May
Glenn Greenwald debates Bill Maher on U.S. Intervention in Muslim Countries
Finally someone has obliterated Bill Maher’s smug sense of superiority. Bravo.
Apr
Apr
In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.
Of the 13,288 people killed by terrorist attacks last year, seventeen were private U.S. citizens, or .001 percent.
Sep
Girls beat up Iran cleric over dress code
Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the girls on his way to the mosque in the village of Shahmirzad for noon prayers in late August.
He told one of the girls to cover up, the report said.
“She responded by telling me to cover my eyes, which was very insulting to me,” Beheshti said. So he asked her a second time to cover up and also to put a lid on what he felt was verbal abuse.
She hit the man of the cloth, and he hit the ground.
“I don’t remember what happened after that,” he said. “I just felt her kicks and heard her insults.”
Sep
Aug
Feb
Feb
It should be clear from this catalog of atrocities that anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem. No, the violence isn’t centrally planned or coordinated by some international Islamist agency. In that sense the global war on Christians isn’t a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities.
Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let’s take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world. Tolerance is for everyone—except the intolerant.
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali, contrary to other prominent “new atheists,” is a political conservative. The statements you see above, excerpted from Ali’s recent Newsweek article, sound fairly close to the kind of arguments New Gingrich or Rick Perry might make if either of these men knew nearly as much about the world as Ali does.
It is hard to say Ali is wrong when she lists one example after another of tens of thousands of oppressed and persecuted Christians living in the Muslim world. It can be said, however, that this is a very odd point to make and it’s a point that appeals directly to religious conservatives in America.
Most nonbelievers would probably look at these examples and shake their heads, dismayed at the extraordinary ability of religion to turn entire societies mad. But Ali interprets these examples not as symptoms of organized religion, but as a Muslim war against Christianity.
I think it’s time to start recognizing that Ali is a deeply conservative person and that even those devoted to the Enlightenment can still fall victim to political ideology and bias.
Aug
Chris Christie Defends Nomination of Muslim Judge
Bravo, sir. It would be great to hear more of this from Republicans, rather than the usual nonsense about “infiltration of Sharia law,” etc.
It’s important to remind the bigots that average Muslims suffer from Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism more than anyone else.
Apr
Muslim Housewife Disguised as Emperor Palpatine from “Star Wars” Argues Against France’s Burqa Ban
In the above debate, Empress Palpatine argues that ordinary women, not enthusiasts of dark robes, are oppressed because they are judged by their bodies and thus objectified. Of course, everyone, not just in contemporary society but throughout human history, is judged to some extent by their appearance (a practice that is not totally irrational, as studies show that us smart people tend be healthier than all you dumb slobs). It is not a problem that people are judged by their appearance, but of course it is a problem if their appearance is the only trait they are judged by. Having said that, you can pretty much tell that Michele Bachmann is mentally deranged just by looking at her.
It would seem to me that Eliot Spitzer’s argument against the ban, from a legal perspective, is sound. Whenever a societal ill befalls us, it is always tempting to take the easy route and simply ban what we don’t like. This approach is both lazy and, in the long term, ineffective. Such bans, like prohibition, typically breed resentment of the law and the banned practice usually occurs anyway, thus turning relatively harmless citizens into criminals. It is difficult to argue that burqa wearers are trespassing on anyone else’s rights…even if they do go around looking like they got tangled up in Marilyn Manson’s curtains.
What perhaps needs to occur, instead of a ban, is a cultural backlash against the blatant anti-feminism that burqas symbolize. I suggest, whenever coming across a burqa wearer, loudly and creepily exclaiming “Whoa, whoa, lookin’ good there sugar tits!” If burqas are supposed to protect women from being judged on their looks, I say we judge them on their looks anyway. The more disgustingly inappropriate the remark, the better. Take that, Empress Palpatine.
P.S. Wouldn’t it have been great if Ashley Dupre was under that burqa and at the end of the segment she just rips it off and Eliot Spitzer is all like, “Oh shit man, it’s that hooker!”
