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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

Try and put me in a burqua and you die.

Ysabel Howard

40 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • nick g.

    Now that’s an extreme over-reaction! Couldn’t she just knock him out, shake hands with him afterwards, and both of them go their ways? (Unless, of course, she’s talking about a politician- in which case, I’ll supply the gun!)

  • Seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction to me, Nick.

  • countingcats

    Here, on Queenslands Gold Coast, the intellectual content may not reach mountenous heights, but the quantity of lithe, young, tanned and athletically toned female skin on display is sufficient to keep any non hormonally challenged male both happy and bemused.

    I also will fight to keep it unburquaed.

  • Plamus

    In my humble opinion, some really bad movies were well worth it because of a single line (or a couple of lines) in them. To quote “The Mummy”: “Death is only the beginning.” I am the perennial pessimist, but my faith in Western civilization lives because a couple of female friends of mine, who would not normally touch a non-kitchen-looking knife, let alone a gun, last night both held up two of my biggest knives and said (gimlets in their “unarmed” hands): “Well, he may not die, but he’d wish he had!”
    Cheers to the ladies!

  • Nick: absolutely surreal.

  • countingcats

    Nick,

    Yeah, saw that earlier today.

    I am sorry, but that is sick. What sort of society does that to its members.

  • countingcats

    Actually, the Islamic attitude to covering women is taken from 7thC fashions of Byzantium.

    It was just fashion, the Greeks moved on.

  • Nick M

    countingcats,
    Sick, perhaps, but I’m thinking more along Alisa’s lines that that image is just bizarre. It’s alien and weird. Considering that the UAE is rather a warm place (like your Gold Coast) it is truly odd that the “dress code” for women is so different in both places. It’s 50C and the sun is shining and I’m going to go out wearing a jet-black tent… It does not compute. Well, not for me anyway. I just can’t get to finding it sick because I’d have to comprehend it first.

    OK, this is why it’s surreal. It just displays a bizarre relativism off dressedness. To me Laura Bush just looks rather demurely dressed as one would expect a First Lady to be but to those black objects she must look practically starkers (not work safe). It’s just weird.

    I hope that link and my use of the word “objects” doesn’t upset anyone. I do hope though that it makes people think. Surely covering someone’s face objectifies them more than them revealing a bit (actually a lot with that link) of flesh?

    Now, if you think the original picture bizarre, this will blow your mind.

  • OMDG, this tops it all, Nick, even the suicide bombings. I’m serious. This is the culture I am supposed to view as equally valid as my own? And mind you, the women are just as depraved as the men. To hell with the lot of them. (No, I am not a racist, I am a culturist).

  • Nick’s link to LGF reminded me of this.

  • Nick M

    Rob,
    I knew before I clicked what picture you’d link to. Is it a setup? I’ve heard it being described as such before. It just looks a little too pat.

  • RAB

    Nick, your link truely is insane!
    Er ‘ang on a minute though. This couldn’t be a sisterhood sharing scheme that the husbands havent been let in on, could it?
    My hubby has a wanger like Moby Dick Fatima.
    Has he? I’d like to try that. Mine knows more positions than the Karma Sutra.
    What’s the Karma Sutra?
    You’ll find out. What say we swop veils and…
    The typical Muslim response is in the comments section by one aDAN among others, condemming Alarabia for publishing the story at all, and worse still in ENGLISH.
    The commentator doesn’t want to do anything about this barking mad practice but to stop us Kaffirs finding out how primitive and ignorant they are!

  • Nick M: you could be right. It seems to come from a blog called noticiasdeeurabia — and I have no idea what that is because the web proxy at work has decided I’m not allowed to see it!

  • Nick M

    RAB,
    The cute way to do the “identical sister” trick without the identical sister occurred to me too. But so did the fact that these people are nucking futz.

    Alisa,
    It’s not a culture… It’s a group psychopathology. It has to be. I mean this is collective insanity, right?

  • Nick: quite possibly, yes, but why does is matter? Are we going to put all of them on a couch and ask them if they ever saw their parents naked?

  • Nick M

    Oh no Alisa, I don’t believe in any of that primal scene nonsense. As The only therapy they need is applied with a ball-peen hammer. Still, I’ll stand by the idea of mental illness or something similar. All you learn at school is to recite a book you can’t actually properly read and five times a day you bang your head on a prayer mat and you don’t think that would make mentally a little… unusual? No games no beer, no music, no art, no hanging with the other sex and life’s generally shit and you’re told all the time this is entirely the fault of Zionist-Crusaders. I think that might make you totally bonkers. Oh, and the second most important belief in your life is that the most perfect person who ever existed was an illiterate, intolerant, possibly epileptic, probably mad, sexually depraved peadophile, warlord, plunderer, rapist, oath-breaker, camel-piss drinking incestous fucker with a highly “original” take on Jewish and Christian theology who apparently was selected by the grand high poobah of the entire Universe to deliver the final message to creation.

    Now please tell me that isn’t mad? Raving fucking nutz, two falafel short of a meze, four quarters short of a buck, no oars in the water, totally kangaroo on a space-hopper, pulling a wheelie on a unicycle, playing a hornpipe on a hatstand raving demented to the point of yodeling underwater insane.

  • Countingcats

    Now please tell me that isn’t mad? Raving fucking nutz, two falafel short of a meze, four quarters short of a buck, no oars in the water, totally kangaroo on a space-hopper, pulling a wheelie on a unicycle, playing a hornpipe on a hatstand raving demented to the point of yodeling underwater insane.

    You sure about this? I thought I detected a bit of equivication there.

  • Nick M

    OK, three falafel short of a meze…

  • Nick, at the risk of you telling us what you really think, I still stand by my assertion that it does not really matter whether they are certifiably mental or not. As unenlightened as this may sound, some times one needs to find a solution to a problem, regardless of what the origins of the problem are. Speaking of which: what’s ball-peen hammer? It doesn’t sound like much, but I like the general direction.

  • Midwesterner

    balls Noun. 1. Testicles. Usually in plural.

    peen to draw, bend, or flatten by or as if by hammering with a peen

    ham·mer n. 1. A hand tool that has a handle with a perpendicularly attached head of metal or other heavy rigid material, and is used for striking or pounding.

    I’m sure Nick thinks that it is a hammer used to peen balls, but it is actually a hammer with a ball shaped peen.

    🙂

  • Mid; thanks, helpful as ever – I had no idea what “peen” is. Talk about people separated by uncommon language:-)

  • Nick M

    Mid,
    I knew what a b-p h was. I would suggest that “balls” is always a plural, though this case might be instructive.

    Alisa,
    The sets “Mad” and “Bad” have a considerable intersection and Islamists occupy the dead centre of it. Mockery was an important tactic against Herr Hitler too. Just like the Fuerher they are unhinged and evil. The actions of Mohammed Atta were evil but they were also clearly unhinged.

    I am absolutely making no apologies for these people on the basis of them being demented but demented they were as well as being evil.

  • Well, I guess this can be useful in a “know thy enemy” kind of way, but it can also be dangerous to fall on the “they are mentally ill” angle. So I still insist not delving into this question too deeply.

  • Nick M

    Alisa,
    I apologize if I have given the impression that by “mental illness”, “madness” or any of the many euphemisms and circumlocutions I have used I was in anyway suggesting that this was in anyway a problem to be solved by psychiatrists or the ilk…

  • Nick: that was not my entire point. Think of a rabid dog. I don’t know about you, but I love dogs. But still, when faced with a rabid one, it would be unwise to start thinking in terms of “this is a sick animal, that otherwise would be quite friendly and even useful, not to mention lots of fun”. Running for your life could be a good strategy if you are unarmed, I am not an expert. But someone will have to shoot the dog, eventually, hopefully before it bites someone else.

  • Nick M

    Alisa,
    I almost used the rabid dog analogy. I also almost said I want to have a think about all of this because I almost thought of something really clever but it slipped away…

    I typed my musings then deleted.

    I trimmed my last post of rabid dogs and philosophical speculation because it was nowhere near fully formed. But I stand by my bonkers thing. I’ve looked into the basement of Islam and it isn’t the jihad or “apes and pigs” stuff that astounded me… It was the “little things”, the whole sum of which is greater than the parts. Remember where “knees” came from? Murdering someone because you want to steal their car is evil but it has a rational objective. murdering someone for showing their knees in public is just as evil but is there a rational objective?

    But, I can’t express, yet, how I feel about the process of indoctrination which can twist someone’s thought patterns so… Well, not beyond what I said on Perry’s totalitarionism thread above.

  • I think the rabid dog analogy is a useful way to frame the issue. It is consistent with reality, at the same time stressing the important aspects of it, while not dwelling to much on the less relevant ones.

    Is there a rational objective within the “knees” ban? I think there is: it is exercising power and control over others. Not very new, is it, and quite universal as well. What is strange is the issues over which they choose to exercise power and control. That is what is telling about this particular culture, and that is what we are having trouble wrapping our western minds around.

  • Midwesterner

    Well … It’s not a burqua. Little baby steps.

  • Nick M

    Alisa,
    What is strange is the issues over which they choose to exercise power and control

    Exactly! A culture/polity/organization/religion has to have rules but … but the real question is do they make any sense?

    Which brings me onto…

    Mid,
    Did ya read through the comments on that link! I noted the use of the word “respect”. Yadda, yadda – will to live ebbing, crap about rape stats in the USA and some nutter saying Laura Bush looks “more beautiful” in a hijab which I always thought was pi radians from the point.

    And a thought just occurred. If as is so frequently claimed that the hijab is a vital religious thing and shouldn’t be banned (cf French schools) then… Isn’t it a mockery for a Christian woman to wear one? I mean I wouldn’t ponce around wearing a yamulkah or wear a crucifix or adopt a Sikh turban.

    Anyway, as far as the antics of Mrs Bush are concerned remember us Brits always get there first.

    BTW, Mid, you used to smoke a pipe!? Tell me more!

  • nick g.

    Nick M, I used to smoke a pipe. Then someone told me about tobacco….. much easier!
    I still think that just trying to get Ms Howard into a Burqa should only merit a broken arm, not a shooting! I would make an exception for a politician, but the punishment should reflect the crime. In fact, if he gives you a burqa, why not just keep it for now, and sell it later?

  • RAB

    Nick M.
    I’ll have you know, I look very fetching in my Fez.
    Juss like that!

  • Paul Marks

    I rather fancy the idea of Deerstalker headgear on a cold day. Caps and hats leave my ears to get cold – and balaclavas can be irritating.

    However, I have never bought a Deerstalker.

  • Midwesterner

    One of my pipes was a beautiful classic calabash. It would have fit well with a deerstalker cap. (Even if S.H. never actually wore that combination.)

    I also had a couple of nice Zenith clays, a number of various briars, a cherry churchwarden (cheap pipe, fractured and I bound it with string but still one of my favorite smokes), an interesting pocket pipe, and probably some more I am forgetting. I had wanted to buy some meerschaums. A bent for general use and a couple of carved ones for pampering. They develop a beautiful hue. I had my eye on a carved lion. Most of my pipes were stolen out of my car back in the early eighties. It was a convertible so I never locked the doors; I hid stuff under the seats or carried it in with me. I thought I was parked in a safe place. Oops.

    Our sheriff’s department explained to me that it was not possible to lift finger prints off of highly polished classic show cars. This was at about the same time that same department was knowingly framing a couple of known criminals for a capital crime so they could announce success before the election.

    I am so glad that there are people like Sunfish and a local friend of mine wearing law enforcement uniforms.

    Just remembered, I also had a Zenith clay churchwarden. Not real common.

  • Nick M

    Shame about that Mid. I’ve been considering investing in a hookah. It would go excellently with RAB’s fez and add to my general air of loucheness. The missus over-ruled me on getting a pipe – nasty, smelly things etc.

    I was a bit surprised to hear that you practiced the nobler form of the Ars Nicotinia. I can’t see it going with being a system developer image-wise although I suspect that produces it’s fair share of three-pipe problems…

  • Midwesterner

    For pure smoking pleasure, a hookah is an excellent choice although notably eccentric. The missus is wrong about the smell of quality tobacco in a well maintained pipe. Everywhere I smoked with friends, if their wives were along they lectured their husbands to smoke something like I was smoking. (And I did NOT smoke scented or flavored aromatics!) I wasn’t joking about people seeking out and sitting where the clouds of my second hand smoke wafted around them.

    If you are serious about smoking a pipe, email me. It is definitely a decision requiring thought and advice. Just buying, stuffing and igniting one is almost guaranteed to be a disaster. But if you turn out to be a natural pipe smoker it will bring you great pleasure and satisfaction. Same to you RAB if you’ve never enjoyed pipe smoking, I could see you as a quintessential pipe smoker.

    One comment, if you have had a bad experience with a pipe, you were getting bad advice. I almost gave up until I broke with the advice and followed my nose and my temperament.

  • I’m curious as to how this person thinks that anyone could possibly force her into a Burqua. I mean even if you consider Turkey and Iraq to be easy targets, since they are mostly Muslim, the Iranians would have to cross 5 small countries, and then Austria, and then defeat Germany, in order to gain control of any notable industrial plant, which would be required in order to fight a war. Now the notion of 1 billion screaming Muslims with the German industrial plant behind them is disturbing, until you consider that right now, we are faced with 1 billion screaming Muslims with the German industrial plant in front of them. Any industrial nation can easily convert to a war footing, and Germany would already be self sufficient on defense, were it not for the fact that if America prefers to do it for them, the Germans are not stupid enough to insist on paying for it themselves. Faced with a threat, I think that Germany could quite easily resist an external enemy.

  • Nick M

    Rich Paul,
    Bloody hell, this isn’t Risk you know? The idea of the Iranians, Arabians or whatever uniting and going onto roll-up the rest of the world into a unified caliphate is a pipe-dream fit only for when Osama has had some really bad opium.

    The problem lies within. It is internal Islamicization that is the real threat to Ms Howard and the rest of us. How real a threat is that? Well, if you lived in some of the English inner city areas I have then it certainly feels very real. Then of course there is rampant dhimmitude all over the place.

  • RAB

    My grandfather, indeed most of my relations, used to smoke a pipe Mid.
    I was always facinated as a child, the ritual that went into the whole thing. The pipe cleaners and bowl scrapers. The preparation, rubbing the mixture and tamping it down, just so, then firing it up. It took ages or seemed so to me. Way too much hassle for hip groovy guys on the move, like me.
    Gramp would stick his in his pocket without making sure it was properly out. Lost a few jackets that way.
    I dont have a Deerstalker, but I do have a Russian Border guard type jobbie, with the Deputy Dawg earflaps. Except is an East German one I bought in the Army and Navy Stores one bitter winter, and just like communism, it doesn’t work.
    It doesn’t keep your head warm being made of some kind of fluff sprayed on an unidentifiable fabric. It is irritating as hell and it smells funny. I’d give it to a charity shop, but I’m sure they wouldn’t take it.
    I also have one of those Egyptian nightshirts and headgear that I was forced to buy for a fancy dress party in Egypt. But I’ll give it its due; in the heatwave last year it proved to be a very cool garment indeed!
    Yes the enemy is already within Rich Paul.
    The schoolgirl Burqua case in England was a set up from start to finish (has it finished? probably still on Appeal). They are using our Laws against us. The slow drip drip drip of attrition. Their game plan is long term. Our politicians cant see past the next Election.

  • Paul Marks

    “It does not keep the head warm”.

    Astonishing RAB

    For a thousand years (ever since some Slavs started to apply the Norse word “Rus” to themselves rather than just to their Norse overlords) the Russians had made headgear that kept the head warm (in the worse of winters), and you have informed me that the Marxists managed to fail even in that.

    Just when I thought I would never hear a new point against socialism.

    Rich Paul.

    Sadly the forcing into Islamic dress has already started.

    In some of the towns and cities of (for example) France some non Muslim women now dress to “pass” as Muslims – it makes rape by Muslims less likely.

    Also, within the Islamic communities themsleves, there is pressure for more “Islamic” dress – even though there is no justifcation in the Koran for the full Burqua – and some styles were invented as recently as the 1970’s.

    That is right – some styles are about as “traditional” as a “Darth Vader” costume (although it is dangerious to say so).

    On a pipe smoking:

    “Uncle Bill” (a family friend who used to talk to me about Iraq and so on, when I was a child) was a pipe smoker.

    A very civilized man.