Vox Popoli writes about an atrocious question regarding economics which was asked in the NYT. Oddly enough, the NYT got the answer incorrect.
There's a lot of confusion in the comments there as many people try to dissect the problem. Vox cuts to the heart of the matter with his comment on "11/30/10 6:59 AM".
German politicians are waking up to the dangers of Muslims and their evil religion. Though, their prescription -- training imams -- is still flawed. A better policy would be to stop inviting them in Deutschland.
Prof. Reynolds on the Healer of the PlanetTM:
Of course he’s not a Muslim. If he were a Muslim, he’d have to believe in something greater than Barack Obama.
Ouch.
Mongolia’s Homeless Living Underground In Sewers.
Life is harsh when one can only find warmth in the sewers underground tunnels.
Around 250 hard-line Muslims staged a demonstration in the central Pakistani city of Lahore on Wednesday, warning the president not to pardon a Christian woman sentenced to death for insulting Islam.
Population of Pakistan: 171 million.
Number of Pakistanis who're demonstrating for her release: 0.
The rally was organized by the Movement for Protection of the Prophet’s Honor, a group of hard-line Sunni Muslims that was formed in 2001 to oppose changes in the blasphemy law.
Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of five, has said she was falsely accused by a group of Muslim women angry at a dispute over whether they could share the same water bowl. She has been jailed in the eastern province of Punjab since her initial arrest 1 1/2 years ago.
Muslim consider non-muslims to be spiritually and physically filthy; coming in contact with fecal matter and a non-muslim is equivalent for a Muslim.
Adam Savage asks: WTF TSA!?
The Daily Mail via Vox Popoli:
A lottery winner has been left appalled after the wife who left him for another man ten years ago was able to grab £2million of his winnings.
Nigel Page, who won the £56million Euromillions jackpot earlier this year, is said to have been planning a generous gift to his former wife.
The Infamous PatriarchyTM strikes again!
Imran Latif, 22, was accused of burning pages of the Quran in a case registered at Sherakot police station in Lahore and spent five months in jail.
He was released on bail on November 3 after the man who filed the complaint of blasphemy told the court he was not sure that Latif was guilty.
Latif was shot dead a few days later.
Inspector Rafique Ahmed, who is investigating the murder, said Latif's killing was likely linked to the blasphemy case. "No Muslim tolerates a man who commits blasphemous acts," he said.
A mere accusation is enough.
Cornelius in the comments at Jihad Watch:
This is a recurring theme. Back in the 80s, a Pakistani air-force officer converted to Christianity and was imprisoned for the crime of apostasy. Bowing to international pressure, the local court acquitted him, but he was shot outside the courtroom just after his release.
Moral of the story? It's NOT corrupt governments that are the problem...as the apologists would have you believe. It is in fact the culture of Islam which instills into the Muslim individual (and the Muslim mob) some potentially very, very dangerous proclivities.
This is why it's practically impossible for a Pakistani government to strike down the blasphemy laws -- there would be an uproar if the state didn't murder people for the offense of insulting, or often merely disagreeing with, Islam.
In China, one can take a vacation for a week and come back to see a brand new 15-story hotel in front of the residence. Impressive but who knows just how strong its foundations really are.
Photobook 2010. Magnificent captures.
This is very disturbing.
An Iranian court has passed down a death sentence on a Christian pastor, who was found guilty of so-called “thought crimes.”
According to www.presenttruthmn.com, the official verdict has now been delivered in writing to Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, stating that he is to be hung for the crime of apostasy.
Islamic apologists in the U.S. routinely deny that Islamic law mandates that apostates from Islam be murdered. Unfortunately for the apostates, the facts are otherwise.
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and supreme example of conduct for the Muslim (cf. Qur'an 33:21), said: "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him." (Bukhari 9.84.57)
The Islamic model of perfection = behave like a thug.
Christie is identifying a parasite in New Jersey:
In this installment, he singles out a school administrator who went to some lengths to avoid the new $175,000 salary cap.
Hundreds of flags where earlier there was one.
Links via Instapundit.
Instapundit links to a portable hard drive sale -- $70 for 750 GB.
While that's certainly convenient, I'd go for this internal hard drive. It's advantage? $90 for 2 TB. Disadvantage? It's physically larger and will require an enclosure if you wish to have it as an external drive.
One of the first lenses I bought was a 50mm f1.4 -- a design that seems to have been perfected by the various manufacturers. It's affordable, lightweight and optically good.
This beast, however, has none of those precise qualities. It's expensive, heavy and optically spectacular.
Absurd logic from Melanie McDonagh:
Our generation sets a good deal of store by certain knowledge. And DNA tests have obvious advantages when it comes to identifying less happy elements of our heredity: congenital disease, for instance. But in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice.
Suckering former lovers? Not a problem. Mama wants a selection box. Depriving a child and its actual father of a chance to know each other is also apparently fine. Because uncertainty allows it. Feminism, so conceived, seems to entail the right to a little moral sleight of hand. But hey, choice!
Patrick Brown comments there:
I'm seeing this more and more. Feminists have been so indulged, got so used to not being challenged, and grown so unasssailably self-righteous that they're not even bothering to couch their demands in terms of "equality" or "oppression" any more. It's now just rampant, and open, entitlement. Women want, therefore they must have, and who cares who gets hurt.
My main hope is that, if they keep it up, everybody will come to see them for what they are, won't fall for any more of their guilt-trips, and realise their rhetoric about "patriarchy" and "objectification" and "chattel" and "control" was sheer projection all along.
The Bride and the Fro or The Fro Bride?
Or maybe it's just the beginning: One Fro To Rule Them All.
A cool play. The chest bump at 20 seconds is gold.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to print dollars to buy U.S. Treasuries – a measure that is designed to lower longer-term interest rates, but that might also weaken its currency – has heightened tension between leaders of the G20 countries as they prepare to begin their summit in Seoul on Thursday. Senior officials from Germany, Brazil and elsewhere have been critical of the Fed decision; some countries, fearing the new money will flood into their countries in search of higher returns, are actively trying to keep some of it out, to take the pressure off their currencies.
I doubt the American economy will perform better in 2011. The Americans have practically exhausted their monetary policy; it's fiscal policy that needs to be corrected. If the income tax cuts expire by the end of this year, then it's a certainty that the US economy will contract even more.
A Bengali in Toronto: Why I support the Facebook ban by Bangladesh (and Pakistan). He offers many reasons for his support:
A single website was banned. There are many ways to communicate to other people. So it's not that freedom of speech was curtailed. There are other social web networks.
This is a very amusing defense. Apparently, banning one of the most popular websites on the planet does not curtail freedom of speech. Precisely how many websites does the Bangladeshi government have to ban before the Toronto Bengali will admit that the Freedom of Speech Rubicon has been crossed is unclear.
Plus, wouldn't the government simply ban other websites or sources where information was provided about the Muhammad cartoons or similar situations? Here is a nation-state of over a 100 million people directly limiting speech within her domain and this guy is openly supporting the action while denying the whole point. Very smooth.
If you have the right to offend, then don't be surprised when people exercise their right to be offended.
Now, I'm offended by such atrocious drivel. Does that mean that the Canadian government would be right in banning his blog? Of course, it's only one blog; it's not like the Canadian government will be curtailing freedom of speech ...
Making fun of Muhammad is illegal in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
True. Though, that's an odd reason for supporting the ban: I support the ban because the government has banned it!
If Facebook was really about "freedom of speech", as they say they are, then it seems they are very selective in their "freedom of speech".
So? Facebook is a company. Bangladesh is a country. If you start a firm in which the entire premises are a No Funny Muhammad Business Zone, then no problem. Hey, it's your own company, your own rules. But to apply the same logic to a nation is asinine. Not only would it limit freedom of speech today but it'll provide cordite for further assaults on free speech in the future.
Of course, one has to first admit that free speech is being crushed to understand the repercussions in the future ...
Making fun of the Prophet is hate speech - to Muslims.
Prophet Muhammed, Noah and Jesus were at a religious convention discussing 'the spirititual way forward'. One evening, at the hotel during a break in the proceedings, they decided to go for a swim in the hotel pool. There was no water in the pool. The hotel manager explained 'it's a magic pool. Go to the diving board, wish for what you want in the pool and dive.' Noah goes to the diving board, bounces up and down, and says 'red wine'. The pool fills with red wine and he dives in. Jesus goes, bounces up and down and says 'white wine'. The pool fills with white wine and he dives in. Prophet Muhammed goes, bounces up and down and slips. He screams 'Oh! sh!t.'
Back to the Bengali:
The ban is a non violent protest against Facebook's actions. If companies suffer financially through such actions, in the future they would be mindful of Muslim sensititivies [?] if they want to do business with them.
Yes, Muslims do have such tender sensitive titties sensitivities.
How does one appease crazy people?
In a comment, the Bengali writes:
I actually think we should be FREE to commit blasphemy, after all it is God who will judge and let Him judge in the afterlife on this. In this world and today's society we should allow mockery of the Prophet, because I believe he is above this which SHOULD be borne out by the actions of the Muslims (unfortunately it isn't today).
The Bengali edition of John Kerry: I was for the ban before I was against it.
Peter Robinson interviews Daniel Hannan, a British conservative.
Smile! You're on candid camera!
What we do know from the history of Islam is that the religion certainly is terroristic and militant. A casual reading of its scriptures shows that it teaches things which would lead otherwise good men to do evil things and gives cover to evil men who want to be regarded as righteous. It's history is marked with constant war and expansion by the sword. Common sense tells us that these things are indictments of the belief system, and it's to the credit of many individual Muslims that they do not practice these things.
The vast majority of Muslims don't have the capacity to practice such things for one simple reason: They are poor. It's difficult for such Muslims to plan and carry out terror attacks. Their time is consumed in living from hand to mouth.
Though, their support for terror, Jihadists, and an Islamic superstate can't be denied. All one has to do is ask them.
Yesterday, I drove out of a car park in Kensington, London, to find the power-steering on my BMW had gone. The car wouldn’t move.
So very sad.
Next to me was a building site full of men in fluoro jackets standing doing nothing. They could see my distress when I began peering under the bonnet. I got back in the car, and on my mobile phone to call the BMW breakdown service to get the vehicle recovered. I was in tears. Still no one bothered to help.
Poor girl.
As Top Gear’s James May said this week, young men have lost their masculinity, in that they can no longer fix things. And this loss of manners is far worse.
Young working British men: you should be ashamed.
Vox Popoli has an eloquent reply:
I am confident that I speak for many, if not most of the men of my generation in my instinctive response to this woman's petulant demand that men be at her beck and call: F--- you and fix it yourself, Ms Strong Independent Woman. It's not my problem.
Ditto.
Victor Davis Hanson: The World of Obama — A Glossary.
The Blame Collection is excerpted below.
Boehner, John: Is to be blamed
Chamber of Commerce: Is really to be blamed
Fox News: Is really, really to be blamed
George W. Bush: Is really, really, really to be blamed
Limbaugh, Rush: Is really, really, really, really to be blamed
This one is gold.
corpsman: One who carries corpses
From Yes, We Can to No, He Didn't!
Yes, indeed, this photo is good.
Link via Instapundit.
A fascinating article about the Rolling Stones:
A lot of our astute moves have been basically keeping up with tax laws, where to go, where not to put it. Whether to sit on it or not. We left England because we'd be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out.
[Emphasis mine.]
It's amazing how governments keep on implementing such dumb policies to soak the rich ... and then are stunned when the rich pack up and leave.
Link via Greg Mankiw.