Last week I visited the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City. Apparently I inspired cactusthesaint and sploof to visit the mosque in Lodi that was the subject of the recent Frontline documentary "The Enemy Within" (torrent). I hope cactus's story inspires other people to visit their neighbors ( Read more... )

Last week I floated a plan to visit my local mosque. Last night matrushkaka and I bought some iftar gifts, and I delivered them at 5:00 today between afternoon and evening prayer ( Read more... )

After talking with sploof I've taken down the original content of this post which was featured on BoingBoing. We appreciate the encouragement, but we think the original submission jumped the gun a little. The amount of planning we've done so far has been too minimal. There are still too many uncertainties and unsolved problems. There are still too ( Read more... )

I was looking through the list of Guantanamo Bay Detainees and noticed that in fourteen of their cases, the official listed reasons for detaining them included wearing Casio F91W wristwatches which are, in addition to a cheap and reliable timepiece with a convenient daily alarm for prayer notification, also a common detonation timing device for ( Read more... )

I have vague memories of growing up in the late 70s and hearing the phrase "If you think America so bad why don't just you go live in (foreign country) or something?" used against critics of American politics and policy. Some consider Iraq to be this generation's Vietnam, and whether or not that's true I've noticed a resurgence in what I remember ( Read more... )

Former CIA Officer Sues Cheney Over LeakWASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career ( Read more... )

I have a flurry of thoughts about this picture.


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A few people thanked me yesterday for my article about why Bush's veteran's day speech was, to put it bluntly, bollocks. I get much of my information from talkngptsmemo aka Josh Marshall, who is a lot like atrios only better-spoken and without the cheap shots. His articles are always worth reading. This afternoon Josh posted an appeal:

You can see right now the ( Read more... )

During lunch I distracted myself by reading this article, which discusses the reasons behind various Al Quaeda plans and the failure of people outside a culture to appreciate the motivations. In a fairly tangental point, the author crystallized the reason why I tend to think poorly of people involved with Critical Mass, despite the fact that I've ( Read more... )