Re: ****ny Happy Caliphate

On Apr 18, 3:10 pm, bm2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

George Alec Effinger's Marid books are pretty positive in outlook.
They are set in a cyberpunk Morocco.

Of course, Marid would be a walking invitation to lynching/
dilapidation, seeing as he is constantly chasing skirts, downing
various uppers and downers and guzzling liquor.  But the society he is
running around in seems nice and tolerant enough, if a bit poor and
geared towards cyberpunkish wheeling and dealing.

Seriously guys, Islam itself isn't much worse than Christianity, when
the guys running the show are not loonies.  Which most of them still
aren't.  Part of the problem is a lot of the involved countries still
haven't figured out that theocracies are a bum deal.

It took us Christians (speaking loosely, I am not practicing) a long
time to figure that out.  Though the rulers of some (unnamed) powerful
Christian countries would still like to see a significant role for
religion in the public decision-making process.  I wouldn't have any
problems with that, if the emphasis was on the New, rather than the
Old, Testament ;-)

As I read more about current affairs and terrorism, it seems the
version of Islam that is causing most of the problems is quite
specifically Wahabbism, which originated in, and is financed by, Saudi
Arabia.  So try not to judge all of it based on the bigotry of a
specific branch.

You know, it will be inconvenient for all of us when the Saudis run
out of oil.  But I can't say I'll be very sorry for them.