Addendum: This post first got put behind a warning for readers, then got reinstated after I removed something, then 2 hours later got put behind a warning again. I removed something else but who knows if it'll last?
New Yorkers confirm high taxes are pushing them to flee the state in droves - "Nearly four of every 10 voters here are thinking of fleeing. Their No. 1 reason: high taxes... a stunning 36.7% say their top reason for wanting out is that taxes are “too high,” a gripe more people cited than any other. Even a quarter of “progressives,” 32% of “liberals” and 38% of “moderates” cite high taxes as their strongest motivation to leave. Never mind the druggies and crazies, disastrous schools or even surging crime (though 48% say crime’s Priority One for the next gov, vs. 43% who cite taxes). And so much for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s blaming the weather; only 7.7% cited that as their chief reason... They’re certainly right about New York’s tax burden: It’s long been among the nation’s highest, and the Democrat-dominated Legislature keeps pushing to make it worse. Last year, when Dems slapped another $4 billion tax on high-end earners, making the top combined city-and-state rate a whopping 14.8%, we asked if lawmakers were actively “trying to fuel a mass exodus.” Looks like that’s exactly what they’ve done. Notably, the second-most cited reason — a desire to find a “better job or economic opportunities” — is linked to the first: High taxes spur not only people but companies to flee and take jobs with them, reducing opportunity. That helps explain why New York so often suffers more unemployment than elsewhere: In January, the national jobless rate was 4%, but 5.3% in the state (and 7.6% in the city)."
Quality of life plummets, taxes rocket — and New York City faces doom: Goodwin - " Murder climbed nearly 45 percent last year and is up an additional 13.5 percent this year. The increases translate into an additional 153 New Yorkers shot, stabbed and strangled. Shootings are up 72 percent in two years, and car thefts are up a staggering 91 percent. The city is in a death spiral, with unprovoked attacks and subway pushings adding more reason for rational fear. Albany’s answer: Put more handcuffs on cops, turn just about every criminal suspect loose, empty the prisons and raise taxes. Also, let’s give money — $2.1 billion, to be exact — to illegal immigrants by creating an “excluded workers’ fund.” Coupled with sanctuary status, the big progressive handout will be heard all the way to Central America. If only such compassion extended to taxpayers."
When higher education doesn't mean higher pay - "The share of low-paid workers has remained at about 40 percent of all American employees since 1995, but the group has gone through one surprising change: Those baristas and cashiers are much more educated today than they were two decades ago... About 22 percent of Americans who earn between $12.01 and $16 per hour now hold college degrees, compared with 16 percent in 1995... some types of degrees are more likely to lead to underemployment, or working in roles that don't match the holder's skills, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The top major for underemployment? Criminal justice, where 75 percent of graduates end up in low-skilled jobs. And no surprise, the second most-likely major to result in underemployment is the performing arts, where 65 percent of grads are working in jobs that don't match their skills. Majors with the lowest rates of underemployment are nursing and chemical engineering, at 12.8 percent and 16.8 percent, respectively."
From 2017
"Capitalism has failed" because with a degree in feminism you still can only do service jobs
A History of Soy Milk - "There were just two problems: the flavor, and the farting. As traditionally prepared in China, soy milk often had a bitter taste and a peculiar flavor that soy-industry researchers call “beany.” “Beany” has variously been described as chalky, cardboard-y, or fishy; resembling sweaty feet; or reminiscent of licking a wet popsicle stick—all of which hint at its prismatic unpleasantness, particularly to Western palates. Soy milk also had a well-earned reputation for causing digestive distress, which was why Chinese parents did not typically feed it to young children... According to Matthew Roth—who tells Miller’s story in his fascinating history of soy, Magic Bean: The Rise of Soy in America—Miller mitigated soy milk’s fartiness by extending the cooking time and tempered its bitterness by adding sugar, but the beaniness remained. Then, while he toiled over a hot cauldron of soy slurry, God took the ladle. As Miller recounted in his memoir, “I heard a divine voice behind me that said, ‘Why don’t you cook it longer with live steam?’” Steam distillation, God’s proposed method, was a processing technique commonly used to deodorize oils, and it swept off many of the volatile molecules responsible for the ugly flavors... It wasn’t enough for soy milk to be good for you, and for it to taste good enough. For soy milk’s day to dawn, it had to become desirable, craveable, delicious. Enter Vitasoy. Founded by Kwee Seong Lo, a Malaysian-born entrepreneur, Vitasoy was proof that soy milk could have mass appeal... His breakthrough was to liberate soy milk from the bondage of its resemblance to milk, which didn’t have much of a market in East Asia anyway. Instead, Lo packaged soy milk as though it were a soft drink, in curvy glass bottles crowned with metal caps; he also worked with a chemical engineer to make it shelf-stable, as imperishable as soda pop. Vitasoy came sweetened and vitamin-fortified, in flavors including chocolate and malt. It was sold chilled in the summer and warm in the winter. Ads promised Vitasoy drinkers that they would become taller, stronger, and more beautiful. (“The drink’s main drawback is that it tastes a good deal like liquid library paste,” Time magazine snootily opined, in 1968.) People bought it, lots of it. By 1962, Vitasoy had become the best-selling soft drink in Hong Kong, surging ahead of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and 7 Up. Its success attracted worldwide attention, including from international aid organizations, such as USAID and UNICEF. These groups saw soy milk as an inexpensive and tasty source of protein, and a weapon in the global war against hunger. Beyond those humanitarian goals, they saw geopolitical gains: In Cold War calculations, the oppressed were potential recruits to anti-capitalist ideologies. Feeding soy milk to the world’s hungry was thus a hedge against global Communist domination... The quality of commercial soy milk had also improved, thanks to food science. In the late 1960s, flavor researchers at Cornell University had definitively identified an enzyme called lipoxygenase as the source of soy milk’s reviled beany flavor. When soaked soybeans were ground at temperatures below 180°F (82°C), lipoxygenase went on a catalytic rampage, converting fatty acids into a whole spectrum of rancid-tasting and unpleasant molecules. Scientists also pinpointed oligosaccharides, or complex sugars, as the culprits behind soy-milk flatulence. By the 1970s, it was possible to manufacture a bland, creamy, and fartless soy milk—a truly inoffensive beverage, suitable for mass consumption... Soy milk’s reputation began to change in the 1990s, when stories about soy’s miraculous health benefits began circulating in the media. In 1995, The New England Journal of Medicine published research that linked soy protein consumption with lower levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol and increased levels of “good” HDL cholesterol. Four years later, the FDA began allowing makers of soy products to advertise this benefit on their packaging, which is why you often see a heart logo on soy-milk cartons, a symbol of cardiac health. There were all kinds of other health benefits attributed to soy; it was supposed to reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancers, protect bones against osteoporosis, temper the symptoms of menopause, and supercharge weight loss... it was only in the 1990s, when soy milk became whiter, creamier, and sweeter, and came in vanilla, eggnog, chai mocha, and other tantalizing dessert-like flavors, that a broad swath of consumers started to give it a chance. You can still get carob-flavored soy milk, but you’re much more likely to find chocolate. As so often happens in nutrition, subsequent research walked back some of the dramatic benefits of soy that earlier studies had found. But soy wasn’t simply another superfood that failed to deliver: There was a full-blown backlash against the bean, one directed against the same molecules that had been touted as the source of its health-giving powers. Daidzein and genistein, soy’s supposedly miracle-working isoflavones, are phytoestrogens—that is, plant-derived molecules that bear a structural resemblance to estrogen... At the same time, soybeans were increasingly implicated in what were seen as the wider problems of industrial agriculture: monoculture, clear-cutting rain forests, GMOs. To many eco-conscious people, soy didn’t seem quite so virtuous anymore."
The Difference Between Tamari and Soy Sauce - "tamari is specifically a Japanese form of soy sauce, traditionally made as a byproduct of miso paste. The differences in production give each sauce its own unique flavor. Tamari has a darker color and richer flavor than the common Chinese soy sauce you may be more familiar with. It also tastes more balanced and less salty than the sometimes harsh bite of soy sauce, which makes it great for dipping."
A Cultural History Of The Kebab - "A kebab is a dish of sliced or ground cooked meat with its roots in Middle Eastern cuisine. The method of cooking little pieces or strips of meat on skewers dates back thousands of years, and there are many theories as to the exact origin of the kebab. Excavations of the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri uncovered stone supports for skewers from before the 17th century BCE, and even Homer’s Iliad mentions pieces of meat roasted on skewers (ὀβελός). In cities where this delicacy has been a staple for centuries, meat could already be found pre-sliced in butcher’s shops. This is likely because fuel used for cooking was relatively scarce compared to Europe, where the wide forests enabled farmers to roast large hunks of meat... More generally, the word “kebab” was popularized by Turkish people and, today, kebab dishes have been incorporated into local cuisines and innovations, thanks to the ubiquitous fast food that is the döner kebap... Kebab is normally cooked on a skewer over a fire, but some kebab dishes are made in a pan, in the oven, or even as a stew, like the tas kebab. In most cases, the meat traditionally used for kebab is mutton or lamb, but regional recipes sometimes include beef, goat, chicken, fish or, more rarely, pork... Although the history of street food in Greece dates back to antiquity, the iconic gyros and souvlaki only emerged after World War II. First brought to Athens in the 1950s by immigrants from Turkey and the Middle East, gyros were originally known as “döner kebap.” This is typically served in a pita wrap, or on a plate, with fries and various salads and sauces, including tzatziki. Around the same time, the Greek word gyros replaced “döner kebap,” and the dish’s Greek variant became widely popular, particularly in North America. You can actually get classic shish kebab or souvlaki – little cubes of meat cooked on a skewer – in most English-speaking countries. Although gyros are unquestionably Middle Eastern in origin, the matter of whether modern souvlaki came to Greece via Turkish cuisine — and so should be considered a Greek version of shish kebab — or whether it’s a contemporary revival of a Greek tradition going back to the Minoan civilization in the 17th century BC, is still a hot-button issue (at least between Greeks and Turkish people). Ćevapi or ćevapčići, which derives from the word “kebab,” is a grilled dish of minced meat traditionally found in the countries of south-eastern Europe. It’s considered a national specialty of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and is also very common in Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania and Slovenia, as well as in North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania. The ćevapi’s Balkan roots date back to Ottoman times, while the Romanians have a dish with similar origins called mititei. Pinchitos or pinchos morunos is a kebab dish of Moorish origin found in Spanish cuisine. The name pinchitos is used in the southern Spanish autonomous communities of Andalusia and Estremadura, and consists of small cubes of meat on a skewer (pincho in Spanish ), traditionally cooked over charcoal braziers. Outside Europe, pinchitos are also highly popular in Venezuela. With regard to the kebab’s origins, there’s a key moment in its history that can’t be overlooked, when it became even more popular and beloved than ever. Germany – the 1970s. The döner kebap explodes onto the scene with the help of Gastarbeiter (migrant workers, literally “guest workers”) from Turkey in Berlin. The original dish evolved into its distinctive form, bread brimming with salad, vegetables and sauces, sold in large portions at very low prices. It quickly became the definitive fast food in the German capital and across much of Europe. The first claim staked on the introduction of the Turkish döner kebap to Germany dates to 1969, when Nevzat Salim and his father started selling Iskender Kebap in Reutlingen (a German city in the state of Baden-Württemberg). But the Association of Turkish Döner Producers in Europe (ATDID) attributes the widespread popularity of the dish to Turkish Gastarbeiter Kadir Nurman’s food stall at West Berlin’s “Zoologischer Garten” (Berlin Zoo) station in 1972, offering the döner kebap as a fast food option. The döner kebap originally sold in Berlin contained only meat, onions and a little salad. Over time, it evolved into a dish stuffed to the brim with salad, vegetables and an array of sauces. Funnily enough, in Berlin, if you ask for hot sauce on your kebab in Turkish, you still use the German word scharf, demonstrating the hybrid nature of the Berlin-style döner kebap."
Meme - "What do we call the science of classifying living things?
Racism."
Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work - "The ethnographic account of an Inuit man manufacturing a knife from his own frozen feces to butcher and disarticulate a dog has permeated both the academic literature and popular culture. To evaluate the validity of this claim, we tested the basis of that account via experimental archaeology. Our experiments assessed the functionality of knives made from human feces in controlled conditions that provided optimal conditions for success. However, they were not functional. While much research has shown foragers to be technologically resourceful, innovative, and savvy, we suggest that this ethnographic account should no longer be used to support that narrative."
Ignoring lived experience from minority voices!
Tomaž Vargazon's answer to How would airships have fared against the airplane if the Hindenburg hadn't exploded? - Quora - " Once jet planes came online the airship was doomed to go the way of the Dodo. Their military value was nil and they were deathtraps. The Hindenburg was a great disaster true, but it wasn’t even the worst. When USS Akron crashed in 1933 due to a thunderstorm, 73 passengers and crew lost their lives, almost twice the death toll at Hindenburg. USS Akron was a helium-filled ship. There were another five disasters that were worse than Hindenburg in the few years of the airships: British R38 (1921, 44 dead), the US airship Roma (1922, 34 dead), the French Dixmude (1923, 52 dead), and another British R101 (1930, 48 dead). There were “just” 31 fatalities with Hindenbrugh disaster. Hindenburg was merely a spectactular event that came with vivid video and live radio broadcast. That sets it apart from the others, the disaster itself was truly nothing special for the concept of the airship. The moment airplanes could begin to reach across the Atlantic was the death knell of the airship."
Are AirPods Out? Why Cool Kids Are Wearing Wired Headphones - WSJ - "On the practical level, price is crucial. While AirPods range from $129 for the most basic 2nd-generation model to $179 for the new 3rd-gen release to $549 for the AirPods Max, Apple corded headphones go for just $19, and those from other brands can cost even less. For disorganized types, corded headphones are easier to keep track of and needn’t be charged. Plus, some folks have vague, pseudo-scientific objections to “radiation” that they associate with wireless pods... A cord also projects a “you can’t sit with me” factor that some people find appealing. While AirPods subtly blend into your look, making you at least appear available to the outside world, corded headphones wall you off from others... The person in the Patagonia vest who automatically updates to the latest iPhone, the latest operating system, and yes, the latest AirPods with the “spatial audio” is perhaps too conformist to be perceived as truly cool."
This ignores the price of non-Apple wireless earphones
Teen admits cutting construction worker's safety rope, molesting classmate - "the boy molested his classmate sometime between January and March 2016, when she was 13 years old. He brushed his hand against her upper thigh and buttock over her clothes. In December 2017, he found a discarded can of lubricant and thought it would be funny to spray it on lift buttons to make them slippery so that passengers might accidentally press the wrong buttons... On Oct 29, 2018, he took his friend's phone and called the police, saying: "I was kidnapped. Don't kill me, don't kill me." By doing so, he transmitted a message he knew to be false to the police. On the theft charge, the teen admitted to entering a cafe after it had closed on Sep 9, 2019, and stealing two packets of instant noodles worth S$5. He also cheated two people in October 2021 by making them believe that he was selling an in-game item from the online game Growtopia. He ran this scheme on others, cheating buyers of S$511, for which he has made full restitution."
There's always a bigger fish. : pics - *Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnsson, Shaquille O'Neal, Yao Ming*
This 38-year-old study is still spreading bad ideas about addiction - "Alexander lost eight days’ worth of data due to a malfunctioning piece of electronic equipment used to measure the amount of liquid the rats consumed, which may or may not have impacted his results. He also failed to control for important variables, Snodgrass said. For example, male and female rats in the boring cage were isolated from each other, he said, but they were housed together in the Rat Park cage. Soon, Rat Park was filled with rat pups. Alexander never explained what happened to the pups, Snodgrass said, such as whether they were removed or left in the cage and somehow factored into the results. “The females would wean one litter after approximately 18 days and then would begin to cycle again,” Snodgrass said. “You can’t do this. You can’t have one group of subjects mating and with pups and compare it to a group that doesn’t engage in these behaviors and say that the difference between the two groups is caused by environmental differences.” When scientists tried to replicate the Rat Park study, they got mixed results... The authors of the study note that in 1979 the supplier both they and Alexander used for Wistar rats changed, noting that “the Wistar rats used in the Alexander, et al. study were Old Colony Wistar rats, and the ones used in the 1996 were New Colony Wistar rats.” The author concluded that the difference in behavior between the rats in the initial Rat Park study and the 1996 study were, “likely genetic in nature” (Petrie, 1996). This is especially notable considering Alexander’s current position that genetics do not play any role in the development of addiction... Finally, there is the obvious fact that rats aren’t human and thus behave differently than humans do... Alexander’s study was an important breakthrough in understanding addiction, but the results were far from conclusive. The study’s real problems have less to do with the science and more to do with the grandiose claims made based on the results. For example, morphine (an opioid) was the only type of drug used in the experiment, but Alexander extrapolated that addiction to all drugs would present similarly."
What Your Tweets Say About Your Mood - The Atlantic - "The seemingly lonely people swore more, and talked more about their relationship problems and their needs and feelings. They were more likely to express anxiety or anger, and to refer to drugs and alcohol. They complained of difficulty sleeping and often posted at night. The non-lonely control group, perhaps fittingly, began a lot more conversations by mentioning another person’s username. They also posted more about sports games, teams, and things being “awesome.”... researchers from the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and the Georgia Institute of Technology analyzed 52,815 Facebook posts from 51 patients who had recently experienced psychosis. They found that the language the patients used on Facebook was significantly different in the month preceding their psychotic relapse, compared with when they were healthy. As their symptoms grew worse, they were more likely to swear, or to use words related to anger or death, and they were less likely to use words associated with work, friends, or health. They also used first-person pronouns, a possible sign of what’s called “self-referential thinking,” the study authors write, or the tendency for people who are experiencing delusions to falsely think that strangers are talking about them. (In the recent loneliness study, the lonely Twitter users were also more likely to use the words myself or I than the control group.)... Paul Appelbaum, a professor of and an expert on psychiatry ethics at Columbia University—and the father of one of my colleagues—says it’s an “open secret” that clinicians in psychiatric emergency rooms will look up patients online if they have concerns about their potential to harm themselves or others, especially if the patient isn’t very forthcoming. But that process consists essentially of one-off Facebook stalking, not an in-depth linguistic analysis... A smartphone could be used to remotely track changes in someone’s speech or movement. People in the throes of mania, for example, often talk more quickly, and they sometimes roam about at all hours of the night. Conversely, depressed people sometimes stay too still, planting in bed or on the couch for days. “There are also many apps that have been developed that involve input from the patient: information about mood or thoughts or behavior, which can be monitored remotely for changes in their status”"
Power Rangers Original Cast Members ‘Disappointed’ by Film Reboot - "David Yost and Walter Jones, better known as Billy the Blue Ranger and Zack the Black Ranger, spoke at Chicago fan convention C2E2... “I was a little disappointed that they changed the characters around a little bit because I wanted Zach to be with his kido because Hip Hop Kido was a really important element of who I was on Power Rangers.” Jones said of his character’s fighting style. “I think if they would have added that, then there could have been some parkour and there could have been so many other elements to that character that it would have been awesome.” Yost was critical of a key component of the Rangers’ transformation into superheroes. “The only thing I care about progression wise when they do a sequel and they morph they better bring it, and they better say “It’s Morphin Time,” he said. “When we said, ‘It’s morphing time!,’ it was like, ‘Shit’s about to go down;’ when they said it in the movie it was so lackadaisical. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”"
(removed Toronto being kinky story that presumably got this post put behind a warning for readers)
(removed masturbation story that presumably got this post put behind a warning for readers)
I Turned My Hobby Into My Side Hustle and It Became A Nightmare
Strippers can apparently better forecast the market than your finance bro - "The user, @botticellibimo, explained that “the strip club is sadly a leading indicator and i can promise ya’ll we r in a recession lmao.”... Referencing the 2001 Enron Corporation scandal, they claim strip clubs are where “energy salesmen bring their clients” and “recruiters bring prospective finance bros,” describing strip clubs and the world of business as “deeply integrated.” As strippers, “we always have to be aware of fluctuations in the market and how upper class white men are behaving and spending their money,” the user continued. “Ask ANY stripper we have to be aware of how rich people are going to spend their money, stripping is betting on how the rich spend their money.”... company holiday parties, which take place in December when finance employees typically receive their end of year bonuses, “make up a large part of strip club revenue,” emphasizing again the inextricable connection between strip clubs and the condition of the market... in early 2007, a friend who was stripping at the time told them “the club is way too dead for way too long,” and advised them to sell their stock then and buy it back after the market crashed. “i thought she was crazy. but she did it, and she ended up almost doubling her money.”"
Meme - "Hear me out: A glory hole but instead of a penis someone shoves a taco in your mouth"
Facebook - "The fourth little pig's house was made of wolf skulls. They aren't very sturdy, but they send a message."
Meme - "People On The 'Right Side Of History Are Usually Fighting For Freedom And Liberty, Not Censorship And Reeducation Camps"
Meme - "5 OUT OF 6 PEOPLE AGREE THAT RUSSIAN ROULETTE IS COMPLETELY SAFE"
Meme - "Hiroshima
everybody needs a friend
Hiroshima Nagasaki"
Meme - "Let Go of the Things in Your Life That Are Holding You Back
Woman: "See You Around"
Kid: "Mamma""
Facebook - "During World War 2, the German army used a radar system called Wotan. The British scientist R.V. Jones figured out how the system worked by assuming that it used a single beam based on the fact that the Germanic god Wotan had only one eye."
Can masturbating REALLY boost your immune system and fight Covid? - "masturbation caused a temporary spike in immune cells, including killer cells that fight viruses... almost half of men and women who masturbated before bed said they either got better sleep quality, or fell asleep quicker."
Why Medieval Torture Devices are Not Medieval - "Whether it is the Pear of Anguish or the Iron Maiden, these torture devices are portrayed as medieval. The reality, however, is that many of these devices never existed in the Middle Ages... Today historians are starting to take a look at these medieval torture devices, and are realizing that they are not only not medieval, but might not even have been torture devices at all... objects calling themselves the Pear of Anguish first start appearing around the middle of the 19th century. There is a reference to a ‘pear’ type object that was used by a well-known criminal in Paris at the turn of the 17th-century: he apparently had a device designed for him that allow him to gag his victims. But beyond that there is no mention of such a torture device from the Middle Ages. In fact, a careful examination of these devices show that it could never have been used to torture people. Not only would have the springs been too weak to open up a bodily orifice, but the way the latch was designed meant that it could not be opened at all if it was inside something. Bishop offers some suggestions on what this device could have been:
One could imagine them as surgical instruments – some sort of speculum perhaps, or a device for levering open the mouth in order that a dentist might operate. But then they could just as easily be shoe-extenders, or sock-stretchers, or glove-wideners...
medieval people were just not as imaginative and creative as modern day people believe. Instead what little we know about torture methods suggests that fairly simple methods were used, such as binding people very tightly with ropes. Some so-called torture devices, like the Pillory, actually did little to harm individuals. It was used by city authorities in medieval London, for instance, to punish various criminals. For example, several bakers who committed fraud were sentenced to spend a few hours bound up in the pillory, where they had their fake bread burnt under them. This punishment was intended to humiliate and expose the wrongdoer – physically they received little harm, perhaps some sore muscles and a bit of smoke inhalation (depending how much smoke a loaf of bread could create). Convicted women also had the benefit of being able to use a stool when they were sent to the pillory... Perhaps, because we want to see ourselves as more civilized and intelligent than people who live hundreds of years ago, we will imagine that they were more eager to torture people and do it in a more cruel fashion. Therefore it allowed us to be convinced that devices like the Rack, the Iron Maiden, and the Pear of Anguish were somehow everyday objects of the Middle Ages. It might say more about us than about our medieval ancestors."
Apparently if a torture device existed before the Middle Ages, we can't call it a medieval torture device. Uhh
Spanish sisters tortured to death in ‘honour’ killings after refusing to help husbands emigrate from Pakistan - "Urooj Abbas, 21, and Anisa Abbas, 23, were allegedly forcefully married to their cousins more than a year ago, but were unable to get their husbands visas to emigrate to Spain. They were unhappy with their marriage and wanted to divorce their husbands to marry different people in Spain, Geo News reported. The sisters were called back to Pakistan’s north-eastern district of Gujrat on 19 May and were shot dead a day later... Qandeel Baloch, a Pakistani social media sensation who was known for her progressive views on women empowerment, was strangled to death by her brother in 2016 for “dishonouring” the family. Her brother Muhammad Waseem said he had no remorse for her death and was pardoned in February this year under Islamic law."