This comes after news that even her 15 day sentence was deemed unsatisfactory to the public, whose chants of “death” indicated a harsher preference. One can’t help but wonder if public reaction might be outraged even further by this step.
But for the time being the news is good and we wish Gillian a safe and swift trip home. The president of Sudan has done a good thing, and I agree with UK PM Gordon Brown when he says, "common sense has prevailed.''
I read an excellent article here, it explained the background and progress of Annapolis efficiently. Essentially, nothing really happened, they all planned to continue to negotiate and be done in a year.
This time next year, if negotiations over the key areas of dispute pan out, there could be a Palestinian state. That would mean reduced violence in Jerusalem and the rest of Israel, decreased terrorism, and increased chance for world peace.
The only problem is that this was the reaction of Palestinians,
The agreements of government officials are only a strong as their popular support. If the Palestinian people do not want peace, it will never happen. We stand at a crossroads. It seems as though the West and the Middle East are either headed for short term reconciliation or long term conflict. The results of this latest push for peace may indicate the thrust of our new common direction. Lets hope everything falls into place
The Polk County School Board in Florida is composed of members, a majority of which would vote to include “intelligent design” in the curriculum.
“My tendency would be to have both sides shared with students since neither side can be proven,” [School Board Member] Tim Harris said.
“I don’t have a conflict with intelligent design versus evolution,” [School Board Member] Sellers said. “The two go together.”
“It crosses the line with people who are Christians,” [School Board Member] Lofton said. “Evolution is offensive to a lot of people.”
Don’t the two on the right look embarrassed to be up there?
While the Pastafarians have sent their theory in for consideration for addition to the curriculum, the real solution is to vote fundamentalists out of positions of influence.
I use the word fundamentalist because when talking about Islamists, I have distinguished between acceptable religious practice and unacceptable religious practice. The difference, endorsed by Salman Rushdie, is the nature of one’s religion. Is it private, personal and subtle? Or public, evangelical, and universal? Do you need, me to follow your rules too?
The School Board members in Polk would have to answer affirmatively to the two last questions. Their religious views, as supported by their own statements, are public. They believe non-believers need to be exposed and limited by their subjective, logically insufficient, scientifically inaccurate, unexamined beliefs. They are therefore in league with Islamists polluting the education of Muslim children in the name of political power.
Remember Gillian Gibbons, The 54 year old British school teacher who allowed one of her students to name his teddy bear “Muhammad”? She was sentenced by Sudanese officials today. She’s been in jail for five days, since she was arrested shortly after the incident. Her punishment could have been a year in jail, 40 lashes or a fine. In the end, the government decided fifteen days in jail was appropriate. Excessive, but at least she’ll survive without being killed or something. Right? maybe…
Blasphemer and Heretic
When the news that the British school teacher “only” got fifteen days in prison was announced, up to a thousand marched in Sudan’s capital protesting for her death. The BBC reports:
According to some agencies, some of the protesters chanted: "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".
This kindg of surprised me… The government takes a lenient (by regional standards) approach to the problem, she’s only serving 1/24 the maximum sentence. But the people get upset? On one hand this could be a small group of crazies, unrepresentative of the population. According to Wikipedia, there are 2.2 million people in the city, and another 6 million around the city. Some reports are emphatically claiming the number was in the “thousands”, but BBC claims it was about a thousand. In a city of that size, this protest seems relatively minor. Given the government’s lenient action, and the extraordinarily small scope of the protest, this could all go away once she’s released from prison and deported.
On the other hand, it only takes one person to kill her. Widespread outrage isn’t necessary for an assassination attempt. With the Sudanese Government’s theocratic tendencies and their absolute corruption, I’m sure she doesn’t feel safe in prison from those thousand, chanting for her death. Let’s hope she is able to get out of the country in one piece.
If Roe v Wade was overturned, and Congress passed a bill banning abortion, would you sign it?
Giuliani to his credit, said he would not sign the bill, would leave it up to the states. The foundation of such an action, vetoing the bill, must be a belief in a woman’s right to have an abortion. Despite being at a Republican primary debate, where the political pressures favor the right-most candidate, he held firm to his belief.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, would sign the bill, but he said that the country isn’t there yet. So where is the country Mitt? What is it that we want? According to him, “Where America is, is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade”. So let’s be clear about this, Mitt wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he believes the American public is ready for it. Aside from the fact that the current court has indicated is preference for precedent, Mitt Romney is flat wrong. The American public does not support overturning Roe v. Wade, as this study earlier this year indicates.
Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney both are making fire about overturning Roe, a long held goal for conservatives. Although this may work in the primary, once the general electi0n begins, things change. If either candidate's anti-abortion stance catapulted them into the nomination (as it could since the front runner is pro-choice), the issue that defines either candidate's success will become abortion, and their stance against it will be clear and undeniable. But as the chart indicates, the public is not ready to overturn Roe v. Wade. Convincing fellow republicans is difference than convincing the sea of moderates, who favor the courts ruling. This opinion would undoubtedly affect their choice for president, the Republican nominees ignore this fact at their own peril.
These YouTube debates have been good. The questions are much more interesting than the one’s journalists generally ask and since the YouTubers themselves ask the question, each new round brings a new questioner. Some have an edge of resentment for politicians. Most offer an authentic perspective.Still Others were plants from Hilary Clinton’s campaign. These factors created a tension for the candidates that occasionally yielded more honest glimpses of their true personalities. Crucial since the stakes are raising because America is beginning to tune in.
The first religious question asked, “if abortion were illegal and a women got one anyway what should the punishment be?”
Ron Paul was up first and he began by claiming that the federal government shouldn’t dictate the punishment for abortion. Under his administration, it would be left to the states to decide, in part because it is such a controversial issue, he doesn’t think it should be “all fifty states the same way”.
He then said that the “abortionist” (an Orwellian term for a highly educated Professional Doctor who performs abortions, and therefore endorses it ethically) should be punished not the woman. Ron Paul is utterly opposed to abortion, probably stemming from his deep religious faith, after all he was nearly a Lutheran minister. If he believed in a more forceful Presidency, this could be a killer for his campaign, but since he would leave regulation to that states, its seen as consistent with his views.
Fred Thompson said same thing as Paul except he sounded more nervous, spoke less intelligently, and induced me to suicidal boredom. Grampa Fred puts the room to sleep again.
Tompson and Paul have the sense to know a modern political truth. Something we'll talk about more in the next segment; that it is politically deadly to be anti-abortion in a national campaign.
The question was simply, 'Regarding the Death Penalty, what would Jesus do?'
Huckabee answered the question by arguing his position on the death penalty in general. He dragged out the old dead dog of deterrence, long refuted. To cover his pro-death bases, he also made the age old claim that some problems are “beyond any other capacity for us fix”. His claim is that since we cannot “fix” the problem we should kill the person.
Aside from his vague notion of “fixing” people, and our current prison system’s incapacity and unwillingness to do so, Mike Huckabee is making a classic logical error called, false dilemma. This happens when, during an argument, one explains that a circumstance must resolve in one of only two ways. A fallacy exists if there are other, unmentioned, ways the circumstance could resolve. With the debate, Huckabee set up the false dilemma that we have to “fix” terrible criminals or kill them. If there are any other possibilities his argument falls apart. So why not lock up terrible criminals we can't reform forever? Whether or not you agree that it’s a good option, at least grant that it’s an option. Huckabee’s fallacious point undermines the logic of his argument. Which, if we remember, was designed to dodge the question about what Jesus thinks about capital punishment.
When Anderson Cooper pressed him, Huckabee used his keen sense of humor to deflect the question, “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office”.
Tom Tancredo was next up, his dodge was much less graceful and genuine. He just said that he’d pray to god when he had to kill someone, and that he supported the death penalty. No talk of what Jesus would do, or any justification of his beliefs.
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