Can anyone explain? Please? (The suicide bombing in Pakistan)

I understand when crazy Islamic terrorists bomb a shopping street in Stockholm. "Understand" here certainly doesn't mean "approve", but hey, that's why we call them crazy Islamic terrorists, and Swedes are mostly infidels anyway. I understand when Sunnis bomb Shia mosques, and Shia bomb Sunni mosques, they are sort of almost like infidels for each other. I understand why they bomb police in Iraq, because police tends to cramp terrorists' style. I understand why the followers of Absolutely Crazy Mujahideen Movement burn the mosque of the Totally Insane Mujahideen Movement, because they are competitors. I understand why the Taliban burn girls' schools, because hey, girls' schools!

What I don't understand is why that bitch, or anyone else, would blow up a line of people trying to get some food. There isn't some crazy sect somewhere that is against food, is there?

Tried to google for it, but did not find a satisfactory explanation.

The news of the weekend: islamophobia in Sweden

The first news item on HS's front page says "Huoli islaminvastaisuudesta kasvaa Ruotsissa" ("Concern over islamophobia is rising in Sweden").

Oh, really? I thought Sweden's biggest news of the weekend was the suicide bombing in Stockholm. Silly me.

When the, ahem, unfortunate incident happened I tried to be a good and unprejudiced citizen and for a moment imagine that it was the Aggressive Amish, the Militant Methodists, the Evil Jews or the Bad, Bad Buddhists. Or maybe a lone Person of Different Sanity (they do indeed happen ever one in a while, though nowadays they tend to convert to one particular religion first).

My poor little prejudiced mind didn't turn out to be all that imaginative, and pretty soon reverted to connecting the unfortunate incident with Islam. I am not sure what gave me that idea: whether it was my evil nature, reading too much Hommaforum, or the letter that the perpetrator sent to Sweden's Security Police and a news agency, blaming the troops in Afghanistan and the Muhammed cartoons and calling on Europe's Mujahedin to rise. One of those things, I am sure.

Not that HS is wrong: the bombing will increase islamophobia in Sweden and probably here as well. People do tend to be a bit phobic about whatever and whoever tries to kill them, I suppose it's just human nature or something.

I do understand many Swedish Muslims' concern about being associated with that fucker, I do appreciate them having a demonstration against terrorism (a very small demonstration but in this weather you can't really blame them), and I don't think that imams speaking out against terrorism is a pointless gesture (they are not going to convince the radicals, but they might convince some of their less-radical support base), I just think that having it as the top news item is a bit weird.

About the suspect himself: he studied in UK, and I suppose it's a matter of time when some connection with Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, Abu Izzadeen, Anjem Choudary or somebody else from that gang will come up.

News of the peaceful, and Islamic Students Societies in UK

Faisal Shahzad got life in prison without parole for that little bomb he left in a car on Times Square. "The war with Muslims has just begun," said the man who has clearly missed something essential in the concept of the religion of peace. He has also invited everybody present to Islam (trying to inspire them by his own stellar example, I am sure) and interrupted the judge with "Allahu Akbar".

Nidal Malik Hasan, the guy who went on a shooting rampage in Fort Hood, is still waiting for a hearing. Seeing as he has been a more successful terrorist than Faisal Shahzad, he might actually be sentenced to his paradise and get a 72-year-old virgin. The most sexual contact Faisal Shahzad is likely to get would be Richard Reid.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the pantybomber is still awaiting his trial as well. He is not very likely to receive a death penalty, but if it's not clear to him what one should do with 72 virgins after burning one's dick off, I have a bit of advice: use your hands, man.

Abdulmutallab was the president of the Islamic Student Society of University College London.

There are 25 Islamic Student Societies in London. By an amazing coincidence three of their presidents got convicted for terrorism in the last 3 years. Waheed Zaman, one of the liquid bombing plot participants, was the president of the Islamic Student Society of London Metropolitan University, and is currently serving a life sentence for that liquid bombing plot. Yassin Nassari, the guy who led the Islamic Student Society of University Westminster is merely serving a few years for smuggling Qassam blueprints.

The funny thing that every time a president or another member of an Islamic Student Society in UK gets caught for taking his spiritual struggle a bit too explosively, the Islamic Student Society in question is totally shocked that one of them has done something like that, and hurries to explain that they would have never imagined...

I can well understand that a member of an organization can turn out to be a terrorist without any encouragement from the organization. When 3 of the presidents of 25 sister organizations, and a number of other members, turn out to be terrorists, it does seem a bit too much of a coincidence. When the umbrella organization of those 25 invites Anwar Al-Awlaki, by that time a known terrorist spiritual leader, as the distinguished guest speaker for their 2003 annual dinner, the coincidence becomes quite improbable. When one of the organizations holds video lectures by the same man in 2008, when he is already wanted for terrorism by two governments, the coincidence reaches the orders of magnitude of the Infinite Improbability drive.

According to a poll made 2 years ago Islamic Student Society members, who constitute 25% of Muslim students, are quite radical. 65% of the active members want to introduce Sharia for Muslims in Britain (as opposed to 36% of non-member Muslims). 58% of active members and 26% of non-members support worldwide Caliphate. 60% of active members thought it was acceptable to kill in the name of religion (49% only if the religion were under attack, 11% just to promote religion). Non-member Muslim students were only 32% for killing in the name of religion, 4% for killing just to promote religion. For comparison's sake, 2% of non-Muslim students thought it acceptable to kill in the name of religion.

All of the above is not even really news anymore, but I just wish some journalist would rub it in the face of Islamic Student Societies the next time they are publicly surprised about one of their stray leaders being sentenced to a life in prison.

My contribution to the Everyone Draw Muhammed Day

I totally suck at drawing, so I made a photo collage reflecting my view of the guy.

The best contribution I've seen so far was Iowahawk's (via the Fourth Checkraise).

The news of the peaceful

A Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight going from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day. He tried to repeat the feat of Richard Reid, and in fact had, failing to blow up the airplane and getting caught. Unlike Reid, who used shoes and failed the igniting part, Abdulmutallab actually managed to set a bomb in his lap on fire, and only the passengers' and crew vigilance and subsequent beating the living shit out of him saved the plane.

We still do not know whether he has grilled his nuts enough to make this officially eligible for a Darwin award submission, but this is not really essential for the gene pool, since his only potential sex partner from now on is likely to be Richard Reid. At least they have a lot in common, testicles or not.

There is a story making rounds in the press that the man is the son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the recently retired chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria. Damn, the story is starting to sound like a Nigerian spam letter already.

God knows what poverty can drive people to.

Today I saw the term "joulurauhan uskonto" somewhere. Unfortunately I have no idea who to attribute it to.

The aviation authorities have responded by banning cabin luggage for the last hour of the flight (meaning that one hour before landing you put all your stuff in the overhead bin and just sit there for an hour without a book or a player, wishing a thousand painful deaths on Abdulmutallab). Oh well, we should probably be grateful be did not stick explosives up his ass.

In much more amusing news: Abdullah Tammi, the founder and the former chairman of the Islamic Party of Finland, resigned last week due to his taking stand against terrorism. He decided to found his own party, the Party of Socialist Peace.

I wish I could say something funny about this, but I really can't make it sound any funnier than it already does.

You know the world economy is in crisis when...

...even the terrorists can afford to discriminate.

Five Americans tried to join several terrorist groups in Pakistan, but were rejected by Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Jaish-e-Muhammed for being foreigners without sufficient references.

Sheesh. Where is this world going with such discrimination against foreign labor?

Anyway, now Ramy Zamzam, Umar Farooq, Waqar Khan, Ahmad Mini, and Aman Hassan Yemer (See? See? Not a single Muhammed! Take that, Mark Steyn!) have been arrested and are being questioned by the US security officials.

Could be worse, of course. You know that the economy is really fucked when they start demanding 10 years of experience from people applying to be suicide bombers.

Universal values

The Swiss have voted to ban construction of minarets. The Secretary General of the Organisation of The Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said that the ban was "an unfortunate development that would tarnish the image of Switzerland as a country upholding respect for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights and also as a recent example of growing anti-Islamic incitements in Europe by the extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scare-mongering ultra-right politicians who reign over common sense, wisdom and universal values".

Universal values? Universal fucking values? This is the organisation that, twenty years ago, figured that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wasn't good enough, or Islamic enough, and produced a competing document, whose first article starts "All human beings form one family whose members are united by submission to God and descent from Adam," ends "the Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.", and has such pearls of wisdom as "everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari'ah."

Guys, can you make up your mind as to whether we have any universal values or not?

If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck...

...it just might be a fucking duck!

Seriously: yes, of course, a guy named Nidal might go postal just like a guy named John. (Hmm, Nidal, it means struggle in Arabic. At least they didn't name him Jihad.) Besides, being a soldier, a Muslim and a psychiatrist at the same time might be kind of hard on a person's mental health (no offense to people who are any of the above).

Still: according to quite a lot of sources, the man praised suicide bombers, was disciplined for preaching Islam to the patients, handed out Korans before starting his shooting spree, listened to the sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, and screamed "Allahu Akbar" while shooting. What does it take to figure out what his motives were? Should Al-Qaeda print membership cards, or sell t-shirts?

Somehow it didn't take the media half as much time to figure out Sodini's motives.

Of well, Nidal Malik Hasan is alive, we'll see what he has to say. Maybe I should start a guessing game:

1. "Allahu Akbar!"
2. "Oops, sorry. Eek."
3. "Well, I was in such a state of shock that I completely blacked out; I can't remember a thing."
4. "Texas is occupying Palestinian land!"
5. "I totally need a lawyer!"
6. "Jews made me do it."

Shit, this is really embarassing

Did Geert Wilders go nuts from all the stress?

He wants a 1000 euro yearly tax on wearing hijabs,

They used to have a beard tax in Russia, too, but at least they had two excuses: the year was 1705 and the czar who instituted the tax was, well, differently sane. What's Wilder's excuse?

At least it's not a capital offense...

A friend of mine is on trial tomorrow. For blasphemy, among other things. In Finland.

That's one thing I'd never expected to say outside of the role-playing game context, but it does unfortunately happen to be the case in real life.

The blasphemy consisted of saying that a certain prophet (police be upon him) liked children in more ways than one. I'd rather not be more specific, lest the holy inquisition thinks that I harbor some impure thoughts as well.

Instead I'll quote from Ayatollah Khomeini, the respected Shi'a religious authority who married a 10-year-old girl at the age of 27 (Clarification of Questions):

#2410. If a person contracts for himself a girl who has not reached puberty and before she finishes her ninth year enters the girl he must never have intercourse with her in case he causes her path of urine and menses or that of menses and stool to become one.

#2459. It is recommended that one hurries in giving husband to a daughter who has attained puberty, meaning that she is of the age of religious accountability. His Holiness, Sadegh, salutations to him, bade that it is one of a man's good fortunes that his daughter does not see menses in his own house.

And lest we forget the Sunnis, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh: "It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger. A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."

Khomeini is dead, but I am sure the Finnish authorities can try the Grand Mufti if he ever visits here. For defamation of his religion.

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition

When I was a little kid 30 years ago, I read books about the Spanish inquisition, and how it burned people just on the mere accusation of blasphemy. I did think then that people must have been stupid and crazy in the middle ages, but nobody warned me that I'd be reading similar stuff in the news 30 years from then.

Not in Spain, obviously. In Pakistan. They burned 8 Christians accused of blasphemy.

According to Henningsen-Contreras statistics, Spanish inquisition executed on average a little over 5 persons a year during the years 1540-1700. Not that it's really relevant here.

And the reason why the above was important

#2375. A father and a paternal grandfather can marry for their child who has not yet reached puberty, or was an insane when reaching puberty; and after that child reached puberty, or the insane became sane, he cannot cancel the marriage that was done for him if it did not involve a mischief against him and can cancel it if a mischief was involved.

#2410. If a person contracts for himself a girl who has not reached puberty and before she finishes her ninth year enters the girl he must never have intercourse with her in case he causes her path of urine and menses or that of menses and stool to become one.

#2459. It is recommended that one hurries in giving husband to a daughter who has attained puberty, meaning that she is of the age of religious accountability. His Holiness, Sadegh, salutations to him, bade that it is one of a man's good fortunes that his daughter does not see menses in his own house.

From A Clarification of Questions by Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, the 1st Supreme Leader of Iran, who married a 10-year-old girl at 27.

Offered without comment

From Sahih al-Bukhari, with no intention to insult or to connect the holy institutions of anything to anything:

Volume 5, Book 58, Number 234:

Narrated Aisha:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's Blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah's Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age.

Volume 5, Book 58, Number 236:

Narrated Hisham's father:
Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old.

And now for some more negative portrayal of Muslims in the media

The news quote of the day:
"Police say an upstate New York man concerned about the negative portrayal of Muslims in the media beheaded his wife after she filed for divorce."

The dicks and the League for Human Rights

Ihmisoikeusliitto (Finnish League for Human Rights) wants a law permitting boys' circumcision and making it available through the public health care system.

This is the League for Human Rights, not against them. Right? Let me check again. Right.

I would have thought that on the general scale of human rights the right to keep one's own body parts would rate fairly high, and the right to cut off somebody else's comparatively low, but I guess the League for Human Rights thinks otherwise. Silly me.

But first a bit about the facts:

1. The circumcision debates list all kinds of benefits and drawbacks to the procedure, but if you start to look at the studies you can see that they are all pretty inconclusive either way. The bottom line is, in the words of the American Medical Association, that "virtually all current policy statements from specialty societies and medical organizations do not recommend routine neonatal circumcision". I don't think the case should be argued on any medical merits.

2. In Finland there is no law concerning circumcision, and for a long time there was no legal precedent, either. Circumcision has been tolerated for as long as there has been a Jewish and a Muslim community, who traditionally did it among themselves without demanding anything from the public health care system, and circumcision became the subject of public discussion with the current Muslim immigration. The new immigrants understandably consider it their right to do what the established minorities have been doing for about 150 years, but often can't afford it on their own.

In 2008 the Supreme Court decided that religious circumcision is not a crime as long as it's done in a proper medical way.

But the court of course decides what the law is, not what it should be.

3. Most importantly, no country in the civilized world bans male circumcision, and our brave leaders don't want to be the first.

Back to Finnish League for Human Rights' statement.

The arguments for a law permitting and funding circumcision are ridiculous. The League for Human Rights says they don't believe that there would be any fewer circumcisions if the procedure is forbidden than there is now, and expresses concern that if circumcision is forbidden the people will turn to medically unsafe practitioners.

As a Jew, I find the implications very insulting. We are fairly law-abiding people, fairly well aware of various human rights concerns, and for the most part not very fanatically religious. Moreover, while I am most decidedly not a fan of Islam, I - unlike, apparently, the Finnish League for Human Rights - don't think that they are all criminal fanatics, either.

There is a precedent: circumcision wasn't outright forbidden in the ex-USSR, but it was made quite difficult. And guess what: most Jews there didn't do it.

For those who would circumcise their sons no matter what there are other ways to discourage dangerous methods without permitting the procedure. First of all, there is such thing as medically necessary circumcision, and I think at least some of those people will find a sympathetic doctor. Second, one way of dealing with it would be to make medically sound non-medical circumcision a fairly minor crime (battery, for example, or even minor battery) and make a medically unsound circumcision an aggravated battery, for which parents can actually go to prison.

Banning circumcision won't get rid of it completely. But if people who want to circumcise their sons will need to find a sympathetic doctor, or a sympathetic country, and possibly get a fine and/or a suspended sentence when caught, at least everyone who is in doubt or who is just doing it because it's a tradition will stop doing it. It's worth a try.

As to being the first: there used to be a time when it was legal almost everywhere to rape one's wife or to beat one's children. Finland wasn't the first country to ban those either, but doesn't it wish it were?

Let's not frequently and wrongly associate, comrades!

The UN General Assembly has drafted a resolution on combating defamation of religions. The draft I have linked to has been drafted by such famous human rights luminaries as Belarus, Uganda and Venezuela; I am not sure whether it's their job to write all the drafts or whether the next draft will be written by Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

Anyway, the General Assembly "expresses deep concern in this respect that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism". They probably also wanted to express grave concern, but then thought better about it and decided not to mention the graves, just in case.

I can totally understand them. I also often express deep concern that my scale shows me the numbers that frequently and wrongly associate me with being overweight. I have a suspicion that eating less chocolate is more likely to correct the problem than a General Assembly resolution, but then I've never had a General Assembly resolution about my scale, so who knows... While they are at it, they should also express deep concern that my mirror frequently and wrongly associates me with not being 20 anymore.

But just for today I'll try to be politically correct and not wrongly associate too much.

OK, in the news:

The Religion of Peace, or maybe some different, previously unknown religion, or maybe militant atheists, has arranged a demonstration for peace in Mumbai. The demonstration seems to have suffered from a massive demo effect. So far, 125 people have found eternal peace, and 327 have been peacefully injured. The targets have been a railway station, two hotels, two hospitals, a cafe, police headquarters and the local Chabad house. Chabad houses are the houses of a large Orthodox Jewish sect, Chabad Lubavicher, and I am sure this one was taken for a peaceful dialogue between religions.

Besides Jews, the demonstrators wanted to have a peaceful dialogue with American and British citizens, preferably in places where the police cannot interrupt it. Dialogue with Indians did not interest them just as much, and they mostly just showed them the way to eternal peace.

In other news, Afghan authorities have arrested 10 Taliban (nothing to do with religion) members who are alleged to have thrown acid on 11 schoolgirls and 4 teachers a couple of weeks ago in Kandahar. Taliban denied everything and thinks that it is probably unfair to stereotype them on the basis of all the previous attacks against girls' schools. Indeed, the article says "the central Taliban organization is not the only armed group capable of such an attack in Kandahar, as other extremist militias such as Hizb-i-Islami and the Haqqani network have been blamed for actions in the province". Since we should not associate them with Islam, I think they were extremist Amish and extremist Buddhists (who are still avenging those Buddhas that Taliban destroyed.

Via Jihad Watch:

Damn, I was being sarcastic, but it sounds like this guy is seriously saying it was the Jews.

"Don't blow up, we are running out of virgins!"

According to the Saudi cleric Omar Al-Sweilem, you only get 10 virgins. Did they have some downsizing in heaven, or are there so many terrorists nowadays that there just aren't 72 for everyone?

"What hair! What a chest! What a mouth! What cheeks! What a figure! What breasts! What thighs! What legs! What whiteness! What softness! Without any creams - no Nivea, no Vaseline. No nothing!" Wow. The man is clearly passionate about his sermon.

Oh well. The Heaven might have problems with downsizing, but at least these Heavenly Virgins did not forget to visit the Heavenly Alko.

Is there something in the water?

(Via Juha Kettunen):

I've always suspected that the Finnish Islamic party is mostly the result of insufficient mental health services, and this totally confirms it. Abdullah Tammi wants death penalty for sex outside of marriage. Of course, the majority of Finns should first convert to Islam, or know Sharia well. In the long run, Tammi wants to replace Finnish laws by Sharia law.

Helsingin Sanomat of course decided to omit such insignificant details and instead concentrates of Tammi's intention to make changes in sex education. It doesn't really give any details of the proposed changes, which makes my prejudiced mind conjure all kinds of possibilities, from "how to beat your wife" to "how to check your daughter's virginity".

The party intends to run in the municipal elections, if they find enough signatures to get themselves registered.

In other news of the weird, a Somali woman tried to hijack an Air New Zealand flight to Australia, stabbing two pilots in the process. Didn't anyone tell the idiot that a) Australia probably extradites hijackers, b) it would be cheaper to buy a ticket, all things considered, and c) stabbing pilots during a flight is not very conductive to successful landing, in Australia or elsewhere?

Inciting hatred

Everyone has surely already heard about the terrible teddy bear of blasphemy. British teacher Gillian Gibbons came to Sudan, worked in a school, let children vote on a name for a teddy bear, the kids voted for Muhammed, it being a rather popular name over there, a coworker complained to the police, the teacher was charged with insulting Islam, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, she was convicted only of insulting Islam, sentenced only to 15 days in prison and deportation, has been pardoned after only 9 days and is about to be deported today, and even, contrary to the traditional Sudanese ways, has been given food in prison.

Considering Sudan's usual human rights track record, this is quite civilized.

On Friday, however, thousands of demonstrators with swords and machetes, encouraged by some imams, demanded her death, waved their weaponry (without, unfortunately, cutting each other heads off) and shouted threats at Western journalists.

What I'd really like to know is whether any on the organizers ar participants of this lovely event has been charged with inciting hatred, or is it a charge exclusively reserved for bear-naming teachers?

I thought they did not have any?

Iranian minister (of what, BTW? energy is the best guess found by googling, but I am not sure) Mohsen Yahyavi said that gays should be hanged. or tortured. Or both.

Didn't his president just say that they didn't have any gays? How do you explain this discrepancy?

1. Ahmadinejad just did not know that a few gays had survived.

2. During the two months that have passed since then a few guys looked at Ahmadinejad and immediately got excited and became gay.

3. During the two months that have passed since then a few guys became gay after figuring out they are never gonna see a woman without all the coverings.

4. Mohsen Yahyavi really meant "hung", as in "well-hung", and is looking forward toward personally performing the torture with a pink fluffy whip.