I’m okay with Trump keeping his Samsung. If he didn’t have that pacifier, he’d just paper-tweet more Executive Orders.
1 Like
Ibadis… (just because Oman was in the news, which, probably good for them, doesn’t happen often)
2 Likes
Currently the US needs a slave preferably armed with a sharp instrument, to whisper in the President’s ear “Remember, Caesar, that thou art mortal.” (No Latin original because the phrase is from Shakespeare, not a Roman author.)
5 Likes
Apologies for leaving anyone out. I literally copied the names of those sects/schools from the online blurb of ‘Islam for Dummies’. 
1 Like
Some of these things are not like the others. Baha’i and Druze aren’t Muslim.
4 Likes
I imagine there are a great many differences between these groups. Apologies for leaving anyone out or misrepresenting them. I was attempting to make the point that most people make no effort to differentiate between the groups within Islam. The same could be said for the citizens of the affected countries or citizens and their government. (I certainly don’t agree with mine right now.). As I said earlier, for the sake of proper spelling I literally copied the names of those sects/schools from the online blurb of ‘Islam for Dummies’.
1 Like
Oh, none necessary… Thought it was furthering your point (in general, if not specifically in pre-9/11 times)
I’ve pointed out elsewhere today (and that the Newsweek article didn’t mention) that Oman is the home of the MEDRC. It might sound trivial, as it’s a group that studies water desalination etc., but it is one place where Israel and Palestine sit at the same table (and in an Arab country) to cooperate.
Also: Newsweek was a bit generous toward the Sultan. He’s a dictator. But as dictators go, I’d place him in the “benevolent” column. I genuinely worry about what happens after he’d gone (not just in Oman but elsewhere).
3 Likes
I’m boggled by the people that lump all Muslims together. Imagine lumping all Christians together as a uniform block that fanatically acts out every word in their holy book?
8 Likes
Although it isn’t only on the right: I’ve seen it from a leftist/atheist I know. He was criticizing something Reza Aslan wrote; can’t remember specifically what it was but I responded that Islam in Turkey is different from that in Iran, which is different from that in Indonesia, which is different from Mali, etc.
(Granted, fundamentalist types aim to erase these distinctions as heresy, local innovation, etc. – a lot of the pushback in Somalia was from Sufis who’d seen Al-Shabaab destroying saints’ tombs.)
3 Likes
I am concerned that this is just performing the groundwork for Trump’s stated desire to be able to “turn off the internet” when it is being used for terrorism. The definition of dissent can be easily changed to terrorism.
7 Likes
We are this freaked out after ten days, and you want us to be patient for eight years? I don’t think anyone has that much bile in us.
5 Likes
Ah, thanks. And come to think of it, there’s no way Steve Bannon would play a half-orc… race-mixing? Never! He’d be a Thor-esque blonde übermench.
5 Likes
Maybe a reference to Ezra Pound?
5 Likes
I believe Iran regards the Baha’i as a heretical Muslim sect, for the purposes of persecuting them.
3 Likes
In the fractal religious zone, it’s infidels all the way down.
3 Likes
See what happens when you make fun of Baron?
1 Like
If The Cow were here, he’d remind us that our own bathtubs are far more murderous than any murder-y fringe group could ever hope to be.
4 Likes
I’m sure that the money that they’re going to give to private contracts will result in the best holistic quantum mass-detectors to track down those 400 lbs hackers, who are definitely not Russian.
1 Like
Since the galaxy is so spread out, even with basically-instantaneous FTL travel connecting all the planets, most people never left their home planet. News and media are apparently not a thing. Under the rule of the Senate, a ruling body that most never saw and rarely even heard news about - not least because it must have been incredibly ineffective - income and opportunity inequalities were massive to the point where significantly large groups would be welcoming the new Imperial rule, which no doubt was promising all sorts of wonderful things. This is actually explicitly in the films, in multiple places, but for example, at the beginning Luke wants to go join the Imperial Academy because his impoverished future on Tatooine seems so bleak.
The Rebels are the ones who saw through it, but they did not have universal support - far from it - because most people are idiots, and the Imperials were good at hiding their evil. Until they went too far, of course.
Sound familiar? Star Wars is directly based on the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, but by giving you distance from that highly charged real history, it makes clear comparisons to present events easier.
Honestly though, I’m not sure who Trump is in this - not Darth Vader by a long shot, and the Emperor is Putin. I guess Trump is one of the lame business aliens from Episode 1 - or mirror-world Jar-Jar (with an orange goatee).
3 Likes
Try this one, o’ (now banned) trolley:
Handcuffing & detaining a 5 year old American citizen seems like a pretty damn BIG boundary; just sayin’.
Also thank you for your “contribution” to the conversation, comrade; see you in your inevitable next sock puppet account incarnation.
13 Likes
