Statesman
One day recently in south Belfast a Catholic priest told a room full of Protestants that they were "like the Nazis". At about the same time in north Belfast a group of loyalists picketing a service at a cemetery threatened Catholic mourners that they would "dig up your graves". Sectarianism, the force that fuelled more than three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, hasn't vanished with the coming of peace.
Perhaps the history of Northern Ireland is such, that we must be patient. Still, it is amazing that in this day and age, in Britain, such a case of segregation exists.
Support for moderate parties has evaporated and David Trimble and John Hume, never a happy match but at least able to sit in a room together, have given way to Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams.
I don't expect non-Britons to understand, but this made me almost piss myself laughing! Ok, I'd had a few too many glasses of Chardonay...
I wonder how many staunch supporters of bombing the shit out of innocent Arabs a long long way away would agree with tax-payers' money being spent on segregation within these beautiful isles...
I expect tomorrow, when I wake up with a hangover, I will regret my naivety...
Washington Post
One has to wonder how the Catholic church defines being homosexual when you're celibate...does it mean playing Madonna albums to the congregation? Or serving rosé wine as the 'blood of Christ' perhaps...?
But in Rome, the head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, said that the problems of homosexual and heterosexual candidates are not equivalent. Although many people think homosexuality is a "normal condition of the human person," he told Vatican Radio, it "absolutely contradicts human anthropology" and violates "natural law."
Right. And presumably rising from the dead three days after being buried is anthropologically natural...?
Mainichi
"I only expressed my personal feelings, and it has nothing to do with my official duty as justice minister. It would be regrettable if it had caused misunderstanding, and I'd like to correct my earlier remarks," Sugiura said in a statement released an hour after his controversial statement.
If you oppose the death penalty or simply wish to save a man let your voice be heard.
NAP-NT
On Friday 21st October 2005, Singapore's President Sellapan Ramanathan rejected Nguyen's call for clemency. The Singapore Government has announced that the execution will take place on Friday, 2nd December 2005. Unless a last-minute reprieve is granted, Nguyen will become the first Australian since 1993 to be executed overseas. Act now!
Some of you might be surprised to learn this is where I spent my weekend...
A great nationdeserves the truth
Can't be bothered blogging...so here's someone else's blog!
Philosophy Matters
“It is always our responsiblity to acknowledge where something has gone wrong, but never our right to punish.”
LA Times
A lawyer recruited 29 people, including some from a Bible study class, to stage more than 60 automobile crashes on Los Angeles freeways and collected millions of dollars in bogus insurance claims, authorities said Wednesday.
Such crash rings are not new to Southern California.
A family of three burned to death on the Long Beach Freeway in 1996 in an accident linked to a crash ring.
Listen here
Special shouts to Hooch@31 Flavours, Scary D@Dead Air and Gwaan Gal! And a very special one to Larb-iful Sasa(-:
Washington post
Woodward testified before Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald last week but said the source would not release him from his pledge of confidentiality on the question of publicly discussing their off-the-record conversation.
Perhaps I am a tad naive, but since when do journalists (especially of Woodward's sature) need permission to disclose such vital information?
Sappho
- You have said that you would like to make a muslim "Life of Brian".
"Yes, Muhammed is a much more colourful personality than Jesus. Such a film could be a learning instrument for muslims. There are some islamic films but they don't show the image of Muhammed and they are not really about him. They are more about how islam was established. I would really like to make a critical film about him. I could write a script very quickly."
Never mind about offending Muslims, as a Python fan, I am offended! I'd like to point out, that as I understand it, The Life of Brian was not a critique of Jesus, but rather of his followers up to this day. That said, I would defend Hirsi Ali's freedom of speech to the death(no, not litterally!). What I would say, is that what needs to be fought is religious fundamentalism, not Islam.
If you refrain from making cartoons of Muhammed to accommodate Islamic intolerance, then you will go back to the time of Christian intolerance.
When would that be:at the time of Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ? Bush's 'crusade'?
Brother Kenya's paradigm
Nightmerica is where we live now, citizens, five years on. It's a place from which, I'd like to think, we might some day awaken and find that it was nothing but a cautionary tale, but something tells me that's too much to hope for.
Permaculture Reflections
All this leads us back to permaculture ethics, or, using Zizek’s approach, Permaculture’s guidelines for avoiding excess. The first tenet is to care for the Earth. Obviously, puerile fantasies of space colonization aside, we are all dependent on a healthy planet to sustain us. To endanger life on this planet is to endanger ourselves. This is clear enough. All life has an inherent value. Once this is recognised, thoughtless environmental destruction can be avoided. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development is a step in the right direction: “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied…”
The second tenet, contained within the first, is to care for people. People need access to clean air and clean water. To borrow from Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, [sensible, sustainable] housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
BBC-File on 4
Tony Blair stepped in to speed up compensation for those injured in the London bombings - but other victims of violent crime have to wait years.
Speaking of Tony Blair's recent intervention to help the victims of the London bombings get their pay-outs quicker, Mr Reid said it would be an "injustice" for those out of the public eye to experience longer delays.
An important question is why are they out of the public eye? Why is the victim of a homophobic, racist or even of an Northern Ireland-related (see Omagh) attack less important than the victim of Islamist terrorism? Could it be, that it is more useful for the PM to express outrage at such attacks and sympathy for it's victims than in other cases?
I'll just send you to Colcam on this one.
I'll add this from Reuters.
Oh and on the killing of Menezes? Well, here's something from UPI:
The bullets, which expand and splinter inside the victim's body, were prohibited for military use under the Hague Convention of I899. However, the Home Office said Wednesday there was no restriction on their domestic use.
Oh right, so it's ok to use something domestically which is forbidden in warfare...twisted logic.
And anybody charged? Well not yet, it would seem...
BBC
The report will then be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will decide whether to bring charges against any of the officers involved.
News 24
There is a growing concern that the underlying motivation for the cull was profit from the sale of elephant meat, skin and by-products - estimated by The Earth organisation at R6,5m for every 800 elephants killed.
New births would ensure a stead supply of meat - and income - if the cull took place over many years, as was planned.
"This would of course explain the reluctance to fully explore contraception as a viable alternative, for contraception means no births, no meat and no extra income," said Anthony.
Now, I don't know much about elephants or nature conservation, but it seems to me the argument put forward by some, that we just don't understand that there are far too many elephants and that they are endangering other species, begs the question: is it perhaps not humans and human interference which is the problem? Perhaps a cull is needed.
BBC
Credit goes to Colcam
The bird's fate was sealed when it knocked over 23,000 and organisers feared it could knock down more. An exterminator cornered the sparrow and shot it.
The backlash followed as soon as the news got out - especially as the common house sparrow was put on the endangered list in the Netherlands last year.
That makes the shooting illegal, doesn't it?
But Big Brother creators Endemol said things started to get out of hand when staff started receiving threats.
"It was something we wish would never have happened at all," Endemol spokesman Jeroen van Waardenberg told the BBC News website. "But we made a decision because the project was very important to us and is to be screened in 16 countries."
Who cares about one stupid little bird compared to the international success of a domino-record programme?
"I just wish we could channel all this energy that went into one dead sparrow into saving the species," he said.
That's just plain sick.
The subject came up on Question Time last week. Should parents be told before a minor asks for an abortion?
What I find infuriating is that on sensitive cases such as this one many people seem to believe that one can give a simple 'for' or 'against' answer. There are many things to be taken into account. Parents obviously have a right to know when something like this happens. On the other hand a child has a right to confedentiality, and most importantly a child needs to be protected particularly in cases when it might be dangerous for them to let their parents know. It's just not the case, that parents are always fit to decide for their children. An 'outside' protection is necessary.
So, as with other issues concerning children, it is necessary to have flexibility with regards to laws.
