2008-01-06 at 8:46am
danbri has been experimenting with SPARQL and spreadsheets.
I’ve started publishing a rather cynical Glossary, which will contain words and phrases that I am coining, redefining, wishing death upon and providing snarky commentary on. English is pliable by it’s users - and this page could be considered my diff patch for the English language.
KeithPorteous Wood at the NSS on how Islam is attacking human rights at the UN: The proceedings of the UNHRC have become a constant battle between Western nations, on the one hand, and the numerous members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), aided by a few countries who always support them and in turn receive support from them… So, the 56 OIC countries are also making considerable progress on an international declaration on defamation of religion - a kind of all-religions blasphemy super law. Anyone seeking to draw attention to the capital offence of apostasy will be lucky even to be heard, and there is no chance of any action. Anything deemed the slightest bit critical of Islam is immediately jumped upon, and possibly even excised from the official record.
Blasphemy!
One thing to be proud about - the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and most of the EU countries voted nay on the idiotic UN blasphemy resolution. The UK support is somewhat hypocritical since it is still against the law to commit blasphemous libel, which I can do by simply publishing this poem (James Kirkup’s The Love That Dare Not Speak It’s Name - a graphically explicit poem about a homosexual relationship between a crucified Jesus Christ and a Roman Centurion soldier).
In order to show solidarity for the true meaning of human rights and civil liberties, we need to fill the world with more James Kirkup, more material designed solely to irritate and offend religious people. You don’t have a right not to be offended. It’s a by-product of free speech that you get offended. I get offended when you say that I’m an amoral, godless heathen and that I’m going to have my skin repeatedly scorched off by demons for the rest of eternity because I think that the universe makes more sense without invoking magic. But I don’t try and legislate away your offensiveness.
The more religious types want to ban offensiveness, the more I will actively try and offend their sensibilities. It’s the only way. Which reminds me: Mohammed Image Archive, loltheist and gay Jesus.
I’ve been really impressed with the coverage that Ghost in the Machine has been giving to the U.S. electoral cycle. There’s something quite interesting happening with the elections - a certain buzz moment that’s happening on certain candidates - specifically, Obama, Paul and Huckabee. They are breaking the mould of potential presidents with their populist message. My personal opinions as a non-American don’t matter much, but my preference is currently Obama, Edwards and Paul, in that order - Clinton is just too much of a machine, Huckabee is a lunatic and the other Republican candidates (Romney, McCain etc.) are trying hard to salvage the Reagan Coalition despite it being well and truly dead - the Wall St. people, the libertarians and the Falwell/culture-war types are more unglued than ever before. Anyway, I’m outsourcing U.S. presidential campaign analysis to Kevin Murphy at Ghost in the Machine.
Bill Moyers has some excellent interviews - with the two presidential candidates most likely to be excluded from the debate on either side of the aisle - Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.
Austin Cline leaves Theo Hobson’s rapidly shifting and self-serving definitions in tatters and points out the absurd levels of hypocritical rhetoric that Hobson throws out. Hobson really is an equivocating, lying waste of space. Reading Hobson tends to leave one feeling only a little bit more stupid than hitting oneself over the head repeatedly with a copy of the Book of Mormon.
I’ll grant the right for Muslims to engage in noise pollution if they allow the local non-believers to chant how idiotic it all is immediately afterwards. Until that point, you nutters need to get on the Interwebs and stream the damn call to prayer. Religious people seem to get away with noise pollution quite a bit easier than normal people, by saying they are commanded to do it by God.
