Isaac Schrödinger

A Model Useful Infidel

Noah Feldman via Infidels are Cool:

No legal system has ever had worse press. To many, the word “Shariah” conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed. By contrast, who today remembers that the much-loved English common law called for execution as punishment for hundreds of crimes, including theft of any object worth five shillings or more? How many know that until the 18th century, the laws of most European countries authorized torture as an official component of the criminal-justice system?

So? Who has actually said that Western law, in all space and time, has always been better than sharia?

The debate is between a fourteen-hundred-year-old, decrepit system of law vs. the humane laws of the West in the 21st century. That's the comparison that matters.

In the Muslim world, on the other hand, the reputation of Shariah has undergone an extraordinary revival in recent years. A century ago, forward-looking Muslims thought of Shariah as outdated, in need of reform or maybe abandonment. Today, 66 percent of Egyptians, 60 percent of Pakistanis and 54 percent of Jordanians say that Shariah should be the only source of legislation in their countries.

But remember, most Muslims are moderate!

What follows is a small taste of sharia:

1. Saudi Arabia punishes the mere possession of alcohol with death.

2. The Pakistani state punishes any criticism of Islam or Muhammad with life imprisonment or death. (That's why I became a refugee in Canada.)

3. Iran imposes the death penalty for homosexuals. See this post.

4. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, an Egyptian instructor, was denied full appointment as a professor because he was labeled an apostate. Consequently, his marriage with a Muslim woman was forcefully annulled. Several death threats followed. He is currently living in the Netherlands.

Given all this the last few sentences are stunning:

In Iran, the Islamists have discredited their faith among many ordinary people, and a similar process may be under way in Iraq. Still, with all its risks and dangers, the Islamists’ aspiration to renew old ideas of the rule of law while coming to terms with contemporary circumstances is bold and noble — and may represent a path to just and legitimate government in much of the Muslim world.

Wow. Just how much education did this person get to be this stupid?

The Bovine Identity

Much cow fun.

Link via Code Monkey Ramblings.

HDR Madness

Often people go overboard with high dynamic range but in this case I like all the photos, especially the one with the three marble columns near the end.

A Bit Confused

Hassan Radwan: Will the Real Islam Please Stand Up.

A Revealing Slip

Sepia Mutiny: Hussein Ibish Embarrasses Himself on The Colbert Report.

Deprave Brothers

From the past week at Dhimmi Watch:

1. ANSAmed via this post:

The Jordanian citizen who first killed his sister and her alleged lover with an automatic rifle and then surrendered to the police faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

2. Israel Today via this post:

A young Arab man from a small town in northern Israel was arrested on Tuesday after he shot and critically wounded his 19-year-old sister to "preserve family honor."

According to the 24-year-old attacker's own testimony, proudly given to police and rescue personnel that he himself called, he shot his sister twice in the head and then repeatedly kicked all parts of her body. Believing the girl to be dead, the young man went to report the deed to his family, which warmly congratulated him for preserving their honor in the context of Islamic law.

3. Haaretz via this post:

The Haifa District Court on Wednesday sentenced two brothers to life in prison for murdering their sister in what was termed an "honor killing."

How they did it.

The two brothers locked the doors of the vehicle and closed the windows to prevent their sister's escape. Then they proceeded to strangle her with their hands. The later removed the victim's body from the car, confirmed that she was in fact dead, taped her nose and mouth with duct tape and placed the body in a ditch nearby. They then covered her upper body with dirt.

One of the brothers had the gall to say:

"the penalty is a little severe for us; we received a very serious punishment. I ask you to take into consideration our situation ? my family is bereaved."

The world will be a better place when brothers like these are dead.

One War Hero

Gateway Pundit:

On this day in 1973, Lt. Commander John McCain was released from a North Vietnamese prison after spending five plus years as a prisoner of war.

A Chilling Line

IGN:

"I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger," Heath Ledger's Joker says during the dramatic bank robbery scene that kicks off the film.

Catastrophe

Doh!

This scenario also works: Cats are now illegal; bombing begins in 10 minutes.

Atom Inside

Computer World via Hardocp:

Taking advantage of dropping hardware prices, Intel expects to plug its newest Atom chips into desktops that will be available later this year from under $200.

Wow. A mainstream Core 2 Duo processor from Intel costs that much.

The Atom chips do not have the processing power required for more intense computing tasks like viewing high-definition DVDs, said Noury Al-Khaledy, general manager of Intel's Atom desktops, which the company called "Nettops." An Atom desktop could serve as a second machine in developed countries or a primary desktop in developing countries, he said.

Good for them. I, however, have my eye on Nehalem.

Holy Schnikes!

I had to excerpt this part:

How to Melt a Tank in Three Seconds Or Less

Read the rest.

Siberian Huskies!

• Zzzz.
• Say hello to dad.
• A lot more of the usual zzzz.
• They all have that mischievous look.

Blow-o-phobes

Gulf News via Secret Dubai Diary:

Two lovers are standing trial for having an illicit relationship and exchanging blows after the man broke wind while in bed.

The Dubai Public Prosecution charged the Asian man with having consensual sex with his compatriot female who was also charged with allowing him to sleep with her.

What a costly blow that was.

No One Has Seen It

Vox Popoli:

Does RK's book exist or not?

Even I don't know.

Biased View of Equality

Christina Hoff Sommers:

Math 55 is advertised in the Harvard catalog as “prob­ably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country.” It is leg­endary among high school math prodigies, who hear terrifying stories about it in their computer camps and at the Math Olympiads. Some go to Harvard just to have the opportunity to enroll in it. Its formal title is “Honors Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra,” but it is also known as “math boot camp” and “a cult.” The two-semester fresh­man course meets for three hours a week, but, as the catalog says, homework for the class takes between 24 and 60 hours a week.

Math 55 does not look like America. Each year as many as 50 students sign up, but at least half drop out within a few weeks. As one former student told The Crimson newspaper in 2006, “We had 51 students the first day, 31 students the second day, 24 for the next four days, 23 for two more weeks, and then 21 for the rest of the first semester.” Said another student, “I guess you can say it’s an episode of ‘Survivor’ with people voting themselves off.” The final class roster, according to The Crimson: “45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male.”

Whoa! Too tough or unexciting for females, I guess.

The essay goes on to describe how the US government is proposing a horrid solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Link via David Thompson.

John Connor, Get Ready

Judgment Day is coming this year:

Obama 'Frightens Me'. The Bible has warned us that 'A man will come from the East that will be charismatic in nature and have proposed solutions for all our problems and his rhetoric will attract many supporters!'

But Barack seems to be such a nice guy!? Hmm, I think he fooled us all!

Link via The Sandmonkey.

Endru or Urglish

That would be the hilarious child of English and Urdu.

I remember a BBC show from the early 90s in which a reporter did a small survey in my birth-city of Lahore. This guy went up to 100 men and asked them to write their names in English.

Only one had the ability to do so.

The fourth commenter provides another gem:

haha…reminds of an ad I once saw in the Masjid, brother selling a “sofa cums with love seat”…haha.

Isn't that haram?

The Weak Lobby

Muslim Matters:

Alhamdulillah, despite the attempts of the LOBBY and its right-wing allies to increase Islamophobia and to exclude Muslims from the political landscape, they were unable, yet again, to stop the tide of qualified, educated, and politically savvy Muslims into positions of authority in this country.

Yeah, thank goodness, those nefarious Jews are losing their tight grip on the political landscape of the United States.

Andre Carson describes himself as an “Orthodox, universal, secular Muslim”. Okay, I have no idea what that means. Further clarification: Carson attends a WD Muhammad Masjid. Many Muslims may find the “secular” part a bit unnerving because of the connotations associated with it, but hey, you are in a secular system, so if you want to be a congressman you cannot but be secular.

What a difference between worlds: The author finds the secular part to be unnerving! Apparently Islamist hellholes all across the globe are just peachy.

Also note that the author "understands" the political motive for the secular show. Hey, one can't replace the American Constitution with sharia with just two Muslim congressmen. This decades-long project requires patience.

Eye in the Sky

A great picture by Richard Mohler.

Through Time and Space

Althouse: Let's talk about the new McCain ad.

I thought it would be a tiny 30-second ad which usually, well, doesn't have enough time to convey much information.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Looking for "Islamophobia"

Why are some members of the MSM so scummy?

"Great Photoshop Contest"

It's truly good.

Under the Weather

The feeling started on Sunday evening. Yesterday night was horrific -- major headache and a nose that's a perfect leaky faucet. After 9 p.m. I couldn't focus on anything. This morning I felt better but now I have little energy.

I tried reading a book while lying on my bed and I don't even have the minimal concentration required for it. That's what I dislike the most about being sick; so much time is utterly wasted!

Hasta La Vista

The New York Times: They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know.

I thought last year that I might get Vista this summer but after reading so many horror stories I'll pass on the "upgrade".

Link via LFG.

Obsessed with Sex

Code Monkey Ramblings:

The guy is spot on about the hypocrisy that exists in the Muslim world about sex.

I blame the JOOOS. Anyway, here's the video.

Will a Mirage Materialize?

Ibn Warraq via Samizdata:

1. What is a Reformation? Defined from the UDHR 1948 perspective
Since there is no Pope or even, in principle, an organized clergy in Islam, how would we ever know if an Islamic Reformation had taken place? One person’s reformation will be another person’s decadence. My perspective will be from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which many Muslims still do not accept—indeed several Muslim countries got together in 1981 and issued their own Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, where individual freedoms are denied. Muslims were particularly horrified by Article 18 of the UN Declaration which guarantees the right for anyone to change her or his religion.

Islam is a psychological prison. That's why Muslims were horrified. If people were truly free to leave, then the hollow religion would quickly fall apart. That's also why any criticism of Islam, or its decrepit prophet, is met with harsh punishments.

The Slickest President

Tim Blair: Two Moods of Bill.

The Curse of Load Shedding

All Things Pakistan:

The photo to the right shows Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) staff fixing something on the electric pole in Saddar area of Karachi in one of their daily dare devil stunts. This photo appears in the Daily Jang of March 6, 2008.

Losing electricity, for hours at some times, is a fact of life in Pakistan. The worst experience in my life was, surprise!, in Karachi.

One notices the loss when there's a slight buzz sound and every electronic device -- fans, refrigerator, freezer, tv -- shuts off. This was during the summer of 1994, I think. The electricity went out around noon. We thought that it'd be back in a few minutes or hours as usual. Soon, the water taps went dry. Night arrived. We sweated in the dark as mosquitoes feasted on us. My parents started worrying about the food in the refrigerator. They also made sure the front door was double locked.

We wake up the next morning. Still no sign of electricity. My dad, somehow, contacted his brother who lived in a different part of the city. He still had electricity. My dad asked him to bring food and water because we needed to wash up and we had no way of preparing our uncooked food. He obliged.

During our uncomfortable supper the buzz returned. We were without it for over 24 hours. After that experience, we kept extra food prepared and my dad bought a few buckets which we kept filled with water.

One never knows just how bad the next time will be.

A Taste of Islamic Justice

Kamangir:

The boy is arrested for having long hair and is beaten by the Police. They then set his hair on fire, in order to humiliate him.

The idiots taped the whole, jovial scene.

Wafa Sultan Stands Tall

I linked to this post regarding the Holocaust yesterday. Now, I just finished watching a disgusting creature who considers that evil to be a fabrication.

Charles Johnson:

Here’s Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan in another amazing appearance on Al Jazeera, facing down a lunatic moderator and a lunatic Islamist with righteous anger.

This is what “speaking truth to power” really means.

Please note again, the sheer hatred and irrationality that is Al Jazeera’s stock in trade. The “moderator” is just as bad as—or worse than—the Islamist, denying the Holocaust over and over.

Go there and watch the video.

Good on Wafa Sultan for bringing up the undeniable history of Banu Quraiza -- a Jewish tribe whose men were massacred and their women and kids taken as slaves by Muhammad and his followers. That is the glorious period which the Islamists want to revive.

"Don't Talk Back to Darth Vader."

A condensed version of the Star Wars saga.

Where God Died

Notes from Here and There:

It's raining. It's windy. The sky is bright. Not enough to wash away the blood, and not enough to lift the eternal darkness that Wiesel speaks about. I was reading the book - Night - on the way to Oswiecim from Krakow. Some words come back to haunt me. "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." I take a breath in - and smell the burning flesh.

Link via DesiPundit.

What Is The Cause?

Lahore Metblogs:

Every effect has a cause behind it and for the horrific act of terrorism involving two suicide attacks at the Pakistan Navy War College on the Mall road yesterday must have an equally horrendous one behind it.

Well, yeah.

Poverty, illiteracy, unplanned families, brainwashing by extremists, deprivation from the basic necessities of life; all are too clear to surprise us if we don’t know the causes behind a young teenager’s motivation to blow himself up in protest, revenge or in the name of God!

Such "causes" exist in Africa as well. Yet, we don't see a flood of suicide bombings in that part of the world.

For Muslim Women?

Just asking.

It's Hot in the Desert

Muslimah Media Watch:

The caption for the shirt reads: “The desert has many hot things. Unfortunately, in Southwestern Asia it's mostly limited to roads, recently discharged firearms, and bombed out pre-fab metal buildings.”

I would add food to that as well. It makes one breathe fire!

The Poor Victims of the World

Abdul Sattar:

Anyone with a sense of justice can see that the apathetic Western reaction to these cartoons – full of hate and vitriolic sentiment targeted against the heritage, culture, and beliefs of over a fifth of humanity, is unjust – when compared to the resistance such cartoons would be met with if they were targeted at other groups.

Okay, let's compare another group thats "over a fifth of humanity". Let's say we put the figures of Christ and, some time later, Muhammad in piss.

Which will get close-to-zero coverage in the media? Which will get the violent response? No prizes for guessing correctly.

It's always amusing to see these Muslims who spend so much time, energy and emotion in denouncing the "unjust" cartoons from a newspaper. Yet, every day tens of millions of Muslims suffer under the enlightened system of sharia in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. They remain completely blind to the true unjustness that is the core of Islam.

On a related matter, Akram's Razor writes about Rushdie:

Also, this is neither here nor there, but one odd twist that  most people have forgotten is that before The Satanic Verses, Rushdie actually had a good record of defending immigrants and Muslims in the British media against xenophobia.  (See Ziaddin Sardar's  Distorted Imagination, which acknowledges this before it argues that that Rushdie, like V.S. Naipaul, is a postcolonial "brown sahib".)

But, of course. Heaven forbid, someone should absorb a bit of the dirty infidel thinking!

Obama: The Zionist Muslim?

Ummah Pulse:

The competition for the Democratic Party leadership reveals how the rhetorical claim of "civilisational" superiority based on values of liberty and equality have been eroded by the Neoconservative movement and replaced with a notion of the inferiority of the Muslim "other".

Two points:

1. Why can't Americans simultaneously hold the two beliefs that their civilization is better and that the Muslims have got zilch?
2. When did the Neoconservatives start influencing the Democrats?

The Obama camp has denied that Obama was ever a Muslim. To this, the author says:

There are no mainstream US voices that articulate or even recognize the inherent racism in the "Muslim smear", rather it has been accepted as a common sense norm.

It's racist to suggest that someone might follow a particular religion? I'm sorry but I don't see the inherent racism in this matter.

Almost a Cheetah

It just needs a bit more weight and speed.

Opening Credits of Star Wars

Like you've never seen them before.

Link via David Thompson.

I'd Rather Relax

I get most of it. I just don't understand the Look Busy part.

Do Not Pet That Cat

You could lose the arm.

"Gets Nasty, Get Down to Business."

I. Want. One.

Link via OPFOR.

There Be Wisdom Here

Post title of the month.

Here's the full story. An excerpt:

For the past twenty-five years, he has worked for an asphalt company in Queens, patching the potholes left by utility repair crews. He is often described as a foreman, which he once was, but he says that, partly because of an aversion to paperwork, he didn’t try to reclaim that job after it evaporated during a reduction in the workforce. (“I’m actually a laborer.”) On August 9, 2006, a Wednesday, he had, as usual, awakened at three-thirty in the morning for the drive to Queens, spent the day at work, and, after a stop to pick up some bargain peony plants, returned to what he calls his “dream house” or his “castle.” He retired early, so that he could do the same thing the next day. A couple of hours later, according to his testimony, he was awakened by Aaron, who, with a level of terror John White had never heard in his son’s voice, shouted, “Dad, these guys are coming here to kill me!” Instead, as it turned out, John White killed Daniel Cicciaro, Jr.

Poor Victims are Loaded

Jihad Watch: Palestinian refugee camp: Bombs and rocket-propelled grenades found in mosques and homes.

Obviously the Jews planted the evidence.

Jihad of Umar Fizzles

Umar Lee:

MashaAllah this blog is done. Hopefully some have been able to benefit from it as I have from you but I need to move on and I don’t feel like writing right now.

Aww.

Hopefully he'll continue to perform at events.

Party Last Night

It wasn't that big.

What is this ILU?

A little ILU in my birth city.

My Heart Bleeds

Suhaib Webb: Film: “The Wall of Hate”.

The brief film describes the wall built by Israel. It's a marvel of deception. A ficticious context is provided by showing Palestinians as the victims. It's as though the Israelis were bored and simply decided to attack and take land away like a bully. The multiple wars against Israel, the rabid Jew-hatred and the scores of suicide bombings over the years get zero mention.

The sad reality is that Israel has been too soft on the Palestinians.

Einstein of India

Cricinfo:

There have been some memorable names in cricket - perhaps none more so than Hogsflesh - but there's one at the Under-19 World Cup that runs it close. Napoleon Einstein, an offspinner from Tamil Nadu, is part of the Indian squad.

I concede that my pseudonym is no match.

Gushing Women

Charlotte Allen:

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial.

Umm ... no comment.