A Word To Islamofascists

by Pat Condell:

September 11th Rememberance

It has been 5 years since the most gruesome primitive attack of religious mass killing on American soil has happened. As thousands of people went to work in the world trade center towers that morning like any other, they could not possibly imagine the bloody fate that would await them that day. A fate that no one on earth should possibly ever have to endure. The effect it had on our country, the affected families, and all of us is scarring.


Let us please not forget what was at essence of these modern-aged attacks of middle-aged ignorance and barbarity. With utter importance that is nearly critical to our ability to continue to survive into the future as a species, let us not forget that these hideous attacks were in the name of someone's ideas of god. Let us be disgusted that our world continues to be a place in which people kill each other over beliefs which all claim to be exclusively correct, and similarly all over not a shred of proof or relevance to today's lives. Let us be disgusted at the response that our government-elect gave to the global stage –our own president announcing a holy war in response, and citing what god wants many times in public speeches. What worse of a possible response could there be than to say you will stand up for the god which people of other beliefs hate you for believing in?

As the hijacker's crashed the planes that day, the recordings play back their screams of

"Allaahu Akbar! Laa ilaaha illa-Lah!" – "God allah is great, there is none worthy of worship except allah"



While I reject all thoughts and beliefs in god and detest all of the actions such beliefs lead people to do, this does not make me unpatriotic. Let the videos of the attacks, videos of the civilian death toll in our continuing war on terror, the American captive beheading videos, let them all be uncensored and broadcasted everywhere as a reminder of what we are really at war with – the clash of ideals of god.



For humans to continue to live together and progress toward anything without complete cataclysmic destruction of one another most pressingly hinges on the ability of us to recognize the horrible things blind baseless faith makes people do. More specifically –

Our ability to objectively and realistically understand that islam is an incredibly powerful force of blind faith that has oppression and malevolent violence tied to its roots since the beginning, and that Christianity and its exclusiveness on equally zero evidence is no better.

This is for everyone that lost their lives on that day because of someone's "god".

-GD

Teddy Bear Vs. Islam

 I overheard the news story a few days ago, about a british woman who was doing work teaching kids in africa, and had let the class choose a name for the class teddy bear. They chose the name muhammad, after a boy in the class that everyone thought was funny. then what followed was the usual - muslims getting pissed off. I thought, "man, how stupid." then forgot about it. but today at like 8am putting my shoes on to go to work I turned on CNN and they were covering the story.

take a look at the story here if you are unfamiliary with it.

So what I see are Muslims taking to the streets, shouting, carrying swords, some prominant muslims calling for the teacher's execution. Now,  you all already know my opinion on Islam (and that is: BLOW ME), and that's not what this anger-filled rant is about... What I'm angry about is what followed in response, just as it always does: The teacher backs down 100% saying "I have the topmost respect for Islam, and it was an absolute accident, I would never knowingly offend anyone." and various public officials step in and go on TV relaying her message to the public there, so that muslims will try to forgive and move on, all the while all the officials have the maximum shit-eating apologetic tone.

WRONG! WRONG!! THIS IS NOT THE INTELLIGENT RESPONSE!! How much longer are we the civilized world going to allow Islam to grow as a threat to all of the modern world? We are just going to continue to ignore and not understand how vile their religion actually is, and try to just keep it out of sight and mind until they get pissed off about something in the streets, and then we cower back completely out of great fear because we have seen all the murders and carbombings muslims have performed in the line of duty?

I can PROMISE you that if the teacher named the teddy bear Jesus, and christians protested and let them know that they felt disrespected, most people would probably brush it off, shrugging and saying, "whatever, it's just a bear, you can't please everyone." You know why? because Christians aren't on TV every day waving swords in the street, burning effigies, leaving carbomb craters in the streets, or calling for the execution of any public official they deem as offensive to their religion. I mean fuck, do I actually have to defend Christianity to prove this point? Is that just how retarded muslims are?

The difference? ISLAM ITSELF IS THE THREAT. While not different from all other religions in the sense that is comprised of all made-up stories and crazy superstitions, islam distinguishes itself as being sickly violent towards women, nonbelievers, apostates, and anyone who is not muslim. Direct commands from the pages of their "holy" texts.

The civilized world, global community, needs to acknowledge this fact and stop being apologetic to islam just because "they are scary." I agree, they scare the shit out of me, but this is not the right response to these type of situations. the same thing happened over the last two years with the danish cartoons depicting muhammad. Muslims took to the streets of all cities that had publications that ran the cartoons, and very soon all of the publications and even city officials stepped out and said "OK, we are sorry, we didnt realize, we won't print them anymore", and you had cnn covering the story, and when they showed the comic on-screen, it was simply a big black square because CNN WAS SCARED TO SHOW IT THEMSELVES.

This is the wrong reaction. The best action the teacher could have taken, is to deliver a televised speech addressed to the muslim community, as follows: "Dear Muslims, I never wanted to knowingly offend anyone by my simple teddy bear naming game with my class. But, having learned of your incomprehensibly ignorant response to my naming of a teddy bear by calling for my execution, I have decided the bear will no longer be named after the boy in our class named muhammad, but he will instead be named muhammad after your so-called illiterate despot prophet . To best reflect this change, I have now fitted him with a turbin, a miniature sword covered in Christian, Jewish, and non-believer blood, a stack of stolen treasures from various pillaged shrines and jewish communities, and his robes are now up around his waist where i have sewn onto him the likeness of a nine year old girl bending over as if getting fucked in the ass by muhammad to reflect his multiple child wives. I have no respect for your childishly ignorant religion, and in the civilized world we don't call for public mob-executions."

The president of the country, Sudan, should then come on and reaffirm her position and provide federal money for her protection, and he should be ready to send commands to his military to uphold the same position if they are needed. All civilized countries of the world should then come on publicly and stand behind them also, diplomatically and militarily.

Islam is filthy, ignorant, vile 7th century superstition that poses a real threat to the entire globe since we have ignored it for so long. Let's grow a spine and fucking stand up against this abhorration of human rights that is a religion. If America really is so keen on their forced "ACCEPT OUR DEMOCRACY NOW" policy like they claim they are (as a false pretense to gain oil), then they would come out and realize we are really at war with Islam.

-GD

Quantum Mechanics

"I often dreamt of falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. Lately I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock, but it would not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss. Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative; there was no bottom and no end. A feeling of pleasure overcame me. I realized that what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed. It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness."

-Heinz Pagels, physicist and quantum mechanics researcher before his death in a 1988 climbing accident.

-GD

RECIPE: Neapolitan Pizza "Marinara" by XO

[Editor's note: we will have one recipe a month, and you will only find vegan food discussed herein. We do not refer to meat and dairy as "food", so if you ever read us print about food, it is assumed to be vegan]

For the dough:

• 27 oz Bread Flour
• 20-22 oz Ice cold water
• 2 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

For the sauce:

• 1 28 oz can whole plum tomatoes (get Muir Glen if you can) or whole San Marzano tomatoes
• 3-4 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2-4 cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano, or 1 1/2 Tbs fresh oregano
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4-6 fresh basil leaves (optional)

For topping:

• 30-40 cherry tomatoes, preferably organic, sliced in half from stem end
• 4-6 garlic cloves sliced paper thin
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Oregano
• Fresh Basil Leaves, julienned

The day or night before baking:

In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle yeast over 4 oz of lukewarm water, and leave for five minutes to hydrate yeast. Meanwhile mix bread flour and salt together. When yeast is hydrated and dissolved, add 16 oz ice cold water to yeast mixture followed by salt and flour mixture and mix by hand with hand kneading (though this will be hard as this is a very wet dough) or mix with a wooden spoon, or mix by machine, just until dough comes together and no flour shows, about six minutes.

Add remaining water a tablespoon at a time if dough isn't right consistency during mixing. Immediately after mixing if mixing bowl isn't at least twice the size of the dough, move to an appropriate bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave in refrigerator overnight, taking care to keep dough cold all through mixing until removing from refrigerator the next day (though this day will actually keep at least three days in the refrigerator with no negative discernible effects. (Though I'd bet the dough will last longer than a week in the refrigerator)

Bake day:

On the day of baking remove bowl and dough from the refrigerator between six and eight hours before baking and leave on counter to come to room temperature and ferment.
Meanwhile prepare sauce by processing all ingredients in a blender or with a hand blender until smooth, you may leave the sauce unrefrigerated for six hours before food safety becomes an issue. The sauce will keep for four to seven days refrigerated, allow sauce to come to room temperature before using.

When dough has come to room temperature and allowed to ferment until at least 25% percent larger in size, no longer than four hours, heavily flour a clean work surface with bread flour and carefully remove (pour) dough from bowl onto work surface keeping the dough in one piece. Flour dough surface and cut dough with bench scraper or other flat sharp edge into five or six equally weighted pieces, for five pizzas, between 9 and 10 oz, for six about 7.5 oz. with floured hands to avoid sticking, pull dough pieces into balls with a tight, unbroken skin and the seam on bottom, and set on clean surface and cover with either oiled plastic wrap or a floured tea towel.

Allow dough to rest for at least a half hour. Meanwhile pre-heat oven with baking stone positioned in the second to highest rack position to highest heat setting, ideally this should be somewhere between 750 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit, but 550 or even 500 will work. After dough has been allowed to relax and oven has been allowed to heat for at least a half hour, dust flour liberally over surface of dough balls and remove a dough ball from surface with bench scraper, using flour to push and help scrape underneath of dough for easier extraction and to maintain integrity of round dough shape, onto a lightly floured pizza peel or appropriately sized wooden cutting board, large enough to cater a fifteen inch diameter round.

With floured hands, lightly press with your finger or knuckles to make a flattened round with dough, if dough springs back and resists flattening allow more time for the dough to relax. To finish shaping the dough, take flattened round into your hands, actually the top of your hands, and either by the doughs own weight or soft easy stretching with your knuckles, stretch dough into a round that's transparent when held up to light, taking care not to tear dough, though with practice you may mend such tears. This round should be between 9 and 13 inches in diameter, use flour lightly to keep dough from sticking if necessary. When stretched, place pizza dough back on lightly floured peel and shake peel to ensure dough is loose and not sticking to the peel. Use your hands to correct shape if necessary.

Working fast yet careful not get peel wet with any toppings, spread 1/3 to 2/3 C sauce to within 3/4 inch of doughs lip, followed by one-fifth of sliced garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and finally one-fifth of the sliced tomatoes, shaking peel every so often to ensure dough isn't sticking. Working fast (this dough really has a tendency to stick if you don't keep it moving) carefully transfer pizza onto hot baking stone by sliding dough off at about a 10 degree angle from the horizontal, and close oven door swiftly so not to let heat escape.

Bake for about six minutes, turning once, until crust has browned and toppings are cooked through, slight crust charring isn't a bad thing. Remove from oven when ready and sprinkle with oregano, slice pizza, and sprinkle with basil, and drizzle again with olive oil if desired, serve hot. Repeat with remaining pizza doughs. If not using every pizza dough, each ball may be kept in an oiled sandwich bag and kept in the refrigerator for at least three days. Improvise on the toppings yourself, but remember to keep the toppings light, the pizza simply will not bake or transfer to the oven if the toppings are too heavy. Consider marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, olives, spinach, or sliced onions.

-XO

What We Must Do by Bertrand Russell (from Why I Am Not A Christian)

We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world -- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.

The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings.
We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face.

We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

-LN

For The Love of God

I was thinking of doing a piece called "For the Love of God" which has to do with piety = vanity = pride = sin. Our editor asked if I would leave my introduction like that, and so I have, as it appears before you. And on is the article, but I would like to assert that calling this an article I think is a word misappropriation; I don't get to make those rules, so call this what you will.

In its tenets, the ten commandments, Christianity really does appear to be a morally (another topic you can look forward to) sound faith without a sense of ego. Don't murder, remain faithful to your convictions, don't steal, don't lie, and the golden rule, the maxim of empathy, treats others as you'd wish to be treated, a set of words a father may tell his children, and unquestioningly they'll be heeded to some ability.

When you're young do you listen to your father for the sake of yourself, to remain in good standing or at the very least avoid punishment, or because you understand that others feel?

The motive one has to pursue any faith is for eternal salvation, self-preservation, for a reward for your loyalty to the intangible. In Christianity after you die, if you've done what the dogma has asked of you, you spend eternity in heaven. In Islam and Judaism it's basically the same thing, you go to be with God, to be somewhere better. In Buddhism it's nirvana. In Hinduism a better position in reincarnation. This is ego. This is where you decide your religion is the right religion because the after plan makes the most sense. This is where you decide you even need a system of beliefs in the first place, it doesn't take god for you to know to not steal or murder or do wrong, you know this because you know pain and you know the feeling of being the victim of a so-called sin and you know you don't like it. The golden rule is self-evident.

I have to say I apologize for using Mother Teresa in the following context, because she was a great woman: I was watching a religious debate and it wasn't very different most I've seen, most of the points have been argued over and over and points made were tritely argued and moot and unresolved. But what stuck out was a point one of the debaters made using Mother Teresa, he paraphrased another quote that went along the lines of the Mother Teresa saying the work she does, she wouldn't do for any amount of money in the world, for she does it for the love of God. And the other debater laughed and scoffed. Just as easily for the deeds and charity she's done, she could have said she's just happy to help make a positive impact on any one life, though with just that that's quite an understatement, but instead she professed piety. And for me this is what piety is; in a harsher, blunter way of saying it, it's playing teacher's pet or being the favorite child. In a psychological way of describing it this is the ultimate appeasement of the superego. In a summary, for the love of God, this is a step closer to your granted ultimate reward in paradise upon judgment, this is you thinking for yourself, piety is zealousness is vanity is pride is a deadly sin, this is only you trying to climb up in supernatural selection, to be in better standing with the giver of your great gift post-life, because there is something far greater than you can imagine where you can go after this suffering. The pursuit of heaven wouldn't have nearly as much appeal if you weren't suffering here.

But then go ahead and argue that there's reward outside of heaven just in the acts of kindness and sainthood. Then consider I don't need heaven or the love of God because that same reward is good enough for me.


-XO

Review: While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying The West From Within, by Bruce Bawer

The basic premise is this: Muslims (Muslim men, the women have no rights to make their own choices), having shitty living conditions or desiring more opportunity, move in mass amounts to their neighboring European countries where they have no plan of integrating into society and are encouraged to exploit the social welfare systems which they have no problem doing as they see it as their right to take from the prosperity that non-islamic 'infidels' possess. These transplanted Muslims enjoy remaining free from enforcement of their host country's law because in post-WWII Europe, the politically-correct paranoia of not appearing as discriminatory or racist towards any group is the top priority. Even when a group's practices are blatant violations of human rights such as muslim "honor killing" of their own daughters who get raped because it is "their own fault" and have shamed their family name, European law enforcement authorities turn the other cheek because they don't want to 'discriminate' against 'cultural practices.'

Propagating the matter out of hand is the common practice of importing brides. The male Muslim establishes a life first through the benefits of social welfare, then exploiting European countries' laws encouraging "diversity" and "integration" in immigration, they practically pay the way to import wives and other family members, granting them all kinds of incentives and leniencies to become residents. With no intention of integrating into western society, as it is theologically at odds with their core beliefs, they establish ghetto communities that have grown to the point that effectively shut out westerners in their own lands. White westerners practically can't safely go through these all-muslim colonies and the police as well avoid it entirely.

Bawer highlights the statistics and terrorist events that have occurred in Europe as these Muslim immigrant rates have increased hugely in the last 10 years. He recounts with more truthful bloodiness than the mainstream media ever had the Islamic terrorist attacks of the last 10 years or so. He cites mainstream print and TV media from the times of the attacks which always blame them on poverty and oppression within the Muslim world, never suggesting something is wrong with Islam itself and its corrupt theology. September 11^th, Madrid subway bombing, the Russian middle school held hostage for two days that ended in a pile of bodies, the over 100 dead in the Muhammad cartoon fiasco, riots in the streets of paris, burning of embassies, large Muslim congregations and marches in European streets calling for the death of America, Denmark, and democracy, with police standing by idle to not be deemed as racially discriminating.

Make no mistake, Bruce Bawer has absolutely obliterated any remaining doubt anyone might have hung onto about the existence of the Islamic problem in Europe and the west, but I feel like he was really writing two books: How Radical Islam Is Destroying The West From Within, and Why European Countries are Baselessly Anti-American When America is So Much Better.

Every point -no, not point, FACT that Bawer presents about the Muslim Problem is absolutely dead-on and could not be more relevant or more important for everyone in the industrialized nations to read and take serious notice of. Sandwiched in-between the stunningly urgent cries for action against islam that are absolutely solidly rooted in fact in the intro and the ending lies the second book title that I made up, above, where at length he systematically makes a tour in the text of virtually every country of the European Union to highlight their rampant anti-Americanism while addressing their shortcomings behind our "great" America.

During this midsection, the point he makes is not without merit: That European countries consider themselves far elite over the ignorant religious/cowboy-politics of America, and that frequently whenever something goes wrong in European countries it is always blamed on "American-conditions". Basically American is a synonym for "bad" there. This point is taken, that probably these countries take the anti-Americanism too far and just begin to blanketly oppose all things American, but Bawer never addresses any validity behind why people actually have those opinions. There are plenty of reasons to oppose general American opinion and policy or consider oneself anti-American, very good reasons, and that could have been addressed more fairly.

On the count of being a guide for the average European or American to the severity of the Islamic issue, I don't think a better one could be written. I think this book is a fantastic primer especially for Americans who still may deny on some level that Islam itself is anything other than a threat to the entire world with it's 7^th-century ignorance.

-GD

Review: Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence by Alan Dershowitz

Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence
by Alan Dershowitz.

First off, this book is fantastic. It should be a pre-requisite reader for anyone who wants to have a conversational-interest in American politics and policy or participate in American politics. Actually, let's just make it a standard read for 5th to 8th graders when they start to learn about American history.

This book denounces the movement in contemporary American politics of right-wing religious conservatives using the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as being in support of their purely christian ideals and agendas, going so far as to saying that all the founding fathers were deeply christian and that our country's founding documents were always meant to be upholding these christian values for this CHRISTIAN NATION. Dershowitz accomplishes this by relying nearly solely on the words of the founding fathers themselves, using extensive contextual citations from their public and private works to get surprisingly specific opinions from them on these exact topics. Reading quote after quote of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin denouncing the bible and foretelling of the dangers of involving religion in politics will have you saying "Really? Those guys wrote that? That is so telling, how did I never hear of that before?" and will live absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that the modern-day religious right's christian agenda in our politics is PRECISELY what the founding fathers wrote their founding documents AGAINST.

It would lend itself well for children to read, since the writing style is minimal and clear. A christian might even be able to understand it. There are no unfounded accusations or opinions here, no literary acrobatics or selective quoting going on. We just have account after account from the pen of Thomas Jefferson himself refferring to the bible as "dung" and entirely made-up, unbelievable, and self-contradictory. We have extensive quotations from the founding father's intentions in writing the declaration of independence, and there is really no mistake that religion is meant to stay completely separate from politics. Nowhere once in the constitution or declaration of independence is any reference made to Jesus or the god of the bible, and Dershowitz explains why that is not an accident.

In short, this was yet another book I selected to fuel my growing intolerance for religious belief. While we have always known how ignorant and stupid right wingers sound when they say things like "this is a christian nation founded on christian ideals and therefore we should make gays illegal / not teach evolution / teach bible in the classroom...", but now having read these firsthand quotes of the intentions of the founding fathers, we know that statements like these are so far off of reality and really just show an embarrassing stupidity and ignorance on the topic of our founding documents and our country's history.

This is not a Christian nation, it was not founded on christian ideals, and the Declaration of Independence stands to prevent and oppose the very agendas that those of the religious-right are pushing into our politics.

-GD