" she writes in one 2004 post. This is a time when Muslims "are being systematically cleansed from the earth," she adds.

Mr Fahim on beheadings:

In May, 2004, the Meadowvale students come across an extremely graphic video showing the beheading of a U.S. hostage in Iraq. Mr. Fahim, posting under the name "Soldier of ALLAH," praises the killers as mujahedeen who will be rewarded in the afterlife. Another poster maintains the beheading was actually carried out by U.S. forces as a ploy to direct anger at the Muslim community. It's this post that inspires Nada to prohibit any further discussion of similar conspiracy theories.

Three posts later, her husband reprints an article claiming the Americans were responsible for the beheading.

_M#]

I get a strong sense of deja vu reading these forum quotes as I’ve spent a bit of time on various Muslim forums, Australian and international, and on every one there is always a vocal minority, who hold the same views, use the same tone, says the exact same things, pretty much word for word, with the same hate for all things Western, with the same rabid paranoia, the same sense of victimhood and the same urgency for violent and spectacular revenge. And I will be posting examples to confirm this and links, so people can confirm it for themselves. What is interesting is how other Muslims react to these people. On some forums they are derided, disciplined, put in their place and educated, while in other places they are the ones attempting to do the disciplining and educating. And I would at this point commend the Muslims of the rational, scholared and non-insecure varieties, who have to confront these degenerates and put them in place, even as they rant on deliriously, all the while making a mockery of their religion. I have seen great patience and perseverence displayed by those who try to bring these fevered jackasses back to the straight path. Now that is a community service.

Link to full article.

A familiar tale. Margaret Wente writing in the Globe and Mail.

Canada’s community of victims

Leading politicians have symbolically ground my people under their high-heeled feet

MARGARET WENTE

Saturday, June 24, 2006

As an American Canadian, I believe it’s way past time for the government to acknowledge the injustices done to my people. American immigrants to Canada are the targets of the grossest sort of suspicion, discrimination, hostility and abuse. Leading politicians have symbolically ground my people under their high-heeled feet. We are grotesquely stereotyped as lackeys of the evil empire. Enough is enough! We want you people to say you’re sorry. And let’s not forget the War of 1812: You guys owe us for burning down the White House.

I also suffer from the burden of my gender. Women suffered decades of discrimination before the Charter of Rights came along. For a long time, we couldn’t even vote! And are we equal now? Ha, ha. Every one of us deserves compensation for not sharing 50-50 in this nation’s wealth. Time for reparations, guys.

Also, you may have guessed that my name is German. German Canadians were treated shamefully during the two world wars. Surely we deserve at least as much as the government gave the Ukrainians. We demand closure, too. A sincere apology from the PM would be a start. We also want our own wing in the Human Rights Museum and the chance to amend the history textbooks so future generations will never be allowed to forget the atrocities committed against us by this racist nation. The money is just symbolic, of course. A few million ought to do it.

I admit there is a slight problem with my demands. I’m pretty sure my ancestors were guilty of oppression, too. In fact, I’m pretty sure that half my ancestors oppressed the other half. By the time we sort this out, I’ll be apologizing to myself, and my share of the take will net out to zero.

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Canada has honed the arithmetic of grievance to the second decimal point. We are, as Joe Clark said, a community of communities, each with its own set of gripes. Even as Stephen Harper prepared his apologies for the Chinese head tax, members of the Sikh community were demanding redress for the harsh treatment of their great-grandfathers aboard the Komagata Maru. That's the ship that was forced back to India after trying to land in Vancouver in 1914. "We want a clear and unequivocal apology from the government of Canada," said B.C. politician Raj Chouhan. "We have an apology for the Chinese head tax. We have an apology for Japanese internment. Why not an apology for the Komagata Maru?"

Not everyone is thrilled about all of this apologizing. Lois Hashimoto, for one. In her view, identity politics is what's wrong with Canada. "I thought with Stephen Harper we could get some plain, common sense, honest, democratic way of addressing past wrongs, both real and alleged," she says. She had hoped in vain that he wouldn't succumb to what she calls the tyranny of redress.

"No one would dispute that the Chinese head tax was racist and unjust," says Ms. Hashimoto. "Why, then, did Chinese immigrants pay this discriminatory tax, even when it reached the exorbitant amount of $500, and continue to come to Canada? Wasn't it because they believed that Canada offered a much better future for themselves and their descendants? Hasn't their faith been vindicated? Did these courageous and indomitable immigrants dare to dream that a young immigrant Chinese girl would one day become the Governor-General of Canada? Isn't this 'redress' enough?"

Ms. Hashimoto spent much of the Second World War in an internment camp for Japanese Canadians. Eventually, she received $21,000 in redress. "Getting the 'redress' was a windfall," she says. "But now I see the result of my greed: Ours is a country where playing the victim pays." That settlement, she notes, included $24-million to set up the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, an outfit that's devoted itself to detecting racism in every nook and cranny of Canadian life and stoking the flames of grievance ever higher.

Like many other hyphenated Canadians, Ms. Hashimoto insists her ethnic lobby group does not speak for her. She has long quarrelled with the National Association of Japanese Canadians, which describes the government's official postwar policy of forced assimilation for Japanese Canadians as "ethnic genocide." Nonsense, she argues. "All my Nisei friends agree that forced assimilation was actually a good thing."

"I'm pretty dubious on the issue of refreshing injustices," historian Desmond Morton said recently. "Where does it end? The lineup will grow and simply become a catalogue of victims."

He's right about that. The government has a pot of money for a program called Acknowledgment, Commemoration and Education. Victim groups are swarming to this pot as bees to nectar. According to government records released to the Winnipeg Free Press, Ukrainians want $12.5-million for their internment during the First World War. The Germans want $12.5-million, too. The Italians want $12.5-million for the internment of 700 men during the Second World War. The Sikhs want $4-million, the Croats $2.8-million, and the Jews $2-million for being barred from immigrating to Canada between 1923 and 1945. African Canadians and Doukhobors want another $7-million for unspecified grievances.

What happens when identity lobbyists are allowed to rewrite history? Take a guess. Some of those interned Italians, for example, were no doubt treated unjustly. But plenty of them were loyal fascists with a fierce allegiance to the Axis cause. "With a backroom accord, the government and community associations are -- unwittingly, I hope -- trying to treat a group of fascists as innocent bystanders," wrote Angelo Principe, a former University of Toronto professor who is an expert on the history of the internees.

In other words, history is never black and white -- except for the approved Canadian version, which is increasingly a narrative of oppressors and oppressed. Get used to it. A mari usque ad mare, we are a group of victims united only by our collective sense that, somehow, somewhere, Canada has done us wrong.

_M#]

In the July issue of Scientific American is this rather mind expanding article about ‘confirmation bias’ amongst the politically minded. Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Science Friction explains that confirmation bias is the human tendency to “seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence.”, observed on both sides of the political spectrum. As he puts it “no matter the issue under discussion, both sides [Democrat and Republican] are equally convinced that the evidence overwhelmingly supports their position”. Now, he says, a recent brain-imaging study has shown that the process of confirmation bias happens unconsciously in all of us, driven by our emotions.

The study looked at “30 men–half self-described as “strong” Republicans and half as “strong” Democrats”. The subjects were asked to assess statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry “in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves.”

Unsuprisingly, the Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry in their answers as Democratic subjects were of Bush. Also unsurprisinglly, both managed to explain away and excuse the contradictions from their preferred candidates.

The interesting thing was that the brain-imaging did not show “any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning.”

Psychologist Drew Westen, who led the study at Emory University reported in a press release:

“What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.” Interestingly, neural circuits engaged in rewarding selective behaviors were activated. “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones,” Westen said.

Obviously, Shermer, points out, the findings relate to all sphere of our lives, not just politics. Humans seek to affirm what we already believe, sleepwalking through the decision making process, based on emotional hunches and undeterred by reason, with our brain rewarding us when affirmation of previously held believes is reached. Even if that means cranking a few squares into some round holes.

The antidote to the confirmation bias, writes Shermer, is skepticism. He suggests that politicians, and other decision makers in business and law, need a peer review process, similar to what scientists have, who undertake double blind studies reviewed by skeptical peers at conferences and in journals.

Well, firstly, it needs to be pointed out that with all the checks and balances that supposedly exists in science, scientists are just as prone to confirmation bias as anyone else. Even so far as scientists holding supposedly rational and scientific beliefs that correspond precisely along political party lines.

Secondly, good luck implementing a peer review process in politics. On its own, the factional infighting that will result will be a step sideways, at best.

Consider however, how much more conducive to a process of skeptical scrutiny the Australian political system is, compared to the American one. With only 2 parties in power the American system lends itself to groupthink on both sides, precisely because discussion seems to be reduced to two options – ours and theirs, with noone to arbitrate it. Now, remember the “Keeping the bastards honest” slogan of the Australian Democrats? Sounds at least like some semblance of peer review to me. What America needs is a saner political system.

Full Article:

The Political Brain

A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias

By Michael Shermer

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion … draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises … in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.” –Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620

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Pace Will Rogers, I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a libertarian. As a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I have found at least something to like about each Republican or Democrat I have met. I have close friends in both camps, in which I have observed the following: no matter the issue under discussion, both sides are equally convinced that the evidence overwhelmingly supports their position.

This surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence. Now a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study shows where in the brain the confirmation bias arises and how it is unconscious and driven by emotions. Psychologist Drew Westen led the study, conducted at Emory University, and the team presented the results at the 2006 annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, while undergoing an fMRI bran scan, 30 men--half self-described as "strong" Republicans and half as "strong" Democrats--were tasked with assessing statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own candidate off the hook.

The neuroimaging results, however, revealed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning--the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--was quiescent. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in the processing of emotions; the anterior cingulate, which is associated with conflict resolution; the posterior cingulate, which is concerned with making judgments about moral accountability; and--once subjects had arrived at a conclusion that made them emotionally comfortable--the ventral striatum, which is related to reward and pleasure.

Politicians need a peer-review system.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," Westen is quoted as saying in an Emory University press release. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Interestingly, neural circuits engaged in rewarding selective behaviors were activated. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones," Westen said.

The implications of the findings reach far beyond politics. A jury assessing evidence against a defendant, a CEO evaluating information about a company or a scientist weighing data in favor of a theory will undergo the same cognitive process. What can we do about it?

In science we have built-in self-correcting machinery. Strict double-blind controls are required in experiments, in which neither the subjects nor the experimenters know the experimental conditions during the data-collection phase. Results are vetted at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. Research must be replicated in other laboratories unaffiliated with the original researcher. Disconfirmatory evidence, as well as contradictory interpretations of the data, must be included in the paper. Colleagues are rewarded for being skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

We need similar controls for the confirmation bias in the arenas of law, business and politics. Judges and lawyers should call one another on the practice of mining data selectively to bolster an argument and warn juries about the confirmation bias. CEOs should assess critically the enthusiastic recommendations of their VPs and demand to see contradictory evidence and alternative evaluations of the same plan. Politicians need a stronger peer-review system that goes beyond the churlish opprobrium of the campaign trail, and I would love to see a political debate in which the candidates were required to make the opposite case.

Skepticism is the antidote for the confirmation bias.

_M#]

Link to original article.

Such is the nature of man,

that for your first gift – he prostrates himself;

for your second – kisses your hand;

for the third – fawns;

for the fourth – just nods his head once;

for the fifth – becomes too familiar;

for the sixth – insults you;

and for the seventh – sues you because he was not given enough.

G.I. Gurdjieff, “Life is only real, than, when ‘I am’”

An interesting look at refereeing at this World Cup.

World Cup saga: Crime and punishment – International Herald Tribune

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By Rob Hughes

Published: June 28, 2006

BERLIN This World Cup, like others, started with the rulers resolving to protect quality players and rid the game of thugs, cheats and protesters.

Since appealing to the better nature of players and coaches is like getting turkeys to vote for Christmas, it was agreed that the referees would impose fair play.

It started well. The arbiters kept up with the players, who discovered there would be no leeway for brutish fouls and nothing less than a yellow or red card for haranguing the referee. But as the games went by, the standards dropped. Have referees simply become bad, or rotten? Are they making mistakes, or is it corrupt? In every sense, the heat is on the men in the middle.

There was an elementary error by Graham Poll, England's top ref, who showed the same Croatian defender three yellow cards. (Two result in a red card and expulsion from the match.) Valentin Ivanov, a Russian, broke all the records by giving 16 yellow and four red cards in the Netherlands-Portugal brawl. Something smelled foul in the 93rd-minute penalty given to Italy in its match with Australia by Luis Medina Cantalejo, a Spanish referee. Poll and Ivanov were dropped from the tournament Wednesday; Cantalejo was given one of the quarterfinal matches.

Most referees started off zealously against the violent use of elbows, the tackle from behind, the clowns who dive to try to gain a penalty or get a fellow professional sent off. But as they wilted under the sun, they lost that sharpness. If a ref runs 13 kilometers, or eight miles, in a game, and if he's made to do that several times a week in this climate, surely his mind is impaired. Who is to blame for that?

FIFA - that's who deserves a red card. By selecting 23 instead of 32 referees this time around, and by teaming refs with two linemen from the same country or who at least speak the same language, FIFA hoped to improve the communication. There was evidence of it working. But two referees had dropped out - an Italian because of the match-fixing investigation in the country's top league, and a Caribbean because his fitness did not satisfy FIFA.

A week before the kickoff, I asked a top official if having just 21 referees was not alarmingly few, especially given that FIFA threatens to send home any arbiter whose performance falls blow requirements.

"No," he said, "we're paying these guys plenty and we intend to work them hard."

The officials are being paid $40,000. In cool conditions, fair enough. In 27 degrees Celsius, or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and 60 percent humidity, not so good. Unlike the players, many of these referees have day jobs - electrical engineer, school teacher, salesman, tax collector, maritime officer. Players could be rested by team managers. Referees tried to plod on, under dire warning that FIFA would humiliate them or fire them if their performance fell below par.

_M#]

Link to full article.

Still on the World Cup, get a load of this clown:

BEIJING – The “hysterical” ranting of China’s most popular soccer commentator on live television during the broadcast of a World Cup match this week has sparked an outpouring of emotion in a nation where strongly felt opinions usually are sublimated.

Popular soccer commentator Huang Jianxiang lost his cool during a match between Italy and Australia, shouting himself hoarse in an outburst seen by millions of people.

“Italy is victorious! Long live Italy! . . . Great Italy!” Huang shrieked during the match broadcast by state-run China Central Television early Tuesday morning as Italy won the game on a dramatic penalty kick. “I don’t like the Australian team,” he shouted, adding with glee that it “should go home.”

..

Huang described the Australian team as “full of naturalized Australians who play and live in Britain. I don’t want to see Australia have good results in the World Cup.”

I think someone is a little worried about Australia playing in the Asian Cup next year, and from there onward. Someone whose team came second at the last Asian Cup. Someone who sees a whole new world of football pain just around the corner. See ya in 2007.

UPDATE: The rant has now been released as a ringtone, Reuters reports.

The full version went like this:

“Goooooal! Game over! Italy win!. Beat the Australians! … Italy the great! … Happy birthday to Maldini! Forza Italia!”

“The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer!… (Australia) should go home. They don’t need to go as far away as Australia as most of them are living in Europe. Farewell!”

I didn’t realise crack was such a big problem in China.

Still on the Guardian, just a week ago they informed us about a poll that shows “Muslims in Britain are the most anti-western in Europe”:

.. the poll found that British Muslims represented a “notable exception” in Europe, with far more negative views of westerners than Islamic minorities elsewhere on the continent. A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed. Another startling result found that only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French Muslims.

What could possibly explain these “startling results”? Ironically The Guardian offers a couple of answers today.

An academic who tells us that British Colonialism is “a tale of slavery, plunder, war, corruption, land-grabbing, famines, exploitation, indentured labour, impoverishment, massacres, genocide and forced resettlement”.

And a musician who “equates Osama bin Laden with Che Guevara”. We are of course to assume that being compared to Che Guevara is a good thing.

People in Britain are anti-western? Who would have thought! Here’s a bold prediction for another poll that compares readers of different newspapers, instead of citizens of different countries: People who read The Guardian are more anti-western than readers of other papers. A shocking conclusion, I know.

The Guardian today ponders the concerns and dillemmas of the “sole Jewish MP in Iran’s 290-member Majlis (parliament)”, Maurice Motamed (a popular Jewish name, usually shortened from Motamedstein). Mr Motamed represents Iran’s 25000 Jews, who are guaranteed a seat in the Majlis by the Iranian constitution, along with the Armenians, Zoroastrians and Assyrians.

One of Mr Motamed’s concerns is the welfare of oppressed Jewish minorities in Europe.

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The Best Of 1990’s European MMA

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Duration: 12:34

Created: Thu, 24 Nov 2005

Producer: infinitemma.com

Australia Vs Italy: 0-1

Awesome spirit from the Soccerroos, fantastic defence from the the Azzurri. One bad ref decision against the Italians, one against the Aussies. On the day luck was not on our side. But the Socceroos gave it everything and then some. Well done.

Football has just gotten a lot of new fans, and this truely is the beginning of world class football in Australia. There is a feeling hanging around that glory was snatched out of our hands and Australia was left with a hangover of an unsatisfied hunger for victory. So where to now? Well, now it is on to winning the Asian Cup next year. I’ll make the bold prediction that we have that one in the bag. The Asian Cup will be held in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (first time several nations are sharing in the hosting) and this will actually be the first time Australia will play in this tournament, after joining the Asian Football Confederation on January 1, 2006.

The final qualifying round is under way and we’re playing in group D with Kuwait, Lebanon and Bahrain. We have to play each of the teams in our group once at home and once away. So far we have won the away game against Bahrain (played on 22 February this year), 3-1. We have the following games coming up:

• 16 August 2006: Australia – Kuwait, Aussie Stadium, Sydney, Australia
• 1 September 2006: Australia – Lebanon, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Australia
• 6 September 2006: Kuwait – Australia, National Stadium, Kuwait City, Kuwait
• 11 October 2006: Australia – Bahrain, Aussie Stadium, Sydney, Australia
• 15 November 2006: Lebanon – Australia, Beirut Municipal Stadium, Beirut, Lebanon

Quick look at the teams we’re playing in this round:

Bahrain are ranked 54th in the world and came 4th in the last Asian Cup in 2004.

Kuwait won the Asian Cup once in 1980 and are ranked 74th in the World.

Lebanon has never qualified for the World Cup, and only once qualified for the Asian Cup, in 2000 and are ranked 122nd in the world.

The strongest teams in the Asian Cup are Japan (18th in world), who won the last two, Iran (23rd), South Korea (29th), Saudi Arabia (34th), all of whom just played in the World Cup without making it through to the final 16.

So onward and upward Australia! Asian Cup 2007. This truely is just the beginning.

For more World Cup coverage see the links in this previous post.

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Black swans in Centennial Park. The photos were taken with a phone camera.

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