Bill allows all emails and phone calls to be monitored in the name of national security.… Read the rest
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Blackwater Requests Sharia to Avoid Damages
Jun 26th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShari’a law does not hold a company responsible for actions of employees performed at work.… Read the rest
Turd-blossom speaks up
Jun 26th, 2008 11:21 am | By Ophelia BensonOh come on. You have to be kidding. This has to be from the Onion, or the Daily Show – this can’t be for real. Can it? Can it? Karl Rove calling Obama ‘arrogant’? And then expanding on the point?
“Even if you never met him, you know this guy,” he said at a Capitol Hill breakfast, according to ABC. “He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone.”
Is that more funny than it is enraging? Or the other way around? I can’t tell, I just can’t tell. Okay, so let’s get this straight – a white powerful privileged … Read the rest
A book in the mailbox
Jun 25th, 2008 5:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonDaphne Patai’s What Price Utopia? Essays on Ideological Policing, Feminism, and Academic Affairs arrived in the mail today, and it looks like a big old feast of just the kind of thing I like. That means you’d probably like it too (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this, would you).… Read the rest
I’m a professional psychic
Jun 25th, 2008 4:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Economist takes a slightly skeptical look at inter-faith conferences. Then it gets to a real issue.
As well as repeating certain familiar commonplaces and negotiating certain familiar taboos, participants in inter-faith gatherings do sometimes run into real questions, that make a difference to the world at large. One such is how, if at all, freedom of speech can be reconciled with the Muslim demand for a ban on public statements or cultural products that offend Islamic sensibilities. At this week’s meeting in Malaysia, that question was addressed in a way that frightened the relatively few participants whose understanding of civil rights was rooted in a Western, liberal world-view.
Don’t tell me, let me guess. The question was addressed … Read the rest
There’s bullshit and then there’s professional bullshit
Jun 25th, 2008 4:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonDominic Lawson quotes the Department of Health replying to an MP complaining on behalf of a constituent about ‘psychic surgery.’ (Yes, psychic.)
“We are currently working towards extending the scope of statutory regulation by introducing regulation of herbal medicine, acupuncture practitioners and Chinese medicine. However, there are no plans to extend statutory regulation to other professions such as psychic surgery. We expect these professions to develop their own unified systems of voluntary self-regulation.”
Other professions? Other professions? Psychic surgery is a profession? In what sense? If psychic surgery and acupuncture are professions, are divination and palmistry and astrology also professions? If so, what distinguishes a profession from just messing around?
… Read the restLast week, in fact, the Department of Health published
Blackwater’s Deep Reverence for Islam
Jun 25th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia Benson3 widows of US soldiers are suing over plane crash in Afghanistan. So – call for Sharia!… Read the rest
Talking is Different from Capitulation
Jun 25th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonChurchill did not object to Chamberlain meeting Hitler in 1938, he objected to giving the Nazis Czechoslovakia.… Read the rest
Gabfests About Islam and the West
Jun 25th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSpeaker after speaker called for some formal, internationally agreed restriction on defamation of religion. … Read the rest
Majority of Indonesians Want Sharia
Jun 25th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBut ‘only’ 45% said women should be forced to wear hijab. Oh is that all!… Read the rest
Malaysia: Islamists Tell Women What to Do
Jun 25th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNo loud shoes. Segregated seating at the movies. Hijab.… Read the rest
Race and Patriotism as a Wedge Strategy
Jun 25th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Clinton has manipulated ideas about race, but Obama has not manipulated similar ideas about gender.’… Read the rest
Maybe the North star moved
Jun 24th, 2008 12:50 pm | By Ophelia BensonClose on the heels of the astonished Indy reporters, we get a piece on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Germany.
An internationalist Islamist organisation is submitting an application to the European court tomorrow in an effort to overturn a ban on its activities in Germany. Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, believes that the five-year-old ban is unlawful…Germany has accused the party of breaching the “concept of international understanding” enshrined in the country’s constitution, a charge more usually levelled against parties of the far right.
More usually…meaning that Hizb is not a party of the far right. The Guardian thinks that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a party of the far right!!! Even though it has Hizb’s own self-description immediately after … Read the rest
School Investigated ‘Abuse’ Based on Psychic
Jun 24th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPsychic said a child whose name began with V was being molested; school called Victoria’s mother.… Read the rest
Regulation is Recognition
Jun 24th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe greatest risk to the health of the NHS is approaching: the march of the alternative health industry.… Read the rest
David Colquhoun on the Alt Med Report
Jun 24th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe report shows an execrable ability to assess evidence, and it advocates degrees in antiscience.… Read the rest
Regulating the ‘Professions’ of Alt Medicine
Jun 24th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe main body of the report produced for the Government does not contain the word ‘placebo.’… Read the rest
Jeb Bush Wants More, Worse Religious Schools
Jun 24th, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBush has engineered two initiatives that would dilute language requiring a quality public school system. … Read the rest
A really big celestial choir
Jun 23rd, 2008 3:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe New York Times spots ‘tolerance’ where a more jaundiced observer might spot giggling incoherence mixed with wide-eyed gullibility.
[N]early three-quarters of [Americans] say they believe that many faiths besides their own can lead to salvation, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The report…reveals a broad trend toward tolerance and an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict the doctrines of their professed faiths. For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life.”
Yee-ha! The report reveals an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict each other; the report reveals an ability among … Read the rest
Translation
Jun 23rd, 2008 2:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonZiauddin Sardar likes a new translation of the Koran by Tarif Khalidi.
The best way to demonstrate its newness, and how close it is to the original text, is to compare it with an old translation. The translation I have in mind is Khalidi’s predecessor in the Penguin Classics: The Koran, translated with notes by NJ Dawood…It has been a great source of discomfort for Muslims, who see in it deliberate distortions that give the Qur’an violent and sexist overtones. It is the one most non-Muslims cite when they tell me with great conviction what the Qur’an says.
Hmm. That’s interesting – because one has to wonder what Muslims Sardar has in mind. Most Muslims, certainly including most Muslims … Read the rest