A jihad against women

Apropos our robust discussion about Islam, the left and women, I post this piece by Christopher Hitchens with the risk of offending almost everybody.

Libby Purves in the Times has a collection of Muslim reactions to the events in London and Glasgow.

Crime story

Nick Bromell teaches English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is a widely published writer. He also went to school with Scooter Libby. In both The American Scholar and in Salon, he has written about his school friend.

Meanwhile, back in NZ, Zen Tiger rejoices that Libby's sentence has been commuted and Andrei of the The Briefing Room hopes for a pardon. Strange, I thought that both would favour criminals serving their full sentences.

Why Atheism is a religious belief (redux)

Thanks to Sam, The Greatest Thread Ever Told is returned from the grave.

Louder than bombs

Over the last few years, and especially since the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, there have been indications across the world of a growing convergence between the forces of Islamist militancy, on the one hand, and the “anti-imperialist” left on the other. Leaving aside widespread, if usually unarticulated, sympathy for the attacks of September 11, 2001, justified on the grounds that “the Americans deserved it,” we have seen since 2003 an overt coincidence of policies, with considerable support for the Iraqi “resistance,” which includes strong Islamist elements, and, more recently and even more explicitly, support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the Middle East itself, and on parts of the European far left, an overt alliance with Islamists has been established, going back at least to the mass demonstrations in early 2003 that preceded the Iraq War, but also including a convergence of slogans on Palestine—supporting suicide bombings and denying the legitimacy of the Israeli state.

Fred Halliday on The Jihadism of Fools, of which a local example can be found here.

Anybody with any lingering delusions about Hamas might like to read its charter, although that might take some time. For a flavour, have a look at Article Seventeen, The Role of Muslim Women, which is to manufacture men, a task in which they are opposed by Zionist organisations like Rotary Clubs and Freemasons.

Luring disco dollies to a life of vice

This could be the great rallying call of the age: no marginalisation without hedonism. It seems the gays, the lesbians and the bisexuals (who want it all and want it now) are taking more than their fair share of the drugs, the alcohol and, of course, the fags.

Naughty boys, girls and ladyboys. It seems the fundies don't want any of it but they don't want you to have it either.

Elsewhere on The Briefing Room, Ian seems to suggest that Science is being contaminated by Atheists, with their naturalistic worldviews.

Gutted

Tonight, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth on the streets of Dubai, now the brave attempt by the plucky little United Arab Emirates to win the America's Cup has been cruelly dashed. In Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah and Sharja as well, the people will be commiserating one another. The simple yet brilliant race strategy of buying a New Zealand team to mount the challenge has failed. The plan was faultless in its planning and execution but, sadly for the proud folk of the UAE, it was not enough. The Swiss billionaire who held the cup was able to buy a better team, by abolishing the rule that team members had to come from the country they purported to represent. So he was able to compile a team that included only three Swiss. This seemed apt, since he was not really Swiss at all, but Italian.

Abolishing the nationality rules allowed the Swiss businessmen who is really Italian to avoid having to rely on Swiss sailors. This was a crucial part of his strategy. As of today, Switzerland still does not have a coastline, so its prowess in yachting is similar to the standing of the Netherlands in mountaineering. Instead, the businessman (who in fact inherited his business from his father) bought lots of New Zealanders, who were regarded as traitors in their own country for opposing the team of New Zealanders belonging to the UAE, or one of its airlines, or one of the airlines belonging to one of the Emirates, or something like that.

According to a respected information source, the America's Cup was once known as the Royal Yacht Squadron Cup or the RYS Cup for One Hundred Sovereigns. Later it was known as the One Hundred Guinea(s) Cup, the Queen’s Cup, the America Cup and the America’s Cup.

So tonight the America's cup, named after a boat that once won it by sailing around the Isle of Wight, is proudly back in the hands of the Swiss, who must be surprised: they only excel in one sport, skiing, which for them is really just a form of transport.

Meanwhile New Zealander and hireling Grant Dalton, who was in charge of the UAE team, has described losing as like having your heart dug out with a spoon, a statement which experts have described as "creepy and weird."

Funny old game, innit?

And here is today's news

Gays are fleeing Poland as leaders Doug and Dinsdale Kaczynski make life more difficult for them. Also in Poland: nuns get uppity. In Australia, Hillsong becomes humanitarian. The religious right in the Liberal party have trouble taking criticism. Muslim terrorists are incompetent, but at least they are keen. The Machete market in Nigeria collapses after elections.

Catholic porn

PC illustrates Bernini's Ecstasy of St Teresa, a work which can be best described as ravishing.

Roman Catholicism was so much more fun during the counter-reformation. Then it was opulent and sensuous; now it is priggish and earnest. St Teresa's own description of her vision can be found here; dirty, dirty, dirty.

The hive mind

In the same year that computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee had the notion of the worldwide web, 1988, cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, the pioneer of Artificial Intelligence, published his book The Society of Mind. This persuasively viewed human intelligence as the result of a vast number of individually basic cognitive processes, a neurological collective with no central organising principle. 'What magical trick makes us intelligent?' Minsky asked. 'The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle... Minds are what brains do.' The idea of the worldwide web was similar in kind. Its 'intelligence' would not be centrally generated, it would live in the simple links between its evolving pages, little neurological pathways; it was a 'hive mind'. Wikipedia is, so far, the best demonstration of that possibility.

The Observer on Wikipedia.

A short post about cheese

At dinner on Sunday night, I learned that GK Chesterton had lamented that poets did not write about cheese. Thanks to the wonders of Internet, I can bring you Chesterton's essay: it has been re-published on the Wensleydale Blog, which I am sure you all read.

Now, I loathe Chesterton with a passion and not just because he is a favourite of mine enemy, Mr Tips (whose present concern is with the the dissidents in the Sisters of Mercy). So it gave me great pleasure to discover that Chesterton obviously knew nothing of James McIntyre, the Cheese Poet of Oxford County, Ontario.

On an unrelated note, my favourite Wikipedia article at present is that on the Oxford comma, which was the subject of a poem by Elizabeth Smither.