Terror in UK

Yesterday there were two failed car bomb attacks in London. Today another car fire attack at Glasgow Airport. The UK terror scene appears to be active again. But they appear also to be quite dumb. The car bombs in London did not explode. There must be tons of CCV footage of these two Mercedeses, driving in the London City centre, and their drivers must be recognisable on some of the videos. The guys in Glasgow caused some damage, but then got caught and are under arrest now. This does not look very smart on their part ...
But we should take it easy: even dumb people can cause a lot of damage, if they are lucky. See London 2005, Madrid 2004, New York 2001. More of this will come, unfortunately.

How can this be stopped? How can we fight them, and how can we win? With "we" I mean the whole civilised world. Across boundaries, not just "the west". Islam is also under attack by these jerks. The resistance against those suicide bombers, car bombers, etc. must come from their own environment. The swamp of brainwashing preaching must be drained. They must become outcast, not heros.

This reminds me so much of the Nazis and Germany: the Nazis too claimed they were doing everything "for Germany", in the name of Germany. And yes, they did, had a lot of support from the country's inhabintants. But in the end, what was ruined was Germany. The same will happen to Islam. Those who fight for Islam, in the name of Islam, are ruining it, ruining its reputation, ruining its future. It is about time that people within the Islamic community speak out for Enlightenment, which is the greatest achievement of mankind. Enlightenment is what is under attack.

Soft appeasing words and sentences do not help. Appeasement did not help in 1938, nor does it help now. The friends of Enlightenment in this world need to take a strong stand. And one of the roots for these mindless actions is their religion. Spirituality can have a positive impact on human life, but in their case the worst thing of religion comes out: the absolutism, the "god is on my side, and everybody else is an infidel" attitude. It cannot be tolerated that a small minority in this world claims superiority over everybody else. They fight against the liberal life style, against clubs, against women exposing their face. This needs to be stopped.

More of these attacks will follow. No region is exempt, the terrorists will hit in regions which are not under the tight watch like London, but will hit in provincial areas where nnobody expects them. Also, they will hit in countries which have not yet shown a high profile in the current wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. For example, there are threats for attacks in Germany, although some say that Germany because of its current refusal to take a more prominent role in Afghanistan (where they are only working in the North, not in the "dangerous" south) is excempt from such terror attacks, as a reward for its appeasement tactics. This is of course BS - targets in ermany are high on the list of possible actions. Appeasement does not help whey trying to win this World War 3.

Knighthood for Salman Rushdie

A week ago, Knighthood was given to Salman Rushdie. And immediately, worldwide concern rose about this decision, that it might spark terrorism.

No, it does not spark terrorism. Terrorism is sparked by those who have that flame of religious hatred in their hearts. Those who are offended by any joke about their beliefs. Those who started this fatwa in the first place. It is almost unbelievable that in our age someone can legally call for the murder of someone else, just because of the opinion of that person.

One of the biggest achievements of mankind is in decline: enlightenment. What has brought mankind to new height never achieved before, is now being torn down by people who want to go back to the middle ages. And there are only few to defend enlightenment...

Boycotts against Israel - by UK Trade Unions

The academics here in the UK who worked towards the boycott of Israel academis had become somewhat quiet in the past few weeks:

The Anti Defamation League had startd an ad campaign with a sharp condemnation of the UCU boycott activities.

On 13. June the following petition by British academics was posted in the Times and in the Guardian newspapers:
Stop the Boycott.

On 14. June 2007 a letter to the Guardian against the boycott by UCU appeared.

On 15.June 2007 in the Times Higher Education Supplement a report listed some of the actions against that report.

While these activities seem to have quieted down the academic discussion at UCU, the other trade union in the UK which had considered a boycott, UNISON, seemed not to have been impressed by this and went ahead at their meeting, deciding to recommend a boycott of Israel in general.

I just found out about this news a few hours ago, two days after the event (ok, it might have been reported on the BBC news at 10, but I just came back from IKEA and missed the fist 15 minutes). Not much mentioned anywhere about this - a search on Google yielded mostly Jewish organisations who spoke out against this boycott. But the British opposition to these boycotts seemed to have lost their voice...

The Anti-Defamation League issued a press release against this. Maybe the weekend has first to pass before there will be a response from within the UK...

--- I still think that the delegates at these Union meetings do not really represent the majority of the membership. These delegates are politically charged, have their agenda for whatever reason. I believe that the silent majority in those trade unions would prefer if the unions would focus on their REAL job: that is, work towards increasing the benefits for their members in job-related situations, help in individual hardships, mitigate job loss, fight for higher income. I am sure the members would prefer this, instead of the unions trying to play on the global stage "big politics". Big politics is not the role of the unions. And if I would be a member of either UCU or UNISON, I would leave that union, and start my own one. UCU last year with their "industrial action" just achieved a measly 3% raise of the salaries of their members - that is quite pathetic.

So how about it, members of these unions, members who are dissatisfied with your union leadership? Why do you not leave the union, and start a new one? One that really takes care of your true concerns, instead of wasting your union membership fees for ambitious political games that are only intended to raise the profile of those individuals with a political agenda?