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Hate crime: white man murders 9 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church
Nine people have been murdered in an attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, North Carolina. The talk is of a hate crime. The alleged killer is white. The victims are black.
“The only reason someone would walk into a church and shoot people that were praying is out of hate,” says Charleston Mayor Joe Riley.
Greg Mullen, the Charleston police chief sticks to the facts:
“It is unfathomable that somebody in today’s society would walk into a church when people are having a prayer meeting and take their lives. There were eight deceased individuals inside of the church. Two individuals were transported to (the hospital). One of them has died. At this point, we have nine victims in this hideous crime that has been committed.”
Charleston police tweeted:
“Suspect in shooting on Calhoun St is a w/m approx 21 slender small build wearing a grey sweat shirt blue jeans timberland boots clean shaven.”
Thomas Dixon tells Fox News:
“Apparently the person just entered the church and opened fire. That part has not been fully articulated on what happened yet … they are still looking for the suspect.”
Nikki Haley, the South Carolina Governor, adds:
“While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another.”
One chap thinks he’s seen the shooter:
Would the police move him like that? Surely not.
New York Times apologises for blaming Irish Students for the Berkeley horror
People look on at the scene of a balcony collapse at an apartment building near UC Berkeley on June 16, 2015 in Berkeley, California. 6 people were killed and 7 were seriously injured when a balcony collapsed at an apartment building near the University of California at Berkeley campus. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The New York Times‘ story on the five Irish students killed when a balcony collapsed at Berkeley included the news that the J1 work-visa program was “a source of embarrassment for Ireland, marked by a series of high-profile episodes involving drunken partying and the wrecking of apartments in places like San Francisco and Santa Barbara.”
Pathetic stuff.
The fourth-floor balcony was mostly decorative, says a member of the Berkeley Design Review Committee that approved the building in 2001. You want to apportion blame? Look beyond the victims (Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller and Eimear Walsh, all aged 21, were Irish. The sixth victim, Ashley Donohue, 22, was from California).
Ireland’s Minister of Equality Aodhán Ó Ríordáin replied:
“Your newspaper’s reporting of the Berkeley tragedy is a disgrace.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Where to watch Rachel Dolezal’s porno classification busting sex tape
Cannot be sectioned
Rachel Dolezal appeared in a sex tape. The Daily Mail says her then husband, African-American (surely gay, one-legged Jew?- ed) Kevin Moore, encouraged her to perform “sex acts” for the camera.
But how can you find the thing? Our resident porn expert says he looked in the inter-racial section and the black-on-black section but found nothing.
As he searches for teh porno tapes that defies and compleis with all categoties of kink, we note that Rachel and Kevin couple married in 2000 and divorced in 2005. She made her claims that he forced her into the sex tape at their divorce hearing. He denies the claims.
The couple shared custody of their son Franklin – who until a few days ago was black and is now mixed-race.
Now about that tape? Is that Rachel in the Reincarnated Slaves & Masters section?
Woman arrested for homosexual sex with her dog
To Florida, where Ashley Miller, 18, has been arrested for allegedly having sex with her pit bull dog.
Police says Miller kept photos of the trysts on her cell phone. Police found 17 photos of a “canine performing oral sex on an unknown white female”. Miller admited is was she and the dog was her female pit bull called 2-face.
Miller added that another dog named Scarface had also licked her vagina.
Milelr will now face the music.
Posted: 17th, June 2015 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
White tiger kills man in Tblisi as penguins drown
Flooding in Georgia has led to a white tiger escaped from Tbilisi Zoo mauling a man to death in Heroes Square. The Sun reports:
A STARVING tiger has mauled a man to death after escaping from a zoo in floods. The ravenous predator killed the warehouse worker in Heroes Square in the centre of Tbilisi, Georgia, according to local officials.
News that the tiger was hungry seems designed to make us sympathise with the beast, rather than the fallen human hero, who was killed.
Special forces captured the white tiger before shooting it dead.
Read the rest of this entry »
Trigger Warning: free speech is being attacked and downgraded in Anglo-American culture, says Mick Hume
Anorak asked journalist Mick Hume about his new book, which looks at the highly topical issue of free speech…
Your new book is entitled ‘Trigger Warning’. For those not familiar with the phrase, could you explain its origin and its relevance?
A ‘trigger warning’ is a statement stuck at the beginning of a piece of writing, video or whatever to alert you to the fact that it contains material you may find upsetting or offensive. For example, ‘TW: Islamophobic language’, or ‘TW: references to sexual violence’.
Trigger Warnings took off in US colleges (where student activists want classic works to carry them, suggesting for example that The Great Gatsby should have one along the lines of ‘TW: suicide, domestic abuse and graphic violence’). They have since spread across the Atlantic and the internet. If you are not familiar with ‘TWs’, they are coming soon to a website near you.
For me the mission creep of trigger warnings symbolises the stultifying atmosphere surrounding freedom of expression and debate today. They are like those ‘Here be dragons’ signs on uncharted areas of old maps, warning students and others not to take a risk, not to step off the edge of their comfort zone, not to expose themselves to ‘uncomfortable’ ideas, images or opinions.
What is the book about?
The sub-title of the book rather gives the game away: ‘Is the fear of being offensive killing free speech?’ To which its unsurprising answer is yes, unless we do something about it.
Trigger Warning is about all the various ways in which free speech is being attacked and downgraded in Anglo-American culture today. It describes ‘the silent war on free speech’. It’s a silent war because nobody in politics or public life admits that they are against freedom of expression; all of them will make ritualistic displays of support for it ‘in principle’, as they did after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. In practice, however, they are all seeking ways to restrict freedom of expression, whilst insisting that ‘this is not a free speech issue’, it is merely an attempt to protect the ‘vulnerable’ against offensive and hateful words.
To that end, the book examines the complementary trends towards official censorship, unofficial censorship and self-censorship in the West today, covering everything from online ‘trolls’ to football and comedy as well as more conventional political issues.
Of these three, the most insidious is the informal, unofficial censorship promoted by Twitter mobs and assorted boycott-and-ban-happy zealots. They are a relatively small minority, but they exercise disproportionate influence by preying on the loss of faith in free speech at the top of our societies.
I describe these people as ‘reverse-Voltaires’, who have taken the famous principle linked to Voltaire – ‘I may hate what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’ – and twisted it into its opposite – ‘I know I will detest what you say, and I will defend to the end of free speech my right to stop you saying it’. They do not want to debate arguments they disagree with, but merely to close them down as offensive. Trigger Warning takes on their most powerful excuses in a section entitled ‘Five good reasons for restricting free speech – and why they’re all wrong’.
What is the main message of the book?
The main message of the book – and I fear it is a ‘message’ book, or ‘polemic’ as we pretentious authors say – is twofold, I suppose. That we have forgotten how important the fight for free speech has been in the creation of something approximating a civilised society, and that we are in danger of giving it up without a struggle. It is not so much that we are losing the free speech wars: we are not even fighting them!
Few of the great advances in politics, science and culture over the past 500 years would have been possible without the expansion of free speech and the willingness of heroic heretics to question everything and break taboos. None of the liberation movements of the recent past could have succeeded without putting the right to free speech at the forefront of their campaigns (which makes it all the more bitterly ironic to see restrictions on free speech being demanded today in the name of protecting the oppressed).
Free speech was never a right to be won once and then put on a shelf to be admired. It always has to be defended again, against new challenges and enemies. The big danger today is that so few are standing up for unfettered free speech against the reverse-Voltaires and their like. Where are the young Tom Paines, JS Mills, John Wilkes’ or George Orwells of our age? Instead we have characters like the US liberal professor who just wrote a (pseudonymous) article about how he is too ‘terrified’ of his ‘liberal’ students to raise a potentially offensive idea or even ask them to read Mark Twain. Time to take a stand before it’s too late.
You have been outspoken about the right to offend. But some people seem to believe they have a duty to offend, and we have seen public examples of this recently. How does your opinion differ from theirs?
I have been writing about the right to be offensive for some 25 years, since the crisis over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. It is the cutting edge of free speech. After all, what use is it is we are only ‘free’ to say what everybody else might like? If we defend free speech for those views branded extreme and offensive, the mainstream will look after itself. This is not about offensive language, but opinions – as JS Mill pointed out long ago, the more powerful your opponent’s arguments are, the more offensive you tend to find them!
The importance of that issue was brought into sharp focus by the reaction to the Charlie Hebdo massacre of course. As the book describes, behind the apparent displays of Je Suis Charlie solidarity, the powerful message was that those cartoonists had gone ‘too far’ in offending Islam. Those gunmen might have been inspired by Islamist preachers, but they can only have been encouraged by the loss of faith in free speech at the heart of Western culture.
None of this means, as you mention, that anybody has a duty to offend. The right to be offensive is not an obligation. One problem today is that the response to the conformist culture of You-Can’t-Say-That tends to be a few comedians and others trying to cause offence for the sake of it. That’s infantile and useless. As William Hazlitt wrote, ‘An honest man speaks the truth, though it may cause offence, a vain man, in order that it may”. A good distinction, so long as we remember that the vain man gets the freedom to speak his version of the truth, too.
Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? is published by Collins.
Mick was answering questions put to him by Ed Barrett
Posted: 17th, June 2015 | In: Books, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Bride says ‘yes’ to marriage proposal asked via clues in The Times crossword
Matthew Dick asked Delyth Hughes to marry him via clues in The Times’ cryptic teaser crossworld puzzle. Puzzle editor Richard Rogan added the vital clues:
6 letters: “Pretty Welsh girl widely thought not to be all there”
Answer: Delyth
8 letters: “‘Will you marry me’, say, that’s forward also rude!”
Answer: Proposal
Ms Hughes solved the puzzle, presented to her by Mr Dick.
Had she not have done, it’s tempting to think of crossword Mr Dick counting his blessings and of Ms Hughes preferring the less abstractive world of World Search puzzles.
No, Owen Jones: a cheaper private education is a perk of being in the armed forces
The Guardian is shocked that privately educated pupils get on better in life. In a piece entitled “How to pass the posh test: ‘Do you know Marmaduke Von Snittlebert?’”, five journalists work on a story that “employers still favour the privately educated elite over the rest of us”.
We need an all-out war on the problem, argues Owen Jones, while other writers weigh up the pros and cons of trying to pass for posh
Owen Jones talks about “the posh problem”:
Unless you’re a Social Darwinist who believes the privileged are inherently more talented (I’m going to presume you’re not), then the lack of diversity at the top of society should be profoundly depressing. More than half of the top 100 media professionals in Britain hail from private schools, even though only 7% of Britons are privately educated. Amongst court judges, the figure surges to 71%; in the senior armed forces it approaches two thirds.
Not so much an establishment as a racket.
Owen, mate. Children with parents in the armed forces get greatly reduced fees at ‘posh’ schools. The public school perk comes with the job. Five writers and this fact was left out.
Facts soon make way for opinion. And one is about journalism:
There’s structural inequality, and then there are stitch-ups. The scourge of unpaid internships has helped turn professions (such as my own, the media) into playgrounds for the privileged. Want to become a journalist? You may well find yourself expected to work for free for months, or longer, with no promise of a job at the end of it.
This is a Guardian writer complaining about nepotism in journalism. Ha. Ha.
Apple rips-off record labels to launch its new streaming music service
Apple is alucning a new music streaming service. And it’s an utter rip off:
Apple is accused of attempting to launch its new Spotify rival, Apple Music, in a way that would leave Britain’s independent record labels “completely screwed” and struggling to survive. The Silicon Valley giant is demanding that record labels such as XL Recordings, the home of Adele, and Domino, the label behind the Arctic Monkeys, agree to a free three-month trial of Apple Music, during which they will receive no payment.
Free tials are great. But why should the service provider pay? Wonder if any Apple’s contract contains a clause stating that unless the record label members to ask for actual money for its service, Apple will continue to provide it for free?
The Sun’s Dan Wootton mocks ‘bloated’ George Michael
The Sun is copying the Daily Mail’s habit of being shocked and amazed that famous faces have gotten older. Today, the Sun’s Dan Wootton brings us “Careless Wispa – EXCLUSIVE: Fears for ‘bloated’ George Michael as he piles on 3st”.
This is Wootton who launched his ‘No More Skinny’ campaign in the Sun, calling on fatter models and the end to the skinny obsession “madness” that does “so much damage to our body-conscious youngsters”.
Today Wootton says an “onlooker” spotted “BLOATED George Michael” at an exhibition of British pop artist Allen Jones at Zurich’s Baur au Lac hotel.
The witness says:
“He attended as it started to get dark. It was clearly George, but it was pretty shocking to see how he looked.”
No. It wasn’t. He’s 51. He looks pretty good, especially for a man so grotesque he goes out only under cover of darkness:
To further prove just how horrible George looks, Wootton invites readers to compare the singer now with how he looked in 1983.
Wow, indeed, Dan. Singer gets older. Read all about it!
Posted: 17th, June 2015 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Watch Buckingham Palace guards trample a London tourist
Her Majesty The Queen’s footmen have no time for tourists.
This video is a warning to all jihadis and other enemies of the British state: dress in check, beige and carry a large camera and you are toast.
Anorak humbly invites the Queen’s Guard to travel by Tube. Backpackers, you have been warned – especialy those of you with Canadian maple leaf flags stitched onto your massive canvas shells. Sure, you’re not American, but you gave us Justin Bieber and that’s more than enough.
Posted: 17th, June 2015 | In: Reviews, Royal Family | Comment
Lord Jesus Christ charged with violating restraining order in Belchertown
Lord Jesus Christ, 55 has been at a home in Belchertown, Massachusetts, on a charge of violating a restraining order.
He was not taken away restrained to a cross.
Posted: 17th, June 2015 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck guilty of raping 15-year-old boy
Former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck is guilty of fourth degree rape.
In 2014, Shattuck, then married to Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck, “spotted” a 15-year-old on Instagram. After a few meetings, 48-year-old Stattuck drove the boy to a residence in Delaware, plied him with booze and gave him a blow job.
For that she faces 15 years in chokey.
(For that Instagram becomes very popular with 15-year-old boys.)
PS: In 2012, she shared her tips for healthy living:
“What’s the secret? I tell people you have to be well hydrated—I don’t drink coffee, tea, or soda,” she says. “You have to move your body every day and eat right, but deprivation is not realistic. You have to have a balance of vegetables, proteins, and carbohydrates.”
Spotter: Baltimore Sun
Taking 10 to 15 micrograms of LSD daily is like having a long-lasting coffee buzz
Do you know an yone who takes a daily dose of 10 to 15 micrograms of LSD? People do. One user says taking it will “increase my focus, open my heart, and achieve breakthrough results while remaining integrated within my routine.”
Alternet reports:
One 65-year-old Sonoma County, California … told AlterNet she microdosed because it made her feel better and more effective.
“I started doing it in 1980, when I lived in San Francisco and one of my roommates had some mushrooms in the fridge,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous. “I just took a tiny sliver and found that it made me alert and energized all day. I wasn’t high or anything; it was more like having a coffee buzz that lasted all day long.”
This woman gave up on microdosing when her roommate’s supply of ‘shrooms ran out, but she has taken it up again recently.
“I’m very busy these days and I’m 65, so I get tired, and maybe just a little bit surly sometimes,” she admitted. “So when a friend brought over some chocolate mushrooms, I decided to try it again. It makes my days so much better! My mood improves, my energy level is up, and I feel like my synapses are really popping. I get things done, and I don’t notice any side-effects whatsoever.”
What the harm, then?
Rachel Dolezal is an unwitting black, Tervor Phillips is white and everyone is a victim of racism
Rachel Dolezal is the white woman who pretended to be black. Dolezal, 37, has quit her role in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
She said her dad is black. He isn’t. At least he thinks he isn’t. He says his spray-tanned, Afro-wigged daughter needs help.
The New York Times says “Faking a racial history, in either direction, raises difficult questions about what race is and why it matters,”
Dolezal’s a liar. She deceived people. She told people her parents in South Africa whipped her with a device “pretty similar to what was used as whips during slavery”. Her parents live in Montana. They’ve never been to South Africa. She lists the alleged hate crimes she has been subjected to as if stamping rites of passage and authenticity on her bones.
Rachel Dolezal has survived many ordeals. She is a victim. She is a martyr. She thought that to really get ahead you need to be disadvantaged.
Rachel Dolezal is a liar. She wanted her ‘white guilt’ assuaged by her adopted group. And – maybe – that’s the one decent lesson from all this: only looking at a person’s racial identity makes fools of us all.
Read the rest of this entry »
Aberdeen man wins year’s supply of socks after hand dryer sprayed him with urine
The Handmade Burger Company restaurant in Union Square, Aberdeen, regrets that diner Gordie Wallace was damaged by the automatic hand dryer that fire up when he ws in mid-flow.
The 31-year-old Glaswegian says:
“After enjoying a meal with the misses I took a trip to the little boys room to empty my rather full bladder… Due to the poor design of your bathrooms and unfortunate placing of the automatic hand dryer, half way during my urination the hand dryer decided to go on full pelt thus blowing my pish stream all over the place, nearly all over my trousers and sadly leaving me with a soggy trainer on my left foot. I’m now going to be forced to throw out my sodden sock, walk about with a pishy foot and now believe I have developed a phobia of hand dryers.”
The Handmade Burger Company offered a year’s supply of fresh socks by way of compensation:
“We’re really sorry to hear about your experience in our Union Square restaurant. This is the first time that this has happened in the five years that we have been open. We’d like to send you a pair of trainers and a supply of socks every month for a year to compensate.”
Motto: the sink, men. Use the sink.
Posted: 16th, June 2015 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Botox injections cure woman of smoking and oral sex
One lucky pucker
With Botox, you too can smoke less. Kelly Greenwood, of Vancouver, Washington, says:
“My upper lip is paralysed by the injections so I can’t close my lips around a cigarette, There’s no pucker. I’m down to about 10 a month. And that’s quite an accomplishment for me.”
It’s also believed Kelly has also cut down on eating bananas, giving full throat to both ‘Oklahoma‘ and her husband, and drink driving tests:
College censor Tara Schultz: ‘I expected Batman and Robin, not pornography’
Tara Shultz, 20, of Yucaipa, CA, wants to censor your library. She wants four graphic novels on the syllabus at Crafton Hills College banned. Why? Because Schulz thinks Persepolis, Fun Home, Y: The Last Man Vol. 1, and The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House will warp minds.
Now stand back and watch sales of thsoe titles rocket.
Schulz tells the Redland Daily Facts Newspaper – and this is phrase all anti-censors should get on a T-shirt.
“I expected Batman and Robin, not pornography.”
Says Tara Shultz:
Read the rest of this entry »
Lord Janner scandal day 58: Michael Jackson’s letter of the law
Lord Greville Janner: a look at news on the Labour peer embroiled in allegations that he abused children. He maintains his innocence. It’s been 58 days since the Crown Prosecution Sevice decided not to prosecute Lord Janner on gounds of his failing health.
With no actual news to report, we make do with a tenuous link between Janner and Michael Jackson. In keeping with the story of Westminster peados, like most of the people implicated, Jackson is dead. And he never read the letter Janner wrote him.
The Leicester Mercury takes up the tale:
Greville Janner wrote to superstar Michael Jackson congratulating him on being cleared of child sex charges… The Labour peer and former Leicester West MP wrote the letter shortly after the singer was cleared by an American jury of molesting a 13-year-old.
A number of national newspapers reported at the weekend that Lord Janner wrote to Jackson, who died aged 50 in 2009, on personalised House of Lords paper in 2005.
He is said to have passed the letter to former child actor Mark Lester and asked him to give it to Jackson.
What he wrote was:
“I was so very pleased at the news of your acquittal. What a terrible time you have endured. You know how much I enjoyed and appreciated meeting you at the Universal Studios and in the UK – and especially on that wonderful day in Parliament and the journey to Exeter. So I send you my very best wishes – and hope you will return to London before long and that I should have the pleasure of seeing you once again before long.”
In June 2002 Janner gave Jackson, spoon-bender Uri Geller and US magician David Blaine a tour of the Houses of Parliament. Lester is chiefly famous for having played Oliver Twist in the 1968 film.
Says Mr Lester:
“Janner knew I was friends with Michael. He gave me the letter and asked me to give it to him. I stuffed it in my pocket and never got round to it. I stumbled across it while clearing my house. What he said was inappropriate.”
If there was ever word that sums up this decade it is ‘inappropriate’. Why is it inappropriate for Janner to have to written to the then world’s biggest star? I mean, did you see Jackson’s fans back then?
Najh Ali speaks to some forty Michael Jackson fans who converged on the Santa Barbara Courthouse to show their support for Jackson January 15, 2004 in Santa Barbara, California.
Hundreds of Michael Jackson fans converged on Neverland Ranch for a candlelight vigil in support of Jackson January 15, 2004 in Santa Ynez, California
Michael Jackson supporter, Olivia Baker, 20, of San Diego, holds a sign outside the courthouse at Michael Jackson’s preliminary hearing on February 13, 2004 in Santa Barbara, California.
Michael Jackson fan, Bianca Martinez, eight-months-old, drinks from her baby bottle as she wears a hat with the message ‘Innocent Like Me’ while sitting in her stroller outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse at the Michael Jackson child molestation trial June 9, 2005 in Santa Maria, California. Jackson is charged in a 10-count indictment with molesting a boy, plying him with liquor and conspiring to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion.
Michael Jackson fan Sean Paterson
Michael Jackson fan Seany O’Kane displays a message of support
There were a few naysayers:
And it was huge news.
But Lester is agog not that Jackson was given a tour of Westminster, but that Janner wrote him a letter:
“Michael Jackson was hounded for much of his life over these allegations and was then found not guilty. No one should congratulate Michael on being cleared let alone a QC and peer. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Well done, you got away with it’.”
No. It isn’t. Jackson was found not guilty. Janner said it must have been a burden. He never once said ‘Nice one, you got away with it.’
The story of Westminster peadophiles has taken on a life of its own. The alleged abuse is said to have occured over years. This longevity suggests a culture of denial and, to some, a conspiracy of depraved men working together to maintain a secret. But facts are now so thin we get stories of a Wacko Jacko fan letter being passed off as news. In place of evidence of child rape in the shadow of power, we get news of ‘inappropriate’ words. ‘Innocent until proven innocent’, says one of the pro-Jackson banners. To which we would add a new one: ‘Guilty when dead.’
Such are the facts.
Posted: 15th, June 2015 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Thomas Evans is dead: British Muslim convert killed in Somalia
Thomas Evans left his home in High Wycombe to fight with al-Shabaab. The Times says he’s dead, killed in Kenya as the Islamists attacked an army base.
His mother Sally told The Sunday Times in 2014:
“I would rather have Thomas alive behind bars than dead in the middle of nowhere, because he wouldn’t just die innocently but die doing something he shouldn’t be doing. And if he took other lives, how do you live with this? If he was a suicide bomber, how would I live with that?”
Thomas became a Muslim at age 19 after breaking up with his girlfriend.
In 2011, he went to learn Arabic in Cairo. Well, so he said. In truth, he made his way to Somalia, to wage holy war, get women who don’t dump him and become a hero.
He called his mum in 2012.
Mrs Evans: “What are you going to do? Are you going to be a suicide bomber?”
Thomas Evans: “If asked, I would, Inshallah [God willing].”
ME: “Will I see you again?”
TE: “No.”
But she wanted to.
“I wish [the security services] had a magic wand to bring him back,” she said. “I think of their parents and think of how they feel … It’s all about the sons and what they’ve done, but what about the family that they have come from? That is the thing, there is no help for the families.”
And that brings us to another dead British jihadi, Talha Asmal, 17, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, who travelled with a friend to Iraq in April. He became a suicide bomber and a murderer when he was part of an Islamic State group that killed 11 people and themselves.
Asmal’s family say their boy was groomed online. The nutjobs preyed on his “innocence and vulnerability”. They say he was a “caring and affable teenager” until others corrupted him. His family say: “If the press reports are accurate he was ordered to his death by so-called Isis handlers and leaders too cowardly to do their own ‘dirty’ work.”
He wasn’t alone. In April Asmal and his neighbour Hassan Munshi, also 17, travelled to eastern Turkey before crossing the Syrian border. Munshi’s brother Hammaad became Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist, was 15 when he was arrested “by counterterrorism police in 2006 and later found guilty over his role in a plot to murder non-Muslims.”
Now, about those mysterious online predators.
The BBC:
Number 10 says the government wanted to work with social media firms to stop young people being targeted…
Another West Yorkshire teenager, Hasib Hussein, was 18 when he blew himself up on a London bus in the 7 July 2005 attacks.
A pupil who attended the same school as Asmal has told the BBC that he believes the sixth former was persuaded to join Islamic State by someone within the community.
Who?
Posted: 15th, June 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
World Cup Balls: Oliver Holt fails his own test for misogynists and the fools
“Why are so many trying to belittle the women’s game?” asks Oliver Holt in the Daily Mail. Holt is on the side of the righteous in his look at the FIFA Women’s World Cup (not boycoted by anyone).
The misogynists and the fools came crashing through England’s hedgerows like a herd of T-rex that hadn’t been fed for a while. Some of the reaction to the start of a football tournament eagerly awaited by so many was sad, ignorant, arrogant and really rather stupid.
Like all tournament sport, the play is mixed: some games are decent; some dire. But Holt is keen to make a point that comparing the men’s game with the women’s is irrelevant and dumb.
Those of us with daughters, what should we do? Tell our kids not to take up football because they’ll never kick it as far as boys? Tell them never to play tennis because they’ll never serve as fast as boys? Tell them not to try athletics because they’ll never run as quickly as boys? Don’t insult us with that kind of garbage.
Holt will not compare the sexes. He will take each game and play on its individual merits. Right. Er, wrong because after reminding us how good Serena Williams is at tennis, he says:
I sat in a sports bar packed with football fans in Moncton on Thursday night, watching China vs Holland, then Ivory Coast vs Thailand, then Canada vs New Zealand and each one had thrilling moments. The 30-yard pass that led to China’s injury-time winner? Let’s just say Steven Gerrard would have been proud of it.
Steven Gerrard is a man.
Such are the facts.
Stoke’s WaterWorld: Muslims, naturists and the EDL seek thrills at the Great British waterpark
The Sunday Express has news on Muslims in the UK:
UK waterpark bans bikinis and orders visitors to wear ‘Islamically appropriate’ clothes
Scott Campbell reports:
A BRITISH waterpark has sparked fury by banning bikinis and ordering visitors to cover up in “Islamically appropriate” clothing.
No. Not in the Great British waterpark! Not the Great British bikini! No wonder there is “fury”.
WaterWorld in Stoke-on-Trent plans to black out windows and provide a prayer room during a women-only night aimed at Muslims. Only female lifeguards will patrol the park during the event, which has triggered a flood of complaints.
Who complained?
Staff will also “guard” the front entrance to “make sure that no males enter the facility”.
Female guards, we hope.
The Express cuts through the fury and speaks with the sober Conservative MP Philip Hollobone:
“I imagine there would be a lot of outrage if the boot was on the other foot and swimmers were told they had to dress appropriately in respect of Christians. I don’t see how this is different.”
If he can’t see the difference then Phil’s monochrome imagination is not worth investigating further.
The Express adds:
One invitation to the “Sisters Only Funday” advises attendees to cover their “awrah” (nudity) by wearing full-length jogging bottoms and a dark-coloured t-shirt.
We don’t get to see that invite in the Express. It’s not on the WaterWorld website. It appears to be a personal recommendation by a blogger, which you can read here.
Dress Code Please ensure that your Awrah is covered at all times. Below are a few suggestions on what you can wear: Top Long Loose T-Shirt/Top. Bottoms Leggings 3 Quarter/Full Length Jogging Bottoms. We would also suggest wearing a leotard under the T-shirt or belt over it as it is likely to float up when you enter the water. A dark coloured T-shirt is recommended as white can become transparent when wet. Swimming water contains chlorine that does discolour certain materials, so do not wear anything too valuable.
In the Express we do hear from WaterWorld owner Mo Chaudry, who says:
“We feel we’ve been victimised for offering something that we feel there is a demand for.”
That line also features in yesterday’s Stoke Sentinel, although over there the quote is much fuller:
The EDL has branded the event as ‘oppressive’ and plan to protest on August 1. But WaterWorld owner Mo Chaudry said he believed there was a gap in the market for such an event, which also allows in boys aged up to four.
He said all women, irrespective of faith or ethnicity, are welcome to attend and wear normal swimming costumes. But clothing must adhere to health and safety rules, and anyone wearing loose outfits or T-shirts would not be allowed on the rides.
He added: “I’m astonished that we have been targeted . We feel we’ve been victimised for offering something that we feel there is a demand for. This is no different to a ladies-only gym. It’s cheap, political manoeuvring. The event will go ahead. The only thing that would prevent it is a lack of demand. We’re not going to be bullied.”
We looked at the flyer:
Mention of “Islamic appropriate clothing” on the venue’s website: none. Perhaps it was removed?
And do take good note of that date thrill-seekers because WaterWorld hosts a Naturist Night and confusing the dates could lead to problems.
But what really caused fury at Anorak Towers is the line: “Admission price is payable upon entry at a price of £13.49 per person or £10.49 for under 1.1m tall.”
That’s tallist! We march at dawn…
Lord Janner scandal day 57: an alleged victim tells of blood in Westminster
ouses of Parliament, St Stephen’s Crypt – Watercolour by Edward M. Barry c.1863 (WOA 1601)
Lord Greville Janner: a look at news on the Labour peer embroiled in allegations that he abused children. He maintains his innocence. It’s been 57 days since the Crown Prosecution Sevice decided not to prosecute Lord Janner on gounds of his failing health.
The Sunday Express has news:
Lord Greville Janner should NOT be saved from trial, says alleged assault victim
But can he be accused in the media? Yes.
We meet Mr Paul Miller. No 53, Mr Miller was 9 when he was in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster. A pupil at Braunstone Frith primary school in Leicester, Miller was living in care when he became one of eight children “specially chosen by local MP Janner to visit London in 1969. He lived in care at the time at the Tatlow Road children’s home.”
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Magical Jews stole my shoe: Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee is hopping mad
A loveable brogue
Today in ‘The Jews Did It’ Asghar Bukhari, founding member of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPAC UK), says Jews stole a shoe from his home. He went to find his shoe and there it was. Gone!
He writes on Facebook:
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