I'm not one of those Instapundit sorts of people who posts a gazillion tiddly posts so this post is going to wander a little bit from topic to topic instead. But all the topics are related to a certain nation which seems to be doing rather well sporting-wise these days winning both sorts of football for example. But, while this may provide a certain amount of pride and nationalistic feeling, it is worth asking whether it is the right sort of nationalism (shades of BR and the wrong sort of leaves I know), something which is nicely written about by Gareth at the CEP pages.
As for God and the Queen. Apparently Al Qaeda thinks Brenda is one of Islam's "severest enemies" (Thanks to Harry's Place for the tip). Rather different to their opinion of Prince Chuckles I suspect so perhaps they are hoping to speed up the succession. However what I really liked about that article is how the self-destructive terrorist Mohammad Sidique Khan whines about his fellow believers:
Khan, 30, incites British Muslims to ignore the moderate Islamic leaders who want integration with British society.
“Our so-called scholars of today,” he said, “are content with their Toyotas and semi- detached houses” in their desire for integration. The message is believed to be the first of its kind in which a British suicide bomber calls on fellow UK Muslims to follow his example.
If ever we needed an example of how England is, in general, successfully integrating its Islamic immigrants and subborning religious extremism this would be it. Just as capitalism was irristible to those suffering under communism it appears equally attractive to those who come from repressive Islamic places. I wrote shortly after July 7th about a news article indicating the problems of finding educated Imams and I consider this to be further evidence of the same thing. From that post:
Mohammed Rashid would like to employ a British-born imam in his Luton mosque, but limited resources and a shortage of candidates mean he has to recruit from abroad....
"We can't afford to pay our imam more than 300 pounds a week," Rashid explained as he stood in front of the mosque's well-kept, red brick facade, decorated with colourful flower baskets and t opped by a minaret.
"If our young Muslims know they can earn 500 pounds in the private sector, then why are they going to work as imams?"...
There is a chronic lack of well-qualified, homegrown English-speaking imams in Britain and, even when they are available, many mosques -- funded solely by donations from local, often deprived communities -- cannot afford them.
Indeed I suspect that anyone who wants to find an explanation as to why the Church of England seems to produce one loony cleric after another might want to look in the same area. Clerical pay whether for Imams or Christian priests and ministers is, to put it bluntly, crap and crap pay means that even reasonably devout believers are more likely to prefer remaining part of the laity.
Moving switftly on to the fascist regime I was jolly happy to see that the Torygraph's Booker column picks up on Neil Herron's Parking Ticket fight, where he is going back to the 1689 bill of rights to prove that the current "decriminalised parking" fines are illegal. Of course this is not going to go down well with our lords and masters since, as I noted yesterday Bliar's government, seems to prefer to rule by means of new and badly written legistaltion and so, no doubt, they will do their best to repeal the 1689 statute and replace it with some newer one hurriedly translated via google's auto-translate service from France or Belgium.
PS Astute observers may note that this weblog has slightly changed in form. With a bit of luck it will now load a trifle quicker for most visitors however if there are any problems (such as seeing posts twice) do not, as the phrase goes, hesitate to tell me.