If you fly a plane into a building and kill people, apparently, that's not enough to make you a terrorist. You have to "be foreign" and "hate Americans" to qualify. In other words, Joseph Stack is not a terrorist. He's a "separatist/pr... more If you fly a plane into a building and kill people, apparently, that's not enough to make you a terrorist. You have to "be foreign" and "hate Americans" to qualify. In other words, Joseph Stack is not a terrorist. He's a "separatist/protester/activist", in the words of one journalist. Another points out that the media are afraid of suggesting that the radical fringe of the anti-tax movement in this country (in other words, the Tea Party people) is, for all purposes, actually connected with domestic terrorism. URL: www.newsweek.com
A security problem in India that has nothing to do with religion? Funny how you don't hear much about that in the U.S. media. URL: www.reuters.com
Before Martyrdom, Breakfast |
Flagg Miller, of the U. of California at Davis, has listened to hundreds of audio tapes that once belonged to Osama bin Laden. It’s the everyday conversations among jihadis that he finds the most interesting. |
For the past seven years, Mr. Miller, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of California at Davis, has been poring over hundreds of audio tapes that were part of Osama bin Laden’s personal collection. Some of the tapes feature jihadis making small talk, cooking breakfast, laughing at each other’s lame jokes—not exactly riveting material.
But listen closely and they start to get interesting. |
It begins with mysterious hissing and popping noises. When he first heard it, Mr. Miller imagined militants in a remote outpost fixing a communications balloon or perfecting some as-yet-unknown terrorist weapon.
Turns out, they are making eggs. They are having a hard time, too—the kerosene stove is being uncooperative. |
Blackwater’s Youngest Victim
|
| Ridgeway admitted
that he and the other five defendants “opened fire with automatic
weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians…killing at least
fourteen people” and wounding at least twenty others. “None of these
victims was an insurgent, and many were shot while inside of civilian
vehicles that were attempting to flee” the Blackwater forces. |
| Ridgeway admitted to shooting and
killing Dr. Al Rubia’y in the Kia sedan, adding that another Blackwater
shooter launched an M-203 grenade, “causing the vehicle to erupt in
flames.” He acknowledged that “there had been no attempt to provide
reasonable warnings to the driver.” As the Raven 23 convoy exited the
square against the flow of traffic, Ridgeway admitted, Blackwater forces
“continued to fire their machine guns at civilian vehicles that posed no
threat to the convoy.” |
A new collection of academic studies reveals a strong strain of violence and militancy that runs through the world’s historically Buddhist cultures. So — it’s not all about “present moment, wonderful moment” after all, I guess. | Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence |
Buddhist monk with toy gun. Bhutan, 2008.
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During my visits between 2006 and 2008, southern Thai monks shared the challenges of living in their fear-infested communities. All but a few concentrated on survival; peacemaking was the last thing on their minds. |
One day after teaching an English class for Buddhist novices at a monastery a young monk came over and pulled back the folds of his robe to reveal a Smith & Wesson. I later learned that he was a military monk—one of many covert, fully ordained soldiers placed in monasteries throughout Thailand. To these monks, peacemaking requires militancy. |
| It was then that I realized that I was a consumer of a very successful form of propaganda. |
In a way, I wish I could return to that dream of Buddhist traditions as a purely peaceful, benevolent religion that lacks mortal failures and shortcomings. But I cannot. It is, ultimately, a selfish dream and it hurts other people in the process. |
This is pretty effing chilling, is all I can say. Inside the mind of a female suicide bomber |
Ranya in Baquba jail, where she shared a cell with fellow would-be suicide bomber Baida Abdul Karim al-Shammari. Photograph: Michael Kamber
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I asked her gently, and as non-judgmentally as I could, whether she wanted to kill me because I was a foreigner. “Frankly, yes.” Then she added, to soften it: “Not specifically you, because I know you.” |
She seemed excited now at the thought of our capture. “They do not want to kill you, but to torture you and make lunch of your flesh. I could not do anything to help you.” |
| Baida was smiling again. “If I had not seen you before and talked to you, I would kill you with my own hands,” she said. “Do not be deceived by my peaceful face. I have a heart of stone.”Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
| 250 butchers appointed at Ghadimai fair |
| Unperturbed by animal rights campaigners and Buddhist monk Ram Bahadur Bamjan’s call for a halt to mass animal sacrifice, the fare management committee has appointed at least 250 strong butchers to perform the world’s supposedly biggest mass animal sacrifice due to take place on November 24 and 25 in Ghadimai fare |
| “The 250 strong butchers will use Khukuri, Khuda and sword for slaughtering the animals,” he added. |
| According to the management committee, the pilgrim should pay between Rs 20 to Rs 100 for slaughtering goats and buffalos on their own. |
| A stadium-like-structure has also been erected in two bighas of land, where more than 10,000 buffaloes will be slaughtered at a time. |
Around 1,200 policemen will keep vigil round the clock and more are on call, he added.
Meanwhile, preparations are on for the mass slaughter of animals. Read more at www.thehimalayantimes.com |
Personally, I find it hard not to think of Michelle Bachmann ( j.mp/98ZjP) here, but that may well be overblown. The guy was poking around some pretty nasty parts of the county apparently. Feds probe US Census worker hanging in Kentucky |
Thursday, September 24, 2009 |
When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former police officer drew on years of experience for a warning: “Be careful.” |
The 51-year-old Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a cemetery with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment. |
“Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as ‘the government.’ I just was afraid that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there,” said Acciardo, who directs an after-school program at an elementary school where Sparkman was a frequent substitute teacher. Read more at www.sfgate.com |
From the piece: “When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.” We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade. |
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents. |
| I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. |
| I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
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Durga Puja is coming up. Swami Sivananda says: do not sacrifice animals for Devi
Commentary from Swami Sivananda, founder of the Divine Life society, on the observance of Durga Puja. Traditionally, animal sacrifice has often been a part of the ritual, but Sivananda declares this a violation of the principle of ahimsa, which is binding on all Hindus no matter what caste, jati, or situation they belong to. An interesting example of second-order discourse in contemporary non-Western religion.