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I love the Danes One consequence of the recent Danish cartoon saga has been that wherever I have travelled to recently, I have found myself in supermarkets seeking out Danish products, just to make sure that stores and customers are still offering and buying them, and that any supposed boycotts of Danish products are not working. My perception arriving in a Chinese supermarket last week was that the Chinese don’t give an <expletive> about whether anyone has drawn cartoons of the prophet Mahommed, and so I was expecting I might see a pack of two of Lurpak on the shelves or something like that. And I did.
The representation of Danish products was actually excellent, with lots of cheeses as well, including many that would be illegal in Europe. However, when one looks carefully at that picture, one discovers something much more interesting. Look at that word in the top right hand corner of the butter label.
So, there is clearly no problem. Eating this fine Danish butter is cleary fine with Allah. Nothing to worry about then.
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with lots of cheese as well, including many that would be illegal in Europe.
You intrigue me, how can cheese be illegal?
BTW did any of the Chinese think it odd that you photographed their dairy products?
Now that would have caused me an ethical dilemma.
I go out of my way to buy Danish – and boycott anything “halal”!
The whole notion of “halal” is so repulsive that I wouldn’t be able to eat buttered toast with “halal” without wretching. In fact, I wouldn’t even try.
I too go out of my way to buy Danish butter, but when I go to the supermarket today, I’m going to check that it doesn’t say “halal”. Barf!
I assume that the Danes are offloading the “halal” rubbish that was banned in centres of civilisation like Saudi Arabia and Yemen in China.
Who cares about the dietary strictures of some filthy, ignorant desert tribal people of 1500 years ago – as laid down in the person of an ignorant, probably epilectic, illiterate paedophile?
Nick M – a lot of cheeses are banned by the some EU countries – and even more in the US – because they are not pasteurised.
There’s more than a few Chinese Muslims, hence the Halal label.
Verity’s hysterical racist rant tells me all I need to know about Samizdata.
Verity,
“Passed-your-eyes” – well I guess it will, briefly, on the way to the toilet bowl. I knew our Lords and Mandelsons prevent us from doing anything injurious to ourselves. Gawd bless’em all!
I’m still intrigued by the cheese the EU won’t let me eat. Damn it, I want illicit cheese! I find cheese to be addictive. My girlfriend was a vegan until I came down early one morning and caught her scraping my parmesan onto her toast. Banged to rights, the cheese thief! I didn’t press charges. She reverted to vegetarianism afterwards. And I’m working on her further. I reckon tuna by 2008 and a sirloin by 2010.
And, PaulT, your reaction to the truth tells me everything I need to know about you.
PaulT: “Verity’s hysterical racist rant tells me all I need to know about Samizdata.”
Moslems are not a race. Silly boy!
I agree with Verity, and likewise will not buy or use anything marked ‘halal’ – I am not a muslim after all, and do not wish to pollute my system with their crap.
PaulT – If you can find anything in Verity’s post which is not in the koran , suras or hadith, I for one would be interested to hear it.
PS. I thought past your eyes was when the stuff was stacked up high 🙂
PaulT, the fact that you think someone who happens to live in the comments here tells you “all you need to know” about a site tells me…well, all I need to know about you, and why you think Muslims are a race. Funny, that.
What is more, Paul T, they didn’t have much water, except what they put in gourds in the oasis to take with them for drinking. Can you you imagine what they smelled like?
Why is being epilectic (sic) being used as a term of abuse?
Who said it was?
PaulT,
Verity is not a racist. Her “rant” was not racist. If you’ve seen enough of the Samizdatistas that you wanna clear off for good, good riddance.
As someone who has lived all my adult life in UK inner citiy areas I can only concur with Verity’s assesment of Halal meat. Halal butchers are filthy and this is allowed in the UK because the inspectors treat them with kid gloves because “it’s their culture isn’t it”. There are several halal butchers up my road and they are all unbelievably filthy. There are two Irish run butchers as well (one pointedly advertising itself as a “Pork & Bacon Specialist”) and they are stunningly clean, with properly qualified staff who are knowledgeable and helpful. They also sell excellent meat.
Now for the main course PaulT, Islam is a belief system (I can’t bring myself to dignify it with the term “religion”) it is not an ethnicity. Slagging off Islam is not the same thing as criticising brown folk. I’ve said this on Samizdata till the cows come home. So has Verity.
Sorry for the lateness of this reply, BT have managed to screw-up my phone-line, periodically nixing ADSL
I certainly don’t understand getting so upset about a food label. In theory marking a food product halal isn’t any different from marking it kosher (as long as it’s the result of the producer’s reacting to the market and not some kind of government edict).
Not belonging to either religion I don’t pay any attention to either (and I’m a label reader by habit).
Maybe you haven’t noticed that Arla Foods apologized to muslims by a series of full-page ads in the Saudi press. Dhimmitude in its purest form, and it worked. Arla is no longer boycotted. Yes, that’s the way it is.
It’s just that someone who was subject to seizures and was also illiterate seems a somewhat quixotic choice to take notes from god for a new, all-seething, all-raving religion.
PaulT – I wish you lefties would look the word “rant” up in the dictionary and then perhaps you would stop automatically joining it at the hip with “racist”.
Do try to be more original when insulting literate people, there’s a good chap.
What is more, Paul T, they didn’t have much water, except what they put in gourds in the oasis to take with them for drinking. Can you you imagine what they smelled like?
I think the Koran (or is it the Hadith) suggests the drinking of camel urine. Indeed Mohammed himself partook of the camel-piss.
Gawd bless John Mills. At the end of a trip across the desert he had a Carlsberg. Because that was the pivotal scene of “Ice Cold in Alex” they used real, rather than fake beer and Sir John was ratted by the 8th take…
It may be the religion of peace but you wouldn’t wanna kiss ’em.
If Muhammed was illiterate how did he transcribe the final accurate inmutable word of God?
SJG
Nice post, Michael. BTW, what did the folk in the shop make of you taking photos? Did they give you any funny looks?
Good question, Simon Gibbs. I have read that Mohammad couldn’t read or write – which at the time and place is highly likely – and he would therefore have had to remember everything he was told and go to a scribe and recite it all back. Seems as though god could have cut out the middle man and gone to the scribe direct.
OTOH, maybe this is why they place such a high value on memorising the Koran. They even have Koran reciting competitions in countries where they don’t speak Arabic.
“Halal” does not equal “Kosher” – I’ve had experience of both. Kosher has some weirdness – notably the milk / meat seperation – no cheeseburgers for the jews, but is mostly a rational scheme of food-rules for a society in a hot climate without refrigeration. A lot of it is still vaild in the C21 UK. It’s just basic food hygiene and the guys who work for UK Beth Dins are highly trained in this.
Halal is, from my experience, by and large utterly filthy. I’ve seen halal butchers in the UK wearing “white” coats that haven’t been laundered since the dark-ages unloading mutton carcasses onto the pavement. The Dame Judi almost made me lose my breakfast.
Can you imagine if the only way to read the Bible was in Aramaic? Only Mel Gibson could understand it!
I have read that Mohammad couldn’t read or write – which at the time and place is highly likely – and he would therefore have had to remember everything he was told and go to a scribe and recite it all back. Seems as though god could have cut out the middle man and gone to the scribe direct.
Up until printing arrived in early modern Europe (the Chinese cracked it much sooner) most people, even the very wealthy, had to memorise vast amounts of literature. The Romans felt it also was essential preparation for a life in politics, for example, and this tradition, until recently, was essential for those learning the art of public speaking.
Easy there, Verity. I think it’s all well and good to be resisting Islamic Jihad but let’s have some perspective. Do you actually know what “halal” is? And of course you might well be speaking of “kosher” as I think that there is some connection between it and “halal.” What is your gripe with “halal”? You don’t have to follow it if you don’t want but why the vitriol? Taking your own name too seriously?
More broadly, there is a difference between rejecting “multiculturalism” and a bit of tolerance for others.
I just have this subtle feeling that there wasn’t a lot to memorise in the desert in the 14thC.
I also have a feeling that any memorised stories and poetry would have come out of Persia.
Raw Data Complex – Halal is a revoltingly cruel way of killing animals. They “sacrifice” each animal. How can anyone “sacrifice” the life of another? The only person who can sacrifice a life is the owner of that life. This is ridiculous and disgusting.
Verity – you did!
filthy, ignorant desert tribal people of 1500 years ago – as laid down in the person of an ignorant, probably epilectic, illiterate paedophile?
If epilepsy isn’t meant as a term of abuse in that tirade, then why is it relevant to what you appear to think is a point?
First, Ian, go and look up tirade in the dictionary. I am bored with responding trite, illiterate usage from self-righteous nitpickers.
I think if you are taking down the direct word of god, in your mind, given that you couldn’t read or write, it is relevant that at some intervals you may have suffered an epilectic seizure and forgotten some of it. Or misremembered it. It is the only explanation.
Garbage Verity. You spout it regulary and your comments on this this post are no exception. Your talent for taking any post off topic with poisonous insults is unmatched. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the equivalent of a kill-file for blog comments or you would have been in it long ago.
– and before you start accusing anyone of being illiterate – the word is EPILEPTIC. One mistake might be a typo but not twice in separate posts.
Thank you and good night
If one references the hadiths (the life of Mo) there are several stories from his compatriots about his fits. Apparently, he would fall on the floor, foam at the mouth and twist into strange positions. When he recovered, he had apparently had another ‘vision’ from this allah guy.
This can be found in several places on the net, or try referencing the hadiths through Jihad Watch or similar.
I dont set up to be a quack, but he sounds epileptic to me – or perhaps just plain old batshit crazy.
Halal is the Moslem copy cat version of kosher and kosher in my opinion has long past its sell by date. What might have been good dietary sense several thousand years ago is ludicrous today but if that’s the way kosher observants want it so be it.
It’s not for me to tell them of the joys of scoffing a toasted blt any more than it’s their business to chastise me for downing pulled pork at summer barbecues.
I certainly stand corrected on the spelling of epileptic.
But that Mohammad had seizures was well attested to at the time. That he was also illiterate and a paedophile would seem to make him an odd choice.
Verity says that: ” Seems as though god could have cut out the middle man and gone to the scribe direct.”
Maybe, but why even bother with a potentially fallible scribe. An intelligent alla-god could just have written the message with her laser pen directly on some convenient rocks or pieces of gold plates for all posterity to see.
“Moslems are not a race. Silly boy!”
“why you think Muslims are a race.”
Verity’s original post: “filthy, ignorant desert tribal people”
Sounds like an ethnic group to me.
“Can you you imagine what they smelled like?”
Surely not as bad as Euros of the time.
PaulT,
You pig-ignorant wanker. I’ve crossed swords with Verity more times than I care to mention. There are many terms I’d like to use about her but “racist” never figured because she isn’t a racist. She dislikes Islam, so do I.
One of Adolf Hitler’s first anti-Semitic measures, was to institute a ban on the kosher slaughtering of animals. Such a law had already been enacted in Bavaria in 1930. Significantly, the infamous Nazi “documentary” film Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), designed to sow hatred for Jews, contained a gruesome scene that utterly distorted the way in which animals are killed in accordance with Jewish law, depicting the practice as a barbarous custom in which Jews rejoice at the suffering of animals.
from:http://modiya.nyu.edu/handle/1964/489
How things change. And how things stay the same.
There is no connection to rational argument in the posts of this emotionally-driven, self-righteous, confused individual. Now we’ve got Hitler being used in evidence on the side of Islam? What is this?
And whatever you thought you were illustrating above, Paul T, it is not plus ça change, plus ça la même chose.
It’s pretty safe to note that whenever someone drags Hitler into an argument, he is admitting defeat.
Verity: “It’s pretty safe to note that whenever someone drags Hitler into an argument, he is admitting defeat.”
The accusation of racism is a lefties equivilient of the fuel air bomb, intended to obliterate discussion. When that fails, they deploy the nuclear option, the Hitler bomb.
APL – Well put. Certainly the accusation of racism is designed to close out the argument. I hadn’t thought of Hitler being the nuclear option, but you are right.
I think it’s called Godwin’s Law …
“I love the Danes.”
That’s an oddly collectivist conclusion to draw from the actions of one man in Denmark who is no more a Dane than are the Muslims in Denmark.
Verity if u know shit about muslims and jews then u wouldn’t be saying the crap ur saying. im a catholic and i dont eat ‘halal’ but a least i have moral and cultural respect. go study religion books and i guarentee you would actually end up liking the religions islam and judasim
You ‘guarentee’ it? I just love it when someone confuses a difference of opinion with ignorance. Sometimes the more you know about something, the less you like it… such as religion generally for example.
I am a former catholic and I do not have a great deal of respect for any religion. I tolerate other people’s religions (and demand they tolerate my lack of religion) but I do not have to respect their beliefs and do not expect them to respect mine either. People have a right to have their religious views (or lack thereof) tolerated, they have no right whatsoever to have them respected.