General Chat

'At every step, the history of civilisation teaches us how slight & superficial a structure civilisation is, and how precariously it is poised upon the apex of a never-extinct volcano of poor & oppressed barbarism, superstition & ignorance'.

(From 'The Story of Civilisation' by Will Durant.)

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/01/10/17/46/australian-newspaper-publishes-image-of-mohammed

part of the editorial :

"Whether deliberate or not, one of the most damaging aspects of this atrocity, is that it hit our civilisation in a place already shaping as our Achilles Heel - a spineless and growing penchant for political correctness.

"Over recent years, in the face of the perpetually outraged, our pluralistic, democratic and free societies have gradually been yielding on our hard-won freedom of expression,"



Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/01/10/17/46/australian-newspaper-publishes-image-of-mohammed#f9LXG8XM1VEEY2iT.99

Blimey!! Bob

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/08/charlie-hedbo-collusion-terror-jihadi-twisted-logic

I'm in central London on Wednesday Maggie will have to look for it. As for you asking for something from behind the counter Tut tut :-D

...it's just finding one!!
Our local Sm*ths, has taken to hiding 'Fortean Times' behind the counter. Not because it's a 'dirty mag', but because so many are stolen :-|
So, middle aged woman queues up and asks for a mag from 'behind the counter'...............
I expect, if they stock Charlie Hebdo, they'll put that behind the counter too.

I assume it's sold here, in the bigger newsagents Maggie?

Hopefully it'll be widely available all over Europe.

One million copies of Charlie Hebdo will be printed next week, and expected to sell out.

Fairly common in Britain/Europe at the time, too, Bob.
From Wiki:

In the 12th century, Gratian, the influential founder of Canon law in medieval Europe, accepted age of puberty for marriage to be between 12 and 14 but acknowledged consent to be meaningful if the children were older than 7. There were authorities that said that consent could take place earlier. Marriage would then be valid as long as neither of the two parties annulled the marital agreement before reaching puberty, or if they had already consummated the marriage. It should be noted that Judges honored marriages based on mutual consent at ages younger than 7, in spite of what Gratian had said; there are recorded marriages of 2 and 3 year olds

I have been doing some research into the life of the prophet Muhammed (peace be upon Him) I was particularly interested to note that, according to the majority of traditional Hadith sources, he married his third wife Aisha bint Abi Bakr when she was six or seven years old. She stayed at the home of her parents until she was nine or ten years old, when the marriage was consummated. Hmmm...... Bob

Definitely, Dermot - as should any company that these bone-headed immoral terrorists may consider an 'easy target' they can 'claim' they're attacking for 'moral' reasons.

The power of social media can be applied for both 'good' & 'bad' intentions.

Should 'Private Eye' upgrade its security?

Rollo, My opinion.
I don't need you to tell me my opinion is wrong - it's my opinion, okay?

I am well aware of aspects of the case - I can read, and therefore am capable of having my own opinion, just as you can have yours, but I fail to see how your opinion is more 'correct' than mine.

Not quite Dermot the latest US assault rifle XM25 can fire programmable bullets. No hiding place. Has been working well in Afghanistan. Much cheaper than drone air strikes and much less collateral damage than mortars. Range up to 800m.

Pencils, pens, crayons etc have a range of thousands of miles and hone in on the target as surely as any laser. Require skilled operative.

They showed great bravery by being out at vigils last night.

J'aime Paris. <3

Once fired, bullets have no say as to who they injure or kill.

After another shooting in Paris, where a Policewoman has died, and a street cleaner badly injured, they have arrested a suspect, and another is being hunted. What a dreadful time for all those people living and working in Paris :-(

There are no parallels whatsoever between events in N.I. and the highly fractured French state. You analysis of just about everything is that they "do it to look like men". Nuts. ISIL/Al Queda terrorists do it because they are full of hate and have a very warped idea of religion which is nevertheless their justification. There is nothing new in it. The Wahabi school of Sunni Islam has been running Saudi Arabia since 1923.

The terrorists are heading for the Belgian border in the very rough terrain of the Ardennes forest. The younger one, the driver, gave himself up at Charleville-Mézières which is on a convenient route from Luxembourg to Rheims via Longwy. In 1940 Germany managed to hide an army in the Ardennes so if the French police have to look for them there it won't be easy.

I just hope that they all get to stand trial there are already rumours that the fugitives have been shot.

France is not a multi-cultural society and it does not want to be one. The 6 million plus immigrants for the most part live quite separately from the French - France is more like South Africa than England in that respect.

It has a very strong legal precedent ( Laïcité / Laicite ) that there is no place whatsoever for religion in public affairs and crucially religions get no protection from the state. Hence the highly provocative stream of invective from C.H. lampooning all religions but Islam in particular.

Over the last few years for instance wearing of the veil in public has been made illegal in France. Romany shanty towns have been demolished with bulldozers and the occupants shipped back to East Europe in their thousands "free movement" or no. Rather doubt that even Theresa May would try that in Sheffield.

Islam at any level even the most moderate is not able to put religion in a box on its own. Islam is universal and the state is subordinate to religious teaching. Hence there is never going to be any agreement between Islam and Western liberal thinking. However for many years a live and let live tolerant approach from both sides has worked very well both in England (eg Leicester ) and France. It is this tolerance that the terrorists want to break. So yes, the French terrorism is all about religion.

They may have been caught:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/paris-magazine-attack/paris-attack-suspect-dead-two-custody-u-s-officials-say-n281761