Saturday, December 26

Tongue-poking 'illegal'

Be warned, anybody who nips into Italy and pokes their tongue out. I quote:

It is illegal to poke your tongue out at someone to insult them, Italy's highest court of appeal said Friday.The Cassation Court turned down an appeal by a farmer in the Marche region who claimed his incriminated gesture, caught on a camera phone by a neighbour he was arguing with, was "not offensive" but a mere "grimace".
The farmer, Carlo O., was convicted of insulting the other man by a justice of the peace in Fabriano last year. The Cassation Court said the conviction must stand and Carlo O. would have to pay damages, to be set in a separate civil trial. The criminal penalty for the tongue-poking was not divulged but Carlo O. was ordered to pay his neighbour's court costs of 1,300 euros.

Now that’s priorities for you, forget about the corruption and constitutional questions and and other things that the highest court needs to worry about, but in this case, it thinks that insults are important enough to debate and pronounce judgement upon!

How costly is the Sarbanes Oxley Act? Evidence on the effects of the act on corporate profitability

There is a tidal wave of regulation that is coming down the pipes from the various assorted regulators. There are 3 costs to this regulation to financial firms. The cost of implementing the change, the cost of of running the change and the opportunity cost related to the sum of the previous two costs. And believe you me, after having had about 15 years of experience of looking at regulatory change, they can mount up to a pretty penny. Seriously big pennies and I frequently doubt if this is actually making our lives better and safer. Stick to gold (just half kidding). What I also find very interesting is that these regulations are rarely followed by good costed business cases on the cost/benefits to be achieved. Its almost like an article of faith that more regulation is good. Period. No questions asked. Well, I am again not sure.

With that said, what about SOX? well, here’s a good interesting paper on it. Abstract:

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was intended to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures. However, critics have argued that the costs of SOX far outweigh its intended benefits. Prior studies based on stock-price reactions to SOX-related events document mixed evidence on the expected impact of SOX. In contrast, we provide evidence on the net realized costs of SOX by examining its impact on operating profitability. We find that average cash flows decline by 1.3 percent of total assets after SOX. These costs are more significant for smaller firms, for more complex firms, and for firms with lower growth opportunities. Annually, these costs range from $6 million for smaller firms to $39 million for larger firms. Further, we document that net SOX-related costs are not limited to one-time expenses associated with internal-control design and implementation. In aggregate, for the 1,428 firms in our sample, these costs amount to about $19 billion per year. Profitability is lower for up to four years post-SOX. To our knowledge, ours are the first estimates of the realized net costs imposed by SOX.

$19 billion per year with profits being impacted for 4 years. And no calculation of the compound nature of regulations which come from hundreds of regulators, in hundreds of markets. It is a heavy burden that society is placing on the financial institutions and I am yet to be convinced on a macro level that this is really thought through.

Friday, December 25

What a great job!> Head of Tunnelling

I happened to look over the FT website for more news on the gilts problem when my eyes fell on this role:

Thames Water

Delivery of major tunnels to cost, time, quality and HSE targets and contribution to the Leadership and continuous improvement of Capital Delivery.

What is the purpose of this role?
The delivery of major tunnels to cost, time, quality and HSE targets as well as contribution to the leadership and continuous improvement of Capital Delivery.
What makes this role unique?
Technical and Health & Safety complexity is on an international scale for our projects (one is for the deepest and highest pressure tunnels to have ever been constructed). Extremely high criticality of completion on time due to potential infraction proceedings in the UK government by the EU. Extraordinarily high risk of cost overrun requiring robust management to keep the project under control.
What will this role involve?

High level internal and external stakeholder management
Leadership of the delivery team inclusive of 6 direct staff and a project team of approximately 30 mixed direct staff and consultants
Contract and commercial management,  Inspirational people management as part of the extended leadership team, Delivery of projects to time, cost, quality, safety and environmental targets
Active leadership to extend corporate influence for the wider advancement of Capital Delivery, Operations and Thames Water
Responsibility for all major tunnelling projects in Thames Water
What are we looking for?
Excellent commercial acumen
Proven contract management expertise with successful outcomes evidenced
Demonstrable abilities in managing third party contracts at significant scale
Track record of delivering complex projects to cost/time/quality/ HSE standards
Senior manager level leadership, influencing, negotiating and communication skills
A clear leader of people able to deliver tough projects and outputs through inspirational leadership
Proven success at complex tunnel delivery in any sector or other major project success within the water sector i.e. individual projects over £100m

I am sure the job is tough, but to call the job as HEAD of tunnelling is great, he will be the head literally and figuratively I guess :)

Thursday, December 24

Pak court rejects asylum petition for 5 American Muslims

This is what happens when you have countries too closely associated with religion. Take for example, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan or any other OIC country which is all gung ho about Islam. Since Jihad is part of the religion, the argument goes, any bearded terrorist who is looking for jihad can ask for asylum. You couldn't make this up, seriously.

 

LAHORE: A Pakistani court today dismissed a petition seeking asylum in the name of 'holy war' for five American Muslim youths recently arrested in the country for allegedly planning terror attacks, saying that it was not the duty of the judiciary to define 'jihad'.
The Lahore High Court dismissed the petition filed by Khalid Khwaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence official now associated with a rights organisation. In his petition, Khwaja had contended that the youths came to Pakistan for 'jihad' (holy war) and since this was not a crime, their detention is illegal.

And welcome to ISI inc.. lol

Tuesday, December 22

The early Christian insurgency in Islamic Spain and impact on today’s terrorists

I was having a chat about Arabic conquests with an Egyptian friend and said, well, you are an Arab. He got very upset about it and said he aint Arab, no way Jose. (He is..). Anyway, so we got talking about early Islamic history and we discussed how the edges of the Islamic Empire generally fought off the imperialistic shackles. Here’s an example of the geographic spread.


It's in the area of southern Europe and India where the resistance seems to be most ferocious and ultimately they did throw off the imperialistic yoke to “assume” their older civilisation. But Northern Africa, the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia became Muslim. I remembered reading an interesting paper on this topic, specially related to Spain and thought of giving a quick overview.

The loss of Spain and India seems to have seared the psyche somehow as you can still hear the fundos complain bitterly about the loss of these two territories and maintain that they will win them back again (see below). But while the story of India is well known, it's only the loss of the Spanish kingdom by the Moors that is known. Nobody knows much about what happened after the invincible armies of the Moors rolled over North Africa into Spain and then into southern France till they were stopped by Charles Martel. After the Islamic kingdom was created and formed in Spain, what then? What happened in the immediate aftermath? We know about the reconquista, but what about the intervening period? 

     

This paper sheds some more light on what happened. The first reason for the success of the resistance was the negation of the use of cavalry by the Muslim forces up in the mountainous region. Without the quick ability to move around the battlefield, the Muslim forces suffered serious casualties and were simply unable to push through to their ultimate conquest of the total peninsula. Also waging war in the mountains is a disaster for the attacking forces and all the advantages lie with the defenders.

The second problem was the inequitable distribution of booty and this caused severe fighting amongst the Muslim nobles. Booty and looting is an accepted part of the Islamic laws of warfare, but then those lovely laws cannot deal with the normal human greed. Time after time, whether in Spain or in the Ottoman Empire or in India, you find that the seeds for the disaster or downfall of the Islamic empire can be related to this factor. Also one has to remember that succession in most Muslim empires and kingdoms was a very bloody affair with siblings being slaughtered regularly. One can see this in the Moorish Kingdoms, in Ottoman times, in Egypt, in the Arab regimes or in the various assorted empires or kingdoms in South Asia. Not that the Christian kingdoms were not better with revolts, but they were less afflicted than the Muslims due to the steadily accepted primogeniture rule, which made the crucial difference.

It took 800 years or so before the Moors were pushed out, but push out they did. Time seems to have moved differently at that time. But then, this kind of time frame isn't surprising. Take Greece for example, the Ottomans went in by about the 13th century and were not chucked out till the 19th century. 


How about the Mughal Empire? It started around 1500 and frankly didn't end till 1857 or so. Mind you, I just read an article which claimed that the British were responsible for the demise of the Mughal Empire. Actually, the Mughal Empire was pretty much dead much before the East India Company had anything to do with it, not least because of Aurangzeb’s administration and activities. What was left by 1857 was a pimple on the rump of the grand empire which was soon pricked.

 
So it takes time. The Christian rebels in Spain also benefited from the proximity of other Christian kingdoms from where they got their sustenance and support as well. Also, the Spanish resistance maintained their northern Christian kingdoms which ultimately provided the bedrock and bedspring from which the reconquista started.

The other factor which is common in these countries such as Spain, Greece and India was the strength of their respective beliefs. In other words, the local populace didn't give in to the blandishments of the Muslim conquerors and retained their faith. It is this factor which allowed the native population to resist and ultimately overthrow the Imperialistic invaders unlike in Arab and other lands where they gave up. Quite an interesting paper which sheds light on the very early days of the reconquista. Without this period of resistance, one can well imagine that Spain could well have followed in the same footsteps of Algeria, Egypt, etc. who became Muslim countries (although that comment about Egyptians not being Arab is interesting, I might return to that argument sometime)

Which leads me to the second interesting paper. Why is Spain so important to the fuglies? The abstract quotes:

The purpose of this article is to look at the importance and treatment that Spain receives in jihadist propaganda. This study offers a series of empirical observations based on a content analysis of a sample of propaganda produced by jihadist groups between January 1994 and September 2008. The analysis of this material, the context in which it was spread, and a comparison with other Western countries leads to the conclusion that the role played by this country in jihadist propaganda can only be understood by taking into account “structural factors” that have little to do with a greater or lesser level of interference in “Islamic affairs.”

Out of the 2233 documents that the researchers studied, Spain appeared in 2.3% of them, USA in 67%, UK in 5%, Russia in 3%, France in 2.7% and Israel in 14.2%. In particular, the issue of Al Andalus seems to be seared into their psyche. I quote:

In this category have been grouped all the mentions made that refer to the period of Muslim occupation of the Iberian peninsula, understood as between the invasion begun from the north of Africa in 711 until the elimination of the last Islamic redoubt in Spain in 1492 with the taking of the Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs. This is a period of history with a profound evocative power in the Muslim collective imaginary. To use the term “Al Andalus” implies speaking about a past of artistic, architectural, literary, and scientific brilliance, but also implies speaking of a period of greater Islamic political power. Said term forms part of the conceptual baggage for all of the world's Islamic population, independently of the degree of religious practice, political affiliation, or attitudes toward terrorist violence. This remembrance has a character of yearning, of lament and pain for the loss of a territory that symbolized the highest level of splendor of Muslim civilization.
This remembrance of a painful episode for Islam is present in jihadist discourse. It is significant that the first mention of Spain on the part of bin Laden was precisely in these terms: “Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Al Andalus will be repeated in Palestine.”
However, for Al Qaeda these allusions, far from constituting a mere rhetorical resource, acquire the character of an aggressive claim. For jihadist terrorism, the Iberian Peninsula is “dar al islam,” a land pertaining to the ummah, an Islamic land, taken and occupied by infidels. Jihadist terrorism incorporates among its objectives the “return” to Muslims of any land that at some time was under the control of Islam; it is a fight that must lead to the restoration of the original borders of the medieval Caliphate. According to Ayman al-Zawahiri: “Jihad seeks the liberation of Palestine, the entire country of Palestine and to liberate every land that used to be a territory of Islam, from Spain to Iraq.” This defining of the original and immovable boundaries of Islam has become a true “mantra” for Al Qaeda. Although it is true that this objective is seen as a long-term goal, and that first it will be necessary to complete a series of prior objectives of great importance, its repetition is replete with meaning in the sense that it sets out an unrenounceable goal for the jihadist movement. In fact, the “obsession” of Al Qaeda to recover the “lost Al Andalus” now forms a part of the discourse of the rest of the networks that integrate the jihadist constellation. Thus, for example, in a communiqueacute from April 2007 produced by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb the following can be read: “By Allah, we will neither return our sword into its scabbard nor enjoy life until we liberate every Islamic land from [the hands of] the Crusaders, the apostates, and the collaborators, and until our ritually cleansed feet walk [once again] in the stolen [land of] Al Andalus and in desecrated Jerusalem.”…….
……Of equal importance is seeing how this aggressive demand has been incorporated into the ideology of groups geographically distant from Al Andalus, such as the Afghan Taliban. In June of that same year, the prominent Taliban leader Mansour Dadallah stated the following in an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera: “Jihad will remain an individual duty incumbent upon us, until we regain Al Andalus and all the countries occupied by the infidels.” Regarding the Al Andalus category, it is an authentic exception among the “far enemy.” The jihadists make no territorial claims on any other Western nation, which leads to the amplification of the presence of Spain within the totality of communicative activity of jihadism.
The weight of history in the Muslim imaginary means that the mention of Al Andalus is full of implicit meaning. The targeted public understands perfectly not only to what is being referred to, but also what is the approach of the jihadist groups. Accordingly, the jihad against Spain is justified, not only for Spain's military presence in Afghanistan or its clear support for the U.S. enemy, but also as a legitimate struggle to liberate Islamic land from its Christian occupier. In this sense, the confrontation with Spain goes beyond Spain's policies toward the Muslim world and has a structural character, given that the nation is situated over a territory that by right belongs to Islam and its peoples.
The researchers note that it’s only in the case of Spain that they call it as Al Andalus, the rest of the benighted infidel countries are usually referred to in their current usage names like America, Israel, etc. etc. What really worried me was the ending of the paper and I quote:

In short, one can conclude through analysis of the presence of Spain in jihadist propaganda that independently of the degree of implication of this country in the Islamic world, Spain must endure a threat of structural character that converts it into a perennial target of jihadist terrorism.

While I do not have the data-set, looking at the fulminations that happen in Pakistan and the assorted beards in Pakistan, Kashmir and other unsavoury locations and the arguments made for Spain, there is a chance that India will face threats of a structural character of this ilk. The keyword is stolen. In other words, even if the Kashmir problem is resolved, the threat will only be diminished, not fully removed as long as Al Queda and its compatriots exist. See for example the explanation made for LET at the CFR site. As the BBC reports:

Lashkar's professed ideology went beyond merely challenging Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In a pamphlet entitled "Why Are We Waging Jihad?" the group defined its agenda as the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.

See the word “restoration”? this is what is the operative word. And if more corroboration is required, read this report by Husain Haqqani, the current Pakistani Ambassador to the the Court of Saint Obama.  This report talks about the ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups.

Egyptian Government doing nutty things

It's obvious that the Muslim governments who got excited about Switzerland’s banning of the minarets (that stupid vote) forgot a few things themselves. This was indeed a democracy, despite the voting being an islamophobic one. Secondly, these Muslim governments are rarely democratic themselves. Take Egypt for example. It's not democratic by any stretch of the imagination. It even diverted its upset populace’s attention by going on and on about the Algerian – Egyptian football match, go figure. Anyway, so what does it do now? I quote:
CAIRO, DECEMBER 9 - The Egyptian parliament will be carrying out a scientific research to prove that mosque minarets, which a recent Swiss referendum okayed their ban, are important to Muslims, MENA reported. The religious affairs committee of the Peoples Assembly has been assigned with the job: to issue a statement to be delivered as a letter to the presidents of the Swiss parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, protesting the outcome of the poll. Ahmed Fathi Sorour, the speaker of the Peoplés Assembly, said the Swiss government and parliament were against the referendum, whose results came to reflect a growing sense of Islamophobia in the European country.
I started laughing helplessly when I read this. They are important to Muslims? D’oh. Yes they are. They are also important to other people, you doofus. They are also important to the construction industry, the broadcasting industry, the academic industry and and and. And just what scientific research will be carried out? On what basis? What fun, what stupidity, lol. I am firmly of the belief that the greatest danger to Islam is not from the crusaders, zionists or the west, but it is from their own leaders, politicians and religious leaders such as these dorks mentioned above.

On a separate note, did you know that the chap who is the architect of the Swiss referendum is a Turkish Muslim, I quote:
One of the architects of the controversial Swiss referendum that resulted in a ban on the construction of minarets has a Turkish heritage, daily Milliyet reported on Wednesday. Born in the Aegean province of Izmir to a Turkish father and a Swiss mother, Soli Pardos family moved to Switzerland when he was 5 years old, the daily said. Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on November 29, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population. Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic.
The referendum by the nationalist Swiss Peoplés Party, or SVP, labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation. Pardo also said minarets are used as symbols in Europe, but added: I do not have any reactions against Muslims, and I do not accept that there is Islamaphobia in Switzerland.
Pardo, who is the leader of the Geneva Canton for the SVP, said his father was a small-scale industrialist and passed away in 1976 when Pardo was 21. Regarding the referendum, he said: We do not believe that the minarets are linked to worship because no calls to prayer are made from the minarets. We are not against building mosques but against 5- to 6-meter-tall minarets. The initiative was approved 57.5 to 42.5% by some 2.67 million voters.
So here we go, official confirmation from Switzerland, there is no connection between Islam and Muslims and Minarets, lol. So what then is the official position? An interesting op-ed from a Professor in Islamic Art History from Arab News can help. I quote the relevant bits here, but do read the full piece:
Minarets were introduced in the process of conquest such as in the earliest surviving imperial mosque — the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus — in the beginning of the 8th century. Minarets were in this case an appropriation of a Byzantine church’s bell towers.
Slowly minarets became one of the elements asserting the grandeur and influence of big mosques financed by the early Islamic states, notably between the 8th and the 10th centuries. The Damascus Mosque’s minarets seem to have been imitated later in the 10th century when the rulers of Andalusian Cordoba were aspiring to rival the major Islamic eastern caliphates. The helicoidal 9th century minarets in the mosques of the Abbasid city of Samarra, which are the largest mosques in pre-modern history, seem to have been imitated in Egypt in the same century. Yet minarets were not a constant element. In the eastern Islamic lands, especially within the Persian space, minarets seem to play a minor role. At some point in the 14th century minarets in Iran were simply decorative accessories for huge portals with big domes in the background.
It is probably with the Turkic dynasties, culminating with the Ottomans since the 15th century, that minarets would be equated with Islamic images in the Western European imaginaire. It has been widely reported in the European travelogues that one of the first acts of Ottomans after conquering Constantinople in 1453 was the insertion of a minaret at one of the corners of the Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia. In fact, the Ottomans seemed to have used the minaret as one of the elements to visually appropriate conquered Byzantine churches and convert them to mosques. They tended also to build monumental minarets, sometimes four, in their new mosques.
Whatever its meaning in the premodern era, the minaret’s signification seems to have been reshaped starting from the end of the 19th century.
It's curious, and before I finish this, I thought of looking around the OIC and how they react to the presence of other religions. Whether we are talking about Mauritania, Iran, Iraq, Turkey or Egypt etc. etc. they all have much bigger problems with other religions. So it's a spot of major hypocrisy for them to moan about Switzerland. Then again, its Switzerland who should be ashamed of lowering themselves to the abysmal standards that the OIC hold themselves to. Esphoks.

Churches agree to end 'sheep stealing'

This made me go WTF. HT: Ashok Chowgule. And I am quoting from the Union of Catholic Asian News. Fully, before they know what they put up.

BHOPAL, India (UCAN) -- Churches in Madhya Pradesh have agreed to stop poaching each other's members, saying this threatens Christian unity in a state where Christians already face sporadic violence.

HK1037_1.jpg

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal leading 
prayers at the ecumenical gathering

The practice of "sheep stealing" also confuses Christians and helps groups hostile toward them carry out their designs easily, concluded some 100 leaders of various Churches who met Dec. 12 in the state capital, Bhopal.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal, head of the Catholic Church in the central Indian state, chaired the meeting organized by the archdiocese's commission for ecumenism and dialogue.

The prelate urged participants to refrain from trying to attract members of other Churches to their own. This creates divisions among Churches, he noted.

The prelate also appealed for all denominations to refrain from badmouthing one another or other religious communities, especially during preaching, since this violates Christ's teaching of love, harmony and peace.

Asked about the gravity of the "sheep stealing" problem in Madhya Pradesh, Archbishop Cornelio told UCA News that no official survey has been conducted so far, but "it is very visible and threatening to Church unity."

He said there is also a worrying trend of small Church groups suddenly appearing in the state. These preach against other groups and then disappear quickly, leaving "enough fodder for trouble."

He said the main victims of these groups are the mainstream Churches.

Reverend C.D. Singh of the Disciples Church, who attended the meeting, told UCA News that conversion attempts from other denominations were the "biggest challenge" he has faced so far. People keep moving from one Church to another, he noted.

"I went to the Churches where some of my parishioners had joined and I found the prayer services there very effective. So I changed the prayer service in my Church to deter believers from leaving," he said.

Reverend Singh blamed priests and pastors for people changing their Church affiliations. Priests and pastors, he said, should lead exemplary lives and understand their people's spiritual needs. Otherwise they will look for an alternative, he warned.

Church of North India pastor Reverend Timothy Bankhede noted "a dangerous trend" of people setting up small sects and encouraging people to join them.

The Protestant pastor says Churches should work together to fight extremist groups that want to destroy Christianity in the state, instead of creating confusion among their people through the pilfering of followers.

Preaching the Gospel should target people who have not heard Christ's message and not those who are already Christians, he asserted.

Meeting participants agreed to set up a four-member committee to formulate measures to end interdenominational conversions and strengthen ecumenical harmony.

Madhya Pradesh has witnessed many instances of anti-Christian violence since the pro-Hindu ruling Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state in December 2003.

Well, its nice to hear that they consider their brethren to be sheep. Lol. Well, i have to be blunt here, anybody who converts is a sheep anyway, from any religion to another other. I am an equal opportunity joker to any convert. They are usually all silly. So its ok to steal souls from Hinduism but not ok to steal souls from other Christian churches? These people are STOOOOPID. MASSIVE FAIL

But check out what the church is doing? But I suppose its better than paedophilia and child abuse which seems to be the lot of the western churches. Goodness, how far the mighty have fallen. This is another reason why I hate organised religion. As soon religion gets organised, all the charlatans and morons seem to pop up in the positions of priestly power.

Why their IT hates our IT

This was quite an interesting article. Go read the full thing.

 

I am very surprised that these Pakistani generals think that corporate FDI is so fickle that it can get negated by bombing the Infosys campus. The network effects, the existing capacity in India all means that its too much invested to remove. And where can you remove the offshoring/outsourcing to? Philippines, Egypt, China all are also facing Islamic terrorism. If they pull it back to UK and USA, oh!, guess what? they are also facing Islamic Terrorism. But then, never expect military officers to know about strategy.

But are the Americans listening? I am afraid not. Here’s a prediction, this problem will not be resolved and will actually will become bigger and bigger the more the Americans rely on the Pakistani Army. Here’s an example, since 9/11 and even before, we knew the problem was the Pakistani Army. Since 9/11, what has the American polity, army and intelligence agencies done to get the Pakistani people on its side and improve democracy? compared to the assistance given to the Pakistani Army? See what I mean? totally disbalanced.

Sunday, December 20

The BNP’s internal inconsistencies

I have been discussing this issue desultorily in a tory group. This issue being the attempts by the BNP to now let non-White people into the political party to avoid the impact of the discrimination act. Anyway, I find it very funny and amusing to read about this. Just the very idea of the BNP trying to recruit non white people to support a party whose policy is to chuck out the said non white people is ferociously funny. This is what I wrote on an email:

This promises to be a most promising sociological and political development but ultimately destined for failure if history is any guide.  I am hard pressed to think of any other historical example where a situation like this has succeeded without changing the home exclusivist party irrevocably. The non whites will be looked as quislings by their fellow group members or mere tokens by others or plain mad.

When the exclusive party really wants to form a broad tent manifesto to really attract more members, it has to spend an extraordinary amount of time and resources. And the move leftward will splinter the party on the right. There are couple of excellent books on this evolution and behavior of extreme parties. Will dig it out sometime.

And then replied to a query about its narrowness:

I am not so sure. Based upon my review of its manifesto, i cannot see any part of the manifesto which is anywhere near the centre or even right or left of centre. The idea behind the concensus is what defines the centre. If one draws a multi dimensional matrix with its social, economic, political and diplomatic policies, it will be several standard deviations to the left (and in some cases, to the right).
Secondly, as I said, the historical evidence suggests that it will remain in the extreme end always if it sticks with its rather interesting policies.
I am also not sure why asian and black citizens would join in. After all, the party actually does not consider them as indigenous (their definition seems to be based upon the level of melanin in their skins, preferably something weird called as white european...). So if blacks and asians do join in, presumably they would do so in the full knowledge that its like turkeys voting for christmas.
I dont think I have come across anybody who is a black/asian who is supporting the bnp based upon this race based immigration policy? They might say that they hate say romanian immigration, but when faced with the rather unhappy logical conclusion that if the BNP does come to power, not only the romanians will stay back (white european race), its the non white population which will be invited to leave. Would love to hear if you have read about anybody who is non white who says so?
And muslims joining the BNP because of afghanistan withdrawal? Hmmm, could you suggest some examples of any muslims who have said so?
But this promises to be quite interesting to see the gymnastics it performs. It is absolutely fascinating to watch.
As I mentioned, I didnt find anything in the historical record, and I went back to check on the journal articles as well as books which would lead me to consider this step to have any chance of broadening the BNP's electroral base without compromising on its basic principles and splintering. The odds are that it will splinter before it went broad based.
Anyway, lets see...

When a Sikh chap announced that he wants to join the BNP, this is what I wrote:

Heh. The inconsistencies just keep on piling up. Reminds of that movie, Mel Gibson and that black fella. Who go to the South African embassy of yore and pointing to the black chap, say that he wants to emigrate to south Africa. The face of the immigration official was priceless. Mr Singh doesn't seem to have twigged to the racial aspect yet.

…..

oh! what I meant was the immigration reviews that the BNP seem to go for are based upon race. No? Its not purely religious so to say. In effect, he is supporting a party which is asking for the voluntary or otherwise repatriation of people like him. As I said, turkeys voting in the affirmative for christmas :)

…..

We are mixing up two things here. 1. Anti Islam feeling and 2. Anti non White immigration.
Any non White fella will fall foul of one or both of these policies. For mr Singh to actually support the first but not the second doesn't really make sense to me.
Why support the first when the result will be immaterial to him as he would be on a plane with the Muslims as well? I know this is a theoritical question but as I said, this is absolutely fascinating :)

It is a pressure group and for what its worth, its working. I am a fervent believer that the state has to be colour blind and in its infinite wisdom, this government has actually given in too much to caring about minorities and not enough about what British means. And I do not consider being British is defined by the colour of skin but the strength of character, history, etc. etc. :)

……..

But it was with some pleasure that I found myself being vindicated to a certain extent. I quote from this site.

Now however, things seem to be coming to a head with the resignations of former contender for the BNP leadership (in a rigged election that he couldn’t possibly win) Chris Jackson (pictured), his former campaign manager Mike Easter and someone named Kev Bryan, who was apparently the Rossendale Branch Organiser. The resignations are announced in an open letter posted on the mostly defunct jackson4leader site:

‘Disbandment of reform Group

What is the point of the BNP if you admit foreigners?

Sadly we have come to the conclusion that the BNP is breaking up and there is no practicable likelihood of it recovering.

In our opinion the root cause of the failure is the Constitution of the Party. The Constitution, that is the Party Rules, makes the Party Leader a dictator. The current leader rather than reforming the Constitution toward that of a normal English association has (probably illegally) made alterations to the Constitution making his removal virtually impossible.

The Party is now a nationalist party in name only and has abandoned many of the fundamental principles on which it was founded.

A further major problem is that of money. Under the Constitution, all money is controlled by the Party Leader. The Party Leader appoints the Party Treasurer and Party Auditor. The Leader has carte blanche to dispose of the funds as he pleases.

This has never been a satisfactory situation, and now that the Party is alleged to be turning over a million pounds a year, is nothing short of a scandal. There have been four different Treasurers this year and the 2008 accounts are way overdue. The Party has been fined by the Electoral Commission for late publication of accounts. This is a re-run of last year when the accounts were also late and when published were endorsed by the Auditor as unsatisfactory.

A separate, but related, issue is the Trafalgar Club. This Club raises money directly to support the Party Leader. No accounts for this club have ever been published and they have not been appended to the Party accounts, as clearly they should be.

We recommend that no further money be sent to ‘Head Office’.

Whilst the BNP has been going downhill, the National Front has reformed itself and now is led by a group of reliable people and has the Constitution of a normal democratic association. Consequently, we believe that BNP members should transfer to the National Front.

Mike Easter
Chris Jackson
Kevin Bryan‘

Some more comments on that site makes for very nice reading. Also check out this site.

What next? Well, the BNP has 2 choices as I mentioned, it has to either move to the right and merge with the National Front. Or it has to move to the centre and thus has to lose its exclusivist racist angle. In either case, its in a horn of a dilemma. The problem with simplistic and frankly intellectually challenged (read idiot) policies is that sooner or later, the holes become too big for even morons to swallow. This is why I am relatively sanguine about this party’s progress. It will be a shame but should be good to provide some more fun and games over the next few months and years.