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Are you suggesting Zinc wants to put something in your face? What and have you bite it? Give him some credit. I am straight. He hasn't put anything near my face. Then again if he was Paris Hilton I probably would ask him/her to refrain as well. One can never be too careful.

Now Myata. A good Muslim is not allowed to gamble. Neither should Jews or Christians for that matter, and as Oleg would tell you, gambling is controlled by the Mafia.

I would do a little bit more research before jumping to any conclusions. The Globe & Mail has been predicting Israel's collapse since 1949. The only thing that fascinates me is that you would actually believe this article picks "some of the strands of what is going on and gives them some context". How would you know? How do you know what is going on if all you have done is read this article and rely on it? In fact what you unintentionally stated is you have no clue what is going on and rely on this article to tell you. I find it fascinating people get fascinated by things they read in the newspaper. Do you believe in Santa Claus by any chance?

Lol. Very melodramatic. In fact the religious Zionists, are a bunch of splintered and fragmented political parties and no Zionism is not losing power like some aged man in need of viagra. These religious parties exist because Israel has proportional representation which encourages numerous political parties and enables fringe ones a better chance of getting elected. The National Religious Party and other religious fundamentalist parties and the racists who support Lieberman are not and will never be the majority in Israel and they have always been around-nothing new there. As for the attempt of certain Rabbias to bring religion into the IDF that is also not new and is done on an individual level by those Rabbias. It is something the IDF must put up with but does not support. This notion that the IDF can be whipped into a religious frenzy to fight is absurd. It is a civilian army. Its members are the average every day person who must remain active on a yearly call up from 18 to 65. These are not the kind of soldiers who take kindly to religious fanatics in their midst just the opposite. The average Israeli and therefore IDF soldier hates all forms of religious extremism in all religions equally. The actual facts are much more boring then the sensational doomsday extreme civil war religious Zionist plots you come up with.

In your own wierd way Oleg you do touch on the insanity of elitism.

Those fundamentalists you refer to are the problem-not everyday Muslims just trying to mind their own friggin business. I totally agree with your comments. Every word. However there are some on this forum who do engage in sweeping negative generalizations about an entire people-that I challenge. I also challenge anyone of any religion or culture for the exact same reasons-and that is if they try use their religion or culture to promote intolerance and hatred.

Semantic or semitic? Oy. Its very confusing.

The point is it is illogical to blame an entire people for the extremist fundamentalist beliefs of others. The point is the extremist fundamentalists who have turned Islam into a justification to engage in violence or intolerance of others are no different in the hatred they engage in than JBG and JBG no more reflects what Jews or Israelis or Zionists think than do these extremist fundamentalists found in all religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.

First of all do not refer to JBG as a Zionist. What he spews is bigotry. What he spews are illogical negative generalizations about all Muslims. What he engages in is no different then what you do with ZIonists and Jews. The point is engaging in negative generalizations about an entire people for the actions of a few extremists is illogical. It is what bigots do. JBG comes on this board to incite hatred against Muslims but in fact all he does is incite anti-semitic responses against Jews, Israelis and people who support the nation of Israel's right to exist. Get it clear Zionism is not a doctrine that was ever designed to be religious or suggest Jews are superior to anyone or that Muslims or anyone else was inferior. That has nothing at all to do with Zionism. In fact JBG has engaged in so many of these anti-Muslim tirades one would suspect he is now doing it intentionally to incite anti-semitism. Do not drag Zionists into your response to him. He does not reflect anyone but himself. More to the point if you want to make your point he is a bigot do so without spitting back at anyone else. Simply respond by pointing out the positive things Muslims do and leave it at that. Your anti-Zionist comments only lower you to his irrational and vile level.

JBG your Muslim bashing is tiresome, illogical and pointless. It also ironically evidences you are the very uncivilized person you try portray all Muslims as being. In my opinion you are a hateful bigoted man whose sole agenda is to come on this forum and insult Muslims and claim to do so on behalf of Jews and Israel. This Jew and Zionist says to you as loud and clear as possible that you are a vile bigot in my opinion and you do not represent Jews, Israelis or Zionists. Your anti-Muslim rants reflect your views. I appreciate the majority of this forum does not engage in negative generalizations about all Jews, Israeli supporters or Israelis because of your toxic words. I am sick of your tirades against Muslims and challenge you and them as a Jew and as a Zionist. You are a nasty example of the universal bigot. You unfortunately come in all shapes, sizes, colours and religions.

The article American women provided states: Professor David Yeroshalmi, author of The Jews of Iran in the 19th century and an expert on Iranian... ... "There is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name,".......In fact, Iranian Jews use the Hebrew word "tzitzit" to describe the Jewish prayer shawl. Yeroshalmi, a scholar at Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, also went on to dispute the article's findings that the "-jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. "This ending is in no way sufficient to judge whether someone has a Jewish background. Many Muslim surnames have the same ending," he stated. Upon closer inspection, a completely different interpretation of "Sabourjian" emerges. According to Robert Tait, a Guardian correspondent who travelled to Ahmadinejad's native village in 2005, the name "derives from thread painter – sabor in Farsi – a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated". This is confirmed by Kasra Naji, who also wrote a biography of Ahmadinejad and met his family in his native village. Carpet weaving or colouring carpet threads are not professions associated with Jews in Iran. According to both Naji and Tait, Ahmadinejad's father Ahmad was in fact a religious Shia, who taught the Quran before and after Ahmadinejad's birth and their move to Tehran. So religious was Ahmad Sabourjian that he bought a house near a Hosseinieh, a religious club that he frequented during the holy month of Moharram to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hossein. Moreover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mother is a Seyyede. This is a title given to women whose family are believed to be direct bloodline descendants of Prophet Muhammad. Male members are given the title of Seyyed, and include prominent figures such as Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In Judaism, this is equivalent to the Cohens, who are direct descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. One has to be born into a Seyyed family: the title is never given to Muslims by birth, let alone converts. This makes it impossible for Ahmadinejad's mother to have been a Jew. In fact, she was so proud of her lineage that everyone in her native village of Aradan referred to her by her Islamic title, Seyyede. The reason that Ahmadinejad's father changed his surname has more to do with the class struggle in Iran. When it became mandatory to adopt surnames, many people from rural areas chose names that represented their professions or that of their ancestors. This made them easily identifiable as townfolk. In many cases they changed their surnames upon moving to Tehran, in order to avoid snobbery and discrimination from residents of the capital." The Sabourjians were one of many such families. Their surname was related to carpet-making, an industry that conjures up images of sweatshops. They changed it to Ahmadinejad in order to help them fit in. The new name was also chosen because it means from the race of Ahmad, one of the names given to Muhammad. According to Ahmadinejad's relatives the new name emphasised the family's piety and their dedication to their religion and its founder. This is something that the president and his relatives in Tehran and Aradan have maintained to the present day. Not because they are trying to deny their past, but because they are proud of it.

The article American women provided states: Professor David Yeroshalmi, author of The Jews of Iran in the 19th century and an expert on Iranian... ... "There is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name,".......In fact, Iranian Jews use the Hebrew word "tzitzit" to describe the Jewish prayer shawl. Yeroshalmi, a scholar at Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, also went on to dispute the article's findings that the "-jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. "This ending is in no way sufficient to judge whether someone has a Jewish background. Many Muslim surnames have the same ending," he stated. Upon closer inspection, a completely different interpretation of "Sabourjian" emerges. According to Robert Tait, a Guardian correspondent who travelled to Ahmadinejad's native village in 2005, the name "derives from thread painter – sabor in Farsi – a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated". This is confirmed by Kasra Naji, who also wrote a biography of Ahmadinejad and met his family in his native village. Carpet weaving or colouring carpet threads are not professions associated with Jews in Iran. According to both Naji and Tait, Ahmadinejad's father Ahmad was in fact a religious Shia, who taught the Quran before and after Ahmadinejad's birth and their move to Tehran. So religious was Ahmad Sabourjian that he bought a house near a Hosseinieh, a religious club that he frequented during the holy month of Moharram to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hossein. Moreover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mother is a Seyyede. This is a title given to women whose family are believed to be direct bloodline descendants of Prophet Muhammad. Male members are given the title of Seyyed, and include prominent figures such as Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In Judaism, this is equivalent to the Cohens, who are direct descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. One has to be born into a Seyyed family: the title is never given to Muslims by birth, let alone converts. This makes it impossible for Ahmadinejad's mother to have been a Jew. In fact, she was so proud of her lineage that everyone in her native village of Aradan referred to her by her Islamic title, Seyyede. The reason that Ahmadinejad's father changed his surname has more to do with the class struggle in Iran. When it became mandatory to adopt surnames, many people from rural areas chose names that represented their professions or that of their ancestors. This made them easily identifiable as townfolk. In many cases they changed their surnames upon moving to Tehran, in order to avoid snobbery and discrimination from residents of the capital." The Sabourjians were one of many such families. Their surname was related to carpet-making, an industry that conjures up images of sweatshops. They changed it to Ahmadinejad in order to help them fit in. The new name was also chosen because it means from the race of Ahmad, one of the names given to Muhammad. According to Ahmadinejad's relatives the new name emphasised the family's piety and their dedication to their religion and its founder. This is something that the president and his relatives in Tehran and Aradan have maintained to the present day. Not because they are trying to deny their past, but because they are proud of it.

These papers deal with the current situation of Jews in Iran. http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/PDF/IranLevin.pdf http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/yale_anti-semitism_Lecture_555[2].doc http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/07/irans-je...-mans-land.html

http://www.jewishjournal.com/iranianameric...rans_elections/ http://www.jewishjournal.com/iranianameric...out_irans_jews/ Above is commentary from someone unlike Sir Bandelot who is in a position to comment.

Oh you do, do you. You know do you. Why because you live in Iran? Because you know what it is like to be a Jew in Iran? You know nothing of what it is like to be a non shiite Muslim in Iran. You are a classic case of someone who knows nothing and pretends to be an authority on something he knows nothing about. What is interesting is how someone plants a false story about Ahmadinejad being a Jew and its picked up on and repeated by people who do not do their homework and do not check to see what they are writing is accurate and just assume because they read it somewhere it must be true. What is interesting is how you are such an expert on the situation of non Shiite Muslims in Iran. For that matter it is interesting you know how wonderful and tolerant Iranian society is to even its Shiite Muslims that are not fundamentalists, or its students, progressives, trade unionists. Another arm chair genius makes his pronouncements from his basement tens of thousands of miles way from reality.

Do your homework again. The fact the name is reserved for Jews does not mean it is a Jewish name or restricted to the use of Jews. It is used in Turkey, Armenia and in Iran, Pakistan by Muslims, Bahaiis, Christians, Zoroastreans. The rumour started because the family of Ahmedinejad said he changed his name. Then people like you jump to conclusions the name is only used by Jews. It is in fact not restricted to Jews and never was. And you are wrong as to its meaning. Absolutely dead wrong. It is a common word for carpet weaver or a person who sews designs it is not a name that only refers to sewing Jeiwsh tallit. Absolute nonsense.

I find your comments illogical questionable for these reasons: i- the fact you feel Hitler was no MORE evil than Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot does not make him less evil; ii-the fact that you believe some people justify the genocide of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot does not mean Hitler was less evil then them or more evil then them; iii-evil in the context you are referring to it is used in the specific context of a subjective not objective reference so it is only logical the conclusions reached would be subjective-the fact they are subjective in themselves does not make them necessarily invalid-one would need more information to determine that, i.e., the standards they used to compare the negative consequences of the actions of these leaders to be able to come to any conclusion as to whether the comparison between them was defective; iv- you appear to have missed the point of your premises-and that is that the fact that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao all engaged in genocides makes them all evil and entering into a pissing contest as to whose evil was the worst misses that point; v- the people you now make cryptic reference to as thinking Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot are less evil then Hitler sound like a subjective construct you fabricated to try advance the subjective assumption you believe that society engages in a double standard when discussing Hitlerian facism and communism. What next-Hitler was a good guy and the only thing he did wrong was kill Jews-if he had not gassed anyone he would have been swell for the world? Save that stale "he had the trains run on time " for someone else. The fact is all these people you presented were cold blooded killers blinded by their meglomania, paranoia and ability to find people to follow them blindly through both the imposition of fear and beneficial inducement using the goverment as their agent of coercion. I do not hear you stating facism and communism in that sense are equally as guilty and repugnant. I do see you however trying to prop facism by whipping communism. Some of us despise both for the same reasons.

All one has to do is substitute the name Lictor for American woman and "an innercity in North America" or "reservation" for Somalia and I think the above statement would probably be more valid. Your attempt to stereotype American Woman as some naive do gooder is a good one. Your attempt to act holier then thou and act like your neo Nazi agenda is justified and the result of you having lived in Somalia or because of what may have happened in Somalia is even better. You have any idea how absurd it is when you try criticize people for not being a neo Nazi like you? I can assure you if I said something stupid American Woman would tell me to f.. off and not care what ethnicity I am. You would know that if you read her posts. You are quick to label people with stereotypes. From what I can see it is you who choose to embrace the silly one you now live. White pride? Right. Define white. Say now let's start with eliminating Catholics and Jews and native born Muslims born in Albania, Bosnia, Serbia. Now then-what about albinos? That will get tricky. How about whites that have darker skin-do we exclude them once they get say the colour of mocha, or the stain in your undies? How dark is dark before its no longer white? Oh do tell. Will you do a blood test to rule out Jews or Muslims that look white? How about those light skinned blacks? I can't wait to see the nose and hair texture classification system you use. White pride. Who are you fooling. By the time you get finished with the acceptable list for who is in your group you will be no further ahead then you are now with just your right hand as company.

I second the Wild one's coments.

You lost me. First off most criminal law and may statutory civil laws are based on moral values. I think it is absurd to suggest criminal law is not based on the moral values of the day. Moral values are precisely why there is a law prohibiting mercy killings or pedophilia or sexual assault or polygamy. Secondly I am not sure what gays you are referring to when you claim they claim to be like abolitionists. With due respect that sounds like a social construct you created, i.e., you are under the subjective impression gays who seek equality rights call themselves this. More to the point even if some did, so what? Many people who are straight claim to hate gays and call gays perverts and lacking in morality. I am straight and I dont think this way at all and if anything think we straights are more inclined to be perverted and immoral. So? What was your point? Do you think it is a valid intellectual exercise to criticize the desire of gays to be equal based on such a subjective pretext? It is the contents of their argument that make them valid or not. Pointing out arguments against slavery and arguments about discriminating against gays not being the same is about as meaningful as saying a weight problem for an extremely obese person is not comparable to a weight problem for a severely underweight person. What was your point? Yes we know, a horse is not a cat. Thanks. Do you think all gay activists see themselves as slaves? Give them a little more credit then that to know the difference between being a "slave" and being a second glass citizen in the context they use it and have used it in legal arguements. Your attempt to simplify their legal arguments in such a manner with due respect are inaccurate. You also made some comment about individual freedom and social liberals I did not understand. I was not aware gay people ever argued individual freedom only entails being able to have sex with a person of the same gender. I thought it was a bit more complex then that given the legal cases I have read. As for the social liberal label, many conservatives using the word in the true sense, i.e., Edmund Burke context, would most probably today think of themselves as libertarian or certainly in favour of individual rights being preferable over collective ones. Their philosophy couldbe quite compatible with certain idividual rights gay activists champion. The gay movement, like any movement of a specific people seeking self-determination is a mix of many beliefs. Trying to simplify them all as liberal or conservative, left or right is with due respect misleading.

Lictor I and others presented to you our basis for stating that genetic conditions do not establish race is a biologically distinct entity. Your response was to state: "Yes sickle cell is majority black... but since greeks can also have it... we're all equal..." No actually it is not majority black. You simply fabricated that comment. Even if it was true, the fact that African descended people may have higher rates of it does not prove they are a biological entity dintinct from non African descended people-that was precisely the point explaining why it prevails in many groups regardless of their skin colour or whether they look black to you or not. When you stated, "since greeks also have it...we're all equal.." you show you did not understand what was presented to you. The fact that ethnic Greek peoples or black African peoples both have sickle cell anemia might mean persons of both categories who have it, have the same genetic trait. Having the same genetic trait does not make someone equal or unequal, it does indicate whether they share a genetic trait or not. It is precisely because black Africans and ethnic Greeks share the same genetic traits trying to argue they are distinct biological entities is absurd. Genetically they are not. They have sufficient similiarities in their genetic traits to make any distinction based on biology impossible. This brings us back to your comment. You throw out equality but clearly are throwing it back into the actual method you wish it to be used and that is the one you engage in, a subjective social construct where you believe dark skin or the shape of noses or texture of hair makes one "equal" or "unequal". No Lictor, neither I nor the people who have challenged you ever claimed all Greeks and black Africans "look the same". Your constant attempt to change the subject and mis-state it to suggest blacks and whites are different because you think we look different is what we challenge. Your subjective presumption that if people look different they must be genetically or biologicallty different is what was challenged and repudiated and in fact has not been debunked by you with any objective tests or scientific evidence. I am still waiting for you to provide one objective test from a scientist that proved there are biologically distinct races. I won't hold my breath.

You misunderstood what I stated and no what I stated does not suggest i.q. tests are invalid. What I stated is that i.q. tests are bias in favour of the culture of the person who created the i.q.test, i.e., they reflect built in biases of that creator. The i.q. tests now used across North America are most often the result of the same psychometric format devised in Princeton, New Jersey. They reflect a white, middle class bias. No they would not be accurate if you use them on a person who lives in the rain forests of Brazil. A person from the rain forests of Brazil would be no more capable of filling one out then a typical urban North American would be of being able to understand basic lessons of survival someone would need to live in the Amazon. The i.q. tests used on people of the same culture as the test creator probably are more valid. What I stated is i.q. tests have a serious weakness in that they do not properly address and take into consideration cross cultural differences. I would certainly agree the entire premises of Western civilization now relies heavily on i.q. testing. However what I also know is i.q. tests also have problems in that they also do not necessarily take into consideration low scores caused by dyslexia, dyscalcula or other learning disabilities that may cause the person with them to learn to compensate for their imbalances that then enable them to function at very high levels even though they may do badly on the i.q. testing. In addition standard i.q. testing does not test emotional intelligence and most now agree isolating intellectual from emotional intelligence which these tests do, also distorts their accuracy. Certain persons are born with the condition called idiot savante. For unknown reasons their brain seems to be impaired and their i.q. is registered at a verty low score, but in one specific area, i.e., multiplying, painting, playing music, singing, they can exhibit highly advanced skills. They are a classic and extreme example of what happens when someone can have tremendous skills in some or few areas but not in others. May would argue simply testing one's ability to calculate under conditions of limited time or comprehending the reasoning formulae used in i.q. tests only tests one part of the brain. I did obtain one of my graduate degrees in Applied Psychology at OISE-University of Toronto and met a lot of students doing their Ph.d's in psychometric testing and one doing his on artificial intelligence. I am no expert in psychometric testing or intelligence testing and do not claim to be. In the context I raised it with you, I used it to show how it can be distorted by cross cultural phenomena among other things. The fact that I contend it has limitations, does not mean I stated it is completely invalid nor did the people I referred to suggest i.q. testing is completely invalid. What I said and quoted was that it CAN BE invalid and lead to distortions in the circumstances I suggested. Your leaping to the conclusion I said something else, with due respect I would suggest is you projecting. I note you tend to restate everything everyone says to you in simple, absolute, rigid terms and so in the above case unintentionally misunderstood what I said. I agree with you that making a sweeping general statement that all i.q. tests are not valid or should be thrown out would not be helpful. I do think personally however far too much importance is placed on them and they lead to turning people into numbers. Each person has a unique design like a finger print or snow flake when it comes to intellectual, emotional and physical capacity, potential and actual state of evolution. By their very nature i.q. tests make subjective assumotions and build them into the tests as "norms" all people are supposed to understand and are assumed to be universal reality. What I am telling you is the geometry, calculus, logic, these i.q. tests attempt to measure assume many things starting with the fact that material methods of definition are rational while non material ones are not. That in itself can cause these tests to be distorted when applying them to people who live outside the Western world where value is determined on an individual level and by amount of material the individual aquires or is said to have the capacity to obtain. Many of the calculation tests are presented based on the assumption people use monetary systems and currencies or own property on individual basis that do not exist in many cultures.

Lictor I want to respond to your labelling certain people including myself who disagree with your take on race as all being leftist. That Lictor shows you once again in all your glory-quick to subjectively name call and label anyone you disagree with, with the same subjective label-only this time its not "sociological" or "liberal" its "leftist". May I make a friendly suggestion what you can do with your "lefist" and "rightist" labels. I would suggest you place them in the same place as your labels used to classify people by race. Give it a rest with the David Duke shtick.

Come now Oleg. Do you really think someone could do you justice, culturally profiling you let alone want the government to impose such a label on you given what you have seen in the school system? Lol-I know exactly what the civil servants would come up with in your case: a Turkish Satanist Transexual. Imagine the stigma that would have on your children.

In this post Lictor I I provide words used to repudiate the notion you hold that there are white, black and Asian races and each race has a different intelligence level. Scientific work abetting the idea that race is real, typological, and hierarchically arranged is actually rather an old occupation, you know. In the mid-1840s we see Samuel Morton measuring crania to get at cranial capacity and then to try to rank the races on the amount of cranial capacity they have, and to equate that with racial differences and intelligence. And really about every 20 years somebody else comes along, almost with a best-seller, perhaps with a new method for measuring intelligence, ultimately to show that there is a ranking in intelligence, usually with whites up top. The most recent effort was The Bell Curve, which came out in 1994 and literally reached number two on the best-seller list in 1994, behind a book, by the way, written by Pope John Paul. The Bell Curve threw a couple spins into this. One is that it actually promoted Asians as being closer to the top, also broke down whites a little bit more. But fundamentally it was the same type of book as was written by Morton in 1850; you use the same basic methods and the same basic logic. Their argument went something like this: there is something called intelligence that we can put our fingers on, that we can measure; intelligence is some sort of univariable; it's one-dimensional. That intelligence then is measurable by something called an intelligence test that actually measures intelligence. And then that intelligence is highly heritable; it's something we really do get in our chromosomes, in our genes; it comes to us that way, it is highly heritable. Then one has to say that there is such a thing as white, black, and Asian, or whatever groups you're comparing, that they are real, that they are measurable, that they are reproducible. But then let's to back and look at the assumptions again. Is there a white group, a black group, an Asian group? Are these reproducible? Are they trained equally? Can we really measure a variable called intelligence? Is it really something that's not affected by environment, about how we're trained, how we grow up, what stimulation we have by children? I'll give you an example. One test has shown that just a little bit of lead in the blood can affect intelligence - a little bit of lead in the blood, prenatal, can affect intelligence by easily eight points on an intelligence score. Are we to believe that those factors were unimportant in looking at the differences in IQ scores? Of course not. "