Islamic Cleric Speaks out against terrorism

Ok old story but I just am getting around to posting it…

Maybe this happens more often than I know of, but I think it’s great that this is happening.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/03/11/britain.fatwa.terrorism/index.html

Maybe if more religious people spoke out against people using their religion as an excuse to commit crimes and acts of violence, then we’d have less terrorism, abortion clinic bombings, and general stupid stuff going on.

Update 8/12:

New video produced by moderate Muslims condemning terrorism.  It was covered by CNN.  Another Muslim summit, denouncing terrorism, from the same cleric who issued a fatwah against terrorism.  In addition, this is a good article describing the controversy and the issues around the building of (among other things) a Muslim Center and Mosque near ground zero.  Specifically the point being made about the marginalizing of Islam being the exact wrong thing to do when trying to avoid extremism in that religion.  Worth a read, even if you don’t agree with the placement of the Mosque.

Air Marshals not so effective…

So I’ve posted about the ineffectiveness of anti-terrorism measures before, but this is truly rediculous.  More air marshals are arrested than they have made arrests?  That’s a truly WTF moment if I have ever heard of one.  Of course security isn’t always easy, and even doesn’t always work even if the idea is good, but this is bit over the top.

 Thanks to Bruce Schneier and his blog for the link and comments.  Also a note to say that I do understand the deterrant effect of the program, I just think that the trouble here outweighs the benefit.

UPDATE:  It looks like the No-Fly List is being reviewed for improvements.  This process could be effective, but really isn’t, largely for the same reasons that security is hard, and often doesn’t work.  The bad guys have the advantage of not following rules; like not using their own names, having aliases, identity theft, etc.  Then this situation is compounded by the politics not allowing anyone to be removed easily for fear of “letting one go”.  Rediculous, because the lists become so large and unmanagable that you might not catch the guy until it is nearly too late. If at all.

Refuse the Terror

For a while I’ve been wondering about the over-hype being pressed by our government on the topic of terrorism.  Yeah, I know, terrorists are bad people, etc.  I would never approach condoning terrirsm nor the actions undertaken by them, however, let’s be realistic.  Are we really at risk? 

So I did some research and the resulting video is posted to at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka5FdP-gNF0 

The point being every person has a vote, and through that vote, your wallet, and your participation in the government we can have the government of the people, for the people, by the people again.  It certainly hasn’t been that for a while IMO, but I retain hope and optimism that it can be that again if the people simply rejoin the process.