Archive for the ‘internet/free speech’ Category

Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah see what others try to ignore

Posted: August 9, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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Rush Limbaugh has called the ground zero mosque “planting the flag of victory“. It has been suggested that to oppose the mosque is an act of bigotry. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria returned an award from the ADL for opposing it saying in part:

That is why I was stunned at your decision to publicly side with those urging the relocation of the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan. You are choosing to use your immense prestige to take a side that is utterly opposed to the animating purpose of your organization. Your own statements subsequently, asserting that we must honor the feelings of victims even if irrational or bigoted, made matters worse.

Today at the Ottawa Citizen. Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress put the lie to Zakaria’s nonsense.

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it’s not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as “Fitna,” meaning “mischief-making” that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, “Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book” – i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of “fitna”

At least 30 mosques in NY? The horror, how will the community function without one more at ground zero? The local mosque in Fitchburg gets the whole “Be considerate” message. The people who are putting up the Ground Zero mosque reject it.

Worse than the builders rejection is the well traveled Zakaria inability to see what is in front of him. It takes a lot of education to be as ignorant as Zakaria is being. Of course he could be in denial, or just cowardly? Or maybe he and NY is operating under a double standard.

It goes without saying that everyone here should be prayed for.

I was listening/watching The End of Time …

Posted: August 7, 2010 by datechguy in doctor who, internet/free speech, oddities
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…again this week and remembering what I wrote the day after Christmas last year when I first saw it:

There is every probability that this was written just after his election and that Russell T. Davies was and/or is a member of the hopey-changey Obamacult. I suspect British actors are even farther left than Hollywood so it would be no surprise. It is also possible that he is making fun of said cult but I doubt it.

Alas the shooting schedule and the filming didn’t account for the crash and burn of international opinion of the president, it gives the episode an anachronistic quality will make many conservatives laugh at the reminder of those foolish messianic days.

Wikipedia states that Shooting began in March of 2009 (for non controversial stuff it’s an ok source). That likely means the writing took place right after the election.

It was something to see the change in international opinion since the episode was broadcast, in just 7 months his domestic popularity has also dropped like a rock.

At the time it was on, I was annoyed, couldn’t I escape the Obama Messiah syndrome even in Doctor Who? Today looking back seeing that the nation has been mostly cured of that odd illness it brings a smile, like that of a person remembering a rough patch that is behind him.

The end of the obamacult has been a healthy thing for a society. Let’s hope the media remembers the lessons learned.

…and Cynthia Yockey rebutts

Posted: August 6, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news, the courts
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You’ve read and examined my opinion of Gay Marriage. Making the case for the other side a blogger I respect who is just as nice in person as she is committed to what she believes, my friend Cynthia Yockey:

The fundamental rationale social conservatives advance for denying equal treatment to lesbians and gays under the law — including the liberty and freedom to choose sexual partners and spouses on the same bases that straight people use: sexual attraction and love — is that gays are intrinsically evil.

This of course is not the Catholic position but the number of people who make that argument is not insignificant to say the least.

Read her whole post and her others on the subject. Her opinion is worth hearing and understanding. After all once can’t be secure in one’s own opinion and beliefs and be unwilling or unable to hear the other side without rancor.

Hitchens and St. Jude

Posted: August 4, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, internet/free speech, oddities
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Today this tweet came from the Shrine of St. Jude:

Today is the Day of Prayer for Cancer at the National Shrine of St. Jude. Today we pray in a special way for all those affected by cancer.

On the same day one of the worlds most famous atheists pens an article called Topic of Cancer where he talks about the effects of radiation therapy:

Myself, I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.

Even as we regret the sad ending to an exciting story and empathize with certain battles that are lost; “If Penélope Cruz were one of my nurses, I wouldn’t even notice.”“, it is apparent that he struggles with cancer he hasn’t ended his struggle against redemption to wit:

Instead, I am badly oppressed by a gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read—if not indeed write—the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger emphasis mine?

Ah yes the villainy of the pope, that arch meddler who still leads a church that insists on praying for him and doing its all to grab him from the abyss he cannot see and refuses to acknowledge. Some things never change.

I’ve often said that people have the rest of their lives to ridicule, abandon or live without the grace of God for their satisfaction and the approval of the world, after that they’re on their own. For Mr. Hitchens that reality is closing in, but in fact it closes in on all of us every day. The difference is that Chris Hitchens is aware of it. May the rest of us not forget.

Via Robert Stacy’s post titled Just another Deadline:

Memeorandum thread here.

Update: The Anchoress response reminds me of the nuns at the convent at the end of Cyrano de Bergerac

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