Giant crystal cave in Mexico. Ideal for Kryptonians. (H/T, Ace) // From Krypton to India. On a shoestring. (H/T, BeaucoupKevin) // Flavoured methamphetamine. You know, for kids. // Oral disco. // Humanity Not Doomed Shock. // Martian icecaps challenge global warming theories. // Environmentalists are the new Amish. Sort of. // Scott Burgess on ecomentalism and other atavistic fantasies. // Christopher Hitchens and Nick Cohen on slavery, freedom and the atavism of the left. (mp3) // 13-mile dragon sighted in China. No, really. // Sand pictures, made and remade before your eyes. (H/T, Dr Sanity) // Helvetica: the movie! (H/T, Artblog) // The unforeseen disadvantages of time travel. // A brief history of zero. // Cat Stevens “builds bridges” by insulting unveiled women.  How righteous he must be. // Canadian Muslim group supports human rights and secularism. Death threats ensue.  Audio here. More here. // Evan Sayet on cultural equivalence, blunted senses and a journey from left to right. // Yves Rossy, rocket man. // UN Human Rights Council takes umbrage, rejects criticism as “inadmissible.” // Serbian townspeople erect marble statue of Samantha Fox. // Learn ninja invisibility. Hide behind things, not in front of them. Avoid detection, “much like a squirrel.” // And, by popular demand, The Tin Foil Hat Song.

“Those willing to trawl through Ramadan’s written and recorded output will find no shortage of material calling into question his supposedly liberal intent. It’s clear that what Ramadan wants isn’t a modernised, secular Islam, but an Islamised modernity.”

Over at Sign and Sight, Pascal Bruckner continues his multiculturalism debate with Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash. Bruckner makes a number of important points regarding competing assertions of difference and the loss of common values. He also argues, “It’s not enough to condemn terrorism. The religion that engenders it and on which it is based, right or wrong, must also be reformed.” But of particular interest is Brukner’s criticism of those, like Buruma and Garton Ash, who endorse Tariq Ramadan as an “Islamic reformer” and a beacon of moderation. Bruckner reminds us that Ramadan is, in fact, far from liberal in his outlook, most obviously when addressing Muslim audiences rather than Western journalists. Even Buruma’s own generous portrait of Ramadan reveals less than progressive tendencies, of which Bruckner says:

“While propagating the feminine sense of shame and recommending that Muslim women should abstain from shaking men’s hands and using mixed swimming pools if they wish, Ramadan states that for his part, he does shake women’s hands. Yes, you read it right: in 2007, a self-styled ‘progressive’ Muslim… pushes audaciousness to the point of admitting that he shakes women’s hands…

It seems to me a blatant error to start talking with conservatives just because they don’t openly call for the holy war. This amounts to renouncing reform of Islam, provided Muslims renounce violence. But preferring modern fundamentalism to terrorism runs the risk of having both.”

Japanese toilet training video, with tigers, set to music. “My bottom feels strange.” // Pee and Poo.  You know, for kids. // Play-Doh cologne. “For highly creative people.” // 1st Ave Machine 3D music animations. Sixes Last is rather special. // Robots greet passengers at Seoul airport. Not exactly “crush, kill, destroy.” // Robot ethics 101. (H/T, OnePlusOneEqualsThree) // Socialism Does Not Compute. But history still repeats itself. // Jake Shimabukuro’s weeping guitar. // Ping pong ball lighting, for table and floor. // Car thieves deterred. With bolts of electricity. (H/T, Chastity Darling) // Australian imams urged to become beach lifeguards. // Woman fails to flatter Islam. Death threats ensue. // CND pays tribute to the “correct, far-sighted” policies of Comrade Kim Jong Il. // Last week’s reference to Japanese tentacle porn prompted protest and enthusiasm. Both duly noted. // What real obscenity looks like. // When dogs fly. (Caution: dreadful music.) // Time for a little Boccherini, methinks. Ah, that’s better.

Via Zombietime, some peculiar sights from Sunday’s anti-war protest in San Francisco. Follow the link for more images and clips. It’s a feast of cliché, moral preening and badly made signage. Zombie’s Hall of Shame, which documents other protests, is also worth a visit.

Setting aside the tin foil hats, the optimistic invitations to join dead religions and the homoerotic stilt dancers, even stranger sights remain. For instance, it’s hard not to marvel at the juxtaposition of “Bush=Hitler” T-shirts with calls for the destruction of Israel and expressions of solidarity with those who would bring that about, given half a chance. And some “anti-war” protestors have an unusual disregard for life, provided it’s American.

Update: In the interests of maintaining “solidarity”, I’m guessing news items like this one are studiously ignored. The Marxist gentleman, shown above, who believes that “violence is a consequence of class distinction” might want to reflect on this. And, in not entirely unrelated news…

Gummi bear sculptures. Dig that gummi chandelier. // Life-size blue whale. Up close and personal. // Criminal genius makes methamphetamine in toaster. What could possibly go wrong? // Tim Burton’s Batman retold in five seconds. // Ever going boldly, William Shatner keeps it gay. // The healing power of antimatter. // Lunar transit of the Sun, viewed in ultraviolet. // Protein Wisdom on time-travel, pandas and misplaced galaxies. // Mark Steyn on misplaced pacifism. // Mama Cass. You know you want to. // Arts Council gravy train revisited. // Control panels to suit every taste and budget. // Almost everything you could want to know about Error 404. // A concise history of Japanese tentacle porn. Surprisingly suitable for work. // ‘Tentacle porn’ pre-Googled. Don’t pretend you weren’t going to.

Sun Ra does Batman (mp3) // Superman does porn with Big Barda. // Elongated Man fights crime by doing gross things with his body. Maybe it’s the ass-punching that unnerves. Or those huge inflatable eyes. // Real life speech balloons, made from mylar, naturally. (H/T, Fantagraphics.) // Purveyor of postmodern bollocks says very stupid things. Norm mocks postmodern bollocks. Second postmodernist gets really pissed, denounces Norm as “pro-war.” // More on postmodern bollocks here. // Scott Burgess on the Socialist gravy train. The Arts Council likes gravy too. // Women renounce Islam as ‘misogynist’; death threats ensue. // Lack of tourism in Islamic world is result of “Western-orchestrated propaganda.” And nothing to do with things like this. // Gaze-guided computing. // Fun with hemp. (H/T, Dr Westerhaus) // Behold, the Vertical Garden. // And the Lego harpsichord  sounds, er, fabulous.

Christopher Hitchens is on fine form in Slate magazine, on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the moral contortions of her PC critics:

“Accompanying the article is a typically superficial Newsweek Q&A sidebar, which is almost unbelievably headed: A Bombthrower’s Life. The subject of this absurd headline is a woman who has been threatened with horrific violence, by Muslims varying from moderate to extreme, ever since she was a little girl. She has more recently had to see a Dutch friend butchered in the street, been told that she is next, and now has to live with bodyguards in Washington, D.C. She has never used or advocated violence. Yet to whom does Newsweek refer as the “Bombthrower”? It’s always the same with these bogus equivalences: They start by pretending loftily to find no difference between aggressor and victim, and they end up by saying that it’s the victim of violence who is ‘really’ inciting it…”

The Hitchens piece prompted me to unearth this article, written for 3:AM, about Laila Lalami’s criticism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Readers may spot similar patterns of rhetorical evasion.

“In an attempt to rebut Hirsi Ali’s contention, Lalami wields a list of Muslim figures who dare to question orthodoxy. Oddly, she omits any mention of how most of those she names have faced censure, persecution or serious threats of violence for demonstrating their capacity for critical thought.”

Laila Lalami’s Nation article addresses non-Islamic views of female roles within the Muslim world, and the phenomenon she describes as “the burden of pity.” Central to her argument is an attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji, whose scholarship and rigour are called into question, along with several sins of omission. The details of this criticism can be read in full via the link above, and some valid secondary points are made. However, Lalami’s own essential argument is far more tendentious and evasive than those she critiques. Lalami argues that Muslim women are unfairly singled out as objects of sympathy and sadness. She writes, “Christian and Jewish women living in similarly constricting fundamentalist settings never seem to attract the same concern. The veil, illiteracy, domestic violence, gender apartheid and genital mutilation have become so many hot-button issues that symbolize our status as second-class citizens in our societies.” In doing so, Lalami rather refutes her own assertion. To the best of my knowledge, relatively few Christian or Jewish women face enforced shrouding, physical abuse, death threats or honour killings as a matter of piety or routine.

Perhaps Lalami can provide a list of priests and prominent rabbis who advocate the beating of women and publish books on how to go about it. As when Mohammed Kamal Mostafa, a “respected” imam from Andalusia, published The Islamic Woman, a helpful guide advising Muslim men on how to beat “rebellious” women without leaving visible signs of injury, in accord with Muhammad’s teachings. Mostafa’s advice included how to avoid incriminating bruises and scar tissue, and how to “inflict blows that are not too strong nor too hard, because the aim is to make them suffer psychologically and not to humiliate them or mistreat them physically.” Jailed in November 2004, Mostafa’s sentence was reduced from 12 months to 20 days and the imam was ordered to complete a training course in basic human rights.

Steven Brekelmans’ tissue paper drum kit and paper amplifier. // Jawa ponders the rules for mailing faeces, then has a wonderful idea. // Stephen Fry reads Harry Potter and the Black Leather C*nt. (mp3, nsfw) // Former Muslim says ‘Islam inherently radical’; death threats ensue. // High-tech office chair pimped beyond decency. // Crop circle typography is a thing to behold. // The blogosphere, data mined, made visible. // Growing new bones with nanotechnology. // Cloning with paper and glue. // Alarm clock cooks bacon while you sleep; greasy pillows beckon. // Cyborg spy pigeons from China. // Previous attempt to use animals in espionage not entirely successful.