LFG: American Kids Learning Jihad in Pakistan.
Make sure to watch the trailer of the documentary -- it's chilling.
For me, there's an added element of sickness: I used to visit my relatives in Karachi, Pakistan when I was a kid.
National Post via Daimnation:
The following was posted yesterday at Fullcomment.com, the blog of the National Post editorial board. The Canadian Islamic Congress gets all the press. But the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) is making a strong case that it is every bit as radical and unhinged.
First came its recent sponsorship of an essay contest on "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," in which it urged high school students to channel the group's own fervid hatred of Israel for prizes. Now, the group is promoting Sept. 11 conspiracy theories by announcing a July 14 Toronto speaking event entitled "The 9/11 deception continues."
Of course. This easy conspiracy theory negates the need for arguments about the proper course of war since Muslims never! attacked the US on 9/11.
How can members of the Muslim and Arab communities permit this to happen?
Because most of them are in agreement with the asinine, anti-Western views of such groups. Just a guess.
OPFOR: Top 10 War Movies.
The second entry on the list is technically not a movie. Still, Band of Brothers deserves a viewing -- for the first few minutes of the second episode alone.
The debut of the Barracuda® 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive, the eleventh generation of Seagate’s flagship drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives – a half-terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB, thanks to the capacity-boosting power of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.
Also, Seagate offers a healthy five year warranty.
John Cleese was once on the Dennis Miller show. I remember that he talked about his experience with some super-rich people. He said that some of them are quite simply miserable because they can't seem to stop working.
It seems that this is a broader phenomenon:
Being rich used to get you into the leisure class. Money meant freedom -- from work, money worries, household chores and screaming kids (via boarding school).
Now, however, the wealthy seem to be as besieged as ever. The leisure class has given way to what I call the workaholic wealthy -- an elite of BlackBerry-crazed, network-obsessed, peripatetic travelers who have to keep scrambling to maintain their place in life.
Link via Greg Mankiw.
Thought Experiments:
Cashmore is 'professor' of Culture, Media and Sport, surely the Andrex of academic disciplines. You can listen to him on the website - it's the programme about celebrity - he appears at about twenty minutes. You may need a new laptop as these machines don't take kindly to being flung across the room. The gist of what Cashmore said was contained in his line 'Cultures are no better or worse than each other'.
Only with higher education can one become that stupid.
Link via Samizdata.
Here is her initial post.
I posted about that here.
Her reply to my post: Can't take the Paki out of the boy.
She starts off with this:
Isaac Schrodinger, another fellow Pakistani apostate who didn’t lose his sexism when he lost his Islam
Readers can view my writings and make their own judgments about the validity of that statement. Though, I did find her statement quite rich.
Why?
Recently, she posted these lovely remarks:
I tell you, I fucking HATE men. I’ve said it before on this blog - twice, if I recall - and I’ll say it again: I hate men.
I guess it's true: one can't take the sexism out of certain Pakistanis.
Getting back to her reply:
They don’t even pretend to think women are equals. Then they ascribe their sexism to factual reality. Then they turn around and declare Islam’s misogyny is a reason to leave it. It’s really lovely.
Of course. Leaving a religion where women are treated as slaves should mean that I ought to see phantom sexism in the choices made by women in the West -- choices that lead to gender imbalances in fields like psychology (more women) and physics (more men).
Hey, Isaac? Feel free to stop reading this “train wreck” at any point. I won’t miss you. After all, I never read your blog, because I find your wingnutty views ridiculously silly.
I am just not "Paki" enough for her.
Laughing at those who consider it unclean.
Men hold women in contempt.
I find some of them to be cute, actually.
That contempt shows when they pretend they’re better at math and the “hard” sciences because they manage to hound women out of those careers.
How exactly do men in the modern, Western world hound women out of a career in the hard sciences? The imbalance of women in fields such as engineering and physics today is the result of their own choice.
And since women earn more bachelor's degrees than men, there are fields where women outnumber men. Psychology, for instance. Does this imply that men are being chased out of that profession? I don't think so.
Furthermore, in a free society, these asymmetries will likely not get resolved. Men and women are different and as a group they choose divergent careers. It's silly to think that unless every field has a 50-50 split between the two genders, discrimination is at play.
When it comes to hard sciences and the glory and prestige that goes along with it, the gender ratio will favor men.
Hating men won't alter this reality.
Clayton Cramer: Various Aspects of Why I Hate To Fly.
It seems to get worse and worse.
The only flight I've ever missed was in December of 2001. I had called the airline exactly a week before to make sure that I didn't need any paperwork or some such nonsense to make my flight. I was told everything was in order.
They were wrong. I didn't have a visa for merely landing at a German airport and changing flights. This rule had been implemented around 11 days before my departure. Thus, I wasn't allowed on the plane.
Anyway, I always bring only a carry-on bag when I travel. In the summer of 2002, I was coming back from Saudi Arabia when at the airport the security gal asked me a few questions. Apparently I didn't convince her that I only had a single piece of luggage. So, she wrote something on my entry form.
At the exit, after having my entry form checked, I was directed into another queue where luggage was being inspected. I zipped open my handbag. The guard looked at me a bit surprised. "That's it!?"
"Yup, that's it."
"You can go."
Music to my ears. Haven't flown in over four years.
She is one resilient slut.
Security police officials in Tehran this month tortured a newly converted couple and threatened to put their 4-year-old daughter in an institution after arresting them for holding Bible studies and attending a house church.
Why are the Iranians so scared? If Islam is truly the best of all religions then surely Persians will be able to see through Christianity and not stray from Islam.
Authorities kept them in an unknown jail for four days, which left them badly bruised from beatings, said the source. Rad was released on bail of US$30,000 bail, and her husband was freed on payment of US$20,000. “The next time there may also be an apostasy charge, if you don’t stop with your Jesus,” a female security police officer told Rad during interrogation, according to the source.
Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.
Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
Link via Instapundit:
You can't make this stuff up. And, sadly, you don't have to.
And Powerful.
I hate it when that happens.
The largest Muslim nation on Earth embraces intolerance at the state level:
The Indonesian government has halted all religious activities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, handing a victory to Islamic extremists and tarnishing Indonesia's reputation as a moderate, pluralistic Muslim nation.
The decree, approved June 10 by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, falls short of an outright ban on Ahmadis, but orders them to stop practicing their faith and "return to mainstream Islam." Ahmadis now face arrest for practicing their beliefs.
Ahmadis have been openly discriminated against in Pakistan. For instance, one has to officially state that they don't prescribe to Ahmadi beliefs on passport and national ID applications. Otherwise, one gets marked for discrimination.
Now, in Indonesia it's open season on Ahmadis -- a tiny group numbering 200,000 in a nation with over 200 million people.
Muslim countries truly excel at thuggery.
Link via IBA.
The Scotsman via Dhimmi Watch:
A PAKISTANI family who sought asylum in Scotland because they received death threats over their religious beliefs are hoping that a last-minute appeal will stop their deportation tomorrow.
The head of the family lost his asylum case. As a result
his five-year-old daughter, Miriam, was taken from her P1 class at school, and his wife, Gull, and other two children, Abishir, two, and Nadab, three, were all put in confinement awaiting deportation on Tuesday.
300 was awful. I just had to say that. The film 300 was terrible. I couldn’t get through 30 minutes without pointing out the historical and cultural inaccuracies. I just couldn’t do it.
Poor soul.
Why are all the bad guys non Caucasian? So the all white, oops I mean, Spartan army is good but the multi-culti Persian army of Indians, Africans, Arabs and Persians is bad?
Yeah, it would have been certainly historical to have a multi-racial Spartan army.
This asinine critique always amuses me. Reverse the situation. Imagine a movie about the Germans losses in North Africa and a reviewer who complains that the movie made the white guys look bad and that the multi-culti army of Brits, South Africans, Indians and Australians were made to look good.
As though it would have been prudent or historically accurate to add a little color to the Wehrmacht. You know, just so that whites don't feel bad.
Weasal Zippers: Confirmed: Ahmadinejad's Wife is a Babe!.....
In the comments: She's pretty tall for a nine-year-old.
Ouch!
First link via Instapundit.
Reason #72359423 why Islamic teachings are idiotic.
It's a devil! Hey, Muhammad said so and he's never! wrong.
As my brother in Pakistan tells me, Pakistanis are talking about Pakistani Harvard student Samad Khurram, who declined to receive an award at Roots Academy from U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson in protest of US policies and actions, such as the bombing in Mohmand Agency.
This Pakistani student, who is living in one of the richest places in the world (in America) and attending the most prestigious university of them all (also in America), protests American foreign policy by refusing to accept an award from his Pakistani high school.
The fellow sure has principles.
I believe, however, that gestures such as these may vent some of the great frustration that the less powerful in the world feel toward US imperialistic policies. Such gestures enable them to hold their heads up high again for a bit, and, - well, - keep the peace a bit longer.
Peace has never been kept by dim, idealistic and gutless students.
A review of The Dark Knight:
It isn't an overstatement to call The Dark Knight the most sophisticated and ambitious work of its kind. Superior to all three Spider-Man installments and even its amazing predecessor in terms of conceptualization, writing, acting, and direction, Nolan's follow-up to Batman Begins is a dark, complex and disturbing film, not the least of which because it grafts its heroics onto the blueprint of actual reality rather than that of spandex-clad supermen. And while such a distinction may make little difference to those already eagerly anticipating the return of the caped crusader, suffice it to say that The Dark Knight qualifies as the first official comic book adaptation that truly succeeds in being a great artistic achievement in its own right.
That's just the first paragraph.
I'm planning to watch it on IMAX.