Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[924] Of disband the moral police!

Disgraceful thugs embarrassing the country:

Barnhart and his wife were asleep at 2am when there was pounding on the door and male voices shouting in Bahasa Malaysia.

Fearing an attack or robbery, Barnhart told the men to go away or he would call the police.

One of the voices, speaking in English, identified the group of men as Islamic Affairs Department officers and ordered him to open the door immediately.

“I positioned myself ready to fight and partly blocking the door so I could defend myself and my wife if anything were to happen.

“Then I opened the door to find six men in my face,” said Barnhart.

Barnhart said the men wore blue jackets with the department’s crest on the breast pockets, with one of them producing an authority card.

He claimed there were no police officers with the six men.

Barnhart said one of the men yelled at him, asking how many people were in the apartment and said: “You are Muslim, we are coming in.”

“I told them we were Christians and they were not to come in. They then demanded to inspect the apartment.

“They were threatening and aggressive. Again I said no,” he said.

He said the men then demanded to see his “woman”.

I say we need to fight these thugs and take them down before they infringe our rights further.

Talking about defending liberty, I wonder, if a person tried to violate my property in the name of moral policing, and I killed the person while trying to defend my property, who would win in a court? The intruding moral police or a common person defending his rights?

p/s – The Cato Institute reports that there’s a growing libertarian influence in the United States. At the Economist (via):

AMERICA may be the land of the free, but Americans who favour both economic and social freedom have no political home. The Republican Party espouses economic freedom—ie, low taxes and minimal regulation—but is less keen on sexual liberation. The Democratic Party champions the right of homosexuals to do their thing without government interference, but not businesspeople. Libertarian voters have an unhappy choice. Assuming they opt for one of the two main parties, they can vote to kick the state out of the bedroom, or the boardroom, but not both.

In a new study from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, David Boaz and David Kirby argue that libertarians form perhaps the largest block of swing voters. Counting them is hard, since few Americans are familiar with the term “libertarian”. Mr Boaz and Mr Kirby count those who agree that “government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses”, that government, rather than promoting traditional values, “should not favour any particular set of values”, and that “the federal government has too much power”. Using data from Gallup polls, they found that, in 2005, 13% of the voting-age population shared all three views, up from 9% in 2002.

Check this paragraph:

When Republicans win elections, it is because they manage to pull together an alliance between social conservatives and libertarians. But, as Ryan Sager put it in “The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party”: “[L]ibertarians have always tended to see social conservatives as rubes ready to thump nonbelievers on the head with the Bible first chance they get, and social conservatives have always tended to see libertarians as dope-smoking devil-worshippers.”

In local context, this probably applicable to the UMNO-PAS tug-of-war.

Categories
Photography Sports

[923] Of Michigan is 8-0

I slept through the ball game and so, damn me. Nevertheless, the first time I did after I realize wasn’t dead yet was to log on the internet, go to Yahoo! and shouted from the top of my lung, Yahoooooooo-ooo!

Michigan steamrolled over Iowa:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Mike Hart kept his legs churning and his knees chugging, plowing into an Iowa defense stacked to stop him.

It took a while, but Michigan’s little engine finally broke through — and the Wolverines’ defense did the rest.

Hart and Michigan brushed off the burden of being No. 2 by bullying the Hawkeyes around the Big House in a 20-6 victory on Saturday.

The 5-foot-9, 196-pound tailback ran for 126 yards and two second-half touchdowns on 31 carries, and linebacker Shawn Crable and crew put together another punishing defensive performance.

With Iowa (5-3, 2-3) out of the way, only three losing teams stand between Michigan (8-0, 5-0) and top-ranked Ohio State on Nov. 18.

Let’s see how it looked like on the field!

Fair Use. By AP Photo/Al Goldis, from Yahoo! http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/photo?slug=54568a82a9c0423ca1f8b40ed874cbfe.iowa_michigan_football_aas106&prov=ap
Iowan Mattison to Henne: “Please, please, gimme the ball! I’ll do anything for you!”
Fair use. AP Photo/Al Goldis. From Yahoo! http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/photo?slug=3c16f400efd24127b94435d2ed29ef11.iowa_michigan_football_aas107&prov=ap
Hawkeyes: Get him!
Hart: So long suckers!
Fair use. AP Photo/Al Goldis. From Yahoo! http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/photo?slug=05624a409c6e46299160011f9495992e.iowa_michigan_football_aas103&prov=ap
Touchdown Michigan!

I look forward to November 18 2006.

In the meantime, Ajax is up against Feyenoord. Ajax should not have too much problem, seeing how deep in shit Feyenoord currently is right now. LOL!

Categories
Society

[922] Of priestly class in Islam

The blog Volume of Interactions has a great blog entry which states something that I’ve been believing for the past few years. In his own words, he writes that Muslims are too reliant on “these religious ‘middle-men'”. I call these “religious middle-men” as the priestly class. More from the blog:

In Malaysia, we have large governmental organizations like JAIS, JAKIM, etc. making macro religious decisions for us. In our local mosques (and we tend to frequent the same mosques every week for the sake of convenience), micro religious decisions are made for us in the guise of sermons, prayer groups and neighbourhood councils.

We have ranks and ranks of imams/muftis/”learned” scholars between us and Allah — am i the only one who sees something wrong with this?

I’ve touched on the concept of priestly class a few months ago though that entry took a more general approach.

I actually didn’t want to blog on this issue and had planned to write about something else. However, an article at the New York Times encouraged me to change my plan. The article is titled “A Liberal Brother at Odds With the Muslim Brotherhood“:

MR. BANNA says one of the fundamental problems with religious leaders in Egypt is that they look to the interpretations of their ancestors and not to the Koran itself. To look directly at the book, and not at the words as interpreted by men living in a different time, would have a liberating effect, he says.

Word.

At one of the favorite blogs, Laputan Logic, he blogged on why Muslims prefer lunar calender to solar, far too long ago:

The Islamic calender on the other hand is never synchronized with the solar year because from its inception, special measures were taken to actually prevent this correction process from taking place. The intention behind this was to remove the need for expert knowledge when it came to determining the times and dates of religious observance, something that in the past had always been associated with the work of priests. This was a conscious decision by the founders of Islam as a way to prevent the rise of a priestly class or Church establishment within Islam, something to set it apart from other religions.

Unfortunately, the priestly class is taking over that job too, despite early Muslims’ deliberate attempt to not to let that happen.

Categories
Photography Sports

[921] Of between the Wolverines and the Hawkeyes

This is the last tough match before The Game. If Michigan defeated Iowa, the NCAAF sets to witness the most explosive college rivalry in recent times. Michigan will meet Iowa on the field at 1500 EST; that’s 0300 MST. That’s roughly 12 more hours to go.

I plan to stay up and listen to the game online.

Not too long ago, there were 14 undefeated teams. Three weeks later, there are only seven, inclusive of Ohio State and Michigan. After this weekend, I bet only six will survive. Two undefeated teams West Virginia and Louisville are set to duke ’em out against each other.

On related note, presenting to you, the new Big House:

Preliminary schematic designs for renovation and additions to Michigan Stadium were shared with the public today (Oct. 23). Once the designs are finalized over the next several weeks, they will be presented to the Board of Regents for consideration.

Athletic Department officials will hold public presentations in Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn to share the plans with the community. Detailed information, including the designs, can be found at www.umich.edu/stadium.

The best thing is:

The two proposed structures would rise to a height of 85 feet above the concourse, 10 feet higher than the scoreboard in either end zone. Martin notes the structures also will help direct crowd noise back onto the field, providing a greater home field advantage.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Michigan Daily has more coverage on it.

The Big House is already the largest college football stadium in the United States. This is how it looked like in 2004, during the Miami Ohio game:

Some rights reserved.

Let’s Go Blue!

p/s – bless the ITD. Listen to the pre-game trash talk, previous games, etc. The ball game should be on when it should be on.

Categories
Society

[920] Of in the spirit of multiculturalism…

Happy Diwali.

Eid Mubarak.

Selamat Deeparaya to all readers.