joekicker

Chicken and egg, but I don't believe people go to Pakistan until they're already totally convinced. I'd say DEFINITELY before. The camps reinforce and channel, and select the jobs each person is best suited for, but the brains are washed long before that. Most of these people aren't recruited to go to the camps -- they ask, beg, demand to go. Pakistan just happens to be the single best training place right now, think of it as a sort of Pontrilas for al-Qaeda. Used to be Afghanistan. Used to be Libya. Used to be Mauritania. 700 Thai kids went through the Afghanistan course. Very few people are TAUGHT that, though, not the bombers from your own country, say. They're convinced, and they've convinced themselves that they're in a war. After that, demonising the enemy is pretty easy, right Obsession? The monkeys and pigs stuff, for them, is just part of the process, not something they have to have crammed into them. Your British-born jihadist is fully convinced of his cause. Or hers in some cases. At least partly because the enemy is despicable and low-life. .

Didn't we just have this conversation? Why is it necessary/recommended/a good thing to support any given president? You didn't (you say) so why throw it at someone else? .

This is a line well worth remembering and even repeating in the face of certain allegations by certain posters. As is your equally good line on why good Englishmen didn't speak up enough. .

Then you have had two issues, just like I said I had. If your browser gives you that "site not found" message, then it's the DNS, 100 times out of 99. .

But unlike that British-educated, British-converted Underwear Bomber on an America bound plane. Extremely intelligent, well raised. There's the problem with profiling, right there. You look for a dumb, ponderous, dependent child-like man, and you get blown up by a smart, highly educated, extremely aware woman. Or that nice, quiet student next door. Bloody interesting story quotes the Nobel laureate and Nigerian activist Wole Soyinka. He says, "England is a cesspit" that is responsible for training terrorists. On the underwear bomber: "The man did not get radicalized in Nigeria. It happened in England, where he went to university. England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there." He blames colonialism and the attitudes that survived that violent period of Great Britain's history. Full interview and comments at The Daily Beast .

If there weren't a D-notice on the whole stench-ridden enterprise, we might know. But that said, I wouldn't blame only the Brits. The British scandal is that they let it happen in Britain, and they ought to shut down those people. Everyone's culpable on not calling them on it inside Saudi, not just the Brits, my opinion. Free speech, absolutely. Incitement, no. Let the terrorists shout and rave, but don't let the media write or utter one word. I was delighted to see today that a top Amnesty person has taken on AI for aligning with that despicable terrorist and his group CagePrisoners trying to creep in to respectability with torture allegations. They are nothing but a lying, pro-violent front operation for al-Qaeda, and AI should be bloody ashamed for its ties. Good on Gita Sahgal for exposing her own rotten AI comrades. I never thought I'd see that. .

The Saudis do this, but it's kind of under the table most of the time. The worst for this? The Palestinians. That's where the nice British suicide bombers went of course, to help the poor beleagured Palestinians. A lot of Jew-haters are unfortunately encouraging this sort of thing. The suicide bombing AND the interesting school lessons. .

The DNS lookups and translations, Fondles, the DNS. To be fair, True has got better over the past year. But they still have periods where you get total outages of "page not found" when it is obvious they are somehow effing with the DNS tables, probably rebuilding the censorhip caches. Early LAST year it was really horrible, when Ms Ranongruk took over and decided to be the nation's chief censor. If DNS is working, True is fine or better, agreed about that. .

Exactly. This whole thing about driving, culminating in Saudi, is stupid and non-religious if not irreligious. But you actually nailedit very well -- most of all it is manipulative and controlling. In MOST Muslim countries, women drive around just fine, and in most non-Muslim countries, Muslim women ditto - and why not? .

Here's another thing you don't know. There's an "ignore" switch you can turn on for any member who's spoiling it for you. .

I don't agree but you are right. Does that make sense? I misread or you miswrote, not sure which, but I agree with you on your clear statements here on the overall issue and sorry for misrepresenting you. Putting words in others' mout... er, fingers is never nice, and sometimes, as here, dangerous as well. My regards for being nice about it, too. They said they'd happily sell to other groups and I think that covers the "public airwaves" part of it. Me - I can't get mad at CBS over it, but I'm not going to carry their water, either. .

I don't think these people are LITERALLY saying there is such a verse, but rather winking at the "sin city" of Bahrain. Allah, of course, can see everywhere, but these folks are ... hmmm, joking? that Allah chooses not to see specific sinful and therefore they aren't guilty. Kind of weak, but I (think I) get it. That's what I think - a light-hearted justification of the good times in Bahrain. If you google "god can't see" you get a lot of similar, playful banter. I appreciate that you took the time to do that. I'd never heard anything like it. It's good to learn. .

Can you point me at that verse? Bahrain a sin city? Compared with Jakarta? Cairo? Pull my other one. For the Arab countries it is, I'll grant that. Sort of like describing Blackpool as a resort when you're talking about the whole world, though. .

Unfortunately, you (specifically and generically) don't get to choose that. "We" are going to pay, says al-Qaeda for example. It is a REAL and vital and present argument. Nothing personal, mind you, but yes, you. Of course you specifically can ignore that, but only if you trust hundreds of others NOT to ignore it and do their best to try to ensure that you don't pay for it. .

Heh. Joe doesn't "remember" that. Actually, I was trying to stick with history within the lifespan of most of our members and their fathers. But no argument with taking it back long, long before that. It only makes the point stronger. The entire rationale (if I can use that term) of al-Qaeda rests on The Crusades. It's a little weird, because they occurred way before there WAS an evil America, but that's their talking point -- that the white western Christians did it first. I don't think "Johnny started it" is all that useful today, but struth there are no clean hands. .

That's interesting. I would have thought they would be boosting the new Google DNS service. I'm not at all convinced that DNS settings have much to do with getting stuff done on the Net, though. There are horrible DNS servers that aren't properly maintained and updated (are you listening, True?) but all a DNS does is give you actual access to a web page -- it doesn't affect the download speed or even the showing of the page. So you can save, what? A second or two sometimes? I have really found True to be horrible. But here's the deal. All Thai ISPs *cache* their DNS -- the reason being, that is how they censor them. So if you're only trying to get Yahoo.com or Twitter.com smh.com.au or whatever innocuous site, the Thai ISPs will actually serve it up faster than any other choice -- if and ONLY if they're current, up to date and have had proper maintenance. They serve it up fast so they can block it fast if you're evil enough to be trying to get to one of the 60,000-plus censored websites/pages. .

Totally agree, and the power of the boycott can be very powerful, and I support that, too. I'm totally with you on that. So long as the government is not involved either way, at any time. YOU have the right to censor any damn thing you want, as do I, as do we all. If you agree no government in any form, we agree totally. Free speech ends at the door to my house, my car, my Internet connection. When I say "free speech" I mean no government and nothing more. But that wasn't quite what you'd implied in your first post, which the way I read it was that CBS should not be *_allowed_* to show that sort of thing during the Super Bowl, and the group Whatitsface that made the commercial shouldn't be allowed to air such stuff. I do apologise if I misread and if I was misinterpreting your first post. And I'll certainly accept if you clear it up and that's not at all what you meant. But I'll maintain for now that's what you stated initially. If it's my misread and you have no BUT at all, so be it and we're on the same team. .

You don't know me. You've never met me. Why do you start all messages addressed to me with personal insults? Why not just debate the issue? What I wrote above, answering the OP and on topic, was that violence and law-breaking and morality-bending occurs in all societies, no matter how you group the world's people. Yes, the Muslims drink. They also murder, they also steal, they also shag other men and women outside their marriage. As do members of ALL groups, ALL religions. As American Christians have done and do. As white Americans have done, as black Americans have, as Rastafarians have, and as Scottish Presbyterians do right today and as some Pattaya Talk participants no doubt do. It is hysterical and silly to point out that Muslims do it, in a manner (in the OP and your own posts) that says or even implies Muslims and only Muslims are not faithful to the law, their creed, their religion, or that there is something notable about Muslims doing it. I don't know why you chose to point out that some violent white Americans killed some blacks in the most gruesome and murderous way, but you were absolutely correct about it. If you hadn't mentioned it, I probably wouldn't have thought of that particular quite old example, but you are right, and it illustrated exactly what I said and what many others have said: Without anyone being Muslim, that absolutely happened. .

I have to dispute that. The coppers are just fairly small-time enablers. The dealers and importers survive because of demand, first -- without demand, no reason for supply. And the really true corruption is a lot higher than the cops. If it was only the cops, the heroin would never make it to the west in the first place. To these people like politicians and generals, it's not corruption, it's just business. I didn't know Islam was big in Mexico, though, that IS a surprise, Mexico being the gateway where heroin gets to the US. .

Where did I write that Europeans wanted to hang President Bush? I don't recall that -- neither European or hanging. I do recall writing that the English mainstream media called for the killing of Bush, though. Is that what you mean and have a short memory, or are you simply confused? But yes, very good one Obsessed One -- white people did indeed used to attack and lynch blacks. EXACTLY MY POINT, and I appreciate the support. Not only Muslims do that stuff. And not all white people are terrorists, either -- are you? .

And Kennedy election slush funds! .

I've just been reading through the thread. Quite informative, chatty, friendly and football-oriented. If you get my drift. Thanks for the updates and colour comments, damned interesting. I would have pronounced it "Szczesny". .

I'd like to live in your world, tight little fantasy where the only threat is dark-skinned heathens who claim fealty to some remote being they call Allah. In your world, no white mobs ever killed hundreds of blacks in the US. In your world, no white English merchants ever traded dark-skinned Africans. In your world, no white African rulers ever killed fellow black African citizens to enforce their apartheid. In your world, no white do-gooders ever ripped thousands of Aborigine children from their parents. You've never heard of the Rape of Nanjing, the slaughter of every single non-Khmer AND two-thirds of all Khmers. There are no riots in China by minorities against Chinese that are put down by heavy gunfire with hundreds of dead, and the Vietnamese government has never used violence against major uprisings by its minorities. The Black Hole of Calcutta, heard of that? It happened just before the Indian terrorists tried to damage the fine, upstanding white people who were just trying to help Indians, after all. In your world, no black mobs attacked white and Hispanic people for no reason at all over and over and OVER AGAIN on the main street of Denver, Colorado in the past year. It didn't happen because they weren't Muslims. What a nice world you have. Only Muslims do terrible things, and they never, EVER do them to you. Everything is, er, dark and white. Actually, truthfully, I'm glad I don't live there. It's too much like hiding under the blankets so the boogey man won't get you. Yes, Little One, I actually remember the cartoon demonstrations you wrote about. They weren't just in England, by the way and they DID kill people (each other, thank Gorsch) outside your island. But I remember them in England SPECIFICALLY, because I was thinking at the time, hmmm, England, where the mainstream, white, non-Muslim, nominally Christian media called for the murder of President Bush. What *is* it about England that gets the murderous, homicidal violence flowing? Of course the English Infidel and Bush both survived the English violence, but I remember those things, you bet I do. Stupid, extremist, violent people get the front pages and we get to hear about you overseas. Some of us remember the Muslim part and the other parts, too. Also, what birdy said. My opinion: You'd do better looking for what I'm sure you'd call "good Muslims", get with them, back them up in opposing these al-Qaeda, violent, murderous types who are destroying their religion, like the Christian Apocalyptists who do the mass suicide bit every now and again, but more importantly who actually hope to destroy the whole world and want to do their bit towards it. You might even enjoy having a beer or a Coke with a Muslim, now wouldn't that destroy your world view? Afraid? .

Sssshhhhh, don't tell Obsession he missed all of that up ^^^ there in his own thread. After it was obvious to everyone and they all dropped the subject, he heard about it and brought it up. But didn't bother watching the ad, of course. I wish I had those little rolleye thingmys that Obsession has. Jealousy, thy name is Joe. OBSESSION LISSEN UP: It's obvious it's not a typo. The name you are searching for, the main man in The Who, the guy who once came under suspicion of some sort of kiddie-paedo offence, the old guy who just drives your life by his insistence on existing -- that name is Pete Townshend with an ess in the middle. .

No, speaking for me, that's about it. I think you're "wrong" only in the sense you're only including religions. Everyone is supposed to be moral, ethical and obey the basic laws of society - no stealing, no murdering, a very few other such social rules/laws. Sure that includes Christians and Rastas and Buddhists, but it also includes humanists and aetheists and, well, everyone. And no group, no matter how you classify the groups, has people who do ALL of that good stuff and NONE of that bad stuff. Religious codes, of the major religions at least, are all pretty simple on behaviour "rules" -- and any organised society has pretty much the same rules. The OP is on about drug-dealing by Muslims, of which there is plenty, but any major group of humans has plenty as well -- religous, national, colour, creed -- no matter how you group them, humans always have some really, really bad characters. Saudi jails are full. Thai jails are full. British jails are full. etc,etc. If there were "Muslim jails" or "agnostic jails" or "pygmy jails" or "BM jails" they'd be just as full. The OP is pretty silly. Of course all Muslims are supposed to obey the rules. So are all Christians, all Australians, all descendants of convicts, all patriots, all posters. .