It seems like it:
In order to cater for the need to globalise the game, the next ICC World Twenty20 should be expanded from 12 to 16 teams. Because the games are so condensed, even an expanded Twenty20 competition with a best-of-three final series could be completed in around two and a half weeks, a far cry from the nearly two-month long World Cup that everyone had to endure in the Caribbean.
Twenty20 is here to stay.
Tambi Dude emails this link.
One of the Church of England's most senior bishops is warning that people will die unless Muslim leaders in Britain speak out in defence of the right to change faith.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
In 2004, Prince Charles asked British Muslim leaders to renounce laws of apostasy and the death sentence for converts in Islamic countries, but no public statement was ever made.
Dispatches obtained Islamic texts sold in Britain that say the punishment for apostasy is death - according to all four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. One text called for Muslims to cut off the head of those who reject Islam.
Of course, they would only cut it off in a most elegant, peaceful manner.
A poll of more than 1,000 British Muslims, conducted by the Policy Exchange think-tank this year, found that 36 per cent of Muslims aged between 16 and 24 believe those who convert to another faith should be punished by death.
Wow, the number is that low!
One convert interviewed for the programme told how his local Muslim community in Bradford closed ranks against him after he switched to Christianity. 'They told me categorically had I been in an Islamic country - Pakistan, Middle East - that they would actually be the first to chop off my head,' he said.
The sure-fire way to get into heaven: kill an uppity infidel.
Warning: Not for Muslims. Might cause an itchy need to take a bath and an impulse to wash the computer seven times with water and then once with earth.
Greg Mankiw, an economics professor from Harvard University:
If there is any place that should be open to a wide range of views, it is a university. To bar a scholar as prominent as Larry from talking simply because you disagree with him is despicable.
Keyword: should.
Are coming strong.
Oddly enough, their local clothing doesn't have zippers...
Er, two paws up.
One can't make up stuff like this.
I remember hearing a short while ago that the Islamic Republic Police had “arrested” dogs, as a part of their “fight against immodesty”. Today, a very good friend sent a set of pictures of the arrested dogs.
View them here. My initial thoughts were put into words immediately:
Clearly, these dogs are not meant to live in the conditions they are being kept, but, anyways, they do not treat human beings anything better.
Exactly.
This irrational hatred goes a long way back.
First link via Serendip.
A reader asked me to translate the Arabic text here:
(Image taken from Michelle Malkin's site.)
I took Arabic over ten years ago. So, I don't know what that says there.
Anyone in the audience familiar with Arabic?
It can't happen soon enough. The following from Fox News:
The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.
On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran's known nuclear targets.
Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years — but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq.
They should have planned this a long time ago. That way, right after the Iraq campaign, the logistical side of the Iran battle would have been taken care of.
The US must be always on the offensive in this war; a defensive posture is more deadly to the military in the long run. During the time when the Americans scaled down their operations in Iraq, a lot more in the military were being killed every month. Now, that the surge -- with more soldiers -- is fully under way, monthly American deaths have declined. The Islamist monsters in Iraq don't have the time and breathing space to plan mayhem and murder. They're busy trying to stay alive.
The same must be the case for the Iranian regime.
Umar Lee remembers 9/11.
The last five are the most precious.
For two hours this afternoon my internet connection wasn't working.
I called the cable company and gave them my information. The support guy said that my local area had been taken out of service.
"How is that possible?"
The rep. wanted to ask a senior person about the situation, so he put me on hold for two minutes. Then he returned and said, "Give it a few minutes and it'll start working again."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Um, there was some delay in filing some paperwork ... as a result your internet connection was cut off."
"Oh. So, in a few minutes, it'll work."
"Right."
"Okay, thanks. Bye."
"Bye."
Who is to blame for this? THE JEWS! Trust me, they have their wily ways.
A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to renounce Islam.
The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance.
The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.
Isn't that funny. Muslims have proselytized in Western nations for decades. As a result, many airheads have converted to Islam and yet somehow that is not considered to be "stirring tensions".
Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack.
He is braver than I.
“Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten up,” Mr Jami said. “In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”
He has my support.
The end of the article provides a few Islamic sources which clearly advocate death for apostasy. I wrote a long, detailed post about this very topic in late 2005. Here, I excerpt the conclusion:
The vast majority of Muslims treat murtads [ex-Muslims] as traitors. In their eyes, the life of an apostate is worthless. From the closest relatives to the entire Ummah, an apostate has little to no shelter. Murtads are surrounded by a climate of suffocation in Islamic societies. That is why so many countless apostates keep their thinking to themselves. If caught, their only recourse is to profess maniacal allegiance to Islam. Otherwise, a tight noose or a sword welcomes them.
Muslims are immensely proud of their timeless religion. The Quran is respected and revered instead of being recognized for what it is -- a glorified encyclopedia of asininity. Islamic laws such as punishments for stealing, adultery, murder, rape, and apostasy remain the same across time and space. These laws are unreformable by definition.
The only hope is for Muslims to ignore such laws. Sadly, the past fourteen centuries don't offer much in that direction. Terror, both psychological and physical, is the very soul of Islam. For what would you say to "continue to believe or die"?
Majid Nawaz, a former leader of the Islamic supremacist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir who spent 4 years in an Egyptian prison, is spilling the beans on the evil agenda of this group.
Click here to see the whole thing.
The initial part of the response by Hizb-ut-Tahrir is correct: polls do show that a majority of Muslims want a Caliphate -- an Islamic superstate.
Ripping paper is so much fun.
Link via Pejman.
Six years ago, western civilization was challenged, confronted with the indisputable fact of a hate and an evil that wanted to destroy it without mercy, without compromise, without exception.
This should have galvanized us, united us, resolved us, and committed us to wiping that evil from the face of the earth, without remorse.
And for some of us, it did.
But it also exposed a large population among us who, when the chips were down, feel the same as our enemies.
Quite right.
You can read the above by itself or go through the entire four-part series.
Lorie Byrd offers a roundup of posts.
The Apostate: Doubt in Believers.
A former Muslim friend of mine, for instance, is so deeply invested in her religion, and is so determined for it to be true, despite it warring with all her right-thinking notions acquired independently, that I can well understand how deeply destructive of her entire life apostasy would be. Her marriage, her work, her family, her professional publications and academic reputation, her spiritual comfort, all is tied up with her faith. It would not be a mere adjustment in one part of her life.
The price of free thought can be quite high.
Victor Davis Hanson: Why Study War?
Military history as a discipline has atrophied, with very few professorships, journal articles, or degree programs. In 2004, Edward Coffman, a retired military history professor who taught at the University of Wisconsin, reviewed the faculties of the top 25 history departments, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. He found that of over 1,000 professors, only 21 identified war as a specialty. When war does show up on university syllabi, it’s often about the race, class, and gender of combatants and wartime civilians.
Oh, brother. The public, however, is very interested:
Students love old-fashioned war classes on those rare occasions when they’re offered, usually as courses that professors sneak in when the choice of what to teach is left up to them. I taught a number of such classes at California State University, Stanford, and elsewhere. They’d invariably wind up overenrolled, with hordes of students lingering after office hours to offer opinions on the battles of Marathon and Lepanto.
Popular culture, too, displays extraordinary enthusiasm for all things military. There’s a new Military History Channel, and Hollywood churns out a steady supply of blockbuster war movies, from Saving Private Ryan to 300.
Coming to the present war:
A wartime public illiterate about the conflicts of the past can easily find itself paralyzed in the acrimony of the present. Without standards of historical comparison, it will prove ill equipped to make informed judgments. Neither our politicians nor most of our citizens seem to recall the incompetence and terrible decisions that, in December 1777, December 1941, and November 1950, led to massive American casualties and, for a time, public despair.
The Weekly Standard via Gateway Pundit:
[...] the antiwar group MoveOn.org is running a full-page advertisement in the New York Times under the headline: "General Petraeus or General Betray us? Cooking the books for the White House."
Let's be clear: MoveOn.org is suggesting that General Petraeus has 'betrayed' his country. This is disgusting. To attack as a traitor an American general commanding forces in war because his 'on the ground' experience does not align with MoveOn.org's political objectives is utterly shameful. It shows contempt for America's military leadership, as well as for the troops who have confidence in him, as our fellow soldiers in Iraq certainly do.
I've linked to this photo twice before but it's so good (bad?) that I'll recommend viewing it again.
There is always hope.
The idea of using suicide pilots to obliterate the skyscrapers of Manhattan originated in 1940s Berlin. "In the latter stages of the war, I never saw Hitler so beside himself as when, as if in a delirium, he was picturing to himself and to us the downfall of New York in towers of flame," wrote Albert Speer in his diary. "He described the skyscrapers turning into huge burning torches and falling hither and thither, and the reflection of the disintegrating city in the dark sky."
Symbolically enough:
Sixty years later, it so happens, the assault on the World Trade Center was coordinated from Germany.
For those who think that somehow we are to blame:
What ideas propelled Atta and the others to act? Witnesses provided part of the answer at the world's first 9/11-related trial, the prosecution of al-Motassedeq, which took place in Hamburg between October 2002 and February 2003. One participant in the Koran circle meetings, Shahid Nickels, said Atta's Weltanschauung was based on a "National Socialist way of thinking." Atta was convinced that the Jews were striving for world domination and considered New York City the center of world Jewry, which was, in his opinion, Enemy No. 1. Fellow students who lived in Motassedeq's dormitory testified that he shared these views and waxed enthusiastic about a forthcoming "big action."
The article goes on to further describe the relationship between Nazism and Jihadism. Intense Jew-hatred binds them together.
Osama like you've never seen him before.
Take a look.
Shoaib Akthar said he made a mistake "in the heat of the moment" when he hit Mohammad Asif and has apologised to him and his Pakistan teammates for the dressing-room scuffle that saw him being sent home from South Africa.
You know how it is. You're arguing with someone and then the next moment you unintentionally hit that person with a bat. It happens.
He likened the incident to the headbutt by the French footballer, Zinedine Zidane, in the final of the World Cup in Germany last year and said what happened was not intentional.
Yeah.
He might not be playing cricket for a while but the sex machine can still strut it!
Update
This is precious:
"The incident began with a verbal spat between me and Afridi, who used foul language," Akhtar said, "and Asif intervened and in anger I hit Asif with a bat."
You see, Afridi is to blame for this entire mess.
Afridi, however, denied that he had provoked Shoaib and was surprised at the accusations.
One of them has to be clearly lying.
The Japanese recently launched a "helicopter-carrying destroyer".
Eloquent John says: "Destroyer my ass...."
Earlier this year, I talked about the headaches in trying to get the new generation of video formats to play on the PC.
Here's an example: I came across this post in a tech forum titled, "How to play HD DVD". After a few helpful comments the fellow who wanted help could finally get the audio from the disc with his intended connection. That's it.
This photo certainly took some effort.
Times via Instapundit:
Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.
I'm shocked! And here I thought those dang cartoons were turning them into bloodthirsty monsters.
Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.
Oh, it's just a small, tiny, minuscule minority. Nothing to worry about.
Mr ul Haq, 36, was educated and trained at an Islamic seminary in Britain and is part of a new generation of British imams who share a similar radical agenda. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are “proud to be British” and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion”.
Reality makes a mockery of Allah's religion.
The Times has gained access to numerous talks and sermons delivered in recent years by Mr ul Haq and other graduates of Britain’s most influential Deobandi seminary near Bury, Greater Manchester.
Intended for a Muslim-only audience, they reveal a deep-rooted hatred of Western society, admiration for the Taleban and a passionate zeal for martyrdom “in the way of Allah”.
It gets even better.
The seminary outlaws art, television, music and chess, demands “entire concealment” for women and views football as “a cancer that has infected our youth”.
I blame Bush! And of course, the sure-fire way to gain street-cred among the umma: go after the Jews.
Mahmood Chandia, a Bury graduate who is now a university lecturer, claims in one sermon that music is a way in which Jews spread “the Satanic web” to corrupt young Muslims.
What will those crazy Jews think of next?
Ambassadors from Muslim countries have indicated that they intend to present the Swedish prime minister with a list of demands when they meet for talks on Friday [today].
Let's see what the lovely thugs want.
"Muslims need legal protection against the desecration of the Prophet Muhammad, maybe something similar to the protection enjoyed by Jews and homosexuals."
Which Jewish and gay prophets can't the Westerners make fun of?
"In the long term the school curriculum has to convince pupils that if they want to express their opinion they should do so in such a way that it doesn't cause offence or hurt. This should also be part of journalism training," said Sotouhi.
You are free to say anything you want...as long as it doesn't hurt the tender feelings of Muslims. Sorry, free speech doesn't work that way. I know it's a tough concept to grasp considering that it's non-existent in the Islamic world.
"Everybody will compare his wisdom with the situation in Denmark, whose prime minister treated the problem with a sort of arrogance, or at least delayed taking action to prevent the problem from escalating," he said.
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that enraged Muslims all over the world had gone on a rampage and killed over a hundred people. How exactly are the cartoonists or Western politicians responsible for that mayhem?
Is their bloody anything Muslims are responsible for?
Robert Spencer says it like it is:
And that's what this latest episode of Cartoon Rage, as well as the original Cartoon Rage incidents, were all about: forcing dhimmi Europeans to place Islam beyond questioning or criticism -- while the jihad continues apace.
Indeed.
And a certain tower in front of it.
One day, I walked into the living room where two guys were watching some news channel. The program was about the merciless lampooning of Osama in every late night show. One of the guys was very agitated.
“I understand why he makes fun of Osama all the time. It’s because he’s a rotten stinking Jew. But I don’t get why Leno jokes about Osama so much?”
The other guy nodded. I was speechless. I don’t know to whom he charmingly referred to as “a rotten stinking Jew,” though, I was touched to hear him defend a mass-murdering psychopath. A few months later, I would find the same guy laughing heartily at the President Bush pretzel incident. It seemed that no amount of ridicule of the Chimp-in-Chief was too much.
I found out later still that the guy was a member of the Muslim Student Association.
That proud tradition of Jew-hatred is kept alive in the American version of the MSA. Watch the last two minutes here. (You'll also see the repulsive, jovial attitude to 9/11 which acted as a catalyst for my leaving Islam.)
Also, read what Jeff Goldstein has to say. Link via LFG.
One of the less obvious strengths of the US:
In some cases, the different laws of different states will reflect genuine differences in the conditions and needs of the people. In other cases, states will make mistakes, but with fifty laboratories, those errors will become obvious over time.
Quite right.
They know the way of the Samurai.
They're eeevil and oh so lucky.
A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
Oops.
[...] Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, fired the New England regional director of the ADL, Andrew H. Tarsy. Tarsy’s crime? He recognized the 1915-1918 Turkish genocide of the Armenians, and expressed his support for H.R. 106, a Congressional resolution recognizing and deploring that genocide.
Foxman hired him back and explained:
“We continue to firmly believe that a congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel, and the United States.”
Spencer elaborates:
In other words, one of the main reasons why we have to keep quiet about the Armenian genocide for fear that the Turkish government, which still refuses to acknowledge that it happened, will cause trouble for the Jews remaining in Turkey. Just stay quiet and you’ll be OK.
I can't help it. I have a big mouth.
Published in 3:AM magazine, here’s my discussion about Islam, freedom and denial with the Muslim novelist and exile Tahir Aslam Gora.
An interesting bit:
It seems that the Qur’an is a pretty political book, and inconsistent. It treats issues differently from one instance to another. This huge inconsistency can make Muslims confused. Based on this confusion, many Muslims have for centuries excluded non-Muslims from their orbit. In addition, the traditional script of the Qur’an exhorts repulsion of ‘others’ much more than acceptance. Many Muslims are unwilling to realise that the Qur’an was written and compiled by the pioneers of Islam through different political stages. Instead, many take the book as the final verdict of God. These Qur’anic teachings have been enforced by Sharia even more strictly than the Qur’an itself over the centuries. Now, for many, the whole essence of Islam is repulsion of others.
This is certainly the case in Pakistan. India, has had its non-Hindu population increase over the past six decades. But in Pakistan, the proportion of people who are non-Muslim has declined. Muslims there are having less and less contact with adherents of other religions -- which makes it easier to demonize them.
Is it any wonder that the Taliban originated in Pakistan?
Anyway, there's a lot more to read, so go ahead.
Link via Small Dead Animals.
Continuing with the theme from the last post, today we get this:
HALAL food and prayer rooms should be adopted at all [Australian] universities to help Muslim students meet their religious and educational obligations, a conference heard yesterday.
Three guesses on who will pay for this.
Link via LFG.
A reader emails this story:
Taxpayers should fund Islamic, Hindu, Jewish and other faith-based schools just like public and Catholic ones, Opposition Leader John Tory says.
If the Progressive Conservatives are elected Oct. 10, they will appoint former premier Bill Davis to lead a commission to figure out the best way to bring religious schools into the public system.
What a terrible idea.
The reader rightly points out:
Allowing various ethnic and religious groups to use government money to re-enforce their ghettos is just a non-starter for me, and I hope for many others in this province as well.
Count me in.
The reasoning by John Tory for this awful proposal is ridiculous.
Rather than divide students of different religions, public funding – and accountability – would bring them closer together, Tory said.
Public funding would bring them together!? These students would be divided on religious lines for years -- perhaps even a decade. How in heaven's name will that bring them together?
There are 30 Islamic schools in Ontario but many families who want to send their children to these religious schools can't afford the $5,000 to 7,000 per-child cost, said Mustafa Rawji, from the Islamic Society of North America.
"So we're happy to see that we'll be able to get the taxpayer money that is being channelled to the public schools right now," said Rawji.
If you can't afford education for your children, then don't have 'em. It's not the responsibility of society to pay for that. If you really want that precious Islamic education for free, then move to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, ...
Related matter: I've noticed that politicians are quite adept at exploiting such differences to their advantage. They don't care about the long-term, deleterious effects of such policies. Instead of asking for assimilation, they're content with separation.
To top it off, we will pay for it, in more ways than one.
The water looks like a smooth sheet of glass.
The Telegraph via Mark Steyn at The Corner:
Hardline Islamic law could be introduced across Malaysia under reforms proposed by the country's chief justice.
Lovely.
Ahmad Fairuz, the chief justice, told an Islamic conference in Kuala Lumpur that 50 years of independence had failed to free Malaysia from the "clutches of colonialism". Sharia law should be "infused" into the gaps created by abolishing common law, he said.
Malaysia's non-Muslim Chinese and Indian communities, who form 40 per cent of the population, are alarmed at creeping Islamisation.
The hideous core of sharia has already destroyed lives there:
Sharia law already operates in some Malaysian states and is occasionally applied to non-Muslims, as in July when Islamic officials forcibly separated a Hindu-Muslim couple with six children after 21 years of marriage.
The majority ethnic Malays are defined as Muslim by law and forbidden from converting.
But remember, this is merely a bad cultural trait of Malaysia. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with Islam. Honest!
Racial tensions are already high due to official discrimination in favour of Malays, who enjoy better employment opportunities, preferential loans and lower house prices.
Of course.
Tim Blair asks ABC about something strange.
THAMEEM left a comment in this post.
MR. ISSAC,
I SUGGEST YOU LEARN A THING COMPLETELY BEFORE COMMENTING ON IT.
I suggest you learn to spell Isaac properly.
IT SEEMS THAT YOU ARE POORLY INFORMED ABOUT ISLAM. A COMMUNITY CANNOT BE BLAMED FOR THE ACTION OF A FEW INDIVIDUALS.MANIACS DO EXIST AMONG ALL COMMUNITIES.IF YOU THINK THAT EVERY MUSLIM REJOICES AT THE KILLINGS OF INNOCENT IN WEST, YOU ARE SIMPLY BIASED.
Not every Muslim but most.
OUR RELIGION ISTRUCTS US TO BE GOOD TO ALL PEOPLE.AND IF YOU REFER THE TRUE HISTORY OF PROPHET MUHAMMED(PBUH),YOU WOULD FIND PLENTY OF REASONS TO SHOUT ALOUD THAT HE WAS INDEED THE GREATEST MAN EVER LIVED.
One doesn't achieve greatness by raping a nine-year-old girl, calling for the death of a poet-critic and reveling in the murder of an entire Jewish tribe. I suggest further that you learn a thing about morality instead of parroting the "perfection" of Muhammad.
STUDY THE RELIGION CAREFULLY AND BE ON YOUR KNEELS TO ALLAH.THIS I SAY FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.
Gee, thanks but I'll pass. I prefer freedom over submission.
Western democracy routinely empowers minorities, meaning political minorities - either by transforming the largest minority of votes - and sometimes not even that - into a majority of seats in the legislature, or by empowering minor parties to form coalitions with major ones in order to dominate the legislature. We have learned to live with this in the West; it can't be assumed that other peoples, Muslim or otherwise, would want to.
Assuming that most Muslims don't want to empower "minor parties", wouldn't they then, um, choose not to empower them by not voting for them?
Also, there isn't a single, rigid system of democracy. Take, for example, the US and Canada. The US is a constitution-based republic with mainly two parties whereas Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. Muslims can, again, choose between the two. Both of these options will be better than getting a Supreme Religious / Demonic Dictator for Life a Caliph.
