22 August 2007

Amanpouring Myself Some Drunk-Blogging . . .

. . . I just like typing Amanpouring. But the show just started, and I'm about to unleash the DVR and see what's about to come.





DSC00009



Here's the draught keg, ready to pour some ice cold shatan's brew.





DSC00011



Here's the 2oz shot of Jack Daniels I'm about to fortify the beer with.

Now on to drunkblogging! Updates to come . . .

UPDATE: 6:24pm (6:10:50 on the video), OK, Amanpour is conspiring to keep me sober, for the first ten minutes, no moral equivalizing, I'm getting worried . . .

UPDATE: 6:29pm (6:14:25 on video), I'm changing the rules, cause I'm getting thirsty, I'm adding the category, "it's all America's fault" to the list of drink-worthy phrases or tropes. Poor Syed Qutb, he was a young innocent poet and scholar with a stylish Hitler moustache, until he came to America and was exposed to women in two piece swimsuits. Naturally it follows that from there he calls for the destruction of the west and inspires generations of radicals. It's all our fault (two gulps just to get things started).

UPDATE: 6:36pm (6:17:45 on video), OK, now I'm angry, Ms. Amanpour is totally drink-blocking me now. I changed the rules to add the 'blame America' category and she completely misses a golden opportunity. She mentions the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a radicalizing moment in Islam, and profoundly influential in making Bin Laden and Al Qaeda important, yet doesn't mention that the muhajideen didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of driving off the Soviets like they did without training and material support by the CIA. Charlie Wilson was more important in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan than either Al Qaeda or the Taliban (and don't you forget it). In this case, I'm very suspicious of her studied avoidance of blaming America in this instance (and you can tell how sober I still am, I don't think 'studied avoidance' would fly from my fingers once I'm on my 2nd or 3rd boilermaker).

UPDATE: 6:42pm (6:23:10 on video), Karen Armstrong will do me solid. She's a big time apologist for radical and violent Islam. It's that awful forced modernization commited by that puppet of the CIA, the Shah. All praise Ayatollah Khomeini. They "stood up to the United States and humiliated a superpower" (woohoo!?) That's worth two gulps.

UPDATE: 6:55pm (skipping ahead . . .), I might have missed some drink-worthy moments, but all this talk of the joys of martydom is depressing and not a particular at all revealing, moving on . . . made it up to 6:41 on the video, finally blaming the current operations on Iraq for a whole generations of jihadis and radicals (woohoo!?) I think that's worth two gulps.

UPDATE: 7:02pm (6:46:49 on video), If only we hadn't staged troops in Saudi Arabia when we repelled Iraq from Kuwait, maybe Bin Laden wouldn't have gone and done all those awful things (definitely worth two gulps).

UPDATE: 7:09pm (skipping . . . skipping . . .) After some nonsense about Ms. Amanpour trading her less modest normal veil for the even more modest full on mullah approved extreme veil, she visits a mullah/scholar on the Hidden Imam. Fun stuff that, but not drink-worthy, so skip, skip, skip, and now I'm caught up, so I'll polish off the rest of my current glass, eat diner and return in about 45 minutes to watch the last 50 minutes of this program. . . (a few gratuitous gulps to empty my glass)

UPDATE: 8:07pm back to watching this, after a nice hot sliced beef (slathered in bbq sauce) sandwich. Ohh, Karen Armstrong again (7:14:10 on video), "It's important to say that none of the great world religions has been good for women." That sounds like moral equivalency to me (only one gulp). One point about that, yes, all religions have practiced some form of repression, but so to say that because women were oppressed by most Christians, Jews, Buddhist, Hindus or Taoists up through the 19th century (and even into the 20th century) gives Muslims a pass to kill unmarried couples who dare walk together in Iran today, is the worst kind of moral equivalency. And the kind of actions we see in Iran with their violent religious authorities haven't been seen anywhere in the West in this kind of overt way since the 18th century. So no, there is no equivalence there, no matter what Karen Armstrong chooses to state.

UPDATE: 8:27pm This crap is boring, Christiane is talking plenty, but she ain't saying nothing. Blah, blah, blah, only a few radicals, blah, blah, blah, Islam is actually feminist friendly, blah, blah, blah, jihad isn't evil, blah, blah, blah, those evil right-wing politicans in Europe are stirring racism, blah, blah, blah, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an evil apostate attacking Islam, blah, blah, blah, Muslims are fluffy peaceful bunnies so long as you don't offend them, then they're pushed towards a tiny cohort of radicals.

Meh. God's Bollocks more like it.

Made through, barely got a buzz on. I'm seriously disappointed. Jack and Ale do go together nicely, though.

If you were completely uninformed before, than there might have been a few bits of interest mixed in, but if you've been a good consumer of news and current events and prevailed upon yourself to be informed about the issues of the day, then this was just a seriously soft-pedalled treatment of old material.

Useless stuff, and maybe even dangerous given that the threat a place like Iran represents was greatly downplayed.

No comments: