Asia, what is happening

President Arroyo declares a state of emergency but refuses to say what the emergency is, the opposition claims it is a desperate attempt to stay in power since the demonstrations have called for her resignation.

In Thailand the primeminister dissolves parliament, just a while ago he and his children were implied in a tax evasion coup. Are the things related?

What is going on in my part of the world?

Oh and Hong Kong is contemplating a smoke ban. Good on you :)

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Mailgate

A very dirty story is rolling up in Sweden at the moment. Sweden is going to the polls this year and the ruling socialist party has been trailing in the polls for a year mainly because of all the scandals that have plagued them, starting with the tsunami and the foreign ministers decision to go to the theatre rather than finding out about a disaster where she knew Swedes had died.

Anyway, back to the current scandal, mails had been circulating around in political journalists inboxes and also to some politicians claiming that the leader of the Conservative party Fredrik Reinfeldt was involved in dubious affairs, for one having an au pair from the Baltics, perish the thought. There were other claims as well one pertaining to his father and alleged actions. I guess that the sins of the father is a valid argument for socialists, I'll remember that further on.

In the end the Conservative party decided to follow up on this smearcampaign, they asked the parliaments security department to find out what they could about these emails since they do constitute a crime. The report came back showing to no big surprise that whoever sent the emails had sent them from a computer at Sveavägen 68, an address in central Stockholm. The real fun part in this is that the address is the Socialist party headquarter...

Of course this now gets public, the Conservative party leader files charges with the police and the official socialist machinery starts churning. First reaction from the socialist party is that someone has hacked the computers, they are of course innocent, it could have been a disgruntled employee (cleaner or janitor was implied), funnily enough the very groups the socialists claim to represent. The theories become even more ludicrous when rumours surface thath the whole thing is a carefully orchestrated maskirovka by the Conservative party. When the evidence became more apparent that this could not be the case since emails were sent during regular working hours and no logs of breach could be found the socialist party claimed that it was all an "internal issue" and they would look in to it. At the same time the Police mysteriously "loses" the filed complaint, the reason is computer failure. This all sounds like something out North Korea.

Finally the Socialists release a statement shortly saying that their investigation has shown that this was a one man job without sanctions from higher up and that the person had been "let go", however people wanted to know who he was, at first the Socialists refused to part with this information but in light of public pressure they finally released his name. Mats Lindgren has turned out to be more than just the regular employee at the party headquarter, he was recruited straight into the headquarter six years ago and his job function was to do very high profile and secret surveys detailing what arguments would work in an election race, these findings were presented to the partys executive committe on which the leader of the socialist party was, the current prime minister.

So now we can summarise what the socialists claim
1. The author of the smear campaign acted alone.
2. The executive committee is extremely sorry
3. They have also been victims of smear campaigns.

The leaders of the socialists very quickly apologized for the occurred campaing but they all added in the end that they also had been victims of the same type campaings but much worse in their case, very good, victimization to try and defuse.

The author of the campaing says that he acted alone without any sanction from the top and that he did it because he felt that the media so unfairly had reported on scandals in the socialist party, not really the medias fault that a party that has more or less become one with the state produces scandals, that is what happens when a party is so sure to be in power they blur the lines between the party and the state.

There are some remaining problems with this scandal.
1. The sacrificed pawn is a very high ranking member of the socialist partys election strategy team.
2. The sacrificed persons explicit job was to find out what arguments worked in order to launch such campaigns.
3. He personally knew the leader of the socialist party
4. An official partypaper being freely distributed in Stockholm contains the exact same allegations as the email, albeit worded differently
5. This is not the first time this has occurred with emails being traced back to the socialists headquarter

One has to ask wheter this person, Mats Lindgren, worked alone, I highly doubt that, this has all been sanctioned from higher up and voices are now also leaking out that there has been a group working on this email campaign, we can only wait and hope that we get all information and foremost I hope that the socialists lose power this September, they need to be away from power for at least a decade.

Sadly I miss English links for this.


Sincerely
Mr SIlence Dogood

And now for something completely different...

Just got the new album from Bloodhound gang - Hefty Fine.
I really got it for the song Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss that somehow just made me want the album...

Anyways, first time I listened trough the album I wasn't to impressed, there was really just one other song that struck any kind of liking within me and that was "No Hard Feelings" because of the melodious sound and the funky lyrics. However as I listened in to it I really got to appreciate all songs, so right now I can recommend you all to go and get the Bloodhound Gang - Hefty Fine album.

Especially the songs

• Ralp Wiggum
• Pennsylvania
• Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo (think NATO phonetic alphabet)

Are good!

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Some Good news from Iraq

At least some of the news coming out of Iraq is good. The Iraq Index Archive at Saban center for Middle Eastern policy reports some really good news, just an excerpt of things I find extra positive.

Compared to the prewar level:

• nominal GDP has gone up from 20.5 $US billion to 29.3, GDP growth rate has gone from -7.8 to 3.7, and GDP per capita in $US from 802 to 1,051.
• Telephone subscriptions have gone up from 833k to 4,590k as of August 2005.
• Internet subscribers has gone up from 4.5k to 147k
• Commercial TV stations and Independent newspapers/magazines has gone up from 0 to 44, and >100, respectively, as of October 2005.

Those are some good numbers and they reflect a move towards a more open society, more people are getting connected via Internet and phone and they are also getting more sources to read news from. Information is crucial in a democracy (yes even desinformation, since that will be exposed in a full freedom society). Some other numbers are even more interesting and basically goes to show that the people of Iraq views their situation completely different than the west.

Do you think Iraq today is headed in the right direction? Overall = 64%, Kurds = 76%, Shiia = 84%, and Sunni = 6%

• Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the
• U.S.-Britain invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it? Overall = 77%, Kurds = 91%, Shiia = 98%, and Sunni = 13%

• What is your overall support for attacks? On U.S. led forces = 47%, on Iraqi Govt. security forces = 7%, on Iraqi civilians = 1%

What I find especially interesting here are the low numbers from the Sunni muslims, not surprising though since Saddam was Sunni muslim and favoured his own sect, blood is thicker than water in this case. This is also extra evident when looking on the geography of Iraq, the Sunnis do not control any of the land that is "profitable". In the north you have the Kurds controlling the Kirkuk oilfields and in the south with more oil and also the ports to Persian Gulf you find the Shiites. The Sunnis took power by force even though a minority and got the wealth, so now, of course, they are worried to be left out thus they instigate sectarian violence as I wrote about in my previous post. This will only hurt their cause though. A divided Iraq will benefit no one.

On another note, the statistics I enjoy reading the most is actually the statistics about the declining terror in Iraq.

• The explosion of lethal and non-lethal car bombs is down since a high of 136 in May of 2005. There were 30 last month.

• The upper and lower bound of civilians killed in acts of war reached their greatest since May of 2003 (thus excluding those killed during the invasion) of 1,414 to 2,475 in September of last year and have fallen sharply since. Last month 418 to 732 were killed. Overall, 28,400 to 32,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the war.
• In multiple fatality bombings by IEDs and roadside bombs, the number kills has gone down from a high of 481 to 1074 last September to 305 to 397 last month.
• Non-Iraqi civilian contractors killed have trended down from a high of 31 in August 2004 to 11 last month.
• Attacks on Iraqi oil and gas pipelines, installations, and personnel are trending down from a high of 30 in November of 2004 to 10 last month.
• The number of daily attacks by "insurgents" trended upward until it reached 100 in October of last year and has trended downward since to 75 last month.

And now for the most positive piece of statistics:

• Tips received from the population have gone up steadily to 483 in March of last year to 4,700 in September., the latest number.

How sweet is this? People are actively showing that they no longer in any form support the terrorists. Democracy might still be coming to Iraq, lets all hope that the outburst of sectarian violence don't stop this development.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

The desecration of Allah

Sectarian violence is blossoming in Iraq, apparently the tactic has changed from "fighting the invaders" as the excuse was from the left about suicide bombings and other atrocities to "fighting the horrible, ungodly shiia/Sunni".
What I don't understand is that although they belong to two different sects within Islam they are still blowing up a mosque, isnt that surely something that would upset Mohammed? Doesn't the cartoons fade in comparison to this atrocity?

Although this does show finally how this "struggle" has nothing to do with fighting the occupation as romanticising leftist with Chomsky in the lead wants it to be (it is probably just a wet dream from US bashing people). This violence is about taking power, we should all join in against this violence, left and right and make sure that Iraq does not fall in the hands of fundamentalists that hide behind the face of Mohammed. It should be every true Muslims duty to fight this sectarian violence and create a prosperous Iraq. A fight that Liberals must take in Europe and US is the fight against ignorance and terroristhugging within the left, we need to expose these huggers since every comment that is positive about these people is a legimitization of terrorism and violence in the political process. We have to stand firm for the Iraq people and against the ones that brings violence to everyday life with the help of the European left.

They just blew up a mosque, and they call themselves righteous Muslims? They are rightfully scum of the earth.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Irving and the holocaust

It seems that the time for wonders is not yet passed, David Irving, the revisionist historian has been sentenced in Austrian court for denying the holocaust. This law is undeniably the most stupid law there ever was, how can you give a ten year sentence for someone just denying an event?? Don't get me going on this, I don't agree with Irving and 9,99 out of 10 revisionists are neo nazis so I have no sympathy for them but I do believe that they should be able to speak about it without ending up in jail.

Oh well, these are not the news, the news are that David Irving the foremost propagator of denying the holocaust has turned around, he no longer denies that the holocaust occured. My my, what will we hear next.

It is a crime in Austria to minimise the atrocities of the Third Reich and the historian faces up to 10 years imprisonment if found guilty. Speaking after the arrest, Irving's lawyer said the historian no longer denies that gas chambers existed in Nazi death camps.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4578534.stm

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Ethics of Liberty

In every crime, in every invasion of rights, from the most negligible breach of contract up to murder, there are always two parties (or sets of parties) involved: the victim (the plaintiff) and the alleged criminal (the defendant). The purpose of every judicial proceeding is to find, as best we can, who the criminal is or is not in any given case. Generally, these judicial rules make for the most widely acceptable means of finding out who the criminals may be. But the libertarian has one overriding caveat on these procedures: no force may be used against non-criminals. For any physical force used against a non-criminal is an invasion of that innocent person's rights, and is therefore itself criminal and impermissible. Take, for example, the police practice of beating and torturing suspects-or, at least, of tapping their wires. People who object to these practices are invariably accused by conservatives of "coddling criminals." But the whole point is that we don't know if these are criminals or not, and until convicted, they must be presumed not to be criminals and to enjoy all the rights of the innocent: in the words of the famous phrase, "they are innocent until proven guilty." (The only exception would be a victim exerting self-defense on the spot against an aggressor, for he knows that the criminal is invading his home.) "Coddling criminals" then becomes, in actuality, making sure that police do not criminally invade the rights of self-ownership of presumptive innocents whom they suspect of crime. In that case, the "coddler," and the restrainer of the police, proves to be far more of a genuine defender of property rights than is the conservative.
We may qualify this discussion in one important sense: police may use such coercive methods provided that the suspect turns out to be guilty, and provided that the police are treated as themselves criminal if the suspect is not proven guilty. For, in that case, the rule of no force against non-criminals would still apply. Suppose, for example, that police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated, for then they have only ladled out to the murderer a parcel of what he deserves in return; his rights had already been forfeited by more than that extent. But if the suspect is not convicted, then that means that the police have beaten and tortured an innocent man, and that they in turn must be put into the dock for criminal assault. In short, in all cases, police must be treated in precisely the same way as anyone else; in a libertarian world, every man has equal liberty, equal rights under the libertarian law. There can be no special immunities,special licenses to commit crime. That means that police, in a libertariansociety, must take their chances like anyone else; if they commit an actof invasion against someone, that someone had better turn out to deserve it, otherwise they are the criminals.
As a corollary, police can never be allowed to commit an invasion that is worse than, or that is more than proportionate to, the crime under investigation. Thus, the police can never be allowed to beat and torture someone charged with petty theft, since the beating is far more proportionate a violation of a man's rights than the theft, even if the man is indeed the thief.

In todays society we are talking of limiting freedoms and surveilling our fellow humans. We have moved from believing "innocent until proven guilty", today we are all guilty until we can prove our innocence.

Are we then silently standing by as the leaders of the "free world" limits our freedoms and our right to privacy? I say no! What do you say?

Excerpt from Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics.pdf

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

HSBC The Worlds Local Bank

So this is a more personal blog, not that there are no things happening in the world with Hamas taking power, Israel cutting funding, US requesting to beef up in Darfur (imagine, there is not even oil there). But simply just because I feel like it.

I am currently in New Zeeland on a project and I am trying to pay a credit card bill.
To understand it is essential that one understands how internet banking is setup in Hong Kong where I live. You can't pay any bills you want online, they have to be in a list that HSBC maintains, also if you want to pay to any other account online you have to first send in a paper to HSBC in which you tell who , how much and why, and then sign it. After that you can pay to the other account if you want but it takes a week.

There is a company in Hong Kong that has setup Internet payments, you just go to one of their terminals, swipe your card and you get a username and password to pay your online bills in, easy.

I have a credit card, I can't pay it off from HSBC since the card is issued by another bank, this bank sadly has no branch in New Zeeland so I was hoping to pay it from my pphk account. Sadly I have lost my username to said account and now it turns out I have to go to one of their terminals, swipe my card and request a new username. I am in New Zeeland for five weeks, no branch, HSBC won't let me pay trough their branch so I am basically screwed.

Two large international banks that doesn't offer any way to pay bills outside of the issuing country. Local bank sure, Global business? Noway!

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

The shackled continent

A new book has come out in stores this past week (not in Sweden yet sadly).
The Shackled Continent is an important book. Written by Robert Guest, Africa Editor of The Economist, it provides an illuminating account of why Africa is so poor. His conclusion is that sub-Saharan Africa is poor because it is shackled by poor government. Guest has spent six years reporting from Africa, and fills the book with accounts of what he has witnessed.

Guest argues for "fair aid, free trade". He explains how aid has often been wasted on arms, to provide luxuries for the ruling elite, and to be put away in Swiss bank accounts. African leaders sometimes call for a "Marshall Plan" to help Africa like the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II. But, as Guest explains, Africa has already received the equivalent of six Marshall Plans, and yet is still poor.

Aid without economic reform, he shows, has a negligible or negative effect on economic growth. Free trade and economic reform without aid, however, dos lead to economic growth. A combination of reform and aid together brings the fastest growth. His book contrasts strong with politicized Western campaign groups like "War on Want" who counterproductively argue against economic reform.

If you have an opinion on why Africa is still poor then Robert Guests book is a good start to understand the mechanics of the poor continent. Compared to South East Asia where free trade has been embraced more readily and economies are in better shape than in Africa where most countries have nationalized companies and resources (Zambia).

If anyone suggests a nationalization and a command controlled economy in orde to reach prosperity, Guest annihilates that thesis with the comparison of Zambia (nationalized everything, currency control and gov't run economy) with Botswana (free trade and a liberal market economy).

Botswana has had the worlds highest economic growth over the last 35 years while Zambia only manages to get by with the help of foreign aid.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

What can I do?

I can't use Google since they decided to help a totalitarian goverment to hide the truth in order to stay in power, especially since Google have the credo "do no evil".

I can't use Yahoo since they have helped the Chinese goverment with information that have led to the imprisonment for two dissidents whos only crime has been to tell the truth. They now face 8 and 10 years in prison.

I can't use MSN since they shut down Chinese bloggers at the request of the Chinese goverment.

I can't use Cisco since they help keep up the Great Firewall of China.

I can't use Huawei since they stole all their technologies from Cisco.

What can I use?
I search on Altavista, I read news on BBC and I chat on ICQ, all on a Linus laptop.

What is your opinion of these companies and their actions? The US Senate is currently looking into the actions of these companies (except Huawei) to see if the actions are... yes what? There is no moral clause in the US law, goverment shouldn't tell business how to do business, still, we as consumers can make moral choices if we want, but that should be the consumers choice not the goverments.

Or should it? To what extent is the goverment responsible for moral choices?

Who killed Mohammed Al-Durra?

On september 30, 2000 a twelve year old boy named Mohammed Al-Durra and his father got caught in the crossfire between Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and Palestinian gunmen. There to capture the tragedy when Mohammed was killed, presumably by Israeli bullets, was the France 2 reporter Charles Enderlin.
The news was immediately cabled out around the world and the hatred towards Israel in Arab countries grew.

Lately investigations have shown that the IDF could not have killed Mohammed and that he most likely was killed by the Palestinian gunmen, all this rage his death caused in the Palestinian and anti-Israeli groups could have been misdirected. Several investigations by among others the German TV-channel ARD 1 and the veteran journalist James Fallows, whos article you can find here discusses the facts of the case.

There are other investigations showing the same result, one by French L´Express Denis Jeambar.

The reporter that first breached the story, Charles Enderlin, has so far only done a half poodel to recant the story, this story can be found here.
Other articles referencing the same story can be found at:
Palestine Facts and
Camera
However, the French TV-channel in question refuses to recant the story and threaten to sue anyone that "slanders" the TV-channel.

So, what is the Forums opinion about this event? Was Mohammed killed by IDF or Palestinian gunmen? If the Palestinians did kill Mohammed, what would those implications be?

I feel that Pro-Palestinian groups will refuse to believe anything other than IDF being responsible and will probably denounce this information as an attempt by pro-Israeli groups to shift the blame, the Palestinians though seems ready (except Al-Aqsa and Hamas) to accept differing versions, this probably because they see an opening to lasting peace in the region.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Iran is not spreading the love

BBC World Service has done a poll looking to how much people in states around the world like Ahmedinejad, the old terrorist scoundrel. Turns out that it must be lonely in Teheran he is not especially loved anywhere in the world except Saudi Arabia, I guess dictators like each other, or maybe it's his promise to "wipe out Israel" that tickles the violence nerve in Saudi people.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3363

Interesting enough the poll also shows a love affair is transpiring between USA and Afghanistan, right now I just wish that we could see a threesome with Iraq to so the world can be a litte safer and also meybe we can get Ahmedinejad confused enough to not know where to send the nuke, after all there will be two democracies in the Middle east then.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

and now for something completely different...

“We defend freedom of speech, but just because [such freedoms] exist doesn’t mean we should treat them as a toy. There is no intrinsic right to offend people or to beat up on [stampa på] a vulnerable group.”

-- Gustaf Fridolin Green party Sweden.

I was unaware that the Islamic population were a vulnerable group, apparently they are fully capable of burning embassies and killing eachother over cartoons. Strange that Gustaf feels that we should limit free speech, but then again if we did maybe I wouldn't have to listen to such nonsense as the bullcrap this guy is spewing out.
[By way of Stockholm Spectator].

http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060211/LIFESTYLE/602110302/1024
Interesting article about Islams reactions from muslims.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

The Economist

The Economist have a good follow up on the cartoon wars and the different goverments responses to the extremists demands in muslim countries.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5494602

Also I would like to point out that the law demanding that religion should be "protected" in the new Human rights organisation being setup by UN is supported by Muslim countries and also by different Christian organisations in Europe. This shows that the conflict is one between the religious world and the secular world.

We need to stand up and separate religion from the political world or we will all be transported back to the middle ages.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

EU initiates censorship

This whole thing makes me feel sick and very very sad.
Why are we rolling over sideways for fanatic muslims? We are teaching them that violence is a way to get what you want. Do you really think that they will not use this again?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/09/ncart109.xml

From Chydenius

Sincerly
Mr Silence Dogood

Annan is making a boo-boo

One can ask why we want religion to control our societies, especially since we have taken hundreds of years to get religion out of goverment. Kofis sugestion to create a UN panel to control religious sensitivities is at par with the religious police of Saudi Arabia.

Europeans didn't suffer trough inquisition and terror to free ourselves of Christianity just to get another religion thrusted on us. Why should we limit our freedom of speech and aquise radical fanatics? Kofi says his suggestion is supported by 57 countries, well I just wonder if one of these countries is Syria...

UN should be dismantled as long as it's only purpose is to further the agendas of totalitarian dictatorships.

Shame on you Mr Annan, shame!

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Security Police closes website

Security police and state department joined forces to close down a website for publishing "unsafe material". The website was offline for some time and the person responsible have been charged with a crime.
The crime was to publish one of the now famous Danish cartoons, so where did this happen? Jordan? Egypt? Syria? Singapore? No, Sweden...

What can I say, right now I am so depressed and the echo of prime minister G. Perssons promise that he would handle this situation better than Fogh-Rasmussen is sounding all to hollow. Fascists!

Rest is published in Swedish. This is the day freedom of speech in Sweden died!

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Det här är ett grovt brott begånget av regeringen, att stänga ner misshagliga sidor utan juridisk grund, Sverige börjar mer och mer likna en totalitär stat. Hur kan UD och Säpo motivera en nedsläckning av en website och hur ryggradslös kan en ISP vara att de facto gå regimens ärenden (jag kallar dem regim, de är inte en regering längre).

Detta måste utredas av åklagare, ett klart fall av brott mot YGL en GRUNDLAG i Sverige. JK har tidigare avfärdat en polisanmälan mot SD-kuriren för hets mot folkgrupp så jag undrar definitivt vilken juridisk grund som de åberopat för att stänga siten. Jag sympatiserar definitivt inte med Sverigedemokraternas politiska agenda men den maktfullkomlighet som visar sig nu med detta samt S beslut att öppna nätpoker visar med all önskvärd tydlighet vad S anser om demokrati. Vad händer härnäst? Kommer DNs politiska redaktör att fängslas? Tyvärr kommer detta tilltag inte att komma ut till folk och om det gör det kommer det att omgärdas med sådana politiska slagord och konnoteringar att ingen vågar opponera sig.
Var finns de som står upp för yttrandefriheten? Lars-Johan Hierta skulle vrida sig i sin grav så till den milda grad att om vi virade runt honom med koppartråd och satte magneter runt kistan skulle vi kunna ge tillräckligt med el till hela Ystad.

Jag mår så illa av detta, vad har hänt med Sverige? Varför står ingen upp för yttrandefriheten och pressfriheten längre?
Säkerhetspolis stänger site är en rubrik vi vanligtvis förknippar med totalitära stater, är det där vi är idag? Accepterar Svensken av idag detta beteende av sin egen regering samt säkerhetspolis? Vad kan vi förvänta oss härnäst? Vem kommer att bli utsatt för censur och åtal för sina yttringar och värderingar? Sverige har blivit ett sjukt land, rötan måste benas ur, jag skulle gärna se Freivalds framför KU och Säpo samt den ISP som följde anmälda till JK för brott mot grundlagen, men detta kommer aldrig att hända tyvärr. Sverige är för fegt och Svenskarna för indoktrinerade för att förstå vilka konsekvenser detta har.

Update on the Cartoon debacle

Apparently an Egyptian newspaper printed the pictures in september, no reactions were heard then which just goes to show yet again that the whole ruccus is simply because corrupt leaders want to get attention away from their own shortcomings.

http://freedomforegyptians.blogspot.com/2006/02/egyptian-newspaper-pictures-that.html

Deplorable...
terrorist apologets have so far declared that the pictures declare an insensitivity to Islam we can now discard that argument. Perhaps now we will all see what the issue really is.

Sincerely
Mr Silence Dogood

Brownshirts and the freedom of speech

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004448.htm

A nice little picture from London regarding the Muhammed pictures that have been published. placards say "be prepared for the real holocaust", "fuck freedom", "butcher those who mock islam", And these people have a right to say these things - the very right they are trying to deny others with the threat of violence!

Let's take a moment to look at the events these passed few weeks.
A book is to be written in Denmark about Mohammed and Islam, however apparently no one in Denmark wishes to illustrate the book, fears of radical islam prevents them. A Danish newspaper decides to show that such fear has nothing to do in a civilized society, they publish 12 drawings of Mohammed in their paper. Radical muslims get furious and start threatening to kill Danish people, bomb their homes and demand that the Danish goverment(?) tells the newspaper to apologize. Freedom of the press is an unknown concept for them. After this primitive reaction several newspapers followed up and reprinted the cartoons and I applaude that. It is imperative that we do not fold and give up our freedoms in the threat of violence, freedoms must be defended or we can just give them up. Swedish press has conceded, tail between their legs they maintain there are no reasons to reprint the pictures, I say there are all the reasons in the world to reprint them. We must stand up for our freedom of speech, freedom of press and our freedom of religion.

We must stand united in this and show that the threat of violence can never be accepted in our society. When it comes to caricatures the newspapers in Middle East are full of anti semitic cartoons, the double standard is obvious, and what has this proven?

“The protests in the Middle East have proven that the cartoonist was right,” said Tarek Fatah, a director of the Muslim Canadian Congress. “It's falling straight into that trap of being depicted as a violent people and proving the point that, yes, we are.” - Globe and Mail

The hypocritical sentiments do not stop here, even while the Arab nations officially protest the publications of these pictures their own newspapers publish cartoons as found here and here. I am appalled...

It is time that the Muslim world separates religion and politics, It has been done in Europe with Christianity, when will a Middle Eastern Anti-Mohammed similar to Nietzsches Anti-Christ be published?

"I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Antichrist

It is time that we all stand up against these fascists that in the name of religion kills people for what they say or what they think, do not let them get away with this, if we do they will learn that violence pays, that they can use it to get their way in the world. It is time to stop this!

Just to link to the pictures
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Gallery/28.htm