Enjoy!

The Sphinx

So here’s a big shout out to Rev. Jim Sutter for the great effort and for leading a very interesting blog.

Update: After the torrent of comments and hate mail over here and over at Gates of Vienna vs. the World vs. LGF, it gets even more interesting!

Update numero duo: It’s official! Solid evidence that the “Muslim” against Sharia isn’t any more Muslim than a decorated Christmas tree. From the comments below: (For the record, this is the same user as sewer-mouthed “Muslims against Sharia” on the GoV vs. LGF thread linked above):

This “Muslim” against Sharia refuses to say the most basic and natural thing a Muslim would say, thus removing all doubt that they’re not a Muslim to start with. One second he/she/it is whining and moaning about rumours against its pour soul, and the next moment it’s acting all arrogant towards those who offer a chance to debunk them. Not exactly the easiest way out.

And how’s this for consistency? If you really cared that much about your religious privacy, why are you masquerading around with the title “Muslim” for the whole world to see? Tough luck, douche, you’ve blown your chance, and here I am, calling you out on a public blog for it. I’ve put up with you long enough, but this is a plain insult to my intelligence. So, all together now:

Screw you, your lying and your behaviour worthy of scoundrels. This is a testimony to the true nature of the “counter-jihadosphere”. Lying, fraudulent, corrupt bunch of pirates, hiding behind an allegedly good cause, while harboring hate towards anything Islamic. The true, good natured Muslims of this world will continue living in peace with their environments and will never go down. Your blood boiling at this very fact makes it even better.

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So where I’ve been? Good question.. Apparently a writer’s block, along with a healthy dose of university, and weird circumstances that shifted me away from Munich for a month for my Bachelor-thesis project are all complicit. Once I get my life back, I will probably return into fully-fledged blogging mode, and hopefully it’ll be about more than just what jobs to take up when fortune is not on your side.

Until then, the Sphinx remains silent.

Pendant

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Truer words never spoken..

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If you don’t get it, then congratulations. You are not a mathematics nerd..

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Apparently I figured out too late that the good people at addictinggames.com take their name highly seriously.

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Disclaimer: I hereby take no responsibility for any newly formed, flash-game related obsessive dependencies, mental or physical. You have been warned.

Yup.. I got another one. After signing up for the exact same position for next month, I obviously didn’t get spared the free background check. That would be my fifth time in less than two years (at least the ones I know of..). It’s starting to turn fun, you know? This kind of official letter sounds more like: “Oh, you’re from that country.. You might be a terrorist.”. If I had the opportunity to send back a smart-ass reply, it’d probably be in the lines of: “Oh, you’re from this country.. You might be a neo-nazi..”. Same logic, right?

Once I apply for extending my residence permit some time in September, I might even break the record with a sixth time in less than two years. Maybe even a seventh if I apply for another job for the next semester. Oh joy!

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What I’ve been up to? I’ve had the great opportunity to learn how “friends” can stab you in the back, show a lack of gratitude, hurt other people that are dear to you, and all that lovely kind of stuff. That’s what.

Yes, there are more horses @r$es in the world than horses to go with them. It’s remarkable how you’ll get to learn this lesson over and over again in your life.

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Maybe you will find me lurking somewhere on the interwebs, specifically the places where I usually hang out, but there will probably be no updates here for said time period, so please bear with me

If anybody needs me, you know how I can be reached. So until then, ta ta!

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The Rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post
4. Tag six more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

So here it is, I guess:

.. where no statue has gone before.

I’ll have to break rules 4 and 5 though, as right now I’m not in the appropriate state to find 6 others to carry on the torch. Pretty soon I’ll probably have to take a break. But if you feel like extending the chain, feel free

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Doing a handstand at random spots to trip up low flying ducks going too fast..

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If you really want to get a real idea about Islam (and not some twisted-around hearsay), watch “The Message” by the late Moustapha el Akkad (starring Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas). It will show you an authentic history of how Islam came into existence and all the key events that happened while it spread, subtly debunking quite a lot of lies on its way. While they don’t show the figure of the Prophet (pbuh) himself, it’s clear what’s happening from the events of the film.

Get it here if you’re interested. Wilders really should’ve watched this before proving his own ignorance to the world (Will get to that very soon as well).

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Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, says he will sue the maker of an anti-Islam film.

Mr Westergaard says his cartoon, which sparked riots two years ago, was used in the film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders without permission.

LMAO. Wow Geert, your own league is punishing you before anybody else managed to.

The Danish journalists’ union is suing on his behalf for copyright violation.

“Wilders has the right to make his movie but he has not permission to use my drawing,” Mr Westergaard told Denmark’s TV2.

“This has nothing to do with freedom of speech,” he said. “I will not accept my cartoon being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one.”

(..)

Just a side note, we usually don’t accept our holy book being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one either.

Anyhoo, I can’t help smiling over this. Who needs violence, murder, and burning flags and embassies when the idiots can smash each others’ heads in on their own? In fact, all these people deserve is getting ignored. Soon enough, their works will end up right where they belong, on the manure heap of literary history, and the most basic mistake one can do is giving them any publicity at all.

I’ll be following this brawl though, it’s simply too hilarious to be ignored

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Hanging upside down from trees and making acorn sounds to confuse squirrels..

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Fortunately for me, I’ve already done that quite a while ago, on my About me page. So my job is done already

ChenZhen, In2thefray, Chet, Lex and Karin, it’s your turn.

Lecturing mushrooms on Quantum Mechanics..

The Sphinx

========

The Israel Lobby

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

…

Read on!

========

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.. the greatest icon of modern propaganda, also known as Comical Ali or Baghdad Bob. Come on, who didn’t love this fellow’s daily statements during the invasion of Iraq? Whether you agreed with him or not, you couldn’t resist just liking the information minister’s commentaries. Even Chimpy.. erm.. Bush called the man “Great”. He has achieved the impossible, by supplying the planet with comic relief during a war, and for that he’s going down in history as one of the most charismatic and witty political figures of our time.

Here is a list of all of his legendary statements that still, to this very day, are IMHO hilarious beyond everything:

• “There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!”
• “God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis.”
• “They’re coming to surrender or be burned in their tanks.”
• “No I am not scared, and neither should you be!”
• “Who are in control, they are not in control of anything – they don’t even control themselves!”
• “We are not afraid of the Americans. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid..” (dramatic pause) “and they are condemned.”
• “The Americans, they always depend on a method what I call … stupid, silly. All I ask is check yourself. Do not in fact repeat their lies.”
• “I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly.”
• “I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place.”
• “The authority of the civil defense … issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those pencils because they are booby traps,” he said, adding that the British and American forces were “immoral mercenaries” and “war criminals” for such behavior.
  “I am not talking about the American people and the British people,” he said. “I am talking about those mercenaries. … They have started throwing those pencils, but they are not pencils, they are booby traps to kill the children.”
• “The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!”
• “I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad.”
• Of US troops: “They are most welcome. We will butcher them.”
• “We will welcome them with bullets and shoes.”
• “I speak better English than this villain Bush” (<– My personal favourite – ed.)
• “These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying”
• “They’re not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion … they are trying to sell to the others an illusion.”
• “They do not even have control over themselves! Do not believe them!”
• “That bastard the American Minister of Defense Rumsfeld, and I won’t say shamelessly, because they don’t know what shame means. These are criminals. The whole word can hear the warning sirens. This criminal sitting in the White House is a pathetic criminal and his Defense Minister deserves to be beaten. These criminals lie to the world because they are criminals by nature and conditioning. They consider this a military site! Shame on you! You will forever be shamed! You have ruined the reputation of the American people in the most terrible way! Shame on you! And we will destroy you!”
• (He called Americans and Brits “Tarateer”– In Iraqi slang, Tartoor means a guy full of farts, i.e. hot air)
• “they are nowhere near the airport ..they are lost in the desert…they can not read a compass…they are retarded.”
• “They are not in Baghdad. They are not in control of any airport. I tell you this. It is all a lie. They lie. It is a hollywood movie. You do not believe them.”
• “Faltering forces of infidels cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege. Therefore, in reality whatever this miserable Rumsfeld has been saying, he was talking about his own forces. Now even the American command is under siege.”
• “On this occasion, I am not going to mention the number of the infidels who were killed and the number of destroyed vehicles. The operation continues”
• “We’re giving them a real lesson today. Heavy doesn’t accurately describe the level of casualties we have inflicted.”
• “Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected.”
• “Today I have visited whole Baghdad city, no invaders found. You go and see how we have ousted them from this city. They are cying outside and waiting to receive bullets. They will be killed shortly.”
• “These images are not the suburbs of Baghdad. From what I glimpsed, these gardens with rows of palm trees on the side, which you saw in the images, are located in the south of Abu Ghreib, where we have surrounded the Americans and British.”
• When told coalition troops occupied Baghdad airport -
  “…at Saddam Airport? Now that’s just silly!”
• “The situation is excellent, they are going to try to approach Baghdad…and I believe their grave will be there.”
• “NO”, snapped Mr al-Sahaf, “We have retaken the airport. There are NO Americans there. I will take you there and show you. IN ONE HOUR!”
• “We defeated them yesterday. God willing, I will provide you with more information. I swear by God, I swear by God, those who are staying in Washington and London have thrown these mercenaries in a crematorium.”
• “Please, please! The Americans are relying on what I called yesterday a desperate and stupid method.”
• “They (the U.S.) are deceiving their soldiers and their officers that aggressing against Iraq and invading Iraq will be like a picnic. This is a very stupid lie they are telling their soldiers, what they are facing is a definite death.”
• “We will slaughter them, Bush Jr. and his international gang of bastards!”
• “The shock has backfired on them. They are shocked because of what they have seen. No one received them with roses. They were received with bombs, shoes and bullets. Now, the game has been exposed. Awe will backfire on them. This is the boa snake. We will extend it further and cut it the appropriate way.”
• “Tonight, we will do something unconventional against them. This means: not by the military. We will do something that I believe will become a pretty example for those mercenaries. I would not be giving out a secret when I say that action in the dark against such mercenaries is effective, not through the action of armies. I say that dropping down those mercenaries in a surprise fashion at Saddam Airport without accurate calculations is largely meant for showing things. It’s a showy operation. It is a kind of surprise muscle flexing to the world to show it that the shock and awe operation is indeed successful. May they be accursed. Through this operation [shock and awe], they sent a number of their villains and mercenaries to be butchered. Again, and according to my early estimates, unless the remaining part of their soldiers surrender, the chance for their survival is very slim. The surprising thing is that after they threw their soldiers into a place where they are not aware of the real results, the villainous Americans, like Powell and the others, sat in Europe to discuss how to divide Iraq as spoils after the war [laughing]. This means what’s post-war. The post-war [Iraq] will be the same current Iraq under the leadership of President Saddam Husayn.”
• “We will pursue them as war criminals. We will work with all the free people in the world, and they are many, who want someone to bell the cat [i.e.; to do a daring deed], and now we are belling the cat, according to the famous [Arabic] saying so as to rid the UN of those villains. After Iraq aborts the invasion that is being carried out by the American and British villains, the USA will no longer be a superpower. Its deterioration will be rapid. I say to those villains who are meeting in Europe, thinking of launching psychological war and brainwashing: wait. Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge. You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat. Iraq will continue to exist. Its civilization is 10,000 years old. It will not be changed by villains like the US and British villains.”
• “Bush is a very stupid man. The American people are not stupid, they are very clever. I can’t understand how such clever people came to elect such a stupid president.” (<– Spot on. – ed.)
• “W. Bush, this man is a war criminal, and we will see that he is brought to trial”
• “I think the British nation has never been faced with a tragedy like this fellow [Blair].”
• “The United Nations….[is] a place for prostitution under the feet of Americans.”
• “They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind.”
• “We have destroyed 50 tanks today. That 5-ohhh tanks” [while holding up his fingers]
• “They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone.”
• “There are no Iraqis disguising themselves”



• “They are retreating on all fronts. Their military effort is a subject of laughter throughout the world.”
• “…they are nowhere (pause)…they are nowhere, really”
• “I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place”
• “What they say about a breakthrough [in Najaf] is completely an illusion. They are sending their warplanes to fly very low in order to have vibrations on these sacred places . . . they are trying to crack the buildings by flying low over them.”
• “We have crushed the whole force which dared to venture there. Now they’re outside the wall and the heroic Republican Guard is now in control of the whole area. . . . So where are those villainous louts, those mercenaries?”
• “Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds…. The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues.”
• “They think we are retarded – they are retarded.”
• (leaflet drops) “I think this is very laughable for a Superpower to be so cheap to drop inside Iraq such poor things and they are printed in Kuwait”
• “…crocodile tears [shed in] .. The gangster Bush’s lair…” (refers to Bush and Blair at Camp David calling for the Geneva Conventions to be applied to all POWs)
• “We’re going to drag the drunken junkie nose of Bush through Iraq’s desert, him and his follower dog Blair…There are 26 million Saddams in Iraq”
• “We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp”
• “When we were making the law, when we were writing the literature and the mathematics the grandfathers of Blair and little Bush were scratching around in caves”
• “Those Iraqi fighters are slapping those gangsters on the face, and then when they flee, they will kick their backsides.”
• About Bush: “the leader of the international criminal gang of bastards.”
• “the insane little dwarf Bush”
• “The midget Bush and that Rumsfield deserve only to be beaten with shoes by freedom loving people everywhere.”
• “Rumsfeld, he needs to be hit on the head”
• “Yesterday we heard this villain called Rumsfeld. He, of course, is a war criminal, and he is one of the worst of the American rulers. He said the American mercenaries and the British mercenaries, they are defending themselves inside Iraq. They are in a defensive position. They are engaged in self-defense. They are fighting a self-defense war inside Iraq. Well, congratulations, Mr. Villain, you are defending yourself inside our country. We will show you what defense means.”
• “Bush doesn’t even know if Spain is a republic or a kingdom, how can they follow this man?”
• “After we finish defeating all of those animals we will disclose that with facts and figures.”
• “Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld. They are the funny trio”
• “We have shot down 2 Apache helicopters. Have the Americans said yet that they were shot down by their – what do they call it – friendly fire? No? Well… [dramatic pause, then smiles] …not yet!”
• Question: Is Saddam Hussein still alive:
  “I will only answer reasonable questions”
• “Don’t believe anything! We will chase the rascals back to London!”
• “We’re now trying to exhaust them, until our leadership decides the time and method to clean our territory of their desecration.”
• “Those are mercenaries. Most probably they will be treated as mercenaries, hirelings and as war criminals. … For sure, international law does not apply to those”
• Bush “knows that he is standing in quicksand when it comes to his baseless talk on Iraq”
• “This criminal (Bush) in the White House is a stupid criminal”
• “They are not in Najaf. They are nowhere. They are on the move. They are snakes in the desert…”
• Iraqi opposition leaders are “bats … and a bad American product.”
• “Even those who live on another planet, if there are such people, would have condemned this action before it started”
• On U.S. General Richard Myers: “He must be crazy”
  His reports are “basic propaganda”.
• Rumsfeld is a “crook” and “the most despicable creature.”
• Rumsfeld is “the worst kind of bastard”
• “The imperialist invading U.S. and British forces are like a snake that slithers all over the place but that doesn’t control anything.”
• “We feed them death and hell!”
• “They are nowhere near Baghdad. Their allegations are a cover-up for their failure”
• “They want to deceive their people first because now they are in a very shabby situation.”
• “Americans are now in disarray”
• “They are again in the dirt in the desert.”
• “They will try to enter Baghdad, and I think this is where their graveyard will be.”
• “We are determined to defeat them and destroy them on the walls of our capital, as we are determined to destroy their miserable armies in every Muslim spot.”
• “Iraq will spread them even more and chop them up.”
• “The Iraqi troops and the Iraqi fighters are in control of all the places, as we have witnessed. No big change in that. We are fighting against them.”
• “You think their tanks are in an endless line coming towards us, wrong they are only a few of them and they turn around and then return as if to make a long snake”
• “I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future, how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place”
• “In a few days, you will all witness something that can only be considered very beautiful against the Coalition forces. That, I assure you.”
• “we managed to chop off their rotten heads”
• “There are only two American tanks in the city.”

That’s all I could gather from the internet. Long live El Ministro!

The Sphinx

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‘Terrorism is the greatest twenty-first century threat.’ – British Prime Minister Tony Blair, May 2003

‘Terrorism is the greatest threat facing free democracies in the twenty-first century.’ – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, May 2006

‘The greatest threat this world faces is the danger of extremists and terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.’ – US President George W. Bush, September 2005

‘No challenge is greater than the threat of terrorism.’ – Australian Prime Minister John Howard, May 2006

‘Terrorism is the greatest threat to world peace.’ – Russian President Vladimir Putin, September 2000

If they’re right, maybe I really should get checked every now and then, because you know.. You’d expect the greatest threat to humanity to be so devious in nature that you’d never even be aware that you’re an active part of it. (“Oh thank you for giving me a background search, I was actually worrying the other day that I might be a terrorist!”)

But are they really right?

Let’s see, anyone up for some statistics? Let’s look at some annual death tolls in Germany, listed by reason, approximate number of victims, and the year taken into account (Taken and translated from here):

Heart and cirulatory diseases: 350’000 [2004]
Legal Drugs: 210’000 [2005]
Cancer: 200’000 [2004]
Fine Dust: 75’000 [2005]
Blood poisoning: 55’000 [2004]
Injuries and poisonings: 35’000 [2004]
Medical Malpractice: 30’000 [2005]
Wrong medical prescriptions: 24’000 [2005]
Car exhaust gas: 20’000 [20,000]
Influenza: 20’000 [2005]
Medicament side-effects: 16’000 [2004]
Suicide: 11’000 [2005]
Care shortcomings at foster homes: 10’000 [2004]
Traffic victims: 6000 [2004]
Illegal drugs: 1500 [2004]
Hepatitis: 1200 [2004]
Asbestos: 1000 [2003]
Murder and manslaughter: 750 [2004]
Malaria: 700 [2004]
Swimming accidents: 650 [2003]
Psychotropic drugs: 500 [2002]
HIV: 500 [2004]
Tuberculosis: 400 [2005]
Mad cow disease/Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease: 140 [2004]
Hunting accidents: 40 [2004]
Floods: 10 [2002]
Deadly Police shootings: 10 [2004]
Lightning strikes: 3 [2002]

And finally…

Terrorist attacks: ZERO [Since 1993]

Alrighty then, as for my provocative question of the day: Isn’t it about high time people actually start worrying about other stuff as well? And shouldn’t they call something “The greatest threat” when it really is the greatest threat?

The Sphinx

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