UK To Train Pro-West Islamic Groups To Game Google 469
Hugh Pickens writes "The British government's Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a 200-strong Home Office unit created 18 months ago, has said in meetings it wants to 'flood the internet' with 'positive' interpretations of Islam and plans to train government-approved groups in search engine optimization techniques, which it is hoped will boost their profile online and battle radicalization. A Home Office spokesman confirmed search engine optimization training is part of the government's anti-radicalization strategy. 'In order to support mainstream voices, we work with local partners to help develop their communication, representational and leadership skills. This support could include media training, which can help make their voices heard more widely, and support the development of skills which allow communities to be more effective in debate.' However the effectiveness of search engine optimization in reducing traffic to extremist websites has been dismissed by academics. A report produced by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said young Muslims were much more likely to be directed to extremist material online by web forums and offline associates than by Google or other search engines. 'Tweaking the results for supposedly extremist terms would be largely ineffectual, not least because it is unlikely that any but the most callow wannabe terrorist would use a mainstream search engine to find banned material.'"
Islam, eh? (Score:2, Informative)
Islam is the Middle East's response to the Mormon religion/cult. Islam was created by the Arab "prophet" Muhammad, yet another guy who heard voices in his head. These voices told him that his religion was a continuation of Judaism and Christianity and that those who followed these outdated religions should be converted or killed. Since he forgot about Zoroastrianism, he apparently thought that his religion was the third and final in the monotheistic trilogy. And being the third, it is inevitably the most sh
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Really?
>Islam is the Middle East's response to the Mormon religion/cult.
False. Islam came first.
And the rest of the statements go downhill from there. Considering that was the first line and proven false, I'd say yes, flamebait or troll. Anyone who wanted to actually create a thought-provoking post on it without using falsehood or inflammatory speech could do so with just a few seconds of logical though applied to the situation.
So, mod down, try again.
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is, of course, nonsense. The mosque runs a very popular cafe serving cheap curry, it's enormously popular with every demographic in the area (excluding those who don't like curry), local Muslims drink (non-alcoholic) drinks in the same pubs and clubs as the rest of us, work in the same places as the rest of us etc etc. Just because I find religion in general a little fuzzy and misguided doesn't mean the Muslims are any worse than your average Sunday churchgoer or crystal-waving new-ager.
Of course there are extremist elements all over the world, just like some evangelicals in the US marrying multiple teenage girls, or Jehova's Witnesses who will allow a child to die from a curable operation. Pick your religion, somebody does something weird and usually harmful, but it's also a minority.
The point of the original idea is that the extremists, usually by definition, shout the loudest even though they're a minority. This aims to redress the balance a little. Us atheists could take a well-thought-out leaf from that book.
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Islam is the filthiest and most savage of the bunch
You have /got/ to be kidding, right?
At this moment they *might* be savage, but the lovely christians killed off other peoples (yes, peoples) by the thousands, and some are still doing so today, under the banner of religion.
The Hindu's despise a large chunk of their own people and use them as serfs for the sake of their religion.
The "orthodox" jews in Israel make it a sport to starve out an entire people because their religion tells them it's their chunk of land.
The animist people who listen to shama
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They may be late comers, but compared to them every religious mass murderer was an amateur.
Then the obvious deduction is that they had good teachers ...
And no, in terms of body count, even Stalin has nothing on christianity.
What the fuck? (Score:2, Flamebait)
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The main problem with Islam comes from the fact that it has failed miserably to adapt to the twenty first century, where all other countries are moving towards increased secularism and freedom of choice, Islamic countries are still stuck in a medieval religious model circa 1200 a.d.
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Well, if we're going by chemical, biological and nuclear weapons use the Christian west is far, far more bloodthirsty than the most fanatical Muslim has ever been.
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Have a bit more damned respect. So far all you've done is declare Muslims infidels that we other people need to annihilate. How about you actually meet some Muslims (the construction makes perfect sense in Arabic or any other Semitic language, by the way*) and talk to them about their religion before you judge the whole thing!
* Seriously, when you're using linguistics as a reason not to like someone, you've jumped into irrational hate. Stop it.
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the biggest problems is that their prophet is held up to be the model of behaviour--the most perfect man, and is to be emulated in all things, (and there is no expiration date on this stuff). So, when an approximately 50 year old man (who happens to be the prophet of islam) "marries" a 6 year girl, and has sex with her when she is 9, those present day restrictions are pretty hard to enforce in an Islamic country because it is well documented that Mohammed did it. And if he did it, then it must be ok.
Secondly, by saying "...there where times were similar things were common even in europe like 500-600 years ago", you are making weasel excuses. It does not excuse the behaviour, nor make it right. It does show an attempt to deflect accusations of wrong-doing.
Pedophilia (even when practiced by that Islamic prophet Mohammed) is wrong.
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking a look at the old books of christianity, we find that Jesus upholds the old testament. Matthew 5:17, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
Armed with those words, the whole bible is open as a source for religious guidance, such as rape being punishable by a payment of 50 pieces of silver to the victims father and then taking your victim as your wife. Rape victims who are betrothed are to be stoned to death. If you see a female captive who you like, then take her. Selling your daughter as a sex slave is fine.
That's just some of the parts dealing with rape. It's also O.K in the bible to kill gays, witches, adulterers, disobedient children, fortune tellers, non-believers, false prophets, anyone living in a town with non-christians, brides who are not virginal, blasphemers and anyone who works on the sabbath.
Is it "weasel excuses" to say that christians don't generally behave like that anymore, or just double standards?
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:14
Shows that Christians are not bound by the Old Testament laws because Jesus fulfilled them. There are several references to where Jesus goes opposes society's norm such as Mark 2:23-28 where Jesus plucked grain on the Sabbath. And another instance where he saved a woman from stoning because of adultery*
Jesus can easily be taken as a good role model, even if you do not believe he is God. Muhammad on the other hand can not. Find me one instance in Jesus' life that would be morally wrong today. And you can find several in the life of Muhammad (pedophilia, etc). It would be hard to argue that Muhammad was a perfect role model for a good life. *This instance was not documented in some of the earliest manuscripts and is a point of debate for theologians to this day
Jesus as Role Model (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right, but Jesus fulfilled Scripture in other ways too. I'm going to take a "rabbi trail" here... In Judaism, to "fulfill" something means to interpret it correctly. This is what Jesus did through the way He lived His life. He full-filled it not only by keeping the commands of the law, but by filling it full of its true meaning.
Moreover, that He f
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All three abrahamic religions are fucked up. Mo just took the most perverted aspects of judaism and christianity, added his own psychopathy, and voila! - islam was born.
Religion must die and WE have to kill it.
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Actually, I'll note that the Talmud prohibited sexual intercourse with its child brides. You had to wait until they hit 12, the religious Jewish age of majority.
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Child brides were very common, yes, but not the actual sex part! DUH!
In most societies of the time, puberty was regarded as the cut-off point, rather than a fixed age (largely because innumeracy was rife and it was not uncommon for poor people not to know their own age). 9 is quite young, but certainly not without precedent for a girl to enter puberty, although it is very unusual for a girl to survive childbirth if she conceives that young.
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me end your guessing: you will not find similar things, as in: pedophilia being committed by one of the authors of one of the books of the Bible.
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Unfortunately for such historical comparison, the Bible was assembled from numerous historical and apocryphal works by a committee: the literary arguments about what should and should not go in the King James bible are fascinating material, but the _authors_ of the material had been dead for hundreds of years, so there's not so much historical fact preserved about them.
Rape, incest, slavery, murder, and genocide are all quite common in the Old Testament, though, especially including King David.
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
A bit like monospace, then?
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"Monospace makes the difference"
But I missed the words, "
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to a judgement about a multitude of various people.
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But you are right that I cannot judge christians by the old testament only, that's the point what I wanted to say, just exchange bible with koran and christians
with muslims.
I look at those christians with sorrow, whom for example love their (wo)man2(wo)man-loving fellow citizens so much that they are outcasting them, or violate their human rights - as you might expect I the human rights are my basis of judgement what'
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Please re-read the post: he is saying that THE only author of the Koran was a pedophile AND that the Koran tells about it.
He is NOT saying that the Koran tells stories about bad things. He's discrediting the Koran, and thus Islam, by pointing out that its founder was a pedophile.
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Egypt was God's 'Mulligan'? THE definer of good and evil needs... a 'Mulligan'?
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Oh, sure.
The whole Bible can be summarized as: "You are worthless bitch. Endlessly pray for forgiveness, you slave". The same for Koran (it's absolutely explicit there) and a bit less for Torah.
This whole "religions of peace" is oxymoron like "slavery for freedom".
Re:Islam, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure what books you're reading, but as far as I know only the New Testament has much about "love" and "forgiveness". God of the Old Testament and the Torah is full of salt and vinegar, damning and cursing and calling upon his people to rape cities. I will admit that I don't know much about the Koran.
Unfortunately, the Bible wasn't written in English. The Hebrew words used there do not necessarily mean "kill"; there is very good evidence that they might mean "murder". This makes perfect sense in the context of the rest of the Bible - after all, God calls on people to kill for Him all the time in the Old Testament.
Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a pain in the ass. Please go away soon.
Imagine there's no countries.
It isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people,
Living life in peace.
Love,
Sane People
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Re:Imagine (Score:4, Funny)
Really?. The UK has an official state religion [wikipedia.org]; Top that.
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The US has a state religion but pretends not to; Top that.
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Either your geography is bad or you didn't even look at that map. Notice it's just England, not the whole UK that has a state religion. Scotland, Wales and Northern Island, which are also constituent parts of the UK, don't have a state religion. Please stop calling the UK England and vice versa. They're NOT the same thing.
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The Great British Venn Diagram [qntm.org]
Personally, I quite like the fact that I live in a country that needs a four-colour diagram to adequately describe. It neatly fits in with my concept of how the world actually works.
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Re:Imagine (Score:4, Insightful)
Their biggest mistake is failing to understand the militant Islamic movement. It has far less to do with religion and far more to do with male chauvinist pigs, the misogynists. Their underlying hatred of the west has far more to do with the equality of women than it does with prophets and gods.
No amount of propaganda or reason will change their attitudes, there is no middle ground by which they can be approached. They see the independence of women on western media and they feel threatened and they know that their abusive lifestyles are at risk, life styles based upon dominance and abuse and that is the way they react to that threat, with arrogance and violence.
They simply use the masquerade of religious belief to hide behind, a mask to hide the violent lusts that drive actions. They have very reason to feel threatened, their immoral and unethical lifestyles are coming to an end and those that refuse to change will either spend the rest of their lives in prison or perish in their violent struggle.
So the government needs to basically get down and dirty, and break that association and expose the underlying motivation of destructive militant religious movements (to be fair here, the same can be said for fundamentalist Christianity as for Islam).
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Their biggest mistake is failing to understand the militant Islamic movement. It has far less to do with religion and far more to do with male chauvinist pigs, the misogynists. Their underlying hatred of the west has far more to do with the equality of women than it does with prophets and gods.
You think it's genetic or something? That no matter how these people were raised, no matter what belief system they have, they would still be chauvinists?
It's a minor distinction because I agree with you that Islam and chauvinism are intertwined. I just think it's pretty clear that the overarching belief system into which you are born has a big impact on your attitude towards women, not the other way around.
So the government needs to basically get down and dirty, and break that association and expose the underlying motivation of destructive militant religious movements (to be fair here, the same can be said for fundamentalist Christianity as for Islam).
There are LOTS of fundamentalist Christians in the US and how much terrorism are they responsible for? Compare that to the number of fundamentalist Muslims also in the US who were arrested for terrorism plots. It's nice and PC to add "oh and also Christianity" but it's not very realistic.
Re:Imagine (Score:4, Insightful)
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Fundamentalist Christians are violent? And they're violent because they hate women?
Are you confused?
To be fair, I think you make a very valid point about radical Islamist, but whatever their impetus, they are clearly emboldened by Koranic verses demanding death to infidels as well as the subjugation of women. But, you just don't find those parallels in the New Testament.
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Unfortunately, the same thing works replacing "no religion" with "homogenised religion".
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been told that in some places in the US, the song gets edited to say "And *one* religion too". Kind of changes the intent a bit, doesn't it.
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I'm going to invoke Godwin's Law in this comment, but I think it's worth mentioning:
In the 20th century, both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany imagined - and tried to create - societies where there was no religion. Consider the number of people who suffered and died under both regimes. I'm not sure where the view originated that the world's problems are caused by people of a religious belief, but there are two very striking counter-examples.
Some people have used religion as a reason for committing atrocities.
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 20th century, both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany imagined - and tried to create - societies where there was no religion.
Wrong. Nazi Germany did not [nobeliefs.com]. The storm troopers' belt buckles used to say, "Gott mit Uns." [wikipedia.org]
That's propaganda put about by the believers to try to persuade people that atheism leads to totalitarian fascism.
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Religion, You are a pain in the ass. Please go away soon.
Although religious nutjobs are an easy target, please try to remember that the problem is with the "nutjob", not the "religious", and the atheists can field a fair number of nutjobs too. Militant atheist Sam Harris, according to "The End of Faith" apparently wants to see humanity exterminated, religious and atheist alike, rather than allow religion to continue to exist, which comes over as "nutjob" to me. And "The End of Faith" comes with an endorsement from Richard Dawkins (although I don't know whether Dawkins endorses that particular bit). Basically, if somebody wants to kill me because my beliefs differ from theirs, or as collateral damage getting to somebody whose beliefs differ from theirs, I don't care whether they're religious or atheist, I'm opposed to them.
So how about: "Dear persecution in the name of ideology, you are a pain in the ass. Please go away soon."
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To be honest, I don't care whether people live in their own fantasy worlds or not, as long as they leave me alone and in particular don't try to kill me.
That's a complete fallacy. In reality, we all live in the same world. These people are trying to make the world we all live in into their fantasy world -- this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't impossible because it's based on their ridiculous mythology.
My wife is a psychiatric nurse. She deals with lots of people who live in fantasy worlds but aren't trying to kill anybody. There are lots more that don't come within the remit of psychiatric services who live in fantasy worlds but aren't trying to kill anybody. On the other hand, there are ultra-rationalists who do want to kill me or don't care whether I die as collateral in their political and ideological conflicts. I say again, and it's not a fallacy: the issue isn't whether or not they're living in a fa
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You're right in theory but naming a handful of militant atheists is like blowing in the wind. There are thousands and thousands of Muslims who are actively engaging in floggings, stonings, beheadings, suicide bombings, and the like. You can watch videos of it online. Have you seen any atheist beheading videos lately? And then behind the thousands of active terrorists there are millions and millions of Muslims who support, rationalize, and defend their behavior. Millions out of 1.5 billion or whatever is a s
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John Lennon sung such a beautiful song it was just such a let down when I found out he was worth approx. 40 million at the time.
Yeah no shit, I hate it when artists I like get compensated by hundreds of millions of people who also like them.
???
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Was Imagine worth a dollar to you? (Score:2)
John Lennon sung such a beautiful song it was just such a let down when I found out he was worth approx. 40 million at the time.
Just think. John Lennon decided to become a US Citizen when Richard Nixon was President. Imagine THAT!
Seriously, I think is a bunch of rubbish and no solo work of John's could ever come close to the bass line Paul put down in Silly Love Songs.
But...
if you think Imagine is such a great song that you can quote it and build a religion out of the guy, don't you think that's worth a
How to get free government PR for your religion (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, don't we want young Buddhists to be much less likely to be directed to extremist material online?
Oh, sorry, forgot the UK government only sponsors your religion when you are violent. If you are peaceful, you are on your own. Do your own damn PR!
"it wants to 'flood the internet' with 'positive' interpretations of Islam and plans to train government-approved groups in search engine optimization techniques"
Re:How to get free government PR for your religion (Score:4, Funny)
Dear UK government.
As has been proved over and over, we gamers are violent.
Our Google-fu is mighty, but we don't have apropiate sites of reunion. The sensible action would be to pay for the construction of gaming churches where gamers can go to get involved in a friendly community and thus avoid further killing sprees.
Yours dearly, F4T4L M4SS4KRE.
Re:How to get free government PR for your religion (Score:4, Insightful)
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of NuLabour.
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of ID cards
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of more CCTV cameras
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of bonuses for rich crooks running banks
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of more taxes to improve things (their bank accounts)
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of 3 entire towns wiped out to build Heathrow's 3rd runway
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of Phorm style monitoring of all communications
So, when will a 200-strong unit UK government office flood the internet with 'positive' interpretations of Big Brother, for their gain and their rich friends gain, at our expense.
etc... etc.. etc...
The people in power are put there by us and work for us. They are not there to manipulate us, yet that is what they are doing relentlessly. Yet still, so many people fail to see the danger in not defending against these corrupt people in power gaining ever more power over us all. The people in power are building their own Plutocracy (ruled by the rich), which since the finacial collapse, is looking ever more like a Kleptocracy (ruled by thieves). These power seekers in power don't want a democracy, they want to be the people in power to dictate to us all for their own gain at our expense, literally.
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The UK has turned into a bunch of cowards afraid to condemn bad behavior, because doing so to a person outside your own culture is considered racist.
Precisely! And let's all condemn the Germans because they're Nazis! Now that I got the insta-Godwin out of the way, some more examples: should we judge all Catholics or Anglican Protestants based on the war in Ireland? Should we judge all Basques based on ETA's activities? I'm sure I could find a few more examples of ideological terrorism if I wanted to. The "real" reality, as opposed to the one you seem to believe is being hidden from us, is that things aren't black and white, "us" versus "them". The US se
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Why kill them or lock them up? What happened to deportation? If Muslims are patrolling their neighborhoods enforcing sharia so none of their children get too corrupted by the West, that's a cultural problem that can't be solved by prison OR execution.
Once again I apologise (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Once again I apologise (Score:4, Insightful)
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Vote /against/ Labour (Score:2)
Where I live (Cambridge), voting Tory could easily let the Labour candidate back in. Furthermore, our MP [theyworkforyou.com] is very strong on civil liberties. Imperfect, to be sure (I disagree with the utilitarian strain of liberalism that leads to such things as the smoking ban), but unlikely to be easily improved upon, even if the Tory did get in, since it would be difficult to beat a law scholar who care about civil liberties in efficacy.
Apart from the special case of Cambridge, that Lib Dems are typically strong on civi
Re:Once again I apologise (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you grasp what a dictator is, nor how our electoral system works.
Our country is run by the party, not by the prime minister. The Prime Minister is just the appointed representative/head of the party. Don't like the decisions a part makes? Don't vote for them. If the party doesn't like what the prime Minister does, they do a vote of no confidence or vote against his law changes. The PM only has as much power as the party allows.
Re:Once again I apologise (Score:4, Informative)
I can't see how it will stop in 2010 regardless of who is in power, the only difference will be which asshat is in power. Obviously the political parties will offer us all something that we like the sound of and try to bury the unpopular policies. So a new government comes in or gets restored they then make some show of implementing or delaying implementing the popular policies that got them to power and at the same time doing things we distinctly dislike.
While you can argue that perhaps that it seems reasonable for a general election to be called on change of prime minister, its not backed up in practice
http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/politics/comments/unelected-prime-ministers-the-political-and-constitutional-importance/ [tutor2u.net]
"'When a party in government replaces its leader, there is no need for the new prime minister to call an early general election. Macmillan waited 2¾ years, and Callaghan three years until he was forced to hold one by a Commons vote of no confidence. Douglas Home waited a year, and John Major 15 months, but they were near the five-year limit before an election has to be called. Eden called an election almost immediately after taking office, but the parliament was more than 3½ years old. After succeeding the dying Bonar Law in May 1923, Baldwin went to the polls within six months on the issue of tariff reform, only a year into the Parliament, but lost - an unhappy precedent.' "
So its a bit of a mixed bag theres been a few unelected prime ministers from both sides. John Major was the last Conservative Prime minister to do so.
If Gordon Brown wasn't Prime Minister, it would probably still be Tony Blair but definitely not David Cameron till at least 2010.
Sharia Courts? (Score:2, Insightful)
If they want to battle "radical" Islam then how about getting rid of the Sharia Courts? How about really clamping down on female genital mutilation happening in Britain and to British citizens?
Tweaking some search results, that's pathetic. Islam is a danger to civilized nations, so trying to weaken it is fine, but this pathetic, it will do next to nothing.
Re:Sharia Courts? (Score:5, Informative)
Only in civil cases if BOTH parties agree to accept its judgement:
Obviously this could not apply to normal criminal matters (theft, violent crime, etc). So no hands chopped off for theft, no adulterers stoned to death. It's just arbitration, where the arbitrator happens to be Muslim.
Re:Sharia Courts? (Score:5, Informative)
It's worth highlighting that that legislation allows pretty much any body to be used as arbitrators in civil cases, as long as both parties agree to be bound by its outcome.
It "allows Sharia courts" only insofar as it allows you to appoint anyone to solve your dispute for you.
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Of course, all these poor near illeterate immigrant women brought up in a strict male dominant hierarchy will know their rights and refuse to "appoint" these mullahs, imams, muftis as their arbitrator and seek the full protection from the agents of the crown. Yup, these groups have a sterling reputation for standing up to peer pressure & social pressure, defy ostracization. Their fiercely independe
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Exactly! The noble-minded defenders of "mutual consent to arbitration" also ignore the gangs patrolling the ghettos where these immigrants live that enforce sharia themselves. What do you think happens to people who live there who DON'T agree to arbitration by a sharia court? They deal with the sharia gang.
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In practice, the pressure in a community can force people to go along with sharia law even though it is far from in their best interests. This is principally for women in divorce cases, adultery cases, domestic abuse cases and basically anything where a woman is facing a man in the court. The UK government has washed its hands of this and made it much harder for women in Islamic communities in the UK.
Re:Sharia Courts nothing to worry about. (Score:4, Informative)
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Genital mutilation is not Muslim. It's an ancient Egyptian tradition from the time of the Pharaohs. It's widespread across mid-Africa and it has been incorporated in the Muslim traditions of some communities. As far as I know, it's not used in the Arab world, except for Egypt.
And now for something completely different... (Score:2)
A group of paranoid Orwellian Facists.
A religous group that's a political powder keg.
And THE big brain.
Starring Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and John Cleese, in a film written by Graham Chapman and directed by Terry Gilliam.
Honestly, the UK just writes this stuff for the satirists.
Nice idea, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I live in Saudi Arabia. Which doesn't seem to have much of a global image as being progressive these days, and I can still tell you that most grad students these days want to study either in Canada or
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They aren't really targeting the mainstream Muslims. The intent of this is to sweep the radicals under the rug or put them in the back or the room so noone can look at them.
By flooding the search engines to bring up search results only pointing to the mainstream Muslim sites, they are attempting to stop little Johny from getting bored, finding an extremist site, becoming brainwashed, strapping a bomb to his balls in some ignorant belief of 72 virgins as a reward when he is too young to realize they will be
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Back on topic, that DOES appear to be the goal of this venture I guess, in a social equivalent of the Security By Obscurity model, but it's kind of futile. Extremist sites may change the religious/political orientation of someone impressionable, but the actual "terrorist trigger" is usually a mem
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Now YOU are being misleading. The Koran does promise these rewards, it just doesn't make reference to the specific NUMBER.
Another thing that is ignored by most people is that you get access to virgin boys, not just virgin women. It's pretty disgusting. It's a great insight into the culture though and helps explain why saudi men seem to love holding hands so much. (e.g. check out Bush in this article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0426/dailyUpdate.html [csmonitor.com])
re-write TFA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:re-write TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter how you look at it, it's the government promoting one religion over another and attempting to bury their speech to make it happen.
It seems that you agree with the end goal which I sort of do too. But what happens when this action is taken to squash all other religions or negative but rightly placed speech against the government or to create a state religion or lead the people to believe a certain thing in order to pass an otherwise unpopular law that the people wouldn't stand for? I mean could you imagine doing a search on the interweb for Iraq and finding only the "Saddam tried to get yellow cake" or "Iraq has WMDs that terrorists want or can get" sites and articles and being led to believe that Iraq posed a great enough threat to the world that an immediate war was required to limit the potential damage because the government decided to optimize the search engines to get a certain message across and hide others?
Why, if that happened, we might see a couple of otherwise well mannered countries start a war.
Have they now lost their minds completly ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Muslims mostly tend to build local social groups mostly in favour of their origin-region(not country), these social groups are mostly not
radical but, from our point of view their views onto the world differ hughly from ours(*).
But in such communities radical thoughts and comments will occur as a common understanding of that the western society tries to supress the islam.
And here is the catch,
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these social groups are mostly not
radical but, from our point of view their views onto the world differ hughly from ours(*)
That would, uh, mean they are radical.
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Would be the term "militant" more accurate.
No it wouldn't (Score:2)
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You (presumably American) may well not realise, this, but as a country of 300 million out of 7 billion, worldwide your cultural views are a small minority.
Yeah, but, when one of those other 7 billion people come to the USA, then, they are radicals if they do not act like Americans.
Which, btw, includes allowing in immigrant groups and letting them gradually assimilate. We did it with the European Jews, the Chinese, the West Indians, the Indians, the Pakistanis, and now others from other Muslim countries.
I th
Re:Have they now lost their minds completly ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Please sit down, it might come as a shock to you. Muslims who get educated and understand their rights and don't want to be under the thumb of these muftis, quietly leave. They usually marry non moslems, typically Hindu Indians, give their children neutral non muslim names, and allow them to grow up to be regular subjects of the crown. Who is left behind under the thumb of these muftis and mullahs are those who don't understand their rights, who cant/wont resist oppression. That is why the ocean is salty. Water evaporates and leaves salt behind. That is why the muslim immigrant groups in the West have higher concentration of radicals.
Home Office funded apostasy? (Score:2)
Does google actively provide help with this faith based optimisation?
So the USA has used assassins and the UK wants to try OSCT funded apostasy?
From
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html [google.com]
"Placement in search results is never sold to anyone."
Someone at google just recalls the scary start up days and that wonderful visit from the nice people in suits?
" Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the f
Use another search engine. (Score:2)
Just as likely to succeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
...as pro-evolution content on the web is succeeding at making the creationists go away.
Is terrorism such a big issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many more people die from heart attacks and car accidents each year. Why the big fuss over terrorism?
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Because it only takes a handful of people to kill thousands of other people who were otherwise decades away from having a heart attack, and very unlikely to die in a car accident. And because our economy is already structurally built to handle random traffic deaths and the inevitable cardiac events in a certain percentage of the population - those things aren't disruptive in the large scheme of things. Bu
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I agree with the other posters. I would say it's a matter of justice. Heart attacks aren't unjust but publicly beating a young girl because she didn't consent to marriage with a taliban leader is disgusting and fills most people with rage (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbrkTeVJlnQ [youtube.com])
As long as they don't break Google.... (Score:2)
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Not really. Islamic Terrorism has been around for quite a while and while we did help with the resistance against the Soviet Union, that help was directed to people acting towards an invading army not a civilian population.
Terrorism sort of requires an act of terror. While there probably isn't and hard set definition that spans the globe, a military member serving in a country they recently i
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while we did help with the resistance against the Soviet Union, that help was directed to people acting towards an invading army not a civilian population.
I used to think that, but from what I've read since then Afghanistan was inviting the Russians to come in and help them. They were already a communist leaning government and they were trying to suppress a (shock) Islamic uprising. We helped that uprising. Well at least people are seeing that communism is not necessarily the worst ideology out there. We can hope that in time that knowledge seeps into the defense department and the state department -- who STILL have a fucking love affair with Pakistan and ign
Nyah, you're just jealous... (Score:2)
That UK government isn't sponsoring a friendlier image of Cthulhu.