islam doesn't speak, muslims do | "the ink of the scholar is worth more than the blood of the martyr" – Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
This case in Pennsylvania helps you understand why marriage is not in the State’s interest. Marriage is a religious interest. The state only needs to recognize unions, marriage or otherwise, for legal purposes of benefits. And what is this BS about Muslims can’t have their photos taken? I’m assuming it refers to some women who do not wish to expose their faces in public, but men have no excuse. (h/t Atrios)
The NYT on the dark world of America’s torture centers. Not in my name.
Not sure what it means for the Gitmo prisoners, but it seems to be a step in the right direction. DOJ says it is longer using unitary executive theory to imprison people under the “Enemy Combatant” label.
My response to Fareed Zakaria’s piece in Newsweek is up over at Change the Story. (Formatting is being fixed).
In light of Sen. Kerry’s upcoming Senate hearings, I thought I would link to some recent reports on the topic that might provide some useful background. Islamic Peacemaking Since 9/11 Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World (Change the Story is the result of this report) The Doha Compact – New Directions: America and the Muslim World Mightier than the Sword: Arts and Culture in the U.S.-Muslim World Relationship Strengthening America: The Civic and Political Integration of Muslim Americans A Strategic Look at U.S.-Muslim World Relations
Herdict is live. What is Herdict you ask? Why, it is the verdict of the herd! It’s a crowd sourced tool for determining if a site is being censored. Their official statement is: Have you ever come across a web site that you could not access and wondered,”Am I the only one?” Herdict Web aggregates reports of inaccessible sites, allowing users to compare data to see if inaccessibility is a shared problem. By crowdsourcing data from around the world, we can document accessibility for any web site, anywhere. Check out the site. If you are a Firefox user, download the…
Tomorrow, Thursday, February 26, 2009, Sen. John Kerry, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will be hosting a hearing entitled “Engaging with Muslim Communities around the World.” He should be applauded for his efforts, and for bringing together a great group of people to talk about the issue. One of the panelists is former Sec. of State Madeline Albright, who is involved with Change the Story. Please drop Sen. Kerry a line and thank him for taking world affairs seriously. — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 25, 2009 CONTACT: Frederick Jones, (202) 224–4651 ***Media Advisory*** Senate Foreign Relations Committee To…
What would happen if religious ideas were subjected to such a debate? I want to conclude with some speculations. A robust, critical discussion of religious ideas might encourage popular faiths more consistent with modern standards of plausibility, more conscious of the historicity of all faiths, and more resistant to the manipulation of politicians belonging to any party. The long moratorium on sustained, public scrutiny of religious ideas has created a vacuum in which easy god-talk flourishes. Religion has no monopoly on foolishness and ignorance, but our convention of giving religious ideas a “pass” has made religion a privileged domain for wackiness…
This article is almost a year old, so it’s part of the old pattern. My suspicion is that some agent just finished watching True Romance and was thinking about the Sicilian scene. Key lines for those who don’t know: So you see, way back then, uh, Sicilians were like, uh, wops from Northern Italy. Ah, they all had blonde hair and blue eyes, but, uh, well, then the Moors moved in there, and uh, well, they changed the whole country. They did so much fuckin’ with Sicilian women, huh? That they changed the whole bloodline forever. That’s why blonde hair…
We are surprised because …? Do we really expect ideologues and/or provocateurs (not artistes) to be anything other than intellectually inconsistent, self-aggrandizing blowhards? Money quote from the article: The lawsuit against Mr. Wilders has been hailed in the Netherlands as a good thing for democracy. I am not so sure. It makes him look more important than he should be. In fact, the response of Dutch Muslims to his film last year was exemplary: most said nothing at all. And when a small Dutch Muslim TV station offered to broadcast the film, after all other stations had refused, the grand…