Month: January 2010

Television

Star Trek and Moral Judgment

islamoyankee

But surely the proper conclusion to be drawn, then, is that being an ethically upright and generally virtuous person is, however surprising this result may be, consistent with being tolerant, peace-loving, even with upholding due process. And there is no particular difficulty to the trick of being in favor of progress while being skeptical about human perfectibility. I say this is a semi-serious point because I think, for some conservatives, the main objection to a somewhat vaguely conceived set of liberal values really is a strong sense that they are inconsistent with a certain sort of hardassery in the virtue…

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Inter-faith Politics

Media fuels Hatred of Muslims

islamoyankee

via Talk Islam, I found this article: A rise in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in London is being encouraged by mainstream politicians and sections of the media, a study written by a former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer, published yesterday, says. Attacks ranging from death threats and murder to persistent low-level assaults, such as spitting and name-calling, are in part whipped up by extremists and sections of mainstream society, the study says.

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Current Affairs

‘My daughter’s on the no-fly list’ wr…

islamoyankee

‘My daughter’s on the no-fly list’ writes Chris Kelly. She’s 12 years old. So I should hate the No Fly List. Besides the personal inconvenience, it runs counter to a solid third of the Bill of Rights. But I’m conflicted. Because I have a pretty good idea why my daughter’s on the list. It’s because she has the same name as this guy: In 1993 this IRA thug walked into a fish shop in Belfast with a bomb that went off prematurely (of course) injuring 57 people, including a 79-year-old woman and two two-year-old boys. It also killed ten people,…

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Music

Letter from America – Givin’ It to the Man, Islamic Style – NYTimes.com

islamoyankee

Letter from America – Givin’ It to the Man, Islamic Style – NYTimes.com. No doubt for many — probably most — Americans, Islam is associated these days at the very least with ultraconservative social mores — the lesser status of women, for example — not to mention the practices of the radical extreme — the cult of death, suicide bombings, acid thrown in the faces of girls going to school. So how about Muslims who embrace feminism, play in punk rock bands, and castigate orthodox, official Saudi Arabian-supported Islam as “Islamofascism?” Yes, it starts with some clichés, but we will…

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Current Affairs

The Achievements of al Qaeda: Muslim World, Take Note

islamoyankee

A suicide bomber some years back attacked a hotel in Amman, Jordan, killing among others Moustapha Akkad, producer of The Message — one of the noblest attempts to convey Islam as a faith of good and to elevate and publicize the reputation and character of Muhammad, peace be upon him. Yeah, that’s right: al-Qaeda killed Akkad. His daughter was also martyred during that attack. What has Umar Farouk my-last-name-is-haram Abdul-Muttallab accomplished or advanced? [From The Achievements of al Qaeda: Muslim World, Take Note]

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Current Affairs

Why The Heart And The Kidneys? – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan #torture

islamoyankee

Why The Heart And The Kidneys? – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan . Eric Holder, meanwhile, seems to act as if his job is to ignore evidence of hideous criminality in the government, rather than to prosecute it. The best explanation is that he is biding his time until the administration has more achievements under its belt. But delay itself is a violation of Geneva. As if those Conventions counted for anything any more.

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Politics

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

islamoyankee

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com. Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose “a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests.” They’re entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations. Amazingly, the Bush administration’s policy of merely imprisoning foreign nationals (along with a couple of American citizens) without charges — based solely on the President’s claim that they were Terrorists — produced intense controversy…

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Current Affairs

Lipstick On A War Criminal – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan #torture

islamoyankee

Lipstick On A War Criminal – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan . The entire point of the Geneva Conventions and the Reagan-signed UN Convention and domestic law and centuries of precedent was never to get anywhere close to torture. The broadness of the ban was designed to stop anyone in government from doing anything like what Yoo proposed and Cheney implemented.

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Current Affairs

NYT: #torture loopholes

islamoyankee

Op-ed about military interrogation techniques: Tomorrow will be one year since President Obama signed an executive order outlawing torture, yet our debate about interrogation methods continues. Though the president deserves praise for improving matters, the changes were not as drastic as most Americans think, and elements of our interrogation policy continue to be both inhumane and counterproductive. Americans can now boast that they no longer “torture” detainees, but they cannot say that detainees are not abused, or even that their treatment meets the minimum standards of humane treatment mandated by the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the…

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