Isaac Schrödinger

Cuteness Overload

He is so adorable. It's amazing to know that in a year or so, he'll have a chilling and ferocious look.

Link via Cute Overload.

Is Allah Halaal?

salami_s : i had a Q on islam
salami_s : thought u would be of help
talat6 : PLEASE
salami_s : do u believe allah has created this universe?
talat6 : YES
salami_s : and this earth with all its living and non living things?
talat6 : YES
salami_s : does allah loves his creation that he has made?
talat6 : 70 TIMES MORE THAN A MOTHER
salami_s : wow
salami_s : that goes for everything?
talat6 : ?
salami_s : i mean all his creation?
talat6 : YES
salami_s : so does allah loves pigs too??

Uh-oh.

Loony Laws

There are a lot of laws that don’t make sense to me. For example, if I were king, I’d make attempted suicide punishable by death. That’s a win-win scenario.

Scott Adams, of course.

Karneval

This looks quite creepy.

Canadian Care

Mezba:

After a lot of questioning, poking in my ear with a thermometer (so he told me), shining a light in my eyes, he finally prescribes Tylenol. TYLENOL? To paraphrase Geoffrey Boycott, my mom could have prescribed Tylenol. I told him straight out, 'Doctor, I got an expensive health plan from work. Feel free to prescribe anything. Don't give me an over-the-counter stuff.'

Read about what the doctor did then.

No Harmony for Supply and Demand

Why oh why do politicians love to wreck the price mechanism?

Link via Pej (apt post title).

Europe Condemns Herself to Disaster. Again.

Cay Compass:

The European Union regrets that the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad were "considered offensive" by Muslims around the world, EU foreign ministers said Monday in their first joint statement on the issue.

Last time the subtle approach of dive bombers woke up Europe, this time it'll be the words "Allah Akbar" combined with a scimitar.

Britain had called for the EU to show regret over the publication of the 12 cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper last year. However, both the Dutch and Czech governments were opposed to apologizing for the cartoons’ publication, saying that would be detrimental to media freedoms.

Britain again foolishly hopes for peace in our time against an evil enemy which spews venom and bides its time.

The EU has earned contempt and made it certain that more violence will follow in the future whenever Muslims get offended.

Link via The Corner.

Ugly and Tragic

Someone read this post of mine and emailed me:

i read your post starting with

[...]

and unfortunately saw that ugly,tragic
picture(muhammed.jpg).

but i couldn't understand the opinion that you support

are you muslim or not?
do you like other muslims or not?
which are the muslims you like and don't like
is this photo suitable for the 
"Prophet of the Religion of Peace" -as you said-?
why do you show this ugly picture?

i couldn't understand anything because of:
i didn't read your other posts (to know about you)
i don't have a fluent english
i think your post was derisive

if you have time send me explanations of these

I'll answer your questions.

1. Are you muslim or not?
No, I'm not a Muslim. Had you made the effort to actually read the "derisive" post, you would have figured that out.

2. Do you like other muslims or not?
Well, that depends on the particular Muslim. My family -- parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins -- are all Muslims. I have different feelings for them: I like some, dislike others, and there are a few who I just don't know much about and so with them I'm neutral.

3. Which are the muslims you like and don't like?
As a rule, I don't like those Muslims who believe in the superiority of Islamic law and wish to enforce it on every single inch of this planet. For example, Muslims who think that an ex-Muslim, like myself, should be hanged, beheaded or crucified... well, I just don't got the hots for them.

I don't have a problem with Muslims who wish to personally and peacefully practice Islam. Even though I vehemently disagree with their laws and customs, I respect their right to be blissfully retrograde and to be proud of it.

4. Is this photo suitable for the "Prophet of the Religion of Peace" -as you said-?
That was sarcasm; definition: witty language used to convey insults or scorn. In this case, too witty for some.

5. Why do you show this ugly picture?
Two reasons:

1. Because I can.
2. To show solidarity with a tiny democracy.

You too can reach The Dark Lord of the Infidels at this address.

Pragmatic Genocidal Maniacs

Robert Spencer:

From our Bridge For Sale Department: Hamas, after insisting that it would not change or moderate one bit, is now suddenly, and for the first time in its history, singing a different tune. I would suggest that taking them at their word might be foolhardy at best, but I expect Western pols will be falling over themselves in their rush to do so.

Hamas wants to utterly exterminate Israel and in its place impose Sharia on everyone. To accomplish this, Hamas has been responsible for countless attacks on Israelis. And in return, just a few years ago, the Israelis were rightly taking out the vile leadership of Hamas.

Yet, even after knowing this history, many would believe that Hamas will not commit the atrocious crime of lying! Just because Hamas got elected, doesn't change the fact that they are still a hideous group of Islamist vultures.

Thus, any Western nation that chooses to give money to the PA will effectively and knowingly subsidize the murder of innocent Jews.

Update
Mark Lavie writes about the history and possible future of Hamas.

Link via Meryl Yourish via Glenn Reynolds.

Dec. 7 to Sept. 11

Face to Face:

December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001: two days that changed the world forever. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were subjected to the emotional venting of racial hatred and distrust, eventually leading to the incarceration of nearly 120,000 people, most of them U.S. citizens.

Today, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, Arab and Muslim Americans and other citizens of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent fear for their lives, worry about their futures, and question the validity of their constitutional rights. Sixty years have passed, but have things really changed?

That question should be directed to the tens of thousands of Muslims in the US who are right now in relocation camps.

Link via The Muslim Postcolonial.

On Whores and Hoors

Nzingha writes a must-read post on nationalism and marriage in Saudi Arabia.

No one is better than the other based on race. And it is heartbreaking as a Muslim that this exists so strongly amongst Muslims.

How it dictates marriage on a family level is a pathetic state of bigotry in action. "He doesn't come from a good tribe" will be the opposition to a young woman who has finally found a young man she would like to marry. "She is not a Saudi but some sexually defiled woman of another country" will be the claims of the 'pure' woman of a young Saudi males family when he wants to marry a foreign women. While these objections on such a personal level are pathetic and sickening it is one that an individual has to deal with versus some state institutionalized system, well unless you are from Saudi or some other Gulf country.

One finds such retrograde attitudes with more frequency in the Muslim world than in the West. The thinking in Saudi Arabia boils down to:

1. The racial superiority of Saudis vs. Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc. (This also applies to communities within, for example, Pakistan. Often, in many Pakistani families one finds daughters who have noticeably different skin colors. In such cases, the light-skinned girls get far many offers for marriage than the dark-skinned daughters. Do note, that the personality of the girl is immaterial since the prospective guy only sees the girl; rarely do they date.)
2. The cultural/religious superiority of Saudis vs. the West (don't laugh).

Of course, not every single Saudi prescribes to such views but sadly too many do. Muslims in the subcontinent and around South East Asia also fervently believe that they are culturally/religiously superior to the West.

In Urdu, a white man is called a gora; a white woman a gori. There is not much respect for both in Muslim societies. A gori can be accepted as a spouse since she has to convert to Islam for the marriage to be legal (or culturally acceptable). However, a Muslim woman marrying a gora is simply out of the question. Even if the gora converts to Islam, the Muslims still remain suspicious.

I know a few Muslim girls in Canada who have relatively liberal families but even they draw the line at their daughters marrying a gora.

Read the comments there especially the one by Abu Sinan.

Note about the title: The word "hoor" is found in the Quran. The hot women in heaven who'll sexually service good Muslims are called hoors. Hoor is also used to describe light-skinned women.

Windows Vista in 6 Flavors

Tom's Hardware:

Sources have told TG Daily that Vista will premiere the concept of an enumerated performance rank, currently called Windows System Performance Rating (WSPR), which buyers will be able to use to match the performance of new computers in the market with new software, using numbers from "1" through "5."  With six tiers of Vista available simultaneously, it's easy to imagine the Ultimate Edition being given a "5" rating, and Starter Edition a "1."  But for now, Microsoft isn't saying exactly what level of computer performance its Vista versions will require, although there has been some indication from sources that middle tiers of the new system will request at least a 3 GHz single-core processor, or a multi-core CPU capable of similar performance.

That's just great. Consumers are already baffled by the various collections of processors and GHz numbers from Intel and AMD. Not to mention the dual-core, double-core and multi-core headache which makes a 2 GHz (multi-core) processor faster than a 2.6 GHz (single-core) processor.

Now, we get the WSPR thanks to Microsoft. This can work if most computer manufacturers honestly adopt the rating. That way buyers will be able to compare vastly different machines.

Anyway, assuming the stated source is correct, I personally don't know anyone who has the hardware firepower to fully appreciate the glory of Vista when it comes out later this year. I'm guessing that the overall adoption of Windows Vista will be slower than Windows XP.

Apologists for Islamism

Foreign Dispatches:

... there's a certain oddity I'd like to point out, namely the tendency of those who want to play apologists for Islamic violence to attack those who refuse to shut their eyes to reality by smearing them with the "racist" label: it is true enough that many racists vocally proclaim their hatred of Muslims (which is not the same as hating Islam), but if the majority of those who are antagonistic to Islam are so on the basis of race, why is it that no similar opposition is meted out to Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism or any other creed practiced almost entirely by non-white people?

An excellent question. That's what the Islamist apologist do to their opposition: Smear them. Rarely does one find a modicum of an argument. Even then, their fiery premises are flat-out wrong.

This blog has been labeled racist many times and rumor has it that I'm Jewish (gasp!). These convenient techniques are used to simply dismiss my arguments instead of tackling them and there is no doubt in my mind that such mindless tactics will be used with increasing frequency not only against myself but against much of the pro-West Blogosphere.

A Plot Against Cats

The Jewish-Mouse conspiracy thickens.

Saudi Asininity. Tale #89542

The Religious Policeman posts another story from the Kingdom of Gender Apartheid. I bought many cassettes from stores with Indian cashiers in KSA. Yes, they did have CDs but they usually went for 45 riyals (US$12) whereas a cassette went for 9 (US$2.4). So, the decision was simple. I often bought soundtracks of various Hindi movies.

Anyway, my younger sisters always wanted to buy some newly released music, so my dad or I often went with them. They didn't have a problem entering a stand-alone music store since a male relative was present. I lived in Saudi Arabia for over a decade. In all that time, not once did my sisters or my mom go out shopping by just themselves.

That's the one thing that puzzles me about this story: Why would this Saudi woman walk around in a shopping area in Saudi Arabia without a male companion?

The Uncouth Arts

Lucky Fatima writes about a political conversation she had with her friend. I want to comment on this part:

She said that Bengalis were bad Muslims because they called maulvis to come and teach their kids Quran and then right after a Quran lesson they called music and dance teachers for their children. I knew what she meant. As opposed to Pakistan, in Bangladesh on a mainstream level, more encouragement is given to children in terms of learning traditional South Asian music and dance forms. I just said that I agreed that Bengalis have a great appreciation for the arts. What is wrong with this, I asked, because there is room for both religion and art in life. She became irritated with me and retorted “Dancing and singing is NOT art.” I told her that dancing and singing were indeed art, and art isn’t limited to being visual. I said that it was good that Bengalis appreciate these things and that the Mullahs haven’t managed to completely obliterate the reputation of traditional art forms in Bangladesh--- yet, I should say---the mullah culture has been on the rise in Bengal as well, and we will see that story unfold with time.

The "acceptable" fields of study for Asian Muslims are mostly: Religion (Islam, of course), Science (end result is to become a doctor), Engineering, and anything related to computers.

That's it.

Most Muslims are nudged, and often pushed, towards these professions. Other fields such as History, Language, Arts are considered "useless". Singing and dancing are especially frowned upon. It's one thing to have that as a hobby and do it at parties, quite another to spend money and learn it. I have eight Bangladeshi acquaintances at my university and, if my memory serves me correct, all but one are studying to become engineers.

Mind you, I don't think there is anything wrong with engineering. It's just that these seven guys likely weren't exposed to, or encouraged to look at, other fields of study. Those "useless" degrees do not bring much status but then, who knows, some of these Bangladeshis might have enjoyed them more.

A Glimpse of the Future

WND:

The movie, which began showings in Germany three weeks ago, has played to sold out audiences since. Over 130,000 people, mostly young Muslims, saw the film in its first five days. The London Telegraph reports Berlin audiences, made up mostly of Turkish young men, clapping furiously when the building housing the U.S. military commander in northern Iraq is blown up and a standing ovation – accompanied by shouts of "Allah is great!" – when the movie's American antagonist, played by Billy Zane, is stabbed in the chest.

Surely, they're just a tiny minority of hateful extremists who're giving the oh-so-peaceful Islam a bad name.

Link via Dhimmi Watch.

Not Worth Marching For?

In the past two days, this post of mine has been linked on many sites. So much so, that I'm getting more daily hits during this weekend than what I got over the past five weekdays. Just a few hours ago, I got linked on this message board at the BBC. There are 49 comments so far. Excerpt of Message #4 by Leila81:

do not use turnaround tactics and circumstance to have another go at Islam. That site is digusting and IF the reports are true I condemn those acts are un-islamic and atrocious. However I am sceptical becasue upon googling Isaac Shrodinger (Jewish??) he has an awful lot to do with www.faithfreedom.org. which is one of the worst anti-Islamic sites.

Excerpt of Message #9 by Tinwhistle:

It's utterly fascinating (as well as disgusting) that you could manage to make "Isaac Schrödinger" into a Jew based on exactly NO evidence other than your prejudices.

Leila81 gets quite a rhetorical spanking from Tinwhistle.

It is curious that not one Muslim has refuted Message #6.

Fifty Riyals Got You Bent

Those were the days.

Link via Girl on the Right.

In the Act

The most adorable inspectors in the world.

No Tight Clothing for You!

SMH:

The same groups staging violent demonstrations against the West over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad are targeting pornography in their battle to transform Indonesia into a strict Islamic nation. And they are winning: parliament is set to introduce a sweeping anti-pornography law.

Expected to be passed by June, the law imposes a rigid social template; couples who kiss in public will face up to five years' jail, as would anyone flaunting a "sensual body part" - including their navel - and tight clothing will be outlawed.

Why don't they just bring in the Mutaween from Saudi Arabia?

Since Indonesia will likely pass this legislation and presumably has the manpower to enforce the law, I'm assuming that culprits of such crimes and the Islamists are already behind bars. I mean, seriously, the largest Muslim nation in the world can't possibly have asinine priorities, right?

Right?

Link via Tim Blair.

Go to Pharaoh

Egyptians acknowledge the might of America.

It's true: Actions matter more than words.

Home of Osama

Minerva posts about the foiled terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. It seems that the Eastern Province of that country is a target-rich area. For example, there has been a lot of dangerous activity in Khobar, Dammam and Abqaiq.

No doubt, the Dhahran Complex of Aramco -- the Saudi Oil Company -- must have a behemoth security apparatus.

Fanatical and Tragic

Minette Marrin makes an excellent point:

Respect cannot be demanded, or imposed by a free state. It can only be freely given. The demand of Muslims for uncritical — and legally binding — respect for their beliefs is simply not one that can be met in a society like ours. And the failure, by some Muslims at least, to perceive these distinctions is, without exaggeration, tragic.

Quote of the Week at the National Secular Society.

Mass Media Madness

I remember watching the Tom and Jerry cartoon in Saudi Arabia. Who knew it was all a Jewish Conspiracy!?

Hmm, Jerry and Jew both begin with the letter J. Coincidence?

No Love for Bush and Blair

Beautiful Atrocities posts survey results from the UAE, one of the most liberal countries in the Middle East. A gem:

Are George W. Bush & Tony Blair greater threats to the rest of the world than Al Qaeda? Yes 74% No 22% No Comments 2%

UAE is the ally of the US in the global war.

Link via Known Unknowns.

3840x2160

Holy Quad Madness!

Almost Inconceivable

A fabulous photo.

A Delectable Wife

I understand that Prophet Muhammed is the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) but this is taking it too far.

Hard to Crack

Engadget:

It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy to know that some of the best minds on this watery blue ellipsoid are working hard to crack the secret of Fermat's Last Theorem and uh, how to efficiently dislodge ketchup onto fries.

Andrew Wiles cracked Fur-Matt's Last Theorem in 1994.

Embracing the Sharia for Peace

Syed Shariq sends an, unintentionally hilarious, email.

... under the Islamic system, Khilafah, the state not only physically protects and safeguards the well being of non-Muslims, but is also obliged to protect the feelings and emotional tendencies with regards to religion, of the non-Muslims. Indeed in Khilafah, it is an offense and breach of law, to demonize the religious figures of other religions. The Prophet Muhammad had stated that harming a Zimmi (a non-Muslim citizen of the Islamic state) is akin to harming the Prophet. It is for this reason, that the civilized world, must look up and embrace the values of the Islamic State, i.e. Khilafah, in order to ensure peaceful and mutual co-existence of all religions.

So, that's why Christians, Jews and adherents of other religions are rushing to enter the Islamic lands.

Thanks for alleviating that confusion Shariq!

Continuing Cartoon Crisis

The Nation from Pakistan:

Thousands of Bangladeshis burnt Danish flags Friday as fresh demonstrations erupted in the capital against blasphemous cartoons amid heavy police security. Chanting “Boycott Danish goods” and “Muslim wake up, it’s your last moment,” the protesters marched through the streets near Dhaka’s main mosque following Friday prayers.

My memory fails me: Which verse in the Quran mentions Danish cartoons as the last moment?

Meanwhile, about 3,000 Muslims marched through the streets of Hong Kong in an angry but peaceful protest condemning irreverent cartoons as an insult to their religion. Chanting “God is Great”, they marched through one of Hong Kong’s busiest districts waving banners that read “Don’t play with our religion” and “We condemn the freedom of speech that hurts other people’s feelings”. “Muslims feel very badly hurt and insulted,” said Syed Asim, Chairman of International Human Rights Forum, one of the organisers.

This is beyond parody: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words deserve a global protest.

The Revolting Kingdom

Khaled Waleed meticulously describes how life is like for non-Muslims in Muslim lands and vice versa. He is right about this:

... very few Muslims had ever criticised Bin Ladin’s atrocities on the western people. All those crimes of Bin Laden were holy Islamic acts—in full agreement with the Islamic tenets. That is why majority Muslims are Bin Ladin’s supporters. Until today, I have not heard any Imam in Saudi Arabia who had said Bin Ladin is wrong. No Imam has, so far, declared Bin Ladin a non-Muslim or a kafir. All Imams support him—if not openly, then secretly. Being a native of Saudi Arabia and having lived here since my birth, I can certainly vouch of what I say. I hear people’s (Saudi) conversation, and they are in praise of Bin Ladin’s murder of infidels.

Decent people, such as the Israelis, lit candles for the victims of 9/11. In Canada, various shops and stores held a moment of silence.

What about Saudi Arabia? The same country the Americans saved from the wrath of Saddam in the Gulf War of 1991. What was the average Saudi reaction to the attack on the US?

They heartily celebrated upon hearing about 9/11.

Just a Friendship

One of my favorite trilogies gets humorously massacred.

Another trilogy gets penetrated by the devilry.

Link via Jonah Goldberg.

Eternal Victims of Infidels

Power Line:

There is some kind of weird paradox at work here: Muslim extremists have little or no compunction about killing other Muslims; historically, in fact, the large majority of their victims have been fellow Muslims. Likewise, in the Middle East, by far the worst violence has been between Muslim countries (e.g., Iraq and Iran), not between Muslims and others (e.g., Israel). But when it comes to blaming others, as opposed to killing them, the religious affinity seems to kick in. It's disheartening, frankly, to contemplate this level of irrationality.

Tiny Tiny Pieces

Bloggers are kinda like fire ants.

The Sunnis See the Picture

The Belgravia Dispatch:

The trendline is going to be, as the months go by, Sunnis increasingly wanting the Americans to stay as protection against Shi'a revanchism. In the meantime, it is true, the Shi'a will get increasingly agitated vis-a-vis the Americans for holding them back from revenge attacks in the aftermath of events like the recent destruction of the shrine. But haven't we an obligation now, in one of those complex ironies that emerge from the fog of war, to protect moderate Sunnis from the wrath of Shi'a provoked by al-Qaeda and FREs [?] (indeed some Sunni areas are becoming more fearful of Shi'a paramilitaries like the Wolf Brigades than their ostensible American foes)?

Short answer: Yes. Though, I think this situation is more a test of the Iraqi police and divisions.

Oh yes, it is ironic and it must be quite humiliating for the Iraqi Sunnis to ask for help from the imperial, oil-stealing Americans.

Big Woop

OUTRAGE.

The old Soviet joke modernized.

Selective Outrage

Glenn Reynolds:

If Danish cartoons could create riots worldwide against the defamers of Islam, you'd think that bombing of mosques would create anti-terrorist marches all over.

Attacking mosques is only bad when infidels do it. Muslims get a pass.

Update
MSNBC:

Gunmen killed dozens of civilians Thursday and dumped their bodies in a ditch, as the government ordered a tough daytime curfew in Baghdad and three provinces to stem the sectarian violence that has left at least 114 dead since the bombing of a Shiite shrine.

I take my selective outrage comment back. It's more appropriate to call this volatile outrage. People in Iraq have been killed left, right and center who very likely had nothing to do with the mosque bombings. If suspects were to be arrested, then the police would not be able to get them to the trial in one piece.

Take the Ahmadiyya, an Islamic sect, in Pakistan. Ahmadis can't legally call their place of worship a "mosque" since they're not considered Muslims. Similarly, in Iraq, it seems that the logic of a Sunni attacking a Shia mosque is that, "It's not really a mosque since it's for the demonic Shia's." And vice versa for a Shia aggressor. These two sects in Iraq must truly loath each other for the situation to escalate so drastically so quickly.

Update FEB. 24, 1:05 PM
Kip boils down the whole asinine state of affairs.

Charles Gets No Respect

Oh my.

No to Competition

John Hawkins comments on Senator Clinton and vouchers:

There are already voucher programs in parts of the US. Show me any of them where they dole out funds to Osama Bin Laden Elementary or the Robert "Sheets" Byrd White Power Middle School. It's not happening now, nor will it happen.

Also, may I add that Hillary Clinton sent Chelsea to an exclusive private school. So, what's her real beef with allowing ordinary parents, who aren't as rich as the Clintons, to get the same kind of education for their children?

The Democrats want to protect the monopoly that the public education system has over the low-income folks. This is the one issue where the Democrats are incessantly not pro-choice.

Overwhelmed with Acceptance

Nonie Darwish:

Criticism and questioning were forbidden. When I did either of these, I was told: "Muslims cannot love the enemies of God, and those who do will get no mercy in hell." As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers outside the mosque. They said: "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We heard worshippers respond "Amen".

I'm sure the Christian friend felt the warmth of the Religion of Peace^TM.

Oh, It Doesn't Matter.

Umar Lee effortlessly and flippantly brushes away the rabid antisemitism of Hamas. His horrifying post should be read in its entirety. The second-last paragraph sheds an ugly light on Muslims in America.

Not Getting the Whole Picture

Baron Bodissey offers a theory for the US-UAE port deal. On the same subject, Jonah Goldberg gets an informative email from a reader.

Sanity in Canada

Edmonton Journal:

Local Muslims are disappointed the Crown prosecutor's office has recommended no criminal charges be laid against two publications that printed cartoons they find offensive.

Good.

Link via LFG.

What US Troops Do in Iraq

The Jawa Report:

We've known for a long time that American soldiers love to abuse Iraqi men, women, and children. We've know for a long time that American female soldiers have nothing better to do with their time than humiliate Iraqi men. But it seems that their depravity has reached new lows when we find them abusing dogs in Iraq--an Iraqi puppy blender if you will.

I warn you: The images are gruesome.

What Doesn't Offend the Muslims

THE CROWD GATHERS around as tears flow down her cheeks. Her last day will be her worst. The assorted gang are allowed stones of a particular size: Not bigger than, nor smaller than one-third of, a human digit. Hence, the stones should be around one-half the size of an adult finger. The logic is to inflict the maximal pain. The objective is to stone the adulterous woman to death.

The woman is buried up to her neck as her kids watch the whole scene. The Iranian state forces the close relatives of the woman to attend the public execution. A truck pulls up with the correctly proportioned stones. The verdict is read and then the official of the regime throws the first stone.

The chanting and the barrage start. The stones smash into her delicate face. Soon, the red liquid gushes out of her forehead. The intensity of the direct hits gouges out her right eye. Her nose gets completely broken. Her teeth are torn apart. She inhales a mixture of noxious air and blood. Her face is forever lost.

She streams in and out of consciousness. Shards of bone are sent in all directions as the stones brutally chisel the region where once her face was. The last thing she hears as the crowd extinguishes her frail soul is, "Allah Akbar!"

Such is the fate of women who are found guilty of adultery in Iran. In the modern world, no other state-sanctioned punishment exceeds this heinous display of public savagery.

A FIRE BROKE out in a girl's dormitory in Makkah during March of 2002. The girls, of course, ran out of the burning building. However, the Mutaween -- the Religious Police -- wouldn't let the girls exit the building since they weren't properly covered from head to toe. At least one parent was outside the dorm looking for her daughter. He saw her come out of the blazing dorm but was powerless in front of the Mutaween. He distressingly told her to go back and get her abaya.

She never came back from the inferno.

THREE CHRISTIAN GIRLS were beheaded in October of 2005 as they were walking to their school in Indonesia.

... their heads were found 2 hours later some distance away, including one head found about 100 meters from a church.

Through some cosmic coincidence, the perpetrators of such barbarity -- the stonings in Iran, the deaths by fire in Saudi Arabia and the beheadings in Indonesia -- were Muslims. In all three cases, the acts were carried out in the name of Islam.

Today, a few benign caricatures of Muhammed in a once-obscure Danish newspaper are "causing" a Muslim meltdown. It is, thus, illuminating to see what doesn't make the Muslims go crazy.

Contents

Update
Thanks to Isabel for the link at Western Resistance.

Modesty and Islam

Nzingha and her young daughter:

I didn't wear it [the abaya] on a vacation in Malaysia, "Why mama" she soon asked on why I didn't wear an abya there. People actually saw my clothes, it was all very confusing but easy to explain. Different cultures have different dress when I'm in Saudi I use an abya when I'm in Malaysia I don't. "Ok". Simple enough for her, thank goodness simple enough for me.

Women are forced to wear the abaya or the burqa in Saudi Arabia in temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. That would have been a more correct explanation. Put it another way, I don't think that a woman who doesn't wear an abaya is automatically not modest (or a prostitute, a slut, or a whore).

Women have even been attacked based on her dress but we fail to see that happening to the male fraction of our ummah. When was the last time a man in your masjid was condemned to hanging in hell from his feet because he wore long pants past his ankles. Or when was the last time you saw a group of men referring to a male Muslim speaker as a evil conspirator agent of Shaitan [the Devil] because he wore a suite jacket and [a] pair of slacks.

Oh come on Nzingha, you know that only an aurat is capable of serving the Shaitan. Even when a woman is raped in Saudi Arabia, she gets part of the punishment (50 lashings, I think). Why? Because she must have devilishly attracted the aggressive male to her.

I have yet to witness a male conversion that is coupled along with a speech on growing his beard, shortening his pants, and sporting a thobe. And this isn't souly [sic] related to one man, in fact when conversions take place in this country they are required to take some sort of class given by the government affairs sector and the women are told all the proper things, covering, submitting to their men and all the other most important factors that a new Muslim women needs to know.

[Emphasis mine]

Yup. You better submit if you want the male "guardian" to take your concerns into account.

A Tour for Dhimmis

Fact: Muhammed married a 6-year-old girl and had sex with her at age 9.
Fact: Muhammed and his followers attacked Banu Quraiza, a Jewish tribe, and were victorious against them. End result: 700 men from the tribe were beheaded and their children and women taken as slaves.

Remember that while you read this:

“We want to ensure that they understand that the Prophet remains a role model for an ideal son, husband, father, diplomat, politician, general, imam and leader regardless of time and place,” said Hani Khoja, one of the team members.

Ergo, if one argues against men having sexual relations with a 9-year-old girl or rejects antisemitism or thinks that the institution of slavery is immoral or disagrees with beheading infidels who refuse to accept Islam, then one is unintentionally blaspheming the Prophet of Islam.

I'm sure you can guess the Muslim response to the person who publically disagrees with the peaceful and infallible Muhammed (Pfft).

Link via AbbaGav.

The Futility of Appeasement

Eugene Volokh posts an old political cartoon drawn by Dr. Seuss. It's amazing to see how accurately it applies across time.