In what will probably be a fruitless attempt to pretend it is actually March already by shifting discussion here...

Aqoul authors' meeting sounds tempting but for the fact that (a) I've contributed sweet fuck all this year and (b)am rather loathe to put a mortal face on intellects that I would like to envisage as sublime and looming in greatness above the pettiness of this mortal coil.

Oh come on, we love you anyway (or at least I do, not that my opinion matters to anyone else)! Life gets in the way sometimes - everyone reasonable knows that. And this is precisely why you need a break. Aqoul Mojito Night, to atone for the bottle of Havana Club left behind in Marbella because of stupid embargoes?

Dear EL,

here's a question: could a non-U.S. citizen bring a bottle of Havana Club into the U.S.?

--MSK

Nope - all Cuban products are embargoed, with certain very limited exemptions for people with special permission from the Treasury Dept. (I actually know one such person - she is an attorney who defends Cuban intellectual property rights in U.S. courts. That was my first taste of Cuban rum.) That's why it was so sad to abandon the Havana Club in Andalucia - the only way most people can consume it legally is outside the U.S.

It's embargoed, really? Friends of mine in the US who have spent a lot of time in Cuba over the years have loads of bottles of Cuban rum in their bar. Can't be too hard to smuggle in then, can it?

Not difficult at all, in my understanding, but then I am a goody-two-shoes who would never try it anyway. The worst that is likely to happen is confiscation, at least if we are talking about quantities for normal personal use. But every once in a while the Feds decide to be hard-nosed and levy big fines, etc.

Someone should write something about the new Iraqi oil law. It's business, Arab, intrigue and sleaze all at once, and therefore I don't see how `Aqoul could avoid it.

Also, in passing, I remember that Mr. Antiquated Tory was quarreling with some friend about the wisdom of supporting separatist militants in Iran, speculating it would be a disaster for either Iran or the US. You'll be happy to know that empirical testing just started, so we'll find out soon enough.

Re Cuban Products.

Depends on how well you hide it. If they find it, well wasted. If not... A bottle or two in the clothes, no probs.

Re Iraqi oil law, boring mate. Boring.

You'll be happy to know that empirical testing just started, so we'll find out soon enough.

ah, the principle of sound science. How else would we have known if Saddam had those WMDs, or how neoconservatism works in practice. Rational speculation went out with Descartes, and for good reason.

By the way:
but then I am a goody-two-shoes who would never try it anyway.

There's no fun in that.

You haven't lived until you've smuggled in or out illegal items in your shoes in a country with the death penalty.

Builds your sang froid to lie to a guy with a gun.

In your shoes, eh? Was this post 9/11 and shoebomber paranoia, did they make you take your shoes off? I'm in awe.

Dear alle,

worked on that issue for the past 2 years. Too tired of it now.

Raed Jarrar is no better than FOX. He actually fudged the translation of that law. That leaked draft has no PSAs (production sharing agreements) in its Arabic text. He inserted a reference to PSAs, but in a strike-through font and then, in that blog post you'd linked, just flat-out stated "This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq."

Since I remembered the very same debate from the Kurdistan Region Oil Law (rumors that the law would legalize PSAs that then turned out to be untrue) I checked the Arabic text and saw that Raed had made it up. I e-mailed him, asking frome where he got the reference, and that the law hasn't been passed yet but is still in the parliamentary debate.

He never answered my e-mails. (His comments section is always closed, so no chance to leave one on his blog.)

Juan Cole had linked to Raed's post. I wrote a comment correcting the PSA & "it's a law" reference. Juan then posted another link, to an "analysis" of the oil draft law that centered around the allegation that it would legalize PSAs.

In essence, both Raed and Juan seem to have their preconceived notions of how (bad) the world is & fudge their "facts" accordingly.

I'm just sick & tired of the issue. But who knows ... I seem to remember that I have a bottle of Grasovka in the freezer, so maybe that'll give me the necessary motivation.

Na sdarovye,

--MSK

alle,
I would be happy to consider the new oil law if I knew anything about such matters. I can see a lot of good reasons for moving it to private sector and bringing in foreign know how and capital, but his annoying Leftism aside, Raed might have a point about Iraq getting a crap deal out of it in current circumstances.

The 'supporting Iranian separatists' argument was not with a friend, as I recall, but with some quite literally Islamophobic paranoid fantasy wanker in the Belgravia Dispatch comments; a fellow whom Lounsbury later also assaulted with a clue stick, but to no avail. However, speaking of discussions about Iran with rightie friends...

There's no fun in that.

You haven't lived until you've smuggled in or out illegal items in your shoes in a country with the death penalty.

Builds your sang froid to lie to a guy with a gun.

I prefer my fun in other flavors, so thanks, but no thanks. The closest I've gotten to smuggling was lying to a guy with a gun (Soviet border guard) about the fate of my recording Walkman during a period when one had to account on leaving for all valuables and electronics that one had brought in - and if you said it was stolen, you'd better have a police report. I'd left it as a gift for my boyfriend, but made up an elaborate story about how it had fallen out of my dorm room window and shattered into a million pieces. Of course, this being the end of December 1989, so much had changed since we had entered 4 months before that nobody asked or cared.

We still made my suitemate go through Customs last, though, on the theory that if anyone knew how much contraband he was smuggling out (Army uniforms, including one Afghanistan Spetsnaz uniform, and the like), we would all get strip-searched. All the same, I am perfectly willing to save the Havana Club for special, non-U.S. occasions - the regular stuff is just fine for most purposes for us lightweights, anyway.

...I did say that this month I would share with you my conversation with a rather right-Bolshie friend who is an analyst (with 20-year pin) with a relevant branch of the US government.

On the absence of WMD in Iraq: He said, as far as I can remember, "what makes you think that was more than a pretext for invasion in the first place?" He said that it had been determined that it was in US interests for Saddam to be removed and it had been decided to use the very first excuse he gave us to remove him. Now I have to go more into inference rather than what he said, but he didn't give the impression that this decision was made ex rectum by The Decider but rather that quite a bit of the defense/security/FP civil service had been pushing this for a while. He didn't specifically say why, but he did mention that none of the normal carrots and sticks worked, all Saddam had done in response to sanctions was to let his allies run a black market mafia that impoverished and destroyed the Iraqi middle class, etc.

Having decided that removing Saddam's government was in the best interests of the US, it was further decided that the US should then foster the creation of democracy in Iraq. This would be in everybody's interests, since it had also been determined that the rise of democracy would be the only solution to the ME's pathological societies and to the difficulties they gave the US.
I said that I didn't believe a democracy could function without a strong, expansive, secure middle class--and neither should he as a lifelong Republican--and that otherwise you would get elected tyrants, at best. And that since we were in agreement that sanctions (oh, sorry, Saddam in response to sanctions) had destroyed the Iraqi middle class, the odds of this democratization project succeeding were pretty low. He countered that it was still the best thing the US could do, and that the President understood that it would take a long time. He said that democratization of the ME was the new Cold War and that we were committed to an equally long-term struggle.

(there is a lot of this so I am breaking it up into several comments)
On democratization, he also said that establishing democracy in Iraq was the only outcome that would have domestic political support.

On disbanding the Iraqi Army: He says it's a media myth that we disbanded it. Rather it spontaneously fell apart at the end of the invasion, with most soldiers throwing away their uniforms and taking their weapons home with them. Rather than try to work with this evaporated army, it was decided to dissolve it and rebuild it from scratch.

On not securing all weapons dumps and destroying the ones we couldn't secure: There weren't enough troops to secure all the Iraqi Army weapons dumps and we didn't want to destroy them because there might be chemical weapons there. Aside from destroying WMD evidence, that would release poison gas into the atmosphere, as happened during Gulf War I.

On Iran: The US will not invade Iran because that is a practical impossibility, but it will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons by any means necessary. A nuclear-armed Iran, likely with missiles that could hit eastern EU members, would be able to pursue its ambitions far more vigorously and with impunity. It could provide its current proxies such as Hezbullah and Hamas with 'real' weaponry and a much higher level of overt support without fear of Israeli retaliation and it could launch new proxy wars regionally, in its role as champion of Shi'ite rights. The US has just recently finished decades of fighting nasty proxy wars, with many tens of thousands killed, against the Soviets and does not want to go through this again. And the Europeans are idiots for having forgotten the Cold War so soon and not seeing the danger of a new one with Iran.

That's pretty much it. My friend in short: Everything is the new Cold War, or will be. I will say here that the fellow is one of my oldest friends and an extremely decent bloke personally. Also far from stupid.

AT - very interesting. This part I find possibly disingenuous though:

"On disbanding the Iraqi Army: He says it's a media myth that we disbanded it. Rather it spontaneously fell apart at the end of the invasion, with most soldiers throwing away their uniforms and taking their weapons home with them. Rather than try to work with this evaporated army, it was decided to dissolve it and rebuild it from scratch.

On not securing all weapons dumps and destroying the ones we couldn't secure: There weren't enough troops to secure all the Iraqi Army weapons dumps and we didn't want to destroy them because there might be chemical weapons there. Aside from destroying WMD evidence, that would release poison gas into the atmosphere, as happened during Gulf War I."

1) The army didn't evaporate, and just how were they planning to rebuild from scratch?
2) Who decided to go in with so few troops?

On a lighter note, dark Cuban rum is fantastic used in the following cocktail - put a few slices of orange and lime in the bottom of a highball glass, toss some sugar on it and muddle, add rum and then top up with Jamaican ginger beer. Delish. And before anyone sneers at the girliness of fruit in cocktails, there's evidence that the added sugar makes it hit you harder.

I find it really hard to keep my cool when discussing Iraq with pro-war neocon types. It's the Dreyfus affair of our time.

What do people here think of Bayrou? Know very little about him, but seems less nazi than Sarkozy and more sensible than Royale, judging from a few articles.

Oh come on, we love you anyway (or at least I do, not that my opinion matters to anyone else)! Life gets in the way sometimes - everyone reasonable knows that. And this is precisely why you need a break

I desperately desperately wish I were a Mojito drinker (or just an alcohol drinker), Diet Coke is destroying my stomach lining and I have been sickeningly sin-free recently so I have some major brownie points to spend. Cigarettes it is then..

Cigarettes aren't haram (cough), you still have hasanat to spend.

You haven't lived until you've smuggled in or out illegal items in your shoes in a country with the death penalty.

I saw "Midnight Express". That's as close to living as I'll go.

That's pretty much it. My friend in short: Everything is the new Cold War, or will be. I will say here that the fellow is one of my oldest friends and an extremely decent bloke personally. Also far from stupid.

Not stupid for sure, but maybe not as geographically remote from it as you suspect.

In one paragraph, he grants WMD is a pretext, and in the next he claims we couldnt destroy the weapons centers because they may have the weapons . . .that were only a pretext.

I think he is pseaking for only one corner of the security establishment on a desire to go to war with Iraq.

The democracy part is lunacy, and in one breath he says we dont want a cold war but then he says we do want one.

And so in order to fight "pathologies" we are going to wage cold war against a country that is unrepresentative of the pathological societies in its religious identity and hostile to those that attacked us.

Kind of like going to war with Stalin and Franco after Pearl Harbor and Czechoslovakia for those who like their analogies WWII ish.

Far from stupid? i beg to differ.

I have been sickeningly sin-free recently so I have some major brownie points to spend. Cigarettes it is then..

Well, there's always fornication, you know.

Well, there's always fornication, you know

Not squandering my hard earned brownie points on a man. I need something more sinful.

A woman?

My dear Tory:

He said that democratization of the ME was the new Cold War and that we were committed to an equally long-term struggle.

Next time you see him, you can tell him this Right Wing old hand in MENA tells him he's a fucking moron and an incompetent fool to boot.

New Cold War - simple minded sloppy superficial idiotic tripe of the worst Right Bolshevik self-deluding "Class Struggle" type.

Bloody morons are making my life more dangerous with this idiocy.

Meph: what does your version of Islam have to say about small, discreet, battery-operated appliances? I think an article is in order.

(I meant Bint, dammit. Well, OK, both of you.)

Dear me, we must be in the presence of true intellectuals. You'd have the full attention of most men with posts like the suggestive ones above, but all you get is a rant about Right Bolshies, completely ignoring titillation.

What can I say? The proportion of men who appreciate a truly multifaceted woman is far too small. And we wonder why the human race can be such a bunch of idiots.

what does your version of Islam have to say about small, discreet, battery-operated appliances?

Eh, despite my obvious affinity for machines, this is one area where I would accept no substitutes.

On not securing all weapons dumps and destroying the ones we couldn't secure: There weren't enough troops to secure all the Iraqi Army weapons dumps and we didn't want to destroy them because there might be chemical weapons there.

This is the most embarrassing, shameless rationalization I've seen in a long time. There were plenty of troops. Unfortunately, they were all sitting on their asses somewhere else because Rumsfeld wanted to prove a point.

The unvarnished truth is that for reasons which completely escape me, the military was never allowed to develop a plan on what to do after they had won. With my own eyes, I saw a military spokesman explain that the military was intentionally taking no steps to provide security and prevent looting because "That's not our job description." They subsequently reversed their position but only after enormous damage had been done.

The U.S. didn't drop the ball in the days and weeks following the invasion, they drop-kicked it off of the field.

Tell your friend that if the U.S. military really didn't have enough troops to secure bloody weapons dumps, then they didn't have enough troops to invade Iraq. As is now painfully clear, half a job is far worse than none.

This parallel sex/politics conversation is surreal. If one were not paying attention one would think that Anonymous's last response was just one long double entendre.

I once pompously declared 'I do not believe in masturbation' to which the response was, 'Is it a religion'? Which segues beautifully into what my version of Islam has to say about it, namely, nothing, as a rabbit circa 600 BC I am sure was nothing but a culinary delicacy. So theoretically, it is not haraam and is merely an extension of impure thoughts.

600 AD you mean, or anytime before Anne Summers hit the hight street.

So theoretically, it is not haraam and is merely an extension of impure thoughts.

Bah, and the fun in that is?

Dear Bint, Eva,
This reminds me of an argument in another Internet community as to whether Jewish law permits cunnilingus. Our daughter of umpteen generations of Rabbis ended the discussion with "DARN TOOTIN' RIGHT IT DOES"

Dear all,
Thanks for hacking through my interminable comments. I didn't even bring up the bit where my friend said instead of being angry with the US, we should all be angry with the Iraqis for having screwed up this golden opportunity to create a functional society and gone for communal thuggery instead.
No really, he isn't exactly stupid. He is incredibly blinkered beyond my ken to really grasp and has an ability to grab any set of contradictory assumptions and run with them uncritically. And he oversimplifies all human matters in a way shocking to me, but I was educated as a cultural anthropologist and he as an engineer. From the rural Midwest.

Matthew,
It is quite possible that his views represent only a small section of his part of the security establishment, much less the civil service as a whole, but I also doubt he is a maverick in his views. And as for WMD as a pretext for invasion, this doesn't mean that people were certain that Saddam didn't have them, just that they were not 100% certain that he did and thought removing him was a good idea in either case. So it still made sense to take precautions about chemical weapons in weapon dumps.
As for why invade in the first place, it wasn't 'in order to create a democracy' but rather 'in order to fix an ongoing problem that nothing else was fixing,' though of course it is still very questionable even in that context.

Lounsbury,
When I told him I was getting married he did drop everything, take holiday and fly across the country, which is why he was my best man. It's more than any of my other friends or for that matter my family did. So I would certainly never call him a fucking moron, even on your behalf, even given the substantial provocation. :) I just don't understand how someone who think seriously about the subject can come to these right-Bolshie conclusions.

Meph - isn't that just one of the joys of literalism? I love how people can get totally shitfaced on hashish/sheesha/smoke a pack a day but nevvvver evvvvver touch the booze. So hey, there should be some advantages too, and the rabbit is most certainly one of them.

Yeah ... I remember that conversation.

---

I find the whole WMD issue & not enough troops ... that's just BS.

Same re: Iran. "The US will not invade Iran because that is a practical impossibility, but it will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons by any means necessary."

The ONLY way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (if Iran wants to do it) is by invading & occupying it.

Oh wait, there's one other way: completely destroying the country through a massive bombing campaign - either conventional or nuclear. And I mean that in a "dude, we've soooo dresdened the **** out of those mullahs!" sense.

Anything less than one of those 2 policies wouldn't prevent an Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, should Iran so desire.

--MSK

Well, it's a new month, and there is an invitation, so I might as well wade in.

I've been reading Aqoul for a couple of months now.It's nice to see some stimulating(pun intended) discussions in the comments section.

On machines...

I think masturbation is illegal so the machine thing would be an extension of that and hence not allowed.

But I have another question.What about strap on's?Could they be legitimately recognized as a form of foreplay, or something that enhances the experience?

I'd love to ask the bearded brigade that question, if only I was still living in Pakistan :(

I should note that, for those who like WW2 analogies, the Western Allies did have plans (which came dangerously close to realization) about going to war against Stalin. If the Finns held out a month longer, Anglo-French forces would have arrived in Scandanavia (probably while violating neutrality of Norway and Sweden) to fight the Soviets.

Good thing it never came to that...

MSK,
I have exactly the same fear that this is what 'by any means necessary' entails, and I hope to God this isn't what we do, because there is no way on Earth that even a nuclear armed Iran constitutes the kind of threat that would justify such an action. I don't think even these guys would do that, but I think they would bomb every possible nuclear facility regardless of whether it was in a pop center, and I am afraid they'd consider using tac nukes against hardened facilities.

SP
Forgot to say anything to you--hello!--but yeah, it sounded pretty disingenuous to me, too. Certainly Bremer says he disbanded the Army.

Anony,
Forgot you too, but I think you're absolutely right, and I did pretty much make several comments like that to my friend, to which I didn't get much of a response at all.

Apropos of nothing, except that my mention of Rumsfeld reminded me of it,

http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/

It works even better if you read it out loud.

Er, be vewy, vewy quiet, I'm hunting...rabbits?

Just wanted to show my amazing willpower by resisting the intellectual debate in favor of a nod in the direction of the salacious...

Better rabbits than rabbis. :-)

that Rumsfeld poetry is the scariest poetry I've read. But how about John Ashcroft's crooning? Kitch or horror? And who could imagine Gonzales would be an even worse attorney general? I wonder what his art thing is. And the Iraq War is sexy as hell, all that talk about pulling out or not gets me going. I mean, basically they're fucking the country.

OK enough with the puns they're starting to wear a bit thin. I am not sure there is an explicit prohibition on anything barring anal penetration, and even that is a bit tenuous. As long as there are no small animals involved then it is all extrapolation.

Surely, if masturbation serves the purpose of keeping you chaste, it is desirable?

As you well know, that's exactly what the muftuun say.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503545922

Enjoy.

--MSK

I am wasted doing what I do, am a natural at this ift'aa thing.

I do vaguely recall an incident in Egypt last year where a female scholar (odious rottweiller of a middle aged cow) sparked controversey by decreeing that a husband and wife geographically separated can 'cyber' in order to prevent them from straying. Same logic as bint's but the rest of the AL-Azhar brigade did not agree and pounced raising the usual questions, where do you draw the line, it could become an alternative to proper intimacy, women might start to actually enjoy themselves, etc etc..

Surely, if masturbation serves the purpose of keeping you chaste, it is desirable?

Then
Jocelyn Elders was a Muslm at heart?

there was that amusing fatwa that decreed phone sex ok for married couples provided they did not touch themselves during.

Those fatawa can be summarized as follows:

As there are degrees of "bad deeds", a lesser "bad deed" that prevents the committal of a greater "bad deed" is preferable.

Thus, masturbation is better than extra-marital sex.

The issues mentioned by some of the commentators only arose because of (modern) puritanism, but have no basis in jurisprudence.

Sometimes I wonder if we can't just get all moralizers - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. - together & put them on an island. I suggest Australia. Maybe a population exchange with all kangaroos moved to, say, Africa. Screw the koalas.

There are already wild camels in Australia, so the Wahhabis won't feel too much out of place.

--MSK

Sometimes I wonder if we can't just get all moralizers - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. - together & put them on an island. I suggest Australia. Maybe a population exchange with all kangaroos moved to, say, Africa. Screw the koalas.

MSK - that's EXACTLY what I've proposed many times before. They'd all be buggering each other in ten minutes and leave the rest of us in peace, insha allah.

MSK: Screw the koalas.

ahem

Ummmm, Tom, do we want to know how you ran across that?

(Now I'm glad nobody at my office is probably computer-literate enough to figure out what I've been looking at.)

Dear SP,

you seem to believe that those moralizers are all males. Uh ... not true. (But Tom seems to have found a solution to that.)

Dear Tom,

one more argument why Australia resembles KSA.

--MSK

You know, sex and celibacy can be big problems for many people in the Arab world and I really don't think you guys should make fun of it.

Between the ages of 20 to 40, many Arabs would have (either attempt or wish to have!) a session three to four times a day. Although many of them would have a session in the afternoon or early morning before bath, most of them do have more than one session at night before going to sleep. After that age and around fifty, many would have twice a day. After the age of sixty, most of them continue to have one session per day even till the age of 70 to 80 or more. This habit is not universal though I have had patients who tell me that sexual intercourse has become such a routine that they feel funny, weak or abnormal if they abstain for more than two to three days!

Anon 1:28,

just come off it, will ya?

(1) Seeing how most of us have lived or are living in said "Arab world" we're quite aware of the problems the region has with sex (or lack thereof) and celibacy.

(2) Humor is good. Also see under: Monty Python & "Get Your War On"

(3) What is the point of your quote? What is its source?

(4) Who the &$%# are you anyway?

--Raf*

raf* - you don't remember Matthew's classic post?

For that matter, sex and celibacy can be problems for quite a number of people living elsewhere.

Humour, ah a funny trait to develop.

Eva: not a very interesting source, really.

some of you might get a kick out of this. http://theroadtothehorizon.blogspot.com/2007/02/day-i-got-exiled-from-us.html

it's a belgian UN diplo that got deported from the US. quite funny. Eva: any idea if the whole passport-changing thing happened in the last two weeks?

No, not really - here's the whole scoop. I can't remember now when it was announced that Visa Waiver applicants would need machine-readable passports, but it was at least a couple of years ago, and the deadline has been extended multiple times because some countries were having a hard time (France in particular) issuing machine-readable passports quickly enough.

I'd hope that for someone with a diplomatic passport, though, someone would exercise discretion to parole him in until the issue could be straightened out.

To get back to the Havana Club-smuggling issue: swap the rum to a differently-branded rum bottle. Of course, you'll have the problem that no one will actually believe you that it's actually Havana Club, but if that's not a problem, then there you go, very low risk Havana Club-smuggling.

Did y'all see Buruma's review of AHA's Infidel in the NYT Book Review? I couldn't get over the bit about how she was inspired to break free of her chains by...Danielle Steel novels. Revenge-rescue fantasy much?

hey people, you're in the news.

Ahh Wafa Sultan, the gift that keeps on giving.

I swear, what is it with the immigration fraud?

Sometimes I wonder if we can't just get all moralizers - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. - together & put them on an island. I suggest Australia. Maybe a population exchange with all kangaroos moved to, say, Africa. Screw the koalas.

BUGGER OFF!!! Despite anything you may (or more likely may not) have heard about us, normal people live here! (And al-Hilali. Ummm...)

Ms.45,

Australia has 20.5 Mio. inhabitants. Everyone gets to choose where they want to move. (Except the koalas, of course.) Case closed.

It's a small price to pay for World Peace. Just do it.

--MSK

just get all moralizers - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. - together & put them on an island.

Would that be an example of ethic cleansing?

Dear MH,

of course not. "Moralizer" isn't an ethnicity.

You don't say "putting murderers behind bars is ethnic cleansing", do you?

(For some reason I'm starting to worry that anyone on here took that product of my exasperation seriously. No, I DON'T call to round anyone up. Nor do I want to take away the Australians' homeland. It is true, however, that I don't care much for koalas.)

--MSK

MSK - you missed his inevitable pun. "Ethic cleansing," har har.

since someone mentioned Ethic Cleansing, and not that it has any relevance in the slightest to anything anyone has been discussing, I thought that I'd bring up the old but good Bush/Blair Endless Love duet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8rr6fz1hQQ

Dear SP,

that went straight over my head.

Weren't MH's puns banned on the main Aqoul site? I distinctly remember a PolitBureau decision about that one.

BTW, "Little Mosque on the Prairie" is developing quite nicely.

--MSK

Ooops, sorry. My semi-dyslexic habit of misspelling might have obscured the punderous nature of the ethic [sic, and very very sic, I might add] cleansing remark.

I repeat the slogan and dire warning: if puns were outlawed only outlaws would have puns.

First time I find a car ad interesting.

Usually, many play the testosterone card in a neanderthal way, trying to convince the losers that they can gain status by driving some carriage. Some would play the family card. But then, you have to be the kind of person who'd be tenderized by a horde of shrieking kids in some worn cliché of a happy family. Then you have the luxury models, with old farts driving a gross berline and little to appeal to us younger ones. Then you have the lamest one, the old Peugeot 106's advertisement, so lame I can't even find a trace of it on YouTube. Its slogan, that men would finally be jealous of their wife's car. The real message, shut your shrew's mouth by buying her this cheap shitty wreck. Perhaps the most chauvinist of them all. Should have been aired on trailer parks where drunk lesser men beat their equally stoned lesser women.

Then, eventually, this one came to capture the prancing walk of the homo urbanus alpha male. Yuppies, to whom mature gentlemen concede equality in the world of gentlemen, might identify with it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6413389735538288082&hl=en

But I'm wondering, so real question: does it appeal to successful middle-class lads who want to be part of the upper class, or is it really supposed to appeal to the latter?

In the meanwhile, I have yet to see an ad for my good ole subway pass.

Read it while it's hot: How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam. In the Times.

Dear Ali K,

thanks. Very cute. Thankfully, Norman Finkelstein already wrote about her ...

--MSK

Nice read! For some perverse reason, this made me laugh . . .

The Afghanistan I knew was a bastion of illiteracy, poverty, treachery and preventable diseases.

Plus ça change . . .

Here's a nice sensible article on Mark Steyn's Eurabia fantasies.

When the figures fail him, Steyn falls back on urban mythology. After the 9/11 massacres, in his Daily Telegraph column he repeated as fact preposterous claims that Muslim children all over New York had warned their favourite teachers not to go to the World Trade Centre that day.

ohh, déjà vu!

I was told it was Jewish people keeping away from WTC. Now I just don't know who to believe.

Clearly, all the monotheists are secretly in it together. All that declared enmity is just a front.

Okay, so I know I'm the only one outside of its borders who cares about that miserable place, but Mauritania has just held a free and fair presidential election. That would, incidentally, be the first one in very many decades in any Arab country that is neither occupied nor Lebanon.

Still some room for ruining it though: a second and decisive round is coming up in two weeks, and opposition candidate Ahmed Ould Daddah scored about equal with the discreetly junta-backed ex-regime stooge Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdellahi. It must be very tempting for the army to just softly nudge the electorate (or better, the vote counters) a bit, so it can keep the privileges that nearly 30 years of rule by military men has brought. But inshallah, the Mauritanian officer corps is master of its domain.

Aqoul Francophones
Posting this here because you speak the language even if it isn't the site's main area of interest. My colleague read this Le Monde piece claiming that Mr Wolfowitz is now screwing up the World Bank as thoroughly as he screwed up US foreign policy, again due to a combination of arrogance and ignorance. Or I think that's what it says, anyway.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3232,36-882488,0.html

:o would someone please close my bold tag after 'Aqoul Francophones'? Thanks.

Done.

Well, it might be a bit unfair. I have heard mixed things. Of course I know Wolfowitz and I have a soft spot for him, but still I think perhaps his critics may be over-reacting. Not sure.

Why, because you got drunk with him once? Bah.

Several times, actually over the years. And because I have reason to believe that he is not an incomptent manager as such.

Did you, uh, mention the war?

I did once but I think I got away with it.

I'd also heard that Wolfie was not doing a bad job at WB, that it was much more his area of competence than advising on FP, but I'd only heard this vaguely.

Elsewhere, going back to Gifts That Keep On Giving, another Dutch immigrant intellectual criticizes our beloved Hirsan Ali. Somewhat overly academic and intellectualized, and perhaps a tad lefty, even for me (I predict L will consider it a waste of time), but I think there are some good points in there.

The always sensible (sometimes maddeningly sensible) Timothy Garton Ash takes on the pious middle problem in The Guardian:

The saying often attributed to the prophet - "Whoever changes his religion must be executed" - is rejected as inauthentic by Imam Muslim, one of the earliest and most respected compilers of collections of hadith, but Imam al-Bukhari, another respected compiler, included it in his version. "The signs of falsification are very clear in this saying," comments Banna, "and it contradicts many verses in the Qur'an that confirm freedom of faith."

Compare this with Hirsi Ali's bold, bald statement in a speech in Berlin last year: "I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have said that apostates must be killed." Which do you think reveals a deeper historical knowledge of Islam? Which is more likely to encourage thoughtful Muslims in the view that they can be both good Muslims and good citizens of free societies?

I'm not suggesting that we must choose only one or the other approach. We should listen to and support the dissidents beyond Islam, ex-Muslims like Hirsi Ali, but also the dissidents within Islam like Banna.

I don't know if any of you follow cricket, but Bob Woolmer just died after being found unconscious in his hotel room at the World Cup. Horrible couple of days for Pakistani cricket.

Ahem, is this directed at me:
Did you, uh, mention the war?

Re Wolfie?

The answer would be no, as I have not seen the man in person (or had any contact at all) in over a decade I think. It would be hard to mention events that had yet to occur.

I did have an argument with him once over beer about Algeria and the French. Given that exchange, I was not surprised at his dismal inability to understand Iraq. Pity, I always thought his thinking on economic development was not so bad. But his understanding of colonial and post-colonial societies and politics - as well as the utility of force by Western powers in such instances - dismal.

Ahem, is this directed at me:
Did you, uh, mention the war?

Re Wolfie?

The answer would be no, as I have not seen the man in person (or had any contact at all) in over a decade I think. It would be hard to mention events that had yet to occur.

I did have an argument with him once over beer about Algeria and the French. Given that exchange, I was not surprised at his dismal inability to understand Iraq. Pity, I always thought his thinking on economic development was not so bad. But his understanding of colonial and post-colonial societies and politics - as well as the utility of force by Western powers in such instances - dismal.

What was his take on Algeria?

A quick glance at Bremer's book suggested Wolfowitz was one of those in the administration who at least tried to make Iraq work.

That is, unlike, for example, Rumsfeld, who seemed hellbent on obstructing those who tried.