OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

amen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like 0'hussein is repeating the propaganda lessons he learned as a child attending muslime schools in jak-off-arta. More proof he holds his muslime heritage more dear than his 'damn America' heritage.

But the US is still one of the largest Muslim countries in the world like AKA said, right?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/06/03/barack_hussein_obama_us_one_of_the_largest_muslim_countries_in_the_world

Let's check and see if he is a liar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country

Guess what? He lied. Shocker, huh?

Very hilariously good!

OBONGO CLAIMED: "Islamic has given us some majestic arches and soaring spires..."

Oh puhleeez! Now, Obongo is just getting absurd. I mean, come on, folks. Arches? Anybody heard of Rome?

RoFL !!!

I thought the arches came credit to McDonalds.

Any, the attributions: were those off the cuff or written in the speech?

Anyone know?

This clown is so uneducated it is mindboggling. I am so sick of hearing that this narcissist is brilliant. He seems to never have taken a history course in his life. If brilliant means a naïve moron then he is brilliant.

And I'll add another one to Obama's revisionist history: The Muslims did NOT inspire the European Enlightenment or the Renaissance. Do any of his speechwriters ever do a fact check? And how can Obama have the moxie to call himself a "student of history"? Remind me again why he's labeled "brilliant." If Obama is brilliant, I'm a genius on the par with Einstein.

You're all idiots; I can say this because I'm a graduate student in the history and philosophy of science.

Algebra, to begin, is not Babylonian. A minority of scholars associate it with an Alexandrian mathematician named Diophantus, but a vast majority of them attribute algebra to Al-Khwarizmi, a Muslim scholar. He wrote several treatises on mathematics, most notably *Algebra* (he called it 'The Science of Reunion and Reduction') (as well as one called Arithmetic). By the time the English rolled around and started toying with the idea of algebra, the Muslim world had essentially nailed down most of its processes.

The issue of the compass is something you've a point on, but you're still not entirely correct. Some people attribute it to the Mesoamerica region before the current era but, as far as I'm concerned, the Chinese were really the ones to get it figured out decently well enough. This wasn't "centuries before the advent of Islam," though. The history of science also covers the history of civilizations, and a majority of historians attribute the dry compass with the Song dynasty of China, which saw its pinnacle in the later 11th century (I think). Islam, by most standards, took root somewhere around the 7th or 8th century. So, again, you're not quite on--the compass, according to most historians (like Joseph Needham, one of the most prodigious historians of the Oriental (ex.: Chinese) scientific advancements) actually came after Islam.

Gutenberg was the creator of the *movable-type* printing press--the kinds you can manipulate the letters at will on blocks. The Muslims, however, did make substantial advances in the practice of printing (which is just the transfer of text from one raised surface to another, not the stamping and rolling we associate with it today). Chinese scholars really first took printing to task and developed the idea, along with papermaking. However, due to the great Oriental-Middle Eastern knowledge trade, Muslim scholars soon picked up the art of papermaking and, with it, printing. In fact, it wasn't too shortly after the Chinese started printing translated Buddhists texts than people of the Arabic world started printing passages from the Qu'ran.

This last bit of yours really angers me. You don't realize how much of Western medicine is actually based on the work of Muslim scholars. The research and discoveries they made were absolutely prodigious, easily outstripping almost all of the advances that had been made by the Greeks. Examples:

- al-Tabari: '...authored the first encyclopedia of medicine, which he titled Firdous al-Hikmah and has been translated to mean Paradise of Wisdom. This book was divided into seven sections with thirty chapters apiece, dealing with everything from childbirth and pediatrics to psychology and food preparation. This book has been used throughout the world for a number of centuries, and was for decades regarded with much authority in the medical field.'

- al-Razi: This guy was a giant in the field of medicine clear up until the 17th century; his works were the guiding texts used to treat European scholars in the fields of medicine and anatomy. The "how disease spread" quote from Obama reflects, in part, al-Razi's work on smallpox, on which the World Health Organization said in 1970: "His writings on smallpox and measles show originality and accuracy, and his essay on infectious diseases was the first scientific treatise on the subject."

- al-Zahrawi: Another prodigious medicinal scholar, his works were considered superior to Galen and the Greeks. Furthermore, he's considered the father of modern surgery. Most of the work al-Zahrawi did was revolutionary in the field (pioneering treatments for things like dentistry, removing gall stones, the world's first breast reduction surgery (you read that right), midwifery, and other practices. Accordingly, he had to invent his own instruments. Some estimates place the number of instruments invented by al-Zahrawi to be at 150 or more.

To sum, saying that Muslim contrubitions to science, particularly medicine, is sheer ignorance. They were, in fact, a large contributing factor for the English enlightenment (because most of the knowledge, methods, and tools we used to kick that off were either of Muslim origin or had been compiled by Middle Eastern scholars--to refute judithod's point) and a powerhouse of science in the Middle Ages. Though Obama's speech contained some minor inconsistencies, he largely gave the correct notion.

If you're still in doubt, write back and I'll email you some more. I did my undergraduate thesis on the influence of Middle Eastern progress on modern science, and I would be glad to share with you bits of my thesis and all of my sources.

- A. Houser

We might know more of the supposed advances made by Muslims if they hadn't burnt the library at Alexandria to the ground.

Backward tribal protohumans is all...and Obongo's lies don't change that.

Among those smarter than a grocery-store clerk, it's often said that those on the defense will resort to *ad hominem* attacks when they're out of worthwhile things to say.

I think you're there now. The Middle Eastern people, when you get right down to it, were equal (perhaps superior) to the Greeks in many areas of science and mathematics. You're kept alive using Arab surgical procedures and medical practices, you work for a financial system based upon Arabic numerals, and--if you're a Christian--call a Middle Eastern man your LORD and Savior. Remember, Jesus was not white.

You owe those "backward tribal protohumans" a large part of the modern life you now enjoy.

Furthermore, I've offered up quite a sum of factual information regarding the advances of the people of the Middle East. You, however, have offered up nothing more than a snapshot of what could be regarded as average American ignorant sentiments regarding people of other parts of the world. This, however, both matters and does not. It matters because you're plainly wrong but are too racist and proud to admit it. This does not matter, however, because (if you're like any American) you want the best for your children and grandchildren. This means a good college education.

This also means that I'll be there...

...teaching your kids the truth about the value of Middle Eastern contributions to science and the modern world...

...showing your children and grandchildren that their parents and grandparents still live in the Dark Ages ...

... and there's nothing you can do about it.

I hope you sleep well tonight; I sure will. I've got a whole career to stamp out your ignorance. :-)

Try using the word Arab.

He was right, according to my histories. Try broadening your reading.

By the way, the first Chinese event of navigation was 1242. Phoenicians were 2000 years ahead.

Sorry houseram, that was not directed to you, but at the boneheads.

And if you are in the mood to educate people, anything you send to tonyryan43@gmail.com will be studied and absorbed; and, more importantly, passed on.

I think this guy is cool, hey man who is your drug dealer, or pharmacist, man he has some good stuff, if it misses you head up like yours is. Turn me on to him or her, I have some friends that would be interested to. Those are some goooooooooooooood drugs i can tell. Hey if you connect me up man I'll give you a pinch to better your head and make all thost dumb ideas really come out.

How amazingly ignorant are we all of the deeds by the world, outside the United States!

I will address two items.

1. Medicine. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) had to read the Metaphysics of Aristotle 14 times before he understood it. Do you know anyone that has read Metaphysics once? He had no teacher to teach him the meaning of Aristotelian Realism, have you ever learn a science without a teacher? His writings on philosophy were used in Europe in the Middle Ages, in particular by Tomas Aquinas, the philosopher, the best known Christian philosopher (1226-1274).

2. He also wrote an Encyclopedia of Medical Cures, the first book ever on this subject. This book became the standard textbook of Medicine, for 500 years, know any book that was in use for 500 years?

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in praise of all the help he had available, particularly from Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn Sina and Moses Maimonides. All of which expanded and expounded on the Realism Philosophy of Aristotle.

Of course, you say: That's Impossible! The Roman Empire had the earliest schools in the world!

What most people do not know is that the writings of Aristotle were lost to the world from the time he died until Nestorian Monks in Syriac Mountains copied and preserved them and the Arab Empire made them all available to ALL religions in Study Centers where scholars, priests and monks came from all the known world to study in peace, at a time some call "The Dark Ages" and others, Jews and Muslims their "Golden Age". Centers were build in Toledo, Cordoba, Sicily (where Aquinas had access to them), Provence and others.

To quote Newton, we know a lot but only because, like Newton, we stood on shoulders of Giants.

A little appreciation is appropriate.

Sorry, forgot about Algebra, again.

Muhammed ibn Musa al-Khowarizmi [Algorismi, 820] wrote "Al-jabr", now Algebra- the text that introduced mathematics and Arabic numbers to Europe, including zero [a Pope is credited for bringing both to the rest of Europe}.

Algebra was translated by Robert of Chester to Latin in 1145; 'al-Khowarizmi' evolved into 'algorithm' from the first line: "Algorismi dicit.." instead of 'al-Khowarismi said'.

Can you imagine Calculus without Algebra?

Or, Science without Calculus? I cannot.