>the Riyadh woman was beaten and shot by her father after he discovered her engaging in an online conversation with a man on Facebook.<
That father is a sick man…
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 31 (UPI) — A Saudi woman’s alleged death at her father’s hands has been cited by a Muslim cleric in his criticism of the Internet social networking site Facebook.
The Saudi news site said the Riyadh woman was beaten and shot by her father after he discovered her engaging in an online conversation with a man on Facebook.
“Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they are spending on food,” he said.
A Muslim scholar, no matter how avuncular, no matter how courteous, plausible, charming or friendly he may be, is not your brother, your best pal, your confidant, your ally: he is a Muslim scholar and he has one aim and one aim only: to further the cause of Islam. If the occasion demands it, he will deceive you in order to achieve his goal, because Islamic law says that he should and Islamic ethics tells him that it is good to do so.
Oh, the paranoia! I better run away from my mate Errimy, then!
I am Associate Editor of a Public Health magazine, would like to publish your article focusing on AYUSH system in the future issue of our magazine Health For the Millions.
A comment for Max Dunbar (“The Counter-Enlightenment”)
Mr Dunbar wrote:
“Finally, I think that the conspiracy minded are people in need of reassurance. They can’t handle the random, the chaos of life, the disasters that can come out of a clear blue sky. It is more comforting to believe that George Bush destroyed the Twin Towers than Osama bin Laden.”
Actually, the main reason why people don’t believe that Osama Bin Laden is responsible for 9/11, is that there is simply no good evidence that he was.
Don’t take my word for it. When asked
why OBLs most wanted page on the FBI website doesn’t list 9/11 among his crimes, spokesman Rex Tomb said:
“The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
In my article posted on B&W on 4 April (“Distorted Outlook on the Archbishop’s Speech”) I quoted the BBC World Service Religious Affairs correspondent, Frances Harrison, using the term “Islamophobic” in relation to the reactions to the Dr Rowan Williams’s speech on Sharia. If one wants more evidence of just how pernicious the term “Islamophobia” is in current usage, have a look at examples provided by the self-styled Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, whose most prominent spokesman is quite frequently interviewed as presenting the voice of modern moderate Muslims.
I just came across a MPACUK webpage presenting a lengthy “List of Islamaphobic journalists”, on which page are cited the following examples of relevant articles:
If anyone can identify anything that can conceivably be described as “Islamophobic” in these articles, please let me know. Or is it just possible that its meaning (if it has any) is so diffuse that it has long ceased to merit a place in rational discourse?
“Islamophobic” ..is it just possible that its meaning (if it has any) is so diffuse that it has long ceased to merit a place in rational discourse?
its meaning has always been right from the beginning precisely to stop rational discourse; to censor the speaker, i.e. a thought-control device..another one of the same class is ‘racism’ ( what race is islam ?)
re The Pseudo-Science of the ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement
The comparison of 9/11 truth to intelligent design is apt. The formulation of arguments against what is widely understood without any alternative theory to be tested against evidence, and the claims of suppression reveal a shared narrative.
Legislators of several US states have introduced “academic freedom” bills to protect the teaching of ID. One should ask why they aren’t offering similar protection for the teaching of 9/11 truth and Holocaust denial.
An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man.
“He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”
“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months,” added Nasser. “He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”…
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which those convicted to death are executed in public with a sword. According to an Associated Press count, 39 have been beheaded this year,
>Would you accept that claim on that basis?<
Edmund: To cover the weaker form of conspiracy theory that Dave may be espousing (“I’m not saying there definitely is a conspiracy, but…”) the question might better be put in the form:
Would you give serious consideration to that claim on that basis?
Dave says ‘Even though there is no credible evidence so far is not [sic] proof that there was not such a conspiracy’.
That same ‘argument’ can applied to any belief, be it pseudo-scientific, religious, ‘new age’, or whatever. I can just invent some rubbish such as ‘I believe Bush is a reptilian-alien crossbreed who eats babies’ and then back it up by saying ‘even though there is no credible evidence so far this is not proof that this is not true’. Would you accept that claim on that basis?
And in a sermon televised on Friday, Yunis al-Astal, a Hamas MP and cleric, told worshipers that Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and which has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam,” just as Constantinople was.
Rome, he said, would become “an advanced post for the Islamic conquests which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.”
In his address aired on Hamas’s Al-Aksa TV and also translated by MEMRI, Astal told his audience: “Allah has chosen you for himself and for his religion, so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security, and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da’wa [preaching] and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.”
“I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our prophet, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire on the brink of which they stand.”
“Acceptable ?…yes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”
If you were arrested and charged with breaking into someones house and the police were unable to produce any evidence to back-up the accusation, how successful do you think the prosecution would be ?
How far do you think the prosecution would get by arguing that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” ?
As I always say to these 9/11 conspiracy theorists, if you think you have so much evidence what are you doing sitting on it, just making crappy websites and youtube videos? Present a legal case, lobby politicians, take your ‘evidence’ to relevant scholarly bodies. Get this stuff in court. You can’t, because it’s just a mish-mash of misrepresentations, misinterpretations, and fantasy. It’s fashionable nonsense, simple as that.
Mr Standing, if you had done any research into the subject, you would be well aware that many politicians (as well as Intelligence and Law Enforcement Officials and many others) are already very much on the case.(See “Patriots Question 911”)
For example, the former German Defense Secretary Andreas von Bülow and the leader of the Opposition in the Japanese Parliament, Yukihisa Fujita recently made a presentation on the subject of 9/11 to the European Parliament.
In addition, Yukihisa Fujita also made a formal presentation to the Japanese Parliament regarding the 9/11 attacks.
And more recently, Richard Falk an Official from the UN Human Rights Council has called for a new commission to study the attacks.
“U.N. Official Calls for Study Of Neocons’ Role in 9/11”
WASHINGTON — “A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”
The same Richard Falk who appeared on the March 24th 2008 radio show (‘Truth Jihad’) of Kevin Barrett, a ‘truther’ nut who has stated of of Hamas and Hezbollah that ‘for me — as for virtually all of the planet’s 1.5 billion Muslims … those groups are heroes’ and that ‘comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa is an insult to the Afrikaaners’.
The same disgraceful UN ‘Human Rights’ Council that ‘has failed to condemn the most egregious examples of human rights abuse in the Sudan, Byelorussia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and elsewhere, whilst repeatedly condemning Israel and Israel alone’ (http://www.iheu.org/node/3123).
Almost every claim you people make about 9/11 is demolished on this site and on the sites it links to.
See, as a starting point, NASA scientist Ryan Mackey’s comprehensive critique of David Ray Griffin’s claims about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.
Dear Editor, I don’t mean to “clutter” your site with links, I’m merely trying to provide a balance to the heavily anti-truther tone of some of the articles and comments here and posting links to the more respectable truther sites is tidier and more efficient than pasting pages of evidence and lists of hundreds of names.
Does your anti-clutter policy apply to all links, or only links to certain kind of sites?
If the claims of so-called 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” such as myself are so ridiculous, why is necessary to remove their comments from this site?
If you really have confidence in your reasoning and your arguments, then let’s have an honest, uncensored discussion about this subject.
As for “screwloosechange” taking apart “ae911truth”, “pilotsfor911truth.org”, and “Patriots Question 9/11”, I invite people to look at these sites and compare them with “screwloosechange” and decide for themselves who is more serious and respectable…..
Thank you for the interesting link. Lots of fascinating reading there, NIST reports etc.
The problem is that ultimately, they fail to fully explain the collapses.
In a letter to the victims families representatives Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine and others, NIST stated:
“We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.”
(27/9/2007)
By the way Mr Standing, having dismissed the UN as an unreliable, anti-semitic organisation, maybe you could tell me if there are any other international organisations, governments,law enforcement or intelligence agencies you would dismiss on the basis that they are not friendly enough to Israel.
It might save time.
For example, would the CIA and the FBI be acceptable to you ?
“In a letter to the victims families representatives Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine and others, NIST stated:
‘We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.’
(27/9/2007)”
Well, no, Fraser, NIST never stated that. You see, this is how we know that you are ignorant about 9/11: the ONLY places that your quote can be found is on 9/11 conspiracy websites. Those words were never written by NIST. They ARE however a paraphrasing of the actual letter. You would know this if you had bothered to read the letter itself, instead of allowing yourself to be misled by the mindless ramblings of Alex Jones and co.
For the record, here is what NIST actually said:
“Your letter contends that NIST’s report violates the Information Quality Standard of ‘utility.’ NIST believes that the report has utility. In fact, the codes and standards bodies are already taking actions to improve building and fire codes and standards based on the findings of the WTC Investigation. As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide an explanation-of the total collapse.”
That last sentence is the “statement” which was so butchered by you and your friends.
Now, an observant individual may have noticed that they said “as we mentioned previously”. And what, you may ask, did they mention previously?
“With regard to the first request, NIST has stated that it did not analyze the collapse of the towers. NIST’s analysis was carried to the point of initiation… it was most critical to NIST to explain why the collapse initiated. Once the collapse initiated, it is clear from the available evidence that the building was unable to resist the falling mass of the upper stories of the towers.”
In other words, NIST explained why the buildings collapsed. They can also, just as I can, explain the reason for the “total collapse” in one word: Gravity. Once the collapse began, it was unstoppable. Common sense alone should be enough in this case – but for those who really need a simulation Purdue University actually went past the point where NIST stopped, and attempted to model the collapses themselves. Their models only confirmed what common sense would have told anyone not totally blinded by ideological insanity: that no skyscraper, and certainly not the WTC towers, could have resisted those kind of forces.
If you continue to have difficulty comprehending this, you may wish to seek psychological assistance. If expert testimony and common sense are not enough to convince you, then perhaps a mental health professional may succeed where I have failed.
Mel Olontha >Soon they will kill her.<
I think we should all be thankful for not living in that horrible part of the world. They have horrible men there.
LONDON – Up to 48 universities in Britain have been infiltrated by fundamentalists financed by Muslim groups.
Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, has warned the government that donations of hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia and powerful Muslim organizations in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf Straits have led to a “dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses,” according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Eight of Britain’s leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, ‘many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations’.
Alex, No matter how you look at it, NIST have been “unable to provide an explanation of the total collapse”.
“NIST’s analysis was carried to the point of initiation…”
Their analysis stops short of explaining what happened to the 47 massive central steel columns.
They have been unable to show how these huge steel columns, even the sections which were far away from the impact/fire zone suddenly disintegrated into little pieces, all at precisely the same time.
Even if all the floors failed simultaneously, the central, vertical columns should have remained.
It doesn’t make sense, and NIST make no attempt to explain this.
Also you should be aware that the Purdue analysis conflicts with and negates that of NIST. They can’t both be correct.
Which one should we accept?
“Common sense alone should be enough in this case.”
Maybe you should read what Albert Einstein said about common sense:
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”
“By the way Alex, I can assure you that my quote is quite correct.
This is precisely what NIST wrote in a letter to Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine dated 27/9/2007.”
And I can assure you that I know you’re full of shit. Of course, if you want to prove that you’re right, all you need to do is provide a link to a reproduction of this letter. So lets see it.
“Alex, No matter how you look at it, NIST have been ‘unable to provide an explanation of the total collapse’.”
And?
Tell me, when in the history of the human race has an investigative body bothered to model the entire sequence of collapse for a large structure?
“They have been unable to show how these huge steel columns, even the sections which were far away from the impact/fire zone suddenly disintegrated into little pieces, all at precisely the same time.”
….
Show me ONE piece of evidence that ANY of these columns “disintegrated into little pieces”, let alone ALL of them, and at the same time! You’re just pulling “facts” out of your ass now.
“Even if all the floors failed simultaneously, the central, vertical columns should have remained.”
Ah, yes, over 1000 feet of steel columns would have remained free-standing while the building collapsed around them. That makes perfect sense.
Listen, you’re quite clearly not operating with a full set of gears here, and I don’t like to pick on the handicapped. Either get your mommy and daddy to proof-read your comments before you post them, or don’t bother replying.
Congratulations, you just linked to a document which proves that you mis-quoted NIST, and that shows the exact phrases which I quoted in order to prove you wrong. Good job!
“Alex, if the central steel columns didn’t disintegrate into little sections, where are they, these massive long columns ?”
Probably melted down by now. What difference does it make? Almost 7 years have passed since the collapse, and you’re asking where the debris is? Are you serious?
Actually, you probably meant to say “why didn’t I see any pictures of these columns”, in which case the answer is a bit different: because you didn’t look for them. If you bother searching for them, you will find them. Here’s a sample photo:
Note the mass of core columns still standing in the center of the wreckage, along with a large chunk of perimeter columns stating off on two sides.
Do some research and I guarantee you’ll find hundreds of photos of the columns. I’ve got a good collection of high-def photographs that show the debris in great detail – if you look on any public torrent site you should be able to find a compilation similar to mine.
“I’m not saying that they would have remained standing, but should have remained intact, i.e., in one piece.”
Ah, well, yes, of course. So in your mind, the buildings should have collapsed around the cores, after which the core columns should have fallen down like a giant game of pickup-sticks. Right.
You do understand, don’t you, that the columns were riveted together from 30 foot pieces? That rivet points form natural failure points for steel columns? Even columns cast from one solid piece would not have survived the lateral energies being generated by such a collapse combined with the gravitational force being exerted on them once they became disconnected from the rest of the structure. They wood have bent like straws, and snapped at random lengths. Riveted columns stood no chance at all, but they snapped at regular lengths due to the weakness at their connection points.
“Not only do NIST fail to provide a comprehensive computer
model of the entire collapse, they don’t even try to explain in general terms what happened to these columns.”
Because anyone with half a brain could figure it out on his own. They also don’t try to explain what happened to all the drywall. I suppose that’s a mystery to you too?
Seriously, talking to you people is like teaching kindergarten. Every year I’ve got a whole new mob of ignorant kids, all asking the same dumb questions as the pack before them. I try to stay calm and explain things to you patiently, but you have no idea how hard it is….
Is it so much to ask that you do a bit of research on your own? Use your head a bit? Why can’t any of you think past the dumb talking points that you’ve been feeding each other for the last 6 years?
My common sense tells me that you’re still stuck on stupid, since you’re:
1) Implying that air traffic controllers, their union, and their FAA bosses, are all part of some eeeevil coverup.
2) You’re still bringing up pointless minutiae as if they somehow erase the hundreds of hours of live video footage and audio recordings, thousand of eyewitnesses, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of physical evidence analyzed by tens of thousands of federal agents and thousands of civilian scientists and investigators.
It also tells me that you really have no interest in the truth. However, that’s hardly a revelation, since the same can be said for 90% of the “truth” movement.
Before you go, maybe you could let me know what your common sense tells you about this:
“Hours after the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, an FAA manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center gathered six controllers who communicated or tracked two of the hijacked planes and recorded in a one-hour interview their personal accounts of what occurred, the report stated.”…….
……..” According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would “get rid of” the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.
Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing the tape with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said.
The tape’s existence was never made known to federal officials investigating the attack, nor to FAA officials in Washington. Staff members of the 9/11 panel found out about the tape during interviews with some controllers who participated in the recording.”
Alright, I tried. If you wish to remain ignorant, that’s your problem. I have neither the time nor the inclination to hold your hand and walk you, step-by-step, through every single idiotic claim that the “Truth Movement” has made over the years. I gave you enough to get you started on your own – from here on in, it’s up to you. Good luck.
In what way do the words “As we mentioned previously” change the meaning of the statement “we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.” ?
“Ah, well, yes, of course. So in your mind, the buildings should have collapsed around the cores, after which the core columns should have fallen down like a giant game of pickup-sticks. Right.”
Actually, this very scenario was the basis of NISTs “pancake” explanation.
Which obviously does not match with what
we all saw.
So if this is a ridiculous idea, you should take it up with them.
And what your photograph shows are small sections of the massively long columns.
“Alex, do the following words appear in this document, and in this order?
‘we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.’
Yes or no?”
1) That’s not what you originally quoted. The lack of capitalization on the first word makes a big difference.
2) It’s still quoted improperly.
3) It’s still taken out of context.
For example, using your style of quotation I could easily say the following:
On 17/04/2008, Fraser stated that “The central steel columns didn’t disintegrate into little sections”.
See how that works? In fact, those exact words appear in that exact order in your previous comment. But by committing the remainder of your sentence I have entirely changed the meaning of what you were saying.
I don’t mean to offend, but I gotta ask: how far did you get in your schooling? This is BASIC stuff, Fraser. I know the American education system isn’t exactly the best in the world, but I can pretty much guarantee that learned this in highschool.
>Eight of Britain’s leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, ‘many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations’.<
Yes, someone has to take care that we just don’t get too much carried away by optimism…
The latest campaign against the Ahmadis in Indonesia is just one of many campaigns against “heretics” and small religions in muslim countries. Those are either not recognised as “religions of the book” to apply for status of dhimmi, or they directly challenge the role of the prophet Mohamed as the last one.
Even the always as “secular” titulated Turkey discriminates the Alevi (Estimated one fifth of the population, to call this shia/sufi influenced belief a “sect” shows callousness towards victims of countless government campaigns of mainstream Sunni missionarism and pogromes. This was recently visible again after alleged xenophobic attacks in Germany:
“The Alevi Community in Germany critizises the Turkish media and the turkish state for fear and hate mongering on the backs of immigrants. They also demand that the Turkish state should respect the fact that the fire-victims are Alevites, a form of belief not respected by law or tolerated in Turkey. Further they point out that the arsonists of Sivas, where in 1993 37 people died in an arson attack following a pogrome against an Alevi festival and the writer Aziz Nesin, are still free because the Turkish state refuses to take action. Instead of a political show in Germany, Turkish police should rather take action in Turkey to clear up “thousands of political murders”. (free translation of a press release: http://www.alevi.com -in Turkish and German)
The Turkish and Kurdish Yezidi now predominately live in Germany.
A fate of expulsion and persecution comparable to witch hunts hit the Bahai and the Zoroastrians after the “islamic Revolution” in Iran. Now the only country in the Middle East where the Bahai have religious freedom is Israel.
The state of the small religions in predominantly muslim countries deserves a much higher attention than currently maintained, it would be wrong to dismiss those simply as “sects” etc. The governments of those states must be pressured to accept religious plurality.
Please continue to give this struggle a platform.
Still my guess for now is that the Indonesian government will disband the Ahmadis as “dangerous” for public morale and not a “real” religion out of pure religious bias.
Phyllis Chesler: Violence as a Form of Islamist Speech
Those in the Islamic East need bodyguards and air-lifts to safety in the West. But there is a pattern emerging in the West which we ignore at our own peril. For example, a leading American publisher of law enforcement and counter-terrorism titles cancelled Dr. Nancy Kobrin’s book about Islamic suicide terrorism. I wrote the Introduction for it and together Dr. Kobrin and I “went public.” A number of other publishers emerged—but they quickly disappeared from whence they came. I have been trying to find a publisher for a book titled “The Islamification of America” and guess what? No takers so far. I am ready to self-publish the work.
Re the linked “Comment is Free” article by Ziauddin Saddar.
So, according to Sardar, Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz are neocons. As is the Sufi Naqshbandi Sufi order – not to mention Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan, who constitute “the vanguard of British literary neoconservatives”, no less.
Now that’s what I call sophisticated political analysis.
Sadar writes of Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz: >Just because you have been an inmate of a mental hospital does not mean you are an expert in clinical psychology.<
That’s a pretty fatuous analogy. What Husain and Zawaz provide is direct personal experience of the tactics of extremist Islamic organisations that are tirelessly active, among other places, on University campuses.
>The embrace of former extremists is a slap in the face for Muslims who have worked tirelessly to build a British Muslim identity and foster inclusion by constructive community activity.<
Why on earth should any moderate Muslims be offended by ex-members of extremist organisations highlighting the dangers of these proselytising groups?
>We prove again that radical extremism is the way to get attention. We make flirtation with violent ideology the way to be heard and become acceptable.<
With arguments like this, Sardar seems to be scraping the barrel to find criticisms of the Quilliam Foundation:
>Whatever the joy in heaven, we cannot allow former lunatics to take over the asylum.<
No one, of course, least of all themselves, is suggesting that Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz should “take over” anything. I fear this is typical of the empty rhetoric of much of the rest of the article, such as his saying, “The thing nobody has suggested is engaging the silenced and diverse majority of Muslim communities.” Plenty of people have suggested trying to engage what Sardar calls the diverse majority of Muslim communities. The problem is that there are no easy answers on how to do this. And in what way are moderate Muslims “silenced”, and by whom?
>The silent majority is supposed to be groomed to embrace quietism… and, most important, to be put off politics for life.<
What nonsense. No one is trying to stop Muslims from engaging in politics, though many of us wish there were more Muslims engaged in politics from a secular, rather than a sectarian, point of view.
…A connection unexpectedly came to light on Tuesday at the British Museum at the launch of an enlightened new Muslim think-tank – the Quilliam Foundation, set up by Ed Husain, who wrote a best-selling book, The Islamist, about his journey to and back from Islamicist jihadism. Khan spoke from her heart about her respect for Islam and also her worries about hardliners and young Muslims – her sons included.
It was moving and personal. Millions of us live that complexity, traversing between worlds, refusing to be owned by authoritarian ” leaders”. She also said she had received death threats for expressing her views. Such intimidation is par for the course when you challenge Islamic Stalinists – Muslims may flock to vote, but many have yet to grasp the meaning of intelligent argument.
This is why some of us are launching British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD) at the Royal Society of Arts on 1 May. We are starting with a debate on the compatibility of secular democracy and Islam.
Sparks will fly, no doubt. We want younger Muslims to make choices for themselves. For far too long British Muslims have lived in a democracy but have not matured into autonomous democrats. The expectation is that communities take direction from community leaders and deliver block votes to political parties as if they are cash-and-carry sacks of rice. Some Muslim leaders have, for example, ordered their flocks to vote for Ken. Disgraceful, yes, but this is how it is on the Indian subcontinent and in Arab lands.
A Muslim child is taught never to question and to follow instructions from adults, fathers, grandparents, teachers, mullahs and political manipulators. Respect for elders is admirable, but this excessive culture of obedience is stunting the development of Islamic communities.
Khan, Husain and BMSD reveal to Muslims their entitlement to be liberated and enlightened. And suddenly many more seem to be listening. Tuesday felt full of hope. But my fear is that fanatics see that and may yet blow it away.
>Why on earth should any moderate Muslims be offended by ex-members of extremist organisations highlighting the dangers of these proselytising groups? >
That’s a pretty rhetorical question, now from Allen.
Nobody knows better than a moderate Muslim that in fact there is no difference in belief between moderates and extremists.
A moderate is just one who hasn’t yet acted out as he knows very well that he must act according to the faith. A still ticking bomb…
“moderate muslims” is a concept devised and trumpeted by the West which means : “muslims who think and do as the west would like them thinking and doing”, i.e. who are not-muslims
For grasping the point see the blunt lecture on this issue of Turkey’s islamist PM T. Erdogan :
“These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”
Source: Milliyet, Turkey, August 21, 2007
If you are a childish mind who still finds conceptual explanations difficult to grasp then bellow the direct, poetic, delivery of the idea of Isalm by the same Tayyip Erdogan :
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.
This holy army guards my religion Almighty our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom”
Source : BBC-Turkey’s charismatic pro-Islamic leader, 4 November 2002
>A moderate is just one who hasn’t yet acted out as he knows very well that he must act according to the faith. A still ticking bomb…<
That’s your view, HF, but fortunately I do not believe for one moment that it is the view of those who count, the majority of Muslims in the UK.
It’s not an exact analogy, but it is a bit like saying there was “no difference in belief” between socialists and the Baader-Meinhof gang in the 1970s. I recall that there were plenty of socialists (at least among the younger ones) who had sympathy for the ideology of the Baader-Meinhof gang but who would never have contemplated such violence themselves.
>That’s your view, HF, but fortunately I do not believe for one moment that it is the view of those who count, the majority of Muslims in the UK.>
Yes “fortunately”, good luck with that. There is nothing special about the Muslims living in UK, they living there is an accident not something of essence.
What more evidence does one need of the merits of the Quilliam Foundation than that it has been attacked in his inimitable fashion by the Guardian’s Seamus Milne?
Typical of Milne’s rhetoric is a disingenous attempt at guilt by association – immediately following which he has to acknowledge the presence on the Quilliam board of advisors of Timothy Garton Ash and Giles Fraser (also the previously mentioned former “Bosnian proconsul Lord Ashdown” and the unmentioned David Goodhart and Catherine Fieshci, both associated with Prospect Magazine). Evidently to the sectarian mindset of Seamus Milne (for whom “rightwing” in the UK context is a more damning epithet than “Islamist”) only people with what he regards as impeccable left wing credentials should be associated with an organisation dedicated to opposing Muslim extremism in the UK.
A 17-year-old Iraqi girl was murdered by her father in an honour killing after falling in love with a British soldier she met while working on an aid programme in Basra.
Ms Rand Abdel-Qader, student of English at Basra University, was stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed by her father, then given an unceremonious burial to emphasise her disgrace. Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.
“Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case,” said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police. “You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious law”.
Ms Abdel-Qader had struck up a friendship with a 22-year-old British infantryman known only as Paul five months before her murder in March.
She was believed to have last seen him in January, and the pair only ever met while working at the aid station. The soldier was helping deliver relief to displaced families as part of his regimental duties. Ms Abdel-Qader was a volunteer worker.
>an islamic love story<
Sad story for humanity and especially the individuals involved, but only one amongst many. It’s hard to believe we are now in the 21st century.
Do you know what happens to a young Muslim girl when she is raped? Under Islamic Law she becomes a victim, twice. Better dead than disgrace the family right?
Regarding Christopher Orlet’s “Lessons of Atheist Dictatorships” perhaps the following will settle once and for all the controversy about Hitler’s attitute to religion. It is an extract from “Hitler’s Sectet Conversations 1941-44”, a book first published in 1953.
Mr Orlet seems to have a touching faith in Hitler’s PUBLIC statements regarding religion. What other public pronouncements made by Hitler does Mr Orlet accept as factual?
All of the following are quotes from Adolf Hitler:
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together…. The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity…. Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death…. When understanding of the universe has become widespread… Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity…. Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity…. And that’s why someday its structure will collapse…. …the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little…. Christianity the liar…. We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.
21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer…. The decisive falsification of Jesus’ doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work… for the purposes of personal exploitation…. Didn’t the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it’s in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)
13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery…. …. When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)
14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself…. Pure Christianity– the Christianity of the catacombs– is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)
9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors– but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity…. My regret will have been that I couldn’t… behold .” (p 278)
A Jordanian court has sentenced a man to six months in jail after convicting him of the honor killing of his 16-year-old daughter.
The court ruled Wednesday that the man killed his married daughter because she had an affair out of the wedlock. The enraged father severely beat her with a baton and ultimately electrocuted her in November 2006.
>the Riyadh woman was beaten and shot by her father after he discovered her engaging in an online conversation with a man on Facebook.< That father is a sick man…
mohammed and internet
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 31 (UPI) — A Saudi woman’s alleged death at her father’s hands has been cited by a Muslim cleric in his criticism of the Internet social networking site Facebook.
The Saudi news site said the Riyadh woman was beaten and shot by her father after he discovered her engaging in an online conversation with a man on Facebook.
“Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they are spending on food,” he said.
A Muslim scholar, no matter how avuncular, no matter how courteous, plausible, charming or friendly he may be, is not your brother, your best pal, your confidant, your ally: he is a Muslim scholar and he has one aim and one aim only: to further the cause of Islam. If the occasion demands it, he will deceive you in order to achieve his goal, because Islamic law says that he should and Islamic ethics tells him that it is good to do so.
Oh, the paranoia! I better run away from my mate Errimy, then!
What a load of tripe. Who vets these articles??
DFG – 07/04/08
Yes, looks like my rhetoric got the better of me there – passage removed.
Dear Ms. Nanda,
I am Associate Editor of a Public Health magazine, would like to publish your article focusing on AYUSH system in the future issue of our magazine Health For the Millions.
Please respond back fast at anjali_g1@rediffmail.com
warm regards
Anjali
A comment for Max Dunbar (“The Counter-Enlightenment”)
Mr Dunbar wrote:
“Finally, I think that the conspiracy minded are people in need of reassurance. They can’t handle the random, the chaos of life, the disasters that can come out of a clear blue sky. It is more comforting to believe that George Bush destroyed the Twin Towers than Osama bin Laden.”
Actually, the main reason why people don’t believe that Osama Bin Laden is responsible for 9/11, is that there is simply no good evidence that he was.
Don’t take my word for it. When asked
why OBLs most wanted page on the FBI website doesn’t list 9/11 among his crimes, spokesman Rex Tomb said:
“The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html
In my article posted on B&W on 4 April (“Distorted Outlook on the Archbishop’s Speech”) I quoted the BBC World Service Religious Affairs correspondent, Frances Harrison, using the term “Islamophobic” in relation to the reactions to the Dr Rowan Williams’s speech on Sharia. If one wants more evidence of just how pernicious the term “Islamophobia” is in current usage, have a look at examples provided by the self-styled Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, whose most prominent spokesman is quite frequently interviewed as presenting the voice of modern moderate Muslims.
I just came across a MPACUK webpage presenting a lengthy “List of Islamaphobic journalists”, on which page are cited the following examples of relevant articles:
David Aaronovitch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,964035,00.html
Johann Hari
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/dec/13/gayrights.thefarright
Ian Buruma
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,677524,00.html
Michael Gove
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=4594
http://mpacuk.org/content/view/2121/60/
If anyone can identify anything that can conceivably be described as “Islamophobic” in these articles, please let me know. Or is it just possible that its meaning (if it has any) is so diffuse that it has long ceased to merit a place in rational discourse?
“Islamophobic” ..is it just possible that its meaning (if it has any) is so diffuse that it has long ceased to merit a place in rational discourse?
its meaning has always been right from the beginning precisely to stop rational discourse; to censor the speaker, i.e. a thought-control device..another one of the same class is ‘racism’ ( what race is islam ?)
re The Pseudo-Science of the ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement
The comparison of 9/11 truth to intelligent design is apt. The formulation of arguments against what is widely understood without any alternative theory to be tested against evidence, and the claims of suppression reveal a shared narrative.
Legislators of several US states have introduced “academic freedom” bills to protect the teaching of ID. One should ask why they aren’t offering similar protection for the teaching of 9/11 truth and Holocaust denial.
such is life
An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man.
“He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”
“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months,” added Nasser. “He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”…
http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1145&p=front&a=2
“The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (Koran 65:4).
A Turkish barber accused of swearing at God is sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia..
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=101552
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which those convicted to death are executed in public with a sword. According to an Associated Press count, 39 have been beheaded this year,
Even though there is no credible evidence so far is not proof that there was not such a conspiracy.
>Would you accept that claim on that basis?< Edmund: To cover the weaker form of conspiracy theory that Dave may be espousing (“I’m not saying there definitely is a conspiracy, but…”) the question might better be put in the form: Would you give serious consideration to that claim on that basis?
Is it intellectually acceptable to believe something for which there is “no credible evidence” ?
Acceptable ?…yes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
Mandatory ? no.
Put in a search for the following on http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com and see these organisations taken apart:
Patriots Question 9/11
AE911Truth – Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
pilotsfor911truth.org
For more useful info refuting the conspiracy nonsense, try:
http://911untruth.notlong.com
Dave says ‘Even though there is no credible evidence so far is not [sic] proof that there was not such a conspiracy’.
That same ‘argument’ can applied to any belief, be it pseudo-scientific, religious, ‘new age’, or whatever. I can just invent some rubbish such as ‘I believe Bush is a reptilian-alien crossbreed who eats babies’ and then back it up by saying ‘even though there is no credible evidence so far this is not proof that this is not true’. Would you accept that claim on that basis?
First we take Manhattan…
And in a sermon televised on Friday, Yunis al-Astal, a Hamas MP and cleric, told worshipers that Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and which has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam,” just as Constantinople was.
Rome, he said, would become “an advanced post for the Islamic conquests which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.”
In his address aired on Hamas’s Al-Aksa TV and also translated by MEMRI, Astal told his audience: “Allah has chosen you for himself and for his religion, so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security, and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da’wa [preaching] and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.”
“I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our prophet, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire on the brink of which they stand.”
The clip can be viewed at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1739.htm.
“Acceptable ?…yes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”
If you were arrested and charged with breaking into someones house and the police were unable to produce any evidence to back-up the accusation, how successful do you think the prosecution would be ?
How far do you think the prosecution would get by arguing that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” ?
As I always say to these 9/11 conspiracy theorists, if you think you have so much evidence what are you doing sitting on it, just making crappy websites and youtube videos? Present a legal case, lobby politicians, take your ‘evidence’ to relevant scholarly bodies. Get this stuff in court. You can’t, because it’s just a mish-mash of misrepresentations, misinterpretations, and fantasy. It’s fashionable nonsense, simple as that.
Fraser, I’m not censoring your comments, but I don’t want to clutter the Letters page with a lot of links to Truther sites.
Mr Standing, if you had done any research into the subject, you would be well aware that many politicians (as well as Intelligence and Law Enforcement Officials and many others) are already very much on the case.(See “Patriots Question 911”)
For example, the former German Defense Secretary Andreas von Bülow and the leader of the Opposition in the Japanese Parliament, Yukihisa Fujita recently made a presentation on the subject of 9/11 to the European Parliament.
In addition, Yukihisa Fujita also made a formal presentation to the Japanese Parliament regarding the 9/11 attacks.
And more recently, Richard Falk an Official from the UN Human Rights Council has called for a new commission to study the attacks.
“U.N. Official Calls for Study Of Neocons’ Role in 9/11”
WASHINGTON — “A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”
(New York Sun, April 10 2008)
http://www2.nysun.com/article/74465?page_no=1
http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/
The same Richard Falk who appeared on the March 24th 2008 radio show (‘Truth Jihad’) of Kevin Barrett, a ‘truther’ nut who has stated of of Hamas and Hezbollah that ‘for me — as for virtually all of the planet’s 1.5 billion Muslims … those groups are heroes’ and that ‘comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa is an insult to the Afrikaaners’.
The same disgraceful UN ‘Human Rights’ Council that ‘has failed to condemn the most egregious examples of human rights abuse in the Sudan, Byelorussia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and elsewhere, whilst repeatedly condemning Israel and Israel alone’ (http://www.iheu.org/node/3123).
Now, Fraser et al, please go and spend some time reading the contents of this website:
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/home
Almost every claim you people make about 9/11 is demolished on this site and on the sites it links to.
See, as a starting point, NASA scientist Ryan Mackey’s comprehensive critique of David Ray Griffin’s claims about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.
Dear Editor, I don’t mean to “clutter” your site with links, I’m merely trying to provide a balance to the heavily anti-truther tone of some of the articles and comments here and posting links to the more respectable truther sites is tidier and more efficient than pasting pages of evidence and lists of hundreds of names.
Does your anti-clutter policy apply to all links, or only links to certain kind of sites?
‘I’m merely trying to provide a balance’ = ‘teaching the controversy’.
If the claims of so-called 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” such as myself are so ridiculous, why is necessary to remove their comments from this site?
If you really have confidence in your reasoning and your arguments, then let’s have an honest, uncensored discussion about this subject.
As for “screwloosechange” taking apart “ae911truth”, “pilotsfor911truth.org”, and “Patriots Question 9/11”, I invite people to look at these sites and compare them with “screwloosechange” and decide for themselves who is more serious and respectable…..
Nojoud Nasseran, an eight-year-old girl filed a complaint against her father in court, for forcing her to marry a 30-year-old man.
The girl, whose identity should have been withheld for her protection, was subjected to sexual and domestic abuse by her rapist.
http://www.mideastyouth.com/2008/04/12/8-year-old-yemeni-girl-seeks-divorce/
Soon they will kill her.
Fraser, my anti-clutter policy applies to anything I think it should apply to. I edit the site, I decide what stays and what doesn’t.
As for ‘trying to provide a balance,’ don’t. There aren’t two sides to every question.
Thank you for the interesting link. Lots of fascinating reading there, NIST reports etc.
The problem is that ultimately, they fail to fully explain the collapses.
In a letter to the victims families representatives Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine and others, NIST stated:
“We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.”
(27/9/2007)
By the way Mr Standing, having dismissed the UN as an unreliable, anti-semitic organisation, maybe you could tell me if there are any other international organisations, governments,law enforcement or intelligence agencies you would dismiss on the basis that they are not friendly enough to Israel.
It might save time.
For example, would the CIA and the FBI be acceptable to you ?
Fraser says:
“In a letter to the victims families representatives Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine and others, NIST stated:
‘We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.’
(27/9/2007)”
Well, no, Fraser, NIST never stated that. You see, this is how we know that you are ignorant about 9/11: the ONLY places that your quote can be found is on 9/11 conspiracy websites. Those words were never written by NIST. They ARE however a paraphrasing of the actual letter. You would know this if you had bothered to read the letter itself, instead of allowing yourself to be misled by the mindless ramblings of Alex Jones and co.
For the record, here is what NIST actually said:
“Your letter contends that NIST’s report violates the Information Quality Standard of ‘utility.’ NIST believes that the report has utility. In fact, the codes and standards bodies are already taking actions to improve building and fire codes and standards based on the findings of the WTC Investigation. As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide an explanation-of the total collapse.”
That last sentence is the “statement” which was so butchered by you and your friends.
Now, an observant individual may have noticed that they said “as we mentioned previously”. And what, you may ask, did they mention previously?
“With regard to the first request, NIST has stated that it did not analyze the collapse of the towers. NIST’s analysis was carried to the point of initiation… it was most critical to NIST to explain why the collapse initiated. Once the collapse initiated, it is clear from the available evidence that the building was unable to resist the falling mass of the upper stories of the towers.”
In other words, NIST explained why the buildings collapsed. They can also, just as I can, explain the reason for the “total collapse” in one word: Gravity. Once the collapse began, it was unstoppable. Common sense alone should be enough in this case – but for those who really need a simulation Purdue University actually went past the point where NIST stopped, and attempted to model the collapses themselves. Their models only confirmed what common sense would have told anyone not totally blinded by ideological insanity: that no skyscraper, and certainly not the WTC towers, could have resisted those kind of forces.
If you continue to have difficulty comprehending this, you may wish to seek psychological assistance. If expert testimony and common sense are not enough to convince you, then perhaps a mental health professional may succeed where I have failed.
Mel Olontha >Soon they will kill her.< I think we should all be thankful for not living in that horrible part of the world. They have horrible men there.
the future
LONDON – Up to 48 universities in Britain have been infiltrated by fundamentalists financed by Muslim groups.
Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, has warned the government that donations of hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia and powerful Muslim organizations in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf Straits have led to a “dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses,” according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Eight of Britain’s leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, ‘many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations’.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=61639
Alex, No matter how you look at it, NIST have been “unable to provide an explanation of the total collapse”.
“NIST’s analysis was carried to the point of initiation…”
Their analysis stops short of explaining what happened to the 47 massive central steel columns.
They have been unable to show how these huge steel columns, even the sections which were far away from the impact/fire zone suddenly disintegrated into little pieces, all at precisely the same time.
Even if all the floors failed simultaneously, the central, vertical columns should have remained.
It doesn’t make sense, and NIST make no attempt to explain this.
Also you should be aware that the Purdue analysis conflicts with and negates that of NIST. They can’t both be correct.
Which one should we accept?
“Common sense alone should be enough in this case.”
Maybe you should read what Albert Einstein said about common sense:
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”
(Einstein)
By the way Alex, I can assure you that my quote is quite correct.
This is precisely what NIST wrote in a letter to Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine dated 27/9/2007.
“By the way Alex, I can assure you that my quote is quite correct.
This is precisely what NIST wrote in a letter to Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine dated 27/9/2007.”
And I can assure you that I know you’re full of shit. Of course, if you want to prove that you’re right, all you need to do is provide a link to a reproduction of this letter. So lets see it.
“Alex, No matter how you look at it, NIST have been ‘unable to provide an explanation of the total collapse’.”
And?
Tell me, when in the history of the human race has an investigative body bothered to model the entire sequence of collapse for a large structure?
“They have been unable to show how these huge steel columns, even the sections which were far away from the impact/fire zone suddenly disintegrated into little pieces, all at precisely the same time.”
….
Show me ONE piece of evidence that ANY of these columns “disintegrated into little pieces”, let alone ALL of them, and at the same time! You’re just pulling “facts” out of your ass now.
“Even if all the floors failed simultaneously, the central, vertical columns should have remained.”
Ah, yes, over 1000 feet of steel columns would have remained free-standing while the building collapsed around them. That makes perfect sense.
Listen, you’re quite clearly not operating with a full set of gears here, and I don’t like to pick on the handicapped. Either get your mommy and daddy to proof-read your comments before you post them, or don’t bother replying.
Here is a link to a reproduction of the letter:
http://www.911proof.com/NIST.pdf
Alex, if the central steel columns didn’t disintegrate into little sections, where are they, these massive long columns ?
I’m not saying that they would have remained standing, but should have remained intact, i.e., in one piece.
Not only do NIST fail to provide a comprehensive computer
model of the entire collapse, they don’t even try to explain in general terms what happened to these columns.
What caused them to weaken to the point where they offered almost no resistance to the structure falling from above ?
The collapses happened at close to free-fall speed.
Did they melt ?
If so, what caused them to suddenly melt, even though only a relatively small section of them was affected by the fire?
They don’t even attempt to answer these questions.
“Here is a link to a reproduction of the letter:”
Congratulations, you just linked to a document which proves that you mis-quoted NIST, and that shows the exact phrases which I quoted in order to prove you wrong. Good job!
“Alex, if the central steel columns didn’t disintegrate into little sections, where are they, these massive long columns ?”
Probably melted down by now. What difference does it make? Almost 7 years have passed since the collapse, and you’re asking where the debris is? Are you serious?
Actually, you probably meant to say “why didn’t I see any pictures of these columns”, in which case the answer is a bit different: because you didn’t look for them. If you bother searching for them, you will find them. Here’s a sample photo:
http://www.studyof911.com/articles/BsB092306/index_files/image016.jpg
Note the mass of core columns still standing in the center of the wreckage, along with a large chunk of perimeter columns stating off on two sides.
Do some research and I guarantee you’ll find hundreds of photos of the columns. I’ve got a good collection of high-def photographs that show the debris in great detail – if you look on any public torrent site you should be able to find a compilation similar to mine.
“I’m not saying that they would have remained standing, but should have remained intact, i.e., in one piece.”
Ah, well, yes, of course. So in your mind, the buildings should have collapsed around the cores, after which the core columns should have fallen down like a giant game of pickup-sticks. Right.
You do understand, don’t you, that the columns were riveted together from 30 foot pieces? That rivet points form natural failure points for steel columns? Even columns cast from one solid piece would not have survived the lateral energies being generated by such a collapse combined with the gravitational force being exerted on them once they became disconnected from the rest of the structure. They wood have bent like straws, and snapped at random lengths. Riveted columns stood no chance at all, but they snapped at regular lengths due to the weakness at their connection points.
“Not only do NIST fail to provide a comprehensive computer
model of the entire collapse, they don’t even try to explain in general terms what happened to these columns.”
Because anyone with half a brain could figure it out on his own. They also don’t try to explain what happened to all the drywall. I suppose that’s a mystery to you too?
Seriously, talking to you people is like teaching kindergarten. Every year I’ve got a whole new mob of ignorant kids, all asking the same dumb questions as the pack before them. I try to stay calm and explain things to you patiently, but you have no idea how hard it is….
Is it so much to ask that you do a bit of research on your own? Use your head a bit? Why can’t any of you think past the dumb talking points that you’ve been feeding each other for the last 6 years?
My common sense tells me that you’re still stuck on stupid, since you’re:
1) Implying that air traffic controllers, their union, and their FAA bosses, are all part of some eeeevil coverup.
2) You’re still bringing up pointless minutiae as if they somehow erase the hundreds of hours of live video footage and audio recordings, thousand of eyewitnesses, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of physical evidence analyzed by tens of thousands of federal agents and thousands of civilian scientists and investigators.
It also tells me that you really have no interest in the truth. However, that’s hardly a revelation, since the same can be said for 90% of the “truth” movement.
Are you done now?
Before you go, maybe you could let me know what your common sense tells you about this:
“Hours after the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, an FAA manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center gathered six controllers who communicated or tracked two of the hijacked planes and recorded in a one-hour interview their personal accounts of what occurred, the report stated.”…….
……..” According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would “get rid of” the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.
Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing the tape with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said.
The tape’s existence was never made known to federal officials investigating the attack, nor to FAA officials in Washington. Staff members of the 9/11 panel found out about the tape during interviews with some controllers who participated in the recording.”
(Washington Post, May 6 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6632-2004May6
FAA Managers Destroyed 9/11 Tape (washingtonpost.com)
Alright, I tried. If you wish to remain ignorant, that’s your problem. I have neither the time nor the inclination to hold your hand and walk you, step-by-step, through every single idiotic claim that the “Truth Movement” has made over the years. I gave you enough to get you started on your own – from here on in, it’s up to you. Good luck.
In what way do the words “As we mentioned previously” change the meaning of the statement “we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.” ?
Err, that one sentence should have read:
“But by omitting the remainder of your sentence I have entirely changed the meaning of what you were saying.”
Sorry. Silly typo.
“Ah, well, yes, of course. So in your mind, the buildings should have collapsed around the cores, after which the core columns should have fallen down like a giant game of pickup-sticks. Right.”
Actually, this very scenario was the basis of NISTs “pancake” explanation.
Which obviously does not match with what
we all saw.
So if this is a ridiculous idea, you should take it up with them.
And what your photograph shows are small sections of the massively long columns.
Did all the columns fail at the rivet points?
Can you show me evidence of this ?
Why did NIST never say this ?
Alex, do the following words appear in this document, and in this order?
“we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.”
Yes or no?
“Alex, do the following words appear in this document, and in this order?
‘we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.’
Yes or no?”
1) That’s not what you originally quoted. The lack of capitalization on the first word makes a big difference.
2) It’s still quoted improperly.
3) It’s still taken out of context.
For example, using your style of quotation I could easily say the following:
On 17/04/2008, Fraser stated that “The central steel columns didn’t disintegrate into little sections”.
See how that works? In fact, those exact words appear in that exact order in your previous comment. But by committing the remainder of your sentence I have entirely changed the meaning of what you were saying.
I don’t mean to offend, but I gotta ask: how far did you get in your schooling? This is BASIC stuff, Fraser. I know the American education system isn’t exactly the best in the world, but I can pretty much guarantee that learned this in highschool.
nice article on pseudoscience, also check
Daniel Engber in slate on “The paranoid style in american science”
http://www.slate.com/id/2189178/entry/2189179/
HF:
>Eight of Britain’s leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, ‘many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations’.< Yes, someone has to take care that we just don’t get too much carried away by optimism…
Good article, Edmund.
I posted about it at my humble blog.
http://orphia-nay.blogspot.com/
The latest campaign against the Ahmadis in Indonesia is just one of many campaigns against “heretics” and small religions in muslim countries. Those are either not recognised as “religions of the book” to apply for status of dhimmi, or they directly challenge the role of the prophet Mohamed as the last one.
Even the always as “secular” titulated Turkey discriminates the Alevi (Estimated one fifth of the population, to call this shia/sufi influenced belief a “sect” shows callousness towards victims of countless government campaigns of mainstream Sunni missionarism and pogromes. This was recently visible again after alleged xenophobic attacks in Germany:
“The Alevi Community in Germany critizises the Turkish media and the turkish state for fear and hate mongering on the backs of immigrants. They also demand that the Turkish state should respect the fact that the fire-victims are Alevites, a form of belief not respected by law or tolerated in Turkey. Further they point out that the arsonists of Sivas, where in 1993 37 people died in an arson attack following a pogrome against an Alevi festival and the writer Aziz Nesin, are still free because the Turkish state refuses to take action. Instead of a political show in Germany, Turkish police should rather take action in Turkey to clear up “thousands of political murders”. (free translation of a press release: http://www.alevi.com -in Turkish and German)
The Turkish and Kurdish Yezidi now predominately live in Germany.
A fate of expulsion and persecution comparable to witch hunts hit the Bahai and the Zoroastrians after the “islamic Revolution” in Iran. Now the only country in the Middle East where the Bahai have religious freedom is Israel.
The state of the small religions in predominantly muslim countries deserves a much higher attention than currently maintained, it would be wrong to dismiss those simply as “sects” etc. The governments of those states must be pressured to accept religious plurality.
Please continue to give this struggle a platform.
Still my guess for now is that the Indonesian government will disband the Ahmadis as “dangerous” for public morale and not a “real” religion out of pure religious bias.
Phyllis Chesler: Violence as a Form of Islamist Speech
Those in the Islamic East need bodyguards and air-lifts to safety in the West. But there is a pattern emerging in the West which we ignore at our own peril. For example, a leading American publisher of law enforcement and counter-terrorism titles cancelled Dr. Nancy Kobrin’s book about Islamic suicide terrorism. I wrote the Introduction for it and together Dr. Kobrin and I “went public.” A number of other publishers emerged—but they quickly disappeared from whence they came. I have been trying to find a publisher for a book titled “The Islamification of America” and guess what? No takers so far. I am ready to self-publish the work.
http://mt.pajamasmedia.com/xpress/phyllischesler/
When Muslims become Christians
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7355515.stm
Re the linked “Comment is Free” article by Ziauddin Saddar.
So, according to Sardar, Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz are neocons. As is the Sufi Naqshbandi Sufi order – not to mention Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan, who constitute “the vanguard of British literary neoconservatives”, no less.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1968091,00.html
Now that’s what I call sophisticated political analysis.
Sadar writes of Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz: >Just because you have been an inmate of a mental hospital does not mean you are an expert in clinical psychology.< That’s a pretty fatuous analogy. What Husain and Zawaz provide is direct personal experience of the tactics of extremist Islamic organisations that are tirelessly active, among other places, on University campuses. >The embrace of former extremists is a slap in the face for Muslims who have worked tirelessly to build a British Muslim identity and foster inclusion by constructive community activity.< Why on earth should any moderate Muslims be offended by ex-members of extremist organisations highlighting the dangers of these proselytising groups? >We prove again that radical extremism is the way to get attention. We make flirtation with violent ideology the way to be heard and become acceptable.< With arguments like this, Sardar seems to be scraping the barrel to find criticisms of the Quilliam Foundation:
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/
>Whatever the joy in heaven, we cannot allow former lunatics to take over the asylum.< No one, of course, least of all themselves, is suggesting that Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz should “take over” anything. I fear this is typical of the empty rhetoric of much of the rest of the article, such as his saying, “The thing nobody has suggested is engaging the silenced and diverse majority of Muslim communities.” Plenty of people have suggested trying to engage what Sardar calls the diverse majority of Muslim communities. The problem is that there are no easy answers on how to do this. And in what way are moderate Muslims “silenced”, and by whom? >The silent majority is supposed to be groomed to embrace quietism… and, most important, to be put off politics for life.< What nonsense. No one is trying to stop Muslims from engaging in politics, though many of us wish there were more Muslims engaged in politics from a secular, rather than a sectarian, point of view.
Ziauddin Saddar would not approve…
What I now have in common with Jemima
by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
…A connection unexpectedly came to light on Tuesday at the British Museum at the launch of an enlightened new Muslim think-tank – the Quilliam Foundation, set up by Ed Husain, who wrote a best-selling book, The Islamist, about his journey to and back from Islamicist jihadism. Khan spoke from her heart about her respect for Islam and also her worries about hardliners and young Muslims – her sons included.
It was moving and personal. Millions of us live that complexity, traversing between worlds, refusing to be owned by authoritarian ” leaders”. She also said she had received death threats for expressing her views. Such intimidation is par for the course when you challenge Islamic Stalinists – Muslims may flock to vote, but many have yet to grasp the meaning of intelligent argument.
This is why some of us are launching British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD) at the Royal Society of Arts on 1 May. We are starting with a debate on the compatibility of secular democracy and Islam.
Sparks will fly, no doubt. We want younger Muslims to make choices for themselves. For far too long British Muslims have lived in a democracy but have not matured into autonomous democrats. The expectation is that communities take direction from community leaders and deliver block votes to political parties as if they are cash-and-carry sacks of rice. Some Muslim leaders have, for example, ordered their flocks to vote for Ken. Disgraceful, yes, but this is how it is on the Indian subcontinent and in Arab lands.
A Muslim child is taught never to question and to follow instructions from adults, fathers, grandparents, teachers, mullahs and political manipulators. Respect for elders is admirable, but this excessive culture of obedience is stunting the development of Islamic communities.
Khan, Husain and BMSD reveal to Muslims their entitlement to be liberated and enlightened. And suddenly many more seem to be listening. Tuesday felt full of hope. But my fear is that fanatics see that and may yet blow it away.
http://tinyurl.com/3zgnd7
>Why on earth should any moderate Muslims be offended by ex-members of extremist organisations highlighting the dangers of these proselytising groups? >
That’s a pretty rhetorical question, now from Allen.
Nobody knows better than a moderate Muslim that in fact there is no difference in belief between moderates and extremists.
A moderate is just one who hasn’t yet acted out as he knows very well that he must act according to the faith. A still ticking bomb…
“moderate muslims” is a concept devised and trumpeted by the West which means : “muslims who think and do as the west would like them thinking and doing”, i.e. who are not-muslims
For grasping the point see the blunt lecture on this issue of Turkey’s islamist PM T. Erdogan :
“These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”
Source: Milliyet, Turkey, August 21, 2007
If you are a childish mind who still finds conceptual explanations difficult to grasp then bellow the direct, poetic, delivery of the idea of Isalm by the same Tayyip Erdogan :
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.
This holy army guards my religion Almighty our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom”
Source : BBC-Turkey’s charismatic pro-Islamic leader, 4 November 2002
HF writes of Muslims:
>A moderate is just one who hasn’t yet acted out as he knows very well that he must act according to the faith. A still ticking bomb…< That’s your view, HF, but fortunately I do not believe for one moment that it is the view of those who count, the majority of Muslims in the UK. It’s not an exact analogy, but it is a bit like saying there was “no difference in belief” between socialists and the Baader-Meinhof gang in the 1970s. I recall that there were plenty of socialists (at least among the younger ones) who had sympathy for the ideology of the Baader-Meinhof gang but who would never have contemplated such violence themselves.
>That’s your view, HF, but fortunately I do not believe for one moment that it is the view of those who count, the majority of Muslims in the UK.>
Yes “fortunately”, good luck with that. There is nothing special about the Muslims living in UK, they living there is an accident not something of essence.
Reference the Quilliam Foundation:
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/
What more evidence does one need of the merits of the Quilliam Foundation than that it has been attacked in his inimitable fashion by the Guardian’s Seamus Milne?
http://tinyurl.com/5oh7gb
Typical of Milne’s rhetoric is a disingenous attempt at guilt by association – immediately following which he has to acknowledge the presence on the Quilliam board of advisors of Timothy Garton Ash and Giles Fraser (also the previously mentioned former “Bosnian proconsul Lord Ashdown” and the unmentioned David Goodhart and Catherine Fieshci, both associated with Prospect Magazine). Evidently to the sectarian mindset of Seamus Milne (for whom “rightwing” in the UK context is a more damning epithet than “Islamist”) only people with what he regards as impeccable left wing credentials should be associated with an organisation dedicated to opposing Muslim extremism in the UK.
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/advisors.html
an islamic love story
A 17-year-old Iraqi girl was murdered by her father in an honour killing after falling in love with a British soldier she met while working on an aid programme in Basra.
Ms Rand Abdel-Qader, student of English at Basra University, was stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed by her father, then given an unceremonious burial to emphasise her disgrace. Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.
“Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case,” said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police. “You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious law”.
Ms Abdel-Qader had struck up a friendship with a 22-year-old British infantryman known only as Paul five months before her murder in March.
She was believed to have last seen him in January, and the pair only ever met while working at the aid station. The soldier was helping deliver relief to displaced families as part of his regimental duties. Ms Abdel-Qader was a volunteer worker.
source : The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/girl-17-killed-in-iraq-for-loving-a-british-soldier-816301.html
>an islamic love story< Sad story for humanity and especially the individuals involved, but only one amongst many. It’s hard to believe we are now in the 21st century.
Do you know what happens to a young Muslim girl when she is raped? Under Islamic Law she becomes a victim, twice. Better dead than disgrace the family right?
Regarding Christopher Orlet’s “Lessons of Atheist Dictatorships” perhaps the following will settle once and for all the controversy about Hitler’s attitute to religion. It is an extract from “Hitler’s Sectet Conversations 1941-44”, a book first published in 1953.
Mr Orlet seems to have a touching faith in Hitler’s PUBLIC statements regarding religion. What other public pronouncements made by Hitler does Mr Orlet accept as factual?
All of the following are quotes from Adolf Hitler:
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together…. The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity…. Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death…. When understanding of the universe has become widespread… Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity…. Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity…. And that’s why someday its structure will collapse…. …the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little…. Christianity the liar…. We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.
21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer…. The decisive falsification of Jesus’ doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work… for the purposes of personal exploitation…. Didn’t the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it’s in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)
13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery…. …. When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)
14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself…. Pure Christianity– the Christianity of the catacombs– is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)
9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors– but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity…. My regret will have been that I couldn’t… behold .” (p 278)
arabian justice
A Jordanian court has sentenced a man to six months in jail after convicting him of the honor killing of his 16-year-old daughter.
The court ruled Wednesday that the man killed his married daughter because she had an affair out of the wedlock. The enraged father severely beat her with a baton and ultimately electrocuted her in November 2006.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208870531240&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull