I really do not get the connection between the Obama Health Care plan and the Nazi policy of eugenics, or any other Nazi policy for that matter. I can understand that some people might not agree with the policy or the plan, but comparing it to anything that Adolf Hitler or the Nazis did in Germany through the 1930s and 1940s is just plain stupid and way out there in terms of exaggeration.
So, it was with a good deal of laughter that I watched Barney Frank's reply at a recent town hall meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, when one of the attendees asked him, "Why are you supporting this Nazi policy?"
Frank's reply, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" He then gets a little more serious and talks about the beauty of the first amendment allowing for such "vile, contemptible nonsense" to be propagated.
Here is some food for thought for those of you out there, me included, who blog and say things that may or may not be considered defamatory.
A model, Liskula Cohen, has successfully sued Google for the name of an anonymous blogger who she alleges defamed her on a blog hosted by Google. The blog was called Skanks in NYC. The essence of the defamation case is that the anonymous blogger called Cohen a "skank" and an "old hag".
The anonymous blogger identified Cohen as the "skankiest in NYC". This was then followed with, "How old is this skank? 40 something? She's a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank." I am guessing that this does not leave much to one's imagination. Is it defamatory? On face value, probably.
However, there are defenses to defamation that if the decision survives appeal, assuming there is one, then the anonymous blogger would likely be arguing an extension of what the blogger's lawyer has put forward so far, namely: this was mere opinion and "trash talk" rather than any intent to defame. The extension here would be to argue that, in essence, what has been said is in fact true.
Judge Joan Madden has ruled in favour of Cohen and has ordered that Google must provide the name of the anonymous blogger. It is expected that the name of the anonymous blogger is to be revealed in court as a means of allowing Cohen to proceed with her defamation action against the currently anonymous blogger. According to Judge Madden the assertions made were that Cohen was sexually promiscuous and the accompanying photos on the blog bore this intent out sufficiently well.
Cohen's modelling career was seemingly cut short when she was glassed in 2007. The resulting injuries required 46 stitches to close the wounds. Cohen was glassed when she objected to some drunk bloke stealing a bottle of vodka off her table. The bloke decided his best course of action in response to this objection was to glass Cohen in the face. The bloke was sent to jail, and deservedly so.
The case is interesting because of the potential implications. These implications are that anyone who thinks they are blogging anonymously may not be so anonymous after all. There are undoubtedly many techno savvy individuals out there with the knowledge and means of ratcheting up their anonymity to make discovery of their true identities even more difficult or impossible.
I am not one of them. I have enough trouble just using the features of blogger to be worried about whether I am anonymous or not. That said, I am using my real name to blog. So, if I have defamed you then you know where I reside in cyberspace.
There is a belief that this decision will open the floodgates to litigation and defamation claims based on comments written online that people do not agree with. This would seemingly be the case.
It is worth noting that the blog in question was shut down in March of this year. The blog contained only five entries and all of them related to Cohen. My guess is that the anonymous blogger is likely someone she knows or someone she has had some acquaintance with. Alternatively, it is, or was, a cyber-stalker which is a scary thought.
Something for all you anonymous bloggers out there to consider is this statement from Google:
"We sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order." So, make sure you re-read the privacy statement from Google again if you thought what you clicked guaranteed your absolute privacy.
I am all for developments in medicine and science that help us live more fulfilled and healthier lives. However, this story gets one wondering, and wondering big time, about pushing the physical boundaries of what is humanly capable and, perhaps more importantly, what is responsible.
A Tunisian woman is reportedly pregnant with 12 babies, six boys and six girls. The 12 babies are the result, it is thought, of an IVF treatment. The woman and her husband are apparently ecstatic about the pregnancy.
I guess I am wondering what are the implications of trying to carry this many babies to term? Particularly, what are the health implications for the mother and the babies she is expected to give birth to.
The couple have been told that she will be able to give birth to all these babies naturally. However, most experts seem to think that this would be impossible. I suppose we will find out on this one when the time comes.
I truly hope that it all works out for her, her husband, and the 12 babies she is carrying.
I wonder what people carrying US dollars are doing in their spare time. A recent study has found that 90%, yes that is nine out of every ten bills tested, tested positive for cocaine. So, whoever is laundering this money is not doing a very good job at getting it clean before it goes into circulation. The study was presented at the Annual National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (I wonder if that is some kind of secret code for a meeting of like-minded individuals in the chemical field, if you know what I mean ;D).
The figures would suggest that the worlds largest consumers of cocaine, the US, are still maintaining a strangle-hold on the number one spot when it comes to users of cocaine. How does money end up with traces of cocaine on it; it is either used to snort the drug or it picks it up during a drug transaction.
Funnily enough, the dirtiest cities are Baltimore, Boston, and Detroit. The cleanest happens to be Salt Lake City, which means that apparently Mormons are not too into doing cocaine or they are just better at laundering their money.
The tests on the money were done with a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. For those of you who don't know, and I was one of you, this is apparently a very accurate way of determining residues on banknotes.
But, never fear dear readers, you have absolutely zero chance of being able to go out and buy some greenbacks and start sniffing them for a cheap high. I still have a few greenbacks in my wallet from my last trip to Washington DC. Perhaps, it is time to dig around. The tests generally revealed only minute traces of cocaine.
As was expected Schapelle Corby has been granted a four-month remission on her 20-year jail sentence for smuggling 4.1kg of the wacky weed into Bali back in 2004. Corby has been battling depression for a number of years and continues to maintain her innocence.
Renae Lawrence of Bali Nine fame was granted a five-month sentence reduction on her 20-year jail sentence for trying to smuggle more than 8kg of heroin out of Bali and into Australia in 2005.
Both, seemingly, still have a long road to haul before they will qualify for release. Hopefully, the remissions will make them feel a little bit better about that.
A modern Orthodox Jewish couple, preparing for a religious wedding meets with their rabbi for counselling.
The rabbi asks if they have any last questions before they leave.
The man asks:
Rabbi, we realise it’s tradition for men to dance with men,and women to dance with women at the reception. But, we’d like your permission to dance together, like the rest of the world.
Says the rabbi:
Absolutely not. It’s immodest. Men and women always dance separately.
So, after the ceremony I can’t even dance with my own wife?
“No,” answered the rabbi. “It’s forbidden.”
“Well, okay,” says the man,”What about sex? Can we finally have sex?”
“Of course!” replies the rabbi. “Sex is a mitzvah – a good thing within marriage – to have children!”
“What about different positions?” asks the man
“No problem,” says the rabbi “It’s a mitzvah!”
“Woman on top?” the man asks.
“Sure,” says the rabbi. “Go for it! It’s a mitzvah!”
“Doggy style?”
“Sure! Another mitzvah!”
“On the kitchen table?”
“Yes, yes! A mitzvah!”
“Can we do it on rubber sheets with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators, a leather harness, a bucket of honey and a porno video?”
“You may indeed. It’s all a mitzvah!”
“Can we do it standing up?”
“No!”thunders the rabbi.
“Why not?” asks the man.
“Could lead to dancing!”
This joke and the picture has been taken from The Freethinker blog. I would encourage everyone to go and have a read of the posts made. They are always interesting and thought-provoking, even when they might not be your cuppa tea.
This was an interesting program. It is available in podcast if you are so inclined and technologically capable. Otherwise, you can just access the transcript and read what was said. Just go to the Law Report section on the ABC or follow this link.
The title of the program is a clever play on the fact that droughts tend to wreak the greatest havoc in rural areas, so it seems will a shortage of lawyers wreak a greater havoc in rural areas than in the larger urban areas.
A recent survey shows that the number of lawyers practicing in rural areas is declining fast and is set to decline even faster still in the coming years. Some 71% of the legal practitioners that are currently practicing in a number of areas believe that there are not enough lawyers to service their communities and that they feel the problem is only going to get worse.
It was interesting to see that what was really being lost from these communities was the pro bono work that local lawyers do for no other reason than it is of benefit to the community. It seems that young lawyers just cannot see a future in practicing law in rural areas, and they are always keen to return to the city or large urban areas.
The Law Council of Australia is currently running an initiative in an attempt to address this problem. You can find an article here.
Maybe I will have to complete my College of Law exams and go bush.
The idea of issuing a fatwa (edict) against terrorism is an appealing one. If for no other reason than it would serve to distance the more moderate adherents to the faith from the more radical. However, the big question is how binding are these fatwas on Muslims and what are the real world punishments for failing to adhere to them?
More importantly, how should Muslims respond to competing fatwas or competing interpretations of what is acceptable with respect to violence perpetrated in the defense of the religion of Allah? There are plenty of Muslim organizations, and Muslims, throughout the world that are seeking to issue fatwas against terrorism as a means of distancing the faith from the criminal acts of a few. The YouTube video below relates to a fatwa issued in India.
This post is not suggesting that terrorism is a Muslim issue alone or that only Muslims perpetrate terror. However, the post is dealing with the issue of fatwas and terrorism, and this is a discussion within the framework of Islam and the interpretation of what is forbidden (haram) and what is permitted / legitimate (halal).
This is an interesting question. I thank Harry over at Multibrand for, in essence, challenging me on the issue, and also Tikno over at Love Ely for pointing me to the Indonesia version of a 2004 Fatwa on terrorism issued by the Indonesian Ulema Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia / MUI).
In the Indonesian context, a fatwa is not binding in a strict legal sense. The government may consider them and may even adopt them if they are so inclined. However, adoption would require the codification of the fatwa into law. This is something that happens to a certain degree in matters relating to Islamic finance where the MUI plays a role in determining what financial products are legitimate under the rules of Islam. These are then codified in laws and regulations enacted by the state.
Furthermore, Indonesia already has an Anti-Terrorism Law (Interim Law No. 1 of 2002 / Law No. 15 of 2003) so is there a need for a fatwa forbidding conduct which is already prohibited in the criminal legal sense? For an interesting paper on the subject you can read Simon Butt's paper by downloading it from here.
I have taken the time to translate the MUI fatwa and would be happy to send it out if anyone wanted a copy in English. I am reluctant just to post it here because I am hopeless at formatting and "stuff" within the blogspot framework.
The fatwa is interesting because it does not forbid in an absolute sense the killing of oneself in the defense of the religion of Allah. Yet, the fatwa goes to considerable lengths to try and point out that random suicide bombings with undefined targets is absolutely against the teachings of Islam.
The primary difference in the fatwa between terrorism and jihad is that terrorism is used for destructive purposes and to cause chaos and fear whereas jihad is a legitimate struggle to defend the faith. Unfortunately, the violence perpetrated in both cases can be the same, but the intent of the perpetrator is what makes the difference. If the perpetrator is amaliyah al-istisyhad or undertaking the action in search of syahid, then this is acceptable. In contrast, where the perpetrator is one who kills themselves and others because they are a pessimist has therefore sinned in the eyes of God and has committed a crime that can never be permitted by Allah or Islam.
Therefore, the violence is a matter of perception with respect to whether it is legitimate or forbidden. Yet, the fatwa states that the act of suicide bombing is an act of despair and is therefore forbidden under the laws of Islam irrespective of whether it is done in a time of peace or a time of war or in an area dominated by Muslims or in areas dominated by other faiths.
But, in the next point of the fatwa a suicide death where the losses inflicted on the enemies of Islam are greater than those inflicted upon Islam would constitute amaliyah al-istisyhad. However, this is seemingly modified by the phrase dar al-harb which is reasonably translated as regions at war. Yet, it can also be translated to places where Muslims are in the minority and are therefore in constant struggle to practice their faith.
What is interesting about the MUI fatwa was that it was issued in 2004 and even today it is not widely known and has not been widely discussed. It is interesting because wider and more open discussion of the fatwa and terrorism could have made a significant contribution to the understanding of the "problem" of terror and how the Indonesian Muslim community is seeking to deal with it.
There are plenty of sites dedicated to debunking fatwas on terrorism as nothing more than fakes of ways of diverting attention from the real intents and purposes of terrorism. To each their own.
