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The good folks at BoingBoing discovered that their site was being blocked in many US organizations and foreign countries by a ham-handed content filter. Their response? Compile an extensive list of ways to defeat censorware. Read the rest of this entry »
Sheikh Ismail Nawahda, preaching in Jerusalem, directing all followers of Islam around the world:
”...unite all the Moslems in the world against the infidels…[to] restore the Moslem dictatorship using a system of small groups around the world”
How much more clear does that need to be? People who are of the religion of Islam are actively working to overthrow the American government. If you are of the Islam religion and are not, you are disobeying your own leaders. Either way, Islam is not about freedom of religion, it’s about treason.
Islam in America should be declared what it is: a treasonous organization that exists to overthrow the government. You have a right to freedom of religion, but you do not have the right to organize with the sole purpose of destroying the government.
News flash, Ogre: Christianity isn’t about ‘freedom of religion’ either. It’s about enforcing a specific set of beliefs. That’s what all religion is, at the core. Believe in a given credo, or suffer the consequences. Much of what passes for ‘religion’ throughout history has been bitterly oppposed to freedom.
Ogre doesn’t tell us how he arrived at the conclusion that Sheikh Ismail Nawahda is necessarily a “leader” in Islam. How does he arrive at the conclusion that all Muslims follow the same leaders? Ogre doesn’t say.
Nor can he explain how an organization is “declared treasonous”. And perhaps most importantly, he doesn’t explain how branding all American Muslims as traitors will in any way assist in the fight against terrorism.
No, this isn’t about ‘winning the war on terror’ for Ogre and his fellow Christian soldiers. It’s about spreading hatred and bigotry. Terrorism is a difficult problem that will be with us for a long time. I guarantee you it won’t be solved by those who employ simple-minded notions that lump all Muslims into the same pigeonhole.
Ogre’s little tantrum is a textbook example of religious hatred and intellectual laziness at its worst. It’s about as far from the American ideals of religious freedom and tolerance as one can get.
Fundamentalism — in any form, as an expression of any faith — isn’t wrong merely because it suppresses freedom of thought. It’s a danger to public health as well: Read the rest of this entry »
Via TPMCafe comes news out of Ohio: The Akron beacon Journal reports that State Sen. Robert Hagan will introduce a bill “that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents”. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Stephenson demonstrates that his ignorance of history can’t stop his bloviating:
Jeff Mittman repeated the popular false mantra of comparing a program of listening in on the telephone conversations of American citizens talking to suspected members of al Qaeda to illegal wiretapping of Dr. Martin Luther King.
“In the 60’s we spied on Dr. King illegally and in response we passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is binding on the president. His spying program is not legal.”
Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. Among many of its glories is that raving moonbats can demonstrate in public and make total idiots out of themselves.
Alas, in this case the total idiot is Jay Stephenson himself. FISA was, in fact, passed in part in reaction to the King wiretaps. As documented in one of the Church Committee reports:
The FBI collected information about Dr. King’s plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau’s disposal. Wiretaps, which were initially approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were maintained on Dr. King’s home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965; the SCLC headquarter’s telephones were covered by wiretaps for an even longer period. Phones in the homes and offices of some of Dr. King’s close advisers were also wiretapped. The FBI has acknowledged 16 occasions on which microphones were hidden in Dr. King’s hotel and motel rooms in an “attempt” to obtain information about the “private activities of King and his advisers” for use to “completely discredit” them.
And it was, in fact, as a reaction to the excesses documented by the Church Committeee that FISA was enacted.
Freedom of speech is indeed a beautiful thing. It allows Jay Stephenson to demonstrate his abysmal ignorance of history, and his preference for cheap shots over informed debate.
A recent article in the New York Times spotlights a movement that aims to make science accessible to the average citizen:
“A lot of people come to see real live scientists — some of whom are extremely famous and prominent — and see how their brains work,” said Dr. John Cohen, a professor of immunology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the founder of the Denver Café Scientifique. “People don’t often get a chance to do that. Some come to ask questions, others are content to listen.”
The Denver Café Scientifique was established in 2003 and is the largest in the country to date, drawing about 150 people (cafescicolorado.org). The topics vary from sleep to interstellar communication to Higgs bosons to nanotechnology, and they attract people of all ages and all occupations.
“Who would have thought you’d have standing room only at a geek event?” Dr. Cohen asked. He said he first read about science cafes in 1999 when they were catching on in England. “It just sounded like so much fun,” he said. “I saw it as a reminder of the peripatetic philosophers who wandered the Agora in Athens.” He imagined them, he continued, “stopping every so often to refresh themselves with a mug of wine from the local sellers.”
There are now several dozen Café Scientifique locations in Great Britain, and there are at least fifteen in the US. Faced with a rising tide of anti-science, anti-intellectual sentiment, scientists need to get out among the general population and explain their work and its value.
If you live near an existing Café Scientifique site, visit it at the earliest opportunity. If you don’t, consider taking up the challenge of organizing one.
A favorite tactic of the radical right is the lie by omission. I ran across an example of this recently by a blogger who calls himself ‘Ogre’.
Ogre rails against an editorial in the Charlotte Observer that calls for stricter standards regarding tailpipe emissions from automobiles. He’s entitled to his opinion, of course. Unfortunately, Ogre chooses to lie while making his point: Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Stephenson once again chooses to lie to his readers.
This is pure propaganda from the ACLU. Congress has realized the absolute necessity of the program designed to listen in on conversations where one end is a suspected Al Qaeda operative. The ACLU rebuking the program is a clear admission that they have no regard for the safety of America, and want to completely eliminate the program.
When Jay says “the program”, he means all surveillance of international communications, with or without warrants. How does the ACLU define the program? [PDF file] Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Stephenson is lying to his readers at StopTheACLU.com:
The [UN report on Guantanamo Bay] had an extensive list of torture including handling them roughly, not allowing them to starve to death , restraining them, leaving them by themselves (solitary confinement), discomforting room temperatures, bringing dogs to bark at them, and making them sleep on non-fluffed pillows….without the complimentary mints.
This, of course, is not what the report said. What did it say? [PDF file] Read the rest of this entry »
Glenn Greenwald makes the case that the right wing in this country is no longer made up of true conservatives — but instead is a cult of personality that worships George W. Bush
It used to be the case that in order to be considered a “liberal” or someone “of the Left,” one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, “judicial activism,” hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a “liberal,” such views are no longer necessary.
Now, in order to be considered a “liberal,” only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a “liberal,” regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more “liberal” one is. Whether one is a “liberal”—or, for that matter, a “conservative”—is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.
...A movement which has as its shining lights a woman who advocates the death of her political opponents, another woman who is a proponent of concentration camps, a magazine which advocates the imprisonment of journalists who expose government actions of dubious legality, all topped off by a President who believes he has the power to secretly engage in activities which the American people, through their Congress, have made it a crime to engage in, is a movement motivated by lots of different things. Political ideology isn’t one of them.
One has only to visit the most popular right-wing blogs to see how true this all is. Testify, Glenn.
Those who have read my scribblings for a while will know that I’ve come down hard on one Kit Jarrell, who writes over at Euphoric Reality. Kit’s never done anything particularly nasty to me, and I bear her no personal ill will. But she is representative of the worst of political discourse as it is practiced by the right today: jingoistic, intolerant, bigoted, ready to advocate the mass murder of civilians (especially Islamic civilians) at the drop of a hat. And like most of her ilk, Kit cannot bring herself to address the actual arguments being made against the foreign and domestic policies of Our Sainted President.
Kit’s recent screed entitled Answering the Left About Liberty is a typical example of the sort of obfuscatory, dishonest rhetoric employed by the right in these times. Read the rest of this entry »
Larry Johnson:
...Al Qaeda and other terrorists did not learn from Jim Risen or the New York Times that the NSA (and others) were listening in on their various communications. They already knew that.
What we need to figure out is quite simple. Is every American, including a war time President, covered by the Constitution? Our answer to that question will determine if we can really remain a free society, ruled by law rather than strongmen.
Exactly. Read it all.
Abbas Raza makes some very important points about the current rage in the Islamic world over the Danish cartoons.
I have received quite a few emails from 3 Quarks readers asking me to explain what it is about Islam that makes it so intolerant and irrational. These are well-meaning individuals, hoping to figure out a way to avoid what many have come to see as the inevitable “clash of civilizations”. How should they be engaging the Islamic world when it appears to them so incapable of reasoned debate and discussion? They mean no insult, but I still wonder if they wrote to their black friends during the Rodney King riots, asking them to explain why black people behave so irrationally? No, they didn’t. Why didn’t they? Because while they do not give sanction to criminal and violent acts of looting and vandalism, they can understand how a collection of historically oppressed people can be driven to irrational rage by repeated acts of injustice and caricature.
Please read it all.
The Anchoress blathers up some complete and utter horseshit:
I think this is an ugly precedent, and maybe for once, just once, some liberals might stop making excuses for inappropriate behavior and consider that perhaps weddings and funerals are off-limits for political posturing and positioning.
She’s speaking, of course, about the terrible terrible things that were said at Coretta Scott King’s funeral… political things! Gasp! Bring the smelling salts! Read the rest of this entry »
Jay at StoptheACLU.com notes a recent editorial:
Prior to her talk at Bridgewater College, scheduled for Thursday night, ACLU President Nadine Strossen questioned elements of the Bush administration’s surveillance program by posing an intriguing question.
“If Hillary Clinton were president, would they (conservatives) feel comfortable with (the electronic surveillance program)? I don’t think so,” Strossen said.
[W]hether we can trust Congress not to leak this information is the real question, not some hypothetical question of whether or not we can trust an imaginary democrat President with the program.
Nope. Wrong. That’s not the question.
The real question is this: Can we trust George W. Bush to obey the laws of this country? As we already know, the answer to that one is a big fat NO!
Bush has broken the law. Ordinary citizens who break the law face consequences for their actions. Will such consequences apply to Emperor Dubya? If they do not, what does that tell us about the reality of the “rule of law” in this country?
Jimmy Carter is a genius. He made a point with laserlike precision during the funeral of Coretta Scott King:
The funeral took on political overtones as former President Carter said of the Kings: “It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps.”
Poor gormless Jay over at Stop The ACLU has a hissy fit because someone dared to criticize Emperor Dubya’s policies:
Leave it to the liberals to use the funeral of a Civil Rights leader to preach their Bush hatred. It isn’t even shocking how low they will go now. Absolutely shameful how the race baiters have no respect for the dead, and used this as a political platform.
Uh, excuse me, Jay, but Dr. and Mrs. King were embroiled in political matters their entire lives. They worked with, battled against, and were reviled by politicians of every stripe. They pushed and prodded and demanded that this country do one thing above all else: Live by the principles it claims to stand for. One of those principals is that this is a country ruled by laws, not men. George W. Bush spits in the face of that principle, and if someone takes a moment to remind him of his transgressions during the funeral of a civil rights pioneer, all the better. It is the civil rights of all Americans, after all, that Bush has decided to violate by breaking the law.
UPDATE 02/08/06: The rightwing blognutosphere is going apeshit about this. Romeocat at Cathouse Chat has the vapors over Carter’s words, and tries throwing some slime to see if it sticks:
Oh, please, Mr. Kotter Carter. Can you be more irrelevant? You have a history of calling evil good, and good, evil. You endores tyrants and petty dictators in their pretend “elections,” and set yourself against true freedom and democracy.
Of course, Romeocat can’t argue against the fact that Carter has his facts right… so scurrilous and utterly unsupported ad hominem attacks are dragged out for a diversion. How very petty—and typical of this kind of “argument”. Wouldn’t want to actually discuss the use of illegal wiretaps by Our Sainted President, now, would we?
James Randi, one of my personal heroes, is recovering from bypass surgery:
James Randi underwent bypass surgery last Thursday. He is currently in stable condition. He is receiving excellent care, but will need quiet time to recover. We will release more information as it becomes available, and we ask everyone to please respect the family’s wishes for privacy at this time.
For those who feel a need to help, please consider donating blood at your local Red Cross or Community Blood Center. Cards may be sent to Randi in care of JREF, 201 SE 12 Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316.
Randi is a magician, debunker of the paranormal, instigator of the famous One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, and one of the leading lights in the skeptical movement today. Let us all send him our warmest thoughts for a speedy recovery.
...via Stupid Evil Bastard
Just how much difference is there between Osama bin Laden, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson? Not as much as you might think. Take the Falwell-Robertson-Bin Laden Quiz and find out how well you know all three.
