Possible Airport Attack In Glasgow (UPDATED)

104 Replies to “Possible Airport Attack In Glasgow (UPDATED)”

1. Three attempts, three dismal failures, these jihadi slobs aren’t the brightest bulbs on the porch, thank God. But, then, Islam borrows science. Obviously they have don’t have a research program worth its salt in bomb fuses.
   Overheard on FOX that one salty bystander on the scene at Glasgow was quoted as screaming to the cops on their arrival regarding the terrorist slob writhing on the ground “f**k him, throw him back in the burning car”. My sentiments exactly. There may be hope for Britain yet. Or at least the Celtic parts.
   The MSM commentary is as lame as expected. “Asians”? Get real. “Why does Britain have a problem that the US doesn’t”?….”better assimilation” as the answer…doubt it as Islam assimilates well nowhere. Blair saturated Britain with Muslims over his tenure.

2. Rubbish, jp. There is no mountain of evidence. That book is garbage. Unscientific garbage.
   There is no such thing as a national IQ. Period. No such thing as ‘the people in the nation’ having an IQ that is anything other than – average of 100.
   THINK – if you can.
   An IQ of 70 is ‘retarded’ which would mean that the people could not survive without external guidance from another peoples. That doesn’t happen!!!
   The subsaharan peoples, eg, the Dobe !Kung (Bushmen) are extremely skilled and capable of surviving in that area – an area where you would most likely die from thirst and starvation. and no, they don’t have IQs in the 50s. They have IQs, an average of 100.
   Such ignorant unscientific garbage – written by people with no knowledge of biology, of cognition, of IQs. Again – we are ONE species; the IQ is the same – and doesn’t vary in that species.
   And a nation is a political entity; the people in that nation and the one next to it and the one next to it are the SAME biological species. So this attempt to define the people in various nations as having specific IQs is rubbish.
   Well- how about an answer. How could the peoples with IQs – as you say – in the 70s and 50s’ – how could they have survived as peoplels – without the guidance of some SMART Nation? Hmmm?
   There is no such thing as an IQ difference between peoples; we are ONE species – and the average, all around the world – is 100. That’s what ‘average’ means, DJ/jp.

3. I was wrong, the dead man was burned to death in the car. The two arrested are in bad shape, one is in hospital. I agree, no virgins for those guys, but others are waiting to get at them. G&M comments are weird, one guy says no jihad has been announced, for centuries, others say MI5 planted the cars. So far the expert ROSIE, has not given her take that it was a conspiracy by the CIA. Others say the only damage would have been to a persons hearing, if bomb had gone off.
   The really scarry thing is, these posters vote.

4. kevinb “You need to educate yourself. Britain has more closed circuit cameras (CCTV) than any country in Europe or North America (China might have more).”
   I know this. I live in this Orwellian heckhole, and, for what it’s worth, happen to distrust my government’s disdain for civil liberties enormously.
   My broiges with WLMR is that he sought to portray the British MSM’s reporting *as* an attempted terrorist attack *what could only have been* an attempted terrorist attack as evidence of its complicity in a conspiracy to put the willies up the general public.
   The BBC, which I presume to be the chief focus of WLMR’s ire, is state funded, not state directed. Its tenor its decidedly liberal. It is not the government’s propaganda arm. Don’t believe me? See http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com.
   See, I believe government to be a necessary evil. WLMR appears to recognise no evil but government. Accordingly, the fact that organised cells of Islamofascist douchebags have repeatedly sought to slay members of the public at random is to him less a matter of concern than the government’s being required to respond to the threat such conspiracies pose. Jolted into the awkward realisation that government might have its uses after all, WLMR finds himself confused. Is government necessary or no? Safer to deny that such a thing as terrorism exists and pretend that the whole thing is a media conspiracy.

5. Hey, hammerdan, has it ever occured to you that Orwell in our present situation would have approved of the surveillance cameras? Commonsense should tell you that those cameras are a good thing, it isn’t like the gov’t is mass arresting litterers or someone smoking a joint at a street corner. Get real. Want to dismantle the cameras after the past two days?
   Here’s where your little lefty life hangs in the balance as time goes on, trusting your government or the jihadis to not want your sorry ass dead. Your choice.

6. I suspect Orwell would have seen the need for them in this situation, accepting the lesser evil of encroaching on some liberties to keep from loosing all of them.
   He wrote many things other than 1984; I remember reading Road to Wigan Pier – he was a remarkably pragmatic person.
   That said, using them to check garbage regulations is an abuse that can be checked.

7. nomdeblog wrote “Islam is a socio-political way of life.” Yes it is except that at its root is a religion. Just as western democracy has at its root Christianity. Unfortunately the western democracies have been divorced from their historical religion long enough that they try to impose the result (democracy) without realizing that without the foundation (Christianity) the desired result will never come to fruition.

8. No, joe, the root of democracy is not christianity. After all, Aristotle wrote in depth about democracy – long before christianity emerged.
   Democracy is a political system based upon an empowered middle class – and such a class only emerges within a very large population in a market economy – which developed in Europe in the 13th c. Nothing to do with christianity, but certainly christianity, in its non-feudal mode, assisted the expansion of market economies. (Because it preaches the value of The Neighbour).
   And Islam is first, a sociopolitical system, moved into dogma by defining it as a religion. As a sociopolitical system, it promotes tribalism, which is a socieconomic mode based around the group, around hereditary hierarchies of power, the rejection of reason, the rejection of the individual, the rejection of science, the rejection of the current reality – in favour of a utopian idealistic tribal socioeconomic mode.

9. wyatt salt – thank you. My favorite Orwell story was “Shooting An Elephant”. He was a genius, on target in his life, hating fascism, and would if alive today approved the cameras for terrorist surveillance. As is the case here, our Constitution wasn’t designed as a suicide pact. We need the Patriot Act.
   How dumb is it than being a lefty whose world view is that your own government is as dangerous as Islam?

10. ET,
    Of course we are one biological species, but how this “proves” there are no differences in average IQs between different population groups is beyond me. And why couldn’t a low IQ group like the Khoisan merely survive without outside help? Pigeons survive, cockroaches survive, the slime that grows on rocks survives, none of which are known for their high intelligence. The low average IQs of the Khoisan may explain why they were pushed into the remote regions of the Kalahari by more intelligent black Africans, who were in turn enslaved and colonized by the yet more intelligent Europeans.
    Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen (father of the current President of Finland, for what its worth), the authors of “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” and “IQ and Global Inequality” are two of the most respected researchers in the world on this subject, not ignoramuses as you flippantly characterize them. They used the IQ test results of over 800,000 people from scores of countries in every region in the world to draw their groundbreaking conclusions. Your contention that all humans or human groups have an IQ of 100 is ludicrous. Next time, do the tiniest bit of research before you spout off on a subject of which, frankly, you know nothing.

11. You are right ET obviously people drive flaming cars into airport terminals for socio-economic reasons. People fly airplanes into tall buildings for socio-economical reasons. Funnily enough the ex-Muslims (now Christians) I know tell me that they actually believed in Jihad as part of their religion not part of their socio-economic status. Methinks too often the irreligious fail to understand the motivation provided by a religion trying to reduce everything into mundane materialism. SIGH! And we wonder why we can’t seem to reach these people with sound reasoning. Meanwhile we sit with our heads firmly up our butt and hope their “moderates” will come to our rescue.

12. jp – what utter nonsense – comparing human beings to pigeons – and slime. Our species has NO innate knowledge – unlike these other organisms. All its knowledge base must be gathered, stored and learned. This requires a high IQ – not a ‘retarded’ IQ. Therefore, there is no such thing as any ‘peoples’ who are, collectively, of a low IQ. In order to exist, the society requires the development of knowledge about their env’t. No ‘retarded IQ’ has that capacity.
    No, the ‘black Africans’ are not more intelligent; they inhabited a biome or environment that enabled small scale horticulture and/or domestication of some animals. The San or Hunting and Gathering economies inhabited areas that are unsuitable for agriculture. Hunting and gathering requires an extensive and sophisticated knowledge of the env’t, plants and animals. This is NOT POSSIBLE within a ‘retarded IQ’. So- kindly stop the nonsense.
    The two people you mention are not respected researchers; indeed, their thesis is rejected by every valid biologist, psychologist around – except for racists such as Rushton. No, they did not carry out 800,000 IQ tests; they extrapolated a lot of their data from speculation and guess-work.
    Again – the theory is pure nonsense. And you show that you don’t understand the human cognitive system by your comparison of humans to biological organisms whose knowledge base is innate.
    joe- sarcasm is an invalid argumentative tactic. You’ll have to explain why a religious ideology can’t be based in a particular socioeconomic mode – namely – a tribal socioeconomic mode. And that’s exactly what Islam is – an ideology focused around a tribal socioeconomic mode.
    That tribalism, for instance, explains why Islam as an ideology even has a concept such as ‘jihad’. That’s because Islam emerged as a reaction to the Christian expansion of settled towns, market economies and trade of the 4th c. This expansion was settling the lands required by the tribal peoples for their economy (pastoral nomadism). So, Islam emerged as a reaction to Christian and village settlement. Jihad is a militaristic reaction to the settlement of their lands.
    As for the modern Islamism, that’s Islamic fascism, and that’s due to the dysfunctional ME states that refuse to move out of tribalism and empower a middle class.

13. J.P. The reason the CBC, CTV, are not covering the story is because they are Cowards.(Intellectually,Morality, and worse of all “Knowing” that they are). Todays Journalist need to be Bright, alert and Brave reporting the story without “spin” ( I can make up my own mind).
    Their are still a few Brave men and women out there.
    We should accept no less..

14. Wyatt Salt 8:54pm.
    Yes, right with you on this one. For, as you will well know, but for others, it was the likes of Winston Smith that Big Brother was looking for.

    Bewildered, frightened, with the insight as to how a totalitarian society was being irrevocably intrenched- he rebelled. He ran in fear, but tried to utter a feeble protest, only to be utterly destroyed. This by sophisticated surveillance.

    If face with this horror, I can imagine old Sir Winston Churchill growling that in order to protect society, “Bag the lot”. Further he would have said that when we make society safe for all men and women- they can damn well vote us out. (chuckle).

15. Sarcasm ET? Just pointing out the obvious. Your socio-economic arguement doesn’t answer the basic question why do economically advantaged individuals deprive themselves of all material benifits and actively work to destroy others and even bring about their own destruction. The evidence points to them having a belief in something greater than themselves and a cause greater than humanity. Materialism doesn’t answer THAT question, however religion does. Its time we began to address this issue from a religious point of view instead of this philosophical pap being perpetrated by materialists who don’t understand religion and so denigrate it as a motivater in human activity.

16. joe- they aren’t materially advantaged. There is no middle class in the Middle East; there’s only the dominant tribe, which is very wealthy – from oil – and the rest-of-the-population. That’s the basis of Islamic fascism.
    As for the externalization of this fascism to Europe – that’s due to the fact that revolt against this tribalism can’t be expressed in the ME (because the ME are military dictatorships) – and to the isolation of the Islamic groups in Europe – by the fact that the ones who left the ME – are, as they are in the ME, of poor education, unskilled. They remain so in the multicultural ghettoes of Europe. check out literacy rates in ME countries. There’s no research, no science, no patents, no innovations.
    Neither the ME nor the European Muslims have reformed their religion – which, again, validates a primitive tribalism. And rather than dealing with the need for reform – ideological, economic and political, the ME leaders have externalized the anger by turning it against the West. It has nothing to do with the West. It’s the ME tribalism. The religious leaders are part of this tactic – and brainwash the young men – who have no economic or political role in their own countries.

17. ccon said
    *******IQ is just a measurement of how much you know.******
    no,there is a difference between IQ, knowledge, and wisdom….try not mixing them up
    ET… you demonstrate very well that you do not understand much about human intelligence, there is a difference for different peoples, and yes culture and politics do act as “nurture” that can effect intelligence, altho only to a limited extent
    and as JP quite ritely pointed out to you various “ignorant” species DO survive, inspite of their ignorance

18. Joe “Your socio-economic argument doesn’t answer the basic question why do economically advantaged individuals deprive themselves of all material benefits and actively work to destroy others and even bring about their own destruction”
    Utopianism is the answer to your point in the case of:
    Islamofascism – a socio-political way of life originating with pastoral tribes and calling itself a religion, but unlike Judeo-Christianity it never reformed. I’m losing patience with it as you are, so this isn’t a defense of Islam –a utopianism of the past that the Bin Ladens want to take their followers to.
    Communism – a socio-political way of life that is a utopianism of the future. The socialists in our midst practice it as if it was a religion and worship at the en-elected temple of the UN with the help of elitists high priests.
    First Nations – those that still dwell in the romantic idea of tribes from the past are utopians of the past, like Islam. They will not take advantage of the thriving first world that they are invited to join; instead they choose the squalor of a third world. These First Nations would fail or collapse were it not for us propping them up ; justt as the ME would collapse were it not for oil propping up otherwise failed states.

19. gym/DJ/JP
    No- there’s no difference among various peoples as far as intelligence is concerned. I think you’ll have to prove your point – and the garbage of that book you support – is not proof.
    You have to show that the socioeconomic lifestyle of the people whom you define as sub-normal and retarded, can be created by a sub-normal and retarded population. That would be an impossible task- for a sub-normal or retarded human being cannot create a social infrastructure.
    Survival of a non-human biological species has no comparison to the human biological species; a pigeon or slime, as you mentioned, survives in its environmental niche, due to its innate knowledge base that adapts it to that environment. Our species has no innate knowledge. You don’t seem to understand this basic fact. Is it that hard to understand? After all, you claim to have a superior intelligence. How is it that you don’t know the cognitive difference between a non-human and the human species???
    So – again, the comparison is completely invalid.
    The Dobe !Kung (of the Khoisan group that you mentioned) have the same intelligence as any other human – as any European. It is obvious that you know nothing of their economy or sociopolitical systems. Or, of any other society.
    I always used to have the famous book by Richard Lee, who studied the San peoples for over 30 years, on my required reading list for first year students. They actually have quite a complex social organization; they have an indepth and extensive knowledge of their env’t – and no- they aren’t retarded or ignorant or unintelligent.
    So- I can only conclude that your ignorance of the infrastructures of other societies is evidence of a lack of intelligence on your part. Any reasoning person has to conclude that an IQ of 60-70, as you claim for these people, which is in the category of sub-normal, of retarded, would mean that they would be unable to survive. They would be unable to develop a knowledge base about their env’t, about how to obtain food, how to deal with disease, how to deal with problems, how to plan for the future. An IQ of that level means that the individual has none of these cognitive capacities. You don’t seem to understand this. Why not?
    Remember, DJ/jp/gym – that, as humans, they have no innate knowledge. All their knowledge is developed and learned by themselves. If they were retarded – they’d have NO KNOWLEDGE BASE; they couldn’t develop it. And, they’d have no capacity to plan, predict, control their env’t. Prediction and modeling is a basic cognitive capacity – but you don’t seem to know this.
    You also don’t seem to know much about the levels of human intelligence, and the cognitive capacities of the sub-normal or retarded.
    I suggest you go read some books on the actual social, economic and political infrastructures of these peoples. Your lack of knowledge about them is profound.
    I suggest you also read some books on the nature of knowledge in the human species; on the requirement for cognitive modeling that enables prediction and anticipation, the requirement for generalization, for memory and memory devices – and see how a knowledge base develops in a society. You don’t seem to know anything at all about this.

20. ET Did I ever mention utopianism? NO. I simply want to raise the discussion to a point where we are actually willing to do something about people motivated to slaughter thousands of people by their religion. Ruminating about whether it is a socio-economic structure is sheer stupidity. It makes us feel all sanctimonius and intellecutally superior while people motivated by their belief system (religion) run arround the globe killing innocent people. As I said previously the former muslims I have talked to all said that they would never do what the Islamic Jihadis are doing but based on their understanding of Islam the Jihadis were not wrong in doing these things. Having converted to Christianity they now vehomently disagree with the jihadis. If you think that this point is utopianism then so be it but I would rather be a what you call a utopian working for real change in this world than an ineffectual intellectual whose debating nomenclature allows the carnage to continue. My choice is to actively engage muslims and by word and deed bring about in them a life changing event after which they eschew any religion that engages in violence and death as a means to please its god.

21. ET
    Your insulting diatribes, besides being riddled with errors and mischaracterizations too numerous to mention, are getting tiring. You believe that the Khoisan are the intellectual equals of the Ashkenazi Jews. I disagree. Let’s agree to disagree.

22. I see the imbecile bomb makers have finally discovered propane. Good thing they also discovered it makes crappy bombs. Don’t know that they thought the nails were going to do, other than melt.
    You know, stupidity is a really great thing in an enemy. Gives you time to kick your gigantic, slothful, pig-ignorant government into some semblance of motion.

23. One final note to ET before I go to bed then on to Church tomorrow. I’m certainly not the only one who thinks that Christianity is the root of our democracy. For example Jürgen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.”
    Good night and God Bless

24. Joe “Ruminating about whether it is a socio-economic structure is sheer stupidity”
    No it isn’t stupid because it ties in with your valid point of “where we are actually willing to do something”
    Because this latest threat can be equated to the utopianism of Communism which we agreed to help the Americans fight in the Cold War for decades. We need to do the same again. Canada had US B52’s in Goose Bay that were armed with Nukes during the Cold War. That was serious business; we need to get serious again. But at that time we did not have an enemy within, like the CBC, telling us that we needed to be multicultural and that the USSR ideology was equal to ours. Errr … Ok maybe the CBC did, but the MSM did not have the power to sway the public into an appeasing, complacent attitude about evil that it does today.
    We are not going to beat this problem until we dig deeper and discover what is wrong with our society that will not allow us to confront evil. The Brits are hopefully doing that today after yet another close call, their luck is running out. I hope they wake up. We need to do the same. It calls for a dramatic shift in the way our society thinks about these matters. We need to stop appeasing the “enemy within” which is utopian. We need to call them on that and stop tolerating it. We need to elect a government, with a majority, that is willing to confront this problem, the biggest issue of our day.
    Happy Canada Day! I think we can all agree that this country and its way of life is worth fighting for. Thanks to Kate for keeping the spark of fight left in a few of us.

25. Well, we know the Glasgow bombers were Muzzies, they were calling to Allah. At least one has gone to meet his 72 virgins.
    There has been the odd female bomber, what would be her promised reward?

26. “Asian” is coded speech for East Indian.
    But a very particular kind of East Indian. Not Indian Hindus but Pakistani Muslims, the cannon fodder of al-Qaida.
    “We need to throttle the ideology and roll up the networks.”
    – Mark Steyn

27. Nobody says it better than Steyn, from today’s Chicago Suntimes:
    So many of our problems with Iran today arise from not doing anything about our problems with Iran yesterday. Men like Ayatollah Khomeini despised pan-Arab nationalists like Nasser who attempted to impose a local variant of Marxism on the Muslim world. Khomeini figured: Why import the false ideologies of a failing civilization? Doesn’t it make more sense to export Islamism to the dying West?
    And, for a guy dismissed by most of us as crazy, he made a lot of sense. The Rushdie fatwa established the ground rules: The side that means it gets away with it. Mobs marched through Britain calling for the murder of a British subject — and, as a matter of policy on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity, the British police shrugged and looked the other way. One reader in England recalled one demonstration at which he asked a constable why the ”Muslim community leaders” weren’t being arrested for incitement to murder. The officer told him to ”f – – – off, or I’ll arrest you.” Genuine ”moderate Muslims” were cowed into silence, and pseudo-moderate Muslims triangulated with artful evasiveness. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, who went on to become leader of the most prominent British Muslim lobby group, was asked his opinion of the fatwa against Rushdie and mused: ”Death is perhaps too easy.”
    In 1989 Rushdie went into hiding under the protection of the British police. A decade later, despite renewals of the fatwa and generous additions to the bounty, he decided he did not wish to live his life like that and emerged from seclusion to live a more or less normal life. He learned the biggest lesson of all: how easy it is to be forced into the shadows. That’s what’s happening in the free world incrementally every day, with every itsy-bitsy nothing concession to groups who take offense at everything and demand the right to kill you for every offense. Across two decades, what happened to Rushdie has metastasized, in part because of the weak response in those first months. ”Death is perhaps too easy”? Maybe. But slow societal suicide is easier still.

28. Redux, an idiot is someone who refuses to believe their own eyes but prefer the thumb-sucking security of lefty conspiracies…. just like you.
    It’s all a right wing conspiracy – now, where have I heard that before, and before, and before..before..before.

29. Freedom of speech does not mean you can yell “ALLAH!” in a crowded theatre.

30. ET said “We are not going to beat this problem until we dig deeper and discover what is wrong with our society that will not allow us to confront evil”.
    A wise man once said, “When you are in the jaws of a bear intent on eating you for lunch debating whether it is a black bear or a grizzly bear or a kodiak bear is pretty pointless.” “You find any and every weapon available to you and you inflict as much damage as you can on that bear hoping that you either kill it or drive it away.”
    Another wise man went to the local univeristy and debated with the local philosophers. In the end the wise man walked away in disgust and went about his appointed task. That man (St Paul) brought about great change(civilization)to this world. Can anyone name one of the university philosophers he debated? Can anyone tell of even one of the changes the philosophers brought about? Didn’t think so.

31. Actually, joe, it was nomdeblog who made that statement. But I agree with him.
    Kinetic reaction – that reaction to the bear – is purely mechanical. That won’t deal with the basic problem. If it is a purely once-only situation, then, you might have to consider that either you, or the bear, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    If it’s a continuous problem, then, reacting purely mechanically won’t solve the basic, deep problem of – why are the bears so hungry that they are intruding on human camps. Relying only on the mechanical strength of the individual who is attacked is irresponsible. What if it’s someone without strength to fight off a bear?
    Therefore, if it’s a continuous problem, then, you have to examine WHAT and WHY. The reason for the development of this insane behaviour, Islamic fascism, has to do with the refusal of the ME states, which are all politically tribal – and kept that way by oil-funded military dictatorships – to move into democracy.
    They have to move into democracy because their population has exploded exponentially since WWII – beyond the organizational capacity of a tribal political system. They have to enable a middle class to develop – a class that has the economic and political power.
    The refusal of the elite hereditary tribe to enable this middle class has led to fascism. A fascism that grabbed their religion, Islam, which is itself a tribal sociopolitical creed, and has radicalized it rather than reformed it out of tribalism.
    If we of the West refuse to confront this fascism and openly reject it – thinking that it’s politically incorrect and ‘racist’ to reject it – because the fascists are hiding their fundamentalism within the religion – if we refuse to confront evil- and fascism is evil – then, we will suffer.

32. Two of the five terror suspects being held in the wake of the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow are believed to be hospital doctors working in the UK.…..Sky News
    http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1273122,00.html
    Sweet. So much for poverty as a root cause. So much for a university education fostering enlightment. This is beyond disgusting on so many levels.

33. Therefore, if it’s a continuous problem, then, you have to examine WHAT and WHY.
    Which brings me back to the first point I made it is the religion that is inspiring these fanatics to action. These people believe that Allah, pure will, determines who goes to heaven and who doesn’t and the only hope people have is earn enough brownie points that maybe Allah will let them into paridise. According to Islam the only way to earn brownie points is to work for the advancement of the religion. However there is further inducement to violence in the religion. If you are a martyr to the cause of Islamic advancement you are sure to enter paradise. However simply being killed for the cause is not sure way to avoid torture. Islamic tradition holds that after death the soul returns to the body where it is tortured by decay until the resurection whereupon the martyr is given a new body. The only way to avoid this torture is to have body destroyed at the time of the martyrdom. Thus the ideal way to paradise is to die in an explosion or fire as you bring all kinds of other people to paradise through martyrdom if they are fellow muslim or scaring non-muslims into becoming muslim.
    Also the average muslim is primarily a fatalist who does not question the social order of their Muslim society. Since Allah is pure will to question Allah’s established order is to question the will of Allah. Questioning Allah’s will is one way to end up in eternal torture so any temporal discomfort is worth bearing for the greater cause.
    That the state of the Muslim nations is tribal has little bearing on anything because tribalism is endemic to human society. A not too distant relative went as a Christian missionary from Scotland to Africa (before Livingston) where he encountered tribal slaughter most vile. He persevered and brought a good number to Christianity. He was then called back to Scotland where he became head of the University of Edinborough. After twenty years he went back to Africa and wrote a book about the change that had taken place. The tribes weren’t killing each other anymore, crops were planted and harvested and the people fed. The tribal councils were elected and enforced social order based on Christian teaching.
    Yet the biggest change brought about was invisible. The people stopped believing in pagan animism and became believers in the great I AM as revealed in the Trinity of Christianity.
    Looking for the root cause of evil? Try looking at people’s belief system whether Muslim, communist or secular humanist. Economic/social conditions are in large part determined by the background belief of the people.

34. Joe, I do think we’re close enough in our thinking about what has to be done to not get hung up whether I think we’re fighting utopian fascism and you think we’re fighting a religion. We’ve got to fight it ..period.
    It does make discussion awkward when we don’t agree on the terminology, but since we’ll be fighting this for decades we can work on the terminology later.
    I just finished a family Canada Day dinner. We got into quite an animated discussion about the difference between tolerance for Islam and political correctness that is so overly sensitive that we’re not calling the evil …evil. Young people don’t get it. They’ve been too brainwashed by academia to let themselves think our culture is better and to say so. There’s been too much equality of cultures taught in our schools. Tolerance is one thing, allowing cultures to stand as being equal has to stop. We need to state clearly that Islam needs to reform …pronto.

35. What I find redeeming about the Brits is their willingness to get involved. The cop disarmed the car bomb and a civilian jumped these guys. If this were to happen here would people jump the guy or put their finger up waiting for someone to do something. Happy Dominion Day.

36. No, joe – the ideology of a society is not the base of the society – its economy is the base.
    And the economy is directly related to the env’t; is the soil fertile; what is the water source; what is the climate; what plants and animals can be domesticated.
    No- the tribes in Africa were not slaughtering each other ‘most vile’. If they had been, they could not have survived. Equally, they had food before Europeans came. No, they did not need elected governance – elections are only viable and required in large populations. In smaller populations, hereditary authority is far more suitable and elections will destabilize the society.
    No- you can’t state that ‘after they were converted’ they were growing crops etc and suggest that it was due to the religion. Growing crops is only suitable in an ecological env’t where plants can be domesticated, where there is a reasonably fertile soil, where water is available, and where settlements are possible.
    By settlements – I mean that the soil is fertile enough that you don’t have to move to allow the land to regenerate. Most of these requirements are not found in southern Africa. You can’t grow crops in the rainforest; you can’t grow crops in the Kalahari; there are no domesticated animals – and so on. In the northern Africa – it will be pastoral nomadic – an economy that requires long annual migrations because the grasslands are in a seasonal biome – where the rains come only in certain seasons.
    The Islamic religion is founded on and based on a pastoral nomadic economy. The problem with it, is that its holders are refusing to modernize it out of a pastoral nomadic tribalism – into the modern world.
    The West rose to dominance because Europe has the richest biome in the world – with a thick rich soil, enabling plough agriculture, a temperate mild climate – and regular water by rainfall. This led to massive population increases, which were reduced, at first, by famines, diseases, wars, and colonization. Finally, after these ‘attempts’ to control population did not succeed, ideological change into industrialism enabled the West to support larger populations.
    Ideology or religion is a superstructural belief system that rests within, that is embedded within, an economic mode. Religions don’t emerge out of thin air; they are grounded in reality. What has to be examined, is that material reality in which they are embedded.

37. nomdeblog : … We need to state clearly that Islam needs to reform …pronto.”
    I have found, in general, people don’t do anything that they wouldn’t have done anyway. You get as many with a nudge as you do with a push.

38. Ideology or religion is a superstructural belief system that rests within, that is embedded within, an economic mode. Religions don’t emerge out of thin air; they are grounded in reality. What has to be examined, is that material reality in which they are embedded
    If you think so I will no longer debate the issue with you (Matthew 7:6). I have seen enough evidence (Africa, both Americas, Asia and Europe)both personally and through reliable witness to know that the greatest influences in establishing one’s social and material condition is one’s core belief. Change that core belief and you will change the social and material condition of that individual.
    But since you will not accept at least in part the truth of what I say then all I can do is hope that you have fun in you ivory tower. I also hope no Jihadi hits it with an airplane while you are in there trying to understand the functioning of the world suffering from severe case of materialist myopia. God Bless until we cross swords again.

39. ural, have you told your Minister of Education and your local school principal to start “nudging”?
    Good luck. But I’m afraid they’ll have to be “pushed” out of office and replaced by someone who is prepared to state that the only way our society can work is to:
    -separate church and state
    – men and women must be equal
    -tolerate other religions, not force conversion
    This needs to be taught in our schools, openly and clearly

40. Joe and ET, that is a fascinating debate.
    The way I see it, for example, the Christians in France did a lot better economically than the Muslims in North Africa for a couple of reasons.
    1. The ecology of France is a lot better for agriculture than the desert is, the latter could simply provide for an economy of pastoral, tribal nomads.
    2. An agricultural society only works with the principles of “love thy neighbour” or Christian principles because the land and the farming work has to be divided up with your neighbours. Whereas nomads need to fight when they return from a circle of herding the camels and find someone on “their’ spot.
    In other words Christianity and an innovative agricultural society need each other to work, particularly in growing population scenario. Whereas a nomadic society needs to fight, especially in a growth population, to retain ability to move the herd all over the place, ownership of property doesn’t come into play.
    I’m happy to stop there because it is clear to me that the original structure of Islam won’t work in growth population now faced with a technologically innovative global economy; therefore it is imploding, or would implode were it not for oil propping it up.
    As to the chicken and egg argument of which came first, Christianity or the fertile French soil? I’m not sure, I just know that you needed both to achieve the massive progress the Western world ended up achieving.

41. It is obvious that ET is a University Professor with too much time on her hands.

42. loboy2k – no, no, that’s not how you rebut an argument!
    If you want to get into the debate, you don’t make childish ad hominem comments about the debaters- you deal with the issues. Now – how about saying something about the issues being discussed? Hmmm?

43. Hmmmm Let’s see. Ample rainfall, fertile soil, temperate climate; the “First Nations People” should be ruling the world.

44. loboy2k- you’re being childish. Your date base is invalid. The natives of Canada do not live on fertile soil land, with ample rainfall or temperate climate. You know, mocking what you don’t understand isn’t a very mature or intelligent action. Instead – do some research. google the term ‘biomes of the world’. You might learn something.

45. Now it’s five doctors (from LGF)
    Five doctors are now being held in connection with the recent attempted terror attacks – one is an Iraqi doctor who trained in Baghdad.
    Sky sources named him as Iraqi Bilal Abdulla – he was left relatively unscathed in an attack on Glasgow airport, in which two men drove a flaming jeep into the airport terminal.
    Two doctors were arrested in Paisley, Glasgow, another in Liverpool and one on the M6 on Saturday night.
    Abdulla was pictured being led away from the explosion by police and worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow. The other man detained at Glasgow airport had severe burns and remains in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra.

46. nomdeblog wrote “Joe and ET, that is a fascinating debate.”
    Thank you and I hope ET feels the same way.
    “I do think we’re close enough in our thinking about what has to be done to not get hung up whether I think we’re fighting utopian fascism and you think we’re fighting a religion. We’ve got to fight it ..period”
    Agreed and that has been the point of my arguments from the start. What I have been trying to get across is the fact that these individual terrorists are acting out of a religious conviction. That the society they seek to establish is fascist is not up for debate. However how does one overcome an ideology except with a stronger ideology. Improving the material condition of these individuals is pointless as most of them have more money, education and status than we do. As a very wise man accurately observed “Man does not live by bread alone”(Luke 4:4). bin Laden is both well educated and wealthy yet chooses to live in a cave as he advances his cause. The five doctors in Scotland were not underprivileged in education, social status, or wealth. Their motivation is a cause greater than themselves.
    The Nazis of the WWII era believed they were building a regime that would last a thousand years. Fortunately the Nazis of that era were building a present day intitution and its failure to endure removed the allure of the cause.
    The same can not be said of Islam. It offers an ETERNAL cause that is greater than self. However the eternal aspect removes any measure of success or failure. Beat it back like the Allies did the Nazis and you will only temporarily set it back. It will arise again because its promises are eternal. Kill bin Laden and hundreds will rush to take his place. Two of the doctors were willing to give their lives in the cause of gaining eternity. As has been observed since the beginning ‘eternity is implanted in the human heart’. I might add “and man will do almost anything to attain it.”
    This brings us back to the present situation, how does one battle such an enemy? Bomb him? Shoot him? Kick them out of our country? When the cause is eternity such actions on our part only increase the determination of the Islamist. The only conceivable way to beat them is to grant them eternity in a better way. Islam promises eternity to the violent and the possibility of eternity to the submissive if they are submissive enough.
    On the other hand Christiaity promises eternity to those who don’t try to earn it except that is to accept it as a free gift with the provisio that you accept with it the obligation to look after your fellow man. These two diametrically opposed concepts of mankinds attaining eternity is the focus of the conflict as we see it. The Islamist destroy and submit in order to earn Allah’s mercy. The Christian has only to accept God’s Grace and through that Grace reach out to fellow man in love.
    Since eternity is the cause which method of attaining eternity is more benificial to temporal mankind?

47. Joe “However how does one overcome an ideology except with a stronger ideology”
    Joe, democratic capitalism is stronger simply because it does not pretend to have fixed answers like Islamofascism does or like communism did. As a religion, reformed Christianity allows for what the new Pope calls Faith and Reason. Medieval Islam needs to go through a reformation, an enlightenment that accepts reason and accepts the role of science. Christianity understands the difference between Caesar’s role and God’s. Islam does not separate Mosque and state, they are the same and they are a utopian, socio-political way of life.
    A population in the ME that is growing and trying to enter a globally connected economy to provide jobs for its youth and create a necessary middle class.. must democratize. Nothing else will work.
    With nascent democracies Iraq and Afghanistan now putting the squeeze on the totalitarian, hell-hole rule in Iran and Pakistan , we’ll see if democracy can happen elsewhere in the ME without all out civil war amongst the tribes and non-state actors. I have no idea how events will unfold, but for the sake of our kids we must let the ME go through its necessary turmoil which will be similar to what happened to the USSR as it was dragged into the industrial world and in the process discovered utopian communism doesn’t work. That was not a pretty site and the ME won’t be.
    The part that troubles me the most is that unlike the communist utopians who at least wanted to move forward into an industrial economy, this medieval death cult wants to go backwards into time. It won’t work. But how much destruction will have to happen to settle the matter?

48. I agree with nomdeblog – and I appreciate Joe’s comments.
    However, I’m not saying that the ‘root cause’ of Islamic fascism is poverty! I’m saying that the root cause is the lack of democracy in the ME.
    The problem in the ME is that it operated for thousands of years in a tribal political mode – which privileges one elite class as hereditary authority and positions the rest of the population as submissive to that elite. This works OK in a pastoral nomadic and primitive agricultural economy.
    But – WWII brought an industrial economy to the ME – with oil. The ME had no ability to access that oil itself; tribalist agriculture does not create material wealth or technological capacities.So, the West moved in with both the money and the technology. The political structure, however, did not change – it remained tribal – with those two hereditary classes; the one tribe as dominant; the rest of the population ‘kept’ by the resources of oil, but having no economic or political role.
    Effectively, these ME nations did not industrialize their populations; they did not empower their populations to start their own industrial industries, to set up scientific developments etc. Nothing.
    An industrial economy requires a middle class; this class is empowered politically and economically and runs the country. The ME refused to develop a middle class. Military dictatorships prevented it. The repression of this mov’t has led to fascism – a violent attempt to define the people as having ‘value’ within a non-economic and non-political utopian perspective.
    And – the military dictatorships moved the fascism and the focus – outside to the West. The West was set up as a straw man, set up to take the blame for the lack of power of the ordinary ME citizen. The real agency is the ME tribal leadership that refuses to enable a middle class and a democracy.
    I don’t think that ‘switching religions’ is possible, or will solve the problem. Most certainly, Christianity is a religion that enables a middle class, because of its focus on the individual, and that enables collaboration. Islam rejects both the individual and collaboration with others.
    Islam has to reform. But first, the political system must change to enable the average citizen of the ME to have control of their nation’s economic and political agendas. That’s what’s going on now –
    Iran, in the meantime, is using the upheaval to try to set itself up as the imperialist power in the ME.

49. ET “is using the upheaval to try to set itself up as the imperialist power in the ME”
    Yes! That is why the removal of Saddam by Blair, Bush, Howard was an important strategic move, which along with Afghanistan put the whole region in play and forces the ME tribalism to deal with itself, i.e. destroy itself. We can fight Islamofascism now or we can fight it later. We can fight it here or we can fight it over there (with some spilling out in Glasgow etc).
    Our leaders need to articulate more clearly why we need to fight it now and over there. I think Fred Thompson is doing the best job of articulating that at the moment the US and Brown is getting his legs. Harper will in the Fall. Finally we need to figure out how and when to step aside and let the locals fend for themselves … a tricky balance to find.

50. National IQ is a stretch but there are differences in outcomes that genetics has bugger all to do with.
    Diet effects intelligence and development. Those with no food suffer. The brain is part of the body and it needs to be properly nourished to function efficiently. Bad diet also includes fatty foods on the other end of the scale. Studies show that fatty foods slow the brain and lower IQ. Change diet, change intelligence – especially while young. Some of the damage from diet is temporary but some (especially damage while young) is not.
    Upbringing effects intelligence, too. Stimulating the intellect of your children helps to develop the mind. Just like language, it’s use it or lose it. Some Asians can’t pronounce R’s not because they’re deficient but because their language doesn’t use them so you lose the ability to use it. English people don’t trill (sp?) their R’s so they lose that ability. Development matters to intelligence. Those countries that don’t encourage the intellectual development of their offspring raise less intelligent children.
    This effect is even seen in dogs. We are biological beings. Our biology matters and it matters during childhood the most. Muslim countries are not known for their education and development programs. They’re known for illiteracy and indoctrination to hate. They produce people who can follow, not think for themselves. But those Muslims who have children who are properly fed and who are properly educated and encouraged fare no worse than those in the west.
    Intelligence is not racial. It’s developed culturally as well as through diet and lifestyle.
    There is also zero reason to believe that only stupid, low-intelligence people resort to hate and violence. The evidence to the contrary is monumental. Muslims aren’t violent because they’re poor or stupid but because they’ve been raised in a culture of hate that discourages independent thought.
    ET,
    Please spare us the sociology crap. It’s a field designed by fools for fools. Sorry, but “socio-economic” is a term designed by Marxists to further their propaganda. It has no other purpose. The idea that terrorism’s root cause is poverty is soundly demolished by the facts. Osama was a billionaire, Mohammed Atta was an engineer and son of rich parents, the Glasgow would-be bombers were doctors and the list of similar is very long. Poverty in the decayed industrial towns of England haven’t produced any suicide bombers. Hate is cultural, not economic.