Updated: Man Held in UK Mosque Stabbing of Four Including Police Officer

Washwood Heath Muslim Centre ~ Google Maps

June 15, 2013 - A quiet residential neighborhood in Birmingham, England was shaken by a multiple stabbing incident Saturday night. The incident seems to have nothing to do with terrorism or hate crimes.

"Four men including a police officer have been taken to hospital after being stabbed in a mosque in Birmingham," reports Sky News tonight. "The officer was stabbed as he arrived at a mosque in Birmingham where three people had been attacked by a knifeman." Sky News says that all four men are hospitalized and a 32-year old man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

Police tape off Washwood Heath Muslim Centre, 15 June
Photo: Sky News

UPDATE, 16 June: "Two worshippers, a 28-year-old man who suffered multiple stab wounds and a 36-year-old man who suffered a single stab wound to the thigh, were also being treated in hospital," reports The Guardian UK. "Another worshipper suffered a hand injury but did not need hospital treatment. All were given first aid at the scene by police officers and worshippers, who included an off-duty surgeon." The Guardian also reports that attacker's motivation for Saturday's attack are not known, "but there was no evidence it was a hate crime or linked to any other incidents." The Guardian says that the 32-year-old murder suspect "was transferred to a secure mental health facility on Sunday after he was deemed unfit to be interviewed by police."

The mosque is the Washwood Heath Muslim Centre at 790-792 Washwood Heath Road, Ward End, Birmingham, West Midlands. (See map and photo.) Listed at the same address is a school called Madrasah Qasim ul Uloom and a majid called Anwar-ul-Madina.

The West Midlands Police press release said that "Officers arrived at the incident and whilst the suspect was being detained, one police officer also suffered stab wounds. The three men and the male police constable were taken to hospital; all four men are currently described as being in a stable condition and their injuries are not believed to be life threatening. The man was arrested at the mosque on suspicion of attempt murder and is currently in custody. Officers are conducting patrols in the area in a bid to reassure local people and a cordon is in place whilst investigations continue at this time."

Ward End is an area of Birmingham, England. It covers the area between Saltley, Hodge Hill and Stechford and includes Ward End Park, according to Wikipedia, which also notes that "there are a large number of mosques, located on Ward End, Washwood Heath, Hodge Hill and Alum Rock Road or nearby." The UK Mosque Searcher lists nine mosques in Ward End.

Duh: Obama Gets Name of British Embassy Wrong

November 30, 2011 - You thought it was pretty funny when Herman Cain messed up the name of Uzbekistan, didn't you? Sure you did. "U-becky becky becky becky stan stan," is what he called it, albeit tongue-in-cheek, as he said in an interview in October.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly had a good laugh about it with none other than Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan. Yep, pretty funny when a conservative politician intentionally mispronounced Uzbekistan, eh?

But what about Barack Obama's expertise on foreign affairs?  In a press conference last night, Obama had no teleprompter. In a remarkably ignorant statement, he called condemned the recent storming of the British Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Problem is, he called it "the English Embassy."

For those of you who, like Obama, are as ignorant about foreign affairs as the average 3rd grader, the correct term is "British Emabassy," not "English Embassy."

This is succinctly explained by Nile Gardiner at The Foundry in a Nov. 30 column:. "In case the president is unaware," he wrote, "England forms part of Great Britain, which also includes Scotland and Wales, though not Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. There is no such thing as an 'English' embassy anywhere in the world, and there hasn’t been one for several centuries."

What Obama did, in effect, was to refer to a foreign embassy that technically does not exist. There is no such thing as an "English Embassy" anywhere on Earth. Gardiner also wrote that "One can only imagine the kind of howls of derision that would greet any presidential contender if that kind of basic error were made..."

Great Britain has no embassies, just England does not. England is part of Great Britain, which in turn is part of the United Kingdom.

The "Know Britain" website tells us that many Brits are confused by what the term "Great Britain" means. "Try asking a person living in the United Kingdom the exact meaning of the expression they have on their passports: 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. Many will not be able to provide an adequate answer. No wonder, therefore, that confusion also exists outside the United Kingdom and that in other European countries people erroneously group together the English, Scottish and Welsh under the word in their own language meaning 'English'."

Will Hillary Clinton yuk it up with any world leaders about Barack Obama incorrectly calling the British Embassy in Tehran the "English Embassy?" No, I don't think so either, and the Mainstream Media won't play it up either.

Obama's defenders might call his "English Embassy" reference an understandable gaffe, but it clearly was not. Rather, it was the result of Obama's ignorance.

In the press conference, Obama said the following: "All of us, I think, are deeply disturbed by [pause] the [pause] aaahhh [pause, brain fart] crashing of, uh, the English Embassy. Ah, thuh, the embassy of the United Kingdom in Iran."  He got it wrong not once, but twice. It is not the "embassy of the United Kingdom." It is the embassy of Great Britain, or "British Embassy."

The President of the United States should certainly know this. But we'll give him this much: He's on a par with some of the lesser educated citizens of the UK for not knowing the basic political makeup of the British Isles.

Here's something else we can (and should) all laugh at: Michele Bachmann has stated that she would close the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Problem is, the United States does not have an embassy anywhere in Iran. We haven't had one since the Iranian hostage crisis during the Carter administration, when revolutionaries stormed our embassy there and held it for 444 days.

Talking Points Memo reports that, "According to a tweet from NBC News’ Jamie Novogrod, Bachmann responded to the recent raiding of the British embassy in Iran, by saying that if she was President, she would close down the U.S. embassy there." What's especially disturbing about Bachmann's statement is the fact that she is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

British Tea Party Movement? It's No Surprise, Really

By now, unless you've been hiding in a cave, you know about the "Tea Party movement" in the United States. It's an all-American movement, right? Yes, and no. 

Daniel Hannan, MEP explains that the Tea Parties sweeping America draw inspiration from the Boston Tea Party, which he says was actually a protest by British citizens. 

Writing on his Telegraph UK blog page, Hannan said this on February 27, 2010: Some British Lefties – and some Americans – are thrown by the idea of a Brighton Tea Party. After all, they point out, the original Boston Tea Party was directed against the British Crown. Yes, it was. But where do you think its leaders drew their inspiration from? The American patriots didn’t see themselves as revolutionaries, but as conservatives. In their own minds, all they were asking for was what they had always assumed to be their birthright as freeborn Englishmen. 

This should not surprise anybody who has a basic familiarity with American history, which is of course deeply intertwined with British history. Hannan explains his reasons for hosting a Tea Party in Britain on Fox News (watch video). 

As the American Revolution was still in its embryonic stage, circa 1774-1775, people such as Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, George Washington and others were Englishmen and considered themselve to be loyal to the British Crown. Their initial intentions were not to break away from England; for years they and others had tried diplomatic methods to pursuade Parliament to treat the American colonies as equals, on a par with their fellow Englishmen back in the British Isles. 

It didn't work, as you may know, and the rest is history. It's been correctly said that the grievances against King George III (left) in 1776 pale in comparison to those against the U.S. Congress in 2010. 

The Declaration of Indepedence was signed on July 4, 1776, about ten and a half months after the King George's Rebellion Proclamation of August 23, 1775, which officially declared the American colonies to be in rebellion. Keep in mind that on April 14, 1775, Massachusetts Governor Gage was given secret orders from the British to suppress "open rebellion" among American colonists by using all necessary force. 

Today, we have an American government that is taxing the people at higher rates than the British taxed the American colonists. Americans today are openly rebelling, albeit it non-violently, in hundres of groups called "tea parties." Like the revolutionaries of 1775 and 1776, the Tea Party people are not completely united. The 13 American colonies, while agreeing to cooperate in a struggle for independence, were also frequently bickering amongst themselves. As they did over 234 years ago, today's American revolutionaries will get their act together and come together as a united and formidable force. 

Back to the British Tea Parties. History and movements often move circularly. The American Revolution began as a movement by Englishmen in the British colonies of North America to be treated fairly. In early 2009, an American resistance to massive government and ever increasing suppression of financial and personal freedoms spawned the modern Tea Parties. That idea bounced over to the United Kingdom, where modern Englishmen (and women, of course) are fighting Parliament anew - and for reasons that would feel familiar to some of the most famous Englishmen in history: Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and Washington. 

Hannan and I agree, although he puts it differently: Those British Lefties who now sneer at what they regard as the Americanisation of the British Right would do well to remember their own history. They are the political heirs of Charles James Fox, of John Wilkes, or Tom Paine. I have no doubt that if the heroes of that age – Burke or Fox or Pitt or Johnson or Swift – could be transported to our own time, they would recoil with horror at the level of taxation and state intervention. 

This all comes with a caveat, however. Just as Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and Washington would find common ground with today's tea parties, whether in the United States or the United Kingdom, they would also see potential danger. King George III was, after all, rather tolerant toward the uppity American colonists for years before he ordered force to be used against them. Push any government too hard and too fast, and the resulting consequences could be dire. That's not meant to discourage Tea Parties, but to simply say that history must be used as a guide for victories that can be achieved, but also for mistakes and dangers to avoid. 

Ask Daniel Hannan About British Health Care

This will make you sick (pun intended). While Obama and the Democrats are desperately trying to force the U.S. into a government run socialist health care similar to that in Great Britain, the Brits themselves are very unhappy with their government health care. Daniel Hannan is one such Brit. He's a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from South East England. We encourage you to do your own research into British health care. (While you're at it, look into the nightmare of Canadian health care, too.) RELATED: Britain's Dan Hannan: Nationalized healthcare has made us iller. Daniel Hannan MEP Speaks in Atlanta, GA, in July 2009. Part 3 ... Britain's Healthcare System - Rationed Care? MEP Daniel Hannan in Denver The Downside Of British Health Care - CBS report Milton Friedman on Socialized Medicine Are YOU a citizen of the United STRAIGHTS of America? Leave a Comment... Chicago News Bench RSS Feed We're on Twitter...

The Decline of England in Song and Speech

If you listen to the lyrics carefully, and if you know your history and current events, you'll hear the singers lamenting the lost glory that once was England. First, an oldie from The Kinks. Then, a more recent one from the Moody Blues. Finally, a non-musical lament from Daniel Hannan, MEP for South East England. As England has gone, so now goes the United States. The child follows in the parent's footsteps, it seems. See Comments... Visit Our Online Store Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Hey! ChiNewsBench is on Twitter

Labour Pains in UK a Warning for US Politicians

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is having a bad week. His bad week started yesterday. The current bad week follows a string of bad ones that led up to yesterday's low-turnout European Parliament elections. Brown, possibly the dumbest lump of protoplasm ever to occupy Number 10 Downing Street, is likely to be forced out of power by his own unhappy Labour Party power brokers. From The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2009: The U.K.'s ruling Labour Party suffered big losses Sunday in early results from elections for European Parliament seats, heaping further pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown and giving a lift to fringe parties as voters expressed their anger over the Parliamentary expense scandal. Scandal. Yes, yes, but really that's not the biggest issue. The expense scandal was merely one of the last straws dropped onto a mountainous heap on the electorate's back. As in the United States, Britons have been suffering under misguided economic policies for some time under Brown. (Dissatisfaction with Brown was well established before the expense scandals, which included a number of MPs virtually all political parties.) Relatively speaking, Brown's economic policies are actually worse than those of Barack Obama (so far). The WSJ report continues: The results are likely to provide more ammunition for Mr. Brown's critics, who are calling for him to step down, arguing that under his leadership the party can't win a general election that must be called within a year. Early election results showed that Mr. Brown's Labour Party could be heading for third place in elections for 72 European Parliament seats. Perhaps Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP for the South East of England, said it best in his now famous and stunningly brilliant speech (see the video) to the EU Parliament. He ripped Gordon Brown a new arse hole in a style unmatched, calling Brown "the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government." Indeed. The biggest beneficiaries were the opposition Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party, which wants to pull Britain back from integration into the European Union. Underscoring the rightward, anti-European drift, the anti-immigration British National Party won two seats - its first in the European Parliament. In other words, British voters seem to be as sick of their major political parties as we in the U.S. are of ours. They have expressed their disgust with the political status quo, the selling out of their nation by their own "leaders," and the pawning off of Britain's economic future. The UK is ahead of the US in time only. Democrats and their Republican enablers in the US take note: This is a harbinger of things to come here in 2010. RELATED: European elections - story of the night - Times Online Support for Labour collapses - Aberdeen Press and Journal Economic woes send Europeans to fringes at polls - Seattle Times Britain's Brown faces revolt after poll thrashing - Reuters Far right make gains in ten member states - EUobserver.com EU election tilts toward the right - Philadelphia Inquirer Vote Stings Europe Leaders, Shows a Swing to the Right - Wall Street Journal See Comments... Visit Our Online Store Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Hey! ChiNewsBench is on Twitter

God Bless Daniel Hannan, MEP

In this video, member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan blasts British PM Gordon Brown to his face, saying that he's "pathological" and bluntly states that Brown's economic policies are destroying the UK. Within minutes of that speech on March 25, Hannan became a worldwide Internet sensation and hero to millions who oppose the growing trend of liberal fascism and insane government policies. 

Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for the South East of England and author of The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain. 

Note to members of the US Congress: Grow some spine and take a lesson from this guy, who knows how challenge authority and call bullshit out for what it is. When will a Republican stand up in Congress and give a speech like this about Obama's insane policies, which are remarkably similar to those of Gordon Brown? 

Heavy Snow In Great Britain

The United Kingdom is bracing for more heavy snow - up to 10 inches on Monday, February 2. The Brits are not used to this much snow all at once. The Daily Mail reported early Monday morning (2:14 a.m. London; 8:14 p.m. Chicago) that "Central London was coated in a blanket of snow more than 6in deep," closing major roads, with temperatures down to –5c (that's 23 Fahrenheit, which is balmy by Chicago standards in early February). You can read more at the Daily Mail website. This is the heaviest snowfall for Britain in 18 years, according to The Sun: The Met Office’s Nigel Bolton warned: “It’s going to be the worst snow since 1991. The Pennines will take the brunt but London and the South East will be unusually badly affected too.” Get the latest conditions at London/Heathrow Airport here. CNB RSS Feed

BRITISH MP ARRESTED: WITHER, MAGNA CARTA?

STALIN'S SHADOW IN LONDON: Is this the beginning of a political purge a la Stalin and Lenin? Some say the arrest of British MP Damian Green could signal the beginning of political persecution. Green, a member of the Conservative Party, was arrested for actions connected with his position as an official whistleblower, charged with "leaking" information improperly. The BBC reports: "Conservative sources said a police investigation into a high-ranking politician would have to have been cleared at "the very top" and have described the actions as "Stalinesque".(Source: BBC) The "very top" is Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a member of the liberal Labour Party. The United Kingdom, birthplace of the Magna Carta, that beautiful document that has inspired democratic movements around the world and across centuries for more than 700 years, is becoming a dictatorial anti-free speech tyranny. In 1956, Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII, described the Magna Carta as "a law which is above the King and which even he must not break." Today, Brown is being accused of abusing his power, and, indeed, the Magna Carter itself. The Magna Carta says, "No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned,...or in any other way destroyed...except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to none will we deny or delay, right or justice." The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution was inspired by that. It says, "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The flap over Damian Green's arrest is especially band for Brown in the wake of recent polling that shows public confidence in him has sharply dropped. This is tyranny with a smile, but it's a crooked smile with very sharp teeth. You may say I am exaggerating. If so, then so is Iain Martin, writer for the respected Telegraph newspaper in the UK. Martin writes that the arrest of Damian Green is "seriously sinister" and will likely cause a constitutional crisis (emphasis added): This entire episode is quite chilling and the implications of his arrest in connection with information he gathered from a whistle blower (information which was true) are horrendous for parliamentary authority. The encroachment of the Executive and the police on the business of an MP going about his business, who was working to put legitimate information in the public domain, is seriously sinister. (Source: Telegraph.co.uk) Another respected newspaper, The Scotsman, offers the headline, "'Stalin-style' arrest of Tory MP by terror police sparks fury." There are many others who see Stalin's shadow in this story. Bloomberg.com reports that an email from the Conservatives denounced Green's arrest for activities related to his job as the Shadow Immigration Minister (opposition spokesman for immigration): “Mr. Green has, on a number of occasions, legitimately revealed information which the Home Office chose not to make public. Mr. Green denies any wrongdoing and stands by his actions.” (Source: Bloomberg.com) Gordon Brown, of late, has been writing letters to contestants on ITV's X Factor. According to The First Post, "Gordon Brown has been writing individual letters to all 12 of the finalists of ITV's The X Factor. In what could be interpreted as a craven bid togarner favour with the general public, Brown not only wishes each contestant good luck but also offers some criticism of the programme's devisor and notoriously tough judge, Simon Cowell." Will Mr. Brown write a letter to Damian Green, wishing him good luck? Perhaps he will, if his behavior continues to grow more bizarre by the week. RELATED: Profile of Damian Green MP for Ashford and Shadow Minister for Immigration 'Stalin-style' arrest of Tory MP by terror police sparks fury Tory minister Damian Green arrested under the Official Secrets Acts Support for Gordon Brown plummets over economic rescue Shadow immigration minister arrested This bird should never have been caged Cameron hits out at MP's arrest Mayor's 'grave' concerns Plight of the unpeople