Showing posts with label Britain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Britain. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Texas Synagogue Terrorist Came Out of U.K. Islamist No-Go Zone

From Sultan Knish, at FrontPage Magazine, "His community hopes Allah will 'bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise'":

As far back as 2013, Pakistani Muslim terrorists had plotted to take "foreign Jews" hostage to trade for ‘Lady Al Qaeda’. In 2022, a Pakistani Muslim terrorist actually went out and did it.

The hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform Temple in Texas, ended with Faisal Akram of Blackburn, another post-industrial English town where Muslims make up a third of the population and Pakistanis account for over 10 percent, dead, and his Jewish hostages set free.

Back home, the Blackburn Muslim Community page announced that "Faisal Akram has sadly departed from this temporary world" and prayed that Allah "bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise".

The BMC page had previously promoted a “charity” event to raise money for “Palestinians” by the Human Relief Foundation, which had been banned by Israel over its ties to Hamas.

The town has produced no shortage of Jihadists, including the youngest terrorist in the UK, as well as a number of Jihadis who traveled to join ISIS, an associate of shoe bomber Richard Reid, and a terrorist who played a key role in an Al Qaeda plot that targeted New York and D.C.

Blackburn is one of the most segregated towns in the country and has been described as a “no-go zone”. The area that produced the Temple Terrorist has the highest Muslim population outside of London where some claim that flying the English flag has been effectively outlawed.

The setting couldn’t be any better for the media to whitewash the murderous terrorist with the familiar excuses that he was the victim of failed integration in the United Kingdom. His family, in an even more familiar excuse, is claiming that he “was suffering from mental health issues”.

That, along with the claim by FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno that the terrorist, "was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community", is becoming the very familiar narrative for covering up the latest Muslim terror attack.

But antisemitism, like Islamism, was part of the air that Faisal Akram breathed in Blackburn.

Salim Mulla, Blackburn's former mayor and current Labour councilor, claimed that Israel was behind ISIS and school shootings in America. Last year, four Muslim men from Blackburn took part in a "Palestinian" convoy while shouting, "F*** the Jews... F*** all of them. F*** their mothers, f*** their daughters and show your support for Palestine. Rape their daughters and we have to send a message like that. Please do it for the poor children in Gaza."

Siddiqui aka Lady Al Qaeda, on whose behalf the Texas synagogue attack took place, was married to the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and had assorted recipes for mass murder in her possession when she was captured. Despite graduating from Brandeis, a formerly Jewish university, she demanded at her trial that jurors undergo DNA tests to prove that they are not Jewish. And the Aafia Foundation posted bizarre antisemitic rants about the "degree of poisonous venum (sic) within the heart of American mainstream jewry".

The hatred of Jews, like the hatred of all non-Muslims, is a crucial motive for Islamic terrorism.

If Blackburn is a miserable place, the tale of the Akram family may reveal why. The official family statement by the terrorist’s brother, Gulbar Akram, claims that "although my brother was suffering from mental health issues we were confident that he would not harm the hostages" and denied that the FBI had rescued the hostages from being killed by his brother. "Don’t believe the bull#### in the media they were released from the fire exit and Not rescued.”

The Blackburn Community message describes the terrorist as having brothers named "Gulbar", “Malik” and the "Late Gulzameer Akram".

Two brothers named Gulbar Akram and Gulzameer Akram in Blackburn had been locked up over stolen cars. Another time, a Blackburn resident named Gulbar Akram almost had his nose sliced off. A Gulzameer Akram ran a massive counterfeiting operation from a Blackburn home. A Malik Akram was locked up for harassing girls. Were all of them members of the same clan?

The best way to cover up a terrorist attack is to shift the context. And that’s what they’re doing. But it’s important to dig into the true context to understand the true origins of the Texas attack.

In his book, Among the Mosques, ex-Islamist Ed Husain described Blackburn as “another global hub for the Deobandis and the Tableeghi Jamaat” where the mosques pray for the destruction of the enemies of Islam and texts declare that “there can be no reconciliation between Islam and democracy”.

The Deobandis, who control many of the mosques in Blackburn, originated the Taliban.

Aafia Siddiqui, better known as 'Lady Al Qaeda', is a Deobandi, the terrorist on whose behalf Faisal Akram took a synagogue hostage, and a popular cause with Pakistanis. A few years ago the Pakistani Senate had even named the Islamic terrorist, the “Daughter of the Nation”.

Indian Mujahideen co-founder Riyaz Bhatkal had plotted to take Jews hostage a decade ago in order to force 'Lady Al Qaeda's release. British Muslim “charities” were a major source of funding to the Jihadist group as they are for many Pakistani Jihadist enterprises.

While much has been made of the advocacy on behalf of Siddiqui by CAIR and other Islamist colonists in America, top Muslim politicians in the UK also vocally demanded her release, including Lord Nazir Ahmed and Lord Altaf Sheikh.

When Husain visited Blackburn, he warned that, "it is clear that a caliphist subculture thrives here, a separate world from the rest of British society.”

Tableeghi Jamaat, whose mosques are known as "breeding grounds" for Jihad, is closely intertwined with Pakistani Islamism and vectored Islamic terrorism. Quite a number have joined Al Qaeda. It is no coincidence that so many Islamic terrorists have come out of Blackburn.

Nor is it a coincidence that the latest Islamic terrorist attack on America originated there.

Faisal Akram traveled to Texas, where ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ sleeps at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth. He was one of many Muslim pilgrims seeking to extricate her. Just last fall, the Dallas-Forth Worth CAIR and the Pakistani terror regime claimed that Aafia Siddiqui had been assaulted in U.S. custody in the latest effort of many on behalf of ‘Lady Al Qaeda’. Faisal’s target, a progressive Reform Temple which happened to carry the traditional name of Congregation Beth Israel despite its social justice activist clergyman’s hostility to Israel, was ideally selected to fit Muslim antisemitic obsessions with both Israel and Jews.

The antisemitic rants, the hostage crisis, and the rapid cover-up are all regular features of life for Jews in Europe. Changing demographics are making them a new reality for American Jews.

Any American city or town can become the new Blackburn. That’s the harsh lesson here.

Pakistani antisemitism and obscure Jihadist movements are not local issues, they are global threats. The poison nurtured in a declining British post-industrial town blew up in Texas. We are all interconnected, and that interconnectedness has made the Jihad into a global enterprise. Ideas, tactics, and organizations that once took centuries to colonize the world can travel around it at the speed of the internet and a terror plot can happen at the speed of a jet plane.

We can either police our borders, control our immigration, and build walls around our nations, or we must be resigned to being hunted, stalked, and killed anywhere and at any given moment.

In Blackburn, Muslims anticipate the Texas Jihadist ascending to the “highest ranks of Paradise" where he will enjoy the company of 72 virgins. More Muslims from Blackburn, marinating in the same hatred for America, for Jews, and for anyone unlike them, will follow in his footsteps.

 

Friday, November 26, 2021

New South Africa Covid Strain Omicron Sends Shockwaves Across the Globe

There's a lot of hype, but Dr. Peter Hotez, at the video, says he's not panicked, as he's not seen anything as infectious as the Delta variant so far. Still, the U.S. has imposed travel bans on eight African nations, and the U.K. announced travel curbs on six nations as well.

At the BBC, "Coronavirus variant fear sparks Africa travel curbs," and the Telegraph U.K. "Coronavirus latest news: EU suspends all flights to southern Africa over omicron Covid variant fears."

More at NYT, "Variant Detected in South Africa Prompts Travel Restrictions":


The World Health Organization said a newly identified coronavirus variant in southern Africa was “of concern” on Friday, as countries around the world moved to restrict travelers arriving from that region to keep it from crossing their borders.

So far, only a few dozen cases of the new variant have been identified in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel. There is no proof yet that the variant is more contagious or lethal, or could diminish the protective power of vaccines, but uncertainty on those questions was one factor in the speed of countries’ move toward restrictions.

On Friday evening, the World Health Organization gave the new version of the virus the name Omicron and called it a “variant of concern,” its most serious category. “This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning,” the W.H.O. said in its official description. “Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant.”

Earlier on Friday, the European Commission proposed that its member countries activate the “emergency brake” on travel from countries in southern Africa and other affected countries to limit the spread of the variant.

“All air travel to these countries should be suspended until we have a clear understanding about the danger posed by this new variant,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, said in a statement. “And travelers returning from this region should respect strict quarantine rules.”

In the past, governments have taken days, weeks or months to issue travel restrictions in response to new variants. This time, however, restrictions came within hours of South Africa’s announcement. At least 10 countries around the world had announced measures before South African scientists finished a meeting with World Health Organization experts about the variant on Friday.

The United States and Canada announced restrictions on travelers arriving from countries in southern Africa. Other governments that halted or restricted flights from South Africa included Bahrain, Belgium, Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore.

The new variant, initially called B.1.1.529, has a “very unusual constellation of mutations,” according to Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform. On the protein that helps to create an entry point for the coronavirus to infect human cells, the variant has 10 mutations, many more than the highly contagious Delta variant, Professor de Oliveira said.

Still, even epidemiologists who have been the most outspoken in supporting precautions against the virus urged calm on Friday, noting that little is known about the variant and that several seemingly threatening variants have come and gone in recent months.

“Substantively NOTHING is known about the new variant,” Roberto Burioni, a leading Italian virologist, wrote on Twitter, adding that people should not panic...


 

Friday, October 15, 2021

Britain's Conservative M.P. David Amess Murdered in Stabbing Attack in Essex (VIDEO)

Awful. Just horrible. 

At NYT, "Longtime U.K. Lawmaker Is Stabbed to Death, Stunning Britain":

David Amess, a Conservative member of Parliament, was holding a meeting in his constituency at the time. He is the second politician killed in an attack in just over five years.

More, "In full: Police hold press conference after MP stabbed to death."


Friday, August 20, 2021

Theresa May Speaks Out (VIDEO)

She's a backbencher now, and, frankly, I'd forgotten about her since her resignation in 2019.

Obviously, she's not too pleased with the debacle in Afghanistan.



Friday, July 23, 2021

Sunday, April 11, 2021

Britain's Prince Philip, 'His Royal Highness', Queen Elizabeth's 'Beloved' Husband, Dead at 99 (VIDEO)

I first actually read the news of the passing of "His Royal Highness" at the New York Times, on the app on my iPhone.

And it did still include this headline, which has now been changed by the disgusting "Old Gray Lady, embedded at left, though I tried to "center it," but it messed up all the formatting of the rest...


...And you know, it's no surprise at all, as the New York Times, as much as I do enjoy reading the country's "newspaper of record" (as I do learn a lot there, and sometimes the editors "hit the mark" with real, good, and actual journalistic reporting), it's truly a trash site most of the times these days, with literally no "balance" of views, unless you consider columnists Ross Douthat and David Brooks actual "conservatives"; and don't get me going about the hack, hit piece "journalism" routinely published at that rag (here's looking at you, Taylor Lorenz); and I actually feel bad for longtime N.Y.T. science reporter, Donald McNeil, who was fired by the newspaper, after profusely apologizing, more than once, for simply having a discussion of the "N-Word," which he uttered himself during said discussion with a young person he was responsible for during a field trip to Peru a few years back. 

Here's the piece, with the changed title, though I'm not going to read it all again to see if the editors "fixed" their asinine and stupid editorializing about this truly great and candid Duke of Edinburgh: "Prince Philip, Husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Is Dead at 99."

The Los Angeles Times has a much, much better obituary, which I read in hard-copy yesterday morning, by Kim Murphy, a veteran foreign affairs correspondent, who started her career at the paper, and returned to it recently. And Ms. Murphy, who discusses Prince Philip's notable public and "gaffe-tastic" quips and rejoinders, puts up an overall balanced and well-meaning commemoration to the man, who, one might argue, literally save the British monarchy.    

It was an enduring alliance that outlasted the Cold War, 15 prime ministers, war and peace in Northern Ireland and Britain’s union with Europe — followed by the country’s shattering decision, 43 years later, to leave.

Side by side for as long as most Britons could possibly remember, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II stood as a reassuring constant even during the most trying or turbulent times, an epic love story that seemed unshakable.

But the longest marriage of a reigning monarch in British history came to an end Friday when the prince — two months shy of his 100th birthday — died at Windsor Castle in England. The flag above Buckingham Palace was immediately lowered to half-staff, and the official announcement of Philip Mountbatten’s death was posted on the palace gates.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement Friday, just after noon in Britain. “His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”

Standing outside No. 10 Downing St., Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised Philip for a life of service and endurance.

“Like the expert carriage driver that he was, he helped to steer the royal family and the monarchy so that it remains an institution indisputably vital to the balance and happiness of our national life,” Johnson said.

“Over the course of his 99-year life, he saw our world change dramatically and repeatedly,” President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden said in a statement. “From his service during World War II, to his 73 years alongside the Queen, and his entire life in the public eye — Prince Philip gladly dedicated himself to the people of the U.K., the Commonwealth, and to his family.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Philip and the queen had been staying at Windsor Castle, west of London. Though he enjoyed robust health for most of his life, he was hospitalized for a month this year, from Feb. 16 to March 16, during which he underwent a heart procedure.

He was treated for chest pains in 2011, was hospitalized for two days in 2017 and was hospitalized again for 10 days in 2018 for a hip replacement. He was forced to give up driving in 2019 — at the age of 97 — after smashing into another car while driving his Land Rover.

Prince Philip never held the official title of prince consort, as did Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert, but he nonetheless was Queen Elizabeth II’s closest confidant, most reliable political advisor and the undisputed master of the royal household for more than seven decades.

Philip was known equally as a curmudgeon and a charmer who could quickly put nervous guests at ease with an easy (and sometimes outrageous) one-liner. Courtiers, his own children and the queen herself backed down under the quick flash of his temper, and guests at Buckingham Palace were expected to stay up to speed with his lively intellect and encyclopedic command of facts or were hastily dismissed as being not worthy of the duke’s time.

While Elizabeth presided over affairs of state, Philip championed dozens of charities, including the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which has promoted self-reliance, physical development and other personal accomplishments for more than 6 million youths around the world.

[EMBEDDED TWEET HERE.]

He also set down the ground rules for rearing of the royal children, wrote books about horses and equestrian sports, oversaw the palaces and handled hundreds of official engagements every year until he retired from his official public schedule in August 2017. (“Unveil your own damn plaque,” read a cartoon drawn specially for the occasion, to Philip’s delight.) He was nearly always at the queen’s side during more than 73 years of marriage.

“Prince Philip is simply my rock. He is my foundation stone,” the monarch said at a lunch in 1997 honoring their 50th wedding anniversary. “He is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments, but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I and his whole family … owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim or we shall ever know.”

Philip, for his part, seldom talked about his contributions to the royal enterprise, though he was known on rare occasions to reflect on what he had given up to be the man who walks two paces behind the queen, the husband of one monarch and the father of presumably the next, with no historic role of his own.

“It was not my ambition to be president of the Mint Advisory Committee,” he told the Independent on Sunday newspaper in 1992. “I didn’t want to be president of [the World Wide Fund for Nature]. I was asked to do it. I’d much rather have stayed in the navy, frankly.”

His chief contribution in the end was simply to have been there for the queen: a man of keen rationality and wide reading who in some ways intimidated her, who was not legally answerable to anyone and who was available as a voice of reason and dissent when all around had a habit of agreeing with her.

He had a slight reputation for pushiness and being opinionated … and he is as right-wing as ever, but there’s never been the slightest suggestion that he influenced the queen in that way,” said Robert Lacey, the British historian best known for his work on the award-winning drama “The Crown.”

“We can now see he was free to state his own opinions because he had no constitutional responsibilities,” he said. “So that made him a particularly strong and useful pillar for the queen.”

A former government secretary told the Daily Telegraph in 2001 how the Duke of Edinburgh had once quizzed him about a policy issue in his department.

“‘What’s the object of the exercise?’ he asked me. I stumbled through the answer and tried to explain that the aim was a bit of A and a bit of B. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but which is it — A or B?’ I replied, probably rather incoherently, that it really was a mixture of both. ‘I’d always thought that what was wrong with this country was that all the best brains went into the civil service,’ said Prince Philip, ‘but that was before I met you!’ — and walked away.”

He also had a knack for the painfully politically incorrect remark. Amid the recession of 1981, as more Britons sought public assistance, he observed: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.” When the royal couple were introduced in 2002 to a teenage army cadet who had been blinded in an Irish Republican Army bombing, the queen asked the 15-year-old boy how much sight he had left. “Not a lot, judging by the tie he’s wearing,” Philip quipped, as the crowd fell silent.

But Philip was also the ultimate salt-of-the-earth English country gentleman. Royal hunting weekends would not be complete without the sight of Philip, his head wreathed in smoke, barbecuing the day’s take of pheasants. He was an enthusiastic sailor, polo player and carriage driver who went bolting with his horses around the royal estates until well into old age, when Elizabeth begged him to give it up. (The Daily Mail carried photos of the prince once again at the reins of his carriage in November 2017, prodding his horses around Windsor Castle at the age of 96.)

There's still more at the link.

And Fox News' report from Friday:


I'll try to put up some more entries tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks for reading. (I'm watching Sunday Night Baseball, and I'm looking forward to a "normal" season, hopefully, and I plan to take my family to as many Angels games as possible, as that's, really, the best kind of "family therapy" I can think of.)


Saturday, November 28, 2020

British Couple Take 9 Hours to Drive from Bournemouth to Kent in Their New 'Fully Electric' Porsche Taycan 4S

It takes carbons to fuel an automobile. Electricity is most effectively generated for industrial-scale use by fossil fuels, especially coal. But coal's out if you're a leftist. These idiots don't understand that wind, solar, and hydro will never provide enough energy to meet current demand, not in Britain, not in the U.S, and certainly not worldwide, where poor countries are still decades if not centuries behind the West in terms of their political-economic (especially industrial and scientific) modernization.

But these are the times in which we live, and we've got mountains to move before we can finally crush the left and save Western civilization. We'll do it. But it takes time. (More about that later.)

In any case, at Dana Pico's Journal 14, "Out of juice: What happens when you can't find a working charging station for your plug in electric vehicle?":

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "‘Bet they wish they had gas!’ Chaos in California as Tesla drivers are stranded for hours in a half-a-mile-long line to charge their cars on Black Friday: Shanon Stellini was travelling through Kettleman City on November 30 when she stumbled across around 50 of the electric cars waiting in line for a recharge."


Eric Clapton? Just Wow!

Well, it was 1976, for some context. He's a little out of control, obviously. And at a live concert, basically telling immigrants to leave, they're not welcomed? Man, that's harsh. 

But Britain was a shithole country in the 1970s and Labour policies were destroying the very fabric of society. Maybe Clapton's message was actually resonating with people, with his fans. But that was then and this is now. There's no way a performer can get away with saying anything like that nowadays, not even with the context and no matter how true. In fact, you know celebrities are ALWAYS cancelled for exactly the truth they speak on topics the left thought they'd already silenced through their campaigns of intimidation and violence.

See, "Did Eric Clapton really ask foreigners to 'get out'? Truth behind racist remarks amid 'Stand and Deliver' release."

And, this isn't really a new issue. He apologized for his previous comments in 2018, but this is the age of the Twitter rage mob, so no one's safe. Absolutely nobody. 


David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy

At Amazon, David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy.




Monday, November 23, 2020

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Priti Patel is Sorry (VIDEO)

The bitch is sorry. (*Eye-roll.*) 

At the Guardian U.K., "How Boris Johnson found grounds to ignore Priti Patel bullying verdict: Sir Alex Allan was clear in his central finding against home secretary but offered caveats":

Boris Johnson’s decision to ignore the verdict of his independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Alex Allan, on a bullying inquiry into the home secretary has been met with indignation.

Allan, a public servant with a 47-year career in the civil service, was clear in his central finding that Priti Patel’s behaviour was in breach of the ministerial code, and he has resigned in the face of Johnson’s contrary ruling.

But did Allan’s statement on his findings leave the prime minister with some room for manoeuvre? Here we look at some of the key passages:

‘Justifiably frustrated’

The home secretary says that she puts great store by professional, open relationships. She is action-orientated and can be direct. The home secretary has also become – justifiably in many instances – frustrated by the Home Office leadership’s lack of responsiveness and the lack of support she felt in DfID [the Department for International Development] three years ago.

Analysis Allan says civil servants – particularly senior civil servants – should be able to handle robust criticism, though they should not “face behaviour that goes beyond that”. In his advice, Allan suggests that on more than one occasion Patel was justified in being frustrated at the operation of the Home Office. The background to the inquiry is a rift between Patel and the former top civil servant at the Home Office, Sir Philip Rutnam, who quit and launched tribunal proceedings against the minister. Allan acknowledges there were issues with the Home Office leadership – an allusion to Rutnam – and the lack of support.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Reportedly Insisted That Netflix End 'The Crown' Before It Gets to Their Drama

Well, those spoiled little f*cking brats. 

Piers Morgan's show at the video. 

And at Marie Claire:


--- When they signed their massive deal with Netflix, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle shocked a lot of royal fans who were surprised they would work with the streaming giant, which produces the royal drama The Crown.

--- According to royal biographer Angela Levin, Harry confided in her two years ago that the royal family did indeed watch the series, but that he was determined to make sure it stopped before it got to his adult life and relationship with Meghan Markle.

--- Although Harry and Meghan reportedly used their position as partners with Netflix to insist that The Crown end before it got to their royal drama, Levin fears the strategy might backfire and that Netflix might actually end up "getting a lot of information that will absolutely decry the royal family" from the Sussexes.

More.

 

Anti-Lockdown Protests in Britain

At London's Daily Mail, "At least 22 are arrested after anti-lockdown protesters chanting 'freedom' clash with police as hundreds march against Covid restrictions through streets of Bournemouth, Liverpool, Basildon and Hyde Park":

In Basildon, Essex, footage today captured police clash with protesters amid a 'large unauthorised gathering' in the town centre. 
The protest, which breached the Government's Covid-19 measures, led to several arrests after 'attempts to engage with those attending were unsuccessful', Essex Police said. 
Officers have put a dispersal order in place within the boundaries of Great Oaks and Southernhay, with the force adding: 'We know this is a challenging time but we all have a responsibility to follow the regulations and keep each other safe.'

Margaret Thatcher Restored Britain's Standing in the World (VIDEO)

It's Niall Ferguson, for Prager University:

Monday, November 9, 2020

U.K.'s Lord Kilclooney Called Out for Calling Kamala Harris 'the Indian'

He isn't wrong you know, although he's not too smart about our constitutional system. If the "Indian" become president, she'll appoint a new vice president who'll be confirmed by a majority vote in both the House and Senate.

Great story, in any case.

At NYT, "British Peer Criticized for Calling Kamala Harris ‘the Indian’."