Open Minded Realism

A pipe bomb exploded in a garbage can Saturday morning in a New Jersey beach town of Seaside Park, with the explosion timed to harm participants in a Marine Corps charity run.  Three pipe bomb devices were wired together and set to detonate with a timer, but only one detonated.  The timing of the explosion was set to coincide with the start of the race, but registration problems at the starting line caused the race to be delayed for a few minutes, resulting in nobody being near the bomb when it detonated.

Following is a summary of this DailyMail article: 

A pregnant 14-year-old was tortured and set on fire by her in-laws because her father eloped with a woman from their family.   She died in a Kabul burn hospital the next week in July 2016.

The killing was an act of revenge after the man had run away with a young cousin of his daughter’s husband when the family agreed to sell her for more money.

The grieving father visited Afghanistan’s capitol in a quest for justice for the killing, rallying with members of his family and women’s rights activists, but he said he had little hope for justice.

Women’s rights activist Veeda Saghari explains that violence against women is ignored in Afghanistan: “.. violence against women such as acid throwing, beating, stoning, informal community tribunal verdicts, burning, forced divorces, forced marriages, forced pregnancies, and forced abortions have reached a peak.”

Yusuf Islam, the folk singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, who wrote such popular songs as “Peace Train” and “Morning has Broken” is well known for rejecting all aspects of his secular life including his famous songs and becoming a devout Muslim in the late 1970’s, even going as far as publicly supporting the worldwide death fatwa against the author Salomon Rudshi in 1989.  More recently, Yusuf has been starting to play his pre-Islamic songs once again while also remaining a devout Muslim.

This is a video of Yusuf reading a well known but unfortunately illegitimate writing known as “Muhammad’s Last Sermon,” which is purported to be a speech that Muhammad gave to a large group of his followers at the end of his life where he spread messages of peace and goodwill toward all peoples.  The writing is not actually accepted by authoritative Muslim scholars but many “look the other way” due to its potential value as a recruitment tool and for influencing the general public’s opinions of Islam.

See this article explaining the writing’s likely origins as the work of an anonymous Imam in India who wanted to “enhance Islam” by forging the document.

View footage of migrants in Germany pushing and shoving to grab food that should have gone to elderly pensioners.

The following is a summary of this Express UK article: 

Germany’s Finance Minister Markus Söder has called for refugees be sent home over the next three years, saying that Germany does not want a multicultural society and it is impossible to integrate people from such different cultural backgrounds.

He said, “Even with the best intentions in the world, it will not work to integrate successfully that many people with a completely different cultural background,” adding that many asylum seekers pose a security threat.

He also said that many parts of Iraq and Afghanistan are currently recognized as safe, and mentioned that the war in Syria will end sometime soon, also saying “According to legislation, people have to return home when the reason for fleeing is no longer valid.”

Earlier this year he criticized Angela Merkel for allowing so many refugees to enter Germany, saying “It is a big mistake to open the borders without any checks.”  Over one million people have arrived in Germany over the past year.

Hempcrete is a building material which is similar to concrete made out of hemp stalks and lime, however it is much stronger, lighter, more versatile, and it is environmentally friendly.

Following are points from this Collective Evolution article: 

— Hempcrete can be used for wall insulation, floors, walls, roofing and more.  It is very strong, lightweight, fire-proof, rot-proof, and water-proof as long as it is above ground.

— Hempcrete is made from shredded stems of hemp plants and mixed with lime in a manner similar to cement.

— Solid hempcrete walls can be used rather than traditional walls filled with insulation.  The material is breathable and it absorbs moisture from the outside which it releases again once the air is drier.

— The lime and cellulose mixture of Hempcrete slowly petrifies over time, continually becoming stronger, theoretically lasting for thousands of years.

— Hemp is an excellent sustainable building material due to it growing to maturity in 14 weeks.  It also requires no fertilizer, weed killer, or pesticides to grow.

— Hemps seeds are also a very nutritious “super food” rich in vitamins and nutrients.

— Hempcrete has a “negative carbon footprint” due to hemp plants absorbing CO2 as they grow, but despite this fact, the political establishment which claims to think that global warming is a big problem is not embracing and espousing hempcrete technology for widespread utilization.  This is because either they are exaggerating claims about climate change or because they are concerned with keeping their systems in society the way that they have them.

(Note:  The audio levels on this clip are low)

View a news report about a mob of about 30 Somalian men terrorizing an upscale community near Lake Calhoun, Minnesota earlier this week.  They were gathering in front of houses screaming that they were going to kidnap and rape the residences inside, reported citizens from the neighborhood.

Most of the Somalis who live in Minnesota are Sunni Muslims and they have been known to terrorize towns in the area before.

The U.S State Department has been working with the United Nations to permanently resettle more than 132,000 Somalis into dozens of American cities since 1983.

This video is a good example of how many people inaccurately assume that Islam is essentially no different than other mainstream religions.  “Politically correct” culture is very uninformed about Islam.

See this article explaining many disturbing facts about Islam that would surprise most people.

This video shows an anti-Islamization demonstration in Sydney, Australia, which reveals useful strategies for activists by watching it.

If you watch the video starting at about 3:40, you see a protester being asked questions by a bystander, but the protestor isn’t quite prepared to answer his questions off the top of her head to her frustration, despite her fears being justified.  (See the following articles which clarify what she is concerned about: “Creeping Sharia”, “Muslim Demographics”, “The Grand Deception”, and “Hitler Embraced Islam”.)

A good way for activist groups to avoid such problems while protesting is for all involved to coordinate in order to identify and memorize certain “core points” that they are protesting, including the most “big picture” concerns like she was being asked about, all of which should also be printed on flyers which can be handed out as well.

If people still have questions that a particular activist doesn’t know the answer to, more well informed activists should be made available to answer those questions, and also on-the-spot internet access should ideally be available to the activists.

Activists should also make a note of all of the questions they are asked so they can be better prepared to answer those questions in the future.

Additionally, activists should “practice” while protesting during moments when they are not actually talking to people from the public, by quizzing each other about key topics and videotaping how they respond.

(Note the audio on this video clip is set to a very low volume)

This video shows Muslims commenting about demonstrations which are protesting about new religious blasphemy laws in Sydney, Australia.

A Muslim man is shown saying:  “The message is very simple:  Freedom of expression has some limits.  You cannot simply spread the message of hate and say ‘This is the freedom of expression’!  You know, it has to be condemned on all levels, whether it is Australia or it is the United States [(but he never mentions any Islamic countries)]. … Freedom of expression doesn’t mean that you can insult people.”

A Muslim woman is then shown saying:  “Freedom of expression means you don’t hurt other ones.  And these kinds of words [people protesting anti-free speech laws] hurt Muslims, so this is not right.  If you are going within your limits, it’s all right.”

The Muslim man then says, “People are being outrageous about this and this is not correct, freedom of expression has to be within the context but this is totally out of the context.”