Zubin Madon has the perfect response to the Islamophilic truth haters

June 9, 2017 • 10:00 am

I’ve written this headline exactly as PuffHo would have written it—if they had any rationality. In fact, by some twist of fate the subject of my post, an article by Zubin Madon, an engineer and humanist living in Bombay, India, did appear in the April 2016 PuffHo, and undercuts everything they have written denying the nasty bits of Islamic doctrine and the influence of that faith on terrorism. (PuffHo’s religion editor, Carol Kuruvilla, writes post after post telling us how wonderful Islam is and that we should ignore the man with the bomb behind the curtain).

Now Kuruvilla was editor in April of last year when Madon (who has a website on Atheist Republic, and probably would be dead if he lived in Bangladesh rather than Bombay) published this piece, and I’m surprised it got by, as it tells the truth about not just Islam, but the Regressive Left’s hypocritical coddling of that faith. Madon, who seems to know his Qur’an, is mad as hell about that coddling, and isn’t going to take it any more: viz., the title of his piece, “Terror has no religion—debunking the Regressive Left’s cliches.”

Madon debunks a number of Regressive Leftist talking points about Islamist terrorism, and it’s worth saving this piece for future arguments. I’ll list the points and give Madon’s rebuttal for two of them (indented):

  • Terrorism has no religion. 

It must be a strange coincidence then, that attacks on abortion clinics in the United States are carried out by far-right Christian conservatives, and not Star Wars cultists; that Potterheads don’t lynch people for eating beef, but Hindutva extremists who consider the life of a bovine to be more sacred than that of a human being do. Similarly, when a zealot opens fire in a cafe yelling ‘Allahu-Akbar’, we can be quite certain it’s not a disgruntled Game of Thrones fan who just saw his favourite character snuffed out by the writers.

Yes, the vast majority of religious folks do not go about murdering people. But that does not absolve religious texts of inspiring the few extremists who do.
When Muslims donate to charity, we attribute their altruism to the third pillar of Islam. Why is it that when another Muslim acts as per the dozens of Quranic edicts which — cast terror in the hearts of disbelievers (3:151), expose them to eternal hellfire (4:56), advocate crucifixion & chopping off extremities (5:33), denounce taking Jews & Christians for friends (5:51), smite their necks and fingers (8:12), slay & besiege idol worshippers (9:5)— his/her actions have “nothing to do with religion”? I am not singling out Islamic scripture here. They are no more violent and bigoted than the Old Testament or the Manusmriti. However, we acknowledge that the inquisition was a product of medieval Christian dogma, and caste atrocities are a product of Hindu texts. Why then, do we excuse Islamic scripture of inspiring Islamists?

  • The verses are misinterpreted!
  • The verses have been taken out of context.
  • But the Quran has some very beautiful verses as well. 
  • It’s not religion, it’s lack of education, disparity. (a.k.a. Malala’s Fallacy). 
  • It’s American Imperialism, western foreign policy & the Iraq Wars that are responsible; not religion. (The Chomsky defence a.k.a.  Mehdi Hassan’s fallacy).

Apart from 12-16 million Christians, there are thousands of Bahai, Zoroastrians, Yazidis and Jews living in Islamic nations. If terrorism were simply a reaction to American imperialism, shouldn’t these minorities also form a fraction of terror outfits? Or are they miraculously shielded from NATO bombs and American policies that affect the middle-east? Surely one disgruntled Zoroastrian would cross the Iranian border and join Hezbollah?

This favourite cliche of the Regressive Left fails to explain another phenomenon— the “everyday terrorism” faced by millions of Muslims in the Islamic world. Was the spontaneous and gruesome lynching of Farkhunda outside an Afghan mosque a product of colonialism? Was the stoning of Roxanneh, the killing of Noor Malleki, the murder of secular bloggers in Bangladesh a result of US foreign policy? What does the violence unleashed against homosexuals, apostates, ‘blasphemers’, against Ahmedi and Hazara Muslims of Pakistan & Afghanistan (who are murdered by Sunni supremacists for not being ‘Muslim enough’) and the systemic genocide of ethnic minorities throughout the Islamic world, have to do with George Bush’s Iraqi misadventure? At some point, Bronze Age belief systems must be held accountable for the atrocities inflicted on its followers.

He then has a section on “The Left’s soft bigotry of lower expectations” before concluding:

. .  the Regressive Left has also failed liberal progressive Muslims like Asra Nomani, Irshad Manji and Maajid Nawaz, who are fighting to bring about reform at great personal risk. It is time for true (classical) liberals to stand up and take the fort back from the Left. We must show that it is possible to call out religious ideologies that inspires terror, while at the same time condemn the anti-Muslim bigotry of the far-right. For without identifying the carcinogen i.e. religious extremism, it is impossible to stem the affliction.

That point is as relevant today as it was a year ago. It still amazes me that those Muslim reformers have been demonized by the regressives, and that Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were branded as “anti-Muslim extremists” by the increasingly risible Southern Poverty Law Center.

By the way, read Madon’s satirical piece on PuffHo: “Muslim fencer wears a hijab—You won’t believe what happens next!” (That’s the perfect PuffHo title!) It includes this fake quote from Hillary Clinton:

“Liberal, secular Muslims like Irshad Manji and Asra Nomani have ruined everything,” Clinton complains. “By refusing to conform to the ‘hijabi stereotype’, these westernised Muslim women have made it impossible for Left-leaning white saviours to covertly milk this stereotype, in our heroic battle against stereotyping.”

 

My ducklings are growing up

June 9, 2017 • 8:45 am

They’re losing their down and growing primary feathers. There is no amount of Cheerios and oatmeal that will sate them. But I am confident they’ll all fledge now, though I’ll be sad when, on one fine day, I’ll find that they’ve flown away. But that’s what their genes want them to do.

There appear to be two males (drakes) and two females (hens): the male ducklings have fully green beaks, I’m told, and the females brownish beaks with yellow edges.

 

Twitter problems: my innocuous tweets flagged as “sensitive”

June 9, 2017 • 8:30 am

I don’t know how this happened, but for many readers my tweets, most (but not all) of which are simply links to the posts here, are being flagged by Twitter as “sensitive material”. Reader Paul reported that he saw this with 24 of my last 50 tweets; here are a few examples.

There doesn’t seem to be any pattern of what is “sensitive” and what is not, and I have no idea what’s behind this. I’ve called this to Twitter’s attention on both their own Twitter feed and on their Facebook page. We’ll see what happens.

Even my innocuous tweet on the Canadian treat poutine was flagged! Here’s the “sensitive” content trigger warning and then what you see if you click “view”:

Is that “sensitive”? I think not!

SOLUTION: If you’re having this problem, it’s easy to fix by adjusting your Twitter settings. Paul said to do this:

The option to turn off the feature is in the menu obtained by clicking on your user icon in the top right corner of the page: select “Settings and privacy”, then “Privacy and safety”. JAC: Then uncheck the “hide sensitive content” box:

 

Paul sent me an example of the kind of content allowed on Twitter and then his response to the censoring of my poutine post:

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 9, 2017 • 7:30 am

Reader Joe Dickinson sent some photos from California:

Most of the following photos were taken at the base of Morro Rock, a prominent feature at Morro Bay that anchors a very long sandbar, providing excellent wildlife habitat.

This rather chubby California ground squirrel (Citellus beecheyi) was expertly working tourists visiting the rock.

A whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) was forging in the shallows inside the sandbar.

A pair of marbled godwits (Limosa fedoa) arrived to check out the same area.

Here are those two species next to each other.  It would be interesting to know how bill length and shape affect food selection and/or foraging strategies for two species of similar body size utilizing the same habitat.  Perhaps one of your readers can tell us.

This great blue heron (Ardea herodias) landed on a ledge up on the rock.  He/she looks as if engaged in some sort of display, but I did not see a potential recipient.

This western gull (Larus occidentalis) has the prominent red spot that, famously, prompts chicks to beg by pecking at the parent’s beak.

As is common at this location, we spotted some sea otters (Enhydra lutris), but they kept their distance, so I will “cheat” with a shot at the same location a few years ago.

Our base for this trip was our favorite d*g-friendly motel in Cambria.  It provides spectacular views of the sunset.  Here, also from a few years ago, is a brown pelican [Pelecanus occidentalis] flying into the sunset.  I’m particularly proud of this photo because, if you look carefully just above the top edge of the sun, you can see a somewhat wispy “green flash”.

Finally, arriving home, I spotted this elegant garter snake (probably Thamnophis sintalis) in our front yard. Ignore the weeds:  I’ll get to it.

Friday: Hili Dialogue

June 9, 2017 • 6:30 am

Is it Friday already? Yes it is: Friday, June 8, 2017. The good news is that although the results aren’t all in, Britain’s conservatives, though leading in votes, appear to have lost their >50% representation in Parliament; and that’s a problem for Theresa May. As the New York Times reports this morning:

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain suffered a major setback in a tumultuous election on Thursday, losing her overall majority in Parliament and throwing her government into uncertainty less than two weeks before it is scheduled to begin negotiations over withdrawing from the European Union.

Mrs. May, the Conservative leader, called the snap election three years early, expecting to cruise to a smashing victory that would win her a mandate to see Britain through the long and difficult negotiations with European leaders over the terms of leaving the union.

But according to results reported early Friday morning, the extraordinary gamble Mrs. May made in calling the election backfired. She could no longer command enough seats to avoid a hung Parliament, meaning that no party has enough lawmakers to establish outright control.

With all but one of the 650 seats in the House of Commons accounted for, the BBC reported that Mrs. May’s Conservatives would remain the largest party. But they were projected to win only 318 seats, down from the 331 they won in 2015, and eight seats short of a majority.

Now I know you’re asking yourself, ‘What about the cats?” Grania reports this, and sent a photo:

Pets at the polling booth has been a Thing; mostly dogs of course, but also a horse, a rat and some cats. Kitteh don’t care none. 🙂

And it’s National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day. Now I know some readers like that comestible, but I cannot abide rhubarb in any form, especially in a pie. Why not just make a delicious strawberry pie without defiling it with a bitter vegetable? Why add the rhubarb, when strawberry pie by itself is so good? But I fulminate; this holiday is probably a conspiracy by Big Rhubarb. It’s Coral Triangle Day as well, calling attention to the loss of biodiversity in the world’s epicenter for marine biodiversity:

On this day in 1934,  Donald Duck first appeared in a Disney Cartoon—The Wise Little Hen. Here it is, with Donald appearing at 1:59.  He’s pretty much as he was later, though his beak was longer and hadn’t yet undergone neoteny:
And it was on June 9, 1954, that this famous exchange occurred between Senator Joseph McCarthy and counsel for the Army Joseph Welch. It was the beginning of McCarthy’s downfall and the end of his Communist-hunting in the government. N0te Roy Cohn’s appearance.

On this day in 1973, the magnificent horse Secretariat the won the Belmont Stakes and thus the Triple Crown. Look at this horse run—he won by about 25 lengths! 

 Notables born on this day include Cole Porter (1891) and Michael J. Fox (1961). One notable who died on this day was geneticist and Nobel Laureate George Beadle (1989) wh0 was once President of the University of Chicago. Meanwhile in D0brzyn, Hili is borrowing from the playbook of the social justice warriors:
Hili: I’m spotting a microaggression.
A: Where?
Hili: On the horizon.
In Polish:
Hili: Dostrzegam mikroagresję.
Ja: Gdzie?
Hili: Na horyzoncie.

In Winnipeg, Gus is lolling in the sun, probably stoned on catnip again:

And a short tw**t video from reader Barry, who doesn’t understand the cat’s behavior at the end of this encounter.

https://twitter.com/newworlddd555/status/869772111954554882

End-of-the-day sign

June 8, 2017 • 2:30 pm

Reader Darrell sent me this sign, and a quick search shows lots of copies of it on the Internet, but I can’t be arsed to find out where it was, or if it’s genuine. A helpful reader might do that. Regardless, it’s funny, and if you don’t know where the lines came from, or what the last word means, you don’t get out enough—or aren’t old enough!

Iran’s odious morality police

June 8, 2017 • 1:00 pm

The Gasht-e-Ershad, or Iranian “morality police”, have wide latitude to arrest women for inappropriate dress or behavior (covering themselves insufficiently, showing too much hair, being with a boyfriend on the street, and so on). As The Observers France 24 reported in May, a lot of women get arrested:

Part of the regular police force, its male and female officers are charged with enforcing Islamic codes in Iranian society, and have the power to arrest people they think are violating them. While the total number of its officers is unknown, a spokesman said the force made 207,000 arrests between March 2013 and March 2014, and notified a total of 2 million women that their hijab (Islamic dress) was not correct.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, women are supposed to cover everything except their face and hands. Conservative women wear the chador – a black garment that covers the head and goes down to the ankles. But other women choose to wear a scarf that covers their hair, a knee-length “manteau”, or coat, with sleeves to the wrist, and a skirt or trousers.

In recent weeks, a series of videos has emerged on social media showing what happens when women are arrested by the morality police. Many of the videos – filmed surreptitiously inside the patrols’ white and green vans, and inside police stations where women are questioned – have been posted to a Facebook page called “My Stealthy Freedom”. [See also here.]

The Observers link gives some disturbing cellphone videos taken surreptitiously by brave and “uppity” women in custody, in vans, and in the police station.  One woman who was apprehended said this:

The problem is we’re never sure what’s forbidden and what’s not. Women are arrested because their sleeves are too short, or their manteaux are a bright colour like red or yellow. Or they’re wearing torn jeans, or a hat instead of a scarf or chador. Or they dye their hair a colour like blue or pink. Or they have a tattoo. Or long boots. Or heavy makeup. Or leggings.

The arrest is not going to change the way I dress. But one thing has changed: I don’t feel safe in the streets anymore, because of the patrols. I feel suffocated. How can I be arrested in my own country, humiliated and treated like a criminal when I’ve done nothing wrong? Just because they don’t like the way I look. The next time it happens, I’ll resist – I won’t get in the van even if they beat me up.

Click on the screenshot below to go to a brief history of covering in Iran, which began by order of the government after the revolution in 1979. Not many women covered their hair then, and there were huge demonstrations by women against it. So much for it being a “choice” in Iran—it’s not only the law, but the evidence is that without that law and the attendant social coercion, most women wouldn’t cover themselves. A few brave women defy that law, and are also shown in the video below.

A criminal—and a brave woman.

A BBC report shows more arrests in a distressing video; click on the screenshot to go there:

Make no mistake about it: this is not a natural aspect of Iranian “traditional culture”, as some apologists claim. If that were the case, why did the “culture” change all of a sudden in 1979, just when Iran became a theocracy? Nor can it be explained by Western “colonialism”, as it is clearly involuntary and was imposed on women by men adhering to Islamic doctrine.  No, this is the “culture of religion” pure and simple, and not primarily culture, as Anita Sarkeesian maintains in her new Islam-apologist video on the site “Feminist Frequency”. The clip below is starts at 14:50 in that video, and I’ve transcribed the relevant bit (my emphasis):

“Now I can already hear the army of Richard-Dawkins-parroting, anti-feminist Twitter users typing up their responses about how Islam is a religion dedicated to oppressing women. It’s amazing how suddenly everyone’s a feminist when it lets them perpetuate hate against brown people [JAC: n.b.—Not all Muslims are “brown”] or dismiss concerns about how women are oppressed in their own culture. So let’s be clear: misogyny is not a problem with Islam; misogyny is a problem that some cultures which happen to be Muslim use the religion to perpetuate and justify. Christianity has been used a tool that has been used to oppress women around the world for millennia.”

https://twitter.com/TylerPreston20/status/872281010322513920

This is how an ideologically blinkered feminist explains things like the Islamic morality police, the stoning and the covering of women, and so on. It’s the culture, Jake! Remarkable, isn’t it, that the culture happens to be coincident in both space and time (see above) with the imposition of Islamic theocracy? And we all know why people like Sarkeesian keep making these unconvincing arguments: they don’t want to be seen as racists who oppress “brown people”.

 

Trump’s budget cuts in science

June 8, 2017 • 12:00 pm

This is from an email that research administrators at my University sent to our faculty, academic appointees, and staff a short while ago; I offer it to show you what the Trump administration is doing to research in this country (emphasis is mine):

On May 23, the Trump Administration released its detailed budget proposal for FY18. Though Congress has the ultimate authority for federal funding decisions, the administration’s proposal points to potential impending challenges for research funding.  The proposal includes cuts to a number of areas relevant to the University’s academic programs and the science programs of our affiliated laboratories, including NIH (21% proposed cut from FY17), NSF (11% proposed cut), NEA and NEH (both proposed for elimination), the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (17% proposed cut), and Medicaid funding under the ACA (over $800 billion proposed cut over 10 years).  This detailed budget was a follow-up to the “skinny” budget released in March, which included only a basic overview of proposed spending for major agencies.

These are draconian cuts: 21% in the National Institutes of Health, 11% in the National Science Foundation, and 17% in the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Many investigators will be unable to do their research, and graduate student funding has already been cut, with NSF Dissertation Improvement Grants just eliminated entirely.

And let us not forget the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which are being cut completely. That’s also a disaster for artists and my colleagues in the humanities?

Where will the money go? Defense, of course, and that infernal WALL. . .

For a detailed explanation of these and other cuts, see this article in the Washington Post.