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[Music clip: Erika Miklósa, "Hört, hört, hört, Rachegötter, …" from The Magic Flute.]
01 — Intro. Ah, The Magic Flute! Got it on the brain these few days. Sorry, folks. That was Erika Miklósa as Queen of the Night, and this is your King of the Night, your emissary of darkness and melancholy, John Derbyshire bringing you news and opinion from beneath the sign of Saturn, here on Radio Derb. On with the motley! |
| 02 — Brit sailors disgrace Western Civ. Boy, I've been getting some ugly
emails this past couple of days. This was because of posts I've been sending to The Corner and an article I wrote on another website criticizing some
of the British sailors and marines captured by Iran the other day for their cheerful and co-operative demeanor.
The one woman in the bunch, Leading Seaman — shouldn't that be "Seaperson"? — Leading Seaperson Faye Turney put on a headscarf and kept it on when her hands were free and she could easily just have pulled it off. Apparently she kept it on out of respect for the religion of the barbarous thugs who had kidnapped and detained her against all the rules of conduct among civilized states. One of the sailors — we're not given his rank, but I assume he's Able Seaman — Nathan Summers made a grovelling apology to the Iranians. Neither of these people had to do the things they did. Neither showed any signs of having been tortured or of being under duress in any way. They insulted their country and their comrades because they are products of multicultural modern Britain, taught since elementary school that their country is evil and guilty of numberless historical crimes, and that Third World pest-holes like Iran are repositories of moral worth and dignity. Watching the antics of these children of multiculturalism, you see the end of Western civilization staring you in the face. God help us all! |
| 03 — See something, say something, get sued. "If you see something,
say something." How many times have you heard that?
Well, here's a new, improved version,courtesy of the Trial Lawyers Association: "If you see something, say something, then get ready to be sued until you bleed." Remember the flying Imams? Six Muslim clerics were in a plane on the tarmac in Minneapolis Airport one day last Fall. They had been heard praying loudly before boarding the plane and talking about Saddam Hussein. Then instead of taking their seats, they were moving around the plane in a suspicious way. Some passengers complained. The Imams were taken off the plane, handcuffed and questioned. Now a New York lawyer named Omar Muhammadi — I wonder what religion he professes: Christian Science, perhaps? — Mr Mohammedi is suing to have the identities of the complaining passengers revealed. This presumably is so he'll be able to sue them individually for their shameful conduct in reporting suspicious activities. As well as being an attorney, Mr Muhammedi is a member of New York City's Human Rights Commission. He was appointed to the Commission by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002. Well, thanks, Mr Mayor. I feel so much more secure in my human rights knowing that Mr Muhammadi is on the case. |
| 04 — SCOTUS dictates chemistry. Those scientific whizkids on the United
States Supreme Court have ruled carbon dioxide a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.
This commonplace gas, which you and I — and presumably even Supreme Court justices — exhale with every breath, and which plants depend on as input to the photosynthesis process, is now an outlaw. This was a five-to-four ruling with lefty nitwits Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer voting to shut down the vegetable kingdom while Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito dissented, thinking that perhaps we should be allowed to continue exhaling. Excuse me while I go and look up "carbon dioxide" in my copy of the United States Constitution. |
| 05 — The threat of Christian terrorism. The High School of Burlington
Township in New Jersey held a terrorism drill, so the kids and teachers would know what to do if the school was attacked.
You may remember that this actually happened to a school in Beslan, Russia back in '04. The attackers at Beslan killed 344 civilians, including 196 children. Those attackers were fanatics of a certain religious persuasion. I forget which one … Zoroastrianism, I think it was. Anyway, this New Jersey school held a full terrorism drill with a blue team, that's us, and a red team, that's the enemy. The red team were, like the Beslan mass murderers, of a certain religious persuasion. Can you guess which one? Yes: the most murderous, dangerous, terroristic religion of all. They were Christians. Played by two local police detectives, the attackers were, quote, "members of a right wing fundamentalist group who don't believe in separation of church and state." Well, congratulations to the authorities of Burlington township for having identified the principal danger to our lives and liberties. And citizens: Should you see a bunch of Christians praying together in an airport, be sure to alert the authorities. You can be pretty certain they're up to no good, and I'm guessing that Mr Omar Muhammedi won't we trying to track you down through the courts. Just guessing there. |
| 06 — Tom Tancredo in '08! Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo has
announced that
he will be seeking the Republican Presidential nomination. He says that no one in the current field of candidates is properly addressing the issue of
illegal immigration.
He's right, of course. I don't imagine Tom Tancredo is going to be the 44th president and I don't imagine that he thinks he will either. The object of the exercise here is to make noise about this issue on the campaign trail and to force the other candidates to speak about it. In that spirit, I welcome Tom to the field; and if there's anything I can do to help publicize his campaign, I shall do it. Heck, I might even send in a contribution. This is a huge issue. The insouciance of our ruling classes — among whose ranks I include all the major Presidential candidates — their insouciance towards illegal immigration is blind and foolish, and will have long-term consequences for our country that will be dire, perhaps tragic. Give 'em Hell, Tom! |
| 07 — Brits cower before Islam. The schools in Britain are dropping courses
on the Holocaust and the Crusades for fear of offending Muslim students, according to a government study over there.
It is a basic tenet of multiculturalism, you see, that other people's beliefs should be respected. Well, several million Muslims living in England believe in Holocaust denial. That's a belief, isn't it? So it should jolly well be respected. As for the Crusades, formally depicted in lying racist British school propaganda as an attempt by Christian Europe to recover territories lost to the Muslim invasions of the seventh century, the Crusades were in fact a vicious and unprovoked assault by evil white imperialists on the helpless adherents of the religion of peace. Godfrey de Bouillon was a sort of eleventh-century George W. Bush, you see? As for all those centuries when European Christians were being abducted by Muslim slave raiders from North Africa: Well, we can't mention that, can we? It was probably the Europeans' fault, anyway. Western civilization is nothing but a catalog of cruelty, racism, greed, and oppression. Everybody knows that. For sure, everybody who graduates from a British school will soon know it. |
| 08 — Gaming the diversity racket. I caught a nice little bit of
multicultural jargon the other day: "diversity permits." This is in relation to the Los Angeles school system, most particularly to Beverly
Hills High School.
As you may well imagine, Beverly Hills High is a pretty upscale place. That bothered the school authorities; so some years ago they started this system of diversity permits to get nonwhite students in from less favored neighborhoods. You applied for a permit. If you were approved, you got to go to Beverly Hills High. Then in 1996 California voters passed a strict anti-affirmative action law. The folk at Beverly Hills High had to adjust their policy. They went for a "don't ask, don't tell" approach. That is, if you're applying for one of our diversity permits, don't tell us your race or ethnicity. What do you think the result was? Right: Of the eight percent — eight percent — of applicants for diversity permits who get accepted into Beverly Hills High, a majority are Asian. As a local assistant principal explained to the LA Times: "Of course it's Asian students who received most of the permits. They are the students who are most driven and have the highest grades." The lesson here is that as blunt affirmative-action quotas morph into colorblind diversity programs based on gaming the system, the kids with the parents who are most eager and able to game the system will win out. Whoever could have predicted it? |
| 09 — Miscellany. Okay, listeners, here's our little closing miscellany.
Item: A very small blow for liberty was struck by an appeals judge in New Jersey who ruled that you cannot be charged with driving drunk on a Zamboni in the Garden State. John Paragallo was over the limit on his Zamboni while polishing the ice in a Morristown stadium last year and was duly ticketed. The ticket has been ruled invalid. Item: Keith Richards has admitted to mixing the ashes of his deceased father with cocaine and inhaling the mixture through his nose. Keef's proud boast is that he was Number One on the "Who's Most Likely to Die" list for ten years straight. Perhaps when he does finally kick the bucket Keef will make his own ashes available for ingestion by fellow junkies. Judging from Keef's lifestyle, it would be potent stuff all by itself. Item: Bashar Assad, the President of Syria, took a break from organizing convoys of terrorists into Lebanon and Iraq to welcome Nancy Pelosi wearing the obligatory multiculti headscarf. Assad runs a police state that produces nothing except trouble, but Nancy gave him the excuse to act the important national leader for a few hours. Thanks, Nancy. Item: A high school student down in Clearwater, Florida, mooned his teacher. For that he got transferred to another school. Now he's suing the original school for excessive discipline. I call that showing a lot of cheek. Item: Over in England, a 102-year-old man has taken out a 25-year mortgage. The report on this in the London Times included the following little gem, quote: Charities supporting the elderly have warned that the stress of taking out a large loan could affect health. Gordon Lishman, the Director General of Age Concern, said, "It's crucial that people think about the long-term implications." You know what, Mr Lishman? At age 102, I don't think long-term implications are at the front of your mind Item: Also in England, a ten-year-old boy was visited by four — count 'em, four — policemen when he called a schoolmate "gay" in an email. The boy's father, who runs a small business, grumbled that when he calls the police to report a break-in at his business, which happens pretty regularly, the police display no interest. Perhaps he should try filing a complaint about having been robbed by gay burglars. Item: The New Haven Register reports that three foreign students at Yale University burned an American flag. The foreign students were named as Hyder Akbar Said, who is a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, who is Greek, and Farhad Anklesaria, who is of course British — I mean you could tell that from the name. How fortunate we are to have these foreign students in our country, enriching our boring white-bread culture with their colorful customs! And how brave of them to protest the cruelty and racism of American society by boldly burning our flag! Long live Akbar Said, Angelopoulos, and Anklesaria — heroes of our time! Long live multiculturalism! |
| 10 — Signoff. On that upbeat note, ladies and gents, I'll leave you. Tune
in again next week for more mean-spirited self-loathing and chicken-hawk whining from Radio Derb.
Here's a bit more Magic Flute to see us out. |
[Music clip: (Unknown bass), "In diesen heil'gen Hallen" from The Magic Flute.]