Posts Tagged ‘freedom of speech’

Er…

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Ahern defends new blasphemy law

Independant.ie writes:

Mr Ahern yesterday defended a fine of up to €100,000 that will be imposed on blasphemers. … Gardai will now have the power to seize blasphemous material from the home or any other premises used by a person convicted of blasphemy.

Okay, seriously now guys, stop it.

This kind of thing used to be funny. We’d be all “heh, glad I don’t live in Saudi Arabia” or “oh, that crazy pope, what’ll he get up to next?”.  But the joke’s run its course and it’s time to give it up and move along, ok?

Remember, we’re trying to build a better world here, and hilarious though pranks like this are, they’re getting a little tiresome.

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Pig

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Israeli official: Swine flu name offensive to Judaism and Islam

Oh no. You’re not serious…

Reason Weekly writes:

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

Nice to see the men of god have their priorities right.

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Dear Jacqui

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Dear Jacqui.

It is clear from all independent observers that the UK government don’t really understand the technological developments of the last 6 or 7 years.

Those who don’t want to be tracked in their communications can EASILY avoid it. This maximises false-positives on human and automated telecommunication surveillance. Ever heard of RSA? It really is a truly marvellous piece of mathematics, you might want to check out sometime. Wikipedia (heard of that?) has a good introduction here. Look at this one too. This, too. Isn’t technology fascinating?

I hear many modern universities teach courses in computers and technology, so there’s probably a lot of fairly knowledgeable people around for you to talk to, if you felt so inclined. Oh, the stories they could tell you!

As a non-terrorist, I’m afraid you have no right to know who I associate with.

Emergency powers!

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Poster controversy

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

A (somewhat controversial) poster I made when I was the publicity officer of the Warwick Atheists Society recently got some coverage in The Guardian’s Comment is Free section.

[Edit: Huh, you can also read what the teeming masses have to say.]

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Geert Wilders on trial

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Just read this article. Here are two choice quotes:

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said at the time that the film wrongly equated Islam with violence and served “no purpose other than to offend”.

Mr Wilders has had police protection since Dutch director Theo Van Gogh was killed by a radical Islamist in 2004.

Uh…

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