OVO

As of 29 November 2009, there are 18,756 posts at ovo127.com.  Every one of them has been bundled into a zip file and is now available as a 54 MB download here. Like everything else at this site, it is offered into the public domain…

The person or persons who have associated their work with these documents (the “Dedicators”) hereby dedicate the entire copyright in the works of authorship identified below (the “Work”) to the public domain. Dedicators make this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of the Dedicators’ heirs and successors. Dedicators intend this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. Dedicators understand that such relinquishment of all rights includes the relinquishment of all rights to enforce (by lawsuit or otherwise) those copyrights in the Work. Dedicators recognize that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.

The Associated Press Sudanese teen flogged for wearing “indecent” skirt:

A 16-year-old Christian girl from southern Sudan said Friday she was lashed 50 times for wearing a skirt deemed indecent by authorities in the north who enforce a strict version of Islamic law. Silva Kashif said she was arrested by a plain-clothed policeman in a Khartoum market last week for wearing a skirt beneath the knee. She was convicted of offending public morality and received 50 lashes in the courtroom. “I was treated like a criminal,” Kashif said in a telephone interview. “I am confused what to wear. The trousers were an issue. My skirt was beneath the knee. What more can I do? I am Christian. My tribe and my customs permit me to dress like this.”

Foreign Policy, The Militarization of Sex:

Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon from Israeli occupation, expanded the Shiite community’s political power within the country, and has provided social services, such as health care and education, to its constituency since the 1980s. Today, it is also working to fulfill the sexual needs of its supporters, though a practice known as mutaa marriage. Mutaa is a form of “temporary marriage” only acceptable within Shiite communities, one that allows couples to have religiously sanctioned sex for a limited period of time, without any commitments, and without the obligatory involvement of religious figures. In conservative Muslim societies known for their strict sense of propriety, mutaa offers an escape clause. The contract is very simple. The woman says: “I marry myself to you for [a specific period of time] and for [a specified dowry]” and the man says: “I accept.” The period can range between one hour and a year, and is subject to renewal. A Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man, but a Muslim man can temporarily marry a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish woman, as long as she is a divorcée or a widow. However, those interviewed for this article confirmed that Hezbollah-the “Party of God”-has allowed the practice to spread to virgins or girls who have never married before, as long as the permission of her guardian (father or paternal grandfather) is obtained. [...] Zahra, a fully veiled 25 year-old Shiite woman who is completing her master’s degree in English literature, comes from a family of Hezbollah supporters and party members, and has been a lifelong Hezbollah member herself. She explained that she practices temporary marriage because it is a religious duty.”I take good care of myself, and make sure I look perfect every time I go into a mutaa marriage because I should please my husband, temporary or not,” she said. “It is my religious duty to do so. God allowed this kind of marriage for a reason, and I never question God’s wishes.”  Zahra is divorced and believes that Islam has acknowledged sexual desires for both males and females, which is why temporary marriage is permissible. “It is also a religious duty to fulfill your sexual desires,” she insisted, noting that temporary marriages with women whose husbands had been killed fighting Israel were especially encouraged. “[T]hose who satisfy widows of martyrs have more reward in heaven,” she said.

Christopher Hitchens, The “war on terrorism” didn’t cause the Fort Hood shootings:

The terrorists do not pause before deliberately blowing up the mosques and religious processions of those whose Muslim beliefs they deem insufficiently devout. Most of those now being tortured and raped and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran are Muslim. All the women being scarred with acid and threatened with murder for the crime of going to school in Pakistan are Muslim.

Jim Verhulst and Emilio Morenatti, Terrorism that’s personal:

Schoolgirls whom the Taliban in Afghanistan sprayed with acid simply for going to class. [photo essay.]

Ashley Hayes, Expert Study on Extremism Might Have Prevented Fort Hood Shootings:

Shannen Rossmiller is angry that the study she worked with the Pentagon to create – unclassified at its inception – is now under wraps. She told CNN she is concerned political correctness trumped the study.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] and etc. “The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.” – H. L. Mencken, American Mercury March, 1930.

BBC, Irish Catholic Church apologises for abuse by priests:

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has said he is deeply sorry and ashamed about the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests. Cardinal Sean Brady also apologised for the way the Church covered up the abuse, which happened in Dublin. He spoke after an Irish government report revealed abuse over decades, a systematic cover-up by the Church, and a lack of action by the Irish police. The Church put its own reputation ahead of the welfare of children, it found. The Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin covered a period from 1975 to 2004. Some offending priests were shifted from parish to parish, leaving them free to abuse again.

Article continues at link.  Shifting priests from parish to parish leaving them free to abuse again was not an isolated error.  It is the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church, established by His Holiness Pope John XXIII on 16 March 1962 and confirmed as still in effect by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.  Says who?  The BBC, the same source the above report.  The evidence that the Holy See operates an international child rape ring that enjoys diplomatic immunity is available for anyone who cares to look at it.  Father Michael Canny of the Derry diocese was right on the button when he said “The church has no credibility, no standing, and no moral authority.” Apologies won’t count for much until His Holiness renounces the Crimine Solicitaciones.

Today (25 November) was a special day in the life of Yukio Mishima.  Men, take upon your shoulders now the portable shrine…

When l was small l would watch the young men parade the portable shrine through the streets at the local shrine festival. They were intoxicated with their task, and their expressions were of an indescribable abandon, their faces averted; some of them even rested the backs of their necks against the shafts of the shrine they shouldered, so that their eyes gazed up at the heavens. And my mind was much troubled by the riddle of what it was that those eyes reflected. As to the nature of the intoxicating vision that I detected in all this violent physical stress, my imagination provided no clue. For many a month, therefore, the enigma continued to occupy my mind; it was only much later, after I had begun to learn the language of the flesh, that I undertook to help in shouldering a portable shrine, and was at last able to solve the puzzle that had plagued me since infancy. They were simply looking at the sky. In their eyes there was no vision: only the reflection of the blue and absolute skies of early autumn. Those blue skies, though, were unusual skies such as I might never see again in my life: one moment strung up high aloft, the next plunged to the depths; constantly shifting, a strange compound of lucidity and madness. I promptly set down what I had discovered in a short essay, so important did my experience seem to me. In short, I had found myself at a point where there were no grounds for doubting that the sky that my own poetic intuition had shown me, and the sky revealed to the eyes of those ordinary young men of the neighborhood, were identical. That moment for which I had been waiting so long was a blessing that the sun and the steel had conferred on me. – Mishima, Sun and Steel.

Wikipedia: Yukio Mishima.
Yukio Mishima Museum.
Wax figure of Mishima (where is it now?).
Yukokio (The Rite of Love and Death), a 1966 film by Mishima.
Mishima conducting the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony.
Eirei No Koe (Voices of the Heroic Dead), an LP by Mishima.
Justin Raimondo: Mishima – Paleocon as Samurai.
Stephen Mansfield: A Life Less Ordinary.
… and more.

OVO triumphus for Yukio Mishima for 2008.

Olivia Lang, Hindu Sacrifice of 250,000 Animals Begins:

The government, which donated £36,500 to the event, has shown no sign of discontinuing the centuries-old tradition. An attempt by the previous government to cut the budget for animal sacrifice provoked street protests. Chandan Dev Chaudhary, a Hindu priest, said he was pleased with the festival’s high turnout and insisted tradition had to be kept. “The goddess needs blood,” he said. “Then that person can make his wishes come true.”

BBC, Taking the Global Pulse of Healthcare:

Rahul Bose, a community worker in West Bengal tells a story [...] “There was this lady who came to my house at eight in the morning,” he says. “She had been bitten by a snake at four in the morning, but since there were no male members in the house, she was not able to leave the house. When I took her to the hospital, the doctors delayed treatment for two hours and so she died in my car.” Cultural attitudes towards women in rural areas, as well as problems of distances from health centres both prove major challenges for improving health.

Robin Hanson, Social Science Cuts Religiosity:

A new NBER paper compares college majors for their effect on student religiosity. Majoring in biological sciences, engineering, or vocational areas all increase religiosity about the same relative to not going to college. Majoring in education encourages religion even more, while majoring in physical science has about the same effect as no college. Majoring in humanities reduces religiosity relative to no college, and majoring in social science reduces it the most.

Jeanna Bryner, Teen Birth Rates Higher in Highly Religious States:

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests. The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn’t successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise. Mississippi topped the list for conservative religious beliefs and teen birth rates, according to the study results, which will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of the journal Reproductive Health. However, the results don’t say anything about cause and effect, though study researcher Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: “We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself.”

Alex DeMetrick, Trial Postponed For Cult Members In Baby’s Death:

Home video of Javon Thompson and his mother Ria Ramkissoon doesn’t hint at the dark future awaiting them, when they became swept up in the religious cult of Queen Antoinettte. Authorities say cult members starved 1-year-old Javon Thompson because the boy did not say “Amen” after meals. His body was packed in a suitcase and taken to Philadelphia, where it was abandoned in a storage room.

Jennifer Viegas, Superstitious Beliefs Cemented Before Birth:

The propensity to believe in paranormal phenomena and superstitions appears to arise in the womb, suggests new research. The findings, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, further indicate that a reduced ability for analytical thinking may correspond with increased intuitive thinking, which has been associated with a belief in extrasensory perception (ESP), ghosts, telepathy and other paranormal phenomena. Author Martin Voracek claims his new study’s determinations “suggest (there are) biologically based, prenatally programmed influences on paranormal and superstitious beliefs.” [...] Prior research had determined that relative finger length, also known as digit ratio, can be a marker for individual differences affected by hormones. Men tend to have ring fingers that are slightly longer than their index fingers. In women, these fingers are usually about the same length, or the index digit is slightly longer. In some cases, however, women exhibit a digit ratio more associated with men, while men may exhibit the ratio associated more with women. The ratio is “a putative marker of prenatal androgen exposure, with paranormal as well as negative and positive superstitious beliefs,” Voracek explained, mentioning that exposure to testosterone and other male sex hormones in the womb are thought to underlie the observed differences. Voracek found that “higher feminized” digit ratio in men correlated with stronger paranormal and superstitious beliefs, “even when controlled for age, education, adult height and weight, and birth length and weight.” “Shorter feminized” digit ratios in women also correlated with a greater likelihood of superstitious beliefs, as did a woman’s lighter weight at birth. For both sexes, shorter body length at birth was associated with later beliefs in superstitions and the paranormal. The findings help to support the conclusions of Kia Aarnio and Marjaana Lindeman, both University of Helsinki psychologists who have extensively studied the propensity for paranormal and superstitious beliefs. They found that women are much more likely to have such beliefs, which the researchers attribute to “higher intuitiveness and lower analytical thinking.”

All articles continue at links. “The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous… Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame… True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force… But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them… He has no right to preach them without challenge.”- H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, September 14, 1925.

Trevor Blake. 23 November 2009. Portland, OR USA.

When the 1st Session of the 111TH Congress passed HR 3962 (Affordable Health Care for America Act), I had a few comments on its content.  The Senate has voted to debate HR 3590 (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).  Like HR 3962, state sponsored superstition has crept in.  Purchasing health insurance is required of everyone – everyone except those who are “a member of an exempt religious sect or division.”  But those exempt must be “an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division.”  Sounds like the State has been given the responsibility of establishing if you are an adherent of your religious sect or if you’re just pretending.  Maybe pretending so you pay less taxes.  Leaving it up to the State to determine what a ‘real’ religion is, who is and is not a member, is something many countries do.  So far in the United States this has not been the case.  Perhaps things are changing.  One less Amendment in the Constitution to worry about.

Radley Balko, How to Get Ahead in Law:

Last June, District Attorney David Capeless of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, announced that he was dropping all charges against 44-year-old Bernard Baran, a man who has spent half his life behind bars on child molestation charges that the state no longer has the confidence to retry. Baran was convicted in January 1985 of molesting six children at a pre-kindergarten day care facility in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was released on bond in 2006 after an appeals court determined that his trial attorney had been incompetent and that the prosecution may have withheld key exculpatory evidence. Baran says that during his jail term he was raped and beaten more than 30 times, necessitating six different transfers to new correctional institutions. Such is the cost the prison system exacts on an openly gay man convicted of molesting children. Baran was one of the first people in the country to be prosecuted in the day care sex abuse panic of the 1980s, a bizarre nationwide hysteria fed by homophobia, fears of Satanism, and a wing of child psychology that used unproven interrogation techniques that critics say caused children to recount sexual incidents that never took place. In this case, prosecutor Daniel Ford, now a judge on the Massachusetts Superior Court, showed the grand jury that indicted Baran an edited video interview with the children. According to court documents, the video shows several kids alleging that Baran had sexually abused them. Edited out was footage in which some of the children denied any abuse by Baran, interviewees accused other members of the day care faculty of abuse or of witnessing abuse, and, most important, interrogators asked the same questions over and over – even after repeated denials – until a child gave them an affirmative answer. Some children were even given rewards for their answers. [...] In upholding the ruling that granted Baran a new trial, the appeals court added in a footnote that if the state wanted to retry him, Baran could file a motion for a hearing on Ford’s alleged misconduct. By dropping the charges, the D.A. avoided that hearing. “In my opinion,” says Boston civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate, “ the possibility of an embarrassing hearing into misconduct by a former prosecutor and now sitting Superior Court judge was the main reason, if not the reason, they decided to drop the charges. The appeals court opinion cut a bit too close to the bone for them.” So while Bernard Baran is free after 22 years of incarceration, there are no plans to look into the actions of the prosecutor, now a sitting judge, responsible for his conviction. Ford’s career trajectory indicates the backward incentive structure that prosecutors face: Convictions produce rewards, while abuse rarely comes with a penalty.

Religious Tolerance, The Baran Sexual Abuse Case:

The Bernard Baran indictment appears to have many factors in common with dozens of ritual abuse cases which surfaced during the 1980s and early 1990s. Bernard is a homosexual. That has proven to be a tremendous personal liability, because of the high level of homophobia in American society. On 1983-AUG-1, Bernard Baran was hired as a teacher’s aide by the West Side Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) in Pittsfield, MA. Pittsfield is located near the extreme western border of Massachusetts, very close to the state of New York. The uncle of one of Baran’s students complained to the ECDC that he did not want a homosexual teaching his nephew. Shortly after this complaint, he and his sister-in-law called police and said that the boy had accused Baran of molesting him. On 1984-OCT-6, Baran was charged with sexually assaulting two three-year-old children at ECDC. The number of charges reached nine after most of the 160 children at the ECDC were interviewed. Baran was 19 years of age at the time. On 1985-JAN-30, he received a sentenced of 3 concurrent life terms. Because of his age and slight build, he was easy pray for other inmates. “During his first four years, he was raped and physically assaulted 30-40 times. He has suffered serious eye injuries and many broken bones. [...] In all probability, he is innocent. In fact, the criminal acts for which he was charged probably never happened. However, the children (now in their twenties) probably retain “memories” of the abuse that were implanted in their minds as a result of improper interview techniques.

Articles continue at links.  See also the Free Baran archive.  I lived in a small town as a teenager in the 1980s.  I read books, including books on taboo subjects.  I played role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons.  I listened to music that wasn’t to be found on the radio.  I was very aware that a satanic panic was occurring in the United States, and that I could be caught up in it for my interests.  I could be accused of the kind of nonsense that Baran was caught up in.  I found two strategies that worked well in keeping myself safe.  Those strategies were knowing when to be public about my interests and when to be private.  Being public (including publishing OVO) meant that any argument I was a secret agent for evil would be weak.  Being private meant that what the do-gooders didn’t need to know about they never knew about.  But it was my dumb luck that the do-gooders didn’t try especially hard.  Now I’m an adult and it turns out reading those books, playing those games and listening to that music didn’t do me or anyone else any particular harm.  Turns out the good guys were the bad guys and the bad guys were innocent.  I’m the one who stuck by my guns.  The judges and therapists and police and teachers and clergy who made bank on the satanic panic are the ones who tucked tail and shuffled into an underground tunnel.   I don’t deserve any particular reward for what I did.  But were this a just world, they would be held accountable for what they did.  Bernard Baran spent half his life in prison to satisfy the blood lust of those who serve an invisible monster that lives in the sky.  And that’s one of the reasons I’m public about my interest in the withering away of religion under the twin suns of scorn and reason.

John Dolan, Lord Byron the eXile’s Patron Saint (via):

[Lord Byron] chose to be noisily “immoral” not because he was any worse (or any better) than the average aristocrat of his time but as a weapon against the moralism of Wordsworth. I don’t mean “moralism” in a normative sense – God no. I remember sifting through the elderly Wordsworth’s letters looking for any comment at all on the Great Famine which was extirpating the Irish, and finding only one remark, in which the great moralist earnestly prays that England will not weaken, ie provide any aid whatsoever. It’s one of the curiosities of English literary history that you’ll never find the least particle of compassion for the Irish in “moral” poets like Wordsworth. Only the “mad, bad and dangerous” Byron mentioned the slaughter of 1798, attacking the PM, Castlereagh, for “dabbling [his] sleek young hands in Erin’s gore” and, as Pope would have recommended, delivering an extra kick to his enemy’s corpse in this epitaph: “Posterity will never survey a nobler grave than this: here lie the bones of Castlereagh: stop, traveler, and piss.”

BBC, Somali woman stoned for adultery:

A 20-year-old woman divorcee accused of committing adultery in Somalia has been stoned to death by Islamists in front of a crowd of about 200 people. A judge working for the militant group al-Shabab said she had had an affair with an unmarried 29-year-old man. He said she gave birth to a still-born baby and was found guilty of adultery. Her boyfriend was given 100 lashes. [...] According to reports from a small village near the town of Wajid, 250 miles (400km) north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, the woman was taken to the public grounds where she was buried up to her waist. She was then stoned to death in front of the crowds on Tuesday afternoon.

BBC, Aceh passes adultery stoning law:

Indonesia’s province of Aceh has passed a new law making adultery punishable by stoning to death, a member of the province’s parliament has said. The law also imposes severe sentences for rape, homosexuality, alcohol consumption and gambling.

Ottawa Sun, Taxi boss jailed for threats against daughter:

Mr. Al Mezel has threatened his daughter with serious violence and has caused her to fear for her safety in the name of honour,” Judge Lynn Ratushny wrote. “He has committed the crime of harassment against her in the name of honour.”

Ibn Warraq, Statement in Response to Fort Hood Tragedy:

In the wake of the murder of 13 and the wounding of 38 soldiers at Fort Hood on November 5, media analysts, politicians, and other sundry experts scrambled to present the accused perpetrator of the acts, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, as a victim. In so doing they served, knowingly or otherwise, as apologists for radical Islam. From CNN to the New York Times, NPR to the Washington Post, the killings were presented as a result of racism. They were attributed to fear of deployment in Afghanistan and harassment from other soldiers. Cited were Major Hasan’s supposed maladjustment to his life and his sense of not belonging, pre-traumatic stress disorder, and various personal and mental problems. All these explanations are variations on what I have called “the Root Cause Fallacy,” which has been committed time and again since the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. The Root Cause Fallacy was designed to deflect attention away from Islam, in effect to exonerate Islam, which, we are told, is never to blame for acts of violence. On this view we must not hold a great world religion of peace responsible when individuals of that faith resort to force. We must dig deeper: the real cause is poverty, U.S. foreign policy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Western colonialism and exploitation, marital problems of individuals, and so on. The present “psychological” interpretations in the case of Major Hasan are just the latest example of the Root Cause Fallacy at work. [...]

Fortunately, not all in the media were hamstrung by political correctness. Here is Ralph Peters in the New York Post (Nov. 6): “On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim U.S. Army officer shouting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam. What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting. This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.”

There was a laudable concern among Americans about a possible “backlash” against all American Muslims. What backlash? Even following the September 11 attacks with their 2,976 victims, Americans behaved with exemplary restraint. They behaved in a civilized manner in the face of barbarism.

It is time to abandon apologetics, and political correctness. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all Muslims are implicated in the horrendous events of September 11, 2001 — or of November 5, 2009. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with 9/11 or the Fort Hood massacre is willfully to ignore the obvious. To leave Islam out of the equation means to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam, the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Osama bin Laden and his followers make little sense. Without Islam, the West will go on being incapable of understanding our terrorist enemies, and hence will be incapable to deal with them. Without Islam, neither is it possible to comprehend the barbarism of the Taliban, the position of women and non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or — now– the murders attributed to Major Hasan. [...]

In the wake of the Fort Hood Massacre, America’s armed forces, the F.B.I., C.I.A., Department of Homeland Security and other counter-terrorist bodies face some difficult decisions about Muslims employed in their services. After all, the view Major Hasan expressed – that Muslims in the U.S. Armed Forces should not serve in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anyplace where they might have to kill fellow Muslims – is precisely in keeping with fatwas issued by such Muslim leaders as Ali Gum’a, the mufti of Egypt, which forbade Muslim soldiers to take part in the so-called War on Terror.

When Muslim soldiers or agents or operatives feel that their primary allegiance is to Islam and not the United States, can we safely allow their service to continue? It is an agonizing question, but one we must confront; however, we cannot properly confront this question while we struggle to pretend that Islam itself is not part of the dispute.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and etc.

Trevor Blake: Ginkgo Biloba. Portland, Oregon USA. 16 November 2009. Public Domain.

France bans internet Nazi auctions – A French judge has ruled that the US Internet Service Provider Yahoo! Inc must make it impossible for French users to access sites auctioning race hate memorabilia. In a landmark ruling, Judge Jean-Jaques Gomez gave Yahoo! Until 24 July to comply with his order. Existing French law prohibits the selling or display of anything that incites racism. [...] Yahoo said it condemned all forms of racism but added the case raised significant questions. A lawyer for the internet service provider said the real question was whether a French court had jurisdiction over the English-language content of an American website.

Yahoo!, Inc. v. LICRA, 169 F.Supp. 2d 1181 (N.D. Cal. 2001) – “Although France has the sovereign right to regulate what speech is permissible in France, this Court may not enforce a foreign order that violates the protections of the United States Constitution by chilling protected speech that occurs simultaneously within our borders. The reason for limiting comity in this area is sound. ‘The protection to free speech and the press embodied in [the First] amendment would be seriously jeopardized by the entry of foreign judgments granted pursuant to standards deemed appropriate in [another country] but considered antithetical to the protections afforded the press by the U. S. Constitution.’ Bachchan v. India Abroad Publications, Inc., 585 N. Y. S. 2d 661, 665 (Sup. Ct. 1992). Absent a body of law that establishes international standards with respect to speech on the Internet and an appropriate treaty or legislation addressing enforcement of such standards to speech originating within the United States, the principle of comity is outweighed by the Court’s obligation to uphold the First Amendment.”

Convicted Murderer Sues Wikipedia, Demands Removal of His Name – Wikipedia is under a censorship attack by a convicted murderer who is invoking Germany’s privacy laws in a bid to remove references to his killing of a Bavarian actor in 1990. Lawyers for Wolfgang Werle, of Erding, Germany, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding removal of Werle’s name from the Wikipedia entry on actor Walter Sedlmayr. The lawyers cite German court rulings that “have held that our client’s name and likeness cannot be used anymore in publication regarding Mr. Sedlmayr’s death.” [...] Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says German publications must also alter their online archives in a bid to comport with laws designed to provide offenders an avenue to “reintegrate back into society.” [...] Granick said the First Amendment protects San Francisco-based Wikipedia.

Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle are citizens of the United Kingdom who operate a web site in California, USA called heretial.com (previously at OVO).  The content of their website is considered illegal ‘hate speech’ in the UK but is not illegal in the USA. Sheppard and Whittle applied for asylum in the USA but were instead extradited and are now in prison. The ‘Heretical Two’ did not enjoy the protection of the First Amendment that others have found in similar situations.  No evidence was presented at their trials that any ‘racial hatred’ had resulted from their website. No evidence was presented at their trials that anyone had accessed the website other than the single police officer who had downloaded the website for the purpose of the prosecution.  Is free speech only for those in the right who speak with a pleasant tone?  What nation’s laws govern US websites?

I have a proposal for Western women – the American variety in particular. Given that you have a “wealth of life” relative to men in your societies and to women in less-developed countries, perhaps you should redistribute some of that longevity. Cut a couple years off of your lives so that a woman in Sierra Leone or Bhutan can live a few more. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a study showing that women around the world are in need of health care. Numerous articles and blog posts have been written decrying the shameful state of women’s health. This is a problem because women tend to live longer than men in regular conditions; a reversal of that trend is cause for action. Granted, many female deaths are the result of male aggression towards women; steps should be made to prevent these atrocities. Regardless, the WHO and feminists seek to shore up medical care differences despite seemingly gynocentric health coverage. My recommendation seeks to minimize the gap strictly between health care opportunities in developed and under-developed countries. [...]

Assuming those underdeveloped nations have increasing marginal returns to health care expenditures vis a vis Western society (an extra dollar spent on health care for women of underdeveloped nations creates more “health” and adds more benefit than an extra dollar spent on healthier Western women), wouldn’t it make sense – from an egalitarian and utilitarian viewpoint – to redistribute health care overseas? I mean, its only right. So I say unto you, Western women, stop hoarding all of the breast exams, PAP smears, disease treatments, birth control devices, and tampons. After all, you only came by those luxuries by luck or by birth. Let’s start a drive. Next year, instead of getting your annual breast exam, donate the money to the Red Cross or some other international health organization with the designation that it pay for a breast exam for a less fortunate woman in another country. Encourage American doctors’ offices to send their sonogram machines to remote parts of Africa telling its patients that, despite the danger created for their child, African mothers and children will have better access to health care.

Article continues.

BBC, Straw retreats over gay hate law:

Ministers have admitted defeat in their efforts to remove a “free speech” defence from new laws against inciting homophobic hatred. MPs have voted four times to scrap it but it has been repeatedly overturned in the Lords, who again last night voted by 179 to 135 to keep it. Among those concerned about the new law were some comedians who feared it would leave them open to prosecution. Ministers argued only words intended to stir up hatred were being targeted. An offence of inciting hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation was brought in by legislation last year – intended to protect gay people from threatening behaviour, amid fears attacks were increasing. [...]

Lord Waddington, who inserted the defence of free speech into legislation covering religious hatred last year, said peers had to maintain consistency. “If we are to finish up with a free speech clause in the religious hatred offence but no free speech clause here, we’re simply asking for trouble.” [...]

Who benefits from the free speech clauses for religious hatred?  Religious people, of course.

Wikipedia, Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006:

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion. [...] Critics of the Bill (before the amendments noted below, adding the requirement for the intention of stirring up hatred) claimed that the Act would make major religious works such as the Bible and the Qur’an illegal in their current form in the UK. The House of Lords passed amendments to the Bill on 25 October 2005 which have the effect of limiting the legislation to “A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening… if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred”. This removed the abusive and insulting concept, and required the intention – and not just the possibility – of stirring up religious hatred.

So when the Bible says “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” – when the Bible says homosexual men should be killed, that does not mean homosexual men should be killed.  The new law in relation to the old law means, well, what does it mean?  It means two things.  First it means the British government has recognized that the Bible contains the exact sort of hate speech they seek to ban.  Second, the majority of Christians are able to pick and choose which unalterable, eternal, exceptionless rules confirmed by their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ they will follow and which ones they will ignore when convenient.  To protect religious people from those with an intention of stirring up hatred, only religious people must be free to stir up hatred.  It’s something that brings Christians, Jews and Muslims together.

Religion: using the State to get a monopoly on hate.

Wikipedia, Smedley Butler:

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed “The Fighting Quaker” and “Old Gimlet Eye”, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, and one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

In addition to his military career, Smedley Butler was noted for his outspoken anti-interventionist views, and his book War is a Racket. His book was one of the first works describing the workings of the military-industrial complex and after retiring from service, he became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.

In 1934, he alleged to the United States Congress that a group of wealthy industrialists had plotted a military coup known as the Business Plot to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Wikipedia, War is a Racket:

War Is a Racket is the title of two works [...] by retired U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler [...] in which Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests have commercially benefited from warfare.  After he retired from the Marine Corps, Gen. Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech “War is a Racket”. The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader’s Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message.

War is a Racket as a free text online, a book to purchase from Feral House or in a dramatic reading.

Wikipedia, Business Plot:

The Business Plot was a reported political conspiracy in 1933 which involved wealthy businessmen plotting a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934 retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional committee that a group of men had approached him as part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a coup. In the opinion of the committee these allegations were credible. One of the purported plotters, Gerald MacGuire, vehemently denied any such plot. In their report, the Congressional committee stated that it was able to confirm Butler’s statements other than the proposal from MacGuire which it considered more or less confirmed by MacGuire’s European reports. However, no prosecutions or further investigations followed. While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of “wild scheme” was contemplated and discussed. Contemporaneous media initially dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a “gigantic hoax”. When the committee’s final report was released, the Times said the committee “purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler’s story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true” and “It also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated”.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was no stranger to fascism.  He was a friend to Sir Oswald Mosley, as shown in this photograph (mirror) as well as Lady Mosley.  Sir Mosley was the founder of the British Union of Fascist.  Fascism as an economic plan, as a ‘third way’ that was neither communism nor capitalism, is not unlike what President Roosevelt established in his New Deal.  No implication is made or should be understood that the New Deal or Sir Mosley’s BUF also included the excesses of fascism found in Germany or other fascist-by-name countries.  No implication is made or should be understood that OVO supports fascism as an economic plan or in any other manifestation.

“War is father of all, king of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men; some it makes slaves, some free.  We must realize that war is universal, and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.” – Heraclitus.

While the mainstream media outlets continue their politically-correct embrace of one another, rallying around the propaganda point that Hasan’s killing of 13 soldiers and civilians at Ft. Hood had nothing to do with his Islamic beliefs, even the more gimlet-eyed feel compelled to use terms like “extremist” to describe Hasan’s worldview. For example, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), in calling for possible Senate hearings into the murders, said he was doing so because “there had been strong warning signs that Hasan was an ‘Islamic extremist.’”
But was—is—he? The “Washington Post” today is reporting on the Power Point presentation Nidal gave to fellow doctors in 2007, entitled “The Koranic [sic] Worldview As It Relates to Muslims in the US Military.” The “Post” even has copies of the 50 slides he used for this lecture, a number of which detail the Qur’anic-prescribed afterlife rewards for “believers”—Muslims—and punishments for non-Muslims. The slides themselves simply provide the Qur’anic citations for these (and other) Islamic beliefs, and the “Post” story is ambiguous about whether Hasan was reporting dispassionately on these beliefs or advocating them. However, according to a story yesterday in the U.K. “Telegraph,” at that same talk Hasan “had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut,” as well as “be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throat.” [...]

Until it becomes acceptable in Sunni Islam to read such verses as metaphor—as, for example, rhetorical “decapitation” of non-Muslim arguments against Islam—and/or to limit them to the 7th century AD, the Hasans of the world will continue to find rational justification within the Islamic fold for personal jihad against “infidels”—totally apart from any connections to, or encouragement from, al-Qa`idah or any other Islamic terrorist group. Far from being an “extremist,” Hasan was, and is, simply a literalist Sunni Muslim who acted upon the teachings of his holy book, rather than merely pay it lip service. We should be thankful that, so far, the bulk of the world’s, and America’s, Muslims remain hypocrites–unlike Hasan.

Article continues.  Links added by OVO.  The Christian world is a fine model for the benefits of hypocrisy.  The Bible contains a comparable list of injunctions to kill non-believers.  Deuteronomy 13:6-10 is the most clear example of what Christians are expected to do to non-believers, and Matthew 5:18-19 the most clear example of Jesus Christ confirming the commandments of the LORD.  But somewhere along the way the Christian world lost that old time religion.  Christianity even lost its taste for slavery, although all the verses for slavery remain and there are still exactly zero verses against slavery to be found in the Bible.  Secular morals advance and religious moralists fight against them with everything they’ve got.  Until religious moralists adopt secular morals and say that’s what they believed all along.  Thus Christianity will bang the drum all day long that Christians like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights movement and speak not at all regarding the few thousand years of history in which Christianity advocated and practiced slavery.  There’s no reason the Muslim world cannot engage in the same hypocrisy, double-talk and lying that has made the Christian world a more peaceful and productive superstition.

Trevor Blake, Portland Oregon USA.  11 November 2009.

“Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. [...] And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” – Ecclesiastes

I’m not sure about the legal status of this first book.  Consult a legal professional before proceeding.  I’ll wait.  Done?  Okay, here’s The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins translated into Arabic.  Irshad Manji’s recommended The Trouble with Islam Today is available in Arabic, this time with the blessing of the author herself.  While you’re at it visit the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society.

The 1st Session of the 111TH Congress has passed H. R. 3962 Affordable Health Care for America Act, or ‘A bill to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.’  Earlier versions of this bill would have provided tax funding for magic spells (aka prayer).  Fortunately this section has been removed.  Prayer is a consistently dis-proven means of medical care and so to use tax funding in this way would have been a waste.  Further, to force all Americans (who may not be superstitious, or who may favor a different set of superstitions) to pay for the magic spells of some Americans is an establishment of religion, expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution.  My comments below are restricted to where superstition appears to remain in the bill.  It is entirely possible I do not correctly understand the bill, as I am not especially skilled at reading legal documents.  And this bill may not become law, or change in the process of becoming law.

from Abortion threatens House health care bill:

The issue of abortion threatened to derail House Democrats’ health care bill Friday unless staunchly anti-abortion Democrats and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops succeeded in their effort to get strict abortion limitations into the measure. [...] Now House leaders are not only negotiating with fellow lawmakers, but also with representatives from the bishops’ organization, Democratic sources said.  “It’s come to this,” said one bewildered senior Democratic lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.  [...] Several Democrats, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, said they are in touch with their Catholic bishops back home. Altmire said he must have the approval of his bishop in Pittsburgh before he can vote yes.

Rep. Altmire, if he has been quoted accurately, has disqualified himself from further public service.  Those who elected him did not do so as a proxy for the Roman Catholic Church.  Rep. Altmire is free to consult anyone he wishes in his decision making process.  But to require the approval of representives of a foreign nation before proceeding is counter to the goals and responsibilities of his office.

H. R. 3962 includes the following:

Religious Conscience Exemption. (A) IN GENERAL. — Subsection (a) shall not apply to any individual (and any qualifying child residing with such individual) for any period if such individual has in effect an exemption which certifies that such individual is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof described in section 1402(g)(1) and an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section.

It appears to read that a person can exempt themselves from mandatory insurance if that person “is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof.”  What, then, is a recognized religious sect?  What religious sects are not recognized?  Any decision by the State to answer these questions will be an establishment of religion, expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution.  I have been unable to locate section 1402(g)(1) referred to here.  And what is it that Religious Conscience Exemption makes a person exempt from? That would be Section 501…

Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health Care Coverage. In the case of any individualwho does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of — (1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over (2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.

Declare yourself a member of a state-established superstition and you can pay less taxes.  Who wouldn’t?  All it costs is the integrity of the United States Constitution.

H. R. 3962 also includes the following:

Training Models — In carrying out the education and training programs required by this section, the Secretary, in consultation with Indian Tribes, Tribal Organizations, Indian behavioral health experts, and Indian alcohol and substance abuse prevention experts, shall develop and provide community-based training models. Such models shall address — (1) the elevated risk of alcohol and behavioral health problems faced by children of alcoholics; (2) the cultural, spiritual, and multigenerational aspects of behavioral health problem prevention and recovery; and (3) community-based and multidisciplinary strategies, including Systems of Care, for preventing and treating behavioral health problems.

United States tax dollars should not pay for the ‘spiritual’ care of any nation.

Some years ago, while I was at the local one o’clock club with my toddler, I was approached by a young lady with a clipboard. She was involved with a new government initiative called Sure Start, she explained, and wondered if I would mind answering a few questions. She didn’t ask many, because after I had responded to her early query about my postcode, she explained politely that my child wouldn’t qualify for the programme anyway.  That was fair enough, except that my street has a very broad socio-economic mix. While my own household is certainly not “deprived”, there are a lot of families on the street who are in a quite different position. When I pointed this out to her, she flicked her eyes down her list, and confirmed that on my short road there were indeed a lot of postcodes that did come within the ambit of the project. I found this level of detail to be impressive and reassuring.

As I say, this was a while back, and Sure Start has changed since that time. It now offers universal as well as targeted services, and the present plan is to have a Sure Start children’s centre in every community by next year. Yet this week Iram Siraj-Blatchford, who is a professor of early childhood education at the Institute of Education, warned a parliamentary inquiry into Sure Start that expansion of the programme would dilute its progress. “If you improve quality for everyone,” she said, “you can actually extend the gap.”  Therein lies the problem with the idea of equal opportunity for all. Some people are simply better placed to take advantage of opportunity, and if equality of outcome is what you are looking for, then the way to achieve it is by offering the greatest opportunity to the least advantaged, and – here’s the snag – vice versa. [...]

The more unequal your society is, the less well a comprehensive education system is likely to work. The experiment was conceived at a time when people felt unduly optimistic about increased social equality, which means it was, at best, badly timed and, at worst, simply misconceived.  When Siraj-Blatchford says that “if you improve quality for everyone, you can actually extend the gap”, she is really saying that if you give help to a range of people, whether they are in particular need of it or not, the intervention is simply going to equip even better those who were more likely to win the battle for scarce resources in the first place.

Article continues.  I am an advocate of offering as much equal opportunity as possible in education.  This is a sufficiently difficult task in itself to not complicate the matter by confusing opportunity with outcome.  When a student breaks out of limited expectations placed on them the effort to provide equal opportunity pays off.  There are no means to insure equal outcomes.  Measuring equal opportunity by equal outcome is an error.