There was a phrase in London, which I have not heard used for many years, to describe someone exhibiting bizarre behaviour as an early sign of mental illness. Like the phrase 'going doolally' or 'doolally tap' (Deolali was a British Army transit camp in India, tap came from tapa meaning heat) going a bit 'Colney Hatch' meant that the sufferer looked likely to be needing a spell in one of the several mental hospitals situated in the London Colney/Colney Hatch area of Hertfordshire north of London. The Victorian authorities thought that building such institutions in fresh air and plesant countryside would benefit the inmates more than the smog of London. A friend of mine lived and worked in one of those hospitals just before they were all closed in the 1980s as part of the Neglect, sorry, Care in the Community scheme. This also freed lots of land for lucrative building projects.
I can't quite place where this Cemex site is but I am glad to see that someone in St Albans (the nearby administrative centre - beautiful Cathedral and famous Roman remains) planning office is neither doolally, nor colney hatch, but instead is canny and astute enough to look beyond the Islamic Centre's claims to their website and actions.
I have been following the objections to this building of this mosque for some weeks.
From The Herts Advertiser.

A BID to build a mosque in London Colney which attracted more than a hundred objections has been turned down because it would probably attract more worshippers than at first indicated.
St Albans council planning officers had recommended approval for the plan to convert Cemex House in Barnet Road into an Islamic Centre but the recommendation was based on estimates of around 50 people using the place of worship.
County councillor for The Colneys Chris Brazier said: "The Islamic Centre's website showed they were seeking £1,000 each from 300 people which indicates to me that there will be a far bigger usage than stated in the application. If these people are contributing towards the cost I think they will obviously want to use the facility.
"I think Hertfordshire Highways would have recommended refusal if they realised the site was likely to attract greater numbers than suggested in the application."
He explained that the other reason for refusal was that the site was in a conservation area and such a large establishment would be out of keeping.
Letters received from more than 100 residents objected to the scheme on the grounds of traffic fears, narrowness of the access road, insufficient parking and noise.
Cllr Brazier stressed that the committee's decision had nothing to do with the "vicious" anti-mosque leaflets sent out by British National Party member Danny Seabrook.

Cllr Brazier may I recommend to you Islam In Britain by Dr Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas fund.

On a cold, rainy wind swept Saturday, thousands crowded into Foley Square in downtown Manhattan near the Federal Courts less than a few blocks from "Ground Zero"- the site of the destroyed twin towers of the World Trade Center. That is where over 2,700 innocent people lost their lives to Islamic terrorists bent on commiting Jihad.  They were there to protest against US Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other plotters of what I called 'the Pearl Habor of the 21st Century."  Others like Edie Lutnick, who lost a brother  on the 107th floor at the investment banking firm of Cantor, Fitzgerald, called it "War." She was there representing 800 Cantor Fitzgerald families.  

Holder doesn't think  it is War, certainly not Islamic Jihad  perpetrated that brilliant clear late summer day by 19 Martyrs, 15 Saudis among them.  He probably considers the catastrophe  just anothet garden variety, "manmade disaster,"  like  his colleague US Department of Homeland Security head, Janet Napolitano.  Holder has effectively criminalized terrorism by launching what many  of us consider as an expensive show trial.  Certainly those who showed up in Foley Square yesterday didn't want such a legal proceedings in their back yard. Call it NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard). That's the message these protesters were conveying to Holder and the Obama Administation. What they want is a military tribunal to undertake hearings and render swift justice.  Instead, many of us who witnessed 9/11 that fateful day  believe what will happen in Foley Square with this crriminal trial will be a media circus. A media circus  that will reveal vital intelligence and counterterrorism  secrets further emboldening the Jihadis to  launch swarrming attacks like last year's horrific Mumbai  Jihad Madness t that killed 170 people. 

Note in the news release  posted at  the 9/11 Never Forget  website  who did show up to speak at the Foley Square protests and be sure and watch the videos posted there.

Despite Cold, Heavy Rain and Wind, Large Crowd Gathers To Protest Trying Terrorists as Civilians

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 5, 2009 — Today, several thousand protesters gathered at Foley Square in New York City to rally against Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and 4 other 9/11 co-conspirators as civilians in federal court.

Despite bitter cold, strong winds and heavy rain the crowd stayed through the 2-hour rally. The event was organized by the 9/11 Coalition to Never Forget and featured speakers representing 9/11 family members, first responders and our troops.

Among the notable moments: actor Brian Dennehy read a statement from Judea and Ruth Pearl, the parents of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Dennehy, reading their words, said “We, who witnessed the darkest side of hell, and have since spent every moment of our lives studying the anatomy of terror, we refuse to accept the strategy of normalization that Holder’s decision represents. Terror is a crime against society, and should not be tried in the same court as crimes against individuals or against a particular country.”

Dennehy was one of several entertainment stars who issued a statement challenging Holder’s decision to bring the terrorist detainees to New York City for civilian trials, along with Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Danny Aiello, Robert Davi, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Ben Stein.

As the rain continued to pour and the wind howled, the crowd’s enthusiasm never waned, sending a powerful message to those seeking to bring war criminals like the 9/11 mastermind to trial in US civilian court: New Yorkers and their fellow Americans view this issue as one of national and Constitutional survival, and they will fight Holder’s decision all the way.

The rally was covered by national and local media and will be online at C-SPAN here.

Full List of Speakers:

MELISSA KEENE: “Star Spangled Banner”
STEVE MALZBERG (M.C.) Talk-Show Host
DEBRA BURLINGAME 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America
TIM BROWN The Bravest.com
PETER REGEN FDNY
BRIAN DENNEHY Actor
GREG & LAUREN MANNING 9/11 survivors
EDITH LUTNICK Representing 800 Families of Cantor Fitzgerald
ANDY McCARTHY Former Federal Prosecutor
CURTIS SLIWA Talk-Show Host
LEE IELPI & TERRY MULLAN FDNY Dads and Moms
DAVID BEAMER Father of Todd Beamer
ZUHDI JASSER American Islamic Forum for Democracy
ROBIN & RON GRIFFIN Gold Star Parents
DANIEL RODRIGUEZ: “God Bless America”

World Tribune had a report on Saudi 'panic' about the Shia insurgency in north Yemen backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.  The Saudis  have asked The Kingdom of Jordan for special ops units to prevent crossings into Saudi Arabia. Notice they didn't ask for US assistance as that would roil Al Qaeda supporters in the Kingdom, who bristle at infidel boots on the holy ground of Islam. Note also that the Saudis have indigenous Shia who balked at fighting their Mahdist brothers in Yemen. Who knows, perhaps, the Yemeni shia insugency could trigger a Shia uprising in the oppressed Saudi eastern province. A province underneath which is the vast lake of oil in that Gulf region  that bankrolls the Saudi Kingdom.

Note these comments from the World Tribune report:

Jordan has sent several hundred troops from its special operations forces to help the Saudi military with its many Shi'ite units contain the Yemeni Shi'ite rebellion, which has spread deep into the Arab kingdom.

"The Saudis are in a panic mode and don't have the troops or capabilities to stop the Yemeni Shi'ites," an intelligence source said.

The sources said Riyad's need for foreign forces stemmed from a refusal by Shi'ite-dominated Saudi units to fight the Believing Youth. They said this has led to the dismantling of several local security units familiar with the Saudi-Yemeni border.

Saudi officials have not confirmed the assertion of the Western intelligence sources. But on Nov. 27, Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khaled Bin Sultan acknowledged that Yemeni Shi'ite fighters held at least two southern Saudi villages for nearly a month. Later, officials said 15,000 Saudis had been evacuated from their homes.

The sources said Jordan has been the only Arab League state to respond to Saudi appeals for help in fighting the Iranian-backed Believing Youth movement. Believing Youth has been fighting an intermittent war in northern Yemen since 2004, but in November 2009 invaded southern Saudi Arabia and captured several border villages.

"The Saudi air force has been heavily bombing villages inside Yemen, but this has not made a dent in the capabilities of the Shi'ite rebels," the source said. "They have been well-trained by Iran and Hizbullah and have moved steadily north in Saudi Arabia."

The Saudi military has focused on trying to impose a blockade on northern Yemen. The Royal Saudi Naval Forces has bolstered its presence with at least four fast attack craft and missile boats and reported the destruction of weapons smuggling ships from neighboring Somalia.

"The infiltrating terrorists intended to attack our nation when they encroached upon our territories and terrorized our peaceful people," King Abdullah said in an address to his troops. "Undeterred by religion or ethical values, the intruders shed the blood of the people."

From the NYTimes (with thanks to Del):

A 46-year-old Binghamton University graduate student from Saudi Arabia was charged on Saturday with killing a retired anthropology professor, a specialist in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies with whom he had worked, the authorities said.

The student, Abdulsalam S. al-Zahrani, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of the professor, Richard T. Antoun, who was stabbed in his office in the university’s Science I building on Friday afternoon, said Gerald F. Mollen, the district attorney in Broome County. “We believe the murder weapon was recovered,” he said.

Mr. Mollen said in a statement that Mr. Zahrani and Professor Antoun had known each other through Mr. Zahrani’s “work in the graduate program.” Later, in an interview, the district attorney said that “they’ve known each other for quite some time.” The extent of their contact was not immediately clear.

Mr. Zahrani, a citizen of Saudi Arabia who is a graduate student in anthropology, was being held without bail at the Broome County Sheriff’s Correctional Facility after his arraignment in Town Court in Vestal, N.Y., Mr. Mollen said.

Mr. Mollen declined to say whether Mr. Zahrani had made any statements to the authorities. He said he was unsure if the suspect had retained a lawyer.

Professor Antoun, 77, received a doctorate from Harvard in 1963 and joined the Binghamton faculty in the early 1970s. He was “a sociocultural anthropologist who has conducted research among peasants in Jordan, urbanites in Lebanon, peasant farmers in Iran and migrants in Texas and Greece,” according to the university’s Web site. He retired in 1999 as professor emeritus.

“He dedicated his life to trying to understand the people of the Middle East,” said the professor’s sister Linda Miller, of Holden, Mass. “He never said an unkind word to anyone in his life.”

Ms. Miller’s husband, the Rev. David J. Miller, said that Professor Antoun had been married to his wife, Rosalyn, for 17 years and had a son, Nicholas, 40.

Professor Antoun’s work focused on religion and the social organization of tradition in Islamic law and ethics, among other things, according to the university’s Web site. He had taught at the University of Chicago, Manchester University in England and Cairo University, according to his curriculum vitae...

We'll keep an eye on this story. It is possible that the student felt the professor was harming Islam in some manner, but he will probably not make a statement to the press if he hasn't already.

IPT reports:

As the spotlight moves away from the Fort Hood massacre, one of America's most openly radical Islamist organizations has taken to the murderer's defense. As-Sabiqun, a Washington D.C.-based organization with branches in four other major American cities, released a flyer labeling shooter Nidal Malik Hasan as "victimized" and the "target of psychological warfare." The handout also defended convicted terrorists and suspects.

As-Sabiqun has repeatedly predicted the demise of the United States and dreams of "the Islamic State of North America no later than 2050." It has openly declared support for terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah, and even claimed it funded anti-American militants. With concerns growing over radical Islamist propaganda in the United States, As-Sabiqun is one of the leading organizations building a bridge between international Islamism and its developing American counterpart.

As-Sabiqun is headquartered in Washington D.C., but has branches in Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and Philadelphia. Its leader, Imam Abdul Alim Musa, is well-known in Islamist circles for spreading anti-American propaganda and militancy. Last weekend, Musa addressed the annual conference of the Muslim Students Association – Persian Speaking group, a Shia branch of the national Muslim Students Association primarily for Shia Muslims. There, Musa saluted the Iranian Revolution as the "greatest epic in modern, even ancient history" and urged the students to have patience as the United States collapsed:

"Well I'm telling you, it's very simple. I think you got the message now. We're in a big war brothers and sisters. This is as big as it gets for the United States. We are just like it is during the 60s and 70s. So if you're gonna be Muslim, buckle down and be a tough one because in the final analysis the U.S. is finished."

Musa was applauded following his conclusion, in which he honored the survival of the Iranian Revolution and its student supporters in the United States:

"Your survival has made you stronger and better and better in management and organization than anybody else, just by your survival. Remember, a revolutionary do [sic] not have to win any war. They only have to survive, even if you lose 90 percent of your people. You have to understand revolutionary warfare. If you lose 90 percent of your wealth and people and you still moving around and mobile, you can come back. That's the rules of revolutionary warfare – to survive. I'm trying to tell you – the war is already won. [Musa laughs.] They just have to fall over."

This is not the first time this year that Musa has preached hate and militancy to an American Muslim student organization. In a February 19^th speech to the MSA at Berkeley, Musa explained how he funneled money to African jihadists with the intention of conquering the United States:

"So we have seen movements, because although we was in (UI word) in the first stage, and the next stage we were using criminal wealth to help our brothers, you know our brothers in Algeria and in Africa, they had fought the United States government, they was in exile. They knew about a revolution, but they didn't know nothing about money. Well, since I was a criminal, I knew all about making money. So all the criminal money that I made I would take it to the brothers and say – OK, you guys, buy me some weapons, you'll go back, we'll take over the United States. That was the dream that we had. You got to dream big. Ain't no sense in dreaming small, right? Live your dreams."

Musa has traveled abroad to support Islamist movements worldwide. The As-Sabiqun website indicates that Musa traveled abroad several times to Iran. During a 1996 conference in South Africa, he stated:

"And this religion Islam will dominate all other religions whether the Americans, whether the British, whether the French, whether the Russians, whether the Japanese, whether all of them get together in one solid group to fight Islam. It don't make no difference. In the final analysis, Allah (swt) said that his religion—Islam—will rise to the forefront, will be elevated to the role of leadership in this world, whether they all like it or not."

That same year, Musa called for an Islamic state in London during a conference there that featured a wide assortment of radicals, including representatives of FIS [Islamic Salvation Front], Hizbullah and Hamas.

As-Sabiqun's website describes how, "During a rally in July 1999, Imam Musa displayed a cashier's check made out to 'Hamas, Palestine,' to protest the 1996 U.S. law which declared Hamas a terrorist organization." On a February 18 2007 broadcast of Fox News, Musa stated, "I know Hamas. They are nice people. Very nice people." Musa has repeatedly cheered Hizbullah's "victory" over Israel and has saluted suicide bombers, saying:

"When they go out and strike at the heart of Zionism. They are not suicide bombers they are heroes they are she-roes, isn't that right? That's a part of our deen, that's a part of our religion, let's not become weak boned and apologetic..."

Musa has also fueled the flames of international hatred against the United States. In an appearance last month on Iran's government-controlled Press TV, Musa pitted America against Islam:

"Islamophobia to us right now, coming out of 9-1-1 (9/11), is something that the [American] government and the Israelis did in the U.S. to justify a global attack on Islam … the perception management now by the media, gives the media and gives the military justification to invade our countries, to stop us in airports, to exclude us from society."

The extremism expressed by As-Sabiqun and Musa might easily be passed off as the bizarre ranting of a radical cleric and his hateful organization. However, as the Fort Hood massacre, the FBI shooting of Luqman Abdullah and other recent investigations show, fiery rhetoric can lead to violent plotting. The lesson of Fort Hood is not to ignore open self-radicalization, but to heed those who openly preach our destruction from within.

The mad case being brought by the U.S. government against some U.S. Navy Seals, who brought back one of the most dangerous Muslim terrorists in iraq (whom they would have had every justification to simply kill during capture), alive and -- save for a few bruises, which bruises are what all the prosecutorial bruit is about -- unharmed, is discussed  here.

Listen here. .

The usual MSM reports insisting that the English Defence League are 'far right' or 'racist' or 'football hooligans'. That 11 of them were arrested for public order offences when they apparently tried to go where they wanted to and not where the police said they had to go. This is one of the better reports from Sky News.
Supt Mick Luke, in charge of the police operation, said tempers flared when some protesters tried to break off from the agreed route of the march.
He told Sky News: "There were a few who were determined to go where we didn't want them to go, although they eventually complied."
During the protest some EDL members, with their faces covered with scarves and hooded tops, chanted: "We want our country back."
Others waved placards which read: "Protect Women, No To Sharia" and "No Surrender".
The crowd also sang football chants before gathering next to the city's famous statue of Robin Hood, which had been covered with chip-board to prevent it getting damaged.
All of those arrested during the march by 500 EDL members were held for public order offences, police said.
The EDL claims it is not a racist organisation and has no links to the BNP and is making a stand against the threat of Islamic extremism.
One man, who did not want to be identified, defended the group's right to protest.
"Everyone says the EDL are Nazis but I am a black British man. My grandfather was Jewish so I would never be a Nazi," he said.
"The British Government doesn't really represent local people. The BNP get votes out of people's frustration."
An EDL spokesman said they had organised the demo to coincide with a home-coming parade by the Mercian Regiment, which lost five soldiers during their recent tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Supporters of the Unite Against Fascism group also held a counter-demonstration in the city.James Newton, from Nottinghamshire Stop the BNP, said: "The reason we're here is because we believe the EDL is clearly a racist organisation. There are people who say we shouldn't turn up but if we don't it will give the EDL confidence that they can do what they want." And we can't have that can we?
Other than this brief mention of their hurling missiles at the police there was nothing about the conduct of the trotskyist UAF and the Stop the BNP (who were not actually there, they detest the EDL so, but don't let facts get in the way of a chance to sneer at the proles) despite their announced intention to form up elsewhere from where the police decided was best for them.
The Daily Mail had a report on first with pictures and some subsequent reports followed theirs.
Earlier 5,000 Christmas shoppers gathered to watch 500 soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment march through the city.
A 43-year-old EDL member, a serving soldier who did not want to be named, said: 'We came here to support our lads and the UAF and other militants have turned up. I think it's disgusting.
'I look at their protest and there's a Pakistani flag flying with a Muslim symbol. Their protest isn't against the EDL, they're protesting against the troops and it's anti-British.
'They haven't got one Union Jack or St George's Flag. I'm not a fascist, I'm not a Nazi but I am British.'

Gates: 2-4 years of big Afghan role for US troops

Just as in Iraq, the U.S. eventually will turn over provinces to local security forces, allowing the United States to bring the number of troops down steadily, according to Gates, who appeared on three Sunday talk shows with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss President Barack Obama's new Afghan war plan.

That plan includes an increase of 30,000 U.S. troops, followed by a scheduled transition to a greater role for Afghan forces that would start in July 2011. Obama's plan would increase to 100,000 the number of U.S. troops there, marking the largest expansion of the war since it began eight years ago.

Gates acknowledged that the additional U.S. forces will mean more casualties at first. He also said he's happy with the results of an offensive in Helmand province.

"I think one of the reasons that our military leaders are pretty confident is that they have already begun to see changes where the Marines are present in southern Helmand," Gates said.

The Pentagon chief said the initial U.S. troop withdrawal in July 2011 might involve only a small number of troops. He rejected suggestions that setting a transition date would embolden the Taliban. They read newspapers and are able to determine public opinion in the United States and Europe, he said.

Gates said he doesn't believe the Taliban will get more aggressive, and would welcome it if they lay low until the target date in 2011 because that would give coalition troops opportunities to make great progress in stabilizing Afghanistan.

Clinton said one area that may not show much progress is winning over Taliban leaders.

They "have to renounce al-Qaida, renounce violence. They have to be willing to abide by the constitution of Afghanistan and live peacefully," she said.

"We have no firm information whether any of those leaders would be at all interested in following that kind of a path," she said. "In fact, I'm highly skeptical that any of them would."

But both Clinton and Gates said having a target date will help move both countries toward a successful transition.

"What we've done and what the president's direction to the commanders on the ground is very clearly: We want this to move. We want it to move quickly," said Clinton.

Obama's combination of a troop increase and a transition target is intended to balance "a demonstration of resolve with also communicating a sense of urgency to the Afghan government that they must step up to the plate in terms of recruiting their soldiers, training their soldiers and getting their soldiers into the field," Gates said

"It's an effort to try and let the Afghans know that while we intend to have a relationship and support them for a long time, the nature of that relationship is going to begin to change in July of 2011," Gates said. "And as the security component comes down, the economic, development and the political relationship will become a bigger part of the relationship."

Clinton and Gates appeared on ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press." The interviews were taped Saturday and the networks provided transcripts in advance of the shows' broadcast.

From Der Spiegel (h/t: Gates of Vienna):

Few would deny that Muslims too are victims of Islamist terror. But a new study by the Combating Terrorism Center in the US has shown that an overwhelming majority of al-Qaida victims are, in fact, co-religionists.

In the battle against unbelievers, can one also kill Muslims? Even the terror network al-Qaida is troubled by this question.

A leading al-Qaida ideologue for the terror network, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has developed his own theologically-based theory of collateral damage that allows militants to kill Muslims when it is unavoidable.

Even the Iraqi affiliates of Osama bin Laden's terror group, who are known to be particularly bloodthirsty, claim that they too consider this question. For instance, in a message claiming responsibility for an August attack in Baghdad, the group wished those Sunnis injured in the "operation" a speedy recovery and expressed their hope that those killed would be accepted by God as "martyrs."

But even as such apologetic communiqués from al-Qaida show the terror network stylizing itself as a defender of the true faith wrestling with religious concepts, they also make it look as though any dead Muslims are regretful but isolated cases. The facts, though, tell a different story.

Between 2004 and 2008, for example, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for 313 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 3,010 people. And even though these attacks include terrorist incidents in the West -- in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 -- only 12 percent of those killed (371 deaths) were Westerners.

New Report Shows Many More Muslims Killed Than Non-Muslims

It is, of course, no surprise that al-Qaida kills more Muslims than non-Muslims -- particularly for people in the Islamic world. But a new report by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the United States' Military Academy at West Point in New York -- which has gathered together these and other relevant figures in one report ("Deadly Vanguards: A Study Of al-Qaida's Violence Against Muslims "), spells out the discrepancy in black and white.

The authors of the study admit that their report likely omits a number of Muslim victims. But that was the price of their rigorous methodology, used in an effort to avoid accusations of partisanship.

The researchers only counted the attacks for which al-Qaida claimed responsibility, thus preventing accusations that they were seeking to make al-Qaida look even worse than it is. Still, it is well known that al-Qaida does not claim responsibility for every attack perpetrated, meaning that many victims are likely left out of the report. Furthermore, the researchers only included attacks reported on by the Arab media and relied on the numbers they reported -- out of a conviction that the Arab media is more highly regarded in the Muslim world than the Western media. That, though, is not always the case.

Blurred Figures And Inexact Categories Are Problematic

The greatest potential for inaccuracy in the report, however, is the placing of victims into only one of two categories: Western or non-Western. The assumption being that Western would also mean non-Muslim and vice versa. The problems with such a system of categorization are myriad. Not all those living in the Muslim world are Muslim: In Iraq, al-Qaida has launched attacks against Kurds, Yazidi and Christians. Secondly, a lot of the Muslim victims are actually -- and deliberately -- Shiites. A Sunni group, al-Qaida considers the Shiites to be unbelievers.

Unfortunately news reports don't tend to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, explains Scott Helfstein, one of the writers of the report. This is also the reason for the non-Western and Western categories. "It is easy for journalists to count nationality but they rarely, if ever, identify religion," Helfstein writes in reply to e-mailed questions from SPIEGEL ONLINE. The report's writers were well aware of the problem. "But we were not able to find a way around it," Helfstein notes.

Indeed, the report's authors confront the shortcomings of their methodology head on. In one passage, they remove attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan from their calculations altogether, resulting in the share of Westerners killed in al-Qaida attacks rising to a much more significant 39 percent. If one removes the Madrid and London attacks from the statistics, though, the share of murdered Westerners drops back down to 13 percent.

Perhaps more significantly, if one only examines attacks in 2007 and disregards those having been perpetrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the share of non-Westerners killed by al-Qaida rises to 99 percent. In 2008, it was 96 percent.

Non-Westerners 38 Times More Likely To Be Killed

Put another way, between 2006 and 2008, non-Westerners were 38 times more likely to be killed by an al-Qaida attack than Westerners...

Following up on this story, Roger Kimball writes:

What do you think? Professor Richard T. Antoun, a 77-year-old emeritus professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, was a peace activist who preached the gospel of tolerance among religions.

Unfortunately, his message of tolerance and accommodation failed to make the appropriate impression on Abdulsalam S. Al-Zahrani, a 46-year-old Muslim graduate student at the University. On Friday, Al-Zahrani went to Professor Antoun’s office and stabbed him several times with a kitchen knife. Antoun was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

According to Gerald F. Mollen, the Broome County district attorney, there was “no indication of religious or ethnic motivation” in the killing.

I’m glad the DA told us this. Otherwise we might get the wrong idea. Professor Antoun, though raised as a Methodist, had recently become interested in Judaism through his wife.

Al-Zahrani, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, recently wrote an angry letter to the editor of a Middle Eastern newspaper explaining that “no failure equals the Israeli” and describing Israel as “the shame of humanity.”

So, what do you think, Watson? Here’s a query for the DA: what would count as “an indication” that a “religious or ethnic motivation” was involved in a murder? Just asking.

I don't know why I started humming this today.
I always thought of the phrase 'backroom boys' as an RAF thing.  The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable attributes it to Lord Beaverbrook in 1941.
The film Destry Rides again in which Marlene Dietrich sings The Boys in the Back Room is from 1939 so the phrase is older than I (and the dictionary compiler) thought. 

Except, the Backroom Boys that Scots band Nazareth sung about were gamblers so perhaps that was what was what they were up to in back of the Bottleneck Saloon. Nothing to do with radar at all.

She was a good egg:

Yes, I'm sure Islam apologists will point out that Anjem Choudary is an extremist nutter. (Actually, he seems quite intelligent and lucid to me, and he certainly knows his Islam.) But Dr Naseem, Chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque is not regarded as "extreme", and are the two so very far apart? Dr Naseem doesn't get much of a word in - he is elderly and not so quick on the uptake as Choudary. But his slow approach - he insinuates that Muslims were not the real perpetrators of 9/11 or 7/7, rather than glorying in their victory - is no less threatening. Think about it - Birmingham is England's second major city after London, and this is its "Central" Mosque. So if Jihad, albeit stealth Jihad, isn't mainstream Islam, what is?

This debate is on "Brit Asia TV", so don't expect objective reporting. "Asian" is PC-speak for Muslim, much to the annoyance of many Hindus and Sikhs.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Listen here.

Watch here.

And then email the link to everyone, to every ListServ, to every journalist, to every office of every politician, in the Western world you know.