I miss this average American, this was (still is to a degree) my life.

And so it begins...
 

Saw this at Talking Points Memo a few moments ago.

The New York Police Department has confirmed to TPM that a cab driver in Manhttan was allegedly stabbed by a passenger who asked if the cabbie was Muslim, and says the incident is being treated as a hate crime. The suspect has been charged with attempted murder and other crimes.

According to Detective Marc Nell, at 6:12 pm last night, the driver picked up Michael Enright, 21, of Brewster, NY, at the intersection of 24th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. The cab proceeded to drive north, and Enright asked the driver, who Nell identified as a 43-year-old Asian male, if he was Muslim. After the driver responded that he was, Enright allegedly stabbed him repeatedly with a Leatherman tool, according to police.

"[Enright] stabbed the driver in the throat, right arm, left forearm, right thumb and upper lip," Nell said.

According to police, the driver called 911, and stopped the cab on 3rd Avenue between 40th and 41st streets, managing to lock Enright inside until police arrived.

Nell told TPM that the cab driver is in stable condition, and that Enright has been charged with "attempted murder two as a hate crime, assault with a weapon as a hate crime, aggravated harassment second degree because of race and religion, and criminal possession of a weapon."

Nell could not confirm that Enright had admitted to asking the driver if he was Muslim.

Bloody fucking hell. This insanity is -exactly- what the universe does not need.

i don't understand why there is a debate about this. the right to build the mosque is protected by the first amendment. the bill of rights doesn't just protect certain groups or people. it is the bill of rights for everyone.

Yeah, no small number of conservatives appear to think that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." has a hidden caveat of "unless said religion is Islam or some other minority religion and/or that religion is globally practiced by brown people with names we have trouble pronouncing correctly." When this center is built (and for ALL our sakes I hope it is) expect to hear talk coming from the right-wing that perhaps it is time to 'clarify' the meaning of the First Amendment. As much as I don't think it needs any clarification (it seems pretty straight-forward to me) I would, after a fashion, welcome the proposal and subsequent debate. Why? Because I believe that what no small number of the Republican base *mean* when they invoke the First Amendment is this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting any Christian denomination over any other Christian denomination or prohibiting the free practice of Christianity..."

Since it appears that is what conservatives *mean* it would be nice if they would just *say* that is what they mean.

Btw. the reason I say that this center should be built for all our sakes is that if it isn't built then Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah will have all of their recruiting propaganda written for them for the foreseeable future.

Cheers
Aj

I am confused by people calling it a Mosque.
Is it not an Islamic Community Center? Two blocks away from ground zero?
Should we not honor the Muslim victims of 9/11? Are they not American as well? Do they not deserve our tears as much John Smith?

Partial List of Muslim 9/11 Victims:
Samad Afridi
Ashraf Ahmad
Shabbir Ahmad (45 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and 3 children)
Umar Ahmad
Azam Ahsan
Ahmed Ali
Tariq Amanullah (40 years old; Fiduciary Trust Co.; ICNA website team member; leaves wife and 2 children)
Touri Bolourchi (69 years old; United Airlines #175; a retired nurse from Tehran)
Salauddin Ahmad Chaudhury
Abdul K. Chowdhury (30 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Mohammad S. Chowdhury (39 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and child born 2 days after the attack)
Jamal Legesse Desantis
Ramzi Attallah Douani (35 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
SaleemUllah Farooqi
Syed Fatha (54 years old; Pitney Bowes)
Osman Gani
Mohammad Hamdani (50 years old)
Salman Hamdani (NYPD Cadet)
Aisha Harris (21 years old; General Telecom)
Shakila Hoque (Marsh & McLennan)
Nabid Hossain
Shahzad Hussain
Talat Hussain
Mohammad Shah Jahan (Marsh & McLennan)
Yasmeen Jamal
Mohammed Jawarta (MAS security)
Arslan Khan Khakwani
Asim Khan
Ataullah Khan
Ayub Khan
Qasim Ali Khan
Sarah Khan (32 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Taimour Khan (29 years old; Karr Futures)
Yasmeen Khan
Zahida Khan
Badruddin Lakhani
Omar Malick
Nurul Hoque Miah (36 years old)
Mubarak Mohammad (23 years old)
Boyie Mohammed (Carr Futures)
Raza Mujtaba
Omar Namoos
Mujeb Qazi
Tarranum Rahim
Ehtesham U. Raja (28 years old)
Ameenia Rasool (33 years old)
Naveed Rehman
Yusuf Saad
Rahma Salie & unborn child (28 years old; American Airlines #11; wife of Michael Theodoridis; 7 months pregnant)
Shoman Samad
Asad Samir
Khalid Shahid (25 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald; engaged to be married in November)
Mohammed Shajahan (44 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
Naseema Simjee (Franklin Resources Inc.'s Fiduciary Trust)
Jamil Swaati
Sanober Syed
Robert Elias Talhami (40 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Michael Theodoridis (32 years old; American Airlines #11; husband of Rahma Salie)
W. Wahid

"Islamic Community Center two blocks from the very edge of the Twin Towers area and several more blocks from the actual tower locations" doesn't fit on a protest sign.

It also doesn't scare ignorant and gullible people.

good points and a glaring representation of the media bending the truth.

to me community center evokes images of mommy & me classes, quinceañero parties and craft classes. not al queda training camps.

True enough. It also doesn't fit into the narrative of "wherever there is an Islamic conquest they (Muslims) erect a mosque so if we allow a mosque to be erected *anywhere* in the United States, that means that we're capitulating to having been conquered by the Saracens, I mean the Moors, sorry one more try, Al Qaeda. Isn't it wonderful that Islam can look to Christianity as an example because, I'm sure you're all aware, that there isn't a single instance--what-so-ever--of Christians building a triumphalist church on or near the site of a battlefield. Okay, if you eliminate every Christian church built in the Western Hemisphere there are no examples of that. No that doesn't quite work; not counting any churches built in the Western Hemisphere, anywhere between Istanbul in the south to Moscow in the East, any Christian churches built in Western Europe, any Christian churches in Israel, Egypt, or Algeria, or sub-Saharan Africa, you can't find a *single* instance of Christians building a triumphalist church on or near the site of a battlefield. No, that still doesn't quite work, this time for sure; if you exclude the planet occupying the third orbital position around our local star, and just count orbital positions 1, 2 and 4 (Mercury, Venus and Mars respectively) you can't find a *single* triumphalist Christian church built near a battlefield.

Cheers
Aj

quinceañero parties? That sounds Spanish to me. Spanish isn't English which makes it near to Arabic. Arabic is spoken by Muslims and Arabs. Arabs are brown. Mexican people are (largely) brown. Muslims are terrorists. Therefore quinceañero is just Spanish for "Al Qaeda training camp". One cannot help but notice that quinceañero and Al Qaeda both have q's in prominent places. Coincidence? I think not.

You know, parodying the kind of breathless hysteria on the right is almost *too* easy.

Cheers
Aj

so what you're saying is that the proposed mosque near ground zero is responsible for mercury in retrograde? don't tell rush limbaugh.

You forgot one other clear connection: Spain is near Arabia.

Not to fear, though, as SB1070 will take care of the problem.

It's an Al Qaeda plot! Wait. If you think about it. Muslims built mosques on Earth. Earth is near the sun (relatively speaking). The sun is the gravitational center of the solar system. Reagan's ghost! Islam has conquered the solar system!!!!!! It's worse than that, in about 5 billion years, the sun is going to expand out to about the orbit of Mars, completely destroying the Earth! What I think has happened is that future Muslims have traveled *back* in time to build the Cordoba House as a sign that the final triumph of Islam will occur when the Sun (which is just a star and a number of Muslim-majority nations have stars in their flag) parboils the Earth. (The mosque couldn't be built after the sun cooks the Earth thus the traveling back in time.) Or it might be that these Muslim time-travelers are from the *very* far future (15 billion years +/-) when the Universe undergoes heat death.

It's TRUE! And since parts of Spain were once under Muslim control (until 1492) and Spanish was still spoken then---Spanish = Arabic? Coincidence? I think not!

Hey, wait a minute!!! I learned this in school - "In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". OMFG!!! Columbus was a Muslim. And Columbus discovered America. That means all Americans are Muslim!!! My neighbors are terrorists, and I didn't even know it!! I better go lock the doors and windows!!

:seeingstars:

america's first mosque:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__TkYG1Rhmo.../teepee400.jpg

Wait. Since Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini - does that make me a terrorist?

Now I'm all upset!

Thank you for posting this.

Finally, some of the family members of Muslim's that died in the towers are speaking up.

Also, one woman (non-Muslim) from NY made a great comment about I heard today about how she felt that the real slap in the face (disrespect was the term she actually used) to the families of victims was the extreme right-wing political candidates making all the assinine remarks about the community center putting out election materials with pics of the towers burning.

I'm probably way too sleepy to fully graSp the humor in this.....

playing it safe ..
la reconquista started mostly in 1212, portugal being the first to eradicate the majority presence of muslims {and jews}, a few centuries later{bla bla} in 1492, the last vestiges of a muslim leadership was quashed*Iberian peninsula anyways*, royalty of spain said "go for it" in 1480 to the Inquisition forcing muslims, romani and jews to convert or die.
Those that did, still kept a secondary status and were also called marranos because they were suspected to continue their faith in secret {which probably explains why some of my relatives despise such a word}
In the 1600's however, if there was suspicions, those too were ejected/killed.
Hence the little saying "No hay Moros en la Costa"....

the joys of being taught unbiased history....
over and over and over and over....
bedtime for me..
:seeingstars: