Bloggers

"[T]he typical person arrested for gun crimes is more likely to have the complexion of Shaneen Allen than, say, Sarah Palin."

"if you pile up enough of it, even shit can look beautiful."

"The logic of arguments from naturalness resembles the attempt to predict the plot of a long-running TV series. If the hero -- here, naturalness --is in a pickle, certainly he will survive, so something must happen to turn around a situation that looks bleak."

"In our search for new ideas, beauty plays many roles. It's a guide, a reward, a motivation. It's also a systematic bias."

"The Standard Model is based on a principle called "gauge symmetry". According to this principle, every particle has a direction in an internal space, much like the needle in a compass, except that the needle doesn't point anywhere you can look."

"To make predictions with inflation one cannot just say “there once was exponential expansion and it ended somehow.” No, to be able to calculate something, one needs a mathematical model. The current models for inflation work by introducing a new field – the “inflaton” – and give this field a potential energy. The potential energy depends on various parameters. And these parameters can then be related to observations. The scientific approach to the situation would be to choose a model, determine the parameters that best fit observations, and then revise the model as necessary – ie, as new data comes in. But that’s not what cosmologists presently do. Instead, they have produced so many variants of models that they can now “predict” pretty much anything that might be measured in the foreseeable future."

"If you want to rely on non-empirical assessment, you have to make really sure that scientists’ judgment is as objective as humanly possible. And the environment in academia presently is absolutely unsuitable for this. You just can’t be sure how much sociology affects judgment. And no physicist I know makes any effort to consciously address cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, loss aversion, or the use of aesthetic criteria. It’s just not something that they pay attention to because it’s never been necessary before. As long as you have data for guidance, you’ll be swiftly corrected."

"Because the office Trump now occupies makes him the most powerful man on Earth, his fears, and the way he manages them, have necessarily become ours. We fear Trump because he is impulsive, irrational and self-serving, but above all because he seems unconstrained by even the faintest hint of conscience. Trump feels no more shame over his most destructive behaviours than a male lion does killing the cubs of his predecessor when he takes over a pride. Trump has made fear the dominant emotion of our times."

"Trump’s temperament and his habits have hardened with age. He was always cartoonish, but compared with the man for whom I wrote The Art of the Deal 30 years ago, he is significantly angrier today: more reactive, deceitful, distracted, vindictive, impulsive and, above all, self-absorbed – assuming the last is possible."

"Even those closest to Trump recognise his utter lack of fitness to be president, even if they are too cowed and cowardly to do anything about it."

"About the only thing Trump truly has in common with his base is that he feels every bit as aggrieved as they do, despite his endless privilege. No amount of money, fame or power has been enough to win him the respect he so insatiably craves. His anger over this perceived injustice is visceral and authentic."

"Fear is the hidden through-line in Trump’s life – fear of weakness, of inadequacy, of failure, of criticism and of insignificance. He has spent his life trying to outrun these fears by “winning” – as he puts it – and by redefining reality whenever the facts don’t serve the narrative he seeks to create. It hasn’t worked, but not for lack of effort."

"I put lipstick on a pig. I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is. I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization."

"In the face of fear, it is a fact that our most primitive and selfish instincts emerge. Control of our behaviour shifts from the prefrontal cortex to the emotionally driven amygdala – sometimes referred to as “fear central”. As we move into fight-or-flight mode, we become more self-centred, and our vision narrows to the perceived threat, which in the modern world is less to our survival than to our sense of value and worthiness. We lose the capacity for empathy, rationality, proportionality and attention to the longer-term consequences of our actions. ... It is when we feel safest and most secure that we think most clearly and expansively. It’s also when we are most inclined to look beyond our self-interest, and to act with compassion, generosity, consideration and forgiveness."

"There are two Trumps. The one he presents to the world is all bluster, and certainty. The other, which I have long felt haunts his inner world, is the frightened child of a relentlessly critical and bullying father and a distant and disengaged mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t protect him."

"The fearful divide Trump has exacerbated is not simply between his supporters and his detractors, the rich and the poor, or Democrats and Republicans, but between the best and the worst in each of us."

"My own path over the past two decades – prompted in reaction to my experience with him – has been to help business leaders become more wholly human, and to humanise workplaces."

"“Spelling is relevant knowledge.""

"“Spelling is not an artificial skin of verbal expression, it is a deep structure that is revealed in the spelled image.""

"“In spite of the ruins and death, where every illusion has ended, the strength of my dreams is so strong, that exaltation is reborn from everything, and my hands are never empty.""

"Whatever happens, may the worst of Trump inspire the best in us."

"I've always loved life. Those who love life can never adapt, undergo, be commanded. Who loves life is always with the rifle at the window to defend life ... A human being who adapts, who suffers, who makes himself commanded, is not a human being."

"Being one of the few women in the leadership team, I am often surrounded by men, but I have never found that to be uncomfortable."

"Throughout the past few years, every time I committed an action or was subjected to a series of attacks, I had never felt the need to justify myself, this all changed today; today I felt the importance of clarifying many things due to the harsh and unfair criticism I am facing this time; criticism that has reached the point of questioning my loyalty to my country, which is completely unacceptable. Our home country is big enough not to impose one nature on all spectrums of its society."

"I sincerely pray for my country and for all of its citizens, even those who have made much effort to harass my family and I."

"We have to all realise that criticising some phenomena in our home country does not equate to hating it, wishing evil upon it nor is it an attempt to shake its balance, it's the total opposite. Any Saudi citizen might be upset by some incidents that occur in the Kingdom, but that is only a direct sign of one's interest in the betterment of one's own country and one's hope to see Saudi Arabia as a global leader."

"I remain very optimistic about a bright future for my country and its citizens."

"I am with the uprising of women in the Arab world because I can think and fully practice my religion (like men). Also, I’m in debt to my daughter to offer her an honorable life."

"I will win. Not immediately, but definitely."

"Lately, I appeared in some foreign media channels, which resulted in more attacks against me, and the number of threats of murder or physical harm against me have increased due to the creation of ugly hashtags by instigators, for the purpose of inciting and mobilizing followers against me; this does not represent a tolerant society at all. In these interviews, I spoke about my experience and what I went through personally, and I always ended what I said with my optimism towards the future of the Kingdom and its youth, but - unfortunately - this part was usually omitted during the editing stages of said interviews. What the majority does not know is that, for the past 4 years, I have refused to appear in interviews with foreign media channels, because I knew of the threat that they pose to individuals and for fear of being used as a media tool wrongfully, as well as the tendency of some reporters to paint an ugly picture of Saudi Arabia by exploiting and cutting out parts of what is being said by its citizens - especially those who were part of the Kingdom's scholarship program - without any attempt to show the full picture in a fair and professional manner."

"Respective authorities would not allow in those whom they know will slander the Kingdom and directly insult its citizens."

"The veil is nothing but a sign of political Islam, as the armbands were for the Nazis!"

"I am against the veil not only because it is a religious sign, but because it is a symbol of the enslavement of women and sexism! Do not let yourself be convinced that the wearing of the veil is an act of freedom because it is the imprisonment of women in communitarianism and it is also their residence and cultural identity. In Europe today the veil is the symbol of conquering political Islam and a sign of visible and communicative Islamization."

"When we begin to close our eyes on veiled girls in the name of "modesty" ... we finally close our eyes to girls raped under the guise of "marriage"."

"Accepting the hijab in advertisements, in children's toys or even considering the fact that children wear the veil at school or on television as something "normal" is not evidence of cultural diversity and openness of European societies but this is a proof of the gentle Islamization of these societies."

"I want to make things clear about the hijab. Anyone who is for equality between the sexes is against this garment which designates the woman as a temptress who must cover herself to keep her modesty! The hijab has an inherent sexual dimension. Before Islam, this practice of disguising women of the public dimension already existed, to show their inferiority. Now, the hijab is instrumentalized by Islamists who have understood its political dimension, in opposition to the values of emancipation and the Republic."

"A question for those who mix racism and freedom with the veil debate: who is the racist? he who defends the values of equality, of modernity, as well as the values of the French revolution or the one that advocates a return to medieval values and a dark period in which no equality existed?"

"Like all exclusive ideologies, such as Marxism or eugenics, Islam wants to be the sole holder of the truth and the embodiment of its salvation. His hegemony, dogmatism and tyranny make Islam an eradicating movement. Those among non-Muslims who strive to seek a moderate Islam demonstrate their ignorance of the very nature of this religion. Muslims who defend an allegedly temperate Islam also ignore the foundations of their faith or are duplicitous and hypocritical. They hide their bloodthirsty history to present it in a better light. As a result, we can not speak of moderate Muslims. (pp. 154-155)"

"Jihad and terrorism carry the same meaning despite the efforts of Muslims to dissociate and differentiate them. Terrorism is not a new phenomenon in Islam, since it has been the main tool for the expansion of Islamic State since Muhammad. Islamic conquests were indeed a form of terrorism, although consistent with the practices of the time. [...] terrorism, the hereditary fruit of Koranic education, has its roots in the East. He is the son of the cohesion policy created by the Prophet Muhammad and his followers, bringing together all pre-Islamic groups under the same ideology: Islam. (pp. 209-210)"

"If Western countries really fear Islam, why do they welcome so many Muslims, granting them asylum and many helpers? Why do they tolerate the construction of so many mosques on their soil while Muslim countries forbid the building of churches on their own? If there is a real hostility towards Islam, why are hundreds of thousands of Muslims trying to clandestinely reach the lands of the infidels and apostates, often risking their lives? [...] the West is innocent of accusations of Islamophobia against it, [...] political Islam has invented this term to accelerate the ghettoisation of Muslims, oppose them to the host countries and radicalize them. (pp. 126-127)"

"There is no difference between the radicals who kill in the name of Allah and the pretended moderates who applaud and find them extenuating circumstances. The mistake in France is that the media use the term "extremist" to refer to jihadists who massacre and terrorize civilians and call "moderate" all others. Yet those who believe in sharia and dream of applying it, who reject gender equality, who impose Islam and its symbols in everyday life, who demand the separation of men and women in the public space who introduce religion to school through halal meat, who demand the veil, who want to adapt society to their ideology, who applaud the execution of renegades and want to Islamize through preaching are all extremists, even they have not - or not yet - carried the weapons. In fact, all Muslims who meet these criteria must be considered radicals. (p. 151)"

"Too many Muslims still refuse to integrate in the West today. They claim all the rights granted to Western citizens in the name of human rights and equality, but they refuse the duties incumbent upon these citizens. They want to impose their religion to states that no longer have a religion and to the societies that practice it discreetly. In France, many of them do not respect the state and do not give it any importance ... / ... France and the West must protect their precious secularism, especially since it seems impossible in the Arab countries."

"Hatred against Islam becomes the second terminology used after Islamophobia to escape the debate. It is particularly aimed at lay people of Muslim or Arab origin. Practitioners are abusing it against ex-Muslims who dare to denounce virulent preaching and calls for violence in mosques and relayed to their neighborhoods. But where is the hatred to denounce hatred? (p. 135)"

"This desire to impose coexistence and cohabitation in the name of "living together", while these guests of the nation do not intend to respect this concept, is to let termites destroy a house by saying that it is necessary that these poor beasts feed. (p. 41)"

"Those who are called revolutionaries and rebels, that is to say those who have escaped this conditioning, driven by the will to live, to reflect, to understand each other and to explore life and its."

"It is a cry of alarm that I run to save the innocence of children, threatened by madness and anger. And it is at school and at the mosque that they are formatted to become criminals! Because in my country and beyond, the main suppliers of terrorists are mosques."

"In the West, the Muslims exploit Islam for political reasons. Current issues, relating inter alia to scarf, veil and burqa attest. Nothing in the Qur'an requires the wearing of these scarves, but Muslims use it to prove their existence and to impose a common identity and recognizable to the entire community. This demand for clothing also allows extremist organizations to fight the liberalism of atheists and progressive movements. By imposing the veil, they want to distinguish Muslim women from European women, impious by definition, and prove that all the identity of these women resides in Islam, that their identity is Islam. It is obviously nonsense: the being is not defined by his religion. The scarf thus becomes a symbol through which they aspire to impose Islam in the countries that host them by demanding from them rights, on their terms. But Western laxity is problematic. The West, which has millions of Muslims from elsewhere and grants them citizenship, tolerates that some of them live in ghettos and demand respect for their own rules, even before integrating and respecting the laws. from their host country. The example of the Muslims in Britain is flagrant. They want to fight the ungodly, enforce the rules of Ramadan, prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol, forbid indigenous Christians to eat in public during the month of fasting, establish sharia law and declare jihad in Hyde Park!"

"The building of a Palestinian state will only be possible if the mentality of the people evolves and accepts the idea of complementarity between the two states ... A brewing between the two societies is essential in order to help the Palestinians to catch up in the matter modernity compared to their Israeli neighbors."

"Then one day, I took my courage in both hands. I first expanded my reading and immersed myself in philosophical and scientific works that called for reflection on the existence of God, such as To End God with the British Richard Dawkins. This book brought me the answers that religion was unable to provide me. Through the work of Darwin, Hawking, and other scientists who have marked humanity, I have discovered that most scholars are atheists. I had come to understand why the work of these scholars was not taught in our schools and universities: simply because those of Dawkins or for example, the theory of evolution of Darwin, go against the primacy of religion on science. ... / ... The Internet has allowed me to discover that the famous miracles of Islam, claimed by the religious and willingly relayed by the press and Islamic satellite television, were just lies. ... / ... Darwin's theory of evolution seemed to me much more convincing than the legend of Adam and Eve."

"Some Muslims now use the term Islamophobia instead of simply talking about racism against the Arabs. It is a very convenient, but quite wrong, way to believe that there is a specific stigma of Islam ... To fight the fight against fanaticism and to free Muslims, it would be necessary to first, that the media cease to serve as a support and platform for radicals and stop relaying these false accusations of Islamophobia."