Wednesday - February 08, 2006

The Blame Game

The Washington Post has decided that neo-con right-wingers in Denmark and theocratic fascists in the Middle East are to blame for all the trouble over “those cartoons”. I think the problem goes back a lot further than that and it actually started with socialists in Europe and Liberals in America about thirty years ago. What say you ... ?

The Uses of Cartoons
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
(WASHINGTON POST)

Extremists and political opportunists across the Muslim world are rushing to exploit the controversy over the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Late to the game but conspicuous in its crudeness is the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which yesterday oversaw a second day of demonstrations outside European embassies while a newspaper it controls announced a contest for Holocaust cartoons. The Taliban is probably behind violent demonstrations in Afghanistan, including one directed at the largest U.S. military base in the country. And the Bush administration has rightly fingered the secular but cynical government of Syria for orchestrating the burning of embassies in Damascus and Beirut.

A clash of civilizations between Muslims and the West is the fondest ambition of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, from Britain to Indonesia. But it also is a convenient refuge for authoritarian regimes hoping to resist the rising pressure for political liberalization in the Middle East. That explains why Muslim outrage over the original publication of the cartoons in Denmark was patiently cultivated not by Osama bin Laden but by the Egyptian and Saudi governments. According to an account in the Wall Street Journal, Egypt’s ambassador in Denmark worked with local Islamic clerics as they prepared an inflammatory propaganda campaign about the cartoons for dissemination through the Middle East last fall. In December a delegation of the Danish militants was received by senior clerics and government officials in Cairo, where the manufactured outrage contrasts with the quotidian persecution of a Christian minority and publication of anti-Semitic libels in the government-controlled press.

Europeans, too, have participated in the stoking of passions, if for different reasons. The cartoons, whose vulgarity and offensiveness are beyond question, were published as a calculated insult last September by a right-wing newspaper in a country where bigotry toward the minority Muslim population is a major, if frequently unacknowledged, problem. The Danish government depends for support in Parliament on a far-right populist party with an anti-immigrant agenda: Maybe that’s why Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrogantly refused to meet with ambassadors from Muslim countries last fall, when the controversy might have been defused.

- More noise from WAPO here...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/08/2006 at 08:31 AM   
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   Tuesday - February 07, 2006

Moosie Moron Follow-Up

Remember Omar Khayam in the “Meanwhile In London” post below? If you missed it, Mr. Khayam was part of recent demonstrations in London during which he dressed up as a suicide bomber to protest “those cartoons”. Well, it seems our little moron is in a wee spot of trouble today ....

‘Suicide Bomber’ Cartoon Protester Arrested
Tuesday February 7, 2006
(GUARDIAN-UK)

Omar Khayam, who dressed as a suicide bomber during London protests against the prophet Muhammad cartoons, was arrested today, Bedfordshire police said. The 22-year-old was pictured wearing a simulated suicide bombing outfit during protests against the cartoons outside the Danish embassy. The images satirise the prophet Muhammad and were first published in a Danish newspaper.

In 2001, Mr Khayam was sentenced to six years in prison for possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply. He is still on licence after being released, halfway through his sentence, last year. A Bedfordshire police spokesman said he was arrested in Bedford under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 this morning for breaching the terms of his licence. The arrest was carried out at the instigation of the Home Office.

Inmates released on parole can be returned to prison if they reoffend, breach specific conditions of their licence or fail to attend appointments with their probation officer. They can also be recalled for “bad behaviour” that causes concern to their probation officer and undermines their supervision in the community.

A source who knew Mr Khayam in prison told the Daily Mirror he had been influenced by extremists while in jail. “He was a very quiet guy and would only ever speak out when he was with other extremists,” the source said. Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said deciding whether to recall Mr Khayam to jail would be “very difficult”.

“You couldn’t have a condition of parole that you don’t take part in a protest about your faith,” he added. The student’s probation officers had to decide whether dressing up as a suicide bomber constituted bad behaviour, he said. Yesterday, Mr Khayam apologoised for his protest, saying he had not intended to cause offence to victims of the July 7 London bombings or their families.

- There’s even more to this moron’s story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/07/2006 at 06:42 AM   
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This Has Gone Far Enough

All right. Enough is enough. It’s time to bring this whole “cartoon fatwah” crap to an abrupt halt. Burning Danish flags and boycotting cheese from Denmark is one thing. Torching a Danish embassy was reprehensible. But when they start murdering Catholic priests, it’s time to knock some sense into people’s heads. I ask the entire Muslim world: how does a silly cartoon justify killing a man of God? Be ashamed ...

Pope Prays for Priest Slain in Turkey
February 7, 2006, 2:14 AM EST
VATICAN CITY (AP)

Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that he hoped the blood shed by a Roman Catholic priest slain in Turkey over the weekend would become the “seeds of hope” to build a lasting fraternity between peoples.

Benedict sent telegrams of condolences to church authorities in Italy and Turkey following the killing Sunday of the Rev. Andrea Santoro, 60 (pictured at right), who was shot as he prayed in his church in the Black Sea port city of Trabzon, where he was the parish priest for a small Christian community.

Turkish police arrested a high school student as the suspected killer on Tuesday, Turkey’s semi-official news agency reported. Police refused to comment on the report. Police captured the suspect in a raid in downtown Trabzon and also seized a gun, the Anatolia news agency said. Benedict said he hoped “that the blood that he shed will become the seeds of hope for building an authentic fraternity among peoples.”

The gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar”—Arabic for “God is great”—as he escaped, police and witnesses said. The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, suggested Monday the slaying was related to recent protests in the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, saying in a front-page article that the killing “fits into the climate of tension in recent days.”

Italy’s foreign minister, Gianfranco Fini, said he stressed in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, of the need to “isolate extremist elements” in Turkey following the slaying, particularly in light of the protests over the caricatures.

The Vatican newspaper reprinted a letter dated Feb. 11, 2005 that Santoro wrote to the missionary center of the Rome diocese, in which he wrote of the need to exchange the “spiritual gifts” between East and West, but also complained of an “emptiness” in the Middle East that needed to be filled by Christ.

Church officials and ordinary Italians have decried the slaying. A funeral for Santoro was planned at Rome’s main basilica, St. John Lateran, Italian news reports said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/07/2006 at 04:00 AM   
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   Monday - February 06, 2006

Meanwhile In London …

Muslim protestors in Britain are running around dressed up as suicide bombers and carrying signs glorifying last summer’s tube bombings? Fortunately, the British government is having none of that. Probably because most British citizens are mad as hell about it and have been pressuring police to stop it. Why do I get the feeling that we’re looking at 1914 or 1939 all over again ... ?

Number 10 Backs Protest Arrests
LONDON (BBC)

The behaviour of some Muslim protesters demonstrating in London over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad was “completely unacceptable” Downing Street has said. There have been calls for arrests after placards glorifying the 7 July bombings and calls for the enemies of Islam to be killed featured in Friday’s demo. A Number 10 statement said: “The police should have our full support in any actions they may wish to take.”

Scotland Yard has received more than 100 complaints about the protest. Earlier, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said that the police must bear down “very heavily” on those responsible. No protesters at the demonstration outside the Danish embassy - over the cartoons first printed in a Danish newspaper - were arrested on Friday, but specialist police officers were understood to have taken film and photographic evidence.

One protester, who dressed as a suicide bomber, has said he made “no apologies”. Speaking to the Daily Express newspaper, Omar Khayam, 22, from Bedford, said he wanted to highlight “double standards”. Mr Hain told the BBC it was worrying that demonstrators were “doing things and saying things that are completely unacceptable and intolerable”.

“The police need to bear down on them very heavily and trace down those who have committed offences and prosecute them where they can get the evidence,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “There’s freedom of speech on the one hand, that’s sacrosanct, but on the other hand incitement to terror, incitement to suicide bombing, all of those are clear infringements of the law.” Radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed told Today that in Islam, whoever insulted a prophet must be “punished and executed”.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/06/2006 at 07:02 AM   
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Burning Down The House

It doesn’t take much to set these people off, does it? Yesterday they burned down the embassies in Syria and today they’re torching them in Lebanon. The angry Arabs are burning down the house around their ears and their women stand submissively behind them wrapped in sacks and forced into being nothing more than baby factories to produce more angry Arabs. This unhappy story will have only one ending and you’re really not going to like the final chapters. Trust me ....

Lebanon Protesters Set Embassy Afire
Anger Over Caricatures of Muhammad Targets Denmark, Christian Neighborhood
Monday, February 6, 2006
BEIRUT (WASHINGTON POST)

Thousands of Muslim protesters, enraged over the publication of caricatures of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, set ablaze the Danish Embassy on Sunday and rampaged through a predominantly Christian neighborhood, escalating sectarian tensions in a country whose melange of faiths can sometimes serve as a microcosm of the world’s religious divide.

The unrest, which involved as many as 20,000 protesters, was some of the worst in Lebanon in years, and leaders from across the political and religious spectrums appealed for calm. In vain, some Muslim clerics tried to step into the hours-long fray to end the clashes, which news agencies said left at least one demonstrator dead and 30 wounded.

But in the streets, fistfights broke out between Christian and Muslim Lebanese after protesters threw rocks at a Maronite Catholic Church, broke windows at the Lebanese Red Cross office and shattered windshields of cars. Bands of Christian youths congregated with sticks and iron bars, promising to defend their neighborhoods. “Those who are committing these acts have nothing to do with Islam or with Lebanon,” Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora told Lebanon’s Future Television before the protests ended. “This is absolutely not the way we express our opinions.”

The unrest in Lebanon, mired in its own political uncertainty, was the latest turn in a controversy that has spread worldwide following the publication of the cartoons in Denmark and other Western countries and showed no signs of ebbing Sunday. Demonstrators took to the streets in Afghanistan, Iraq, the West Bank and New Zealand. A day earlier, protesters burned the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria after charging past security barriers. The Islamic Army in Iraq, a Sunni Arab insurgent group, issued an Internet statement calling for attacks on Danish companies and nationals. The group urged followers to “catch some Danish people and cut them into pieces.” There are about 500 Danish soldiers in Iraq.

In their scope and vitriol, the protests say much about the state of relations between the West and the Muslim world in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. The anger was ignited by 12 caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that were commissioned in September by a Danish newspaper to challenge Islam’s ban on depicting the prophet. Along with picturing him, some lampooned him. After protests began, other European papers reprinted the cartoons.

They declared it an issue of freedom of expression, a cornerstone of democratic values; many Muslims cast it as another insult in a growing conflict that is most often reflected here through the lens of a religious struggle with an American-led West. “What are you going to do?” asked a leaflet circulated in Beirut that called for Sunday’s protest. “Bush and his group have invaded and are fighting war by all means available,” it added. “The goal: destroying the Islamic nation ideologically, economically and existentially, and stealing and looting its resources.”

The protests in Lebanon came in response to calls issued in mosques Friday and in similar leaflets circulated in Beirut and other cities. Most stayed peaceful. But bands broke through police lines at the Danish Embassy, and hundreds of other protesters surged through nearby streets, waving green religious flags and shouting, “God is greatest.” Police shot into the air and fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters, who threw stones, set ablaze firetrucks and overturned police vehicles. More than 150 were arrested, according to news service reports. The Danish Embassy was gutted and its granite facade scorched. Acrid black smoke spilled out of its windows hours later, as firefighters tried to contain the blaze. Workers swept up glass that littered the streets of the neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh.



- More on this story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/06/2006 at 06:20 AM   
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   Sunday - February 05, 2006

They Just Don’t Get It

I have been giving a great deal of thought to the recent kerfuffle over the Danish cartoons that have the entire Muslim world in an uproar. I’ve come to the conclusion that Muslims just don’t get it. This thought came to me while reading an article in the Washington Post today that put it all into a unique perspective.

The WAPO interviewed several American Muslims to get their opinion on the recent riots and embassy burnings in the Middle East. I noticed that every one of the interviewees seemed to be blinded to the hatred and violence being done in the name of their religion.

It’s as if the Muslims, including the educated, well-to-do ones in the US are looking at the world with a “everything is someone else’s fault, we deserve respect” viewpoint. It’s as if to a man and woman they are incapable of looking at themselves as others see them. Here is an example ....

Area Muslims React With Tempered Anger
Some Say Depiction Overstepped Liberties
Sunday, February 5, 2006
(WASHINGTON POST)

Wearing a brown golf cap against the cold drizzle, Rocky Omary stood outside Walima Cafe in Falls Church, where he and about 50 other men of Middle Eastern descent had just watched the Tunisian soccer team take a drubbing from the Nigerians.

That trouncing was bad enough. But Omary had other, more disturbing, insults on his mind: specifically, the recent publication in European newspapers of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

“I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails about it, and I’m distributing them all,” said Omary, a Damascus native who sells real estate in Northern Virginia. “There is a limit to freedom. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Let’s have some respect.”

“Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should say something,” the teenager said. “If somebody showed a picture of the pope with a bomb on his head, that would cause a great public outcry. Nobody would be talking about freedom of speech.”

Washington area Muslims say they are closely following the furor in Europe and other parts of the world sparked by the cartoons, which first appeared in Denmark and Norway. In interviews yesterday, they expressed anger and hurt feelings. And although they said they recognized the value of freedom of speech, they said the freedom must be matched with respect and responsibility.

“Technically, you have the right to walk into a crowded theater and yell ‘Fire,’ “ said Uzma Unus, 34, a teacher in Sterling who is also vice president of ADAMS. “But is that responsible?”

Yesterday, crowds in Syria set fire to the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish embassies. And, according to a wire report, a radical Islamic preacher in Lebanon demanded that the Danish editor who first printed the cartoons be killed.

Such reactions are “not warranted,” said Robert Marro of Great Falls, who was attending prayers at ADAMS. Europeans could have defused the situation by apologizing instead of staking out a hard-line position of upholding free speech, he said.

“Growing up in America, I’m used to political cartoons, but . . . it’s clear that this just crossed the line,” said Marro, a retired U.S. diplomat. “What would the reaction have been if on Jan. 16, The Washington Post had published a picture of Martin Luther King with gangsta-rap clothing, a crack pipe and a Saturday night special? . . . It would have provoked a storm of outrage.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/05/2006 at 06:32 AM   
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   Saturday - February 04, 2006

A State Of War

Here’s the way The Ol’ Skipper sees it: (1) The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria are sovereign territory belonging to those two countries (according to international law); (2) The Syrian government allowed (and possibly encouraged) its citizens to INVADE, ATTACK & DESTROY Danish and Norwegian territory; (3) Therefore a state of war now exists between Syria and Denmark/Norway. This is a date that will live in infamy. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself .... and moonbattery by slug-brained, demented, goat-fornicating, degenerate, slimey, smelly, camel-turd-sniffing .... illegitimate sons of b*****s.

Embassies Torched As Cartoon Furor Grows
Saturday, February 4, 2006
DAMASCUS (Reuters)

Furious Syrians set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies on Saturday as protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad showed no signs of abating despite calls for calm. Oil giant Iran, already embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear programme, said it was reviewing trade ties with countries that have published such caricatures.

Chanting “God is Greatest,” thousands of protesters stormed the Danish embassy, burned the Danish flag and replaced it with a flag reading “No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Prophet.” They set fires which badly damaged the building before being put out. No one was hurt as the embassy was closed at the time.

Demonstrators also set the Norwegian embassy ablaze. It was brought under control by firefighters. Police fired teargas to disperse protesters there and also used water hoses to hold back others from storming the French embassy. Scores of riot police were also deployed to protect the U.S. mission.

Denmark and Norway advised their citizens to leave Syria. Denmark is at the eye of the storm as the cartoons that Muslim demonstrators find offensive, one of the Prophet with a turban resembling a bomb, first appeared in a Danish daily. A small Norwegian Christian newspaper was one of the first newspaper outside Denmark to publish the cartoons. They have now appeared in papers in Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Poland.

Sweden, which shares its Syrian embassy with Denmark and Chile, was also dragged into the Damascus protests. It summoned the Syrian ambassador in Stockholm in protest. Sweden, Denmark and Norway said the Syrian authorities had not done enough to protect their buildings in the capital. There was no immediate comment from Syrian officials.

More from other bloggers:

- Stop The ACLU ...

- Captain’s Quarters ...

- Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller ...

- Gateway Pundit ...

- Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit)…

- Michelle Malkin ...

“We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible,” one preacher at Al Omari mosque in Gaza told worshipers during Friday Prayer, according to Reuters. Other demonstrators called for amputating the hands of the cartoonists who drew the pictures.
-- NY Times International

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/04/2006 at 02:56 PM   
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   Friday - February 03, 2006

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Gunmen Shut EU Gaza Office Over Cartoons
Editors in Jordan, France fired for reprinting Mohammad spoofs
Thursday, February 2, 2006 11:52 p.m. EST (04:52 GMT)
JERUSALEM (CNN)

Palestinian gunmen Thursday shut down the European Union’s office in Gaza City, demanding an apology for German, French and Norwegian newspapers reprinting cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammad, Palestinian security sources said. The gunmen left a notice on the EU office’s door that the building would remain closed until Europeans apologize to Muslims, many of whom consider the cartoons offensive.

Muslims consider it sacrilegious to produce a likeness of the Prophet Mohammad. CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.

Masked members of the militant groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinians’ former ruling party, Fatah, fired bullets into the air, and a man read the group’s demands. Palestinian officials said the gunmen were threatening to kidnap European workers if the European Union did not apologize.

_{From: “Mohammed’s Believe It Or Else”}

^{“Image Problem” by Cox & Forkum}

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/03/2006 at 02:09 AM   
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   Thursday - February 02, 2006

Chug-A-Lug For Denmark

Emperor Misha, the Sandmonkey and Mr. Christian (see below) are on the right track. If the MOOS-lims are going to boycott Danish products because of the recent kerfuffle over the Mohammed cartoons, we need to do our part.

As reported here several weeks ago, BMEWS sees no humor in the MOOS-lim’s anger. Therefore the Skipper has been studying the best way to get even with the sand monkeys.

A few minutes ago, a flash of inspiration overcame me. Super Bowl Sunday is coming up and that means salsa, chips and .... BEER. The latter being something MOOS-lims are forbidden to drink. What better way to smackdown the sandy sheetheads?

In accordance with that theme, the Skipper hereby proclaims this coming Sunday “National Danish Beer Day”. Go buy a truckload of either or both of the brands below. Now! And when you hoist a tall boy this Sunday, remember to shout Skaal (Skål) Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret (Bottoms up or the rest in your hair.)

  

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/02/2006 at 05:30 AM   
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   Wednesday - February 01, 2006

Buy a Danish

Via the ever-dilligent Darth Misha, we find that there are some sane Muslims after all...well, at least one: The Sandmonkey in Egypt.

He calls for a boycott of the boycott.  Beautiful. 

Let’s boycott the boycott

Even though the Danes have apologized repeatedly for offending muslims by having a cartoon of the Prophet, the muslim world seems to be enjoying its “newfound power” and relishing in its “victory” in appearing retarded and is refusing to end the boycott against danish products. People at the comment section in the Arabiya story have not only vowed to never stop boycotting Denmark, but called for boycotting Norway and any other european country that may follow suit (A newspaper in France, feeling the need to have Paris torched again, just reprinted them cartoons) . But so far it has only been the Danes and their products that have taken the brunt of muslim anger worldwide.

Fully knowing that it is retarded to punish a whole country and its products for what a Newspaper in that country did, I expected someone to start a movement to restore common sense our muslim brothers and demand a stop to the boycott, especially since the Danes have apologized over and over again. Then I figured, shit, why don’t I be that someone? It is kind of expected from me anyway. Not to mention, it will piss off all the right people and I am all for that.

So I guess I will start the official local campaign to boycott the boycott, and thanks to the efforts of Roba and Jameed, the campaign now has banners that you can get here, put on your website and show solidarity with Danish people, and your love for Danish cows, who have never hurt anyone- unlike their crazy british counterparts.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/01/2006 at 08:30 PM   
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Eur-Peon Spines?

Imagine that? Euro-Peon newspapers republishing cartoons poking fun at Mohammed to show they will not be cowed by MOOS-lim rioters and protestors. Is it possible that Jacques and Heinz have finally grown spines? Sacre bleu! Mein Gott! Will miracles never cease? In a related story, The Skipper is waiting with bated breath for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX to show the cartoons live on TV. They better hurry ‘cause The Skipper is waiting to exhale ....

Newspapers Republish Muhammad Caricatures
February 1, 2006 6:00pm GMT
PARIS (AP)

French and German newspapers on Wednesday republished caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have riled the Muslim world, saying democratic freedoms include the “right to blasphemy.” The front page of the daily France Soir carried the headline “Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God” along with a cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud. Inside, the paper reran the drawings.

“The appearance of the 12 drawings in the Danish press provoked emotions in the Muslim world because the representation of Allah and his prophet is forbidden. But because no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society, France Soir is publishing the incriminating caricatures,” the paper said. Germany’s Die Welt daily printed one of the drawings on its front page, arguing that a “right to blasphemy” was anchored in democratic freedoms. The Berliner Zeitung daily also printed two of the caricatures as part of its coverage of the controversy.

The Danish daily Jyllands-Posten originally published the cartoons in September after asking artists to depict Islam’s prophet to challenge what it perceived was self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues. A Norwegian newspaper reprinted the images this month. The depictions include an image of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, and another portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry.

Angered by the drawings, masked Palestinian gunmen briefly took over a European Union office in Gaza on Monday. Syria called for the offenders to be punished. Danish goods were swept from shelves in many countries, and Saudi Arabia and Libya recalled their ambassadors to Denmark. The Jyllands-Posten — which received a bomb threat over the drawings — has apologized for hurting Muslims’ feelings but not for publishing the cartoons. Its editor said Wednesday, however, that he would not have printed the drawings had he foreseen the consequences.

Carsten Juste also said the international furor amounted to a victory for opponents of free expression. “Those who have won are dictatorships in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, where they cut criminals’ hands and give women no rights,” Juste told The Associated Press. “The dark dictatorships have won.” Demonstrations and condemnations across the Muslim world continued. The Supreme Council of Moroccan religious leaders denounced the drawings on Wednesday.

“Muslim beliefs cannot tolerate such an attack, however small it may be,” the statement said. In Turkey, dozens of protesters from a small Islamic party staged a demonstration in front of the Danish Embassy. About 200 riot police watched the crowd from the Felicity Party, which laid a black wreath and a book about Muhammad’s life at the gates of the embassy building. Despite the show of solidarity among Europe’s newspaper editors, not all Europeans appreciated the drawings.

Norway’s deputy state secretary for foreign affairs, Raymond Johansen, said they encourage distrust between people of different faiths. “I can understand that Muslims find the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the Norwegian weekly ... to be offensive. This is unfortunate and regrettable,” Johansen said on a visit to Beirut. There was also anger in France, which has Western Europe’s largest Muslim community with an estimated 5 million people.

Mohammed Bechari, president of the National Federation of the Muslims of France, said his group would start legal proceedings against France Soir because of “these pictures that have disturbed us, and that are still hurting the feelings of 1.2 billion Muslims.” French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope struck a neutral tone, saying France is “a country that is attached to the principle of secularism, and this freedom clearly should be exercised in a spirit of tolerance and respect for the beliefs of everyone.”

France Soir, which is owned by an Egyptian magnate, has been struggling to stay afloat and bring in readers in recent years. French theologian Sohaib Bencheikh spoke out against the pictures in a column in France Soir accompanying them Wednesday. “One must find the borders between freedom of expression and freedom to protect the sacred,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, the West has lost its sense of the sacred.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/01/2006 at 01:30 PM   
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   Friday - January 20, 2006

The End Times?

BREST, France (AP) - President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday that France could respond with nuclear weapons to a state-sponsored terrorist attack, broadening the terms of his country’s deterrence in the face of emerging threats. The warning came as France worked with other Western nations to ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear power. But officials and experts said Chirac’s comments were not aimed specifically at Tehran.

“Nuclear deterrence ... is not aimed at dissuading fanatic terrorists,” Chirac said in a speech delivered at the L’Ile-Longue nuclear submarine base in the western region of Brittany. “Leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, just like anyone who would envisage using, in one way or another, arms of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and fitting response from us,” he said. “This response could be conventional. It could also be of another nature.”

France’s nuclear arsenal is considered a purely deterrent force to protect the nation’s vital interests and is not intended for regular combat. But Chirac, who has the power to decide on deploying nuclear weapons, said there should be no doubt “about our will and our capacity to use nuclear arms” if the country’s vital interests are threatened. “In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilizations,” he said, adding “odious attacks” could escalate to “other yet more serious forms involving states.”

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) - Sen. Hillary Clinton called for United Nations sanctions against Iran and faulted the Bush administration for “downplaying” the threat Tehran’s nuclear program poses. In an address Wednesday evening at Princeton University, Clinton, D-N.Y., said it was a mistake for the U.S. to have Britain, France and Germany head up nuclear talks with Iran over the past 2 1/2 years. Last week, Iran resumed nuclear research in a move Tehran claims is for energy, not weapons.

“I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and chose to outsource the negotiations,” Clinton said. Earlier this week, a meeting in London produced no agreement among the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China on whether to refer the dispute over Iranian nuclear enrichment to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Embroiled in a nuclear standoff with the West, Iran said on Friday it was moving its foreign assets to shield them from possible U.N. sanctions and flexed its oil muscles with a proposal to cut OPEC output. “Yes, Iran has started withdrawing money from European banks and transferring it to other banks abroad,” said a senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named.

Central Bank Governor Ebrahim Sheibani was quoted earlier as saying Tehran had started shifting funds, but he sidestepped a question on whether the assets would go to accounts in Asia. It is far from clear how placing assets in Asia or anywhere abroad would protect them from being frozen as few governments or major banks would be willing to flout U.N. sanctions openly.

The United States and the European Union want the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran to the Security Council at an emergency meeting on February 2. The council has the power to impose trade or diplomatic sanctions, though no swift action to punish Iran is likely. Russia and China, which both have major commercial interests at stake in the Islamic Republic, have urged caution.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna said hauling his country to the council would be difficult because of the views of Russia, China and some European and developing countries. “Sending Iran to the Security Council lacks a legal basis,” Aliasghar Soltaniyeh told the semi-official Fars news agency.

LONDON, England (AP) - A whale swam up the River Thames past Parliament and Big Ben in central London on Friday, then beached itself. The whale was a Northern bottlenose, said Richard Sabian, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who went to the scene. “I can confirm reports that it is a whale,” he said, as television networks provided live coverage.

Sabian said such whales rarely swim in the nearby English Channel and this was the first sighting of one in the River Thames since the museum began recording them in 1913. The British Divers Marine Life Rescue group said it would help the whale if it became stranded. At one point the whale appeared to get stuck in shallow water in the River Thames, and officials wearing yellow jackets could be seen running up and down the shoreline at low tide trying to push it back into deeper water.

Witnesses, including people riding in boats and walking along the banks of the river, first spotted the whale near Parliament and said it appeared to be 20 feet long. “I saw it blow. It was a spout of water which sparkled in the air,” said Tom Howard-Vyne, a spokesman for London Eye, the large Ferris wheel on the banks of the river. “It was an amazing sight.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 09:11 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • Hildabeast • Odd-Strange • RoPMA •  
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   Friday - January 13, 2006

High Noon

The United Nations and the European Union, both international embaressments, have decided to get tough with Iran and today started rattling sabers butter knives at the Mad Mullahs. You can probably guess where this is heading. These asshats will totally screw things up, the US will have to spank Iran for getting uppity and then the UN/EU will howl in protest at the US. Same story, different day ....

UN: Iran Sanctions May Be Considered

LONDON (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council may consider imposing sanctions on Iran if it fails to comply with demands over its nuclear program, but may look at other measures first, Britain said on Friday.

“I am not necessarily saying there will be a U.N. sanctions regime. That will be on the table,” Straw told BBC Radio after Britain, France and Germany called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog to discuss Iran’s resumption of research into nuclear fuel.

“There are prior stages here, and there are plenty of examples where the Security Council has made what are called Chapter Seven resolutions ... imposing obligations on a member state without the resort to sanctions. Obviously if Iran failed to comply, the Security Council would then consider sanctions,” Straw said.

- More on this story here ...

Iran Threatens to Block Nuke Inspections

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran threatened on Friday to block inspections of its nuclear sites if U.N. Security Council confronts it over its nuclear activities. Germany, Britain and France said Thursday that nuclear talks with Iran had reached a dead end after more than two years of acrimonious negotiations and the issue should be referred to the Security Council.

However, the Europeans held back from calling on the 15-nation council to impose sanctions and said they remained open to more talks. France said Friday that it favors a step-by-step approach with Iran over its nuclear program and that any sanctions request at this stage would be premature.

“We, like our partners, like the British and the Germans, consider that this co-request for sanctions is premature for the moment,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.

Iran said that if it were confronted by the council, it would be obliged to stop cooperating with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. That would be, among other things, the end of random inspections, said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

“In case Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council ..., the government will be obliged to end all of its voluntary cooperation,” the television quoted Mottaki as saying.

- More on this story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/13/2006 at 07:36 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • RoPMA • United-Nations •  
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   Tuesday - January 10, 2006

Naked Sex Banned

What will the whacky “Religion Of Peas” think of next? I’m sorry you asked. Now, it seems the Imams have declared that married Muslims shall not anjoy sex unless full clothed. Otherwise the marriage is annulled. Somehow I don’t think the idea of having sex with a woman wearing a burkha and me wearing a suit is very appealing. Then again, this might be an excellent method of birth control. Never mind ....

Nudity Invalidates Marriage
(AFP)

An Egyptian cleric’s controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars. According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University’s faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), “being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage”.

The religious decree sparked a hot debate on the private satellite network Dream’s popular religious talk show and on the front page of today’s Al-Masri Al-Yom, Egypt’s leading independent daily newspaper.

Suad Saleh, who heads the women’s department of Al-Azhar’s Islamic studies faculty, pleaded for “anything that can bring spouses closer to each other” and rejected the claim that nudity during intercourse could invalidate a union. During the live televised debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: “Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/10/2006 at 07:26 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Stoopid-People •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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