Archive for November, 2007
The Best Star Trek Monsters Evah
by Gardener on Nov.23, 2007, under Humor
What, no Tribbles?
Enjoy, closet Trekkies (or is it Trekkers?). You know who you are.
Did You Know . . .
A swimming pool is a good play area for children. But installing one means worrying about pool filters, disinfection etc. It is better to consult a pro for any swimming pool questions regarding to cleaning. They usually recommend professional pool cleaners. They even come up with healthy swimming ideas, that should be followed at any cost.
Islam = Fewer Political Rights
by Gardener on Nov.23, 2007, under Middle East
Exporting Democracy to the Middle East
While heavy on the statistics and regression analysis, the Middle East Forum seems to reach a pretty solid conclusion after weighing the evidence: The more Islamic the country, the fewer the political rights. This conclusion would seem obvious to most who follow world events, but I think that it bears thinking about in terms of our current and future entanglements in the Islamic world and “nation building” in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course there have been free and fair elections in Iraq. But there have also been elections in Gaza and one can hardly conclude that because the people cast a vote, that they have expressed a will to be “free” as any in the West would understand the term. So absent some method of extracting Islam from the body politic, much like Ataturk managed in the early part of the 20th century, can true democracies ever develop in the Islamic world? We may have to wait a long, long, long time to find out if our experiment in Iraq bears fruit.


