Citing the same paragraphs from Reuters’ post-bomb plot coverage yours truly fisked (”Al-Reuters Explains It All”) on Thursday, the self-described “One-Man Global Content Provider” chillingly, and accurately, takes it further:

“Britain has been criticised by Islamist militants for its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prime Minister Tony Blair has also come under fire at home and abroad for following the U.S. lead and refusing to call for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.”

Is there a software program at Western news agencies that automatically inserts random segues in terrorism stories? The plot to commit mass murder by seizing up to 10 U.K.-U.S. airliners was well advanced long before the first Israeli strike against Hezbollah. Yet it’s apparently axiomatic at Reuters, the BBC and many other British media outlets that Tony Blair is the root cause of jihad. He doesn’t even have to invade anywhere anymore. He just has to “refuse to call for an immediate cease-fire” when some other fellows invade some other fellows over on the other side of the world.

Grant for the sake of argument that these reports are true — that when the bloodthirsty Zionist warmongers attack all those marvelous Hezbollah social outreach programs it drives British subjects born and bred to plot mass murder against their fellow Britons. What does that mean?

Here’s a clue, from a recent Pew poll that asked: What do you consider yourself first? A citizen of your country or a Muslim?

In the United Kingdom, 7 percent of Muslims consider themselves British first, 81 percent consider themselves Muslim first.

And that’s where the really valid Lebanese comparison lies. Lebanon is a sovereign state. It has an executive and a military. But its military has less sophisticated weaponry than Hezbollah and its executive wields less authority over its jurisdiction than Hezbollah. In the old days, the Lebanese government would have fallen and Hezbollah would have formally supplanted the state. But non-state actors like the Hezbo crowd and al-Qaida have no interest in graduating to statehood. They’ve got bigger fish to fry. If you’re interested in establishing a global caliphate, getting a U.N. seat and an Olympic team only gets in the way. The “sovereign” state is of use to such groups merely as a base of operations, as Afghanistan was and Lebanon is. They act locally but they think globally.

Suddenly Sunday trackback participant.

Answer: With government harassment and regulation, the better question would be “Why do any stay?”

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I obviously can’t say for sure, but it appears that Eric Schine of Biz Weak either set out to write a favorable article on France’s attempted embrace of entrepreneurs, or was perhaps encouraged to do so by government officials or superiors.

To his credit, Schine did an evenhanded piece (requires subscription) that gives credit to the government for some streamlining and image improvement, but points out how “the heavy hand of the state” drives small-business startups mad (bolds are mine):

France’s government wants the world to know something. According to official figures, French citizens created a record 322,000 companies in 2005 — and they’re setting a similar pace this year. Is France, which invented the word “entrepreneur” but has been famously hostile to the breed, finally helping small-business people thrive?

Yes and no. The state has been trying to sweep away many of the outdated laws and regulations that have made life complicated for small-business owners. But French entrepreneurs continue to face cultural, bureaucratic, and financial hurdles. Even the government acknowledges that most businesses created each year are tiny, with scant prospects for growth. Says Philippe Bloch, co-founder and former chief of Columbus Café, a chain of espresso bars in and around Paris: “You have to be crazy to be an entrepreneur in France.”

….. Caught in a sort of no-man’s-land between the powerful state and the heroic worker is the small businessman. It’s not always a pleasant place to be. “In France, a self-made man is viewed as a sort of scoundrel or gangster,” says Francis Holder, the 66-year-old founder and CEO of Holder Group, an industrial baker that supplies McDonald’s Corp. in France and operates a chain of more than 300 boulangeries in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

….. (Renaud) Dutreil is Minister of Small & Midsize Enterprise. Before his arrival in 2002, the ministry was a backwater. But Dutreil, 46, is quite unlike his predecessors. He remembers the humiliation he felt as a teen when his father’s tannery went bankrupt. And he has set out with a passion unheard of in France to help small businesses.

Dutreil’s achievements so far will seem banal to an American. For example, he ditched a law that had made it illegal to run a business from home. He also led the charge to cut taxes, ease financing requirements, and lighten bankruptcy penalties. And to help boost animal spirits in a nation where fear of failure is endemic, Dutreil has twice crisscrossed France in a special train to meet with entrepreneurs. He says the reforms have helped cut the jobless rate from 11% to 9%.

A couple of years ago, Columbus Café founder Bloch ran afoul of the Inspection du Travail and found himself in criminal court. An inspector had noticed that one of Bloch’s managers had worked 10 hours longer than the state-mandated 35 per week. The fact that she was filling in for no-shows didn’t matter. Bloch, now 47, was found guilty of “obstructing the duties of an inspector” and slapped with a suspended fine of 2,000 euros (just over $2,500 at today’s exchange rate). “I was sitting between two guys, one charged with killing three people, and [one] charged with raping his secretary in the parking lot,” he recalls. “I said to myself, ‘What the f— am I doing here?”‘

….. Then there’s the massive 2,732-page Code du Travail. The laws are so complex that even small companies spend thousands of hours a year ensuring that they are in compliance. Augustin Paluel-Marmont, 30, runs Michel et Augustin, a maker of cookies and breakfast snacks that’s loosely modeled on Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. Despite having just seven office staffers, he employs a full-time head of human resources who spends his days running around Paris trying to locate official forms and then filling them in. Says Paluel-Marmont: “Your first hire must be a human resources manager, or you’re dead in the water.”

Schine’s piece goes on to say that small companies are dealt with too dismissively by larger ones (a problem not unique to France), and that the attempts at improving the small business climate have not done much to stanch the flow of French entrepreneurs who leave to set up shop in other countries. Until something is done about “The Two Travails,” I don’t see how that will change.

ANSWER: Dead on.
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“None of this would be happening if Bush had not invaded Iraq” (HT Lorie at Wizbang).
Where have we heard THAT ONE before?

Why, just last Thursday, as noted at “Al-Reuters Explains It All“:

• First, wee-hours writer Adrian Croft (link is to saved copy at my host, for fair use and discussion purposes, for when the original story moves) connected the disrupted (I’m not going to say “foiled” — yet) UK airplanes bomb plot to the failure of the UK and the US to insist on an Israeli ceasefire.

• Six hours later (story has already moved; link to is copy saved at host), Croft and co-writer Michael Holden added UK involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as “reasons” for the plot. Oh, they didn’t actually SAY that the events noted were linked; they just gratuitously threw in paragraphs about them and allowed a reader unitiated in the biased ways of Reuters to make the linkages on their own.

• A 6PM update by Holden (also saved here for when the story moves) at least managed to avoid speculation about the motivations of those caught, and instead referred to a prior Al Qaeda announcement:
  

  Last month, al Qaeda called on Muslims to fight those who backed Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and warned of attacks unless U.S. and British forces pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

  Well, that’s a little better. And although such “calls to fight” come so often they’re barely noticed any more, Holden at least appears to have moved to a factual statement.

Anchoress’s entry is a perfect riposte to the Reuters writers, namely over a dozen acts of terror carried out before the Iraq invasion. Ann Coulter’s July 26 column has a longer list.

So let’s get real: In the historical context laid out by The Anchoress and Coulter (consistently and completely ignored by Croft and Holden), how can anyone believe that withdrawing support for Israel and removing all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan would cause Al Qaida to leave the UK and US alone?

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UPDATE: Porkopolis posted on this at almost the same time.

Casey Johansen is lucky to be alive, and lucky not to have lost his legs:

Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 11:11 AM

PHOENIX — Firefighters freed an injured construction worker trapped for hours under tons of concrete Tuesday after part of the city’s old convention center abruptly collapsed during demolition work.

Casey Johansen, 28, was conscious and talking during the ordeal, said Mike Sandulak, a Fire Department division chief. He was taken to the hospital.

On Tuesday night, doctors had determined that Johansen suffered only one broken bone — a femur. He was sedated and on a ventilator at a hospital.

Doctors earlier had thought they may have had to amputate his legs. Surgeons were able to restore the blood flow to his legs, said Dr. Steven Reinhart, who was on call with the fire department.

More than 100 firefighters from Phoenix and nearby agencies worked for more than six hours to pull Johansen from the debris. Firefighters shored up the structure with wood and air bags and cut reinforcing rods in the concrete so they could remove it.

As Johansen awaited rescue, firefighters gave him painkillers and started intravenous lines so they could give other medications and fluids. Medical personnel in hospital scrubs and hard hats passed oxygen bottles and IV fluids into a hole.

“I have not seen a rescue like this in Phoenix — this complicated,” said Fire Chief Bob Kahn.

Johansen’s father, who was working at the site, and his wife were allowed to talk to him and hold his hand until he was rescued. His mother, in-laws and siblings also were at the scene.

….. The accident happened before daybreak during demolition work on the old Civic Plaza when part of the structure’s Grand Entrance collapsed as Johansen was operating a front-end loader. The plaza, once home to conventions and trade shows in Phoenix, is being replaced.