Just goes to show what a load of bollix most awards are doesn't it ? BBC SPOTY, Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame, Oscars, Nobels etc etc. They are all as bad as each other in my eyes.
Think it says more about the elitist of this country than it does the attempt at religious facism at Islam
I read the article slagging off Richard Dawkins' tweet, however my favourite Islamic factoid is: "in the 1,000 years since the reign of the Caliph Mamoun, say the authors [of Arab Human Development Report], the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in one year." Just think about that for a moment. Arab development: Self-doomed to failure | The Economist
I started reading that report - until I realised that it was written in 2002 - so not exactly up to date.
"It says more about the excellence of our top educational establishments and the minds they produce, than it does about Islamic religious fascism." Is that what you meant?
The Commentator seems to be extremely right-wing, and thus not credible. I deduce this from the page about what they believe where it states that we should give unconditional support to Israel, our one true ally in the region. That will be the Israel that has no wish to end its conflict with Palestine, builds settlements where it shouldn't, erected the wall to keep out the Palestinians, makes their lives a misery, cluster-bombed Lebanon, etc. etc. You don't have to be a pinko friend of everything Arab to find no common cause with Israel. It's Israel that is ultimately responsible for queues at security in airports, if you ask me.
I'm not sure how often these reports are comissioned, but I haven't seen any evidence that the Islamic word has remedied the situation in the last 11 years. I think the cause of a massive increase in the requirement for knowledge of non-islamic origin would have profound and measurable effects we would notice in the west. EDIT: That section of the report is 2003, but the quote seems to stem from data from the 90s, 80s and 70s which shows the trend better: "Most Arab countries have not learnedfrom the lessons of the past and the field oftranslation remains chaotic. In terms of quantity, and notwithstanding the increase in thenumber of translated books from 175 per yearduring 1970-1975 to 330, the number of bookstranslated in the Arab world is one fifth of thenumber translated in Greece. The aggregatetotal of translated books from the Al-Ma’moon era to the present day amounts to10,000 books - equivalent to what Spain trans-lates in a single year (Shawki Galal, in Arabic,1999, 87)3. This disparity was revealed in the first halfof the 1980s when the average number ofbooks translated per 1 million people in theArab world during the 5-year period was 4.4(less than one book for every million Arabs),while in Hungary it was 519, and in Spain 920.(Figure 2.9.) " The report itself has taken several years it seems, the latest section is from 2009 (Human Society).
Israel knows that if it ends the conflict and makes peace it will be the beginning of the end, they will be taken over from within. Making peace with terrorists involves giving them what they want, eventually. This is the realpolitik of the situation in the Middle East.
I can`t quite agree with all of that Glid. I have spent time in many of the Arab and Islamic states and Israel, all on business as opposed to holidays so I get to see the non tourist areas. Most of us Westerners would find a lot more common cause with Israel than the Arab/Islamic states. Whether it is the fact that our wives, daughters, mothers etc could go out wearing pretty much what they want without being ripped to pieces or you can worship the fictional deity of your choice to mention just 2. That is not to say Israel is right and everyone else is wrong, it is not that black and white.
I love how Pete just chucks a grenade in and then stands back to watch the aftermath :tongue: Respec' :smile:
OK then, since you ask. The hand grenade was tossed by the marvellous Richard Dawkins, and his point was that if your education system consists mainly of teaching boys to recite the Koran by heart and teaching girls nothing, the result is that you contribute very little to the advance of human knowledge (or even to your own prosperity). So patently valid is that point that Dawkins has been heavily criticised from all sides for having made it. Which is quite funny, really. Nobel prizes are not, of course, a precise measurement of achievement, but they are a rough indicator of sorts since they are only awarded for genuine contributions to humanity and not to obscurantist bigots.
