Tensions In The Middle East

A month ago I blogged on the deterioration of relations between the UK and Israel, particularly the relationship between the left wing in the UK and the socialist founded Israel.

Well, matters have moved on with diplomatic expulsions and the Israeli's falling out with the US as well ..... so far the Israelis are hanging tough.

With Israeli troops in Gaza again, and pledging to carry on building in the City of Jerusalem this is a story that could run for a while.

Slow Reforms In Yemen And Elsewhere

'Fairs, fair' as they say, and just because I dislike those parts of the Muslim world that persist in socially backward and violent ways, doesn't mean that I should not acknowledge the tentative attempts at reforms that do occasionally occur. 

So in an attempt to redress any imbalance that might have crept in to my observations, I will discuss some little heralded reforms that are being attempted in the Islamic world. 

Firstly; In the Yemen, there are on going attempts to tackle the disgrace of children being 'sold' as brides to old men .... this practice is justified by the Mullahs because their prophet also took an nine year old girl as his wife (this fact acutely embarrasses some Muslims, as its hard to put any sort of spin on it, but for the radicals its a point of faith), however its likely to have been an existing social practice before Islam. So despite opposition from the religious who have declared the reformers 'apostates' i.e. eligible to be killed, a law is being pushed forward to raise the age of wedding to 17 and 18 for boys and girls respectively. 

And Secondly; In a 2006 video that's only now being circulated, Buthayna Nasser a brave female newscaster in Saudi Arabia took on a religious leader who insisted that female newscasters should be entirely or mostly covered if they go on television. The 2006 debate on Memri TV is just now being circulated and have made her sort of famous ..... in a kinda suicidal, 'Rushdie fatwa' kinda way .... but gutsy!

Note: The female Lebanese presenter in the video apparently doesn't the same issues, but with the Muslim world generally moving towards radical Islam that may not remain the case for long. 

Finally: Another Saudi woman is causing a stir from beneath a veil in a poetry contest in which she is challenging the Mullahs grip on her life. Hissa Hilal is already challenging convention by being at once a journalist and a wife and mother of four children. But it is her withering criticisms in the form of nomads traditional poetry - recited while dressed in a traditional head-to-toe abaya cloak and broadcast on traditional Arabic television - that is really defiant. 

In her poems the conservative Mullahs are described as "vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind". Her poems also talks of some of the clerics "wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt" - an apparent reference to suicide bombers' explosives belt. "What made me so angry is seeing the Arab society becoming more and more kept to itself, not like before - loving and caring and sharing and open and welcoming everyone," she told the BBC's World Service. "Now, even if you want to be simple and nice with others, people are asking themselves whether it is haram [forbidden] to say hello to strangers," she said, adding: "I blame those who have led the people, and directed them this way." 

This is heady stuff and is causing much comment in her homeland as well as the rest of the Arab world where the TV contest is being broadcast. Of course in the Islamic world, a death threat is only a Mullahs pause away, and her poetry has also sparked death threats on Arab websites, with some outraged commentators saying she is acting shamefully. 

Still she has received much support from both men and women in the Arab world and this must be taken as a sign of hope.

Labours "Nice'n'Sleazy does it" government

Nice'n'Sleazy does it ... I blogged last week about how the last couple of months of this wretched government has come to resemble the end of the Callaghan Labour government ..... well now their last refuge 'Tory Sleaze' looks like its gone as well with not one, not two, but three (yes three!) ex govt ministers having to be suspended because they were offering to 'influence' legislation on behalf of clients .....

I can't remember it ever being so bad ...

Remember 'Lord Irvine's wallpaper', when he spent £650,000 in refurbishment of his official Westminster residence (£59,000 - £400 per roll - hand-printed wallpaper, two beds at a cost of £16,000, £3,000 toilet etc etc).

Or how about John Prescott's 'Cocktail Sausage', I am referring to his 'affair' of state, in which his mistress Tracey Temple referred to his manhood as being "more chipolata than saveloy"sausage i.e. about two inches long. This ignores his official cars, his subsidised union flat, and 'grace and favour' house or willingness to follow Lord Irvine's decorating tastes by spending over £100k on his flat.

Maybe the many doubts expressed about the veracity of Alastair Campbell's briefs to the press, parliament and public enquiries, is still on your mind?

The fact that Peter Mandelson is still in power after twice having to resign from office because of little 'mix ups', always amazes me. This government try to claim the moral high ground, but at least the Tories who were disgraced were not brought back in to power again.

I still have a laugh at Ron Davies's 'badger watching' and 'moment of madness' ....err yes, well woodland sex in public parks and laybyes with strange men could be described that way!

There are lots more of these sleazy incidents over the last 13 yrs, but I suspect that the core Labour voters don't actually care, they just want their welfare benefits protected (the 8 million adult non workers of the UK), or their cushy perks in the public sector jobs such as the ever expanding NHS, and to hell with the rest of the country.

Gaddafi's Foreign Adventures

The loss of his role as African Union chairman appears to have disturbed the 'Gadfather's' normal equilibrium and he's now having spats with all and sundry ...

Hannibal Gaddafi Deported

He started with the Swiss, where his call for a Jihad (Holy War "Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression," he said. "Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran".

Konspiracy Korner

I posted a story on this blog some while ago about Conspiracy Theories on the Web but it appears that I missed one important group out ...... the LaRouche Youth Movement. I say important, because one of their supporters has just won the Democratic nomination for Texas's 22nd Congressional district with 52% of the vote, but has been quickly disowned by Texas Democrats.

Why?

Because Kesha Rogers has immediately called for the impeachment of Pres. Obama ( a member of her own party) because the LaRouche Youth Movement believes that Obama's health care proposals are based on Hitler's and their aim is a eugenic cull of the population, and that the president should be thrown out of office.... hence the call for impeachment.

The movement founded by Lyndon LaRouche, who's stood for President many times, believe that the White House takes orders from the British Empire (run from Buckingham Palace and Threadneedle Street), which also organised two World Wars and the fall of the USSR. They are also passionate about expansion into space, particularly the colonisation of Mars using the power of nuclear fusion as well as various economic policies ...... But the reason their programme isn't being hailed more widely is apparently because America's youth has been enslaved by Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates using (respectively) MySpace and Facebook.

I don't know how I missed em ......

The Truth Is Plain For All To See

Why doe the BBC insist on describing these Muslim attacks on Christians in Nigeria as 'inter communal violence' ... when virtually all the attacks this year have been by Muslims on Christians.

When Christians eventually band together in defence, that doesn't alter the fact that the violence is being instigated by Muslims (as ethnic cleansing for economic and religious reasons)..... wake up BBC, you can't categorise people defending themselves in the same bracket as the attackers, and then blame everyone equally.

Politically correct reporting destroys your credibility in parts of the world that used to rely on your reporting the facts.

When the BBC substitutes or hides the truth in a story just because that truth contains inconvenient facts that conflict with the BBC world view then the BBC is no longer a news reporter and becomes a propaganda unit for left wing PC politics.

The Right To Protest Peacefully

We live in a society, in which the right protest has long been enshrined in to our 'rights', but since the 1970's there has been a trend towards that right only being extended to certain groups.

The self appointed guardians of what is allowable in a democracy is the far left, who patrol our streets attacking anyone they deem to be 'fascists' ..... regardless of whether they are exercising their democratic rights to free assembly, and peaceful demonstration or not. A right that they are apparently to be denied because a Marxist party doesn't recognise that right for anyone they don't approve of.

I am old enough to remember the rise of the leftwing agitprop movements in the 1970's and 1980's under the guise of being "Anti Fascist" movements .... with names such as the Anti Nazi League (which in practise appeared to simply be the Socialist Workers Party using a different name) they were supposedly marching to stop 'fascist' or 'far right' parties .... a designation that the US Republican Party would have qualified as. Membership included many Labour Party MP's - apparently its OK on the Left to be associated with these sort of movements, including the SWP.

But at that time there was no one except the Thatcher Conservative Party who really qualified as 'far right' (The National Front, and the British Movement were pathetically small and insignificant), so the marches invariably ended in attacks on the local police (after smashing a McDonalds window). Eventually the shallow youth who made up the shock troops (i.e. the street fighters) of the movement 'grew up' and instead of joining the SWP and ushering in the "revolution" they just melted away.

Some of these ex-ANL and SWP members went on to form Red Action and with others organised Anti-Fascist Action, who are even less opposed to using 'violence' to intimidate groups and individuals they subjectively deem as 'fascist.'.... the SWP later relaunched the ANL to 'combat' the British National Party but they have never garnered the support of the 1980's.

However the tactics of naming any party or group the far (or not so far) left don't like as 'fascists' or 'racists' (the terms are largely interchangeable) has continued. So when the BNP marches its numbers are largely out numbered by both the police and the 'anti fascists' who assemble as well. And now they have found a new class enemy in the English Defence League (EDL)

The new vehicle of these left wingers is the Unite Against Fascism organisation which has as one of its joint secretaries Weyman Bennett of the Socialist Workers Party and the Anti-Nazi League, as well as a chairman of the former Labour Party mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

The reason why I am raking this all over is because the UAF has been involved in violence against both the BNP and the English Defence League in recent weeks ..... both of whom were ostensibly attempting to exercise a democratic right to march and expound their views (whether you agree with them or not). Oddly its the labour parties immigration policies that have led to something of a right wing resurgence inthe UK (not that they would admit it).

So once again I am seeing democracy being bypassed by left wing groups who consider that they have the right to decide what's legal or not, and to use violence to silence opposition ...... what with this, and the rail and air strikes led by dinosaur unions, its just like the end of the last Labour government in 1979.

Turkey And That Pesky 'Genocide' Question.

I have often compared Turkey with Sweden to indicate exactly how 'un' European Turkey actually is, and therefore its interesting to find a story involving both countries .... it concerns the Armenian Genocide in which millions of Armenians were murdered by the Turks in 1915. It was done because they were "Christians" and its not really a sin for Muslims to kill them (to be fair its not much of a sin to kill fellow Muslims either).

Various countries around the world have designated the event the 'worlds first modern genocide' i.e. an attempt to wipe out a peoples, which Turkey has denied on the grounds that there would have been Armenians still living in Russia and Persia so therefore it can't be classed as an attempt to wipe out the Armenians ..... but by that argument the *Nazis killing of millions of Jews could not be said to be a genocide because there would have been Jews alive in Russia, Britain and the US, in other words the Turks argument doesn't stand up.

And this week two more, Sweden and the US, have started down that road as well. In Sweden the parliament voted narrowly to describe as genocide the killing of Armenians in World War I. The Turkish government condemned the resolution, saying it was "based upon major errors and without foundation" and they have withdrawn their ambassador from Sweden. Oddly the Swedish government supports Turkeys accession to the EU, so described its own parliaments vote as "a mistake".

Last week in the US a Congressional panel's resolution described as genocide the killings of Armenians in World War I. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had been accused of a crime it did not commit, adding the resolution would harm Turkish-US relations.

Needless to say, the UK will never condemn the killings and certainly never describe them as 'genocide' even though there is a campaign to get parliament to do so.

Murdered Armenians

 

 

 

Of this photo, the United States ambassador wrote "Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces, in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre, starvation, exhaustion—destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation."

The result was this ......

*Like many Muslim states the Turks are somewhat ambivalent about Hitlers views.

A Personal Buddha

A friend of mine has had a bad year, his wife was unfaithful and they broke up, and then he was made redundant in the middle of a recession. To top it all, he and his 'ex' were tied into a very expensive house build, which they had to complete and then hope to sell without loss in the recession.

He had been long noted for being one of those people for whom nothing ever went badly, everything that happened to him ultimately turned out to be for the best, but even I began to think that his legendary good fortune had failed him for ever......

But last week, out of the blue three prospective buyers wandered onto the site of the nearly completed house build, and were apparently willing to pay a very good price for the house, to the extent that he and his separated wife could both walk away with large profits (instead of a loss) and then he was offered a long contract job in the public sector at more than one and a half times the going rate for the job (Civil servants have no idea there is a recession on, so waste public money as if there was no end to it).

So 'with one bound' he is free ..... suddenly he has a better paid (pro-rata) job than ever he has been in before, and he has every likelihood of working for years as a contractor in the public sector (its a very closeted world, in which getting in is the trick), and having a very large and overflowing bank account from both this job and the house sale. Oh, and he and  his 'ex' have 'made up', despite her 'condition'.

personal Buddha's come in many sizes.

Now I find myself a believer once again in the idea that there are 'personal deities', whether that's 'Fairies', 'Angels', 'Small Gods', or a personal Buddha is of no consequence, its just apparent to me that my friend has some sort of personal lucky star under which he wanders.

Me? Well I have him in my lottery syndicate until he dies ......

Feed The Birds? Not In Dumfries Matey!

Remember the song "Feed The Birds, Tuppence a Bag" from Mary Poppins?

Well, these are not the sentiments in Dumfries, Scotland where the council is debating whether to ban feeding the local gulls who have become a menace with the gulls diving at the public or snatching their food.

Speaking as a resident of a coastal town, I can confirm that some of these gulls are very aggressive and BIG ... and I mean really BIG!

I suspect that small children and dogs could be easily taken by some of these brutes ..... well nearly!

Band Aid or Gun Trade?

There's been a war of words between 'Saint Bob' Geldof and the BBC over the story that alleges that far from 'feeding the world', at least some of the monies raised by the Band Aid campaign were spent on Guns and Bullets to feed the wars that were a constant factor in Ethiopia at the time.

As a cynic, I am hardly surprised by the allegations as there have been similar stories about western charities monies being syphoned off through fraud or misappropriation in Africa before, so why wouldn't Eritrean warlords have been able to fool a bunch of musical 'Luvvies'?

The story has hung about for a few days, so it may have some legs as the BBC are showing no signs of retracting in the face of the Geldoff tirade. A few years ago, they would have collapsed under his frown, but his star has waned and the BBC obviously feel more able to stand their ground inspite of the challenge to its truthfulness.

UK Welfare Benefits For The World

In yet another of those perverse court judgements that seem to be almost daily occurrences in the UK, the European Court of Justice has said some migrant families can stay in the UK and claim benefits, even if the main worker has left the country. The court, which deals with EU law, said some families must also be allowed to stay when their child was in education.

The Home Office said it was disappointed with the ruling but would not be drawn on its implications, but I'll spell it out for Brown and Co ..... it means that surrendering sovereignty to the EU has finally resulted in the complete loss of border controls in the UK. But then that's what they wanted wasn't it?

It means that we can no longer deport anyone with children in education, and that effectively means we no longer can stop anyone arriving here and claiming the right to reside here as long as they register a child for a school...... of course its the UK taxpayer who will pay for the benefits, houses and education of these people, so why should the Government care.

You can't make this stuff up ....... we live in a mad house aka an asylum.

When Will We Learn?

Today came the news that a predatory sex offender, Peter Chapman, who had already raped two women at knife point had finally gone one step further and killed a young girl. Why was he free to do this? because bleeding heart campaigners believe he and his ilk have the 'human right' to be let out of jails time after time to rape and kill.

At least he spared the family and confessed, but that doesn't excuse a system that puts serial sex offenders rights to be given liberty, above those of the safety of young children and women.

This story follows hard on the news that Jon Venables, one of the two torturers and murderers of baby Jame Bulger has been arrested on 'serious charges'. I won't bother speculating on what these charges are. as they are irrelevant .... the teen should never have been let out after a mere eight years, but then the 'liberals' who run our justice system don't give a fig for what I or the public feel, and run the system to satisfy their consciences and no one else's. But then they don't live in the areas where the scum they release operate and prey on the defenceless do they?

You can't cure serial sex offenders, and I challenge any psychiatrist who claims that you can to leave his children or daughters in the care of a 'cured' serial rapist or any sort of paedophile .... of course they wouldn't because they know that these men (and increasingly women) are a constant and permanent danger to women and children.

We must reclaim the justice system from the liberals who grabbed it in the 1960's and start locking these sex offenders away for the whole of their natural lives, and not just let them repeat their crimes again and again. If we don't, sadly there will be more Ashleigh's

Gilligans Islamic Island

This blog has remarked before that our political leaders seem to connive in the spread of the creed that aims one day to rule this country. This supine compliance is not just because the PC ideology that infects the body politic, has paralysed any effective response to threats from aggressive minorities, its also because, despite all the evidence, and the obvious distrust of many of the public, they keep trying to negotiate with a 7th century creed that has always spread via force.

So it should be no surprise that once again a TV journalist for Dispatches (Andrew Gilligan) has exposed the fact that a fundamentalist Muslim group - the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) - operating under the cover of a large Mosque, has infiltrated the British political system via a local Labour Party.

Based at the East London Mosque in Whitechapel, the IFE has allegedly received millions of pounds of tax payers money through the mosque they control, which has also been visited by government ministers and royalty.

However, despite claiming (with some past justification) to support tolerance and community spirit, the Journalist claims that the Mosque and the IFE also play hosts and cover to extremist speakers and the stocking of radical books.

Actually, its hardly new story, as Channel Four ran a similar story last year, and after many complaints the program was proved to be correct, however already Muslim posters on the Channel 4 web site are defending both the mosque and the IFE against the allegations.

However, there was one thing on the mosques website that made me pause ..... they apparently offer sessions on how to secure a Security Industry Authority licence by offering 'Security Training - Screening Sessions' which is not something the local churches, temples or synagogues offer. Why are they doing this, are security jobs the best ones that Muslims can go for?

It seems a very strange thing to offer in these suspicious times.

The programme also alleges that the Labour Party has been subverted in Tower Hamlets and that recent attempts to have a referendum for a Major in Tower Hamlets has been run by the IFE, and included a large proportion of illegitimate names and addresses, yet despite this, the referendum will go ahead. So once again a Labour constituency is named in an alleged vote rigging amongst an Asian community.

The Labour Party started playing a very dangerous game, both for themselves, and democracy in this country when it opened the floodgates of immigration ...... only time will tell if they (and us) are not damaged by the game.