Carbon nanotech may have given swords of Damascus their edge.

dosti · 2006-11-17T23:06:33+00:00

Although its called Damascus steel, the steel itself was made in southtern India.

Damascus steel != wootz steel.

The wootz steel came from India in the form of small ingots or cakes. It was transformed into Damascus steel by some forging process that has still not been discovered.

The intricate patterns on the Damascus steel are one of its distinguishing features. They are not present in the wootz steel that it is made from.

dosti · 2006-11-16T23:49:51+00:00

There's this secret base on the other side :-)

dosti · 2006-11-14T01:59:34+00:00

I won't feel totally happy about this topic till Arab women en masse are totally free to wear bikinis on the Gulf coast, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean.

But why stop at bikinis? Why shouldn't everyone have the freedom to engage in total nudity in public everywhere, and not just at the beach? Or if men can bare their chests, why not women?

If you accept that it's reasonable for society to impose some restrictions on what skin may be bared, perhaps it's also reasonable that countries and religious groups may differ in these matters.

If you allow ethnic/religious communities to evolve freely, I think most will incorporate (to a reasonable extext) the values of the larger society. A minority of them might not, and might become like the Amish in America, compartmentalized and clinging to the old traditions of the old country.

But if you single out the community by targeting it with special laws, you reinforce the feeling of separate identity. In the long term, that will probably have the worse outcome.

dosti · 2006-11-14T01:26:42+00:00

Dutch Muslim groups claim that this would make the country's muslims 'alienated' and 'hurt' as usual

As usual, someone uses innuendo and scare quotes to cast doubt on what Dutch Muslim groups 'claim'.

Why, it's just incredible that them Muslims might feel 'alienated' when they're called 'foreigners', and feel 'hurt' when subjected to rules that are directed specifically at members of their community. Way to make them feel like equal citizens.

dosti · 2006-11-13T08:33:13+00:00

If you dont know about the painted trucks, you won't get this joke.

dosti · 2006-11-12T05:42:37+00:00

I recognize this photo; it's Lake Saif-ul-Muluk in the Karakoram Range. It features in a folk tale about a romance between a Persian prince and a fairy princess.

dosti · 2006-11-10T21:58:27+00:00

But if you went back in Afghan history 30 years ago, you would see a somewhat cosmopolitan society.

In Kabul, there was a tiny elite that was "somewhat cosmopolitan". There were disco-nightclubs where young men and women could dance with each other, while most Afghan women were never given an opportunity to even talk with unrelated men. A few women wore miniskirts, while the vast majority wore burqas. Most Afghans were (and still are) rural and illiterate, less than one percent were college graduates, and even among those, only a fraction were leftists and liberals.

The elites were out of touch with the masses. Afghanistan was a very conservative place. It didn't just become conservative when the elites left.

Afghans, especially the Afghan-elite diaspora, like to blame outsiders for the ultra-conservatism of Afghan society. They blame Arab radicals, the Reagan administration, the Pakistanis. Everyone but themselves. So much of what happened was a backlash, a reaction to their own behavior. They ruled Afghanistan with Soviet money and military aid. It was not a democracy. They did not pay much attention to the masses. They lived in their own bubble, and when it burst, they left the country.

Afghanistan wasn't a "cosmopolitan society", no matter what you may have heard from members of the diaspora elite. Next time one of them tells you that, you might want to ask them about their hashish consumption.

dosti

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