Modern Canterbury Tales With Sharia Laws

Archbishop of Canterbury, Highest Anglican of The Church of England, made the case for Britain to accept incorporating Sharia Law as the future. Shocking to some, mind bending to others, Dr. Rowan Williams, the 104th person since 597 to hold the "The Most Reverend Father in God, Forenames, by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan" job, decided to speak his mind, minus reservations, about the state of British religious legal doctrine to Anglicans around the globe. The Archbishop declared Sharia laws were much like off key music in a church, inevitable - his actual word was "unavoidable".

Dr. Williams' speech to England's Royal Courts of Justice also caused tremors in Australia where emphatic denouncements commenced immediately. It causes brain bruises to imagine the Archbishop sharing what implementing Sharia law means to Her Majesty over some righteous scones and chamomile tea.

Dr Rowan Williams said the UK had to "face up to the fact" some citizens did not relate to the British legal system.

He said adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law could help social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

From Number 10 Downing Street, where the Never-ending Global War on Terror™ ® (Bush patent pending) is being waged in tandem with the USA, Prime Minister Gordon Brown rushed to say no, just no, to the Archbishop's serious musing aloud to the BBC's Radio 4 about the citizenry being subjected to necessary changes in legal practice from its Magna Carta underpinnings to embrace Sharia law in certain circumstances. In fairness, the Archbishop sought ways to integrate modern societal demographic changes and differing religious traditions from another major Faith, Islam, into British society and its legal community.



With rhetoric equal in height to the spires of the centuries old Canterbury, he notes other accommodations made in Britain while denouncing some of the odious interpretations of Sharia Law practiced by Muslim extremists like Afghanistan's Taliban. Prudence in politically presenting his point was missing in action as his thoughtful remarks caught everyone off guard as the speech became quickly condensed into the standard sound byte, squeezing the life out of his meaning and derailing insights into his interpretation of the humanistic nature of the Sharia system.

The archbishop compared allowing Muslims to take carefully defined issues to their own religious courts to the established practice among Orthodox Jews here of referring religious disputes to rabbinical courts.

Roman Catholics might also benefit from what he called “plural jurisdiction” in matters affecting religious conscience, he said. He noted that the Church of England, formally headed by the monarch, also has its own ecclesiastical courts.

“Nobody in their right mind,” the archbishop told the BBC, “would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states — the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well.”

But equally, he said, “I don’t think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights simply because it doesn’t immediately fit with how we understand it.”

The tarring and feathering of the Oxford scholar is gathering steam as his point becomes lost in a larger more toxic political context. The how of what he expressed just drowned the what so the debate becomes about him and his views, rather than which groups for which rationales get a tolerance exemption.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the first Canterbury Tales montage of 14th century Middle as a diverse English swearing tourists on a pilgrimage telling each other stories about life and all of its travails. Fast forward to today with a vantage point of history, England's high priest shared his thoughts on Islam and its version of the rule of law and how it should be applied. Islamic Law: The Sharia from Muhammad's Time to the Present gives a or one perspective from Hunt Janin & Andre Kahlmeyer.

Sliced Cables Spawn Conspiracies from Gulf to Asia

One accidental slice on Flag Telecom, leagues under the seas, could be construed as an unfortunate accident taking out the Middle East and crippling communication with Italy. Two, seems unlikely as the cable between Dubai and Oman severed communications. In a week, the third and fourth incidents occurred involving sliced/cut sea cables affecting the same regions, crushing web traffic to frozen molasses or ancient turtle speeds. While cut cable 1 and cut cable 2 are practically on top of each other, no one knows whether it was one giant slice at the same time or two separate incidents to cut off millions of users. The fourth received a hurried explanation as a power supply problem to the United Arab Emirates.

A supposed undersea cable caper brings out the latent conspiracy theorist in the young, old, Hindi, Muslim, seasoned technologists and casual users. Godzilla or Governments as the creepy cause are each popular theories in the Gulf Region and South Asia. The internet cable cut mystery - Who did it - How and Why? One note of caution is cables break, snap, come apart for a multitude of reasons; ships with anchors, friction or marine life with a hankering for copper dental floss. A dedicated group of ships or submarines exists to perform daily repairs just like the cable guy that schedules between 2 -4 pm at your house.

Only the first two cuts had any serious impact on the internet, says Beckert. Those cables near Alexandria, Egypt account for 76 percent of the capacity through the Suez canal -- connecting Europe with the Middle East, North Africa and the India sub-continent.

Once those failures sensitized a conspiracy-happy net, it was natural that other cable failures would be found to feed the frenzy, because they occur all the time.

Repairs to two key cables carrying 3/4 of the traffic between Europe and Asia are in full swing and so is the wired internet chattering class - well, those that can still easily get online. Egyptian repair crews decided to map a new sea route as they repair the cable. Built into the architecture of these cables is the ability to reroute traffic to distribute the load across other networks. Most of the time it is seamless and the end user happily clicks away without knowing. Cue music from Jaws, this time that did not happen. Cyberwarfare is not off the table in the conspiracy realm.

In the past five years, both fiction and nonfiction treat cyber warfare with more respect, as it is a major tool in sophisticated governments arsenal as well as those that use terrorist means. A good primer is useful. This one entitled Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber Terrorism allows the budding conspiracy theorist to get grounded in facts before spouting off on the recently repaired interweb.

The Dark Arts of Professional Waterboarding

Under oath and with intense questions, the Giant Head of US's spy central, uniformed 4 star General Michael C. Hayden, comes clean with an admission that Bush the Lesser approved express lane waterboarding for three, courtesy of the Geneva Convention signing United Sadists States of America. What a stain on America as the US decried waterboarding US POW's under the Japanese in WWII leading to a treaty, a global accord, an international pact among civilized nations and dictatorships, not to engage in torture. But the Bush Administration and the US Attorney General still cannot define the "special techniques" of torture under Oath to Congress. So, in capturing terrorist tormentors, the US acted like barbarians, but wants to be thought of as the good folks wearing ten gallon white cowboy hats while saving people and puppies.

Our whole goal was not to be like terrorists - but Bush and his farm of cronies mightily begs to differ with that stratagem. He went to the evil dark place by confirming that the US reserves the right to use the drowning practice in the future - during the final year of his cesspool presidency. Gitmo has many prisoners who may shed light on US techniques that the Bush humanoids would rather not discuss since many have never had the right or writ of habeas corpus to tell their side.

The practice, a staple of brutal interrogations from the Spanish Inquistion to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime, usually consists of strapping down a captive, covering their face with a cloth, and pouring water onto the cloth.

Fratto underlined that the tactic -- which experts liken to controlled drowning -- is not currently permitted, but left the door wide open to resuming its use.

"The president will listen to the considered judgment of the professionals in the intelligence community and the judgment of the attorney general in terms of the legal consequences of employing a particular technique," he said.

His comments came one day after CIA director Michael Hayden for the first time admitted publicly that the agency had used waterboarding, to question three top Al-Qaeda detainees after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes.

An admission of torture comes amidst Congress's laborious dithering and OCD hand wringing on how to manhandle the issue with a stubborn and petulant Bush White House. Hayden's civilian boss, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) or Head Spook Mike McConnell, was giving Congress his gussied up version of the National Threat Assessment. Let's see, the 3 Guests who tested out the new waterboard features are all well known Al Qaeda operatives from the same kingdom, Saudi Arabia, who Bush just pitifully begged King Abdullah for more oil to feed America's energy habit. Th UN, Human Rights groups stage protests but that is to high minded to sway the hardened. Hayden was busy for years at the NSA serving the Pentagon with all the spy techno stuff floating in Orbit that listens to our calls and logs keystrokes before heading from Fort Meade to Langley to clean up the human side of the US spyworld - cough, still wearing military garb.



California scholar and author, Mark Danner, participates in full measure in debates about torture in a terrifying mesmerizing fashion both verbally and in the written word. His book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Gharib and the War on Terror with the arresting and defining image of torture from Iraq grabs your attention from the cover to the index.

YES, WE CAN!!!!

Vote Our Hopes, not our fears, America! The planet is imperiled, Our Dreams are crushed under rising debt and the gift of Good Health has gone to the richest among us. Now, it is past time for the least amongst us to rise up and vote to change to Give The Dream to the Generations to Follow. Yes, We Can! I am doing my part to Get Out the Vote for Barack Obama. Help me. Let's Go Change the World!



Reclaiming the Dream is the latest sign Barack Obama uses on his podiums. California crowds show signs in Spanish, Si Se Puede. He had made the case, now it our turn to join him in making the Change we and the world do desperately. Camelot's Caroline Kennedy, the world's mega media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama will be in Los Angeles tomorrow to fight for the Dream. This video is from Jesse Dylan featuring, Will I am, John Legend, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Kate Walsh, Tatiana Ali and Herbie Hancock among others.

A Change WE Can Believe In. As oft stated if you want the essence of Barack Obama you have to go to the raw words written when he had no need to spare his feelings or his thoughts from public scrutiny. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance rings with authenticity, ambition, ego and humility.