Saudi Arabia Implements Electronic Tracking System For Women 591
dsinc writes "Denied the right to travel without consent from their male guardians and banned from driving, women in Saudi Arabia are now monitored by an electronic system that tracks any cross-border movements. Since last week, Saudi women's male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together. 'The authorities are using technology to monitor women,' said columnist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the 'state of slavery under which women are held' in the ultra-conservative kingdom. Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the 'yellow sheet' at the airport or border."
Re:This will be reality in all countries... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Saudi Arabia (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad you need the shit they export in huge quantities, eh?
Well played, but I'd like to point out that my family does not own a car - we go around mostly by bike or walking (I commute to work by bicycle every workday, even in winter). For the rare occasions that we need to go further than 20 Km, we use public transport. So, while we do use hydrocarbons indirectly (various polymers and other chemicals), we're trying to minimize it by not having a car and recycling plastics.
Re:Apartheid (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apartheid (Score:3, Interesting)
10 years old is the lower bound of the beginning of puberty in girls, in other words, definitely not ready for sex/reproduction. But it seems Aisha was somehow praised for being a true virgin, that is, when Muhammad first raped her she didn't have had her first period yet.
The upper bound of the end of puberty in girls is 17 and, as Chef from South Park correctly said, that is the right time for sex (laws and social conventions aside).
Re:Apartheid (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure. The problem is that religion in general, and Islam in particular, defend those retrograde practices today.
Citation needed? Well, try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OZ3s0BcSxs [youtube.com]
And while the immense majority of the sheeple defend that their religion is peaceful, they don't realize that they make the base for switching to a totalitarian theocracy, and after that there is no peaceful turning around. Only after the abuse of power in this new regimen they would realize that they were actually being ruled by men, not god(s). They bent too much, and now they feel the mighty cock of god's proxies up their arses.
frack you - biodiesel is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
bio diesel industry is wrong, the benefits you get are obscured by:
- food scarcity
- goverment bonuses to big farmer and big evil (insert monsanto/whatever here)
- patent trolls
- CO positive, because mass farming is OIL intensive industry
- lowest return on the barrel ever
- ecological destruction of habitats
etc etc etc... just go read about it!
Re:Apartheid (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate to break it to you, but the Christians during the Crusades were the technologically and culturally inferior group. Islamic philosophers were debating Aristotle and inventing things like chemistry, algebra, and hospitals. Christians didn't even know about the Greek philosophers, and when they found out it was because they translated them from Arabic. At which point the religious leaders denounced them and forbid the teaching of them.
The Muslim world obviously went to shit, but don't pretend that the Christian world wasn't composed of mindless fanatics at many points in history. If the Crusades never happened causing the Muslim world to draw in on itself and become paranoid, the Renaissance probably would have occurred in Baghdad.
Re:Apartheid (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apartheid (Score:5, Interesting)
No it wasn't. If you haven't actually studied Islamic science I recommend you shut up now.
Islamic science and religion were closely related. One of the reasons it was is because unlike Christian science, the natural world wasn't considered some separate entity from God. Muslims felt that studying the natural world was studying God's creation and thus giving them a better understanding of God. There are several hadiths that mention that searching for knowledge was a Muslim duty. Because of this, there was very little censorship of scientific ideas in Medieval Islam even when they contradicted dogma.
The easiest way to describe the difference between Medieval Islam and Medieval Christianity is this: Christians were seeking to increase their faith despite what the natural world told them while Muslims were seeking to understand the natural world in order to better understand God.
Re:Apartheid (Score:5, Interesting)
Religion is what allows civilization to not just progress through a social evolution, but to survive. Humanity needs religion as a whole, because our brains are wired that way.
Meanwhile, back in reality, people are rightfully starting to worry about the combination of Atomic Age weaponry that modern science has given us and the and Bronze Age morality that the world's mainstream religions have saddled us with.
Ever read the Bible? How about the Koran? Ever imagine going back in time and giving those guys nukes? How does your "civilization" look in that scenario?
Re:Apartheid (Score:2, Interesting)
Arguably, the only reason that scientific thought flourished under Islam was the decentralized nature of the faith. In Christendom you had the Pope waving his golden sceptre and enforcing dogma at an empire-wide level. In Islam spiritual leadership comes from the local imam. If you were intellectually driven and didn't feel appreciated under one imam, you could always leave and find another. That option wasn't available to Christians.
Re:Apartheid (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry but ALL religion is insidious and evil. It is a means of control for the unintelligent and mentally lazy.
That's why the bible says "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11). It is noble *NOT* to be unintelligent, and mentally lazy. It is noble *to validate* what you are being taught. It is not RELIGION that is the problem. It is that people lack diligence and let themselves be controlled.
Re:Apartheid (Score:4, Interesting)
More like a profound state of suggestible cluelessness. A design flaw, exploited by culture to hold society together when people were too stupid and unenlightened to do it on their own.
You sound like the kind of person who is easily doomed to repeat history.
Re:Hmm ... (Score:5, Interesting)
And consider these interesting 9/11 facts:
o 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian
o The superstition driving the group is rooted in Saudi Arabia
o Osama bin Laden - Saudi Arabian
o Osama's brother in law, Jamal Khalifa - Saudi Arabian - partially bankrolled the 9/11 group
o Saudi Prince Naif, the interior minister, and Saudi Prince Sultan also partially bankrolled the 9/11 group
o 28 pages of the 9/11 Joint Inquiry report dealing with Saudi Arabian connections have been censored
So Bush attacked... Iraq.
Go figure, eh?
Re:Apartheid (Score:4, Interesting)
More accurately, during WWII, Germany and Japan also had nuclear programs. The U.S. just managed to get there first. After the war, Russia go into the game, quickly followed by France and Britain.
And the two nukes dropped on Japan were not dropped in a vacuum. After a grueling war in the Pacific, Japan was fully prepared for an invasion. Given the way Japanese soldiers fought to the death in Saipan, Guam, etc., the U.S. faced the prospect of creating another million deaths on the home islands as well as losing another 300,000-500,000 G.I.s invading Japan. And leaving an unbowed Japan after what they did in China and SE Asia and given their then culture, it would have guaranteed a new war when they re-armed. Presented with that, Truman decided to use the nukes in the hopes of getting a quick end. And it almost didn't happen. There was a palace coup that nearly succeeded, it seemed some in the Japanese military thought the Emperor would capitulate rather than continue to fight on.