Isaac Schrödinger

What is Illegal?

Tambi Dude emailed this link and asks, "Can you believe this?"

Nope. It's like something out of The Onion: Muslim is spared a speeding ban so he can drive between his two wives.

Islam In All Its Ugliness

Robert Spencer received a tremendous email:

I am writing to tell you about a small success story in the struggle against Sharia. I am a law student at the University of Cincinnati. Last Thursday our school hosted a Sharia apologist from Saudi Arabia, Dr. Abdulkareem Hamad A. Alsaiygh. He's Dean at the Center for Contemporary Islamic Studies and Dialogue among Civilizations, Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University.

Some hard questions were asked.

Among other things, our questions forced Dr. Alsaiygh to admit the following:

1. That apostasy is rightly punishable by death under Islamic law and the law of Saudi Arabia.

2. That there will never be a Christian church in Saudi Arabia.

3. That a Christian church is considered a national security risk to Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states.

4. That stoning is appropriate punishment for adultery.

There's more. Point #8 is the most comforting.

Heading into the event, the vast majority of students in the audience were sympathetic and welcoming to the speaker and his ideas. By the end of the event, they were all rightly horrified.

Unfiltered Islam tends to have that effect.

Al Qaeda Criticizes Hamas

The reasoning is truly bizarre.

I wonder if there were women and children on those planes on 9/11 ...

Riots in Egypt

Yahoo via the Sandmonkey:

Egyptians angry with the government about high prices set fire to shops and two schools in a Nile Delta textile town on Sunday after police thwarted plans for a general strike and countrywide protests.

Police fought battles through the streets of Mahalla el-Kubra with the protesters, led by textile workers who tried to go on strike for more pay to compensate for inflation.

The demonstrators set ablaze a primary school, a preparatory school and a travel agency, among other shops in the working-class town, and stopped an incoming train by putting blazing tires on the railway tracks, witnesses said.

US out of Egyp-, er, never mind.

Tiny Logos

Fun at McMaster:

Dr. LaPierre's group used a focus ion beam microscope (FIB) to shoot a beam of gallium ions at the surface of a human hair, carving atoms off the of the surface of the hair to etch these McMaster University logos. When not tattooing hair, they'll use the FIB microscope to fabricate nanoscale devices.

Damn!

Come to think of it, I like that. Tattooed hair. It's discreet.

Link via [H].

Aged Look

He looks like an old fellow.

Here Obedient to Their Laws We Lie.

Chicago Boyz:

Thermopylae and The Spartans can be profitably read by specialists yet also serve as an enjoyable introduction to the world of ancient Sparta to the general reader. Cartledge concisely explains the paradox of Sparta, at once the “most Greek” polis among the Greeks yet also, the most alien and distinct from the rest of the far-flung Greek world.

What Words Mean

Joseph Sobran via the Adam Smith Institute via Greg Mankiw:

"Need" now means wanting someone else's money. "Greed" means wanting to keep your own. "Compassion" is when a politician arranges the transfer.

Ain't socialism grand?

Barefoot and Naked

Daily Mail:

On a clear day, the view from the top will take in the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Ocean - providing you've a head for heights.

Plans for a mile-high tower in the Saudi Arabian desert have been unveiled by the billionaire owner of London's Savoy Hotel.

Austrolabe provides a prophecy from the time of Muhammad:

…Barefoot, naked, shepherds compete in building tall structures. [Sahih Muslim]

See, the building of such structures shows that the prophecy is coming true.

Two problems:

1. The people who want to construct these buildings aren't barefoot, naked, shepherds.
2. The building of "tall structures" has been going on for centuries. Given the wording, this prophecy has been coming true for all that time!

Anyway, some think that the project is a waste of money. A commenter says:

This tower is being built by a private company, Walid Ibn Talal has given money in the past to the Palestinians and to the poor in Lebanon, when Jenin was demolished by the Israelis he helped fund the rebuilding of the camp, this is why Mayor Juliani of NYC in 2001 refused his donation to help the victims of the attacks.

It's amusing how 1400-year-old garbage is treated with reverence but the true meaning of a recent event is perverted.

A Bit Too Much

Question asked.

I know it's not polite but, still, I'll answer with a question: Why should others have a say at all in how many pairs you buy?

I have two, by the way. One is four years old; the other eight.

Microsoft Getting Hard

Reuters via [H]:

Yahoo Inc has three weeks to accept Microsoft Corp's $31-a-share cash-and-stock offer or Microsoft may lower its bid and take its offer to Yahoo investors, Microsoft said on Saturday.

Steve Ballmer sent a letter to the Yahoo's board of directors. An excerpt:

"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors," Ballmer wrote.

No pressure.

Another Caturday

• There's something Avada Kedavra about them.
• I have to agree; that looks a lot like Garfield.
• What a pose! A catty cat.
• A different kind of feline.

Earth Hour Celebrated

This guy is so full of energy.

Link via Tim Blair.

Rights and Wrongs

Ezra Levant:

Yesterday I wrote about Michael Noonan and his intellectually incoherent Op-Ed in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. Noonan is the boss of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, who compares his battles to the liberation of South Africa from Apartheid.

So what has Nova Scotia's answer to Nelson Mandela been up to? What injustices has he and his team of freedom fighters been fighting?

What follows is not-so-riveting.

Soaring Beyond

A simple image can convey so much.

What Could Have Been

Commentary on the banning of Shoaib Akhtar:

He had the hostility of Walsh but he lacked his honesty towards the game, he had the guile of Akram but he lacked his grit, he had the curving swing of Younis but he lacked his commitment.

I still remember the truly massive hype surrounding his entry into international cricket in the late 90s. He had the opportunity to learn from the masters -- Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. He could have been the greatest bowler of his era. Instead, he'll be remembered as a disappointing, uncouth character who likely cheated.

Sharia in Pakistan

AKI:

A man and a woman have been stoned to death by militants in Pakistan's north-west border region after an Islamic 'qazi' court found them guilty of adultery.

What is a qazi court?

A qazi court is an Islamic court, parallel to the Pakistani judicial system.

Lovely. The Pakistani state can deny all involvement and point to their "moderate" judicial system even though a barbaric, non-state, system is allowed the power to murder those it finds guilty of sins.

Link via Dhimmi Watch.

Oxen Craig

This shot reminds me of Sergio Leone.

Please, Don't Disrespect.

A reader emailed this link a few days ago:

While the cabinet is losing sleep over MP Geert Wilders' unpublished Koran film, a second film is due out on 20 April. Ehsan Jami plans to launch a cartoon film featuring the Prophet Mohammed as a paedophile.

Jami, born in Iran, announced that his film, The Life of Mohammed, is due for release on 20 April. On TV programme Netwerk, the young politician (22) showed a screen-shot in which the Prophet, with a visible erection, takes a child to a mosque to have sex. On the mosque is a swastika.

That's terribly disrespectful to Nazis.

It's Overrated

"Who Needs Kleenex?" Not this dude.