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Sunday 30 June 2013

Girls shot in honour killing 'were murdered for making video of themselves dancing in the rain' - Independent.ie

'Two teenage sisters and their mother were murdered in a Pakistan honour killing after a video emerged of them dancing in the rain.

According to reports the two girls, aged just 15 and 16, were shot dead last Sunday alongside their mother after the girls' step-brother and accomplices carried out the attack to "restore the family's honour".

The alleged killer, named as Khutore, reportedly carried out the attack after local men had seen the grainy video footage of the girls, named as Noor Basra and Noor Sheza, dancing during a downpour outside their home in Chilas, in the northern region of Gilgit.'


News you won't read on the pro Pakistan anti India BBC

More here http://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/girls-shot-in-honour-killing-were-murdered-for-making-video-of-themselves-dancing-in-the-rain-29383935.html

BBC News - Can we make ourselves happier?

One interesting line:
'Having children lowers your happiness levels, but your happiness increases when they grow up and leave home.'

So overall overall who's happier, those who had children or those that didn't?

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23097143

EU slams Gaza over executions | Maan News Agency

'Describing the death penalty as cruel and inhuman, the EU said the sentences were "failing to provide deterrence to criminal behavior, and representing an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity."'
Despite this verdict coming from their beloved EU, don't expect much coverage of this from the BBC.
The BBC's hatred of Israel outranks almost every other factor in determining news coverage.

More here http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=609674

BBC News - Mid-East talks 'within reach' - US secretary of state

The BBC. piece on the prospects of peace talks does concentrated on what Israel is being asked to do in order for talks to take place, yes it's 'settlements' again; Michael White will be happy.
I found this extract interesting:
' Among other issues, Mr Abbas is said to be pushing Israel to release the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners.'

No BBC interest in what these prisoners were convicted for? Of course not.

More here http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23118403

Do you boycott Israeli products so as to support the Palestinians?

Why, Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh eats Israeli grapes. Mind you who can blame him, after all they're very good grapes.

Why PA sets preconditions - Israel Opinion, Ynetnews

'The time has come to reveal the Palestinians' true colors. While world leaders attempt to cajole and nudge the two sides into negotiations, only one side consistently says it is ready to sit face to face without preconditions - Israel. The Palestinians, on the other hand, refuse to meet unless Israel agrees in advance to several demands. This should be a red flag indicator of their disingenuous intentions.'
More here http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4398456,00.html

Why Britain didn't put a man on the moon



"There's nothing to be gained in the way of hot spicy food or Olympic athletes"

Al Muray makes total sense as always!

Some of the best cricket catches ever




Just like me in my prime...

Who Is Really Besieging Gaza? :: Gatestone Institute

An absolutely fascinating article.
'It is Hamas, not Israel, which is besieging Gaza. Those who claim to be concerned about the Palestinians in Gaza would actually do more good for these fine people if they stopped attacking Israel and instead switched their focus to addressing the true source of the Gazans' poverty, suffering and oppression: Hamas.'
I await the BBC's coverage of this story... Yeah right!

More here http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3453/besieging-gaza

The health tourist 'hit and runners' who rip you off... with £24million in unpaid NHS bills as abuse of free care by non-EU patients doubles in just one year | Mail Online

Here's the headlines from the article:
'Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt promises crack down after Mail On Sunday investigation
For every £100 spent by the NHS on health tourists only £23 has been paid back
One individual cost the NHS £217,000 but not a penny has been repaid'

This is a story that has been reported over and over again over the last 15 years. I have absolutely no faith in the latest crackdown for two reasons: first because there are too many people in the NHS who feel that it is a good thing to spend money on health care for non British people, it's a similar mindset to that of the senior civil servant that I quoted a while back, these people don't care about value for money for the British taxpayer, they have a higher calling. The second reason is as quoted in the Mail: 'Fear of being labelled racist means NHS staff are reluctant to confront health tourists, according to a whistleblower.' The left's deployment of the epitaph 'racist' at anybody that crosses them is highly effective as in a non religious Britain, racism is one of the few sins. People's careers and lives have been ruined for being called a racist, so it takes a brave person to risk it.


More here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351637/The-health-tourist-hit-runners-rip--24million-unpaid-NHS-bills-abuse-free-care-non-EU-patients-doubles-just-year.html

Friday 28 June 2013

Reporting Barack Obama related news the BBC way

If I heard on the BBC that  of the total of 44 US Presidents, Barack Obama had been rated the 5th best President ever; then I would expect the details of the poll results to run:

Reagan, Lincoln, and 5 others tied for first
18 presidents tied for second
17 other presidents tied for third
Jimmy Carter came in 4th
Obama came in fifth

Thursday 27 June 2013

Is Ed Miliband a worse Labour leader than Neil Kinnock or Michael Foot?

'Earlier this week YouGov published a poll which found just 3 per cent of those questioned believed Ed Miliband is a "natural leader". To put that finding into context, a poll conducted by a different company in April found 4 per cent of people believe the world is being run by a conspiracy of lizard men.'
More here http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/danhodges/100223727/osbornes-welfare-announcement-was-a-trap-a-blatant-neon-signposted-trap-and-labour-marched-in-again/

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Banned in Britain

I read that the UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, has banned Pamela Geller from entering the UK as it would not be conducive to the public good.

More here http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/06/banned-in-britian-uk-caves-to-jihad.html

Meanwhile Islamic preacher Muhammad al-Arifi who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence was recently admitted to the UK with no difficulty. Why the disparity in treatment? Are Islamist preachers, and there have been several on recent years, who preach hatred, conducive to the public good? Is promoting hatred of Jews & homosexuals, the beating of women and jihadi violence conducive to the public good? What's wrong with this country? Are our leaders so scared of the reaction of Muslims in the UK that criticism of Islam is no longer allowed?

Palestine for the Palestinians, unless Palestine is occupied by someone other Israel

Take a look at the first Palestine National Charter of 1964, this explicitly denies any claim to the West Bank and Gaza  which were then “occupied” by Jordan and Egypt:
Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area
As I have said before the 'Palestinians' claim on Israel is nothing to do with the 'Palestinian' people. But don't listen to me, listen to Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said in 1977:


"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Read that again: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.


For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva ."

Take a look back in time, until the late 1980s, Jordan’s Hashemite rulers did not deny that their country was Palestine. They said so on numerous occasions. In 1965, King Hussein said: “Those organisations which seek to differentiate between Palestinians and Jordanians are traitors.” As late as 1981, Hussein repeated “Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.”

Remember that for many years, the PLO itself promoted a "stages plan" that would first create a Palestinian state on the 1949 - 1967 armistice lines, and then work from that position to destroy Israel. Indeed senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki recently stated that this remains the goal for Fatah as well, but that "you can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself."...

"You arrive, sign in, collect €300 for expenses you don't have and then you leave. I like that job, I want that job"




A great piece of investigative reporting.

How our EU masters behave...

Who is to blame for the Palestinian refugee problem?

I am often told that Israel caused the Palestinian refugee problem by expelling non-Jews from Israel as they re-formed the Israeli state. This is an obvious lie but it was nice to find this proof today...


Abu Mazen admitted that the Arab armies caused the Palestinian refugee problem in 1976, has nobody told Jeremy Bowen and the rest of the BBC Middle East department? Or does he & they know and just not care?

Press and terrorists in symbiotic relationship





What is also interesting is the last shot, if the press were really scared of being shot at by Israeli troops they wouldn't stand like that. In reality Israel is the only Middle East country where the army wouldn't shoot someone identified as being 'presss' even if they are colluding with terrorists.


Thanks to Israel Matzav for the video spot.

Israel Matzav: Mohamed Morsy's new stooge: The US Ambassador to Egypt

Israel Matzav reports:
'US Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson is reportedly pressuring Christian Copts not to participate in mass demonstrations against the regime of Mohamed Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood that are due to take place next week in Cairo.

The June 18th edition of Sadi al-Balad reports that lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church’s legal counsel, said that during Patterson’s June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she “asked him to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood.
The Pope politely informed her that his spiritual authority over the Copts does not extend to political matters.
Regardless, many Egyptian activists are condemning Patterson for flagrantly behaving like the Muslim Brotherhood’s stooge.  Leading opposition activist Shady el-Ghazali Harb said Patterson showed “blatant bias” in favor of Morsi and the Brotherhood, adding that her remarks had earned the U.S. administration “the enmity of the Egyptian people.” Coptic activists like George Ishaq openly told Patterson to “shut up and mind your own business.” And Christian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris—no stranger to Islamist hostility—posted a message on his Twitter account addressed to the ambassador saying “Bless us with your silence.”
But Patterson is apparently just carrying out the Obama administration's policy of currying favor with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations.
In other words, and consistent with Obama administration’s doctrine, when Islamists—including rapists and cannibals—wage jihad on secular leaders, the U.S. supports them; when Christians protest Islamist rulers who are making their lives a living hell, the administration asks them to “know their place” and behave like dhimmis, Islam’s appellation for non-Muslim “infidels” who must live as third class “citizens” and never complain about their  inferior status.
Shame on America for electing and re-electing this Muslim-loving creep as President. Shame, shame, shame.'

President Obama's treatment of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim lands  is a disgrace as is his treatment of Israel but then what did you expect from a man raised (at least partly) as a Muslim? I did warn you before he was elected.

Is Israel an apartheid state like South Africa was?

People like @DD1958 aka Pleb Donovan would say Israel was an apartheid state but then they don't seem to be able to face facts. Here's something I read last month, it's a letter to the San Francisco Examiner from a South African MP, the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe:
'On my recent trip to San Francisco, I was deeply disturbed to learn about the posters in The City accusing Israel of apartheid. As a black South African who lived under apartheid, this system was implemented in South Africa to subjugate people of color and deny them a variety of their rights. In my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.

Apartheid was a legal system of segregation and oppression based on skin color, with a very small white minority dominating over the vast majority of people of color.

As a black South African under apartheid, I, among other things, could not vote, nor could I freely travel the landscape of South Africa. No person of color could hold high government office. The races were strictly segregated at sports arenas, public restrooms, schools and on public transportation. People of color had inferior hospitals, medical care and education. If a white doctor was willing to take a black patient, he had to examine him or her in a back room or some other hidden place.

In my numerous visits to Israel, I did not see any of the above. My understanding of the Israeli legal system is that equal rights are enshrined in law. Black, brown and white Jews and the Arab minority mingle freely in all public places, universities, restaurants, voting stations and public transportation.

All people have the right to vote. The Arab minority has political parties, serves in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and holds positions in government ministries, the police force and the security services. In hospitals, Palestinian patients lie in beds next to Israeli Jews, and doctors and nurses are as likely to be Israeli Arabs as Jews. I also understand that an Israeli Arab judge presided over the trial of former Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who was convicted of misconduct. An Ethiopian Jew recently won the title of Miss Israel. None of the above was legally permissible in apartheid South Africa!

I believe that it is slanderous and deceptive for Israel’s self-defense measures against the terrorists’ campaign of suicide bombing, rocket attacks and other acts of terrorism that have occurred, and continue to occur, to be labeled as apartheid. I am shocked by the claim that the free, diverse, democratic state of Israel practices apartheid. This ridiculous accusation trivializes the word apartheid, minimizing and belittling the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by South Africans of color.

I urge all people, young people in particular, to visit Israel and learn the facts for themselves so that they can confidently refute these false allegations against Israel. The misapplication of the term apartheid makes a mockery of a grievous injustice and threatens to undermine the true meaning of the term.

In my view, Israel is a model of democracy, inclusion and pluralism that can be emulated by many nations, particularly in the Middle East.'
Don't listen to the lies of the purveyors of anti-Israel hatred, listen to someone who actually knows about apartheid - a South African MP.

Tuesday 25 June 2013

Kate Upton topless on a horse - no longer...

Unfortunately the video I posted here has been taken down. Why? TV Predictions report that:
'TMZ.com has not commented on what happened to the video, but Coed.com (that's a real site?Yeah, it is.) reports the video was taken while the supermodel was doing a photo shoot for Complex Magazine in 2012. Our guess is that Complex knocked on TMZ's door and said knock it off and take it down. We don't know that for sure, but hmmm....

Of course, the irony of all this is that many people on the Internet were unhappy with the video anyway because TMZ had the audacity to put little stars over Ms. Upton's breasts in the video, thereby covering up what they wanted to see in the first place. Maybe TMZ.com took the video down because it was getting too much criticism.

No, that doesn't sound like TMZ, does it?'
Whatever the reason, booo!

Here's a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit video to make up for your disappointment


Laura Robson vs Maria Kirilenko

Whilst Laura Robson battles Maria Kirilenko at Wimbledon, striving to be the only British woman to make it beyond the first round this year, I thought a comparison of the two players was called for.

Laura Robson first







Maria Kirilenko second

Advantage Laura Robson?

Maria Kirilenko has tried to play dirty though with a spread for Sports Illustrated in 2010




Hmm unfortunately Laura Robson has not retaliated but she's still the winner here and indeed on the court today 6:3  6:4  Her only problem today was with her ball-toss in the last few service games.

How to uninstall McAfee anti-viris software - according to John McAfee




Possibly the strangest video I've seen this year, as John McAfee has a go at his old company's product and incorporates sex and drugs.

A fascinating discussion as to whether Islam is a 'religion of peace'




A fascinating Intelligence Squared USA discussion from 2008 between proponents Zeba Khan & Maajid Nawaz and opponents Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Douglas Murray.

If you can't find an hour and 45 minutes to watch the whole video, do watch from 1:13:00 - pretty cut and dried? Douglas Murray's summation from 1:38:15 should be a much watch for western politicians who glibly state that 'Islam is a religion of peace' without any real knowledge of the facts.

The audience would seem to agree with me:
Before:
In favour - 41%  Against - 25%  Undecided - 34%
After:
In favour - 36%  Against - 55%  Undecided - 9%

John Lydon on not boycotting Israel



I did post about this back in 2011 but missed this bit of John Lydon speaking. As I posted then:
"Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won't understand how anyone can have a problem with how they're treated."
John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten explaining why he will be performing in Israel, in Tel Aviv in fact."

Monday 24 June 2013

Maths GCSE revision getting you down? Maths A-Level revision too difficult? Do you need help?

Just learn the contents of this video and use it as your only answer on your exam paper. It may not answer the questions posed, BUT if mathematics doesn't really exist then does a maths exam?




A fascinating discussion on BBC's Asian Network radio station




Do listen to the whole interview where Nihal does a fair job of fairly interviewing Nick Lowles of the group Hope Not Hate, Robert Spencer and Iman Dudwallah (?)....

I found especially interesting the part from around 12 minutes in when Nihal asked Robert Spencer to give him some passages from the Koran and Hadith that he found objectionable and then asked the Imam to counter these claims. From around 17:20 listen to the Imam complain that the Qur'an was more Robert Spencer's field than his. I did enjoy Nihal responding incredulously "But you're an imam!" Also a joy to listen to are Cameron's questions and Robert Spencer's answers near the end of the piece.

Sunday 23 June 2013

Blackadder aka The Black Adder - The pilot episode - unaired in the UK

Part 1...


"The Eunuchs have cancelled"

"What's sounds like Greek but isn't Greek"


Part2...



"Well it's quite cunning....."


Possibly the worst fight scene ever...


Part 3...


"Stupid bastard" 

"I wouldn't pass water over Scotland"

A rather good sword fight, Errol Flynn had nothing on Rowan Atkinson.


Overall I think Tony Robinson was a fine addition and Brian Blessed made for a noisier King.The whole piece was pretty much carried forward into series 1 which had much darker humour than the later series which had Ben Elton added to the writing team. The main change between this and the first series is that Edmund Blackadder becomes more of a snivelling fool in the first series, a change that was reversed most successfully for the subsequent three series.

Labour's 13 years in government




Gareth Baines (@GABaines) tweeted at 11:01 AM on Sun, Jun 23, 2013:
Labour's achievements in 13 years of Government... http://t.co/Reuq8YsFHC
(https://twitter.com/GABaines/status/348742696439013376)



Saturday 22 June 2013

Now this will confuse your eyes...




What a clever and disturbing optical illusion....

Published on 28 Mar 2013
- www.TheRenegadeRoadhouse.co - You haven't seen (or heard) anything quite like this. Punked-out polka-people! Lyrics to Tanz by Hiss below, in German and English.

A group of young girls in black and white tights perform a trippy dance to the popular tune of German folk-rock polka band Hiss. (lyrics, German and English, below)

www.TheRenegadeRoadhouse.co - Southern rock, pop and country play 24/7 Come visit and relax with your favorite crappy beer!

Du bist jung oder alt, You are young or old,
reich oder pleite, rich or broke,
Moslem oder Christ, Muslim or Christian,
Hindu oder Heide. Hindu or pagan
Du bist grün oder blau, You're green or blue,
schwarz oder weiß. black or white
Was ist gut für den Körper, What's good for the body,
für die Seele, für den Geist: for the soul, for the spirit:

DER TANZ! THE DANCE!

Du hast'ne Menge Sorgen, You hast'ne lot of worry,
oder du hast keine. or you do not.
Bist verlobt, geschieden, 're Engaged, divorced
oder ganz alleine. or alone.
Du bist dick oder dünn, You're fat or thin,
Jungfrau oder Stier. Virgo or Taurus
Du wolltest gar nicht kommen, You did not come,
doch jetzt bist du hier: but now you're here:

ALSO TANZ! ALSO DANCE!

Wackel mit dem Hintern, Shake that ass,




hebe deine Beine! raise your legs!
Tanz mit irgend jemand, Dance with anyone,
odet tanz alleine. odet dancing alone.
Du hast hüpfen oder zucken You jump or twitch
oder schweben oder bängen, or float or bängen,
Bewege deine Arme, Move your arms,
oder lass sie hängen: or let it hang:

ALSO TANZ! ALSO DANCE!




Du heißt Jutta oder Dieter, Your name is Julia or Dieter
Klaus oder Olga. Klaus or Olga
Bist zu alt für Heavy Metal, You're too old for heavy metal.
zu jung für die Polka. too young for the polka.
Du fängst an zu schwitzen, You start to sweat to,
keine Lust in dem Dunst. no desire in the mist.
Das ist nicht gerecht, This is not fair,
denn jetzt geht es dir wie uns: for now you are like is:

ALSO TANZ! ALSO DANCE!

(English translation by Google Translate, accuracy not guaranteed....)

The ‘Great Renewables Scam’ Unravels | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

'A new analysis of government and industry figures revealed that every UK wind industry job is effectively subsidized to the tune of £100,000 per year. In some cases it rises to £1.3 million per job. In Scotland, with its 230 onshore windfarms, the figure is £154,000 per job. Even if the highly optimistic maximum projection of 75,000 wind industry jobs by 2020 is realised the figure would only drop to £80,000.'
More here http://www.thegwpf.org/great-renewables-scam-unravels/

Richard Bacon in full biased ranting mode

Last year I posted this piece about the most biased and boorish piece of broadcasting that I had ever heard. The culprit was the BBC's Richard Bacon and thanks to 'noggin' on the Biased-BBC website I now have some embeddable audio...






As I wrote in the original post:
'Please listen to this interview... Richard Bacon shows off his stupidity. The 97% figure as demolished by James Delingpole is as I have blogged previously.
Richard Bacon didn't sound a) impartial or b) knowledgeable...In fact have you ever heard him sound so angry throughout an interview and so triumphant when he thought (usually incorrectly) that he'd made a good point? Are BBC interviewers meant to treat interviewees like this? Can anyone think of another interviewee that Richard Bacon has so taken against?

I wonder if Richard bacon will find the time in his busy schedule to check that 97% statistic that so upset him. In case he or @declanmurray78 need some help here's a link that might help and in case you two cannot follwo a link, here's the meat of the matter:

'How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2500 – that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position. [1]
To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered that they were mistaken – those 2500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.
The upshot? The punditry looked for and recently found an alternate number to tout — “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post and elsewhere have begun to claim.
This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers – in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.
The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth – out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists and astronomers. That left the 10,257 scientists in disciplines like geology, oceanography, paleontology, and geochemistry that were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided that scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer – those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification a factor – about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.
To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response –just 3146, or 30.7%, answered the two questions on the survey:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
The questions were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims that the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think that humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming – quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say that human are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.
Surprisingly, just 90% of those who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen – I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.
As for the second question, 82% of the earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe that human activity been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a 10% or 15% or 35% increase to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.
In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus – almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for subsets that would yield a higher percentage. They found it – almost — in those whose recent published peer-reviewed research fell primarily in the climate change field. But the percentage still fell short of the researchers’ ideal. So they made another cut, allowing only the research conducted by those earth scientists who identified themselves as climate scientists.
Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers were then satisfied with their findings [2]. Are you?
LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.

[1] http://www.probeinternational.org/ipcc-flyer-low%5B1%5D.pdf
[2] http://probeinternational.org/library/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/012009_Doran_final1.pdf''

Thankfully I gave up listening to Richard Bacon soon after this so I no longer have to listen to one of the few broadcasters who appears to have  regressed sinec leaving children's tv.

The one hundred and fifty-fifth weekly "No shit Sherlock" award

From the Prism revelation, I hear that you can plug a phone into a roadside green box and listen to calls - "No shit Sherlock"

Friday 21 June 2013

Miley Cyrus - "We can't stop" - Oddest video of the week and certainly the one with most gratuitous tight trousers - A rule 5 Friday post

Miley Cyrus - "We can't stop" - Oddest video of the week and certainly the one with most gratuitous tight trousers


Hmmm



Billy Piper acts like a dirty goat and sheep and quite a few other farmyard animals - Probably NSFW - Friday Night Rule 5


Billy Piper from Secret Diary of a Call Girl Series 3 Episode 3

Kate Upton topless on a horse - Unfortunately NSFW - A Rule 5 Friday post



TMZ of course ruined this moment with their gratuitous nipple stars.

George Galloway attacks SNP's hatred of other opinions - BBC Question Time



'Gorgeous George Galloway attacks the way the SNP have a hatred of views that are not the same as theirs, in particular backing up Nigel Farage's recent visit to Scotland, and how he was attacked by SNP activists, bringing shame to Scotland, especially as the SNP leader Alex Salmond backed the protesters.

Recorded from BBC Question Time, 13 June 2013.'
Oh my word, I agree with George Galloway on something, I feel dirty.


Of course our reasons are different...and there's nothong 'gorgeous' about George Galloway.SNP

When the deaths of Palestinians in a refugee camp is of no interest to the BBC

Imagine that an Israeli tank shell hit an UNRWA school accommodating 260 Palestine refugees. Imagine that at least five of these Palestine refugees, including two children and two women, were killed inside the school by that shell and that eleven more sustained serious injuries including an UNRWA staff member.

What would the BBC coverage be like?

How many Palestinian spokespersons would be put on the air to scream about Israeli aggression?

How many BBC reporters would walk with a doleful expression and tears in their eyes through that camp?

How many images of the wailing relatives of the dead would be shown?

How many images of bodies being carried to waiting ambulances would be shown?


Well such an incident has just taken place, in fact there were three mortar shells fired by one side or another in the Syrian conflict. But the camp was in Syria, near Damascus, so there's no way that Israel can be blamed. Thus there's not a scintilla of coverage on the BBC of the attack on the Khan Eshieh Palestine refugee camp.

Not a word because as should be obvious the BBC's obsession with the plight of the Palestinians has less to do with support for the Palestinians as a hatred of Israel and Jews who aren't silent victims.

"Don't give weapons to people who want to kill us" - Sensibe advice for Barack Hussein Obama from Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)




It would seem that Ted Cruz has a better handle on what's really happening in Syria than Barack Hussein Obama, or does Obama really know just what he's doing...

Mr Bean talks sense on freedom of speech and religion, or rather Rowan Atkinson does


Can you disagree?

The best Twitter feed ever?

Short but descriptive of events...

Turkish film translation "erases" Israel from Brad Pitt epic from The Commentator

'Turkey's version of World War Z starring Brad Pitt is reported to have removed references to Israel, instead labelling the Jewish state, "Middle East"'
More here http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3819/turkish_film_translation_erases_israel_from_brad_pitt_epic


Interesting that Turkey have managed to erase any references to Israel from that film, meanwhile all over the Muslim world people would love for Israel itself to be erased.

Java's last synagogue demolished as U.S. students visit on religious pluralism tour from Washington Times

'Beth Shalom, Java's only synagogue, was demolished in May after being sealed off by Islamic hard-liners since 2009, Freddy Istanto, the director of the Surabaya Heritage Society (SHS), told the Jakarta Globe on Saturday. He said it was uncertain who destroyed the building.'

But Israel is an apartheid state? All over the Islamic world, non Muslims & the wrong kind of Muslims are being discriminated against and even killed, meanwhile the world says & does nothing for fear of being labelled Islamophobic.

More on the plight of Jews here in The Washington Times but definitely not on the BBC, whose pro Islam line gets stronger every day. http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/18/javas-last-synagogue-demolished-us-students-visit-/

The sickest sentence in that report was this:
'Diah Ariani Arimbi, dean of Airlangga University's School of Literature, said all was not lost on the trip, because the students were still able to learn "about how the residents form a pluralist and democratic community."'

Destroying a place of worship of a tiny minority community - very pluralist indeed.

Thursday 20 June 2013

Get Lucky - Five pianist style


That's The Daft Pianists



This is the Daft Punk original

An obstacle to peace the BBC won’t tell you about from BBC Watch

'As long as the BBC continues its campaign to shape audience perceptions by censoring coverage of real obstacles to peace such as the indoctrination of the next generation of its rejectors, BBC coverage of the Middle East cannot comply with its professed standards of accuracy and impartiality and it will not fulfill the "Public Purpose " defined in its charter of building "a global understanding of international issues". '
More here http://bbcwatch.org/2013/06/20/an-obstacle-to-peace-the-bbc-wont-tell-you-about/

Do read the whole article and realise just how biased against Israel and pro the Palestinians the BBC is. The BBC's bias is deliberate and calculated; designed to provoke sympathy for the Palestinian people and hatred for Israel & by extension Jews.

An interesting update

Further to my piece on the conviction of people for the murder of a football linesman I received this comment from Alex:
'The first names are reported in the Dutch press. Also notable was the fact that the name of the team that kicked the linesman was the Buitenboys. "Buitenlander" is Dutch for foreigner. So much for integration.'
Well he's right about Buitenlander and DutchNews.NL reports that:
'El-Hasan D, 51, was jailed for six years while his son Yassine, 16, was given 12 months in juvenile detention, two suspended.

The other suspects, aged 16, 17 and 18, were given 24-month sentences, six suspended, for their parts in the attack. The youngest defendent, Daveryon B, 15, was given 30 days in youth custody, 17 days suspended. He was only guilty of attacking the keeper, the court found.'

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Leaked U.N. Report Outlines Iran Sanctions-Busting, As IAEA Details “Steady” Nuclear Progress | TheTower.org

'Iran is making "steady progress" in expanding its nuclear program and international sanctions do not seem to be slowing it down, the U.N. nuclear agency chief told Reuters on Monday… "There is a steady increase of capacity and production (in Iran's nuclear program)," Amano said in an interview. Asked if international punitive steps aimed at making Iran curb its atomic activity were slowing it down, he said: "I don't think so … I don't see any impact."'
More here http://www.thetower.org/leaked-u-n-report-outlines-iran-sanctions-busting-as-iaea-details-steady-nuclear-progress/

But not on the BBC who I believe not only want a nuclear Iran to be able to oppose Israel but may actually want an attack by Iran on Israel.

The idiocy of the “two-state solution" - a history lesson many should learn from before debating with me

'After the 1967 war, Israel accepted UNSC resolution 242, under which Israel would give back lands it had occupied to its neighbors in return for peace treaties that would guarantee "secure and recognized boundaries." The clear intent of the resolution was that Israel would give back some of the land, but not necessarily all of it, particularly because the pre-war boundaries were not 'secure'.'
More here http://fresnozionism.org/2013/06/the-idiocy-of-the-two-state-solution/

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Fascinating protection of convicted by BBC

Back in December there was a rather nasty incident in The Netherlands when a football linesman was kicked to death by a group of teenagers and one adult. What is interesting today is that whilst the juveniles' names I believe cannot be reported there is no such restriction on the name of the adult convicted. The Telegraph manage to report the adult as being 'Hasan D'. The BBC report names no names, why?

The Telegraph further report that:
'Only three of the defendants turned up in court to hear the verdict, an attendance that described by Mrs Nieuwenhuizen as “disrespectful”. “The worst thing for me is that they never admitted what they did,” she said.'
The BBC don't report this but do have this really odd passage:
'The BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says amateur teams have since introduced a new code of conduct in the hope that such an incident will never happen again.'
A code of conduct was needed to stop people kicking match officials to death? Really?

Yet more Barack Obama news that the BBC won't report

Another CNN bulletin:
'Older and younger Americans don't agree on the immigration bill currently before the U.S. Senate, but a small majority of Americans overall favors the bill, according to a new CNN/ORC International survey.
The poll also indicates that more than six in 10 say border security rather than a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants should be the bigger priority.

According to the poll, 51% say they support a bill that would attempt to increase border security and create a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, with 45% saying they are opposed to such a measure.

People 65 and older oppose the bill by a 17-point margin, while younger Americans tend to favor it.

The survey was conducted June 11-13, with 1,014 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Find out more about the poll on CNN's new morni ng show, “New Day,” at 6 a.m. ET on CNN.'
 More people think border security should be a priority than a pathway to citizenship, I'm sure the BBC won't want to report that.

More Barack Obama news that the BBC won't report

Another CNN bulletin:

'A growing number of Americans believe that top White House officials ordered the IRS to target conservative political groups, according to a new CNN/ORC International survey.
In May, only 37% of the public thought that the IRS controversy led to the White House, with 55% saying that agency officials acted on their own without direct orders from Washington. Today, that number has increased 10 points, to 47%, virtually the same as the 49% who believe the IRS agents acted on their own.

Congressional sources say that interviews with IRS workers so far have found no political conspiracy or ties to top White House officials.

The poll was conducted June 11-13, with 1,014 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Find out more about the poll on CNN's new morning show, “New Day,” at 6 a.m. ET on CNN.'
The BBC will no doubt continue to protect the Obamamessiah and not report such news.

Counselling that might actually work




Thanks to Monkey Dust...

It's only $9,000,000,000,000 Missing From The Federal Reserve.


After all it's only $9,000,000,000,000 Missing From The Federal Reserve.

Have these people not heard of real-time reporting or indeed proper financial accounting systems? Is nobody really keeping track of losses of this size?

Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

Pet Shop Boys: Apartheid Israel is "a caricature"

'In a statement published on the Pet Shop Boys website, member Neil Tennant states:
"I don't agree with this comparison of Israel to apartheid-era South Africa. It's a caricature. Israel has (in my opinion) some crude and cruel policies based on defence; it also has universal suffrage and equality of rights for all its citizens both Jewish and Arab. In apartheid-era South Africa, artists could only play to segregated audiences; in Israel anyone who buys a ticket can attend a concert. Neil x"'
More here http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3800/pet_shop_boys_apartheid_israel_is_a_caricature

At least there are some pop stars capable of thinking for themselves and separating truth from lies.

BBC News - TV licence fee excuses revealed

The BBC have this jokey piece about excuses for not paying the TV licence fee. Of course there's no mention of the correct reason -  because I refuse to pay for the BBC's hideously biased output. I wonder how many non payers take that political stand.
BBC article here http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22947160

Monday 17 June 2013

Nigella Lawson in happier times

I hear that Nigella Lawson is having a difficult time of it at the moment, this weekend's story in The People was rather disturbing.

I know that I've posted this piece of video before but I think it worth a repeat, as Nigella talks dirty..



Do follow that link for more Nigella Lawson innuendo.





If Andrew Marr wasn't such a leftie




We can but dream.

The internet is expanding - The first half will only make sense if you're over the age of 30 and the second half ...




Monkey Dust's view of the expanding Internet and the sad people who live on it.

The dangers of working from home



The moral being - never buy a laptop with a built-in camera.

What did Tommy Robinson say that was racist?





What I found interesting in the above clip was the number people who kept telling Tommy that "you've had your chance to talk" whilst shouting him down and ignoring his points, preferring to use the tried and tested leftist technique of shutting down debate by calling someone 'a racist'.  Do watch this video clip and please explain what Tommy Robinson said that was racist.

The BBC protecting Barack Obama's reputation in the UK

CNN are reporting that:
'President Barack Obama’s approval rating dropped 8 percentage points over the last month, and for the first time in his presidency more than half of the public doesn’t feel that the president is honest and trustworthy, a new CNN/ORC International poll shows.

A sharp 17-point drop among Americans under 30 fueled the drop in Obama’s approval rating.
 
The poll was conducted as the White House has been under siege over telephone and Internet surveillance, the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, its handling of the terror attack on the U.S. consular post in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department’s collecting journalists’ phone records as part of the government’s investigation into leaks of classified information'
The BBC will find it difficult to report such news as they have minimised reporting of these news stories, if they have covered them at all. Remember at the BBC it's still Vote Obama!

Fighting censorship...

Apparently the Chinese authorities are stopping their population from seeing this lovely comparison of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger with Chinese president Xi Jinping and Barack Obama. How cruel...

Sunday 16 June 2013

Elder of Ziyon: Egyptian cleric recommends viewers read "Protocols of Elders of Zion"

More news from Egypt that you won't hear on the BBC... including:
'The confrontation [with the Jews] is inevitable. Our Prophet does not lie. He told us that there would be a confrontation between the Muslims and the Jews before the Day of Judgment, and that the Muslims would vanquish them to the point that the Jews would hide behind the stones and the trees, but the stones and the trees would say: "Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Prepare for that day, for it will surely arrive, because the divine revelation harbors no lies.'

More here http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/egyptian-cleric-recommends-viewers-read.html

Saudi cleric promises Jihadists that their 72 virgins will be fair-skinned white women



More here http://topconservativenews.com/2013/06/saudi-cleric-promises-jihadists-that-their-72-virgins-will-be-fair-skinned-white-women/

More from the apartheid state of Saudi Arabia.

Don't expect any reporting of this on the BBC for whom Israel is the only apartheid state and Islamic states are beyond criticism.

I'm Not a Sheep

Found on the web

The British child brides: Muslim mosque leaders agree to marry girl of 12... so long as parents don't tell anyone via Mail Online

'British Muslim clerics are willing to carry out sharia marriages involving child brides as young as 12, an investigation has found.

Two imams said they would be prepared to officiate at the wedding of an underage girl to a man in his twenties, despite fears the pair would later have sex.

The revelations have led the Home Office to confirm that such ceremonies will be examined in the Government's forthcoming Bill to outlaw forced marriages.

More than 1,000 of the 8,000 forced marriages of Britons each year are believed to involve girls of 15 or under, with one case last year allegedly involving a girl of five.

The clerics were approached by man posing as the father of a 12-year-old  who wanted her to marry to prevent her being tempted into a decadent Western lifestyle.

Imam Mohammed Kassamali, of the Husaini Islamic Centre in Peterborough, stressed the need for secrecy with such a ceremony.

He allegedly said: 'If it (the marriage) was not possible, I would  have told you straight away... I would love the girl to go to her husband's houses (sic) as soon as possible, the younger the better.'


Read more here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200555/The-British-child-brides-Muslim-mosque-leaders-agree-marry-girl-12--long-parents-dont-tell-anyone.html

How many more such instances are happening across this country? How more common will this become as Islam becomes a more prevalent religion in the UK?

Friday 14 June 2013

Woolwich outrage: we are too weak to face up to the extremism in our midst - Telegraph

I did reply to the BBC

Nota Sheep
19:28 to Trust
Thanks for the information although I must say that it's hardly an impressive performance by the BBC Trust. The matter was discussed on 11 April and over two months later the minutes of that meeting have apparently yet to be ratified.
I assume that there have now been two Trust meetings since the 11 April one: May and June.
Surely the first item on the agenda of each meeting is the ratification of the previous meeting's minutes.
Is this really any way to run an organisation?
Kind regards
NotaSheep MaybeaGoat

The many talents of Kate Upton - A Friday night Rule 5 posting - probably NSFW




Kate Upton is a woman of many talents, including being a wet t-shirt contest champion; phew!

The BBC brainwashing British children

I know that I've commented on the BBC's Bitsize educational site's coverage of religion but I thought it worth a revisit.

Here's some extracts from the section on War and Peace comparing the BBC's coverage of Judaism and Islam.

First Judaism, (my emphasis):
'Jewish attitudes to war and peace are based on the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures.

In the Jewish Scriptures there are examples of wars. Some of these were Holy Wars where the Jews were trying to maintain their religion when other people wanted to make them worship false gods. Others were perhaps ‘Just Wars’ but it could be argued that some of them were wrong and unjustified.'
Now Islam:
'Islam is a religion of peace in which fighting and war are seen only as a last resorts:

...

The idea of Jihad is often misunderstood by non-Muslims who then see Islam as not being a pacifist religion.

Muslims may fight in self-defence but are forbidden to begin a fight. The aim of fighting is to create a situation where Muslims are free to worship Allah and live in peace.
One aim of Holy War may be to create a democracy where people are free to live their lives without beliefs and politics being imposed on them. There must be no hatred or vengeance in the fighting. As soon as peace is offered, fighting must stop. Once peace has been restored the differences between people must be resolved.'

So for the BBC whilst some wars fought  by Jews 'could be argued' were 'wrong and unjustified', ''Islam is a religion of peace in which fighting and war are seen only as a last resort'. Islam is a pacifist religion and only misunderstanding of Jihad causes non-Muslims to see it otherwise.

Absolutely no mention in the section on Islam of the parts in the hadith where Muhammad says that he is 'ordered by Allah to fight men until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger.'. No mention of the wars fought by Islam to conquer the Byzantine Empire and large parts of Christian Europe.

Is the BBC, as they say, 'for real'?

Everyone should be monitored apart from radical mosques!

We've learnt recently that the Obama administration is monitoring the US and foreign general public's voice and electronic communications in an effort to identify terrorists or maybe just opponents of Barack Obama who need to be investigated. What is less well known is that:
'Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped
Thanks to Investors.com for that spot.

So why has the Obama administration made this policy decision and why is it receiving so little MSM attention? 

The BBC taking their time...

Trust Editorial 12 Jun to me

Dear Audience Member

 I am sorry that the process of ratification is taking longer than expected. The April meeting was a particularly long meeting but I hope to be able to send you the decision at the end of this week.

Yours sincerely

Christina Roski
Complaints Adviser, BBC Trust Unit
Imagine a private sector organisation of a similar size to the BBC being that late with it's minutes of a monthly board meeting...

Harriet Harman has got it right, I suppose it had to happen eventually!

Yesterday The Guardian reported that:
'Harriet Harman: time to consider media ownership cap as low as 15% 
Shadow culture secretary to say that plurality ensures no private interest can set itself above public interest'
Apparently:
'A media ownership cap as low as 15% across newspapers, broadcasting companies and online sites must be considered to stop companies feeling they are "above the rule of law", according to Harriet Harman.

...

The Labour frontbencher will call on her Tory counterpart Maria Miller to set up crossparty talks to help push reforms through.

Labour last year proposed a possible 30% limit on ownership within the newspaper industry but suggests that could sit alongside a 15% cap across the media as whole, including "any medium of communication that stands between a creator of content and an audience".'
The most fascinating sentence in the whole report was this one:
'News International held 37% of the newspaper market until the closure of the News of the World.'
Now can you think of a media organisation that holds an even larger market share in the area of reporting the news?

Guido Fawkes  has today this useful graphic to illustrate the BBC's dominance in news dissemination:


But two years ago Conservative Home produced a more in depth report that included these eye-opening graphs based on OfCom figures:

First one that shows where people get their news from

This shows that television accounts for 73% of peoples' news. The internet, TV and radio are nearly equal in importance but all a poor second place and with the internet eating into newspapers at an accelerating rate...

Now a graph that shows how the BBC dominates the TV news sector. Its share of TV news is more than ten times as big as Sky News.


And finally the share of internet news:

This chart shows that BBC websites have ten times as much market share as Sky. When it comes to the overt opinion-based news websites News Corporation has less market share than The Guardian or the Daily Mail.

Taken together these graphs show that there is indeed a dominant player in the UK news market but that it's not News International, it's the BBC.
More importantly the fact that the BBC is clearly not an unbiased voice on so many subjects, including  immigration, Israel, Islamic terrorism, the EU, US politics, British politics and climate change, means that the BBC is not some benign impartial force sitting above a partisan sector. 
The BBC dominates the news agenda like no other organisation and on many of these subjects its views are at variance with the rest of the British people who have little choice but to pay the licence fee. Nobody forces people to buy The Daily Mail or subscribe to Sky but if you have a TV and the ability to receive TV broadcasts in the UK you must have a TV licence.

So did Harriet Harman men to include the BBC in her 15%  media ownership cap and if not, why not? Maybe because the BBC is in tune with Harriet Harman and Labour on so many issues and thus plays a large role in increasing the Labour vote.


UPDATE:
As of Friday evening I can find no mention on the BBC website of Harriet Harman's proposals. This is odd as the BBC are normally totally obsessed by media matters. Why on earth would they be ignoring this story? It's a total mystery!

Why?

'Targeting civilians is a crime punishable, and people targeting civilians will be punished for this, and I cannot understand this, also from another perspective," Kubis said. "Where is the honor in targeting civilians? What kind of show of "bravery," in quotations marks, is this targeting civilians, killing unarmed people that are working for the people of this country?"'
Read more here http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2013/06/11/un-more-than-3-000-afghan-civilians-killed-and-wounded-in-the-first-five-months-one-fifth-of-them-children.html
 
It is odd that there are so many people who delight in vilifying Israel for allegedly targeting civilians, something Israel does not do - look at the statistics, listen to the experts who'll tell you how Israel works so hard to minimise civilian casualties.

Odd because these same people barely raise an eyebrow when Palestinians are killed in Lebanon or Syria, when Syrian civilians are massacred by their own army or when Afghan civilians are killed by the Taliban.
It can't be that the Palestinians are special because the killing of Palestinians by people other than Israel is pretty much ignored by these people.

So why do these people only protest when they can blame Israel?

There's one obvious explanation, but is that really the case?

Thursday 13 June 2013

A nice little retro song - She & Him "I've Got Your Number, Son"


She and Him being Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward.

Zooey Deschanel was Trillian in the woeful 2005 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film and now stars in the very average US comedy New Girl, but she sure can sing... What a lovely voice and a nice 60's girl group feel to the song.

Islam and disciplining women as shown on TV targeted at Europe, including the UK





The above are excerpts from an Iqra TV show, aired on April 6, 2013, featuring Saudi scholar Jassem Al-Mutawa, who hosts Professor Muhammad Al-Hajj from the Jordanian University as a guest on the show. Since 2002, when the program was originally broadcast, Jassem Al-Mutawa has become the president of Iqra TV. The program was rerun on Iqra's channel targeting European audiences and broadcasting in French, English and Arabic.

Do watch the whole piece, it's an eye-opener and I wonder how many British Muslims follow such advice?

If you can't watch it all, here's the transcript to peruse:
'Jassem Al-Mutawa (holding several long wooden rods in his hand): Today, we will discuss imposing discipline in the family. Sometimes, family disciplining is misunderstood, and therefore, in the modern era, there is a lot of domestic violence, carried out by means of rods such as these. As a result, marital relations disintegrate, leading to instability and divorce. Family disciplining is a right of the husband toward his wife, and vice versa.

[…]

There is a saying that goes: “the rod is for the disobedient.” What do you think – is that true or false? This is a little rod. Let’s take the big one, here. This is not a rod to be used on the disobedient. Now let’s take a look together at this big rod here. Some husbands and wives keep a rod like this at home. Someone once said to me: “I have a long rod at home” - a rod just like this one – “and whenever my wife does something wrong, look what I do to her with this rod.” So “a rod for the disobedient” is not a correct notion. On the contrary, it destroys our lives and our homes. We need to deal with our problems through dialogue and mutual understanding.

[...]

With some wives, it helps to use harsh words, and with others, it doesn’t. With some wives, it helps to talk calmly, using nice words. With some – if you talk to them harshly, they become even more stubborn, and the problem gets worse. With others, it is exactly the opposite – if you talk to them calmly, they don’t get it and the problem gets worse. So you cannot determine a law, such as: 1+1 =2.

[…]

Dr. Muhammad Al-Hajj, professor of Islamic faith at the Jordanian University: A car cannot be driven by two people – only by one. Islam placed the steering wheel of the family in the hands of the husband. Problems within the family are dealt with in the Kuranic verse regarding relationships: “Men are the guardians of women.” Allah says: “As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, do not share their bed, and beat them.”

[…]
The punishment is restricted to cases of rebellion, in which a family life becomes a living hell. In such cases, in order to deal with the problem of a rebellious wife… There must be a remedy for such a problem. So, this progression [in punishment] has been determined: First, as soon as the husband begins to fear disobedience – before actual disobedience has even occurred – the stage of admonishment begins.

[…]

If she persists in her rebelliousness, one reaches the next stage - which is refusing to share her bed, as a way of making her feel that I am not pleased with her behavior. If she persists, and the husband gave her another chance – and sometimes months or even years pass by, yet she continues to be rebellious… The wisdom of Islam is manifest in the existence of a further method: that of non-harsh beatings.

[…]

Jassem Al-Mutawa: What is the difference between the harsh and non-harsh beatings?

Dr. Muhammad Al-Hajj: Harsh beatings leave marks upon the body or the face, and therefore, it has been decreed that one must not hit the face. So one must not hit the face, and one must not administer beatings that cause fractures or wounds. That is what our jurisprudents have decreed in their writings.

[…]

I think it would be immoral to go so far as to say that a wife may punish her husband by beating him, because this would be undermining the authority of the husband. Islam has spared the wife the need to use her hands to beat, in order to preserve her femininity, her honor, and her moral values.

[…]

Jassem Al-Mutawa: Ibn Abbas wrote, in his exegesis, that the husband should beat his wife with a handkerchief. Is it conceivable for a man to beat his wife with a rod, like we saw at the beginning of the show? No way. He must beat her with a handkerchief. The interpretation of Ibn Abbas is, in fact, extreme. There are other scholars who claim that he should beat her with a toothpick, because the point of beating is not to take revenge upon her or to be mean to her. A husband who beats out of revenge or meanness is committing a sin. The aim of the beatings is to convey a message: Oh so-and-so, I’m not pleased with your behavior. Start behaving yourself and be good. Otherwise, why would Ibn Abbas have said we should beat with a handkerchief? Can you believe such a thing?

Today, the Westerners criticize us about wife-beating in Islam, but no [Muslim] woman has died as a result of her husband’s beating. And if it does ever happen in our societies, it is considered very rare, and all the newspapers talk about it. Meanwhile, according to the latest U.N. statistics, from 1999-2000, every 12 seconds, a wife is beaten by her husband in the U.S. in some cases, these beatings lead to the woman’s death. When the Westerners criticize us about our issues, we must be confident and talk about their own issues. Even though the Koran [permits wife-beating], we have no cases of death resulting from it, and if there have been any, it is rare. On the other hand, in the West, they do not have the Koran or the Sunna, yet every 12 seconds, a woman is beaten by her husband.

[…]

Islam takes into consideration woman’s mentality and biological build. The woman is built weaker than the man. If Islam gave a woman the right to beat her husband – by Allah, the husband would break her, right? A woman cannot compete with her husband’s muscles. However, Islam has given woman the right to have her husband beaten by someone acting on her behalf. So the husband is beaten by another man, and the battle is waged between two men, not between a man and a woman. Therefore, if the husband humiliates his wife, the woman can turn to the courts, and the judge will rule what the woman deserves. If the woman wants her husband to be beaten - he will be, but he will be beaten by court order. That way, the battle will be waged between the husband and the courts, and not between the husband and the wife, within the household.

[…]

We all know that some men suffer from a mental disorder known as sadism, and that some woman suffer from a mental disorder known as masochism. What is the cure for such disorders? Beatings. Such a woman must be dealt with harshly. One of the jurisprudents even said that it is possible that this verse was conveyed for those suffering from these diseases. If a man is married to a woman suffering from sadism [sic] – let him beat her. The beatings constitute treatment in her case. A psychiatrist friend of mine once told me that sometimes people come to him with marital problems, in which the woman suffers from that disease. He advises the husband to beat her in a certain way, and the problem is solved. The Koran deals with such problems. Brothers and sisters, there is no need for concern. Our religion is glorious, and the verses of the Koran impart absolute justice. They are not unjust toward either the woman or the man, but we must learn how to apply the rulings of Islam.'

Thanks to MEMRI for the spot and translation.