Both during the Muslim domination of the Iberian Peninsula and in the humongous Ottoman Empire,  Muslims were very accepting of people practicing other religions. This was true both for the territories where non-Muslims were a minority and the regions where they were a big majority.

This lasted for almost 1,000 years, and in all that time, the Christian kingdoms and empires were in a constant state of extreme hysteria over the idea that Muslims existed.

There are fewer than 200 countries in the world today. But do you know how many different states there were just in Europe only 500 years ago?

1,500.

And there was a network of very complex overlapping jurisdictions of different kinds between them.

Something really crucial had to happen to reduce that insane number of European states, territories, free cities, principalities, etc to just 50 today, right?

ISIS bans cigarettes and beheads people who smoke. Russian terrorists in Donbass persecute smoking women because they are convinced that smoking causes women to give birth to gay babies. Mind you, it isn’t drinking, drugs, sushi or sunshine that bugs them. It’s smoking.

There is definitely something curious going on with modern terrorists and smoking.

But Charlie Hebdo has been a target for a long time, thanks to a long history of intentionally controversial and provocative cartoons and covers.

To me this sounds like victim-blaming of the worst caliber. This article is pretty much saying that Charlie Hebdo provoked murderers and did it intentionally. Poor little murderers, so horribly provoked! If only the journalists hadn’t published these provocative and controversial cartoons, nothing bad would have happened to them. Why did they have to go and publish,  dress, breathe, speak, and exist in a way that forces good, well-meaning murderers to start shooting?

My niece Klubnikis will start at a big – kid school next Fall, so her parents are searching for a school for her. They are a muti-lingual family of Russian – speaking Ukrainians and French/Spanish-speaking Peruvians and no they settled on English as the first language for Klubnikis.

The five-year – old Klubnikis has an incredible vocabulary and a fantastic command of very complex grammar structures in English, aside from speaking Russian,  Spanish, and French. Her parents are prepared to pay an insane amount of money to buy their kid a right to study in the language of their choosing in Quebec. Today, they went to an open house at an English school in Montréal.

During the question and answer session, the teacher asked, “So are you interested in hearing about our bilingualism program?”

All of the parents responded with hostile silence.

I know that my Quebecois readers don’t like hearing this but we emigrated to Quebec with a great enthusiasm and a good knowledge of the French language. And it was all beaten out of us by the intense hostility of the local French-speakers. Language learning is a very sensitive process. Once learners begin to associate the language with unpleasantness and mistreatment, they stop learning. As a result, allophone immigrants in Quebec veer towards the much more open and accepting English-speaking community.

The weather forecast informs me there is a 50% chance of snow while the snow is falling in a thick stream.

I tried entering a coffee shop, but the moment I touched the door, a huge mound of snow fell on my head. I came into the shop with a fluffy snow crown on my head but the unflappable Canadians in the shop didn’t even break a smile.

In the coffee shop, I saw quotes from Obama ‘ s statement on the terror attack in France broadcast on a huge TV screen. The statement disappointed. Obama mentioned “the universal values” which is obvious crap. There are no universal values. The attack is precisely about the values of free speech and freedom of religion not being universal. Until we find the courage to squeeze the words “our Western values” out of our PC mouths, we’ll remain massively screwed. Or are we ready to sacrifice all of our hard-won civilizational advances in order to hang on to the dubious skill of exercising this mumbly and pathetic politically correct approach?

Did you, folks, hear about the terror acts in France? What a horrible tragedy.
My deepest sympathies to my readers from France.