Wednesday, February 18, 2009
In Shock News, The Daily Mail Lies About Muslims Again, (And Libraries)
Those Muslims eh? They come over here, live perfectly quiet and respectable lives, get jobs, raise families, WHAT ARE THEY UP TO EH? The Daily Mail, in an exercise to allow people who have left this country to complain how bad things are (ie: "I saw a person with dark skin sit down on the bus! This is political correctness gone mad! I'm moving to Spain!!!") regularly prints fictional articles, and today it's about how libraries are supposedly going to be told to put the Koran on their top shelves to avoid offending Muslims. Only, if you note that this guidance is coming from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and do the literally seconds of work needed to find the report (PDF file) you'll find that Steve Doughty, the Daily Mail journalist, has lied. The MLA are not telling me, or any of my colleagues, to put the Koran above other things, they are reporting on Leicester City Libraries receiving a few complaints about the Koran not being on the top shelf. It wasn't even a campaign by a group of disgruntled Muslims, the Library Service went out and talked to such a group for their opinion. The report doesn't even mention whether Leicester followed the group's advice.
I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!
I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!
Labels: Conservatives, Daily Mail, Islam, Islamophobia, journalists, Koran, libraries, Museums Libraries and Archives Council, Muslims, religion
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Labels: Christianity, Fundamentalists- Christian, Fundamentalists- Islamic, humour, Islam, religion, YouTube
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Archbishop defends Sharia remarks. But can Rowan Williams survive The Sun's frothage?
Arch enemy: Bash the Bishop.
Nearly 15,000 Sun readers rang our You the Jury hotline urging him to go.
That phone number being 1111 1111111.
Meanwhile our phone lines and email queues were flooded by furious responses.
Brian Fuller, 46, of Luton, said: "This is the guy who leads our country’s religion and it sounds like he’s given up. He’ll soon be asking us all to face Mecca when we say our prayers."
That sounds like someone who has his finger on the pulse of current debate. Williams wants a discussion on letting Muslim courts decide things = Turning this country into an Islamic state.
Fiona Jones, 38, from Lincoln, said: "I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought we were a Christian country."
Wherever did you get that idea from? And if you'd like to believe it is, why are you reading The Sun, which surely breaks any number of the Christian God's laws?
The Sun bus visited the Archbishop’s Lambeth Palace residence in South London with Page 3 girls Mel and Peta — and blasted out Rule Britannia.
Again with the whole turning Britain into an Islamic state thing. And when will The Sun do a media stunt of which the main part of it doesn't involve their page three girls?
We got honks of support from drivers, but Dr Williams stayed firmly indoors.
I don't know, maybe he only wanted to talk to people who understood what he'd said the other day?
As it is, I think Williams is wrong, but I'm not standing with the mentally challenged halfwits whose idea of political debate begins with The Sun speak your brains phoneline and ends with the words of an ancient Australian put into the mouth of some girl who has taken her top off.
This is much the same as when Williams threw the Church of England behind the Catholic Church's attempts to get an opt-out for their homophobia from equality laws. Williams is playing the long game, he doesn't mind a religious plurality, he just wants more religion in the country. If we have Sharia courts dictating what Muslims do (and there are also Beth Din courts that work in a similar fashion in Jewish communities) then we can have the courts for the rest of us getting back to good old fashioned Christian values, abolishing gay marriage and gay rights, rolling back womens rights, abolishing divorce.
I'm not claiming that Rowan Williams wants society to go back five hundred years but I am rather dubious of the claims I've heard from some quarters that just because he looks like Great Uncle Bulgaria he's cuddly and friendly and would just love to let gays live openly in Anglicanism if only those horrid African bishops wouldn't cause a fuss.
I tend to think we could do with less religious jurisprudence rather than more, but then I'm the godless atheist so I would think that wouldn't I?
Arch enemy: Bash the Bishop.
Nearly 15,000 Sun readers rang our You the Jury hotline urging him to go.
That phone number being 1111 1111111.
Meanwhile our phone lines and email queues were flooded by furious responses.
Brian Fuller, 46, of Luton, said: "This is the guy who leads our country’s religion and it sounds like he’s given up. He’ll soon be asking us all to face Mecca when we say our prayers."
That sounds like someone who has his finger on the pulse of current debate. Williams wants a discussion on letting Muslim courts decide things = Turning this country into an Islamic state.
Fiona Jones, 38, from Lincoln, said: "I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought we were a Christian country."
Wherever did you get that idea from? And if you'd like to believe it is, why are you reading The Sun, which surely breaks any number of the Christian God's laws?
The Sun bus visited the Archbishop’s Lambeth Palace residence in South London with Page 3 girls Mel and Peta — and blasted out Rule Britannia.
Again with the whole turning Britain into an Islamic state thing. And when will The Sun do a media stunt of which the main part of it doesn't involve their page three girls?
We got honks of support from drivers, but Dr Williams stayed firmly indoors.
I don't know, maybe he only wanted to talk to people who understood what he'd said the other day?
As it is, I think Williams is wrong, but I'm not standing with the mentally challenged halfwits whose idea of political debate begins with The Sun speak your brains phoneline and ends with the words of an ancient Australian put into the mouth of some girl who has taken her top off.
This is much the same as when Williams threw the Church of England behind the Catholic Church's attempts to get an opt-out for their homophobia from equality laws. Williams is playing the long game, he doesn't mind a religious plurality, he just wants more religion in the country. If we have Sharia courts dictating what Muslims do (and there are also Beth Din courts that work in a similar fashion in Jewish communities) then we can have the courts for the rest of us getting back to good old fashioned Christian values, abolishing gay marriage and gay rights, rolling back womens rights, abolishing divorce.
I'm not claiming that Rowan Williams wants society to go back five hundred years but I am rather dubious of the claims I've heard from some quarters that just because he looks like Great Uncle Bulgaria he's cuddly and friendly and would just love to let gays live openly in Anglicanism if only those horrid African bishops wouldn't cause a fuss.
I tend to think we could do with less religious jurisprudence rather than more, but then I'm the godless atheist so I would think that wouldn't I?
Labels: Christianity, courts, Islam, law, religion, Rowan Williams
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Harsh but fair, The Guardian Digested Read on John Humphrys' In God We Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist .
I did find this book rather disappointing when I put it down. I suppose I was hoping for the Agnostic The God Delusion but instead I got one-third 'If there's a God then why do bad things happen?', one-third 'If there isn't a God then how did the universe start then huh?' and one-third 'We've got a letter from a Mrs Thoughtful of Middle-Englandshire'. Perhaps all that this book demonstrates is that rational sensible argument is unlikely to change the phase-state of a person's belief, that can only occur when they think for themselves. Humphrys largely skirts religion to concentrate on belief, which allows him to put his impartial boot into the Dawkins and Hitchens of the world but the problem is there's no sense of a journey, after a vaguely religious upbringing he lost his faith as a young man and is now an old man and it hasn't come back. In the end he makes Agnosticism seem like the Liberal Democrats of theology, able to stand on the sidelines and take pot shots at the other two positions but not doing much to convert others to the cause.
I did find this book rather disappointing when I put it down. I suppose I was hoping for the Agnostic The God Delusion but instead I got one-third 'If there's a God then why do bad things happen?', one-third 'If there isn't a God then how did the universe start then huh?' and one-third 'We've got a letter from a Mrs Thoughtful of Middle-Englandshire'. Perhaps all that this book demonstrates is that rational sensible argument is unlikely to change the phase-state of a person's belief, that can only occur when they think for themselves. Humphrys largely skirts religion to concentrate on belief, which allows him to put his impartial boot into the Dawkins and Hitchens of the world but the problem is there's no sense of a journey, after a vaguely religious upbringing he lost his faith as a young man and is now an old man and it hasn't come back. In the end he makes Agnosticism seem like the Liberal Democrats of theology, able to stand on the sidelines and take pot shots at the other two positions but not doing much to convert others to the cause.
Labels: Agnosticism, atheism, atheists, books, Christianity, ethics, Islam, Judaism, Richard Dawkins, Rowan Williams
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Following up on this story, the second trial of Robert Cottage has finished and he's got two and a half years for stockpiling chemicals in his house because he thought a race war was coming and he wanted to be ready.
The news of this has been as annoyingly low-key as the reports around the time that he was originally charged, so far I've seen it on the BBC and the Guardian, and even there it's already slipped off the front page. Men with skins of darker hue have been treated far worse for far less, and only last week the wife of one of the 7/7 bombers talked about how she's been treated by British society despite the fact her husband deliberately concealed from her what he was up to, only for some papers to turn around and practically call her a lying bitch.
Even the judge sounded almost as though she was apologetic for having to sentence Cottage to prison as he was obviously such a great guy: "I am satisfied it was Cottage's views on how he put it 'the evils of uncontrolled immigration' would lead to civil war which would be imminent and inevitable." Those wacky racists huh? I can only assume that this time, the court wasn't told about his desire to kill Tony Blair. As it is, he's already served half his sentence, he's lucky that terrorism would appear to be considered a brown man's game, then the Government would have preferred to lock him up without trial.
God this is depressing.
The news of this has been as annoyingly low-key as the reports around the time that he was originally charged, so far I've seen it on the BBC and the Guardian, and even there it's already slipped off the front page. Men with skins of darker hue have been treated far worse for far less, and only last week the wife of one of the 7/7 bombers talked about how she's been treated by British society despite the fact her husband deliberately concealed from her what he was up to, only for some papers to turn around and practically call her a lying bitch.
Even the judge sounded almost as though she was apologetic for having to sentence Cottage to prison as he was obviously such a great guy: "I am satisfied it was Cottage's views on how he put it 'the evils of uncontrolled immigration' would lead to civil war which would be imminent and inevitable." Those wacky racists huh? I can only assume that this time, the court wasn't told about his desire to kill Tony Blair. As it is, he's already served half his sentence, he's lucky that terrorism would appear to be considered a brown man's game, then the Government would have preferred to lock him up without trial.
God this is depressing.
Labels: 07/07/05, BNP, British National Party, courts, Islam, media, newspapers, racism, terrorism, United Kingdom
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Tremble puny humans, your God/dess is angry. Oh yes in fuck she is.
So I awoke, as is the fashion, and had spent a while rereading my Phonogram issues (I was surprised to realise there was a scene about halfway through that I'd forgotten, thus rendering half of the climax unintelligible, so it was nice to read that as though new, and get a whole new appreciation for the last chapter). In a pleasant frame of mind I turned on my computer and connected to the Webternets to see if there were any developments in the cretins trying to detonate parts of London story.
But then there's this, the latest salvo in the Daily Mail War Against Muslims (Well, Anyone Whose Family Hasn't Been Living in the UK for About Five Hundred Years Really). The article, magistrate walks out in the middle of a court case because the defendant was wearing a niqab. In the case of the teaching assistant last year I personally felt that wearing a niqab when you're supposed to be helping kids to learn to read wasn't particularly helpful but that's not the case here. It's the comments on this article that really got my goat, full of unhidden racism and blatant stupidity, such as Mike from Cyprus who asks how can [The Magistrate] be sure it is the defendant under the veil. Or Fred James who, I can reveal, is mistaken when he says No-one wearing a mask would be allowed in court so what's the difference? I thought we lived in a Christian country but perhaps I was mistaken?
I hope all these shits had really big plans for today which have been ruined by the heavy rain.
So I awoke, as is the fashion, and had spent a while rereading my Phonogram issues (I was surprised to realise there was a scene about halfway through that I'd forgotten, thus rendering half of the climax unintelligible, so it was nice to read that as though new, and get a whole new appreciation for the last chapter). In a pleasant frame of mind I turned on my computer and connected to the Webternets to see if there were any developments in the cretins trying to detonate parts of London story.
But then there's this, the latest salvo in the Daily Mail War Against Muslims (Well, Anyone Whose Family Hasn't Been Living in the UK for About Five Hundred Years Really). The article, magistrate walks out in the middle of a court case because the defendant was wearing a niqab. In the case of the teaching assistant last year I personally felt that wearing a niqab when you're supposed to be helping kids to learn to read wasn't particularly helpful but that's not the case here. It's the comments on this article that really got my goat, full of unhidden racism and blatant stupidity, such as Mike from Cyprus who asks how can [The Magistrate] be sure it is the defendant under the veil. Or Fred James who, I can reveal, is mistaken when he says No-one wearing a mask would be allowed in court so what's the difference? I thought we lived in a Christian country but perhaps I was mistaken?
I hope all these shits had really big plans for today which have been ruined by the heavy rain.
Labels: Daily Mail, Islam, racism
Monday, May 07, 2007
This am your news
Let's ease in to this gently by going with The Sun, always trying to position itself as The Onion for urban Conservatives: Paris Hilton scared of prison lesbians. Elsewhere, Pete Doherty has apparently been caught with drugs again but no doubt the trial judge will find some way to see this as proof that he's trying to stop taking drugs and he'll get off scott free.
In real news The Times reports Cameron's Conservatives finally ready to start explaining what they stand for, which is handy just after a national round of local elections which were seen as a referendum on the Labour Government. Seeing as the Murdoch stable seem happy to big up Blair while giving Brown any number of paper cuts it seems the first principle of Cameron Conservatism is to get News International onside, hence the fact that The Times seems to have been told what will be said tomorrow. There's still some scepticism apparent, as we wait to see whether Tories are desperate enough for power again yet that they are willing to go with Dave.
The Guardian has an article on New Atheists, they loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it, apparently. Google currently gives 'about 44,000' results for a search. The claim that Richard Dawkins goes too far in attacking religion is not a new one, nor is it particularly inaccurate. The problem is that by trying to grab a bunch of authors who have nothing in common other than having written books attacking the religiosity most commonly typified by the Conservatives of the United States and the Conservatives of a number of Muslim countries < pause for breath > and calling them The New Atheists makes it seem as though they sit together in their secret volcano base plotting each day how to defeat religion.
"What are we going to do tonight Richard?"
"The same thing we do every night Dennett, try to vanquish the religions of the world!"
Also, by ignoring completely what may have caused this small spate of anti-religious books (and their apparent popularity) Madeleine Bunting gives the unfortunate impression that religion of various denominations had been pootling along for the last decade minding it's own business and hurting no-one.
I've never really understood religious anti-Darwinism and anti-evolutionism, I'll admit I haven't read On the Origin of Species but I have read the Bible and, while it's true to say that it doesn't say that God creates evolution it says nothing to deny the possibility and would also suggest that God is a non-omnipotent being, with limits, who needs six days to make a planet and who needs a day to rest up. I haven't got a copy to hand so I'm not sure if it explicitly states that God creates the passing of time or the ability to reproduce through the interaction of people's naughty bits. Anyway, this is just a long preamble to a link to an article in the NYT in which Conservatives are battling the ultra-religious elements in their own ideology over Darwinism. I've always assumed that the urge to oppose Darwinism was no more than the desire to oppose what the Religious Right assumed the scientists stood for, birth-control, abortion, separation of church and state and so on. Can the Conservatives take the Republicans back from the Christians? Could they still have power if they aren't following an unreconstructed two-thousand year old ideology?
In real news The Times reports Cameron's Conservatives finally ready to start explaining what they stand for, which is handy just after a national round of local elections which were seen as a referendum on the Labour Government. Seeing as the Murdoch stable seem happy to big up Blair while giving Brown any number of paper cuts it seems the first principle of Cameron Conservatism is to get News International onside, hence the fact that The Times seems to have been told what will be said tomorrow. There's still some scepticism apparent, as we wait to see whether Tories are desperate enough for power again yet that they are willing to go with Dave.
The Guardian has an article on New Atheists, they loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it, apparently. Google currently gives 'about 44,000' results for a search. The claim that Richard Dawkins goes too far in attacking religion is not a new one, nor is it particularly inaccurate. The problem is that by trying to grab a bunch of authors who have nothing in common other than having written books attacking the religiosity most commonly typified by the Conservatives of the United States and the Conservatives of a number of Muslim countries < pause for breath > and calling them The New Atheists makes it seem as though they sit together in their secret volcano base plotting each day how to defeat religion.
"What are we going to do tonight Richard?"
"The same thing we do every night Dennett, try to vanquish the religions of the world!"
Also, by ignoring completely what may have caused this small spate of anti-religious books (and their apparent popularity) Madeleine Bunting gives the unfortunate impression that religion of various denominations had been pootling along for the last decade minding it's own business and hurting no-one.
I've never really understood religious anti-Darwinism and anti-evolutionism, I'll admit I haven't read On the Origin of Species but I have read the Bible and, while it's true to say that it doesn't say that God creates evolution it says nothing to deny the possibility and would also suggest that God is a non-omnipotent being, with limits, who needs six days to make a planet and who needs a day to rest up. I haven't got a copy to hand so I'm not sure if it explicitly states that God creates the passing of time or the ability to reproduce through the interaction of people's naughty bits. Anyway, this is just a long preamble to a link to an article in the NYT in which Conservatives are battling the ultra-religious elements in their own ideology over Darwinism. I've always assumed that the urge to oppose Darwinism was no more than the desire to oppose what the Religious Right assumed the scientists stood for, birth-control, abortion, separation of church and state and so on. Can the Conservatives take the Republicans back from the Christians? Could they still have power if they aren't following an unreconstructed two-thousand year old ideology?
Labels: atheism, atheists, Conservatives, David Cameron, Evolution, Fundamentalists- Secular, Islam, newspapers, politics, religion, Republicans, Richard Dawkins, science, United Kingdom, United States
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Oh for cock's sake! Cambridge uni student forced into hiding for republishing one of the 'Motoons'. It has to be pointed out that the cartoons aren't very funny in themselves and anyone that claims that this student didn't expect a reaction from bringing this up again is lying. At the moment local opinion seems to be of the moderate 'let's have an apology and leave it at that' but as Mo himself says, "Islam is a race, a race to see who can get the most outraged the fastest".
Labels: Islam, Muslims, stupidity
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Sacrilicious!
Jesus and Mo take on Christian Voice and Osama Bin Laden. And if you're a Muslim who wants to take offense, please see the first entry.
Labels: Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, Fundamentalists- Islamic, Islam, Muslims
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has criticised Muslim leaders for condemning British foreign policy. Because, you see, the Muslim leaders are there for the British government to blame for not doing anything about the radicalised youths in their community. That doesn't mean they should get ideas above their station and start thinking they're a part of the British people, why that would just be crazy. And it's patent nonsense to suggest that Muslim people have a better idea of what Muslim people think than a white Government minister.
It would be nice to hope that Kim Howells would be using his summer holiday in some useful and constructive way, like GETTING A FUCKING CLUE, but that's probably too much to ask for.
It would be nice to hope that Kim Howells would be using his summer holiday in some useful and constructive way, like GETTING A FUCKING CLUE, but that's probably too much to ask for.
Labels: Government, Islam, multiculturalism, Muslims, The War Against Terror
