Last login: 6 weeks agoMuhammad 'MJ' Jassim is a single guy from Manama, Bahrain.
I am a human being, submitter to will of God (The Almighty Creator), unique, humanitarian, humble, free, unplugged, ethical, INTP-type of personality, patient, high-principled,"realistic perfectionist", take responsibility of my intentions & actions, and believe most people's intentions are generally good. I value human life ever so greatly, and promote dialog between religions & civilizations. Free-thinker & activist for justice, human rights, and freedoms, including software-freedom. I am a student of knowledge, more specifically student of Islam & Comparative Religion, Epistemology, Philosophy, Logic & Mathematics. All-in-all, in one word: Muslim
From the page: "Renowned British Muslim singer Yusuf Islam sees his music and songs can be a bridge between the Muslims world and the West.
"I think I've been given a position and place in this world which is quite unique," Islam told CNN on Monday, May 18.
"The fact that I'm a Westerner by birth and I'm a Muslim at the same time -- and living in this time where there seems to be such a gravitational split in polarities -- there need to be bridges.
"I think music is one of the best ways to bridge all those gaps."
Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, performed his first concert in Los Angeles last week, his first in the United States in 33 years.
Playing new and old songs for over an hour, the 60-year-old musician has delighted a star-studded audience.
"You don't understand," teary-eyed US singer and songwriter Michelle Branch said.
"I learned how to play guitar with the Cat Stevens songbook!"
Yusuf Islam reverted to Islam in 1977 and has since become a leading voice in Britain's two million Muslims.
His UN-registered charity, Small Kindness, provides humanitarian relief, through direct aid as well as social and educational programs, to orphans and families in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and other regions of the world.
In 2003, Islam was awarded the "World Social Award" for his humanitarian relief work.
In November 2004, he was honored with the "Man for Peace" award by a committee of Nobel peace laureates.
Islam lamented that the Islamic faith is tarnished in Western media.
"I used to be prejudiced -- as prejudiced as anyone about Islam," he said.
The prominent singer recalled the moment when he decided to revert to Islam at the height of his fame.
" I was given the opportunity of reading the actual source, the Qur'an itself, without anybody forcing me or looking over my shoulder and saying, "What do you think?" It was just me in my space.
"The more I read the Qur'an, the more I realized that it was like an incredible matrix of connection with Christianity and Judaism," he said.
"I mean Jesus, Moses, the religion of Abraham in this book! And I said, "Wow, how come I didn't know this before?" It was kind of like a secret.
"So that was kind of my discovery, and a lot of people, I don't think, have gone through that process because they've seen Islam as a headline -- and you never learn anything about a headline. Because headlines, you know -- people make things up, to be honest."
"I felt chosen! I felt suddenly, I was given a halo. "This guy stands for peace, and they won't let him in.
"It was really kind of a joke, in a way, because the person I am and the kind of things they were kind of insinuating by putting me on this list with other people who were very dangerous."
But the situation took a new turn under the US administration of Barack Obama.
"I'm here now (in the United States), so things are kind of working themselves out. But there's a new administration, a new president, and it's a great new day.""
On March 17, 2009 issue of Wall Street Journal website, an article by Andrew Higgins titled "An Islamic Creationist Stirs a New Kind of Darwinian Struggle" in which he featured Mr. Adnan Oktar is posted. In the article in question, it is noteworthy that Dawkins's supposed reason for not meeting with the author is that "he is not knowledgeable about zoology and biology." This is obviously an excuse because Dawkins often meets with middle school children and evangelical priests to discuss his claim. So, what we have to ask is this:
Are the children that Dawkins meets with for discussions experts on zoology and biology? Is the priest he discussed the subject with a professor of zoology and biology? Of course not. These examples alone are enough to expose Dawkins' insincerity. Dawkins usually meets and debates with people such as these because he is only able to cope with them.
Another question mark comes to mind. Dawkins uses his claim that Mr. Adnan Oktar does not know about zoology as an excuse not to debate with him, but at the same time, he never seems to put down Adnan Oktar's Atlas of Creation, a book that shook the world. At every available opportunity, he organizes meetings, attends meetings organized by others, deliberately puts the Atlas of Creation on the agenda, collects people around him and makes comments on the book. He does his best to criticize (in his own eyes) the author's works, although he absolutely declines to meet with him. The way Dawkins is so reluctant to enter into a debate with Mr. Adnan Oktar, despite all the latter's calls, but still tries to respond (in his own eyes) to the author's views, and produces analyses on this matter, shows just how alarmed he is by the author's works. The only reason that Dawkins refuses to meet with Mr. Adnan Oktar is that HE HAS BEEN TOTALLY DEFEATED AND HAS NO ANSWER TO GIVE.
From the page: "Microsoft comes to the Boston area, like a bad uninvited dinner guest in this guest blog by Mark Northfist.
When you visit Microsoft's web site for New England Research & Development Center you don't get a sense that it is a part of a 30 year old multinational proprietary corporation with a bad track record when it comes to user freedom and community support. In fact, the site could be called hip and sleek, with an emphasis on small teams, the local community, and innovative research. The site shows pictures of the new office, which features glass walls that don equations painted on them. Almost weekly they are featuring meetups for the tech community at their office, and they are clearly putting money and effort into local collaborations with MIT, museums, and other organizations. And, despite laying off hundreds elsewhere in their organization, they are actively recruiting to their Cambridge office, with an advertisement campaign that takes over multiple subway stations in the Cambridge area.
But, we aren't fooled. As one local Blogger puts it, Hey Microsoft, welcome! I know you have a history of anti-trust activities and monopolization, so why donâ€t you go ahead and show us your friendly new image by taking over every square inch of advertising real estate in Harvard Square!
Microsoft wants to recruit the brightest minds out of the graduate schools of MIT, Harvard, and other prestigious New England schools and to provide them with an environment that feels open and similar to an academic institution. Their claim is that they are 'Turning Ideas Into Reality.' But what is the Microsoft reality? Treacherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management technologies, backdoors, system updates without your permission, deletion of software without your permission, non-disclosure agreements, and licenses that attempt to push the boundaries of international to maximize their control over your devices and to minimize your freedoms.
So, don't be fooled by Microsoft's smoke and mirrors act. Their goal is to funnel ideas into products that aim to restrict users and that ultimately hinder the progress of the useful arts and sciences. Their images of a warm and sharing community with glass on the walls may try to evoke pure and romantic images of brilliance, such as in the movie *A Beautiful Mind* when John Nash is depicted drawing equations on the windows in the Princeton library. But the image of glass walls at Microsoft evokes a very different image in my mind, such as the first scene in the *Silence of the Lambs* when Detective Clarice Starling conducts an interview through a glass cell with the brilliant psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, Hannibal Lecter.
So, think twice before strolling over to Microsoft Research for evening community meet-up session. Dinner with Microsoft is like dinner with Hannibal Lecter, it might provide you with many a stimulating and intellectual conversation, but, you have to ask yourself, what was their real motivation in inviting you over?"
Spiegel Magazine: "The number of Germans who have converted to Islam has increased fourfold within one year -- despite the negative perception of Islam among the general public."
This site is owned and operated by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and/or its subsidiary companies in the United States of America, and is part of a marketing campaign for an upcoming feature film!
Free software is software that respects your freedom. To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting your rights to learn and to share what you learn with others.
gNewSense has a rich graphical user interface, a full office suite, plus web browsers, email management, instant messaging, calendaring and for developers -- the full GNU developer toolchain, GNU Emacs, a variety of compilers, debuggers and more.
And because gNewSense is free software, you can use it without restrictive licenses, make copies for your friends, school or business, and join the gNewSense community to help build and improve the software.
Many weeks ago my health have been declining, and I was not able to do as many things as I wanted. Then I also had an appendicectomy in the hospital and stayed there for about a week. Then I came back to recover at home. I have stopped all my work and also stopped my contributions to the Free Software community, and most of my blogging. Hopefully everyone who knows me will be aware of the reasons why I have not responded (yet) to the messages/e-mails. Hope everyone is in good health and enjoying life. I sure am now.
Darwin's Legacy Confirmed on the 200th
Anniversary of His Birth
150 years ago, Darwin said that there was not even one single transitional form fossil. Not even one single transitional fossil exists after 150 years. According to Darwin, Darwinism is finished.
In 1859, 150 years ago, Darwin said the following in his book the Origin of Species:
WHY, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, DO WE NOT EVERYWHERE SEE INNUMERABLE TRANSITIONAL FORMS? Why is not all nature In confusIon instead of the species being, as we see them, WELL DEFINED?
INNUMERABLE TRANSITIONAL FORMS MUST HAVE EXISTED, WHY DO WE NOT FIND THEM EMBEDDED IN COUNTLESS NUMBERS IN THE CRUST OF THE EARTH?
WHY THEN IS NOT EVERY GEOLOGICAL FORMATION AND EVERY STRATUM FULL OF SUCH INTERMEDIATE LINKS?
Geology assuredly DOES NOT REVEAL any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, IS THE MOST OBVIOUS AND GRAVEST OBJECTION WHICH CAN BE URGED AGAINST MY THEORY. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, pp. 172, 280)
Darwin's words he uttered 150 years ago have now come true!
Now, as Darwin said in the 19th century, there is actually NO SUCH THING AS A TRANSITIONAL FORM.
More than 100 million fossils have been unearthed in the Earth's crust. Yet NOT ONE OF THEM IS A TRANSITIONAL FORM.
These 100 million fossils unearthed reveal that NATURE IS NOT IN A STATE OF CONFUSION, as Darwin anticipated, BUT IS RATHER FULL OF COMPLETE, PERFECT, FLAWLESS LIVING THINGS WITH ALL THEIR PARTS INTACT.
IN NO GEOLOGICAL FORMATION or STRATUM IS THERE ONE TRANSITIONAL FORM FOSSIL that shows the alleged connection between living things.
Above all, new sciences have shown that CELLS, CHROMOSOMES and PROTEINS ARE EXTRAORDINARILY COMPLEX.
It has been discovered that DNA possesses ENOUGH INFORMATION TO FILL ONE MILLION ENCYCLOPEDIA PAGES and it is IMPOSSIBLE for such a marvelous structure TO HAVE COME INTO EXISTENCE BY CHANCE.
It has been realized that atoms - the most basic building blocks of everything -HAVE A PERFECT ORDER AND COMPLEXITY.
This glorious order and unique, flawless artistry on Earth has been revealed as, again just as Darwin said, THE GRAVEST OBJECTION THAT WOULD BE RAISED AGAINST HIS THEORY.
Contemporary Darwinists have confirmed the truth of this legacy:
Niles Eldredge (Paleontologist at Harvard University):
Indeed, the sudden appearance of a varied, well-preserved array of fossils, which geologists have used to mark the beginnings of the Cambrian Period (the oldest division of the Paleozoic Era) does pose a fascinating intellectual challenge.
Derek W. Ager (Paleontologist at University College, Swansea):
The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find - over and over again - not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.
Mark Czarnecki (Evolutionist paleontologist):
A major problem in proving the theory [of evolution] has been the fossil record, the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead, species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.
Carlton E. Brett (Professor of Geology at the University of Cincinnati):
Did life on Earth change steadily and gradually through time? The fossil record emphatically says "no."
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