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Today’s tragic shooting and killing at Fort Hood army base in Texas, which has claimed the lives of at least 12 people, occured on November 5. According to ABC one of the suspected gunman in Fort Hood is a convert to Islam born Muslim, of Palestinian origin, by the name Major Malik Nadal Hasan. (It should be noted that this point the military has not released any names). The Lede blog at NYTimes says that the alleged shooter’s name was Nidal Malik Hasan, a licensed doctor from Virginia. Senator’s Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s people are saying that the major was allegedly upset about his upcoming deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Today’s date is the same as the date of the Guy Fawkes plot of 1605, when a Catholic dissident who had been previously served as a soldier, unsuccessfully tried to blow up the English Parliament in order to kill the Protestants inside. Today the Brits celebrate the foiling of his plot. “Remember, remember, the Fifth of November”.

(Guy Fawkes is celebrated among anarchists. His antics were depicted in a favorable light in the comic and film V for Vendetta).

I assume we’ll find out the exact identities of the perpetrators (there are supposedly three) in due time, as well as their affiliations and motivations. However the date and why it was chosen should be noted and scrutinized. Perhaps the attacker was trying to mimic the anarchist from long ago.

Ultimately a horrible tragedy all around.

Apparently France has arrested a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), for possible links to al-Qaeda.

CERN, if you don’t pay attention to science, is where the Large Hadron Collider is kept. The LHC is this massive thing which seeks to recreate the conditions of the beginning of the universe i.e. the Big Bang. One of the knocks against the LHC is that it could potentially unleash a black hole on earth which would, yeah, suck all of us up.

In related news: last night I was watching a comic on TV and he referred to terrorists as “Ahmed McGuyver.”

I was just reading the Transparency International report and it struck me that Qatar is the least corrupt Muslim majority state in the world.

Qatar is also ranked higher — sometimes significantly — than many Western and East Asian states, such as Portugal, Spain, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. By the way, where is India, that darling of global capitalism? Number 85. Down there with such stalwarts as Serbia and Algeria.

UAE and Bahrain did pretty well too (though when it comes to corruption everyone can be better).

All in all, on an index where the U.S. ranks 18 and Qatar ranks 28, this is a pretty significant achievement. It is also a sign that Qatar deserves a major international sporting event, like the Olympics or the world cup. After all, if South Africa, #54 can get the world cup, and Brazil, #80, can be in the running for the Olympics, and #57 and #72 (Greece and China) have both held the Olympics, why not Qatar get something to show off the progress it has made?

Besides, if Chicago can be in the running for 2016 Olympics despite what is going on there, then Qatar certainly deserves some love.

When Barack Obama was elected President, I congratulated him for having successfully pulled off the global islamic conspiracy (without any support from Muslims). However, a few months into the presidency, it would seem that I was wrong in thinking Obama to be affiliated with Islam. Here are five reasons why, I think, Obama cannot be a Muslim.

5 – Obama seems to get along with the Saudi royals. Most Muslims, including many Saudis, do not.

4 – Obama supports the Chicago Bears. In Islam, bears are najis, or impure i.e. getting licked by one would break one’s ritual ablution.

3 – Obama can’t put on his own traditional clothes. Muslims can do it themselves. (Not to mention that Muslims usually remove their shirt and pants before putting on such clothes).

2 – Obama’s preferred drug was weed. Most Muslims consider drugs haram; while those that do partake of them usually prefer opium instead of marijuana based substances. (Obama also showed a preference for non-Muslim Colombia over Muslim Afghanistan when he opted for cocaine over heroin).

1 – Hard to be a faithful Muslim and a faithless commie all at once.

Honorable mentions via FB friends:

Obama would be ok touching a bill that has pork;

Obama is used to having people worship him five times a day instead of the other way around.

Acclaimed Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat is releasing a film about the CIA’s 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq. The film is called Women Without Men and tells the story of two women with starkly different perspectives. The trailer, with often stunning visuals, is below. Neshat’s photography is well-known for its incredible use of light and color. The film is very timely given the recent post-election agitation in Iran.

Warning: some of the imagery may be considered inappropriate and/or difficult.