[wordless wednesday] last of the summer ... wine?

[old lady's dog] booked for parking offence

Blue heeler dog

British traffic numpties could take a leaf out of their Australian colleagues' book:

A blue heeler dog has been booked for illegal parking after inspectors taped a ticket to the dog's leash at a shopping centre. The blue heeler was tied to a fence outside Darwin's Rapid Creek market when it was approached by two city council traffic wardens, the Northern Territory News reports.

One of the inspectors wrote out a ticket - and taped it to the dog's lead. Witness Ray McEvoy said he couldn't believe his eyes. "I watched an elderly lady and her very faithful blue heeler roll up at the market," he said. "Then two traffic inspectors came along. They had a bit of a talk and, to my amazement, wrote out a warning infringement notice for the dog and taped it to his lead rope."

Council spokesman Grant Fenton said a dog was considered to be "at large" if the owner was not there.

Parking ticket. For a dog.

Do you think jobsworths are becoming more stupid, more vindictive or less capable in the brain these days? Do you think the council takes them away for mind-control trauma training? Are they fearful for their jobs?

What TF is going on?

[british politicians and people are racist] says muslim authority

# You might recall I ran this post on Islam and the London School of Islamics responded.

# Then I ran this post as a result of comments on the first.

# Then I drew my own conclusions here.

# Now the London School of Islamics has emailed me with two letters and I promised I'd post them with no additions, annotation or deletions:

London School of Islamics
An Educational Trust
63 Margery Park Road London E7 9LD
Email: info@londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
Tel/Fax: 0208 555 2733 / 07817 112 667

Dear Mr. Higham

1.

Thanks for your thought provoking response.

Muslim Community and British Politicians

Jim Fitzpatrick, a British minister criticized the segregation of male and female guests at Muslim wedding. Yet another 'Gaffe' from another jumped up, half-baked, ill-educated Labour moron; a former fireman indeed. He learned nothing about putting out fires rather than starting them.

He actually has a GCSE 'D' in Politics? God Help us internationally if he is ever made a Diplomat. I suppose he left in a huff because there was no beer an' 'Am sandwiches at the buffet.

The Minister's action is just a stupid, attention-getting stunt appealing to prejudices. This serves only to inflame the prejudices so widespread today. People have their customs, and you don't insult them. It hasn't been that long since our society had some public institutions that kept men and women separate. And it hasn't been that long since women in our society typically wore hats with veils. Plenty of Western customs, we accept as normal, are unacceptable or ridiculous to others.

Muslim marriage is a religious ceremony. He insulted the bride and groom for his own political gain. They should not walk out because it would have been bad manners and rudeness to do so. They should respect the couple wishes, it’s their big day.

He should have ascertained what the customs are beforehand, and then not attended if he thinks the practice offensive. One should have respect of others people's customs, even if one does not agree. Perhaps he should grow up and get an injection of reality.

If you are not prepared to accept this then don't go or don't insult the bride and groom by walking out. What a disgusting small minded little man. Just shows the caliber of today's MP's from all parties. Well being a Labour politician his appalling ignorance of Islamic tradition plus downright rudeness to his hosts does not surprise me in the least. He should do his homework instead of ruining someone’s day.

He is totally an ignorant person.

If a Muslim wants to have separation at a wedding (like much of the Muslim world) then they should be allowed to, and don't insult them when they do. Jewish wedding has observed the tradition of separating of men & women at ceremonies, without raising any eyebrows. Men and women are separated in Masajid and Synagogues. Muslim secondary schools are also segregated.

In the past another British Minister Jack Straw caused a similar furore when he referred to Muslim veils as “a visible statement of separation and difference” and called for women to remove them during surgeries in his Blackburn constituency.

No one has the right to ban the freedom of choice in a secular and democratic country. The right to choice is a basic fundamental right the person should have. To veil or not to veil should be an individual choice. Dress codes are for children. Muslim women should be free to wear burqas. If women get Away with wearing cropped shirts and pants that show their panties, they should be able to wear burqas too.

Globalisation is here to stay, Muslims are here to stay and so are other communities. Those idiot British ministers need to learn that the world is made up of different people and the British society and its Establishment need to learn to accept and tolerate every culture for what it is and most importantly respect and tolerate the values of each and every religion.

2.

The man has a colonial mentality and evidently one of the most ignorant members of parliament who has exposed his ignorance so publicly. His attitude also sounds like a premeditated walk-out.

The comments in the Telegraph newspaper are worst than mine.

I was amazed and angry to read what the Minister did. I hope you know that most non-Muslim British people would condemn this as appalling bad manners, as cruelly hurtful to the couple on their special day, and (in gratuitously going to the press) a crude attempt to stir up prejudice.

I presume this is for electoral gain but looking at the profile of his constituents the action would seem stupid even on that level. It is depressing that someone in public office can be either (at best) that ignorant or (at worst) that malign.

I am not insulting a country in my post, I am just pointing out the ignorance of some peoples in authority.

We would have spoken to or emailed the bride and groom as to why they invited a non-Muslim or non-muslims to their wedding? As Muslims we are not
to take Kuffaar as friends, but we have to be just, kind, fair and treat them well, show good manners to invite them to Islam.

We are to hold functions and invite kuffs only to give Dawah and not for socialisation or show them our culture etc, this is exactly what they want to pick on certain matters and degrade it.

So those two newlyweds have erred in this matter inviting kufs in the first place and now they and all Muslims are in the spot light again. Why bring attention to ourselves unnessarily???

Masajid and Muslim schools and veils are signs of separation. This does not mean that we should get rid of Masajid, veils and Muslim schools. Muslim
schools are there because British schooling is the home of institutional racism. Muslim children have been victim of Paki-bashing for the last 60 years.

I have been campaigning for state funded Muslim schools for the last
35 years. I set up the first Muslim school in 1981 and now there are 140 Muslim schools and only ten are state funded. I would like to see each and every Muslim child in a state funded Muslim school. I hope my dream will
come true on day.

There are hundreds of state and church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim
community schools.

A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. He/she needs to learn and be well versed in Standard English, Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to
follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity and to keep in touch with his/her cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry.

Kind regards.

Iftikhar Ahmad

London School of Islamics Trust

www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

The poll currently running on Mr. Ahmad's LSIT site has these results so far:

Poll Results Should we have more Muslim Schools ?
Yes	41.1% (1570)
No	58.9% (2247)

[66] mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica comincia oggi

Una scena del film Baaria

Here are the entries in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival, the oldest in the world, which kicks off today:

- 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup - Jacques Rivette (France)
- Accident - Cheang Pou-Soi (China-Hong Kong)
- Baaria - Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy) Opening Film
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - Werner Herzog (U.S.)
- Between Two Worlds - Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka)
- Capitalism: A Love Story - Michael Moore (U.S.)
- La doppia ora - Giuseppe Capotondi (Italy)
- Il grande sogno - Michele Placido (Italy)
- Lebanon - Samuel Maoz (Israel)
- Life During Wartime - Todd Solondz (U.S.)
- Lo spazio bianco - Francesca Comencini (Italy)
- Lourdes - Jessica Hausner (Austria)
- Mr. Nobody - Jaco van Dormael (France)
- Persecution - Patrice Chereau (France)
- Prince of Tears - Yonfan (Hong Kong)
- The Road - John Hillcoat (U.S.)
- A Single Man - Tom Ford (U.S.)
- Soul Kitchen - Fatih Akin (Germany)
- Survival of the Dead - George Romero (U.S.)
- Tetsuo the Bullet Man - Shinya Tsukamoto (Japan)
- The Traveler - Ahmed Maher (Egypt)
- White Material - Claire Denis (France)
- Women Without Men - Shirin Neshat (Germany)

This page gives a run down on the entries.

Snippets:

During last year's festival, a founder of Sony Classic saw a man using a chronometer to measure the applause during the premiere of "Rachel Getting Married," which lasted nine or 10 minutes, Mueller said. The man was from a group of German film distributors, who widened the release of the film based on the applause from Venice's audience.

Likewise, Kathryn Bigelow's "Hurt Locker," received a 10-minute standing ovation, despite mixed critical reaction. "Still, the film traveled on the first impact, on the first response in Venice. It found a North American deal in Toronto and went on to become one of the box office hits of last season."

Closer to home, an Italian film opens the festival for the first time in 20 years. Giuseppe Tornatore, who won an Oscar in 1998 for "Cinema Paradiso," will premiere "Baaria," a film about life in a small town in his native Sicily.

"Baaria is really what the (Italian) industry needed at this time. A film which proves it makes a lot of sense for the industry to invest large sums in a creator's dream, because then the industry can go back to being the dream machine."

[day of the triffids] thud style

"The coach house shown has been suffering the ravages caused by a monstrous clematis whilst being defaced by a seventies excrescence that I have been eyeing with distaste every day since we arrived."

A noughties horror movie here.

[closed minds] ad hominem and 911

Harry Hook has this report on 911 which claims to establish that the attacks were the result of Black Ops. I've not gone down the 911 road much on this blog but this seems quite alarming, in fact.

One thing also quite interesting to me is the phenomenon in America where any questioning of the motives of authorities results in the rapid "-er" treatment - Birthers, Truthers - in lieu of full discussion of the allegations.

We saw this amazing phenomenon with JFK and the split into two camps - one called SBTists and the other Conspiracy Theorists. There was no actual attempt to look at the evidence dispassionately, which I tried to do a couple of weeks back. I would have been willing to accept either theory if it had panned out that way.

What is this mania over there to suddenly split into camps? They even did it with the Tribulation, with one group, for Heaven's sake, called the Pre-Tribbers. This is not the way to investigate anything - to take a stance before you've seriously got down to investigation and then to just call the other side names.

It's quite frankly puerile.

So I hope people will at least look at this 911 biz with an open mind.