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*** These kids may have the right idea ...

Ninja madness hits Canterbury campus

Its headquarters are at a secret location, but Ninjasoc, Canterbury University's hottest new social club, has no trouble signing up new members.

Started as a joke, the four "founding fathers" are astounded to have more than 250 members on the books this year.

Ninjasoc president and engineering student Richard Flett, 21, with only his eyes visible through a black mask, said: "We expected 50 people and it ended up being 250."

Michael Down, 21, another founder member, studying fourth-year commerce and law and brandishing a plastic ninja sword, said the club, with 40 per cent female membership, tapped into students' secret need to be ninjas. I guess we appeal to people.

... but they suffer from totally lame execution:

However, so far martial-arts skills are limited to instruction on the art of tying jumpers around heads to make a ninja mask and "getting pumped".
...
"I don't think they are a secret bunch of real ninjas. I think they do stuff that is more ninja-aimed. I don't really know what, but they have had a couple of barbecues. Ninjas have to eat," he said.

Being a ninja without the ability to pass through walls, kill one's own students and pluck a man's eye from his skull is like being a dog that hates roast beef, won't chase rabbits and can't lick its own "kibble n' bits." Pointless.

*** Amir Taheri releases a statement about his story concerning an impending Iranian dress code:

Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.

As far as my article is concerned I stand by it. The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.

Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. (In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908). I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.

I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.

Interestingly, the Islamic Republic authorities refuse to issue an official statement categorically rejecting the concept of dhimmitude and the need for marking out religious minorities.

I raised the issue not as a news story, because news of the new law was already several days old, but as an opinion column to alert the outside world to this most disturbing development.

Allah isn't quite buying it. For my part, it seems like there's a solid basis for the thrust of the story (legislation about religiously determined dress codes), but getting "the spirit" of a story right is hardly the standard for adequate journalism. It appears that Taheri strongly asserted potential outcomes of a legit story as facts, and thus ... well, got "ahead of the news cycle," to borrow an unfortunate turn of phrase.

Aziz over at Dean's World takes a harsh line on Taheri and his story, and a very good back-and-forth follows in the comments section.

*** Looks like the Milblogs collective is zeroing in on its first kill, an Iraq war crimes faker in the "Vietnam Winter Soldiers Conference" mold.

Scroll up from that post to witness the progressive*, righteous deconstruction of a likely phony.

* By "progressive" I mean "incremental," rather than the euphemistic self-identifier used by wacky leftists that eat up stories by fake Iraq War veterans.

Posted by Bill at May 23, 2006 09:33 AM | TrackBack (2)

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