Birds of paradise

“May the bird of paradise lay a ta-ta on your tutu,” Johnny Carson said to one Tonight Show audience that laughed insufficiently at one of his jokes. As I recall, that was only one variation of the curse he called on for uncooperative audiences. Johnny’s use of the curse seems also to have provided the inspiration for the Jimmy Dickens country song “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose.”
Now we learn that Birds of Paradise is an Islamic satellite channel that broadcasts from Bahrain and is aired in Gaza. The head of the satellite channel is Khalid Maqdad, a Palestinian Jordanian. The children’s choir featured in the video below is apparently also called Birds of Paradise.
Islam and jihad lie at the heart of the incitement to “martyrdom” in the video, which I found posted at NRO. Obama administration counterterror adviser John Brennan might want to pay a courtesy call on Maqdad and the producers of the video to explain to them how they have it all wrong. According to Brennan, jihad properly understood is a beautiful thing.

Readers interested in more along these lines would do well to check in with the invaluable MEMRI. Readers may also want to check out “Obama and the War Against Israel” by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, posted in two parts at NRO. Here is part 1 and here is part 2.