Looks Like Mad Mel’s Been At It Again.

Notorious within the Muslim community with a title that seems more apt then just ‘Mad Mel’, Melanie Philips was named the "Most Islamphobic Media Personality of the Year " by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (in 2003).This time, she’s been in a major ding dong with Arab Media Watch and urged her fans/readers to write to them. Surprise, surprise, AMW were then inundated with racist hate mail…..coincidence? Me thinks not!


The Guardian on 18 June 2007 reported the row between Arab Media Watch and Daily Mail regular columnist and BBC Moral Maze regular Melanie Phillips, whose blog post urging her readers to write to us resulted in racist hate mail that we sent to the media.

This is what the Guardian had to say:

"An entertaining spat between the Mail's Melanie Phillips and Arab Media Watch has taken an unfortunate turn. The lobby group urged people to complain to the Mail over a Phillips column about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Phillips, in turn, suggested on her website that her readers might like to write to Arab Media Watch. And boy, have they written, reports its chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi. 'One might wonder whether she hoped for the kind of vulgar, racist abuse, not to mention grammatical and linguistic embarrassment that her blog post generated,' he writes. No room to reprint the messages in full, thank goodness, but suffice to say they included the phrase f*** off back to where you came from'. With readers like that, does Phillips need critics?"

AMW's press releases concerning the hate mail received are available at:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Articles/PressReleases/tabid/77/newsid391/3959/The-hate-mail-continues/Default.aspx

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Articles/PressReleases/tabid/77/newsid391/3946/AMW-responds-to-Melanie-Phillips/Default.aspx

If only I could use my Kufi as a weapon...

Speaking of others, I just want to make my way back to Mad Mel. No I haven't got a personal grudge against her (although it may seem it at times).

The reason I bring up Mad Mel is because, not only does she have wacky views when it comes to the environment, but she thinks that the Israelis are the victims!

Here's one of her latest articles:

As Hamas screams for yet another round of attacks against Israel, and claims responsibility for volleys of at least twelve Kassam rockets and eight mortar rounds fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip this morning, HonestReporting.com points out the astounding-if-it-wasn’t-so-routine fact that, while the western media insist that the Palestinians have maintained a ‘cease-fire’ against Israel for the past five months, the following Palestinian terrorist incidents have taken place:


• Islamic Jihad terrorist captured near Tel Aviv after his bomb belt fails to detonate

• Palestinian bride arrested on suspicion of planning to carry out suicide bombing

• 3 Israelis injured in shooting attack near Modi’in

• Hamas calls for further kidnappings of Israeli soldiers

• Israeli cars shot at in West Bank

• Israeli civilian wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting

• Arrests prevent huge Hamas-planned car bomb in Tel Aviv

• Egypt arrests would-be Hamas suicide bomber near Israeli border

• Palestinian rockets hit Sderot home; several Israelis treated for shock


Indeed, as in this typical Associated Press story, the media claim the existence of this Palestinian ‘cease-fire’ while in the very same story recording the never-ending Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. The inescapable implication of this systematic and mind-twisting denial of Palestinian military aggression and equally systematic concentration on Israeli measures to counter it is that such Palestinian attacks aren’t considered to be attacks at all because their targets are Israelis, whose own self-defence is thus characterised falsely as aggression. Thus Israeli victimisation and Palestinian aggression continue to be airbrushed out of the moral equation, and Israel continues to be wickedly demonised in the eyes of the western world.

How dare she say that Palestinian aggression is airbrushed?! If anything, the injustices committed by the Israeli soldiers are airbrushed.

I swear, sometimes I feel like shoving a kufi down that woman's throat - but then that would be a waste of a good kufi.

Global warming and others

Its interesting to see what those more read and influential than us here at Empowering Us have to say over the Global Warming Issue. Whether it be religious leaders, politicians, journalists, etc. As I (obviously) think it is a big issue that needs to be dealt with pretty urgently, what other people think about global warming often affects my view of them. Like any prat that drives round central London in a 4x4 automatically gains my wrath and WILL get a dirty look from me. The need? A friend was speaking to a colleague of his that lives in the rough terrained Chelsea and drives one. “Ever heard of global warming?” he asked him. “Oh yes, but this thing is marvellous - you can’t feel it at all!” referring to his monster. Blooming pompous twat. Of course I don’t blindly discriminate as some people have genuine reason for them. Well actually I do because apart from 3, everyone I know that drives one its blatantly a status thing.

Last week reading the Observer I came across Nick Cohen whose article I was pleasantly surprised by. He wrote of the danger of extremists undermining their own cause: as by the “eco-extremists” picking on Al Gore for his private electricity bills they are diverting attention away from the real cause. He states it’s the last thing we need - eco-extremists “trumping Gore’s inconvenient truth with a convenient excuse for doing nothing”. This article makes me like Nick Cohen as I have yet to form my own opinion on him. (I will read something about him or that he’s written and I’m like what a fool, but then on some domestic issues I generally agree with him e.g his stance on ID cards, grammar schools.) On the other hand there are people whose stance on the environment makes me dislike them even more. Jeremy Clarkson famously doesn’t give a monkeys, which definitely makes me dislike him even more. If you’re wondering he’s just too over the top and whilst when Hammond or James May do something it’s funny, when Clarkson does its normally pathetically sad/lame. Also sometimes I feel he just promotes or goes on about something just for the sake of it, although I did think he was funny on Have I Got News for You a couple of weeks ago. Then we come to Melanie Phillip’s views as below. I frequently read her stuff although why I bother is a mystery to me. Her views on global warming are positively bizarre, especially coming from someone who has no doubt never studied the subject, let alone devoted years of her life, like global warming scientist researchers have. Strange strange lady. (No, I ain’t picking on these people but when someone is so off on one issue, it kind of makes you question their other beliefs, no?)

Lastly, the religious leaders and their responses make for interesting reading. The Church of England last week released The Ten Green Commandments entitled “How many light bulbs does it take to change a Christian?” (Every time I read that I chuckle, but then I tend to find godawful jokes like that funny). Many of my friends have told me of their local rabbis talking of the need to take urgent steps. But the Muslim leaders, the imams? Well my local imam could be talking about climate change and what we could do, but they don’t allow women in, and don’t speak in English so not like I’d know. Now I know criticising the mosques is Funzie’s special area, but the Church of England taking steps has got to have shamed them in to doing something? Somehow I doubt it.

Let’s not end there. Let’s end on this instead:
“According to a survey in this week’s Time magazine, 85% of Americans think global warming is happening. The other 15% work for the White House.”

(Like i said, i like godawful jokes)

Global Warming is a lie! well that's what Melanie says

Speaking of contrasting views about environmental issues, Melanie Phillips (that's her mugshot on the left) is one who certainly falls into that category.

Here's an excerpt from one of her more "thought-provoking and intelligent" articles:

Channel Four’s devastating documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle has blown an enormous hole in every fundamental claim made to support the climate change obsession — including the claim that the argument is over.

A procession of eminent scientists — climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, geologists, biogeographers, astrophysicists, professors of earth science, plus the former head of Greenpeace, who said that the global warming proponents were ‘anti-human’ — showed on the contrary that the theory bore no relation to science whatsoever.

The earth was much warmer during many periods in the past; the ice caps were always expanding and contracting and Greenland was much warmer 1,000 years ago; most of the atmosphere was not warming as much as surface temperatures; volcanoes, animals and vegetation each produced infinitely more carbon dioxide than human activity; carbon dioxide could not possibly be the culprit for climate change since historically the warming of the atmosphere preceded any increases in carbon dioxide, thus showing up a central claim made by Al Gore in his movie to be utter rubbish; and so on.

Read the rest of this article here

For someone who is seemingly very intelligent, to think that the issues of global warming "bore no relation to science whatsoever", well that's just crazy.

I think we can all see how the environmental changes are affecting thousands of lives - be they of humans or animals. To think that nothing needs to be done, well Melanie Phillips has then certainly lost her head.

No wonder they call her 'Mad Mel'