The Barbarism of Blasphemy Laws

An atheist blogger in Bangladesh was murdered by a gang of machete-wielding jihadists back in February. The leader of Al-Qaeda's branch in India, Asim Umar, recently made a nine-minute video bragging about his death and claiming it to be a warning against other "blasphemers." Umar mentioned several other "blasphemers" such as Islamic scholar Mohammad Shakil Auj, murdered in Pakistan last year, and two bloggers, Aniqa Naz and Rajib Haider, both killed in Bangladesh in 2013. Umar urged his followers to hunt down and murder more "blasphemers." I put "blasphemers," in quotations, because it's clear that Umar's definition of the term is, "anyone who criticizes Al Qaeda."

While Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for these attacks, it should be noted that such attacks are rarely punished by the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Quite the contrary, the free-thinkers and secularists who speak out against the theocratic ideology of the jihadists are the ones who are punished. Michael De Dora, a UN representative, notes that these governments have made "blasphemy" a crime punishable by prison or death. In doing so, "they not only crush valuable dissent that could lessen extremism in the name of religion, but they perpetuate the lie that that religious criticism is impermissible, thus emboldening violent extremists."

The government of Pakistan has made empty promises to prevent the "misuse" of blasphemy laws. As Ed Brayton points out, the problem is the government uses blasphemy laws at all. The main design of blasphemy laws is the criminalization of any kind of dissent against religion. Under blasphemy laws, people are arrested and executed for advocating against extremism. They are arrested and executed for advocating secularism. They are arrested and executed for simply disagreeing with the dominant religious orthodoxy in their countries. Blasphemy laws are an attack on free speech, free expression, freedom of the press, and freedom in general. The legal culture of these countries is one of barbarism, tyranny, and hypocrisy. The murders of those bloggers, activists, and free-thinkers is the inevitable result of a government that sides with the extremists and punishes the majority rather than the other way around.

They Never Learn, Do They?

It seems like the powers that be in our government have not learned a thing from the debacles in Vietnam, Iraq, and Libya. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), has claimed that if we go to war with Iran, we can just bomb it from the air for a few days and then it will be over.

Hey, remember when the Bush Administration said that the Iraq War would only last a few weeks to a few months? Remember when Obama said that the Libya bombing would be a quick military operation? How did those two things go again, exactly?

The Iraq War lasted eight years and cost us over $2 trillion dollars. While we got rid of Gaddafi in Libya pretty quickly, the region destabilized afterwards, much like Iraq did when Saddam Hussein was overthrown. The thing about the Middle East is that it's a complete hellhole. If you topple one bad guy, another always seems to be waiting to take his place.

Atlanta Nights: When Bad Writing Becomes Comedy Gold

It is roughly the tenth anniversary of the publishing of a hilariously--and intentionally--terrible book called Atlanta Nights, give or take a few weeks. Atlanta Nights was not written as a serious book--it was written as an experiment to see just how little Vanity Publishing companies like PublishAmerica actually cared about the quality of the work they published. Well, PublishAmerica did fall for the hoax and published the book after the authors, a group of sci-fi novelists lead by James D. MacDonald, paid them to do so. The experiment was successful.

The authors revealed that the book was a hoax a few weeks after it was published, causing much embarrassment to PublishAmerica. They didn't stop there. The cover artist got in on the fun, too, and thus the cover of Atlanta Nights features palm trees and an ocean sunset.

And now, here is a map of Georgia, so you can tell just how close Atlanta actually is to the beach. 

Look at the map. Now look at the book cover. Now look at the map again. Now look at the book cover again. Now look at the map, then the cover, then the map, then the map again, then the book cover, then both simultaneously, and then look over the book cover and then the map one last time. 

For comparison's sake, imagine if the book were set in Seattle, but the cover showed a picture of Haystack Rock. Or, for my family on the East Coast, imagine the book cover showed the Montauk Point Lighthouse, but the book itself was set in Philadelphia. Believe me, this is the least of geographical inaccuracies in this book. 

You probably won't notice those blunders, though. You'll be too busy having your brain tied into knots at the nonsensical and completely random changes in the sequences of events that barely hold what little plot there is in the story. Not even the characters themselves are described consistently. The main characters actually change ethnicities in one chapter before becoming white again by the next chapter. One character is a man for most of the book, until he randomly becomes a woman for one chapter, and then returns to being a man again. The main "plot" of the book is set in motion when a character named Henry dies. However, Henry turns up alive in one of the chapters and talks to the other characters as though they had simply invited him over for dinner. A chapter later, he is dead once again. These occurrences are treated as mundane and normal in the context of the story, and once they're over, they're never mentioned again. 

The book is full of grammatical errors throughout. One of the authors, taking cues from many a bad fanfic, writes as though he has no idea how to properly use a comma. The storyline is clunky and disjointed because each author wrote their section separately. Because they wanted the story to be as incoherent as possible, they did not read each others' contributions, and had no idea which chapters were supposed to flow into each other. This would have been more than enough, but one author upped the ante and decided to change between past tense, present tense, and future tense at random intervals during his contribution to the story. One chapter is computer generated by the Bonsai Story Generator. 

Also, this story has penguins. Vicious borrowing predators that live in the Sahara and howl at the moon after dark. No, seriously. That is really how the book describes penguins.

I have decided that even though this book wasn't intended to be taken seriously, that doesn't mean that I can't make fun of it. Some spots will be a challenge, though...they really kind of make fun of themselves for me.

My mockery of chapter one will be out pretty soon, hopefully by tomorrow night.

Oh, and if you look at book cover, you'll see that Atlanta Nights was written by "Travis Tea." Since that somehow didn't give away at least part of the joke to the people in charge of PublishAmerica, I imagine that the quality of their employees is roughly equal to the quality of the books they publish. 

OMFG: Smoking Pot Causes Crack Babies!

From--where else--Fox News's "Dr." David Samadi, on Fox & Friends in response to a study stating that marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol:

"It actually causes heart attacks. It increases your heart rate. And on and on."

He doesn't cite any studies to back up his claims, of course. He has the word, "Dr." next to his name, so that makes him an expert by default.

"We're seeing in Colorado that we had 13 kids that came into the emergency room and ended up in the ICU as a result of overdose from marijuana." Samadi said.

Well, you can OD from marijuana just like any other drug. Being "less dangerous" than alcohol doesn't mean it's 100% safe. I think the real question we should be asking is what parents are letting kids smoke marijuana, and can we get the child protection services on their asses ASAP?

"Now we have crack babies coming in because pregnant women are smoking this whole marijuana business," Samadi added.

OMG! Crack babies! OH NOEZ! IT'S THE END OF CIVILIZATION!!!!

Seriously? 1989 called, Mr. Samadi, they want their moral panic back.

The Party of Small Government and Individual Liberty in Action in South Carolina

I wonder if the politicians in Stephen Colbert's hometown ever thought up things like these.

Scott Walker: Foreign-Policy Genius

With only 21 months to go until Election Day, both parties are recruiting candidates that they hope will be their ticket into the White House. Scott Walker, who has had Presidential ambitions since he survived the 2012 Wisconsin recall elections (if not earlier), was interviewed by ABC's Martha Radditz on the subject of foreign policy (namely the threat of ISIS in the Middle East). He offered the  American people a taste of his foreign policy proposals. By that, I mean he tossed a word salad filled with platitudes and cliches but void of any actual substance.

Radditz: What is your big bold plan on Syria?

Walker: I think aggressively, we need to take the fight to ISIS and any other radical Islamic terrorist in and around the world, because it's not a matter of when they attempt an attack on American soil, or not if I should say, it's when, and we need leadership that says clearly, not only amongst the United States but amongst our allies, that we're willing to take appropriate action. I think it should be surgical.

Very enlightening. Please tell me more.

 Walker: We need to have an aggressive strategy anywhere around the world. I think it's a mistake to--

Radditz: But what does that mean? If we're bombing and we've done 2,000 air strikes, what does an aggressive strategy mean in foreign policy?

Walker: I think anywhere and everywhere, we have to be--go beyond just aggressive air strikes. We have to look at other surgical methods. And ultimately, we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that's what it takes, because I think, you know--

Radditz: Boots on the ground in Syria? US boots on the ground in Syria?

Walker: I wouldn't rule anything out. I think that when you have to lives of Americans at stake and our freedom loving allies anywhere in the world, we have to do things that don't allow those measures, those attacks, those abuses to come to our shores.

Um, Scott? You do realize that Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric is an example of how not to articulate your policy proposals, right? 

 

 

 

Dinesh D'Souza: The MLK of Our Time

It's not hard to see the similarities, right? Martin Luther King Jr fought for social justice and equality for all of humanity regardless of skin color. Dinesh D'Souza...well, he's an Indian-American whose made a name for himself as a successful fear-peddler to right-wing audiences. The Right-Wing Fear Peddling Industry is normally white dominated, so that counts for something, right?