Here’s an idea. I’ve heard several podcasts that have segments, separated by bumper music. If you do that, you could play with the bumpers, but keep a reliable theme song as a signature of the show.

Anyway, enough of that. Good luck with the baby, and have a good Sukkot!

-Dave in Austin, Texas

Shooting a ticking suicide bomber is justifiable. Any sane person would agree.

Give me time to think about the second part of the question.

Issam

You are more than welcome to follow this blog closely, and discuss and debate anything that I say. I encourage it. Heck, you can even send me some mp3 feedback and I’ll play it on my podcast. As long as you stick to the issues, and quit the name calling and personal attacks.

Very clever of you try to turn that around on me. Easy to tell you’re a lawyer. Let me categorically state that I have no problem with true acts of self-defence. I do have a problem with unwarranted aggression.

I am not an easily excitable person but injustice and blatant propagandising does rile me. Rest assured I will indeed follow your posts very closely, just as I follow and criticise ‘Muslim’ extremist bloggers.

Misleading my listeners would be if I stated a certain something as fact. But stating an opinion and linking to an article for all to see, is not misleading. I think that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment is certainly ingrained in segements of the Pakistani population, but not everyone. For instance, I recall a Pakistani tennis player teaming up with an Israeli player a few years back – something the Pakistani government spoke out against.

I never once said ALL Pakistanis are anti-Jewish. I don’t believe this, just as I don’t believe ALL Palestinians or ALL Arabs hate Jews. I am more sophisticated than that, and I hope you are too when it comes to Israel and her need to defend herself. Your comment suggest otherwise.

Do yourself a favor. Read more of my posts. Read my FAQs. Quit the name calling and argue about things I state, providing evidence to the contrary. I have no interest in suing you for libel, but then again, I have no interest in responding to hysterical posts replete with name calling and not much else.

However, you are misleading by branding all Pakistanis as ‘anti-Jewish’ and neglecting to mention in your show a key component in the story – i.e. the acceptance of aid from the American Jewry Council. There is nothing more to be said on that matter.

And as for ‘anonymity’ it’s really a technical issue because I can’t be bothered to go and create an account just to leave a comment. For the record, my name is Issam Ahmed, and I am a post-graduate student of newspaper journalism at City University, London. Perhaps I created an account a long time ago but I cannot remember the login details.

I am happy to divulge these details as I am confident that if you wish to start libel proceedings against me, I have the evidence on my side. Happy?

Once again I will mention the fact that I mentioned the other possibility in my podcast after I proffered my opinion. Listen again if you want.

Your name calling just makes YOU look hate-filled and prejudiced. You can’t even make rational comments. I guess it is easy when you can make anonymous comments, huh?

You said something like, “Pakistanis didn’t accept aid directly from Israel because they hate Jews.”

When in fact the JP article states:

“According to the statement, the decision to accept financial support and equipment from Israel came during a telephone call Tuesday from Musharraf to Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress-Council for World Jewry. Musharraf, according to the statement, also said Pakistan would warmly welcome help from American Jewry.”

You have not only reported in an imbalanced way, you have chosen to omit this fact and mislead your listeners. Shame on you.

I expressed cynicism about Pakistan’s reasons for not accepting direct aid from Israel, but I also accepted the possibility that you brought up – namely the sensitivities of segments of the Pakistani population. But you conveniently ignore this.

You also go ahead and compare Israeli actions against terrorists with the DELIBERATE murder of innocent people. Israel never deliberately bombs children. Furthermore, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa is so off the mark it is not funny.

You lose even more credibility points when you state that everything I put on this website is racist and anti-Muslim. By all means, rebut anything I say, and try to have an intellectual discussion, but simply throwing insults and names at me does not reflect well on you.