No god but God

I read No god but God because I thought it would be interesting to know something about Islam. Now that I've finished the book I'm glad to know what it had to say, but while reading the book I was reminded that I find the history of religions fairly boring. I'm not saying that Reza Aslan made it boring - I think that's just me. I am glad to finally know the difference between Shi'ite and Sunni (the first has a more modern and rational (I'm not making a value statement - that's Aslan's description) interpretation vs Sunnis have a more traditional interpretation of the Quran). I'm sure that I got this impression largely because of how Aslan presents the information, but I was surprised by how reasonable what the Quran says is and that most of the stuff that the West criticizes Islam for is stuff that has been added since and really contradicts the Quran and how Muhammad acted. As usual I will pick out a somewhat minor point that stuck out to me - the CIA sucks (and British Imperialism isn't so great either, but that is pretty common knowledge at this point). The book was talking about several of the groups that the CIA has backed which have turned out to be mistakes. Between this book and watching Syriana (oh and all the current issues) I'm thinking maybe the CIA isn't such a great organization.

Oh and by the way if you read the title of the blog out loud you're half way to being Muslim.

In other news - the chip I have been working on at Cameron Health taped out so that was exciting and while they have already expressed that we need to work hard to get the test plan setup in time things should be less hectic (or at least I should be a bit calmer since I have trouble getting excited about test (for those paying attention that last comment is ironic)).