“Extremists Aid West’s Plots Against Islam”

No shit. According to Iran’s parliamentary speaker-cum-chairman Ali Larijani, America and her allies are attempting to propagate a perverted image of Islam in the Middle East. Quoted in the Tehran Times, he claims the deep-rooted divisions between the differing Islamic schools of thought in the region have been forged by foreign intelligence services.

Known for his philosophical outlook, Larijani added that it’s the responsibility of each Islamic sect to “make every effort not to fall into the U.S.-Zionist trap” of portraying Islam as a terrorist-supporting religion. The worrying thing is, he may have a point . . . .

Connoisseurs From Birth

Such is the aim of a program at The Russian Museum reports local newspaper the St. Petersburg Times. Together with obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr. Marina Komova the gallery runs special, uniquely themed tours for pregnant women, purposefully avoiding paintings that may evoke negative emotions in mother and unborn baby, such as those depicting blood, death, illness, or [I assume] George W. Bush.

The long-term goal behind the project is that of breeding future generations appreciative of art from the cradle onwards. Strange as the scheme sounds, though, it apparently works, with those toddlers who were exposed to the aforementioned prenatal art history lessons reacting more favourably than their peers or older children when presented with a painting.

Of course, what I really want to know is whether or not there’s any link between Stendhal syndrome and water breaking . . . .

Six Months In Jail For Uploading YouTube Video

A court in Stuttgart has sentenced an unnamed (as far as I can tell) 25 year old to half a year in the slammer after he uploaded a ‘jihad’ monologue onto video sharing website YouTube. The ethnic Turk, who had no involvement with making the film, claims that he hadn’t even watched most of it and only uploaded it to warn fellow Muslims to stay away from possible bomb targets. 48hrs and 4,000 hits later he took it down. Not that it mattered, as it was (and still is) posted elsewhere on YouTube and other websites.

Moroccan born German National Bekkay Harrach (better known as the ‘Bonn Bomber’), who rose to become Al-Qaeda’s head of overseas attacks, is shown in the footage forewarning Germans of an impending bombing campaign against their country. He remains at large in the remote and lawless Waziristan region of Pakistan, probably sharing the same cave as an Osama bin Laden look-alike – come on, we know he’s been dead for years. Either that or he’s had a nose job . . . .

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212851/Has-Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-seven-years–U-S-Britain-covering-continue-war-terror.html

Black Lab No Longer MIA

Bring black Labradors and the military into the same conversation and most people immediately think of the Dam Busters – those brave fellows of Operation Chastise fame. Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his faithful canine companion Nig . . . well, perhaps it’s best not to go into all that after all – different age, different generation, pre-political correctness and the like. The important thing is that he was a Lab owner, which is all you need to know when it comes to judging a chap’s character.

So to Labs MIA. A refreshing piece of news, as reported in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, has come out of Afghanistan about Sabi, a four year old explosives detection dog trained to sniff out IEDs. The Australian special forces black Labrador ended up missing in action last year towards the completion of her second tour of duty, but remarkably an American soldier found her alive and well in the remote province of Oruzgan a few days ago.

Sabi? As in the African River? Or perhaps after the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi in which one finds ‘beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature’? Regardless, the whole story warm the cockles of the heart, etc, etc . . . .

Hitler – The German Football Coach

Well he was according to 1% of British schoolchildren, with a more concerning one in seven believing him to have invented gravity in 1650. A survey of 2,000 nine to fifteen year olds across the UK, which was carried out by the veteran’s charity Erskine, also revealed that two in five youngsters don’t know when Remembrance Day is (a staggering number of adults don’t either).

Of notable concern interest :

15% of young Britons believe Auschwitz to be a World War Two based theme park.

9% that the Somme is a river in Germany where Hitler met his death.

12% are of the opinion that the symbol of Remembrance Day is the McDonald’s Golden Arches.

5% think the trigger for the Second World War was Hitler insulting Churchill’s wife.

6% that the Holocaust was a celebration marking the end of the war.

11% hold that the SS refers to Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven.

26% claim a nuclear bomb was dropped on Pearl Harbour.

And last but by no means least, 15% take the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan to have depicted the invasion of Baghdad.

If you want the full results (brace yourselves):

http://www.erskine.org.uk/assets/docs/survey.pdf