oh man, I totally just used my ub3rl33t unix skills to fix a professor's computer. I am teh haXXXorz.

I finished the Reza Aslan book "No god but God" yesterday. Its quite a good read, even if I disagree with him on a few points (as a for instance: I find his treatment of al-Ikhwan to be a little gracious, and his categorization of al-Ikhwan as originally socialist to be not terribly convincing.) But, at the end of the 9th chapter, he says what I've ( Read more... )

"And then there's Walid Phares, who insists that Zawahiri represents the views not only of the majority of jihadists, but - if I heard him correctly (I'll check the transcript when it's published) - of most Arabs and Muslims. How bizarre, hearing an America-based pundit lecturing al-Jazeera about how popular and influential bin Laden and al- ( Read more... )

Fumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition and
Yawn and stretch and my life is a mess and
If I never make it home today, God bless

so, yea, bored. at work. and shit.

Basically, I've spent the entire day listening to Spoon and the Album Leaf and reading Wapsi Square. Its a pretty damn good webcomic. Plus it involves the Aztec god of alcohol. And, I mean, on the 10 point pimp scale, that shit is like 11 ( Read more... )

Perhaps the best description of Abdullah, the new king of Saudi Arabia: "[H]e is well-connected in the region perhaps because half of Arab men are his brothers-in-law, due to his compulsive marrying and divorcing." (Asaad abu Khalil)

So, yea. I had a pretty momentous day yesterday. It was a bit like I had a life. strange happenings, son ( Read more... )

Further proof that bad taste respects no international boundaries or cultural barriers: LBC (a Lebanese satellite network) recently premiered a reality show called al-Wadi. The premise? Lebanese pop star Haifa Wehbe lives on a farm with some people, and... well, that's all I really got ( Read more... )

There seem to be quite a few people, on both ends of the ideological spectrum, who expect that, with the nomination of John Roberts, Roe v. Wade will be overturned in the near future. Without getting into that argument, I'd like to point out that there is still a 5-4 majority in favor of retaining Roe. Just so you know, that's Kennedy, Stevens, ( Read more... )

Even though no one cares, here's my rundown of the shenanigans of the first day of the intonation festival ( Read more... )