Lies, Damned Lies and Hilali

Sheik 'Cat Meat' Hilali indulges in some taqiyya:

OUTSPOKEN Muslim cleric Taj al-Din al-Hilali says the Bible "mandates" the wearing of the veil by Christian women.

Writing in a new book, Sheik Hilali, who lost his job as mufti of Australia after comparing scantily clad women to uncovered meat, argues that the Bible and the Koran make similar demands of a woman's modesty.

No it doesn't and Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth quoted in the story calls it right:

(Forsyth) challenged Sheik Hilali's comments about the veil being "mandated" in the Bible, saying they were misleading.

"The New Testament does call upon people to dress modestly," he said. "But there is no understanding that women are commanded to wear the veil. But it is mandated that you should dress appropriately for your social context."

Could this be the start of a new PR offensive by Islamists?

Hilali seems to be working from the same playbook the the Muslim leaders who wrote "An Open Letter and Call from Muslim Religious Leaders", published late last year which appeared to highlight the similarities between Islam and Christianity.

An Open Call is a text book example of dissimulation and it is incisively dissected in this essay:

While addressed to a specific group of Christian leaders, the fact that it is an open letter widely disseminated by the world media means that world public opinion is another intended audience. Furthermore, certain terminology in the letter, as well as the choice of Qur`anic quotations cited, suggest that the letter is also intended for the global Muslim audience. It is not unusual in Islamic discourse for different messages to be delivered to the different audiences. This is permitted by the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya (dissimulation) which allows Muslims to practise deception in certain circumstances. It appears that the Christian vocabulary of the letter is intended to guide Christian readers to the erroneous conclusion that Islam and Christianity are basically identical religions, focusing on love to God and to the neighbour. The hidden messages for Muslims are contained in the many polemical quotations from the Qur`an.

Another example of the apparent use of taqiyya is the fact that some of the words in the Arabic version of the letter differ in meaning from those in the English version. For example, the word used for "neighbour" in the Arabic version of the letter is jar, a term which carries only a geographical meaning. It is not equivalent to the Biblical Hebrew word for neighbour, which is re`a (denoting kinship, even as close as a brother or sister). Yet there is another word for "neighbour" in Arabic which is closer to the meaning of the Hebrew re`a and which could have been used. This is the word qarib, which is used in Arabic Bibles and which more closely translates the Biblical original. It is also worth noting that Jesus Christ is not given the name used by Arabic Christians (Yasu` al-Masih), but the Islamic version (`Isa al-Masih).

Do read all of it.

The essay is from The Barnabas Fund, which provides aid and other support to persecuted churches around the world, and is an excellent primer on how taqiyya works and how to cut through the subtext to get at the real meaning of propaganda like An Open Call and Cat Meat's latest deception.

-- Nora

Fish In A Barrel

Anti-smoking campaigner Professor Simon Chapman says:

“I’m not one who believes in airbrushing history...”

Then exactly what is demanding that a memorial to racing driver Peter Brock, depicting him with his 1984 VK Commodore, have main sponsor Marlboro's logos erased from it?

The sculpture will stand in front of the National Motor Racing Museum, inside which is the actual car, complete with its evil livery.

Chapman would have made a good Communist.

Actually, he still could.

-- Nick

Game On

Nicky and I have been rather distracted by work hence the very sporadic posting both here and on Nifty Knick Knacks.

Here are a couple of games to entertain you in the meantime:

Awesome Blossom
How quickly can you slide rows and columns in this puzzler?

Bloxie!
It takes a quick mind and a quicker finger to click through this brain bender

-- Nora

The First Word That Comes Into Your Head

AAP reports:

IT might come as a surprise if you're struggling with the mortgage, the smog or the morning commute, but Sydney is apparently associated with the word "happiness".

One is reminded of the (probably apocryphal) tale of Aline Chretien, wife of long serving Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien who was asked by a reporter at his retirement dinner what she was most looking forward to.

Heavily accented, she is said to have replied: "Appiness’."

That's why Sydney's no surprise.

-- Nick

Blasphemy

Our modern day high priest, the sciencist, the oracles on matters ranging from the origin of the species to the future of the planet have been known, on occasion, to get it wrong.

Could this scandal be the 21st century's own Piltdown Man hoax?

The similarities are there:

Piltdown Man: The "Piltdown Man" is a famous hoax consisting of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen.

The Hobbit: University of New England archeologist Mike Morwood, announcing the discovery in October 2004, said the Hobbit was 1.06m tall, weighed about 25kg and had a brain the size of a chimpanzee's. Professor Henneberg and others have already aired doubts about the claims of Peter Brown, also of UNE, who described the fossil for science and declared it a new species, Homo floresiensis.

But there is a problem with our Homo floresiensis:

THE Hobbit, the tiny human fossil found in a cave on an Indonesian island in 2003 and claimed as a new species, was a modern human whose teeth had been worked on by a dentist, possibly in the 1930s, according to a scientist whose new book is set to inflame debate.

University of Adelaide professor of biological anthropology and comparative anatomy Maciej Henneberg says in his new book, The Hobbit Trap, that a lower left molar had a filling, a claim that threatens to blow out of the water conjecture by the fossil's describers that the Hobbit is 18,000 years old.

Mistakes are made when scientsts are so keen to prove their hypothesis, that they refuse to listen to any counterpoints.

-- Nora

If You Can't Shut Off The Shower, You Eventually Get Used To Being Wet

The reaction to this:

ONE of Queensland's most prestigious boys schools has told final-year students they can't take their gay partners to the senior formal.

...is predictable:

"We're talking about someone's identity here. The way that they feel and the way that they express themselves is basically being squashed by the school," said Dr Dwyer, who is writing a research paper on "How queer young people are policed".

It's the Madsen-Kirk end play.

-- Nick

He Saw Trouble Coming

Entertainers - they're so much more insightful than us ordinary people:

Jamie Redfern, who became a household name through Young Talent Time in the 1970s... said he was worried when he heard that Channel 9 was looking for kids with forthright parents.

"Call it intuition, but I sensed trouble and a negative situation," he said.

Genius.

-- Nick

The Omega Man

Had the privilege of a one-on-one face-to-face interview with Charlton Heston in the 1980s.

It was, quite literally, the highlight of my entire career as a journalist.

-- Nick

Red Ken's Kin

Man promises to do for city what he's done in his personal life:

MAYOR of London Ken Livingstone has sensationally admitted he has fathered three children in secret, in addition to the two he has already...

...Last night, Mr Livingstone launched a passionate defence of his right to keep his children secret, claiming Londoners would not mind...

..."I don't think anybody in this city is shocked about what consenting adults do," he told the BBC. "As long as you don't involve children, animals or vegetables they leave people to get on and live their own life in their own way."

His action do involve children - his own.

-- Nora

More Junk

Myth busted:

There is no solid evidence that drinking plenty of pure water is good for the skin, wards off weight gain or helps rid the body of toxins.

Instead, most of us get all the fluids we need to avoid dehydration from food and other drinks, including tea and coffee.

Surely not! 'The Water Health Report' reveals how:

How eight glasses a day keeps the weight off!

and Jennifer Thoden, author of How To Heal Your Adult Acne Naturally, tell us on about.com:

How 8 Glasses of Water a Day Can Keep Acne Away

The mythbusters note:

The idea that those who fail to drink enough water suffer health problems became widespread in the 1990s.

Gullible times, the '90s. Wonder what other junk science we were fed then?

-- Nick