This blog has moved...

This blog has moved over to Wordpress...it's a much nicer layout and has more features than Blogger seems to offer.

Anyway, the new site is:
http://currentthinkings.wordpress.com

Harvard gives special "females-only" gym time to appease Muslim girls

This is bullshit. Harvard is closing off one of its rec centers to male students at certain times to create "female only" gym times. The reason was cited as some Muslim students on campus (I think the news report says half a dozen) feel uncomfortable working out in a co-ed environment. Non-Muslim women were pretty cool with it; it seemed from the ones interviewed that they enjoyed the idea of a women-only workout.

OK...ummmmmm...if this was a religious thing, where are the guys in kufis demanding the same thing for guys? Isn't it fitna for guys to be working out in co-ed environments also? Hell, non-Muslim guys will go for it too. You girls think we like it when you're at the gym hogging the machines we want to use? Shit.

Interesting facts about US Muslims from a Pew Research Study

In this paper by the Pew Research Group (the same people who did that study that was featured in the NYTimes), entitled "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream" (lol), there were some pretty interesting facts that stand out. Such as:

• Muslim-American voter turnout is lower than average. (yay, a survey confirms what I thought)
• Only 19% of converts have a "High" religious commitment. (you'd think it would be more)
• More Christians than Muslims pray every day. (wow)
• More young Muslim-Americans attend masjid than older Muslim-Americans. (shrug)

There's a whole bunch of stuff in here that I could comment about, but I'm sleepy and don't want to read the whole thing (it's 108 pages, and I have exams and assignments due this week). So anyway, if you're interested, the link to the report is above.

Dawah in the US: it works (sort of)

Good news and bad news for you convert hunters:

The good news: according to a Pew study, the findings of which are in the NY Times, 0.3% people of the people they surveyed were born Muslim, compared to 0.4% who are currently Muslim. Yes! An increase of 0.1%!

The bad news: Islam isn't the fastest growing non-Christian religion in the US. Buddhism is. (The main article goes into inter-Christian "conversions" and such).

See, spirituality and zen-type stuff is cool. People like that. Maybe we could drum up more interest in Islam if we crank up the sufiness and tone down the anti-Israel, anti-Western lifestyle, anti-bidah, anti-(insert anything here).

The big losers here: the Roman Catholic church. I can imagine the molestation scandal was not good for them in recent years.

Danish Cartoons Redux

Here we go again.

I don't understand why basic reasoning and common sense is lacking in the majority of the Muslim world. Maybe their kufis and hijabs are too tight.

OMGWTF?

Anyone hear of this? (via parallelsidewalk)

Muslim Heretics Conference. Great name.

Here's to the Islamic Revolution...

...29 years and counting of pissing on the West, silencing reformists and dissenters, and doing nothing for Iran's economy.

Viva la revolucion.

Bitchin' about hijab

While I usually find the Washington Post about as appealing as the smell of horseshit on a hot summer day, I figured I'd share this after I saw it on AE's site.

But where are those who yell at Iran and Saudi Arabia where women HAVE to wear headscarves? And I’ll take militant secular any day over militant misogynist, as Saudi Arabia exemplifies again and again. If Turkish women were barred from education because of headscarves, Saudi girls were dying from lack of them.

I lived in Saudi Arabia from age 15 – 21 and visited several times a year until 2000. A couple of years after I stopped visiting, a horrific fire broke out in a school in Mecca, home to the Muslim world’s holiest site. Fifteen girls burned to death because morality police standing outside the school wouldn’t let them out of the burning building. Why? Because they weren’t wearing headscarves and abayas, the black cloaks that girls and women must wear in public in Saudi Arabia.

Enjoy ladies.

EDIT: Can anyone confirm that fire incident in Mecca?

Another head scratcher from our co-religionists

This is sad/hilarious/wow.

And what does the Islamic Medical Association have to say about this? From the article:

But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.

"No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," it said.

I'm all for the professional Muslim woman, but your dirty ass isn't operating on me. I'm sure there are other patients who feel the same way. Not wanting to touch pork when you're working at a supermarket is one thing (you can make minimum wage elsewhere if you really wanted to), but to throw your medical career away over this?

If you feel this way ladies, stay at home. Don't bother going to medical school, college, whatever; you're just taking up seats for people actually serious about helping others with their medical career.

Besides, staying at home is the sunnah right?

Oh, so NOW he suddenly has some money, right?

How about this idiot gives us some research money instead so we can do things that are actually worthwhile for the country.

The one good thing about him serving two terms is that he can't be elected for a third.