Verbal

FYI, I am not Abu Hamza.

They were thrown in Manchester, delldays. If you're asking if I personally find the original Luton protest 'acceptable', no, of course, not. It was juvenile, attention-seeking and worse. It's the kind of mentality that is but a small step away from being tempted into strapping on a suicide belt. They were wide-eyed fanatics who were saying '**** you' as much to their community elders as to the soldiers. And it wasn't that they were expressing opinions so much as trying to stamp on the graves of the soldiers' dead comrades, in order to impress, in a weird kind of homo-erotic way, their 'sheikh', OBL. Was it racist? Debatable, but I'd allow that description. In any case, I don't know of a single Muslim, other than the idiots involved in that very small demo, who has expressed support for them. And as I say, I am not aware of ANY of these now well-known individuals being targeted by EDL protests. Instead they've gone for the easy prey of Asians on the street. It's racist intimidation, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have, but I must admit I laughed.

They're not exercising free speech, my sinkable friend. They're exercising their right to lob bricks and steel bars and try to start a fight. They are racist agent provocateurs, attempting to stoke street wars and to create the impression of racial chaos. They are not targetting 'extremists' but people who happen to have brown skin. If I'm wrong about this, then no doubt you could point me in the direction of a single extremist who has been targetted by these neanderthals. The paradox of this is that these assaults drive the Asian community inwards, and the prospects of their 'shopping' the dangerous cultists will actually diminish at precisely the time that such reporting to the police has been on the increase (As in the case of the Bristol bomber for example).

And who do you think was the most active in protesting against these individuals? Other Muslims in Luton. Community leaders and others queued up that day and afterwards to denounce them. I suppose that shouldn't excempt them from the intimidation and missiles of the 'EDL'. To repeat - the EDL are racist agent provocateurs. They aim their 'protests' squarely at people who happen to be brown-skinned. For this, some on here seem to have taken some vengeful glee.

Not in this case. The EDL exists to intimidate Asians. Period. That's not an exercise of free speech. One of the problems with this whole thread is that people on here - none of whom I presume is Asian - has a single clue about how the Asian community, and particularly Muslims, feel about the death cultists who kill and maim. Let me tell you. They feel much more strongly about it than you. Why? Not least because they are the victims. What is happening in the West is a sideshow - for OBL and Zawahiri it's just a place to commit 'spectaculars', as a means of raising recruits and cash. Their real goal is the yoking of Islam to an extremist Wahhabi version of the religion that's actually been practised by a tiny minority of Muaslims over a very, very short space of time. And let's be clear what Wahhabism is. Wahhab was a 17th century zealot who suddenly stoned to death a village woman in the desert of what's now Western Saudi Arabia. The villagers were stunned - and expelled him immediately. He eventually found refuge with a small-time sheikh called Saud. They entered into a pact, and their violent followers grabbed Mecca and Medina. So hostile were they to even the founders of the religion that, in 1802, Wahhab's followers desecrated the graves of Mohammad's family members and destroyed sacred sites where Mohammad's life had unfolded. Fortunately, the descendants of these lunatics were deposed from Mecca and Medina by the Ottomans. Of course, they were reinstated with the help of Lawrence of Arabia (!!!), and as a result of the 1915 Anglo-Saudi Pact. All at precisely the time that oil was discovered under their feet. The vast wealth was used partly to prosyletize extreme Wahhabism and export it across the Arabian Pensinsula, into South Asia, and beyond. Pre-existing variants of Islam - especially the highly peaceable and mystical Sufism, which had its powers base in India (Pakistan) and Afghanistan - were to be destroyed. Which they certainly were in Afghanistan, for example. As this battle for the soul of the religion has worn on, the victims, overwhelmingly, are Muslims, from Iraq to Pakistan. Muslims, by far, have the most to lose from the Wahhabi extremists - and the majority who haven't been intimidated or branwashed at the insidious Saudi-funded Maddrasses utterly detest these poisonous cultists. The point is - they need our support, not bricks aimed at their heads. But hey, if their skin is brown and they're outside a mosque, then they're fair game.

I still don't see how lobbing bricks at Asians is an exercise of free speech - and how it's not racist.

Delldays, my point is not that we shouldn't be concerned about any kind of extremism - or to put it more exactly, any kind of murderous death cult like the Salafists who buy into OBL's psychotic bullsh*t. My point is that the EDL is nothing more or less than a rallying call to racist thugs to intimidate and lob bricks at Asians. That's not the 'media', it's not 'branding', that's just how it is.

I wonder if you could try again, and this time make some sense. Who among the people being demonstrated against is a threat to you? Are you certain - or crazy enough - to believe that this organization is anything other than an agitating band of racist thugs? How does this 'brainwashing' work exactly then? Anti-semitism is okay? Hatred of all Muslims is okay? One sided? No - just calling it what it is.

Who said I was talking about you? Strange.

Don't knock it. The thread provides the useful function of herding up the few sheep-like, hardcore racists on this site in one handy place.

Tut, tut, ESB. The correct Latin is ad nauseum.

Tin hats on - incoming from the moral police...

We will win, you miserable sods. Promise...

Interesting perhaps, but impossible. I mean, the laws of physics don't allow it. The team - finally - is a lot better than the one last year and is just about good and ready to wallop Yeovil 1-0.

Just seen Away We Go, the new Sam Mendes movie. Really puzzled by the good reviews it's getting. It seemed to drag on forever, with the occasional laugh, but was surprised to find its running time was a little over an hour and a half. Horrible, schmaltzy, but unexplained ending too, which I'm tempted to ruin - except that that would be extremely difficult.

So he had to go to the Moonie-owned Washington Times to come up with this guff? I think he's talking in code: the only way a 40,000 seat stadium will be 'green' is by not being built. And eight million fans?

Underwater golf?

This is what Derren Brown does to people.

We need more reserves with this attitude.

With my Derren Brown hat on, they said they're going to make some funny noises and then somehow forget all about it. (Written in the future-past tense.) Bet? Here's the beginning of that story. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/11/matt-le-tissier-betting-scam You won't hear about the end.

I see the moral philosophers are still out in force. After the initial day or so of tut-tutting, I'd have thought this would have died the death. But nearly two weeks later, here we still all are. And still, it seems, finding ways to paint MLT as corrupt, cynical and lazy to the bone.

You're thinking too hard benjii. He was just warning that he was going to give a flaky explanation (I can say with the benefit of hindsight...)

Oh, and here's another link I've only just found. This one got my attention because it mentions my film among many others - and makes the claim that we're all - obviously - American psyops officers peddling a Bush administration mass-brainwash. http://www.spingola.com/JULES%20NAUDET%20App%202.htm And you wonder, hulk, why I drop the odd 'paranoid' into my sentences? Sheesh, these guys are weird.

And actually, if people want to find out genuinely new and interesting stuff, the planes - and the events on board as they unfolded - are the still one of the most important places to look.