Everybody who helps out with stuff!

Even my little cousin went to SC - and she's from [i]here[/i]. I called for a pizza at 3am and turned on every appliance I could see. Which only made everything loud and therefore I still couldn't sleep.

I couldn't study... maybe I should add agoraphobic to the list of OCD... things..

I thought I should put this mockery of Israel in this no topic thread as bro Admin has locked the proper relevant thread without a reasonable cause.

Although he says he not gloating, I think he is doing exactly that:

Quote:

[b]Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah praises Israel's 'admission of defeat'[/b]

Hizbullah leader says Winograd Commission's report on Lebanon war is 'worthy of respect' as it admits Israel was defeated

A.P. May 3, 2007

In an unprecedented praise of developments in Israel, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday he "respects" his enemy's verdict of failure in last summer's war with his guerrillas in Lebanon.

"I will not gloat," the Muslim cleric told an audience at the opening of a book fair in a south Beirut neighborhood complex rebuilt that had been leveled by Israeli warplanes during the summer fighting.

"It is worthy of respect that an investigative commission appointed by (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert condemns him," Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah's comments were unprecedented in that he credited his enemies.

But the militant Hizbullah leader also said the Israeli commission reviewing the Lebanon war had vindicated his claim that Israel had been defeated.

"The first important outcome of this commission is that it has finally and officially decided the issue of victory and defeat ... This commission spoke about a very big defeat," Nasrallah said.

The harsh report blasting Olmert's performance during last year's conflict has shaken Israel and led to calls for the prime minister to resign.

The Winograd Commission censured Olmert for making decisions "hastily" and criticized Peretz' failure to seek military advice to compensate for his lack of military experience.

Nasrallah ridiculed Defense Minister Amir Peretz who boasted in the early days of the war that Hizbullah's leader shall never forget the name "Amir Peretz."

"I stand here today not in order to attack Peretz … Peretz said that 'Nasrallah' will never forget the name Amir Peretz.' I tell him: You are right, I will never forget that name," Nasrallah said.

I have my driving test in a months time, any tips on preparing for it apart frm taking lessons, also tips for the actual day? How do you NOT stress over it?

Exam panic!!! going to fail my exam

"Angel" wrote:

I have my driving test in a months time, any tips on preparing for it apart frm taking lessons, also tips for the actual day? How do you NOT stress over it?

I'm afraid the best way to prepare is to practise, and it doesn't have to involve taking driving lessons. For me I found driving my dads car helpful, I drove around for hours. I can now say that I am a better driver than my dad

I remember doing my test with a bad knee, so everytime I pushed the clutch, my knee hurt and I still passed. I also remember not being able to sleep before the day of my driving test as I was so nervous. While I was in bed, I was imagining (the whole night) what the examiner may say or ask me to do and I was practising doing the manoeuvres (reversing, parking, ect.) in my head.

During the test the examiner may ask you questions to relax you. However some people may find this distracting. I myself found this helpful and even started asking the examiner questions :shock:

I was surprised at how bad my eyesight was, I nearly failed the test because of it as they ask you to read a number plate (3 times max.)

"Bliss" wrote:

Exam panic!!! going to fail my exam

Even if you do fail you can always do retakes. I remember failing my AS psychology paper and got a U and when I did retakes I got an A. It's really [i]really[/i] annoying when something you didn't revise or just forgot comes up in an exam.

When did you pass?

30 September 2005, I even remember the exact date lol.

I would have passed earlier, if it wasn't for a few things which happened just a few weeks before the driving test I booked in May 2005.

To be honest I thought you hadnt even passed untill you mentioned it now...

I'm gona be really nervous I know which makes me think I might mess up...can everyone please pray that I pass it first time coz it will be soo much stress taken off my head.

I'm done with finals! Now I can go home!!!

For a week.

Then I'm off to Iraq for a little mandatory vacation, I dunno how long they intend on keeping me there but still I invested in a camera for once in my life. I've been dying to see the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, Baghdad and (surprisingly given my experience with Shias so far) their grand mosque of Ali. I HIGHLY doubt they let Christians anywhere near but maybe I could take a picture from afar, I understand it's a rather magnificent example of islamic architecture.

I'm also going to try to see a Chaldean Church service - I'm pretty sure it's all in arabic, but they might do some tridentine masses given their relationship with Rome... in which case I'll have a general idea what I'm doing.

Otherwise I'll look silly - a gigantic awkward confused looking white guy trying to "blend in" - I don't think so.

I am terrified I'm going to be attacked by those massive unholy spiders (does anybody remember that video I posted?) my friends already over there have told me completely nightmares about these things and I'm definitely not interested in a face to face...errr... face to clincher encounter.

Large spiders in a desert... is this a cosmic practical joke!?

Yea seriously... it seems like every one of these little mandatory vacations I've been sent on there is always something... snakes, bugs - whatever.

How do people live with this stuff?! The creatures at home are all harmless or cute and harmless. bees and ants, bunnies, deer, sunfish, dolphins, indescript birds and owls.

Not like peruvian ungodly reptiles or middle eastern abominable variations on common house bugs.

"Admin" wrote:

Aren't there poisonous snakes/spiders in the US? What about those creatures in Tremors? (Lets just forget about the sequels as they were... terrible. )

:twisted:

I think Britain is pretty much safe from them. The terrible weather keeps them away.

Sure there are weird creatures in the United States. But the United States is slightly larger than Britain... and nowhere I've ever lived - especially Charleston or Kiawah have I seen weird creatures

Thanks - the number one thing they don't prepare you for in the military is disappointment and boredom.

Like they train you to be the best, feel like the best, be aggressive - get over there and start killing some enemies and building infrastructure

YEA!!! DO IT!!!

You get all psyched up, by the time you take your first steps off the plane you are practically jumping up and down.

Then you wait.

and wait...

AND THEN THERE IS SOMETHING ON CNN THAT PROMISES IMMEDIATE ACTION!!!!!

for some other unit...

you continue to wait.

At roughly this point (3 months) the combination of sheer boredom, complete letdown and... certain cravings... all come together to drive you [i]partially[/i] insane. In order to not go completely crazy you start to take up hobbies, like asking locals really stupid questions because its amusing when they look confused.

Or you go teach schoolkids in the area how to play hopskotch - and promptly hold a hopskotch tournament with all the kids and as many of your fellow officers as you can find.

But instead of letting them win like rational and decent adults you get ultra competitive and dance around when you win like you just personally defeated communism.

The children are frightened by your strange behavior.

They run away.

You are now friendless.

Depression ensues.

THEN YOU GET AN ASSIGNMENT!!!!

You are to immediately to go to x location and await further instruction!!! YAY! I'm IN the war! Time to win!

So you go there.

What they didn't mention about this location is that nobody lives there, there aren't any enemies within 400 miles (they've all gone) and you're going to be there for a little while, being attacked by evil little bugs and feeling damp constantly.

Then one day you go back home. Everybody remarks on how much energy you seem to have and they are confused by your bizarre interest in things like checkers and hopskotch. They say things like "ohh man... you went to x location!? there must have been some heavy fighting... you're lucky to be alive"

Now when you hear this you're a little confused - because if you're not mistaken that's the very same x location that you spent quite a while being attacked by the oogliest mosquitos known to man and wondering where the hell all the people are.

You're also confused about how to answer. "I spent 4 months, scaring children with over competitive games, swatting ungodly bugs and trying to build a chair out of packaged cupcakes" just doesn't seem to be a heroic enough story to fit with what these folks have been reading in the papers. The best you can come up with is "well, I'm trying to put it all behind me" - and that's true... it's just not true with the connotation you are using.

For the rest of your life your war stories will be about roaming around in some godforsaken unpronouncible country, being bored.

AIRTIME LOGGED: 0
PACKAGED CUPCAKES NEEDED TO CREATE CHAIR: 676

...so much for the "wild blue yonder."

The other thing they don't prepare you for is locals. They'll teach you some useless phrases before you go but they don't teach you that locals are intrigued, yet not afraid of you (countintuitive), want you to sample everything in their town, and expect you to bring back t-shirts, local artwork, and whatever their religious text is - to the United States.

local people are sophistocated (also counterintuitive).

When you meet people living in abject poverty in really bizarre locations like swamps, jungles and deserts you tend to think there might be something wrong with them - like in the head. Who the hell would live in a swamp? have you ever met anyone from Louisiana? I rest my case.

But no - these guys are sophistocated. They know what's up. on the one hand a street vendor is shoving a chicken in your face ostensibly as a gift, while you are distracted those two kids who just recently begged for money are picking your pocket. When you realize this and look back they are running off - meanwhile the street vendor has packed up shop and disappeared into a crowd.

Yes. You got played - before you even knew it. The kids were asking for money before to gage how much you had on you - they told the shopkeeper who is their abusive caretaker (they collect orphans and teach them how to steal) - who starts the setup.

for more sophisticated than this - the reason the town is so generous with free stuff and apparel is that they want you to bring it all back to the US to encourage tourism to their town and to encourage Coca Cola to build a bottling plant.

local people love Coke - it doesn't matter which continent - as long as it is somewhere other than the first world Coke is king.

dont bother trying to learn their language - unless they are kids, because the kids think its grand teaching these big guys with their big airplanes how to speak... whatever it is they are speaking... now you don't have to remember (because they wont) but you do have to try. unless you hate children or lack a soul or something... the other thing is that they want candy - that's why they are teaching you in the first place.

but as for anybody else they do not expect you to speak... whatever... they just expect you to ask in english as loudly as possible so that they can gesture the international symbol for confusion and be on their merry ways.

im pretty sure all locals are the same...

[color=indigo][b]Help!! This error message keeps coming up: [/b][/color]

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
Windows root\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

[color=indigo][b]What shall i do?[/b][/color]

"Noor" wrote:

[color=indigo][b]Help!! This error message keeps coming up: [/b][/color]

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
Windows root\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

[color=indigo][b]What shall i do?[/b][/color]

shut down your comp,and go to bed.

"Noor" wrote:

[color=indigo][b]Help!! This error message keeps coming up: [/b][/color]

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
Windows root\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

[color=indigo][b]What shall i do?[/b][/color]

...

maybe just download this...
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?hal

Usually I'm not one to moan...cos it makes me feel ungrateful.

However, for the past two days I have done nothing but moan non stop.

My dad has decided to re-decorate our entire house - at the same time!

He's taken the chimney out, is plastering all the walls and is putting in new floorboards, fitted wardrobes etc.

At the moment by life is in black bin bags, by bedroom consists of bricks, stones and dust...I've moved into my parents bedroom and they've moved downstairs (my parents room and the front room is the only room that is untouched at the moment).

We spend our evenings together in the same room - and we're all doing our finals at the moment so we're all short tempered and snappy with one another.

I'm weeks away from my finals, it takes me hours to find a hijab that matches my top (I was silly enough not to label the bags)...my laptop is packed up and I'm struggling to do lesson plans/assignments and sort out final paper work amidst all the dust and work that is going on.

..I was so depressed and fragile the other day - cos I so want to successfully pass this course and my tutor was nit picking my paper work, (and someone on my course had colluded my work without my permission)...so when she asked me 'if everything was OK'..I broke down. :?

I wish I had a fast forward button so I could just fast forward 6/7 weeks - my course would have ended, and the work and I would have a new bedroom .

Anyway good luck! I'm sure you'll do well and the house will look beautiful.

"MuslimSister" wrote:

Usually I'm not one to moan...cos it makes me feel ungrateful.

However, for the past two days I have done nothing but moan non stop.

My dad has decided to re-decorate our entire house - at the same time!

He's taken the chimney out, is plastering all the walls and is putting in new floorboards, fitted wardrobes etc.

At the moment by life is in black bin bags, by bedroom consists of bricks, stones and dust...I've moved into my parents bedroom and they've moved downstairs (my parents room and the front room is the only room that is untouched at the moment).

We spend our evenings together in the same room - and we're all doing our finals at the moment so we're all short tempered and snappy with one another.

I'm weeks away from my finals, it takes me hours to find a hijab that matches my top (I was silly enough not to label the bags)...my laptop is packed up and I'm struggling to do lesson plans/assignments and sort out final paper work amidst all the dust and work that is going on.

..I was so depressed and fragile the other day - cos I so want to successfully pass this course and my tutor was nit picking my paper work, (and someone on my course had colluded my work without my permission)...so when she asked me 'if everything was OK'..I broke down. :?

I wish I had a fast forward button so I could just fast forward 6/7 weeks - my course would have ended, and the work and I would have a new bedroom .

Wow, in some ways that reminds me of last year for me. My dad passed away quite suddenly and almost immedeatly my mum wanted us to all move house. We had to pack up about 22 years of clutter and throw most of it away and at about the same time my Grandad (who had always lived with us) had become too needy for us to look after full time and had to move to a nursing home. My mum also wanted me to move out shortly after I converted to Islam so everyone was looking for a new place to live, while still tring to get over the loss of my dad.

I was a time of huge upheavel, but now we're all settled in our new places, and getting on with our lives comfortably Alhamdulillah. My relationship with all my family is the best its been since I was about 11 years old! I also feel I've learnt so much from my exerience, and I'm sure that if the same things had happened before I became a Muslim it would have been too difficult to bare.

Remember to hold onto the Rope of Allah and also that morning always follows night.

Good point.

The barest minimum is all I'm doing right now - cos given the current situation. I can't do anything extra...(I usually lead a class every Friday and I had to ask around to everyone I know to lend me their house for a few hours - that proper annoyed me too).

But I do need to chill as much as he does though. He's doing he's final A2 exams and he's not bothered at all.

I'm slightly relaxed now...the collusion issue got cleared up. I spent the evening watching 'Ugly Betty'. And I've just completed one week of teaching practise - only 7 more to go.

"Admin" wrote:

MuslimSister, this may or may not help:

You (or your sister - can't really expect me to remember details :P) have mentioned you have a brother. Think he is lazy.

A paradigm shift is needed. Just analyse his behaviour. I suspect he is ruthlessly efficient. Will do the absolute minimum he can get away with.

Watch, take notes and then try emulating that for a short while. It may be the only way to survive in a house going through DIY at the same time as your exams/something (I forget what you said...).

oh, and call him "A trained Ape. (short pause) But without the training." with an exaggerated look of shock on your face, slightly waving your right hand to signify everything.

Worse comes to worst, you'll get a laugh (or a giggle or some amusement) out of it.

:? That just went right over my head even though it wasnt meant for me....

Insight into the twisted minds of those whom Allah leads astray:

Thank God bro Ed was saved.

Quote:

Interview: Ed Husain

[b]We were the brothers

As a teenager Ed Husain was intoxicated with jihadism, and his highly acclaimed new book blames British Muslims for failing to tackle extremism. [/b]

· The Islamist by Ed Husain is published by Penguin, £8.99.

By Madeleine Bunting

The Guardian - Saturday May 12, 2007

The plaudits are flooding in: Ed Husain's The Islamist has been hailed as "terrifingly honest", "courageous" and he has been "applauded for his intellectual honesty and guts" by the likes of Martin Amis, Simon Jenkins, David Aaronovitch and Melanie Phillips. That's a generous imprimatur from Britain's commentariat for a first book; no surprise then that Husain is looking quietly pleased. What brings less satisfaction is that on blogs and among many Muslims, he has been condemned as a government stooge, an MI5 agent and even ranked with that small coterie - along with former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji, the outspoken Canadian critic of Islam - who are frequently vilified by their fellow Muslims as apostates. Husain, a devout Muslim himself, admits it's not a "comfortable place" to be but believes the fury is the "price to pay" if dangerous tendencies of Islam in the UK are to be effectively challenged.

The fascination of Husain's book lies in the possibility that his extraordinary personal story of growing up in East London - from Muslim "choirboy" to Hizb ut-Tahrir operative and now to respectable PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies - can help to answer two of the most pressing questions about the British Muslim community: what is the appeal of violent jihadi Islam, and how can it be defeated? It helps that the book happened to come out last week, within a few days of the verdicts in the Crevice trial, Britain's longest running terror trial. Ed Husain, overnight, became one of the experts on what needs to be done to tackle home-grown terrorism.

Sitting in Penguin's offices overlooking the Thames with 32-year-old Husain in his crisp shirt, tweed jacket and neatly pressed jeans, it's hard to imagine his earlier incarnation as a firebrand with beard, organising recruitment drives for Hizb ut-Tahrir, rallying his forces with vicious condemnation of Jews and homosexuals and self-righteously urging the hijab on the sisterhood. He brushed shoulders with many individuals who went on to become terrorists, such as the British born Tel Aviv bomber Omar Khan Sharif, and Eisa al-Hindi, now in prison in the US - a fate which could have been his.

He describes a febrile culture in the early 90s when studious Muslim second generation teenagers felt dislocated from Britain and their parents. Husain rejected the gang culture of his Stepney school and found himself drifting away from the pious Sufi Islam of his parents - to their horror. "I was looking for somewhere to fit in. We were exposed to white working-class culture and it wasn't comfortable. We may have been poor, but we had middle class values - pyschologically, I felt out of place."

What the rivalrous factions of the radical Muslim youth organisations offered Husain was "dynamism, Englishness and religosity". He went from one to another, drawn deeper every time into extremism, and finally reached Hizb ut-Tahrir: "We thought we were making a new world. Our job was to mobilise the Muslim masses here. There was that feeling of being on the cusp of a new world order which would revive the glory days of Islam. For a 17-year-old who felt out of place in the UK, it was very attractive. Everywhere we went, we were the brothers to be respected. It was intoxicating."

Husain agrees with Martin Amis that sexual frustration is entangled in the impulse to terrorist glory. He recognised among extremists an "idealisation of marriage. We were always surrounded by men and rarely spoke to women. When we did, we avoided eye contact."

The secrecy and splits, the sense of self-importance: all would be familiar to those in radical left-wing politics in the 60s and 70s. But this form of rebellion developed into something more violent - as we are now aware - and which became clear to Husain when the rhetoric of the campus tipped over into the murder of a Christian Nigerian student in 1995. This incident - and meeting his future wife - triggered his gradual withdrawal from a violent jihadism.

Controversially, Husain backs Tony Blair's analysis, downplaying foreign policy. He argues that Islamism - a body of ideas that aimed radically to reform and politicise Islam in the 20th century in order to confront the west - has come to dominate the British Muslim community, which has failed to challenge the proliferation of forms of violent political Islam; British mosques still have links with Islamist movements from the Asian subcontinent and Middle East, and the aggressive rhetoric towards the west, Jews, and all non-believers was - and, he argues, still is - embedded in many Muslim organisations.

Husain argues that government policy has been a disastrous combination of laissez faire and political correctness. It turned a blind eye to Hizb ut-Tahrir, refusing to ban it, unlike countries such as Germany, not recognising how it incubated the mentality that saw some members graduate to terrorism. It patronised Islamist organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain, whose moderation was a mask for entryist tactics. And its policies of multiculturalism encouraged separate communities; multiculturalism was the perfect cover, he argues, for his Hizb ut-Tahrir activities.

Even after 9/11 and 7/7, neither the British government nor Muslims themselves are challenging the violent rhetoric, insists Husain, rejecting criticism that his book is already outdated. "A jihadi said to me recently that all the Muslim Brotherhood should be killed because they advocate democracy. Muslims need to challenge this, but they don't. At a meeting last February on a London university campus, an HT member said that anyone opposing the Caliphate [the idea of a unified Islamic state] should be killed. I walked out, but it's the same at lots of campuses. I reported HT to one university and they said there was nothing they could do as it was a legal organisation."

Husain points to the declaration (the wording varies) still used in some mosques: "Oh God, bring destruction on the kufr [unbeliever]". "It's used less and less in mosques I go to, but will only change completely when people recognise that kufr are our neighbours." Similar concerns are voiced privately among mainstream Muslims, but Husain is the first to go public. Other Muslims, fearful it will only exacerbate hostility toward Islam, have preferred a strategy of pressure from within. But, Husain counters, they have little to show for their efforts; only pressure from non-Muslims will force the pace of change. He wants Hizb ut-Tahrir banned. He wants disavowals of the writings of key Islamist ideologues, and wants mosques to sever links with extremist Islamist movements abroad. And he seems happy to cheerlead critics of Islam into forcing this agenda through - no wonder he is making enemies.

What Husain accepts has changed since the early 90s is that another form of Islam has gained ground. Western converts - such as Americans Hamza Yousef and Nuh Keller, as well as the UK's Tim Winter - have articulated a more spiritual, less political Islam, while Tariq Ramadan describes an engagement with western societies as citizens, rather than as a Muslim minority pursuing their own interests.

There has never been much love lost between Sufism and Islamism - the former criticised as politically quiescent - and one way to read Husain is that Sufi Islam now has a sympathetic hearing in Whitehall and the media, and has the confidence to challenge Islamist domination of the UK Muslim community. One of the book's shortcomings is its failure to acknowledge that just as Husain has been on a dramatic journey, so have some of the UK's different expressions of Islamism.

It is as if, just as Husain once swallowed large chunks of Hizb ut-Tahrir propaganda, he now seems to have swallowed undigested the prevailing critique of British Muslims. He has no truck with the idea of Islamophobia, which he dismisses as the squeal of an Islamist leadership pleading special favours; he criticises Asian racism and castigates Muslims "who go back home to get married" and produce "another generation confused about home". On issues such as segregation, he is confident it is the fault of multiculturalism.

Husain's book will be used in many debates - the future of multiculturalism, whether infringements of civil liberties are necessary to combat terrorism, what parts of Islamist histories from Asia and the Middle East a British Muslim community needs to jettison. One suspects the naivety which took him into Hizb-ut Tahrir has blinded him as to how his story will be used to buttress positions hostile to many things he holds dear - his own faith and racial tolerance, for example. A glance at the blog response to a Husain piece in the Telegraph reveals how rightwing racism and anti-Islamic sentiment are feasting on his testimony.

sociology exam.

anyone now of any good websites. i struggling big time, exam on tuesday i'm regreting it big time i'v left it this late for revision.

feel like drowning.