The Great Silence

Today's reading assignment considers the possibility that we might never meet other civilizations in the universe, and that we ourselves might unavoidably be doomed to extinction.

This article provides an interesting counter-argument to my post from December 31, 2007.

Such a sobering thought...

The End of the World is Predicted

This is no story from the Weekly World News. Scientists are predicting that the Earth will spiral into an expanding Sun in 7.6 billion years. But long before this happens, in "a billion years or so you've got an Earth with no atmosphere, no water and a surface temperature of hundreds of degrees, way above the boiling point of water...It will become completely impossible for life of any kind to exist. It's a pretty gloomy forecast."

Unfortunately, the latest prediction for time until there is peace in the Middle East is 7.7 billion years, so all this fighting may prove to be for naught.

On a more serious note, according to physicist Stephen Hawking, "The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe." Let's just hope that in the near future, the level of enthusiasm for space travel returns to that of the days of the space race of the 1960's.

Saudis Arrested for Flirting at Shopping Mall

57 men were arrested this past Thursday in Saudi Arabia for flirting with women outside a shopping mall. Their lawbreaking behavior "included dancing to pop music blaring from their cars and wearing improper clothing." This is one sick society.

Of course, these men have it a lot better than the Saudi woman accused of witchcraft, who faces beheading for her "crimes:"

2001: A Space Odyssey - 40 Years Old and Still a Masterpiece

This year marks the 40th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The film was - and remains -  a landmark science fiction movie (as well as a novel), groundbreaking in its storytelling and special effects.

Those familiar with the movie might enjoy this unique Flash animation called "Kubrick 2001 - The Space Odyssey Explained."

Below you will find the last 22 minutes of the film (split into three videos), which might be the most unique, mind-bending, psychedelic - and for the new viewer, confusing and aggravating - 22 minutes of film in movie history.

Iranian Sentenced to 4 Months in Jail and 30 Lashes for Walking Dog

In yet another example that the Muslim world wishes to squeeze all the happiness out of the lives of its citizens, an Iranian Man has been punished as the title suggests for walking his dog, because "Islam considers dogs to be impure." Jailing and beating dog owners, on the other hand, is a fine example of purity.

Demonstrating the hypocrasy of a Saudi prince, "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently provoked debate in Iran about dog ownership when he took possession of four guard dogs, bought in Germany for approximately $161,040 each."

Scientists on Iraqi TV Debate Whether the Earth is Flat

The video below shows excerpts from a debate on Iraqi television, between a physicist who argues that the Earth is a sphere, and an "astronomer" who believes it is flat.

The basis for the flat-earther's argument is:

"No verse in the Koran indicates that the Earth is round or that it rotates. Anything that has no indication in the Koran is false."

While this particular debate is comical, its implications are not. Aristotle declared that the Earth was a sphere about 2350 years ago, yet the absence of this information in the Koran is enough for an Iraqi "astronomer" to disbelieve the blatantly obvious. If the Koran says the sky is purple, then by god, it must be purple!

The formal education for many Muslims, especially in the Middle East, is limited to memorization of the Koran, an understanding of the Hadith, and a distorted history of Islam. If there are those capable of believing that the world is flat, how can you "unlearn" their beliefs about killing infidels?

Ahmadinejad Calls for Death to Israel

Clash of Civilizations

In the four days since my last posting, there have been three news stories from the Arab/Muslim world that clearly demonstrate the complete lack of common ground we in the West have with their societies. Many people find the concept of a "clash of civilizations" to be offensive, but as these news items demonstrate, the term is only inappropriate in that it elevates these dysfunctional states to the level of "civilization," when in fact they are as uncivilized as the Nazis were.

Cases in point:

In Egypt, people with HIV are being arrested and forcibly put into "special clinics." Furthermore, in the typical Islamic treatment of homosexuals, "four men were convicted in mid-January of 'habitual practice of debauchery,' a term used in the Egyptian legal system for consensual homosexual acts...Those men have been sentenced to one-year prison terms." Too bad for Egypt that they can't be like Iran, which according to President Ahmadinejad has no homosexuals, despite evidence that homosexuals are executed there.

A woman in Saudi Arabia is set to be executed for practicing witchcraft and performing supernatural acts. This places their backwards government at least 300 years behind the United States, to the time of the Salem Witch Trials. Part of the evidence against this poor Saudi woman is that "a man allegedly became impotent after being bewitched by" the woman. Unbelievable!



Also in Saudi Arabia, Valentine's Day was banned, as was the color red, on February 14, because the holiday was deemed "un-Islamic:"

"Buying, selling, wearing, or displaying anything red including red roses, clothes, wrapping paper, teddy bears and gift boxes were all illegal on this holiday for those in love. A few days prior to Valentine’s Day, flower shops and other stores were warned that they must remove all red items from their shelves...Government authorities let it be known that they were not going to tolerate any public displays of affection on February 14th. Though they claimed that Valentine’s Day promotes prohibited relations between unmarried men and women, public expressions of affection between married couples on that date was equally prohibited."

Despite Albert Brooks' attempt to find comedy in the Muslim world, the reality is that these are humorless, repressed, emotionally stunted societies, and that's largely the reason behind this clash of civilizations. That's not to say that there is something different in the nature of these people. Any religion followed in strict adherence to its ancient, tribal, desert ideology, traditions and laws is going to be soul-crushing. But Islam is alone in today's world in its being institutionalized in theocratic dictatorships. Any citizen of these countries who would prefer not to be ruled by lunatic dictates of the Koran have no choice but to restrict their objections to their own quiet thoughts.

Lucky for us, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are our allies. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Man Claims to be JFK's Love Child

I know this sounds like a story worthy of the Weekly World News, but it's true: An American living in Canada claims to be JFK's illegitimate son, and wants to take a DNA test to prove it.

At least Bill Clinton practiced safe extramarital sex.

World's Largest Christ Statue Struck by Lightning

Lightning has struck the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I'm sure the religious and superstitious the world over will be reading meaning into this event. And like a work of art, it is open to any and all interpretations. Mine would be that:

"Electricity seeks the path of lowest resistance. Arcing to a tall (typically wet) thing usually has a much lower electrical resistance than arcing through the air to the ground."

But then, I'm just a caustic skeptic.

The Plight of Women in Basra

"We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup.
Those who do not abide by this will be punished.
God is our witness, we have notified you."

These words were painted in Arabic in red paint just outside the main downtown market in Basra, Iraq. And they are no mere threat. Last year, 133 women were killed in Basra - 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for honor killings:

"There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads...two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."

"The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias."

Whether or not you feel we were justified in going to war, and whether or not you think we should leave, let's be honest about two things:

(1) To call the people we're fighting "animals" is unfair to animals.

(2) If and when we leave, there will be a bloodbath and barbarism beyond belief in the civil war that will follow.

To agree with these statements does not necessarily commit you to either side of the "leave or stay" debate, but to deny them suggests that you cannot or will not look reality in the face.

Exorcism Center to Open in Poland

It looks like I'm not the only one noticing all these exorcism stories in the news recently (here, here, here and here). A Polish priest "plans to build a 'spiritual oasis' that will serve as Europe's only center dedicated to performing exorcisms."

"With the blessing of the local Catholic archbishop and theological support from the Vatican, the center will aid a growing number of Poles possessed by evil forces or the devil himself."

Let me check my watch. This is the 21st Century, right? How could anyone be cynical about religion when the most recognizable religious figure on the planet, the Pope, provides his stamp of approval on such nonsense? A Catholic university in Rome even began offering courses in exorcism in 2005, obviously recognizing that demand for demon expulsion might exceed the availability of trained exorcists.

My favorite quote from the article: "Exorcists said they are careful not to treat people suffering from mental illness." Apparently this criteria is not applied to the exorcists themselves.

Newspapers Refuse to Print Cartoon That Satirizes Radical Islam

Growing up, my favorite comic strip was "Bloom County" by Berkeley Breathed. It offered a hilarious social commentary during its 1980-89 run. Breathed now has a comic strip called "Opus," which I stumbled upon today when thumbing through a newspaper over a latte at Starbucks. That led me to looking up these comic strips on Wikipedia, which in turn led me to discovering a news story from this past August.

It seems that several newspapers refused to run the August 26 Opus strip because a character decides she wants to become a radical Islamist...and goes on to explain why. One frame of the strip is above, but you can see the whole comic here.

Newsflash: We're at WAR with radical Islam. If the country had been scared to satirize Nazis during World War II, we might have found ourselves speaking German today. And when we did poke fun at the enemy, we weren't implicating every German, just as poking fun at fundamentalists doesn't denigrate moderate Muslims.

These newspapers were likely afraid to set off riots in the form of those in Europe and across the world during the Mohammed cartoon controversy (which resulted in over 100 deaths). I must wonder if the same sensitivity would have been exercised if the comic strip had satirized radical Christians or Jews...because you must be careful about rioting rabbis.

Archbishop of Canterbury Calls for "Constructive Accommodation" of Sharia into British Law

The spiritual leader of the Anglican church "said on Thursday the introduction in Britain of some aspects of sharia, Islamic law, was unavoidable." While his intentions were surely aimed at finding a way to coexist peacefully with a rising Muslim population, the reality is that Sharia is the basis for law in such shining examples of human rights as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan under the Taliban. Whatever its merits, any system of law that allows men to beat their wives and executes adulterers and homosexuals does not belong among the jursiprudence of Western civilization.

In 2003 and 2004, the European Court of Human Rights ruled "that sharia s incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy." In the unfortunately growing trend of European liberals willing to snap to the most unmoderate of Islamic demands, the Archbishop of Canterbury is applying yet another nail in Europe's coffin.

When the future Dhimmis of Europe look back at how they ended up as second-class citizens in their societies, they'll think about well-intentioned individuals like the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Hamas Continues to Launch Rockets from Gaza as TIME Condemns Israel

I think I'm going to cancel my subscription to TIME Magazine. I've noticed for awhile that their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unbalanced. But this article about the Gaza border breach might be the straw that broke this camel's back. There is ample space given to describing the difficulties under which the Gazan Paelestinians live, with blame laid squarely on Israel. But almost no indication is given as to why Israel has blockaded this dysfunctional political entity. The primary notice that is given is:

"The wild exodus from Gaza, which included more than one-fifth of the territory's 1.5 million people, was just a brief respite from the reality of life under Israel's blockade, which had been tightened on Jan. 17 in response to rocket attacks from Gaza soil."

"In response to rocket attacks from Gaza soil?" Who launched the rockets from Gaza? Colonel Sanders and his army of fry cooks?

This is a classic example of framing Israel's actions in an active voice (as you will see by the article), but framing the Palestinian role in a passive voice, as if they had no role in their own actions. Unbelievable!

The photos above come from a Gaza rocket factory, where up to 100 rockets are produced per night (and this is just from ONE factory). Up to fifty rockets per day rain down on southern Israel.

Israel provides Gaza with nearly 70% of its electrical power, which would be analogous to the United States providing electrical power to Mexico while under rocket attack from its customers. No other society on Earth would be expected to provide electricity - as well as fuel - to an enemy seeking its destruction (and if you doubt that, then explain why the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state).

Israel escalated its existing blockade of Gaza (in response to the unending rocket barrage) on January 17. "They stopped the flow of commercial goods, reduced the flow of fuel, and began letting through only humanitarian aid, such as food and medicines." They did NOT cut electrical power. But in response, "Hamas closed the single power plant that provided most of the power to Gaza City," in order to elicit world sympathy and pressure Israel, as usual, without addressing the reasons for the blockade in the first place. They even staged blackouts to fool journalists.

This drama led to Hamas blowing up parts of the border wall between Gaza and Egypt, and 12 days of free movement of Gazans into Egypt (until Egypt resealed the border last week). During the breach, the Gazans were able to "bolster their stores of weapons and explosives," which will inevitably aid them in more attacks against Israel.

For Israel, can you say, "No win situation?"

But none of this was reflected in the TIME Magazine article, which only painted the sad plight of the average Gazan, and denounced Israel for creating this situation. Now if I could find so much evidence to the contrary in a simple article search - reflected in the numerous links above, which I encourage you to review - could there be any excuse for TIME other than a severe bias against Israel?

Priorities

A woman in St. Augustine, Florida was pulled over yesterday after running a red light. The police deputy discovered her priorities when he found that she "had a case of beer belted in her front seat, but a young child unrestrained" in the back seat.

When the deputy asked the woman, Tina Williams, "for a driver's license, she replied, 'I never had one.'"

Police said Williams had bloodshot and watery eyes and staggered when she got out of the vehicle. Asked if she'd been drinking, she told the deputy, 'I had a few.'"

To vote for Tina Williams as Mother of the Year, please drop your ballot off at the nearest pub.

Iranian Sisters Face Stoning for Adultery

Those "civilized" Persians, the children of one of the great ancient empires, have yet again shown themselves to be just another society stuck in the backward wasteland of fundamentalist Islam, the tribal trappings of the desert forever impeding the development of a modern society.

"Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them."

In a family of dysfunctional Muslim countries, Iran is the Grandfather of Dysfunction. With stories like this being unfortunately commonplace, it should be clear that Iran has no interest in being part of the community of nations, no interest in developing a peaceful nuclear program, no interest in stopping its support of terrorism, no interest in helping to create peace in Iraq, no interest in backing away from its aggression toward Israel.

Like the Wahabbis of Saudi Arabia and the Taliban of Afghanistan, the Iranians want to export their diseased beliefs, their horrific application of Sharia, across the region and eventually the world. We must remain steadfast in our confrontation with Iran, and make sure that they are not provided the opportunity to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.

Man Says Exorcism Led to Wife's Death

Four days after my last exorcism story posting, which was a month after my previous exorcism story, a Texas man has been accused of killing his wife while "trying to exorcise a demon from her when the devil entered his body and caused her to die." The woman's body was "wrapped in a bed sheet with a cross and sword on top of it."

I'm starting to wonder if I should create a blog specifically devoted to tracking and reporting on exorcism stories. Of all the nonsensical religious beliefs that people have, possession by, and eviction of, demons is among the most incredible. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 42% of Americans believe in demonic possession. Some other incredible beliefs reported in this poll:

- Extrasensory perception (41%)
- Haunted houses (37%)
- Ghosts (32%)
- Telepathy (31%)
- Clairvoyance (26%)
- Astrology (25%)
- Communication with the dead (21%)
- Witches (21%)
- Reincarnation (20%)

"Gallup's analysis of the raw data revealed that 73 percent, almost three quarters of the people who responded to the poll, believe in at least one of the ten items that were presented to them."

I guess I'm the weird one.

Middle School in Camden, Maine Bans Intentional Flatulence

It seems that eighth-grade boys at Camden-Rockport Middle School are "making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus." So "the penalty for 'intentional farting' is now a detention."

This may be the best news story I've ever read.

Al-Qaeda Reaches the Height of Barbarity...So Will the Politicians Finally Be Honest?

In case more evidence was needed that Islamist terrorists are depraved, psychotic, inhuman barbarians, on Febuary 1 Al-Qaeda in Iraq strapped suicide bombs on two mentally retarded women with Down's Syndrome and exploded them remotely, killing 99 people in two crowded pet markets.

As the article notes, this is not the first time that the mentally disabled have been used, unwittingly, in suicide attacks. There have been precedents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, showing that the Nazis are not the only group capable of scraping the bottom of the barrel of human depravity.

We are stuck between a rock and a hard place in an unwinnable war (assuming "win" means leaving a democratic, peaceful ally behind). I'd like to see some honesty by both sides of the American political aisle regarding this predicament:

- The Right refuses to admit that the reasons given for this war proved flawed at best, that no notable quantities of WMD were found, nor was any reasonable connection between Saddam's regime and Al-Qaeda proven. No link between Iraq and 9/11 was ever established. And no matter how many times it is repeated, it is NOT true that the reason for going into Iraq was to free the Iraqis from Saddam's totalitarian regime and bring democracy to the country. There is also no acknowledgement that we've effectively turned Iraq into an incubator for terrorists, which is precisely what we were supposed to eliminate in Afghanistan (an effort that has been highly complicated by drain of resources into the Iraqi campaign). Finally, I have to credit John McCain with being honest in the speech below, in stating that if we stay in Iraq, we may need to be there for 100 years:

The irony is that after 100 years, the situation could easily be no different than it is now, and we may consider ourselves lucky to find another brutal, murderous, nationalistic tyrant (like Saddam) to suppress the armies of jihad. Staying in Iraq for decades is certainly not what the public believed it was signing up for, nor is it something that all but the most hardcore foreign policy conservatives would savor. The Republicans continue to repeat the mantra that "the surge is working" and that "we're winning," without admitting that even if we win militarily, it is meaningless if the price of "winning" is to remain in Iraq indefinitely as a police force holding back an inevitable civil war.

- The Left scores no better, however. The Democratic presidential candidates (especially when there were more than two) fought to outdo each other in how quickly they would leave Iraq if elected, and how they either didn't support the war from the beginning, or were "lied to" when they followed the herd. The focus is continually on the past, why we shouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place. This ignores the fact that WE ARE THERE NOW, and as such, are responsible for the outcome of our presence. If we set and announce a timetable for withdrawal of troops, the terrorists of all stripes will escalate their civil war, murder more Iraqis and Americans, and chase the last of our troops out the door. Many of those Iraqis who want us there will follow the almost 2 million current refugees out of Iraq, primarily into Syria and Jordan. Others will try to escape with the Americans, as happened when we left Vietnam:

And most importantly, there will be a bloodbath as the civil war is escalated far, far beyond what is possible with American troops playing referee. If our experience in Indo-China is a comparable example, after our evacuation, 100,000 Vietnamese and 2.5 million Cambodians were murdered. And of course, this will set off a tidal wave of enthusiasm for jihad and Islamic terrorism, as the perception will be that the soldiers of Allah defeated the United States just as they did the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. These terrorists thrive on any sign of weakness, and our departure will embolden them to rebuild in Iraq what we destroyed in Afghanistan. In the end, we will meet them in battle again...time and place to be determined.

There is no easy solution. Neither the Right or the Left, neither conservatives or liberals, neither Republicans or Democrats, offer a full, balanced picture of Iraq that progress us toward any result other than getting their candidates elected. Only with honesty by the leaders and decision-makers on both sides of this debate can we as a country decide which of the horrible options available will best serve the interest of America now and in the future.