As an MS sufferer, let me simply say: Yeah, whatever.

Don't get me wrong. Anything that undermines the repression of women is fine with me. Go for it!

Oh, hell. Make that 'oppression'. Help, help, I'm being repressed!

> As an MS sufferer, let me simply say:
> Yeah, whatever.

Feel well.

Thanks, Crid.

Also, be full of feminist piss, and don't hesitate to spray it at men who want you in chador.

Or cheddar, for that matter.

Monterey Jack with jalapeño, we can talk.



Listen, I've known about it as a guiding principle for many years…

…and of course, we all see the excesses of the coddled, spineless idiot brat-women who call themselves feminists in American academe, government and elsewhere…

…But this guy was the one who finally fixed this truth at the forefront of my consideration of every international issue, every day, and without exception:

You can judge a society, and predict almost everything you'll need to know about it, by how it treats women.

That second clause isn't as perfectly applicable as we'd like, but still....

ANY ISSUE… *ANY* international story you read for the next month… ask first how they treat their women. If you don't know, find out before you take a position.

(Gentlemen blog comment readers: Sorry, but knowing this is true won't get you laid.)

(…But it can make the women you hang out with worth fucking.)

Very sorry to hear about your condition, Prickly. It's horrible to live with, I'm sure.

Scientists have long recognized a link between lack of sunlight and multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological disease that typically first strikes people in their 20s and 30s, and women more often than men.

That's true of any autoimmune disorder, such as arthritis: women are more often hit than men. I once asked a physician why he thought that way (with the understanding that no one truly knows at this time). He said, "Stress." I didn't realize being a woman is more stressful.

But I had never heard about the correlation to sunlight exposure.

I suppose it would be naive to hope that some good comes out of this. Like maybe these barbarians will get the idea that forcing women to wear awnings isn't a good idea. And by logical extension, maybe they just shouldn't be treated like second class citizens or property at all.

"was," not "way."

I don't know about MS but there's growing evidence for the health value of Vitamin D beyond calcium metabolism. I live in a cold climate and always supplement. That said, all the covered women I know look weak and flabby. It's impossible to vigorously exercise when you dress that way.

Yeah, when I was BFing my infant I was worried about vitamin D, especially in winter, but I was assured that the people who suffered from deficiency were heavily veiled, dark-skinned women and as an unveiled white (albeit dark white) woman I was fine.

Thanks, guys. It didn't hit me until I was forty-one and my vision started screwing up. Ocular neuritis is a common occurrence with MS, but it took seven doctors to finally diagnose it. I counted. Wrote a poem about it.

Seventeen years later, I'm actually doing great compared to many. The sun (particularly in the summer when you add in the heat), is no longer my friend. I can practically feel it draining me, I hole up inside like a vampire. But I probably would anyway, so...

My husband should get the sympathy. He's hit the trifecta with me and my disease, menopause and general pains of aging. When I'm not snapping at him I'm apologizing for snapping at him.

Fortunately, we really like each other and have the same sense of humor. (We love each other too, but frankly I think liking is at least as important.)

Without a good deal of "repression" of women, civilized society will begin to corrode, and eventually to fall apart. The same is even more true of men, of course -- which is why it is men who have always been "repressed" more than women.

Now that women are being freed from the "repression" of making families, and men are being freed from the "repression" of supporting and protecting those families, things are getting SO much better for everyone, right?

Oh, never mind about the children. We can prevent, abort, or neglect as many of those as we want -- to make sure no one is ever "repressed."

As Walt Kelly said, Don't take life so seriously, son. It ain't nohow permanent!

Yet significant numbers of Western women are converting to Islam...often to the most extreme forms thereof:

http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/staggering-numbers-women-converting-islam?ModPagespeed=noscript

DF, there are no meaningful numbers in that piece, certainly none approaching statistical "significance."

The word "staggering" in the URL is a little suspicious as well. Thoughtful people will not stumble upon learning that handful of women described in a news (or persuasion) article have chosen bad paths.

The superiority of women's lives in Western modernity it so blindingly plain that it can and will transcend languages, literacy and traditions. The choice is essentially as easy as it can be.

"The superiority of women's lives in Western modernity it so blindingly plain that it can and will transcend languages, literacy and traditions." True. "The choice is essentially as easy as it can be." Would certainly seem to be true. So, then why are there:

"tens of thousands of Westerners who convert to Islam every year, more than 75 percent of whom, astonishingly, are women."???...with a high % of these conversions being to the more extreme forms??

Certainly, "tens of thousands" could stand more precision...is it 20,000 or 90,000....but given the objective superiority of modernity that you correctly state, I think these conversions are worth noting even if the number is at the lower end of the range.

Have you ever gone to extremist forums and read them? I've been to a few, and find that a common theme is a feeling of alienation and that something is missing.

It's worth wondering why so many people, even though as a percentage its small, its still a lot of people... why so many feel so alienated and unfulfilled by society that they go to extreme opposites, be it fundamentalist Muslim, Nazi hate group, socialist luddite technology bomber, etc.

Why are people converting to Islam?
The same reason from damn near every other (globe spanning to intensly personal) problem humanity faces.

The vast majority of people are .
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wait for it

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MORONS SOOOOOO FUCKING STUPID AS TO NOT SHIT IN THE WATER THEY DRINK WERE IT NOT FOR OTHERS FORCING IT UPON THEM

David Foster, what I'm saying is that the article you linked is unsubstantiated piece of shit. Therefore:

> why are there:
> "tens of thousands of Westerners who
> convert to Islam every year

I don't believe that there are. Certainly, this article gives no reason to believe so.

It may well be that Muslims from Arab nations are going out of their own countries to find wives, while their sisters are less like to travel in marriage. Thinking out loud here.

But even though the "tens of thousands" number is pure bullshit, it wouldn't even be a teardrop statistic on a planet of seven billion people.

For each of the "tens of thousands" roped into Islam through your paranoid nightmares, hundreds of thousands of Muslim women are looking from their own poverty at women in modernity and saying "I wanna be like THAT."

Less likely , sorry , leaving for work

Crid, see also this article on conversions in Britain, written by a woman who is herself a Muslim:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/women-should-be-wary-of-romanticising-islam-6723984.html

The fact that a phenomenon affects only a small % of a population...so far...doesn't mean it isn't an important indicator of trend which will lead it to become much larger in the future. If 40 steering linkages on GM cars break and lead to accidents in a given year, it's a trivial number as a % of total GM cars and of accidents that this population is involved in. But maybe the problem is metal fatigue and the breakages are a leading indicator of a much more severe problem that is about to hit. If you're GM, it would behoove you to take the reports seriously.

> The fact that a phenomenon affects only a small
> % of a population...so far...doesn't mean it isn't
> an important indicator of trend which will lead it
> to become much larger in the future.

Oh, why don't you two just piss your fucking pants? Jesus Christ. This couldn't BE anymore pathetic.

You are so *horny* for this to be exploding into a zombie film... Behoove! It would BEHOOVE us.

You're so fucking eager to be afraid, and pretend that you have secret insight about a Dangerous Trend™… One that's right out there in the open!

Except, y'know, you don't have any fucking numbers, and can't concede that any other stupidity is at work in people's lives... The last, LAST thing you want to discuss is the rigors of statistical science.

Fear! Fear! Fear!

Because

SHEEPLE!!!!

Study by Swansea University puts British conversions to Islam at 100,000 over the past decade, with 75% of them being women. This compares with 60,000 in the previous decade.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women--islam-the-rise-and-rise-of-the-convert-6258015.html

Another related article here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1324039/Like-Lauren-Booth-ARE-modern-British-career-women-converting-Islam.html

100,000 out of 62 million... 0.16% of the population, with no comparative survey of how many Britons (let alone women) have concurrently been leaving the faith, which may be five times as great... No small matter, that, in a population which on the whole is running from religion as fast as it's little British feet can carry it.

Your fondness for gossipy but fear-mongering pieces in the British press is noted.

Noted is not the same thing as being interesting!

See particularly the photo of the goofball smirking mug at the top of your Peppiat piece. That woman isn't enthralled by Islam... Attention is her religion . She's entranced by the thrill of getting her picture in the newspaper, especially when people are asking about her most personal (if shallowest) feeeeeeeeeeelings... So being photographed wearing the totally perfect shade of lipstick with a cheerful new scarf is just icing on the cake!

And to complain about "a lack of help as they get used to their new religion"? Oh, Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive! And to be young, like the cleavage-sharing brunette in the second photo? Just Heaven!

You make time in you life to worry over such things? Truly?

I think you're behooving yourself out of your mind.

Like I said, we should be looking at total conversions to extreme religions and political movements. Maybe some become Wahabists, some become Neonazis, some become something else but it'd be interesting to see stats on the total number of people joining hate groups. (And while I disagree with Amy that all Islam is inherently evil and can never be moderate, I DO agree that in its more extremist forms it is, and would call it a hate group).

Crid is right, its only a small number why worry?

Only a small number of people refused to vaccinate their kids, we didnt worry, now that that number has trippled over the last couple of decade, well the numbers are still small so why worry

And Ecoli, why worry about that, only a small number of people dont wash the shit off of their hands before touching your food, and only a smaller number of people who eat that shit acctually die

So why worry, right crid, why worry about a problem when its so small, we must wait until its too big to do anything about it, and then we'll say 'why worry, its too late to do anything about it now'

Right crid?

You're a thinker, Lickplips! Completely unanticipated take on this! Clever reasoning!

Next time someone converts to Islam, I want you guys to slit your own wrists, OK? Because things are going to get worse, and you're obviously too terrified to live another day in a world of decadent tensions. (Don't bother asking how many people have left Islam on that day... Doesn't matter.)

Doesn't matter if the person doing the conversion is obviously pathetic, lonely, vain and socially crippled... Like, maybe an aging TV news anchor, or the family member of a government figure, envious of attention in important matters, as in DF's examples.

WHENEVER this happens, anywhere on the globe, it means the very core of YOUR worth as a human being is irredeemably besmirched. And you shouldn't put up with it.

So!... Knuckles down, palm up, and open your veins. Drink first, so your not tempted to make too much noise. Do it in the bathtub, so cleanup will be quick 'n easy for whoever needs to rent your apartment next. Bladesville, Pennsylvania... Population: You.

And for fuck's sake, quit mewling.

Today the radio said that both the singer Rihanna and California 12th District Representative Nancy Pelosi are both converting to Islam!

So now millions of American women will follow their lead!

It's ON!!!!

Oh Hell, I just found out through the Twitter feed that Gwen Stefani has gone Muslim!

You guys were right! It's like a virus! It can be passed to anyone at anytime, and we need to TAKE STEPS!

I should have been more credulous.

The waves keep on crashin' on me for some reason....

Shucks.

Martha Stewart and Brittney Spears went Muslim overnight. Also, that friend of Oprahs.

Last night, 500 housewives from the San Fernando Valley converted to Islam!

Huh?

What? What's the matter?

You don't believe me?

But this is 'significant'!