Pat Condell is a British atheist who makes popular—albeit quite controversial—YouTube clips railing against religion. He’s a former stand-up comic and has a quite a knack for looking right into the camera and really nailing it. Condell’s rants are anything but polite, and they throw cold water on religious belief (“An organized system of ignorance!” as my old friend Brother Theodore liked to say) as well as anything I can think of aside from George Carlin’s all-time classic “Religion is Bullshit.” (What happens to Christians when they accidentally listen to Carlin’s routine? I wonder about that every time I hear it!!)

Here is how he describes his mission:

I was a regular on the UK stand-up circuit until the mid nineties when I got fed up performing to drunken birthday parties, so I started writing for other people. I wrote my most recent show, and I now make internet videos, because I believe religion in the modern world is out of control and is given far too much respect by people who should know better. It enjoys a status it hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve, and it’s time we stopped pandering to it before it literally destroys us. You can find out more at my website.

Below Pat Condell takes on Christianity:
 

The next time you hear a dumbass say something about how the Founding Fathers felt about religion, hit ‘em with this quote, courtesy of Condell:

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” - Thomas Jefferson

In the name of balance, here’s Pat Condell’s epic rant from 2007 “The Trouble with Islam,” amazingly still on YouTube:
 

 
Via Joe My God

 
Al Qaeda is releasing a new glossy magazine for women called The Majestic Woman. Dubbed the “Jihad Cosmo” the magazine includes beauty tips for women (“stay indoors and wear a hijab”), how to find a jihadist husband, fashion advice, and suicide bombings. The front cover shows a sub-machine gun with a small insert picture of a veiled woman. According to The Week the 31-page glossy contains:

...advice for singles on “marrying a mujahideen,” a beauty column urging women to improve their complexion by keeping their faces covered and staying indoors, and an interview with the widow of a suicide bomber who praises her late husband’s bravery. A preview for the next issue promises more skin-care tips and instructions on how to wage electronic jihad.

But is The Majestic Woman for real?

Well, it’s definitely out there in the world, but its origins seem murky. The magazine is reportedly being distributed online by the same al Qaeda media group that publishes Inspire, a glossy magazine aimed at young Muslim extremists whose authenticity has also been questioned. Slate’s KJ Dell’Antonia notes that the Middle East Observatory hasn’t claimed the magazine as a product of al Qaeda, and U.S. analysts haven’t weighed in. In any case, says Dell’Antonia, “neither beauty tips nor man-catching advice seem consistent with the womanly ideals of the conservative Muslim, and it’s hard to reconcile a cover image of a woman posing with a sub-machine gun with a culture that does not allow women to drive.”

The director in a scene from Nice Bombs…
 
Chicago-based Iraqi director Usama Alshaibi seems to be one of the most prolific Arab filmmakers in the American independent film scene—and he’s almost certainly the most experimental. Working often in close collaboration with his wife Kristie, Alshaibi has jump-started the canon of what we might term transgressive Arab-American film.

In his over 50 short films, Alshaibi has updated the techniques of transgressors like William Burroughs and Kenneth Anger to transmit his obsessions with culture-clash, technology, religion, violence, sexuality and identity. He’s finished four features, two of which deal with porn and STDs, one with cross-cultural relationships and another with the personal reality of post-Saddam Iraq. He has three in production or post-production now, two of which—American Arab and Baghdad, Iowa—portray growing up Arab in the heartland in the in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and today, and the third, Profane, about a Muslim dominatrix in spiritual crisis.

As the news media shamelessly reduces the complex relationship between America and its Arab and Muslim communities into a dopey controversy over where to build a friggin’ cultural center or mosque, we need the perspective and imagination of Alshaibi’s work now more than ever.

Like most hard-working indie filmmakers, Alshaibi can always use financial help making his vision manifest. Click to donate to help him finish Profane or American Arab.
 

 
After the jump, check out a clip from American Arab…
 

From Pravda.ru:

Inscriptions of Prophet Muhammad regarded with the same reverence as the Quran appear and then disappear on the body of a nine-month-old child born in a small village of Krasno-Oktyabrskoye, the Republic of Dagestan, RIA Novosti news agency reports.

According to a representative of a local musk, the signs in Arab first appeared on the body of the new-born Ali Yakubov a few days after his birth.

The child?