Professor Myers’ characterization was protected opinion, not a false statement of fact.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Kevin Sutcliffe Dismisses ‘Islamophobia’ Charge
Maryam Namazie notes that Islamism conflates criticism of Islam with racism against Muslims.
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Dan Hines on the ‘Real’ Enemies of Reason
Why doesn’t Dawkins go after corporations instead? Because he likes to feel superior. QED.
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Sam Harris Rebukes Nature
Nature‘s coverage of religion has been unfailingly tactful — to the point of obscurantism.
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Interview With Ayaan Hirsi Ali
‘Islam closes the mind. Western civilization opened the minds of their own people to science.’
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Mina Ahadi on a New Wave of Atrocities in Iran
The Islamic Republic regime has launched a new wave of torture and executions in Iran’s prisons.
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Iran Closes ‘Western’ Barber Shops
Authorities say the barbers were encouraging un-Islamic behaviour by offering Western hairstyles.
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Debating the Future of the Bamiyan Buddhas
Should they be rebuilt, or left as a monument to destruction.
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The Rapture is not a viable exit strategy
The Pentagon is now a minor branch of the Southern Baptist Convention, it seems.
Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering “freedom packages” to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended. What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which “soldiers for Christ” hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.
Oh well now wouldn’t that have been a good idea. Clever old Pentagon. What’s it doing, trying to get somebody else to throw a loaded passenger jet at it?
The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up…[T]hanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the “Military Crusade.” Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word “crusade” and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology. [T]he episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups.
Oh I don’t know – if you’re going to have a giant military, it probably ought to be kind of devout, don’t you think? Better safe than sorry, right?
The extent to which such relationships have damaged international goodwill toward the U.S. is beyond measure…[A] leading Turkish newspaper, Sabah, published an article on Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, who is the U.S. liaison to the Turkish military — and who appeared in the Christian Embassy video. The article described Christian Embassy as a “radical fundamentalist sect,” perhaps irreparably damaging Sutton’s primary job objective of building closer ties to the Turkish General Staff, which has expressed alarm at the influence of fundamentalist Christian groups inside the U.S. military. Our military personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the Bible. Yet by turning a blind eye to OSU and Christian Embassy activities, the Pentagon is, in essence, endorsing their proselytizing.
Oh, relax. Lighten up. Soon enough our military personnel will be wearing an oath to defend the Bible, not the Constitution, and that’s as it should be. If you’re not good, you’re evil – understand?
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When a Lesbian Says ‘We Are all Hezb’ Allah Now!’
When my daughter’s friend told me a couple of weeks a go, that her socialist lesbian friend has a poster on her wall saying: “we are all Hezb’ Allah Now!” I said: “my God! [and I am an atheist] something has gone fundamentally wrong.”
I asked myself, what are they trying to do, mock socialists? Or, are they simply brainwashed? What is this world coming to?
This young woman has all the necessary ingredients for fighting against political Islam and Hezb’ Allah. First of all she is a woman. Just the fact of being a female is enough to make you a staunch enemy of a radically misogynist movement, unless you are brainwashed to do the opposite.
To add to the irony, she is a lesbian. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death according to Islam and in countries under its rule. To be homosexual makes you want to flee from any place that the Islamists have any power. Dozens of homosexuals have been hanged in recent months by the Islamic Republic of Iran. She, a lesbian, born in Iran, or in a region under Hezb’ Allah, would have to seek refuge in Britain. But she is lucky enough to be born here and does not have to live in the fear of her life, like poor Pegah who fled Iran to seek refuge in Britain, and whom the British government now wants to deport back to Iran*. Is this socialist-lesbian supporter of Hezb’ Allah aware that her support of political Islam makes Pegah’s case even more difficult? The Home Office does seek legitimization for such deportations by such quasi-left Islamist propaganda. And finally she claims to be a socialist. Wherever one stands on the political spectrum, it is a well-known and accepted fact that socialism is about equality, fairness and aspirations for a fairer society. If one chooses socialism, that should mean one cares for fellow human beings and aspires to equality and freedom and to all those values that are despised by the Islamic movement. Many thousands of socialists have been imprisoned, tortured and executed by the Islamic Republic alone.
Then, what has gone wrong? Why is she so passionate about the Hezb’ Allah? An ideological falsification is responsible for this turn of events. Pragmatism has helped the course of events, as well. Let’s start with the latter. This most probably good-hearted young woman is rightly sick and tired of American and British aggression and crimes committed in Iraq and the Middle East. She is sick and tired of the injustices imposed on the Palestinian people. She rightly condemns American and British states for all these crimes and atrocities and for their full fledged support for the state of Israel and last year’s war on Lebanon. She is just to do so. However, on the other side, since George Bush has defined the enemy as Islamists, she automatically turns to full support for the Islamists.
The American and British aggression and military actions against the people in the Middle East have helped to draw a wrong image of the Islamist movement. The Islamist movement and ideology have been falsified as the liberators of the people in the Middle East or the Palestinians. This is false. Islamists are one the most brutal movements in the history of mankind. They are no liberators. They are a force of reaction and darkness. This message must be spread.
Islamists are not the spokesperson for the Palestinians or Iraqi people. They do not represent the pain and grief these people suffer by these wars. They are not people’s representatives; they are brutal and ruthless. What we need to make clear is: in the war between US and Islamists, between the two poles of terrorism, we do not need to support either. We must condemn both. We should form a third pole, a third voice to oppose both.
24 August 2007
Majedi.azar@gmail.com
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Dreger’s Report on the Bailey Controversy [pdf]
‘A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age’
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Alice Dreger on Writing in Fear
Intimidation impedes free inquiry.
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What on Earth are West Midlands Police up to?
The Ofcom referral caters to the sense of ‘victim culture’ peddled by the MCB and others.
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Pentagon Nearly Sent ‘Left Behind’ to Troops
Apparently Pentagon wonks thought what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.
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Ex-Klansman Convicted in 1964 Murders
Charges dropped in 1964 because local police were colluding with the Klan, federal prosecutors have said.
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Italy Will Grant Asylum to Pegah Emambakhsh
So she won’t be deported to Iran to be flogged or executed. Good.
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We’re going to have people saying unpopular things
J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University, has promoted a theory that his critics think is inaccurate, insulting and potentially damaging to transgender women. In the past few years, several prominent academics who are transgender have made a series of accusations against the psychologist…Lynn Conway, a prominent computer scientist at the University of Michigan, sent out an e-mail message comparing Dr. Bailey’s views to Nazi propaganda…Dr. Ben Barres, a neurobiologist at Stanford, said in reference to Dr. Bailey’s thesis in the book, “Bailey seems to make a living by claiming that the things people hold most deeply true are not true.”
Oh no, not that. If he does that then nothing is too bad to do to him.
Dr. Conway, the computer scientist, kept a running chronicle of the accusations against Dr. Bailey on her Web site…The site also included a link to the Web page of another critic of Dr. Bailey’s book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided…Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect.
Nice, huh?
“What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field,” said Alice Dreger, an ethics scholar and patients’ rights advocate at Northwestern who, after conducting a lengthy investigation of Dr. Bailey’s actions, has concluded that he is essentially blameless. “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems not only for science but free expression itself.”
For science, for free expression, for research, scholarship, inquiry, thought – the whole shooting match. Not good.
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Jesus Smoked
Malaysian newspaper published an image of Jesus holding a cigarette. But is that really Jesus?
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Is Stealing Wireless Wrong?
Philosophers Nick Bostrom and Julian Baggini comment.
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Yet Another Complaint About ‘Aggressive’ Atheism
First put words in its mouth, then say it can best be called aggressive.