. . . but not at our end of the stick.

... 65 million adults in these countries are illiterate, two-thirds of them women ...

Which boils down to 21.6 million illiterate, and 43.3 million acting as Muslim women should.

... the 1999 gross domestic product of the entire Arab League was less than that of Spain; for the past decade average annual growth in per capita income in the Middle East has been the lowest in the world outside sub-Saharan Africa; the 15 percent unemployment rate is one of the highest in the developing world ...

Allowing women to learn and keep jobs might change this. Their “holy” laws preventing the emancipation of their women are a huge social deficit.

... and Arabs have translated as many books in the last thousand years as the Spanish now do in one.

Computers are amazing.

One influential book, Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind (1983), suggests that the Arab predilection for overstated rhetoric (remember the absurd pronouncements of Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf?) is rooted in the floweriness of the Arabic language. Nonsense--the inflated talk can be more readily explained as an attempt to compensate for powerlessness.

Sort of like cars and personalized license plates?

“I drive a Corvette,” the retired gentleman was proud to boast.

“Oh -- I’m so sorry,” the demure little barroom flower replied.

Anyway, Ottoman Empire aside, the society that fails to flow with the world will be left in the dust. The Muslim world is not in this boat “again,” my friend. No, the Muslim world never got out of that boat, and until they decide to catch up with the rest of the world (i.e., the vile, decrepit, amoral, unbelieving, infidels of the Western societies -- you know, where the rich of OPEC have all their best parties?), they won’t -- and I really don’t think we’re gonna wait for them.

Dan