Breaking through the “red line”
No One Murdered Because Of This Image: Following the publication of the image above, in which the most cherished figures from multiple religious faiths were depicted engaging in a lascivious sex act of considerable depravity, no one was murdered, beaten, … Continue reading →
Still not understanding the nature of affairs
I’m primarily science blogger, with an amateur interest in history. But I’m still disturbed that over 10 years after 9/11 elite media still can’t be bothered to be precise and accurate about the affairs of the Muslim world. As a neo-I…
Ummah, take care of your own shit!
There’s a lot of nasty stuff going down in Syria. Toddlers are being killed in front of their parents. This is prompting liberal internationalists like Shadi Hamid to demand that the USA intervene in Syria. This is the same Shadi Hamid, liberal internationalist, who admits that democracy in the Muslim world is going to manifest […]
Every tribune a Rick Santorum!
After the power of Islamists in Tunisia and Egypt made itself felt, and current domination of Iraq by Shia political parties, and the likely strength of Islamists in Libya, the media finally has become more cautious about pushing any narrative which ma…
Understanding across cultures
One of the non-science aspects of this weblog which I’ve been addressing over the past 10 years is attempting to get a grip upon cultural variation. There are two major dimensions in terms of the problem. One is positive, in that people don’…
To be atheist is an offense
I have seen references to this around the web, and don’t really know if I can believe this, because the details are so disturbing to consider. So I’ll pass it on, You can expect threats if you discuss Sharia: My One Law for All Co-Spokesperson Anne Marie Waters was to speak at a meeting on Sharia Law […]
The poverty of multiculturalist discourse
As I’ve noted in this space before many of my “web friends” and readers are confused why I call myself “conservative.” This is actually an issue in “real life” as well, though I’m not going to get into that because I’m a believer in semi-separation of the worlds. I’ll be giving a full account of […]
Being an atheist with a “Muslim name”
I was sent off to purchase some cheap white wine yesterday to further the production of a very tasty tuna pasta. So I quickly ran over to the neighborhood mini-mart. Actually, this was my first visitation to the mini-mart. The woman behind the counter was brown. Going by the numbers she was probably an Indian […]
Why are Muslims so eloquently barbaric?
I want to follow up Eurasian Sensation’s post on female false-consciousness. If you look in the World Values Survey you’ll see that plenty of non-Muslim societies are very reactionary and barbaric, even savage. The anti-gay hysteria in Uganda is representative of the non-Muslim face of barbarism. China, Japan, and Korea, are very secular societies, where […]
The New York Times flubs basic facts about Islam
Since 9/11, and even earlier back to the Iranian Revolution, Western journalists have served as oracles for the mass public, decrypting the ethnographic confusions of the Islamic world. There are many subtle shadings which no doubt can’t make int…
Culture differences matter (even within Islam)
I’ve been keeping track of events in the Arab world only from a distance. There’s been a lot of excitement on twitter and Facebook. Since I’m not an unalloyed enthusiast for democracy I’ve not joined in in the exultation. But I&…
God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis
Link to review: God’s Contintent, Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis.
God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis
Link to review: God’s Contintent, Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis.
Admissions of illiberalism
Recently I was having a twitter conversation with Kevin Zelnio and Eric Michael Johnson about the fact that I define myself as “right-wing.” Kevin kind of implied that I was poseur in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. I don’t wear my political beliefs on my sleeve too much in this space because 1) I find talking about […]
Aziz Ansari is not a Muslim, he is an atheist
A few days ago a friend was asking me about Aziz Ansari, the brown American comedian who grew up in South Carolina, and is of Tamil Muslim heritage. Since I don’t watch Parks and Recreation, I knew about him mostly through the Sepia Mutiny weblog. Some of the comments there indicated that Ansari was a […]
When the ancients were wise
I picked up The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization on the run, as I was about go traveling somewhere. I didn’t look at the contents or even the jacket summary very closely. My interest specifically was to get to know a little more about the Abbassid House of Wisdom, which like […]
God’s trade
One of the issues with pre-modern trade is that international banking and communication as we understand it did not exist, and trust was a major problem across distance and time. This is why dispersed ethno-religious groups could be the vectors by which private trade occurred between civilizations, because there was a circle of trust which […]