‘A robotic arm on the International Space Station has reached out to grab the visiting Dragon supply vessel.

The arm will shortly move the ship to a free berthing port on the underside of the orbiting platform.

Dragon has been built by the California firm SpaceX and is carrying half a tonne of food and other stores for the ISS astronauts.

It is the first time a private sector company has attempted to deliver freight to the station.

The high-flying laboratory’s Canadarm2 is being controlled by US spaceman Don Petit.

He grabbed the capsule at 13:56 GMT (14:56 BST). “Houston, looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail,” he radioed to Nasa mission Control in Texas’

I hope Thunderf00t is right:  that people will look back at this point – the invention of the internet – as the turning point when the power of the individual came to its own…but I am nowhere near as optimistic.

I fear that this point in time will be seen as a tiny spark of light that, for a tiny moment, brought us light until it was smothered by heavy-handed regulation and became yet another tool of surveillance and oppression.

Yes, the desensitization method of approaching the Islamist sensitivities is working – for now.  And that is a great thing!

But soon, even this type of action may be impossible – not because of any Islamist response but because of the fear of expressing oneself honestly on the internet.

From OpenMedia:

And, that is the real problem:  not Islam, but Sharia.

Sharia is the ‘Islamic jurisprudence’ as divined by a bunch of religious nuts in the 4-6 centuries following when Muhammad is supposed to have lived.  It is based not just on the Koran, but also on the cultural precepts of Arabs, particularly Bedouins, of this time period and their centuries-old, handed down traditions about what Muhammad’s life and world-view were like.

Yeah.

Centuries removed from the source.

Until Sharia was codified,  Islam enjoyed what is popularly touted as its greatest period of culture and thought – you know, the bits where they brought the Indian numerals to European mathematics and preserved ancient knowledge from the roaming religious fanatics of both the Christian and Islamic kind….

Once Sharia became codified – the flowering of Islam was over.

Until Sharia is rejected as the un-Islamic construct of manipulation centuries out of touch with anything Koranic,  Islam will remain as oppressive and totalitarian in practice as it is today.

Let’s hope Sharia will be (universally) rejected soon so that Islam can, once again, be practiced without fear.

H/T:  BlazingCatFur

Remember, the end does not justify the means:  the means define the end!

‘”It was hell on earth,” Kaileh told The Associated Press on Sunday, nearly a week after Syrian forces released him and deported him to Jordan. Speaking at his friend’s home in an Amman suburb, Kaileh had bluish-red bruises on his legs, which he said were the result of beatings with wooden batons that were studded with pins and nails.

“I felt I was going to die under the brutal, savage and continuous beating of the interrogators, who tied me to ropes hung from the ceiling,” said Kaileh, a soft-spoken man with a shock of white hair who appeared frail, barely able to stand on his feet.’

Which is why freedom of speech must be one of the ‘absolutes’ we fight for – and why ‘anonymous speech’ is the most sacred form of free speech!!!