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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Islamic Fascism (trademark pending)

Welcome to the new bigotry, same as the old bigotry.

In these days of the war on terror, we are moving to new levels of fear and fear mongering, this from the Independent….

Muslim leaders yesterday spoke of their dismay after a passenger mutiny in which several British families refused to travel on a plane with two Asian men

The two men were forced to leave the flight bound for Manchester after fellow passengers wrongly suspected them of being terrorists.

Several people on board flight ZB613 from Malaga to Manchester became alarmed by the men's presence and demanded that airline staff remove them from the plane.

Cabin crew informed Spanish authorities of the passengers' fears and the men were ordered off the Monarch Airlines flight and questioned by police for several hours.

They were eventually cleared and put on an alternative flight to Manchester.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the incident, which follows a security alert over an alleged bomb plot at Heathrow two weeks ago, demonstrated the "the high level of suspicion that ordinary Muslims are often being unfairly subjected to".

He added: "They [Muslims] are increasingly being treated as though they are guilty of plotting terrorist acts unless proved innocent, rather than vice versa."

Similar incidents in which people of Asian or Middle Eastern appearances have been targeted by fellow passengers have been reported on pilots' and cabin crew's websites, including one in which two British women with young children on a flight from Spain apparently complained about a bearded Muslim even though he had been security checked twice before boarding the plane.


Watchdog has teeth

Apparently MPs were told what the rules were on election spending, Helen keeps saying that ‘we need to change the rules’, which I agree with. I would prefer to see Public money rather than private money fund electioneering, HOWEVER surely those are changes you make BEFORE you break the rules?

Auditor-General Kevin Brady says he forewarned political parties last year to be careful with their election spending

That, he said yesterday, is what could be taken from a report delivered to Parliament in June last year - three months before the September election - and he thought it cleared up any confusion about the rules.

"That was my view, but clearly that wasn't shared [universally]," he said.

A furore has broken out over leaked findings of a new report Mr Brady is preparing, which finds that much of the taxpayer-funded political advertising in the three months before last year's election was unlawful, including Labour's $446,000 pledge card.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald, Mr Brady said:

* He clearly warned MPs to watch their election spending.

* He expected their spending to be appropriate.

* He challenged the Prime Minister's argument that if a problem with unlawful expenditure existed for three months last year, it might have amounted to $350 million over 15 years.

Mr Brady said yesterday his new report on political advertising would stick to the three-month period before the last election.


Hiding the facts?

Ministry Of Defense in Britain are still not giving full figures for combat injuries on their website, despite promises by former defence secretary, John Reid that there would be monthly updates. With the casualty rate climbing in Afghanistan, there is widespread feeling that the MoD is ‘covering-up’ the sacrifices being made by British troops

3 Comments:

At 22/8/06 1:37 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The first one seems a little similar (kind of) to Air NZ not wanting men sitting next to unaccompanied children because all me are paedophiles. Sheer idiocy.

 
At 22/8/06 4:56 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Bomber, very apt for you the sub title is welcome to the new bigotry.

 
At 29/8/06 11:09 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Referring to overspending on the election. In a radio news item last week I heard "a spokeswoman" for the labour party electoral office say: "of course they could never pay back all the money, they would have to sell all their houses, so they NEED retrospective legislation".

Hmmn I wonder if I stole that much money and said "oh, I can't pay it back, I would have to sell my house" I'd get "retrospective legislation" that would make it all "legal and above board".

Next time any of us "owe" the IRD any money, can we all demand "retrospective legislation"? How many people have the IRD bankrupted and forced to sell their house "because we owe the IRD money"?

 

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