Magic Statistics

British journalist Jeremy Clarkson reviews cars in print and on television, in the course of which he has made a few jokes from time to time at the expense of environmentalists.  Since the green guys have the attention of leading politicians and academics in the UK and around the world, he figured his occasional jibes were a nuisance, not a serious threat.  Mr Clarkson appears to have underestimated himself, for he has been attacked by Jonathan Pot-Porritt, head of the government’s UK Sustainable Development Commission.  This means war, or something like it.

He called me a bigoted petrolhead and said that anyone who shuts me up should be given a knighthood.

Now I’ve seen Goodfellas, and as a result I know that “shutting someone up” is Martin Scorsese speak for having someone killed. Crikey. A man in the government wants me dead. And it’s not like they haven’t done this kind of thing before . . .
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I should be worried, I suppose, but mostly I’m rather flattered. For years I’ve felt like King Canute sitting on the beach, watching helplessly as the tide of eco-offal rolls inexorably towards the shore. But now Mr Pot-Porritt has come out of nowhere to say that I really do have the power to hold back his plans to make trains out of cardboard and create electricity by composting Tories.

Mr Clarkson has a friendly suggestion for Mr Pot-Porritt: Lighten up.

I offer a piece of advice then to Mr Pot-Porritt this morning. Try living like I do. Don’t drop litter. Recycle whatever can be recycled, without talking about it. Grow your own vegetables. Eat meat. Use whatever means of transport is the most convenient. And when you wake to find the sun is shining, call some friends round for a barbecue and be happy.

Don’t worry about the topsoil and the coral reefs. Remember that in 1900 we lived for an average of 49 years and that now we live to an average of 78. Remember too that we have reduced poverty more in the past 50 years than we did in the preceding 500. And rejoice at the news that all the waste generated by the United States in the whole of the 21st century — all of it — will fit in a landfill site just 18 miles across.

You will enjoy your short time here on earth so much more and what’s more, if you stop telling us what to do all the time, so will we.

In a related story today, Jan Kowalzig of Friends of the Earth Europe accuses European Commission president José Manuel Barroso of hypocrisy for driving an SUV.  Plainly, Mr Kowalzig is another European environmentalist who needs to lighten up.

Link to Jeremy Clarkson’s column via Greenie Watch.

Previous related posts:

• Who’s the environmental saboteur now?
• More environmentalist apoplexy in Canada
• Spot the comedian

A breath-taking equivocation on the issue of wife-beating in Islamic law by Sheik Ali Gum’a, Mufti of Egypt:

Wife-beating is associated with the cultural status of women in the different societies. Women in some cultures are not averse to beatings. They consider it as an expression of masculinity, and as a kind of control, which she herself desires. In other societies, it is the exact opposite. We must follow reason. When we are dealing with certain societies…

I got a question from Canada. The man said: "Here, it is a crime to beat a wife, even with a toothbrush. Is this prohibition acceptable in Islam? Yes. Islam accepts that the beating of Canadian wives, in this culture and ambience… From childhood they are taught that beating women is a type of barbarism, savagery, and so on. There is nothing wrong with taking this into consideration, and adapting to society, because Islam did not command us to be aggressive towards women.

If in their culture, this constitutes aggression towards women, then we are forbidden to be aggressive towards women. In this situation it is inevitable but to consider [beating] this way, and accepting the society, because Islam did not come and command me to be aggressive towards women. But when Allah permitted wife-beating, He permitted it to the other side of culture, which considers it as one of the means to preserve the family, and as one of the means to preserve stability.

In asking whether a prohibition of the Criminal Code of Canada is “acceptable in Islam”, the Canadian questioner makes it rather obvious which law code is considered superior.  The response from Sheik Ali Gum’a, moreover, presupposes that the belief that “beating women is a type of barbarism, savagery, and so on” is an inexplicably ingrained and bothersome squeamishness on our part that Muslims living in the West simply have to “adapt to”.

Last year Ashraf Choudhary, Labour MP in New Zealand and the sole Muslim in the NZ Parliament, said something eerily similar to the Mufti.  When asked if the Koran was wrong to allow stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, he responded, "No, no. Certainly what the Koran says is correct. . . . In those societies, not here in New Zealand."

“Those societies”?  “Their culture”?  Why do I get the feeling that Islamic forbearance of Western qualms would last only until Muslims acquire sufficient political and social power to overrule our cultural scruples?

via Dhimmi Watch.

Two stories in today’s British newspapers illustrate growing totalitarianism in Iraq.  The Sunday Times of London reports that Iraqi women are being intimidated and terrorised by hardline Islamist militias.  New rules of life have been imposed in areas of Baghdad under the control of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

“Women cannot drive; women cannot go out after midday; women and men are not allowed to go out and walk together, they must walk separately.” The rules are enforced by Al-Qaeda thugs who drive around in cars in Amariya, Yarmouk and other Sunni areas that Zarqawi has declared are his.

Neither are women allowed in public without a headscarf.  Anyone found in violation of the rules is liable to be shot.

Edicts issued by militants have no official standing or legal authority, but police are afraid to investigate murders committed by militia members.  American soldiers are apparently too busy avoiding roadside bombs to get involved.

The Telegraph reports that Baghdad Islamists are imposing other new decrees as well.  Street vendors of falafel were told to close up their businesses or be killed.  Some who thought the threat too absurd to take seriously have now been shot dead at their falafel stands.

"They came telling us, 'You have 14 days to end this job' and I asked them what was the problem," said Abu Zeinab, 32, who was packing up his stall for good yesterday in the suburb of al Dora, a hardline Sunni neighbourhood.

"I said I was just feeding the people, but they said there were no falafels in Mohammed the prophet's time, so we shouldn't have them either.

"I felt like telling them there were no Kalashnikovs in Mohammed's time either, but I wanted to keep my life."

There were no pizzas or burgers in Mohammed's time either, but vendors of those foodstuffs have not been threatened.

It gets weirder: Ice merchants have also been told to close their businesses because their product was not sold in Mohammed’s day.  (Actually, ice has been available for millennia—but not in the Middle East.)

Militants have also forbidden women to drive or ride buses in the company of men.  One wonders why the terrorists haven’t simply ordered all motor vehicles off the roads, since the internal combustion engine was invented rather more recently than the 7th century.

Police are convinced that the two men apprehended Friday morning during a raid on an east London house were planning a chemical assault similar to the 1995 sarin gas release in a Tokyo subway.  Security services believe that the attack was planned to occur on or close to the anniversary of last year’s 7/7 bombings in downtown London.

Security sources suspect that a new atrocity was planned on or close to the anniversary of the July 7 attacks on London, when four terrorists killed themselves and 52 others, and injured more than 700 people. This would have provided a rallying call to al-Qa'eda sympathisers to carry on their "jihad" - or holy war - against the West.
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Senior police sources said they were searching for an "improvised device rather than a sophisticated weapon" capable of releasing chemicals. The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that intelligence obtained by MI5 suggested that terrorists were trying to acquire material via the internet which could be used to develop a nerve gas capable of killing and injuring thousands of people.

Security sources say that the terrorist threat facing Britain has developed into a "covert conspiracy" involving hundreds of men and women living ordinary lives in the nation's suburbs. They form an estimated 1,200 strong "army" of terrorists believed to be involved in at least 20 major terrorist plots.

MI5 and Scotland Yard are downplaying earlier reports that they are looking for a “chemical vest” to be used in a suicide bombing.  They now suspect that nerve gas would be released from a canister or flask.

Through their solicitors, the two brothers arrested in Friday’s anti-terrorist operation, Mohammed Abul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, deny all charges.  Both are British-born Muslims.

Good news concerning Nazanin Fatehi, the Iranian teenager sentenced to die after stabbing a man attempting to rape her and her niece.  From the Save Nazanin website:

The International Committee Against Execution have confirmed the report in the Iranian Newspaper "Hamshari" that Nazanin's execution has been commuted by Ayatollah Shahroudi (the Head of Judiciary). A retrial has been announced and Nazanin's case will be sent to a lower court for further investigation.

However, the Save Nazanin campaign is far from over yet. Nazanin is a victim of attempted rape, and should not be further punished.  There is also a chance that Nazanin may be sentenced to death once again by the courts as seen in past cases.

We do not want this 18 year old girl's life to end up like Kobra Rahmanpour. Rahmanpour is an 19 year old girl who killed someone out of self defence and had her execution stayed several times before she was set free. She was even at the execution site where they announced that "they did not have enough rope". She ended wasting 7 years of her young life in jail. In her first trial, Nazanin had a state appointed lawyer as her family was too poor to hire a personal lawyer. Measures are now being taken to hire a lawyer with experience in these cases.

According to an earlier report, "Nazanin's family is expected to pay "dieh" (blood money) to the family of the man who has been killed."  The guy tried to rape her, but she has to pay. Another example of how Islamic law treats women.

So, although Nazanin's execution is no longer imminent, her ordeal is not over yet. 

via Muttering in Manitoba via Relapsed Catholic.

The collect for today, Whit-Sunday, Day of Pentecost, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St John 14:15-31