Isaac Schrödinger

Brr

I wonder how long a human can survive in there. I also wonder just how crazy one has to be to try and figure that out!

It's Gloating Time

Ways Sony Plans to Celebrate Their Blu-Ray Victory.

4. Get T-shirts printed up that say, "The HD stands for Hopeless Despair" and send them to engineers at Toshiba.

Ouch.

Criminals in America

Umar Lee:

Granted, there are a lot of people who need to be in prison, but most will end up coming out and if the root causes for crime are not addressed most will continue to victimize their communities and go back to prison so why not make an investment up front so you don’t have to pay for it later?

I don't know what "investment" he is talking about but I can guess that it won't at all be voluntary for the citizens.

Anyway, what exactly are those "root causes"?

What is Smoking Who?

Hunh.

Harvard: Top Dhimmi Institution

Abbie Ruzicka:

Harvard University has moved to make Muslim women more comfortable in the gym by instituting women-only access times six hours a week to accommodate religious customs that make it difficult for some students to work out in the presence of men.

Some explanation:

Harvard Islamic Society's Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary, a junior, said the women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis. The special gym hours will be analyzed over Spring Break to determine if they will continue, she said.

Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men.

[Emphasis mine.]

Harvard is admitting spectacularly dense students nowadays.

There are lots of comments at the end -- none, as far as I can see, support this intolerant, backwards policy.

For example, Paco writes:

Good progressive move, Harvard. Leading the way back to those good old days of "separate but equal" public facilities.

Why stop with re-segregating the gym? Go all out and emulate everything they do in the apartheid Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I read they arrested a woman because she illegally "mixed" with men other than her relatives at a Starbucks in Riyadh. So let's have special hours for women to go to Starbucks by themselves in Boston.

Whatever it takes to make Muslims feel comfortable. That's all that matters.

No Love for Singh

The Aussies aren't fond of him:

Matthew Hayden has stirred already troubled waters by calling Harbhajan Singh an "obnoxious weed", a comment that will only serve to deepen the animosity between the two sides that has surfaced during India's tour.

This I find funny:

The pair clashed during Sunday's CB Series game at the SCG when the Indians complained that Hayden had called Harbhajan a "mad boy".

Oooh.

The Permutations from McCain

Vox rates the three possible presidential candidates. For McCain:

7 - McCain. Hey, I'm a wargamer. Seeing him try to fight wars on four fronts while simultaneously pursuing Osama bin Laden TO THE VERY GATES OF HELL would be intriguing, if nothing else.

Hunh.

Rising Up Against the Religious Thugs

Pajamas Media:

It happens every day on the streets of Tehran: a police squad grabbed a young woman for dressing immodestly. But this time, the young woman fought back, and a crowd defended her and attacked the police. Thanks to cell phone video, the Internet, and brave Iranian citizen reporters, Ardeshir Arian is able to tell the story.

Link via Kamangir.

The Core 2 Duo Supremacy

Nehalem is the successor to the Core 2 Duo. The earliest time it'll be released is Q4 2008. Somehow, its performance numbers have been leaked.

Intel's domination will continue for a while.

It's Romantic

Kinda.

Will Australia Import Saudi Arabia?

The Australian via LFG:

MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses.

La Trobe University International chief officer John Molony says:

"That would seriously inconvenience other people at the college and it is not institutionally viable," he told The Australian. "We are a secular institution ... and we need to have a structured timetable."

Mr Van Run said that Saudi students were fully aware that the university was secular before coming to study there. "They know well in advance the class times," he said.

Not to mention that gender apartheid has no place in the West.

"It's reasonable to ask for the lectures to be shifted around on Friday," Sister Abdel-Halim said. "But if it's going to cause havoc with the timetable, I don't think it's really feasible to ask for every single prayer to be catered for."

One prayer at a time.

A Distant Family

Muslim Hedonist:

I’ve been reading some recently published academic stuff about North American women who convert to Islam.

I’m still trying to figure things about. Like, what drew me in the first place, and now keeps me in, yet also tears me apart.

More:

“Brothers” could and did form their own bonds based on ethnic ties, shared political views, or whatever. “Brothers” phoned one another and talked for hours, sometimes even at one in the morning! “Brothers” would drop by unannounced for supper, and perhaps then decide to go for a walk together, or off to some other “brother’s” place. It was unthinkable for my (ex)husband and I to go for a picnic or to the park without either taking along a few “brothers,” or meeting a group of them there.

Once the “brothers” came on the scene, of course, I had to shrink into the background. Aside from the requirements of Islamic modesty (no free-mixing of the sexes and all that), I usually didn’t understand the languages that their conversations took place in anyway.

Hmm. She also spent time with "sisters" who didn't speak much English:

I learned that I wasn’t a “real” woman at all. I didn’t like most of the right things–high heels, gold jewelry, fancy embroidered all-encompassing polyester house-dresses, wearing make-up and miniskirts for my husband at home, spending hours slaving in the kitchen, pouring over other people’s photo albums. No, I didn’t have any wedding pictures. I had few pictures of myself or my family, even, and what I had I didn’t want to show to virtual strangers. Of course, they thought I was very strange to say the least. On one particularly memorable occasion, a group of Turkish “sisters” mocked me in my presence. They were speaking Turkish, so even though I was sitting right there, they spoke freely, assuming that I didn’t understand. (They were wrong.)

Ouch.

Funky Brothers

Umar Lee:

For those of you familiar with the trains in DC there are always two or four seats in the very back removed from everyone else and that is where I like to sit and I always look to them when getting on the train. Today, when getting on, I looked at the seat and saw what I thought was a deranged lunatic escaped from an insane asylum.

This man had a crazy look on his face, a wrinkled shirt that appeared to be some kind of hospital gown, and a wild unkept nappy beard with hair to match it. I looked for the bracelet on his arm but did not see one and just sat back and relaxed. A few stops later the guy got up to get off the train and I realized that, instead of being some kind of mental patient, this guy was a Muslim.

What's the difference?

No YouTube for You!

CNet via Hardocp:

Pakistan ordered local Internet service providers to block access to the popular YouTube Web site because of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that have outraged many Muslims, an industry official said Sunday.

A small piece of advice to my former countrymen: Simply don't view the sinful videos that you find offensive!

A Murderous Society

Save Delara:

The suspect, who in the initial stages of investigation had opted to remain silent and refused to provide any information about the whereabouts of his daughter, finally confessed, and provided a disturbing account of Samieh’s murder. Sharif stated: “A while ago, I noticed that my 14 year old daughter is acting suspiciously. Initially, I tried to approach the issue gently, and to find out why Samieh is acting this way. She would leave the house without any reason, and when she returned, she could not provide a convincing explanation. Finally, I could not take it any more and I got in a fight with her, but that didn’t do any good because my daughter accused me of being suspicious and maintained that she has not done anything wrong. After a while, I became fully convinced that Samieh is having relations with a man. I perceived my honor to have been damaged, and tolerating such a condition and remaining silent was like death to me. So I decided to kill Samieh and rid myself of this shame. In this context, I had to make a decision about how I should kill Samieh and save myself from such disgrace. I had to choose a method for killing my daughter that would fit her wrong-doing. Finally, I became convinced that I should stone her to death, but because I could not personally carry out the execution by myself, I sought the assistance of my friend, Ghafoor. When he learned about my problem, he accepted to help me kill Samieh to wash the stain of disgrace from my family. Ghafoor contacted a few other people and established the time and place to carry out the act.

[Emphasis mine.]

It says a lot of about the societal mindset regarding honor that many people decided to help a father who wished to kill her 14-year-old daughter. Perhaps if one of them had a shred of humanity, the young girl could have been saved.

Link via Muslimah Media Watch.

Heroes in America

Tim Sumner via Little Green Footballs:

John Gilleeny, a retired firefighter, sends word that in her new book, Susan Faludi says that there were no heroes on 9/11, only victims.

An excerpt:

“These are the men who will fight our wars,” President Bush intoned, after posing with the firefighters at the smouldering ruins, as if he were their commanding officer. “These men are fighting the first battle,” Mayor Giuliani declared. In fact, he maintained, they had already won it. “Our firefighters helped save more than 25,000 lives that day - the greatest single rescue mission in America’s history.” That was a claim the surviving firefighters themselves would regard as preposterous. Of the 16,000 to 18,000 occupants of the World Trade Centre that day, 95% of those who died were on the upper floors, beyond reach of rescue, and most of those on the lower floors rescued themselves without uniformed help. The grim truth is that the human toll would have been significantly lower had the firefighters never entered the buildings.

Sumner offers a response. Go read it.

Don't Cry and...

"Fall asleep in the sun again?"

Looks like it.

A Totally Haram Video

Pat Condell: Sharia fiasco. The part between 6:00 and 6:10 is classic.

Link via Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

Here's a nice thank you by a fan of Condell.

The Meaning of 'No Compulsion'

Bahai World News Service:

The Iranian Parliament is considering legislation that would institutionalize a series of gross human rights violations, affecting not only Baha'is but many others, even outside of Iran, the Baha'i International Community said today.

What's the law about?

Of greatest concern is a section that would mandate the death penalty for anyone who converts from Islam to another religion, a provision that would affect not only Baha'is but also Christians, Jews, and others.

It goes further:

"The law also extends to naming as apostate any follower of a religion other than Islam who had one parent who was a Muslim at the time of his or her conception. Thus, for instance, the child of a Muslim and a Christian who chooses to adopt the Christian faith would be considered an apostate under the terms of the law and therefore subject to execution," Ms. Dugal said.

More:

"It would also institute capital punishment for anyone who 'insults the Prophet,'" Ms. Dugal explained. "Such provisions place many groups, including Baha'is, in an extremely vulnerable position, since an 'insult' to the Prophet can be defined in almost any context, especially where religious belief is concerned."

Just wait. Any minute now we'll be hearing complaints from millions of Muslims about this gross perversion of their peaceful religion.

Any minute now ...

Not Another Caturday!

• Catspiracy?
• Harvey Dent is likely the owner.
• Wasn't this guy the ground commander of the massive army that assaulted Minas Tirith?
• The best is saved for last: A regal pose.

Fierce Feynman

Richard Feynman, the Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering.

President Reagan created the Rogers Commission to investigate the [Space Shuttle Challenger] disaster. Physicist Feynman was invited as a member, but his independent intellect and direct methods were at odds with the commission's formal approach. Chairman Rogers, a politician, remarked that Feynman was "becoming a real pain." In the end the commission produced a report, but Feynman's rebellious opinions were kept out of it. When he threatened to take his name out of the report altogether, they agreed to include his thoughts as  Appendix F - Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle.

I've bookmarked it.

Link via Slashdot.

Bad Name...

For a bicycle.

A Match for the Ages

They make a lovely couple.

Saying No to Submission

Celestial Junk:

A little known fact about Denmark is that during World Two, she stubbornly protected her Jewish population. Other occupied lands turned over their Jews and even assisted the Nazis, so much so, that Himmler commented about France that his own SS couldn't have done a better job. In the land of my ancestors, Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks in particular were ardent Jew-hunters.

But not the Danish; they continued their liberal human rights traditions even when faced with the full brutality of Adolf's Reich. Now, in 2008, it would seem that the tradition is continuing and the Danes provide a lonely voice in a sea of "progressive" milque-toast values. They understand full well the menace they (we) face.

What is so unique about their perspective and culture that they refuse to bow down to Islamists when so many Europeans are cowardly willing to appease for a mercurial peace?

In other words, why is it that the Danes have the steel whereas their pathetic neighbors do not?

The Price of Free Speech

For those in London:

Join a demonstration in defence of Egyptian blogger, Abdul Kareem Nabil, who was sentenced 1 year ago for 4 years for insulting Islam and the president.

Friday, 22nd of February, 2pm-4pm
Egyptian Embassy,
26 South Street,
Mayfair W1K 1DW

Whitewashing the Issue

Umar Lee:

It seems that our friends from Little Green Footballs, Gateway Pundit and Republican Riot, you know those good white patriotic Christians filled with the love of Jesus, are whipping up a controversy about the building of a minaret ( which is near completion) in South St. Louis at the Madina Masjid.The Madina Masjid, or Islamic Community Center is a predmonaitly Bosnian Masjid led by Imam Muhammad Hasic that was set up to serve the large Bosnian refugee population in St. Louis ( the largest in the nation).

Without providing any excerpts or quotes, Lee writes:

The call that these right-wing blogs is one of vigilante justice to take down the minaret and this would not be new in St. Louis and would not be new in America. Previous calls to white youth have been given out in the past and the response has come in the forms of lynchings and arsons and this is just the latest example that, despite what they may say, these people are the inheritors of the legacy of the Klan.

So, if a white person opposes the building of a hideous minaret with loudspeakers, then that fellow is a closet Klan member?

The funny thing is, as Lee acknowledges, that most of these Muslims are Bosnians; they're white! It's not their race that's the issue. They're being opposed for their Islamic supremacy and noise pollution. Yet, Lee still goes on to hammer the race square into the religious hole.

Meow!

This photo reminds me of Michelle Pfeiffer.

The War is Over

Sony finally wins in an epic format arena.

PC World: End of the High-Def Format War: Five Pros and Cons for the Consumer.

I'm hoping to see Blu-ray drives as reasonable options for the desktop by the summer of next year. Reasonable? Less than $100.

Pakistanis Vote

The Toronto Star:

Despite exchanges of gunfire, a polling station hit by a rocket from militants, and the death of at least eight activists from the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, millions turned out for what was being touted as the most important poll in Pakistan's history.

At the end:

An elderly, bearded man angrily addressed a Western reporter in the Raja Bazaar yesterday, decrying America's support for Musharraf. He was especially angered, he said, by events that had taken place in July at the Red Mosque in Islamabad.

Pakistani government forces led an attack on the mosque which, it said, had become a centre for Islamist militants and radical clerics.

"Your governments support that man (Musharraf), that butcher," the man said. "And hundreds were killed. Innocent children were killed."

Sharif has criticized the attack for the number of innocent people killed.

The man said Sharif "is his own man. He won't be dictated to by outside forces."

He'll follow the Islamists, instead.

Will the Thieves Provide the Phone?

I don't think so.

The Way the World Doesn't Work

An astrology astronomy researcher from Iraq shares his, um, findings.

That Stealthy Obama

Tariq Nelson:

A friend of mine that does not live in this area called me and told me about the grief he was receiving from some Palestinians in his area about supporting Obama. Apparently, they are saying that Obama is secretly in league with the Jews.

fairuza, a commenter, writes:

Our Muslim community is overwhelmingly Palestinian. My husband and I have heard the most unbelievable conspiracy theories over the years about the “Yahood”.

Yahood is Arabic for Jews.

Last year a woman told me that the Palestinian children were dying of poisoning because the “yahood” were selling clothing to the Palestinians with rat poison infused into the dye.

So that's why the Palestinian population has decreased over the years.

A Fine Image

Sad Angel.

Getting Rid of the Burden

It's taught in Muslim schools that before Islam came along the condition of women in Arab society was wretched. For example, many Arabs would be disgusted with the birth of a daughter; they would bury the infant rather than take care of her.

Today Arabs with such a mindset don't bury their daughters alive.

They abort them.

The Charming Islamist

Licia Corbella via IBA:

The founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC) asked for a meeting with the Herald's editorial board via an e-mail, arguing that Levant was "attempting to paint me as a hate-mongering, anti-Semitic, Wahabi radical who wants to see Canada governed under sharia law. Nothing could be further from the truth."

While preparing for the meeting, a quick search on Canwest's library system showed a Jan. 17, 2004, column written by the cleric.

In it, he wrote: "Sharia cannot be customized for specific countries. These universal, divine laws are for all people of all countries for all times."

Oops! That's the problem with saying one thing to the umma and another to the kufaar; sooner or later you will get caught.

His column is clear. He wanted to bring sharia to Canada and even helped found the organization that spearheaded the drive to do so.

But in our meeting, Soharwardy denied his own column. "I never asked to bring sharia in Canada," he now insists.

Of course. Now that more and more Canadians are becoming familiar with the barbarity and cruelty of Islamic laws, this pansy Islamist changes his tune.

Soharwardy is a charmer. He convinced me that I must have misread his columns. But relistening to the tape of our meeting and rereading his original texts, one thing is clear: he cannot be believed.

Corbella goes on to provide another vivid example of this two-faced character.

Respect the Sensibilities

Muhammad Tahir:

If anyone was under the misapprehension that the spawning of new sects to sew discord amongst Muslims was an old trick confined to the dustbin of colonial history, better think again.

The unholy West just won't quit!

This just in from Indonesia: western news outlets are reporting the arrest and trial of a certain Ahmad Moshaddeq who claims to be a prophet in the same manner as Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Asia-Pacific news quotes the number of his followers to be ~40,000.

One can guess the result.

Understandably, such proclamations of prophethood caused an outrage in Indonesia, whose population is over 90% Muslim.

Here's the undeniable "proof" of the connection between this modern prophet and the nefarious West:

If there was any doubt that most of these false prophets are nothing more than agent provacateurs one need only gauge the outcry in the western press over "religious intolerance" when local religious authorities try to clarify the issue of such proclamations taking one out of the fold of Islam. Furthermore, the local governments are usually taken to task for "treatment of religious minorities" if steps are made to calm the resultant public unrest by arresting such individuals.

It's amazing how nonchalantly and casually the author makes these two points:

1. A Muslim cannot leave his religion. Therefore, anyone who makes such an attempt or anyone who influences a Muslim in such a negative manner deserves to be arrested.
2. Muhammad is the last prophet. A person who says otherwise hurts the tender sensibilities of Muslims. Therefore, the hurt Muslims should be appeased; that person should be thrown in jail.

Remember, this totalitarian mindset is good. Those who oppose it -- liberal Westerners -- are the evil ones.

The other interesting thing about spontaneous deviant sects is that they invariably espouse "moderate" forms of Islam that are more palatable to the West: religion confined to a private and individualised "hobby" and the West is our friend (and sponsor...).

That's right. Islam should be publicly enforced and -- this can't be repeated often enough -- the West is the wicked enemy of Muslims.

Caturday Meal

Tastes just like chicken, I'm guessing.

HD DVD Death Watch

This is how it ends:

Super ginormous world-conquering retailer Wal-Mart is ditching flailing high-def home video format HD DVD in favor of rival Blu-ray.

Soon to be official:

Given recent marketplace advances made by rival Blu-ray in the format war, the word on the street is that Toshiba could be about to surrender and give up on HD DVD.

Good. A little history.

Mmm

Cotton candy, er, never mind.

Quasi-Closed

Anna persuaded her mom to vote.

Muslim Brotherhood Supports Mutilating Sisters

Cafe Alpha emails this link:

A reader has passed me a translation from BBC Monitoring, of a report published today on the Muslim Brotherhood website, IkhwanOnline.

It gives you a very clear insight into the mindset of this political party.

An excerpt:

The Religious Affairs Committee at the People's Assembly has discussed questions tabled by MB [Muslim Brotherhood] deputies al-Sayyid Askar and Ali Laban on the action taken by the Awqaf Ministry of printing and distributing booklets on the female circumcision. The two deputies made strong accusations to the Awqaf Ministry of squandering public funds by printing and distributing thousands of copies of a booklet that has already been printed twice under the provocative title of "female circumcision is not part of the Islamic rites."

The two deputies have also accused the Awqaf Ministry of violation of the constitution and law. MB Deputy Askar said that this title was in conflict with the consensus of the fiqh experts [Islamic jurisprudents] that female circumcision was one of Islam's rites.

Askar pointed out that suspect foreign bodies, some of which are Christian evangelical while the others were Jewish, were behind the financing of the campaign against female circumcision. There are also local people who have declared war against female circumcision in line with the foreign agenda on this issue.

Opposition to FGM = Christian + Jewish campaign against Islam.

This reminds me of the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan. Westerners would open up free clinics to offer vaccines for young children. Hundreds of parents would adamantly refuse the shots on the grounds that the whole process was a conspiracy by the West to make their offspring impotent.

The level of logic in these situations is quite similar.

Tactical Retreat of Darkness

National Post:

Calgary Muslim leader Syed Soharwardy says he is withdrawing his Alberta Human Rights Commission complaint against former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant.

Whipped!

"Over the two years that we have gone through the process, I understand that most Canadians see this as an issue of freedom of speech, that that principle is sacred and holy in our society," said Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

"I believe Canadian society is mature enough not to absorb the messages that the cartoons sent. Only a very small fraction of Canadian media decided to publish those cartoons."

Jacob Sullum (via Instapundit) writes:

By his account, then, Soharwardy had not heard of this whole freedom-of-speech thing until after he filed his complaint with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, and it took him two years to fully absorb how important it is to Canadians. During that time, he also took the measure of Canadians and judged them "mature enough" to look at cartoons depicting Muhammad without going on an anti-Muslim rampage. I think it may take a few more years for Soharwardy to get the concept at stake in his tiff with Levant.

Yeah, Saudi thugs don't tend to be perceptive.

High Definition Lawsuit

Wired:

A class action lawsuit filed earlier this week (.pdf) against Samsung claims the company has knowingly sold defective Blu-ray players to the public since June 2006.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Bob McGovern, says he purchased his BD-01200 Samsung Blu-ray player last summer and was subsequently unable to view "numerous Blu-ray disc titles," a fact he attributes to the player's "defective design and/or manufacture."

Lead attorneys in the case also note that there have since been a number of similar complaints levied against the company concerning the inoperability of certain Blu-ray disc titles. In some cases, Samsung has also verified that it does not intend to provide future firmware updates to correct these issues…and hence the lawsuit.

Seems reasonable.

Reagan Speaks

Henry "Conductor" Gomez:

Enjoy this video I put together last night.

Go watch it. None of the present candidates can hold a candle to that giant.

Rick The Rebel

Rick Lee:

I went to the art museum. They told me that no photography was allowed so naturally I had to sneak this one.

Good man. He took other photos as well; see this post.

Cloning Star Wars

It's so dang profitable:

The Clone Wars deal is part of a new partnership between Lucasfilm, Warner Bros. Pictures and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. Also announced as an important facet of this partnership was confirmation that The Clone Wars will first be seen by audiences as a theatrical film (reportedly collecting the first three episodes), which will be released by Warner Bros. in North American theaters on Friday, August 15th.

Hmm.

The announcement gives an overview of the series, saying "On the front lines of an intergalactic struggle between good and evil, fans young and old will join such favorite characters as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala, along with brand-new heroes like Anakin's padawan learner, Ahsoka.

It's releasing on the Independence Day of India and the padawan of Anakin has a name that closely resembles Ashoka -- the greatest Emperor of India. I'm likely reading too much into it.

A Grand Proposal at Harvard

Incredible news:

Publish or perish has long been the burden of every aspiring university professor. But the question the Harvard faculty will decide on Tuesday is whether to publish — on the Web, at least — free.

Faculty members are scheduled to vote on a measure that would permit Harvard to distribute their scholarship online, instead of signing exclusive agreements with scholarly journals that often have tiny readerships and high subscription costs.

Although the outcome of Tuesday’s vote would apply only to Harvard’s arts and sciences faculty, the impact, given the university’s prestige, could be significant for the open-access movement, which seeks to make scientific and scholarly research available to as many people as possible at no cost.

Knocking down barriers to information is always good.

Assaulting Incentives

Prof. Mankiw links to a depressing story regarding the poverty trap. And at the other end of the spectrum, he also discusses the deleterious effects of high tax rates. These are two excellent posts.

The Productive Islamic Republic

Iran "executes" the US and Israel.

Note:

1. The behavior is utterly vile. Imagine if any Western state showcased such scenes. The global media would crucify the offending nation for its hatred, racism and xenophobia.
2. It shows just how small and flaccid Iran really is. They can't compete with Israel, let alone the US, so they put up these surreal executions to make themselves feel better. If you can't beat 'em, then kill 'em (metaphorically, for now).

It's Elementary

The meaning of Occupied Territory.

Also, I like how the pipe floats.