France Does It Again

Perhaps you’ve not heard about this?

PARIS (AP) – The bride said she was a virgin. When her new husband discovered that was a lie, he went to court to annul the marriage—and a French judge agreed.

The ruling ending the Muslim couple’s union has stunned France and raised concerns the country’s much-cherished secular values are losing ground to religious traditions from its fast-growing immigrant communities.

The decision also exposed the silent shame borne by some Muslim women who transgress long-held religious dictates demanding proof of virginity on the wedding night.

In its ruling, the court concluded the woman had misrepresented herself as a virgin and that, in this particular marriage, virginity was a prerequisite.

But in treating the case as a breach of contract, the ruling was decried by critics who said it undermined decades of progress in women’s rights. Marriage, they said, was reduced to the status of a commercial transaction in which women could be discarded by husbands claiming to have discovered hidden defects in them.

The court decision “is a real fatwa against the emancipation and liberty of women. We are returning to the past,” said Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara, the daughter of immigrants from Muslim North Africa, using the Arabic term for a religious decree.

The outcry has been unrelenting since word of the April 1 decision in the closed-door trial in Lille was made public last week by the daily newspaper Liberation. In its judgment, the tribunal said the 2006 marriage had been ended based on “an error in the essential qualities” of the bride, “who had presented herself as single and chaste.”

Justice Minister Rachida Dati, whose parents also were born in North Africa, initially shrugged off the ruling—but the public clamor reached such a pitch that she asked the prosecutor’s office this week to lodge an appeal.

The rather lengthy story goes on from there. It’s a rather frightening read, frankly. But here’s another situation where we’re bending over forward so as to be seen as ‘open minded’ as far as Islam goes, and befouling our own culture in the process. Can you imagine a court handing down such a ruling, in an ostensibly Christian tradition?

No, I can’t either. Yet another example of why western culture must have primacy in the west.

And the first thing Rezko pal and now-Democrat nominee for president Barack Obama says in response to the guilty verdicts is, “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew …”

Um, reality check, please?

Yeah, really. I mean, how many times are we going to see this line used?

Great one, Sis

Addendum (Bit): Powerline’s Hindrocket comes in a close second:

Barack Obama’s friend, financier and political supporter Tony Rezko was convicted by a Chicago jury today on sixteen counts involving various forms of political corruption. Obama released this statement:

I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform. I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future.

I don’t doubt that Obama is saddened by his mentor’s conviction, but the rest of his statement is from outer space. “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew.” Deja vu, anyone? I could swear I’ve heard it somewhere before. Sure enough–the racist, anti-American Rev. Wright whom we’ve all seen on video wasn’t the Rev. Wright whom Obama knew for 20 years, either. And the outrageously bigoted Father Pfleger wasn’t the Pfleger whom Obama assiduously supported with earmarks–another form of political corruption.

Obama seems to suffer from a singular inability to “know” his most intimate associates. One day soon, will a “saddened” Obama tell us that the Michelle Obama we see on video is “not the Michelle Obama I knew?” Time will tell.

Yeah, well the problem with that is the guy’s running for President. Do we have to wait until he’s in the oval office before we’re sure?

Tony Rezko guilty, Michelle has the details:

Guilty on four of first five counts; guilty on 16 of 24 counts involving mail/wire fraud, money laundering, and corrupt solicitation charges

I am sure that BO will call this another distraction. Will you?

Addendum: (Bit) Added info from Rezko Watch

The jurors reached a verdict after 13 days of deliberations. A judge read it at 3:45 p.m. in federal court.

Breakdown of Counts

Guilty on 12 of 15 counts mail/wire fraud

Not Guilty on 1 count attempted extortion

Guilty on 2 of 6 counts corrupt solicitation

Guilty on 2 counts money laundering

For background on the possible implications for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and other members of the Illinois Combine, do a blog search for “Evelyn Pringle”, “Operation Board Games”, and “Curtain Time for Obama”.

Also see

Peter Slevin, Rezko Convicted of Influence Peddling, The Trail/Washington Post, June 4, 2008.

Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, Rezko convicted of corruption, Chicago Tribune, June 4, 2008.

I wonder if this is what Hillary Clinton is banking on…

This post made the Chicago Sun-Times. Thanks

• From Boortz, a vid of Obama telling us how he wants to disarm America. Apparently, he hasn’t leaned the lessons of Viginia Tech. Disamring people is only going to make situations like that worse… and there’s a lot of nutjobs waiting in the wings. Seems to me this suggests a backward approach to foriegn policy, as well.
• Drink up, my boy.
• You know those anti-bacterial wipes? They can cause as many problems a they solve.
• I see Michael Pfleger has been suspended at St. Sabina parish. Gee. How will black leftists survive?  Says he, in the most ominous tones possible: “This is a dangerous time in America, the freest country in the world where you have to whisper your thoughts.” Well, look, Mike. Nobody forced you to whisper your thoughts. Rather you screamed them. Did you think that others couldn’t say THEIR peace? Does your right to speak, which I note you have been using quite a bit of late, precludes anyone else having that same right?  Here’s a message to the Catholic Chuch; Loose this moron. He’s done you enough damage. Do it now.
• Bruce McQuain puts togther a list of Obama’s Radical roots. Pay particular attention to the ACORN connection, here.
• Gasoline prices are continuing to climb despite the crude price fall I’ve mentioned the last couple days. To be expected, though; Distilates always trail crude by some weeks in the price swings, regardless which way they’re moving.
• Turns out, the “Old Faithful” gyser, and the stregnth of the thing, depends on rainfall. Makes sense, I guess, but it does suggest the underground springs feeding the thing are a repository, not a point source.

This is huge. The Souix City Journal is reporting:

By a solid 58 percent to 42 percent margin, county voters approved Hyperion’s request to rezone 3,292 acres of farm land for a new classification, Energy Center Planned Development.

“What happened tonight, we were not supposed to be able to do,” Phillips told a cheering audience. “Development projects like this are supposed to be outright rejected by residents and neighbors. But this project is a testament to our balancing the needs for growth and for protecting the environment.”

At stake was billions of dollars in capital investment and thousands of high-paying jobs. From the beginning, Hyperion executives said they would abandon its Union County site, just north of Elk Point, if a majority of voters failed to give their blessing to the rezoning.

There are idiots in every crowd, though…

While conceding defeat, opponents vowed to keep fighting the controversial project on every imaginable front, pressing on with a lawsuit it filed against the county over the zoning procedures and opposing Hyperion as it applies for a bevy of state and federal permits.

“We have strategies in place to slow or delay all the permit processes,” Ed Cable, chairman of the anti-Hyperion group Save Union County, said after the vote.

One would hope this would clear the way for more such development. Far as I am concerned, this is a national security issue. Justice would be served, in my view if the people who voted against this were never allowed to buy gasoline again.

As it is, however, they’ll benefit from this along with everyone else in the country.

In the whole, this is fabulous news, and the effects of this will be even larger going forward.

Sixteen years ago conservatives were calling the Clintons’ trash, and the media was calling us demented.    It is now the MSM which is is calling the Clintons trash.   Matthew Yglesias, Atlantic, feigns ignorance of sixteen years::

I probably shouldn’t write any more about this woman and her staff. Suffice it to say that I’ve found her behavior over the past couple of months to be utterly unconscionable and this speech is no different. I think if I were to try to express how I really feel about the people who’ve been enabling her behavior, I’d say something deeply unwise. Suffice it to say, that for quite a while now all of John McCain’s most effective allies have been on Hillary Clinton’s payroll.

The Clintons’ character, or utter lack thereof same,  has not changed in the last sixteen years.  The Clintons have always been Arkansas trash.

I think Clinton may be willing to offer Obama the vice presidency.”

Ron Chusid, Liberal Values.

Mrs. Clinton refusing to play by the Drive by Media’s rules.

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By way of AJ Strata, we get a partial update from Hillbuzz about this tape Larry Johnson keeps mumbling about:

For about 30 minutes, Michelle Obama launched into a rant about the evils of America, and how America is to blame for the problems of Africa. Michelle personally blamed President Clinton for the deaths of millions of Africans and said America is responsible for the genocide of the Tutsis and other ethnic groups. She then launched into an attack on “whitey”, and talked about solutions to black on black crime in the realm of diverting those actions onto white America. Her rant was fueled by the crowd: they reacted strongly to what she said, so she got more passionate and enraged, and that’s when she completely loses it and says things that have made the mouths drop of everyone who’s seen this.

The “tape” is a DVD that Trinity United sold on its website, and possibly offered free for download up until March 2008 when Trinity’s site was scrubbed and the DVDs were no longer offered for sale.

This outburst happened just one month before the 2004 Democratic Convention, when Barack Obama delivered the keynote address.

UPDATED: It seems really easy for Chicago local media, especially, to determine whether or not this is the right tape of Michelle Obama. All they need to do is pull the tape from this 2004 Conference (particularly the panel Michelle was on), which should be readily available (since this was a very large multi-day event). All a journalist needs to do is watch this tape: if this is not the right one, they’d know immediately and this issue would be debunked. But, logically, this seems to be the most likely source of the tape people have been talking about at NoQuarterUSA.net

(Shrug) OK, that’s reasonable.  Seems to me we should be able to do a little digging on the “wayback” machine… which I can’t do here because I’m behind a firewall/proxy at the moment. If this stuff was being sold by Trinity on their website, the wayback would confirm the existance of the thing, anyway, but of course not it’s content.

BTW; I note with interest that the servers at NO QUARTER have melted again.

Others:

The Campaign Spot,  TownHall Blog, American Spectator, Q&O, Michelle Malkin

SKOWHEGAN, Maine -(Bangor Daily News) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has sent a proposal to the Somerset County commissioners to lease their jail for the world’s first Lobster Empathy Center.

The central Maine county is constructing a new jail and has put the century-old jail in downtown Skowhegan up for sale. The Realtor handling the sale called the offer “likely a publicity stunt.”

I’ve got an idea; How about we get All the PETA members together and get them to leap into huge kettles of boiling water, in the name of lobster empathy?

I wonder how these folks feel about abortion?
Better not to ask, I suppose. Animals are more important than people, to these idiots.

I got an E-mail overnight wondering why I’d not mentioned Obama getting enough delegates to win the nomination for his party. (Shrug)
OK… here…. from yesterday, here’s a note from ABC’s political page

Sen. Barack Obama achieved the 2,118 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president last night and made history by becoming the first African American to win a major party’s presidential nomination, according to the ABC News scorecard.

The presumptive Democratic nominee locked up the nomination even before the votes were counted in the party’s final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana last night.

Obama went on to easily win Montana last night by a margin of 57 percent to Sent. Hillary Clinton’s 42 percent. But Clinton, D-NY, snatched one last upset victory in South Dakota, with a 55-44 percent win.

OK, now that I’ve done that,perhaps my correspondent can explain to me why my mention would be a big deal. Once again, we enter the Church of the Bloody Well Obvious. It’s like my taking the time to make a major announcement about the properties of gravity, giving a full political analysis.  I mean, please.

Perhaps, while we’re considering this, someone can also explain to me why this is a bigger deal now, than a week ago? Did it exceed, or even alter the predictions made here and everywhere else, last week?  Or, even the month before? This eventuality is something we’ve known about quite literally for months, now.  The signs have been there, and everyone with a pulse (And many voters without a pulse in Chicago) all knew it.

Far as I’m concerned this is the ultimate anti-climax and I suspect I’m far from alone in that perception. We’ve known all along that Clinton was like this, that everything is all about her.  Her still trying to grab what she can in terms of power out of all the money she’s been spending, should shock and amaze nobody.  Her people knew she was toast months ago, when this campaign death-watch started.  So, even that isn’t much of a story now. It’s been played out to the sheer boredom of nearly everyone involved.

I hold to my comment of last night;
Clinton being in the race for as long as she’s been may in fact have been the best possible thing for Obama. The media and the Obama campaign could up till now concentrate on that circus between those two. Now that Clinton looks to be removing herself from that process soon, (or, maybe not) Obama and his people are going to have to address these harder questions they’ve been thusfar avoiding. And I honestly don’t think he can.

Ryan Flinn reports the downside of legalized dope:

June 3 (Bloomberg) — Dr. William Courtney says he has prescribed marijuana to more than 2,000 patients in Mendocino County, California, taking advantage of a measure passed eight years ago to decriminalize pot and allow the possession of as many as 25 plants.

Residents of the county 140 miles north of San Francisco may make it harder for Courtney to continue the treatment. Today they vote on a plan to make recreational use of pot illegal again and to limit the number of plants allowed for medicinal purposes to six per person.

Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg, National Review

Addendum:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The San Francisco Medical Examiner says a teenager who was killed by an escaped tiger at the zoo had marijuana and alcohol in his system at the time.
The toxicology report released Monday was included with an autopsy that concluded “blunt force injuries of the head and neck” killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr.

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• Did you see this about Pfleger? Michelle Malkin points this up, today:
  

  Say it with me: Boo-freaking-hoo. Via the Chicago Sun-Times’ Cathleen Falsani:

  Pfleger has apologized for “the words that I chose” and for “my dramatization.” Pfleger told me he called the Clinton campaign to apologize directly but had not heard back from Clinton or her representatives.
  All that is well and good, but how, as a friend and passionate supporter of Obama’s campaign for president, could he do what he did, with cameras rolling?

  Pfleger’s short answer? He didn’t think the service and his “conversation” — a more casual address than a classic sermon, he explained — were being broadcast live online, as Trinity often does.

  “They told me it was down,” Pfleger said. “Their live streaming had been down all day, and they didn’t know whether it was back up. . . . I regret the dramatization that I was naive enough to believe was just going to be kept among that church.”

  Ya know, when I was growing up one of the first things I got taught about how to behave is that “character is what you do when nobody’s looking” .

  Based on that maxim, it looks like we now have the character of Pfleger pretty well tagged, here, as well as that of the Chruch he was guesting at… And now we’re down to asking the same questions we did a while ago, since we now better understand that this is the way things are at this church, and have been for two decades. That question being, how in the world could Obama have been sitting in the pews of this place, offering up his time, his talents, his money (oh, and lest we forget, OUR money) if he hadn’t signed onto the hate filled crap they were preaching? It simply doesn’t wash. Obama is an opportuistc liar of a sort that Clinton can only dream about.

  Couple that with the idea that this is the real character of the people Obama calls ‘spiritual advisors’.

  All that being exposed….No wonder Obama decided to cut bait… something he swore he’d never do.

• Another Honorable Mention at OTB’s Caption Contest
• So, GM is closing Hummer plants. Understandable, in the short term, but dumb in the long term. Remember the Carter years? Remember how fuel prices dropped later on and we started moving away from the Altoids boxes they were passing off as cars?
• Samualson calls this one right; Forget “Cap and Trade” just call it what it is, “Cap and TAX”
• Let’s just call it the ‘Let them eat Cake” conference and let it go at that, shall we?
• Ahmadinejad says Israel will soon disappear… but we’re to accept his nuclear aspirations are peaceful.  Remember, this is the guy Obama wants to sit down with.  I mean I’ve got my own problems with McCain, but he gets this one right.
• Meanwhile, their buddies in Syria are claiming that Israel should face ‘Nuclear Checks’… IE Iran should have nukes. Why?  Doesn’t that assume that Israel would attack with Nukes?  Since they have not for the time they’ve been around, it seems logical they will not going forward, either, save for a situation where they’re under attack. And who would want to attack Israel? Maybe, someone who wants to make them ‘disappear’? Like, Iran and Syria, for example?
• Surber is saying Montana has oil. Lots of it. Around 40 Billion, in fact. Watch for more price drops.  Best part, Surber says, no Burkas. Well, no, Don, with all respect the best part is no resistance from the usual Enviro-nazis.
• A guilty plea in Ohio, over terrorism. Yes, the Islamic kind.
• More on the Democrat party split here. This stiff is not going to heal by november, gang, and perhaps longer.
• Jen Rubin nails it, and the Democrat party will NOT be happy.
  

  We had to withdraw, we were told, because all was lost, it was immoral to sacrifice any more brave Americans for a lost cause, there had been no political progress and nothing further could be gained. But in the face of recent progress, when a chance for success and a good outcome has emerged (acknowledged among the more honest mainstream media observers), we should still leave, and in fact it is more necessary that we should do so?But that is small potatoes next to the real problem: Obama doesn’t think progress is being made, refuses to acknowledge reality and opposed the surge-which even Obama’s greatest defender can admit was the correct course and likely saved us from a “catastrophe.” That obvious dilemma will not be lost, I am fairly certain, on those not predisposed to explain, justify, and protect Obama from unpleasant realities.

  Like, for example, voters, huh?  Clinton being in the race for as long as she’s been may in fact have been the best possible thing for Obama. The media and the Obama campaign could up till now concentrate on that circus between those two. Now that Clinton looks to be removing herself from that process soon,  (or, maybe not) Obama and his people are going to have to address these harder questions they’ve been thusfar avoiding. And I honestly don’t think he can.

Addendum: (David L)

Surber is saying Montana has oil. Lots of it. Around 40 Billion, in fact. Watch for more price drops. Best part, Surber says, no Burkas. Well, no, Don, with all respect the best part is no resistance from the usual Enviro-nazis.

And I thought that Don was a coal man.    For a technical discussion  the Bakken, into see previous post, Betting on Bakken.

It is oil and it is not controled by the federal government.   Anthony Effinger has details of the Bakken oil formation:

June 3 (Bloomberg) — John Bartelson, who smokes Marlboro Lights through fingers blackened with tractor grease, may look like an average wheat farmer. He isn’t. He’s one of North Dakota’s new oil barons.

No moose, no polar bears, and  I hope no congresscritters.

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Oil prices fell by almost $2 a barrel this evening after the US Federal Reserve said a weak dollar had fuelled inflation in the US. This suggested the Fed is not likely to cut interest rates further this year.

US crude was down $1.84 at $125.92 while London Brent crude fell $1.72 to $126.30.

One of the factors driving investment in commodities this year has been the weakness of the US currency, which encourages the buying of dollar-denominated commodities as a hedge against inflation.

Analysts said there was mounting evidence demand for oil was easing and expectations that Asian economies, which have led growth in fuel consumption, will slash subsidies because they have become too costly.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan have already announced cuts to subsidies, while Malaysia said it would scrap fuel price controls in August in a move that could double pump prices.

That’s RTE Business, today. So, the trend I mentioned yesterday, continues.

And guess what? I’ve said Soros was involved here, and I’m firmly convinced of it now, based on testimony before the Senate. From the AP:

The growth of funds designed to mimic the price of crude oil and other energy futures is reminiscent of a similar craze that precipitated the stock market crash of 1987, billionaire financier George Soros told lawmakers Tuesday.

The surge in popularity of commodity index funds is “intellectually unsound … and distinctly harmful in its economic consequences,” Soros told a Senate hearing. When speculators enter a market mostly on one side — in this case, betting on rising oil futures — it “distorts the otherwise prevailing balance between supply and demand.”

He likened it to the rush to invest in portfolio insurance more than 20 years ago. When those investors tried to exit the market at the same time, stock markets around the world crashed.

While acknowledging he was not an expert on oil markets, Soros said he has spent years studying market “bubbles” that begin with a trend based in reality, but are then followed by some misinterpretation of that data. He sees no imminent crash in oil prices, however, and said a decline in consumption will not occur unless the U.S. and other developed nations’ economies fall into recession.

“That makes it desirable to discourage commodity index trading while it is still inflating the bubble,” Soros said. He has urged regulators to improve market oversight and to place limits on speculative positions.

Well, of COURSE he’s going to call for greater governmental intervention. That said, he knows it’s a bubble. And I’m still firmly convinced his fingerprints are all over it. 

One word to the wise: Short.

Update: This post made Reuters newswire. Thanks.

PARIS -AP- Brigitte Bardot was convicted Tuesday of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.

A Paris court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen siren and animal rights campaigner. The court also ordered Bardot to pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP.

Bardot’s lawyer, Francois-Xavier Kelidjian, said he would talk to her about the possibility of an appeal.

A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation’s quarterly journal.

In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is “tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts.”

Bardot, 73, was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir, celebrated by slaughtering sheep.

Well, I think her animal rights nonsense to be a little over the top frankly. And you’d think she’d addres the thing head on, instead of hiding it in a rant about killing goats.  But she’d be welcomed here in the States. Think about the rather delicious irony involved in that.