A daily dose of odds and sods, some interesting, some bizarre, some funny, some thought provoking items which I have stumbled across the web. All to be taken with a grain of daily salt!!
Quite an interesting overview of what Isis is all about son. Not that this argument is any new. When 9/11 happened, people were asking if The terrorists Did so for religious reasons? Answer is of course yes. The shooting of the black people at the church in South Carolina was due to religion. The racial and apartheid shown to Palestinians by the Jews is because of religion and when kids are married off young in India or they are burnt alive because they belong to a different caste, they are doing so because of religion. Btw the Esposito book referenced in the article is a load of rubbish. I reviewed the book. It's so intellectually incoherent. Religion is what adherents do. Not what's written in a book. A book by itself doesn't have the power. It needs somebody to execute those messages. Burning the book wouldn't help. I read about how the three sisters took their kids to Syria. Apparently they were brainwashed. So brainwashed that they are willing to leave a comfortable life here in the UK and go to a shithole like Syria? If religion isn't brainwashing turn what is? Rubbish. Best of luck with the exams son. Missing you and can't wait to see you this weekend Love Baba Mehdi Hasan: How Islamic is Islamic State? http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/03/mehdi-hasan-how-islamic-islamic-state (via Instapaper) An Isis propaganda video purporting to show the execution of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya. Photo: Rex Features
It is difficult to forget the names, or the images, of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning and Peter Kassig. The barbaric beheadings between August and November 2014, in cold blood and on camera, of these five jumpsuit-clad western hostages by the self-styled Islamic State, or Isis, provoked widespread outrage and condemnation.
However, we should also remember the name of Didier François, a French journalist who was held by Isis in Syria for ten months before being released in April 2014. François has since given us a rare insight into life inside what the Atlantic's Graeme Wood, in a recent report for the magazine, has called the "hermit kingdom" of Isis, where "few have gone . . . and returned". And it is an insight that threatens to turn the conventional wisdom about the world's most fearsome terrorist organisation on its head.
"There was never really discussion about texts," the French journalist told CNN's Christiane Amanpour last month, referring to his captors. "It was not a religious discussion. It was a political discussion."
Fascinating article and read the chapter 1 on the link given below. The two main reasons why Europe won so many empires is (1) they were better at their health and more disease resistant and (2) their gunpowder technology was much better.
Quite interesting, no?
So how will it work out going forward? USA do the same? As their health and military technology is the best? As th
Qing Dynasty measured some 14.7 million square kilometers in 1790…The two biggest countries in western Europe were under 0.7 million in the late eighteenth century. That is from Philip T. Hoffman's new and interesting Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, here is the book's home page. Hoffman does note, however, that if we count empires the Spanish empire was during that time larger than China.
