The Rant

   Muslims are using British libel laws to limit what is said about Islam, terrorists and the people in Saudi Arabia.   In England, a person sued for libel has the burden of proving what is written is true, rather than the reverse as is true in the U.S.   Marc Steyn has been sued in Canada by Muslims in a "Human Rights" court that has so far granted 100% of the petitions filed.   The book that he is sued for "America Alone" pointed out that Muslim populations are growing faster than non-Muslims, and that if the trend continues, Muslims will be a majority in the near future.  In America, such lawsuits would be forbidden by the First Amendment. In Britain and Canada, this is not true.  As a consequence of such lawsuits, all American major publishers have refused to publish a book on the Muslim Brotherhood, for fear of such "libel" and "human rights" lawsuits.  So much for free speech in America. 

     Benazir Bhutto, the only female head of an Islamic country, educated at Oxford and Harvard, has been exploded by Islamic "extremists."   Pakistan is armed with nuclear weapons, and appears to be slipping down a path towards anarchy, as the military backed government seems to be losing the support of the people.  Thousands of Bhutto's supporters have taken to the streets, burning vehicles and attacking police stations in an explosion of violence against the government.       Hopefully, the "religion of peace" will step in and put out the fires of violence.  However, it has not been able to prevent her father being hanged by the military, nor her brothers to be killed, one poisoned, one shot. Her husband spent seven years in prison.   Pakistan is an Islamic country. Where are the forces of reason, of moderation, of justice, of peace?  Why does it seem that only violence rules this blood soaked land?  

  Pakistani opposition leader and former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a political rally in Rawalpindi.     New article .   At least nineteen people were killed in the attack.   Bhutto, like her Father, was educated at Oxford.   She was unusual as a woman serving as a political leader in a Muslim country.   Story of her life in words and pictures here . 

Muhammad is the second most popular boys name in Britain.  This fact "proves that Islam is becoming the majority in the UK and will one day enter every house in Europe," a senior terror leader told the World Net Daily news .   By what standard does a religion become the most popular?  How did Islam become one of the largest and fastest growing religion in the world?  Does violence and threats to competing ideologies work as a method of growing a religion?   Or is it the teachings of the religion about procreation and producing children, in a Darwinian analysis, that ultimately controls. The religion that produces the most babies wins.   So multiple wives and many children will ultimately prevail over progressive modern Protestants and agnostics, who hardly have any kids.   Darwinian selection doesn't care why the children are produced, it just wants as many as possible. 

Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. is an MSNBC political analyst who has appeared on the Al Franken show.  He is an Emmy Award producer and writer for the West Wing.  On the Hugh Hughet show, he admitted that he would like to criticize Islam, but he is afraid to do so. He is not afraid that Mormons will retaliate, so he feels free to criticize Mormons.  Speaking of Mormons, he said:       "Mormons are the nicest people in the world.  They're not going to ever . . . HH:  So you ca be bigoted towards Mormons, because they'll just send you a strudel. LO'D:  They'll Never take a shot at me. Those other people, I'm not going to say a word about them.   HH: They'll send you a strudel. The Mormons will bake you a cake and be nice to you. LO'D:  I agree.  HH  Lawrence O'Donnell, I appreciate your candor.  From Pajamas Media     With this sort of courage, the U.S. will fall as easily as Europe to gradual Islamization. 

Joseph Campbell suggests that people get into trouble when they take symbols that are meant to be understood as metaphers literally.  They confuse the literal denotation of a symbol (like the Eucharist) for its possible metaphorical meanings.    Christmas might be understood as the birth of divine in a human heart that transcends a mere physical understanding of life. Or it can be understand as an alleged literal birthing a god man two thousand years ago, with doubtful meaning or application to people of today. 

Perhaps because it is well know that the people of Berkely are known to worship the California Bears football team, except when it falls apart mid-season. 

Bob: Can you think of any reason a judge in Sudan would hold that a Teddy Bear was a western religious icon?

Bob: I don't want to start a culture war, but how can you name your snot nose kid Mohammed , but you get sent to prison or worse by naming a teddy bear Mohammed . I suppose when I go to Mass (not recently) and I want the host being transformed, I have a moment of pause, but I really can't understand the logic of the teddy bear crime. I both cases I have no idea what possesses people to believe in such religious practices and proscriptions, but teddy bear naming. Frankly, I think millions of people throughout the world should send monogrammed teddy bears to all Muslim countries with the name Mohammed sewn on to them. We should have planes dropping little stuffed animal Mohammed bombs all over their cities. Maybe little children would educate their parents how stupid this case is.

A Saudi Court sentenced a woman who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes.  Her crime?  She was kidnapped while in public with a person that was not her male relative, which violates Sharia law.    Link to story . 

A second night of riots by "youths" in a Paris suburb left more than 80 police injured, five critically. Around 100 men hurled petrol bombs and bricks at police in the town of Villiers le Bei.  Several buildings were damaged. Guns were used against the police.     Link to story    The disturbance came after a 15 and 16 year old boys were killed in a motorbike crash when their motorbike hit a police patrol car.  The police were accused of leaving the scene after the accident, but three eye witnesses interviewed on television say the police tried to revive the boys after the crash.  The police said that the boys ran a red light without wearing helmets on an unregistered bike.  The boys are African immigrants.  Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the victims, told the French media that "What happened that's not violence, it' rage."  With more than 5 million Muslims living in France, 70 percent from France's former colony of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, Is...

The Sudanese police arrested a British schoolteacher and accused her  of insulting Islam after she allowed her 7 year old pupils to namea class teddy bear Muhammad.   Do you think that Allah is more insulted by the naming of a teddy Bear after Muhammad, or by the arrest of a schoolteacher for this crime?  Muhammad is the most popular name in Islamic countries.  If it is not an insult to Islam to name an ordinary fallible human being by the glorious prophet's name, why is it an insult to name a teddy bear?  Do you think that Muhammad is so insecure that he would care if seven year olds named a teddy bear after him?  This is so silly.  What would you think of a King who arrested a teacher because the school children named a teddy bear after the King?  LINK to story   

Bob: This is truly outrageous. $52 Million-Plus Payday for Christie's Old Boss By John P. Martin and Jeff Whelan The Star-Ledger Tuesday 20 November 2007 Ashcroft firm to monitor med-implant settlement. When U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announced a $311 million settlement to end a probe into kickbacks by leading manufacturers of knee and hip replacements, he touted the agreement as a groundbreaking development for consumers and the industry. The deal also proved to be lucrative for Christie's old boss. Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of five private attorneys whom Christie hand-picked to monitor the implant makers. Now Ashcroft's D.C.-based firm is poised to collect more than $52 million in 18 months, among the biggest payouts reported for a federal monitor. Disclosed in SEC filings, the arrangement calls for Zimmer Holdings of Indiana to pay Ashcroft Group Consulting Services an average monthly fee between $1.5 million an...

Whenever religious leaders get political power, they try to use the power of the State to enforce their religious beliefs on others "for their own good." This applies to most religions. I do not know enough to say there aren't exceptions, but I doubt it. Freedom of thought entitles people to speculate about the Big Questions: Why are we here? What was there before the Big Bang? What happens when I die? Is there an Intelligent Designer behind the Order in the universe? The most common problem with religion is fundamentalism, when someone claims to have the Final Answers written down in a book, and persecutes anyone who believe something different for being heretics. This is part of the bigger problem: when a religion, philosophy, party enforces its theories at the point of a gun. Otherwise, religious speculation can be an entertaining pastime for our spare moments.

Bob: I was listening to the Laura Ingram show the other morning and quite frankly was disturbed by the interview she had with author Jay Winik . I loved April 1865 and am reading the Great Upheaval. I was very disappointed in his appearance on Laura Ingram's radio show. I would think that he is rather insincere in his writings or he could of stood up to her perversion of the great American experiment. See email to Winik below. Dear Mr. Winik : I was a big fan of April 1865, a very important book I recommend to my children and friends. I am just starting the Great Upheaval. I understand that part of the obligations of an author is to make the talk show circuit and appearing on Laura Ingram's show is just one stop on than trail. However, are you aware that you allowed her to use you to advance the false proposition than the U.S. is a Christian country which has fallen away from its religious roots - someday leading to a collapse of our society. Moreover, the founders, agr...

Bob: Did you listen to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia. The one slant I haven't really heard beyond nut job, petty dictator, crazy, etc. was that the first 5 minutes or so of the speech could have been given by the religious right in this country or Pope Innocent and Gallileo. Essentially he was saying that all true knowledge comes from God. Science that is revealed by God is good, but science is misused by nonbelievers to prevert the truth. Not that we probably didn't expect such comments but it is important to note that science not blessed by the clerics is heresay not science.

The Mercenary, Considered. Does history not tell us that once there were many soldiers in Italy, who, failing for pay because the wars had at length come to an end, formed themselves into Companies and extorted money from the city-states, plundered the countryside, and were a plague upon the nation? . . . Such outrages do not come from anything other than the fact that these men were skilled in the arts of arms, and turned this into a profession. Do we not have a proverb that reasons as I just have, saying: “War makes thieves, and peace hangs them?” Because those who do not know how to live by any other occupation and who do not find anybody who will support them in soldiering, and who are possessed of such limited skills otherwise that they cannot join together in pursuit of an honest trade or living–these men become mercenaries, they turn to rob on the highways. And in the end, justice has no recourse: it must extinguish them all. –Niccolò Machiavelli, Dell’arte della guerra, bk i, s...

from the autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 3, page 71. 1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. 2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light. 3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed. 4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory. 5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found. 6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you. 7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. 8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter. 9. Be scrupulously truthfu...

From Vegabox The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church. ~ Ferdinand Magellan - (disputed) I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~ Stephen Roberts Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen. ~ Michel de Montaigne Any intelligent fool can make things better, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? ~ Nietzsche We, on our side, are praying to Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, too, for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us? ~ Abraham...

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