Steely Dan

Well there's the death knell for the Eskimo theory.

The chap converted to Islam, he was formerly Ken Dale, but evidently he still wasn't Islamic enough for the Taliban. Ho hum, it does tend to give one a feeling of contempt, not only for the Taliban, but those who are negotiating the terms of our surrender to them.

And here we go, the Dr and Mini-Me, not content with condemning a brutal and senseless murder of a member of the ICRC, you feel the need to slip in an apologist mention of the delightful Jihad Watch and its chief contributor Robert Spencer. I'm sure you are aware of Mr Spencer's discipleship of Bob Avakian, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA since its formation in 1975, and his close association with the Black Panthers.

Robert Spencer was also spotlighted by another Talban/Al Qaida victim, Benazir Bhutto, as "using Jihad Watch to spread misinformation and hatred of Islam. And that he presents a skewed, onesided and inflammatory story that only helps to sow the seed of civizational conflict".

Why take a tragedy and make it worse? Who benefits?

Sigh, I thought this thread was about the Taliban, not Robert Spencer. I can only point you at my signature quote, for fear of 'inflaming' the Taliban to do even worse.

The chap converted to Islam, he was formerly Ken Dale, but evidently he still wasn't Islamic enough for the Taliban. Ho hum, it does tend to give one a feeling of contempt, not only for the Taliban, but those who are negotiating the terms of our surrender to them.

People should have to pass an IQ test before being allowed to breed.

have you noticed the outrage when you suggest something like this ?

I have said for a long time there should be a licensing system

You need a licence just to sell lemonade on the sidewalk in USA and for so many other things

and yet any irresponsible person is allowed to breed

Unfortunately the welfare state and sundry other well intentioned but ill thought out schemes make it easier for those totally unsuitable to have children than those who are more suitable to have them.

Coming to think of it I don't know what the mayor has been smoking if he thinks he can make this law stick.

On that basis why was Israel not able to come to a settlement with the secular, military regime of Syria, or the secular PLO?

It would appear that you and Colin are of the view that israel seeks peace but such an approach is not reciprocated by the palestinian organizations. IMHO it would appear that the sad status quo, presently seen, suits elements of both sides as a way of avoiding tough decisions and there is no real genuine desire for a settlement.

All good armchair stuff, but tragically the current impasse not only produces local victims but has a seriously detrimental global impact also.

What is your solution to the problem?

PLO, Now that's complicated, as you would say. Part of the problem any 'Palestinian' negotiator has is being a pawn in a larger game, namely doing the bidding of the Arab nations as a whole. As for Syria; firstly Assad is from a minority sect and would have faced revolt far earlier had he come to an agreement with Israel. Then there is the Golan, which is in a crucial strategic position and unlike Gaza Israel would not have therefore risked handing it back to Assad only for him to be overthrown.

The problem has no solution until some factor forces Islam to modernize and adopt a stance which departs from it's current attitude to Israel and the Jews in general. I won't be holding my breath, but in a post-oil age waning influence may become a modernizing factor.

For varying reasons my 3 favorite cities in the world are:

San Francisco, Bangkok and Amsterdam.

I'll be crossing Amsterdam off that list, although I must admit, I didn't know they had fields of tulips and an art museum. The Ann Frank house is there? Maybe they should give everyone a list of sites to see and if you visit 3 then you get a free 'coffee house' pass. (My last contribution to visiting a museum, was the sex museum).

Whenever I go my Mum asks whether I visited the Ann Frank house. Frankly though once you get sat down in the grasshopper you tend to lose track of time. This is a big shame by the way and probably a knee jerk measure to reduce the crime problem of certain (ahem) sectors of Dutch society selling hard drugs to, or mugging weed tourists.

Dr. Ahmed Yousef an adviser to Ismail Haniyeh has questioned the use of the charter by Israel and its supporters to brand Hamas as a fundamentalist, terrorist, racist, anti-Semitic organization and claims that they have taken parts of the charter out of context for propaganda purposes. He claims that they dwell on the charter and ignore that Hamas has changed its views with time

Why would you quote such deceiptful nonsense as being factual? Here are a few recent quotes from Hamas.

"Whoever is killed by a Jew receives the reward of two martyrs, because the very thing that the Jews did to the prophets was done to him".

"The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah".

"Allah will kill the Jews in the hell of the world to come, just like they killed the believers in the hell of this world".

"The Jews kill anyone who believes in Allah. They do not want to see any peace whatsoever on Earth."

- Ismail Haniyeh, (head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip) May 2, 2011

All unpleasant, unhelpful stuff but in the longrun irrelevant.

The bottom line is that if you want to see a settlement in the Middle East that allows all parties to gain suffiiciently that such a settlement becomes permanent, all sides have to hold their noses, make concessions and deal with people they have up until then demonized.

Martin McGuinness is more than likely a terrorist murderer (or at the very least an accomplice to murder) who is now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. Gerry Adams likewise, but to make a deal the British government had to deal with these charming people.

Similarly many of the early leaders of Israel were ex-"terrorists" (at least to the British) from their time in Lehi (the Stern gang) or Irgun, some of whose activities certainly rank as terrorism of the most base kind.

The expediency required of politics is also part of early Israeli history when Lehi sought assistance from Nazi Germany to establish a Jewish homeland in exchange for support in removing the British from Palestine. Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin were also members of Betar, an organization that was a great supporter of Mussolini to an extent that they adopted his black shirts as part of their uniform.

If Israel wants to live in peace it will have to sit round a table with Hamas. If Hamas wants peace it will have to drop its rhetoric and do a deal. At the moment both sides appear intransigent so the senseless violence continues. Neither side can "win", but plenty of people will lose out until the day that the politicians grasp this basic fact.

The brutal truth is that Islam sees Israel as having been formed on Muslim lands. If you look at Koranic scripture you can see why this is a problem, and would always be so. It is no coincidence that the only Muslim Countries Israel has ever made peace with were ruled by military juntas or were, in the case of Turkey secular. The Palestinian cause and indeed all politics between the Muslim world and Israel hinge round this fact. The settlements are a red herring, always have been, yet will be used as a pretext when talking with western governments, just as the refugee situation is. Given a secular Palestinian authority anything is possible, but with Hamas in the fray we do not have this now.

Here's some more excellent source material about the insidious reality of pervasive anti-black race bias in America even among those with close black friends. Also, of course, how it relates to murder defendant Zimmerman.

You want to know another example of racism? Focusing all this energy on one tragic shooting because a white guy was thought to be involved (when really he has as much white blood in him as Obama) while at the same time not caring one bit about all the black-on-black killings that happen on a daily basis in our cities. The thousands of blacks murdered across the USA each year by other blacks aren't deemed by the media as important as when a white guy does the killing. Why? Is it because it is NEWS when a white guy does the killing and about as newsworthy as the sun rising when a black guy does the killing? Or maybe the media just doesn't think blacks are important enough? Why else is a black child (not some 17 yr old 6'3" football player, but a real child) being shot not considered important enough for media attention? Why is it national news when a little, blond, white girl goes missing but the media is silent when a little black girl disappears? The answer - racism. So if the media wants to use racism to sell papers and TV advertising, maybe they should tell their reporters to look inwards.

As with so many world events the importance of the 'victim' depends largely on who the aggressor happens to be as oppose to the facts surrounding the death.

All those clips still dodge the question - what are those settlements good for? They been around for about 40 years now, what have they achived in promoting anything conductive to peace in the area?

Saying that they are technically legal - ok, but what's the point? There are many legal actions you can do to annoy your neighbor, most people just don't go there. Laying out the whole history of the conflict is fine, but are those settlements contributing anything either to security or peace?

I would need to consult a map to see exactly where said settlements are, but I don't think I need tell you how narrow Israel is at it's narrowest part. Some of the settlements in the West bank undoubtedly serve to widen the defensible area Israel has and in so doing do contribute to security. I could attach a video to demonstrate this, but I think I've made my point.

Also non-assimilating ghettos tend to become breeding grounds for radicalism..

Seems to be plenty of non-assimilating farang ghettoes in Thailand. Not witnessed much radicalism, apart from hot air on TV forums and the spinning of tall stories of derring-do while propping up some bar.

That's because there is no common ideology behind the farang ghettoes, expect perhaps hedonism. Actually I would be in favour of spreading out the immigrants far more evenly, which would I guess fight both the assimilation and xenophobia issues at once. Perhaps on the streets where the BBC execs live there should be a community center or Mosque, so when doing their community programs there will be no need to send outside broadcast units to Dewsbury or Luton, after first of course ensuring a vehicle tracking unit was fitted.

This doesn't necesarily have to do with overall numbers, but with concentration in specific areas. Most of Thailand's Muslims do not reside in Pattaya. If someone was to arrive down south as his first stop, he could get a different idea as to how many Muslims are around.

Saying Muslims are 6% of the population in Europe makes it sound like a non-issue. Considering that most immigrants tend to (1) stay in urban centers, and (2) stay near other immigrants - easy to get areas where those numbers will be quite different. Population concentrations play both in politics (especially in a democratic system) and in creating public perceptions (for good or bad)

The contrast between Pattani and Pattaya is like the contrast between Bradford and Truro in the UK. And that's the same throughout Europe with muslims tending to be concentrated in urban areas (not that that stops rural areas with a muslim immigrant as likely as a unicorn such as the UK's south-west and East Anglia being key recruiting grounds for racist organizations such as the BNP). Visiting an area with a large muslim population can thus give a totally disproportionate and inaccurate picture of the country as a whole.

The muslim population of Europe is a non-issue in terms of the Eurabia theory of a takeover of Europe by the dastardly muslim types. Again check out the Pew Research Jan 2011 report below.

http://www.pewforum....nal-europe.aspx

The interesting place will be Russia with an estimated 19million muslims by 2030, making up some 15% of the total population as the non-muslim Russian population goes into a demographic nosedive.

It isn't just about appearances, population concentrations mean power. Especially so in case of minority groups and more so when religion is strongly involved. Minority groups, in general, exhibit more cohesive positions, religion magnifying the effect. When taken in the context of democratic societies, such groups can actually achieve quite a bit.

That by itself isn't a bad thing, perhaps, but when mixed with radical religious notions - it does present a problem.

Dealing with an evenly spread out 6% minority is one thing, coming to terms with zones where the minority group is actually in control (or a serious effect, anyway) is another.

Quite so, as the Norwegian ruling socialists recently found out when immigrants block voted for immigrant candidates resulting in them taking control of Oslo council. They are spitting feathers about being hoisted on their own petard - This perfectly demonstrates what happens when high concentrations of sectarian voters. Also non-assimilating ghettos tend to become breeding grounds for radicalism, which is why for example Thailand's Muslim problem is only that in the deep South.

All Qadaffi was saying was just out breed the infidels. Seems they are doing that

He didn't even get that right. If you can prove that Europe is facing a demographic threat from muslims please provide the evidence.

2010 Pew report quotes a total of 44 million muslims in Europe in 2010 (6% of the total European population and 3% of total muslims worldwide). Funnily enough Thailand also has a 6% muslim share of its population. Perhaps they will soon be taking over Pattaya, Patong etc soon.

This doesn't necesarily have to do with overall numbers, but with concentration in specific areas. Most of Thailand's Muslims do not reside in Pattaya. If someone was to arrive down south as his first stop, he could get a different idea as to how many Muslims are around.

Saying Muslims are 6% of the population in Europe makes it sound like a non-issue. Considering that most immigrants tend to (1) stay in urban centers, and (2) stay near other immigrants - easy to get areas where those numbers will be quite different. Population concentrations play both in politics (especially in a democratic system) and in creating public perceptions (for good or bad)

Quite, sometimes a picture says a thousand words. Imagine you are rushing to catch a flight and need to get your car out pronto.

I have to say that I don't quite get it.

Alright, lets say "disputed" rather than "occupied". Great.

Is it legal (by international law) to have a massive settlement plan in such areas? I guess one could find learned legal interpretations supporting both points of view.

Even if it is technically legal, what exactly do those settlements promote? Yes, ok....the Palestinians aren't playing nice, sure. But how does building settlements help change that?

Let go of the notion that ANY Israeli government had a clear policy regarding this issue, or an idea how to deal with it other the spewing ad-hoc solutions and reiterating chewed up lines,

The difference between the words disputed and occupied is not a small one. Disputed suggests a resolution through either fighting, which happened and the Israelis won, or negotiation, which suggests compromises and promises by both parties. Occupation suggests one party took something illegally from another party and should give it back without anything being asked in return from the latter. Leftists would probably be less likely to print 'End the dispute' on their T-shirts as oppose to end the occupation.

And lets face facts when Israel did unilaterally end the 'Occupation of Gaza' asking nothing in return they were rewarded with a hail of missiles, which has not stopped to this day. And still some nations persist in calling Gaza occupied, which is patently dishonest. It is little wonder Israel treats the U.N with contempt and unilaterally deals with its own internal political reality. Finally, as for Flying's shrinking Palestine map, let it be remembered that Israel settled for half of the territory west of the Jordan and none of the much larger area east of it, which was originally envisaged as theirs by Lord Balfour. Jordan is the true Palestinian state.

I was back in Dewsbury, the year after the London bombings. One of those bombers was from inside the boundaries of my home village. What Thornhillers call Thornhill and what the boundary says, do not agree. They never have in my life time, Thornhillers call Thornhilll proper the top of the hill. We don't feel part of Dewsbury, just Thornhill. I degress, but wanted to explain it. When I was there, the atmosphere was dreadful. My friends in Thornhill had voted BNP on to the council, all blaming the bombing. tbh I was glad to get back here and was glad my wife had not acompanied me.

Actually, there is a big dilemma here, I would march with anyone being targeted by the BNP solely due to their race or religion, but I would march with the EDL opposing the Islamic radicals whose actions and reach is under reported so badly. Sad indeed. My signature quote is particularly appropriate, especially with regard to your observation as to what Gaddafi said.

Very sick people and glad they got caught.

However the first thing sprang to my mind was why is this world news on thaivisa and why is muslim mentioned in the headline rather than Indonesian teachers.

These crimes happen all over the world everday. Why target muslims?

It goes to show that muslims are just like everyone else. Instead of taking this as a negative, it goes to show that man is capable of evil no matter what religion or ethnicity. I for one find it refreshing to know the incident was not covered up. It is good that this has come out. Maybe someone somewhere that finds out about the incident and knows of similiar activity will be encouraged to speak up.

Actually, honest reporting is not just desirable, it is crucial as it acts as an early warning system and pressure release valve for society. The Catholic church in Ireland tried to cover up sexual abuse of children for many years, and may have continued to do so had news reports caused more people to speak up. In this case, though I disapprove of vigilantism, it at least demonstrates people's values in the vicinity were inflamed by the abuse and it was not condoned nor hushed up.

Let's just say Indonesia is 88% Muslim so probability would dictate the criminals were Muslim, aside from that they were supposed to be teaching Koran recitals, which is a bit of a giveaway. P.S Why have a thrombosis about Muslims being mentioned, we know of unfortunate similar incidents with Catholic priests, yet mentioning these does not result in people automatically concluding all Catholics are no good.

What difference does that make? The truth is on the night of the murder Mr. Zimmerman indulged in racist stereotyping type thoughts. Black man with hoodie. Must be on drugs and up to no good. The evidence is there and so was the dead body. Typical racist type thought and usually benign enough, but dangerous in the mind of an armed man with his particular psychological history (policeman wannabe, overzealous neighborhood watch activist, ridiculous number of calls to police).

Jing, Are you a mind reader so you know Zimmerman's thoughts to the degree you conclude he indulged in 'racist type stereotyping'?

I would remind you of Jessie Jackson's quote that Uly posted - do you think this was also racist stereotyping. Aside from this all even supposing Zimmerman did 'think' Martin looked suspicious because of his colour and attire there are not as yet any thought crimes on the U.S statute books.

Has it never occurred to you that there is a real threat in the UK from British born Muslims holding British Passports ? ,

I'd laugh if it turns out to be five Eskimos who are all ******off about their igloos melting. What would you say then ?

Nice bit of humour Yunla , but I know the Racial Identity of 3 of them And I can assure you they ain't Eskimo's

Unless their igloos sport matching missile shaped appendages at each wing.

Nice, would be funnier if it wasn't so true.

Enjoy the satire, that will soon be the only avenue of speaking out about what's going down if present trends continue.

Perhaps that is because they view the U.N as a partisan organization. If the world map was re-drawn with area based on U.N human rights council resolutions against each Country then Israel would cover over half the worlds land area. I would accept perhaps the U.N had a point if they even made an attempt at quid pro quo, but that is not the case as missiles and other hostile actions against Israel continue unabated and Palestinian unilateral bid for statehood was also against the Oslo roadmap but no resolution was forthcoming over that from memory.

Luckily for those you apologize for no 'sigh of relief' is ever necessary as the press and western governments go out of their way to see no elephant in the room, an elephant in size indeed compared to the mouse that Breivik is by comparison. But some people are on to this dishonest manipulative game, such as Paul Weston - British Freedom (not EDL) for any RT News fans.

http://paulweston101...-edl-islam.html

The BBC regards itself as a politically impartial organisation, but their behaviour in the fallout of the Breivik atrocity shows them to be nothing other than the unapologetic propaganda arm of the hard Left and Islam.

Mouse or elephant, both represent a threat that needs to be addressed and extinguished. There's nothing appealing about extremists of any form, nor those that aid, direct and abet their campaigns.

The world sure ain't perfect but is only made worse and more dangerous by extremists of any part of the spectrum as their key aim is to provoke confrontation and antagonism in order to validate their stance.

Agreed, however what is extreme about wanting the law applied equally to all, to equal rights by gender, sexual orientation, religion. what is extreme about any of the provisions of the universal human rights declaration? Finally, if someone states facts then facts are not hate speech and 'incitement' should not be used as a post-hoc moving of goalposts to remove people who say things the government doesn't like - this however this does seem to be happening and shows a worrying trend funded from outside Europe as my link suggests.

Luckily for those you apologize for no 'sigh of relief' is ever necessary as the press and western governments go out of their way to see no elephant in the room, an elephant in size indeed compared to the mouse that Breivik is by comparison. But some people are on to this dishonest manipulative game, such as Paul Weston - British Freedom (not EDL) for any RT News fans.

http://paulweston101...-edl-islam.html

The BBC regards itself as a politically impartial organisation, but their behaviour in the fallout of the Breivik atrocity shows them to be nothing other than the unapologetic propaganda arm of the hard Left and Islam.

Will be interesting to see what the eventual charges are. I have a suspicion they will be charged with a relatively "minor" offense given the fact that the police deemed it safe to arrest them whilst being unarmed.

"Relatively minor offenses" - That my friend works on so many levels.