The Dictator’s practical internet guide to power retention
Choose your version :
Recent Comments
RSS feed
Modern Day Christian Witch Hunts
May 14, 2012 — xanthippaLike many of the people in the modern anti-religion (anti-ALL-religions), I have, on occasion, been accused by modern-day Christians of unfairly lumping their religion in with all the other unreasonable dogmas which are so destructive to society, yet whose malignancy is tolerated under the guise of ‘religion’.
Sure, they agree, Islam is guilty of persecuting, jailing and executing people on the vacuous charge of ‘witchcraft’. That is obviously wrong and evil and ignorant. (Or, so the narrative goes…) Christianity is better than other religions because we have shed the shackles of ignorance and, for centuries, indulge in these sort of unenlightened practices and have not for centuries…
Show me – they dare – an inquisitor or a witch hunter today!
Well, OK – let’s do that!
Christians today – and not just in developing countries, but in the UK and the US – are active in hunting down and torture-killing witches. The new twist to the narrative is that these modern-day ‘witches’ are children.
Yes, children!!!
Here is a bit about a 15-year-old boy who was murdered (and his younger siblings tortured) by relatives in the UK because they suspected the children of witchcraft. The trial of the family members has concluded with a guilty verdict earlier this year – that is 2012!!!
And, the US is not immune…
Recent surveys show that some 20+% of the adults in the USA believe in ‘witches’ – of the malignant, fairy-tale type, not of the neo-Pagan religious practitioners type…
So much for Christianity having come out of the dark ages!!!
Here are some supporting links:
Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries
Interview: Witches, Mermaids and Exorcisms With Pastor Godwin Umotong On SaharaTV
NY Times: On a Visit to the U.S., a Nigerian Witch-Hunter Explains Herself
Facebook: Stand Against Helen Ukpabio
The short of it is: unreasonable belief leads to unreasonable actions. Adults must be free to do stupid things, but children must be protected from their parents’ religious beliefs.
We accept that a parent, while responsible for a child, does not have the freedom to abuse them sexually. It is high time we extended this protection of children to include protection from religious abuse, because it is no less destructive than sexual abuse!
And while I am at it…
Most of us consider Judaism to be another one of the ‘civilized’ religions – one which has produced some of the most enlightened minds in the field of science and which is not ‘oppressive’ on its practitioners the way some other religions are…
Yet, there is Judaism and there is Judaism…
Many Jews are well integrated into their host societies and for them, being ‘Jewish’ is more of a national identity than it is a religious faith. Many do practice some of the customs which identify them as ‘Jews’ as a form of private observance and, as long as they do not impose it on their children before they are old enough to give informed consent (and, yes, I am referring specifically to the intolerable practice of arbitrary amputation of part of a penis in infants, which ought to be illegal), I have no argument with it.
However, there are other forms of Judaism alive and well in our society – ones which I consider much less benign.
When a group of people refuses to integrate and takes great pains to segregate itself from the society in which they live, bad things happen.
Always.
When religion is the ‘carrot and the whip’ to enforce such a segregation, we ought not tolerate this: it is one thing for adults to exercise their freedom of religion, it is quite another one for them to strip it away from their children.
Because we have learned that over and over and over again , and as one of my role-models, Asma Jahangir, has taught us – when a religious minority demands special rights, they will always use these ‘rights’ to oppress minorities within themselves, most commonly children and women.
As is the case in this story of a self-segregated Orthodox Jewish community, their ‘internal courts’ and child abuse…
Aside: when we fought – and succeeded – against the opening of Sharia courts in Ontario, we also fought against separate ‘Jewish tribunals’ – in effect, the Jewish versions of Sharia courts. I am pleased to say that, unlike in the linked article, Ontario is free of this malignancy: a society cannot exist unless there is one set of laws for everyone, equally applied to everyone by both the police and the courts!!!
To sum up: one law – and one and equal law enforcement – for all members of society is necessary in order to maintain society. Children have innate rights which even their parents must not be permitted to violate – and permitting parents to violate their children’s right to religious freedom (through childhood indoctrination) is deeply connected to and, in reality, little different from permitting parents to commit or facilitate child sexual abuse. It is about time we started treating the two crimes alike!
Exploring some Internet Explorer stories
May 11, 2012 — xanthippaIf you are on the interwebitubes – and, reading a blog, I presume you are – you are likely already aware that Microsoft is taking some serious steps to prevent browsers other than Internet Explorer from their Windows 8 devices running on the ARM platform.
Do we really want to re-visit the browser wars of the 1990’s?
‘”They’re trying to make a new version of their operating system which denies their users choice, competition, and innovation,” said Harvey Anderson, Mozilla’s general counsel. “Making IE the only browser on that platform is a complete return to the digital dark ages when there was only one browser on the Windows platform.” ‘
(Check out the article: it explains the issues well – plus it has graphs!)
So, what does it look like when a whole society is locked in to using Internet Explorer (IE)?
Look no further than South Korea: there, through a well-meaning but misguided legislation (!!!) in the 1990’s, all e-commerce was effectively locked into using IE. Even though the legal situation has been remedied, the lock it had created in practice seems unbreakable.
Results?
No consumer choice and business stagnation…
Apocalypse has been cancelled
May 11, 2012 — xanthippaI am, of course, speaking of the dreaded 21st of December, 2012, when the world is going to end because the wise old Mayans chose to end their calendar on that day.
This is a sad day for all us fans of conspiracy theories….
‘The Maya recorded time in a series of cycles, including 400-year chunks called baktuns. It’s these baktuns that have led to rumors of an end-of-the-world catastrophe on Dec. 21, 2012 — on that date, a cycle of 13 baktuns will be complete. But the idea that this means the end of the world is a misconception, Stuart said. In fact, Maya experts have known for a long time that the calendar doesn’t end after the 13th baktun. It simply begins a new cycle. And the calendar encompasses much larger units than the baktun.’
…
‘In one column, the ancient scribe even worked out a cycle of time recording 17 baktuns, the researchers found. In another spot, someone etched a “ring number” into the wall. These notations were used to record time in a previous cycle, thousands of years into the past. The calendar also appears to note the cycles of Mars and Venus, the researchers said. Symbols of gods head the top of each lunar cycle, suggesting that each cycle had its own patron deity.’
I am not certain from reading the article that my understanding of the length of the newly found calendar is correct, but it seems to imply that it goes on for at least 1,600 more years than the ‘apocalypse in 2012’ one.
The article itself states that
“The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future,” said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the glyphs. “Numbers we can’t even wrap our heads around.”
But, I think they are discussing the system itself, not the particular notation they found, which, I think, they say encompasses 17 cycles of 400 years, continuing well past 2012.
Here is a link to neat photos of the discovery.
A tiny step in the right direction for Columbia
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaPerhaps it is not a giant leap, but a tiny – yet important – step for Columbia:
‘The Colombian House of Representatives Wednesday passed the first draft of a bill that seeks to legalize illicit crops.’
…
‘Representative Hugo Velasquez Jaramillo, who proposed the bill, explained that although the cultivation of plants would be legal under the new legislation, the processing and trafficking of drugs would remain subject to criminal sentencing.’
It would be unreasonable to expect Columbia to go further than this – for now. The fear of US reaction to even this must be felt…
But, letting the highly destructive US-led prohibitionism dictate the drug policy of many countries has only had disastrous consequences.
Not only is prohibitionism anti-freedom (in a very real sense, it claims greater property right over the citizen’s own body for The State than the citizen’s own claim to self-ownership), it enriches and strengthens organized crime. In some countries, this undermines governance to such a degree that civil liberties cannot be exercised at all!
Obviously, it is in no-one’s interest (except, of course, the organized crime groups and the ever-more-militarized police forces which grow to combat them) to continue with drug prohibition: the evidence is there for all to see. Still, I doubt that most people are willing to look…
But, let’s not spoil the moment: Columbia has taken a step in the right direction. Let’s hope more countries follow – and that this is just a small step in a long march towards eventually abolishing all drug laws!
A bully is a bully is a bully…
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaHow can anyone regard this man as ‘electable’?!?!?
‘The incident was told to the newspaper independently by five students, one who said that Romney, the son of then-Michigan governor George Romney, had it out for a younger boy because of his long bleached-blond hair.’
He didn’t know the boy was gay?!?!?
What kind of an apology is that?!?!?
So, it would have been all right to get a gang together and assault younger students, as long as they were not gay?
If you are the type of person who would do this – to anyone – you are exhibiting some seriously psychopathic behaviour. When you couple this with his documented animal cruelty, there should be no doubt that this man is not fit for public office of any kind!
Are the Republicans actively trying to get Obama re-elected?
ReasonTV: The Vampire Economist and the Moral Molecule: Q&A with neuroeconomist Paul Zak
May 10, 2012 — xanthippa
The Church of Kopimism
May 10, 2012 — xanthippaBelief in the moral goodness of file-sharing is now protected, just like any other religious creed, as the Missionary Church of Kopimism becomes an officially recognized religion.
In Sweden – for starters. From their website:
* All knowledge to all
* The search for knowledge is sacred
* The circulation of knowledge is sacred
* The act of copying is sacred.
(Though not recognized as an official religion in Canada, their Canadian site is here.)
Please, share the video of the first Kopimist wedding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMPcFexWlk&feature=colike
As big business and big government continue to merge into one corrupt pile of steaming dung, freedom of speech will continue be curbed by commercial laws as much as by any others: it is now that we must recognize that the very concept that ‘ideas’ – in any form – may be ‘owned’ is outrageous, immoral and indefensible. It is precisely in order to protect our freedom of speech that we must fight against any attempt to limit the freedom to spread ideas and information freely.
We do not make up our minds about ‘things’ based on facts – we can only make up our own minds up based on the facts we know – on the information available to us. Without free, unfiltered access to informtion and ideas – all ideas – we are robbed of the very capacity to think freely.
Though I generally see religions (theistic or not) as intrinsically evil, I hope this new religion will be a useful tool in this war!
A Climte Change Conference with an actual debate of the science
May 9, 2012 — xanthippa‘The Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-7) will take place in Chicago, Illinois from Monday, May 21 to Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at the Hilton Chicago Hotel, 720 South Michigan Avenue. The event will follow the NATO Summit taking place in Chicago on May 19–21.’
This is one Climate Conference which promises to actually address the science and not just the politically correct rhetoric. It is also likely to address the issues arising from faulty or downright fraudulent science on the topic of Anthropogenic Climate Change:
‘On November 22, 2011, a second batch of emails among scientists working at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit was released by an unknown whistle-blower. “Climategate II” revealed prominent scientists concealing data, discussing global warming as a political cause rather than a balanced scientific inquiry, and admitting to scientific uncertainties that they denied in their public statements. ‘
Did I mention that Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, will deliver the first dinner speech, on Monday, May 21st?
Of course, not everyone is planning to be there. Donna Laframboise of NoFrakkingConsensus, for one, has distanced herself from this event over concerns about Heartland’s ethics.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 