Media is NOT to blame for Islamic misconceptions

Not to mention 1350 years of violent islamic rampages. You all know I am going to rip this crap to shreds, let’s rock

By Alan Blank, 3 March, 2008, Daily Pilot
The managing editor of one of the country’s biggest newspapers thinks news organizations ought to hire more Muslim reporters.
-Really, did he call for additional good old boys to report on NASCAR? How about San Fran based reporters to show support for gay rights? How about he do his job and report the news and stop attempting to influence it.

Philip Bennett, the Washington Post’s managing editor, said reporters often struggle with understanding Islam during a speech Monday at UCI about the difficulties of covering the religion.
-Partially true, they have a difficult time explaining away muslim atrocities, especially to other muslims.

Bennett’s speech focused on the media’s need to cover issues concerning Islam in an in-depth, long-term manner.
-Which will please his muslim backers but will not be read by anyone. Newspapers are losing readership while blogs are increasing. I’m thinking we do not want to be lied to anymore.

To illustrate this point he drew mainly from quotes of notable colleagues and statistical polls, rarely giving his own opinion directly.
-I didn’t ask him for his opinion.

“Six of 10 Americans, according to a 2007 ABC Poll, don’t understand the basic tenets of Islam,” Bennett said.
-Yeah, it’s the entire raising your children to hate and murder thang, we don’t understand that part. We also watch what muslims do more than we listen to what they say

He attributed this to the lack of Muslims working in American newsrooms.
-If he is going to hire a special reporter to explain everything he is going to need one hell of a building and budget.

“At the Post I want more Muslim readers and I want more Muslim journalists,” he said.
-Sounds great, I stopped reading the post years ago, have at them. Make sure you get a prayer room, some low sinks and muslim friendly food. Oh, lay off your Jewish, Gay and white reporters. You can keep the females but teach them their rightful place.

Words poorly translated from Arabic to English are a big source of confusion caused by the lack of Muslim voices in the American media, according to Bennett.
-One of the stupidest of muslim lies. Muslims translated the koran into dozens of languages not infidels. If there is a problem they caused it. Keep in mind only a very low percentage of the worlds muslims read at all much less read arabic.

Zeyad Maasarani, 22, a Muslim reporter for California’s most circulated Muslim publication, Southern California in Focus, agrees with Bennett that terms like “jihad,” “madrasa” and “hijab” are a big source of the public’s misunderstanding of Islam.
-And muslims do not understand western words like “freedom of religion”, “freedom of speech””respect: and “tolerance of others”

Gene Simmons Smarter than I Thought

Well, I would have to admit that I’m not much of a Gene Simmons fan, but after reading the following, he has moved up a few notches on my list…  I don’t agree with all of what he says, but he’s right on the money when it comes to the Nanny State, the War on Terror, and Capital Punishment.

New Zealand’s The Dominion Post recently conducted an interview with KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons. A few excerpts from the chat follow:
Blabbermouth.net

On whether he cares whom he offends:

“Hell, no. I’m too rich to care. People give me a hard time for being a ruthless businessman but these are the kinds of people who cut my grass and take out my trash. I, meanwhile, am deliriously happy.

“Why? Because I get to be me. People say money can’t buy you happiness but I have no time for such loser notions. I am happy and I’m hungrier for money now than I’ve ever been.”

On his political views:

“I’ll tell you where I stand politically. In terms of social issues, I’m very liberal. I support gay marriages and I think women should rule the world and get paid as much money as men. But in terms of fiscal issues, I’m very conservative. I’m against the welfare state and I support giving people jobs, not charity. In my view, if you’re too lazy to work, you need a bitch slap from God.

“In terms of foreign policy, I’m conservative too. I don’t buy the idea that if our troops leave the Middle East, the Taliban and al Qaeda would wake up the next day and say ‘You know what? I think we should turn over a new leaf and stop trying to blow up the world. Let’s just stay here in the desert and read books.’ If you think that’s gonna happen, you’re on crack. These people are nut jobs.”

Risk Analysis of U.S. Cities Provides Some Surprises

Red locations exceed casualty-based benchmark (PVI > 0.917) and incidence-based benchmark (PVI > −0.60); yellow locations exceed incidence-based benchmark (PVI > −0.60) but not casualty-based benchmark (PVI 0.917); and green locations do not exceed either benchmark.

US Cities At High Risk For Terrorist Attacks Identified

ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2008) — A University of Arizona researcher has created a new system to dramatically show American cities their relative level of vulnerability to bioterrorism.

Walter W. Piegorsch, an expert on environmental risk, has placed 132 major cities — from Albany, N.Y., to Youngstown, Ohio — on a color-coded map that identifies their level of risk based on factors including critical industries, ports, railroads, population, natural environment and other factors.

Piegorsch is the director of a new UA graduate program in interdisciplinary statistics and a professor of mathematics in the College of Science, as well as a member of the UA’s BIO5 Institute.

The map marks high-risk areas as red (for example, Houston and, surprisingly, Boise, ID), midrange risk as yellow (San Francisco) and lower risk as green (Tucson). The map shows a wide swath of highest-risk urban areas running from New York down through the Southeast and into Texas. Boise is the only high-risk urban area that lies outside the swath.

The model employs what risk experts call a benchmark vulnerability metric, which shows risk managers each city’s level of risk for urban terrorism.

Taliban Destroy Mobile Phone Towers

Stoopid izz as stoopid duzz.

Taliban carry out threats to destroy mobile phone towers
mobilemarketingnews.co.uk

4/4/08
Reports last weekend have indicated that Taliban gunmen have carried out a threat to destroy mobile phome towers in Afghanistan.

The Taliban last week imposed an ultimatum on operators to switch off their networks from 5:00 am until 19:00 pm. to stop occupying forces tracking its militants’ whereabouts.

Attacks on Thursday and Saturday night hit two mobile towers in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

The actions will be sure to raise fears that the country’s four mobile operators – three of them foreign firms – might have to review whether or not to maintain a presence in the country.

According to Reuters, an estimated investment of several hundred million dollars is at stake.

Mobile phone companies started trading in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and have often been accused of colluding with US military forces by insurgents.

The Taliban rely on mobile phones to keep lines of communication open.

Mobile phones are playing a big part in the middle eastern situation. Al-Qaeda have used mobile phones to distribute footage of its leaders giving speeches from secret hideaways.

Muslim Woman Arrested for Threatening a Repeat of the UI Shootings

Hmmm.. I see that Sudden Jihad Syndrome affects women as well as men:

Muslim Woman Arrested for Terrorist Threat Against University of Illinois

The Hawaii Reporter 

By Jim Kouri —  A 24-year-old Wheaton, Illinois resident was arrested for making e-mail threats against the University of Illinois-Chicago campus. Mahtab Shirani was nabbed on Tuesday by members of the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), according to John W. Richardson, Chief of the University Police Department. Shirani was charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Chicago with one count of making threats through use of interstate commerce, which is a felony offense.

According to the police complaint, an individual subsequently identified as Shirani, who is a student at the University, sent an anonymous e-mail to a university administrator threatening a repeat of the shooting incident that had taken place the previous day at Northern Illinois University . The threat stated that a group of five individuals would carry out the attack sometime during the spring 2008 semester. However, the caller failed to give a reason for making the threat.

Losing My Religion

Warner found us an interesting article to read while sipping down that morning cup of coffee:

Young Iraqis are losing their faith in religion
By Sabrina Tavernise – IHT

BAGHDAD: After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara Sami, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

Miniskirt-clad Women Protest Rape of Woman by Taxi Drivers

Johannesburg, South Africa may have ended Apartheid, but women’s rights are still progressing slowly…

Anyone care to take a stab at what religion the Taxi drivers might be? 

Castrate taxi drivers, says miniskirt protest

March 04, 2008 – iol.co.za

Hundreds of men and women protested in Johannesburg on Tuesday against a recent attack on a miniskirt-clad woman at the city’s Noord Street Taxi Rank.

One of the protesters, Wendy Morgan, said she thought the taxi drivers needed to be castrated.

Radio personality Redi Direko, dressed in a miniskirt, orange strap top, and high-heel sandals, led a group of miniskirt-wearing women in a march from the Art Gallery.

They demanded an end to assaults on women who chose to “dress up and embrace their femininity.

“Drivers need to be taught how to behave, this doesn’t end here, there is no dress code for women who frequent the taxi rank, and we say to the drivers ‘mind your job’,” Direko said.

She was speaking to taxi association bosses once the mass of people reached the taxi rank.

The protesters wore T-shirts saying “Pissed off women” and chanted songs while holding placards reading “We love our minis”, “We aren’t road signs, you need to respect us”, and “There are no shortcuts to women’s rights”.

The march was the second this month in reaction to an attack last month by taxi drivers and hawkers on a 25-year-old woman, Nwabisa Ngcukana, for wearing a miniskirt.

Taxi drivers and hawkers allegedly tore off her clothing because she was being “taught a lesson about wearing a miniskirt”.

They also allegedly put their fingers in her private parts while others poured alcohol over her head and called her names.

Taxi drivers gathered at the rank, screaming and whistling at the women who were wearing miniskirts.

A nearby woman was asked to translate what they were saying and said: “They are saying that women need to be taught a lesson, they should not wear skirts or short tops at the rank, because they are provoking the men.”