February 06, 2006

Pimp My Fatwa

This is a post I did on my home blog back on May 10th of last year. If Mohammed being a child molestor isn't enough for some of you to see the rationale of our ridicule, and our right to portray images of him in an unflattering light, then maybe the notion of muta'a will. Mohammed is NOT a divine figure, he was a simple thug, a child molestor, and a pimp. If you can't handle the truth, that's your problem. Also, this is an old post, so some links may be expired. If you have a problem with that, I'll email you my home address and you can come burn down my embassy. Would you like to know something else? I could care less what 1 billion Muslims think. The truth hurts, don't it?

SC&A, ever concerned for my safety and well-being, may get me on the fatwa list even before Rusty and Jane.  He sent me a link to a link to a USA Today article concerning the Muslim practice of "pleasure marriages."   

BAGHDAD — In the days when it could land him in jail, Rahim Al-Zaidi would whisper details of his muta'a only to his closest confidants and the occasional cousin. Never his wife...

...The 1,400-year-old practice of muta'a— "ecstasy" in Arabic — is as old as Islam itself. It was permitted by the prophet Mohammed as a way to ensure a respectable means of income for widowed women...

Pleasure marriages were outlawed under Saddam Hussein but have begun to flourish again. The contracts, lasting anywhere from one hour to 10 years, generally stipulate that the man will pay the woman in exchange for sexual intimacy...

...A woman agreeing to a pleasure marriage that involves a one-time encounter might be able to count on about $100. For a muta'a that runs longer, she might be paid $200 a month, though the amounts vary widely and can depend on whether she has children.

So, in addition to being a child molester (I've read different accounts, one site said he married a 9 year old, another said six), Mohammed was a pimp.  A benevolent pimp to be sure, after all, who doesn't feel sorry for lonely, broke widows.  Of course, nowadays, the Koran is open to interpretation:

A turbaned Shiite cleric who issues wedding permits from a street-side counter in Sadr City says he encourages permanent marriages but gives the OK for pleasure marriages when there are "special reasons." The cleric, Sayid Kareem As-Sayid Abdullah Al-Mousawi, says he grants licenses for muta'a in cases where the woman is widowed or divorced, or for single women who have approval from their fathers.

That's right, you dads out there, convert to Islam and you too can be a pimp.  Pimp-daddy, if you will.  What the f**k, change your name to P. Diddy.

Is there an alternative?  Well, yes.  The treatment of Muslim women is well documented.  They can avoid the whole "pleasure marriage" route, do what they want, be irresponsible, get naked and throw down with whoever they want.

And be the victim of an honor killing.

Prostitution or death.  What a choice the Religion of Peace gives to its adherents.

Now I'll have to change the name.  The Religion of Peace and Big Pimpin' Page.  Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Where's N.O.W. when you need them?  Does Code Pink have an opinion on this issue?

(At this time, Blogger appears to be down, I'll link to the blog SC&A pointed me too when it's back)

I was going to end there, but I went back to the article and decided to post this:

Most Shiite scholars today consider it halal, or religiously legal. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest religious authority in Shiite Islam, sets conditions and obligations for muta'a on his Web site. ("A woman with whom temporary marriage is contracted is not entitled to share the conjugal bed of her husband and does not inherit from him ..."

First off, I thought Sistani was the highest authority in Iraq, not all Shiite Islam.  But, that's beside the point.  This is the guy we're always reading about who is apparently eager to see a free, secular Iraq borne from the ashes of tyranny.

And he's just a pimp.

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The Blog Sabbath Caption Contest: Stupid Criminals Part One

Fatwas Issued

Caption this photo of stupid alleged criminal Lonnie "Vent Man" Shields allegedly caught in the act.


MAN_STUCK.sff_DOB101_20060202183733.jpg

Fatwas issued Monday.

Fatwas issued!

Steve Sharon: "SHAFT!.....Can you dig it?"

Marcus Aurelius: "Excellent! I can now sue the building owner and become a millionaire!"

Rodney Dill (by popular demand): "The India Space program took off with an early success today, as Hindunaut, Ravi "Beans" Bindharvi, (pictured in launch device), consumed enough legume derivative to produce sufficient volatile gases needed to achieve escape velocity."

Double fatwa with Danish cheese, super-sized with a bottle of Carlsberg:

Buckley F. Williams
: "Chloe? This is Black Bauer. There's no time to explain so listen carefully. I've become lodged in a model Q-237 air conditioning duct. I'm connecting you to the duct's peripheral communications center by remote armpit access, you'll have to help me find some way to get free."

Because, after all, tonight IS Jack Bauer night.

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The Clash Of Civilizations In a Cartoon

Let the diplomats act diplomatic, but for us, let us cry havoc and let slip the cartoons of war. What he said. And more. Stephen Green:

I never wanted this Terror War to escalate into Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations." ....

They want a culture war? Fine. Let's give them one....

It seems we're in one. And as in any war, we can't afford to remain passive. Sun Tzu wrote that when your enemy is angry, annoy him. Is there any doubt the Arab Street is at long last really angry? Then it's time for us to wage an Offensive Offensive. If they're angry, let's really piss them off. Let's show the Arab Street that in a war between our attitude and theirs, we're the Fonz and they're Ralph.

"Piss Christ?" That's nothing – we can crap Mohammed if we want to. With a little CGI help, our porn industry could churn out some man-on-man action in Mecca.

NBC could turn the writing staff of "Will & Grace" loose on the Hamas homophobes. Maybe Broadway could give them "The Clitorectomy Monologues."

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Is Islam Compatible With Democracy? (Updated: Warning--geeky references to methodology)

UPDATE: Rusty responds. Scroll down for my responses.
UPDATE 2: Demosophist responds to a few things, in that Italian font.
UPDATE 3: Rusty back at ya!

I started out tapping out a comment to Rusty's post on this topic, but it grew to the point that I decided to publish it as a separate essayette. Rusty graciously establishes the empirical parameters of this thesis, but I don't think they necessarily address the issue:

If one were really interested in seeing whether or not there is a relationship between Islam and liberalism, I would suggest the following. In fact, I dare any one to run the following analysis.

Hypothesis: there is a strong correlation between the percent of a nation's population that is Muslim and the extent to which that country's population is free in the liberal sense of the word.

Null Hypothesis: there is no relationship between the percent of a nation's population that is Muslim and the extent to which that country's population is free in the liberal sense of the word.

Plot a simple OLS regression model with the two variables. The first variable would simply be % Muslim. The second variable would be the Freedom House numbers. Since the Freedom House Numbers are coded negatively the following results should be found.....

If we are agreed that the above is a moderately fair way of empircally testing the relationship between Islam and tyranny, then the gauntlet has been thrown. I personally do not have the time to run the numbers, but perhaps some enterprising blogger with moderate experience using SPSS would like to give it a go?

The problem with this method is that, while it's a reasonable way of testing the relationship between Islam and political freedom, that's not the research question that's being considered. more...

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Omar Bakri Mohammed: "Cartoonists Should Be Executed"

It is no surprise that these words should come from radical exiled cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed. Why no surprise? Because the now infamous rally outside of Denmark's embassy in London--where signs calling for cartoon blasphemers to be beheaded were seen--was staged by al Ghurabaa. This is the group that had previously posted on their website that all those who blaspheme Muhammed should be executed. As we reported here, al Ghurabaa is composed of followers of Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Telegraph:

“The insult has been established now by everybody, Muslim and non-Muslim, and everybody condemns the cartoonist and condemns the cartoon,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “However, in Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammed said, whoever insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed. This man should be put on trial and if it is proven to be executed.”

The cleric said Muslims in Britain were not allowed to kill people who insulted Islam because it was against the law of the country.

“We are not saying ourselves to go there and start to look to him and kill him, we are not talking about that. We are talking about Islamic rules. If anybody insults the prophet, he will have to take a punishment.”

He said if countries refused to put people on trial for insulting Mohammed they must “face the consequences”.

So, Omar Bakri Mohammed is making the same arguement I have been making. That the individual Muslim is not necessarily a threat--he is not calling for individual Muslims to kill blasphemers--but rather that when Muslims take over a country and institute sharia law, after you have been convicted of blasphemy in a court of law, off with your head. Thus, the ideology of Islam is what is the larger threat.

Of course, this is a radical version of sharia. But are you comfortable with a moderate version of sharia which might fine you for blasphemy?

Hat tip: Charles Johnson

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Us vs. Them: the video

Dan Riehl has produced an excellent and moving video about why we fight and how the the reaction to the Muhammed cartoons relates to the greater war against radical Islam. Go check it out here.

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CNN: Yes to Dung Covered Mary, No to Cartoon Muhammed

It's not so much that I blame CNN for not running the controversial Muhammed cartoon, as much as I wish they'd be just a tad bit more honest about it. They claim they won't run the picturs out of religious sensitivities, yet the same organization had no problems running images of the dung covered Mary. No, it's not hypocrisy. It's called fear.

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Pat Leahy Questions My Baby's Intelligence

It's just like those Quakers, babies, and nuns to make international phone calls to suspected al Qaeda terrorists. And all this time I've been dialing Osama bin Laden for my two year old! Do you think Julie Aigner-Clark will come out with a Baby Einstein video to help my apparently retarded kid learn to first dial 0-1-1?

Hat tip: Confederate Yankee.

UPDATE: Related ACLU propaganda and a guide to this week's NSA hearings.

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The Problem is 'Islamophobia'

Iran's official news agency bemoans the spread of Islamophobia in Europe:

"Unfortunately, Islamophobia is currently spreading in Europe in different forms and at an alarming speed.

"Insult to Islamic values and Muslims' sanctity in the West has been now turned into a main challenge facing the Islamic nations now. It is vital to seriously confront this challenge," Mottaki said.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Islamist thugs in a government-organized demonstration attacked the Austrian embassy in Teheran with Molotov cocktails.

The regrettable "Islamophobia" problem follows other evil Western obsessions like "Jew-burning-Naziphobia", "Mass-murdering-Communistphobia", and, of course, "Baby-blood-drinking-Mongolhordephobia".

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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No, Islam is Not Just Like Buddhism

The following is a letter I wrote to Dean Esmay last night. He gave me a challenge in this post, as his first response to my essay Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism, and I wanted to respond. I wanted to post a more coherent answer, but it will have to do in a pinch. I do have other work. Let me preface it with a funny quote Dean sent me in reply: "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I lacked the time to make it shorter." Also, the disclaimer that it's not exactly spellchecked. Sorry. more...

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Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Islam

Dean Esmay has a pretty good post about whether or not Islam compatible with democracy or not. Go read it.

Also, after you have read it you should probably read my essay Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism, in which I argue that Islam is a socio-political ideology every bit as much as it is a religion. It is much like Marxism in that the core ideology itself leads is incompatible with Western liberalism.

Now, let's return to Dean's post. Unfortunately, the data he provides is a classic example of what statisticians call selection bias. That is, you use data which supports your hypothesis and then exclude data which nullifies it.

Another problem is that the data do show that Muslim nations are becoming more free. A good sign, no doubt. But becoming more free does not make one free. One might argue that China is becoming more free, or that the Soviet Union in the late 1980s was becoming less authoritarian, yet there is no doubt in my mind that Communism is somehow intertwined with the fact that freedom was so scarce. Becoming more or less of anything is kind of irrelevant to the discussion.

Further, Indonesia has been a terrible ally in the war on terror. See this, this, this, this, and this. They have not cracked down on radical Muslims any more than has suited their own national interests. It is in no way a liberal democracy. Freedom House is simply wrong in this respect. I would point out that it is a crime for a Christian to give a Bible to a Muslin in Indonesia. And much of the Indonesian culture itself is not tolerant in any liberal sense of the word. And is a country truly a liberal democracy if a pictureless version of Playboy is banned?

Last, he gives the example of Senegal and Mali as the only nations on earth that have a Muslim majority and which are listed by Freedom House as liberal democracies (excluding Indonesia). Given that Freedom House gets it dead wrong on Indonesia, I suspect that there may be problems with their coding of Senegal and Mali as well. But I could be wrong. I don't know enough about these countries to speak on whether or not Freedom House correctly codes them.

However, statistically speaking two examples do not a falsification make. There are always exceptions to rules. My original point was that the Left loved to use Yugoslavia as an exemple of a 'free' Communist country. Even if we were to grant them that Yugoslavia was 'free' during the Cold War, to claim that there was not a causal relationship between Communism and totalitarianism based on a single outlier is an example of poor analysis (or poor operationalizing skills).

If one were really interested in seeing whether or not there is a relationship between Islam and liberalism, I would suggest the following. In fact, I dare any one to run the following analysis.

Hypothesis: there is a strong correlation between the percent of a nation's population that is Muslim and the extent to which that country's population is free in the liberal sense of the word.

Null Hypothesis: there is no relationship between the percent of a nation's population that is Muslim and the extent to which that country's population is free in the liberal sense of the word.

Plot a simple OLS regression model with the two variables. The first variable would simply be % Muslim. The second variable would be the Freedom House numbers. Since the Freedom House Numbers are coded negatively the following results should be found.

If Dean is right, and there is no relationship between Islam and freedom, then obviously the plots should be completely randomly distributed.

If I am right, and there is a relationship between Islam and freedom, then a positively sloping line should emerge. That is to say, as the percentage of Muslims in a country goes up, the Freedom House numbers should also go up.

The third alternative, of course, is that there is a positive correlation between Islam and liberal democracy, in which case one would find a negatively sloping line.

If we are agreed that the above is a moderately fair way of empircally testing the relationship between Islam and tyranny, then the gauntlet has been thrown. I personally do not have the time to run the numbers, but perhaps some enterprising blogger with moderate experience using SPSS would like to give it a go? more...

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Hell Yeah Sandcrawler PSA

Howie will be missing until Feb 14th. In the mean time, click here and give Mr. Allah and ThirdEE a bit F*ck Yeah!!!!

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Muslims Protest Superbowl Results

behead_those_who_make_bad_calls.jpg

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$700 Million Missing From Palestinian Accounts

Now, here's a situation where money turns up missing in a kleptocracy. Not unusual. In all candor, I would have been falling-down astonished if the books had even come close to balancing with all funds accounted for.

From ArabNews.com:

At least $700 million of funds from the Palestinian Authority's coffers have been misused or stolen by officials over the past few years. Citing an internal investigation, Palestinian Attorney-General Ahmed Al-Moghani told reporters yesterday that 50 cases of "financial and administrative corruption" had been discovered and 25 officials arrested so far.

He said 10 officials had fled abroad but that the Palestinian Authority was seeking their extradition.

"The amount of money that was squandered and stolen is more than $700 million," Moghani said. "Some of these millions were transferred into personal accounts here and abroad."

Hamas spokesman Mushir Al-Masri said it will be a top priority for the new government to go after the corrupt officials who stole the money and bring them to justice. Good luck with getting the money back.

I expect Hamas will begin complaining and whining about the sorry state of finances, blaming it all on the corrupt previous administration. Then, fresh corrupt officials will go to work in the Hamas government and it will be business as usual.

From Interested-Participant.

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European Islamists Counter Danes With Cartoons Depicting Hitler, Holocaust

Welcome World Net Daily and Glenn Beck readers! Please feel free to leave comments and look around while you're here.

A European Islamic organization called the Arab European League has countered the recent cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed with cartoons of their own, questioning the Holocaust and showing Anne Frank in bed with Hitler. This statement explains their rationale:

After the lectures that Arabs and Muslims received from Europeans on Freedom of Speech and on Tolerance. And after that many European newspapers republished the Danish cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed. AEL decided to enter the cartoon business and to use our right to artistic expression.

Just like the newspapers in Europe claim that they only want to defend the freedom of speech and do not desire to stigmatise Muslims,we also do stress that our cartoons are not meant as an offence to anybody and ought not to be taken as a statement against any group, community or historical fact.

If it is the time to break Taboos and cross all the red lines, we certainly do not want to stay behind.

While I'm reproducing one of the cartoons below in the spirit of fairplay, I certainly don't endorse the message. more...

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February 05, 2006

Jack Straw: Appease in Our Time Cartoon (please circulate)

The Jawa Report's new editorial cartoonist, Sam, submits his latest masterpiece: Jack Straw: Appease in Our Time. Please feel free to circulate it. Click for larger version.

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And Now A PBUHlic Service Announcement



Ladies and gentlemen, I am Mohammed Theprophet (PBUM), here to talk to you about a distressing situation in the world of fine art and high culture.



As you well know, I have had several supporting roles in such movies as "The Siege," "Executive Decision," and "The Delta Force" trilogy. I also had a prominent role in the television drama "Flight 93" and various episodes of "24." So I can talk about the arts from an insider's perspective. And what I see in the art world today distresses me greatly.


We are losing a valuable gem in the world of art. A beautiful flower amongst the dead petals of contemporary popular culture. This wonderful, yet disappearing art form is, of course more...

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Muslims Choose Christian Schools

This is a twist.

From NorwayPost.no:

An increasing number of Muslims living in Norway have over the past few years chosen to send their children to private Christian schools, NRK reports.

At the Christian Regnbuen school in Oslo, 20 out of a hundred students are Muslims. Other private schools in Oslo, like St Sunniva and Kristelig Gymnasium, also have many Muslim students.

According to Dean Lars Bjoerge Holm at Kristelig Gymnasium, the Christian schools and students respect and understand Islam to a much greater degree than public schools. I am fairly certain that the Muslims are not as magnanimous.

It also has to be distressing to the fundamentalists that their sons and daughters are walking around school hallways with images of Jesus Christ on the walls. (via John Ray)

From Interested-Participant.

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USS Cole Bombing Mastermind Escapes

Jamal Ahmed BadawiJamal Ahmed Badawi, mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, has escaped from a Yemeni prison.

Interpol said it issued an “Orange Notice,” because he represents a “clear and present danger to all countries.”

Interpol—The escape from a Yemen prison took place on Friday and involved a 140-metre long tunnel dug by the prisoners and co-conspirators outside. Yemeni officials have confirmed to Interpol that that the escapees included Jamal Ahmed Badawi mastermind of the bomb attack on the navy ship USS Cole in 2000, and Fawaz Yahya Al-Rabeei, one of those responsible for attacking the French tanker Limburg in 2002. ...

Cross-posted at OpinionBug.com

Update (2/7/2006): Interpol issued a Blue Notice today for Jamal Ahmed Badawi and 22 others that escaped from a Yemeni prison Friday.

Interpol said that Badawi is already the subject of a Red Notice by request of the United States.

Interpol's International Notice System

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February 04, 2006

Is This The Face Of Islam?

Jordanian editors arrested over Danish cartoon

From BBC News:

Two Jordanian newspaper editors who published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been arrested.
Jihad Momani and Hisham Khalidi are accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law.
Here's what Momani wrote to accompany the cartoon:
"Muslims of the world be reasonable.

What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

Or a so-called moderate Islamic government that arrests editors for printing cartoons.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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