Alex Yousif

Cybersecurity Engineer. Long-Distance Runner. Former Philosophy Professor.

Cyber, Privacy, Religion, Philosophy, Middle East.

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

My streak is now 70 half marathons in the past 70 weeks!

Stop making excuses. Throw away your candy, cigarettes, vapes, drugs and video games. Kick the alcohol habit.

You are created in the imago dei.

So go out there and better yourself!

#STAYHARD
#STAYDISCIPLINED

[Daniel Bennett @danielrbenn]

If you’re a Christian voter in Michigan opposed to abortion, you’re One Thousand Percent justified in not voting for either candidate. Anyone telling you otherwise is a partisan grifter.

[Jonathan Lemire @JonLemire]

NEW: President Trump is considering striking Iran again in the days ahead

He is also looking for a potential scapegoat for the mess the war has become - and has been calling allies to gauge their feelings on Hegseth and Caine https://t.co/vGpYZUjwP6

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

@Rm7_sn @lastkafir The aforementioned biography predates the hadith collections and the whole 'science of hadith' (it was written way before al-Bukhari's collection, for example), which is not a science at all. Isnad analysis of the very early Islamic period is not a valid method of doing history.

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

@Rm7_sn @lastkafir The source is Kitab al-Maghazi or Sirat Rasul Allah written by Ibn Ishaq and rescinded by al-Tabari and Ibn Hisham.

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

@Rm7_sn @lastkafir No. This is in the earliest biography of Muhammad that we have.

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

That Trump listens to this woman, and that this woman's advice is why Trump fired a director of the NSA, is completely wild. It means that the adults are not in the room and that we are ruled by clowns.

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

Islam is false and violent.

But this type of rhetoric is disgusting.

Calling for the FBI to raid every mosque in the United States is deeply un-American.

Some of these MAGA cultists are truly anti-Muslim rather than just anti-Islam.

[Laura Loomer @LauraLoomer]

If the Trump administration and our @FBIDirectorKash doesn’t conduct a raid on the home of @WajahatAli and his entire mosque by tomorrow at 10 am EST, then we will know we are a conquered country.

Muslims should not be allowed to make these types of brazen threats of Jihad in our country without serious consequences.

The Trump administration needs to start taking the threat of Islam seriously.

It is an absolute cancer of an ideology and its followers are threatening a civil war in America at 1% of the population if their Muslim Brotherhood jihadist operative candidate @AbdulElSayed loses his election.

Every single mosque should be raided by FBI agents in tactical gear and there should be a national ban on Muslims running for office to secure the safety of Americans. Every single Muslim immigrant should be rounded up by the US military and deported to one of the 56 Muslim countries.

Americans need to take these threats of violence by Muslims seriously.

Wajahat Ali is a public safety threat making threats of an Islamic uprising as a form of voter intimidation.

This is not ok.

Where the hell is the DOJ? They have barely done anything to break up Islamic terror cells in America and we are infested with these disgusting people who bring nothing but chaos to America.

American lawmakers need to defend our country from these savages because we are being conquered by violent Muslims.

[JD Flynn @jdflynn]

Democrats won’t believe you and pro-life Republicans will abandon you.

Who is this strategy for?

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

@PoliSciChick84 Not to mention abortion...

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

@PoliSciChick84 It is true that MAGA has illiberal tendencies and seems to have strayed from traditional conservatism.

But to go from there to "conservatives should vote for Democrats" is problematic. Traditional conservatives oppose LGBTQ doctrine, which is all but sacrosant to the Dem party.

[CyberSatoshi 𓆙 @XBToshi]

Why isn't the Binance hacker laundering $6B through Monero?

CT: "They're gonna trace the Monero outputs, bro. It's game over."

Actual reality (Tay is right in this case):

- XMR daily liquidity isn't deep enough to absorb billions without 60% slippage.
- Shadow OTC brokers take tainted native ETH/BTC for a 5-10% discount anyway.
- A nation-state behind sovereign borders needs exit liquidity, not cryptographic anonymity.

Privacy tech is for individuals escaping governments. Governments escaping sanctions use raw black-market OTC channels.

If you don’t have a supreme behind you, embrace Monero.

[Alex Yousif @AlexYousifCYBER]

@basedinmalibu Glad you're okay!!

[Bruce Hoffman @hoffman_bruce]

This important 52 minute video that al-Qaeda dropped last week, & is critical to understanding the movement & its leadership succession, was ignored virtually everywhere. The great @Dr_SaraHarmouch & I analyze its meaning & implications. Many thanks to @smallwars for publishing it. https://t.co/yBlk5yMz6i

[Wojciech Pawelczyk @WojPawelczyk]

It is always visually stunning to see cemeteries across Poland on All Saints Day after dark lit by grave candles like this:

[Imran Mulla @Imran_posts]

'Modern Muslims’, declared the late Shahab Ahmed, suffer the ‘existential problem of living in terms of a conceptual incoherence with their past.’

My new piece for @KasurianMag revisits Ahmed's magisterial and little-understood work, a grand odyssey from the Balkans to Bengal:

[Far-Right Neoliberal⚛️🌐🦅🇺🇸🇯🇵🇪🇺🇹🇼🇰🇷🇮🇱 @farrightneolib]

Give me 100,000 Secular Ashkenazis and I will make a developed nation in under a year

[Edward Feser @FeserEdward]

Appalling. Repeatedly, on abortion, war, spending, corruption etc the argument “We have to support the GOP in order to advance our principles” has morphed into “We have to abandon our principles in order to support the GOP.” This bait-and-switch will continue until it is punished

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

Early Christians baffled the Roman world because their counter-cultural way of life, radical compassion, and refusal to conform to civic religion turned traditional Roman values upside down...

Christians worshipped only one God and refused to burn incense to Caesar or participate in state polytheistic rituals. Romans viewed this as a dangerous form of atheism and treason that could anger the gods and destabilize the empire. Roman society was deeply hierarchical and honor-driven, built on class, slavery, and status. Christians treated slaves, masters, the poor, and elites as spiritual equals before Christ. Romans routinely exposed unwanted or disabled infants to die of exposure. Christians actively combed public dumpsters and streets to rescue these babies and raise them as their own—an act so foreign to Romans that they falsely accused Christians of bizarre rituals like child sacrifice. While Roman culture prized honor, strength, and retribution against enemies, Christians practiced radical forgiveness and charity. They cared for widows, orphans, the poor, and even plague victims regardless of whether they were believers, prompting early writers like Tertullian to note observers saying, "See how they love one another!" Unlike other oppressed groups or zealots who fought the Roman legions with the sword, Christians refused violent revolution. When dragged before magistrates or executed in the arenas, many faced death with calm resolve or song rather than armed resistance, which baffled authorities who only understood power backed by military might.

. . .

Early Christians in Roman Empire showed a high level of devotion to their God that made their persecution backfire. On many occasions, the martyrs sang while awaiting execution in arenas. While Roman authorities at the time intended for public executions to serve as a warning to anyone who refused to honor traditional gods, the strategy did not work. Roman Emperor Nero started the trend in 64 CE after a great fire destroyed much of Rome. At the time, he needed people to blame for the disaster and chose the Christians as they were a small group of secretive people that lived on the fringes of society. The plan to scare the public away from the new faith failed as instead of fear, the lurid sights of their devotion to their faith even in the face of death, created curiosity among Roman citizens.

The public executions of Christians were meant to humiliate victims, their displays of courage when facing persecution were rare in a society built on power and self-interest. As a result, many Romans began to wonder what kind of god could give a person such strength. Tertullian, a famous writer from that era, notably wrote that the blood of martyrs acted as the seed of the church. Every time the state killed a believer, more people signed up to join the movement. While most people in the empire easily added the Roman Emperor to their list of gods in order to avoid trouble, the Christians refused to burn incense to the image of the ruler. Over time, the church became more organized and created a welfare system that the Roman government simply did not provide. When the Plague of Cyprian that emerged in 251 CE killed thousands of people, pagan priests and wealthy citizens fled to their country estates to avoid the sickness. Christians by contrast stayed in the cities to nurse the sick and bury the dead regardless of whether the victims were believers or not. This level of kindness earned them deep respect among the poor and middle classes. The actions also helped to earn the trust of the people.

📷 : Faithful unto Death (Christianae ad Leones!) or Christians to the Lions; an 1888 oil-on-canvas work by British artist Herbert Gustave Schmalz (1856-1935) that depicts Christian martyrs awaiting their fate in the Colosseum.

#archaeohistories

[Majid Malekmohamad @MMalekmohamad]

بوقت انتشار نوشتار #الفیه_و_شلفیه ایرانی که در آن بمندرجات دهها کتاب و رسالۀ اروتیک فارسی استناد جسته‌ام؛
بارها نشان داده‌ام که سرتاسر این آثار مشحون از آیات قرآن و اخبارست و همگی آنها هویت #مذهبی دارند؛
اما #سانسور این آثار بسیاری از مذهبیون و طبایع داغ ایرانو #ندیدبدید بارآورده

[Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy]

Last year, data centers consumed more electricity than all but 10 countries. https://t.co/XdwBOepCqv