News Bits!

The rhetoric "do not object to suicide bombing" and "condoning suicide bombing" is overheated and alarmist.

Claiming that 23% of American Moslems condone suicide bombing is a leap that isn't supported by the article.

According to the article,

78% of US Moslems say suicide bombing that targets civilians is never justified

5% say it is rarely justified

7% say "sometimes,"

1% say "often"

Change "suicide bombing that targets civilians" to "killing of abortion providers" and a certain percentage of Christians will match up with US Moslems on the bloodthirstiness scale.

Should we surmise that percentage who believe killing abortion providers is often, sometimes, or rarely justified are going to actively stalk abortion providers?

It's no more likely that 13% of US Moslems are likely to explode themselves in public.

Its possible to be completely tolerant/indifferent to any faith, and yet completely intolerant to those who lack a value for life.

23% of all muslim-americans condoning suicide bombing means that probably 40%+ of muslim-americans from one geographical region condone it. This is acceptible to you? People can be whatever faith they want, but large fractions of portions of our country are lacking the right to live in a civilized country, period. Obviously, I'm not condoning/asking for any discrimination against these people, but brushing these alarming facts under the carpet isn't acceptible either. The message needs to be clear that these views are unacceptible.

If the majority of Americans felt the same way, there wouldn't be a women's clinic in the country that didn't get blown up. Or a gay bar that hasn't been bombed. Thankfully the religious right has this value of life, for the most part. But since any anger towards the people that don't value life "seems" like religious intolerance, most of the left can't really figure out how to feel about it.

...and 78% of these 'well-assimilated' muslims DO object to suicide bombings. that's a pretty vast majority. people should focus on the minority who are extremists and quit trying to demonize islam (and arabs) in general. the existence of black muslims & their inclusion in the poll only further emphasizes that not all muslims are arab, and it's unfair & inaccurate to conflate religion and ethnicity.

The results of the study on Muslim Americans is also skewed because it includes African-American Muslims, which isn't really representing what most people think when they see the headlines: Muslim-Americans originating from the middle-east. One wouldn't expect African-Americans to support the suicide bombing, although yes I'm generalizing, but likely the middle-eastern muslim-americans have a higher approval rating of suicide bombings than the study indicates.

Don't take me the wrong way, I'm not trying to foster anti-muslim sentiment in any way, but Austinist if you can't read articles and think about them before posting, please just avoid political issues, and continue stealing jokes from craigslist missed connections.

Muslims are well-assimilated, middle-class Democrats? According to the article, 13% of these "well-assimilated" Democrats do not object to suicide bombings! That's a huge percentage of people who find terrorism justifiable. Are you sure you want these people associated with the Democratic party? If so, I'm not surprised Hanity is so popular.

What's American Idol? I thought with Dancing with the Stars closing up last night all the good tv was over until next year.

I agree with Anon. I couldn't believe I'd clicked on an article about American Idol. The Lost season finale is what's on my mind.

Can't they just end that show altogether already?!

Imagine my disappointment when the link to "Some show" you refer to led me to a stupid American Idol article! Come on Austinist, the REAL season ender to watch is LOST.

I mean you didn't even mention LOST's 2 hour finale tonight.