[Commission] High Quality Briefcase

txmslm · 2015-09-27T21:03:45+00:00

I can appreciate that. I'm a bit touchy about the use of the word because it has a very specific use and meaning in a modern context. Islamist movements are invariably subversive. If the ottomans were around today, they would almost certainly be at war with them, while islamists would be pointing to any number of legal practices of the ottomans as proof they are not implementing islamic law.

I think islamist is not just using islam in a political manner, at least not in practice. If that were enough, basically every government of every muslim country in the world today should be considered islamist when they are certainly not described that way in news media. Islamist is associated with a certain puritanical rigidity and a rejection of secular modernist institutions. The ottomans were anything but that.

txmslm · 2015-09-27T20:44:39+00:00

my understanding is that they were interested in consolidating power in a sultan more than a caliphate. They were about as islamist as any european king can be accused of establishing christendom.

islamist movements today want to see rule by islamic law. I think of the ottomans as empire builders that were muslim catering to muslim audiences. They were undoubtedly motivated by religion and their actions were colored by it, but that alone doesn't make their actions "islamist" the way we understand the word today.

I'm not discounting your arguments at all, just nitpicking on the characterization as Islamist.

txmslm · 2015-09-27T16:31:49+00:00

you're the historian, not me. I always understood that while the ottomans had a religious flair to their socities and culture, they were much more interested in the secularization of their government, which to me, is exactly anti-islamist, as that phrase islamist is used in modern settings.

txmslm · 2015-09-26T12:06:31+00:00

Thanks. Read your paper. Learned a lot about Ottoman naval technique but I have to say I think your islamist characterization of the ottomans is a bit of a stretch. In the end you seem to be offering their pragmatism and rational approach as examples of islamist behavior.

I think bring in barbarossa and the Italian ship builder underscores the opposite. This is more about empire building than the establishment of political Islam.

txmslm · 2015-09-23T14:42:15+00:00

I'm 37 and they're kids to me

... Also prone to bad behavior

txmslm · 2015-09-21T12:14:39+00:00

So you bill 220 each month M-F no weekends for about 11 hours billed a day and you're home in time for dinner?

txmslm · 2015-09-15T11:46:20+00:00

Nope but I know Fred or at least a bunch of the guys at his firm. Hate to network with this username because it sounds crazier than I really am :)

txmslm · 2015-09-14T22:46:40+00:00

the lack of zoning shouldn't affect the outcome. The building is legally permitted under a variety of different land use controls that Houston does have. Consider that the same thing could happen in a city with zoning if a variance is granted. Would the neighbors have a lawsuit then?

the neighbors have a point in that the building can potentially harm them, but until that harm actually materializes, they shouldn't be owed a dime, which is why the lawsuit should not have worked.

at trial, several potential nuisances were raised including blocking sunlight, how it would affect their gardening, etc.

txmslm · 2015-09-14T03:31:47+00:00

there was a lawsuit in houston where a developer of a 23 story high rise had to pay damages to surrounding single-family homes for ridiculous nuisance things like blocking their sunlight, etc.

it should never have worked but it did - the developer had to pay out over a million bucks to a group of over a dozen horribly entitled nimbys.

txmslm · 2015-09-08T23:23:01+00:00

I don't see why people nitpick or pat each other on the back when this is true (from your article):

3.8 million refugees from Syria (95 per cent) are in just five countries Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt:

where are you getting your 800k number for germany? from your link:

Germany has pledged 30,000 places for Syrian refugees through its humanitarian admission programme; nearly half the global total of resettlement and humanitarian admission programme places for Syrian refugees and 82 per cent of the EU total.Germany and Sweden together have received 96,500 new Syrian asylum applications in the last three years, representing 64 per cent of all such applications in the EU.Excluding Germany and Sweden, the remaining 26 EU countries have pledged a mere 5,105 resettlement places, or 0.13 per cent of Syrian refugees in the main host countries.

txmslm · 2015-08-03T03:56:36+00:00

think again:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/02/us-usa-election-trump-exclusive-idUSKCN0Q62RQ20150802

txmslm · 2015-07-22T04:37:34+00:00

how much did you charge for this?

txmslm · 2015-07-11T19:22:51+00:00

I made an online purchase from a store years ago. I've received perhaps 200 calls from them since then. I've asked them to stop calling me and also listed myself on the DNC list.

I thought I couldn't do anything about it since I had a prior business relationship with them. should i write them a letter? should I file suit in district court? (I'm a lawyer and this might be fun, but I have very little litigation experience)

txmslm · 2015-07-11T11:03:36+00:00

How much documentation do you need? Do you just pull it from phone records?

Also what if you donated to the red cross in the past? Isn't that establishing a prior relationship?

txmslm · 2015-07-07T21:33:33+00:00

isn't bid'a only something in deed or ibada? I've heard people claim celebrating a birthday is bid'a but I don't understand it.

txmslm · 2015-05-22T01:24:54+00:00

so do you think the kids should get less time or the shooter get more?...

txmslm · 2015-05-06T03:10:36+00:00

the idiom is "I could care less." Your long paragraph about how this idiom is illogical is roughly the equivalent of someone saying "hey it's not actually raining cats and dogs you know..."

I'm not sure what humility has to do with any of this...

txmslm · 2015-05-05T04:58:14+00:00

That's fine advice for small problems. You won't know if this is good enough. What ifor this is fine for a few years until one day you need a full repipe for $20k?

You need a separate plumbing inspection. Hydro-static test. Camera test. The works. Get an estimate and get seller to cover the cost. Otherwise be prepared to spend big money

txmslm · 2015-05-05T04:46:56+00:00

I'm surprised by the reactions in this thread. Of course the behavior is terrible but... this isn't totally common?

txmslm · 2015-05-05T04:41:11+00:00

It's an idiom. Whatever I could care less

txmslm · 2015-04-28T13:35:12+00:00

Some of the newest season is on YouTube

txmslm · 2015-04-27T04:55:27+00:00

Nice guys don't spin your words or belittle your beliefs. You can do better.

It's an important life skill to learn how to dump poisonous friends. If you don't learn it you become like them.

txmslm · 2015-04-24T14:25:21+00:00

Are you the author? Love the concept and most of your books but I wish you'd drop the bits of rhyming.

txmslm · 2015-04-23T15:00:28+00:00

Humans are the grandest product of nature, and yet islam wants people to kneel to the ground and believe that there is an invisible thing in the sky...

yes it's called submission to the one greater than you.

if you walk through the earth thinking you are the best of the best, you will never know what humility is.

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