The Trilogy Meter. I would have put Kal-El's debut a lot higher.
The main reason the Lord of the Rings works is because it was shot all at once. Of course, Tolkien's writing doesn't hurt either.
Link via David Thompson.
Where can I get one? Or two?
Bridges TV pretended to be based on what critic Zuhdi Jasser calls the "public marital partnership" of the station's first couple; Muzzammil ("Mo") Hassan proudly related how his wife Aasiya Z. Hassan spurred him to create Bridges TV.
The private life was a bit different:
In fact, reports Aasiya's divorce attorney, the couple had "physical confrontations off and on" during their entire eight-year marriage and these recently escalated to Muzzammil issuing death threats. Salma Zubair, who says she is Aasiya's sister, writes that Aasiya "lived her 8 years of married life with fear."
Later, he killed her.
A reliable source informs me – and this is breaking news – that the police found Muzzammil repeatedly told his wife that she had no right, under Islamic law, to divorce him. They also quote him stating that Aasiya, because beheaded, cannot reach paradise.
Muzzammil's defense lawyer says his client will plead not guilty, presumably by reason of insanity.
See it to believe it.
I didn't watch the Oscars but I wanted to know if a certain fellow won an award or not.
That would be A. R. Rahman -- the best Indian music composer of the modern age. In less than 20 years, he has already sold over 300 million albums.
If my music was restricted to one artist, it would be him.
The case for a huge stimulus -- which I support -- is to prevent a devastating downward economic spiral. Spending is tumbling worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. economy contracted at a nearly 4 percent annual rate. In Japan, the economy fell at a nearly 13 percent rate; in Europe, the rate was about 6 percent. These are gruesome declines. If the economic outlook is as bleak as Obama says, there's no reason to dilute the upfront power of the stimulus. But that's what he's done.
That's a big reason to support across the board income rate cuts. That way it's difficult for politicians to pick who gets the money and the policy actually does stimulate the economy. JFK's and Reagan's tax cuts are excellent examples. Going the inept FDR route will only lead to more misery.
I am frequently disappointed with the male version of the Muslim apostate - yes, they reject the untruth of Islam, but they are often extremely sexist.
For the sake of argument, let's say the above is true. This means that the Apostate is disappointed in others for the lovely trait she wholly owns. For her, sexism is horrible unless it's directed against men.
I have found one Pakistani man who, when he liberated himself from a false religion, also embraced feminism.
So silly as the last excerpt will show.
Notes of a Freethinker is a blog worthy of your perusal.
I found a most interesting post there from last month:
Femininity, along with masculinity, is a social construction, both of which, to the jaundiced eye of a feminist, cannot be justified by appealing to the essential natures of women and men, on account of there being no such magical essential natures. "One is not born", in the famous words of Simone de Beauvoir, "but rather becomes, a woman".
There is no magical female/male polarity, no magical in-born trait that makes you a woman or a man.
This makes a lot of sense; though, not in the way the author intended. Feminists will forever be bitter. They will always complain and hurl the word "sexist" if you dare disagree with them. They're similar to communists -- they both ignore human nature. For them, "the oppression" will never end. The differences among the genders that they see, most people correctly attribute to innate differences. The feminists, however, see a mythical patriarchy.
I encourage readers to comment.
I'm reminded of Demi Moore. I don't know why ...
Don't mess with him.
The Apostate has a dream:
I had a dream that helped me - after years of befuddlement - suddenly understand the allure of parenthood.
The first time I read that I laughed. Now after excerpting it, I see how truly sad that is.
I started wondering about the baby, thinking of it as a person, wondering what it would be like. Aborting it seemed like ending the possibility of a wonderful person.
Wow. The Apostate has a heart!
... Or maybe not:
Shockingly, infanticide doesn’t horrify me. Babies are less recognizably human than cats.
There are no words.
A RATHER EXPANSIVE DEFINITION OF “HATE SPEECH,” from UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center. Well, really it’s pretty much the same old definition: “Speech I don’t like.”
The First Amendment is a gem.
A commenter at The Volokh Conspiracy writes:
"Hate speech" is any time you're winning an argument with a liberal.
Or you get called all sorts of -isms.
I don't agree with Hari on many issues, and I don't share his antipathy toward religion - but I have a much bigger problem with anyone who tells me his religious beliefs should be exempt from criticism. Especially when the punishment for "insulting" his faith is torture and death.
What I wrote in 2006:
It is vitally important that the West not put Islam or any other religion off-limits to critical analysis. For only in the West can a person safely write that the obliteration of a Jewish tribe, the taking of sex-slaves, and the confiscation of non-Muslim property is something not to be celebrated and emulated.
Cafe Alpha provides this link in the comments here:
From The Guardian comes the depressing news that the cancer of Sharia Law has infected the body of Pakistan.
Significant chunks of sharia have infected Pakistan for a long time.
Now, it's going hardcore:
Singer Sardar Yousafzai and his band were driving from a wedding gig when the gunmen burst onto the road, firing without warning.
Yousafzai survived, but a harmonium player died and four others were wounded. He is now in hiding — the latest of many entertainers whose lives and livelihoods face an escalating threat from Taliban-led militants in northwest Pakistan.
That's right: Allah doesn't like music.
As Taliban militants gain a stronger hold in this region of Pakistan, they are imposing their view that music, singing and other such arts are un-Islamic. Several entertainers have been kidnapped or killed, while many others have fled, quit or watched their work opportunities dwindle.
More:
There are also signs the cultural assault is spreading. In the eastern city of Lahore, for instance, a handful of small bombs have detonated near theaters and a cultural complex in recent months, spurring fears of a "Talibanization" of a cultural center.
I was born in Lahore -- a city bustling with music, movies, theater and gloriously cheap arcade games. The Taliban couldn't have picked a more target-rich environment.
Pakistanis supported the Taliban when they came into power; now, it's time to savor the bitter, lethal fruits.
I accidentally happened upon this anti-feminist catastrophe of an article: Why Men Cheat.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
"For over 20 years, [I've been] living along with women, counseling, seeing the devastation and how overwhelming it is when they are cheated on and what it subsequently does to the children and the family," he says. "You want to help children of divorce? I said, 'Well, let's get really down and dirty and find out what we can do to save marriages and make them better.'"
What precisely is anti-feminist about that? The Apostate explains:
I mean! The title alone! As if only men cheat! Implicit in that is the suggestion that men are horny amoral sex fiends and women - into whom God forgot to inject a sex drive - just want to have a nice peaceful stable family, in which process, they forget to put out, driving oppressed under-appreciated husbands into the arms of harlots. Gah. I know this is what our culture would like us to believe, just to subjugate women a little bit more, but it’s belied by the statistics of marital infidelity.
The Apostate doesn't link to such statistics.
The article itself - oh LORD. My head exploded. I was going to do a line by line, and then realized it would be EVERY line. Almost the worst aspect of it is, the way men are fucking infantilized.
What a charming rebuttal: The article is bad because OH MY GOD! it's sooo bad.
Perhaps, some of my readers could comment on the article and enlighten me on how exactly it is sooo bad and sooo anti-feminist. Preferably without exploding heads.
How to get a desi mom to stop bugging you about marriage.
Mezba poses a simple and important question in the title. He describes the symptoms truthfully but somehow doesn't quite answer the question:
In Canada we live respectfully with the Jews and while we disagree on many things, we treat them as our friends and neighbors.
In Bangladesh Jews are the cause of all problems and the reason why there is so much war all around the world and after all, everything is Israel's fault and part of a conspiracy.
More:
In Canada molesting a women is against the law.
In some Muslim lands molesting a women IS the law.In Canada we treat work as noble. A labourer at a construction site (work that the Prophet did) is as much a person as a doctor.
In Bangladesh, "they" are second class citizens and not even worth a mention.
Isn't it interesting that lands across the world where Muslims have majorities -- and thus have large portions of sharia incorporated in law -- the conditions for humanity are utterly filthy? People, who get the golden chance, quickly leave these places, yet too many don't answer the question, "Why is it that my birth country is a mini-hell on earth but these "infidel-infested" lands are better in every measurable way?"
The answer, of course, is Islam. Subtract that from the culture and especially from the political sphere and then these halaal countries just might progress from the 7th century.
Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the Ayatollah's fatwa against Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses. Two decades on, who needs the mullahs? These days western nations are happy to fatwa their own. It's now a familiar pattern.
If you threaten violence, the authorities cave in, and do the mob's bidding in the interests of "public order" — as they did in Toronto on Wednesday, when thugs attacked a Jewish center.
Here's what happened:
On the campus of York University, a Muslim mob attacked the Hillel House, pounding on the door and yelling antisemitic slogans. Unbelievably, according to this account in YNet, the police demanded that the center itself close down -- punishing the innocent and achieving the goal of the mob.
Thuggery pays.
The first photo here made me laugh.
That's when one gets the best light.
We do a ton of harm in the world, and we don’t - and never have - taken care of our poor and disadvantaged, our minorities and oppressed classes.
This is an odd statement for many reasons:
More drivel:
This is a great country with a ton of potential; and we need to make it over so that it becomes a great country for everyone. And we need to do it without fucking over the rest of the world, something we have not managed thus far.
Excellent plan.
The system needs to fail - completely - so we can get something in place that faintly resembles government of the people for the people’s welfare.
Yes, because only when the system fails, there will occur something fantastic and magical and then everyone will have a pony.
A simple changing of the government or an amendment won't do.
I wonder how many books one has to read to be this stupid. At no point, are the problems specified nor are the solutions. But, of course, the system must fail! For the people!
An Ottawa radio host asked:
Is there something inherent in the Muslim faith that promotes violence and oppression of women?
Of course, a broadcast watchdog group flips out over this:
The host has mounted a sweeping, abusive and unduly discriminatory criticism of Islam.
Oh no!
“Green did not merely disagree with opposing points of view,” it said. “He mocked, ridiculed and insulted their interlocutors.”
Allah wept.
He is merely recharging his killing power by way of his silicon solar cell array.
Bonus: Voldemort's kitty.
The community organizer has had a miserable start.
Feminism is so muddled:
The theory that women have a natural urge to have babies is one that’s got a long and ignoble sexist history, and it was used to explain away women’s sexual urges without men admitting that women and men’s sexual urges are more alike than different. I see no reason to think recent incarnations and warning stories about the mythological “biological clock” should be treated as anything other than an effort to Other women, to spring men of responsibility for caring equally for children, and to justify denying women equal access to education and employment under the theory that they’re a bundle of hormones that aren’t subject to the same rational thought that men have.
Since when did the urge to have babies become ... irrational?
Link via David Thompson.
Ouch!
Beware the bubble of doom.
Jonah Goldberg via Tim Blair:
I'm sorry, but this is borderline grotesque, and there's not a liberal in the country who would disagree if this was a Republican.
Another silly thing that silly people will do.