Inayat Bunglawala has written a half-decent piece on the state of the Islam and the West. I say half-decent because he quickly lapses into a slam against Israel and their “occupation”. Oh yes, and Gitmo gets a mention as well. The rest of it includes all the remaining scripts that you have heard said by every Islamic representative.

He claims that the reporting on the radical Islamists who celebrated the “The Magnificent 19”, was totally unfair. He claims the following regarding 9/11:

Yet every leading Islamic authority and country around the world, including the venerable al-Azhar university in Egypt, had condemned the indiscriminate slaughter of the innocents that day.

First of all, every leading authority did not condemn the attack; some cheered it. Secondly, it is patently obvious that Muslims have been lax in their efforts to report/expose the extremists and potential terrorists in their midst. How come every time Muslims are caught planning some nasty, the first thing that Muslim groups do is demand their release and claim the arrest is rascist? You can’t have it both ways: Either you assimilate yourselves and become loyal to your country and report potentials threats whether they be Islamic or not, or you continue to resist turning any Muslim over to the “kaffirs” and risk the condemenation of the rest of the country for your unhelpful atttitude.

The irony is that it is ordinary British Muslims who are left wounded – often literally – by this sort of provocative drivel, while the far Right gains added ammunition for its menacing agenda.

As opposed to the posters depicting the terrorist hijackers as heros that you can see on the net, in Islamic newspapers, and on mosques?

How about the feelings of the families who have died at the hands of Muslims extremists? They don’t count, right? We wouldn’t want to offend Muslim sensibilities with “drivel” about loons like al-Muhajiroun. How come there were no Muslims protesting against the 9/11 “celebration”? If you don’t like what the BNP is doing, why not do it yourselves? Or is it another case of not criticising a fellow Muslim?

Go pay your respects to the concept’s creator. Numpty here forgot to submit anything this week..doh!

As the newspapers tell it, drugs are somebody else’s fault. Mexico’s, for example, which grows and ships drugs. Yep, our drug problem comes from them. Colombia makes us take drugs too. In Washington you often see Colombians with machetes to peoples’ throats, making them use drugs. Sometimes they actually block traffic. The Afghans grow drugs for the American market, but it’s not their fault, because they are our allies and love us and fight terrorism. Does this make sense? Maybe it’s because I’m slow, but looks to me as if America has a drug problem because Americans want drugs. It isn’t Colombia. You might as well blame Toyotas on Japan as blame cocaine on Colombia. If we didn’t want Toyotas, we wouldn’t buy them. Drugs, too.(09/15/03)

This piece of bleeding obvious writing (that needs to repeated) comes from Rational Review. If there is a market for drugs, someone is going to fill it.

The Bush administration said on Monday it would withhold some funds from Israel because of its settlement activities in Palestinian
areas. But the administration said it has yet to decide whether to penalize Israel over construction of a security fence, which President George W. Bush called ‘a problem’ for U.S. efforts to build trust between Israelis and Palestinians. The deductions would come from a $9 billion package of U.S. loan guarantees to help Israel weather a deep recession and fiscal crisis stemming in large part
from the three-year-old Palestinian militant revolt against Israel for independence. An administration official said the dollar-amounts for any deductions have yet to be determined. (09/15/03)

If he avoids things like this I think it is possible that Bush could pick up as much of a 1/3 of the current Jewish vote that goes to the Democrats. Despite lapses like this one, the Republicans have been overwhelming more pro-Israel than the Democrats in recent years. The Dems seem to take the Jewish vote for granted. I wonder if that is wise.

From: Rational Review.

From the ASI newsletter originated in ePolitix.

In last month’s news clippings, I noted government plans to make farmers
responsible for disposing of rubbish that is fly-tipped on their land. ‘This
is not without precedent,’ says a reader. ‘The government has already made
UK citizens pay for the rubbish policies that are fly-tipped onto the
statute books every day.’ Got a point. Still, here’s this week’s outrages:

• – The Chancellor’s economic hopes received a setback when data revealed the
  average G7 productivity last year was 16.8 per cent higher than the UK. – MPs want to know why the Treasury’s administration costs have risen 40
  percent, up 27 million pounds, in the last financial year. (Me too!) – The Child Support Agency has just written off more than 2.8 billion quid
  in unpaid child maintenance. (I wish I could write off debts so easily!) – Council taxes are being tipped to rise by around 200 pounds a year, due
  to new demands placed on councils by the government.

  Bad service

  • – Scared of prosecution, Network Rail managers agree to millions of pounds’
    worth of unnecessary safety measures, leading to an 80% rise in delays. – Rail subsidies are up 270 million pounds on nine years ago, but official
    passenger-growth targets still won’t be met, says a Salford Uni report. – The BMJ says that a shortage of midwives puts babies’ lives at risk;
    Cancer Research says bureaucracy is costing the lives of cancer patients. – In the last two years, less than 3000 doctors have taken up government
    inducements of up to 12,000 pounds each to fill GP vacancies. – Half our teachers have insufficient time or back-up to teach the
    government’s new citizenship requirement properly, says a report.

    Divided Britain

    • – Leeds academics say the UK’s social classes are becoming more divided.
      The JR Foundation says families now need 1.5 earners to make ends meet. – The number of people living in council-funded Bed & Breakfast
      accommodation has trebled (to 11,000 households) since 1997. – Irate motorists, angry at how speed cameras have been used as a way of
      boosting police revenues, have recently destroyed 700 speed cameras.

      NB: The lot at ASI have a new blog which you find under the link above.

      Comments are off for this post

The freefall, flat on the tummy with the hands at the sides of the head, is the most unusual position. Only 6.5 percent of people prefer it and they are usually brash and gregarious.

It’s nice to see a study that gets me spot on. It is, of course, rather unusual for me to be in a distinct minority.

Story found by Kris Murray, who is less sure about the report’s findings in reference to her personally.

Link (heh, now there’s a name for the Internet) Byfield in the Calgary Sun:

September 14, 2003
Canadians prefer mythology
Anti-democratic attitude pervades eastern judiciary and political establishment
By LINK BYFIELD — Calgary Sun

Real Canada doesn’t like the truth. It prefers mythology — such as the myth that Canada is a functioning democracy with an impartial judiciary.