Email petitions? Just say no – a campaigner explains why the petitions you often see circulated are at best worthless and at worst a waste of a lot of people’s time. He also suggests what other things you might do which would have more effect.loan a title hassle freeloan million 50louisville ky loan actionloans $5000.00loan 80-20ltv commercial loans 100for amortization loan studentpayday loan no bad credit $1000mortgage home loan americanremortgages adverse credit loan mortgageloan fha 9classic loan auto adebt loan consolidation texas aloan faxing account no paydayloan adebt nonsecured consolidationrate country loan home adjustableinternational loan adoptioncash loan online advance day pay Map

Coming war threatens to split the left (according to the no-doubt-gloating New Republic).

As you can probably tell, I am apprehensive about the consequences should the US simply bomb Afghanistan and/or Iraq. But I think it is misguided for those on the left who are opposed to the American support for Israel or its interventions elsewhere in the world to use this opportunity to rub America’s nose in its mistakes. To say that the terrorist attacks are no worse than what America has done (directly or indirectly) to Iraqi or Lebanese civilians is both wrong and counter-productive.

Those of us with pragmatic concerns about the usefulness of indiscriminate retaliation do not want to be lumped together with those who believe that America can do no right, and a just solution to the Middle East situation will be as far away as ever if sympathisers with the Palestinian position can be painted as terrorist “fellow travellers”.credit $5,000 bad loan with personaladoption grants loanscanada alberta loans personalaccident loan lawsuitloan mortgage adjustable minnesota rate homefast payday account loan savings97 colorado estate real commercial loansguaranteed 15000 loan personaltexas loan agriculturalloan refund 2nd rapid on

The Detroit Free Press has published a useful and easy to read guide to Arab Americans (Detroit contains a large Arab minority). It points out (among other things) that Iran is not Arab, that most Arab Americans are not Muslims and Bedouin are no more than 2% of the overall Arab population. America’s Public Broadcasting System (PBS) produced a miniseries about Islam with accompanying website (mostly about art, it seems) some time ago.
Thanks to Yahoo’s Picks of the Week for these links.
The BBC World Service has also produced a guide to Islam – one of its guides to the six main religions in the world today.

Here’s a little something to lighten the gloom from my archive of as-yet-un-blogged links – Tea and Coffee – stealth poisons? Dancing – the work of evil minds? All this and more, including a lot of out-dated relationship advice is provided by Miss Abigail’s Time Warp Advice.

Sometimes Salon can be so obvious. A piece on “terror sex“? I can imagine the editorial meeting – “OK we’ve done the serious stuff, now what’s the sex angle to this?”. Next I suppose will be an article on how the military could have caught the terrorists if only they used more open source software?

Could the post-hijack clues be hoaxes? If you are feeling in a conspiratorial frame of mind, the private spies at Stratfor point out that the otherwise meticulous conspirators reportedly left behind pictures of Bin Laden and Korans. They say, “A likely possibility is that the hijackers intentionally left material designed to provide the FBI with an obvious trail leading to low-level operatives with limited knowledge of the attack or its sponsors. While authorities are preoccupied on this investigative track, the real masterminds of the attack could flee detection and plan more operations.”

When can we laugh again? I have just received by email the first joke based on the events of 9-11 and it was funny (at least to those who would understand it – it was also very geeky). But I didn’t feel it appropriate to forward it or put it up on my site – it just seemed disrespectful. It turns out that traditional humour outlets in the US are facing a similar problem. “At the Onion, Hanson said one of the headlines under consideration for its groundbreaking issue, in the publication’s mock-newspaper format, is: “Report: 82 percent of Americans staring blankly at hands.””

Nuclear Safety in the post-9-11 age It seems that according to a 1974 study “some reactor containment structures had zero chance of sustaining a hit by a “large” plane, defined as more than 6.25 tons. The 767s that hit the trade center weighed 150 tons, and were probably moving at top speed.”

What’s more, “a former US Navy Seal until recently ran a program that tested the security at civilian nuclear plants by organizing mock attacks against them. … half of all plants tested failed–and in at least one case, his men were able to simulate enough sabotage to cause a core melt.”

Phew! Taliban clerics say Bin Laden should leave Afghanistan voluntarily… This is just about the best result one could reasonably ask for (though it may not be enough to avert war).

It’s rather belated but here is a look at the Burning Man festival from the Denver Post which really made me wish I could go myself. The images on the Burning Man website are also fascinating…