Month: February 2006

It does not surprise me, alas, that the Anglican primate in Nigeria, who heads a movement supported by Christianist organizations in the United States, should now be supporting a law that severely restricts the rights of homosexuals to marry, publish, assemble or speak. The law in question would ban all legal recognition of gay relationships and also censor any defense of their rights. If I based this blog in Nigeria, I could be jailed for up to five years. The bishop of Washington asks:

"I also feel compelled to ask the archbishop’s many high-profile supporters in this country why they have not publicly dissociated themselves from his attack on the human rights of a vulnerable population. Is it because they support this sort of legislation, or because the rights of gay men and women are not worth the risk of tangling with an important alliance?"

We know the answer. Alas.

They’re a force to be reckoned with in Australia.

Here’s an actual transcript. The Pakistani paper misrepresented him, as I suspected. His comments seem pretty reasonable to me, although he does show what seems to be a failure to fully understand the European context in which the cartoons were originally drawn.

It did better than many of us expected. Why? My thoughts here.

Via CrimProf, an insight into a major, underground marijuana outfit in Tennessee. If they’re this creative and productive when it’s illegal, imagine what they could do if all this were legit? There’s still something astonishing to me that a country can declare a plant illegal. A plant. The reason? Because it cures some people, alleviates some horrible illnesses, and, worst of all, gives others pleasure. Yep: pleasure. I.e. happiness. As in "pursuit of." You can’t have that in America, can you? (Hat tip: Glenn.)

Vanity Fair isn’t the only outlet to have somewhat different standards for male and female nudity. Here’s  "Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe", 1863.

Deeyah, an Iranian pop-singer now in Britain and hailed as the Muslim Madonna, has a new video out. It’s a pop screed against the hideous abuse of women sanctioned by unreconstructed Islam. Of course, she’s had death threats and now has to be accompanied by bodyguards. But she’s still expressing herself. Here’s her website. Send her love.

Where’s the solidarity in the West for Muslim journalists who have stood up to Islamist terror and paid for it with their lives or jail sentences? This is an area where we don’t need government action. We need the Western media to defend their Muslim colleagues; we need stories about their sacrifice; we need protests; we need outrage. And yet the MSM is eerily silent. Tim Rutten lets them have it.

"Before entering a mosque visitors are asked to take off their shoes. This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks, don‚Äôt enter the mosque. Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objections to those values, don’t come to Australia," – Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello, proving that it is perfectly possible for Western leaders to defend liberal values.

Some of the earlier reports of destruction may have been exaggerated, according to the latest from Omar. Zeyad reports on the murky identity of some of the "men in black" now patrolling Iraq’s streets. Money quote:

"The Iraqi Rabita website reports an interview with a Mahdi militia leader today, quoted as saying: ‘Strange things are happening these days. It’s true that our guys often act as a bunch of spiteful, criminal thieves going on sprees of sabotage, murder and plundering. But the people who were running the act were clean young men, elegantly dressed, in modern vehicles, carrying the latest weapons, unlike our guys who are usually unkempt ruffians. No one knows where they are now.’"