[quote]lixy wrote:
So… a society that tortures prisoners, metes out extremely severe punishment for drug offenses, and applies liberal use of the death penalty would be, in your estimation, a draconian society, correct?
I see.
You have to admit Singapore is well known for dolling out harsh punishments for petty crimes. Sure they have no crime one still has to live in fear of the police. No thanks.
I guess the irony is lost on you.[/quote]
No the irony is not accurate and I chose to ignore it.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
lixy wrote:
So… a society that tortures prisoners, metes out extremely severe punishment for drug offenses, and applies liberal use of the death penalty would be, in your estimation, a draconian society, correct?
I see.
You have to admit Singapore is well known for dolling out harsh punishments for petty crimes. Sure they have no crime one still has to live in fear of the police. No thanks.
I guess the irony is lost on you.
No the irony is not accurate and I chose to ignore it.
[/quote]
Suit yourself.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
lixy wrote:
So… a society that tortures prisoners, metes out extremely severe punishment for drug offenses, and applies liberal use of the death penalty would be, in your estimation, a draconian society, correct?
I see.
You have to admit Singapore is well known for dolling out harsh punishments for petty crimes. Sure they have no crime one still has to live in fear of the police. No thanks.
I guess the irony is lost on you.
No the irony is not accurate and I chose to ignore it.
[/quote]
It gets so thick I sometimes think of this place as the irony board.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
Would the girls even talk to a bloody yank or are Americans held in disdain? Or would they be fascinated?.. What about booze and tobacco? I understand that booze that it is not generally available, but is it available at all? I sure do like a good whiskey and a cigar…Perhaps we should PM, I am genuinely interested in your experiences in Dubai. I like the first hand account from a non-local.
[/quote]
Mate, there is no hostility or animosity towards Americans here in Dubai. There are plenty of you guys living and working over here. Your man Dubya was here just the other week, we practically shut down the entire city for him…
80% of the population here is expat. And the single greatest thing about Dubai is that every fuckin nationality mingles and mixes with another. Of course there are still some prejudices to be found, even some outward expressions of racism. But on the whole, this is one of the most cosmopolitan places I could think of.
You will go to a party and there will be auzzies, brits, lebanese, indians, russians, armenians, iranians and brazilians. Ok, it’s Miss World time again but I’ll spit it out anyway - people get genuinely touched by the different mix of people and cultures that they get to interact with (meaningfully) here in Dubai…
Whiskey? It’s my favorite too. It’s practically on tap here.
Tobacco, sure no problem - all the major players and their brands are here. My brother used to be legal here for BAT!
And of course, don’t even get me started on the greatest pleasure of all…shisha!
pat, any questions, just pm me…
So Pat… you’ve lived in Singapore, then, I take it?
Sorry to hear that you had to live in fear of the police while you were there. That wasn’t my experience when I lived there at all. For the most part I found them professional and honest, and conspicuous in their absence. Not quite as innocuous as Japanese police, but close.
Singapore is one of the only Southeast Asian countries where police corruption is not a fact of life. Nor, for that matter, does one often hear of innocent people and pets getting blown away in a no-knock drug raid gone sour.
http://www.aci.net/Kalliste/dubai.htm
A really good article on Dubai, by an American expat who’s hopped between Central America and the Emirates for quite some time.
Sure as hell made me want to go. Like I said, Singapore without the Chinese.
This article was written before the Great War on Terror began, so Red Bull can tell us how much it’s changed since then.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
Wreckless wrote:
Yet, when you call out this lie, you get a liar like Zap, covering his friend Foo Yun Chee, the original liars back, …
To whom does this refer?[/quote]
Wow…
It’s the writer of the original article.
I googled it and that’s what I came up with, other than that, I was like WTF?
[quote]pat36 wrote:
lixy wrote:
So… a society that tortures prisoners, metes out extremely severe punishment for drug offenses, and applies liberal use of the death penalty would be, in your estimation, a draconian society, correct?
I see.
You have to admit Singapore is well known for dolling out harsh punishments for petty crimes. Sure they have no crime one still has to live in fear of the police. No thanks.
I guess the irony is lost on you.
No the irony is not accurate and I chose to ignore it.
[/quote]
The irony does not really apply if it was a dig against the US.
Ironic that a believer in a religion which calls for stoning of rape victims would find it ironic.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Teens will be teens.[/quote]
These weren’t teens, these were five and six-year-olds in kindergarten and the first grade.
Her Arabic boyfriend’s male Arabic friends will threaten the girl’s non-Arabic male friends. It’s ridiculous.
That was a slip-up. The original rant used the “Muslim” label and later I thought the better of it, went back and changed it to “Arabic”. I must have missed that one.
You’ve got to admit though, Islam and Arabic culture are inescapably intertwined.
This was just from the day my bro (S.U. president that year) had the privilege of seeing the school police officer’s confiscated weapons collection - for that month. Knives, clubs, handguns, you name it. Shocked, my bro asks who’s taking all these weapons to school, to which the officer replied, “The Lebs”.
The conversation was obviously longer than that, but for brevity’s sake I’m keeping it short.
Completely biased and unscientific, but that’s my source.
shrug
They generally do hit-and-runs. They pull over, lay a beat down, pile back into the van, and drive away. The victim is often lucky if there’s even a single witness.
You don’t know that much about Canadians, do you? As a people we are far too meek and pacifistic for our own good. My grandparents tell me that in their time none of this would have been tolerated. That of course was a different time. A time when a neighbour could spank your kid for misbehaving and you thanked him for it.
Another major deterrent is that in any white-vs-non-white violent confrontation, there is the immediate assumption that the conflict was racially motivated and that the whites were radical, racial supremacists committing a hate crime. It’s ridiculous.
Luckily, the Chinese-Canadian community has been there for us. They’ve been here more generations than most white Canadians and they don’t take kindly to non-Asians coming into their neighbourhoods and causing trouble.
Read up on the “Cornula riots” in Australia. I thought they were disgusting examples of blatant racism until I started to learn the details. It was an example of Australians banding together against government inaction in the face of a Lebanese crime wave plaguing their community - much like you recommend we Canadians do with our problem population.
The incident that sparked the riots was caused by a group of Muslim Lebanese (an accurate label this time) harassing Australian women on the beach for wearing revealing bathing suits. Accusing her of being a whore and attempting to bully her into complying with Muslim standards of dress.
Three lifeguards attempted to intervene and in true Lebanese fashion, the thugs severely beat the lifeguards and knocked one unconscious. I am not at all surprised at this. It is typical behaviour so far as my experience tells me.
The Australians have a riot over it and the media paints the AUSTRALIANS as the bad guys! Can you believe it? Can you fucking believe it!?
This is why I’m against allowing refugees into the country without strict rules being placed upon them. One shouldn’t be able to bypass the entire immigration process and then be thrown in a domestic, taxpayer-funded prison when they could just as easily be sent back home.
That is exactly why they do it.
Funny story:
I argued this point with a Muslim classmate, “Hanan”. I told her this was ridiculous, because Jews living here have nothing to do with Israel, that these Canadian Lebanese are attacking innocent people, to which her reply was, “You people don’t understand anything!”
What is that supposed to mean!?
Me: the Jews here are innocent of Israel’s crimes.
Her: You people don’t understand anything!
She’s also the one that tried to convince me that freedom of religion is wrong and that Canada needs to become an Islamic state.
Oh man… I hated her. Imagine a loudmouthed teenage girl combined with a radical Islamist ideology. That was her.
I still remember the day I told her she had some hair showing. Her eyes went wide, she turned pale, quietly hid the bit of hair under her Al-Amira, and was very, very quiet for the rest of class. It was one of the best days ever.
She’s the first one I’d put on the leaky boat.
Understatement of the century.
[quote]So far as I’m concerned every last Arabic immigrant with any criminal record whatsoever should be rounded up and put on a leaky boat… any “refugee”… committing any criminal offense… should be sent back… What happens to them there is none of our concern.
How exactly do you plan on doing that? A lot of them are probably citizens by now.[/quote]
Yes, but many aren’t. It wouldn’t be fair or right to apply the rule retro-actively, so it would only apply to new immigrants.
Then you must be familiar with this “other kind” I’d like to purge my community of, yes? You know the kind I’m talking about? The ones I’ve had to live with?
Sing it loud, brother. Sing it loud. Although, living in Sweden you can’t really call Canada’s taxation “heavy”. 
Wait, didn’t you spray paint Che Guevara’s image on a school wall? Anti-nanny-state, pro-rewarding hard work? What kind of progressive activist are you anyway? I’m confused.
ElbowStrike
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What if they have a parking ticket outstanding?
[/quote]
Sorry I was on a rant.
What I mean is violent crimes and those associated with organized crime (drugs, prostitution, etc).
Part of the problem is that gangs heavily solicit the children and youth of refugees and recent immigrants for membership. We need to provide a giant DIS-incentive so they’ll think twice about making an extra buck through goonery and drug-trafficking.
Let’s see, don’t deal drugs, stay in school, get an education, get a job, and live in a relatively peaceful and prosperous country for the rest of their life, or…
Deal drugs for quick cash, get caught, get deported back to the Sudan, and live the rest of their life in war-torn Sudan…?
It’s a no-brainer.
ElbowStrike
[quote]Chushin wrote:
Red,
While I don’t doubt your reports, I also have to ask: Can you really claim that your experience is a pretty typical example of life in a ME country? (Yes, I know it’s hard to generalize.)[/quote]
Hi Chushin.
No you are right, Dubai is not typical of a ME country. This is the difference with the GULF Arab states.
Ok, none of them - whether it’s the capital Abu Dhabi, or Qatar or Bahrain or Oman - are as liberal and chilled out as Dubai.
But we’re just talking by degrees here - you get the same mix of expat nationalities, drinking is not a problem, they have pubs and bars, you can mix freely with whoever you want, you don’t get whipped for chatting up a girl, they have western style malls with all the kinds of shops that we get in the UK/US. They are promoting tourism heavily too…
In fact, although it’s not my cup of tea, some western expats even say they prefer places like Oman and Qatar because they are quieter, the expat communities are smaller etc - like Dubai back in '85…plus the natural environment, the coast, the sea etc is stunning…
So yes, the Gulf is the Gulf and is, perhaps, atypical of the ME at large. But still, apart from the most obvious horror spots, the Middle East - ‘even’ the Middle East! - does not scare me in the same way as I think it does with you guys. I don’t mean that in a dickish way, I understand some very sincere reservations that some Americans, and actually even some westerners in general, might have…but like I said before, if it wasn’t for the most recent problems, I would have probably gone to Beirut for a quick holiday by now. Am still thinking about Damascus…
Holiday in Beirut? It just doesn’t sound right does it…but that’s where the level of experience/comfort/familiarity with people and culture comes into place…
[quote]Chushin wrote:
But if you are indeed correct in what you write, there sure seem to be A LOT of “Muslims” who don’t know squat about the religion they claim to live by.
And we’re not talking just laymen here; the clerics and other leaders, who preach and advocate these things, actually seem to be the worst of the bunch!
Now, I imagine you’ll say the same is true for Christianity and other religions…[/quote]
There are tons of muslims who know squat about their religion. Millions…
The clerics, the mullahs, the mulvis?? These guys are the worst. They are some of the most uneducated, illiterate goons you could encounter.
These guys are not professors of Islamic studies or thought, or the Arabic language etc. They are not scholars and academics. Some of them ahev barely been to school…
They are largely responsible for the mess - the doldrums which Islam finds itself in today. I would compare them to the Catholic priest and the kind of blight on religion, humanity, life itself which they were responsible for, pre-enlightenment…
A lot of muslim laypeople recognize this. They make fun of the figure of the local village mulvi or mullah in the way in which we would a self-righteous village reverend…
But still, there is a level of local influence and control, fear which makes the matter more serious. And if you’re asking precisely when the laypeople will take more direction over their religion…I don’t know. But things like this don’t happen in a period of years…
So yes, I would say the situation now is very similar to the one in which Christianity once found itself…
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
pat36 wrote:
lixy wrote:
So… a society that tortures prisoners, metes out extremely severe punishment for drug offenses, and applies liberal use of the death penalty would be, in your estimation, a draconian society, correct?
I see.
You have to admit Singapore is well known for dolling out harsh punishments for petty crimes. Sure they have no crime one still has to live in fear of the police. No thanks.
I guess the irony is lost on you.
No the irony is not accurate and I chose to ignore it.
The irony does not really apply if it was a dig against the US.
Ironic that a believer in a religion which calls for stoning of rape victims would find it ironic.[/quote]
No, it just wasn’t accurate…we don’t torture prisoners (thought the prisoners have been known to torture each other), while any punishment for the enforcement prohibition is in my mind wrong, most of them are misdemeanors and settled with a fine , if that, and the death penalty isn’t doled out liberally…It is only available for premeditated or capitol murder, and most of those end up with life w/o parole. So the irony is not accurate.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
So Pat… you’ve lived in Singapore, then, I take it?
Sorry to hear that you had to live in fear of the police while you were there. That wasn’t my experience when I lived there at all. For the most part I found them professional and honest, and conspicuous in their absence. Not quite as innocuous as Japanese police, but close.
Singapore is one of the only Southeast Asian countries where police corruption is not a fact of life. Nor, for that matter, does one often hear of innocent people and pets getting blown away in a no-knock drug raid gone sour.[/quote]
No, I have not been, it’s what I have read which may or may not have been accurate. This means I have to concede to your personal experience. If you say it’s cool it’s cool.
My understanding was that as long as your were 100% law abiding you’re cool, but if you break even a minor law they come down really hrd.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
http://www.aci.net/Kalliste/dubai.htm
A really good article on Dubai, by an American expat who’s hopped between Central America and the Emirates for quite some time.
Sure as hell made me want to go. Like I said, Singapore without the Chinese.
This article was written before the Great War on Terror began, so Red Bull can tell us how much it’s changed since then.[/quote]
I’m curious: my daughter is Chinese (Chinese-American actually). What is it about the Chinese that you don’t like?
In my visit to China to get her and all the Chinese people I’ve met here seem like great people.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Wreckless wrote:
…
Ok, it looks like I shot myself in the foot here. Don’t necesarily agree with the flaming idiot part though.
…
I will take back either the flaming or the idiot. Your choice.[/quote]
Hmmm, tough choice. I’ll get back to you on that.