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Monday, November 30, 2015

A Few Thoughts on the Paris Massacre


Vice News is completely terrible but I found this video to be instructive and a typical example of the feelings held by many French Muslims. Even the title of this horrible bit of video is offensive "Battling the Backlash." Backlash? What backlash? Have Muslims been killed in France? When this aired the 129 victims weren't even in the ground yet they try to make the case that Muslims are the true victims.

My first question to the kid at the beginning and the young woman wearing the hijab is why on earth would they choose to be practicing Muslims in Paris of all places? By the mere fact that they live in that city they have won the geography lottery so why would they want to continue believing in fairy tales that proscribe so many things that in France are taken as sacred (wine, sex, song, ham, et cetera)? They are both young and intelligent. Why aren’t they atheists? Why the hell wouldn’t you want to integrate into French society? The fact that they aren’t willing to accept that French society is a fucking millions times better that that of their ancestors in North Africa is the first lie of their existence.

The young Muslim boy practically spits out words like "integrate" and "secular." He moans that he must celebrate a day of secularity in France. Would he prefer that the country be ruled under Sharia Law. He also mentions how oppressive it is for Muslims to practice their religion in France which is simply a lie. France does not ban the wearing of the hijab in public (as we see with the young woman in the video); it is the niqab that is forbidden, as it should be. This ghoulish costume violates everything we stand for in the West and is an insult to humanity. He also says that many French Muslims are thinking of leaving France for some place where they will feel more free to practice their religion. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

Here is my problem with Muslims in Europe whether they be native born or immigrants: we have already fought the war against oppressive religious control and we won. They are making us fight it all over again and this time against an even more intolerant and oppressive foe. In Spain the yoke of Catholicism was thrown off only 40 years ago and Spanish society has flourished ever since to a degree seen in few countries. Now Muslims want to backtrack to an era in which religious leaders dictate our moral and legal codes? It is profane and anti-democratic.

I will repost this great comment I found on The New York Times website after the shooting at Charlie Hebdo in January.

A comment by Mor in the NYT:

The values of the Enlightenment are incompatible with a fundamentalist religious belief of any kind. An evangelical Christian who believes that the Universe is 6000 years old will feel like an alien in Europe and/or the Silicon Valley. A cultural Muslim who appreciates the poetry of Sufism but does not view the Koran as a literal message from God will feel fine in the West. But if you believe that insulting your prophet merits death, then you have forfeited your place in free society. The West is not a place but an idea. The fact that most Western countries have failed to live up to their own ideals of intellectual freedom and political liberty is regrettable but does not invalidate these ideals. If you want to join the West and keep your cultural identity, while embracing its core values, wonderful. If not, you are not part of Europe and never will be.

Los valores de la Ilustración son incompatibles con una creencia religiosa fundamentalista de ningún tipo. Un cristiano evangélico que cree que el Universo es de 6000 años se siente como un extranjero en Europa y / o el Silicon Valley. Un musulmán cultural que aprecia la poesía del sufismo, pero no considera el Corán como un mensaje literal de Dios se sentirá bien en el Occidente. Pero si usted cree que insultar a su profeta merite la muerte, entonces usted ha perdido su lugar en la sociedad libre. El Occidente no es un lugar sino una idea. El hecho de que la mayoría de los países occidentales han fracasado a la altura de sus propios ideales de la libertad intelectual y la libertad política es lamentable, pero no invalida estos ideales. Si quiere unirse al Occidente y mantener su identidad cultural, mientras abraza sus valores fundamentales, maravilloso. Si no es así, usted no es parte de Europa y nunca lo será.


Update
Another shooting carried out by Muslim psychopaths occurred in San Bernardino with 14 innocent people murdered. The two murderers, a Muslim man and some whore he purchased online, were killed by police later in the day. How much he paid for the whore is unknown at this time but one would assume it wasn’t much as she is uglier than a bag of assholes, as you can see from the picture. I think we shouldn't call these two pigs terrorists nor the seven psychopaths in the Paris killings as it gives them an air of romanticism. They are simply murderous lunatics on the same bottom rung of filth as every other murderer of innocents.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Annoyances of Modern Life



Grumpy Old Man’s Manifesto, page 18

This is what your phones and other noisy devices sound like to someone who is trying to read on the train except that the endless cacophony of obnoxious electronic squawks isn’t funny. Some trains actually have phone-free cars (not available on my recent trip).




...and I don't really give a shit if somebody jerks off on their cell phone for an entire four hour train ride. For me it’s a wonderful chance tofocus on a single task without interruption, the this case I was reading La Vie Devant Soi by Romain Gary in Spanish and then in the original French.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

What the World Really Needs is a Good 2€ Skillet




or

One Spanish Grandmother’s Garbage is Another Man’s Gold

I found this skillet in a box of old pans at the used furniture place I frequent. It was a bit funky from the abuse suffered in another life but I know how easily stainless steel cleans up. I'm guessing that the former owner passed away and this was among the items cleared from his/her apartment because who would ever throw something like this in the trash? It has immediately become the workhorse in my kitchen replacing a couple of other pans I used before. Two Euros!