And you thought it was just a cartoon
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(via SDA, Uncle Meat and WorldNet Daily) Here's something I didn't know. According to Prof. Hasan Bolkhari, a cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, the cartoon "Tom and Jerry" is a Jewish conspiracy. From WND:

According to the professor, "Tom and Jerry" was created to irradicate the association between mice and Jews created in the minds of Europeans by Hitler.

"If you study European history, you will see who was the main power in hoarding money and wealth in the 19th century," continued Bolkhari. "In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the anti-Semitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began. ... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it.

"Watch 'Schindler's List.' Every Jew was forced to wear yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' 'Tom and Jerry' was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'

"It should be noted that mice are very cunning ... and dirty."

Of course, "Tom and Jerry" was a HannaBarbera creation, but let's not let that get in the way of creative propaganda, OK?

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 27 2006 09:53:58 PM

Cat Barf and Jonesing for a Digital Fix
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Did you know that if you scare a cat bad enough they throw up? Well, they do. Then they go hide for most of the day. There is a tale to be told here, but first, the back story.

Monday night I was trying to be helpful. This is generally considered a bad idea in the Ratlands and is greeted with polite, but strained, smiles and barely concealed trepidation. I was trying to connect a set of wireless headphones to the pile of AV equipment in the bedroom so that the Head Rat could turn up the volume and watch TV in the middle of the night without waking people in the next building. It was going really well, too, right up to the part where I bumped the cabinet and knocked the DVD player off onto the floor. This caused a not-so-subtle realignment of the internal optics. I am happy to say that the sound is still as good as ever, but the Head Rat gets tired of looking at the black and white semi-hounds tooth pattern. Still, she took it well, as we were planning to replace it with a Digital Video Recorder in a couple of weeks anyway. She really likes the one we have downstairs and records lots and lots of shows so she can go back through the closed captioning to make sure she gets the details she can't hear.

Wednesday, the DVR downstairs started behaving strangely. It started shutting itself off randomly, choosing to act on a command button you pressed 10 seconds ago, and refusing to tune to any channel other than 4 or 6. I downloaded a firmware upgrade from the Panasonic website and ran it in the machine. It seemed to fix the problem. For about 45 minutes. Now we have no way to play DVD's, except in my computer. This is not acceptable to the Head Rat because I don't have any soft, comfortable chairs in my office. The DVR will be making a trip to the shop next week.

Thursday morning, Rat, Jr. decided to cook eggs for breakfast. In the microwave. Still in the shell.

Meanwhile, Yoda (picture here) was minding his own business, eating a sampling of delicious cat food in the kitchen. In due time, the eggs exploded, which in turn caused the microwave to explode, which in turn caused exploded, burnt eggs to fly across the kitchen, landing in the sampling of delicious cat food, much to the surprise of the cat, who wheeled around, barfing, on his way to hiding wherever it was that he went to hide in order to escape the rain of hell-fire and/or exploded, burnt eggs.

By the way, in case you didn't already know, exploded, burnt eggs smell really bad.

By the time I got home Thursday night, I was really angry. Aside from the fact that I had spent most of the day buying stuff for work (3 different Wal-Marts, a Radio Shack and a Best Buy) I had been trying to call the house all day long because I noticed that Rat, Jr.'s vehicle had a flat tire as I was leaving for work. I never got an answer. Rat, Jr's cell phone was off and nobody answered the home phone. It turns out that she never heard the phone ring (it is an older model portable phone) because the battery was dead. The battery was dead because the base was dead. The base was dead because it wasn't getting any electricity. It wasn't getting any electricity because the exploding microwave had tripped a breaker that no one realized was tripped.

This led to the (to me) obvious question of whether the microwave (that had been thrown away because it was dead) was, in fact, dead. The Head Rat assured me that it was. I made the mistake of suggesting that throwing it away without having tested it in an outlet that had actual electricity in it was perhaps a bit hasty. This made me instantly less popular than I had been just moments before, so I exited to the relative safety of my office, pondering the possible parallels to Schroedinger's Cat.

Being upset by the exchange, Rat, Jr. apparently went dumpster-diving to retrieve the potentially live/dead microwave. Further tests in a functioning outlet proved that the device was, indeed dead, and it was unceremoniously returned to the scrap heap. But not before I got chewed out by the Head Rat for a) making Rat, Jr. feel bad enough to retrieve the (dead) microwave and therefore b) bringing the smell of exploded, burnt eggs back into the house.

So far, no other electrical devices have bit the dust today, but it is still relatively early. And my computer has been pressed into service as a stop-gap measure to record the Friday night Sci-fi channel line-up. I have got to get some sort of digital disc device tomorrow, because Rat, Jr. wants to record anime tomorrow night.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 24 2006 10:47:52 PM

R10.02
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This has been a really bad week for electronics in the Ratlands. For a variety of reasons, I'm just getting to this. I've excluded most of the live recordings from this one.

1. Over There - Sounds from the Ground (Kin)

2. Liu San Jie - Twelve Girls Band (Eastern Energy)

3. Early to Bed - Morphine (Like Swimming)

4. Oxygene (Part II) - Jean Michel Jarre (Oxygene)

5. Converting Vegetarians - Infected Mushroom (Converting Vegetarians)

6. Gallows Pole - Jimmy Page & Robert Plant (No Quarter)

7. Morning Dew - Grateful Dead (live recording - Las Vegas 5/31/92)

8. Edelgrun - The Orb (Pop Ambient 2006)

9. Boardwalk Lady - Mahogany Rush (Maxoom)

10. Babylon Sisters - Steely Dan (A Decade of Steely Dan)

Let's see...

Best album cover: 4. Hands Down. I used to stare at that picture of the earth being peeled off the skull underneath for hours and hours. Of course, it goes without saying what else I was doing that an album cover was that fascinating.

Best lyric if your name is Captain Obvious: 3. "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man or woman miss out on the night life."

Band I haven't heard since my turntable broke in the late '80's: 9. I just got ahold of a copy yesterday. I'm not sure why I bought so many albums of Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 24 2006 10:43:48 PM

Randomness as a meme
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That sounds rather erudite, does it not? And while I would like to pass off what follows as an expression of some over-arching theme with cosmic significance, or an artsy expression of stream of consciousness literature (a la Jack Kerouac) or journalism (a la Hunter S. Thompson), well... it just ain't so. It is what it is, and it isn't any of that. A random selection of tidbits with no (or at least very little) connectivity would be generous, at best.

First, to the Smedley Log, where Howard has some reasoned, civil comments about the President and the Dubai Ports World deal. (It is even titled "Random presidential opinions". You had probably best go read this one, as it sort of goes down hill from here... )

Having been employed in a field that deals, at least peripherally, with transportation security, let me assure you (or unassure you, as it may be) that there are way too many security holes in our international shipping model to be dreaming up elaborate terrorist conspiracies by a company whose officers can’t vanish nearly as easily as OBL.

Then, on to James Lileks' Screedblog from yesterday:

...I’m not worried that some evil emir is putting a pinky to his monocled eye, and saying Mwah! at last I have them where I want them! I’m worried about the guy who’s three steps down the management branch handing off a job to a brother who trusts some guys who have some sympathies with some guys who hang around some rather energetic fellows who attend that one mosque where the guy talks about jihad 24/7, and somehow someone gets a job somewhere that makes it easier for something to happen.

That’s a lot of ifs and maybes. But I don’t want any ifs and maybes. You can't eliminate them all, of course, but I would rather we had a system devoted to worrying about ifs and maybes instead of adopting an official policy of Whatever.

And on to Cox and Forkum (via Chizumatic) for a cartoon called "Toonophobia".

To LiveScience (via SDA) where we learn that chickens can grow teeth:

By making a few changes to the expression of certain molecules in the pathway, the researchers were able to induce tooth growth in normal developing chickens. These teeth also looked like reptilian teeth and shared many of the same genetic traits, supporting the scientists' hypothesis. None of these chickens were allowed to hatch.

This is all good news for hockey players. A direct application of this research, Ferguson said, could be re-growing teeth in people who have lost them through accident or disease.

And how we get to this, I'm not sure, but I've been wanting to comment for several days now.

Last week, the British House of Commons was to consider a new law against "glorifying terrorism." Given my previous post about free speech, it should not be a surprise that I think this is an absolutely ludicrous idea. But that's not really the point. I've been following the production of a movie "V for Vendetta" which is due to be released in the US on March 17. It is based (at least loosely, depending on who you talk to) on a Graphic Novel (adult comic book, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, and "graphic" refers to the illustrations, not lascivious content) of the same name by Alan Moore (who apparently thought the Wachowski brothers' {the guys who did the Matrix movies} script of the film was "imbecilic") and David Lloyd.

Anyway, V for Vendetta has been described as a "a dystopian adventure featuring a flamboyant anarchist terrorist fighting against a future fascist government". Without getting too deep into it, the question I have (and for which I am not likely to get an answer) is whether or not the movie and the book would be illegal in Britain if this law were to pass?

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, February 22 2006 11:23:50 PM

Irrelevance
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(via SDA) I came across a link to this article which explains, quite clearly and cleanly, why the fact (if it is, indeed, a fact) that the majority of Muslims are peaceful is totally and unequivocally irrelevant. For example (and this isn't even the money quote):

“Very few people were true Nazis” he said, “but, many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

We are told again and again by “experts” and “talking heads” that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unquantified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is, that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is, that the “peaceful majority” is the “silent majority” and it is cowed and extraneous.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, February 21 2006 09:15:59 PM

'Toonrage side issues
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I finally got around to putting the "Support Denmark" banner on the side bar. For what it's worth, I'd never had Fontina cheese before, but we've put away a very nice chunk this weekend.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 20 2006 10:26:04 PM

More 'toonrage, pt. 7
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First, Steven Den Beste has apparently completed his move north and Chizumatic is back up. (An anime site, if you aren't familiar with it.)

I only mention this because I was following links on a series of whims tonight (beginning at Chizumatic) and found what may be the coolest political cartoon ever,

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 20 2006 09:43:22 PM

More 'toonrage, pt. 6
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(via SDA) This from Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten who commissioned the 12 cartoons:

We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.

(...)

As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.

The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.

I really like this guy. Please take a few minutes to go read the whole article. Of special interest is his recounting of several incidents in Denmark that led them to commission the cartoons in the first place.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 20 2006 11:24:19 AM

Friday Random Ten, v.1
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What do you get when you cross a bad case of insomnia with a newly discovered ability to randomize a playlist in WinAmp? Well, I don't know what you get. What I get is a first attempt to join in on the Friday Random Ten bit. (For those not familiar, apparently this began when bloggers started shuffling the playlists on their iPods and sharing the results. I found out about it at the smedley log, where Howard is still cranking out some really interesting lists.) So, here's the first shuffle:

1. Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughn - "Blues at Sunrise" (In Session)

2. Infected Mushroom - "Noon" (I'm the Supervisor)

3. Sounds from the Ground - "Drustore" (Terra Firma)

4. Grateful Dead - "Good Lovin" (live recording, Fillmore East, 4/26/71)

5. William Orbit - "Water From a Vine Leaf-Underworld Remix" (Best of Strange Cargos)

6. Widespread Panic - "Imitation Leather Shoes" (live recording, Jazz Fest, 5/3/03)

7. Kenny Wayne Shepherd - "True Lies" (Trouble Is)

8. Phish - "Run Like an Antelope" (live recording, George, WA, 7/16/98)

9. Government Mule - "How many more years" (live recording, Orpheum Theater, NO, 5/5/01)

10. Yonder Mountain String Band - "Keep on Goin" (live recording, Mississippi Nights, 12/31/01)

Yeah, I collect live recordings, and they will feature prominently in any random lists I generate. (I need to add a second hard drive before I rip the bulk of my CD collection.) My favorite in this list is "Blues at Sunrise", hands down, although "Run Like an Antelope" is a close second.

Other trivia:

Bands I've seen live: 8

Bands I had a chance to see but didn't, because I didn't know what I was missing: 4, 9

In the summer of 1979, I was working on a Dude Ranch near Rocky Mountain National Park. One of my co-workers had an extra ticket to a Grateful Dead concert, either at the University of Colorado (Boulder) or Red Rocks Amphitheater (I can't remember which, now). I turned it down because I had to get up early the next morning for work.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 17 2006 04:38:30 AM

Against my better judgment
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I've restrained myself from commenting on the Cheney hunting story. I lean toward the whole thing being a "tempest-in-a-teapot" but I'm not sure, so I've stayed away from it. However, I have absolutely no compunction whatsoever about sharing other people's comments. Like this (from Chase me, ladies I'm in the Cavalry):

I'm sorry, but there's nothing remotely funny about the Vice President of the United States shooting an old codger in the face after mistaking him for a quail. Media guttersnipes. They think they can distract us from a record trade deficit with idiotic stories about people Dick Cheney has shot.

(...)

Walking around eating seeds and saying "cheep" isn’t much of a life, but to many quails it’s the only life they know, and the decision to end it should not be Dick Cheney’s. Lawyers are another matter, of course. I’ve often thought of going out and hunting them myself. Quite apart from the sport, it would be in the public interest. On the other hand, what have the public ever done for me?

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, February 15 2006 11:03:10 PM

More 'toonrage, pt. 5
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First, (via small dead animals) comes this news of a counter-protest in France. (The nifty visual aid carried by the counter-protester on the left is a severed hand holding a pen.)

Second, this piece called "Will Europe Adapt to the Post-Politically Correct Era?" If you have time, read some of the other articles on the page.

Third, this from the Dissident Frogman:

With the "moderate" Muslims protesting in London last Saturday... On the same ground and with the same demands as the "extremists" a week before, and with many Western leaders, politicians and institutions beginning to dither, issue shameful apologies and noises of "regulating freedom of speech" (technical term for killing it) it is more than ever the time to stand up and firm.

(has links to the counter-protest article above)

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 13 2006 11:31:37 PM

Glorifying Terrorism
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The British Government is trying to institute measures to make "glorifying terrorism" illegal. From Perry de Havilland at Samizdata:

Moreover the intend to make 'glorifying terrorism' illegal is not just bound to backfire, it is a terrible idea on every level. You would think people in the dismal halls of Westminster would have learned to leave well enough alone given the comical absurdity of past attempts to ban terrorists saying things in the UK, which lead to such farcical situations as having Sinn Fein/IRA's Gerry Adams' voice being dubbed by other people's voices to get around attempts to stop him airing his views. We need people to actually say what they think and the more vile they are, the more important it is to hear what motivates them.

(emphasis mine--cziltang)

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 13 2006 08:53:56 AM

And then depression set in
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<whine>

I've been variously coherent over the last week. I don't know what I have, but it has been kicking my butt. And while sloth may be my favorite of the seven deadlies, generally I start getting cranky after a few days of enforced lethargy. After cranky comes depression. I was well on the way this afternoon when I saw a phone commercial featuring music by the Psychedelic Furs. I remember when the Furs were so obscure no one around me had ever heard of them. Now they are background music for a phone commercial. Because I can't resist twisting the knife in my own back, I looked it up. "Pretty in Pink" came out in 1986.

And now, I find that blogging is officially mainstream. I saw a billboard for AT&T this afternoon. It said "Blogging. Delivered. ATT"

</whine>

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, February 12 2006 05:39:13 PM

Hell hath no fury...
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Last year the BTK suspect was caught and pleaded guilty to serial killings going back 30 years in the Wichita area. Part of the process of catching him included the use of material he sent to the local ABC TV affiliate, KAKE TV which made the national news. Apparently, they decided that made them special. Apparently they got used to being in the spotlight. Apparently they also got used to the increase in stature their constant "breaking news" bulletins brought to the news department.

Since that time, they have been breaking into programs pretty much on a daily basis with "breaking news". OK, look. We're talking about Wichita here. Central Kansas is a nice place to live, but pretty much the only time news breaks here is if someone runs into one of those newspaper vending machines with a car. Anyway, this "breaking news" thing has gotten really annoying, but as I have very little vested interest in anything on commercial TV, it generally doesn't affect me very much.

The Head Rat, however, lives and dies with the characters on General Hospital, so much so that she routinely yells at them when they are being stupid (much like I do when watching a soccer match) under the apparent assumption that she can talk them out of whatever annoying plot complication they have just committed to. So, you can imagine the quandary that ensues when the KAKE news department imperative to keep the twelve people who care about their latest attempt at dramatizing some mundane event runs smack into a legion of die-hard soap fans, the Head Rat in particular.

It has been very dry here in the Ratlands. So much so that open fires have been banned throughout most of Central Kansas. Nonetheless, there have been some fairly major grass fires the last couple of days. (For those of you not from the plains, grass fires are all we have, unless a house or barn gets in the way.) Anyway, the good thing about grass fires in Kansas is that if they are out in the country, they can often burn thousands of acres and the only real damage is to a wooden fencepost or two. Such was the case today. There was a fairly large grass fire somewhere north of Wichita. Starting in the very early afternoon, KAKE broke into their afternoon television line-up about every 15 minutes with "breaking news." The "breaking news," of course was that there was a fire. And that it was still burning. And that no houses were in danger. Fifteen minutes later they would break in with more "breaking news" which was, of course that there was a fire. And that it was still burning. And that no houses were in danger. Fifteen minutes later they would break in with more "breaking news" which was, of course that there was a fire. And that it was still burning. And that no houses were in danger. And so on, and so on, and so on. This being Friday, all the soaps wind up their stories for the big weekend cliff-hanger. The Head Rat says that Tony (whoever the hell he is) was supposed to get killed on General Hospital, according to the promos. However, she is not sure exactly what happened because KAKE interrupted repeatedly during GH with more "breaking news."

Now, I was home sick again today. Trying to sleep. You know, trying to get well and all that rot. At the point where I heard marginally incoherent ranting accompanied by things being thrown at the TV (This would be the really big plasma TV. The one I really, really, like...) I decided an intervention was in order. So, I snagged the Head Rat and made her vent her anger in an e-mail to the KAKE news department. Herein is the actual text:

It's a damn fire. It will still be there at 5:00. With all the smoke, I'm pretty sure the handful of people who are in danger already know about it.

Leave it alone. It's not breaking news. It's more of the same stuff you said 15 minutes ago. You could wait at least five minutes for gh to finish. God forbid you interrupt Judge Joe Brown.

Or better yet, how about we don't have to listen to you blather on and on and just put the "vital" information in a scroll across the bottom of the screen. I guess that would keep you from getting your "face time."

Hell hath no fury like a woman kept from seeing the climax of General Hospital.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 10 2006 10:09:03 PM

Cartoon
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This is, perhaps the most brilliant cartoon about the Danish cartoons I have seen.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 10 2006 09:34:43 PM

Cognitive Dissonance
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It never ceases to amaze me how intensity of emotion is somehow supposed to be a substitute for logic and a sliver of reality on the left. It probably never occurred to these folks that if, in fact, this assertion was true, this picture wouldn't exist because they wouldn't have been allowed to march with this cute little sign. But hey, if you really, really want it to be true, that's what counts, right?

By the way, I found this photograph through James Lileks who as alway drew me in with another masterpiece of English language manipulation:

The French Revolution has a good reputation. When I was taught the particulars in high school, the narrative was rather streamlined – America had its revolt, France had its turn of the wheel, and in both cases the People came to power. The King was a tyrant – weren’t they all – and while the guillotining got out of hand a bit, well, you can’t make an omelette without wringing the chicken’s neck, cutting it off, carving it open, looking for eggs, and, finding none, nationalizing the poultry industry and jailing the farmers who kept a few eggs for themselves.

Damn, I wish I could write like that.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 10 2006 08:27:07 PM

More 'toonrage, pt. 4
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OK. I'm miserably sick. I thought I would just post a couple of links and retire for the night, but this is just too...

you know, I am completely at a loss for words as to what this is.

As you know, a group of Danish Imams toured the Middle East to stir up outrage over the Danish Cartoons. However, since the cartoons weren't apparently incendiary enough, the good Imams added 3 more pictures to the mix to make sure they got their message across. The fact that the 3 additional images didn't come from Jyllands-Posten was not of any importance to the good Imams. These pictures were apparently collected by the Imams to show additional juicy anti-muslim sentiment.

Now, it turns out the picture of Mohammed with a pig face which was such a grave insult to Islam was, in fact, a bad photocopy of a picture of a contestant at a French Pig-squealing festival.

This is the kind of thing I was talking about yesterday. If we had been good little politically correct automatons and apologized to the Muslims like we were supposed to have done, we could have gone about our lives with the continued sense of cultural guilt we are supposed to have for being insensitive and we wouldn't have to deal with the continually emerging truth that this is a manufactured crisis. And it was manufactured under false pretenses. And that those who manufactured it did so deliberately, with no regard for the truth. And that they have goaded Muslims into violent demonstrations in which Muslims have been killed. And all of this was done because they don't like the culture in the country (Denmark) which they live in and are free to leave.

Now. Tell me again why I'm supposed to apologize for freedom of speech in the Western World?

Update: I just discovered at Powerline, that "...Denmark is set to assume the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council — at the very time that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to refer Iran to the Security Council and demand sanctions. What better, for Tehran's purposes, than to portray Denmark as "an enemy of Islam" and mobilize Muslim sympathy against the Security Council?"

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, February 09 2006 07:56:27 PM

More 'toonrage, pt. 3
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I just got a chance to take a look at Brussels Journal. There are a number of article about the 'toons, all worth reading. What struck me, however, was their masthead (I guess you can call it that on a blog) which now reads:

The Brussels Journal, We are all Danes Now.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, February 09 2006 06:56:29 PM

Intelligent Falling
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(Also via Samizdata) A link to an article in the Onion on "Intelligent Falling."

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, February 09 2006 06:39:59 PM

More 'toonrage, pt. 2
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(Via Samizdata) It appears the Danish 'toons were re-printed in an Egyptian newspaper in October of 2005, causing exactly zero outrage. According to Sandmonkey:

Freedom For Egyptians reminded me why the cartoons looked so familiar to me: they were actually printed in the Egyptian Newspaper Al Fagr back in October 2005. I repeat, October 2005, during Ramadan, for all the egyptian muslim population to see, and not a single squeak of outrage was present. Al Fagr isn't a small newspaper either: it has respectable circulation in Egypt, since it's helmed by known Journalist Adel Hamoudah. Looking around in my house I found the copy of the newspaper, so I decided to scan it and present to all of you to see.

And indeed he does. Go take a look. Sandmonkey's take is that the various governments of Middle Eastern countries used the chance to have an externally focused outrage to distract from significant internal outrages that have gone by the wayside.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, February 09 2006 06:32:25 PM

In Defense of Hate Speech
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With all of the commentary and invective flying through the air over the 'toonrage situation, I've had some occasion to think about this idea of hate speech and laws against it. I've come to the conclusion that efforts to suppress hate speech are misguided at best, and detrimental at worst.

Ward Churchill is an (apparently) Native American who has made a career for himself as a Native American activist (and a college professor). Just after 9/11 he wrote some of the most odious, inflammatory, despicable, "unhelpful" and hurtful crap I have ever read. (I wrote about it here.) Disparaging the memory of people who died in the World Trade Center and making the claim that they deserved to die simply because they worked for Multi-Nation Corporations or other Bastions of Capitalism seemed pretty damn hateful to me. I certainly believe it qualifies as hate speech. But therein lies the problem. I think it was hate speech. Some people think he was entirely right. A lot more think he was rude or obnoxious or some other euphemism for "less than polite" but wouldn't classify what he wrote as hate speech. Should it be fair game to call for or celebrate the deaths of a group of people simply because of who they work for or where they work?

What about deliberately inflammatory labels like "Rethuglican," "Dimocrat," "Idiotarian," "Moonbats" or "Wingnuts." All of those terms are less than genteel. All target identity groups (of a sort). All are used by some individuals with ample enough invective and venom to suggest "hate."

I said here that as odious as I find most of what Ward Churchill says, I would die to protect his right to say it. I believe that when the powers that be criminalize statements against "identity groups" (e.g. gays, minorities, religions, etc. which on the surface might seem like the civilized thing to do), the door is then opened to criminalize statements against other "identity groups." As a maybe not quite completely absurd example, consider this joke:

What's the difference between a dead snake and a dead lawyer lying on the highway? There will be skid marks in front of the snake.

You could construe that to imply that I am supporting or encouraging people to kill lawyers by running them down with their cars. That seems pretty hateful to me. Why isn't that joke "hate speech?" What happens when public comments critical of every "identity group" that can get itself recognized by a government are criminalized? And what happens when the identity group being protected is the ruling party or government? Limits on freedom of speech make more limits on freedom of speech easier to accomplish.

But if arguing against limits on free speech on grounds of principle and philosophy don't do it for you, consider a more pragmatic reason to tolerate hate speech. Consider the denial of the Holocaust. (There are dozens of other possible examples that would work here.) I want Neo-Nazis to be able to deny the existence of the Holocaust (which is illegal in some European countries). I want to be able to see their nonsense. I want this hate out in the open. I want to be able to ridicule and counter the demonstrably false statements for all to see.

I maintain that hate speech laws only drive the hate speech (and the advocates of those positions) underground, creating an echo chamber effect. If you actually believe that outlawing holocaust denials has eliminated that particular belief among German Neo-Nazis and others, you should e-mail me right now. I want to make arrangements to sell you some thigh cream and some swampland in Florida. The belief that the Holocaust did not exist or was exaggerated is still actively circulating back and forth amongst individuals sympathetic to the idea, unchecked by any infusion of fact or reality. The impulse to spare the sensibilities of a group (however well-intentioned) has the unintended consequence of driving the offensive idea out of the light of day and into circles where it can flourish without being countered.

So. Hate Speech? Bring it on. Let me see the vile purveyors of odious dreck in the bright light of day. Let me see the enemies of reason and tolerance for what they are.

Better the enemy you know...

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, February 08 2006 06:45:43 PM

Freedom of Speech
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Although I've been trying to write off and on all day long (I've been home sick) I can't seem to concentrate long enough to string together anything coherent. So, instead, the Dissident Frogman:

At the moment, Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor for Tehran's Hamshahri newspaper, you're the perfect example of the common French blog troll, like those I've been kicking out of the comments section for some 3 years now (the common French troll doesn't really understand the concept of freedom of speech either). They usually land on these pages, scribble a few abuses or badly tired arguments Demonstrating How The US of de l'Amérique Are Ultimate Evil, and then cry "censorship!" when I take them down without warning, explanations or - Allah forbids - excuses, seeing this as a proof that -A-ha! - I only pretend to defend individual liberties but am in fact pure pork NaziZionist Head Crusher under the Boot.

Let me explain, once again: freedom of speech means that nobody - state, unchecked Allah worshipping mob or individual - can use threats and violence to prevent you from expressing your opinion, to some extent in public place, and definitely not in your own private space - should you make its access public or not. Freedom of speech doesn't mean (You listening Farid?) that anybody and everybody else has - or can be forced or threatened - to provide you a with a platform to express the said opinion, particularly if they happen to disagree with you. No matter if you asked politely in the first place.

Go read the whole thing.

Oh, yeah. on a tangentially related topic: I am deeply offended at being generically referred to as an "infidel". "Sacrilegious asshole" would probably be closer to the truth.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, February 07 2006 09:15:32 PM

Denmark
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(via the Dissident Frogman.)

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, February 06 2006 06:15:52 PM

Because I don't have anything else to do
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Yeah, right. So I installed Ubuntu Linux on my old computer last night. So far I like it pretty well, but I haven't gotten to the meat of installing a lot of programs I want. But, it is a pretty easy install, and seems to run faster than the Windows 95 I have on the first hard drive. (Ubuntu is on the second hard drive.) Not that is blazingly fast or anything, but it is running on a 550 mhz pentium machine, so the fact that anything runs at all is a bonus.

There is no point to this, other than to say I'm going to play around with it a while before I decide whether or not to install it on my good computer. Because I don't have anything else to do.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, February 05 2006 11:51:37 PM

More 'toonrage
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(From Protein Wisdom, regarding comments on web sites about the Danish Cartoon Outrage):

The results may surprise you. If you happen to be a sponge, that is. Or a lemur with a crank habit that keeps it’s trembling little lemur fingers from taking the pulse of our current hyperpartisan political climate.

OK, so I was a bit flippant about the Danish Cartoons the other day. If you haven't been following this story, you should be, no matter what your political stripe. And, I daresay, this is one of those truly fundamental situations that, all attempts at obfuscation aside, tells more about us and what we really believe than a lot of us are comfortable with.

The back story (from Michelle Malkin, who also re-published the cartoons here):

The newspaper published the cartoons when a Danish author complained that he could find no-one to illustrate his book about Muhammad. Jyllands-Posten wondered whether there were more cases of self-censorship regarding Islam in Denmark and asked twelve illustrators to draw the prophet for them. Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor, said the cartoons were a test of whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.

So, now we have Islamicists all over the world engaged in bombings and burnings and beatings and demonstrations, complete with the obligatory burning of the Danish flag (except at this protest where they destroyed a Swiss flag as the warehouse was apparently out of Danish flags--more on that later). And some Danes are pissed off enough to counter-protest, which lead to this statement (via IslamOnline):

CAIRO, February 4, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Danish Muslim leaders warned on Saturday, February 4, of grave consequences if copies of the Noble Qur’an were burnt in a rally planned by Danish extremists to protest Muslim anger over cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)."All hell will break loose, if those extremists burn the Qur’an," Raed Halil, the head of the European Committee for Defending Prophet Muhammad, told IslamOnline.net over the phone from the Danish capital Copenhagen."A female member of a racist party circulated a message calling for burning copies of the Noble Qur’an in Saturday’s march," he said.Halil said the message incited young Danes to burn the Muslim holy book in retaliation for the burning of Danish flags by angry Muslims across the world and the boycotting of Danish products.

Obviously, the Danes shouldn't have been so culturally insensitive as to publish the cartoons in the first place, and the Qur'an burning is clearly unacceptable.

Right. Look, you either believe in free speech or you don't. From Protein Wisdom (in reference to the quote just above):

the Danish protesters are “extremists” from the “extreme-right”—many of them members of a “racist party”—while those Muslims outraged by the publishing of the cartoons in the first place (who “protested” by burning flags, firebombing embassies, and—even here, through a spokesman, issuing active threats of “grave consequences” and promises that “All hell will break lose” should counterprotests seek to address “Muslim anger") are mere victims of some minor misunderstanding in the “new cultural battle over freedom of speech and respect of religions.”

All the intricacies of politically correct speech aside, this is not that hard. You either believe in free speech or you don't. Don't try to cloud the issue with blathering about moral equivalency. You either believe in free speech or you don't. If comments about large areas of public life are off limits (or illegal, as many are calling for--see the end of the IslamOnline article linked above) then, by definition, it isn't free speech.

As an aside, it appears this may not be quite the spontaneous expression of Muslim rage we are supposed to believe it is. I was talking about this situation with a co-worker on Friday. In talking about the protesters burning Danish flags, she posed the rather interesting question, "Where do all the Danish flags come from?" Well, it is a good question. I don't have any trouble believing that radical Islamicists have warehouses full of American or Israeli flags to supply their regular protest burning needs. After all, we are the perennial enemy and it would only make sense to stock up. But Denmark?

Well, it seems we weren't the only ones wondering about this little curiosity. From an opinion piece in the Telegraph by Charles Moore:

It's some time since I visited Palestine, so I may be out of date, but I don't remember seeing many Danish flags on sale there. Not much demand, I suppose. I raise the question because, as soon as the row about the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Jyllands-Posten broke, angry Muslims popped up in Gaza City, and many other places, well supplied with Danish flags ready to burn. (In doing so, by the way, they offered a mortal insult to the most sacred symbol of my own religion, Christianity, since the Danish flag has a cross on it, but let that pass.)

Why were those Danish flags to hand? Who built up the stockpile so that they could be quickly dragged out right across the Muslim world and burnt where television cameras would come and look? The more you study this story of "spontaneous" Muslim rage, the odder it seems.

The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.

It rather looks as if the anger with which all Muslims are said to be burning needed some pretty determined stoking. Peter Mandelson, who seems to think that his job as European Trade Commissioner entitles him to pronounce on matters of faith and morals, accuses the papers that republished the cartoons of "adding fuel to the flames"; but those flames were lit (literally, as well as figuratively) by well-organised, radical Muslims who wanted other Muslims to get furious. How this network has operated would make a cracking piece of investigative journalism.

I don't know about your trembling little lemur fingers, but mine are going to the store to buy some Danish ham.

 

 

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, February 05 2006 08:35:05 PM

Sex toys for Christians
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(via the Register) Well, it had to happen sooner or later. A young Christian married couple in England have opened an on-line "marital aids" shop. Wholly Love states "Sex is a great gift from God – we stock products to enhance your sex life with your spouse!"

OK, when you are done snickering, you might think about it for a minute. Seems like a reasonable position to take (pun intended...). The website is reasonably tasteful. You won't find any terribly lewd images. Nor will you find anything for Bondage, S&M, or anal sex. But, if you can use it for regular heterosexual sex, they probably have it. It takes a while to process the cognitive dissonance involved in seeing edible thongs advertised right next to a book entitled "Searching for Intimacy: The problem of pornography on the internet, and hope about how to deal with it." And, I'm not sure how the nipple clamps snuck into the catalog.

Still, I have to give them credit. They seem sincere and seem to be trying to meet a need. And they are getting some traffic in their discussion forums. I'm pretty sure the "sex is for procreation only" crowd will be apoplectic, but I hope they do well with their site.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, February 03 2006 02:06:04 AM

Oink for Denmark, Western values and freedom of expression!
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This is the slogan the folks at Samizdata came up with for their Buycott idea to support the Danes. If you haven't caught the story, it has been brewing since last year. The Jyllands-Postern published 12 cartoons that were not received well by radical Muslims. For example: "Meanwhile an international organization of Muslim intellectuals has threatened to mobilize “millions of Muslims all over the World” to boycott Danish and Norwegian products unless the Danish and Norwegian government condemn the publication of the cartoons, which is called an “attack on the Muslims of the World and on the Prophet.” In Saudi Arabia people are receiving e-mails and sms messages urging them to boycott Danish products “until Denmark offers an official apology.” The Organization of the Islamic Conference protested last week’s publication of the cartoons in the Norwegian paper Magazinet. The Iranian embassy in Oslo said that freedom of expression cannot justify publishing the cartoons." (the cartoons are about halfway down the page on this link)

From Samizdata:

In order to show some solidarity with Denmark, who are facing remarkable pressure over the Jyllands-Postern 'Satanic Cartoons' incident, I for one will be stocking up with Danish products at every opportunity. I find it offensive that they are being threatened by Islamist thugs and pissant Muslim governments for daring to be a tolerant western nation.So, what recipes can liberty lovers think up that use Lurpak butter, Danish bacon (lots of yummy Danish bacon), Havarti cheese, Carlsberg & Tuborg beer and smoked herring?

As for me, I've never seen Lurpak butter. I like Danish bacon, but don't see too much of it here in the Ratlands. Much as I'd like to help, I can't deal with smoked herring, so I guess it will be Havarti cheese and Tuborg beer.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, February 02 2006 12:17:10 AM

#!&%!#@!@*!
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Spent most of tonight watching the new Extended version of Dune. Yeah, I did that last night, too, except that we discovered Chapters 8 and 9 (the Spice Mining inspection with Keynes, Leto and Paul, if you are a fan) wouldn't play. So Rat, Jr. got to go exchange the DVD while I was at work today, and we watched it again tonight. I've also done the hardware set-up (gosh that sounded cool, didn't it, especially since it was pretty much a matter of connecting a cable from the VCR to the Computer) so that I can burn some DVD's from the Head Rat's video cassette collection. It's kind of a tedious process, as the tapes have to run at normal speed, but it will sure be nice to be able to get rid of some of the dozens of tapes we have running around the house.

My train of thought on the prescription drug essay has splintered. I need to sit down with FreeMind and clean it up, but it isn't going to happen tonight. I'm working on some material for work.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, February 01 2006 11:56:52 PM