As a side note, finding blogs like this is one of the neatest things about the 'blogosphere' -- it kind of reminds me of the early days of the web, back in 1994 and 1995, when the web was new and exciting, and surfing around looking at people's individual home pages was a lot of fun. You'd go from home page to home page, reading people's opinions, links to their favorite things, maybe a picture or two, and you really got a taste of that person's personality. Most of that early spirit of the web appeared to be long gone, but with the expansion of blogging, I hink it has simply evolved into a new form. Blogging, by its very nature is personal. People's personalities and opinions are what make any blog worth reading. James Lileks said that reading a few of one's favorite blogs is like sitting in a coffee shop with a bunch of smart and interesting friends. Exactly!

UPDATE: I still haven't seen any official reports on the news, but Paul sends me this:

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=10999


Ain't the Internet grand?

Dr Blix said the inspectors would have unconditional access to all sites - but not to eight presidential palaces which are covered under a separate agreement between Iraq and UN.

On the face of things, "nucular" is a typo par excellence. People sometimes talk about Bush "stumbling" over the word, as if this were the same kind of articulatory problem that turns February into "febyooary." But nuclear isn't a hard word to pronounce the way February is -- try saying each of them three times fast. Phonetically, in fact, nuclear is pretty much the same as likelier, and nobody's ever gets that one wrong. ("The first outcome was likular than the second"? ) That "nucular" pronunciation is really what linguists call a folk etymology, where the unfamiliar word nuclear is treated as if it had the same suffix as words like molecular and particular. It's the same sort of process that turns lackadaisical into "laxadaisical" and chaise longue into chaise lounge.

That accounts for Eisenhower's mispronunciation of nuclear, back at a time when the word was a new addition to ordinary people's vocabularies. And it's why Homer Simpson says it as "nucular" even today. But it doesn't explain why you still hear "nucular" from people like politicians, military people, and weapons specialists, most of whom obviously know better and have been reminded repeatedly what the correct pronunciation is. The interesting thing is that these people are perfectly capable of saying "nuclear families" or "nuclear medicine." I once asked a weapons specialist at a federal agency about this, and he told me, "Oh, I only say 'nucular' when I'm talking about nukes."

In the mouths of those people, "nucular" is a choice, not an inadvertent mistake -- a thinko, not a typo. I'm not sure exactly what they have in mind by it. Maybe it appeals to them to refer to the weapons in what seems like a folksy and familiar way, or maybe it's a question of asserting their authority -- as if to say, "We're the ones with our fingers on the button, and we'll pronounce the word however we damn well please."

When we get fully-immersive 3d holographic TV, I want someone to redo the Beethoven’s 6th portion of “Fantasia. “I loved it as a kid, and even though it now looks kitschy as hell, the style of the animation is unforgettable - to this day I still see the Pegasus fighting the wind when I hear the storm sequence.

“I’m running Jag on a newer iBook, and while I’m on an internet connection via Airport, I periodically get an OS 9 alert that I need to enable Apple Talk. It only happens when the connection is dropped for a half-second or so.”

He nodded, thought a second, then explained how I should reset a certain setting, and that was that. (It worked.) I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: WALK-UP TECH SUPPORT. I pidy the foo who buys a PC at Best Buy, and goes back to ask a blue-shirt a question. I’ll bet if I dragged my 512K Mac to the Genius Bar and asked for help, they’d oblige - after they stopped cooing and petting it like a long-lost pet.

im going to grab you with my own hands and prove to you, and to the world, that even though we are both sons of millionaire oil men, there's a difference between you and i.

you are a slimy, lying, gutless, cheap-shot artist who hides behind religion and ignorance in your sick quest to have others murder innocent people under your twisted leadership.

A day of remembrance has been called for those who died in the September 11th 2001 attacks and will be marked by a minutes silence. It is clear from this that the Western Capitalist states only remember the deaths of their own citizens whilst they ignore the hundreds of thousands killed by their hands. Indeed, it seems they have even colonised human sympathy.

Who will remember the 200,000 people killed by America when it dropped Nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? Who will remember the 200,000 people killed in 1991 during the 'Desert' Storm' campaign spearheaded by the US against Iraq? Who will remember the innocent civilians bombed in Afghanistan? Who will remember the tens of thousands killed by US corporate greed in Bhopal? Who will stand silent for the thousands of babies that have died at the hands of America in Iraq?

If we were to stand in silence for all the victims of Capitalism then we would never sit down again!

Muslims have a responsibility not to blindly follow the practices of the Capitalist West but rather to be at the forefront of exposing the contradictions of the Capitalist ideology and its colonialist worldview.

its true how is Islam is being tarnished by false media reports ... one thing about islam, its perfect .. one should get this straight that if some one can critisize islam then he or she doesnot know about it .. islam is uncriticizable if learnt to the max or atleast understood ...

One should remeber that man is a individual .. on theday of judgement every one will be judged as individual and not a group ... The deeds count and islam does not support any thing wrong .. to summarize islam in few forward i would say EVERYTHING GOOD IS ISLAM

if a man is judged by the religion .. then what kidn of religion does support men like hitler , julius ceaser, alexzander, the romans in general, the vikibngs and napolean bonepart.. if we see things straight we will find that there were no muslims like napolean and hitler ever in the history ...

Where Indonesia is concerned, it is a country
plagued with the american curse. a country forced
to accept debt from the world bank and
consequenty its downfall. plz do remember that
any country in the world that accepted loans from
the world bank has only seen its downfall, never
progress. world bank, by giving loans, enters
into the political scene of the country,
squeezing as much out for the american cause as
possible not caring about the lives of the
millions it destroys. if i, as a person, face soo
much lack of concern from someone else, i really
doubt that id feel any obligation to be nice to
them - if only for humanity. no i do not advocate
revenge but when world bank doesnt show humanity
neither does indonesia.

Let us not forget the innumerable hate crimes,
burnt mosques etc in America during the post sept
11 period. Where America advocates democracy,
sept 11 is all but farceness and greed in the
name of democracy! Afghan has oil so lets
advocate democracy there... where was this
democracy when rawanda was dying of hunger and
starvation? where is the democracy for the
starving, AIDS infested african countries? Name
me one afghani involved in the plane crash. all
names mentioned were saudi... so y afghanistan?
aboive all, the first three lists of people dead
in the aircraft sept 11 aircrafts had not ONE
saudi names. moreover, the cnn website for the
longest time carried a banner on the top
apologizing for the misprinting of names. some of
the names mentioned in the list were found to be
survivors having moved bak to saudi 4-5 years
ago. one of the names mentioned was a 7 year old
child! Studies in the last two days show that the
pentagon attacks were through american misslies.
numerous articles and pictures prove such.
try visiting these sites:
http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
http://www.ummahnews.com/viewarticle.php?sid=4195

Why the entire world is waging war? u ask
yourself this. go bak in time to the ottoman
empire and even before that. the time of Mohammed
(peace be upon him) was the time where the world
prospered the greatest. all atronomical,
numerical discoveries go bak to this age through
muslim scientists. all the theories of light and
vision u study in physics today, were discovered
by musli scientists. Ibn Batoota, a muslim
traveller covered 7 times as much as his
contemporary Marco polo. Islam is not a religion
limited to sunday (friday in our case) practices.
its a whole way of life. it is a system not only
outlining our religious obligations but our
social and political practices too. This
threatens america because our system is against
capitalism which is based on non existent money.
we consider that cheating people - remember the
stock market crashes across the world? remeber
the artificially caused one in 1997 which
throttled indonesia and malaysia? our system, if
practiced, doesnt cheat people. remember that our
political leaders in most muslim coutries are
american puppets. if they were to follow islam
instead of america.. wat u see today wouldnt be!
and sitting in america u dont see american
hypocricy... try getting a a channel like al
jazeera to tell the brutal masacres in palestine,
afghanistan, kashmir etc by america! ull be
astonished!

"Between us there can be no word of giving or taking, nor of reward; for we are brethren... and never has any league of peoples been more blessed, so that neither has ever failed the other, nor shall fail."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

"Lade up with briefness, administer upwith placet not briefness oh"

In green text - middle of card

"Beamof light placet throw light on lock hole !!
Smallness genius too lustronsly!!"

In blue text - printed over middle of the key

"On accont of shape either thickneessk of set measures to, share key unpowered stow down."

In green text - printed at bottom of key

"Whenas key unpowered stow down chron May, forcompany commonness key-holp wield"

Although a local newspaper poll showed strong support for the Isotopes name, the mayor of Albuquerque was not amused.

"This isn't a second-rate city that should be taking our name from a cartoon show," Mayor Marin Chavez told reporters upon hearing the name for the new local team.

'AZAAN' - AN AMAZING DISCOVERY
Azaan: An incredible medium for the proclamation of Tawheed of Almighty Allah and Risaalat of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, the sound of which constantly echoes around the globe.

Amazing though it sounds, but fortunately for the Muslims of the world, it is an established fact. Have a look at a map of the world and you will find Indonesia (an Islamic country) right on the eastern side of the earth’s central landmass. Indonesia consists of numerous small islands, the principle ones amongst them being Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Saibil, all of which are well known. It is the largest country in the world, with 180 million inhabitants. The number of non-muslims here is negligible.

As soon as dawn breaks on the eastern side of Saibil, at approximately 5:30 am local time, Fajar Azaan begins. Thousands of Mu’azzins in eastern Indonesia commence proclaiming the Tawheed (oneness) of the Almighty, Omnipotent and Omniscient Allah and Risaalat (Universal Apostleship) of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam.

The process then continues and advances towards the Western Islands of Indonesia. The time difference between the eastern and western islands of Indonesia is one and a half hours. Hence, one and a half hours after the Azaan has been completed in Saibil, it echoes in Jakarta on Java island. Sumatra then follows suit and before this auspicious process of calling Azaan ends in Indonesia, it has already begun in Malaysia. Burma is next in line, and within an hour of its commencement in Jakarta, it reaches Dacca, the capital city of Bangladesh. No sooner the calling of Azaan ends in Bangladesh, it has already prevailed in western India, from Calcutta to Srinagar. It then advances towards Bombay and the environment of entire India resounds with this august proclamation.

Srinagar and Sialkot (a city in north Pakistan) have the same timing for Azaan. The time difference between Sialkot, Kota, Karachi and Gowadar (a city in Baluchistan, a province of Pakistan) is forty minutes, and within this time, Fajar Azaan is heard throughout Pakistan. Before it ends there, however, it has already begun in Afghanistan and Muscat. The time difference between Muscat and Baghdad is one hour. Azaan resounds during this one hour in the environments of Hijaaz-e-Muqaddas (Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah), Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq.

The time difference between Baghdad and Alexandria in Egypt is again one hour. Azaan continues to resound in Syria, Egypt, Somalia and Sudan during this hour. Alexandria and Istanbul are situated on the same geographical longitude. The time difference between eastern and western Turkey is one and a half hours, and during this time it is echoed with the call to prayer.

Alexandria and Tripoli (capital of Libya) are located at an hour’s difference from one another. The process of calling Azaan thus continues throughout the whole of Africa. Therefore, the proclamation of the Oneness of Allah and the Prophethood of Muhammad Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam that had begun in the eastern islands of Indonesia reaches the Eastern Shore of the Atlantic ocean after nine and a half hours.

Prior to the Azaan reaching the shores of the Atlantic, the process of Zohar Azaan has already commenced in eastern Indonesia, and before it reaches Dacca, Asar Azaan has started. This has hardly reached Jakarta one and half hours later, then the time of Maghrib becomes due, and no sooner has Maghrib time reached Sumatra, then the time for calling Isha Azaan has commenced in Saibil! When the Muazzins of Indonesia are calling out Fajar Azaan, the Muazzins in Africa are calling out the Azaan for Isha.

If we were to ponder over this phenomenon seriously and studiously, we would conclude the amazing fact that: 'There is not a single moment when thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Muazzins around the world are not proclaiming the Oneness of Almighty Allah and the Apostleship of the noble Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam on the surface of this earth!' Insha-Allah, this universal and continuous calling of the Azaan shall not cease until the Day of Judgement, and we should all make du`a for the same, AMEEN.

(Translated from Tameer-e-Hayaat)

America's CIA helped Osama and the Taliban overthrow the Soviets in Afghanistan. Maybe Osama bin Laden is still on the CIA payroll? And perhaps they arranged for him and the higher-ranking Taliban to escape .

Is it any wonder that the people of the world have developed

a fear and sometimes open hatred for Muslims when they see:

terror videos for sale at a mosque

. This is madness, it's a blasphemy against Allah, and it must be stopped.





We have decided to cooperate with the authorities here in Britain and

in the USA. Britain must not be used as a base for world-wide Islamist terrorism.

The evidence we have of Islamists activities against India regarding Kashmir

will be given to the Indian authorities. We will help the Russians battle

the evil of the Saudi-Wahhabi sponsored Chechen Mujhadeen. We will help the

Israelis overcome

Arafat and his goons

.

The thing that makes fundamental Christianity special is that it’s the only religion that runs smear campaigns. No voodoo witch doctors have ever put together a home video warning voodoo parents of the seductive danger of Christian rock. HP...WR:MELI takes its outrage an extra step into crazy by actually inventing most of the things they hate about Harry Potter. Of course, as the video warns, if you say witchcraft has no power, you have two problems in your line of reasoning. One: you’re ignoring all the people that do have magic powers, and two: you’re saying that God’s warning in the Bible against sorcery is actually worthless. That means that the people who made this video have set it up so that in order for them NOT to be crazy, children need to be flying on brooms and raising bodies from the dead. So say what you want about their book-burning crusade, these people have balls.

Salaam.. everyone person born is a muslim at birth, since it is the true religion.  After time, whether it be parents, where we live whatever, that changes, and people have then conform to their different religions.  So I have reverted back to Islam.  Most people that I have talked to, do not like the word converted.  That means you made an entire switch, which is not true. Since you start off as Muslim,  you are just reverting or coming back to it. I truly hope i have said this correctly. If I have not please forgive me and correct me.

And what if the U.S. warmongers achieve their aims of gaining control of all sources of oil in Asia (and the Middle East and North Africa), and of the mineral wealth of Central Asia?  Will the Europeans, Japanese and Chinese feel secure in the knowledge that the United States will surely sell them whatever they need to maintain their industrial economies — and their military capabilities?  (The Russian and Chinese leaders surely understand the long-term threat to their national sovereignty, and are acting accordingly.)

Or is there something even more sinister going on?  Is the goal "at the highest level" the extinction of the human species?  If so, will the American people prove to be "useful idiots" facilitating the attainment of this goal?  Or, on the contrary, might they yet awaken from their ignorance, their stupidity, their greed and their egoism, take a hard look at themselves, understand what their lying, vicious, rapacious, hypocritical government is doing in the name of "freedom and democracy", and rein in and reform that government, reconstitute their nation as a republic as the authors of the Constitution intended, and save the world, as they believe (or used to believe) is their manifest destiny?

Of course Jihad means struggle. So does Kampf.

Children are savage little things. The jungle is in them, and the wilderness. Occasionally, one will come along in whom the jungle boils and screams, and with that one comes chaos. And with children, chaos is a thing of stones and blood.

The thread is full of charming stuff; they talk about the joys of knifing Jews, and discuss the merits of a particular decapitate-the-infidel tape - who knew it was such a genre? It almost seems as if these guys trade decapitation tapes like l33t hackers swap warez...

There’s more. It’s lovely. Sample message topics: “Do Jews Drink Human Blood?” “Holocoust Never Happened!”

I’d have no interest in this website whatsoever were it not for three things:

1. When there’s a subculture out there ranking the best jihadi decapitation video, you’d best pay attention.

2. When a message board devoted to guidance for Islamic youth doesn’t delete the posts about stabbing Jews, you’d best pay attention.

3. This thread. As far as I can tell, the debate seems to be whether it’s a brother’s job to kill his sexually active sister, or the religious authority’s job.

As much as it might pain the students at clearguidance.com, American churches don’t give two figs for the subject of Islam one way or the other. It’s just not on their radar. There are no pained debates in church basements about how to act towards Muslim friends, or what to do when your friend’s sister comes over with a headscarf. As much as some would like to portray mainstream American religious belief as a Dangerous Ravening Force bent on establishing an Ashcroftian theocracy, most churches look inward. A dear friend of mine is part of a church-group mission to help the Truly Farked - she’s mentoring a down-and-out drug addict, helping her get on her feet. Is that addict a Christian? No idea. Doesn’t come up. Does my friend praise Jeeeeeesus every time she drops off meals or blankets for the addict? Irrelevant. The act is what matters. It’s the gift, not the wrapping.

What it might have been was men and women and machines and processes working the way that they were built, trained, and employed. These people did not just show up there at random and begin drilling. They had a plan develped by men and carried out by deceidedly ungodlike individuals.

Why then is God getting all the credit and none of the blame? He did, in fact, move that old mine that was filled with water 300 feet in closer to the new mine so that the miners would break through and almost drown. That was the real miracle! Oh, he didn't do that? That was a faulty map drawn by men many years ago? I see. well, couldn't he have intervened back then when the map was being drawn and fixed so that the nine miners wouldn't become trapped in 2002? A little proactive miracling would seem to work wonders.

An increasingly annoying trend in support lines in the UK (and undoubtedly elsewhere too) is for the company to substitute training and product knowledge with an "expert system" that prompts the guy on the other end of the line. "Ask them to check their dial-up settings; click here, there, choose this, do that. Ask them to re-install windows, just in case. Ask them do they want fries with that? Don't forget to thank the customer for calling."
That way they can pay minimum wage because the tech support guy isn't actually trained, he's just a monkey who can read and doesn't scream back at abusive customers. Chances are there's fifty of them there, and they all last about 2-6 months. When I call tech support, I -=know=- what's wrong; I want a straight answer to a question like "is there a problem with your routers in this area?" Problem is, the answer to that question requires knowledge of the question - it's unlikely to be in the expert system of stock-questions and stock-answers. It'd be on a status page if they had one (annoyingly few people do!). So now both myself and Bruce have resorted to just hanging up and redialling until we find The Tech Support Yoda, who's much like the person writing those fantastic "Porn Store Clerk" entries -- far too clever to be in that job. What you get is:

Me:  Hi! Is there a problem with the routers in the Luton/Hertfordshire
     area?
TS1: Uh.. what exactly is the problem? Is it that you can't connect to a
     particular website?
Me:  No..  I just want a simple answer.  Do you have a status board
     somewhere in your office? Doesn't it say something like
     "beaver.routers.ntlworld.com -- down for maintenance"?
TS1: I .. er.. look, could you just check your internet dial-up
     connection settings?
Me:  Alright, I'm going to hang up now because you're clearly not
     capable of dealing with my problem.

[.. -click- -redial- -repeat three or four times- -finally-]

Me:   Hi! Is there a problem with the routers in the Luton/Hertfordshire
      area?
Yoda: Hmm! Problem there is, yes! Use alternative dialup number, you
      must.  0845 292-9412
Me:   Thank you! Bye!

That's all I want! It's all I ask for! I despair sometimes, I truly do. :)

What the Qur’an does say, however, is very interesting: not only does it subscribe to a warfare-approach to “jihad”, but what comes across also as increasingly clear is the fact that by far the most instances where Muslims are prompted to carry out jihad in the Qur’an, refer to acts of aggressive instigation rather than that of defensive warfare (just examine the subject index in any good copy of the Qur’an). Not only is it permitted, but the Qur’an orders that it be waged till the cause of God prevails. This flies in the face of Armstrong’s blind belief that Muslims “…may never initiate hostilities… and aggressive warfare is always forbidden. The only permissible war, therefore, is a war of self-defense…”. Such injunctions heavily tend towards being exceptions rather than instances of a general rule. Thus, Muslims, as well as some non-Muslim “experts”, who propound this version of “self-defence-only jihad” subscribe to a notion that, with respect to the classical Islamic doctrine, is palpably false. Some modernist Muslims, like the late Fazlur Rahman of Chicago University, have rejected this view owing to its gross misuse of history. As they point out, this notion of “jihad”, as a strategy only for self-defence, is a myth.

I just want him to know that I am not impressed. I want him to know that his cellphone and pile of bags do not make him impressive, they make him a human log jam. I want him to know that renting a stack of 6 porn movies a day tends to undercut his intended dashing, man-about-town effect. I want him to know that true big-shots do not try to screw small locally-owned businesses out of petty amounts of cash. I want to have the pleasure of publicly deflating him.

There is no earthly reason I should care so much, and it drives me nuts that I do. I am a pacifist. I like to think of myself as a nonviolent and gentle person. I have actually fantasized about knocking Mr. Pig to the ground and kicking him. Once, when he was being particularly obnoxious, I had a flash of an image: Me putting a foot on Mr. Pig's chest, shoving a gun in his mouth, and blowing his brains across the New For Sale section. It frightened me, but I enjoyed it.

I used to hate opening on weekends because the early morning customers scared the shit out of me. The store opens at 9. I usually do about 20 mintues of set-up and hit the front door at 9 on the dot by the store clock. There is always someone waiting to get to the porn. Once or twice I have had a problem - a register came up short or a circuit breaker was blown - and I've opened the door at, say, 9:01 and 52 seconds. In both cases, a guy was actually pounding at the door when I got to it. Not the same guy - I'm not sure whether that's scarier or not. Both guys almost flipped out when I took the time to slide the sign from "closed" to "open" before turning the lock.

It gets pretty full at 9am on Saturdays and Sundays. I don't know if people are just getting up or if they stayed up or what. I just know they've been waiting for porn until they almost can't stand it.