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That's awesome Leauki.  You should send this to a couple papers in the US...email it and see if they'll publish it...or email it to foxnews.

I'd love to see this type thing more on the news.

Thanks...and $4 for a cab ride?  Wow...bet that $100 lasted ya awhile. 

You probably won't. In the mainstream media Muslims are either oppressed by Jews or Americans or are all medieval barbarian women-haters or, more frequently, the second because of the first.

If I had believed what the mainstream media said about Iraq and Muslims, I wouldn't have gone there!

It was less than $4. In fact it was 3500 Dinars, which is approximately 2 or 3 dollars.

They have thousands of cabs on the streets.

I despise that particular outlet...then again, I despise most news channels.   Maybe if they did show something cool and informational then they'd be worth watching...too much depression and poltical spin for my tastes, though. 

 Fantastic article, Leauki.   Educational articles are awesome!    At the very least they break up the monotony of politics that goes on around here.  

~Zoo

I just realise that iWeb (Apple!!!) has used the opportunity of my correcting a typo to move one of the images up too much.

This means two things:

When I get home tonight, I will have to to talk to iWeb.

Apple needs testers!

I have just learned (from a German news Web site) that for the past week Christians in the city of Mosul have been under attack and a dozen or so have been murdered. 50 families have fled and found refuge in Kurdish villages near Mosul.

Mosul is a Kurdish city that lies outside the official Kurdish region. Like Kirkuk it is a mixed city. Since it lies outside the official Kurdish region, the Peshmerga are not in control of the city. I have seen cities they control and those cities are _safe_.

But Mosul is not safe. It's a few kilometres north of where I was.

By "not safe" I mean that violent crime is at high levels. At the same time I would rate several American and European cities as "not safe".

Kurds have a very high opinion of Christians and want Christians to live in Kurdistan. That's why the Kurds in the villages came to those 50 families' help. Many Kurdish towns have Christian quarters and Christians (like Jews) do not have to follow Islamic law regarding Ramadan and other issues. In Erbil Christians (as well as Jews, but that's largely academic) could legally eat openly in the streets during Ramadan, as could children of any faith. Within the Christian quarters anybody could legally eat openly during Ramadan. (Note that the rule only applies on the open street. Anybody could eat at home or in restaurants that couldn't be seen from the street. Most restaurants simply put up flags and posters around their windows so that nobody would be bothered by people eating behind them.)

The only criticism of Christians I heard in Erbil was that many Kurds lamented that Christians don't speak "Christian" (Aramaic) as much as they used to. Kurdistan wants to be understood as a tolerant multi-cultural society and Kurds value highly the ancient differences between peoples and sects.