Oasis - Don’t Look Back In Anger (Album: (Whats The Story) Morning Glory? /1995)
Happy new year everyone. Will see you all next year now that is if I do not end up doing any live blogging from George Square Hogmanay street party in Glasgow.
Lets not look back in anger :)
Thanks to Allah, finally the sanity returns!
Tonight someone left me a very depressing sad song and I am not going to be insensitive about it at all but I have really lost some of my sensibilities lately. Anyway since our brains are programmed to intuitively counter any traumatic influence here is what my inferior brain has come up with - a simple question!
Question: If you are oven baking battered fish and wish to enjoy some potatoes. In order to save both time and effort will you make fried chips or will you go for baked potatoes?
It is not a trick question and remember you are always welcomed to think out of the box!
Posted without any nationalist bias, I just really enjoyed the comments on the article!
Loquat - Swingset Chain (Album: It’s Yours to Keep / 2005)
A paper (PDF) released this summer by two sociologists, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, adds empirical evidence to this observation. The pair looked at more than 400 radical Islamic terrorists from more than 30 nations in the Middle East and Africa born mostly between the 1950s and 1970s. Earlier studies had shown that terrorists tend to be wealthier and better-educated than their countrymen, but Gambetta and Hertog found that engineers, in particular, were three to four times more likely to become violent terrorists than their peers in finance, medicine or the sciences. The next most radicalizing graduate degree, in a distant second, was Islamic Studies.
Okay I am a Muslim and an Engineer and I have been saying this same thing for ages! Will really like to add more to it later.
Lost in Los Angelas - All Roads Lead to You (single / 2008)
Reminds me of Sajid and Zeeshan!
Speculation regarding contractor involvement in the Afghan narcotics trade. Did the Enterprise ever stop if it ever really existed at all?
how do you like scotland?
Scotland is a wonderful place to be in. The country has history, beauty and above all character. Of course weather can be horrible sometimes and during summer time Midges are the worst thing which can happen to anyone wanting a little adventure (after bot flies I guess). But overall Scotland is a wonderful place to be in.
My respect for Scotland even extends beyond all this, since there was this Scot Army Captain who introduced Trout fish to Pakistan!
Some worth seeing pictures from Turkey.
Finley Quaye & William Orbit - Dice (single)
I have no idea why I never heard of them before, or why since hearing this one haven’t come across something else from them.
The minaret of the new Grand Mosque of Marseille, whose cornerstone will be laid here in April, will be silent — no muezzin, live or recorded, will disturb the neighborhood with the call to prayer. Instead, the minaret will flash a beam of light for a couple of minutes, five times a day…the light will almost surely be purple — a rather nightclubby look for such an elegant building.
So is this assimilation? Mr. Cheikh laughs. “I suppose it is,” he said. “It’s a good symbol of assimilation.”
But as Western Europe is plunged into a new bout of anxiety over the impact of post-colonial Muslim immigration — reeling in varying ways from the implications of a recent Swiss vote to ban minarets altogether — some scholars see a destructive dynamic, with assimilation feeding a reaction that, in turn, spawns resentment, particularly among young Muslims.
Vincent Geisser, a scholar of Islam and immigration at the French National Center for Scientific Research, believes that the more Europe’s Muslims establish themselves as a permanent part of the national scene, the more they frighten some who believe that their national identity could be altered forever.
I skimmed through the article, so I’m not sure if it stated the fact that Muslims make up about 5-10% of the population in France, and there are not enough mosques to accommodate the vast amount of Muslim worshippers in the country. So why is building a prayer space so controversial? The larger question is should the Muslims assimilate to French secularism or should the French become more lenient with their domestic policies?
@Almas, you might want to look more into a phenomena called, European Islam.
Gomez - See the World (Album: How We Operate / 2006)
A simple and interesting video, here.
Leonard: Our babies will be smart and beautiful.
Sheldon: Not to mention, imaginary.
It is actually a pretty chilling read, at least for me. A father alerting authorities about his own son’s tendencies. Previously what was a chilling read for me was the Uncle who alerted authorities about his nephew and his friends (5 US nationals arrested in Pakistan) in Sargodha, Pakistan. Times are changing for these people.
The Dandy Warhols - Mohammed (Album: Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia / 2000)
I was once told by someone that if you pause for a minute and listen to others you will learn a lot. I asked him, but if they are uttering non-sense?
To which he replied, “then you will learn even better, you will learn what not to say”.
I was also told that you can never know everything, so learn how to simply admit you have no clue about it. After all no Human can be with an infinite knowledge, and there is no shame or insult in admitting that simple fact.
My sister sent me a video clip today of Dr Zakir Naik, a Muslim religious scholar quite famous worldwide among Muslims for his comparative religious studies (he can recall from memory complete religious books of all the major faiths), and hated initially by many non-Muslims (specifically hardline Hindus in India, where he is from) who considered him as a threat to their religious views and now recently by fellow Muslims since he said some things which hurt the sectarian sensitivities and also by some religious Scholars since he has no formal isnad (certification or affiliation) and he pose a threat to their “stature”.
This particular clip (can be watched on youtube, here) is pretty interesting because first of all he makes virtually no sense to me at least on any factual basis (or from any proper religious reference) and sadly not even on any logical ground (by standards of my logic). Then second, you can see that the young guy is simply unconvinced and he tries to get back in at 2:30 whereas at around 3:00 Dr Zakir seems to be losing his ground to him, and explicitly at 3:33 you can see some people discouraging him and he is for a while drowned in clapping from the people who obviously seem to be agreeing with him. And at 3:50 you get the “best bit”, agree or burn in the eternal fire of hell!
This is not the first time Dr Zakir Naik has done so, his previous discussion on why Pork is Haram (forbidden) where he literally meant to validate the Cannibals’ point of view that when you eat something you get their traits in yourself (and made me doubt his medical degree even. By the way, I follow this way more sensible reason also echoed by this Christian evangelist available on Youtube). Or another place when on a Pakistani TV channel he in such a weird way defended the Saudi Arabian Government’s stance of not letting people of other faith build their place of worships (talk about discrimination against Muslims in non-Muslim lands, or maybe Minarate ban in Switzerland - right?), that I for a while felt ashamed!
I really have one thing to say to Dr Zakir, and that is perhaps he should consider drawing some line for his expertise. He being a doctor must already know that a cardiologist doesn’t touch the brain, no matter how much an experienced cardiologist he is. Therefore he might wish to go back to being an expert in Comparative religion rather than being a Mufti or an Ayotullah. Or at least he should decide that next time if he doesn’t know an answer, he should excuse and say ‘my knowledge is limited’.
Anyway a little exchange I had with my sister on this which prompted me to write this:
Sis: So I committed Shirk because I wished my Christian friends marry Christmas?
Me: shabash! Stop listening to this man!
Sis: I dont get it seriously and I think its the most stupid thing I have ever heard..the kid wasnt convinced though
Me: ZN reminds me that never I will have complete knowledge. And therefore, I should not try to act like a person who has command over everything! And don’t worry even if we are Kafir now, at least we are still brother and sister :)
Flakes of snow have fallen on Glasgow on Christmas morning, giving the city its first white Christmas since 2004.
