Tuesday, February 28, 2006

World Health: Pandemics: Bird flu jumps species to kill cat on German island

The threat of pandemic from a flu carried by birds both wild and domestic fowl has inched another step deeper into the danger zone, the BBC reports from the German island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea:


BirdFluAlert[Zaman]

A domestic cat in Germany has become the first European Union mammal to die of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

The cat was found dead at the weekend on the Baltic island of Ruegen, where dozens of birds infected with H5N1 have been found.

Further north, Sweden has detected "aggressive" bird flu in two wild ducks and is testing to confirm H5N1.

Meanwhile, vets from 50 countries have been meeting in Paris for a second day to discuss ways to combat the virus.
I wish I could get every reasonably literate person to read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Socieities to gain insight into how diseases jump around among various animal species spread under certain conditions, and in time can and have thruout history jumped to the human species. A sense of history on the matter and the basic science that goes with it, can't hurt. I do rate the book triple EEE for evolutionistic, but informed non-(evolution)istic thinkers can read past that obsession of dear Dr Diamond. Again, the "-istic" ending is meaning-laden, and every person who understands that Creation-Fall-Redemption takes priority over evolution in Christian theorizing worth its salt, will have no trouble gleaning the powerful insights and moments of truth in Diamond's reconstruction. - Owlb

Monday, February 27, 2006

Terms: Interreligious dialogue: Best not to conflate 'secular', 'secularity' with 'secularism', 'secularist', 'secularistic'

Celal - The reformational Christian movement, tho a tiny minority of the world population and even Christendom, makes a strong distinction between secular and secularistic. I wish that practice were more widespread within Christianity. It's just that the latter term with its "-istic" ending makes the word more lengthy and, for many, too cumbersome. In between is the term for designation of motive, what motivates a particular person, group, or institution - namely, in this case, "secularism" for the overall religious movement of "no religion;" and then "secularist [motive]" or "secularist" for a person so motivated ... as in "she is a self-acknowleged secularist who won't come to our house for dinner simply because we pray before meals."

Dr Hendrik Hart used to speak of a "biblical secularity." One needn't have a confession of faith or prozelytizing "witness" at the forefront of one's discourse and conversation on all occasions. Perhaps this is the basic reason why crosses were worn originally as pieces of jewellry, a silent symbol that needed no direct backup with faith-profession words, most of the time.

But, as a consistent Christian, one can't always hold back from direct statements indicating who one's Lord is, either. Even when the interlocutor/s know one is a sinner too, one may not wish to mention one's own ultimate motive in life that one's sins betray.

Sometimes the time is ripe; sometimes not; sometimes drastically inappropriate. Over the centuries, we've figured out in North America at least, how to negotiate the secularist suppression in the culture (outside church and home) of all Christ-talk, often all God-talk, without our full surrender and without always allowing the secularist religion/s to have the uncontested hegemony (much of the communities of discourse of said religions are populated by secularist atheist Jews (not "observants" or "Judaic believers"), ex-Catholics turned to the same values, nominal Protestants who wear one Deist shoe and one atheist shoe, and ex-Fundamentalists all trying to outdo one another in their zealotry for their new religion of secularism, atheism, or, more philsophically designated, Humanism (as Dooyeweerd defines it as the simultaneous absolutizing of nature and freedom in dualistic tension with one another in various ways ... and hence the hi-falutin' elite denominations of secularism like Freudianism, Jungianism, Marxism, Austrian Capitalism, and a host of others).

But now we Christians of reformational, Old Reformed, and Evangelical bent must learn new manners of inter-religious discourse on a personal level (say, if you're a teacher of Christian confession in a govt-school classroom with several Muslim girls who are sensitive to and bewildered by some by their 'difference' in contrast to the little secularistos/as and christos/as around them ... you can as a Christian in that schoolroom put the youngsters at ease by occasional gentle references to "Allah" and even "the Prophet" (you needn't absolutuely add the "Blessed Be He").

Secularism, on the other hand, and Christian teachers who receive their training in secularistic educational colleges, all too often blank out all reference to God by any name, it would seem. This silence in all the classrooms and courses creates a divide between home and its extended culture thru its Islamic connections with relatives and friends, and the school where Islamotalk need be whispered only, in the halls and on the playground.

I have used just one humble example, and its sphere-specific particularities to try to suggest a metaphor for new manners in all realms where Christians are called to be good neighbours and to participate in a gentle person-to-person inter-religious dialogue that puts the other at ease, off the defensive, and able to contribute, even perhaps share an inter-religious friendship.

There's so much stereotyping going around about "Muslims," when the world's 1.3 billion Muslim people are reduced to the mere 13 million who sympathize worldwide with Islamofascism.

And not Muslims only. In constructing negative stereotypes about Muslims, one often tends to construct stereotypes about yet others, in this latter case stereotypes that are intended to be positive. I noticed just today another case of stereotyping that included Jews being designated as rich and inveterately capitalistic on Joe Carter's blog Evangelical Outpost (he's a very educated man, but the piece swarms with stereotypes of the broadest kind). The cartoon crisis is throwing lite as much on the anomalies of Christians as on anyone else; we are a confused lot.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Taiwan: Foreign Policy: Taiwan set to drop unification with Mainland China, aka Communist China

D.J. McGuire of China e-Lobby sums up the new foreign policy moves of Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian in this way: "Chen stands by pledge to scrap moribund unification group: Why are so many people worried about the fate of the National Unification Council which hasn't met in six years, and its National Unification Guidelines, which predate the island's transition to democracy? Because scrapping them, as Taiwan's elected President Chen Shui-bian wishes to do, would get the Communists upset. Luckily, Chen, who called the guidelines "absurd products of an absurd era" (BBC), is made of sterner stuff" (China e-Lobby, Feb22,2k6, fourth item).

An earlier day's post (Jan31,2k6, sixth item):

Taiwan's President repeats vow to change constitution, adds plan to scrap unification body: President Chen Shui-bian announced "three major tasks for the year ahead - finalizing a new constitution ahead of a referendum next year; applying to join the United Nations under the name Taiwan; and considering scrapping guidelines on unification with the communist mainland, as well as the body that created them" (Cybercast News). The first two have long been priorities for Chen; the last one would end the National Unification Council, whose "guidelines" predate the island's move to democracy.
Before the newest turn in developments, McGuire had already followed up his reference immediately above, by citing Communist China's reaction (China e-Lobby, Feb8,2k6, third item):
Communist China rips Taiwanese President: Chen Shui-bian, the fellow the Taiwanese people elected and re-elected as their President, was dubbed a "troublemaker and saboteur" (BBC) for his affirmation of plans to change the island democracy's outdated constitution, to try to join the United Nations, and to scrap the de facto defunct National Unification Council.
We should't forget that the secession of Taiwan from the phoney "reunification" trap set by Communist China is a cause that affects the Commies also in regard to Tibet, East Turkmenistan, and other subjugated areas where self-determination and free speech have been wiped out along with their advocates. Hong Kong is always in a state of insecurity, and the new Catholic Cardinal has been told by ComChina to shut up about HK's democracy. Inner Mongolia still has advocates of the restoration of its identity. Outer Mongolia is sandwiched between ComChina and Russia, surviving only because of the latter two states' animosity toward the other's gain of territory. They both need Mongolia as a buffer zone, and Mongolia has reached out to the US as a kind friendly monitor of its status as an independent democratic state.

So, what about Canada's attitude toward ComChina and Taiwan, you ask.

Communist China is Canada’s biggest foreign aid recipient, even though [ComChina] has made multi-billion dollar bids for Canadian companies. Again, the tendency of Conservatives is to support Taiwan. In the whole, Canada is now likely to support U.S. initiatives in the UN, unless those initiatives would be counter to specific Canadian interests.
It's not much from Canada, really. But there's not much from the USA either, if you read the live-links below. I support a free Taiwan and its democratic tradition and institutions. I call for Canadian and American recognition of Taiwan, and seating the self-governing independent country in the UN under the the name "Taiwan," as the Chen government has espoused. - Politicarp

US Foreign Policy toward Taiwan
Communist China controls USA demeanor toward Taiwan
Chen only outflanking independentists in his own party, says Keith Brasher, NYT via International Herald Tribune
ComChina denounces Taiwan 'secessionists'

Saturday, February 25, 2006

North America: Economics: US unemployment drops to 4.7% - Canada jobless edges up to 6.6%

In the first week of February, the US unemployment-rate statistic dropped to 4.7% of the American workforce, while the unemployment rate for Canada climbed a sliver from 6.5% to 6.6%. Statistics Canada reported in its most recent Labour Force Survey that

Employment increased by 26,000 in January following a pause the month before. Although employment increased, the unemployment rate edged up 0.1 percentage points to 6.6% as more people entered the labour force in search of work.
Perhaps it's most important to note that "employment increased," but just not fast enuff to supply sufficient jobs to the number of new people joining the workforce.

In the US, according to Tom Abate of the San Francisco Gate / Chronicle, unemployment rates were the lowest in more than four years. Of course, the Bush Administration assigned this phenomenon to its foresight and stewardship, "noting that January's 4.7 percent jobless rate -- down from 4.9 percent in December -- was lower than the average unemployment rate that prevailed during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s." So, statistically speaking, it did indeed have at least a little something to crow loud about, while "critics said the rate is low because millions of Americans have dropped out of the labor force." Were that true, and it may well indeed be, still the critics jibe must take into account the nicetie of thawt that we're talking in all cases here about the offical labour force as reported by the Federal government's Depart of Labour. We are not talking about the total labour force which includes all under-the-table work and remuneration, into which sector those dropping out of "the labour force" may have simply moved horizontally from the official to the unofficial labour force.

New Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will have to weigh these opposing views before the March meeting, at which Fed officials must decide whether to continue a string of 14 increases that has brought the baseline interest rate to 4.5 percent.
Perhaps a little info on the concept of the baseline interest rate would help here, and the excellent summary I found comes from the Bank of Canada's Monetary Policy which of necessity in reaching its own determination must take into account parallel developments and differentials in the US. The policy structures the updating of the baseline interest rate according to four criteria: 1.) Risks and alternatives; 2.) Regional survey and forecast; 3.) Review of indicators of inflation and capacity pressures and 4.) Financial market expectations. I'll cite here just some of the text for the first item:
About a week before the announcement [of a new baseline interest rate, or of a continuance with the one that presently prevails], the Governing Council [of the Bank of Canada] is briefed on four important topics:

Risks and alternatives

The staff projection is an outlook for the economy's most likely path. There is, of course, much uncertainty around this outlook, and the economic model is used to assess the main "risks" to it.

Examples of risks include different assumptions about the current amount of slack in the economy or the growth rate of economic capacity; different assessments of the prospects for the U.S. economy; and alternative views on the future path for the price of oil or other commodities. The staff's "risk analyses" assess the sensitivity of the baseline forecast to such risks and provide the Governing Council with a range of forecasts and policy recommendations.

The staff also consider alternative policy scenarios; for example, one in which interest rates are held constant for a period of time. This would indicate the consequences of delaying the interest rate response proposed by the model.

As well, staff review various indicators of capacity pressures and inflation

When you go thru all four of the factors, you begin to realize that all of them influence the number of jobs that will be lost and created in any given period of time, and thus the baseline interest rate, to the best of the Bank's ability to predetermine a specific rate policy and possible change thereof. But jobs, as such, depends on the both the official and unofficial labour markets of businesses (legal or not). That's one reason why the government always wants to create new jobs under government control, regulation, taxation, etc. It's one reason why the government wants to control all education, and all education-related jobs. That's one of the key reason's the previous government wanted a national childcare program in official childcare facilties (where the Canadian Union of Public Employees would unionize them, put them on strike, chechoff dues not just for the union but for the unoin's causes, etc.) This tendency has precious little to do with the well-being of children or assuring to parents the best choice of childcare as each family may envision it. Usually, informal and unofficial childcare by grandparents and other relatives doesn't enter into the statistics of official employment, but the bit of money or other benefits, say, of a grandparent living in the home with the children and parents serves the well-being of all - including the grandparent/s involved. - Owlb

Canada: Juridics: Rothstein nominated to Canadian Supreme Court

For the first time, the Canadian public was notified in advance of the names on a shortlist of three nominees to the Supreme Court of Canada (it was not by design but by leak that the public was informed of the trio, altho the design and leak are not necessarily logical opposites). And, then, Prime Minister Stephen Harper added that his own preselection was settled (I think it would have been better to put all three of those on the shortlist thru the new process of televised public review by parliamentarians, at least, before the final determination was announced officially). That would have given the Prime Minister elbowroom to change his mind regarding his first choice. But no such luck for the great mass of those to be affected by the selectee and his/her philosophy of law.

Nevertheless, Judge Marshall Rothstein of the Federal Court of Appeals will undergo a televised 3-hour conversation with Members of Parliament asking him questions. How closely and how guisedly will they inquire as to his view of reading into the Constitution outrageous new "rights" suddenly "discoverd" to be "emanating" from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with no Responsiblities? Would Rothstein be willing, some will wonder, to allow the unborn to be hacked apart in the womb no matter how late in the pregnancy? or even allow them to be left on the operating table whole and alive just to be ignored to death by the medicos? We'll never know his respect or lack thereof for humans at this stage of life.

Will the new Justice of the Supreme Court uphold the penalization of a printing company which demurs from a client's request for a printjob advocating an ideology inimical to the business-owner's beliefs, when the would-be client has recourse to thousands of other competing printers in the city? Will the new hi-court judge obtrude on the internal rules of a Catholic hi-school that prefers not to have male-male dates at its prom? Will he support muzzling the citation of Scripture or sermonizing that is one shade or another anti-homosex, obtruding on the internal rules of religious entitities or newspaper ads or editorials, for that matter? We can't say. We can't know really nothin', I'm guessin'.

But, golly gee, fellas, take a little tip from me, fellas, we've moved out of the dismal swamp of Liberal-Party-dominated jurisprudence - at least one inch. And, in Canada, that's somethin'! So, subsequent to three hours of introduction of the designee to the Canadian public on Monday, chaired by a former student of the learned jurist, the new Government's Justice Minister Vic Toews, I'm celebrating the coming appointment of Mr Rothstein to the Supreme Court of Canada. My congratulations to the Honourable Marshall Rothstein, Judge-designate of the Supreme Court of Canada. Sir, do I inquire of you as "Your Excellency?" "Your Worship?" "Your Jurisprudentia?" - or simply "Your Honour?" - or how? The CBC webpage for these matters of official address just doesn't quite say. - Owlb

Friday, February 24, 2006

Science: Nanotechnics: Fuel cells, oil-addiction overcome, scientific secrets

Recently, nanotechnology has produced three discoveries of its positive potentials for bettering our life in ways related to our environment. One holds promise of replacing the chemical battery, a hi-ly toxic 200-yrs-old invention. Another may make the solar-energy cell fabulously more efficient. And the third raises the ante to the modal level of biotics, allowing a look into the minisculities of living plant and animals cells to see if toxins are damaging them, or whether they are themselves producing toxins in never-before-visible amounts that could accumluate to kill a living organism - such as perhaps, yourself. The info is collected in a newspaper article by Robert C. Cowen, writing in Christian Science Monitor, "Big news on a very samll scale" (Feb24,2k6):

Conventional solar cells, for example, are made from thin wafers cut from blocks of silicon. Building the cells as assemblies of nanotech units is a better way to boost solar-cell efficiency, says Craig Grimes, an engineering professor at Pennsylvania State University. His research team builds cells as molecule-size arrays of titanium. These titania nanotubes are covered with a dye that converts light energy to energy of electrons. The tubes channel the electron flow to form the cell current - electric power.
I can't imagine how this mite allow you to drive your car at nite, but who knows? If you had a bunch of these and exposed them to sunlite, maybe one would be ready on a grey day to be popped into a spot under the hood and off you go. If not, think of the many other uses to which solar-sourced energy could be channelled by way of such new-style nanotech 'batteries' in home and workplace.

If you know what a cyclotron is (basically a pipeline that circles in a huge spiral some miles long, as in southwestern France where a cyclotron was used to bombard atomic structures to demonstrate by means of statistical measurement only, the subatomic changes of a micro-instant's duration (literally a "split second' of time) that take place. I'm not sure what those cyclotronic results are good for, except in theoretical physics. But in any case at MIT, there's something analoguous being made using microscopic fractions of a hair's width (instead of a pipeline-sized object) but of length longer than most oil piplines out there in our usual-scale world. These are being coiled microscopically now to create magnetic fields to store electrical energy. Well, I think I got the science rite but you'd better read Cowen.

For the third of Cowen's examples, you can't get the oriignal source without paying Science Magazine, but you can get a taste by looking at the "figures" and accompanying short texts. Or look up related studies by Andre Nel and his research group, where you may not have to pay for a little knowledge scientific. Amateurs and the scientific laity are often locked out of science by these pay-stingers, but for the public to vote for candidates for public office who make decisions on environmental, ecological, and other scientific matters: the lockout from scientific information - especially when its already funded by government - seems to be an entirely elitist set-up. Maybe if we politely email Dr Anre Nel, he'll be happy to send us each a PDF of this gnostic cache of info. - Owlb

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Ontario: Schools: Funding for nongovt schools restored if Conservs under leader John Tory win in Ontario

Quite some time back now, I found an item on hogtown.com website, a commment by blogger J. Albert. I've carried my reply to him/her on my right-column Sidebar for many, many months now. But today I removed it from there. I had good reason; I have good news on the matter that irritated me so profoundly at the time. So, before the good news, I'm offring J's original post and then my mentioned reply one more play, then the good news:

Thursday, June 02, 2005
Education minister in need of education
Let me get this straight....

TheStar.com - Province suspends funding for 9 boards - From The Toronto Star

... Ontario Education Minister Gerald Kennedy has just pulled money off the table from a nine ongoing negotations with teachers' unions. We can only guess that these are cases where the unions thought they could get more by pressing on with the work to rule.

Says Kennedy however:

“We are definitely moving away from that era of conflict.”

I guess he's right - sure. One side cancels kid's sporting events and refuses to issue proper report cards - and the other side then pulls a pot of money off the table. That isn't conflict, and furthermore freedom is slavery and 2 + 2 =5!

Kennedy obviously believed that his unilateral capitulation and payoff to the teachers - offering a well in excess of recent inflation 10.6% over four years to elementary and secondary teachers - would have bought an "labour peace".

Well - Mr. Kennedy, the teachers' unions are not interested in labour peace. They are in the game to negotiate more money for less work for their members. Conflict and confrontation are the main tools in their arsenal.

- posted by J. Albert @ 11:10 AM 1 comments
And now my reply:
Remember that the Ontario Liberals campaigned in favour of denying the children of non-Catholic Christians in poverty the benefits of educational equality, going against a UN Human Rights decision that Ontario should grant support to all faith-based schools without discrimination. I single out the Christian poor denied their proper education in accord with their own worldview as an opener, because that would be the largest constituency still, in Metro, to benefit from the appropriate pluralization of the school-system/s. I think it's obvious why the Liberal Government, the two religious establishments of Secularist and Roman Catholic Boards of Education, and the teachers unions are all bankrupt in more ways than financial. Provincial Education Minister, Gerald Kennedy, knows damn well all the arguments and data for equity on this precise issue, but he has turned completely technocratic and unprincipled in dealing with it. After all, he serves a Premier who had all the benefits of a Catholic-system education, but who can not respond with honour to the UN Human Rights judgement against the Province of Ontario's educational iniquity/inequity. The teachers unions have their own version of lack of principle, as they are essentially bureaucrats without a unifying vision either for their profession or for the children in the classrooms. Money, more and more, is all they have as a measure of their "career success." I'm one of those who just can't feel at home when teachers are playing work-to-rule games, and skipping out on clubs and sports activity sponsorships.

I hope, [blogger] J. Albert, that you will keep monitoring the situation festering in the Ministiry of Education in Ontario, and in the schools and teaching professions of these privileged institutions which hog all the money in Hogtown, elbowing out of the spectrum of worldviews financially supported by government, all the others that would come to expression and cultural vitality were we to practice equality here in this city and this province. - Owlb

- comment June 03, 2005 3:58 AM
Okay, now the good news. The bigotted injustice of the present Libgovt of Ontario under Premier Dalton McGuinty, supported by the NDP, and more importantly by the vested-interest selfish teachers unions will be ameliorated, should the Ontario Conservatives come to power in the next provincial elections. Reporter Keith Leslie of Canadian Press via Ontario's London Free Press article, "Tory pledges fairness plan for faith schools" (Feb20,2k6). Subtitled "He says Ontario's Conservatives will address the concerns of non-Catholic parents," the Leslie report said:
NIAGARA FALLS -- Ontario's Conservatives will develop a policy before the next provincial election to address the basic issue of unfairness for non-Catholic parents who send their children to other religious schools, party leader John Tory said.

The issue was raised during a question-and-answer session Tory held with about 1,000 delegates as they wrapped up a Conservative policy conference in this border city, and he immediately said something must be done to help those families.

"Let me be very clear about that: I am still completely and totally committed to ensuring that part of our platform for the 2007 election is a policy that addresses the fairness issue for independent schools," he said.
I personally was particularly pleased by the Conserv leader's knowledgeability about the human-rights negative marker on the province for its injustice in schooling:
Tory said he agrees with the United Nations that it amounts to discrimination against other religions when Roman Catholics have a fully funded public education system but others do not.
Louise Arbour, presently UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, formerly Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and before that of the Ontario Supreme Court, has been irresponsibly silent, even while in Ontario and visiting the Roman Catholic school system here, silent regarding the blatant injustice of provincial govt educational-funding policy.

I must add, however, that the vital adjustment envisaged by the Tory and his Tories should he/they win, still doesn't satisfy me philosophically. While religious discrimination is blantantly unbearable, still there are many people who would join and run free associations to educate kids and young adults according to educational values and curricula not validated by govt educational overlords and unions, parents and other whose self-chosen schools would not necessarily carry any outright "religious" label, but would be devoted to their joint founding-choice of educational philosophpyy for that particular school, its curriculum, and it educational outcomes (subject to legislation and Ed Ministry regulations into which all schools, systems, and associations had input). Indeed, varieities of secularists have the same right to educational freedom that those belonging to worldviews decidedly of a recognized religious kind. Religion needs a broader definition than is presently held by the UN, the Canadian state, the Ontario government, or the too-often self-preoccupied Christian sects (not to mention Ontario's other lively religions, defined in the traditional sense). - Owlb

Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools
Ontario Christian School Teachers Association
Diversity of Schooling in Ontario (Ministry of Education)
Using the Ontario Ministry of Education's site, there was no way to get a complete list of what they call "private" schools in Ontario (that's another annoyance, since they arrogate to government schools the word "public;" not so, as a Christian school could be open to the public who meet certain requirements of respect for the public Christian school's distincitives and who commit to behave appropriately within the sphere of the institution). But here's the breakdown using my terms of the governement and government-supported school boards in Onatrio, by type:

English Govt school boards - 31
English Catholic Govt-supported school boards - 29
French Govt school boards - 4
French Catholic Govt-supported school boards - 8

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Culture: Romance: Kissing - it's history and philosophy

I dare not spoil for you the reflections of esteemed philosophr Cynthia Nielsen on the kinds of kissing known for their philosophic origins (click this blog-entry's title). But neither should you miss this brief historical survey noted by Volokh Conspiracy. - Owlie Scowlie

Palestine: Politics: Hamas comes to power and raises The Question


DryBones>HamasRejects...

Yaakov Kirschen's award-winning cartoons span decades of humourous, often bittersweet, reflection on the ironies of political life in the Middle East. And everyday life too, as these are not always distinct zones of existence. A resident of Israel, Yaakov started the "Dry Bones" series in 1973. "The Hamas Question"©Yaakov Kirschen (February 17, 2006). It is republished here with the artist's permission. - Owlb

Monday, February 20, 2006

Nukes: Iran: Iran's Hierarchs issue 'fatwa' requiring Iranian state to use nukes against Iranian state's enemies

We've learned quite recently that the Iranians - who attacked the Danish, Austrian, German, Norwegian, (and a week later also) Brit, and French Embassies in their country - have "confessed" that the Iranian leadership helped in divising the onslawt, according to reporter Shariv Omidvar in the Western-based bilingual Persian / English Rooz online website (Feb20,2k6). (Hat Tip to Regime Change in Iran blog which carried the article already and has made it available in its daily email newsletter.)

Rookmaker Club geostrategic analysis:

As to the event itself, it's called the 'Baseej Embassies Attack' - after the militant Student Organization "Baseej," a semi-official group that has strong connnections to the hierarchs of the Iranian theocracy.

The Rooz digital publication and Regime Changing in Iran republication could be read as discussing only the leadership of the Baseejies, but I read-in my inference (a friendly use of the hermeneutic of suspicion) that the author wishes to convey the implication that the salaried adult leaders of Baseej are at the beck and call of certain hierarchs. Subsequent events make this connection very probable.

The Baseej organized attack on European embassies comes after the Danish Cartoons Crisis, but the Baseej attacks come subsequent also to the European united stand (except foot-dragger France) urging the International Atomic Energy Agencvy's recent referral of Iran's nuke program to the UN Security Council, which voted for sanctions against Iran. Iran's leadership - from Baseej to the really powerful theocratic religious fanatics at the top of the Iranian system - is furious. They want the destruction of Israel, the subjugation of the infidels of Europe into a status of 'dhimmitude' (diminished economic, political and civil-rights status) ruled by the European Muslims under the new messianic Caliph (part of Iran's eschatological mythology). Thus, the Iranian version of the backlash against the Danish cartoons (which I strongly denounce as an instance of atheist Humanism, not Christian neighborliness and a responslble freedom of the press, a press free of prostituting itself to religious insult of our Muslim neighbours' core values): yet the Baseej assault used the press and governmental irresponsiblity in Europe as a cover to literally inflame the situation.

But here in this blog-entry, my main concern is the very lastest development I've encountered: Feb19,2k6 brawt us news of the grand fatwa by the hierarchs of the theocratic Iranian regime, reported by Colin Freeman in UK's London Sunday Telegraph via Washington Post where we read that "The hierarchs are now

approving the use of atomic weapons against the country's enemies.
Muslim clerics for the first time have questioned the theocracy's traditional viewpoint that Shariah law forbids the use of nuclear weapons.
One senior mullah has now said it is "only natural" to have nuclear bombs as a "countermeasure" against other nuclear powers, a reference considered to be the United States and Europe.
The pronouncement was issued by Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of the extremely hard-line Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, widely regarded as the cleric closest to Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi's group opposes virtually any kind of rapprochement with the West and is believed to have influenced Mr. Ahmadinejad's refusal to negotiate over Iran's nuclear program.
Separately, an Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain yesterday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.
I think there will be war. Every Christian neo-Constantinian must now consider the probable need for a pre-emptive strike. You may want to regard it as an expansion of the War on Terrorism in Iraq, due to the Esteshadion (Martyrs Seekers) brigade which boasts "more than a thousand trained" suicide-bombers ticking already to go after the Coalition forces supporting the democratic government of Iraq. There are anxious Western voices calling upon Israel and the USA to bomb Iran's nuclear faclities now, the sooner the better. One estimate says the best pinpointing of the already-functioning nuke factory (apparently as of now only one is operational, at Natanz, Iran) will produce a maximum of 10,000 Iranian civilian and nuke-worker casualities. I don't know about this, but the suicide-bombers destined to cross from Iran to Iraq will surely create worse mischief to Coalition forces and Iraqi democrats, while Iran's finished product of deployable nukes will be sufficient to blackmail Iraq into becoming a satellite of Iran, under a then-to-be-installed viceroy - namely, fierce pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia theocracy-minded cleric Moqtada Sadr.

And this latter scenario doesn't even address what would happen to US, Brit, Aussie, Polish, Dane and other Coalition forces presently in Iraq. If theocratic Iran gets the bomb, unleashes its Esteshadion brigade on Iraq and the Coalition, then the US will have to pull its troops from Iraq with haste. God have mercy on the people of Iran, and on us all. - Politicarp

Sunday, February 19, 2006

World Health: Pandemics: Globalization of flu-infected birds step closer to human pandemic

I've been monitoring the spread of bird flu a bit, especially attending to a Turkish news source, Zaman Daily (both Turkish and English sections) with a webpage devoted entirely to monitoring that country's enlarging number of cases. The current estimate is that 50 Turks may be infested, and that the flu among birds has spread to Istanbul. Increasingly draconian measures are being taken. Germany is supporting Turkey in fiting bird flu, and that makes good sense because of the large Turkish-background population in Germany which, naturally, accounts for much/most of the travel between the two countries.

BirdFluAlert[Zaman]

Yesterday, Voice of America carried word of an infected bird in France.

Today I see that BBC now reports another European core-country case of nonhuman bird flu, as Germany's Angela Merkel sends out a message that applies to the whole birdfull world, birds crossing every territorial barrier, affecting domestic species thru contact with wild species in their migratory patterns and wandering ways.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has termed as "serious" an outbreak of bird flu in the north of the country, as the lethal virus widens its global reach.

Speaking during a visit to the affected Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, Mrs Merkel said her government would do everything in its power to contain bird flu.

German soldiers are being sent to the area to help contain the outbreak, and nearby poultry stocks have been culled.

The lethal H5N1 strain has killed at least 90 people since 2003.

France, India and Iran are the latest countries to report the presence of the deadly virus in dead birds.

It can be caught by humans who handle infected birds, but it is not yet known to have passed between people.

Scientists have warned that if the virus mutates it could create a pandemic that could kill millions of people.
It seems to me that this mostly-birds disease, still rather species-specific, is not (yet) a sure thing for initiating a pandemic among humans. But draconian measures must be taken to stop it, as it could kill off the world's birdlife to a vast extent. To stop it, many birds must be exterminated in the short term, and especially domestic fowl and hunted fowl (like the infected wild duck/s in France) have to be targetted. Chickens, ducks, geese, and other cooped birds destined for the dining room table must be monitored, and probably enclosed in ways that absolutely isolate and quarantine them from visition to their otherwise open pens by various winged species. But I'm jumping from birds to insects perhaps. Strike various winged species, for now. Gotta' check that one out. At present, it is not known whether this flue can spread from a bird-infected human to another human. So, the major inter-species jump that is so significant in the history of human disease is still not understood in the case of bird flu. However, the current fear among epidemiological researchers is that flues have an incredible rate of mutation. The question becomes how soon before a mutation from a bird-based human-flu viral infections alogrithms itself to a mutated variety that is super-compatible for infecting another human, transmitting the bird-flue mutate into a human to human disease.

Chicken and turkey farmers in North America are probably already on hi-alert. But I haven't yet checked out the farmers' online trade journals nor the government agricultural ministries/departments. Pray to God their all ready to serve as sentinels, and will not lag behind as at first they did regarding Mad Cow disease. Still, I live in Toronto, and for all the danger dumped on us by SARS, daily life went on. Tourism dropped. People did die. People travelling between China and Toronto became suspect. The disease was said to have originated in caged civets, a wild catlike species used for delicacy dining in parts of China. Nowadays, we just don't hear much about SARS. Was that the one that mosquitoes spread to birds? Or was that yet another instance of the globalization of disease? - Anaximaximum

For an enlightening book on the history of the spread of diseases from other species to humans, you don't want to miss Jared Diamond's Germs, Guns, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997). Be warned: this scholarly work is strictly structured by evolutionary theory treated as an absolute and ultimate fact. The wise Christian reader can still gain a huge amount of information and thawtfulness from it, even those who are strict creationists in the "Young Earth" sense (which to me personally is just another theory, and a poor one at that). Rated: eee - A

Friday, February 17, 2006

Canada: Juridics: Can Supreme Court abortionist judges be put on trial?

Professor David M. Fergusson, a self-described "atheist and rationalist" who expected the opposite of the actual results of his study, "found that women who had abortions were significantly more likely to experience mental health problems" than those who had no abortions. Dr Fergusson is the director of the longitudinal Christchurch Health and Development Study, in Christchurch, a city in New Zealand, whose results had been published last month in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 47 Page 16 - January 2006 [doi:10.1111/j. 1469-7610.2005.01538.x Volume 47 Issue 1.

Abortion in young women and subsequent mental health by David M. Fergusson, L. John Horwood, and Elizabeth M. Ridder.

Background: The extent to which abortion has harmful consequences for mental health remains controversial. We aimed to examine the linkages between having an abortion and mental health outcomes over the interval from age 15–25 years.

Methods: Data were gathered as part of the Christchurch Health and Development Study, a 25-year longitudinal study of a birth cohort of New Zealand children. Information was obtained on: a) the history of pregnancy/abortion for female participants over the interval from 15–25 years; b) measures of DSM-IV mental disorders and suicidal behaviour over the intervals 15–18, 18–21 and 21–25 years; and c) childhood, family and related confounding factors.

Results: Forty-one percent of women had become pregnant on at least one occasion prior to age 25, with 14.6% having an abortion. Those having an abortion had elevated rates of subsequent mental health problems including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviours and substance use disorders. This association persisted after adjustment for confounding factors.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that abortion in young women may be associated with increased risks of mental health problems.
Science can never produce any kind of truth beyond statistical and anecdotal probabilities. Hence, the "may" language of the abstract. Previously, we have had the weight of anecdotal evidence, when women tell their own stories of post-abortion mental suffering sometimes accompanied by negative somatic side-effects; now we have further the best that science can give us. None of this supports the situation in law that has prevailed for some time since the Court threw out Parliament's lelgistlation, at the time claiming it was poorly written. Nowadays, however, the rhetoric of civil rights has been so inflated into utter nonsense that the Court's haphazard rulding has taken on the stature of a divine decree in the manner of the Medes and Persians.

Anecdotal evidence has long maintained just what Prof Dr Fergusson has now turned his scientific expertize to fathoming, contrary to the ideologically-imposed cap on understanding that had been put on the topic by the abortion industry, not only in New Zealand and Australia, but also in the United States and Canada. In the USA, of course, the US Supreme Court's refusal to give women full info on their likelihood of suffering after abortion in later life is being hotly contested, and Fergusson et al's findings will definitely come into play.

In Canada, the Supreme Court long ago had intimidated Parliament into neglecting its responsiblity, the error-prone Court throwing out Parliament's legislation as ultimately unconstitutional (which well it may be, for all I know, were it poorly written). Yet, the Court always has recourse to blot out a word or phrase or clause with well-reasoned criticism, while it retains Parliament's law otherwise on the grounds that not preserving the greater part of the law intact would result in a worse result than keeping the whole thing as is. Striking the law down without further ado was ideologically-driven and irresponsible. In its lawless move, the Court established conditions to deny women considering abortions the full medical info of the future consequences of mental-ill-health more likely for them over life after taking life.

The Canadian Supreme Court's decision also gave hegemony to government-financed counsellors who would pressure the women to abort, exercizing power at the point-of-counselling and knowingly witholding info from the women. Thus, the Court itself promoted its own ignorance and must must take responsiblity for its wilfull ignorance by not requiring research such as Dr Fergusson has now produced, against his own "best" intentions.

As a matter of fact, Canada and women who go to abortion advisors (often paid by government funding) have systematically held back the strong anecdotal evidence and now presumably will keep up the ban on informing women about the just-established evidence. Indeed, the government of Canada under the booted régime of Paul Martin purposefully appointed two new judges on the basis of two litmus tests it applied: 1.) their prejudice in favour of abortions without mandatory information regarding severe negative effects later in life; and 2.) their prejudice in gerryrigging the definition of marriage, demoting it as a legally-recognized specific and unique kind relation of intimate union between 1woman1man, and reducing all relations of intimate union to a generic, abstract and false pseudo-definition.

Each day, each hour, each minute the clock ticks without the Supreme Court calling upon Parliament to send it new legislation requiring mandatory information on the likelihood of statistically-demonstrable future suffering for women who have abortions, and the Court instead reclining back into its intellectual stupor to re-inforce ideologically the status quo ante that it had imposed on the Canadian female population, is itself criminal.

Parliement is obliged to act in these new circumstsnces, to ensure women have the info and are free of pressure to abort by abortion-favouring counsellors who want a higher kill count to justify their salaries. Parliemant should address the intentional denial of info to womaen about the likelhihood of future mental illhealth - no matter what the crudely-apponted Court may do.

If a girl or woman has been raped, or if she will with probability suffer physically to a serious degree (certainly permanent incapacitation would qualify) should the child in utero is brawt to term, then I believe she should be permitted to choose abortion; depending on her age, she also should be permitted to have the child in the adults, and even to give her life for that of the child should she insist on such a path (sufficient age is a vital factor recognizing choice either way, for the pregnant female in this dilemma-laden kind of case).

But in all cases, girls and women should have the info on probabilities regarding future mental ill-health should they choose to abort, whereas good care and support should be guaranteed during the pregnancy and after, to those who choose to bring their child to term as a newborn. - Owlb

Hat Tip to Evangelical Outpost.

Art: Bookcovers: Magritte, idiosyncratic French painter, provokes a swarm of dustjackets

La Culture des idées:


Book cover design and the spirit of Magritte

A book exhibition conceived by Karl Baden

Bapst Art Library, Boston College, February 13 - March 19, 2006

Here's a teaser from the Introduction by Jeffrey Howe

These are not Magrittes; the book covers in this exhibition are inspired by him, and appropriate his imagery. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Magritte might be said to be one of the most flattered of artists. The skeptical Walloon undoubtedly would have had something to say on this topic, however.

René Magritte (1898-1967) was the most important Belgian Surrealist; he transcends his national origins, and has become an artist of the world. His art was dedicated to the freedom of thought, and continues to have broad appeal to artists and members of the public who delight in the aesthetics of surprise. At the conclusion of his 1928 novel of mad love, Nadja, André Breton defined the essential quality of Surrealist art as “convulsive beauty” – “Beauty will be convulsive, or it will not be at all.”

The spirit of revolution manifests itself in Magritte’s refusal to accept convention; his images embody contradiction and the questioning of authority. Even his most subtle images are like depth charges, detonating in one’s consciousness long after the first encounter, shaking the foundations of conventional reality. Magritte cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that his pictures were escapist dreams; they are in fact: “ ‘Dreams’ which are not intended to make you sleep but to wake you up.”
Click-up the title of my blog-entry and enjoy the feast (if you enjoy Magrittic vittles). - Anaximaximum

Semiotics: US Politics: UPDATE: Whittington exonerates Cheney, tries to calm MSM hysterics

Lawyer Harry Whittington, recovering from being peppered by birdshot, exonerated his friend, Vice President Dick Cheney, from fault in the accident that occurred some days ago, and sent the MainStreamMedia (MSM) into hysterics. (Sorry, but if you clickup the headline link of this blog entry, Austin American-Sentinel may impose a registration obstacle to your freedom to read linked-news; Sentinel seems to have a name obsession, and is a damn nuisance even for those of us who are dutifully registered.

Shoot w Cheney or ride w Kennedy

Professor Bainbride cites some wag of a blogger who asks, "Shall we call this 'Cheneyquidik'? Or, perhaps we could call it "DrunkKennedik." But we could just as well call it 'Teddiwaterhack." Or? - Owlbie Scowlbie

A little proportion, please!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Tech: Ebooks : New portable ebook device can be used to read the book you wrote, via its desktop sales on iRex Ebook Store

You're gonna' hear a lotta hype in the next while, pushing Sony's new ebook reading device. They're hoping to reach the same market status in ebookery as Apple has in music with iPod (closely aligned with its iTunes Music Store and the in-computer iTunes application. But there's a big catch with the Sony gambit, and its already been around in Japan for over a year. If the Sony corporation simply extends its Japanese product to the North American and European markets, it will not accomodate all brands of digital music the way iPod does. Rather, you'll have to by Sony ebooks and only Sony to use the device.

Principium Consumers Hub:


iRex reader

VitalSource is a desktop app and store available online already for free download (with laptops in mind), but you've got to have a Safari browser (which I have but use now only for Safari-restricted browsing - like this reader - otherwise I use Firefox, my default browser). Since you can get some free downloads of reading matter too, by installing the app, I'm trying it out in its present state. A few snags already due to support specs, but nonethless its series of VitalBooks is of great value and designed for college students thru four years of university. Oh, yeah, you mite like this one, out of many features, "Take as many notes as you want - you never have to worry about running out of room. Highlight as needed - when you come back to the book, your highlights will be there" (from the VitalSource website hype).

The really interesting thing, however is that I expect VitalSource to undergo some quick transformations - because iRex Technologies is launching its own new portable device for reading ebooks (pictured above); and could well turn out to be a product which advances reading book-length texts wherever you are, carrying the device like an iPod and/or other handhelds. The mother company of iRex Technologies is Philips which did much of the pioneering work on e-paper technology. My impression is that the portable iRex reader named iLLiad will be capacious enuff to accomodate digital books of several major eread-brands at the start, with the promise of development to include compatibility with many more narrow-niche brands. I hear you can write, make your composition into an ebook, publish it digitally for download, and sell your product thru the iRex download market! your own book! The launch of the device is scheduled for sometime in April 2006. - Owlie Scowlie

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Cartoon Wars: Editorializing chronlogy: How events unfolded from Denmark to worldwide anti-Western demos

This editorializing chronology is a reivsion of an earlier one I posted on Discoshaman's blog Religion of Peace?. In recent weeks (months?), the main posting has been done Xyba who has done such an excellent daily job of keeping up with news of Islamofascist terrorist deeds and events that I must publically thank this blogger become journalist. The blogger found and posted a fine chronlogy by
Howden, Hardaker, & Castle (who also must be thanked). To that good skeleton, I added some flesh of further facts plus this reviser's Christian-democratic political and journalism-philosophic editorializing on several of the chronicled events in question. I'm cross-posting some days later that blog-entry on Relgion of Peace?, but I'm adding further fact and editorial matter dug up from additional sources in the meantime. red star (slanted)A red star indicates material new to this post. - Politicarp

Here we go, the basic unmarked layer is that of Howden, Hardaker, & Castle:


* 17 SEPTEMBER 2005: Danish newspaper Politiken reports [that] a writer failed to find an artist for a book about Mohamed because of fear of reprisals.

* 17-30 SEPTEMBER 2005: red star (slanted)[Addition by Politicarp: In yet another blog, we get what seems to be a leftwing American anti-American stance that seeks to explain away Islamofascist atrocities on the basis of how bad they think the USA is, but I quote nevertheless in order to get some key info about culture editor Rose.

Flemming Rose, culture editor, J-P
Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten culture editor
who birthed the Islampophobic cartoons


Here's the profile from Another day in the Empire:

As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations” engineered by the Straussian neocons. As Christopher Bollyn writes for the American Free Press, the neocon operative behind the cartoon scheme is Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who has “has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons.” Rose “traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares ‘militant Islam’ with fascism and communism,” Bollyn reveals.

Daniel Pipes is one of the more virulent and hateful of the Straussian neocons, famous for his racist and xenophobic statement that Muslim immigrants are “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene,” an attitude straight out of the Nazi school of racial hyperbole (a philosophy embraced by no small number of Jabotinsky Likudites and their fellow travelers among the traitorous Straussian neocons).

Bollyn continues:

“Agents of certain persuasion” are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC. The key “agent” is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP, who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark’s leading morning paper last September….

Rose told the international paper owned by The New York Times that “he would not publish a cartoon of Israel’s Ariel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, since that could be construed as ‘racist.’”
I detest the rhetoric this blog uses to besmear "Straussian neo-cons." I appreciate much that Weekly Standard has done to advance awareness of the power realities with which Americans and their leaders must cope wisely in the present world. I suspect a blame-America-first attitude in the Another day in the Empire blog. But the slant they are captured by also canj help from time to time in getting a fresh look at a dubious figure like culture editor Rose.

Imam Ahmed Abu Laban
Danish-Palestinian Imam Ahmed Abu Laban

red star (slanted) Lorenzo Vidino in National Review profiles this dubious Imam, and I quote Vidino here at length:

Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian imam who has been residing in Copenhagen since 1993, has become over the last few years the face of Islam in Denmark, creating his own persona of a moderate cleric who seeks dialogue but who is victimized by the widespread "racism" of the Danes. Despite his poor command of the Danish language, Abu Laban is a frequent guest on Danish television and in meetings with government officials, where he claims to represent the voice of the local Muslim community. Even though part of the establishment has always looked at him with suspicion (Prime Minister Rasmussen has always refused to meet with him), Danish intelligentsia has made him a celebrity — so much of one that even the Washington Post recently profiled him as "one of Denmark's most prominent imams."

But Abu Laban's real face has now been revealed. In September, the imam immediately condemned Jyllands-Posten's cartoons and led protests at the local level. Danish politicians and media, busy with local elections, ignored him. But Abu Laban is not the kind of person who gives up easily. After having contacted ambassadors from Muslim countries in Copenhagen, he put together a delegation with the goal of touring the Middle East to "internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide," as he explained in an interview with "Islam Online". The delegation met with, among others, Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam's most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. The delegation showed each of these leaders the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten, along with others that had never been published by any Danish publication. The new cartoons were every more offensive, as showing the Prophet Mohammed with a pig face or having sexual intercourse with a dog. While the delegation claimed that the differentiation was pointed out to their interlocutors, there is no other evidence, and rumors about the more blasphemous images began to circulate in the Middle East. Moreover, the booklet that was presented by the delegation contained several other lies about the "oppression" of Muslims in Denmark, claiming Muslims do not have the legal right to build mosques and are subjected to pervasive racism.

With emotions about the cartoons mounting, Qaradawi, the real brains of the Muslim Brotherhood's international network and a key opinion maker in the Middle East thanks to his weekly show on al Jazeera, attacked Denmark directly, warning that an apology would not be sufficient, and that "a firm stance" should have be taken by the Danish government. As Prime Minister Rasmussen refused to intervene, referring to the cherished tradition of freedom of the press in his country, Qaradawi and his ilk unleashed their propagandistic war against Denmark. Abu Laban, from his mosque in the Copenhagen suburb of Nørrebro, is now happily reaping the fruits of his hard work. But, in a quintessential exercise in taqiya (double-speak), Abu Laban has tried to hide his satisfaction to the Danes. Speaking on Danish television, Abu Laban has wept crocodile tears, condemning the boycott of Danish goods and the other consequences of his actions. Yet, interviewed by al Jazeera, the imam has said just the opposite, praising the outrage of the Muslim world at his adoptive country.

So just who is Abu Laban? The Danes are slowly getting a fuller portrait. Friday night, Danish state television DR broadcasted a long report on him and Danes have begun to understand more about the self-proclaimed voice of Islam in Denmark. According to DR, Intelligence documents reveal that Abu Laban has been in close contact for years with members of various terrorist organizations, and in particular with leaders of the Egyptian Gamaa Islamiya. In the beginning of the 1990s, in fact, several leaders of the Gamaa escaped the long arm of the Egyptian mukhabarat and relocated to Europe. Copenhagen became the new hometown of two of the group's leaders, Ayman al Zawahiri, currently serving as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, and Talaat Fouad Qassimy. From the quiet of the Scandinavian capital, the men published Al Murabitoun, the Gamaa's official publication. Abu Laban worked as a translator and distributor of the publication, which glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Palestine. Then Abu Laban worked closely with Said Mansour, a Moroccan man currently charged in Denmark for running a publishing house that distributed jihadi material.


* 30 SEPTEMBER: Twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed are published in Jyllands-Posten as a protest against self-censorship [by the artists who mite have done the illustrating of the book, presumably - P]. [red star (slanted)Addition by Politicarp: Here's the latterday editorial spin by ultra-war USA newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal (Jan12,2k6):
Last year, Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's biggest daily newspaper, asked 40 artists to submit caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The request was not made to encourage condemnation of the historical figure or his followers, but to test whether residents were afraid of provoking Muslims. The newspaper wanted to find out whether the country's freedom of speech had been eroded by Islamic intimidation.
But this spindoctored miseditorial nowhere confronts the stark contradiction of the journalism-philosophy of the J-P best summarized in the words of Christopher Bollyn (not that I endorse the totality of his exposé for which see below the chronicle entry for Feb3,2k6): "The fact that the editors behind the anti-Islamic images claim to be exercising free speech while refusing to address Europe's strict censorship laws regarding discussion of the Holocaust and the ongoing imprisonment of historical revisionists reveals the existence of a more sinister agenda behind the provocative cartoons." Maybe Bollyn prefers to do away with restrictions on both sides of J-P's contradiction. I would prefer to have some limits on both and on gratuitous cruelty to Christians and other civilly-responsible religious communities by word or image in the public media and government-funded art locations; that's a better direction in which to err than what I sense in Bollyn and certainly in what J-P has arrogated to itself. I also feel restrictions on a vaunted absolute freedom for all kinds of pronography are valid. Of course, it would take really excellent law-makers to formulate such laws, but too many courts are ruled by Humanist notions of absolute freedom of speech, press (all public media), and expression (graphics, imagery, art and a whole bunch of other inappropriate acts in sphere-specific locations - like Superbowl telecasts).

* 2 OCTOBER: Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, hears complaints from 10 Arab ambassadors. [Addition by Politicarp: But Rasmussen is to be faulted for not vigorously denouncing the cruel publication of the cartoons as an instance of unneighborliness, intolerance, and religious bigotry - this he could have done without attempting to exercize any directly punitive powers, which correctly he does not have. Compare the statement of Canada's brand-new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Conservative Member of Parliament and Cabinet member Peter MacKay. In stark contrast, Rasmussen too could have stayed strictly within the law on press freedom and still have denounced the unethical abuse of press freedom. Like Adam in the Creation story, Rasmussen committed the sin of uxoriousness, surrendering his other available powers to scold severely in a major press conference, to use "the bully pulpit" of his office. Why did he not? is the question Christian-democrats must ask. Perhaps he was worried that his government would fall, cabinet ministers resign, or coalition-partner party withdraw from the cabinet, or that some members of his own party may in future mite use such a proper political-moral stance regarding his God-given political responsiblity to do justice for all the people of Denmark. He could have called for top lawyers to come forward to aid the Danish Muslim community in pursuing redress in the courts. Remember: the Social Democrats of Denmark are a Humanist party which does not acknowledge God at all, does not acknowledge all humans as made in the image of God, and looks down its icy nose at all religious values.]

* 2-14 OCTOBER: On one side of the conflict in Denmark we have Flemming Rose, his newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the unreceptive Prime Minister Rasmussen, his Social Democrats, and any colition partners they may have. On the other side, a largely peaceful and civil Danism Muslim population, its leadership, and the ambassadors of 10 Muslim countries called upon by the Danish Muslim leadership, or some segment of them to help in petitioning Rasmussen for a justice against religious insult of Muslim core values, akin to the strict laws Denmark has in place to protect the core religious value of truth about the Holocaust, with imprisonment of persons who write books seriously revising the canonical interpretation of it in Denmark.

* 14 OCTOBER: 5,000 people march through Copenhagen to protest against the cartoons. [Addition by Politicarp: Having given no level of public justice whatsoever to the Danish Muslims deeply offended by the Jyllands-Post derogation of one of the deepest religious values by which many Muslims identify the very core of their personhood with reverence for the Prophet Mohammed, the incompetent Rasmussen reaped the whirlwind of 5,000 offended souls stabbed to the heart by Humanist anti-religious bigotry.]


• 17 OCTOBER: Full entry by Politicarp: Al-Fagra , a nongovernment newspaper, Cairo. Egypt, publishes cartoons on part of its frontpage and all of page 17 of that day's edition. There was no reaction from the paper's Muslims readers, no press statement or street action from the anti-Mubarak fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, no government denunciation of the cartoons (but, of course, with no punitive action in any case for sake of freedom of the press), no representations to the government from the Muslim Brotherhood or to the other Arab embassies in Cairo, and no penalty for the paper's illustrious editor. - You can clickup my earlier blog-entry in refWrite refWrite, where the detail above is documented as to its sources - blogs Rantings of a Sandmonkey (Sandmonkey is from Cairo who has since presented the Al-Fagr edition for Oct17,2k5, scanned it and distributed it to Western bloggers like Freedom for Egytians and websites like Michelle Malkin and WorldNetDaily.

* 21 OCTOBER: Mr Fogh Rasmussen refuses to meet the 10 ambassadors, saying his government is unable to interfere with press freedom. [Addition by Politicarp: I repeat now in regard to this second Rasmussen offence that after 21 days Rasmussen still could not offer anything to these surrogate representatives of the Danish Muslims, representatives also of countries who buy Danish goods and services and the population of which countries are excellent customers adding to the prosperity of Denmark. Rasmussen is a religious bigot, he practiced intolerance - not by refusing to violate the sphere sovereignty of the press for the abuse of its freedom - but for not speaking up to denounce the Jyllands-Posten Humanist anti-religious bigotry. His government should have fallen from power for these two offences, this second one involving a refusal to even hear the complainants petitioning for redress of greivances. His uxoriousnes, his cowardliness, his political calculations left him unmovable on any level where avenues were open to him as Prime Minister, and again he has reaped the whirlwind. Politicarp and refWrite do not blame ordinary Danish citizens, nor do we in any sense endorse, rather we denounce, subsequent actions by governments and violent protestors of Muslim countries (we do not object, however, to peaceful protests and boycotts, that's their right of freedom of speech and expression); we do not endorse, rather we denounce, the violent Muslim crowds whipped up by provocateurs (a Lebanese Christian friend tells me that his info is that Syrian intelligence agents were responsible for burning the Danish embassy in Beirut, Lebanon and that the Lebanese government has since apologized to Denmark). Nevertheless, Rasmussen is no hero; he is instead an unjust holder of an office defined by the God-given task of public justice to all the people of Denmark, including its Muslims. Rasmussen's government should have fallen from power. And Christians in North America should denounce both Rasmussen with his Social Democrats party and the Islamic countries' exploiters of popular Muslim religious feelings, acts of burning the Danish flag (which is a red field with a white cross on its side, in the position of Christ carrying his Cross). This burning of the Cross semiotically evokes in North America the perfidy of the Ku Klux Klan. The burning of embassies is also utterly reprehensible. But Rasmussen should be denounced too, and his government should fall. Were I Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada, I would pull our Ambassador from the countries that whipped up the burnings and from Denmark until the coward Rasmussen and his Social Democrats resign OR he/they forcefully denounce their presumed fellow Humanists who set the tone and journalism philosophy of Jyllands-Posten. Not to discern the Spirts among the Danish poiticians and parties is a serious mistake.]

* 27 OCTOBER: Danish Muslim groups file a criminal complaint against Jyllands-Posten. red star (slanted) [Addition by Politicarp: But, of course, everything is stacked against a prosecution that would balance out the Danish law protecting the core religious value of remembering the Holocausrt (you don't have to be an observant Jew for this to be a core religious value, you can even be an atheist, or a complete nonJew). The prosecution could not do its duty to seek a balanced justice for Jew and Muslim alike, eithr throwing out the Holocaust-remembrance privileging law and the provision for jailing Holocaust revisionists / deniers OR protecting as well and equally Muslim core religious values to protect them from stereotyping and generalizing antiMuslim insults. So, here Denmark entered into a denial of its God-given state-political tasks in a twofold way: the executive function and the jurdicial function.]

* DECEMBER 2005 - JANUARY 2006: The coalition of Danish Muslim groups travels to the Middle East. Delegates at the Islamic Conference in Mecca talk of boycotting Danish goods. [Addition by Politicarp: A key Danish imam added at least 2 or 3 hi-ly inflammatory cartoons that were never part of the set of 12 published by either a presumably Humanist newspaper like Jyllands-Posten (Denmark) or a later copycat Christian newspaper, Magasinet (Norway).

* 7 JANUARY: Prosecutors decide there is no case to answer against Jyllands-Posten. red star (slanted) [Addition by Politicarp: Here we see the blatant denial of justice for Danish Muslims equal to that for Danish Jews and their core religious values. Thus, Denmark becomes twofold a bigotry state.]

* 10 JANUARY: Norwegian Christian magazine Magasinet reprints the cartoons. [Addition by Politicarp: Shame on this unreflective copycat abuser of Muslim neighbours! This shows how Christian journalism devolves into mere copycatting of Humanist journalism when the Christian news media and editorial approaches have no distinctively Christian journalism philosophy. The Christian-newspaper editor has since apologized, but I want to look at the text. Did he apologize that some people took offence, or because the cartoons were wickedly offensive in something of an objective sense? red star (slanted)In any case, Magasinet (Feb13,2k6) discusses Imam Laban in its ongoing coverage. Another Norwegian daily, the English-language edition of Aftenposten today published this info:
A formal apology from Magasinet's editor, Vebjørn Selbekk, was accepted on Friday by Norwegian imams who lead the 46 Muslim communities in Norway. They declared that the conflict thus was over, and the Norwegian delegation wants to spread that declaration in areas of the Middle East where protests have been most vigorous and violent.
The Danish Christian daily newspaper 's online editionrelgion.dk can be viewed here, discusssing Imam Laban as long ago as Nov6,2k6. Tuesday's frontpage is here. And an article on the "Blasphemy-paragraphs" in Danish law, by Lone Skov Al Awssi can be clicked up. Unfortunately, I can't evaluate it. I may yet seek out a translator, but my Systran doesn't include eiterh Danish or Norwegian to English.]

* 27 JANUARY: Saudi Arabia calls for a boycott of Danish goods and recalls ambassador.

* 28 JANUARY: Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla places adverts in Middle Eastern papers to calm the row.

* 29 JANUARY: Libya recalls its envoy [to Denmark]. Jyllands-Posten prints an Arabic editorial saying the cartoons were printed as a test of public expression.

* 30 JANUARY: Editor of Jyllands-Posten apologises as masked gunmen briefly storm the EU's offices in Gaza.

* 31 JANUARY: Denmark advises its citizens not to travel to Saudi Arabia.

* 1 FEBRUARY: Seven newspapers across Europe republish the cartoons in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten.

* 2 FEBRUARY: Jordanian paper Shihan becomes the first in the Arab world to reprint the cartoons saying its decision was made to show their readers "the extent of the Danish offence". The editor is fired. [Addition by Politicarp: Not so! Al-Fagr , nongovernment newspaper in Cairo, Egypt was the first in the Arab world, publishing the cartoons already on Oct17,2k6, three and one-half months earlier. On the same day, Counterrorism Blog presents the story of the fake cartoons pedalled by a key Danish imam (I don't know when or where this story broke, but you don't want to miss it! - P]

* 3 FEBRUARY: As 50,000 people protest in Gaza, a small group of Muslim radicals hold a demonstration in London. red star (slanted)[Addition by Politicarp: Blogger Christopher Bollyn of Rumour Mill News made public his correspondence with Flemmings Rose, cultural editor of J-P, in regard to his religiopolitical motives in commissioning the cartoons and provoking the Cartoons Backlash Wars: [
A month ago, when I first became aware of the provocative anti-Muslim cartoons published in JP, I immediately contacted the editors and asked why they had allowed their newspaper to be dragged into such a ridiculous and provocative situation.

With Europe already involved in two Middle Eastern wars and with the political tension with Iran increasing daily, I asked the editors, "Do you truly wish to antagonize Muslims?"

"I support freedom of speech and am against self-censorship," Rose, who commissioned the cartoons, wrote in response. It was, however, clearly not simply to exercise Denmark's non-existent freedom of speech that Rose commissioned the anti-Muslim cartoons. The more sinister motive of advancing the "clash of civilizations" among Europeans was evidently behind the offensive images.

"If the issue is really one of free speech, would you publish cartoons making fun of the Jewish Holocaust?" I asked Rose and the editors. "If not, do you at least support the right of newspapers and individuals to raise historical questions about the Holocaust?"

Yet after a month of correspondence with Rose and the editors, they have completely avoided answering my questions about the Holocaust and the right of free speech for historical revisionists in Europe.

Finis
red star (slanted)Also today, Feb3,2k6, the BBC's Stephen Sackeur on the HARDtalk program interviewed the two previously-mentioned-&-pictured provocatuers of the "clash of civilizations," both of them working the same terror-itory from opposite sides of the street, a definite duo of danger to us mere pedestrians - Imam Ahmed Abu Laban and Flemming Rose.

* 4 FEBRUARY: Violent protests spread to Damascus.

* 5 FEBRUARY: Danish embassy in Beirut set alight as Iran recalls its ambassador in Copenhagen.

* 6 FEBRUARY: Protests spread to Indonesia, Malaysia and Afghanistan.

* 7 FEBRUARY: Denmark's embassy in Tehran is attacked.

* 8 FEBRUARY: George Bush accuses Iran and Syria of exploiting the cartoons. red star (slanted) Addition by Politicarp: Today also BBC published its final update online regardng the split among Danish Muslims. - Politicarp

---------------

Previous coverage and editorializing by refWrite on this story:

* refWrite (Feb10,2k6) - Canada: Foreign Policy: Follow-up on Cairo newspaper Al-Fagr's taste for Danish cartoons

* refWrite (Feb9,2k6) - Canada: Foreign Policy: Peter MacKay, Canada's new Tory Foreign Minister, condemns cartoon violence; Canadianna's clarity

* refWrite (Feb8,2k6) - USA: Foreign Polcy: Iran and Syria named as sponsors of cartoon-protest violence, Hamas unnamed so far

We at refWrite are planning a future blog-entry on the campaigns to Buy Danish (because not all of Denmark's people are part of the Rasmussen - SocialDemocrats - Jyllands-Posten severe injustice to a Danish religious minority] and the campaign that never was to boycott Iranian and Syrian products - including oil. Should the USA and Canada cut back any funds to support Egypt because of its implicit complicity in the encouragement / provocation of violence, if any? Many questions remain unanswered.

Science: Classroom: Macht comments on Wisconsin's proposed anti-ID law

Some of the best scientifically-reflective and critical thawt on Intelligent Design is taking place on a small Canadian blog named Prosthesis. The writing is accessible, the historical streams of thawt are taken well into account, and many of blog-entries are brief. Such is the case with today's entry, "The Wisconsin ID Bill," by blogger Macht. I quote only the beginning as a kind of teaser, so click up the headline to my blog-entry above, and read the brief valuable reflection offered.

There is a strange bill in the Wisconsin legislature that deals with the teaching of science in public school classrooms. Here is the text of the bill (HT: Ed Brayton):

Intelligent Design

SECTION 1. 118.018 of the statutes is created to read:

118.018 Science instruction. The school board shall ensure that any material presented as science within the school curriculum complies with all of the following:

(1) The material is testable as a scientific hypothesis and describes only natural processes.

(2) The material is consistent with any description or definition of science adopted by the National Academy of Sciences.


For sake of argument, I'll grant that methodological naturalism is the best way to do science. Even granting that, though, the bill is still a rather poor attempt to legislate what should be taught in science class.


While you're Machting on Intelligent Design, why not go to the Google-sponsored Blogger Search Beta pages for which I used the search terms Prosthesis Macht ID. The same thing in Blogger's own Blog Search Beta format which I found (Hat Tip, amigo) on Gregory Baus' blog Honest To Blog under the link title 101 posts about Inteligent Design (actually, about 50, I think, not including today's). I consider this a major online resource on science, let alone ID. - Anaximaximum

Monday, February 13, 2006

USA: Oil Addiction: Environment, economy, religion & Fed policy

Suddenly, after President George Bush launched the expression "addiction to oil" in his State of the Union message, Evangelical leaders have joined other religious spokespeople in speaking out for environmental care. The mainstream media (MSM) have tried to spin this move as an attack and distancing from Bush; but on Fox News Channel TV one of the very prominent signers of the Evnglcl statement forcefully said it was neither pro-Bush nor anti-Bush, only a sincere effort to underscore the signers' longtime-coming understanding of human responsiblity to care for the creation, and thus with the environment of humanity, to care better for humanity itself for which our earthly environoment is our God-given home along with all the other critters. I'm delited with this position, and I believe it is entirely within sphere of responsiblity of churches in our particular times. Not all evangelicals necessarily agree, of course.

But there being no all-spheres hegemonic teaching as in Catholicism, Evnglcls in the public-legal order where the focal God-given task is public justice for all, an Evangelical in politics is completely free to take a justice-stance that factors in several political factors at once, and need not speak in faith-language at all.

This is exactly what President Bush was about in finally moving after 6 years to hammer down the concept of "the USA is addicted to oil," and to factor into his move favourable in a whole new way the current dependency of the American people, corporations, government operations and military transport upon oil purchased on the international market from the oil cartel - which includes several Arab countries, some of whom are enemies of the USA, Venezuela, and others that hate us. We cannot be dependent on these forces.

Bush with Vice President Cheney are oilmen. They are intimate with that industry above all others. At the same time, for six years Bush has been meeting in major unpublicized conferences with explorative and innovative interests desirous of developing new industries that are working on the development of biofuels (like corn, switch grass, and as Bush said in his SothU speech, woodchips - all of which produce methane that hopeufully can be converted to ethanol which can be burned in alternatively-fuelled vehicles producing only a byproduct of a bit of water).

Bush didn't stop there either. He had more in mind that vehicle fuels that don't pollute. He considered wind, solar, and nuclear energy for other industries, homes, and buildings.

This is an extremely important initiative, and sets out an agenda for years to come, one that will meet many as-yet-unanticipated obstcles to overcome. It will have to be handed off to others, whether Republicans or Democrats; and it will meet fierce resistance from the oil industry, car manufacturers, consumers, and labour unions - politically from some liberals and some conservatives.
But it's the way to go.

In yet another societal sphere besides the churches and the government, Evangelicals (along with many of other faiths) are strongly represented in the sciences, college and graduate teaching and research in biological sciences and environomental studies (an aspect I can only mention in passing, in part because it doesn't fit the MSM-spindoctored stereotype that we Evangelicals are only intersted Intelligent Design theory (some of us are, some of us aren't, some of us are theistic evolutionists + ID-interested + strongly into the reformational philosophical perspective in biology that emphasizes creational biotic laws and the research to ever better formulate them and improvingly revise them as new evidence becomes available (here's my niche of concern and interest in the scientific sphere). - Owlb

Bush's plan to wean US off oil: ambitious enough?

To reduce oil intake, Bush's energy plan can only do so much

United Arab Emirates firm eyeing US ports

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Technics: Computers: MicroSoft eats anti-virus protection in your computer - has yours contracted a case of cybernetic AIDS?

Microsoft Anti-Spyware Removes Norton Anti-Virus
Posted by Zonk on Saturday February 11, @06:32PM

An anonymous reader writes "According to a story over at Washingtonpost.com, the latest definitions file for Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta flags Symantec's Norton Antivirus products as a password-stealing trojan and prompts users to delete portions of the program. Users who follow the instructions hose their installation of Norton, requiring delicate Windows registry edits and a complete removal/reinstall of Norton. Microsoft's support forum is quickly filling up with complaints about this problem, many from businesses that have been pretty hard hit. This should be a cautionary tale about deploying beta products in production environments."
Principium Consumer Hub notice

I don't use any of these computer products, but I'm aware many of my readers are MicroSofties who should be notified about the nefarious beta release. There are many posts on this thread at Slashdot. - Politicarp

Valentine's : Potion : adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethylamine (the latter found in chocolate)

The biochemistry of two different kinds of loving can be expressed in the language of hormones, endorphins, etc. One kind is the kind prevailing in the first 18 months of a love affair, which fades by the third year of intimacy. In the meantime, in a continuing intimacy or marriage, another set of natural creational biochemicals come into play - thus, is a longterm lasting love established by a couple.

Wow! courtship

So says Cheryl Wetzstein in Washington Times, "Love is a long-haul addiction" (Feb 11,2k6). Among other sources, the reporter refers to a writer for ... well, here it is:

Oxytocin "is really a miracle chemical that is natural and automatically produced with touch and closeness and intimacy," says Janice Crouse, who recently wrote about "Love Potion Number 'O' " for Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute.
Hot love fades ... like my graphic. Has anyone got another, more spritely? .... that I could post instead, you know, before Valentine's Day. - Owlb

Sports: Hockey: Mr Clean Gretsky skating on melting ice?

Hockey's Mr Clean, the great Wayne Grektsky, suddenly seems to be skating in a rink flooded with cold water, due to allegations that his wife, Janet, is up to her eye-balls in hi-stakes gambling on the game (football, that is). Reporters Angela Delli Santi and Geoff Mulvihill of Washington Times said Friday:

TRENTON, N.J. -- Wayne Gretzky was recorded on a wiretap talking to the man suspected of financing a gambling ring, discussing how the hockey great's wife could avoid being implicated, a person with knowledge of the investigation told the Associated Press yesterday.
Mr. Gretzky, coach and part owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, can be heard on wiretaps made within the past month talking about his wife with assistant coach Rick Tocchet, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
Mr. Gretzky's wife, actress Janet Jones, purportedly bet at least $100,000 on football games over the course of the investigation by state authorities, the person said.
There is no evidence that Mr. Gretzky placed any bets, according to the person.

Now the investigative bloodhounds are eyeing the hockey connection:
Investigators are looking into whether anyone involved in the five-year-old ring, which authorities say had a connection to organized crime in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, bet on National Hockey League games. Mr. Gretzky is not the main focus of the probe, the person said. ... Hockey players are prohibited from making NHL wagers, legal or otherwise. There are no rules that forbid them from placing legal bets on other sports.
I just don't believe Wayne would be involved in anything illegal, or even anything embarrassing to the professional sport of hockey. And Janet? Innocent,for me, until proven, if ever actually proven, guilty. But, it seems she sure has embarassed all of us, including Wayne and his fans too! - Owlie Scowlie

Friday, February 10, 2006

Canada: Foreign Policy: Follow-up on Cairo newspaper Al-Fagr's taste for Danish cartoons

First, yesterday's refWrite story has been updated. You may want to review it before reading further on today's news developments.

Second and new to refWrite today: while Copenhangen Post which broke the compelling background story regarding the Egyptian press yesterday, claimed Al-Fagr Arabic newspaper in Cairo was an "opposition" paper politically, the truth is, as now pointed out by the Cairo Instititue for Human Rights Studies website, Al-Fagr, tho not government owned, took "a blantantly biased stance in favor of the ruling party's candidates" during Egypt's more recent Parliamentary elections (while in the earlier Presidential elections, it gave "only" 38% of its coverage to Mubarak ... I guess that's "opposition"!). On the CIHR page cited above, notice the third item (bold heading) which I quote in part:

The state-owned press continued to take a blatantly biased stance in favor of the ruling party’s candidates. The most extreme in this behavior was Al-Akhbar newspaper with 83% of its total coverage of various political parties and powers going to the NDP, followed by Al-Masa’ at 75%, Akhbar Al-Yawm at 67% and Al-Ahram at 62%. Among the independent press, coverage of the NDP reached its highest levels in Sawt Al-Umma newspaper at 84%, Al-Fagr newspaper at 82%, and Al-Dustuur at 75%, although it must be noted that the majority of such coverage in these newspapers was critical of the NDP. [underlines and bolds are mine - Politicarp]


Next, the American rightwing Christian online news source of huge circulation, World Net Daily has now carried the story with greater detail, including a live link to an importance source - the blog Freedom for Egyptians (take a look! - P).
While Muslims across the world have rioted in the past week against countries whose newspapers have published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, there was no uproar when the same caricatures were prominently displayed in an Arab newspaper four months ago.

The images originating in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September were reportedly featured on the cover and inside pages of Egypt's al-Fagr (the Dawn) in October, during the holy month of Ramadan. According to the Freedom for Egyptians blog, al-Fagr included the cartoons on the front cover and page 17 of its edition dated Oct. 17. The headline, when translated, is said to read: "Continued Boldness. Mocking the Prophet and his wife by Caricature."


Muhammad cartoons on page 17 of Egypt's al-Fagr newspaper [o]n October [17,] 2005 (courtesy: Egyptian Sandmonkey blog)

"The Egyptian paper criticized the bad taste of the cartoons but it did not incite hatred protests," notes the blog. "It would have been better that this [current] holy war against Denmark be launched during the holy month of Ramadan as many Muslims believe that Jihad during Ramadan would have been more worthy. This irrelevant outrage timing is but a sign that this violent response to the cartoons is politically motivated by Muslim extremists in Europe and the so-called secular governments of the Middle East. I want also to mention that despite the fact that all editors who tried to reprint the cartoons in the Middle East nowadays were arrested, the Egyptian editors went unharmed."

To date, at least 10 people have been killed in Afghanistan alone from Muslim riots in connection with the cartoons, though protests have been taking place in many countries throughout Europe and the Mideast. Some 4,000 angry Muslims took to the streets of the Egyptian capital of Cairo this week, though there were no protests when al-Fagr published the images during Ramadan in October. [All underlines , bolds, and square-bracketted textual inserts mine. Also, WND carries pictures as part of its analysis. refWrite and I still regard the original publication and later provocative republication in Europe were abusive of freedom of the press, but especially abusive of the general Muslim population in Europe. - Politicarp]


Further, Michelle Malkin's blog carried this quote (since removed along with the material for which I criticize her position below), this quote from Swedish Radio online's English-language secion:
A far-right Swedish party's website showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad has been shut down by the Internet hosting company after pressure from police and the foreign ministry, fearing it would fuel Muslim anger.

The anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats had invited readers to send in cartoons for publishing on its website alongside the Danish cartoons, which have sparked violent demonstrations by Muslims around the world.

After Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds warned of "grave consequences for Swedish people and Swedish interests" and said Muslim countries were already reacting, the web hosting company Levonline pulled the plug, a company director said on Friday.

"We have been in contact with the foreign ministry and SAPO (security police) and in consultation with them we decided this was best," its deputy director Anna Larsson told Swedish Radio.
With Malkin, we get the clearest indication of how the ultra-rightwing, Christian or no. is quite tendentious in its reporting of these historical developments in a unidimensional way, rather than using a "multifactoral approach" (historian Thomas McIntire, University of Toronto). The whole aim seems to be to make Muslims look bad, with no respect for the core religious sensibilities of law-abiding constructive Muslim citizens who were deeply insulted by these attacks. But, my sense is, that by and large these cartoon attacks come from secularist Humanist atheists in Europe who would use the same techniques on the core-values of Judaic-believing Jews and of Christians, if they felt either community were on the way to commanding a politial majority. Does freedom of the press mean absolute freedom? That's the question for Europe and North America, and it is a question of greater priority than what nefarious forces have abused further the vulnerabilities of peaceful Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike.

Today, Malkin, God bless her, carries this very interesting item on Jacques Chirac's approach (formerly the great secularist but since the French riots ...); she also discusses further aspects of the present French situation.

Finally, Rantings of a Sandmonkey gets the credit now for digging up the Oct17 cartoon special published in Cairo by al-Fagra. Sandmonkey should be the first blogger to whom the professional organizations of journalists give their tope awards and monetary emoluments this year. refWrite, for its small part, names Sandmoneky as Blogger journalists of the Year. - Politicarp

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