^^ That's the silliest thing I've heard all day. So must we refrain from supporting any Somali personality in case they become like Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Are you suggesting that any measure of fame will turn a Somali against his people by default. Hear the brother talk before you say things like that. Who knows, you might come to admire him for being different. And in case you're wondering, I'm not working for his publicity team.

Originally posted by liibaan: Xu: Don't kill Xu. Me: Don't kill who? Xu: Xu. Me: That's what I'd like to know,who? Xu: Xu,That's who!!!! Me: Huh? :confused: Xu: You know,the one with the Pikachu slapping around another Pikachu avatar. Me: Oh,OK...Who is that? Xu: Xu. Me: Didn't we just have this conversation?Who is it? Xu: Xu,you fool!! Me: Who's who??!!I don't get it. Xu: I'm Xu.Nice to meet you. Me: You're who?I don't get it. Xu: I give up...This is a stick up!!Give me all your cereal toys!! Me: No!!!!But what are my kids gonna play with? Xu: That's your problem,not mine.Now,give 'em u-p or I'll sic my Pikachu on you and he'll slap the sh*t outta ya!! *Hands over every toy he has* Me: Please forgive me,my loved ones... I'm not setting out to rob anyone! The Cereal Toy Collection Fund is a charity and therefore the donations are voluntary for those who are willing to give. For those who aren't, well I might have to send someone over to discuss things. The CTCF is not responsible for any damage to property, internal organs, limbs and mental state that might occur as a result of being too selfish to donate a cereal toy to the CTCF. Repeated refusal is entirely at your own mortal risk. Safeguard from vicious assassins is entirely dependent on the quality and number of toys donated. Once donated, you are expected to donate regularly until the termination of contract or possibly your life.

Anything to promote him He's simply brilliant.

I kind of have the same problem. My mum has forbidden rock / heavy metal music during Ramadan, because it drives her crazy and she thinks it's evil. But I think it's the loudness that's bothering her and the shouting, rather than the lyrics (which she can't make out anyway). But when I listen to ballads it's suddenly okay. But granted, I don't listen to death metal and generally anything with satanic overtones (meaning anything that seems to be fascinated by Satan rather than something that serves as an allegory). Death metal is rarely intelligent in my opinion, and values shock-value over emotional impact. To be honest, Satanism reminds me of pretentious angsty suburbian teenage goths who cut themselves for attention. You get them a lot in my uni. Anyway, I'm not here to pronounce judgement, but anything glorifying Satan during Ramadan (or any other time really) seems a bit tricky to me. But as for haraam and halaal, that's not my place to say. Personally, I'm trying not to listen to music during Ramadan, which is a bit difficult I admit, but I'm getting there hopefully. Might give my eardrums a bit of a rest too.

Originally posted by Naku Penda Piya: No bur-bur & saliid saliid for me. I break it with bowl of oatmeal, orange juice, and spaghetti for dinner. Simple! If only my family would be satisfied with that.

NOVELTY pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. Bosses acted after a Muslim complained about pig-shaped stress relievers delivered to the council in the run-up to the Islamic festival of Ramadan. Muslims are barred from eating pork in the Koran and consider pigs unclean. Councillor Mahbubur Rahman, a practising Muslim, backed the ban. He said: “It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.†http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005450600,00.html What do you think? Is the council being respectful or too politically correct?

Good grief! :eek: I'm so depressed about the state of the world these days. Seriously, sometimes I stand amazed at the vast scope of madness in this world.

Originally posted by Castro: quote:Originally posted by Xu: The one thing that mend many a great slight between ourselves and others, is the one muslims often attribute to ills of the West, which is simply tolerance . How to get us to survive the 21st century without losing our faith is simply that, understanding other - even your enemies. Xu , while Islam itself is very forbearing of other faiths and its adherents, tolerance is behavior unbecoming of a muslim nowadays. When did we fall off the tracks? You know how they say truth is power, imagine when someone decides that they have a monopoly on the truth, that their interpretation of the truth is the only valid thing in the universe. What happens in their minds is a polarisation of society, a division of those who have the truth and those who don't. Even this is not disasterous in itself, the idea that those who are wrong are also inferior, however is. Suddenly you are no longer required to have respect, once respect is gone, tolerance soon follows until humanity finally disappears. All this is political however, these ideas are always fuelled by those in power. I believe the Truth is fixed but its applications in the human world are not. It's constantly shifting, adapting, improving as conditions worsen. But to some people in power, not only are the applications fixed, but the way of finding these applications is too. So when the people have been brainwashed into thinking that some mortal guy can tell you what the truth is and that thank God, you don't have to trouble yourselves with thinking and reasoning, then some attention-starved Sheikh will have the power he craved. And with that power, also the license to get rid of those who don't believe in your power to control the religion, those who don't want to submit to the Pope of Saudi Arabia. And maybe the reason why this endures is that muslims have always been surrounded by people and nations intent on destablising their religion and their state. They are constantly comparing the two cultures, decadence of freedom versus the sobriety of a totalitarian state. They believe that between the two extremes, theirs is better. So instead devote their attention to fighting the former influence. This creates an 'us' and 'them', and the idea that 'them' are simply not worthy of understanding. However, I don't see why no one realises that they can do both. That they don't have to settle for one extreme or another. The topic of this subject depicts the eight century of the Islamic epoch as very unfavorable history. We were told that there were sacred generations of the Islamic era where the effectiveness of Islam has practically contained every social problems, and transformed an ill-fated society to the best of their potentialities. Muslim historians see the uniqueness of Islamic history through the lenses of the early stages of Islamic development to be guidlines of future plans for revival, whereby the opponents of the Islamic history, especialy the heydays of the Islamic civilizations, precaution the repetition of that era as a threat to their civilizations. Much of what we understand from the western history or their historians today are the perpetual discretings of the Islamic history and its relevance for today's world. In other words, the western history stands in a cycle of constant guard from allowing the emergence of Islamic civilizations because of the opposing principles and forces parrelaly running and contesting in the same orbit. Though, I understand the topic was to enlighten the moderates, which I don't subscribe to, but I felt an obligation of every Muslim that is to correct the fellow muslims when you surely know what embarked needs to be corrected. Moderate muslims should understand that the only way they can gain the support of their people is not to batrey Islam and its people. We have seen the praises of the western leaders for calling the moderates as their best friends and allies in their mission to pacify the rest of the muslim world. It appears that moderates have done everything so far to earn the approval of the west, of course for some reasons. But I say all praise is due to Allah, they are microscopically visible atoms in the muslim community. Their ability to influence fellow muslims for their inferior causes were severely tarnished, and can't even stand with a cohesive principle, thus making themselves appear hypocrites. In Islam, the term moderation has some vital importance in performing many rituals, but the stigma it carries out with today, with excessive western media uses, qualifies it to be refrained and utilize some lexicons with equal meanings. Moderates should seriously think for themselves and Islamicaly in molding their goals and thought patterns so that their characteristics of moderation doesn't become what the western figures dictate, but rather the opposite that is always in line with the Muslims. To become a moderate doesn't supposed to be a pretentious conformity for an allien idealogies and causes. Moderation is what realy sets the practice of Islam in the best doable form without fear of inconsistency and laggardness. Couldn't agree with you more. To add to a different aspect of the issue of moderation, I would have thought that moderation relates more to flexibility than a position on any side of the political table. To suggest that moderate muslims are somehow different in ideology from other muslims, or that moderation is some kind of movement (reformist or otherwise), is to miss the point. Moderation in fact is a false term, and probably not accurate in describing the majority of muslims (though technically, I still stand with the idea that there's no real unified majority in any tangible sense). Moderation should be called a fundemental approach, where one goes back to the fundementals of the religion, to figure out the details of today's society. I see it as an approach where one is constantly exercising caution in their beliefs and an understanding that the applications of religion are constantly in motion, though the fundementals may not be.

^^^ I've killed people for lesser insults, such as breathing without my permission and curtsying in an incorrect manner (in case you're wondering, a 56 degree angle and a heart full of terror are usually recommended). So such a grave insult shall not be tolerated. Beware dear little Princess, one of these days you'll wake to find the towering shadow of PIKACHU hovering over your defenseless body. We'll see then if your pretty decorated hands can withstand the mighty force of Pikachu's slap. Power over beauty, I always say.

^^I know that, and I know though we want the same thing, he's no ally of mine. But this article was posted here to discuss I persume, not to denounce. And though I know he has an aggresively right-wing agenda, and his views are just as totalitarian as religious extremist leaders, I can't help but agree with some of his points, which I find more valid a topic of discussion than his predictable resentment towards and ignorance of muslims. It bugs me that the fate of the muslim woman is a topic more widely discussed in the West than in Muslim countries where one would think it mattered the most.

That was a really great article Rudy about a worrying trend. The first anecdote about the midguided man in the beginning and the patience of the village really brought home to me how simple a solution tolerance is. But it seemed that even he, succumbed to the western idea that any woman who covers up must have given up her individuality. The two Somali girls, however, were fully shrouded with black from head to toe. One could barely see their eyes and they even wore black heavy socks on their feet. While I'm not a big fan of the burqa, I do truly respect a woman's right to wear it. I just got the impression that the man gave no thought for individual choice here, as though such a thing couldn't possible be. He talks about the humiliation of women and how he says It is this obsession with sex, this concept of viewing women only as an object of sex, created for man’s libido relief, that turned women’s body into a thing of shame. While it's true, it seems that he seems just as interested in the female body. But instead of being perturbed by feelings of shame, he feels the Somali woman should be an advertising space. Hence, we shall never have models and beauty queens to publicize the beauty of our women down the catwalks of Paris, New York and London. Because models are free from the disturbing sexual fascination of men....right...give me a ******* break. I have nothing against models, freedom and all that, but don't tout them as the symbols of female liberation, because that seriously gets up my nose. If there ever was an example of objectification of women, the modelling business would be it many times over. I know my post detracts from the intention of the article, and I do truly understand and even agree with his fears about the radicalisation of Somaliland. But his choice of examples just bugged me and it just reminds me of the intellectual fascists we get here in the West.

Some, such as Turkey , Pakistan and Iran, have tumbled backward. Gosh, and here I thought Turkey in a moment of frenzied EU-bandwagon jumping, decided to ban headscarves for their civil servants and students. You know, he does have a point. As long women cannot participate in the running of public life, these countries will never be able to compete with developed countries. Give the women freedom and you automatically have a more tolerant society. His petty observations however, are irrelevant but unfortunately expected from drones like him. The problem of western 'intellectuals' is that they patronise the muslim woman just as much as muslim leaders do. Both think the woman cannot think for herself, both want to dictate what she wears, how she behaves and both are quite adamant that she may never be given a choice. Maybe it's because that's the one thing that could truly liberate a woman: the ability to make choices that neither liberals nor conservaties can predict. Most likely, the average woman would go for the option that seems the infuriate people on both sides of the fence: moderation. In Rudy's thread about Saudization of Somaliland, the article he posted referred to religious leaders reducing women to nothing more than sex objects and thus something to be ashamed of. These people use one aspect of feminity to define a woman while dismissing everything else. You'd expect a woman's soul, her deen, her personality, her intelligence to count for more than her sexuality. I don't see it happening, but what you need is re-education or even a massive shift in the public perception of femininity. They have hidden them in corners for so long, that now they are consumed by thoughts of women and that's why they're so terrified of them. Femininity doesn't not equal sexuality, and therefore should not be hidden. By all means, cover up the sexuality of both men and women if you want, but just as you don't tell a man to hide his masculinity, his face, his intelligence and everything else that marks him as an individual, one shouldn't do the same to a woman. Now for some of you hotheads, don't mistake my words for a tirade against the hijab. I truly think it's a noble thing and a symbol of true emancipation, but I don't believe it's the right of the men to dictate whether a woman wears one or not. And I believe women should understand, that covering up parts of their body doesn't mean that one should cover one's individuality too. Because if you want to hide women away, what's the point of giving them names in the first place. So this article does have a point, even though I don't agree with most of this man's views and I understand the right-wing agenda behind some of his words. We have tons of problems in Muslim countries, and I don't know all the solutions, but I do know that the emancipation of women would go a long way to curing these problems.

My avatar is the very best and so magnificent that you puny humans aren't worthy to gaze upon its demented beauty. So flee, you inconsequential mortals and bow your heads in shame.

^^^It's not about the fact that Google wants to make money. It's about serious privacy issues and about the people who will let Google get away with murder because they love the brand. All the article is saying is that you do not buy into the brand advertising. Google is not out to make your life easier, it wants to make money in the most cost-effective way, that's all a company is about. Therefore people ought to exercise caution before buying/using their products. You have to judge a company by its actions, and every company is accountable for their products, no matter how cool they are. And right now, Google's methods regarding this accelerator are a bit dubious. Like the article said, no one would let Microsoft get away with this.

All the cooking is what I don't like about Ramadan. We never eat sambuus, but when Ramadan comes, all of a sudden no one can go without it. I really hate cooking, and I especially hate cooking excessive amounts of food just in case someone drops by. And everyone wants a particular complicated dish but no one wants to cook them, so I to have to. Our household has a rule that nothing that can be cooked in 30 mins or less may be eaten during Ramadan. Bleh, I hate sambuus, it's a bugger to make.

Read this article Granted it's from a comedy site, but he does make a few worrying points. "Google claims it magically speeds up your Internet connection, and for the average user, it does. This is done by caching entire websites on Google's servers, passing copies of any page a user visits and sending them to Google HQ. Basically they're just creating carbon copies of everything you read, every site you visit, every image you load, and storing them on their servers, under the idea that you will have a faster connection to their servers than you would to whatever website you're visiting. Well here's the problem, folks: everything you view is now owned by Google. Do you read email? Well now Google reads your email, and now the entire world can read your email. Do you use private messages through a website? Well they aren't private any more; now anybody using Google's Web Accelerator can read them. Every single page you read, every single website you visit, every single cookie you use, every single thing you do on the Internet is now owned by Google and is viewable to anybody using their program. I hope you're completely comfortable with the entire world being able to see every single webpage you read and every single website you visit, because thanks to Google, it's now happening. Check out their privacy policy if you don't believe me."

Also if you're buying from an individual such as on Ebay or Amazon Market Place, make sure to check out their feedback, and especially the negative feedback, even if it's just 1% of the total. It gives you an idea of what could go wrong. Also check what their return policy is, some places have quite a generous return policy but others not so much so. Also read about their guarantees and there are many sites out there that will review a shopping site. If you're in the UK you might want to check out dooyoo.co.uk

That was an interesting article. However while I do understand the parallels between the Matrix and the rapid progress towards a police state and the erosion of civil liberties, I have a problem with some of his other views. Dismissing civilian dependence on money, material goods and social security as 'living an illusion' (just paraphrasing here) seems a tad naive, especially when there is no alternative offered. It's not like once we liberate ourselves from materialism and the government, we will automatically have an Utopian society. In the scenario he's offering, these so called 'Red pillers' will fight the system without offering anything to replace it. Licences, registration papers etc., are the currency which allows a society to function. You need these things to have order and to safeguard the interests of the common good. Sure there are many flawed elements within it that one could fight, such as unfair taxes. But to dismiss them as chains and those who operate in that system as slaves seems a little patronising and downright naive. It's all a bit juvenile don't you think.

Aint it funny how no one likes the taste of tobacco the very first time they smoke. I wonder what it is that compels them to smoke again. Peer pressure?

What's a polite way of asking for a guy's bank statements?

My no.1 ice breaker with anyone: Have a roll of sweets or mints handy, pretend you're having one yourself and then offer it to the person sitting next to you. Even if they don't accept, they'll still think you're nice. And I usually end up chatting to people.

Five things random things about me: 1). I pretend I'm in a musical when people aren't looking (actually, I do it even if they are). 2). I stalked a famous footballer once and went to his house. Ran away before he could catch me, my friend was luckier. She got yelled at by that beauty of a man. 3). I'm paranoid about things being stuck in my nose. 4). I've had over a 100 driving lessons, and I still don't have my license. 5). I am the Master of Russian Accents! Posted by Wordette: 5. Now that I know Quruxley is taller than me, I'm disgusted with my height, or rather lack of. (Thank you very much!) Never look up dear, always look down your nose. Look at all those people who are shorter than you, concentrate on them, make it your life's work to stand next to them. Make them suffer in your shadow, remind them every day there's no hope for them. I'll be damned if that doesn't raise your self-esteem (from what I gather, you don't really need to anyway).

Originally posted by rudy: libaax u should have shared that! u know why! her 15 min of fame is dwindling like and an eskimo in mud restling pit! however, she is one us and that we can cant deny! what do we do! well, i am wanna tell her, dont fret big sista, u did wrong, just holla at rudy when u wanna give back that respect! i do have a away of cleaning dirty xalimos!! i did just buy a car wash, n i dont mind taking u there there! i think it will be perfect for this cleansing period! what do say homie...u be right next 2 a cadallic! all getting washed! nice feeling aye!! I have to say, you are the strangest and funniest person on this site.

Everybody is speaking of reform of Islam, which as we all know the majority of muslims will fiercly resist - and anyone who claims loyalty to democratic principles - as these liberal 'muslims' do - cannot deny the unambiguous vote against reform, and as such should respect it, and look for other ways to get Islam understood by the West. But reform is still needed and by the state of things - needed urgently. This reform should take place in the people and their interpretation of Islam. Because flawed as he is, Rushdie is right. This is not the 8th century, and Islam is a timeless concept and should be constantly re-examined to find solutions to problems you simply didn't have in the 6th century. The niggling question of modernity need not be feared, it is not an immutable concept solely perpetuated by the West. Modernity ties into the societies that surround us, yes, but it also permeates us, binds us and carries us forward at the same time. If Muslims have faith, then they must also have faith that Islam has place for modernity, for no one ever expected the world to stand still. It didn't when the Torah was revealed, that's why mankind received the Injeel and thereafter the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran is unique in that it shall be the last divine book to be revealed. Therefore you'd expect it to take into account the changing times, it would be common sense for a divine guidance to be flexible if no more alterations are to follow. That's what muslims need to realise. That it is possible to draw from the Quran to deal with modern troubles. That in the modern world, to change one's mind is no great sin as long one doesn't change one's faith. Know that we can stretch, mutate and transform without destroying that which holds the muslim world together, which is faith. However reducing the issue to two camps (mullahs and liberals) contending for the souls of the majority - silent or otherwise - seems rather naive. As if all we need to do is organise a middle-ground in which the disaffected majority can be satisfied. We are so busy submitting different solutions to the 'plight of the ummah', and are so busy denouncing the ideas of others, that I'm not sure if we all want to be in the same brotherhood. The one thing that mend many a great slight between ourselves and others, is the one muslims often attribute to ills of the West, which is simply tolerance. How to get us to survive the 21st century without losing our faith is simply that, understanding other - even your enemies. I'm sorry for the confounded reply, but I'm in a bit of a hurry now. I'll expand on my post later.

Spitting in burgers at good ol' McDonald's.