June 2008

Read and rejoice!

JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwean authorities confiscated a truck loaded with 20 tons of American food aid for poor schoolchildren and ordered that the wheat and pinto beans aboard be handed out to supporters of President Robert Mugabe at a political rally instead, the American ambassador said Wednesday.

“This government will stop at nothing, even starving the most defenseless people in the country — young children — to realize their political ambitions,” said the ambassador, James D. McGee, in an interview.

What a bunch of filthy animals. Such monstrosity is beyond me. I had a chance to meet the stinking butcher himself and shake his hand previously but I refused fearing I might forever dirty mine.

The story reminds me of how some of the aid meant for Darfur ends up in the markets of Khartoum.

Yes, and as usual for more bad news.

KHARTOUM, Sudan - A Sudanese Airbus carrying 214 people veered off the runway in a thunderstorm and burst into flames late Tuesday, killing dozens unable to escape the inferno. Officials said more than 100 people fled the plane before it was engulfed by towering orange flames.

May the souls who perished rest in peace.

Out of all people, Bill O’Reilly hosts two super notorious individuals all the way from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

Jenna Jameson: The dirty, naughty porn star is happy with herself but she’s worried about what her kids (yes, she wants to have kids eventually!) will think of her. Awww, poor Jenna. Oh and she doesn’t think porn has a corrupting influence. In fact, she thinks it’s positive, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to be looked at as a role model! Wonderful! Yaay to Jenna!

I gotta say, I love the face expressions Bill puts on in this one. He’s clearly disturbed in a really funny way.

Marilyn Manson: Now this one came as a surprise quite frankly. I always imagined this dude to be a loony nut. For those of you who are familiar with him, you can probably tell why I’d think that. Thing is, in the interview he’s really well spoken and articulate. It also turns out he started out as a journalist. The dude even has an interesting argument to make to defend himself against accusations that his music encourages suicide.

He says depressed kids like the Columbine High School shooters were desperate for attention and after they did what they did, the media gave them exactly what they wanted, which sends the wrong message to other kids out there who are contemplating the same kind of crazy shit.

… for now.

Signing agreements is one thing, implementing them is another.

… then we have more reasons to believe Obama will beat McCain. Benin Mwangi also adds more of his own reasons.

You don’t get to hear these lone voices much anymore nowadays, and that’s what makes them unique!

We knew this was coming for a while. Win or lose, Obama has achieved the seemingly unachievable, and I can bet you that the people who where in charge of his fund-raising, public relations, branding and marketing efforts are going to be very sought after. Watch his nomination victory speech here and see McCain’s response here.

This is all so exciting! It’s probably even better than watching the world cup. And like I said, I can’t wait for the one-on-one debates to begin.

So, who will win? Will it be the creative youthful Donkey who sometimes seems to be living in La La Land or the Elephant with the “dinosaur” experience who comes across once in a while as just another Bush?

The majority of the American people are in essence tired of what has transpired under the Elephant Bush administration and basically want something different. They want change. The winner will be the person who can represent that change well and right now I believe that person is Obama regardless of what those who oppose him think of him because it’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is how people, the majority of the American people perceive him and so far, he’s managed to build himself a very good brand.

Hello, let’s not forget that in 2006 during the midterm elections the Senate and House of Representatives went to the Donkeys. It was a shift towards the left. I don’t think the momentum has slowed down. In fact given the increasing oil prices, I believe the dissatisfaction has only grown. Plus, if you take into account how Obama managed to quickly recover from the Wright controversy, then you have another indication of that momentum’s strength.

We’ve still got many months to go and a lot can happen. Potential controversies and campaign management on both sides will of course also be two factors in the final outcome, but at the end of the day, by looking at the midterm election results and the current circumstances, I’d say America is in the mood for a Donkey president.

UPDATE: Have you guys watched the AIPAC speech? I did. The whole thing. Phew, what a speech! And the highlight? When he said “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.”

WTF?

Even the Israeli government doesn’t say stuff like that. Even they are cool with dividing Jerusalem into East for Palestine and West for Israel.

Not surprisingly, throughout Obama’s whole speech, that line got the loudest applause.

Overall though, the speech was clearly a middle finger meant to silence those on the right who have banged Obama and questioned him over his position on diplomacy with Iran. It was meant to eliminate doubts over his perceived weakness.

We’ve just seen and heard a very different Obama, and I’ve got to say that I’m so looking forward to what happens next. This is going to be one hell of an amusing election. Damn, I love American politics. The whole thing is just sooo entertaining.

Israelis and Jews lurking around, what do you think after that tough speech?

I’m currently slowly consuming Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” which admittedly is a challenging read. It reaffirms my belief that you can’t really disprove or prove God empirically.

I like how Dinesh D’Souza, a Christian, lays down the overall argument in an easy to understand manner in this article which I recommend.

I do have a problem with it though.

Kant exposes the ignorant boast of atheists that atheism operates on a higher intellectual plane than theism. He shows that reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable. Atheism foolishly presumes that reason is in principle capable of figuring out all that there is, while theism at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.

Theism doesn’t truly know in the empirical sense of the word but instead believes based on faith that there is a reality beyond our senses.

If religion is merely the belief of a possible reality beyond our sensory perceptions, then Kant’s work suffices and debunks the usual atheist claim that there is no God or greater reality beyond our senses. Thing is, we all know religion can be and usually is more than that. Most troubling of all is religious dogmaticism and that’s why we must hold on to reason dearly. Although like Kant demonstrated, pure reason can’t show us everything.

Once I’m done with Kant’s book, I plan to delve into Ayn Rand’s work and Objectivist epistemology since I’m curious to know what made her call Kant a “monster.”

For something related, check out this amusing exchange between the atheist Sam Harris and the meditating Shahid.

• Shahid: Advice to atheists, from a Buddhist Muslim
• Sam: Sam Harris responds
• Shahid: A response to Sam Harris - and a challenge to us all

On top of that, here’s a very intriguing article I greatly enjoyed by Harris in the Washington Post. It’s long but seriously worth your time if you’re into this kind of stuff.

• The Problem with Atheism

I love how he’s exploring conscienceless and the spiritual experience at the core of numerous religions from a purely secular and scientific perspective. Very interesting stuff…

… to me at least.

Good response to an absolutely disgusting statement. I hope this idiot is paying attention.

(hat-tip: Muslimah Media Watch)

Thanks to Mustapha, I stumbled upon a pretty good piece by Friedman. I gotta say, I like #5 the most.

As I have argued before: When you have leverage, talk. When you don’t have leverage, get some. Then talk.

Right now Iran & Friends — Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria — have a strategy that has produced leverage for them, and the next U.S. president is going to have to think afresh how to counter it. The “Iran & Friends” strategy is built on five principles:

… Principle No. 5: Cast yourself as the “resistance” to Israel and America, so any opposition to you is equal to support for Israel and America and so no matter how badly you are defeated the mere fact that you “resisted” means you didn’t really lose.

Nice. He’s spot on.

Here’s hoping that once the primary silly season is over, the McCain and Obama camps will stop jousting over whether to talk with our enemies — which we must — and will start focusing instead about how we and our friends get more chips to bargain with — which we lack.

I couldn’t agree more.

Meanwhile, I have some advice for McCain. Ronald Reagan had an amazing rhetorical ability to infuse hope and a lot of optimism together with stances that acknowledged the real Soviet threat. People are tired of cynicism and gloomy talk. Obama’s strength is his charisma and uplifting approach. He speaks about the future with a bright sense of hope. McCain doesn’t.

I can’t wait for the one-on-one televised debates between Obama and McCain. Should be a lot of fun watching them. Plus, I still need to make a final pick and go with it. Being the classical liberal I am, I lean right, although I wouldn’t want a Dick Cheney-style neo-con as president. But then again, I wouldn’t want a Jimmy Carter-style one too.

Gosh, I have a headache. The debates should make things a lot easier. Here’s hoping they reveal a lot of substance rather than silly smears.

Oh yeah. Thumbs up!

The Sudanese government obviously isn’t happy.

You can watch the statement made by all three candidates here. Nice!

As many of you may be able to recall, I wasn’t exactly a big fan of the Save Darfur Coalition thanks to how they were calling for forced military intervention, something which can only have short-term benefits. Their position has shifted and is now focused on enforcing and implementing the pertinent UN resolutions.

Also after JEM’s attack on Khartoum, I was waiting for their reaction and I was a little surprised when I finally received it. Unlike previously, they didn’t provide unconditional political support to Darfur’s rebels. Instead they made it clear sathey were against the attack.

Good.

I gotta say I like the new Save Darfur a lot better than the old one. On top of that I commend them for pursuing this symbolic but significant statement from all presidential candidates. Hopefully they’ll continue their efforts to make Darfur (and by extension the CPA) visible issues during the US election.

P.S.: You might have already noticed the new widget on the sidebar. I endorse the S.E.A.L. initiative and believe it’s a very good approach. Go ahead, have a look at it and if you like it, endorse it too. I encourage you to.

Yes, it’s already confirmed and true. Can you believe this garbage? I couldn’t at first and I wanted to double check but it still ended up being true.

I must admit I wasn’t keeping track of the involved details over the last few months. That’s why this comes as a slight shock to me.

We, the Sudanese Diaspora, weren’t included in the recent consensus and hence we can’t vote. With many, many of us outside Sudan and the vast majority being anti-government, al-Bashir and the gang knew they wouldn’t stand a chance (considering the elections are clean and fair in the first place of course).

I don’t know about you but the upcoming elections are already starting to look like a big fat joke, and it’s not even funny.

Lovely.

By the way Sudanese readers, do any of you have information on the size of the Sudanese Diaspora? Someone told me it’s about 13 million but I can’t manage to find anything online to confirm this.