Tuesday, May 24, 2011


Muslim gang launched horrific attack on religious studies teacher they did not want teaching girls

A gang of four Muslim men launched a horrific attack on an RE teacher because they did not approve of him teaching religious studies to Muslim girls, a court heard yesterday.

Gary Smith, 28, was left with facial scarring, both long and short-term memory loss, and now has no sense of smell. He became depressed after his face was slashed and he suffered a brain haemorrhage, fractured skull and broken jaw following the attack.

The men were said to have attempted the assault several times, ‘lying in wait’ for Mr Smith before successfully am-bushing him on his way to work on July 12 last year.

The gang was recorded planning the attack by detectives who had bugged defendant Akmol Hussain’s car over an unrelated matter. They were taped saying they wanted to hit or kill the teacher just because he was the head of religious studies at the Central Foundation School for Girls in Bow, East London. In one recording Hussain said: ‘He’s mocking Islam and he’s putting doubts in people’s minds .... How can somebody take a job to teach Islam when they’re not even a Muslim themselves?’

Armed with an iron rod and brick, they punched, kicked and attacked Mr Smith, leaving him unconscious covered in blood on the pavement in Burdett Road, Tower Hamlets, East London.

Mr Smith was taken to hospital after he was found by two passers-by, and only regained consciousness two days later.

The gang, made up of Simon Alam, 19, Azad Hussein, 27, of Bethnal Green, Sheikh Rashid, 27, of Shadwell and Akmol Hussain, 26, of Wapping, fled the scene in a car and went on to boast about their role in the assault. Alam said he hit Mr Smith over the head with a metal bar saying: 'I turned and hit him on his face with the rod and he went flying and fell on his stomach.'

Sarah Whitehouse, prosecuting at Snaresbrook Crown Court, said: 'He was subjected to a violent attack while he was on his way to work. 'His injuries included bleeding in the brain and a broken upper jaw. He has been left with permanent scarring to his face. The attack was pre-meditated and was vicious and sustained. 'It was also a cowardly attack, carried out by a group of at least four men, using weapons, on the single victim who would have had limited opportunity to defend himself.'

The teacher had been at the school for eight years teaching faiths including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism. 'It was a cowardly attack, carried out by a group of at least four men, using weapons, on the single victim who would have had limited opportunity to defend himself'

Ms Whitehouse added: 'He was targeted as the victim of this attack quite simply because of his position as head of religious studies at the school. 'The defendants held strong religious beliefs and they chose him because they did not approve of his teaching.'

Hussain's car had been bugged on an 'unrelated matter' and it was during that surveillance operation that some of the gang members were recorded discussing the attack. He spoke about a pupil at the school, calling her teacher a dog - an offensive name in Islam. He is then heard saying 'this is the dog we want to' and then a word is said in Sylheti - a language from Bangladesh - that means to hit, strike or kill.

Two other attempts, on on July 8 and one on July 9 last year failed when Mr Smith did not take his usual route to work.

Akmol Hussain, 26, of Wapping, Azad Hussein, 27, of Bethnal Green, Sheikh Rashid, 27, of Shadwell and Simon Alam, 19, of Whitechapel, all in East London, admitted GBH with intent. A fifth defendant, Badruzzuha Uddin, 24, also of Shadwell, admitted assisting the thugs by hiding blood-stained clothing.

SOURCE





Now British Elf 'n Safety zealots warn: Beware low-flying GEESE

A keep-fit class in a local park is not an activity most would consider fraught with danger.

While participants may occasionally suffer minor injuries such as a muscle strain or a twisted ankle, health and safety zealots have identified a previously undiscovered danger – low-flying geese.

A fitness instructor was warned of the airborne peril after being approached to run exercise classes for office workers in a leafy part of West London. Before being allowed to organise the workout sessions, the instructor was asked to provide a list of potential hazards at Chiswick Business Park, which has attractive landscaped gardens centred around a lake.

After struggling to think of any dangers posed at the location, the woman received a form from the park’s own health and safety team highlighting the supposed risk of injuries caused by a ‘collision’ with wildlife. The form stated: ‘Instructors are instructed to stay clear of wildlife (eg low-flying geese)’.

One of the keep-fit participants said they were most surprised when told about the potential risk to their health. ‘When I heard about it, I thought it must be a joke,’ said a class member, who asked not to be identified. To be spending time deliberating whether a group of adults running on the spot are in serious danger from airborne geese does seem to be taking health and safety just a little too far.’

The assessment form also warned of the dangers of trees, lampposts and benches. Instructors were told to ‘avoid trees with low-hanging branches’ and to keep clear of such areas completely ‘during low light conditions’.

They were also urged to ‘brief clients’ on the safe use of ‘park furniture’ and to ‘avoid all water features, or if moving past, to slow down and inform clients to avoid the water feature’.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said it did not have any records of anyone attending hospital accident and emergency departments as a result of injuries caused by low-flying geese. A spokesman said that accidents involving ducks or geese tended to occur when people tripped or slipped over while feeding them. However, she said that several thousands of people were injured every year after bumping into a tree or branch.

RoSPA occupational safety adviser Roger Bibbings criticised risk assessments that focused on trivial rather than real safety issues because they undermined the whole system.

Mr Bibbings said: ‘Part of the problem is that risk assessments can turn into a tick-box exercise in which ¬people include every conceivable risk and every conceivable hazard they can imagine. It doesn’t help anybody. When you get people going over the top on health and safety, it brings the whole system into disrepute.

A spokeswoman for Chiswick Park Enjoy-Work, which runs the private park for about a dozen businesses, said all event operators had to provide ‘relevant’ risk assessments. She said that firms normally drew up their own assessments based on an inspection. But she confirmed that Enjoy-Work had itself drawn up the assessment referring to low-flying geese for one instructor because she was struggling to complete a form.

The spokeswoman said that the company had included a number of potential hazards that other operators running similar fitness classes had mentioned. She added: ‘I think it is a case that this issue was raised, it was of concern, and we like to look after the wildlife here and make sure it is safe. We do have a large lake on the site which is home to a lot of wildlife including ducks, swans, herons and geese.’

Apart from fitness sessions, events held for the park’s 5,000 employees include fireworks displays and barbecues.

SOURCE





Good News on Lasting Marriages

While tabloid fare on marital fiascos (such as the recent demise of the Schwarzenegger–Shriver marriage) tends to dominate headlines, breaking news actually bodes well for marriage in America.

According to a report based on census data released Wednesday, marriages are lasting longer, with three in four couples who married after 1990 celebrating their 10th anniversary. In fact, more than half of the nation’s married couples have been together for at least 15 years.

This is good news not only for those families but for society as well, given that intact families tend to fare better financially and marital satisfaction has been linked to better physical and emotional health. The average income of single men is just 60 percent of that of married men, and single women’s average income is just 40 percent of their married counterparts. And the economic benefits of marriage are not for adults alone. Marriage can decrease the likelihood of child poverty by more than 80 percent.

And there’s good news regarding the marital prospects of the next generation—giving “legs” to the rising trend of marital longevity. Children tend to follow the marital trajectory of their parents. Children whose parents enjoy a stable marriage tend to have higher expectations for their own marriages and experience greater marital satisfaction, while children who lived through parental divorce are themselves more likely to divorce.

In addition, research by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia found that greater educational attainment is linked to greater marital stability and that people without a college degree are three times as likely as those who graduated college to divorce within the first 10 years of marriage. Given that children from intact families tend to have better academic achievement and higher educational attainment, the current increase in the longevity of marriage bodes well for the next generation’s marital relationships as well.

Thus, the benefits associated with the upward trend in long-lasting marriages can have ripple effects for generations to come.

SOURCE





Profiles in Tolerance

Mike Adams

Last month, I was standing at the podium getting ready to give a lecture when I noticed a young woman had her laptop computer out. I was amused when I saw that the outside of her computer was adorned with a bumper sticker that said “TOLERANCE” in big white letters. I ignored her plea for tolerance as I demanded that she put her computer up during the lecture. I simply don’t “tolerate” students who pretend to take notes on their laptops while they are, in fact, surfing the net and posting on Facebook.

But I do seriously wonder whether she – or any other student promoting tolerance - really understands what the word means. It is unlikely that she does given that most of her professors do not understand what it means. Like catatonic schizophrenics, professors often mindlessly repeat words they don’t understand. And, arguably, “tolerance” and “diversity” are among the most repeated and least understood words in higher education today.

To illustrate my point, I am including (below) an email I recently received from a UNCW sociologist we’ll call “Tolerant Rob.” It was the third email I received announcing the showing of a pro-homosexual film at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Inter-sexed, and Allied Center at UNC-Wilmington:
“Gentle folks~

I know that I'm ‘taking a chance’ forwarding this to you all. I know that some are intolerant, unaccepting and ‘not comfortable’ with ‘the gay lifestyle’. But someone has to have some huevos around here and that would be me.

Rob

Jimmy Wheeler had hopes and dreams. He was a gifted poet and painter and had a loving family who supported and cared for him. But for Jimmy Wheeler, growing up gay in rural Pennsylvania was too much to take. He was abused regularly at school. He was called awful names. In 1997, alone in a cold room, Jimmy Wheeler took his own life. ‘Jim in Bold tells the story of young James Wheeler and tells the stories of gay youth in this country, from the tragic impact of hatred to the triumphant resilience of youth,’ said Equality Forum’s Executive Director Malcolm Lazin.

”The first and most amusing thing you probably noticed about this email is that Tolerant Rob congratulates himself on the courage he exhibited in sending it. Of course, that is debatable since I am the only conservative Republican on the list of professors to whom it was sent. The other two dozen professors in my department are either independents or registered Democrats. Several are Marxists and almost all of them are staunch supporters of the so-called “gay rights” movement. So sending this email to the department is about as courageous as sending a racist email to a bunch of Klansman. But if you read the message carefully it gets even better.

After I received the first notice (from the LGBTQIA Center) about the “coming out” film I simply deleted it without comment. After I received the second notice (from the department Chairman) I again deleted it without comment. Next, Tolerant Rob sent the alert out with a judgmental statement that not only applauds his personal courage but characterizes those who disagree with him as “intolerant” and “unaccepting.”

In other words, Tolerant Rob is not willing to tolerate intolerance. Nor is he willing to accept un-acceptance. At this point, you may be wondering whether Tolerant Rob actually spends much time thinking about what he actually thinks.

The point that Tolerant Rob lacks tolerance of those of us who subscribe to the Judeo-Christian worldview is too obvious. In fact, he is so intolerant and unaccepting of those he considers intolerant and unaccepting that he must underline the words “intolerant” and “unaccepting.”

What is less obvious is that he also lacks tolerance towards homosexuals.

Tolerance presupposes a moral judgment. Therefore, if Tolerant Rob claims to approve of homosexual conduct he cannot simultaneously claim to tolerate it. If that doesn’t make sense then let me illustrate with a few examples.

*I approved of the decision to include Anna Kournikova in the annual swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated. Therefore, it is not possible for me to “tolerate” seeing her in the magazine wearing a bikini.

*I approved of the decision of Springfield Armory to send me a free personally engraved .45 semi-automatic handgun. Therefore, it was not possible for me to “tolerate” their benevolence.

*I approved of the recent killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. Navy Seals. Therefore, it is not possible for me to “tolerate” their actions as an unfortunate necessity of war.

The problem with sociologists like Tolerant Rob is twofold: 1) They often use words they do not understand, and 2) They often claim to be morally superior to others because they do not believe they are morally superior to others.

The logical incoherence of moralistic relativists can be annoying. But we need to show them toleration and acceptance. They didn’t choose to be sanctimonious hypocrites. They were probably born that way.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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