Too much spare time :o) (plus ranty stuff)
Diary: Week of 07/09: Dungeon and Geeking :o)
Gutted my piggy bank to find ninety-five pounds :oD Yay for Mr Piggy! :oD
Also tried to watch Shrooms. Got bored on first attempt and had to watch the last of it the next day. Bits of it were okay-ish but I can't say I'd reccomend it to anyone. The idea of a horror film were no one is sure what's going on sounds good but doesn't really work here, possibly because it really all boiled down to fairly tired cliches anyway.
Walked down to town on Tuesday to visit Lacuna_Raze at work and do a little shopping. Got the bus home because Lacuna_Raze though I might have caught the sun on the way up :oP
Weekend was quieter than usual as Lacuna_Raze was off in London so I ended up spending a quiet Friday in. Couldn't find out if anyone was going to Dungeon and I hear that it was quite quiet so probably was the wisest choice not to go. Saturday was better though with both LittleCyberAlex and Bert down Dungeon. Lots of awful photos of me on facebook but at least one of them is okay :o)
Having arrived earlier than normal, I think I ended up drinking more than normal and feeling a bit worn out in the morning. Fortunately, I was feeling better in time to head up to LittleCyberAlex's to play Necromunda. There was only a small group of us and we didn't end up playing proper campaign rules but rather a scenario that LittleCyberAlex made, which ended up having the unbalancing effect of me having a Wyrd with two primary powers for free... Whatever works I guess... :oP
We followed that up with a game of Settlers of Catan that was probably the longest I've ever had... :oP We all raced up to 9 points each and then seemed to be stuck there for ages :oP
Diary: Week of 14/09: Interview, Dungeon and more geeking :o)
Had an interview with a local NHS place in Weston on Monday. Felt a bit weird to be having an interview outside of an office environment though, not sure if it would have been the place for me. Kind of fortunate because the time I seem to remember being told on the phone was an hour later than the time they were expecting me and that (given that no other NHS interview asked for this) I didn't bring ID with me and had to grab any (thankfully I live only around the corner). I didn't get the job in any case :oP
My driving lessons are going very well now though, getting through lessons without any serious faults and only a few minor ones. If only I could spend that little bit of time to be sure of getting 100% on my theory and then passing it then I could do my practical test and pass. I suspect the lack of practical reward for doing this (given that I don't own a car) is what's stopping me being as motivated as I should be :oP
Lacuna_Raze nipped over to spend some time with me on Friday evening before having to go again. Annoyingly, we missed Peep Show, which we'll have to watch soon :o)
Dungeon on Saturday was quieter than the week before but still a lot of fun, so that was good :o)
Sunday I was over at LittleCyberAlex's again for more Necromunda games with scenarios of our own creation :oP Ended up staying over at LittleCyberAlex's this time though :o)
Diary: Week of 21/09: Geeking, Zombies, Films, and Clubbing :o)
Headed back home from LittleCyberAlex's on Monday long enough to shower and check my email and stuffs before heading back. Didn't get much chance to game this time though, just enough to introduce people to Risk 2210 but not have a proper game.
On Tuesday I watched 'Dead Set'; a movie where a zombie apocalypse breaks out on eviction night at the Big Brother household, leaving the contestants trapped inside. Nice enough concept and is watchable enough but doesn't compare to films like 28 days later. There's a death scene that I find really silly and spoils the movie a little but which is apparently a tribute to a very similar scene in another Zombie movie. I think that just shows why I like the more modern 'quick' zombie that are coming out now rather than the old campy and silly ones.
On Wednesday I was channel surfing and caught the end of Gentleman's Agreement, A 1947 film about anti-Semitism where a writer pretends to be a Jew in order to write a story. It's almost surprising just how severe anti-Semitism in America (and probably the UK) was but perhaps should not be that surprising given that blatant and institutionalised racism against black people was accepted only a small number of decades ago. The best thing about the film though is that it does not go for the easy target; severe and violent anti-Semitism, the stuff that's easy and comfortable to criticise, it goes for the casual and oblique anti-Semitism of 'nice' liberals:
Kathy Lacey: You think I'm an anti-Semite.
Phil Green: No, I don't. But I've come to see lots of nice people who hate it and deplore it and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew. People who think anti-Semitism is far away in some dark place with low-class morons. That's the biggest discovery I've made. The good people. The nice people.
Whether we're talking anti-Semitism or any form of prejudice, I think it's a very good criticism to make.
There's a nice piece written by a Patrick Hunter on the imdb reviews which sums it up nicely for me:
I could go on, because I think I know this film's faults as well as any of its critics. However, the movie's virtues obviously outweigh its shortcomings and dated moments. In fact, after over sixty years, not one other Hollywood film confronts bigotry as intelligently as this one. That's right; not one. Why? Because every other one deals only with bigotry in the extreme--and the result is they don't really attack bigotry, they attack violence. Many bigots who keep their kids out of culturally diverse schools can watch MISSISSIPPI BURNING, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, CROSSFIRE, etc., and can self-self-congratulatingly say to themselves, "Well, that's not me; I know I'm not a racist." Of course, violent prejudice is the worst form there is, but, in case you didn't know, it is not violent prejudice that minorities confront on a daily basis. It is the unspoken, insensitive attitudes that GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT is brave enough (and unique enough) to attack. Despite its dated moments, it's no wonder this movie raises nervous hairs to this day.
I watched the Life after People documentary as well. It's been something I've been wanting to watch for quite some while. I love the idea of a world without people and the slow decay of our cities. Would make an excellent setting for Larps or paintball if nothing else :oP I don't tend to like tv documentaries because it always feels like they stretch out very little material into a large amount of time... sometimes most of the information can be summed up on an A4 piece of paper :oP That being said, this one was quite good and worth watching if only for the visuals.
Started watching (but didn't yet finish) Aftermath: Population Zero, which was okay. Seemed lower budget and the tone was more cartoonish (another danger of any kind of 'disaster documentary', there's no need to ham it up for Christ's sake... you're not Batman, you don't need to put on some unbelievably deep voice just to tell me what's going on...)
Friday I actually did something social and went down Dungeon to see LittleCyberAlex and ThePussyKat, which was fun. It was a Friday so themed (western this time) but I ignored that as usual (not a big fan of themes!). There may be some silly photo of me wearing LittleCyberAlex's hat and holding his water pistol though :o/
Ended up extending the night by going to Edge afterwards with Chrissie and pals, which was also fun. Only problem is that I'd arrived at Dungeon at nine and I don't think my body is used to staying up until four drinking any more :oP Ended up crashing soon after getting back to Chrissie's, which probably missed the point. :oP Emily gave me a lift back to mine in the morning though :o)
The original intention was to meet up with Lacuna_Raze at MetalShez's and head to Dungeon but we ended up deciding we were both too tired and opted for a night in instead :oP Did mean that we got to watch Peep Show at last though :oD
Sunday Littlecyberalex came over and we played a few games of Risk 2210 as well as Necromunda, just to make sure that we got some geeking in before the end of the week :oP Must play more Risk really, am a big fan but rarely get enough people around to play it properly. :o)
Diary: Week of 21/09: Geeking online and Dungeon :oP
Another very quiet week :oP Watched a few films and played a lot of Risk online. Risk isn't really the same without the social element of having people actually there though :o/ One of the sites did have a bunch of variant maps that looked like they'd be fun if I could print them out onto a large enough sheet and then play normally though :o) Anything to keep Risk different and interesting I suppose :o)
I watched Hancock as well, but it left me disappointed. I really liked the idea of a disenfranchised superhero struggling to really care or feel motivated but that cuts out about half way through in order to advance an increasingly silly, shallow and entirely different plot line. Big shame.
Had another job centre appointment on Wednesday. Am increasingly noticing that their job machines have little of interest on them, with the few jobs that are interesting being too far away or I've already applied for them. Thankfully I seem to be doing a good job of finding them online by myself though :o)
Lacuna_Raze came around on Friday and we went out to Dungeon on Saturday, which was fun. Seems like Dungeon may be livening up again with more people out. I hope that sticks :oD
Thoughts: Sharia Law Courts etc
Last week, I countered a number of examples of where privileged people's victim complexes cause them to feel discriminated against even when no discrimination is happening and, even if it is, it's not doing any harm anyway (certainly can't be equated to discrimination against marginalised groups).
I'd just like to expand on a few Islam-related examples where people leap to bizarre conclusions.
One of the more recent attempts to pretend that the UK has somehow become biased towards Islam was a post I found on Wtf_Inc ( linky). Basically, it was someone expecting people to be shocked at Lloyds bank supplying a Shariah-law compliant bank account for Muslims; meaning no interest on anything, including overdrafts.
I'm not sure what the poster thought was going on here because it would seem bizarre to suggest that Lloyds was going out of it's way to show favouritism towards Islam for no particular purpose, as if any bank is going to willingly pursue any end other than profit. It's not just Lloyd's either, Natwest's main two accounts are the Current and Current Plus accounts, with the former offering no interest, which is basically only left as an option for those people with religious rules barring them taking advantage of the latter.
And that is it, of course, whilst Lloyd's Shariah-law compliant account does have a few perks (such as a different way of paying for use of overdraft) it also lacks interest on the money you do have, which is why it's not being advertised to non-Muslims - because no one would want it. Of course, if you really feel hard done by then just get a Shariah-Law compliant account yourself... or did you think they were going to send people out to spy on you and check that you're praying five times a day before they let you have one?
Daft.
Another one I found very bizarre was back when the 'Mega-Mosque' was announced to be built in London, costing around 75 million pounds. Despite none of the articles implying such a thing, again and again, I read through people on various sites complaining about the government spending such an amount of money on Islam. Of course, the Government wasn't building it or paying for it and it was all privately funded but let's not let that get in the way of complaining about government favouritism. Apparently, in order to prove that the government isn't biased it has to ban the construction of a religious temple paid for by the people of that religion. :o/
I've already written about people's objections to Muslim women wearing the Veil: linky
So, now a big one... Sharia Law Courts: linky
Cue people claiming it's one rule for 'us' and one rule for 'them'.
Of course, Sharia Law Courts are Arbitration Tribunals which are based on the Right of Arbitration that we all have, so actually it's all very equal. To put it simplistically, the basic principle is that two people can bring their civil disputes before an agreed-upon arbitration tribunal and have the results legally binding rather than pursue normal channels if they both agree.
Basically then, if you find yourself in dispute with someone and you would both prefer to have it settled by someone else then that's allowed, which is what Sharia Law Courts are as well as the Arbitration Tribunals used by some Jews. That should be okay right?
There's been extra controversy because some people feel that the courts have been over-extended because they have made rulings on criminal matters. I'm not going to talk about specific examples but I'll use three hypothetical ones, two based vaguely on situations I've heard described in papers and the last purely hypothetical, to show why I just don't care.
(1)A man dies and his estate is inherited by his two sons and one daughter. A legal dispute arises as to who gets what. The sons and daughter agree to opt for a Sharia Law Court rather than process the dispute normally. The wealth is divided up unequally on gender grounds with the sons being given twice as much as the daughter.
This feels uncomfortable because it's sexist. However, it was agreed to by the daughter. Whilst I don't like it or agree with it, I'm not going to deny women the right to accept sexist situations when they arise, no more than I want the government to legislate what kind of family structures we are and are not allowed. I don't like it when women marry chauvinists but they have the right to.
(2)A woman is domestically abused. She presses charges conventionally thus threatening her husband with criminal charges. In order to avoid these charges, the husband agrees to be judged by a Sharia Law Court and the wife drops the charges. The Law Court finds the husband guilty and gives a mild sentence including mandatory anger management counselling.
This might seem distasteful for those of us who would have advised the woman involved to leave her husband or believe that the crime should have been punished harsher. However, we should remember that many women choose to not pursue legal action at all and stay with their abusers with no protection. If the court in this case gave the woman more options then I'm fine with that, as long as it is her choice (and she did still have the right to pursue it normally).
It may be the case that the wife might have felt pressured to use a Sharia law court by her community. Without this option, she might have felt pressured to pursue no legal action at all. Doesn't seem like much of a difference there.
(3)A group of boys are guilty of murder. Conventional police investigation fails and they can not be punished by a criminal law court. However, the people in the group are Muslim and thus feel more inclined to be cooperative with a Sharia Law Court. They plead guilty and the Law Court sentences them.
That again may seem unsatisfactory, murder ought preferably to be punished conventionally by our established criminal law. Of course, that doesn't always happen... due to the neccesity of having a fair legal system some criminals go unpunished. If the Sharia Law Courts can appeal to the religious conscience of these people to create some kind of punishment for them then that seems a very good thing. Do note that the Sharia Law Court can't protect them from a Criminal Law Court but it can act as a fail-safe.
Now, I've not gone into great detail here. It might be that there are smaller issues with Arbitration Tribunals that need adjusting and individual cases that were mishandled but what I do hope to have shown is that the existence of Sharia Law Courts does not, in itself, show any favouritism towards Muslims. It is just the basic right to arbitration by an agreed upon third party, which is a fair and good right,
Link: What women want - okcupid survey - linky
Link: Government funded porn - linky
Link: Stop hounding the Prime Minister - linky
Link: Records of rape crime distorted - linky
Gutted my piggy bank to find ninety-five pounds :oD Yay for Mr Piggy! :oD
Also tried to watch Shrooms. Got bored on first attempt and had to watch the last of it the next day. Bits of it were okay-ish but I can't say I'd reccomend it to anyone. The idea of a horror film were no one is sure what's going on sounds good but doesn't really work here, possibly because it really all boiled down to fairly tired cliches anyway.
Walked down to town on Tuesday to visit Lacuna_Raze at work and do a little shopping. Got the bus home because Lacuna_Raze though I might have caught the sun on the way up :oP
Weekend was quieter than usual as Lacuna_Raze was off in London so I ended up spending a quiet Friday in. Couldn't find out if anyone was going to Dungeon and I hear that it was quite quiet so probably was the wisest choice not to go. Saturday was better though with both LittleCyberAlex and Bert down Dungeon. Lots of awful photos of me on facebook but at least one of them is okay :o)
Having arrived earlier than normal, I think I ended up drinking more than normal and feeling a bit worn out in the morning. Fortunately, I was feeling better in time to head up to LittleCyberAlex's to play Necromunda. There was only a small group of us and we didn't end up playing proper campaign rules but rather a scenario that LittleCyberAlex made, which ended up having the unbalancing effect of me having a Wyrd with two primary powers for free... Whatever works I guess... :oP
We followed that up with a game of Settlers of Catan that was probably the longest I've ever had... :oP We all raced up to 9 points each and then seemed to be stuck there for ages :oP
Diary: Week of 14/09: Interview, Dungeon and more geeking :o)
Had an interview with a local NHS place in Weston on Monday. Felt a bit weird to be having an interview outside of an office environment though, not sure if it would have been the place for me. Kind of fortunate because the time I seem to remember being told on the phone was an hour later than the time they were expecting me and that (given that no other NHS interview asked for this) I didn't bring ID with me and had to grab any (thankfully I live only around the corner). I didn't get the job in any case :oP
My driving lessons are going very well now though, getting through lessons without any serious faults and only a few minor ones. If only I could spend that little bit of time to be sure of getting 100% on my theory and then passing it then I could do my practical test and pass. I suspect the lack of practical reward for doing this (given that I don't own a car) is what's stopping me being as motivated as I should be :oP
Lacuna_Raze nipped over to spend some time with me on Friday evening before having to go again. Annoyingly, we missed Peep Show, which we'll have to watch soon :o)
Dungeon on Saturday was quieter than the week before but still a lot of fun, so that was good :o)
Sunday I was over at LittleCyberAlex's again for more Necromunda games with scenarios of our own creation :oP Ended up staying over at LittleCyberAlex's this time though :o)
Diary: Week of 21/09: Geeking, Zombies, Films, and Clubbing :o)
Headed back home from LittleCyberAlex's on Monday long enough to shower and check my email and stuffs before heading back. Didn't get much chance to game this time though, just enough to introduce people to Risk 2210 but not have a proper game.
On Tuesday I watched 'Dead Set'; a movie where a zombie apocalypse breaks out on eviction night at the Big Brother household, leaving the contestants trapped inside. Nice enough concept and is watchable enough but doesn't compare to films like 28 days later. There's a death scene that I find really silly and spoils the movie a little but which is apparently a tribute to a very similar scene in another Zombie movie. I think that just shows why I like the more modern 'quick' zombie that are coming out now rather than the old campy and silly ones.
On Wednesday I was channel surfing and caught the end of Gentleman's Agreement, A 1947 film about anti-Semitism where a writer pretends to be a Jew in order to write a story. It's almost surprising just how severe anti-Semitism in America (and probably the UK) was but perhaps should not be that surprising given that blatant and institutionalised racism against black people was accepted only a small number of decades ago. The best thing about the film though is that it does not go for the easy target; severe and violent anti-Semitism, the stuff that's easy and comfortable to criticise, it goes for the casual and oblique anti-Semitism of 'nice' liberals:
Kathy Lacey: You think I'm an anti-Semite.
Phil Green: No, I don't. But I've come to see lots of nice people who hate it and deplore it and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew. People who think anti-Semitism is far away in some dark place with low-class morons. That's the biggest discovery I've made. The good people. The nice people.
Whether we're talking anti-Semitism or any form of prejudice, I think it's a very good criticism to make.
There's a nice piece written by a Patrick Hunter on the imdb reviews which sums it up nicely for me:
I could go on, because I think I know this film's faults as well as any of its critics. However, the movie's virtues obviously outweigh its shortcomings and dated moments. In fact, after over sixty years, not one other Hollywood film confronts bigotry as intelligently as this one. That's right; not one. Why? Because every other one deals only with bigotry in the extreme--and the result is they don't really attack bigotry, they attack violence. Many bigots who keep their kids out of culturally diverse schools can watch MISSISSIPPI BURNING, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, CROSSFIRE, etc., and can self-self-congratulatingly say to themselves, "Well, that's not me; I know I'm not a racist." Of course, violent prejudice is the worst form there is, but, in case you didn't know, it is not violent prejudice that minorities confront on a daily basis. It is the unspoken, insensitive attitudes that GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT is brave enough (and unique enough) to attack. Despite its dated moments, it's no wonder this movie raises nervous hairs to this day.
I watched the Life after People documentary as well. It's been something I've been wanting to watch for quite some while. I love the idea of a world without people and the slow decay of our cities. Would make an excellent setting for Larps or paintball if nothing else :oP I don't tend to like tv documentaries because it always feels like they stretch out very little material into a large amount of time... sometimes most of the information can be summed up on an A4 piece of paper :oP That being said, this one was quite good and worth watching if only for the visuals.
Started watching (but didn't yet finish) Aftermath: Population Zero, which was okay. Seemed lower budget and the tone was more cartoonish (another danger of any kind of 'disaster documentary', there's no need to ham it up for Christ's sake... you're not Batman, you don't need to put on some unbelievably deep voice just to tell me what's going on...)
Friday I actually did something social and went down Dungeon to see LittleCyberAlex and ThePussyKat, which was fun. It was a Friday so themed (western this time) but I ignored that as usual (not a big fan of themes!). There may be some silly photo of me wearing LittleCyberAlex's hat and holding his water pistol though :o/
Ended up extending the night by going to Edge afterwards with Chrissie and pals, which was also fun. Only problem is that I'd arrived at Dungeon at nine and I don't think my body is used to staying up until four drinking any more :oP Ended up crashing soon after getting back to Chrissie's, which probably missed the point. :oP Emily gave me a lift back to mine in the morning though :o)
The original intention was to meet up with Lacuna_Raze at MetalShez's and head to Dungeon but we ended up deciding we were both too tired and opted for a night in instead :oP Did mean that we got to watch Peep Show at last though :oD
Sunday Littlecyberalex came over and we played a few games of Risk 2210 as well as Necromunda, just to make sure that we got some geeking in before the end of the week :oP Must play more Risk really, am a big fan but rarely get enough people around to play it properly. :o)
Diary: Week of 21/09: Geeking online and Dungeon :oP
Another very quiet week :oP Watched a few films and played a lot of Risk online. Risk isn't really the same without the social element of having people actually there though :o/ One of the sites did have a bunch of variant maps that looked like they'd be fun if I could print them out onto a large enough sheet and then play normally though :o) Anything to keep Risk different and interesting I suppose :o)
I watched Hancock as well, but it left me disappointed. I really liked the idea of a disenfranchised superhero struggling to really care or feel motivated but that cuts out about half way through in order to advance an increasingly silly, shallow and entirely different plot line. Big shame.
Had another job centre appointment on Wednesday. Am increasingly noticing that their job machines have little of interest on them, with the few jobs that are interesting being too far away or I've already applied for them. Thankfully I seem to be doing a good job of finding them online by myself though :o)
Lacuna_Raze came around on Friday and we went out to Dungeon on Saturday, which was fun. Seems like Dungeon may be livening up again with more people out. I hope that sticks :oD
Thoughts: Sharia Law Courts etc
Last week, I countered a number of examples of where privileged people's victim complexes cause them to feel discriminated against even when no discrimination is happening and, even if it is, it's not doing any harm anyway (certainly can't be equated to discrimination against marginalised groups).
I'd just like to expand on a few Islam-related examples where people leap to bizarre conclusions.
One of the more recent attempts to pretend that the UK has somehow become biased towards Islam was a post I found on Wtf_Inc ( linky). Basically, it was someone expecting people to be shocked at Lloyds bank supplying a Shariah-law compliant bank account for Muslims; meaning no interest on anything, including overdrafts.
I'm not sure what the poster thought was going on here because it would seem bizarre to suggest that Lloyds was going out of it's way to show favouritism towards Islam for no particular purpose, as if any bank is going to willingly pursue any end other than profit. It's not just Lloyd's either, Natwest's main two accounts are the Current and Current Plus accounts, with the former offering no interest, which is basically only left as an option for those people with religious rules barring them taking advantage of the latter.
And that is it, of course, whilst Lloyd's Shariah-law compliant account does have a few perks (such as a different way of paying for use of overdraft) it also lacks interest on the money you do have, which is why it's not being advertised to non-Muslims - because no one would want it. Of course, if you really feel hard done by then just get a Shariah-Law compliant account yourself... or did you think they were going to send people out to spy on you and check that you're praying five times a day before they let you have one?
Daft.
Another one I found very bizarre was back when the 'Mega-Mosque' was announced to be built in London, costing around 75 million pounds. Despite none of the articles implying such a thing, again and again, I read through people on various sites complaining about the government spending such an amount of money on Islam. Of course, the Government wasn't building it or paying for it and it was all privately funded but let's not let that get in the way of complaining about government favouritism. Apparently, in order to prove that the government isn't biased it has to ban the construction of a religious temple paid for by the people of that religion. :o/
I've already written about people's objections to Muslim women wearing the Veil: linky
So, now a big one... Sharia Law Courts: linky
Cue people claiming it's one rule for 'us' and one rule for 'them'.
Of course, Sharia Law Courts are Arbitration Tribunals which are based on the Right of Arbitration that we all have, so actually it's all very equal. To put it simplistically, the basic principle is that two people can bring their civil disputes before an agreed-upon arbitration tribunal and have the results legally binding rather than pursue normal channels if they both agree.
Basically then, if you find yourself in dispute with someone and you would both prefer to have it settled by someone else then that's allowed, which is what Sharia Law Courts are as well as the Arbitration Tribunals used by some Jews. That should be okay right?
There's been extra controversy because some people feel that the courts have been over-extended because they have made rulings on criminal matters. I'm not going to talk about specific examples but I'll use three hypothetical ones, two based vaguely on situations I've heard described in papers and the last purely hypothetical, to show why I just don't care.
(1)A man dies and his estate is inherited by his two sons and one daughter. A legal dispute arises as to who gets what. The sons and daughter agree to opt for a Sharia Law Court rather than process the dispute normally. The wealth is divided up unequally on gender grounds with the sons being given twice as much as the daughter.
This feels uncomfortable because it's sexist. However, it was agreed to by the daughter. Whilst I don't like it or agree with it, I'm not going to deny women the right to accept sexist situations when they arise, no more than I want the government to legislate what kind of family structures we are and are not allowed. I don't like it when women marry chauvinists but they have the right to.
(2)A woman is domestically abused. She presses charges conventionally thus threatening her husband with criminal charges. In order to avoid these charges, the husband agrees to be judged by a Sharia Law Court and the wife drops the charges. The Law Court finds the husband guilty and gives a mild sentence including mandatory anger management counselling.
This might seem distasteful for those of us who would have advised the woman involved to leave her husband or believe that the crime should have been punished harsher. However, we should remember that many women choose to not pursue legal action at all and stay with their abusers with no protection. If the court in this case gave the woman more options then I'm fine with that, as long as it is her choice (and she did still have the right to pursue it normally).
It may be the case that the wife might have felt pressured to use a Sharia law court by her community. Without this option, she might have felt pressured to pursue no legal action at all. Doesn't seem like much of a difference there.
(3)A group of boys are guilty of murder. Conventional police investigation fails and they can not be punished by a criminal law court. However, the people in the group are Muslim and thus feel more inclined to be cooperative with a Sharia Law Court. They plead guilty and the Law Court sentences them.
That again may seem unsatisfactory, murder ought preferably to be punished conventionally by our established criminal law. Of course, that doesn't always happen... due to the neccesity of having a fair legal system some criminals go unpunished. If the Sharia Law Courts can appeal to the religious conscience of these people to create some kind of punishment for them then that seems a very good thing. Do note that the Sharia Law Court can't protect them from a Criminal Law Court but it can act as a fail-safe.
Now, I've not gone into great detail here. It might be that there are smaller issues with Arbitration Tribunals that need adjusting and individual cases that were mishandled but what I do hope to have shown is that the existence of Sharia Law Courts does not, in itself, show any favouritism towards Muslims. It is just the basic right to arbitration by an agreed upon third party, which is a fair and good right,
Link: What women want - okcupid survey - linky
Link: Government funded porn - linky
Link: Stop hounding the Prime Minister - linky
Link: Records of rape crime distorted - linky