Indignation at this from the NOW gang in.... hmm, seems the coundown clock's broken.

Lysander

Islamists opposed to womens rights ?

Nah......that't can't be true. Must be some propaganda from the Bush Administration.

/head back in sand

If I ever want to travel back to the Dark Ages, I don't need to build my time machine. I only need to take a flight to the Muslim Middle East.

Thank God I live in the West

"The reform bans men from divorcing their wives for no reason and gives women the right to financial support from their ex-husbands. Men would need their wives’ permission to take more wives, up to the four permitted by Islam."

----------------

What reasons would be sufficient?

Islam would like to jerk us all back into the 7th century. Come to think of it, so would the environmentalists.

The only Arab country which forbids bigamy is Tunisia...

These folks are living in the Middlke Ages... Sorry this is an insult to the Middle Ages!

Are we sure these news come from Algeria ? Isn't it Canada instead ?

/trying to be sarcastic, a very angry P-L...

OT but interesting:

Mr Atta's son couldn't possibly have flown a plane into the World Trade Centre because the Jooooos did it!

Hijack leader's father blames Israel for 9/11 attacks

[Link: www.breakingnews.ie...]

But it's just another culture. We can't be intolerant of their beliefs. We should only be intolerant of Republicans!

I've figured it all out!!!!!
The oil ticks are VERY afraid of thier own women!
If the women are able to move about,exercise free will, ...... They just might put these losers in thier place! HA HA HA
It's all very clear!
.
.
.
By the way....I'm not a woman.

OT but interesting:

This morning on the radio there was an interview with the founder of Muslims For Bush.

The guy seems to be of the opinion that anyone who wants to overthrow the tyranny that Muslims are under in the middle east is good enough for him, and he's getting support from a surprising amount of muslims (if his claims are true.) Something to keep an eye on.

Also of note is that he says he has only gotten 1 death threat so far, so he's also happy about that.

#11--

Well, he's got 2 months to accumulate more death threats.

Waiting for an outcry from NOW.

/sound of crickets chirping

Muslim men: the most insecure men on the face of the earth.

On another thread, the French were apparently selling Saddam weapons right up until the war began!

French sell weapons to Saddam

Mr Atta's son couldn't possibly have flown a plane into the World Trade Centre because the Jooooos did it!

but then he said that America deserved the attacks for being "anti-Arab". So Israel attacked us for supporting Israel and we deserved it? Shouldn't he like the Israelis then? I guess reason is must be un-Islamic. And so is truth and an understanding of right and wrong.

Here are some examples of Shariah law:

Complete legal clauses and references for same are available here:

[Link: boston.indymedia.org...]

1. Offensive, military jihad against non-Muslims is a communal, religious obligation;
2. A person who is ignorant about Islamic legal opinion must follow the legal opinion of a scholar;
3. The penalty for a Muslim apostate (someone who no longer believes in or no longer follows the tenets of Islam) is death;
4. When slaughtering animals for food, a knife must be used to cut the windpipe and gullet;
5. A woman is only eligible to receive half the inheritance of a man;
6. Marriage may be forced on virgins by their father or father’s father;
7. A non-Arab man may not marry an Arab woman;
8. A woman must seek permission from her husband to leave the house;
9. A Muslim man cannot marry a woman who is a Zoroastrian, an idol worshipper, an apostate from Islam or a woman with one parent who is Jewish or Christian, with the other being Zoroastrian; a Muslim woman cannot marry anyone but a Muslim;
10. A free Muslim man may marry up to four women;
11. Retaliation is obligatory in most cases when someone is deliberately murdered except when a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, a Jew or a Christian kills a Muslim apostate or a father or mother kill their offspring;
12. Non-Muslim subjects (Ahl al-Dhimma) of a Muslim state are subject to a series of discriminatory laws – “dhimmitude”;
13. The penalty for fornication or sodomy is being stoned to death;
14. The penalty for an initial theft is amputation of the right hand. Subsequent thefts are penalized by further amputations of feet and hand;
15. A non-Muslim cannot testify against a Muslim in court; a person who is “without respectability” cannot give legal testimony; a woman’s legal testimony is only given half the legal weight of a man’s (and is only acceptable in cases involving property); to legally prove fornication or sodomy requires 4 male witnesses who actually saw the act;
16. The establishment and continuation of the Islamic Caliphate (by force, if necessary) is a communal obligation;
17. Sodomites and Lesbians must be killed;
18. Laughing too much is forbidden;
19. Musical instruments are unlawful;
20. Creating pictures of animate life is forbidden;
21. Female circumcision, which includes the excision of the clitoris, is obligatory;
22. Slavery is permitted;
23. People may be bribed to convert to Islam;
24. Beating a rebellious wife is permissible; and,
25. Lying is permissible in a time of war (or jihad).

Men would need their wives’ permission to take more wives, up to the four permitted by Islam.

Yeah, they're just jumping right into the 21st century there. Bigamy requires the wives' permission. Now, what if the man already has two wives, and the vote on allowing a third is split? And will Algore be around to demand that "every vote be counted?" Will the wives use punch cards, or electronic balloting in making this decision?

Would men need permission from their wife(ves) to beat them too?

# 17 mentat:

I take exception to the last one:

25. Lying is permissible in a time of war (or jihad).

I thought lying was permissible at all times, since jihad (personal struggle {spit}) is ongoing.

# 18

LOL, but too much voter intimidation, there. And the Islamic Supreme Court (sic)? Well, you know whose side they're on.

"All your grandchildren will be bigamists!"

/raisin

More on the tiny minority of extremists, translated by MEMRI:

Columnist Suleiman Al-Hatlan wrote in the Saudi government daily Al-Watan: "If the 'heroes' of the Muslim violence and terrorism do not represent true Islam, then who does represent it? The painful truth is that the acts of violence and barbarism occurring at present are nothing but the natural consequence of generations of Muslims having been misled and force-fed speeches [filled with] hostility and hatred for others over the course of decades, which deepened the backwardness and the ignorance in the Islamic world. There is no nation on the face of the earth that has not had to deal with oppression and war, but these nations have known how to defend their rights through the use of logic and knowledge … while in our Islamic world the voices of ignorance continue in their plans to develop the ignorance and backwardness so that backwardness, degeneracy, and lack of direction will reign even more [than they do now]."

Special Dispatch Series - No. 780
September 8, 2004
[Link: www.memri.org...]

To #8 JWarrior
Way to go Daddy Atta, you Joo hating swine, also in the same paper-website:

Pope condemns Russian school siege deaths
of course no mention of Islam, Catholicism's mortal enemy. I guess the Pope d'himmied up too?

#20

Too true.

/sigh

Still, the idea of ShariaTereza wearing a burqa & walking a few steps behind JFKerry makes me smile...(but not too much, there's no fun in Islam)

#24 Jakester

I guess the Pope d'himmied up too?

Big time.

“These amendments are unconstitutional as they go against the constitution, which says sharia Islamic law is the state religion,” said Lakhdar Benkhalef of El Islah opposition party.

So does Afghanistan's, and Iraq's will undoubtedly follow the same route.

Yippee!

OT
more on the terror attack in Beslan:

THEY KNIFED BABIES, THEY RAPED GIRLS

What will the left do when the Islamists that they shamefully fall into bed with ever take power? The first thing that the Islamists will do is kill all the leftists, then all the capitalists (because they hate capitalism as much as anything else) then the lesbians, homosexuals and feminists, then all the people of minority religions who aren't Christians and Jews and then all the Jews and Christians who aren't willing to submit to Dhimmitude.

Every leftist should read, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. She documents what the Ayatollahs did there to the left.

The left is so wilfully blind that it makes your head spin. I have friends who refuse to read the Qu'ran or Shariah because, wait for it, it might prejudice them against Islam! (Then, they look pityingly at me, who forced himself to study Islam in depth, as a demented bigot)

As if I wanted to read the Quran? As if anybody would want to read that pile of rubbish. As if I wanted to study the life of Muhammad? As if anyone would want to study the life of that terrorist, war-mongering pedophile, much less hold him up as an example to be followed in every detail, down to how you wipe your ass? As if I wanted to study Shariah? As if I wanted to study a load of rubbish law which was morally deficient even in the 7th century? As if I wanted to study Islamic history? As if I wanted to study the history of Islamic imperialism, colonialism, forced conversion, mass slavery, the institution of military slavery and the wholesale decimation of entire cultures including their sacred buildings and history?

/end rant

I just posted a little info on the anti-sha'aria demo on another thread. It totally freaked me out.

#32 Writermom

I checked out your report. Thank you for same.

Charles? Maybe you could post Writermom's little report as a separate thread?

In my opinion, one of the elements of Islam which presents itself not only as an impediment to the improvement of lot of the muslim woman, but also as a source of disaffection and disfunction among muslim males is the sanctioning of polygamy.

William Tucker, in an article entitled Spare the Women, puts it this way:

The strategy has a simple biological basis. Women are the "scarce resource" in human reproduction. One man can impregnate a thousand women but a woman can only be impregnated, at any given time, by one man. Men reproduce by controlling women. Women reproduce by going with controlling men.

Human civilizations -- the peaceful ones, at least -- have controlled this inherently volatile dynamic through a grand social contract called "monogamy." Monogamy is a purely artificial norm which says that each man may marry only one woman. It was unquestionably born in the long pre-history of humankind when people survived in small hunting-and-gathering tribes that never numbered more than 40-50. In such vulnerable groups, the cooperation of every individual was essential. If a dominant male started monopolizing females, then the lowest-status males would be left without mates. These disaffected individuals would either cause endless disturbance (as they do today) or would be forced to migrate, leaving the unit vulnerable to attacks by other males. The most efficient strategy was to limit each male to one wife, thereby guaranteeing that each male had a reasonable opportunity of finding a mate.

...

As a result [of the scarcity of marriageable woman in a polygamous society] , the "bachelor herd" of mammalian biology is reborn in these societies. A significant residue of unattached males with little hope of mating becomes a significant social constituent. For these unattached males, there are two potential strategies: challenge and overthrow the dominant males within the society, or turn outward and conquer other societies.

The former is the story of Islam. There has never been a time in Islamic history when a large cohort of males was not challenging the central authority. The Shi'ites, the Assassins, the Mamluks, the Wahabis, the Mujahedin -- there is no end to them. (Even today, "Fundamentalists" are challenging the authority of every Moslem state, including those established by previous generations of Fundamentalists.)

#32 WriterMom:

Which thread?

BTW, I was in TO on Friday. 39C with the humidex?! How do you people live there?!

:-0

I should add, that polygamy, with its attendant scarcity of marriageable women, is mostly likely the reason for high rates of consanguineous marriages in the Arab world.

In an article supporting Tucker's hypothesis, Julanne McCarthy writes:

Consanguineous marriages now comprise 39 percent of marriages [in Bahrain], down from 45.5 percent in previous generations (Al-Arrayed, 1995). This trend for preferential first cousin marriage has serious health implications, including effects on sexual development for the children produced by these couples. The coefficient for inbreeding in Bahrain is 0.0145 (Al-Naser, 1993). The child mortality rate is Bahrain is three times that of Japan, even though Bahrain is ranked as an otherwise low-mortality population. The Bahrain Child Health Survey of 1989 showed that one quarter of births occurred between first cousins. The mortality rate for these offspring during their first month and first twenty-three months is two times higher than children of unrelated parents. The study showed that women who marry relatives, especially their first cousin, tend to marry younger, are illiterate, their parents were illiterate, and they live in rural areas. Other practices contributing to higher mortality include polygynous marriage, remarriage after divorce, short intervals between births, employment of women only in the home, breast feeding for an average of 10.6 months, malnutrition, and lower socioeconomic status. The author of the study suggested that the government needs to discourage first cousin marriage, to raise the marriage age to 18, to teach the illiterate about birth spacing which is part of Islamic teaching, and to allow polygamy only if the man can afford it (Al-Naser, 1993). Sheikha Al-Arrayed disagrees with the contraindications for consanguineous marriage and cites its traditional history and social benefits, even though 42.8 percent of her sample reported familial genetic diseases (1995).

Some Bahraini men marry expatriate women who are Moslems or non-Moslems. They meet while studying at European, American, or Asian universities, while working in hospitals, or while traveling. The man’s family may accept or reject the woman, depending on her religion, country of origin, or other factors. Bahrainis may marry other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nationals with family approval, and occasionally Indian or Pakistani Moslems, but rarely Westerners who have converted to Islam. In these cross-cultural marriages, it is the woman’s choice what passport she wishes to maintain. Holders of non-Bahraini passports cannot own property in Bahrain.

#35 Cam

I put some info on the previous Edwards whining thread.

As far as the weather goes-at least summer finally started here-and Air Conditioning is a beautiful thing. I think the Muslims invented it :P

#38 WriterMom:

LOL! Yes, air conditioning is a wonderful thing. And I was told that you guys have had a crappy summer. Ours, on the other hand, has pretty much been nothig but blazing hot sun and an acute lack of showers...

Ah, rainy ol' Victoria...

;-)

#36 American Infidel:

Here are writermom's comments on the rally.

Writermom:

P.S. - I tried to talk my mother into attending the rally as my proxy but she's leaving for Ireland tomorrow and couldn't bear the thought of driving into TO two days in a row.

#17 Mentat

Thanks for the link. I'll tell my wife about not leaving the house (Shariah Law No 8.)

Do you remember the Laurel and Hardy film 'Sons of the Desert'? It had a conversation that went something like this: -

Hardy] Pattern your life after mine - I do things, go places, and then tell my wife.

(Laurel looks alarmed)

Hardy] Do you listen to everything your wife says?

Laurel] Yes, I do. (pause.) Else, how would I know what she wanted me to do?

BTW, what does 'Hidden with code "Policy Violation"' mean?

#31 Mentat

Thanks. You do the typing, so I don't have to. I've got an LLL Envirowacko friend I'd love to smack with a massive clue bat. But today I have a migrane, and my last e-mail to her got a less than enthusiastic response.

I tried to explain to this feminist / environazi (seriously, as she thinks "millions of" Third World people need to die to protect the planet) my views on the war on Islamism but she's a hard case: "Clinton lied, nobody died". Arrgh! She gets angry when you present facts she is unaware of.

I give it a 9 on the rant-o'-meter, but only because I can't dance to it. ;)

Aside for envirowackos: the planet / universe can and will protect itself. Ask the dinosaurs. CO2 levels are down from that period.

#43

It means that they don't like my post and have hidden it from view in the normal course of events. However, if you know the address, you can access it.

#44 Beagle

Good luck with your friend. To understand your friend better and Islamic fanatics better, I recommend, Eric Hoffer's The True Believer:

[Link: www.amazon.com...]

#43 Ben B

LOL! That is one of my favorite movies!! But you left out the best part - how the wives get even.

Cam, welcome back.

#37 Cy_kylogis, thanks very much for that link. I've postulated before that a good part of the problem with Muslim societies is their inbreeding. Comes, I guess, from being derived from tribal societies.

And Beagle, you should tell your envirowacko friend to go ahead and off herself first.

#47 grayp:

Thanks grayp!

I'm so glad I live in America.

#47 grayp

It seems to me that inbreeding is an effect rather than a cause. Because there is a scarcity of women due to polygamy, the social dynamic is such that available woman are carefully controlled, and often, given to first cousins in the family so that members in the extended family will be able to marry. I think you're right, though, that muslim societies retain tribal (as opposed to civilizational) characteristics, since Islam enshrines a lot of arab tribal custom in its scripture (by which I mean the Koran *and* the Hadith)

BTW, there is no reason not to suspect that a similar dynamic will develop, at least to some extent, in China, where there also is a scarcity of women as a result of the draconian family planning laws that lead to girls being aborted at a high rates. Overall, there are 121 boys to 100 girls, with ratios as high as 1.4:1 in some provinces.

Still, cultures don't change rapidly over time, and so it is unlikely that the habit of marrying first cousins, which is sanctioned in Islam, will arise in China, where it is prohibited by cultural and religious norms.

#31 & #33 Mentat

As Daybrother pointed out, in an excellent post yesterday (I'm sorry, I don't remember the thread---I believe it was one of the Beslan ones), what the Left basically wants, is to self-destruct, and take the rest of us along with them. It would be wonderful if we could just put them all in a rocket ship and send them to some far off planet where they could try creating the strange utopias of their dreams, and leave us in peace.

I have always had a hard time getting through the Quran myself; too full of contradictions and horrific descriptions of ghastly punishments for sinners---the sort of thing the supposedly cruel Old Testament God wouldn't dream of doing!

"Antar and Abla", the great Arab epic poem, is petty dreary too. The only Islamic literature I've come across that I like is "The Arabian Nights", and those tales originally hail from India, according to lit. critics! Anyway, I admire your fortitude in plugging ahead with your studies.

I'd like to see WriterMom's report on a separate thread too!

Cy_Kologis

I read an article about a month ago that some sociologists wrote up a study that the 'extra' men in China, who will not be able to find a mate, constitute a huge population that is ripe for militancy, because they haven't got much better to do. Scary thought.

#50 Cy_Kologi

BTW, there is no reason not to suspect that a similar dynamic will develop, at least to some extent, in China, where there also is a scarcity of women as a result of the draconian family planning laws that lead to girls being aborted at a high rates. Overall, there are 121 boys to 100 girls, with ratios as high as 1.4:1 in some provinces.

Actually, there is a HUGE difference in China in comparison to other cultures which practice large-scale female infanticide, and that is that most Chinese in this generation are only children.

In India, the pattern looks more like this: Couple has 20 children, 10 boys and 10 girls. Kills 9 of the girls. Later, marries off one son, recieving a dowy. Marries off the one daughter, paying a dowry. The daughter lives with her in-laws, while the son and DIL live with the 9 batchelor uncles, all of whom contribute to the economic welfare of the family. What happens there is that from an economic standpoint they are actually practicing polyandry.

Contrast that with what is happening in China... The preference for sons has a lot to do with the tradition that the wife is responsible for the care of her husband's parents in their old age, while her parents would be cared for by her brother's wife. One of the big reasons that sons are valued is that you need a son to get yourself a daughter-in-law. Well it only works that way when families have more than one child. What is far more likely to happen in China is that women will only marry men who agree that they care for both sets of parents. And the leftover batchelors will be kept busy caring for their own parents, since they were unable to secure wives to do the job. A FAR different scenario than the nine batchelors in the Indian family where a few can go off and make trouble and not be missed too badly at home.

cathy :-)

Charles says, sarcastically:

The tiny minority of extremists in Algeria is trying to crush plans to improve the lives of women, because the proposed reforms violate Islamic law.

Here's some information on the relative influence of the Islamic parties in Algeria, based upon recent elections:

[Link: www.electionworld.org...]

To summarize:

President Bouteflika, not an Islamist, won election with 85% of the vote. Admittedly this result is not necessarily reflective of his true support, since other party candidates boycotted the election.

So let's look at the party alignment in the Algerian parliament, which has not been the subject of boycotts - although one violent Islamic party has been banned from participating.

Total members: 380
Members from non-Islamist parties: 277 (73.5%)
Members from Islamist parties: 82 (21.6%)
Unknown non-partisans: 20 (4.9%)

By the way, the MSP, which is a coalition partner in the government, and the El-Islah party, in the opposition are the two Islamic parties which together have 81 of the 82 Islamist members of parliament.

So, it appears that well over 2/3 of the representatives in the Algerian parliament, along with a popularly elected President, aren't going along with Sharia law. The Islamists in Algeria may not be a "tiny minority," but they are a small minority nonetheless.

#54 Gordon:

Um, maybe I'm reading you wrong, but did you just agree with Charles?

Gordon, I don't understand why you can't state your views or make a point without coming across like a petulant biotch.

I just realized something ... has Gordon been away for a few weeks? That's the first time I've seen him post in a while.

#57 zulubaby:

He's been dropping in rarely for the last couple of weeks.

#55 Cam: I'm not sure whether Charles is right or wrong. He obviously doesn't believe that the Islamists in Algeria are a "tiny minority." The information I provided shows that they are a small minority, less than 1/4 of the Parliament, less than 15% of the Presidential voters. If Charles agrees with these objective facts. If he agrees with those like Martel-Sobieski who believe that the views expressed by the Algerian Islamists represent a vast majority of Muslim opinion in Algeria, he is wrong.

#56 Zulubaby: I thought my post was polite (by my admittedly low standards). Please tell me where I went wrong. Also, what is a "biotch?" Is it a Yiddish term which I've never heard? Or is it a typo, with the "o" accidentally added?

#57 Zulubaby: I have posted around in various threads, but perhaps we have just been bloggers passing in the night. I also took some vacation time recently (no, not in a padded cell)

#59 Gordon

what is a "biotch?"

lol - it's definitely not a typo

but but but - Whiney American leftist feminists don't care AT ALL. The letist whiners are too busy blaming Bush for rape.

Who'd have thought it? Islam repressing women. My oh my....

re #51 TalkinKamel

what the Left basically wants, is to self-destruct, and take the rest of us along with them. It would be wonderful if we could just put them all in a rocket ship and send them to some far off planet where they could try creating the strange utopias of their dreams, and leave us in peace.

LMAO

That's such a good idea - with Noam d!ckwad Chomsky at the helm....

I'm just chuckling thinking of the North Korean paradise that could be Europa...

yeah well I've read the thread and decided.

Gordon is using this to enter into a big swinging dick contest with Charles. Where was the thread the other day where Gordon set up a straw man argument about nuking Mecca? How it was going to cost Charles his soul? Charles has never said a word about it. When challenged, Gordon posted that the idea of nuking Mecca was posted by LGF'ers so that Charles could deny it.

Gordon is nothing more than pathologicly jealous of Charles. Anything we post is placed on Charles. Gordon does not have its own blog. Gordon rarely challenges any of the regulars. It's always Charles.

Gordon. Your are defined by nothing more than your jealously of Charles. That's all it is.

That is it in the whole nine yards of its pathetic expression.

Gordon is jealous of Charles.

Gordon is a wanker bitch

a nauseating POS

who should STFU

or move to Ramalla, before the bombing begins

buh byeeee

#59 Gordon

biotch is a portmanteau-word; it comprises the two terms 'bio' and 'glitch', and means an evolutionary throw-back.

Well, I sure killed off this thread with the facts!

Except for #64 Grayp, who deflects the discussion into semi-Freudian analysis, and #65 Ploome, who has never let a fact deflect her from her erroneous beliefs.

And the fact is, in Algeria, the Islamists who want to impose Sharia law and repress women represent about one-quarter of the population, based upon their parliamentary representation. That's still too many - certainly not a tiny minority - but it's not the majority voice of the citizens of Algeria.

#31 Mentat

Not a rant, but the voice of exasperated truth. Leftists don't read the Koran (or Sahih Muslim) because they kind of guess what they might find. If you start telling them what's in it, they use arguments back to you that a Muslim would be proud of. . out of context. . selective reading. . you don't understand the culture. . it can't be translated. . yack yack yack and they haven't even read the stuff.

Actually Sahih Muslim is a real hoot - I read it out to my wife on stormy nights with the lights turned out using a small torch in a creepy kind of voice.