Viz: It's curtains for Al Qaida

Viz (even though it's not as good as it used to be) has today produced this marvelllous piece of satire:

Jihadi terrorist estate agent headline of the day

The Surrey Herald reports: 

Jihadi terrorists force Staines estate agent name change

To distance itself from the Jihadist terrorist group, an award-winning estate agents in Staines will change its name from iSiS to Oasis

Friday favourite 76

With the controversy over an american amateur video that has led to a deliberate over reaction from organised Islamic militants and the sad (and unacceptable death) of the US ambassador to Libya - this week's favourite concentrates on religious intolerance.

So here is NTNOCN with the General Synod's life of Mohammed Christ:

Professor Paul Wilkinson

The UK's premier academic authority on terrorism, Paul Wilkinson, died on Friday. The Telegraph has (as usual in these matters) a rather good obituary.

Prof Wilkinson was head of the International Relations and Politics Department at Aberdeen when I was an undergraduate there in the 1980s. His profile was such that he was the first person the media went to when commenting on terrorism issues.

Which led to the student joke of the time - what's the difference between Paul Wilkinson and God? God is everywhere all the time. Paul Wilkinson is everywhere (except Aberdeen) all the time.

Lib Dem grassroots fight conference police veto

The decision by the Lib Dems conference committee to grant the police sweeping powers to vet representatives has been met with near universal opposition from the party's grassroots.

Conference reps will need to prove their identity through a passport, driving licence or NI number and provide a passport quality photo and these details will be kept by the police indefinitely.

This goes against the principle that the conference is the sovereign body of the party and local parties can send who they want to it.

The reason for this police intrusion is that old canard 'security'. Chair of the conference committee, Andrew Wiseman, tried to justify this by writing on Lib Dem Voice 'The hard fact is that our conference as a whole, and some of our members who attend conference who are ministers, are now more a focus for people who very seriously do not wish our democratic procedures to continue.'

Now I know Nick Clegg isn't particularly popular at the moment, but I find it difficult to believe that a fully paid up member of the party, who had been duly elected by their fellow local members would go to conference to do him harm. At worst I imagine they might send him a strongly worded email or ask a pointed question.

So the question the Federal Conference Committee needs to answer (but so far hasn't) is: What evidence did the police and home office present to them that means there is a credible threat to government ministers from properly elected conference representatives (not exhibitors or journalists or day visitors)?

If you haven't done so - sign the petition here.

Bin Laden assassination and the law of the wild west

The news that Osama Bin Laden has met a deserved untimely end at the hands of US special forces leaves me with bizarrely mixed feelings.

The spontaneous celebrations outside the Whitehouse at 3am local time appeared to me unseemly and vulgar. And the idea that the US and the west face some sort of closure as a result bizarre.

However, the world is (or will be) a better place without Bin Laden.

But as others have blogged elsewhere the assassination is likely to lead to an upturn in Al Quaeda inspired terrorism as a result.

I can't help thinking that it would have been far better if Bin Laden had been arrested and brought to trial to answer for his crimes. It would have sent a clear message that the modern west is better than the lynch mob justice of the old wild west (or the modern middle east).

However modern American isn't quite as easy to define. It has the death penalty (at least in certain states - including Obama's Illinois, but not Palin's Alaska), the state (or certain states in fact) murder around 35 people a year with three times as many on death row. The US has a huge level of personal firearm ownership and a constitutional right to form militias and culture that enjoys both gun ownership and vigilantism. So it is easy to see why a hit squad taking out Bin Laden with no questions asked will get widespread and unquestioning support, simply because it is part of the American zeitgeist.

But it feels to me after eight years of George W and ten years of Tony Blair the west has simply sunk to some old testament 'eye for an eye' level of international relations - where every international problem can be fixed by armed might. And John Wayne (or some poorer modern version) in a white hat can ride out and take out all the criminal masterminds in the black hats with ease.

The old democracies of Europe ruined themselves (at least twice) with this attitude and clever leaders should be using more discrete means to achieve their ends.

After all the UK Conservative party pledged (very interestingly) to use more soft power in international relations at last year's general election. Something that helped the party to coalesce with the UK Liberal party. It's clearly now time for this aspect of the UK coalition government foreign policy to come to the fore.