Zawahiri justifies attacks on western civilians

He doesn't seem crazy does he? I think he's wrong though. Granted, Tony Blairs form of Conservatism may well be the consensus in this country, but I am in no way responsible for it and I can't see how random symbolic bombing is going to achieve the results he is after either..

This is what Abu Hamza said in Finsbury park:

"...Islamically...it is Immoral to target people who have no say in the war. In fact they were against the war in Iraq. If it was not for this Zionist media... the people of this country…would have informed themselves...so it is not fair to target them. It is not Islamic...We’ve got to distinguish between the evil politicians and the normal people who go about there business every day.”

I'm knocking together another vid at the moment around this. Why the media didn't report that Hamza was saying this a long time pre-7-7 I don't know. Would we have been safer?

Here's some more AHHHHH!!! POLICE STATE!!! AHHHH!!!! Don't know what I think about this. Yeah, where are the CCTV images of the 7/7 guys? Sure, but they made videos. It looked like they wanted to do it. I don't know about Police being above the law etc. Sure, an old guy was bundled out of the Labour conference but more than that? A Police state? Here? I've been hassled only once about what I've been up to and I don't have a press card. If I get any more hassle I'll tell you, until then I am skeptical about a Police state.

HINDU NEWS

I love it. If you want to know some news about the UK you've got to go to India.

LONDON: Mass anger against Prime Minister Tony Blair's policies, especially his foreign policy agenda, spilled on to the streets on Saturday when thousands of persons joined a protest march in Manchester on the eve of Labour Party's annual conference demanding that he must go.

Protesters, who came from all over Britain, virtually took over the city in what the organisers claimed was the largest ever demonstration aimed at pressing the Labour Party to "get rid'' of its leader.

MALUNG TV NEWS

Went to the Old Bailey expecting trial of Abu Abdullah to find it wasn't on. Given a phone number by the staff. Thought I'd see how the alleged fertilizer guys were doing and was told that I needed my passport to get in to terrorist trials now.

I was pleased to see The Soialistwanker exceed its bandwidth, and I am enjoying experimenting with Youtube. No one comments though. 3-400 people watch each film, no one says shit.

Wasn't Tony Blairs speech great the other day? Again, he speaks like no other Politician. David Cameron does a better impression than most.

All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists.

Real Hashashin

I stuck up a new cut of "hashashin" on youtube under protest from my pricipal actors. Also found this:


A sample from Hashashin's "Iran:"

"We must get together and be united against our enemies.

Why are freedom's hands tied?

Why are we so disappointed?

That's enough.

We are rapping because we are tired/

of the system.

We are looking for/

freedom."

AZ, who is 21, got his first dose of rap in grade school when an aunt from Germany brought him a Tupac CD. Last year, he joined with his 18-year-old cousin to form Hashashin. The name, though, isn't a reference to gangsters or guns. It goes back to a band of early medieval Shiite Muslim raiders based in the Persian mountains fighting Sunni rulers they considered repressive.

"We're a voice of the youth. We're taking about what people are really feeling. We don't want to rap about girls and sex and parties," AZ told me. "That's nothing. We want to go deeper."

Sometimes they play at house parties — which are usually safe from Iran's morality cops these days unless the crowd gets too big or loud. But a public appearance is out of the question without the Culture Ministry's permission.

"You can't make a career at music in Iran unless you are willing to compromise," said AZ. "Maybe it's good that the best music is all underground. It keeps us on the edge. It keeps us fresh."

Organisation: CONSERVATIVE PARTY
Salary:
Date posted: 27 Sep 2006
Closing date: 19 Oct 2006

A new opportunity exists to join the Communications team in the Conservative Party as a camera operator/editor.

You will be responsible for producing short fly-on-the-wall filmed packages for the internet and other media, working with both Conservative politicians and members of the public.

A self-starter, you will:

· Have the ability to both film and edit footage into short packages in a time-pressured environment to close deadlines. Filming will take place across the country.
· Have experience in DVCam cameras and have the ability to operate handheld cameras and Avid Express - equipment which will be provided by The Conservative Party.
· Have the ability to get the best out of people in front of the camera, and work as a team player within Communications teams.
· Provide ongoing creative input as to how best to use filmed content to deliver the Party’s strategic objectives.

We value diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We appoint on merit.

also via Daves Part:

Blah! Party leader Captain Sensible, the ‘70s & ‘80s punk icon, founded the party after years of continual political disillusionment. He comments: “Politics is dead. The British public aren’t voting because the parties are totally ignoring their opinions. At the moment, the only real method of mass protest against this is by not voting, which is why voting figures continue to fall.

“But we believe that voting is an important part of the democratic process, and we want the Blah! Party to be the party of protest; a channel through which the people of the UK can vent their dissatisfaction at nonsensical everyday things, and protest against the government and the current crop of political parties.

Khalid is not an ultraorthodox, unbending Muslim. Although he meets to chew qat wearing his Yemeni dress cut midcalf, in the style of an Islamic purist, he also wears button-down shirts and European hiking boots. He has lived in England for years and has befriended Westerners. Slight and handsome, he has the quiet charisma and modesty of the guy who is elected class president based on his low-key appeal. In short, he is not the kind of enemy we have been led to believe we are fighting. He harbors some of the same doubts that our own soldiers have about what brought them to fight and, perhaps, to die, in a place so far from home. To hear a polite and thoughtful man talk casually about his friends in Al Qaeda is to have the whole enterprise reduced to a more fragile, human scale. It is to see this war for what it is: a battle between men filled with contradictions, inconsistencies and weaknesses -- not a mythic struggle between our supermen and their ghosts.

Psychopathology: A Fundamental Attribution Error

U.S. President George W. Bush initially branded 9/11 hijackers “evil cowards.” For U.S. Senator John Warner, preemptive assaults on terrorists and those supporting terrorism are justified because: “Those who would commit suicide in their assaults on the free world are not rational and are not deterred by rational concepts” [12]. In attempting to counter anti-Moslem sentiment, some groups advised their members to respond that “terrorists are extremist maniacs who don’t represent Islam at all”. [13]

Social psychologists have investigated the “fundamental attribution error,” a tendency for people to explain behavior in terms of individual personality traits, even when significant situational factors in the larger society are at work. U.S. government and media characterizations of Middle East suicide bombers as craven homicidal lunatics may suffer from a fundamental attribution error: No instances of religious or political suicide terrorism stem from lone actions of cowering or unstable bombers.

sept 11,sept 11, sept 11, saddam, saddam, saddam etc

Oh and terrrrism too.

An American Jihadi

the watcher watching

This doc last night about bailiffs on the BBC was great. I also watched David Shaylers Mind the Gap. Not sure what I think about it. Some good information and good questions. Where are the rest of the CCTV pics of the 7/7 guys? I'm not quick to jump on conspiracy theories these days. I suppose the Bin Laden tapes or the Mohamed Sadique Khan one could be faked but I don't think so. The Paladin of Jihad is badly put together but seems a pretty good collection of what Bin Laden has said.

London Stops

a week after 7/7

Free Hugs

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.

In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...

Hashshashin

Is it true? Is there a revival of The Cult of the Hashshashin? We found this video.


Osama bin Laden is in the tradition of another famous name from the eleventh century, Hasan i Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountains, who has given the English language the word 'assassin'...

For more than a hundred years the cult of assassins spread terror among both the Christian crusaders and the Arab emirs who had permitted Christians to triumph. Hasan i Sabbah promised paradise to martyrs in his cause, apparently with the judicious use of hashish, hence hashishin and then assassin. They perfected the strategy of suicide missions, and their secrecy was legendary. It reached a point where a sultan like Saladin could not be certain if his own bodyguards had not become assassins, waiting for a signal from their lord.

British Jihadis

Ground Zero

Divided City

Sunday 1 October 2006

12.30pm-6pm

Limehouse Town Hall

646 Commercial Road

London E14 7HA

An Open Forum on

Housing, Speculation, Land & Civil/Social Rights

organised by the London Social Forum

Including presentations & workshops on:

Globalisation in the City, International Real Estate, Forced Evictions, 2012 Olympics, Thames Gateway, London Effect on Property Markets of Europe, Displacement in London, Networking on Housing and Land Rights, Crossrail, Gentrification, Mapping Resistance, Democratic Audit.

Admission is free, but donations to cover costs would be most welcome.

Stone Age Bombing

The United States threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it joined the fight against al-Qaeda, President Pervez Musharraf says.

General Musharraf said the warning was delivered by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Pakistan's intelligence director.

"I think it was a very rude remark," Mr Musharraf told CBS television.

Pakistan agreed to side with the US, but Gen Musharraf said it did so based on his country's national interest.

"One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that's what I did," he said.

The extracts from the CBS show 60 Minutes, which will run on Sunday, were released on the same day that the White House praised Pakistan for its co-operation in America's "war on terror".

Jerusalem? Never heard of it

JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Something always gets lost in translation, but usually not an entire city.

“Jerusalem. There is no such city!” the Jerusalem municipality said in the English-language version of a sightseeing brochure it had published originally in Hebrew.

The correct translation: “Jerusalem. There is no city like it!”

Carrying a photograph of the brochure, Israel’s Maariv newspaper said on Wednesday tens of thousands of flyers had been distributed before city hall realised its mistake.

THIS IS SHIT

via BadJason

NEW YORK (AFP) - Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have yet to show their baby daughter off in public, but eager fans were given an unusual preview with the chance to see a bronze cast depicting her first solid stool.

Brainwashing? cont'd.

...the men who are drawn into the embrace of al Qaeda are not at all who we think they are. We believe, as one of his characters puts it, that they are "brainwashed," when in fact "Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants . . . have refined a skill in identifying young men of varying social backgrounds and economic advantage who are prepared to make supreme sacrifices for a cause." They are not necessarily loners but are attracted to "the excitement of being a part of that select fugitive family," they have strong "personal self-esteem," they seek "adventure and purpose."

...Having discovered a cause for which they were ready -- indeed, often eager -- to sacrifice their own lives, these young jihadists followed orders as precisely and dutifully as the most assiduously trained U.S. Marine.

Watch the History Channel doco

Chechnya

My conclusions were outlined in a press statement I made on 12th Feb 1996...to solve the problem it is necessary to face the facts...the efforts of the Russian leadership to solve the problem by force have failed; similarly Dudayev has failed to ignite a jihad and to separate Chechnya from Russia;

...The problem can only be solved through direct dialogue with those who bear responsiblility for the conflict and are in a position to find a settlement

-Mikhail Gorbachev

...my point here is that Chechnya was in a way characteristic of a more general pattern that we saw with Yeltsin. He would sort of stumble and lurch and bluster and kind of awkwardly throw himself about in getting to the right position. He never should have gotten into the war in Chechnya. But he did get himself out. And his successor got Russia back into the war and shows no sign of getting out. That’s an important difference between the two. There are a lot of other differences we can talk about.

Meanwhile back in Londonistan...

Chavez

Brainwashing?

He was about to warn Muslim parents that fanatics wanted to groom and brainwash their children into becoming suicide bombers.

But John Reid was stopped in his tracks by a well-known Muslim extremist who shouted him down and accused him of being an enemy of Islam.

Abu Izzadeen refused to leave the meeting before being ushered away by the police. The Home Secretary then went on to advise parents to look out for the "tell-tale signs" of growing hatred in their sons and daughters and take action before they became killers.


(watch the report and check out Jon Snows questions, also Channel 4s piece about "brainwashing") I wrote a bit about brainwashing here.

Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters..

Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad proposed a debate with Bush at the General Assembly's ministerial meeting after the White House dismissed a previous TV debate proposal as a "diversion" from serious concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

But even though the two leaders spoke from the same podium, they skipped each other's addresses and managed to avoid direct contact during the ministerial meeting.

DIALOGUE

I floated the idea of some sort of online discussion involving my repub buddies and Hajj here, inviting people to come up with some preliminary questions for him. I have a lot of faith in Hajj and have frequently told him that I wished he had taken a more prominent role in events connected to Finsbury park mosque.

We both agreed that we missed Jamal (ALLAH AND JAHILIAH, Jamals writing here (pdf)) and couldn't believe how he had gone down for 10 years for some sort of robbery...he had a well paid job as a printer. Hopefully I will be able to follow this up.

I found Hajj none too enthusiastic, but I was able to explain how I felt I was in the middle of some great people who perhaps believe the wrong thing about each other. What else can i do?

Once I started asking questions, the Islamic debater in him came out and he was happy to sit with me in his garden writing things down. He didn't want any recording to be made until after the coming trial of his friends.

And while you are at it, if you are a peaceful Muslim...WHY DON'T YOU PROTEST THE HI JACKING OF YOUR RELIGION BY MANIACS??

Rightwingsparkle | 09.18.06 - 4:12 pm | #

he sort of said
When he looks at history he sees a different maniac and a lot more needless deaths from bigger weapons. He believes your side did 9/11. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Maniacs. He has no idea who Bin laden is or how they come across these tapes? Is Bin laden CIA? He doesn't know.

That's one of the problems. There is no authority in Islam. Only factions.
Rightwingsparkle | 09.18.06 - 4:13 pm | #

No. He disagreed strongly. I didn't really get this properly but he sort of reckons you can deal with Islam one time using the Koran and television. He says it is all in the book. Muslims believe that.

“The can call me what they like!” he shouted “Terrorist, Poofta whatever. We talk to each other. Normal people. Christians, jews, Muslims we should all come together and make his world a paradise. Television could be a beautiful tool if it was used properly.”

Well, that would be fine dave (to allow Islam to unite as a nation) if they would leave the rest of us alone!

But they DON'T.

Geeze.

Bin Laden offered peace. Hajj doesn't remember the terms but he watches all sides on the satellite TV.in the cafe...

They have the freedom to respond with whatever they want. What comes out of it may not necessarily be positive,

Yeah, that's the part that bothers me.
Rightwingsparkle | 09.18.06 - 6:03 pm | #

He said worry about Street Muggers before worrying about him. (He wasn't overly into the idea of me doing this either and was happier showing me all the plant he's spent years growing in his garden.)

And as far as the message is concerned. The message I was referring to is: Abortion is murder. This is a widely held belief among Christians.

Hajj agrees with this very strongly though he agreed with me that it wasn't his place to judge a woman to her face. He thinks we are all responsible to God for our actions.

JD | 09.19.06 - 5:59 pm | #

1) What will it take for mainstream moderate Muslims to take back their religion from the radicals Muslims?

He thinks its the other way round. He thinks real Muslims have to take their religion back from moderate Muslims. He was angry about the home secretaries words today. Translated it as

“Fast, Pray and shut up! Don't tell your kids about Chechenya Kashmir Iraq etc.”


2) What will it take to truly allow Israel to live in peace ?

Peace with the palestinians and after a treaty is signed no more killing or “targeted assassinations.”

3) Why are women held in such low esteem in their culture ?

He lives in the UK. Ask a Muslim girl on the street in the UK if she was forced. Ask all the British girls who are becoming Muslims if they are forced into anything. Phone Yvonee Ridley (who does nightly call in shows) on the islamic channel. See what she says.


4) Does he think that stoning homosexuals, or rape victims, is appropriate punishment ?

It is written in your book and the book of the Jews. Did God destroy Sodom and Gomorah? He did. He destroyed them.

5) If the West gave into every one of Osama's demands, would he then simply leave us and Israel alone ?

Hes a bit old and he cant remember what Osama's demands are...

* If the terrorists claim to be fighting the Great Satan, why do they keep blowing up fellow Muslims instead ?

He's not in Iraq. “I suppose they see them as collaborators with the US?”

* Do they think that sending out videos of their beheadings is an effective PR tool ?

“I don't know how to answer that. Personally I am against beheading.”

* If America walked away from Iraq today, would Muslims quite killing other Muslims ?

He rekons there will always be trouble until there is an Islamic state. He doesn't have faith in the Arabic people at the moment. He thinks a lot of them are too long a Muslim. He thinks Africans and Caribbeans are going to be the new force in the real Islam.

* How pissed off will the jihadi's be when they go to visit Allah, and find that the 72 virgins are not really virgins, and look like Rosie O'Donnell when she is feeling bloated ?

Didn't ask him that one.

* Since the terrorists positions are the minority position amongst Muslims, why do they no accept that theirs is a perverted view of a rich religion ?
JD | 09.19.06 - 6:35 pm | #

A minority of Muslims are aware of the truth at the moment and the majority just think they are Muslims.

Jandrewmorrison | 09.19.06 - 7:42 pm | #
Why Hajj likely does not advocate Shia law, is there any punishment for those that commit acts of terrorism under sharriah law as he understands it?

he thinks targeting of innocents is against Sharriah law. I can't remember what the punishment was..

What can the non-muslim community do to better encourage muslims to assist in identifying those that hold extremist views who may pose a threat of engaging in acts of terrorism?

He doesn't even see it as terrorism over here. He disputes 7/7, asks why no more CCTV pictures are available showing these kids journeys to where they detonated their bombs. Even if they did it he doesn't see it as terrorism. He sees it as four angry boys. Many Muslims are angry and they don't blow up. He thinks most of the Muslims he knows behave OK at the moment and really hopes to see the young guys arrested with Abdullah released soon. He seems to realise that Abdullah migh have said the wrong things on TV but doesn't consider any of the guys to be a threat to the UK.


In his opinion, which angers young Muslim men more, the percieved mistreatment of Muslims on a global scale, or the percieved mistreatment of Muslims in Britain?
jandrewmorrison | 09.19.06 - 7:48 pm | #

Both.

Sorry didn't ask anymore but he says hes up for meeting up but without cameras. Hajj recomended a nice Chinese restaurant, but maybe not this one...

A service remembering Britons killed or injured in terrorist attacks abroad last year is to be held in London.

Victims' families will be at the Southwark Cathedral service to remember the 13 Britons killed in bombings in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Kusadasi and Doha.

Trevor Lakin, who lost his son Jeremy in the Sharm-el-Sheikh bombings, will be among those giving a reading.

Also attending will be representatives of other religions, the countries involved and support agencies.

The service is being arranged by the cathedral on behalf of the government.

GANJA TERR-R?

In an age of despair the need for a hero who can inspire pan-Islamic victories becomes acute. The situation today is akin to a thousand years ago, when Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and Christians established powerful states in the heart of Palestine, in territory approximate to where Israel exists today. Revival by Zengi, Nuraddin, and above all Saladin lifted Muslims from a morass then. There is no such hero on the horizon now. Despair can become a breeding ground for mavericks who believe in themselves and their version of the faith.

Osama bin Laden is in the tradition of another famous name from the eleventh century, Hasan i Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountains, who has given the English language the word 'assassin'. The year of his birth is not known, but he died in 1124: that, presumably, is what fame is all about. He was born in a Shia family in Qum in Persia and travelled restlessly when young, serving many masters. In 1090, he finally found a base for his militant creed in the castle of Alamut, on a high rock in the middle of the Elburz mountains, perched above a fertile valley. He did not leave this mountain for 34 years, until he died. From there he commanded a network of missionaries and terrorists who became the most feared force of their time.

For more than a hundred years the cult of assassins spread terror among both the Christian crusaders and the Arab emirs who had permitted Christians to triumph. Hasan i Sabbah promised paradise to martyrs in his cause, apparently with the judicious use of hashish, hence hashishin and then assassin. They perfected the strategy of suicide missions, and their secrecy was legendary. It reached a point where a sultan like Saladin could not be certain if his own bodyguards had not become assassins, waiting for a signal from their lord. Assassins made two attempts on the life of Saladin, once in the winter of 1174-5, when he was besieging Alleppo; and then on 22 May 1176 when, disguised as his soldiers, they attacked him with knives. After that Saladin slept under special protection, and only those who knew him personally were allowed to approach him.

ABU ABDULLAH PREACHING

This was filmed maybe a month after Abu Hamza's arrest. For me, in his mannerisms and behaviour Abu Abdullah is the most interesting mix of Britishness and Fundamental Islam. Our society has made him.

Terror plot scenario "untenable"

"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.

After working as a bomb defuser in Northern Ireland, Lt. Col. Wylde became a senior officer in British Army Intelligence in 1977. During the Cold War, he collected intelligence as part of an undercover East German "liaison unit," then went on to work in the Ministry of Defense to review its communications systems.

"So who came up with the idea that a bomb could be made on board? Not Al Qaeda for sure. It would not work. Bin Laden is interested in success not deterrence by failure," Wylde stated.

"This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."

Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde.

If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked." The process would be quickly and easily detected. The fumes of the chemicals in the toilet "would be smelt by anybody in the area." They would also inevitably "cause the alarms in the toilet and in the air change system in the aircraft to be triggered. The pilot has the ability to dump all the air from an aircraft as a fire-fighting measure, leaving people to use oxygen masks. All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths."

Government silent on detonators

Even if it was possible for the explosive to have been made on the aircraft, a detonator, probably made from TATP, would be needed to set it off. "It is very dangerous and risky to the individual," Wylde said. "As the quantity involved would be small this would injure the would-be suicide bomber but not endanger the aircraft, thus defeating the object of bringing down an aircraft."

TERRORIST?

As promised here is Abu Abdullah telling me my footage would be worth a couple of hundred grand were any more bombs to be set. At the time he believed the 7/7 bombs to be the work of MI-5.

He also calls Zaki Badawi a dog, speaks against Muslims who vote and talks about his intention to move to South Africa. When I got home from this interview, the picture of the 7/7 bombers was on the evening news.

More Terrorists

THERES SNOW GOING BACK..

When the going gets tough...
============================

We're in Afghanistan, where things are going so badly for hard-pressed British troops that they are not really taking any reporters along with them to observe the war against the Taliban. Same old thing from the
British Ministry of Defence sadly: they are perfectly content to have reporters along for the ride when it's soft hats and hearts and minds stuff in the streets of Lashkar Gah - but when the whole mission's turned on its head into a war, they suddenly cannot find room for reporters.
Same old story of course. So, all British broadcasters are pretty much censored out of the continuing war.

Question: if the war's gong so terribly well, as the politicians and military brass continually claim, why is it 'too dangerous' for us to go and observe it and show this success on the ground to the public?

All of which leaves our correspondent Kylie Morris, up in Kabul talking to the military leaders. One of them, Lt Gen David Richards, the British commander of NATO forces, reckons that NATO will have to be in southern Afghanistan for a least the next three to five years. That, may tell us rather more about the truth of what is happening in southern Afghanistan.

snowmails

ANARCHO AKBAR?

via Omegaprojektet

...it is extremely rare for Muslim organisations to proffer such a nuanced critic of the personal motivations behind anti-Muslim copy. That’s why Polly gets awards for her 'Islamophobia'. Nor do they ever spot the obvious motivation, which is that Musi-bashing is GOOD COPY. Muslims are the modern folk demon. Writing about the allegedly bad and stupid things they do is GOOD COPY. If journalists have an agenda, it is one which directly attributable to their own training, and the relationship between media and culture.

...The mistake people like MCB and MPACUK make in particular is to attribute the bias of journalists...to some kind of pro-Zionist agenda, or worse, to the power of the Israeli lobby. This is quasi-conspiratorial rubbish. This is not deny the existence of political lobbying, editorial bias and ownership on the media, but this is a universe away from the implication that everything falling from the lips of journalists...is little more than empty polemic spurred on by agendas sealed in dark rooms full of men looking like Ron Moody in Oliver.

EXCLUSIVE: Preacher of hate was a non-league manager

By Graham Brough and Pete Sampson in the Mirror


THE hate cleric exposed by the Daily Mirror was once a fiery football boss.

Before whipping up worshippers at controversial Finsbury Park Mosque, Abu Abdullah was a soccer coach nicknamed Attila the Hun. He guided youth teams of London non-league sides Athenlay, Sydenham Boys and honed Gillingham and Wales U-21 goalie Jason Brown at Fisher Athletic.

Born Attila Ahmet, of Turkish Cypriot origins, he even changed his name to soccer-friendly Alan - but still managed to get banned from a final after skirmishes with a rival.

Yesterday, officials at Fisher recalled Abdullah, 40, as "very talented". But Brian Miller, chairman of the Bexley League, said: "He was a nutter, very volatile and took it far too seriously. Once I had to referee the managers - not the game."

The dad-of-three left soccer in 1998, devoting himself to Islam. He has now been forced out of the North London mosque after outraging moderate Muslims with anti-West tirades.

There is a lot more to this story which I'm not going to put up just yet. Lets see what the papers can get on their own. I first heard it a long while ago when Abdullah introduced me to one of his ex-footballing buddies who told me he had turned down two grand from the Mirror for a few word and a picture for their first expose (No longer up, my version here).

He told me

"Yes, when I first read what Abu Hamza said I thought, yeah, sling him out of the country. But I don't know the man. I know Atilla. If he is a threat to me why does he come round to my house, bringing all his cooking equipment and cook my family dinner?"

I never went back to film him. He looked almost like a BNP style Londoner and it was very strange to see the two guys kiss each other on the cheek.

Roger Michael Figaro, who uses the name Muhammed Al-Figari, and Kibly DaCosta, are both from Caribbean backgrounds and live in South London. The fifth is Gilbert Teye Baiden, 24, the youngest of this group, who also comes from a Caribbean family now in London.

Yesterday, his shocked family protested: "Our son is no terrorist." They were speaking from a friend's house as their own home in Brixton was being search by police.

His mother Beatrice, 53, said former video store worker Gilbert, one of five brothers, converted from Christianity to Islam two years ago before marrying his Muslim wife, Shawnette. They have a two-year old daughter.

Beatrice said: "Gilbert was a strong Christian like the rest of the family until he got married. Now he wears Muslim clothes and goes to the mosque, but I accept his new religion, which he keeps to himself."

Beatrice, a gospel choir singer, said she learned her son had been arrested when police phoned her.

She said: "On Friday my sons were coming round for a family dinner. At about 9pm Gilbert said he was going to meet some friends and he left.

"He didn't come home and I was worried. Then Paddington green station phoned and said, 'We've got Gilbert and he wants to talk to you'. He told me he was arrested at the Chinese restaurant but gave no details."

12th Century Musings

via Righwingsparkle

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.

Thats the call. And the response:

“We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion,” he said in Friday evening prayers.

“Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim,” Malin, a prominent cleric in the Somali capital, told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.

“We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope,” he said.

BAKRI

By TOM WELLS Sun Online
September 11, 2006

HATE preacher Omar Bakri claimed 14 British servicemen died in revenge for 14 terror arrests in London.

The sick exiled cleric gloated to followers that he was “so happy” at the RAF Nimrod crash in Afghanistan on September 2 which killed everyone on board.

The jet was brought down by an on-board fire just a day after anti-terror cops swooped to round up 14 suspects in raids across the capital.

In an hour-long internet rant, evil Bakri — currently hiding in Lebanon — crowed: “After those 14 brothers had been arrested, Allah allowed us to have 14 kuffars (non-believers) killed in Afghanistan.

“You see from the British, they say it’s not Taliban who put down the Nimrod. We say it doesn’t matter. It is for the use of almighty Allah that they are in the heaven or the earth.

“Allah has his own soldiers and I was so happy. I was just thanking Allah.”

Bakri, 48, launched the hate-filled outburst on a website where dozens of extremists meet each night to hear him preach.

During the sermon, Bakri revealed he had visited Jameah Islamiyah Islamic school in East Sussex, which is being searched by anti-terrorism officers.

He said: “I remember when I heard about it (being raided). I was remembering the visits we paid there — for the Koran and for all those issues. I couldn’t believe it.”

Bakri said he felt sorry for Abu Hamza’s No 2, Abu Abdullah, who was held in the raids.

He claimed the arrest had been sparked by a recent interview Abdullah gave to US news network CNN, in which he claimed every “sincere Muslim” had been “pleased” by 9/11.

Bakri added: “I heard about the arrest of Abu Abdullah. It hurt me bad. I was speaking about his case last week and his interview on CNN.

“Those kuffars were so angry they couldn’t swallow it. They attack what they like to call extremists, radicals and terrorists.”

Bakri, who begged to be let back into Britain to escape the recent fighting in Lebanon, said he had been quizzed by authorities there. He revealed he had been shown pictures of 24 unnamed terror suspects — but said he did not co-operate with police.

He claimed to know the men — but not by name — and told extremists to follow his example. He said: “I don’t ask questions about names or their family or their background. This is the best security — not to ask people their names.”

Bakri ended his sermon with a dark warning to radicals thinking of hatching terror plots. He said; “Keep clean behind you. Do not leave any trace if you have anything to hide.”

SHAITAN

OK. Just met Hajj again in the cafe.

"Do I know these guys?" I asked.

"All of them."

"All of them?"

"All. Jamaican brothers."

"And you think they are innocent?"

"Yes. They train together, but what is training? If I was young I would be training now. People are being set against one another, we haven't seen anything yet. We have to be able to defend our families. They've taken his roof apart, his brothers roof. Nothing, and this school, they don't even lock the doors. You can wake up in the night and walk anywhere... "

"But the Police have been following them... Nine months.. They have someone on the inside? Can you think who?"

I spoke about the TV people advising me to follow the story as much as possible whilst there is a news blackout during the trial.

"Look, as long as people don't want to drop themselves in it, make it known I am willing to film Hajj. If they want to drop themselves in it, tell them to call Dan Rivers. If they want someone to fairly represent them tell them I am up for it."

"It won't make any diference. They will do what they like and say what they like..."

"But the people I spoke to at Channel 4 were interested. They spoke of a situation in Canada where someone was payed a quater of a million to say that some group said they wanted to kill the Prime minister..."

Hajj still wasn't convinced and was talking about "they"

"But what about us? We can do something. Its not all inevitable." I suggested a link up between ourselves and Sparkle and co online. An ongoing discussion which was available to whoever wanted to take part.

"But I can't write, talking is fine..."

"So I can write, or record you...Maybe we can change things. Maybe people would take an interest themselves, regardless of media..."

I also mentioned the media interest in the jihadi rap scene. Hajj told me that he would be making a tour of the mosques during ramadam and would make inquiries.

I tried to inquire further about Abu Abdullahs "reversion" to Islam but Hajj was reluctant to say anything.

"Look. There is a story on the internet which says Abdullah converted because his father offered to cancel a debt if he would live a more Islamic life..."

"Rubbish. I talked to him. It took not even one week. He left his street life completely and followed Islam. One week."

One of Hajj's friends inquired of Hajj as to my religion.

"Shaitan." Hajj answered.

They all looked at me a bit more warily. I just laughed. As we conversed one of them prepared a dinner of haloumi cheese, egg, bread and salad.

"Come on Shaitan." said the guys, sharing their dinner with me.

Mason: Oh, yes sir. We had told them all about our background. I served in Iraq. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq. We were patients at the hospital. That we were just curious... But that did not seem like a good answer to them.

P.D.: We tried to explain to them that we were fighting for freedom. They said "no."

Mason: And then they basically told us that if we weren’t there, the terrorists wouldn’t be there. And that the terrorists, you know, even though the terrorists murder civilians, and children, that if we left it would all... stop. And I... I literally saw, with my own eyes, families be executed by ‘em. And I don’t think it would matter if we were there or not. The terrorists are terrorists. That's what they do.

P.D.: It’d be a lot more people getting executed if we weren’t there.

SMASH: Did you try to express any of that to the folks down there?

Both: Yes, sir.

SMASH: And how was it received?

P.D.: It was received negatively. They were closed-minded. They have their beliefs, and they won’t even open their minds to what we believe.

SMASH: They weren’t interested in dialogue?

P.D.: Exactly.

AROFISH IN LEBANON

After getting the OK I made some big stencils of Bush, Blair, Condi Rice and Ehud Olmert, drawing them onto cartoon animal bodies, as a common form of insult here is to call someone an animal. I sprayed them at night on the smashed wall I’d been given in the town square, as I hoped that the kids would be in bed and that what I had planned for the next day would be a surprise. Half way through the first piece I became aware that about 40 people, all ages, were standing right behind me in a tight group, glaring intently at the wall. Others looked on from the shadows further away. “Not much pressure, then,” I thought, peeling the stencil off the wall to a dumb silence.

...We threw a tarpaulin over and left it till the morning. Next day we fetched buckets full of paint-filled water balloons and told the 30-or-so local kids that behind the tarp were some of the people who’d caused all the damage. They knew all the names; they didn’t need telling. The pictures tell the rest, but I wish they could capture the noise. Condi got the worst of it, by far, and you can make of that what you will.

AHHHJIHADIWATCH

...Note that the voiceovers, without presenting any evidence, tell us that his views would be repugnant to the vast majority of Muslims, and say that he "tries" to justify violence by invoking the Qur'an -- with the clear implication, again without any evidence, that the Qur'an doesn't actually teach what Abu Abdullah says it teaches. Whoever put this video together is dogmatically convinced that Islam is a religion of peace, and no amount of evidence to the contrary is going to change his mind.

Why does this matter? Because it's false. And false analysis cannot lead to correct policy. The West's misapprehensions about Islam have led it to a number of blunders already. No doubt there will be many more.

Anyway, note also Abu Abdullah's complete identification with Muslims as "my people," despite his so obvious Englishness. His Islam has entirely effaced his ties to his family, his country, and his heritage.

(Abdullah's heritage is Turkish Cypriot.)

Check this on David Icke's website.

Abu Abdullah: the Perfect Psycho Patsy 'It would seem British intelligence services, in collusion with the cops and Scotland Yard, are getting better at finding palatable lunatics to represent Muslims in Britain, or maybe it is “Londonistan,” although I’m sure more than a few Londoners recoil at this characterization. One such lunatic is Abu Abdullah, an associate of Abu Hamza, a perfect choice due to his psychopathic personality disorder, in full bloom in a video on the Hot Air blog. Due to the fact he is a misanthropic piece of work, Abu Abdullah, a former youth football coach, praises to the sky both the London 7/7 bombings and the alleged and entirely ludicrous liquid bomb plot, the former an obvious false flag operation, complete with complimentary terror drills, and the latter an impossibility on an airliner, minus a pile of chemistry lab tools.'

Abdullah and co quoted David Icke's theories to me here (and on A Year on the Street).

he told the Old Bailey he was pleased at the September 11 attacks. He said: "America was, and still is, the greatest enemy of Islam. They put up puppet regimes in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

"I was happy that America had been hit because of what it represented against the Muslims, but obviously 3,000 people died so there were mixed feelings."

9/11 – has Bin Laden won the war on terror?

Five years on from 9/11, has Bin Laden won? Can he ever, in his wildest of dreams, have imagined that the collective act of terror that he inspired on 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania would result in such a response?

That rather than hunting him down as a common criminal with the full forces of the law, we would declare war on terror and he as its major agent, thereby enhancing both his propaganda and his status in the eyes of the people he most wanted to believe in him and the people he most wanted to scare?

...we shall be talking to probably the most thoughtful man to have led British and Nato forces in recent years, General Sir Rupert Smith, who argues that we have enhanced Osama’s position and that we must not scare ourselves into thinking we have lost in Afghanistan, but that the interveners, as he calls them, in Afghanistan and indeed in Iraq need to rethink what they’re doing altogether.

afghanistan, 9/11,
snowmails

The Suicide Factory

This book is really good, regardless of which side of this you are on. A really detailed story of the whole situation with Hamza's sons in Yemen and how the hostage crisis actually affected the direction of Yemen's politics. Also a detailed acount of Rede Hassaine, the "spy" inside Finsbury park mosque and the rivalry between Hamza and Omar Bakri. Also the whole James Ujaama story (Such were his achievements in US civil rights he had a day named after him in Washington and was handed the keys to the city). Also the story of Feroz Abbasi. I haven't got to the part where they are all banned from the mosque and take to the street and this wierd guy with bones in his ears turns up and starts filming yet but I'm sure that's coming.

I don't get all this "slow hypnotic talking" and "brainwashing". When I was a born again christian four people became christians as a result of me talking to them. Did I "brainwash" them? Or was I telling them the "ultimate truth"? I just told them what I believed very strongly. Were christians in the state that some groups of Muslims were in the mid nineties in Bosnia, Chechnya and Palestine, would I have been preaching a more militant version of christianity?

ABU ABDULLAH CHARGED

Guardian, CNN, ITV, BBC,

Which of the masked marvels have been charged with him I'm not sure yet as I don't recognise the names.

* Muhammad Al-Figari, 42, of Tottenham, faces three charges, including attending a woodland area in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, between 2 and 4 June this year, where terrorism training was being held, and another charge of possessing material likely to be useful for terrorism.

* Atilla Ahmet, 42, of Lewisham, faces eight charges, including encouraging the murder of people not of the Muslim faith, and publishing a statement encouraging the public to commit acts of terrorism.

* Kadar Ahmed, 19, of Plaistow, faces three charges, including attending a woodland area in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, between 28 April and 1 May this year, where terrorism training was being held.

* Moussa Brown, 40, of Walthamstow, is charged with both providing and receiving training in the making or use of firearms.

* Saloum Joh, 21, of Putney, is charged with possessing a shotgun, in contravention of the Firearms Act.

* A 17-year-old youth from Camberwell, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faces four charges, including attending a woodland area in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, between 28 April and 1 May this year, where terrorism training was being held.



I've got some out takes of Abdullah (from London Post 7/7) saying to me

"Any more bombs go off and that footage'll be worth two hundred grand"

somewhere.

Maybe I'd best dig it out.

I don't know whether it is me just thinking the best of people but I still can't think of Abdullah as a threat to the people of this country. It seems to me hes got "Jihadi tourettes" or something.

I feel a bit as if I have failed. Like I should have stayed in touch with Abdullah a bit more after filming seemed unviable. Now they have charged him I suppose I can visit. I don't know if I'm just going to have a row with him from the public gallery. I'm certainly angry with what he said in this interview after 2 and a half years of him saying quite different stuff to me. It was because of this stance on the bombing of innocents that I carried on filming with him.

I wonder what would have happened had my proposed meeting between him and Sparkle's posse taken place. Whether we could have forged links which would have pushed all this in another direction. Whether "the film" took too much priority in my mind over my higher mission which was to do what the government said they and the mosques should be doing.

For the whole of this blog I've sensed an internal argument between "peace ativist" and "gonzo journalist". Really I'm neither. I suppose I'm just a blogger.

I've been discussing all this with the Republicans here if anyone wants to join in. No swearing though...

AND RELEASE...

London police have released two of 14 people who were arrested on suspicion of planning acts of terrorism.

Police say the two men were released late Tuesday without charges. Twelve suspects remain in custody. The group was detained in London Saturday in raids on a suspected terrorist training network.

British authorities can hold three of the suspects without charge until Wednesday, and nine others until Friday. Authorities must decide whether to charge the suspects, release them or ask a judge for more time to question them. British law allows police to detain suspects for up to 28 days without charges.

VOLATILE AND ANGRY? ABU ABDULLAH?

"I've known him a long time. He is a very volatile and angry man. If there are any neighbourhood disputes, he is the first to charge out of the door with a knife or machete.

"You would hear him at night coming back at all hours, often with a cop car tailgating him and the minute he got out of his own car, he was pushed up against the bonnet by the police and you would hear him crying his innocence to all manner of things.

"I've always had my suspicions of him. He now owns three BMWs, but nobody in the house has ever done a bloody bit of work in years. All they do is dump rubbish outside. It's like a tip. If anybody else did it environmental health would jump all over them.

"He says he's Turkish, but he has been a bit on and off with his religion. He owed his father, back in Turkey, a lot of money and I was told he did a deal with him by which the debt would be forgotten if he and his family lived a more Muslim life.

"His sons had to change their names to traditional Islamic names, but that changed back again soon enough.

"His wife and daughters left him because he treated them like s*** and as for his own sons, when they were younger, he took off to Cyprus for six months for 'family reasons' but did not leave them the benefits book or any money. They would come to my house and I would take them in and feed them.

"Then when he came back from Cyprus he had an extremely badly broken leg all the way up to his hip, which he said was the result of a little accident. After that the house started to have work done on it, but still no-one had a job.

"He then bought a Porsche, but a few weeks later I woke up at about 2am, looked out of the window and somebody had torched it. It was never explained why that had happened and we did not see the police.

"It is certainly a 24-hour house and there are always Muslim-types in and out at all hours. I am not surprised this has happened one bit. They are exactly the same sort of family you see on the news."

Another neighbour who said he was a friend of the family, but refused to be named, said: "I can't believe this has happened. there has got to be something wrong here. They are my friends and I know for a fact they are a normal family."

CLONE FUCKER

Remember Sparkle's Attack of the Clone fucker?

Some fucker has put a really crap reedit of some of my stuff on Youtube! Ah well. Masturbation is the sincerest form of flattery I suppose. I was meaning to do that myself for ages. Here it is.
For a more comprehensive story (edited to make a bit more sense) do look at the (slightly higher quality) videos in my sidebar.

Me, I did what I usually do in these situations. I ran and found Hajj, this time in a Turkish cypriot Coffee bar. Any long term readers will know that Hajj backed off from The Supporters of Shariah quite a while back. I found him well,and laughing because his daughter had read what I had written about him before. I checked that I hadn't offended him.

"You don't write lies." he told me.

I tried to work out exactly who had been arrested.

"Samir?"

"No. He's just got married."

"Jamal?"

"No. He's in prison for some sort of robbery. Not related."

This really alarmed me as Jamal was the only one of them who had visied my house. He didn't seem the type to get invloved with a robbery at all.

"Maybe someone set him up?" Hajj had no further information.

He was unsuprised by the arrests. Reading between the lines he didn't seem too pleased with Abdullahs CNN performance and remarked that he had told Abdullah so, and that Abdullah had agreed on recollection that it might have come across wrong.

"I tell you not 99 percent, but 100 percent this school has NOTHING to do with terrorism." he told me "This for me will be the true test of our legal process because I KNOW there is nothing wrong with that school."

"And Abdullahs brother, he doesn't even come to meetings. He just comes for dinner. If they have been under surveilance the Police will know that. Everyone uses that restaurant. Five pounds eat as much as you like..""

"Do you think he's a bit naiive?" I asked.

"He thinks he can solve all this on his own by preaching."

I had to agree. I sort of wonder if I had carried on filming if it would have done Abdullah any good. It would probably have just got me in the shit.

I tried to politely enquire whether Hajj had thought Abdullah had changed recently.

"He wouldn't hurt a fly. He's just got a mouth you know?"

I suggested out loud that I was thinking of visiting Abdullah once they had finnished questioning him. "I suppose if i visit Abdullah I might as well visit Mr Hamza as well now. I've often thought about it."

Hajj liked this idea.

"Abu Hamza is the most beautiful person I have met." said Hajj, recalling stories he had told me before about Hamza as some sort of father figure cooling young Islamic hotheads.

"Look, throughout the trial Hamza hardly looked at me.. I can't imagine he'd want me to visit. I find it hard to handle the diference between your opinion of Hamza and what I've read in the papers. Meeting him face to face, I don't know..."

Hajj said that if i decided to go, he would come with me.

Hmmmm... I thought I had decided to give up on all this...

ABU ABDULLAH- ARRESTED OR NOT?

OK. Last night I was wondering whether I should phone Abdullah after hearing about South east London arrests. I got the news of the world this morning.

Fourteen Muslims arrested over the alleged plot to take out a London landmark are linked to terror camps run in the school’s grounds, hidden from unwitting staff.

One of the 14 is hate cleric Abu Abdullah. Dubbed Attila The Scum, he is hook-handed monster Abu Hamza's No 2.

Abdullah, 42, who was born and bred in Britain, was detained just days after stating he would “love” to kill British troops in Afghanistan.

He is regarded by anti-terror detectives as a key figure in their investigation into a plot which an intelligence source said would “out-do 7/7.”

The arrests came after a nine-month surveillance operation involving MI5, which centred on suspects visiting the Jameah Islameah Islamic school in picturesque Catt’s Hill, near Crowborough.

I spent the whole day thinking he had been arrested and then read this

THE home of a radical Islamist preacher in London has been raided as police investigating an alleged "terrorist pipeline" supplying British Muslim fighters to Iraq and Afghanistan arrested 14 men at the weekend.

Abu Abdullah, an associate of Abu Hamza, the jailed British-based hook-handed cleric, boasted in an interview last week how he would "love" to kill British troops in Afghanistan and warned of future terrorist attacks in Britain.

The raid on his house formed part of a long-term operation by Scotland Yard and MI5 targeting suspects allegedly involved in the recruitment and grooming of young British Muslims for martyrdom operations abroad and possibly at home. The 14 arrests were made in co-ordinated raids at the weekend.

Police also cordoned off an independent Islamic school in Crowborough, East Sussex, south of London, which had regularly hosted camping weekends for Muslim youths.

The school had reportedly been used by Hamza and his followers for physical and spiritual training exercises.

Forensic experts searched Mr Abdullah's terraced home in Bromley, south London, while police stood guard outside.

But it remained unclear whether the father of four, aged 42, was one of the 14 men who had been arrested.

So he has either been arrested or he hasn't. And which of the other guys has gone down? What have they done? I called Abdullah no reply as yet. Turns out this is all connected to a CNN interview.



Compare this with my interview with him days after 7/7. Its obviously been highly editted but he's said some stupid things, and its not as if he didn't know who Dan Rivers was or what sort of stories he's made about Finsbury park.

This is Abdullah outside the mosque. (see MOSQUE ROPENS AND CLOSES AGAIN)I was standing in front of him and remember all of it well but had no camera at the time and I don't know who filmed this. Do read the comments on Youtube

Theres this "Left" thing, and this "Right" thing see...

It's the Right that is beholden to Big Corporations, right?

Wrong.

NRO has this:

That’s not what David Hogberg and Sarah Haney found when they looked at the donation history of the charitable arms of Fortune 100 companies. Dividing the recipients between ideological left and right, they found that in the last tax year available (2004 in most cases), the left received a whopping $59 million compared to the right’s $4 million. Even taking aside Goldman Sachs’ huge $35 million gift to the mildly liberal Wildlife Conservation Society (which still demands taxpayer support of $5 million for its Bronx Zoo), the left still outpaced the right by 6 to 1.

also via Rightwingsparkle (strangely enough) ATTACK OF THE CLONEFUCKER?

Tales from the Front Line

hey friends

I'm still at the climate camp, using a rather wonderful Indymedia web cafe. It's been a great week so far, lots of workshops, autonomous non-heirarchical communal living, connections made, and actions on the local climate criminals and war profiteers.

There were 400 protestors and 4000 police plus Drax security and still a few protestors managed to get onsite! No surprise head of security has been sacked. I hope you've been listening to media reports, we were on the front three pages of the Independent yesterday, and on numerous TV and radio stations. Of course there's also plenty of coverage on Indymedia http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Keep fighting for what you know is right - this camp is more proof that a small group of people with a common objective can make a big difference.

Signing off now to listen to Seize the Day play :)

Peace out

Alex

PRIMROSE Hill SQUAT VALUE GOES UP BY 11 MILLION

Fuking hell. Remember-

broken glass usedneedleswhileinside carpets havbeenrippedup=andthewallscovered ingraffiti="">...?

The Times of all people have struck back! They've found a friendly hippy who took part in the weekends festivities. Is this the rise of the new hip right?

“THIS is where we had the psychedelic trance,” explained the DJ and part-time percussionist giving the guided tour of a multimillion-pound mansion in Primrose Hill.

“It was a peace party. Full of fun-loving hippies. In the other rooms we had funky house and Indian chill-out music. We tried not to let people out on the tennis courts.”

He excused the graffiti — “Home is wherre [sic] the hurt is” — scrawled under a wallhanging of a green worm on a toadstool, hookah-pipe in hand. The slogan, he said, must have been written after the party, which attracted 800 people to the otherwise immaculate enclave in North London on Saturday night. “We would have spelt it correctly.”

The 35-year-old DJ was determined to respond to criticism from neighbours who are outraged that squatters are living — and partying — in the eight-bedroom mansion, which has been sold to an unknown Russian businessman within the past year.

The father of one denies their claims that syringes are being used on the premises and is keen to point out that the empty beer cans, wine and tequila bottles that litter the garden do not encroach on either the neighbours’ properties or the public park.

“What’s more important?” the musician and party-organiser wanted to know, “the property prices for people who have billions in their bank accounts, or giving happiness to 800 people?”

The man, who declined to be identified, insisted that no one was charged entry, only asked to make a donation at the door. He said metal detectors were placed at the gate, and that teenagers were discouraged.

“The people who live here are respectful,” said a young man with blue hair and a nose ring who emerged from the kitchen, accompanied by a smiling girl with long, red hair and leopardskin tights. “There were no drugs here that wouldn’t have been in any club.”

and the reported value of the house cooly jumps from 5 to 14 million pounds. Some kudos from squatting eh? Thats capitalism!

Still that was some party no?

"The noise was just incredible," she said. "They were filing by the houses throwing beer bottles into the streets. Sunday morning, when I went to walk the dog, the party was still in full form," she said.

It took a month to get the djs to turn it up loud enough to get this reaction but it was worth it.

MICHELLE

I've been reading some great comments I can relate to recently. Scroll down this link to follow Mihelles train of thought.

No one listens. I feel passionately about listening and about seeing issues from as many perspectives as possible. I try to be intellectually flexible. I am able to change my mind without shame. I am able to be convinced by arguments that are logical and are backed up by fact. Perhaps I should start a blog about that. I don't suppose, however, that anyone would reply because most people hang on to their opinions with dear life, being defined by them, and to change those opinions means to "capitulate" or "admit defeat" or some such idiocy.

Moderates are no more. You have to be either on the left or on the right, probably because it is easier than to actually consider other viewpoints. So, we as a nation become even more split, arguing instead of discussing, demeaning instead of considering, screaming instead of listening.