I want to sleep

The video was posted to YouTube. A young man murdered in Karachi in broad daylight by people who are assigned to protect life and liberty. People watched it. They posted horrified comments on Twitter and blogged about it like I am doing now. Soon enough Sarfaraz Shah will be forgotten like the many before him.

As I sat with my head in my hands, I wondered: How could they do it? I just don't get it. How could they?

I cannot help being reminded of my brother as I write this. 26 years old! What would it feel like to loose family in this way? How do you rationalize your way out of this? How could they watch him bleed to death in front of them? Did they feel anything? How could they not feel anything?

Against all the evidence, I have always believed in humanity. But the murderers were human themselves, perhaps more so than weaklings like me.

I am tired, so very tired; just want to sleep and not have to feel anymore.

Salman Taseer

I grew up in the times of Zia ul Haque. Born in 1975, living through the 80s, the one thing I remember about the dictator is his ubiquitous presence on media. It is therefore understandable that his rule or rather the PTV left permanent damage on my less than average intellect. I was / still am one of the sheep. To me, Salman Taseer was a giant of a man.

Admittedly, I only knew the man by his tweets and interviews that he did during the past few months. However, I have never been as impressed by any politician in Pakistan including Benazir. He 'lived' the life and was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in.

It got him killed. Perhaps a country of cowards like me don't deserve anyone like Salman Taseer.

Response to an article on domestic violence

Here's the original article:

http://tribune.com.pk/story/83607/can-wife-beating-ever-be-justified/

Many thanks to the author for the very helpful notes in parentheses without which I might have gotten the completely wrong idea! And as many if not more for Dr Zakir Naik's remarkable insight.
So here's how you deal with a sinning wife (with some helpful commentary in parentheses of my own)

1. Admonish her (now listen here you stupid git)

2. Refuse to have sex with her (On an unrelated note: Isn't there a hadith somewhere that says that a man can force his wife to have sex with him because it is his right. No wait that can't be right. Must have something to do with those words with 4 meanings that keep popping up all over the place whenever the faithful need them.)

3. Beat her senseless with a handkerchief (But be careful don't bruise the pretty thing that won't do at all. BTW, a hankie is one prop even Jackie Chan would have some trouble with!)

Of course you never reason with her. What would be the point of reasoning it out with "A WOMAN"? These are pearls of wisdom indeed!
Here are some topics for your next article:

1. There is no death penalty for apostasy in Islam

2. Miraculous description of the development of the embryo in the Koran (do not forget however, that where it says a 'clot', god actually meant something else!)

3. Islam is the religion of peace
PS. Did anyone bother to answer Arachnid? I am gonna go watch spider-man now

Education

I heard laughter. The door was flung open. She danced in, yelled 'bye'
to someone outside my field of vision, closed the door and ran to me
laughing all the while. As I took her in my arms she continued to
laugh. Happiness is infectious and before long I was laughing with
her.

I have met the usual string of teachers during my education and
barring a few, they have all been uninspiring individuals who didn't
deserve the title and didn't teach me anything that was not learned
better on my own. In the end I realized that no one else holds the
key; the pupil has to find true inspiration within himself.

But perhaps I was looking to the wrong teachers for my questions. My
daughter is two years old and is teaching me the most valuable lesson
of all: How to be happy. This is one course I can't fail!

What is wrong with being a girl in Pakistan?

I have a daughter. As she grows up I want her to have the same opportunities as any other child. I want her to be able to ride a bike, go for a swim on the beach, and run like mad no matter how old she gets. In Karachi, can a girl getting late for the varsity run after the bus like a boy can? Can she shout or whistle to hail a cab? At all times, a young girl has to be careful about what she does lest she attract (unwanted) attention.

Ever seen a guy riding a bike in his t-shirt and shorts on a hot day with a girl sitting behind draped from head to foot? Nobody thinks that is wrong but if ever a girl rides down a Karachi street on a bike on her own, every single guy will turn around to goggle at her and the mullahs and old women will shake their heads and murmur sanctimoniously about the decaying moral fiber of the youth.

Of course, there isn't much chance of anything changing. What I want is not that my daughter be able to ride a bike on her own anywhere. I want nobody to think there is anything amiss when she does. That of course is asking for the impossible!

Let's take this a bit further. For a young girl in a low income family who has to support her family, the choices are fairly limited. She had athletic ability at a time but could no longer play games in the street once the men started noticing that she was developing into a young woman so professional sports are out. She loved to sing but had to stop when an elderly uncle reminded her that it was not becoming to a woman. She can't take a job which involves working too late in the night. She can't be a cab driver, a fruit vendor or open a small general store of her own down the street where she lives because girls aren't supposed to do these things and it would ruin her 'chances' for the future.

Still, girls do manage to survive in this place. How? By subjugating themselves to the men around them. In most cases, even an intelligent woman still needs a husband or a brother or some other man in her life to survive. It doesn't matter who he is, as long as society is satisfied that she is accounted for and 'belongs' to a man. Otherwise she is a moral time bomb for the men around her. She is the root of evil even when she is the victim, particularly when she is the victim. Don't believe me? Look up the comments on the Khipro incident on the web. There is no shortage of people denouncing the girl. Why? Because she allowed something like this to happen to her. She allowed herself to be raped. What was worse, the video got posted on the net and now she is probably considered fair game by everyone since she is damaged goods.

There is no justice, not for a woman.

Holy traffic jams

Whats with the iftaar distribution on main Sharae Faisal? As usual the faithful like to cause maximum disturbance so they block all lanes to distribute food.

One minute everyone is rushing like their life depends on it, the next they are blocking traffic munching on dates.

It's pretty funny watching people drive recklessly to get to iftaar on time. Does God go: "Well he is late but at least trying hard to get there even if he almost kills everyone else on the road. Lots of sawab for him. Now let's block traffic to stop that bloody atheist blogger"

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.8

Android Market Enabler

Make sure you save the current operator setting. The phone wont connect edge on your network while faking another network.

This happens if you do not have an APN set already before using enabler.

Manual workaround is to set mmc and mnc to 410 and 06 from the Telenor operator code in Pakistan! The apn itself is internet and don't forget to type default in connection type.

Secular humanist, feminist and porn star!

The Humanist - a magazine of critical inquiry and social concern

Impressive.

Land of the brutes

In the aftermath of the Lahore massacre, a political leader is being castigated by the mullahs for saying that the victims deserve our sympathy. In the land of the alleged pure, you need to check the religion of the victims first before you can offer sympathy or condemn the crime.

 

I refuse to judge Islam by the watered down strain of fundamentalism practiced by its apologists. I judge it by the actions of its most ardent followers who have the most literal interpretation of its edicts. However, these brutes themselves with a holy book for a brain deserve pity more than anger. They are blinded by what they hold to be the ‘absolute truth’ of their religion.

 

The anger that I feel is mostly directed at the so called ‘moderate’ muslims. They are the ones that should be judged the harshest of all for allowing these barbarians to continue spewing hate with impunity. It is because these moderate muslims wouldn’t say anything that these people get away with murder! It is because in their hearts, these so called moderates also think of victims in terms of the muslim martyrs and the non-muslim dead.

 

Whoever came up with the ‘land of the pure’ title was most likely mentally unhinged. This is the land of the brutes!

 

State sponsored massacre of Ahmadis - May 28, 2010

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a danger to its own people and the rest of the world. Perhaps it is time we were exterminated!

War on Baloch women

The article by Rafia Zakaria in Dawn May 26 2010 makes for painful reading. While our media pundits talk non-issues to death, these barbaric crimes against women go unnoticed. Can’t anything be done?

 

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/rafia-zakaria-the-war-on-baloch-women-650

 

 

Pakistan bans Facebook and other idiocies

I have less than a dozen friends on Facebook and until a few days ago I would have been found ridiculing the crowd that flocks to this website.

 

Since the ban was announced, I started looking up various ways of logging on. Proxy servers seemed too unsafe to be sharing password information on so I started looking at personal VPN providers. In the end I coughed up quite a bit of money to log on to the site.

 

Why? As a self proclaimed heretic I consider it my duty to spend money to log on to Facebook and watch videos on YouTube thereby putting money in the coffers of the Zionist conspirators that would someday wipe us off the face of the earth.

 

More power to them and I hope they succeed. Ramen!

RE: Response to a dawn blog post

Address of the original post: blog.dawn.com/2010/03/16/the-women-and-the-myths/

Sent from my phone.

Response to a dawn blog post

Here is the original post:

generalizations are usually a bad idea unless you can back them up with logic. for instance i assert that heavily bearded guys in this part of the world are usually bad drivers :p why? bcoz most guys with beards are deeply religious and the belief that they have an invisible friend in the sky watching over them is not conducive to safe driving. besides, they "know" that are always right.

i am a guy and yet a bad driver for the simple reason that i took it up pretty late. i suspect that is the reason why some women are bad drivers. not all though.

as for shopping, women enjoy it because it comes naturally to them. i believe evolution primes females to be better at making difficult shopping choices by honing their mate selection skills. guys can be more wasteful of their reproductive energies and still manage to pass on their genes making them careless shoppers.

there is one thing that is definitely true though: guys dont know what they are talking about!

Sent from my phone

Life term for sending blasphemous SMS

According to yesterday's daily dawn a man was sentenced to a life term for sending blasphemous SMSes. Doesnt anybody else find this absolutely fucked up?

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/life-term-for-blasphemy-accused-620

Karachi blast and its aftermath

It doesn’t make sense. Our “leaders” are telling us that the bomb blast yesterday was a conspiracy to destabilize Pakistan because Karachi is the economic hub of the country. What is their response? Calls for a complete strike and the declaration of a public holiday! Can anything be more absurd? How come there are so few who can recognize the irony here?

 

People died yesterday. I know it is heartless to compare body counts but Peshawar has had it much worse and we didn’t hear of arson there. They burned down the Bolton Market; around 500 shops by one estimate as well as the Paper Market and I think also shops at the Light House Market. People who are part of the mobs that do this are surely helping the Taliban and other extremists. Why doesn’t everybody else see that?

 

I do not, for an instant buy the logic that this happens due to the anger of people who have lost their loved ones. For survivors the usual first priority would be to mourn their loss and comfort the ones who are left behind rather than cause more suffering; that is my opinion anyway. Are we really such savages to go attack ambulances and police cars after a bomb blast? People who do this are no better than the militants against whose actions they are supposed to be “protesting”. Instead of cautioning people to show restraint, our “leaders” should be condemning these people in categorical terms. The suicide bombing wreaked havoc on the lives of perhaps a hundred families and the actions of these “mourners” after the blast probably wrecked the homes of a thousand people. Which is the bigger crime? Does anybody care? But then in a war who has time for a body count.

The story of Bangladesh - the lies we tell our children

http://www.slate.com/id/2239339?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=pingfm

 

Of course I have known for some time that the secession of Bangladesh had little to do with India and more to do with the policies of the Western arm of Pakistan but it took a prod from Hitchens to scour the web and come to the “shocking” conclusion that my country’s armed forces were responsible for genocide in Bangladesh. Of course I need to read a few books on the subject for confirmation but the truth of the statement seems almost self evident. After all, the Hamood-ur-Rehman commission report was made by West Pakistanis and even they couldn’t bring themselves to wash away the sins of their compatriots completely. Not that they didn’t try!

 

Back in school, my textbooks said that India was responsible for Bangladesh. It doesn’t reflect well on my intellect that it took me more than two decades to figure out the truth even when it was staring me in the face. It is even more shameful that I have had so little interest in what is my own story. After all, my mother (a Bihari) had fled Bangladesh before the fighting got worse and one of my uncles had spent some time incarcerated in Bangladesh.

 

I used to think that the reason nobody talks about Bangladesh is because of the shame of defeat. Now I suspect it is more due to a collective guilt that our elders must feel!

 

However, the question that I must ask myself is whether I too will share in a similar guilt in the future!

Ear for an ear, nose for a nose Ugghhh!!

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/12-ear-for-an-ear%2C-nose-for-a-nose--bi-09

 

Justice indeed.

 

So tell me who carries out the sentence? Maybe the “honorable” judge would like to do the chopping himself. Disgusting!!

 

 

Abney Park -- Virus

Need to get me this song!

 

It feeds on the souls of the living.

And gets inside their minds.

Transforms their brains and their longings,

No consciousness it will find.

 

It feeds on their fears and emotions,

As it has for 2000 years

Its infected the Hindus, infected the Buddhists,

Kept them all in tears.

 

If you're nearly dead, it will keep you alive.

And if you're alive, it keeps you nearly dead.

It forces the body to seek uninfected,

And gets inside their heads.

 

Once your brain is infected,

It changes what makes you pleased.

It forces your body to seek uninfected,

And add them to the diseased.

 

And in this way it crept slowly

All across the land

But the wise and the strong can still join forces

Defending our last stand

 

If you're nearly dead, it will keep you alive.

And if you're alive, it keeps you nearly dead.

It forces the body to seek the uninfected,

And gets inside their heads.

Who Needs God When We've Got Mammon?

http://miller-mccune.com/culture_society/who-needs-god-when-we-ve-got-mammon-1626

Magic formula for Pakistan

The country in which I live faces a lot of problems. Some of these are:

 

1.      Poverty

2.      Illiteracy / intolerance

3.      Low life expectancy and health issues

4.      Abysmal state of women’s rights

5.      Child abuse

6.      Crime

7.      Terrorism

 

Now if you look closely at each one of these problems, you will note that most of them are caused by us men! Men holding positions of undeserved power and wealth.

 

Women, who make up more than half the population of this country constitute the biggest group that is largely untainted by the ineptitude that is a hallmark of the male psych largely because they are a dispossessed lot. So what is my magic formula? Female empowerment.

 

How do we go about doing that?

1.      New legislation:

a.      Changes in criminal and civil law to make them friendlier towards women.

b.      Affirmative action targets in the workplace. These should include the law enforcement agencies as well.

c.      Abolish the women only seats in parliament and instead ask political parties to ensure that more than half the seats in parliament are filled by women

2.      Agricultural reforms and the reduction in land holdings with investment in state of the art farming equipment.

3.      Micro financing on the Bangladesh model of co-operative societies or groups for small loans to women:

a.      To establish small businesses in the urban centers

b.      To buy agricultural land and subsidized modern farming equipment in the rural areas.

 

Note that what I am proposing here is not another administrative micro-step like the Micro Finance Bank but legislative changes that strive to reorganize the social setup and recognize women as change agents for the future.

 

If successful this would stop the scourge of religious fundamentalism much more effectively than the combined firepower of the Pakistan and American armies. Think about it.

I hate prime time television

My dad is a news buff. That means that we are served with a cocktail of assorted ‘journalists’ airing their latest views on the political situation every evening. Extremely boring stuff all of it.

 

What I don’t understand is: Why doesn’t this hackneyed political drama bore anyone else?

 

Response to Herman Roborgh

The article by Mr. Roborgh can be found at http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=16921

 

Here’s my response:

 

This is what this article seems to imply:

1.      The truly transcendent i.e. God is impervious to reason

2.      The modern Muslim has got it all wrong. The “real” religion is actually about acquiring knowledge based on ‘faith’. Sufism and mysticism are mentioned in this connection as well.

3.      Traditional religion was able to incorporate elements from other religions and cultural traditions because there was lesser emphasis on logic and reason and more on the intellectual religious tradition (whatever that means).

 

What are you selling Sir? Do you really expect me to believe that you see Islam as a religion which was at any stage tolerant of other creeds to the point of assimilating them?

 

I will judge Islam by its adherents that I meet every day and not by utopian ideals of what the religion really means. Did you really spend 8 years in Pakistan and not realize the effect of religion on the people. They ‘know’ they are in the right and it is their faith enables them to know it. That is the knowledge that faith bestows to its adherent and you are asking us to surrender reason which is the only weapon that has a chance against this evil.

 

A few years ago, I would not have minded people like you; but it is moderate Muslims and people like you who give legitimacy to the religious zealots that are bent on destroying this world so that they can build palaces for themselves in the next one.

Morality

Here’s a chicken and egg problem for the theist. Which came first: god or good?

 

Is a human act good because god says so? If god said that murder is a good act will it make it good for the theist?

 

If the answer is no then how is god all powerful?

Breaking the spell

Reading excerpts of the book by Daniel Dennett. Need to get a hardcopy!

Chatter

It’s dark.

 

Wonder if I should get up. Will wait till the alarm goes off. No wait I didn’t set the alarm again yesterday! What time is it? Half past 5. Still 15 minutes to the usual time.

 

Just lie here and look at my daughter sleeping between my wife and me. I envy her. Also feel sorry for her of course…

 

Check the time again. It’s 10 minutes to 6. I think I will wait a little while longer. There is nothing much to do at the office anyway. Don’t want to be too late though. Will not get a parking spot…

 

It’s light outside. Must be getting late. Hmm 20 minutes past six. Lets skip office altogether. Not a good idea. Ok up you get. They are both still asleep. Grab the glasses, off I go. Drink a glass of water then off to the loo …

 

In the car. It’s low on petrol. No time to get any in the morning. Think it will last the journey to the office! Ok out I go, down the slope to the main road. Should I turn the radio on. Why not? What will it be? 89? No 91 perhaps. Oh it’s that idiot lady with the husky voice. Ok tune her out and look out at the road, they are going to play a song soon enough. Ah here we are, she announces a song that needs no introduction according to her. It sounds good but I don’t know what it is.

 

Crossing a school. It’s already past 8 so no children visible today.

 

Going on to the main road, looking to the right, AND LEFT… just in time. The sun is at that odd angle again. Feels a bit warm. Turn the AC on. Not for too long, don’t want to guzzle too much fuel. Motor rickshaw going to slow, swerve to the right and back in the middle lane again. Hate this U-turn! Maybe we should have a bridge here as well. In another 10 years, we probably will.

 

At the signal. The burka clad woman approaches from the left, knocks at the window. Ignore her, she goes away. The little kid approaches. He always makes me nervous. No not nervous, guilty. I can remember my brother looking like that just a decade ago. Ah the green light and my conscience can breathe easy.

 

The guy on the left cuts me off.

 

On to the freeway (of sorts), meandering past jaywalkers and other assorted nuisances. A girl with a strange expression is crossing the road. Wonder what will happen if I run her over. Slow down a bit.

 

Sacrificial animal on a Monday morning! This guy must have been out all night. I am going to make up an excuse for not going to the mosque this time around. Forget it, why should I make an excuse. I will simply not get up this time. It is four days of holiday, do I really want to make them worse than usual?

 

Coming to the signal. It’s red. The bikes in front inch forward. It’s still red. I stay put. The guy on my left starts to move up into my lane. Ignore him. It is green. Moving on. Thinking about what is going to happen today. Not much to do. Just let things happen. No use trying to control anything.

 

Can drive pretty much without paying attention on this road. There is still not much traffic. More jaywalkers. Full stop. Glance at the rear view mirror. It was far enough behind. Start again.

 

Crashing the car is not a very good way to try and commit suicide. What is? Guns are too difficult. Sleeping pills perhaps!

 

I am sorry again sweetheart.

 

I love you … will stay a little while longer.

Changeling

Anger is an amazing emotion; righteous anger even more so.

The question is: What now?

I think the episode has changed me even though the anger is now gone. I feel strangely relaxed.

I am done with the life I was leading. Something had to give and it has.

Happy birthday xeeshan!

And some Japanese food

Went for dinner with a friend from Singapore who was also in Manila. It was a Japanese restaurant. Here's what we ate:

Sashimi
Raw salmon with Soya sauce. Unexpectedly it was not bad! I think I will try it back home as well.

Makizushi rolls
At least that is what I think they were. Saw the picture at Wikipedia and it looks like what I ate except that there were mangoes in it too. I think that the filling can be of different kinds.

Also had some Tampura.

Of course I could not use the chopsticks so had to use my hands most of the time. Still it was a good experience.

Philipino food, finally!!

Some people from work finally realized that I was serious about trying Philipino food and very graciously offered to take me to lunch at a restaurant. Pictures of the dishes I ate follow. It was all good stuff!

Part of the reason might have been that they ordered stuff which they thought I would be able to relate to!!

Here is the soup



















Chicken Sisig



















Max's Fried Chicken (with ketchup!)


















Daing Bangus (fried chicken served with a sauce made of vinegar and other spices)



















The drink we had was called "Sagot Gulaman". I didn't take a picture. Here's the link to one: http://cafemunchkin.com/2009/05/02/sagot-gulaman-tapioca-pearls-jelly/

Ayala Center, Manila

Walked from the office to the Ayala Center.

 

Its a collection of buildings with departmental stores, restaurant, fast food places, cinema etc. Checked out the Hard Rock Cafe but at 300 peso a drink it was a bit too rich for my blood. Also I was there too early and the live performance had not started yet otherwise I might have stayed.

 

Had dinner at the TGIF. The chicken fajita was nice. The WIFI service is password protected which was a turn-off but I guess it would be too slow if they set up a free hotspot.

 

The malls were ok. The departmental stores were remarkably low cost specially the clothes. Of course the branded shops were expensive.

 

Watched the worst movie of the year so far at 8pm: Jennifer's body. I was expecting something like Underworld but this was way bad. Even worse than Twilight!

 

I am probably only here till the weekend and the office is usually on till 7pm so this might just have been my last chance at checking out the place. Overall I'd say Makati is a great place. Much better than Karachi. A lot of people walking around and very nice overall.

In Manila

Arrived here at Makati, Manila two days ago. Have been working for most of the day so haven't gone out and seen much of the sights so far. The malls close early apparently so most of the time I have just been walking around the roads.

 

Initial impression is very favorable. Its a very clean place compared to back home. The people are very nice.

 

Have been having food at an Indian restaurant called the New Bombay. Tried the grilled chicken at the hotel restaurant as well and it was pretty good. Going to try some Philipino food today.

Depressing day

Yesterday, I had the most depressing day in recent months.

 

I think happiness has less to do with what we have and more to do with our illusions. One such illusion is choice. We believe in free will and choice at every stage in life. In reality, we build a prison for ourselves with the choices that we make. This prison without walls and the invisible shackles that hold us can take the form of family, a good job, a mortgage etc.

 

Once more I am held back from oblivion. Life goes on.

 

Death penalty for apostasy

Given below are some ahaadith. I am pretty sure that the source is authentic but if not then leave a comment and I would be 'happy' to amend as required.

1) Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 83 (Volume 9, Book 83, Number 17):

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/083.sbt.html#009.083.017

Narrated 'Abdullah:
Allah's Apostle said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims."

2) Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 52 (Volume 4, Book 52, Number 260):

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/052.sbt.html#004.052.260

Narrated Ikrima:
Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn 'Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with Allah's Punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "

3) Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 84 (Volume 9, Book 84, Number 58):
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/084.sbt.html#009.084.058

Narrated Abu Burda:

Abu Musa said, "I came to the Prophet along with two men (from the tribe) of Ash'ariyin, one on my right and the other on my left, while Allah's Apostle was brushing his teeth (with a Siwak), and both men asked him for some employment. The Prophet said, 'O Abu Musa (O 'Abdullah bin Qais!).' I said, 'By Him Who sent you with the Truth, these two men did not tell me what was in their hearts and I did not feel (realize) that they were seeking employment.' As if I were looking now at his Siwak being drawn to a corner under his lips, and he said, 'We never (or, we do not) appoint for our affairs anyone who seeks to be employed. But O Abu Musa! (or 'Abdullah bin Qais!) Go to Yemen.'" The Prophet then sent Mu'adh bin Jabal after him and when Mu'adh reached him, he spread out a cushion for him and requested him to get down (and sit on the cushion). Behold: There was a fettered man beside Abu Muisa. Mu'adh asked, "Who is this (man)?" Abu Muisa said, "He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted back to Judaism." Then Abu Muisa requested Mu'adh to sit down but Mu'adh said, "I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and His Apostle (for such cases) and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed. Abu Musa added, "Then we discussed the night prayers and one of us said, 'I pray and sleep, and I hope that Allah will reward me for my sleep as well as for my prayers.'"

Renewal of driving license at Clifton Karachi

The form is worth Rs 2 and is available at the information counters just inside the gate. Copy of NIC is required. Attach it with the old license to the form.

Next go to room 4, which is the post office. The fee is taken in the form of tickets which are slips of paper which the guy at the counter stamps. After a lot of stamping, they ask you for the fee. For motor car license renewal it was 860. Predictably they didn't have any change so I let the guy keep 40.

Next step room 3. This is where they take the picture. Here you have to pay another 125 for the plastic card. Now wait for your name to be called. A sign in the room says the license will be given to you next day from the window of the same room i.e. number 4.

Finally they call your name and take the picture. The license is given next day between 10 am and 3.30 pm.

Guilt and cowardice

I am one of the privileged in this world. Putting myself in the shoes of a homeless man on the street, I can’t help but think that I have wronged him somehow by my opulence. Is it wrong to be rich when some are so poor? I have long believed that poverty is a crime but have never faced up to the fact that I am one of the criminals.

 

I hide behind the excuse that even if I gave everything away I will not be able to make any difference. Of course I don’t intend to give it away, I am too fond of it all. Maybe someday it will be possible for everyone to be at least above the poverty line. Till then my guilt trip continues.

Funny search engine

The engine:

http://imhalal.com/

 

Some comments:

http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/10/halal-search-engines-for-muslims-%e2%80%93-a-bad-idea-on-so-many-levels/

 

Finally a good reason to move to Canada!

According to this report, Pakistan is at ‘extreme food security risk’ (http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/sci-tech/12-pakistan+at+extreme+food+security+risk--bi-07).

 

Maybe I should apply for the immigration now!

Maldives too broke to attend climate summit: Nasheed

Who is Mohamed Nasheed? From the little news item in the Dawn he comes across as a great statesman.

Read it here: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/maldives-too-broke-to-attend-climate-summit-nasheed-899

 

BD officials told not to wear suits

The Bangladesh cabinet, in a show of uncommon common sense, told government officials to avoid wearing suits, jackets and ties to save on air conditioning.

 

Here in Pakistan, conditions are similar for most of the country with long summers and short winters. Of course, it would be too much to expect the government to do something but what is stopping the private sector from taking similar steps? When shall we learn that it is what an employee does that matters and not the cut of his suit?

 

Note that this post is only about men since women have long been and continue to be exempted from the dress code. Interestingly this exemption probably works against them (like almost everything else in the workplace) because we tend to associate executive-dom with suits and ties!

 

Link: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/bd-officials-told-not-to-wear-suits-499

 

Beauty

Should it matter if a victim of polio is an otherwise pretty girl? Somehow beautiful people in distress evoke a more compassionate response from their peers. Why is it so? Why is the villain in a movie usually the worse for looks compared to the good guy?

 

Would you agree that we generally have a different response to situations depending on the characters involved and specifically what they look like?

 

If so why?

Patriotism

I do not love my country. Wait that is not right. Let me put it this way: I do not understand what it means to love a country.

What exactly is a country? Is it the people? I do not like most of them!

Is it the geography? Why should I love something for having India due east and the Arabian sea due south?

Is it the ideology? No definitely not the case for this here country.

Is it the culture? What? Where?

Then why love this country? Of course I can't deny that I have it good. I have a wife, child, steady job, and a house which will be mine once the mortgage is paid in another 25 years. So the country has had utility for me. But is that reason enough to love it? My car has utility too but I hardly love it!

Patriotism has its uses of course. Why else would soldiers go to war for instance but do we really need it in the modern world?

Is it not just another one of those antiquated ideas that were useful in the past but bring us ever close to annihilation in a nuclear world?

Think about it!

Atheism is a belief system... NOT!

Lets get something straight: Atheism is not a belief system.

I need not agree with other atheists on anything except my disbelief in God. The opinions on this page are therefore only mine and are not representative of all atheists.

Hope that clarifies things!

Amazing article on whales and intelligence

Is it possible that there is terrestrial intelligence other than our own?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12whales-t.html?_r=1&sq=whales%20military%20sonar&st=cse&scp=8&pagewanted=print

Cybercrime act

The FIA arrested someone for sending a blasphemous mail to a ‘journalist’ in Karachi. Read about it here: http://cafepyala.blogspot.com/2009/07/scum-of-pakistani-journalism.html. The original news item is here: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=188713.

 

The email was probably not as blasphemous as some of the milder stuff that can be found on this page. In fact, I don’t care what he wrote. Murad, a father of four, has a restaurant business in the UK. Sounds respectable enough. What happened to him? The FIA raided his house, confiscated his laptop and arrested him on blasphemy charges which by the way carry the death penalty. Don’t know if he has been released since but it is quite unlikely.

 

No comment. None necessary!

 

 

Acid reflux

After examining my stomach and esophagus, the doctor prescribed Abbott’s Klaricid (1+0+1) and Amoxil (2+0+2) for 7 days starting 8-April-2009. I also took Getz’ Nexum (1+0+1) 20mg till end of May 2009. Colofac was also prescribed but I discontinued it since the Ispaghol husk seemed enough.

 

The problem now is that the stomach bloating is back. I must confess that I had been abusing my stomach with fried / fatty food as well as soft drinks for the past couple of weeks. It started with pain in the abdomen and then the bloating started. The reflux is also back but it’s still not as bad as last time.

 

For now I have restarted Nexum (twice daily) but I am not sure about the bloating. I am worried that the bacteria is back and is causing all the gas and bloating. However, will give Nexum a week before I go see my doctor again. Just took some Mylanta-2 and it has provided some quick relief.

 

Reading the Koran

I am from Pakistan and my native tongue is Urdu.

As a child I have 'gone through' the entire Koran countless number of times in the Arabic. The text is supplemented with phonetic symbols which make it easy to pronounce even though the ‘reader’ does not know the meaning of most of the words. In fact, a lot of stress is given to the correct pronunciation.

Urdu follows the same cursive script so it is not that hard actually but the majority of us in school didn't understand much of what we were reading when 'reciting' the Koran. During the holy month of Ramadhan I was expected to 'finish' the whole Koran. I was very good at this 'reading' and on average could finish a Sipara (there are a total of 30 in the whole book) in about an hour. Just the same some people frowned on such prowess as indication of much less than the required level of respect for the task.

Mine was a comparatively non-religious household. I never saw my father praying during my early years. Still we had quite a few copies of the book at home. I usually read the one with the Urdu translation. As a child I was fascinated by the all too improbable stories. The stories were all that I really read actually. All the sermonizing that comprised the rest of the book was simply too boring.

I never went to a Madressah so I am one of the lucky ones. Still, among all the people I have known I am the only atheist. I do remember my dad mentioning a distant relative who was a 'Murtid' (apostate) but that is about it. Since the age of 19 when I finally decided that I had enough, I have never met any atheists. Most people are ardent Muslims if the basic belief in god and prophet is in question even if they are not complete followers of the teachings. In fact one of the points that a childhood friend used in his relentless battle to get me to see the light was: "You think that [b]everyone [/b]around you is a fool? That you are the only sane one among us?"

I am glad that part of my life is over and would never read the Koran again. I try as much as possible to forget whatever little I do remember.

Free will and the soul

Do we have free will? If all of our mental processes are a series of chemical reactions then how can free will exist. If it does then who is exercising it? If I am a system of interacting neurons then where exactly in this mess is the “I”? It seems that we are required to create something like the soul to explain free will. Or do we?

 

Consider a computer that is programmed to make decisions based on a decision tree that takes one input. If the input is A, the computer makes a beeping sound through the speaker, anything else does not require a response. This is a very deterministic system. Now suppose I start adding other inputs, such as room temperature, ambient light, etc. to make it behave differently. Assuming there are 3 temperature ranges and another 3 ambient light conditions as input there can be 18 possible combinations of all these inputs and our decision tree becomes a little more complicated.

 

To simplify things a bit instead of a decision tree the program is now implemented by assigning scores to each of these values and the program takes a decision based on the total score of the inputs. Assume further that the input devices are a little fuzzy and usually send a value which is within a range of values distributed normally with the correct value as the mean. If we continue to increase the number of inputs, such a system would start to behave in a manner that would seem not be governed by a fixed set of rules. Add algorithms to modify rules based on another set of rules and you might have something that starts to look just a bit like free will.

 

Of course the biggest flaw here is that I have only managed to create a system that can produce seemingly random results using a fixed set of rules. There is no “self” in the system. Still does it not seem possible that chance operating at the microscopic level in the brain similar to the illustration above is responsible for the quirky human behavior for which we credit free will?

 

Immortality - Why do religions need soul?

Some entity independent of our physical being is necessary for life beyond physical death.

 

Suppose we could clone a person A and create B which is completely identical to A. Also suppose that somehow we manage to copy A’s memories as well. Now if at the instant B is created, A is destroyed and B lives on does it mean that the being identified as A has survived death? I don’t think so.

 

Suppose both of them live on. I think everyone will agree that they are two distinct persons albeit identical to each other. Both can have different experiences and may develop in different directions as persons due to these experiences. I contend that they are distinct beings from the start due to this possibility and as such B is not a continuation of A.

 

The above seems so self evident to me that I find it hard to believe that someone would actually contend that B is a reincarnation of A. For a reincarnation you need an “essence” of A which was not A but something which makes A what she is. Hence the need for a soul. Therefore unless you come up with a concept such as the soul, immortality seems to be a pipe dream.

Suicide

Suicide seems like the most reasonable option. The only thing holding me back is my family.

Maybe one of these days I will have the courage to pull it off. Till then let the depression chronicles continue.

Suggestion to a journalist

Sent the following in response to an article in the Daily Dawn today:

Good article this morning.

I completely agree that the "outrage will prove momentary". So here's a suggestion for you and your colleagues in the news organizations: Start referring to Swat and adjoining Buner as "occupied territories". Mention "makbooza Swat" in any of the myriad TV talk shows and you just might change how people view the Taliban advance.

Just my two cents worth.