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While I agree with you in principle, I think that the act of burning holy books is usually intended in a very religiously intolerant light, if not as an incitement to violence. Here in South Africa, a court interdict was issued recently against a Muslim cleric who was going to burn Bibles in response to the chap in the States a while ago, which I agree with, personally, no-one should make public displays about how much they hate someone else's religion (or race or whatever else for that matter).

Desecrating holy objects has already been thoroughly studied under the auspices of Flag Desecration. Normally citizens of a country who burn their own flag in protest are not expressing hatred for their country, but unrest against the established government and policies of the country and with unquestioning adherence to an ideal that is not being lived up to.

It is a sign that patriotism has lost sight of common sense when allegience to a flag is considered more important than the quality of life of it's citizens. So to, it is clear that adherents to a religion have lost all perspective when burning copies of their book, drawing cartoons of their mascot, etc are seen as greater crimes against them than murder.

In short, unless you are spewing bile and using the stunt to draw attention to your bile, the act of desecration or blasphemy itself is not an act of hate, only an act of sensational protest. Anyone who brings up hate crimes are only trying to justify their outrage. The act of desecration is meant to highlight the fact that the offended party's priorities are dangerously skewed. When they react wrathfully, they are helpfully affirming that accusation.

Islam needs to learn what the rest of the internet figured out long ago: Simply don't feed the trolls. Grow a thicker skin and move on with your life. Christians honestly don't care if you burn a bible. And why should they? Athiests don't care if you burn On the Origin of Species, you can buy up or donate to a bonfire as many copies as you'd like, make any sort of dance that you want, as long as you are not absconding our copies to burn or depriving a jurisdiction if it's tax-funded library, then it's just your loss.

You'll also find not many people are doing that. Again, why would they? They will provoke zero irrational reactions from athiests. Christian bibles get burned sometimes, but again, who cares? They don't care, they have plenty. Invented the printing press and all. Lots of people hate Christianity and they know it, but they "turn the other cheek" and that's a good strategy.

Burning the Quran? That evokes irrational reactions. Since no people are harmed, no property is stolen and nothing of real consequence is transpiring, then the reaction itself is uncalled for and more people will try it in order to protest the reaction itself. This is one of the core things people (including myself) do dislike about Islam: putting idolotry ahead of the quality of human life.

That is wrong. I don't care if it's wrong because some people don't think before they react, or if it's wrong because a religious culture trained you to behave that way. Whatever the reason, it is wrong and I value my right to protest against it. To highlight it and to illustrate it.

No, its illegal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_in_Germany

http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/200501100.asp

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/139

"While the school district responded by stating that homeschooling is illegal, the parents' maintained that their fundamental rights as parents would be violated if they were forced to return the children to public school. All of the families obtained excellent packaged curriculums from German correspondence schools, and demonstrated to school officials that their children were receiving a proper education.
Heinz Kohler, the county education director, dismissed the families' beliefs, stating, "you and your children are not living in isolation on some island but rather in an environment posing intra- and extracurricular situations where you'll have to accept that your world view will be curtailed." Mr. Kohler further explained that homeschooling could not be allowed as "children should not be encapsulated or kept apart from the outside world. In these cases, the parents' rights to personally educate their children would prevent the children from growing up to be responsible individuals within society"

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3788

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Germany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_France#Disabled_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom#The_UK_before_the_European_Court_of_Human_Rights

I'm not saying that Europe is broken and the U.S. is perfect, but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

-b

If you believe you are inherently more entitled to a job than someone from another country, just because you were born here, then you are a xenophobic prick.

What I think is that if a company is receiving American tax dollars to stay in business, it's first obligation is to those people whose money it's taking. Got a problem with that?

And why do oikophobes always feel obliged to refer to those with opposing views with terms like "xenophobe", that imply disagreement must some form of neurosis?

By the way, how's the sharia law thing working out for you?

Having seen what socialist government has done for you, I think we'll pass - thanks anyway! If you like Obama so well, we'll be happy to send him over so he can stand for Labour's next PM.

This proposal comes as additional proof of the very basic lies that we were proposed when joining the union: It was said that crimes should never be covered by european legislation, now they are!!! They said europe was to be democratic: only a few countries had a referendum on it and the outcome was NO. And regardless they keep trying to impose the same costitution over and over again!!!!

It comes as no wonder that when properly informed about the lisbon treaty the Irish voted "NO".

It should be clear by a long time that Europe is really going against the people. More and more europeans are realizing that this project it's being made and carried on by politicians in need of a uberstate where selfappointed people are not accountable for their actions.

From where I write It is comonplace that crimes are to be investigated by the police and warrants be issued only by judges. But of course when you put corrupted eurocrats in the mixture a costitution becomes a treaty, a no becomes a "next time" and most importantly you have to remember that THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CORPORATIONS. For the same reason that if a corruption scandal erupts in my country the responsible gets a good chance not to be elected... but if a corruption scandal happens in brussel what happens? Here is one answer http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3057

(Forget the contents of this message ASAP or else you can be marked as (Choose what applies best): FASCIST - RACIST - ISLAMOFOBIC - EUROSCEPTIC - NAZIST - EXTREMIST - TERRORIST)

Hard to believe, but they were taken offline by court order in the United States.

In some parts of Europe the election campaigns of a party is partly paid by the state. The amount of money is based on the amount of votes that the party got in the previous election. http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2819

Take for instance BBC: It is a public funded news organisation and is the exact opposite of FOX. So BBC has no incentive to like corporate-sponsored candidates and they can actually be true reporters.

Right.

Got any more like that? Ah, yes you do!

Take France: They always hate monopolies, hate corporatocracy, hate anything US-mass made. So for them to rule against Apple is understandable.

That must be why their economy is going like gangbusters, providing gobs of opportunity for young people.

EU is mostly pro-consumer and is not awed by corporate money power primarily because EU member presidents and parliments are funded by taxes and public funds, and not by corporates directly.

Right.

I know this is slashdot. But Soviet-style bureaucracy (soon to be more) and economic despair are rather a high price to pay for unlocked phones.

As it is, if I were a moderator, I'd either not give you any points or would mod you flamebait, because you're pretty clearly ignorant of Medieval Islamic civilization.

Spain, under the Moorish rule, was by far the most advanced state in western Europe, and its medical, mathematical and scholarly abilities were greater than that of Rome that had existed centuries before.

It was via Muslim scholars that a great deal of Classical Greek learning and philosophy was saved.

Best summary of the case:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2173

If the Chinese says that the importance of defending social order and national rights is equally important as the importance of defending against racism and individual rights, they could severly _increase_ the repression before they would even be on par with Europe.

It is not a question in most/all countries of whether free speech is curtailed, it is rather a question of exactly which speech is curtailed.

Go ahead, tell the Chinese that our concerns are right and theirs are wrong.

For Islamists, the imperative to veil women justifies almost any means. Sometimes they try to buy off resistance. Some French Muslim families, for instance, are paid 500 euros (around $600) per quarter by extremist Muslim organizations just to have their daughters wear the hijab. This has also happened in the United States. Indeed, the famous and brave Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan recently told the Jerusalem Post that after she moved to the United States in 1991, Saudis offered her $1,500 a month to cover her head and attend a mosque.

But what Islamists use most is intimidation. A survey conducted in France in May 2003 found that 77 percent of girls wearing the hijab said they did so because of physical threats from Islamist groups. A series in the newspaper Libération in 2003 documented how Muslim women and girls in France who refuse to wear the hijab are insulted, rejected, and often physically threatened by Muslim males. One of the teenage girls interviewed said, "Every day, bearded men come to me and advise me strongly on wearing the veil. It is a war. For now, there are no dead, but there are looks and words that do kill."

France's Toll of Destruction

Last night probably another hundred cars were set ablaze - as will be the case tonight, tomorrow night, and the following ones. Before large-scale rioting started on 27 October the police had already registered 30,000 car-becues this year - an average of, indeed, 100 a day. What a boost this must be to the French automobile industry. In the same period there were 3,800 attacks on police officers - a "normal" non-riot average of almost 13 a day.

The 751 No-Go Zones of France

They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS, and there are 751 of them as of last count. They are convienently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations.

What are they? Those places in France that the French state does not control. They range from two zones in the medieval town of Carcassone to twelve in the heavily Muslim town of Marseilles, with hardly a town in France lacking in its ZUS. The ZUS came into existence in late 1996 and according to a 2004 estimate, nearly 5 million people live in them.

Comment: A more precise name for these zones would be Dar al-Islam, the place where Muslims rule. (November 14, 2006)

Nov. 28, 2006 update: For an insight into how bad things are, the police in Lyons demonstrated on Nov. 9, denouncing "violence against the forces of order." Things have reached a pretty sad state when the police have to demonstrate in the streets against the criminals.

The New French Revolution

They rule gangland style, combined with the male-dominated traditions of the Arab countries they came from. It's gotten so bad that, today, most of the young women only feel safe if they are covered up, or if they stay at home. Girls who want to look just like other French girls are considered provocative, asking for trouble......

"I was gang raped by three people I knew, and I couldn't say anything, because in my culture, your family is dishonored if you lose your virginity," says Bellil. "So I kept quiet, and the rapes continued. The next time, I was pulled off a commuter train and no one lifted a finger to help me. ...Everybody turned their head awa

One could also put it in a slightly different way: Europe lacks what America still has, namely the so-called "conservative reserves," or as the German sociologist Arnold Gehlen explained over 30 years ago, "the reserves in national energy and self-confidence, primitiveness and generosity, wealth and potential of every kind." Every so often I travel to the U.S. to recharge my batteries, and I am not the only European Conservative to do so. From time to time one needs to breathe the air of freedom before submerging again in the stifling atmosphere of Europe.

It is interesting to contrast this....

Facing down a culture where they talk like crazies

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."

... with this...

Beheading Nations - The Islamization of Europe's Cities

In an online story in newspaper The Daily Telegraph that was removed "for legal reasons," former Muslim Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo warned that British Muslims could soon form a state within the state. Dr Sookhdeo believed that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law." "In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future - and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate." "Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, there will be no advertisements showing naked or semi-naked women, and so on."

The next step will be pushing the Government to recognize sharia law for Muslim communities - which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" to deny them this. Sookhdeo noted that there is already a Sharia Law Council for the UK. "There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time - and stay married, in sharia law, to all four." "The more fundamentalist clerics think that it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the Government to concede on the issue of sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that."

Europe is in trouble....

Its going to become another pawn issue in the Ultra-Manly U.S. Pride game

I'm forgoing moderating you down
Good, because the point of the mod system isn't to mod down people you disagree with.

you can't be fired unless there is just cause (and if so, you get a time unit of notice so you can find another job

If you suck at your job, why should a company keep paying you to work there? Not sure why I should be required to keep paying a worthless employee while they screw around looking for a new job.

The problem is this "just cause" nonsense. In the US, let alone France, "just cause" is terribly hard to define and defend. I've seen people get fired for sexually harrassing women and drinking on the job, and then sue and win.

a law that says you can fire anyone under the age of 26 with no reason, and no time delay, whenever you want

Unless they've been working for with a company for 2 years... and why should a company have to keep you on once they fired you? I just don't get it.

Oh, you won't sleep with the boss? Fired.
I would assume that is already covered under existing French law, as it is in the US. If this were to happen the person being fired would easily win the lawsuit.

You called in sick too much this week. Fired.
Some people call in sick a ridiculous amount of the time. I've seen people miss almost a month of work with a new sickness almost everyday. They were (thankfully) fired.

I don't like how you're dressing. Fired.
An employer should be able to uphold a certain dress code.

We hired on my 40-year-old brother. Fired.
I don't see the problem. Why do you think the government should have such extensive power over the hiring and firing practices of private companies?

Egalitarian societies [wikipedia.org] should not tollerate such laws.

Excuse me while I go throw up... but at least that gives me a chance to throw out one of my favorite quotes:

"Prosperity or egalitarianism - you have to choose. I favor freedom -
you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity
for an illusion."
Mario Vargas Llosa
(Peruvian novelist and politician)

And here's a little article you may wish to read about the future of your "egalitarian" economy: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/933

1. the muslims were provoked: true

Provoked perhaps deliberately. Here are the 12 cartoons that were actually published. However it might be much of this furor is over three cartoons that were never published.

This is from the following article...

"The dossier contained at least three cartoons that had never been published in Denmark. These were brutally offensive; indeed, they were incendiary. One shows Mohammed as a pedophiliac demon. Another shows Mohammed with a pig snout. The third shows a praying Muslim being raped by a dog."

And confirmed here...

"...three other pictures that had been sent to Muslim e-mails by anonymous people"

I think it's highly irresponsible and inflamitory to go on a tour protesting with 12 cartoons that were published in the popular press and sit them along side 3 that came via "anonymous email".

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/698

for the cartoons

I love the irony of the calls for violence against political cartoons, several of which, ya know...imply things about Islam and violence...

So far, said Mr Preatoni, there was little evidence that western hacker groups were taking any action in retaliation for the Islamic attacks.
Zombie Tron has risen from the dead to wreak vengence on those using his name, and retaliate for the attacks...

Forgive me for posting this URL here:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/698

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4361260.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4660796.stm
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1 558612
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfi le=data/theuae/2006/January/theuae_January687.xml& section=theuae&col=

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=danish+cart oons+upset+muslims&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

From the desk of Paul Belien on Wed, 2005-11-23 00:08

When conversations turn to health care, I am always reminded of my grandfather. He was 91 when he died. He had never been ill. He had never needed medical treatment in his whole life. Upon reaching his nineties, however, he required prostate surgery.

Like all Belgians, my grandfather had paid wage-related contributions to cover health insurance throughout his entire professional life. The Belgian health care system is a so-called pay-as-you-go system. Today's young and healthy do not set money aside for their own future needs, but are compelled to pay for today's sick and elderly. As my grandfather had never needed much health care, he had been a net contributor to the system. Now was the first time he was going to claim something back.

He had his operation in May. In November he was dead. The prostate operation had gone fine, but afterwards the hospital had given him an antibiotic drug that caused complete deafness. Though there were other, but costlier, drugs available, the hospital gave the old man the cheapest one. They knew about the side-effects, but it did not strike them as an unreasonable and unjust thing to do. Why should it? A man who has already had 90 healthy years of life surely has no right to complain about deafness when some people get more seriously ill or die at a far younger age. When my grandfather left the hospital he was completely deaf. He lost his will to live. Six months later, he was dead.

....

Soon euthanasia might be the price the solidarity principle of the welfare state imposes on those people whose health care is costing society the most. Politicians in Belgium and the Netherlands have already granted their citizens a "right to die" by means of a lethal (and cheap) euthanasia injection. Is this a new "freedom" that the state, which is constantly restricting every other aspect of our lives, generously bestows on us? Or does it boil down to "economic euthanasia," which enables governments to save money by eliminating those that cost the welfare state too much?

link:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/504