Religion sucks 6

Qaeda puts bounties on heads of Swedes in cartoon row


The self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq placed a bounty of at least 100,000 dollars on the head of the cartoonist Lars Vilks and 50,000 dollars on Ulf Johansson, editor in chief of the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper which published the caricature.

"We call for the liquidation of the cartoonist Lars who offended our prophet," said the statement issued in the name of the group's leader, Sheikh Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.


Hey, WhoseyurBaghdaddy---Your Prophet is dead, so how do you offend a dead man?

You need to bring your dumb, misogynistic ass into the 21st century and develop a fucking sense of humor. How you going to call your terrorist buddies without a cell phone? How many types of cell phones came out of Middle Eastern Muslim companies, eh, you stupid fuck?

I swear I don't know why Sweden puts up with these mentally and socially retarded criminals.

Americans don't support this war
See WhoseyurBaghdaddy? We don't want to be in your backasswards country anyway. Where'd you get the reward money? The fucking Saudis?




In his latest video message, Osama bin Laden coaxed Americans to accept Islam, in which, he also offered them heavy tax incentive.
... He said, "There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent" [ABC New Blog]. This huge tax-cut might be very tempting for the well-off and big corporations in America . However, he is not telling us whole truth about the taxation system of ideal Islamic states, such as was in the now-defunct Islamic caliphate, which Osama wants to reinstate on the global scale.

A true Islamic state will have two kinds of citizens: the believers (Muslims) and the dhimmis. Dhimmis, according to Islam, constitute of four kinds of monotheists that existed in Arabia at time of Muhammad ― namely the Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians (Magians) and the Sabians. The idolaters (also heathens, atheists etc.) must accept Islam or be killed as commanded in the Quran: "kill the idolaters, wherever ye find them" [Quran 9:5]. But the Umayyad caliphs (661–750 CE) allowed the idolaters to live under the category of dhimmis in violation of the Quran. Umayyads were rightly condemned as "Godless" by the pious orthodox and the wider Muslim community for their numerous actions that violated the Quran or defied Allah....

read all of it---

Osama's Tax Incentives to Americans --- Not Telling the Whole Truth

As a woman, I have my own reasons for telling anyone who tries to sell me Islam to shut the fuck up and leave me alone. Islam fills me with contempt. I have been treated with contempt in my place of work by Muslim men. In an Islamic country I would have been killed for living my life they way I lived it, and I have worked really hard to stay on the right side of the law. I have no use whatsoever for Islam. Islam in practice benefits men, and encourages inequality and second class citizenship for women.

Integrating Islam

Crapola.

I can't open the link to what's on NPR right now. It's called Integrating Islam and has been covering Islam in Europe and the United States. It's fascinating to me. Yesterday I spent some time reading a blog called Islam in Europe.

Muslims got baited, and they bit, but who's bait did they bite?

Muslim rage, spontaneous or political calculation?
By Anne-Beatrice Clasmann and Thomas Borchert
Feb 6, 2006,17:29 GMT
...Meanwhile, imams resident in Denmark were travelling around
Arab countries with the cartoons, showing them as well as other
unflattering caricatures of the Prophet circulating in Denmark that the newspaper had not published.... (in full
Copenhagen/Cairo - It took four months before Muslims around the world began protesting against 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

These were four months in which Islamic preachers and diplomats spread the word from Copenhagen to the villages of Upper Egypt and Afghanistan that ‘the Prophet has been insulted.’

Some observers in Denmark see ‘agitation’ by Danish imams travelling in the Middle East as the spark that caused the conflagration of religious passions.

In the Arab world, there are those who suspect the increasingly violent demonstrations are the product of cynical political calculation by Arab regimes using anger for their own purposes.

The conflict is playing into the hands of Islamist groups. In some Islamic countries, a contest of sorts has broken out between the government and opposition to see which side is doing more ‘to defend the Prophet.’

When the cartoons were first published on September 30 in the Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s biggest paper and sharply critical of Islam, it initially looked like just another skirmish in Denmark’s heated debate over immigration and the proper attitude towards Islam.

It took nearly three weeks before the ambassadors of 11 Islamic countries demanded that the Danish government intervene and asked to speak with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Rasmussen, citing press freedom, coolly refused, which critics now say was a big mistake in crisis management. Among those critics are 22 former Danish ambassadors who spoke out in December. They also faulted what they said was Denmark’s overly harsh tone towards Islamic immigrants.

Meanwhile, imams resident in Denmark were travelling around Arab countries with the cartoons, showing them as well as other unflattering caricatures of the Prophet circulating in Denmark that the newspaper had not published.

Many Danes believe this is what set off the huge wave of protests. Danish government sources said the imams reponsible may be deported.

The imams themselves say indignation spread in January during the hajj in Mecca. The ‘tsunami of protest’ then swept over Denmark at the end of January, when Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen and devout Saudis called for a boycott of Danish products.

Many Muslims have followed the call. In Cairo, the largest city in the Arab world, signs have gone up in supermarkets saying, ‘We don’t sell any Danish products.’

In the English-language Saudi newspaper Arab News, there was even a call on Monday for a total, long-term boycott of Western goods aimed at forcing Western countries to ‘apologize for having insulted our beloved Prophet.’ )


Deadly stampedes of the past 2 decades
The Philippine Star
02/06/2006
The following is a list of deadly stampedes of the past two decades, after 74 people were killed and more than 400 injured in a crush at the Philsports Arena (formerly Ultra) in Pasig City last Saturday:
March 12, 1988: Kathmandu. More than 100 people were killed and 300 injured in a stampede during a football match in Nepal’s National Stadium. The tragedy occurred when spectators rushed to find shelter from a powerful hailstorm, but found the doors locked.
April 15, 1989: Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, England. A total of 96 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death and around 300 injured during the semi-final of the FA Cup between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Police had opened the doors at one entrance to allow around 2,000 people without tickets to enter the stadium, crushing others in the stands.
July 2, 1990: Saudi Arabia. A huge crush in a tunnel outside Mecca which leads to the holy sites of Mount Arafat killed 1,426 pilgrims, mostly Asians, of asphyxiation. The authorities said the tunnel’s ventilation system broke down.
May 24, 1994: Mina, Saudi Arabia. 270 pilgrims were killed as crowds surged forward during the "Stoning of Satan" ritual in Mina, the desert plain outside Mecca. Authorities blamed the record numbers of pilgrims attending the hajj.
Aug. 13, 1994: Brazzaville. At least 150 people, mostly children, were trampled to death or suffocated in a stampede following an evangelical session in a church.
Oct. 16, 1996: Mateo Flores Stadium, Guatemala. Ninety people were killed and 150 injured in a crush of spectators during a World Cup qualification match between Guatemala and Costa Rica. The stadium was built to accommodate 45,000 people, but held around 60,000.
Apr. 9, 1998: Mina, Saudi Arabia. At least 118 pilgrims died and more than 180 were injured during the Stoning of Satan ritual in Mina. The pilgrims, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia, died when the parapet of a bridge gave way.
May 9, 2001: Accra. 126 people were killed in a stampede following a football match.
Feb. 1, 2004: Mina, Saudi Arabia. 251 pilgrims died during the Hajj pilgrimage.
Jan. 25, 2005: Satara, India. 257 people were killed in a stampede during a Hindu pilgrimage in Satara district, south of Bombay.
August 31, 2005: Iraq. More than 1,000 pilgrims were trampled to death or drowned after panic broke out on a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad, sparked by a rumor that two suicide bombers were among them.
Jan. 12, 2006: Mina, Saudi Arabia. At least 364 people were killed in a stampede during the annual Hajj ilgrimage.

Faith - Creating a safer hajj
Mecca pilgrimage has often led to trampling deaths

Survivors speak of horrific events leading to Egyptian ferry sinking
Date : 2006-02-06
By Chris Marsden – World Socialist Web Sites
The accounts of survivors of the sinking of the Egyptian ferry Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 in the Red Sea paint a terrible picture of criminal negligence by captain and crew as well as the ship’s owners.

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2006-02/06/article05.shtml (no mention of negligence, or shoddy business practices, or lousy enforcement of safety laws)

Up to 1,100 feared dead as Egyptian ferry sinks in minutes
By David Hardaker, in Cairo
Published: 04 February 2006

...A company spokesman said that the Al-Salaam '98 was certified until 2010 and that it had complied with maintenance regulations. He said that the ship was registered in Panama. While overcrowding is commonplace on vessels such as the Al-Salaam '95, Mr Mansour insisted that the Al-Salaam '98 was within its permitted limit of 1,400 passengers....Egyptian authorities declined an American offer to divert a US P3-Orion aircraft to the area. But, as investigations commence, there are questions being raised about why it took rescue authorities almost 10 hours to respond.

Sacred Rage by Robin Wright

I'm almost done with the original 1986 version. Click on the book for an article the author co-wrote in 1997. I hope Hillary Clinton has read it.

What I find so distressing is that the reasons for the pull to embrace Islamic fundamentalist militancy have not been ameliorated. The grinding poverty and low literacy rates, the high unemployment,the westernized leadership's disparity of wealth in majority Islamic countries are still there. The push for independence from the globalized world-wide economy is something that leaders in majority Muslim countries must deal with.

So the cheapest short-term strategies for the US and Saudi Arabia have not worked is what I'm trying to say. It didn't work in Iran in 1953, either, and guess what? It still ain't working.

And if you read any of the links so far, this is not some right-wing hate spew blaming the religion of Islam. Yeah, I personally believe that some of the problems lie in the way that fundamentalist whack-jobs interpret the Q'uran and the same goes for the Torah and the Bible. (See my religion sucks posts, they're some of my most popular.) Western countries histories of colonization are coming home to roost.

A great lady used to tell me "Nothing changes if nothing changes." Well duh.

Hassan al-Turabi in Sudan, is covered in the book.

Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz is in the book.

And 30 years later here: "Though Bin Baz is now dead, his fanatical fatwas continue to be treated as authoritative by the Saudi government." (literally, here in San Diego mosques)

The Saudi hate spew disseminated in the US and UK has only been adressed in Saudi Arabia in the last month.

A woman appointed to the head of girls education, and some variety in your Sunni Islam indoctrination. Guess they exported enough hatred of non-Wahhabis that the birds came home to roost. They have, however had years to spread the Wahhabi love all over the world.

The Egyptian blind sheikh has been fomenting Islamic fundamentalist hatred since the 70's. He's in jail in S. Carolina after being convicted in the 1993 WTC bombing. He's in the book. So is Hosni Mubarak.

Jew hatred looks like it's still alive and well in Iran today as Kerry visits Gaza. That's a pretty good indication to me that support for (terrorists or) the oppressed Shia's is still strong in Iran. I don't see it written that leaders in the Muslim world use the suffering of the Palestinians to divert attention from their own failures, but I've wondered about it. It's a theory of mine.

We in America voted for hope and change. People are people. My guess is that people in the majority Muslim nations would too, if given the opportunity. How about we quit bombing the shit out of them, And listen to their greivances .

I didn't say self- flagellate, I said listen.

Reading now

(click on book for summary)


While Europe Slept.
How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
by Bruce Bawer.

My favorite blurb on the back cover:

"Bawer punctures the moral pretensions of our 'betters' in the Old World. Their supine acceptance of the Muslim oppression of women, their flatulent anti-Americanism, their renewed anti-Semitism--all are fully documented. There is something memorable on every page. Bawer writes with intelligence an passion. A fascinating analysis of Europe's death spiral."
---Mona Charen -- Syndicated columnist and author of Useful Idiots.

So, yeah, Mona looks like a rabid right winger, but sometimes those idiots are useful.

Since I had some brainwashed girl try to sell me Islam in a speech class (not in a class assignment please, fer Christsakes) maybe I'll read the book and make my own decision, eh?

Note, there is an area of San Diego not so pleasantly known as "Little Mogadishu."

Religion sucks no matter what brand it is.

Pope offends Muslim leaders
Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:20 AM BST





This cracks me up. Why? Because on closer examination of the article it's the radical Muslim leaders that are offended at something the pope quoted that someone else said 600 years ago. And since when aren't the Muslim Brotherhood getting their noses out of joint at something some Westerner said?


Pope fails to allay anger of Muslims
Tensions escalate despite apology
By FRANCES D'EMILIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
9/18/2006

Click to view larger picture
Associated PressSister Leonella, shown in a family snapshot, was killed Sunday in Somalia.
VATICAN CITY - Anger and violence over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on Islam continued unabated Sunday, even as the pontiff said personally he was "deeply sorry" that some Muslims had been offended.
Two churches were set on fire in the West Bank..., raising to at least seven the number of church attacks in Palestinian areas over the weekend blamed on outrage sparked by the speech.
Concern also arose that the furor was behind the shooting death of an Italian missionary nun at the hospital where she worked for years in the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia.
Pistol-wielding attackers shot Sister Leonella, 65, four times in the back as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital. Her bodyguard was also slain....

Ok, soooooooo... the Pope pissed off a bunch of Muslims by quoting something from the fourteenth century that said that Islam has a few problems with violence.

You know? I have less and less use for organized religion every day. It is an irritant to me.

Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl

Page last updated at 11:03 GMT, Monday, 19 January 2009
Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl
Private schools in Pakistan's troubled north-western Swat district have been ordered to close in a Taleban edict banning girls' education. Militants seeking to impose their austere interpretation of Sharia law have destroyed about 150 schools in the past year. Five more were blown up despite a government pledge to safeguard education, it was reported on Monday. Here a seventh grade schoolgirl from Swat chronicles how the ban has affected her and her classmates. The diary first appeared on BBC Urdu online.

THURSDAY JANUARY 15: NIGHT FILLED WITH ARTILLERY FIRE (click on title link)

"...A Taleban edict banning girls education. Militants seeking to impose their austere interpretation of Sharia law have destroyed 150 schools in the past year..."

Austere-
aus⋅tere   /ɔˈstɪər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [aw-steer] Show IPA Pronunciation

–adjective 1. severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding: an austere teacher.
2. rigorously self-disciplined and severely moral; ascetic; abstinent: the austere quality of life in the convent.
3. grave; sober; solemn; serious: an austere manner.
4. without excess, luxury, or ease; simple; limited; severe: an austere life.
5. severely simple; without ornament: austere writing.
6. lacking softness; hard: an austere bed of straw.
7. rough to the taste; sour or harsh in flavor.

Zardari: We Underestimated Taliban Threat
Pakistan's President Tells 60 Minutes The Country Is In A Battle To Survive

Pakistan government makes deal with Islamic miitants
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 By Saeed Shah McClatchy Newspapers

Nerve Centre of Islamic Extremism is Saudi Arabia, not Pakistan Freedom House study 2005

Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'
Thursday, 7 February 2008, 16:55 GMT
Dr Williams says Muslims should have a choice in legal disputes

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".
Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Laying down the law: ministers cool on archbishop's sharia suggestion· Williams' view out of line with 'British' agenda
Phillips fears giving succour to extremists
Will Woodward and Riazat Butt The Guardian, Friday 8 February 2008

...Umar expressed concerned, however, that Williams had reiterated his support for the Bishop of Rochester and his remarks on there being geographical "no-go" areas for non-Muslims.

In Britain?
Brits can't be in certain areas if they're not Muslim?
What, like in Mecca?
This 2007 study leaves no doubt that the Saudis were still exporting hatred towards non- Wahhabis

Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts
From The Sunday Times September 14, 2008
Abul Taher

Decapitates Wife Because She Wanted Divorce
Published: February 15, 2009 18:09h

Muzzammil Hassan established his own TV network to show Muslims in a good light. Decapitation charges will not help.
Muzzammil Hassan (44) established Bridges TV network in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York in 2004, with the hope of showing American Muslims in positive way, Buffalo news reports.

However, his idea and reputation were questioned when the police arrested him under suspicion that he decapitated his 37-year-old wife Aasiya.

Hassan turned to a police station and reported his wife`s death. He told the officers that his wife was at his office, thus the police went to the TV network to find the headless body.

The husband was the prime suspect, because Aasiya filed for divorce and she recently requested a restraining order, thus he was not allowed to come home.

- Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible - the Buffalo district attorney told the media.

The police are still looking for the murder weapon, while Hassan has been detained under second-degree murder.

Muslims in USA
The number of Muslims in the USA amounted to 7 to 8 million last year, which is a significant increase in relation to 2001, where there were only a million Muslims in America.

(same story from raw story )

Allah's ambassadors
Edna Fernandes gains unique access to the ultra-orthodox Deoband madrassa in rural India
Edna Fernandes Articles > Volume 122 Issue 6 November/December 2007 >

...Deobandi Islam is now the dominant force in British Islam, controlling 600 of its 1,350 mosques and 17 of the country’s 26 seminaries. That means 80 per cent of Muslim clerics preaching in Britain are Deobandis....
(author of article tells of visiting the source of Deobandis in India to find out about them)
... Darul Uloom is just five hours’ drive from Delhi and yet on entering the Deoband madrassa it feels like a different country. I arrived at sundown with my Sikh driver Mr Singh, a usually unflappable character who was uncharacteristically anxious as we approached the campus. He was well aware of the madrassa’s reputation. A tight nexus of alleys and a medieval-style bazaar surrounded the school itself. Carts, sorrowful-looking mules and skittish goats thronged the dark walkways as crowds of white-capped and turbaned young men filled lanes lined with Islamic bookshops supplying textbooks, literature and copies of the Koran. No women were on the streets.
I was greeted by the madrassa’s official spokesman, Mr Adil Siddiqui, an austere man sporting a camouflage puffa jacket and regulation-length white beard. His favourite catchphrase when introducing me to people was “This is Mr So-and-So. He is not a terrorist.”


I read these articles and it just seems so weird to me. I worked with a Muslim man from India and he was the nicest guy. My neighbors are Muslim and they are the nicest people. If you believe some of these articles you would think that there is some sort of Islamic doctrine that orders Muslims to spread the faith world wide and treat non-Muslims differently.

Kuwait ends dinar-dollar link

And other things going on in the Middle East.
When Hugging Is a Crime
Posted on May 21, 2007 foxnews.com
Taking the plunge: In this “before” shot, Nilofar Bakhtiar prepares to skydive for a charity—an unlikely setting for a career-busting faux pas.

Nilofar Bakhtiar, Pakistan’s federal minister for tourism, is in hot water with clerics in her home country for hugging a skydiving instructor who guided her through a tandem parachute jump for charity last month. Now, after striking such an “obscene” pose, she’s had to resign from Pakistan’s Cabinet.

Chief Rabbinate Finalizes Ban on Christian Women's Conference

OPT: ‘Femicide’ on the rise in conflict zone
RAMALLAH, 7 March 2007 (IRIN) - Three Palestinian women were shot dead in the northern Gaza Strip last month – rumours say it had to do with ‘honour’.

Iraq: 'Honour Killing' of teenage girl condemned as abhorrent
Posted: 02 May 2007
17-year-old Kurdish girl stoned to death


Nice. What a neighborhood. What are we doing over there again? Oh yeah, oil.

We do not want this type in our neighborhood either.

Mother-In-Law 'Plotted Honour Killing'
Monday, 14th May 2007, 14:05
Category: Crime and Punishment

Husband of 'honour killing' teenager arrested on suspicion of murder
14.05.07

Update at 1:02 PM 5/23/2007:


'Troubling' views on suicide bombings
78% of U.S. Muslims opposed, but young adults are less sure
Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, Amr Emam, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
About 1 in 4 young adult American Muslims says suicide bombings against civilian targets "to defend Islam" can be justified rarely, sometimes or often, according to a new Pew Research Center poll -- a finding that disturbed American Muslim leaders and thinkers across the country...

Looks like Al-Qaida radio in Saudi Arabia is A-OK

Saudi OKs Killing "Immoral" TV Execs
Decree Says Permissible To Kill Satellite TV Network Owners Over Immoral Content
Comments 103
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 12, 2008
AP) Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.

The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the "deviance of thousands of people."

Many of the most popular Arab satellite networks - which include channels showing music videos often denounced as obscene by Muslim conservatives - are owned by Saudi princes and well-connected Saudi businessmen. Al-Lihedan did not specify any particular channels.

Al-Lihedan is chief of the kingdom's highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Council. Saudi Arabia's judiciary is made up of Islamic clerics whose decrees, or fatwas, on everyday issues are widely respected. Their fatwas do not have the weight of law. In the courts, cleric-judges rule according to Islamic law, but interpretations can vary.

Al-Lihedan was answering listeners' questions during the daily "Light in the Path" radio program in which he and others make rulings on what is permissible under Islamic law.

One caller asked about Islam's view of the owners of satellite TV channels that show "bad programs" during Ramadan.

"I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences," he said.

"What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?" he said.

"Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it's permissible to kill them," he said. "Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don't, it is permissible to kill them."

Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it's permissible to kill them. Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don't, it is permissible to kill them.

Sheik Saleh al-LihedanAmong the most viewed Arabic satellite networks is Rotana, which airs movies and music videos. It is owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a billionaire businessman and member of the royal family whom Forbes ranks as the world's 13th richest person.

Other questions in the radio show tackled personal issues. Al-Lihedan advised one man, for example, that by kissing his wife during the day he broke his fast during the holy month of Ramadan, when having sex, eating, drinking and smoking are prohibited from sunrise to sunset. He told the man he should make up for it with an extra day of fasting.

Al-Lihedan sparked controversy in the past by issuing a decree that Saudis can join jihadists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq.


© MMVIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

You think our leaders are hopped up and whacked out on religion?

Music videos can get you killed?

What a bunch of stupid sheeple to not just make these fatwa spewing fucktards irrelevent. Most of them are so old a ten year old girl could crush their fragile little skulls, and along with it their tiny little, stuck-in-the-7th-century brains.

Crusaders 'left genetic legacy'

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

...The scientists also found that Lebanese Muslim men were more likely than Christians to carry a particular genetic signature. But this one is linked to expansions from the Arabian Peninsula which brought Islam to the area in the 7th and 8th Centuries.

UN food aid agency appeals for US$500 million to offset soaring prices
Author: BI-ME staff
Source: BI-ME
Published: 27 March 2008
...Countries where price rises are expected to have a direct impact include Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Haiti, Djibouti, the Gambia, Tajikistan, Togo, Chad, Benin, Myanmar, Cameroon, Niger, Senegal, Yemen and Cuba, according to WFP.

List of countries and territories by fertility rate

Happy Mother's Day (snark)

So today we celebrate mother's ability to squirt out brats. Silly, if you ask me, because every mammal has that ability. In the US these brats use up a disproportionate amount of the world's natural resources. On Mother's Day we go to church and then to brunch to celebrate being born in this country of abundance.

So, ok, let's look at other places on the planet and see how they are dealing with (frankly) an overabundance of human life on the planet.

I noticed that the Pope was in Brazil this week.


The kids there want to be able to use birth control. I think that this picture of the Pope's face plastered everywhere would be pretty good birth control, don't you? Dude is seriously scary looking.

For some reason, I thought that Islam forbid the use of birth control. Not so according to Ayatollah Al-Sistani:

Ayatollah Al-Sistani's Missionary Work
Eschewing politics, he uses the Internet to spread his ideas

I'm not thrilled with the thought of more and more of this---
ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES: PART 16--NEXT ADDED 100 MILLION AMERICANS

But Alexander Cockburn seems to think that that the global warming scares are the work of more old, powerful, rich white guys trying to get richer.

Fuck him. Global warming is here and is affecting crops. Crops affect population growth.

Economic theory and population growth are really incompatible when you look at finite resources.

Lovely

16 Saudis transferred home from Guantanamo

(AP) - RIYADH, Saudi Arabia-Sixteen Saudis transferred from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay arrived home Monday and were immediately detained by authorities investigating possible terrorist connections, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

A total of 77 Saudis have now been returned from Guantanamo, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told SPA. He said 53 remain incarcerated at the U.S. military facility in Cuba, a source of tension in U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Washington. Al-Turki's figures correspond to those maintained independently by The Associated Press.

Arabs pile into Darfur to take land 'cleansed' by janjaweed
By Steve Bloomfield, Africa Correspondent Published: 14 July 2007

...Drought in parts of northern Africa has forced nomads to look further afield for fertile land. Although the spread of desert is rapidly reducing the amount of land available for farmers and nomads in Darfur, much of the area cleared by the janjaweed and government forces is fertile...

Egypt faces clean water crisis
By Farid Barsoum in the Nile Delta, Egypt


Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth
By Andrea Thompson, and Ker Than
Republished from Live Science
In the next 200 years humans will face widespread water shortages, famine and disease; whilst Earth’s landscape transforms radically

Last Rites in the Holy Land?
The world's most ancient Christian communities are fleeing their birthplace.
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
July 23, 2007 issue -

Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and the spread of Sunni theofascism - Part 1
By Curtin Winsor

Are Muslims Under Siege?
Sunday, 15, July, 2007 (29, Jumada al-Thani, 1428)
M.J. Akbar, mjakbar@asianage.com
...Do we blame Hinduism or Hindus for the malevolence of those who killed and terrorized Muslims in Gujarat five years ago? We do not, and must not. Is there any reason why Muslims converge so easily into a category?...

Ummmm...

The Gujarat violence broke out in February 2002 when a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindu pilgrims and activists, killing nearly 60 Hindus . The incident sparked weeks of reprisals, including arson and murder by Hindu mobs that killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Saudis....

more balls than brains.

Lawmaker: Jail Women Who Wear Burqa
Friday July 13, 2007 4:01 AM

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A right-wing Dutch lawmaker wants women jailed for wearing the head-to-toe Islamic robe known as a burqa, calling it a ``symbol of oppression.''

Ummmm, I think going to jail for wearing the niquab, or burka is a bit extreme, but I think they are a security hazard. On the other hand, it was a man who killed Theo Van Gogh for insulting Islam.

My personal 4th

If you're looking for jingoistic, feel-good happy talk, go visit someone else's blog today.

I finished Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen this morning and immediately started reading Sundown Towns by the same author.

Nine freaking pages into Sundown Towns I came across this:

That evening in Decatur revolutionized my thinking. I now perceived that in the normal course of human events, most and perhaps all towns would not be all-white. Racial exclusion was required. "If they did not have such a policy,"observed an African American resident of Du Quoin, Illinois, about the all-white towns around Du Quoin, "surely blacks would be in them."I came to understand that he was right. "If people of color aren't around,"writes commentator Time Wise, "there's a reason, having something to do with history, and exclusion..." (#16 footnote)

Though mind-boggling to me, this insight proved hardly new. As early as 1858, before the dispersal of African Americans throughout the North prompted by the Civl War, the Wyandotte Herald in Wyandotte, in Southeastern Michigan, stated, "Wyandotte is again without a single colored inhabitant, something remarkable for a city of over 6,000 people." Even then, tThe Herald understood that a city of over 6,000 people as "remarkable"for being all-white. We shall see that a series of riots and threats was required to keep Wyandotte white over the years.

Why would these two paragraphs stand out to me?

Because I wondered about the longer history of Wyandotte, in Southeastern Michigan.


You see, I have Wyandotte blood in me.

On the other hand, being a proud, patriotic (mostly white) American, I can't help but wonder how many Iraq war veterans (that we are sending to make some rich white fucks richer) are going to hit the deck once the fireworks start tonight?

Hmmm, maybe I'll skip the fireworks, they kind of make me jumpy. Maybe I'll go see Michael Moore's Sicko, although I don't really need to, my parents are fighting with their insurance companies all the time.

Happy fucking "Independence Day" folks. At least Scooter Libby has something to celebrate

And here's a nice wrap up for today, even though I missed it a couple of days ago:

San Diego Public Schools Grapple with Muslim Prayer by: Lucas O'Connor
Mon Jul 02, 2007 at 08:44:03 AM PD

Uhhh, Lucas, isn't Hirsi Ali from Somalia?

Let me be clear. Fundamentalist Islam is not something I want invited in to my country, my city, my home. Like any form of fundamentalist religion, I flat out hate the motherfuckers.

Frontline, Dreams of Obama

watching online now, and reading this, and my glasses still suck. I'm getting my eyes re-examined next week to see what the problem is since I just paid 500 bucks for a pair of glasses, (and the frames were cheap and ugly) and can't fucking drive with them on. Yeesh, this getting older stuff sucks.

Ho-leeee crap, we know wer'e in deep shit when Google lays off people.

And speaking of holy crap, this is too much. You just don't shell the UN. I've been trying to avoid the Gaza mess because frankly, I'm starting to hate both side of that fucking mess. Mostly because they suck the whole world into their mess and I'm sick of it.

Shelling the UN is bullshit and this is bullshit:

French Muslim Soldiers Refuse Afghanistan Mission
Thursday January 15th, 2009 / 11h32

hat tip to Islam in Europe

Very enlightening

GO Watch this

Sicko.

and as if we needed any more proof that George W. Bush is an idiot and a cruel hypocrite:

Bush again vetoes stem cell legislation

What does President SociopathicFucktard say?

and "Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. And it is not the only option before us,'' the president said.

How does that man justify the Iraq war in that tiny little pea brain of his?



Speaking of pea brains, Oh My God, every time I see a report on Pakistan they are burning a flag, or an effigy, and a bunch of men are raving madly about some slight to Islam. Now they are all bent out of shape about the Salman Rushdie Knighting.

Guess all that money the Saudis send over to rile up the jihadis with hatred in those madrassas is accomplishing something. Congratulations Osama, you fucking dickhead, there's still plenty of pisssed off, ignorant assholes who will blow themseslves up cause they got nothing else to live for. God, what a shithole Pakistan is.

Sam Bacile, Anti-Islam Filmmaker, In Hiding After Protests

I don't know who disgusts me more. The fundamentalist fools who made this antagonistic film or the thin-skinned fundamentalist fools who riot every time their religion is insulted.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Religion sucks, no matter what brand it is (II)

Malaysia rejects conversion appeal
By Claudia Theophlius
Al Jazeera
May 30, 2007

Since I was raised in a country that lets you practice any religion you choose, as long as it's peaceful, this kind of stuff is almost incomprehensible to me. Being that the Western religions (Including Christianity, Judaism and Islam ) are so patriarchal it's not completely incomprehensible.

I must admit, though, some religious extremist factions suck more than others.
Click here to see what I mean
Watching guys like this makes me want to show THEM what intolerance really is, with a fucking baseball bat. To knock out what's left of their teeth, the ignorant, intolerant assholes. Jerkwads are stuck in the 13th century for a reason---THEY ARE STUPID, STUBBORN, AND WEAK.
Afraid of women,. Otherwise why would they need to control them with violence?

Completely unrelated, but it makes me laugh:

Report: Fred Thompson to run in 2008
Published: May 30, 2007 at 12:38 PM

Somebody cue the "Law and Order" intro music.

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1
4 times against it


2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2
100 years in Iraq
Bomb Iran

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.
More CCain hypocrisy

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."
voting record


5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.
CNN article

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.
McCain's money CNN

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
teh Google on de temper


8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
teh Google on his lobbyists

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."
Columbia Journalism Review

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year. hoooo-eee, lookit all them NVs (not voting) in his recent environmental votes

John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be.

Two assholes in a farting contest and as a bonus -- Religion sucks #12

Bush lectures Arab world on political reform
..."Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said in a speech to 1,500 global policymakers and business leaders at this Red Sea beach resort. That was a clear reference to host Egypt, where main secular opposition figure Ayman Nour has been jailed and President Hosni Mubarak has led an authoritarian government since 1981....

Kidnapped by the CIA - Tortured in Egypt
By Cècile Hennion
Le Monde
Thursday 07 June 2007
... Abu Omar proclaims he has been a "Salafist," a very rigorous practicant of Islam,...He adhered to Wafd, a liberal party, where he frequented a certain Ayman Nour, the sole and unfortunate competitor to Hosni Mubarak during the last presidential election in 2005, who was thrown into prison shortly after his defeat, and whose friends and family still await his liberation.

Bin Laden lashes out at Arab leaders in new msg.
..."Those (Arab) kings and leaders sacrificed Palestine and Al-Aqsa to keep their crowns. ... But we will not be relieved of this responsibility," bin Laden said.

Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's Old City is one of the holiest sites for Muslims...

The Al-Aqsa is the Third Holiest site for Muslims.

Different types of Christians duke it out in one of the holiest sites in Christianity .

The Jews gotta fight the Muslims for the Holiest Jewish site.

And how do the Muslims deal with their top two holiest sites?

"non-Muslims are strictly prohibited from entering Mecca and Medina. Roadblocks are stationed along roads leading to the city"

Iran 30 year after the revolution

Yeesh, this book is so old. I haven't read enough of it to make a judgment. So far it just brings back memories of thinking that Khomeini was an asshole. I also remember thinking that Reagan was an asshole. I also remember wondering where the hell Beruit was and why we had a barracks full of marines and sailors who could get blown up there?
Books: Islam Inflamed
By DAVID K. SHIPLER (NYT)
Published: October 24, 1985

After 30 years, talk shifts from revolution to democracy
Dispatch from Iran
In rural Iran, as agrarian-centered life erodes and attitudes toward government change, some wonder what the Islamic Revolution brought them, especially as they see some sections prospering.
By Borzou Daragahi
February 10, 2009

How has Iran changed since the revolution 30 years ago?
Timeline: US-Iran ties Published: Tuesday, 10 February, 2009, 06:28 GMT 06:28 UK
BBC's "Have Your Say" (The 'reader's recommended' are fun to read)
As Iranians mark the anniversary of their Islamic Republic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he would welcome talks with the US based on "mutual respect". What is the future of the country?

Iranians rally to mark revolution
AlJazeera.net
UPDATED ON:
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
22:39 Mecca time, 19:39 GMT