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What ARE the Americans playing at? This seems to me to be a very foolish course of action, these problems will not go away if we're blind to them...

Well, the reasoning is pretty clear, if you accept one premise: anything the private sector might the government ought not do. By this way of reasoning, government weather monitoring, morally speaking, tantamount to theft of potential profits from private parties.

I'd posit, I hope in an impartial way, that acceptance of this precept is the greatest difference between the conservative and liberal theories of governance.

An alternative precept is this: the government should do any activity where, on the whole, the public benefits more from government participation than government non-participation. This is a liberal viewpoint. To represent the conservative viewpoint fairly, conservatives don't say this is false, but it is true only in a tautological sense. They believe that in any case where the private sector participates to some degree in an activity, public sector participation a priori impledes the progress of the public good. This means it is never the case that government activity in spheres the private sector is interested in does the public good, people of a conservative bent can hold both premises consistently.

Of course, these are caricatures of liberal and conservative thinking. Most thoughtful people don't reason exclusively from first principles to specific situations, but make allowances for exceptional circumstances.

In any case, while one might violently disagree with government policies of the left or right, the stupidity if it exists doesn't necessarily lie in the process of reasoning, but the first principles from which that reasoning proceeds.

The premise that not taking joy in mass murder makes you a caricature is questionable. I don't think so. You needn't kowtow to the brownshirts just because the voices of the genocidal class are strident and loud.

Jokes are funny. There is no humour (and no truth) attached to comments that suggest that France is more likely to surrender on any given occasion than the US. I am happy to laugh at jokes that poke fun of Australia, even ones that legitimately criticise my country and it's attitudes (eg on climate change, or immigration policy, or slavish capitulation to every dumb thing the US does). It's called caricature, it's a legitimate form of humour that emphasises a particular trait - although it is debatable whether caricature can be extended to a whole nation in that manner. However, comments that imply that French people are cowards don't arise from caricature, because French people are not unusually cowardly. These comments arise from American anger over the fact that the French Government was right in not supporting the invasion of Iraq, the French Government was right in expressing doubts about the veracity and importance of the evidence for WMD, the French Government was right to express doubts about the possibility of a peaceful, prosperous nation arising in the post Saddam era. The people that weren't scared of Hussein or his fabled weapons were the ones who showed courage. Those people who were scared of Hussein and his fabled weapons, so much so that they silently agreed to the deaths of some 20000 Iraqis and 2000 US soldiers are the ones lacking in courage.

Conclusion
A statement must be funny to be a joke.

If anything, pop culture violence is a necessary outlet for males to vent their genetic behaviour without resorting to physical violence. The small percentage of males and females who resort to violent assault are headcases that most likely would lash out violently even in a culture without violent games or pop culture.

Perhaps the strongest evidence as to how deeply entrenched our pop culture is in male, violent posturing are the recent movies with hot chicks weilding death. Rather than growing to embrace female attributes more akin to reconciliation (at least if you go with the matriarchial model of the bonobos) we as a culture are promoting females as violent posturing caricatures of the male psyche.

I couldn't stop staring at the screen when I read this string and I have to ask a simple question; are you (all of you) still determined to fight the first crusade/jihad?

Both arguments don't hold water, and yet they are both right in a way. What frustrates many 'westerners' is the lack of understanding in the Muslim world for how many western-style governments work. For example= Thousands of Muslims have demonstrated, peacefully and not, that the Danish government apologize for something they didn't do. Yes, that is right, the Danish Govt. does not control, fund, or dictate what is printed in the papers. Just as the average Afghani is not responsible for the Taliban's destruction of the Hindu monuments, the Danish Gov. it not responsible for the action of a private buisness, especially because the Newspaper did not break any laws in Denmark. (Also, your lack of acknowledgment that critical caricatures of other religions, especially christian, have been and continue to be printed often is disturbing. If you dare ask what the Christian response is to negative representations of Christ are, the answer is; they tolerate it.)

In response to the parent post... yes. The Jews have received, and in many cases continue to receive, the brunt of religious persecution in the world today, but NO RELIGION'S HISTORY IS PERFECT, because people are not perfect. In the same breath it is presumptuous to claim that the 'European' doesn't know his own history. Perhaps he simply is ignoring it. (You fail to mention that the Jews own recorded biblical history contains accounts of genocide and your assertion that it is unfortunate that 'people like him' exist smaks of the same hate you denounce.)

You must take people one at a time. I should not be liable for my grandparents or fathers actions and neither should you. Apologize for your own mistakes and I will apologize for mine. Expressing compassion and regret for whatever offense or negative incident has happened should be a human action, not a religion-specific trait. (If I remember correctly, the Danish Gov. did so.)

I don't condone offending anyone and I am sorry (any of) you were offended. That aside, I had no involvement in the cartoons or the Taliban destroying monuments or the holocaust or the crusades or slavery or Micro$oft or $CO or the Siberian Gulags, or Hiroshima/Nagasaki or 9/11 or Katrina or my sister-in-law's wedding - all of which are disasters. I like-wise don't hold you responsible for any of them.

The point is to learn from past mistakes and try not to compound them by over-reaction or repetition. Otherwise we will be fighting the crusades/jihad or world war (WW2 included some (not all) Muslims allied with Hitler along with Christians, WW2 was not a religious war).

Hey, did everyone see the new Mac Mini today? Damn that looks cool! I think I'll get a Dell flatscreen and Logitech peripherals to go with it, so I can listen to my MPAA licensed music from anywhere in my Pulte-built home!

Yeahhh...yeah, that's funny. Uhhhm, hey, uhm, hey Mr. Ironic Juxtaposition, hey, you knowww, last time I checked the parts distributors for Apple, Dell, Sony/BMG, etc. aren't, you know, religious fanatics bent on destroying secular civilization with a penchant for burning down buildings if you draw an unflattering caricature of their main guy in the local paper. And, while throwing your frowny-faced 1st gen iPod in the landfill isnt great, I dont think it's exactly destroying the, you know, "weather", unlike some other bad habits we have.

I love your "log cabin republican" type posts. I show them to my conservative christian relatives and they become enlightened.

I don't suppose you've ever considered actually getting to know some Muslims - y'know, like having them over to dinner or something? Maybe have a little jew-bashing session with the local Farrakhan supporters? Please don't, you might be unable to form any more argumentum ad metum (gee, I can use fancy latin too!) once you've actually met some of the people you are so anxious to demonize.

I can invent up some threats to life, liberty and property to attribute to homosexuals if you really want me too. Or I can just parrot other people's hatemongering propaganda the way you keep doing - which do you prefer?

Of course I caught your caricature of a Libertarian. If I hadn't then I wouldn't have insinuated you were a nutjob ;)

What is incongruent between the belief in personal freedom to do what you like to your own body through prostitution or drug use, yet still believe that a fetus is a living human and deserves the same protections as a toddler? The argument that the pro-lifers are only after control of other people's bodies is a strawman thrown out to confuse the issue. There is only one question relevant to the abortion debate: When does a human life acquire the right to life? Some people place that point at birth, some respect that right all the way back to ejaculate in a kleenex. You can think that drug criminalization is wrong, but life begins at conception with no logical incongruency.

Most of the west, except California doesn't give Democrats a chance either, but they still do OK ;)

I'd look up the actually party line on environment, health and saftey (www.lp.org) but I don't have the time right now. Maybe tomorrow. I will say that *I'm* a libertarian and *I* don't believe that all environmental, health and saftey regulations should be thrown out the window, and I am not an atypical Libertarian (amongst the informed, non-anarchist, non-whack jobs anyway). I do think that health and saftey regulations should not be compulsory, but only require full disclosure, and I would support some changes to environmental policy, but throwing away all environmental regulation or consumer/employee saftey disclosure is just stupid. Milton Friedman had some writings that laid out plans along these lines, but he did NOT say everything should be thrown out, although he could be misinterpreted to mean that by someone who was not completely informed. I don't support his idea of ecological reform though, although some of his ideas had some interesting points.

you have to hunt real hard to find out what the hoopla is all about.

No, you have to type "Mohammed" into Google, and it's on the first page. Better yet, type "Mohammed caricatures" and you get several pages of links. That's not "hunting real hard", that's something even a school kid could do.

Considering the fact there were problems over a caricature of a Prophet, I'm amazed it's taken them this long to reverse it. Well, at least it was Yahoo and not Google.

No, that's the others. The violent ones. The minority. Yes, a loud and vocal minority, that gets lots and lots of air time.

The ones that democratically voted a terrorist group to the majority of parliment rule you mean? That minority? I'm sorry, but it's becoming harder and harder to say it's a lunatic fringe...

As are some europeans. And some americans. In those cases, we consider them lunatics, lone offenders. Even when a nation's war machinery wreaks havoc on some foreign country, we make a difference between that and that nation's people. And yet with the arabs, we call them all terrorists (or at least potential terrorist, or terrorist suspects) because a bunch of them actually are?

Which embassies did americans and europeans storm over which cartoon? How many people are killed over a GWB caricature? Who's being bombed over the darwinism vs. crationism debate?

It's not so much the existance of terrorists, as number of them and what they fight for that makes it different.

1. Saying other people don't support free speech does not make it right for Muslims to do the same. Austria jailing a person for saying the gas chambers at Auswitch was a hoax is just as bad.

2. "Not only that, but you try to justify it by saying christians don't act the same way." I never said that.
I never claimed a large number of people acted violently or endorsed violence. They simply want to censor free speech that is at odds with their religious beliefs. You seem confused.

3. "Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical Muslim cleric, has said the cartoonist behind caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have sparked outrage across the Arab world should be tried and executed under Islamic law." Therefore literal interpretation of Muslim laws means executing those for dissent. This means that a moderate Muslim is one who does not follow the practices of his faith to the letter, much like a moderate Christian, or Jew.

Well, the Holocaust is a matter of historical fact - not a matter of belief. I'm sure some jews would be grossly offended if you made caricatures of it - the same way muslims are offended by the Mohammed caricatures, but that isn't the same. And yes, certain countries in Europe do have real issues with people trying to deny it, because we've been down that road once and those people would like do go down it again. The USA never had a chapter of history as dark as that, at least not that people are trying to deny. It's as if people claimed the Ku Klux Klan never existed (or at least never did anything bad against black people), or that slavery never existed.

This isn't the time for the "Those who sacrifice a little liberty..." quote. If legislating that little piece of history as truth means the crimes of Hitler and his government is not as easily denied, I'd say that it net serves to protect liberty and all that those who fought and died in WWII sacrificed their lives for. At least I've never heard anyone who is in favor of equal rights complain about it - only those who would like to take rights away from people and treat those of other ethnic groups or beliefs as inferiors. Pretty hypocritical to claim you're discriminated against when what you want it to discriminate others. All you're complaining about then is that you're not on top.

> Indeed, the newspaper who published the Muhammad caricatures, had previously rejected to publish Jesus caricatures not to enrage Christians.

Is there documentation of this online somewhere?

>I wonder how many Danish newspapers would print that?

Indeed, the newspaper who published the Muhammad caricatures, had previously rejected to publish Jesus caricatures not to enrage Christians.

Get this in perspective: worldwide, roughly 200,000 people have protested the Muhammad caricatures - that makes less than 0.02% of Muslims.

Whilst it's easy to say that only of Muslims are extremists, I'm curious as to what proportion of Christians, Buddhists or Hindus hold similar extreme views.

You were the one making the moral equivalence between the single death of an abortionist more than a decade ago, and the continuing deaths due to fanatical Muslims today as if the one excused the other.

Three more people dead as cartoon riots spiral

PESHAWAR: Violent new protests against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad engulfed Pakistan yesterday, leaving Western businesses in flames and three people dead, including an eight-year-old boy.

Two people died in northwestern Peshawar city when police fired tear gas and shot in the air to quell around 50,000 demonstrators who torched a KFC outlet and trashed a Norwegian mobile phone company's offices.

Riots also flared for a second day in the historic city of Lahore, where another person was killed, and in at least half a dozen other towns across the world's second most populous Muslim nation.

Officials said more than 70 people, including a policeman, were wounded in the violence, sparked by the printing of the caricatures in a Danish newspaper in September and later in other Western countries, including Norway.

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Deaths During Cartoon Protests

At least 11 people are reported to have been killed and more than 50 injured during demonstrations in Libya.

The protests, outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi, were over the recent publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Really? When was the last time that happened? Do you have a cite?

Just yesterday 15 Christians including three children and an priest were killed in Nigeria during as retaliation for the cartoons of Muhammad published in Denmark.

15 killed in Nigerian cartoon protests

MAIDUGURI (Nigeria): Police and soldiers patrolled the deserted streets of this northern Nigerian town on Sunday, one day after thousands of Nigerian Muslims, protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed, attacked Christians and burned churches, killing at least 15 persons.

On Saturday, rioters burned down 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order. Security forces arrested dozens of people suspected of taking part in the violence.

An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw mobs of Muslim protesters swarm through the city centre with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tyre around one man, poured petrol on him and set him ablaze.

``Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by the rioters,'' Mr. Ezeoke said.

Witnesses said three children and a Catholic priest were among those killed.

Thousands of people have died in this West African country since 2000 in religious violence fuelled by the adoption of the strict Islamic or Shariah legal code by a dozen States in the north, seen by most Christians as a move to impose religious hegemony on non-Muslims.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a student in study of religion. You are wrong.
 
The dhimmi status has, by some, been extended to basically include all theists. However, the dhimmi status is subjective, based on fatwas (which often contradict each other), and any Muslim is free to accept or not accept a fatwa regardless of which Imam or Ayatollah made it. So some Muslims accept pretty much any religion/worldview, while some Shia Muslims think all Sunni Muslims should die, and vice versa.
 
So what does this really mean? At the moment, Islam kills about 1% of the number of victims of starvation, or 4% of the number of AIDS deaths.* (9/11 was an exception - only approximately nine times the number of WTC victims starved on the same day.) Not fun, but it is not like the full billion of Muslims alive are up in arms. Most just ignore the order to kill infidels much in the same way as most christians ignore the rule that slave trade is okay.
 
What does this tell us? What religions say and what religious people do is a very, very big difference. Look at Russian Orthodoxy, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Martinism - they are as different from each other as practical religions can possibly be, and they all swear by the same book. Islam is just as diverse! The radicals just get all the press. Get this in perspective: worldwide, roughly 200,000 people have protested the Muhammad caricatures - that makes less than 0.02% of Muslims. Roughly 30 people have died in the protests. Over this couple of weeks, more people have probably been hit by lightning. Islamic radicalism is an absolute non-event put under a huge magnifying lens because Bush keeps throwing hundreds of billions of $ at it.
 
* Per day, 27,000 people die from starvation, 7000 from AIDS (Source: WHO). 300 (direct) victims of Islam is my own estimate, and the majority should be from suicides and botched abortions, not war.

Twitter, the only thing you post is FUD, so look who is talking. You don't believe in Linux or Open Source or any of that other crap -- you stand for nothing except being a poor caricature of a Anti-M$ Zealot.