Isaac Schrödinger

Brain-dead Earned It

I mentioned the behavior of Cynthia "Royal Moonbat" McKinney yesterday. Soon, her arrest warrant will be issued.

What the Vote Says

Read this post at Carnal Reason.

Goons R Us

Iraq The Model:

These days in Beirut, the fourth conference for supporting the "Iraqi resistance" is being held. It came only less than a year after their grand failure 3rd conference which we wrote about back in August.

The most notable statement given during this conference was made by Hasan NesrAllah of the Lebanese terror organization Hizbullah. The turbaned warlord explicitly said he and his party support the "Iraqi resistance" yet he called upon Iraqis to avoid falling into a Sunni-Shia or Muslim-Christian strife. If you're not familiar with this conference, it's basically a gathering of all kinds of thugs you can think of; pan-Arab racists, Ba'athists from Iraq and Syria, Sadrists, Islamists (including Khalid Mish'al of Hamas this time).

Talk about a target-rich environment.

No Allegiance

The French know who is responsible for the inferno.

A Fashionable Salute

... "a symbol for steadfastness and dignity."

Yeah.

Into the Light

The background of the Avenging Apostate is quite similar to mine. We're both Pakistanis who spent a large part of our lives in Saudi Arabia. Both of us have written about our journey away from Islam. I just finished reading about his life in a series of posts here at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

If you want to learn more about the upbringing of a 'pious' Muslim, then you'll find his experience to be very illuminating.

This is right on:

Dubai does sell itself to the western world as a free state, but it actually isn’t. There are intelligence people all around you, listening to what you say all the time – keeping a close eye on what you do. Saying anything against Islam is prohibited in the UAE just like it is in Saudi Arabia. The only difference is that they don’t kill you for it – they put you in jail, fine you, and then deport you. Yes, it is free but only if you stay in the limits and boundaries provided to you by Islam. The same goes with all Islamic nations. It is Islam around me all over again and I feel suffocated.

I know that feeling all too well.

The Five Lions

This brings back some old memories.

The Haunted Waters

I've always had this eerie feeling whenever I've seen the water around Bahrain. I was there in August of 2000 when a Gulf Air jet crashed in the ocean while attempting a landing in the Bahraini airport.

Yesterday, we got this:

A cruise boat carrying more than 130 people capsized Thursday night off the coast of Bahrain, and at least 48 people drowned, officials said. Sixty-three people were rescued, NBC News reported, citing officials at a news conference.

Terror Against Christians and Ahmadis

"Indonesia: Muslims Favoured By New Decree On Places Of Worship," at Western Resistance. The largest Muslim-majority nation becomes more and more Islamist with every passing day.

Perfect Translation

Steven Den Beste:

She's exuding, all right, but it ain't confidence.

Ahem. Scroll down to 20060327.2120.

African Women

Freakonomics:

In a sample of 13 African countries between 1999 and 2004, 52% of women surveyed say they think that wife beating is justified if she neglects the children; around 45% think it’s justified if she goes out without telling the husband or argues with him; 36% if she refuses sex, and 30% if she burns the food.

Royal Moonbat

Michelle Malkin:

Loony Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney from Georgia made a few appearances in my last book, but she deserves her own stand-alone case study.

Read about what she did now.

Putting the Super in Supercomputer

Dear Lord!

Studying Twisting

Hindustan Times:

The government was using all available resources to promote quality education and had started working on the education reforms, Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi told reporters.

He said the subject of human rights would be included in the syllabus and the government had no plan to omit the subject of jihad from the Islamiat (moral studies).

I studied Islamiat from grade 1 to 10 in Saudi Arabia. I find its translation to be strange. It should be: "Islamiat = The study of Islam".

The following has a vastly different meaning: "Islamiat = Moral studies". I am sure the Ummah would disagree.

Link via Jihad Watch.

Hell Freezes Over

Will at KABOBfest:

Oddly, Hamas is more serious about negotiations than Israel is. PM-elect Olmert's vision is one of unilateralism. Yet, only Hamas offers a program for permanent peace. If people think this is just posturing, the international community should call Hamas out on this. See if Hamas is serious about this. I suspect it is.

I don't think he's joking.

Enlightened National Interest

The Big Pharaoh:

Canada suspended aid to the Hamas-led government. It's now the first country, besides Israel, to do so. I am suprised. I mean, this is Canada! Does that have to do with the removal of Paul Martin?

That's a tough question to answer. Though, it can be said that the Canadian Conservatives are definitely pro-Israel. For example, exactly one year ago, I heard a speech made by a Conservative MP in which:

He mentioned that political statisticians had studied the past 200 wars and maybe 3 or 4 of them were between democracies. So, democracies are inherently peaceful. The situation in the Middle East is not Jew vs. Arab but rather freedom vs. tyranny.

He said that it would appear to be in Canadian national interest to support the Arab dictatorships since they're more in number and they have the oil. But it's in Canada's 'enlightened national interest' to support the only democracy in the Middle East: Israel.

Zero aid to Hamas is consistent with this position.

Utterly Ignorant

I have Old Glory in my room. So, I can understand why Romeocat is so upset.

On Tails and Chains

This post about marriage is adorable. The last line is perfect.

Aerial Coolness

Mmm, B-52.

Rise of Darkness

MSNBC:

Hamas formally took power Wednesday, and the newly installed prime minister pledged to cooperate with President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the defeated Fatah party.

A lovely fact:

The 24-member Cabinet includes 14 ministers who served time in Israeli prisons.

Talk about street-cred.

Ummah Dating

Ace of Spades:

She seems like a "party girl" to me. You can pretty much see her entire bridge of her nose here. So put this one in the "Just for fun, not for mom" category.

That cracked me up.

Link via Discarded Lies.

Deadly Kites

This post brought back memories of Lahore.

It was a clear and windy day during the summer of 1995. I was flying a kite with my siblings and cousins. My younger brother managed to get the kite stuck in electrical lines. I got the kite loose by sheer luck and then bragged about my mastery.

Later, one of our neighbors started flying a kite--the battle was on. It lasted only a few minutes. After some excellent coordination, we cut that kite and hollered. The sucker landed on the roof next door. One of my cousins jumped across and brought back the prize. That day was a lot of fun.

Of course, we never took kite flying to the death level. During the Basant in Pakistan, it can get quite serious. The glass-covered wire can decapitate unknowing suspects. People have run off their roofs in moments of pure excitement. Though, the solution by the Pakistani government has been asinine: They banned all kite flying.

Imagine if an entire neighborhood were to defy the law and fly kites. Should the police in Pakistani, then, spend their precious resources in fining and/or arresting everybody? It's not going to happen.

The Guardian gets this right:

The ban will please religious conservatives, who have long condemned kite flying as un-Islamic.

The Taliban had banned kite flying in Afghanistan. It perfectly fits the Islamist ideology: If it's fun, stop.

Italy Stands Up

MSNBC:

An Afghan Christian convert who had faced the death penalty for abandoning Islam has arrived in Italy where he has been granted asylum, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday.

Alliances of Convenience

Athena:

Yes, of course bin Ladin wants to destroy Saddam and Saddam eventually wants to destroy bin Ladin. Just like Shia Iran wants to rule with their Shiite Velayet-e-Faqih (rule by clerics) and the Muslim Brotherhood ideology promotes a Sunni Islamic caliphate (quite different than the Shia version). While normal Sunni and Shia may not have inimitable hate for one another, Sunni and Shia leadership do.  But they will work together in hopes that the short-term goals will give them the edge in the long-run.

If this gulf can be crossed, we have to at least keep within imaginibility that there can be short-term alliances between secular Sunni and Islamist Sunni. To do otherwise would be a catastrophic "failure of imagination."

Well put.

Zeal and Honor Reloaded

Sharique Naeem left a comment in this post asking for the complete publication of his article so as to provide context. Okay:

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the events of Tuesday’s protests in Lahore and Islamabad. The first and the foremost what it reflects is the existence of deep divisions between the government and the masses at large.

The fact that the government buildings were deliberately targeted, not just by a few miscreants, but by large number of young men in Islamabad, shows that people disapprove the policies of the government. In the eyes of the public, the pro-Western policies of the government, makes these rulers shareholders in the guilt of the crimes the Western rulers are committing in their war against the Muslims.

The second conclusion, that can be drawn, is that the present system, is not only incapable of handling such protests, but also, it does not provides a proper medium for the expression of feelings that the masses have for their religion.

There is another point central to our politics today; that we lack genuine leadership within the present political apparatus. It is regrettable that the leaders of influence were not present at the scene to direct and guide the demonstrators.

The loss of lives, and property is regrettable. But these protests also prove the sincerity of the people towards the religion of Islam, and the zeal that they have to defend the honor of their beloved Prophet.

In my previous post, I had only excerpted the last paragraph.

Update
Alex offers a most hilarious take on this in the comments.

Aaiieeee 3

On Sunday last, my monitor simply turned off by itself. It displayed a message, "Signal: No signal". I turned off my PC and checked the cable connections to make sure that everything was in proper order, then I turned on the computer. Everything worked fine...till Monday morning when the same thing happened. Around noon, the monitor would only show the message, "Signal: No signal". Restarting the computer no longer helped. I couldn't blog!

Here are the different things I tried without success:

1. Plugged in a different monitor.
2. Called up ASUS and followed their advice. I unplugged each of these and tried to boot up: sound card...DVD drive...floppy drive...hard drive...and finally the graphics card.
3. The motherboard did notice the absence of the graphics card by beeping but upon plugging it back in, I got the same monitor message.

And then, hope. Called up ASUS again, took out the Nvidia card and the CMOS battery, then plugged in both after a minute. The computer booted up and the monitor no longer showed that irritating message. YES, FINALLY IT--"There's an error with a file in your Windows directory."

Yes, the non-number part of the post title is a word.

I couldn't fix that error; tried for almost two hours. I took my extra hard disk and decided to use that as a boot drive. Installed Windows XP and the plethora of drivers on it; must have restarted over two dozen times. After all that, my monitor crashed. At 2 a.m. on Tuesday.

It still has a tendency to shut itself off at any time it pleases. Yesterday, the monitor died on five occasions including that late night gift. Each time I had to shut down and boot up the computer to get the monitor back on.

Best guess: Either my graphics card is misbehaving or the AGP slot on my motherboard is at the end of its life.

So, blogging will be sporadic for the next few days, maybe weeks (gasp!).

Unclean

Western Resistance:

A report from today's Telegraph relates the unpleasant news that pro-Islamic municipal authorities in Turkey are engaged in a policy of hunting, torturing and killing hundreds of stray dogs.

I wrote last year:

I didn't see a single dog in over ten years of my sad life in Saudi Arabia. There, I only heard a dog once and it sounded like someone was beating the poor thing.

You have no idea how utterly repulsed Muslims feel when they see Westerners petting a dog on a TV show. To them, a dog is a filthy and dirty creature. They don't get how anyone could lower themselves to touch such a hideous thing. In my extended family in Pakistan, only one relative kept a dog. That dog would always be chained and kept outside for protection. More than once in Pakistan, I've seen a group of kids throw rocks at a hapless street dog and heard the terrible sounds of vicious pain.

Abuse of animals is a symptom of something far worse.

No Friends

The Religious Policeman on Saudi Arabia:

One of these days we'll wake up to the truth about our expatriate guest workers. They may be poor, they may be invisible, but they also built the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal.

Stoopid they ain't.

The Saudis are not going to get any sympathy from the expatriates especially after treating them with total contempt over the years.

Holy Talaq!

Yahoo News:

Sohela Ansari told friends that her husband Aftab had uttered the word 'talaq,' or divorce, three times in his sleep, according to the report published in newspapers Monday.

Yup, saying 'talaq' three times counts as three divorces. You see, in Islam, a husband can divorce his wife (the same one!) a maximum of three times. After that they can't re-marry...unless they do this:

The religious leaders ruled that if the couple wanted to remarry they would have to wait at least 100 days. Sohela would also have to spend a night with another man and be divorced by him in turn.

Oh yes, an official one-night stand.

Link via AbbaGav.

Shortcut to Heaven

Amit Ghate:

I submit that the Palestinians and most Islamists have not even made the choice to live -- they are in fact self-avowed death worshippers. This is something that is very difficult for good people to grasp, precisely because it is so horrible, but grasp it we must if we are to win the war they are waging on us.

The evidence for this conclusion is all around us -- from Chief Palestinian Authority cleric Mufti Sheikh Ikrimeh Sabri who states "We tell them, in as much as you love life, the Muslim loves death and martyrdom. There is a great difference between he who loves the hereafter and he who loves this world. The Muslim loves death and [strives for] martyrdom."

A side-effect of this mentality is less piousness. For example, some of the 9/11 hijackers went to a strip club before D-Day. Ipso facto, the 9/11 hijackers weren't Muslim. That "logic" is often used by some Muslims. They don't think the matter through: If murdering infidels guarantees one heaven, then there is zero harm in enjoying a few non-Islamic activities.

This part of Islam -- reserved seats in heaven for martyrs -- and the Haj have always bugged me. Both act as Get Into Heaven cards for Muslims regardless of all their sins and offenses. Of course, we might scoff at such silliness but a large portion of almost 1.5 billion people truly believe in this. And act upon it.

Israeli Election Analysis

JPod:

Likud was humiliated, winning somewhere between 11 and 14 seats. It is headed by Bibi Netanyahu, the Tasmanian Devil of Israeli politics. The horrid irony of this whole election is that if Bibi hadn't decided to challenge Ariel Sharon -- the most popular politician in Israel's history -- last fall for leadership of Likud and almost pull it off, Sharon wouldn't have left Likud to form the new Kadima party. Had Bibi just been patient and less greedy, he would have been in place when Sharon was felled by his stroke.

Fate is often unkind.

Asylum for an Ex-Muslim

The Washington Post:

Several Muslim clerics had threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he was freed, saying that he was clearly guilty of apostasy and deserved to die.
[...]
U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said Rahman had sought asylum "outside Afghanistan." No country had yet offered that asylum, said an official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Damian asks:

Will Canada step up?

Aaiieeee 2

My motherboard is making a screeching noise. I'll post more when I get a stable PC / Internet connection.

Aaiieeee

Having PC trouble; blogging will be light.

Commanding Evil

Mark Steyn:

In his book "Islam And The West," Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Quran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid." Or as the Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him."

Precisely.

No Rabbit For You

Different River:

Let me get this straight: The city removes a toy rabbit and some plastic eggs and a “Happy Easter” sign because the mere existence of such objects in a government building might offend non-Christians – but the very name of that city is SAINT PAUL?

HELLO???

Yeah, it's silly.

Link via Clayton Cramer.

From a Coup

The Daily Times:

President General Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday his government has introduced “real democracy” in Pakistan by empowering people politically and economically.

This coming from a guy who overthrew the Pakistani government in 1999.

Pakistan has yet to have a peaceful, democratic, transfer of power from one government to another. If ever there was an "unreal democracy," Pakistan is it.

Islam = Socialism + Democracy

Ayaz Amir writes an illuminating article.

The best that so-called Islamic ‘moderates’ seem capable of is to curry favour with the US. The long-bearded narrow-mindedness of the Taliban may be frightening but the fawning attitude of the ‘moderates’ is sickening. The Taliban may be too rigid but so-called moderates are too spineless and seem to lack all conviction.

Post-September 11 the US asked the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan to hand over Sheikh Osama bin Laden. Mullah Omar, the Taliban Emir, refused, saying that any charges against bin Laden could be examined by an ‘independent tribunal’. Call the Taliban foolhardy but at least they did not deliver a guest, and an honoured one at that, to his enemies.

Osama was an honoured guest, you see. Of course, don't mention the fact that the Taliban was a wretched regime. Instead, admire their rabidity.

The demonizing of Islam after September 11 has gone far enough. We don’t have to be apologetic about Islam or fall for the American-inspired dialectic of ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ Islam. As far as the Americans are concerned, any Muslim country toeing the American line is moderate. Any Muslim country standing up for itself is radical.

There is nothing wishy-washy about Islam. The essence of the faith as propagated by Muhammad, (Peace be upon him), is radical and revolutionary. Stripped off the time-serving interpretations of theologians (theologians being the bane of Islam) it stands for the empowerment of the weak, the humbling of the mighty, the liberation of women, government by consent and consultation, and bread, security, learning and hospitals for every citizen, high or low, of the Islamic commonwealth.

One doesn't have to look further for Comedy in the Muslim World.

Sexy Fascism

Douglas Kern offers an entertaining review:

That's V for Vendetta for you. It's darkly gorgeous, it's effortlessly slick, and at all times, it's three beers away from comedy gold.

There's a lot more.

Read Between the Lines

Umar Lee:

It would be unwise and foolish for the Afghan government to execute the man named Abdul-Rahman for converting to Christianity. Do I think he made a bad choice? Yes, I do; but he should not be killed for converting during a time of peace.

Fear and Blood

Pedestrian Infidel on the comments made by a Dubai "scholar":

Okay, so by killing people, you can frighten the ‘weak-willed’ ones enough to stay in their spiritual and mental prison which is Islam. Fear is to be used so that those who dare to think on their own on even only a semi-regular basis stop doing so. I say that’s one of the beauties of this religion of peace—weak-willed people, you can have Allah do the thinking for you.

Read it all.

A Little Reexamimation Never Hurts

The New York Sun:

Last night ABC News reported on five recently declassified documents captured in Iraq. One of these was a handwritten account of a February 19, 1995, meeting between an official representative of Iraq and Mr. bin Laden himself, where Mr. bin Laden broached the idea of "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. The document, which has no official stamps or markers, reports that when Saddam was informed of the meeting on March 4, 1995 he agreed to broadcast sermons of a radical imam, Suleiman al Ouda, requested by Mr. bin Laden.

The question of future cooperation is left an open question. According to the ABC News translation, the captured document says, "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." ABC notes in their report that terrorists, believed to be Al Qaeda, attacked the Saudi National Guard headquarters on November 13, 1995.

The new documents suggest that the 9/11 commission's final conclusion in 2004, that there were no "operational" ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, may need to be reexamined in light of the recently captured documents.

You don't say.

Link via Lorie Byrd at Polipundit.

Enlightened

We have to understand his feelings.

Perhaps, he had a traumatic encounter with a car.

Free to Choose?

The Big Pharaoh:

Don't these "scholars" know that the best way to defend the prophet is by calling for the Afghan man's release and standing for his freedom to choose whatever religion he wants?

These "scholars" are aware of Sahih Bukhari: Volume 9, Book 84, Number 58.

Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle [Prophet Muhammed], 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"

The vast majority of Muslim religious leaders will never stand for the freedom of religion since Islam itself doesn't support that position.

Ninjas!

The Little Sisters of Mercy escape from their convent by abseiling down an outside wall....

The West is doomed.

A Child Slave

Faith Freedom International:

Eleven-year old Gulsoma lay in a heap on the ground in front of her father-in-law. He told her that if she didn't find a missing watch by the next morning he would kill her. He almost had already.

Enraged about the missing watch, Gulsoma's father-in-law had beaten her repeatedly with a stick. She was bleeding from wounds all over her body and her right arm and right foot had been broken.

She knew at that moment that if she didn't get away, he would make good on his promise to kill her.

Read her excruciating story.

The Life of Afghani Ex-Muslims

Compass Direct:

This past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten severely outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He woke up in the hospital two hours later but was discharged before morning.

“Our brother remains steadfast, despite the ostracism and beatings,” one of his friends said.

Several other Afghan Christians have been subjected to police raids on their homes and places of work in the past month, as well as to telephone threats.

These men don't have much time left.

Link via Dhimmi Watch.

Lovebirds are now Jailbirds

Love can't conquer the Indo-Pak border.

Praying for Sharia

Dr. Abdul Wajid has a wet dream:

It is time the Muslims of the world established a state according to their faith so that we can once again become a beacon for the humankind as we were for centuries during the time of the Caliphate.

A smoldering mass of mediocrity doesn't qualify as a beacon.

Conspiracies R Us

A letter to The Nation in Pakistan:

There is no doubt that publication of the blasphemous cartoons is the mischief of the neocons. Unfortunately, the Muslims have started killing each other and destroying their own properties. This is exactly what this lobby wants. The cartoons were published in September but were leaked out on the occasion of the visit of American president to South Asia so that hatred on display for him is diverted towards the European Union.

Show us the shekels, Jyllands-Posten.