I think these idiots actually want to go to hell…

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb hidden in a box holding pigeons tore through a crowded pet and livestock market Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding dozens, police said, in a blast that left the carcasses of dead birds, dogs and other animals scattered on the blood-soaked ground. - source

for Photo Friday: Peaceful

I thought about using a picture of one of the dogs for this challenge because they are naturally peaceful and mostly calm and always happy. I passed by many photos of my cat Naji because he is almost always sneaky or spiteful, and always unpeaceful. But this photo of him captures one of his quiet moments.

He was living outside before we met. He showed up at the front door one day while I was cleaning the living room with my mom. I heard a meow and went outside to see him walking around trying to peek inside. I called my mom out to look at him and we wondered who he belonged to. “Look, he’s so friendly and nice!” I said…

Of course, I fall in love with every animal I see so I started to pet him and within two strokes he had attempted to bite my hand. I was disappointed. “He’s not nice after all!”

But I started to feed him and slowly bring him inside with me. I wasn’t sure if he was 100% feral or had belonged to someone who just let him wander away. I named him Naji, since I had read somewhere that Naji means “safe” and it seemed fitting for him.

His first trip to the vet was interesting. The vet remarked, “I see he’s been scratching you,” looking at the streaks on my forearms. “Yeah, he’s a little aggressive,” I said. He would attack my arms at night and any other time he felt like it. The vet took his temperature, while Naji made obvious his hatred for thermometers. When the vet let him go, he quickly crawled across the table and pressed himself against my stomach as if to say “SAVE ME!” and I held him close while everyone in the room laughed in amusement at him.

He’s been with us for a long time but he’s currently living with my parents, after putting up such a fight to go back home in the car (he hates traveling, too).

He’s now mostly sweet but it took a few years to get him that way and he is still mischievous at times.

Sir, listen to me. You have to send in MILLIONS of troops to Iraq, not thousands! The only way to lick this thing now is to flood Iraq with millions of us! I know that you’re out of combat-ready soldiers — so you have to look elsewhere! The only way you are going to beat a nation of 27 million — Iraq — is to send in at least 28 million! Here’s how it would work:

The first 27 million Americans go in and kill one Iraqi each. That will quickly take care of any insurgency. The other one million of us will stay and rebuild the country. Simple.

Now, I know you’re saying, where will I find 28 million Americans to go to Iraq? Here are some suggestions:

1. More than 62,000,000 Americans voted for you in the last election (the one that took place a year and half into a war we already knew we were losing). I am confident that at least a third of them would want to put their body where there vote was and sign up to volunteer. I know many of these people and, while we may disagree politically, I know that they don’t believe someone else should have to go and fight their fight for them — while they hide here in America.

2. Start a “Kill an Iraqi” Meet-Up group in cities across the country. I know this idea is so early-21st century, but I once went to a Lou Dobbs Meet-Up and, I swear, some of the best ideas happen after the third mojito. I’m sure you’ll get another five million or so enlistees from this effort.

3. Send over all members of the mainstream media. After all, they were your collaborators in bringing us this war — and many of them are already trained from having been “embedded!” If that doesn’t bring the total to 28 million, then draft all viewers of the FOX News channel.

Mr. Bush, do not give up! Now is not the time to pull your punch! Don’t be a weenie by sending in a few over-tired troops. Get your people behind you and YOU lead them in like a true commander in chief! Leave no conservative behind! Full speed ahead! Dear Mr. President - Michael Moore

Yes, please.

I found this really good short movie, from a totally unrelated and random web search that brought me to the website of “Wajid, actor“, who is the star of the film. It starts out slow and it gives you time to think about what’s going to happen next.

My mind thought of at least 4 different endings, all wrong of course. The movie is called “Apu’s Revenge“, check it out. I think it’s worth it and the Rammstein at the end doesn’t hurt.

Oh God this is weird: Feminine napkin allows external sexual intercourse. And even weirder because it’s invented by Abdul A. A. Al-Saleh of Saudi Arabia. (via b3ta.)

As if atheists weren’t crazy enough, we now have some that are even crazier. According to Alternet’s recent article, Sam Harris’s Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture, atheists can “believe” (haha) any number of unprovable and wacky things.

I’ve always thought that atheism and theism were two beliefs that were equally illogical and equally closed-minded when it comes to rejecting or accepting other viewpoints. I believe that no one can prove or disprove God, so if you choose either end of the spectrum, you’re just going on faith.

Sam Harris goes on to show just how many strange things are “believable” to a skeptical disbeliever. ESP, reincarnation, torture and yes… killing. Not just killing, but killing in the name of his own beliefs.

His first strange belief: reincarnation is real. Amazingly, he gathered this belief after reading a book, he has no first-hand experience with it. (Sound like something familiar, Sam?)

Harris admits to being won over by accounts of “xenoglossy,” in which people abruptly begin speaking languages they don’t know. Remember the girl in “The Exorcist”? “When a kid starts speaking Bengali, we have no idea scientifically what’s going on.”

My first question (speaking as a fellow skeptic) would be, how did the researchers know that the kid was speaking Bengali? Is it a little unlikely that a (random?) child (under hypnosis?) began speaking Bengali and coincidentally, there just happened to be a Bangladeshi researcher in the room? If, as a later description tells, this particular case involved Ravi Shankar, I wonder if he was the one doing the translating? If so, why was he allowed near the “evidence”? Gotta read the book myself, I suppose.

Second strange belief, that torture is acceptable and it works!

“We know [torture] works. It has worked. It’s just a lie to say that it has never worked,” he says. “Accidentally torturing a few innocent people” is no big deal next to bombing them, he continues. Why sweat it?

His logic fails on this one. Saying “it’s a lie to say it has never worked” belies his presumed rationality. If we go by that standard, we may well say it’s a lie that domestic violence has never “worked”, it’s a lie that genocide never “worked”… etc. What level of “working” do we need to convince a skeptic like Harris? Due to the moral problems with research on torture, I don’t know if there exists any unbiased data on which we could base a “scientific” opinion. Simply, either you’re morally against it, or you’re immoral. :-) And you’ll see below that he actually doesn’t even mind if we bomb some of those innocent people.

Further, if we assume all enemies are lying, which ones do we torture? I know from my own experience that torturing my brother (hitting him or pinning him uncomfortably) never worked. He would either tell me a lie so I’d let him go, whereupon he laughed and ran away or he would yell for our parents in an attempt to scare me away.

I must quote of the great comments on that article:

Let’s put his claim that torture works to the test. In 1690 several people were tortured in Salem, and gave all kinds of evidence that people around them were witches. Maybe Harris’ belief in psychic phenomena will explain how people who had never mentioned this before were suddenly seeing the light, but I gues they were all in on the witch conspiracy. But the people tortured testified that women flew through the air and sickened cows. I guess somewhere between now and 1690 we lost that particular technology.

Yes, torture works. It lets the interrogator hear what he wants to hear, and forces the tortured to tell them what they want to hear. That what the torturer wants to hear might diverge from reality Harris doesn’t seem to understand.

Just because I believe that someone planted a bomb in the Empire State Building doesn’t make it true-especially if I am tearing out his fingernails.

A third, among many irrational and offensive beliefs Harris holds… it’s okay to kill people who don’t agree with him. On reaching such a high level of enlightenment, he has reached a conclusion that some people (namely those with what he determines to be dangerous positions) can be killed. Whether he, himself would do the killing or would rather it be taken care of by an army of rationalists or atheist crusaders, he doesn’t say.

[T]he logic he lays out — that Islam itself is our enemy — invites the reader to feel comfort at the deaths of its believers. He writes: “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”

Another commenter asks, “is this proposition meant to be one of them?”

I agree, holding such a belief that people who hold another belief are (or may) be ethically killed is a DANGEROUS belief. That’s likely why he’s against Muslims in the first place - they (to him) believe in killing those who disagree. What’s the difference???

I believe that now, we’re in a particular time in the world’s history where it’s time that people stand up for Islam, that people get more aggressive and radical with how they communicate to the West about Islam. I believe I have a calling: to stand up in a new, hard-core, radical way for Allah. If, in the process, I insult a couple of people or offend a couple of people and have to shake it up a little bit, as long as it is in the name of Islam, as Allah wills, so be it!

Just kidding, I modified a quote by Stephen Baldwin, self-professed radical, hard-core Christian. But somehow it’s not as amusing when spoken by a Muslim…