Rude Giuliani Out, Florida Voters Got This One Right

While Florida voters may have been the butt of many jokes for the last 8 years - that just happen to coincide with the George W. Bush presidency - at least the Republican primary voters got one thing right.

They brought to an end the implausible, and frankly, embarrassing, attempt of a third-rate politician like Rudy Giuliani to run for President.

Most people know where I stand on that, as I wrote less than one year ago.

Nothing can make up for the damage my Floridian friends did to the USA in enabling Bush to get selected by the Supreme Court. But at least the Republican voters in Florida sent Giuliani packing, back to New York.

Now he can go back to making money by cashing in on 9/11 some more.

Ideally, he and Kerik would both be cell-mates somewhere.

But that may only happen in some parallel universe somewhere else.

For now, Giuliani Out is the best piece of news for our nation.

Copped Third Degree Burns Cop, Gets Third Degree

The Palm Beach Post recently ran a story about a sergeant named Richard Carl, who was getting extra pay because of his extra-hard work in adding to his capabilities and credentials by working towards a Bachelors, Masters AND PhD degrees.

In normal circumstances this would be a great and inspiring story. Though it does not make sense to me, I do know some very smart people who have managed to work on a Masters and Doctoral degrees at the same time. But, getting the third (academic) degree led to the cop being grilled and given the third degree. It seems that by some miracle, he got all THREE DEGREES on the SAME DAY, and mostly without attending classes, or studying, through some well-shielded scam running as a church and offering degrees for sale.

His career would have definitely suffered third degree burns, if government departments were not so good at damage control, covering up, and insulating their own people and mistakes. If only we all could be so lucky.

I must sign off now, I have 90 minutes before midnight to get my PhD from the same 'educational institution'.

Muslims Going Bananas (Split?)?

Every now and then I get an email forwarded trying to squeeze some "physical" or real or "scientific" proof of their religious faith. This type of email generally tends to come more from Muslims. Christians usually find scientific proof in even more lame things sometimes, "images" of the Virgin Mary just happening to be "toasted" on a slice of bread.

I am writing today about a more ridiculous Muslim item that landed in my mailbox. As you may know, many Muslims believe that at one time the Holy Prophet Muhammad had shown a "miracle" by splitting the moon into two halves simply by pointing to it. (Talk about Point & Split). He then "rejoined" the two halves. OK, so, if it happened, it happened. If you or I believe it, fine, let that be our belief. But, trying to use stupid, irrational and false statements to try to corroborate one's own lame faith is laughable

Someone sent a photograph of a small part of the lunar surface which shows a possible ravine or old riverbed. This image comes with a lot of text that claims, among other things that this split runs the entire circumfrence of the moon. The writer falsely claims that NASA's lunar rovers dug there and found that the moon's surface had indeed been cracked and rejoined. (Sounds like SuperMan at work with SuperGlue). The item mentions many other foolish and downright idiotic lies.

I know even our fellow non-extremist Muslims also somehow feel the need to "prove" whatever it says in the Quran, or what we believe. This sometimes causes a matter of our personal faith to become an object of ridicule for others, by making us all appear to be going bananas --- in a desperate attempt at validation of our personal faiths.

If someone believes the moon was "split" in two pieces and then stuck back together by remote control, they should feel comfortable in believing that, without needing to make up "proofs" or even create such PowerPoints as I mention above.

We Muslims are not alone. I have seen similar attempts by our good friends on the Christian right trying to prove Jesus' miracles. And, Bush supporters in America still send out PowerPoints supposedly showing Quranic verses related to September 11, "quoting" a verse 9:11 from the Quran predicting something about how America will defeat Islam --- except that the verse is question has no relation to such a topic.

Anyway, I am not a rocket scientist --- and don't even play one on TV. :-)

But, even to me the "moon split" image looks like nothing more than some long dried riverbed on some small portion of the lunar surface.... not something that runs across the length of the entire moon.

For example, some voodoo religion's followers could take ONE picture of the Grand Canyon in the USA and make a PowerPoint with that one slide and some ridiculous claim, saying the earth was once split in two and glued back together and "this grand canyon crack runs across the length of the planet earth...".

Someone living on Mars (or in a deluded religious reality like Lal Masjid Islamabad) would actually then believe that story.

I, for one, would make sure to have my doors and windows locked if that person came knocking on my door even as a guest. :-) So, I have some very simple questions for whoever created or ever sent you the PowerPoint (so they can ask whoever sent it to them in the first place).

One, if this "crack" runs across the length of the moon, how come it is not visible on the entire 50% of the moon visible to us every night? Could it be the moon was just like the postulated "Islamic" proof image --- half-cracked? :-) :-)

Two, if for some magical reason the moon did split, rejoined, and then even changed its axis of rotation, so now this "crack" happens to run in such a direction that it is entirely across the circumference edge of the moon and can't be see from earth, then why not provide us the rest of the photos of this crack continuing across the whole moon? The moon has been extensively photographed from every angle by many different countries' spacecraft (except, ironically, any Muslim ones who are too busy being illiterate, arguing about the height of the "shalwar" above the "takhna"). Surely the original sender can find such images and send them to us so we all become "good true believers".... believing in a crack in the moon while we go about our daily lives being dictators, sucking up to crooked politicians, smuggling, lying, cheating, ignoring the poor, stealing from the country, etc. :-)

Three, suppose a photomap of the entire lunar surface showed NO crack, and if no split ever occurred physically/geologically (a visual illusion cannot be ruled out), would that make you stop believing the Quran and become a heathen?

Maybe something did happen that night. Maybe we will stumble upon some real proof some day. If some aspect of the split or the religion gets "proven" in the course of natural research, great. If not, so what? This purported proof about the moon is not what it's cracked out to be.

If we believe something, we should believe it. We Muslims do ourselves, and our religion, a great disservice by clutching at the shortest, weakest, most illogical straw, or making one up, in trying to prove something. How pathetic, dumb and dangerous.

All it proves is that our faith in our hearts is even weaker than the corrupted practice of it we see every day in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iraq. These "Muslim actions" are enough to split the religion, and the planet, to pieces. And, that's neither a joke, nor a hoax.

As always, it's just In My Humble Opinion.