MAQzine

I recently watched an amazing and alarming TV show where Derren Brown, a UK illusionist and mentalist who is very adept at deep psychological influencing methods, programmed several respectable people to individually commit armed robbery, holding up a security guard at gunpoint and stealing 100,000 pounds. Normally, even hypnotism will not persuade a person to do something that is against their values, but through a veritable battery of subtle suggestion and triggering, Brown got three out of four to commit the crime. Setting up The four people were selected as the most suggestible out of a group of about twenty middle managers who had booked onto a 'motivational seminar' that was 'being filmed for television'. From the moment that they walked in the door, the programming started. A security guard was unnecessarily unpleasant to them, setting up a dislike and depersonalizing of security guards more generally. Not by coincidence, he was wearing a green outfit that w...

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – A 6-year-old boy was found hiding in a cardboard box in his family's garage attic Thursday after being feared aboard a homemade helium balloon that hurtled 50 miles through the sky on live television. ------- The discovery marked a bizarre end to a saga that started when the giant silvery balloon floated away from the family's yard Thursday morning, sparking a frantic rescue operation that involved military helicopters and briefly shut down Denver International Airport. ------- But Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference and gave a thumbs up and said 6-year-old Falcon Heene is "at the house." "Apparently he's been there the whole time," he said. ------- The boy's father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft. He said Falcon's brother had seen him inside the compartment before it took off...

Here is a remarkable poem written by the first Ming Emperor of China, Zhu Yuanzhang (born 1328), celebrating the life and mission of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him). Of the Prophet s.a.w and the Emperor   Since Creation of Universe  Heaven has already appointed,  Faith Preaching Giant Saint,  From West He’s Born,   To receive Holy Scripture,   With thirty part Book,  To guide all creations,  King of all Kings,  Leader of Holy Ones,   With Support from Divine,   To Protect His Nation,   ith five daily prayers,   Silently hope for peace,  With heart toward Allah,  Empower the poor ones,  Save them from calamity,  See through the Unseen,   Pulling souls and spirits,  Away from all wrongdoings,   Mercy to the World,   Walking ancient Crowned Path,  Evil vanquished to One,  Religion Pure and True,  Muhammad, ...

Posted By Shahid R. Siddiqi On October 6, 2009 - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - This article was first published at Axis of Logic - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - Driven by paranoia with resurgent Islam as a threat to the established social order in the West and their obsession to control this very important oil rich region, American strategists have toyed with the idea of redrawing political boundaries of Islamic states along ethnic lines. The American attack on Afghanistan and Iraq on false pretexts of ‘war on terror’ was the initiation of this strategy. Now they seek to legitimize their actions by labeling them as efforts to dispense justice for ‘oppressed Muslim minorities’. - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - They believe that smaller entities would be easier to micromanage through puppet regimes, enabling them to contain militancy and squeeze into extinction Jehadi outfits by choking their funding. - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - This ‘remapping’ involves splintering the Muslim w...

The campus of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is famous for being a bubble environment where risqué fashion trends are explored and high-school soap operas come to life in the midst of hijab-clad women and the bearded folk from LUMS Religious Society. To an outsider visiting LUMS, or possibly visiting Pakistan for the first time, this campus might seem at first encounter like the ideal multicultural environment akin to an ancient city-state where all live in harmony with tolerance. - - - - - - - - - - However, as anyone with a deeper relationship with the campus or its student body can tell you, things aren’t so rosy at LUMS. In fact, the campus often seems divided between conservative, retro-revisionists and ultra-modern, party-hopping, next-generation liberals. Recently, what was previously a silent divide, became verbose on the LUMS campus mail system following a mass message sent out by a conservative student fed up with all the on-campus indecency she’s had ...

Life is beautiful ; it’s a really wonderful topic to speak about. In this speech I will discuss two things: my life’s experience and my approach to this topic.Ladies and gentlemen, in 2007, I arrived home from a shop with my mum and my sister, very excited to be going back to Pakistan. I was excited about the packing, the gifts, but most of all because I was going to visit my grandmother after almost three years since I had come to Australia. As I entered the main door of our house and sat down with my mum to talk about our home country, the phone rang. My mum picked up the phone and my uncle’s stressed voice spoke through it; he only wanted to talk to my dad. - o - o - o - o - o - Everything suddenly turned stressful for me; I wanted to know what was going on. Since my dad wasn’t home my mum persuaded my uncle to tell her what was wrong. After a few moments, tears started running through my mum’s eyes and she hung up... My grandmother had passed away. Just 15 days before I was goi...

By Ulf Laessing and Asma Alsharif - - - - - o o o o o - - - - - THUWAL, Saudi Arabia, Sept 23 - - - - - o o o o o - - - - - (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia opened its first co-educational university on Wednesday, a high-tech campus with massive funds which reformers hope will spearhead change in the Islamic state. Western diplomats hope the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), which has attracted more than 70 professors and 800 students from abroad, will stimulate reform after recent setbacks such as shelving municipal elections and cancelling cultural events opposed by clerics. - - - - - o o o o o - - - - - King Abdullah has promoted reforms since taking office in 2005 to create a modern state, stave off Western criticisms and lower dependence on oil.But he faces resistance from conservative clerics and princes in Saudi Arabia, one of the world's top oil exporters. - - - - - o o o o o - - - - - Al Qaeda militants launched a campaign against the state in...