I know I am fairly predictable, but perhaps that is not so bad as you get older, but I welcome the advent of a new interesting blog: judeosphere
The comments on the aftermath of Katrina are informative, most of us missed that angle.
The news of the death of Simon Wiesenthal is a sad, but his excellent work in hunting down Nazis will be remembered.
Simon Wiesenthal’s fine educational work continues on the web and at the Museum of Tolerance.
How we treat minorities, people without power or those who have traditionally been neglected or placed in a subservient role tells us a lot about our societies and attitudes. Therefore, the inclusion of Afghan women in the forthcoming election must be welcomed. Their courage in these circumstances is remarkable.
Afghanistan has been ravaged by civil war, dictatorships, warlords, famine and world neglect. Throughout these terrible events to position of women in Afghan society has diminished and become intolerable. The nihilist beliefs of the Taliban are still prevalent but until Afghan women can exert their presence and obtain their just rights then social reform, peace and stability may not be possible in Afghanistan.
The position of women in Afghanistan will be an indicator of its progress.
Brett Lock and the people at Outrage have kept the heat on Ken Livingstone over his support for Dr al-Qaradawi, and rightly so.
Brett Lock’s blog can be found here, he makes many pertinent comments, well worth a read.
I have to admit I can not stand George Galloway, so with a degree of bias I present Galloway in his own words from Christopher Hitchens' site.
If you're in any doubt, previous video footage of Galloway's disgusting conduct can be seen here.
Firefox 1.5 beta 1 has been released and contains many nice features, but a warning: many older extensions don't work with it.
I am sure they'll be fixed within a week or two.
I ran across the notion of a 'black Pope' some months back and I thought it was just the rantings of complete fruitcakes, but to the rescue is www.illuminati-news.com
Best ignore if you're easy offended but it does offer an insight into the minds of some of these people. There appears to be a cross over from the ranting about the 'black Pope', Son of Satan, conspiracy freaks, UFOers and extreme right, which is very troubling.
Global warming and the increased destructive power in many hurricanes is tied together, according to the recent comments in the New Scientist:
"Global warming is pumping up the destructive power of hurricanes and typhoons, a new study suggests.
An analysis of data on storm winds and duration shows that potential wind-caused damage has roughly doubled over the past 30 years, although tropical sea-surface temperatures have increased by only half a degree over that time, says Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.
The frequency of hurricanes seems unaffected by global warming. Regional totals vary periodically, but the number of tropical cyclones around the world averages a steady 90 per year"I can not work out if Michael Shore's ranting about the Illuminati and the 7/7 bombings in London is a spoof, or he's off his rockers. You decide.
"Today is 7/ 7 2005 {2+5} or 777, a "perfect" day for the insane Illuminati to do one of their dirty deeds. One thing the Illuminati are into is rituals and numbers. The Illuminati like to leave their secret markings on their crimes. Remember 911?"
There was an informative programme on Radio 4's Analysis "Goodbye Autocratic Allies", with the transcript here.
The sad events in New Orleans were entirely predictable as National Geographic Magazine in October 2004 showed:
“When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
"The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five at 24 hours—coming from the worst direction," says Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the coast. Suhayda is sitting in a lakefront restaurant on an actual August afternoon sipping lemonade and talking about the chinks in the city's hurricane armor. "I don't think people realize how precarious we are,"Suhayda says, watching sailboats glide by. "Our technology is great when it works. But when it fails, it's going to make things much worse."
Banks get everywhere, so it should not come as a shock to see that there is a "Fatwa Bank"!
Are you confused by the controversy over Ken Livingstone’s friend, Dr.Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a renowned ‘moderate’?
Do you wonder what Dr.Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s views are?
Solution – check the Fatwa Bank
Take a look at his views on Gays:
“I should stress here that Muslim jurists have held differing opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice.”
Moderate?
Dr Mohammed Naseem on Radio 4, makes some very weird comments
about 9/11 (implying it was some conspiracy or didn't happen, via video manipulation, e.g. "cows can be made as [to] dance"), and on 7/7 - denying the authenticity of Mohammed Sidique Kahn's recent video statement.
Maybe he is a regular on Rense?
I occasionally look into weirdo conspiracy theories (no, I don’t believe them) but I think they do say something about modern day society and how seemingly rational people will articulate such nonsense.
A major crisis can bring the worst out in some people and the events in New Orleans is no different.
Rense is a fruitcake’s delight and their latest offering is on hurricane Katrina:
“The Illuminati and their government agents, Bush, Blair,Cheney, Rice, Putin, Sharon etc. etc. all play their roles in the Illuminati's hideous agenda of total control of Planet Earth. They do not care or have any compassion for the millions and possibly billions of humans who will have to be killed for the Illuminati to achieve their SICK agenda. Hurricane Katrina and the destruction and suffering it has caused is just one example of the SICK Illuminati minds who are behind the scenes manipulating these catastrophic wars and events on their way to achieve what they call their "Great Work of Ages".”
Wacky?
The BBC's World Tonight had a piece on religious fundies, and if there was a common theme between them (07:30 into playback)
Ziauddin Sardar has made some points on reforming Islam in the Guardian, and earlier on BBC radio.
He will be presenting Battle for Islam on Monday, 5th September 2005, 21:00-22:30 BBC2
Panorama's recent programme on the MCB and their lack of leadership skills brought to my attention the existence of MCB watch, which makes some reasonable points.
A transcript of the programme is here.
John Ware's response to attacks on the BBC.
Time to make your own mind up.
Salman Rushdie has intimate knowledge of extremism and its consequence, and has called for a Muslim reformation.
Rushdie was today on Radio 4 he comments on MCB and their alleged moderation.
A strange story has come out of the US concerning Able Danger:
"A US army intelligence officer went public yesterday with claims that a secret military unit had identified Mohammed Atta and three other al-Qaida members as a potential threat a year before they carried out the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer said the secret intelligence unit, codenamed Able Danger, had been prevented from passing on its information to the FBI by Pentagon lawyers concerned that the military should not be involved in surveillance of suspects inside the US."
Thanks to Harry's Place and a recent petition the work of Fareena Alam, the editor of Q-News has come to my attention and her essay on "A humane Muslim future", which makes some interesting points:
"As Fuad Nahdi points out, contemporary political Islam offers a religion to die for; classical Islam offers a religion to live for. Without the latter the great achievements of Muslim civilisation (so celebrated and extolled by Islamists) would not have been possible."
"Wahhabi Islam that takes as its starting-point a literal, static interpretation of the sacred texts. It is a movement that tore down the four mihrabs in Mecca. During the last four decades, funded by petrodollars and mass-produced literature, it has hijacked much of the popular theological debates within Islam, particularly in the west and the Arab world."
"The whole problem with Bin Ladenism and its related perversions is that while they use the language of Islam and appeal to community, they neglect its moral and ethical tenets. Emotion and outrage is no basis for a solution to the current malaise."
"We need to revive those musical and artistic traditions that have begun to vanish. A people without a cultural agenda, that particularises and localises religious expression, present no hope for their young people. "
So you've got Firefox ready and even K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.36 installed but you get the message "Additional plugins are required to play all the media on this page"
Yuck!
A solution:
Firefox->Tools->Options->Download->RAM Real Media File->Change Action ->[browse to K-Lite Codec Pack directory and find the Real directory which leads to the program:mpclauncher]
Open and it should show something like "D:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\Real\mpclauncher.exe" in the 'Open them in this application:' field
Now you should be able to watch those Real Audio files with Media Player Classic!
Trojans are an increasing problem on the Internet and dealing with them can be difficult.
I am evaluating two packages: TrojanHunter and ewido, which work on 2000 and XP only, but they look promising.
Forgetting the techie sites for the moment, or even political or historical ones.
This week's site of the week goes to Gendergeek
I would recommend the article on Terrorism, pride, and gender
The IFTU has produced a very sensible list of concerns with new Iraqi Constitution:
"The IFTU drew the UN Support Team’s attention to four discrete areas within the draft Constitution, which has changed frequently in recent weeks and which according to the IFTU in its current draft fails to adequately address the justified concerns of its members. These are;
1. Rights of Children: IFTU wishes to insist on the rights of Children aged younger than 16 years of age, not to be allowed to work and to have a full education. IFTU expressed its concern that the draft Constitution made general references to the rights of children without defining at what age these rights apply. In IFTU’s estimation this is a serious weakness, which would have the effect of undermining future attempts to improve the terrible situation for Iraqi children.
2. Right to Strike: IFTU expressed its strong dismay that an explicit Constitutional right of workers to take strike action has been removed from the draft version of the Constitution, although such a right exists in the current Transitional Administrative Law. The draft Constitution refers only to the right of workers to representation, without defining the right of workers to join or form the trade union representation of their choice, or as mentioned the right to withdraw their labour.
3. Rights of Women: IFTU made clear the complete opposition of the trade union to any attempt to revive the notorious Decree 137, which sought to remove the fundamental human rights of women in the name of imposing sharia law. Womens’ rights to marriage, divorce, to own property, inherit and pass on property to their children and others, to access education at all levels, to work and to play a full part in all aspects of civil society and political life must be guaranteed in the Constitution of a modern democratic, federal Iraq.
4. Separation of Politics and Religion: IFTU insists on the complete separation of the powers and authority of ‘the mosque’ from the constitutional state law. Freedom to practice religion must be guaranteed by the Constitution. The Constitution should not take Islam as its sole source of legitimacy. "
The Daily Times relays an article on education in Pakistan:
"LAT quoted the education minister of a nation with Asia’s highest illiteracy rates as saying that he was determined to have specialists rewrite course guidelines and textbooks, from the first grade to the college level, so that the curriculum would be in line with that of any other advanced country.
He told LAT, “We don’t want to condemn any religion, which we will not.”
“A study of the public school curriculum and textbooks by 29 Pakistani academics in 2002 concluded that public school ‘textbooks tell lies, create hatred, inculcate militancy and much more’,” the paper said.
“The study by the independent Sustainable Development Policy Institute angered religious conservatives, and even a few liberals, who saw it as an attack on the country’s Islamic values, or even a plot by Western governments and rival India to subvert the Islamic state,” it added."
The report by the SDPI is here
I am not much of a TV person but will be interested to see Panorama on Sunday, 21 August 2005 22:15 on the topic of 'A question of leadership':
"For a sixty minute Panorama special, John Ware has spent the weeks since the London bombs traveling to Britain's Muslim communities, to discover whether their leaders can tackle the growth of extremism in their midst.
The programme contains strong, frank interviews with British Muslims on attitudes to integration, sectarianism, supremacy and suicide bombings in Britain and abroad. "
I don't have too much time to write at the moment, but found this article made many points that coincided with my preliminary thoughts on the 'root causes' of 7/7 in London:
“Al Qaeda is a revanchist organisation, which holds the West in general and the US in particular responsible for all the evils afflicting the Islamic world and for the decline of the political power of Islam since the end of the Ottoman Empire. It wants to avenge the wrongs allegedly committed against the Muslims since the end of the Ottoman Empire, re-write history and restore an Islamic Caliphate from which Western influence would be totally excluded.
It is comparable to the Nazis of Germany in its revanchist ideas and actions. The Nazis blamed the rest of the Western world for the decline of Germany since the First World War and for all the evils afflicting Germany. They wanted to restore the pre-eminent position of Germany in the world.If the world leaders of that time had said "Let us address the root causes of Nazism first, before we fight the Nazis and Adolf Hitler", where will the world be today?
The call to address the root causes of the Al Qaeda today is as short-sighted as a call to first address the root causes of Nazism would have been in the early 1940s”
VJ day was celebrated on 15th August 1945, 60 years ago.
It has been called the forgotten war:
"To the many veterans who fought in it and for those who survived the brutal conditions in the prisoner of war and labour camps, the war against the Japanese in the Far East will always be the forgotten war."
I was interested to read Africa's miracle food: plumpy'nut: Plumpy’nut — a fortified peanut butter stuffed with milk and vitamins — is just the sort of food that overweight Western children are advised to avoid. But for malnourished children it has an amazing effect, making it the undisputed hero of the current crisis in Niger, where 3.6 million people — 800,000 of them children — face severe food shortages. Within two days, Hilinki’s weight has climbed from 4.6kg to 5kg (10lb to 11lb). She will stay at the clinic for a further three days and receive six meals a day. Nearly all of it will be plumpy’nut — a merging of the words peanut and plump — which can add as much as 1kg (2.2lb) a week to a hungry child’s weight. ... Plumpy’nut was created by André Briend, who spent years working in humanitarian crises. He realised that a ready-to-eat supplement that needs no cooking or added water, and is cheap to produce, could help to save millions of lives in remote and under-developed areas. Plumpy’nut is now produced in Normandy by a company that specialises in food relief, in partnership with Unicef, the United Nation’s children’s organisation. ...
"
The success of plumpy’nut, which is normally given for four weeks at a cost of £12, in treating that problem is raising some awkward questions, particularly for the governments whose children stand to benefit.
“It is cheap to produce and deliver, so why is it not being manufactured locally and given to children all over Africa?” asks Adrian Hartley, a white Kenyan author and commentator on Africa. “These governments always have money to buy their Mercedes cars and guns — so why not some plumpy’nut?"
Ever been stuck with a 'new' non-legacy laptop and need to re-install from scratch, but can not connect ANYTHING under DOS?
If so, try The Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk from www.netbootdisk.com and it is described here
Just download the Zip, extract, create a boot floppy and go.
One damn fine piece of software and not a M$ in sight: recommended!
This less than cheeful piece of news was recently reported by Iran Focus:
"Tehran, Iran, Jul. 22 – A military garrison has been opened in Iran to recruit and train volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations”, according to the garrison’s commander, Mohammad-Reza Jaafari.
...
The weekly carried a report in its July 13 issue on a meeting between Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and the commander of Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison. Jaafari was quoted by the weekly as saying that the organisation of "martyrdom-seeking popular forces" was being implemented on the basis of instructions from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces"
As Mandy Rice-Davies said, Tariq Aziz 's help to Saddam Hussein continues, as reported by Reuters:
"I would like to make clear ... that I will not testify against anyone and, in particular, I will not testify against Saddam Hussein," attorney Badia Aref quoted Aziz saying in a note he passed the lawyer during a meeting earlier in the day."
I hope George Galloway will prevail upon his good friend, Tariq, to testify against the Iraqi mass murderer, but I some how doubt he will.
Saddam Hussein, Iraq's murdering dictator has fired most of his legal team, according to an ABC report:
“Saddam Hussein's family said Monday it has dissolved his Jordan-based legal team, canceling the power of attorney it had given to international lawyers in a move seen as reorganizing the ousted leader's legal counsel ahead of his upcoming trial.
…
But Saddam's former chief lawyer Jordanian Ziad al-Khasawneh, who resigned on July 7, claimed members of the legal team, especially Americans, had criticized him for rebuking the American occupation of Iraq and declaring the resistance as "legitimate."
He claimed former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark advised Raghad and other members of Saddam's family that such statements hurt Saddam's defense.”
Ramsey Clark has some funny connections, first Slobodan Milosevic and now Saddam Hussein.
The Times yesterday reported the passing away of Ibrahim Ferrer.
The past years have seen that demise of Ruben Gonzalez and Compay Segundo, from the original Buena Vista Social Club
Following on from Norms and Evil, the work of Dr. Michael Welner at Depravity Scale does provide some insights which may help people when reflecting on the 7/7 bombings.
From Indexing Evil Michael Welner, M.D., talks to Psychology Today News Editor Kaja Perina about The Depravity Scale.
"KP: How does September 11 factor into the Depravity Scale?
MW: People look at the hijackers and readily attach this spectrum of depravity. But they’re overlooking the very real possibility that these people were brainwashed, much the way destructive cult followers are. So are we dealing with depravity, or with an act of war? Is bin Laden psychopathic and depraved in his actions, or is he simply an Islamic populist?"
Following on from the Satanistic Teapot, Human Rights Watch reports that:
"The Malaysian government is targeting this religious community simply for their beliefs. The government is violating international standards by destroying the Sky Kingdom’s religious structures and now threatening to throw the members in jail without a fair trial. "
and earlier on:
"On July 18, a mob composed of 30 to 35 individuals, who were masked and dressed in robes, launched a pre-dawn attack on the Sky Kingdom. The mob reportedly tossed Molotov cocktails, slashed car tires with machetes, broke the windows of several homes, and partially scorched religious structures. Malaysian police have failed to arrest anyone involved in the attack. Instead, 58 members of the religious group, including 30 women and five children, were arrested on July 20 by the state religious affairs department and the local police."
Too often people try to ascribe some rational motivation or lopsided justification to the actions of murders, bombers or terrorists, and Norm's recent articles on evil and humanity make grim but necessary reading.
The reference to Dr. Michael Stone has revealed comments which related to the recent 7/7 bombings:
“Dr. Michael Stone of Columbia University also showed slides of nearly three dozen killers and others whom he considers evil.
A woman who burned one of her three daughters alive and starved another to death was "at the extreme edge of evil ... one of the most clearly evil persons" of more than 400 whose biographies he has read, Stone said.
However, he added that "the bulk of evil on a world scale is committed by ideologues and their followers." Wars and persecutions, from the Spanish Inquisition to the fighting in Bosnia, show people are capable of "bottomless cruelty to those outside the tribe, especially in times of hardship and hunger," he said.”
The recent destruction of teapot in Malaysia caught my eye:
"Members and visitors to the commune believe that water from the teapot, which poured into the giant vase, held purifying powers. They follow the teaching of Ariffin Mohammed, 65, better known as Ayah ("Master") Pin, who holds that every religion is equally valid and that anyone can find his or her own path to God. ...
Religious police raided the compound twice last month and nearly 50 of its members are due in an Islamic court this week, charged with deviation.
But the religious authorities fully approve of the state's actions. Haji Mohammed bin Junoh, the imam of the largest mosque in the area, said: "Pin is a deviationist. It is possible that he is dealing with Satan."
Now we know: Tea drinking is part of some weird Satanistic cult...humm
The rise of religious fundamentalism in Iraq has led to increasing attacks on women, and in particular, acid throwing as reported by Feminist Daily News:
"Several Iraqi women have been burned by acid attacks during recent weeks in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. Acid attacks are a form of violence against women where acid is thrown at or sprayed on women’s faces, legs, or other exposed body parts, in order to punish women in this case for not wearing the ‘abaya,’ a long black cloak that only reveals the nose, mouth, eyes, and hands."
Also, reported by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs :
"BAGDAD, 4 Jul 2005 (IRIN) - For Sumeya Abdullah, a 34-year-old primary school teacher in the capital Baghdad, life will never be the same again. In late June she had her legs burned by corrosive acid in a street attack because, she believes, she was not wearing her veil and the traditional 'abaya' covering common in many Middle Eastern countries.
"I was shopping in one of the most crowded districts in Baghdad when I felt my skin burning by something corrosive. It was horrible, a terrible pain, then I found myself in hospital," Abdullah said.
Witnesses in the district where the attack happened, said that for more than two weeks, women have been targeted by acid attackers for dressing immodestly. Sometimes the assailants spray or throw the acid on foot, or on occasion, from a moving car. Other attacks have been even more shocking."
Most of us are concerned with the situation in the Middle East and Bitter Lemons provides many useful insights which tend to get missed in the main stream media or the polarised debates on the Internet
Bitter Lemon's sister site Bitter Lemons International is worth a visit as well.
George Galloway's tour of the Middle East and his meeting with the Syrian Foreign Minister only seek to confirm our worst opinions of this moneygrubbing charlatan.
Having lost his meal ticket from Saddam Hussein, George Galloway is predictably touring the Middle East and looking for a sponsor.
Verifying video files is a pain and trying to determine what CoDecs are required is a thankless task, but to the rescue comes VideoInspector
KC Softwares summerise it as:
"VideoInspector is a tools designed to provide you with as much information as possible about your video files. With VideoInspector you'll know why your video files has no sound or refuses to play correctly. VideoInspector will help you installing the required CoDecs (coder/decoder software) for an optimal performance. VideoInspector can also inspect your system to find which codecs are available, and it can also process multiple video files and export its result in HTML or plain text files."
Me? I'd just say "very handy!" Downloaded from here
I have finally succumb to SuDoku, with legitimate reasons which I won't go into.
But SuDoku is fairly addictive and could be costly if you need to buy puzzle books or daily newspapers to satisfy your cravings, therefore below are links to free puzzles:
Enjoy!
The connections to the London bombing may spread much further than Italy. One of the alleged suspects, Osman Hussain, who said to have made a call to someone in Saudi.
The fact that he may have been calling someone in Saudi Arabia should not come as a surprise to any of us.
Now The Sundays Times suggests there is a third terrorist cell at work.
This month's Prospect runs an interview with Hassan Butt, a British Jihadist, who says:
"Butt: Every Muslim must work for the Shari’a to be implemented as a political way of life. They can do that physically, by involving themselves in revolutionary coups, or through political means. As long as they don't attack or compromise other Muslims who are doing something different from them, I have no problem with any of these ways of establishing the Shari’a."
Scary!
The second part is here.
"Taseer: What’s the position of the radical Islamic movement in Britain today? Is it growing or declining?
Butt: I do believe that support is growing. In the public eye it seems as though only a tiny number of Muslims are making this noise, but the fact is that only a tiny number have the courage to speak out. The rest won't, simply because they're worried about being persecuted by the government."
"Taseer: You're looking forward to death? Butt: Absolutely. As long as it's done properly. I'm terrified of dying normally, growing old, grey."
"Butt:..you know as well as I do that London has more radical Muslims than anywhere in the Muslim world. A bomb would jeopardise everyone’s position. "
That says alot.
People with Gmail accounts should be able to use them as as a virtual 2 Gb drive with GMail Drive , as they state:
"GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to."
I have not tested it yet but seems a smart idea.
Yesterday's statement by the provisional IRA to give up the armed struggle in favour of the political process is certainly a monumental step.
Since the initial meetings of Hume and Adams in 1988 there have been slow, faltering and sometimes obstructed steps towards the political path, rather than the Armalite and bullet.
Leaving aside the technicalities of disarmament for the moment, the stumbling block is the attitude and actions of the DUP, and the broader loyalist community.
Can they acknowledge the significance of the provisional IRA giving up the armed struggle? Or will they seek to rub salt into the wounds? Will they be willing to disarm the loyalist paramilitaries?
Lingering resentment, as embodied by Ian Paisley, will be an impediment to resolving the conflicts between the nationalist and loyalist communities.
Clearly Britain wishes to divest herself of Northern Ireland but the question is how?
If some funding arrangement can be organised from Europe which takes up the annual British subsidy that may go a long way to resolving any economic issues.
The Republic will need to invest time, money and diplomacy to avoid excessively alienating the loyalist communities, and it may have to modify Ireland’s constitution to enshrine some explicit safeguards for loyalists.
The questions remains: can the people of the North rid themselves of age old hatreds? How will they disarm the loyalist paramilitaries?
David Ignatius makes some interesting observations about the background of many Jihadists:
"..it's a far more deadly revolt of privilege. But people who were students in the 1960s will remember the phenomenon: The kids from elite public and private schools who went to college, felt guilty about their comfort amid a brutal world, and joined the Progressive Labor Party to ally with oppressed Third World workers. There is a cult aspect to this jihad – an extreme version of the logic that has always drawn disaffected kids to self-destructive behavior."
"What will stop this revolt of privileged Muslims? One possibility is that it will be checked by the same process that derailed the revolt of the rich kids in America after the 1960s – namely, the counter-revolt of the poor kids. Poor Muslims simply can't afford the rebellion of their wealthy brethren, and the havoc it has brought to the House of Islam. For make no mistake: The people suffering from jihadism are mostly Muslims.!
Never much read Julie Burchill until I got her bio second hand a few years back but she has mostly good instincts.
Some of her recent work at The Times can be found here.
Therefore, site of the week is the "unofficial" Julie Burchill
Newly released pictures from ABC News confirm what many of us had suspected, a wider and more concerted effort by the 7th of July terrorists.
Nail bombs and additional explosives have been found, with one of the ABC News Security experts, Robert Ayers, commenting:
"You see what is bulging on the sides of the bottle are nails. Many, many nails. And the nails are put there so that when the bomb goes off, the nails will tear tissue and kill people in the area. Bombs don't kill by concussion. Small bombs, they kill by the blast effects of fragments of glass or metal, and this is designed to kill people."
The BBC analysis programme on The Theology of Terrorism is very interesting and can be listened to here.
The savagery of the Iraqi 'insurgents' defies description but Amnesty International has released a report on them, which classifies their actions as warcrimes.
I could not agree more, remembering the fate of Margaret Hassan and the reaction of Iraqis to her kidnapping and subsequent beheading.
Anyone interested in history or current affairs should find
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School very helpful.
I would recommend the studying The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials pages.
26th July 1945:
Clement Attlee is elected as Prime Minister of Great Britain.
The Labour Government of 1945 heralded the creation of the British welfare state and the NHS, in dire circumstances and six short years. Atlee's government achieved more for ordinary people than governments before or since have.
A worthy project for using up all of those spare CPU cycles is Folding@Home Distributed Computing.
It works on a similar basis to the SETI project, providing a distributed client which downloads small chunks of data and processes them across 100,000s of PCs, using the spare cycles on the CPUs.
As they explain:
"Folding@Home is a distributed computing project which studies protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. We use novel computational methods and large scale distributed computing, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. This has allowed us to simulate folding for the first time, and to now direct our approach to examine folding related disease."
Get on your cycles!
The question of suicide bombers, their origin and intent, has been preoccupying people's minds for the last few weeks.
There is one helpful insight into the origins of suicide bombers from the Iranians web site: the Persian Journal.
In an article, it goes on to suggest that Khomeini's desire to win in the Iran-Iraq wars led to the Islamic reinterpretation of suicide bombing as a 'glorious act of martyrdom', and so it spread across the Middle East:
"The origins of suicide bombing lie in the battlefields of the 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war when Iranian child soldiers strapped bombs to their chests and blew up Iraqi tanks."
" The ancient Islamic prohibition against suicide was re-written and suicide bombing was reinterpreted as a glorious act of martyrdom.
From that moment onwards, the cult of suicide bombing invaded hearts and minds across the Islamic world."
Thinking on the previous entry, I reflected how the poem attributed to Martin Niemöller is apt, if slightly revised:
They attacked the Iraqis civilians, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't an Iraqi civilian;
They attacked the Iraqis aidworkers, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't an Iraqi aidworker;
They attacked Gays, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't Gay;
They attacked women, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't a woman;
They attacked London, I finally objected and
I realised - they must be stopped and how
wrong I was before to ignore all of the warnings signs;
Who Knew's Root Causes - Death Threats Against Gay Rights Group is worth reading, and think of the implications.
Outrage covers the issue as Terrorist danger to gay venues:
"Gay venues could be bombed by Islamic terrorists. All gay bars and clubs should introduce bag and body searches. Muslim fundamentalists have a violent hatred of lesbians and gay men. They believe we should be killed. Our community could be their next target. This is no time for complacency."
Mandriva Linux (formed by combing Mandrake and Conectiva) have released a new beta: Mandriva Linux 2006 Beta 1. It still seems to be making its way to the mirrors, so initially downloadable from Warwick
Just as 1.0.5 of Firefox was released problems were found on the API and 1.0.6 is here to fix them!! Beat that M$
SafeXP is useful but the recommended setting might need adjusting, as it turns on automatic update and tidies up the Start Menu a bit too much for my taste.. Other than that, SafeXP is very useful.
Updating my previous post on Crap Cleaner: very handy tools, it does the job and removes a lot of unnecessary rubbish. The Issues function is very useful for rectifying minor discrepancies on XP systems.
But care should be taken to un-click the Cookie, if the setting on your favourite web sites vanish (they are mostly kept in local cookies on your machine), not a major problem.
I would run with the standard settings (remove all cookies) and then visit your favourite sites, allow cookies and then un-click the remove all cookies function again , that way you get the best of both worlds, tidy machine but enough cookie to make your life easier.
Another candidate for utility of the week is: Autoruns from Sysinternals
Some days the news is only bad, then a good news day comes along.
Following on from my previous post concerning Milk Thistle, I thought I had better elaborate on it.
One of the major problems taking vitamin supplements is knowing if they work, and do they do any good?
A number of studies and anecdotal evidence have been conducted on Milk Thistle which suggests it can be helpful in countering the effects of drink on the liver.
I have also found it handy as a hangover cure!
Christopher Hitchen's gives an amusing performance here, even half sozzled and I think the key part of the exchange with Ron Reagan is:
" If you make the mistake that I thought I heard you making just before we came on the air, of attributing rationality or a motive to this, and to say that it's about anything but itself, you make a great mistake, and you end up where you ended up, saying that the cause of terrorism is fighting against it, the root cause, I mean."
(Hat tip: DSTPW)
Whilst I rarely ever agree with Hitchen, he is amusing and intelligence, although I wish he would try some milk thistle before his liver gives out.
Continuing our theme of Germany and the 1930s, but with an added twist concerning of the Middle East
The site of the week is: Tell the children the truth
The site looks at the "Nazi roots of today's Jihad", and documents the activities of Amin al-Husseni, Mufti of Jerusalem.
The photo section is very good.
The Pub Philosopher raises an interesting point about the relationship between ethnic groups within Islam:
"Arab racism and assumption of superiority is an underlying feature of the relationship between Arabs and other Muslims.
...
Islam was a vehicle for Arab cultural supremacy. "
I am not sure I agree 100% with this point of view but it certainly does raise some questions, and might help to explain some of the nihilism which seems to dominate parts of the Middle-East
Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays For WAR have excelled themselves with an entry on Ideological primacy and Jihadists, and in particular:
"Short-term objectives may indeed arise from time to time, but these are always presented as peremptory demands. They are forms of blackmail (do this or else) rather than policy (do this for such and such reasons), and where they conflict with long-term ideological objectives they are easily set aside. Jihadists are idealists in the very worst sense of that word, and their fantasies have nothing in common either with sane political thinking and calculation, or with materialist crtique of the conditions for such thinking and calculation."
I am not a fan of the war in Iraq, but I am much less keen on the whining apologists for the bombers' supposed 'grievance', of which we can ONLY speculate, as they are dead.
I think it is futile of people to project their own concerns on to the actions of these vile terrorists and, in part, exculpate them in the process
James Hamilton's piece on the Psychology Behind Suicide Bombing makes interesting reading and in particular his conclusion:
"There is a phrase if you want one, for this kind of imposition of our political views on other people: intellectual colonisation, and there is no sign yet that we are willing to bring an end to it."
Every conceivable pundit has a view, even without any documentary evidence or facts to back it up, blame is being placed squarely at the feet of George Bush and Tony Blair, everything from Western policies in the Middle East to the invasion of Iraq are the supposed causes of the London bombings.
Sadly, little space is given to consider the pathology of suicide bombings and the mentality behind them.
Instead we are told that the invasion of Iraq CAUSED the London bombings, as if there was some inexplicable and mechanical link between the two, push one lever for the invasion of Iraq and another lever moves the bombings to London.
Intelligent people are left to ask: how does that stand up to analysis and the facts?
Very badly, as it seems clear that Bin Laden was planning to attack Britain soon after 9/11, irrespective of any actions by Tony Blair or his government:
“Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden ordered a strike on Heathrow airport months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., the London-based Sunday Times reported in its latest edition, citing transcripts of interrogations of an al-Qaeda operations chief."
But let's be clear Bin Laden's justification requires no action from anyone else, he and his kind will commit bombing irrespectively. Bin Laden's mind is set in the past of the 12th century when he talks of the "tragedy of Andalucia"
Nothing short of a Caliphate and full capitulation, mass conversion to Islam would 'save' anyone, in Bin Laden's eyes. Even then it is questionable, Bin Laden and his kind are quite happy to kill Muslims when it suits them.
Why do we always blame ourselves for someone else's murderous actions?
Did we provoke Hitler? Of course not, and yet if you look material from the period many people try to suggest that Hitler's demands: the dismantling of the Treaty of Versailles, Munich, etc were justified.
Now, of course, we appreciate the magnitude of those errors. The error is a way of thinking, not to fully appreciate the motivation and dynamic of these people, be it Hitler or Bin Laden. As they cause mass murder across the world they will seek justification, but it is foolish to believe them as their statements are merely pretexts.
Facts show that Bin Laden and Co. were planning to attack London, long before the invasion of Iraq. Would changing policy satisfy him?
No, like Hitler, Bin Laden has an apocalyptical view of the world, therefore, there no reasoning with him or his kind.
So, let's not kid ourselves Bin Laden had decided to do these attacks years ago and then he looked for some feeble pretext to justify it, but sadly people are more concerned with believing his lies than considering his character and murderous intent.
Ultimately this is a battle of ideas and as such we should not give any ground to these nihilistic throwbacks.
PS: If you are asking yourself the obvious question: did he support the invasion of Iraq? No, I was very anti-war and still think it was a mistake.
However, I have studied Fascism far too long to appreciate that such people (Bin Laden, etc) mingle half-truths, lies and falsehoods to win over support of the naive or unsuspecting, therefore, I think we should oppose them wholeheartedly.
The recent comments by Khalid Mahmood are instructive:
"We have to recognise these people are in the equivalent of a religious cult. They are brainwashed. Many of them go into higher or further education where they have a thirst for knowledge and religion, and are seized on by these people. They are a cult in just the same way as some of these American cults that end up suffocating one another.
"The extremists have no negotiating demands. They are not like Hamas or the IRA. They don't have a foreign policy agenda save hate and some kind of revolution. These organisations are not just operating in Britain. They are in Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have been operating well before the invasion of Iraq. Many of the organisations that get hold of these youngsters are involved in criminal network though corruption or credit card fraud. We need more people to confront these organisations and challenge their thinking. It is too easy to go [with] the flow, so all Muslim leaders have a responsibility.
"We also have a big problem with much of the religious education that goes on in mosques after school. It is totally unregulated and much of it is of low quality. None of the teachers are subject to any normal child protection regulation, yet this is where many people's minds start to be shaped."
(Hat tip: DSTPW)
Keeping an XP system clean and tidy is chore, so anything that helps is always welcome.
CrapCleaner (ccleaner) is handy utility for cleaning out the crap that accumulating on an XP system. Recommend.
My thoughts are still developing on the background and nature of the threat posed by the perpetrators of the atrocities in
No joy yet in finding the full DVD ISO, but this page suggets it will be released (as opposed to the mini DVD and network install):
“The 32 bit verion (sic) is available on 5 CD ISO images or on a single DVD ISO image. The 64 bit version is available on 1 DVD ISO image only.”
Anyways, it is not too time consuming to install the 5 CDs, about 1-2 hours, depending on machine.
You can break up the installation and get a cuppa, as it is largely automated after the first CD.
My initial thoughts are:
I am still reflectioning on the recent terrible events and have been reading Paul Berman's Philosopher of Islamic Terror.
The current events in London made me reflect on Germany and the historical similarities.
Therefore, for this week's site I have chosen the German Propaganda Archive
Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions's comments hit the nail in the head:
"These are unprovoked attacks, which lack any justification whatsoever.
We Iraqis know very well the sorrow Londoners are going through at the moment and feel their pain as Iraq today battles against extremism for democracy and human rights in a federal and united Iraq.
The perpetrators of these vile acts of barbarism must be brought to justice and receive the deserved punishment."
Taking in the various and diverse reactions to the bombing in London yesterday, I was struck by one in particular, from the Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays For WAR, which expresses it so well.
Juan Golblado's comments:
“I have a request to make of certain members of our society. Without anger, hatred or vengeance, I call for every single organization that could possibly be identified with these mass murderers to come out and say unequivocally, formally, and publicly: "This is murder. Those responsible are criminals." I want them to say this without uttering a single unsympathetic word about the victims or our societies, our politicians or our soldiers.
It's stupid to attribute mass murder to any grievance.
I want every single mosque in the UK to hang a sign outside saying, "We condemn the mass murder in London on 7/7! The people who did it are criminals! We condemn these mass murderers!"
I want every single iman in the UK to issue a fatwa ruling that these attacks are against his idea of religion and condemning them and their perpetrators unequivocally.
I want every single leftwing political party and interest group that has condemned the war on terror to hang a sign outside its headquarters and run an ad saying, "We condemn the mass murder in London on 7/7! The people who did it are criminals! We condemn these mass murderers!"
My memory went back to events a long time ago, on the 7th of July 1933 “.. a Reich decree eliminated Social Democrats from the Reichstag and from the governing bodies of the provinces and municipalities.”
Another attack on our freedom and we know where that led to: 12 years of Fascist rule in Nazi Germany and a world war.
Most people's first reaction to today's bombing in London would be shock, then worry, concern, anger and finally blame.
Who is to blame for these atrocities? It is unclear at the moment but looking at the wider issue:
• Was it the perpetrators of the murders?
• Could it be the actions of Western governments?
• Or some nebulous abstract?
It beggars belief that anyone sensible would even try to rationalise down on these vile acts and yet they do.
In my view, there are no excuses for these acts of terror, any more than they were excuses for Baader Meinhoff or Black September.
We shouldn't fool ourselves into believing every excuse, rationalisation and justification for these wanton acts of violence.
The perpetrators of these acts made a conscious choice to commit mass murder, for whatever, political, religious or psychopathic self serving justification.
The perpetrators of these bombs are to blame, just as much as Hitler was. Or should we believe his contemptible excuses about the Treaty of Versailles? Or blaming International 'Jewry' for WW2?
It speaks volumes that the likes of Galloway and the SWP can not resist making cheap shots at this time.
In light of the bombing of London recently, I expect Tony Blair's government to push through the ID card scheme without too much opposition.
The ID card scheme is dependent upon the ability of the government to set up and manage the computer systems that underlie it.
I expect the cost of each card to be considerably more than the rumoured £90 or so, probably in the order of £200-300.
No doubt, the IT systems will take years to implement and run over budget, as do most HMG projects.
Blair’s government will use the political capital from these terrible bombings to their own advantage.
Saddam Hussein, George Galloway's old friend, is revealed for all to see by his own physician, Dr Ala Bashir, in the Torygraph today.
Dr. Bashir is fairly restrained in his comments, but give an insight into such vile dictators:
"The man who terrorised and tortured his subjects for decades could not bear the slightest physical discomfort or impairment."
His a forthcoming book is: The Insider: Trapped in Saddam's Brutal Regime' by Ala Bashir, published by Abacus.
As a fan of alternative media players, I recently came around the latest incarnation of the Zoom Player Standard, which looks good.
You might also want to download DirectVobSub, the add-in Subtitling component, as well.
Most formats should be useable when combined with the Codecs from K-Lite's Mega Codec Pack
Oh, Real Alternative is now up to 1.42
Today's Torygraph has a piece on Government IT projects stating:
"Nearly one in three high-risk government computer projects is not checked properly for budget and system failures, a spending watchdog reports today."
Why the PAC is so shocked is anyone's guess?
For the last 10 or so years the computing press has been reporting the same failure of HMG IT projects year in year out.
You’d think they’d remember? Nah
Even the Guardian covers it
The current crop of new peers contains a fine list of political has beens, greasy pole climbers and fake radicals.
The Guardian reports amongst this collection is Tony Banks, “Outspoken London MP and briefly sports minister. Led the campaign to ban foxhunting.”
I can hear the spinning of ermine graves as ex-peers look down from on high at the dismal crop.
Yesterday's radicals become tomorrow's ennobled windbags, Neil Kinnock is a fine example.
Why do politicians even go through the pretence of trying to reform the House of Lords? When it comes down to it, they nearly all just want a peerage or a barony.
I confess, as an atheist, I rarely have much time for organised religion and the recent Anglican Consultative Council's actions only confirm that.
Instead of the endless posturing that seems endemic in many Western countries, you might think they would take a slightly different approach attitudes towards problems in the
Still some bloggers are keeping them on their toes: Christian aid watch and his hall of shame is worth considering
This one seems most appropriate nowadays.
60 years on it seems only appropriate to remember some of the vivid images which helped win World War II, defeating Nazi Germany and her allies.
The art of politics has a section dealing with Allied propaganda during World War II.
OpenOffice.org has just released a new beta (Snapshot Build 1.9.m113) of the up and coming version 2.0 of OpenOffice
Whilst not fully up to M$ Office level just yet, it is still very good and shows great promise.
RSI has been for many years a problem, along bad posture and back complaints. Many computers users become so engrossed in their work or computer-based activities that they forget to get up and stretch their limps, which leads to progressively worst problems
An aid to combating RSI or related conditions is Workrave which can be downloaded from here
It is open source and works across a number of platforms.
I confess I use an old egg timer instead but give Workrave a try.
The Internet is full of wacky site and spooky 'facts', therefore it is useful to know where to find good quality historical web sites and Best of History Web Sites is an excellent place to start.
It is reported that Saddam Hussein wants to sue The Sun over pictures of him in his underpants.
I think that such dictators should be routinely humiliated or worst.
They live and thrive on power so the more embarrassment the better and NO they are not victims, after murdering millions they are war criminals and deserve whatever they get.
