Around the Web on 10-26-06

Today, I find myself getting back into the blogging groove after an insanely busy last couple of days. Lots of good stuff here, and I just barely skimmed through the feeds. Here are today's finds in the order I encounter them on my browser tabs....

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Neil Davenport of Spiked describes what sounds like a real travesty of a televised bull session. "[BBC Channel 4 newsreader Jon] Snow summed up the mealy-mouthed character of the programme by declaring that, 'Perhaps free speech is a high price to pay for a multicultural society'."

Such affairs not only fail to address the relevant issues rigorously, they provide false "evidence" that public debate is a waste of time and therefore not really worth defending anyway.

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Yesterday, I posted on "Physicians as 'Little Dictators'". Andrew Dalton of Witch Doctor Repellent provided another example (physicians being conscripted as informants) of how government management of medicine opens up whole new frontiers to the abuse of government power. And he caused me to remember another example of further potential abuse down the road.

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Little Green Footballs relays the following example of the moral poverty that goes hand-in-hand with Islam's total abdication of reason in favor of a mountain of holy decrees. This comes from a sermon about some gang rapes that occurred in Sydney, Australia.

In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?"

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

The sheik then said: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

He said women were "weapons" used by "Satan" to control men. [bold added]

So women are "meat" and men are "cats". I guess if I had such a low opinion of myself, I might be susceptible to Islam, too.

Remember this the next time you hear a Moslem whine about being "offended" by intellectual criticism of his religion. And the next time you hear some useful idiot insinuate that Islamic headdress for women is somehow "liberating" to them.

The carte blanche granted to Islamic "men" to rape women, however, is more than balanced by some rather curious restrictions.

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According to the Czechs, Egyptian airline passengers have been probing in-flight security measures. Quoth a Norwegian paper, "The crew on board discovered the three Egyptians trying to open the door into the cockpit. When the stewards intervened they immediately gave up their attempts and gave the excuse that they were looking for a staff member because they wanted to buy chewing gum."

Going to the cockpit to buy gum? Horse Mohammed!

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The Gaijin Biker relays news that sanctions against North Korea are being felt already. (Or that North Korea is making sure reports to that effect are getting out to the West, anyway.)

Given our record with the "Palestinians", perhaps I stand to make a quick buck by laying bets on when sanctions against North Korea will end -- without causing any substantive change in its capacity to build nuclear warheads, of course.

Kim Jong "Mentally" Il is not exactly the brightest bulb (and his country shows it), but he knows that too many of his colleagues are even dimmer.

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Cookie posts a very funny sea story over at Ultraquiet No More.

Now...it don't take genius to figure out just who had to clean up all the shit. The coffee urn...a total loss...oh it was fixed and cleaned...but ain't nobody would ever drink outta it after that...includin me....the boat had t'get a new one.

Hey! I can't help it if so many of the best ones are about blowing sanitary tanks!

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Is it really worth your while to check on a blog in a language you don't understand? It certainly is if you're an American named Gus Van Horn (whose "second language" is classical Latin) and the blogger in question is Carl Svanberg.

Svanberg links to quite a gem from USA Today. Heather MacDonald:

What are we supposed to learn when a candidate talks about his faith: That he is a good person? The rich history of religious bounders and charlatans should give the lie to that hope. Nor has a sincere belief in God prevented behavior we now view as morally repugnant. There were few more religious Americans than antebellum slaveholders and their political representatives; their claim to a divine mandate for slavery was based in unimpeachable Scriptural authority.

Or perhaps a politician's discussion of his prayer habits should reassure the public he'll make the right decisions in office. But what if opposing candidates declare themselves supplicants of the divine will -- how will a voter decide who is most likely to receive divine guidance?

Anyone who has ever sneered in derision when listening to some piece of human refuse babbling about "finding Jesus" during an interview from behind bars would do well to remember that emotion -- and why he felt it -- the next time he hears the same sentiment uttered by a politician.

Both want to use the moral blank check that people grant to religion as a means of purchasing positions of power for themselves.

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And then there were [some number less than three].

Via Randex, it now seems that the producer of the Atlas Shrugged movie(s) are no longer going to make a trilogy.

I know that movies and books are different genres, and I never expected the movie(s) to have everything that is in the book. Nevertheless, I have serious doubts that anything less than a trilogy can be adequately faithful to the book.

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Andrew Dalton remarks on the government's curious difficulty in grasping the purpose of public bathroom segregation by sex.

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Andy has jury duty.

That reminds me. If I suddenly disappear for months after some time next week, it won't be because a competent defense attorney rejected me on sight during the selection process.

And look in the papers for either a harsh verdict or a hung jury in a high profile case.

That also reminds me that I need to make up my mind on whether jury nullification is a valid concept.

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Daniel Rigby says "Screw Ageism". I would add that for demonstrably dangerous activities, such as driving vehicles when one is incapable of operating them safely, it is not an unwarranted government intrusion to intervene.

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The man with the apt nom de plume of Toiler points to a story I intend to read. "Notice that artist Chris Miles is not just engaged in a sensuous dance with his on-again, off-again muse. It's also a lot of damn hard work and learned skill."

Labor of love. Not labor of lust. Not labor of amorousness. Not labor of commitmentphobia. Not labor of convenience.

Love. And love, like all worthwhile things, is often difficult.

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As usual, Cox and Forkum nail it. Title: "Give War a Chance". Caption: "meanwhile, in Fallujah..."

Soldier One: We've given Iraqis food, money, clean water, schools, hospitals, freedom ... even our very lives.... What did we miss?

Soldier Two: Defeating them.

And as has been usual lately, Blogger problems are preventing me from uploading the image.

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Hannes Hacker recently emailed me a lnk to this very funny Onion article the other day: "Mars Rover Beginning to Hate Mars".

That was right up there with "Coke-Sponsored Rover Finds Evidence of Dasani on Mars"!

-- CAV