Jinn of Quality and Risk

Islam condemns women to a life worse than slavery. They are seen as serving no useful purpose to mankind other than breeding children. Bernard Lewis: According to Islamic law and tradition... three groups of people did not benefit from the general Muslim principle of legal and religious [equality] — unbelievers, slaves, and women. The woman was obviously in one significant respect the worst-placed of the three. The slave could be freed by his master; the unbeliever could at any time become a believer by his own choice, and thus end his inferiority. Only the woman was doomed forever ... [Both] for traditional conservatives and radical fundamentalists [the emancipation of women] is neither necesssary nor useful but noxious, a betrayal of true Islamic values. It must be kept from entering the body of Islam, and where it has already entered, it must be ruthlessly excised. [What Went Wrong? Chapter 3, Social and Cultural Barriers] 

Polyphasic Sleep Experiment: This blog was created to keep a running journal/diary of an experiment with alternative sleep methods. In particular, a small group of us are attempting to adjust to the Uberman Sleep Schedule, more technically described as a polyphasic sleep schedule. 

Members of the UK government apparently believe they're expert at running the mass-market furniture business, and have told Ikea to change business model. Guardian: John Prescott [raised] concerns about the philosophy of the Swedish wholesaler by rejecting plans for another of its mammoth stores in Stockport, Greater Manchester. Noting that [Ikea] planned to treble its number of British outlets, the deputy prime minister, who is in charge of planning, has told the company it should look at smaller sites and consider breaking up activities... That means opening more specialist shops in city centres and on the edge of towns rather than opting for large sites beside trunk roads and motorways, a key to the company's global philosophy of gearing almost all its trade - an estimated 89.6% - to car-borne shoppers. Mr Prescott is not acting in the best interest of the British people, since he is preventing their access to quality furniture at the best possible prices Ikea could offer. That's what happens when a government has a Soviet-style "minister in charge of planning." 

Gillette plans to purchase 500 million RFID tags from Alien Technology. Gillette will use the tags to expand and automate inventory tracking. The low cost of the tags finally means that they will be used in mass-market products. Alien Technology is a startup company, with an interesting list of backers. Gillette is their first customer. The news is stunning because of the sheer size of the order. To date, the largest order of RFID tags was 30 million for use in Star Wars toys produced for Hasbro. Half a billion tags is probably close to the total number of RFID tags in use today. [RFID Journal via /.]

What is RFID? Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify individual items. 

What if you were 14, abducted by the government, and transported 1500 miles from home, across the desert? Highly recommended. Moving and heroic film by Phillip Noyce, based on a true story.

Set in 1931 Australia. Three young aboriginal girls are abducted from their home, near the "rabbit fence." This fence crosses Western Australia from North to South to protect farmland from rabbits. The kidnapper is the government, implementing a programme to systematically take "half-caste" children from their aborigine parents, bringing them to a mission where they will be trained in the "superior" ways of "white" society and become servants. Molly, 14, leads her younger cousin and sister in a bid to escape from their captors and begin the long walk home, across 1500 miles. They are pursued through the Outback by a tracker and the police.

Everlyn Sampi plays Molly with great talent. Kenneth Branagh plays Neville, the nefarious bureaucrat in charge of the kidnapping programme. In the movie, the children refer to him as "Mr Devil." See the trailer and the official movie site. Nice soundtrack by Peter Gabriel.

The film is based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence written by Doris Pilkington Garimara, one of Molly's similarly-abducted daughters. Much controversy has surrounded the movie. The Australian government continued to practice this policy until 1970. The people who have been thus systematically kidnapped, brainwashed, turned into servants, and otherwise persecuted, are now known as the stolen generations.