Robert Spencer replies to an American Muslim and talks of "the hegemonic character of traditional Islamic law." Come to think of it, it's astonishing how the media and the vast majority of academia doesn't mention this core aspect of Islam. In their template, it's always the West which is hegemonic and colonialist.
However, Islam is a Religion of PeaceTM which "grew" outwards from its humble beginnings to enlighten the world.
Another horror story from Pakistan:
A man cut off the nose and lips of his 19-year-old sister-in-law after she went to court for a divorce, police said on Thursday.
How dare she reject his brother?
From now on everyone will reject her.
Yesterday, I most briefly mentioned the two bomb explosions in Lahore. Today:
Senior police officers including City Police Chief Tariq Saleem Dogar and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Aamir Zulfiqar told the media that the two attacks could be a reaction to reports that the Pakistani government might be thinking of establishing relations with Israel.
Sigh.
Jayson at Polipundit:
... a bullet to said intruder’s skull will serve as a useful behavioral modification device.
Indeed.
Jonah Goldberg on pornbusters porkbusters.
The porkbusters fight is fun now, but not since early cave men tried to train grizzly bears to give them tongue-baths has a project seemed more obviously doomed to end in disappointment. Expecting Congress — of either party — to give back pork which has already been approved and passed into law is like expecting crack whores to give refunds days after services have been rendered.
I am sure Jonah didn't mean any disrespect to crack whores with that comparison. Link via Instapundit.
That's whack yo.
Only yesterday in the "Arab News", we were told that "It’s not uncommon to find old men marrying young girls....One extreme case of such a marriage involved a 15-year-old girl being married off to a man more than 100 in Jizan. ..... In another case, a man above 60 married an 11-year-old girl." I wonder what Mum and Dad would have made of that, as their daughters were being dressed up as little child brides?
The man married an 11-year-old girl. No big deal. The Great Prophet of Islam married a 6-year-old girl! Devout Muslim parents should try to match that superb and auspicious example.
The Blogosphere wants the US government to be porkbusters not pornbusters.
Idiots.
Of course they can read blogs in heaven. And write them. Otherwise, how could it be heaven?
Indeed.
The Palestinians resort to suicide bombings. It's because they're so hopeless and poor. They don't have any other means to resist the loaded Zionists!
Aw, so cute. What better way to instill Muslim values! I am waiting for the Abdul doll with a stick. You know, to keep Fulla in line.
They always find a way. Just when you think they can't sink any lower, they find a way.
Update
Charles wonders. We all know the answer, don't we.
The Arab News likes Simon Jenkins. I can see why.
Update
Tim Worstall:
Does the Gallant Knight know any economics at all? Or is it a pre-requisite at the Guardian to be ignorant of the subject?
Hey guv, as long as the person is anti-American and anti-war (read: de facto pro-Islamist), what else matters?
I look at insanity like this, endorsed by the popular will of the people of those states in which they are occurring, and I am reinforced in my conviction that the country would be better off split into three or at the very least two parts, one bit for these religious lunatics, and the other part for the rest of the populace which likes the 21st century just fine.
I don't think that splitting the country into two or more parts will help the overall situation. Three reasons:
These two teenagers were publicly executed by the Iranian regime on July 19, 2005. Why? They were homosexuals.
Because of these three reasons, I do not think that a Liberal Niger will be overall better off. We should aim for and support the complete removal of Sharia from Niger.
This guy needed only a little incentive. Strange, it seems that none of the relatives were aware of the horrible situation.
Link via Clayton Cramer.
A letter from Canada to The Daily Times:
When US President Bill Clinton entered the White House, his first act was to increase the taxes on wealthy Americans to stem a runaway budget deficit. Clinton’s tax hike, denounced by the Republicans as ‘a passport to recession’, balanced the budget, produced a huge surplus, lowered the long-term interest rate and triggered the longest economic boom in the recent history of the country.
I find it odd that none of the Democrats today wish to repeat the "Clinton Formula" of success. Why don't they "trigger" another economic boom by raising taxes? I'm curious to hear their answers.
President George W Bush has squandered the surplus with his massive $1.67 trillion tax cut for the wealthy and produced a $400 billion deficit.
The $1.67 trillion tax cut was for the wealthy? That's news to me. Another question: how does a $1.67 trillion tax cut, spread over 10 years, cause approximately $400 billion deficits every year? Isn't it possible that there might be other, major, factors at play? For example, increased government spending and an economic downturn.
To pay for the massive tax cuts for the rich and to finance his war in Iraq, Bush has cut spending on education, health care and other essential public services.
Ok, now I'm confused. I thought President Bush was pushing up the deficit, or borrowing money, to pay for the tax cut. Now, you're saying he is cutting spending (which btw he isn't).
Read the whole letter here; it's titled Taxes and Bush. The letter was sent to a Pakistani website but the writer lives in Canada. He must be getting his economics news from a really awful source.
This is the first time I've seen a MSM article which clearly points out the broken window fallacy with regards to Katrina.
“Everybody falls into that same fallacy all the time on just about everything,” said Bob McTeer, former president of the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve and a fan of Bastiat’s work. “They look at what is happening without looking what would have happened.”
Simply take the broken window example to its logical extreme: If every window in town were broken there would be plenty of work for glaziers but few resources for other projects like building new houses or shops.
Kudos for pointing out the "dismal" forecasters and scientists.
The government of Denmark has been doing that to their taxpayers for years. Now, their disabled folks get twice the experience.
The MCB knows how to play to the crowd.
A Nazi-hunter passes away:
Wiesenthal, who helped find one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann and the policeman who arrested Anne Frank, died in his sleep at his home in Vienna, said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
The enemy has probably set out to prove, in the light of the recent one-sided combat, that they can still cause US casualties. The enemy strikes do not appear to be "complex" operations which rely on the combined and coordinated application of different types of attack. In the case of the attack on the diplomatic convoy, the enemy expended a VBIED, which is pretty much their ultimate weapon, against a vehicle which did not contain any targets of a high propaganda value to them, although they must have believed the middle vehicle, which was attacked, may have contained a diplomat probably because of its location in the convoy. The deaths of these Americans are a tragedy. However, there is nothing yet in the operational pattern which suggests that the enemy is able to strike at other than targets of opportunity: they are killing whoever they can.
Some liberation movement.
[4 of 4]...Part 1...Part 2...Part 3.
I described the various atrocities committed by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Iranian regime to my friend. One of his Muslim friends was present as well.
"What should be the punishment for adultery?" I asked my friend.
He didn't have an answer.
"Should women be stoned to death for adultery like they are in Iran?"
"NO," he said quickly.
That's when his friend pounced on him.
"The Quran sanctions the punishment! Do you disagree with the Quran?"
"Of course not," he said.
"So, you agree with stoning?"
"No, I don't," my friend replied.
"You disagree with the Quran!"
"No," my friend replied.
I watched in silence as my friend couldn't possibly disagree with the words of Allah. Yet, his humanity wouldn't allow him to support the stoning of women. I didn’t have to deal with such cognitive dissonance since I’m an ex-Muslim. Stoning women to death is vile and deprave regardless of what the Quran says.
Once again, I had to go back to Saudi Arabia for the summer. As usual, I wrote Islam as my religion on the entry card. I lied since I had an odd desire to have my head attached to the rest of my body.
There was no respite from conspiracy theories in Saudi Arabia.
“4000 Jews were told not to show up at the WTC as Mossad carried out the 9/11 attacks.”
The following is one of my favorites.
“The entire War on Terror is a scheme cooked up by Israel and the US to attack and keep down the Muslim world.”
That’s particularly rich considering that the overall economic and democratic condition of a Muslim country improves after the US attacks.
This one is for hating the US even when there’s no open war.
“The US steals Saudi oil. The Americans in Saudi Arabia pump [let’s say] 20 million barrels of oil but write down, and pay for, only 10 million. They’ve been doing that since 1991!”
Let it not be said that the Muslim world is not creative. They have an incredible talent for creating a conspiracy theory for every event and occasion. The sad result is that they end up hating the Jews and the Americans more than their own tyrants and terror masters.
Some, however, brazenly support the merchants of the Dark Ages.
The following conversation took place in the summer of 2002. It includes myself (IS), my dad's friend (DF), and his son (FS). Of course, we conversed in Urdu and I have translated to the best of my ability.
DF: They found out that the guy is a Muslim, and automatically he's a...
FS: A terrorist.
DF: Yeah, a terrorist.
IS: He fired shots at LAX. What do you think you'd call him?
DF: There are other crimes that occur. Those criminals aren't called terrorists. Only Muslims are terrorists in the West.
IS: Well, on 9/11, all the terrorists were Muslim.
DF: How do you know that?
IS: How do I know what?
FS: How do you know that the people who carried out the attacks on 9/11 were Muslim?
IS: The passengers on the planes made calls on their cell phones. They told their loved ones about the hijacking. That's how the people on the fourth plane knew that their plane will be crashed and they tried unsuccessfully to stop that. Plus, the airlines have the names of these hijackers on file. So, not much doubt that they were Muslim.
DF: What does that have to do with the war in Afghanistan?
IS: I don't understand the question?
DF: Why attack Afghanistan? Why go after Osama?
IS: Because he planned/financed the 9/11 attacks.
FS: Where is the proof that Osama did that?
DF: So, a guy in a place like Afghanistan is responsible for 9/11. Why couldn't the US, the superpower that it is [smirk], stop the attacks?
IS: How do you stop a hijacking? The police can't help you in the air. Osama was, on tape, gloating about the success of his attacks. Isn't that proof enough?
FS: The US can make a tape like that with actors. They have the [special effects] technology to do so.
IS: [hopeless]
DF: The real reason the Americans went to war in Afghanistan was to destroy the Islamic state. The Americans can't stand the fact that a pure Islamic state was formed in Afghanistan under the Taliban. They, the Taliban, have suffered setbacks but one day they will rise again and there will be Islamic law over Afghanistan. One day, they will return.
[silence]
DF: So, do you think the US will go to war with Iraq?
IS: Yes.
DF: It's all about the OOILLL. What do you think?
IS: I don't think it's about the oil. Saddam's time is up.
DF: Man, you support the Americans on everything. You're practically an American.
IS: Hunh.
A small detail: My dad’s friend applied for US citizenship for himself and his family in the 90s. Most of his family has green cards. His son, at the time, went to a college in the US. These people naturally want a good life for themselves while simultaneously trashing the country which provided them that. They’ll happily and greedily take the fruits of liberty but then adamantly refuse to water the tree.
The level of perverseness, hypocrisy, and ingratitude in that conversation was nauseating.
I went back to Canada and started my new university year in the fall of 2002. After the Axis of Evil speech everyone knew that Saddam was the number one target. The Unfinished War of 1991 would finally be brought to an end. That made for some very dull and sometimes absorbing conversations. The usual charges would often be brought up: “War for OOILLL,” “No moral authority,” “Imperialism.”
It was strange that people who placed themselves on the right of the political spectrum were easily demonized by many Canadians but calling real evil by its name was considered uncouth. In a conversation about the US and Iraq:
“Bush is evil,” a friend pontificated.
“What do you mean?”
“He looks evil,” he replied.
“Hunh.”
“I think Saddam is also bad from what you have said...”
He really didn’t think that Saddam was objectively evil. Saddam was just being puffed up to be this BIG BAD BUTCHER so that the US could easily take him on.
Later, I was talking to a different friend. We were in a group of four in which two guys were spectators. I was tallying the crimes of Saddam and the reasons for the West to take him out. My friend didn’t have much of a reply.
“You talk like...”
Everyone was attentive.
“...an American.”
There were audible gasps from the other two guys. Remember, this was a group of university students, so often the language was R-rated. But still, calling someone an American in Canada is harsh.
“Yeah, so?” was my reply. They all laughed.
The conversation always ended when one played the “American” card. Instead of calling me ignorant or jingoistic or a warmonger, the umbrella term would be employed to convey all the negative stereotypes. It was the same as when my dad’s friend called me an American or when my mom said that “you talk like a Jew.” These remarks said more about the people making them than about myself.
Our war against the Islamists will be multi-generational. The US has to fight. She has no other choice. We’ve tried leaving the Middle East alone in its soup of hatred, the result of which we witnessed on 9/11. The Islamists do not fully understand the West. They do not comprehend the latent might of the American Republic and they constantly deny the dignity of freedom in Israel. They truly believe that they’ll make us kneel before them. If not today, then twenty years from now. For them it is only a matter of time.
It is up to the US to prove them wrong. We must destroy Al Qaeda, crush Hamas, smash the Iranian regime, and grind the Saudi rulers into powder. We must completely and utterly annihilate Islamism Islam.
Many Westerners didn’t say a word of support for the tortured and oppressed population of Iraq. We had useful idiots before, today we have useful infidels. They are quick to point out all the supposed evils of the West but when it comes to Islamists, the silence is deafening. They effortlessly consume freedom, yet refuse to even rhetorically support the providers and defenders of liberty: the Allied armed forces with major credit to the US troops.
It is most impressive that the US military is manned by a volunteer professional force. They volunteer to wake up in a desert in a pool of their sweat. They volunteer to embrace the stratosphere at super sonic speeds. They volunteer to spend months surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean. They volunteer to leave behind a life of leisure and their loved ones. The US is blessed to have such fine men and women who protect Western Civilization from oblivion.
On March 20, 2003, the US embarked on a most noble enterprise. I unfurled Old Glory and put it up on a wall in my room. This American proudly supports the US troops.
THE END
Update :: September 24, 2005
Stop the ACLU is having a trackback party. It's too infidelicious to resist.
Mudville Gazette has an open post. Btw, in Saudi Arabia alcohol consumption / possession earns one a beheading. Such lovely people.
My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has put up "the Obligatory Weekend Trackback Post™."
The Political Teen has Open Trackbacks.
Basil's Blog has an open post.
Outside the Beltway has got a Traffic Jam.
Cafe Oregano has put up Friday Specials. I hope my "Tuesday" special is worthy.
bRight and Early has got an open post. Happy reading!
Cao's Blog, which has a soothing design, has got inline trackbacks.
One of the liberals I know who thought it was a very bad thing for the U.S. to intervene in Iraq ("it's all about oil!") is upset that the U.S. didn't impose its views on the new Constitution.
It's not just Cramer's liberal friend. This point of view has now become a talking point for the Democrats. "The President traded fascism for theocracy. Hunh [smirk], some democracy!" It puts the Bush supporters on the defensive. Quite neat and disingenuous.
Ah yes, former President Clinton. The guy exudes class.
Rick Lee is a lucky dude.
Here's a scary story from the future.
Hatred and mistrust within the Muslim community largely stem from transplanted attitudes originating "back home," wherever that may be. The ethnic and religious diversity of America are not the norm in most of the the world. European Christians are struggling with it to this day. Israel is confronted with ethnic and religious tensions within the Jewish community there. And so are Arabs, Pakistanis, and the rest of the Muslim world. However, in America, to the dismay of many Anglo-Americans, the principles of equality of our nation have been established regardless of race or religion. The same goes for Islam.
[Emphasis mine]
Principles of equality are established regardless of race and religion. This is true for the US. But not so for Islam. Muslims who believe that Islam is compatible with the laws of the US are in a minority. I am speaking here of the Muslim population of the world as a whole.
Just take a cursory look at the Muslim majority countries, the vast majority of which discriminate with respect to gender, race, sect, and religion. For example, in Pakistan, Christians and Shias are treated very poorly. The Ahmadis in the country are classified as non-Muslim, and earmarked for open discrimination (to escape discrimination, all they have to do is sign their national ID documents in which they deny their Ahmadi cult).
Another example is Saudi Arabia - the very heart of Islam. Women have to cover themselves from head to toe in suffocating heat. They can't socialize with other males publicly. They're not allowed to drive. They need permission of their guardian to travel. The Shias are marginalized in the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Police are practically in every corner to break up a group of people if they dare to gather. The country openly discriminates with respect to race. My dad, a Pakistani, got paid half the wage of Arabs in his office for doing the exact same work. Wait, that's not true, my dad did more work than the Arabs.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that Islam and US laws are compatible. Then, why don't the billion Muslims outside Saudi Arabia decry the noxious state of affairs at the very heart of Islam?
The answer is simple. Islam, as defined by the overwhelming majority of Muslims, is not even remotely compatible with American laws.
The greatest city on earth makes my mouth water.
It sure looks like it.
All you Joos out there, be afraid VERY AFRAID.
A pitiful photo at Metroblogging Lahore. See this page at Wikipedia to know more about what she is smoking.
All American bloggers should give this a serious consideration.
Read the comments of this post at The Angry Arab blog.
Link via Instapundit.
I was curious to see how the design looked like. I found it at The Religious Policeman.
The first photo is of the ice cream cone top, the second is Allah written in Arabic. A Muslim declared a jihad over this silly matter. It seems that many Muslims "see" whatever they wish to and then instantly assume that what they're "seeing" is meant to be for the worst. In this case, Burger King was stealthily offending Muslims.
This entire idiotic episode doesn't surprise me since it's not the first time a company has been accused of offending Muslims. The quintessential example is the case of Coca Cola. Basically, if we flip the Coca Cola logo and squint really hard (and assume that we're an idiot), then we'll "see" that the logo "says" No Muhammad No Makkah.
Now you might be laughing at this but it's quite a serious business problem for Coke. For example, only Pepsi is allowed to have vending machines in Saudi Arabia. I know for sure that Pepsi sells more than Coke in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In fact, Pepsi for me was the default soft drink, and it was a surprise to find out that Coke is more popular in the West.
Anyway, it's funny that the "criminal" businesses can stop offending Muslims by ridding their products of Allah and Muhammad.
Update
Thanks to slickdpdx for the compliment below and the link at Knownunknowns.
Update II
Jeff Goldstein offers his thoughts on Allah in my cream.
Update III
Hunh, nice post title at small dead animals.
The rage of the impotent.
Most curious. To say the least.
More than 12 million people registered to vote in Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in thirty-five years. More than 5,800 candidates are running for parliament and provincial councils.
A giant leap for a country in which a decade before these scenes were typical.
Update
The Afghani asses are doing their part.
In this compensation, a natural disaster was responsible for the damage.
In that compensation, the government forcibly removed people from their homes.
This and that shouldn't be confused.
Navid Shahzad writes a nauseating column. Read further at your own risk:
In the old world, history tells us, natural disasters were directly attributed to turmoil in the heavens and vice versa. The resulting devastations mirrored the injustices of man on earth as much as they symbolised the disappointment that the gods felt at the perfidy of the little creatures that crawled on its surface. Biblical references to vengeful heavens notwithstanding, much of the resulting carnage as it flashed onto our screens is due to massive climatic changes as a result of increasing gas emissions by the developed world in general and the United States in particular.
[Emphasis mine]
The oil guzzling Amreekis got what they deserved.
Add to that the apparent disregard for the coloured, disenfranchised poor and the obvious impotence of the state machinery to swing into crisis mode and one has a sure-fire recipe for the kind of disaster that the US is faced with.
Isn't "coloured" out of fashion nowadays?
While one is quick to point out that the vast majority of the American people are decent, caring human beings, that cannot be said of the present administration. An inordinate, inexplicable delay in providing a lifeline to the beleaguered area has resulted in thousands dead, even more homeless and a city that appears to have been deliberately allowed to die.
[Emphasis mine]
That's like the most brilliant political strategery EVER.
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that much loss of life and property could have been avoided if a timely evacuation process had been put into operation. That the US administration ostensibly did nothing can easily be perceived as state policy designed to get rid of unwanted coloured baggage.
Again, bloody brilliant.
Even if one were to dismiss the theory, the administration must be held liable for what can only be described as criminal negligence. Good governance is about justice more than it is about anything else and while one took official rhetoric with a double pinch of salt, one lauded the efforts of courageous men like Sean Penn who, apart from being a great actor, spent hours in chest-high water looking for survivors as he castigated the US authorities for its ineptness.
Ah yes, the saintly Sean Penn. Need I even bother?
I have to give it to Navid Shahzad, she sure knows how to educate the people of Pakistan with deceptive perception.
Update
Attending the weekend trackback party at Stop the ACLU.
Reading through the letters to The Daily Times, I came upon the following titled Gladstone and the Quran:
The West understands that Islam is the source of our strength. That is why they insist that the Muslims continue to live in the misery under Western domination. This is why the West backs the present Muslim rulers who use force to suppress peaceful political efforts to re-establish Islam as a way of life. The West fights the re-establishment of the Caliphate out of fear that its hegemony over Muslim lands and resources will end, not out of compassion for the Muslims.
[Emphasis mine]
This goes to show that Muslims might not agree with the tactics of Al Qaeda but they, the majority of Muslims from my experience, do support the ultimate goal of Al Qaeda - the re-establishment of the Caliphate.
By the way, most Westerners would call Islam the source of a lot of things but strength ain't one of them.
Jayson boils down the reaction to President Bush's speech from last night.
This quote brought back some memories. The Saudi regime allowed the people in the country to acquire satellite dishes in the early 90s. They could only pick up, at most, a dozen channels but for that closed and retrograde country it was a boon. So, the Saudis had an absurd situation, as though it wasn't absurd enough, where women in the country can't drive, or be alone outdoors or publicly mingle with non-relatives, yet every week Saudi males would devoutly watch Baywatch on their tellies. The hypocrite Saudis kept their women in a sack but certainly didn't mind ogling Western beauties.
Baywatch must have been, and likely still is, the closest thing to hardcore pornography in that sexually repressed society.
An excellent post regarding costs and benefits of global warming.
I would add that the proposed mechanism of dealing with global warming simply doesn't offset global warming. There was a UN study in which predictions were made of rising temperatures. Without Kyoto, the world temperature would have increased by, I'm guessing here, 0.3 degrees by January 1, 2050. With Kyoto, the world temperature would have increased by 0.3 degrees by October 1, 2050.
I was surprised that, with such a prediction of minuscule improvement at a cost of trillions of dollars, many still clamored for Kyoto. Today, most industrialized nations haven't followed the Kyoto guidelines (which is a smart decision), yet many of their citizens think that the US is the villain for the global meltdown. It seems that they only want to keep Kyoto for rhetorically bashing the US.
Iraq has got a Rummy of their own.
A juror from the Vioxx trial:
"We didn't know what the heck they were talking about."
That didn't stop him/her from punishing Vioxx with a quarter billion dollar bill. Read what David Bernstein has to say at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Many people who think that government is the answer to our problems do not bother to check out the evidence. But it can be eye-opening to compare how private businesses responded to hurricane Katrina and how local, state and national governments responded.
The private sector meets our needs more efficiently if the government allows it to do so. However, the many airings of outrage from politicians over sensible rising prices indicates that many people still don't get it.
