"as an apostate i sympathize with you randy, and the two situations are not analogous because apostasy is in some ways more socially tolerated than homosexuality". 
 
Razib, 
I dont believe you are an apostate.  
When you say you are apostate, you give ammunition to the people who treat Islam as an ethnicity (remember the discussion on Hirshi Ali)  
I have seen you talk about how you never believed, so you never left Islam if you never believed in it to begin with.  
I am a better example of being an apostate, because I believed for years and years and then stopped believing. 
I have a problem with people still referring to me as a Muslim even though I have left Islam.  
The problem is compounded when a person like you who just happens to have Muslim parents refers to himself as an apostate.

"i can not but wonder if the lack of contextualization of homosexuality is simply due to the fact that sensitivity to this group has not become normative so muslims do not need to rethink their axioms...." 
 
Not all verses in the Quran are amenable to similar 'straight face' contextualization. It would be extremely difficult to reinterpret monotheism as the verses explaining/commanding monotheism are way more explicit, unambiguous and spread all over the Quran when compared to the verses putting the Jews in a negative light.  
Theres a nascent movement of 'progressive' muslims in North America (www.muslimwakeup.com) which had attempted to reinterpret (not contextualize though) the conventional interpretations of the verses against homosexuality.  
I am not a scholar on Islam, but it seems to me that the verses condemning homosexuality are more explicit and unambiguous which makes it difficult to contextualize and hence the need for reinterpretation.

I am not sure whats wrong with the above comment.

Here is what Ikram said 
 
"From ikram 
 
Choudhry was ambushed. He was asked if the Koran was wrong. He's not going to answer 'yes, the Koran is wrong'. No beleiver can do that. 
 
what they is is wiggle around the edges and explain why the words on the page don't mean what you think they mean. That's how Jews and Christians avoid some unpleasant passages in teh Bible. Choudhry's crime is that he is unskilled in religious sophistry. And for that, he will be, rhetorically, torn to pieces. 
 
If the test of a good Muslim is one who agree the Koran is wrong, there are no good Muslims in the world. There's your LGF conclusion".

Even Hizbullah is more progressive in the sense that they are willing to challenge/innovate religious customs and duties. 
For example in Lebanon, Hizbullah now has a blood drive for young men, where young men donate blood instead of the usual practice of self flagellation.  
The test of being progressive is not who has more per capita suicide bombings and random attacks on Westerners. 
The test would be on the ability of the adherents and especially the establishment figures of the respective sects to challenge conventional wisdom, interpretation and application of religious text and customs.  
The Shias are way ahead by the above definition while orthodoxy/aversion to change/back to the 7th century is a gift which Sunnism never fails to deliver be it Deobandism or Salafism.

Razib, 
 
I just read Amir's response and I agree with you that for people uninitiated with Salafism and Nasir al-Albani it does come out as you called it 'theo-babble' 
 
I would however caution the readers on treating the Salafists as a monolith.  
 
Salafism is as big a school of thought as any in traditional Sunni Islam.  
Salafis have different views on almost everything just like members of any other sect. 
 
There is a very interesting dynamic to Salafism though. 
For example, Amir alludes to the fatwas by Ibn Baz on Bin Laden (which I am sure were completely political and not based on some Salafi exclusionary aversion to terror)  
What Amir did not say was that a lot of Salafis do not support for example the Palestinian suicide bombings because for them fighting for land is a form of shirk, because you are putting land/nationalism ahead of your life given to you by God. 
Maybe this aversion to nationalist struggles has led to a section of the Salafis looking for global conflicts which transcend national boundaries. 
 
Amr is also right about most Salafis not indentifying themselves as 'Salafis' at the same level as other Muslims describe themselves as Sunnis/Shias or which madhabs they follow in the Sunni school of thought.  
I would agree with you that the global jihad movement is controlled by people heavily influenced by Salafi ideals.  
But the big question is whether global jihad is itself rooted/result of Salafist ideology or whether the global jihadis just happen to be Salafists, because Global Jihadists have a mindset which makes Salafism the most appealing school of thought in Islam to these people.  
Some have made a very persuasive case that this Salafist ideology of extreme monotheism and absolutism makes it difficult for Salafists to co-exist with Christians or Shias in the modern world which is getting extremely interconnected and globalized. Hence they lash out against modernity, globalization and pluralism.  
I am of the opinion that Salafism without global conflicts in Palestine, Chechnya or Iraq will be restricted to scholarly work by modern Qutbs of this world. Violent Salafism is sustained by local conflicts and most of the foot soldiers are to a large part motivated by these local conflicts and a have a 'Islam under siege' mentality.  
'Islam under siege mentality' of course is more appealing to Salafists because they are globalists to begin with.

In the US, people who are not born as US Citizens, but are naturalized citizens dont have the same rights as the native born citizens. 
For example naturalized citizens cannot run for presidency and if they have made material lies on their citizenship application, their citizenship can be revoked if the lie is uncovered within a certain number of years (WW2 Nazis have no such statute of limitation privilege though) 
So I am in favor of putting restrictions on citizenship of naturalized citizens.  
This will require a simple act of Congress and there would be no need for the Court to tackle tricky constitutional issues. 
Also for naturalized citizens, there would be no problem of finding the country of origin as these people once held passports of a different nation (except for Palestinians who are officially stateless) 
I would however not deport such naturalized citizens, but strip them of their citizenship and reduce them to the status of resident aliens (same thing happens to people who make material lies on their citizenship application) 
Once these people are reduced to resident aliens, some of the regular constitutional rights would be suspended and it would be much easier to deal with them.

According to the CIA 2005 FACTBOOK the Muslim population in Germany is now around 3.7%.

Why nuke ? 
We will send in Britney and Paris Hilton.

"western culture is resilient of hostile minorities if they are not very numerous, but muslims are i think getting to the point where they are crossing the threshold" 
 
In France maybe, but in countries like US,UK,Spain,Italy,Germany,Portugal, 
Ireland,Norway,Switzerland,Finland,Belgium and Denmark they would fail to cross even 3% of the population. 
Frankly speaking, fear of Eurabia in number terms (except for France) is unfounded and not backed by facts.

"I have no problems with deporting radical Muslims who are "citizens," especially clerics and other important religious figures who are inciting people to conduct war against the West". 
 
This idea is a non starter except for cases where the people hold dual passports.  
If a person is so radical that his citizenship is being stripped away, I can assure you that his/or his parents country of origin is not going to accept him. Does anybody seriously believe that Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Lebanon will want to take in the trouble makers ? 
 
Deporting citizens will create a serious constitutional problem. Most judges will be very very leary of making a person stateless. I believe preventive detention along with a whole bunch of other severe measures will have to be exhausted before citizens are made stateless.

"Recall, in the 1950s, many Muslims were brought in specifically to work in the textile mills of Leeds. One could argue that those jobs are now long gone and it is time to return to Pakistan and elsewhere. The government payments could thus be justified under a ??severance-package?? scheme" 
 
Most of the '50s' people would now be on average 75+ in age. 
Also its not these first generation immigrants (very old by now) who are creating the problem. Its their British born children who are the problem. So I am not sure how the British born kids could possibly fit in the 'severance package'.

"But I do know that some deportations need to begin. Enough is enough. Only then can we shock the Muslim community into taking some responsibility". 
 
Non citizens have been regularly deported since 9-11 in the US and I am not sure if it has shocked the Muslim community in the US. 
Likewise if non citizens are deported in UK (they do deport but I am not sure how many have been deported since 9-11) I dont believe it will be a major shock for the Muslim community in UK. 
To shock the Muslim community, citizens would have to be kicked out (I am not sure to where. Maybe parents country of origin) provided the parents country takes them in which it probably wont.

I guess they feel safe enough to express understanding for the bombers.  
I would of course like to see numbers on how Non Muslim English citizens respond to these questions which will give a better context to the poll.  
This poll does raise the question of whether a significant minority of Muslims in Britain are now the 'fifth column'.

"you should know me well enough now that i wouldn't say something specific like that about west and east germany if i hadn't researched and read about it" 
 
That is usually true.  
 
I confused abortion restrictions with an outright ban on abortion.

Arcane, 
You are right. 
Matla, Ireland (atleast till 2004) and Poland do not allow for abortion. 
The rest of the EU Nations do allow for abortion, but when it comes to restrictions short of outright ban like parental notification without judicial bypass, compulsory wait, counselling etc. some of the EU Nations probably have more restrictions than the US.

"most americans don't know that many european nations have stricter laws about abortion than we do for example" 
 
Most Americans are not aware of such laws because except for Poland, Malta and Ireland almost all EU Nations have less restrictions on right to abortion than the US.

Jeet, 
Wikipedia is wrong. 
Here is list of all the dead at http://www.indo.com/bali121002/inmemoriam.html 
 
Anyway, your point is well taken about Balinese not having any recourse. It doesnt matter if the dead were 38 or 12.

There were 12 Indonesians killed, most of whom were probably Balinese Hindu food vendors and people walking outside on the street.  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,834047,00.html

Jeet, 
Thats interesting. How many of the victims were Balinese though ? As I understand the club which was blown up had mostly Westerners as very few locals frequented those clubs.  
I remember seeing the list of victims and most of them had European names. 
It was of course a devastating blow to the local economy controlled by the Balinese Hindus. So in the end the economic impact on the Balinese Hindus was pretty severe. 
As I understand, the tourists have now started flocking back to Bali which is a good sign.

"but a certain common-sense nervousness about fellow-passengers, especially brown ones with beards" 
 
Hmm fear of bearded brown people would be unwarranted because none of the 7-7 attackers or the attackers yesterday had Islamic beards. 
In fact the bearded ones might be safe because the attackers will probably not want to attract attention to themselves. 
 
So far as Briton Islamist attackers go heres the break down : 
 
Richard Reid - shoe bomber (biracial black/white) 
 
7-7 attackers - 3 Pakistanis 1 Black 
 
Suspects from yesterday - 2 looked South Asian and I thought two looked black, though one of them might be South Asian. They havnt yet disclosed the nation of origin for the South Asians yet. 
 
So I guess it would be reasonable to fear the clean shaven browns and to a smaller extent the clean shaven blacks.

"I don't buy this idea that the West is apathetic because we can't imagine ourselves in such a position" 
 
I am not suggesting that the West is apathetic. The West obviously cares more for issues across the world than 3rd world countries as there is a complete lack of liberal civil society in the 3rd world.  
I am just wondering whether there would be a difference in the response, if the victims were say in Ireland and not Indonesia.

" More Londoners riding the subway the day after 7/7 wouldn't have been defiance, it would have been a bloody miracle, as half the system still wasn't working " 
 
David, 
You might be correct because I thought of the same thing after I posted the above message. 
However it would be interesting to see if theres any difference in the number of Britons who took the subway once it was back to capacity and compare that to Madrid.

Clarification :  
I do understand that its important to send the terrorists a message that the people are not going to give in to their senseless demands. The reason I am peeved at all the talk of 'stiff upper lip' and 'not afraid' is because theres an insinuation here that because of the 'stoic' English culture and tragic WW2 bombings, the Londoners are somehow superior in their response to terrorist murderers than people in New York, Madrid, Baghdad or Israel. I am yet to see any quantifiable evidence which would substantiate this claim.

"Still not afraid....." 
 
I am getting a little tired of the British self aggrandizing talk of 'stiff upper lip' and 'not afraid'. 
 
First the Londoners are mighty afraid. 
 
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050722/wl_uk_afp/britainattackscommuters_050722155241  
 
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3276374 
 
Second, after the 7-7 bombing, the next day the subway commuters were 45% less than the average commuters for that day. 
This is not being defiant. Defiance would mean more Londoners riding the subway the next day. The London defiance was limited to the blog world though.  
In Israel when there were on average 2 bombings a week on Jaffa street, the next day more Israelis would show up at the street, more Israelis would frequent the bombed establishment and more Israelis would ride the public transportation. That was defiance.  
Not taking the subway (however reasonable) is not defiance.

I think a more interesting question would be whether a person in the position of Razib or any other second generation brown person feel more empathy for a Bangladeshi or (fill some other brown nation) when compared to people in Britain. 
I cant pretend to speak for everyone, but I think atleast I would feel more empathy for the Britons than for someone from my parents country even though the victims in our parents country might look more like me. 
Britain looks more like the US and self preservation would overpower all other emotions for me.

I tend to agree with Razib. 
300,000 people butchered in Sudan and I am not losing any sleep over it. If 300,000 were butchered in Pa or WV I would probably lose my freaking mind. 
I am not sure how much it has to do with cultural ties though.  
I think a lot has to do with visual familiarity at the end of the day. Americans are way more comfortable seeing bloated dead bodies from an Indonesian tsunami or a Bangladeshi flood than seeing dead bodies floating around in Western Europe because at the end of the day they can see themselves being in the position of a Briton while its harder for an American to see himself in the position of a Malay or Tamil.