Two links discussing what Reza Aslan didn't say when he attacked Bill Maher.

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/08/bill_mahers_atheist_values_why_progressives_must_defend_enlightenment_critique_religious_extremism/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-open-letter-to-moderat_b_5930764.html

And then one more to come as I shake my fist at your spam filter!!!

One more link for good measure:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/05/reza-aslan-is-wrong-about-islam-and-this-is-why/

Because it happened in the world's largest hillbilly nation, this is a big deal.

A dictator's PR machine.

Also-- Why are you guys always getting so cranked about the things people say about Islam on talk shows?

Sometimes it takes real courage to share the truth when nobody wants to hear it.

https://twitter.com/briangaar/status/520348978962268160

Jerry, thanks so much for those links!

And Crid, because Aslan lied throughout the segment -- engaging in the Muslim practice of taqquiya (lying on behalf of the religion) -- and they had nobody to debunk his absolute horseshit.

The #WarOnBoys continues a pace. Wonder when the Usual Suspects will decry this #CultureOfRape?

Crid, I personally am not all that cranked about it, but the Maher, then Aslan, then Affleck/Maher/Harris thing made a big deal across much of the networks in the past two weeks.

It wasn't ebola huge, but it was certainly a big deal.

Personally, the links I gave taught me a great deal by confirming and fleshing out what Harris said.

And Aslan comes across very charming, and he's a good looking, reasonable guy, it's hard not to want to believe him.

So it's very helpful for me at least, to see both Muslims and former Muslims confirming the accuracy of what I've read from Maher, Harris and even here.

And for me it goes a bit further in that Harris has said some provocative things about other subjects, so his getting so much support here adds to his credibility in my mind in other topics I also find it hard to personally inspect and analyze on my own and have to rely on third parties for.

Oh and my bete noire is modern contemporary feminism as well as how the left, which I generally consider(ed) my self a part of, has gone so very askew towards intolerance as well as ignoring reality.

And one of the ways both feminism and the left get it wrong regards Islam, women, and female genital mutilation.

So for me at least, the solid point by point refutations of Aslan help me understand more about how the left has gone awry with feminist and social justice nonsense.

Well, you asked.

Minneapolis has a new sister city.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/minneapolis-goes-bosaso.php

A lot in common?

> Aslan lied throughout the segment
> -- engaging in the Muslim practice
> of taqquiya (lying on behalf of the
> religion) -- and they had nobody to
> debunk his absolute horseshit.

I'm shocked, shocked to learn that a rhetor was lying on a cable TV talk show.

What is this world coming to?





(Seriously, this is just so fucking naive... Your unspoken presumption is that if they were Western people anyway, then by golly, a childhood full of Jimminy Cricket cartoons would have taught him that you must always let your conscience be your guide®, and that it's totally-like meen to say things that aren't so.)

TV talk shows! Worry about them, because the little people don't know the truth!

About Islam.

> a big deal across much of the
> networks in the past two weeks.

Throw away your television.

Not kidding.

> A lot in common?

If the American public had, following the invasion, composed a network of sister cities, student exchanges and similar civic involvement with the communities of Iraq, ISIS would not be happening.

If Dubya had been blessed with the clarity to even ask the American public to do so, things would be substantially better, ISIS or no.

It can be said ten thousand times, but Americans have decided not to hear it: We are going to do this again. And again. We've been doing it since our nation was founded, and our planet has plenty of pigsties yet to be mucked out. We need to figure out how to do it well.

> > a big deal across much of the
> networks in the past two weeks.

> Throw away your television.

> Not kidding.

Not to be hipsterier than thou, but I truly haven't owned a TV in three years having given them away to people who would use them more.

Sadly though, there is a net for all my mass media addictions. :(

Walked into a Costco to find a kid half my age telling me I should change my cable to Dish or some such, and after adjusting the onion on my belt I told him he should ditch cable for this new fangled Internet.

(I'm still not sure of a great name for the combination of TV network media plus print media + web media. I don't think "MSM" as in mainstream media cuts it. A lot of it is not mainstream, Salon's accountants wishes Salon was mainstream, similarly so too Al Jazeera or RT or NRO or whatever that describe the set of sites that our pundits and politicians listen to.)

If the American public had, following the invasion, composed a network of sister cities, student exchanges and similar civic involvement with the communities of Iraq, ISIS would not be happening.

Bullshit. Iraq surrenders to everyone who invades them. Had the Kuwaitis not been such pussies and fired a few bullets back Iraq would have surrendered to them as well.

They are an bunch of spineless cowards who fold to the nearest person showing the slightest bit of back bone.

We will invade, spend 15 years pushing ISI(x) out, give them another few hundred million dollars worth of equipment and leave. And within 24 months tops they'll surrender to the next gang of thugs to invade their borders

You are probably right Crid.

If America had let Gen. Patton beat the Russians like he wanted to after WWII, I would have never been drafted and sent to Vietnam as an infantryman.

> Iraq surrenders to everyone who
> invades them.

Tell it to the Iranians.


> I would have never been drafted
> and sent to Vietnam

Wouldina' made any difference. We are going to do this again. We are going to do this again. We are going to do this again. We are going to do this again.

…Thanks for your service, by the way. It was a difficult thing I was never bothered with... A few of us 'golden babies' ('58?-'61?) never even had to register for the draft, after the end of your war. But say what you want about 'Nam, we weren't there for the oil. And…

We are going to do this again.

> '58?-'61?

Yeah, personally for me, it wasn't a popular career or needed choice in the late 70s, when Desert Storm rolled around there didn't seem to be a need, and by the time of OEF, I was too old, though by the end of OEF, they were taking in people who would have been my age at the beginning.

But having been around a lot of military alum, they do have many many qualities I admire, and I really am envious of the places they've been (Germany, Korea, Japan, Middle East, etc.)

Oh well.

So what do you plan to do when you're 70?

Fly a hot air balloon into a cave or something, I suppose.

By the way, I didn't mean to be sarcastic by calling it "a difficult thing," but what the Hell do you say?

What the Hell do you say?

/Predator

"We are going to do this again."

Of course.

The point of war is not that it be won. The point of the war is the consumption of human output. -- roughly the line by Orwell in 1984, from Emanuel Goldstein's book, "Theory and Practice of Collective Oligarchy".

Naw, people go to war for all kinds of reasons.

Naw, people go to war for all kinds of reasons.

Not really, most wars, whatever their 'stated' reasons, boil down to population pressure