Roughly 12 minutes into the flight, it reached orbit and the solar panel arrays had succesfully deployed. With the aid of the Canadarm, it will deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
Finally, a new chapter into the exploration of space has been opened: private enterrise, not governments, will pave the road to our future. So, it might actually work this time…
“Because recording police officers in the public discharge of their duties is protected by the First Amendment, policies should prohibit interference with recording of police activities except in narrowly circumscribed situations,” reads the DoJ’s letter (pdf). “More particularly, policies should instruct officers that, except under limited circumstances, officers must not search or seize a camera or recording device without a warrant. In addition, policies should prohibit more subtle actions that may nonetheless infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment rights. Officers should be advised not to threaten, intimidate, or otherwise discourage an individual from recording police officer enforcement activities or intentionally block or obstruct cameras or recording devices.”
Oh, and citizen journalists – regular people – have as much of a right to record the police as official members of the press!!!
The music industry claims that albums which are leaked prior to their release cause them the greatest financial loss: this study demonstrates that this is simply not true:
‘However, according to the research, sales may actually be hurt by going after these [file sharing] sites. Hammond’s findings suggest that piracy itself acts as a form of advertising similar to radio play and media campaigns, where more downloads result in a moderate increase in sales.’
Let’s not hold our breath hoping for the recording industry will admit its error…
Like 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!!!
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!
‘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!
‘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?
Belief 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.
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!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 