Leftists, Islamists, and Nudists converge. End-of-a-long-weekend-stupid from The People's Cube. WARNING: Disturbing images of naked hippies meshed with pretty funny videos of jihadis exploding themselves. The latter more than makes up for the former.
This is worth a look. The ageing hippy nudists look rather pathetic, but I guess they like being exhibitionists in the name of being left wing radicals who are hell-bent upon destroying western democracy.
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The global-positioning systems being installed in all 13,000 cabs will be used to target and spy on Muslims, according to pro-strike literature being distributed by members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the group behind the two-day walkout.
"This is where deep racial, ethnic and religious prejudices and biases come into play," one flier reads. "DNA samples are obtained, scrutinized and archived. Personal and family histories are scoured for evidence of ethnic and religious fervor. Clearly, surveillance technology can be a death sentence once you are in its crosshairs."
Taxi and Limousine Commission officials say the city has no such sinister motives. The GPS will be used to automate the paper trip sheets each driver has to keep, and will transmit only the start and end location of each fare, officials said.
The new technology system, which will also allow for credit-card payments, was approved in 2004 as part of the same deal that gave drivers a 26 percent fare hike.
It's unclear how many drivers are represented by the Taxi Workers Alliance, which claims 8,000 members - roughly one fifth of the total cabby workforce. But even those who disagree with the group may choose to stay home, sources say, because threats have been made against drivers who pick up passengers rather than strike.
"We are extremely disappointed to hear that that kind of fear mongering is taking place," TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg said. "No one should be operating in that kind of environment."
It would seem that the union is behind a scare mongering campaign based upon invalid information regarding the need for surveillance and vigilance against possible terrorist attack. The GPS has a number of benefits for taxi drivers and their passengers:Blogged with Flock
There are many scholars today who engage in a form of relativism that prevents them from being good scholars. Jihad Watch gives another good example as to why Mohammedan scholars are nothing more than revisionists:
"Relax! Take your shoes off! Jihad is an interior spiritual struggle! Nothing to be concerned about at all! Everybody out to the beach!
By Matt Vande Bunte for The Grand Rapids Press:
GRAND RAPIDS -- Next time you hear "jihad" associated with a terrorist act, consider it a politicized perversion of a spiritual concept.Bilal Sambur says you should instead think of the term the way most of the world's billion Muslims understand it: a pervasive morality that governs daily life.
Sambur, director of the Turkish Association for Liberal Thinking's Centre for the Study of Religion and Freedom, is spending a month at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty.
Just as the Grand Rapids think tank explores the role of Christian morality in a free-market economy, Sambur said he promotes democracy and free religious expression within the context of Islam.
"There is a need to rediscover what 'jihad' really means," said Sambur, a Muslim who teaches at Suleyman Demirel University in Turkey. "Jihad is not equal to holy war. It is an ethical and spiritual concept. It means a human being must spend all his effort to actualize spiritual ideas in his individual and social life.
"This is not my personal definition. This is what the Prophet defines."
The Prophet. Hmmm. Uh, that would be Muhammad, right? Oh yes, I think I've heard of him. And as a prophet, he delivered to the world a holy book, didn't he? Let's see, I think I've heard of it -- the -- the Qur'an, that's it! Of course!
Now, in it, is jihad really simply the idea that "a human being must spend all his effort to actualize spiritual ideas in his individual and social life"? Can you explain, please, Mr. Sambur, how the idea that Jews and Christians must be warred against until they submit to Islamic rule, pay a special tax, and "feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29) represents the actualization of a spiritual idea? Do you mean, perhaps, by "spiritual idea" the idea of Sharia supremacism, with its "actualization" in "social life" involving warfare against unbelievers?
Take also another passage, one that isn't usually adduced in discussions of Qur'anic teaching on jihad. Qur'an 4:71-104 is an extended passage exhorting the believers to go forth courageously to jihad warfare. Ibn Kathir explains v. 71 in this way: “Allah commands His faithful servants to take precautions against their enemies, by being prepared with the necessary weapons and supplies, and increasing the number of troops fighting in His cause.” A warrior should fight fearlessly, for “whether he is slain or gets victory” he will be rewarded (v. 74).
How is all this talk of weaponry and the possibility of being slain in battle consonant with the idea that jihad is primarily the actualization of a spiritual idea? (Unless, again, that spiritual idea is that Sharia should be the supreme law throughout the world, with non-Muslims subjugated).
The passage goes on to say that one will not escape death by declining to fight, for “all things are from Allah” (v. 78). And in any case, Allah will “restrain the fury of the unbelievers” (v. 84). V. 90 is sometimes adduced as proof that Muslims have no open-ended mandate to fight unbelievers, but the Tafsir al-Jalalayn makes clear that this refers only to unbelievers who submit to Islamic rule: “And so if they stay away from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace, reconciliation, that is, [if] they submit, then God does not allow you any way against them, [He does not allow you] a means to take them captive or to slay them.” V. 95 says that those believers who stay home and risk no injury are not equal to those who wage jihad.
Do not passages such as this demonstrate definitively that what the Qur’an means by jihad is not an interior spiritual struggle, but warfare? Why should anyone fear death or the fury of the unbelievers, or shorten his prayers in view of an impending attack by the unbelievers (v. 101), in a spiritual struggle? How can one kill a fellow Muslim by accident (v. 92) in a spiritual struggle?
Sambur goes on to say that he likes eating at McDonalds, and therefore there is no clash of civilizations. I am all for Muslims adapting to Western mores while living here, but his talk might have been a bit more reassuring if he had dealt forthrightly with the passages about jihad that I mention above, and many others like them.
But probably no one in the audience knew enough about the Qur'an to ask him about them -- demonstrating once again the utility of being well-informed. For if he had been asked about them, his answers, or his reaction, might have been most illuminating and instructive to his non-Muslim audience."
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Have we any idea what will happen next in Turkey? Will there be a change in direction? Jihad Watch has made some interesting observations:
And so in two sentences Erdogan dismisses the concept on which the Western world has placed its hopes of survival and peace.
Islam is Islam. Will this be discussed in the Western media? Will American and European analysts publicly take up the question of whether or not Erdogan is right, and what the implications might be if he is? Or will they ignore this and continue to assume in all their analyses that the opposite is true, and to dismiss as "ideologues" or "Islamophobes" those who point out that influential Muslims like Erdogan are saying things like this?
Which course do you think they'll choose?
Will Western leaders then begin discussing political Islam and its implications openly? Or will they ignore this and continue to pretend that Islam has no inherent or traditional political character, or if it does, it is infinitely malleable anyway, and can be massaged without difficulty into something completely benign?
Which course do you think they'll choose?
"PM Erdogan: The Term 'Moderate Islam' Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam," from the MEMRI Blog (thanks to Mackie):
Speaking at Kanal D TV’s Arena program, PM Erdogan commented on the term “moderate Islam”, often used in the West to describe AKP and said, ‘These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”Source: Milliyet, Turkey, August 21, 2007
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