Stupid Assholes

Enough said.

Mistake in gazette, Christians still can’t use ‘Allah’

KOTA KINABALU: A Feb 16 government gazette lifting a ban on Christian publications to use the word “Allah” will be rescinded.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said a gazette would be issued as early as tomorrow to cancel the earlier gazette.

He told reporters here yesterday that there were mistakes made in the drafting of the Feb 16 gazette which stated that Christian publications could use the word “Allah” provided the words “For Christians” were clearly printed on the front cover.

“The government’s stand on the ban has not changed.

“There is also a judicial review challenging the ban,” Syed Hamid said.

He said the government had no intention of pre-empting any decision of the courts on the judicial review brought by the Malaysian Catholic church publication, the Catholic Herald.

Acknowledging that more care should have been taken, he said since mistakes were made “we will now have to correct them.”

Syed Hamid said a gazette to cancel the Feb 16 gazette is needed to clear any misunderstanding over the matter.

Apart from the word “Allah”, the ban for the Christian publications also covered the words “Kaabah,” “Solat” and “Baitullah”.

The ban on these words are not aimed at preventing other religions from being practised.

It is just that the government wants to avoid any confusion, Syed Hamid added.

Geert Wilder should not have been banned from the UK

Now, this is ridiculous.

Is the UK for "free speech" or not? Exactly what are the boundaries? Looking at my last post, I think it's pretty obvious that there are some pretty woolly thinkers in the powers-that-be that regulate free speech in the UK (yes, oh come on, "free" speech is regulated everywhere).

Wilder's video, as I have said in earlier posts, doesn't actually contain any fabrications or lies.

It contains statements and multimedia equivalents (ie. videoclips) taken out of context. Wilder has not invented statements from the Koran; he's merely extracted them for his own purposes.

Similarly, the videoclips were not staged for Wilder's camera; so, unlike the proverbial fire in the cinema, cited by a "brilliant" minister of Her Majesty's august government (Mr Miliband also said: "We have profound commitment to freedom of speech but there is no freedom to cry 'fire' in a crowded theatre and there is no freedom to stir up hate, religious and racial hatred, according to the laws of the land.") - as an example of a situation where the UK government would not allow the freedom of speech to prevail, there IS repeat IS a fire here - there is no lie in that sense. The statements Wilder actually made in Fitna are "true" - no fabrications.

The only dispute is over what you, the listener, make of that fire - is it the kind of fire that makes you run for the exit, ie. you agree with Wilder, or the kind of fire you will simply stand on to put out, ie. Wilder is exaggerating or otherwise putting the wrong spin on the observable facts.

In other words, the proper response was to allow plenty of equal time for Wilder's opponents to justify their stand.

Banning him shouts one thing loud and clear: there is no effective or proper logical response to Wilder that will appeal to the listener's good sense; Wilder is essentially correct in what he says, and therefore the only way to win the argument with Wilder is to shut him up and deny him the right to put his views across instead of replying him point for point.

Let's put my point another way, linking back to my earlier post: if saying God Doesn't Exist is not a violation of norms where freedom of speech in the UK is concerned, what exactly is wrong with saying that the Muslim God is a God of Violence? I mean, in neither case is anyone saying: Kill All the God-Believers, or, Kill All the Muslims, although that may or may not be an implication from the statement. It is merely another opinion, no? Why allow one and ban the other? Is the lobby group against Wilder more powerful than the lobby group against Atheists, and therefore more successful? Is this the real truth behind the matter, Mr Miliband? Is the deciding factor exactly who and how many you think might be offended by the statement rather than the quality of the statement itself?

Why the Atheist anti-God campaign is so offensive.

I was intrigued by this which I saw on the BBC website:

Man refuses to drive 'No God' bus

"A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus with an atheist slogan proclaiming "There's probably no God".

... The advertising campaign is backed by the British Humanist Association and prominent atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins.

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said: "I have difficulty understanding why people with particular religious beliefs find the expression of a different sort of beliefs to be offensive.

"I can't understand why some people seem to have a different attitude when it comes to atheists."

I thought it would be pretty obvious why such a campaign would always be offensive. In a way I'm surprised it was allowed, because Britain does have hate speech legislation. It all depends on HOW you express your "different sort of beliefs" - and if it's just a BELIEF, ie. a normative rather than a positive statement (ie. one that can be proven true or false by reference to facts you can objectively measure), then you really shouldn't be surprised if those of a different belief group decide they aren't going to cooperate with you or be nice to you.

What would happen if I decided I was going to pay for an ad campaign to run on buses that said: "Cina Balik Tongsan" (Chinese Go Home) - in the Malaysian or Singaporean context - or, taking a religious (NOT ethnic) example: "Jews / Muslims /Hindus / Buddhists / Have Got it All Wrong, It PROBABLY Ain't Kosher - Come to Church on Sunday", or, perhaps, "The Law is an Ass - **Don't** Follow Law"??

The only reason why this British Humanist Association statement, which I found quite silly, was made: "some people seem to have a different attitude when it comes to atheists" - is because the atheist concerned doesn't consider religion to be an important part of a person's character or life makeup. It's a typical, insensitive, one-angled, not well thought-through kind of attack on other belief systems.

It's not different, in my view, from wondering why slagging the law off would offend lawyers, or slagging Chinese off would offend people who are Chinese, or slagging Judaism off would offend Jews.

Maybe the ad is some kind of joke, or half-joke - in which case, and this wouldn't be new, one person's joke is simply another's insult.

For instance, I'll always remember the year Andrew Leci performed at the Bar Council's Annual Dinner. His act was FULL of lawyer jokes, and by the time the end of the show was reached nobody was laughing, even politely.

I also remember Al Gore's Reformasi speech - in KL, as an invited guest of the Malaysian government, at APEC - when he was still the vice president.

Maybe Al thought he wasn't offending anybody except corrupt power-abusing politicians, but a lot of ordinary Malaysians got mighty upset and I recall personally writing and circulating a long email post "gor-ing" Gore on this, back then. One prominent Malaysian intellectual even took out a full-page advertisement in the newspapers on his own account to condemn our "good friend" Al from America.

Australian researchers claim breakthrough on dengue fever

Now why is it that a Malaysian or Singaporean research team didn't do this?

Was it just lack of money, or something deeper, more fundamental? Was it just luck, or some cultural or intellectual impediment? I'm thinking, did someone perhaps NOT think out of the box here? Because it seems to have not been a difficult thing to speculate that this could be a solution to the problem, and yet it had to be tested in Australia, a country only partially tropical, and certainly not under as big a threat from dengue as Malaysia and Singapore.

"SYDNEY : Australian researchers funded by US billionaire Bill Gates Friday claimed a breakthrough which could help in the fight against dengue fever by stopping the often deadly disease in its tracks.

University of Queensland researchers said they have successfully infected the mosquito which spreads the tropical disease with a bacterium which halves its 30-day lifespan, thereby reducing its ability to transmit dengue to humans.

Scientists hope their work will help halt the spread of the painful and debilitating disease which affects millions of people each year.

"The key is that really only very old mosquitos are the only ones that are able to transmit the disease," said researcher Professor Scott O'Neill.

"What we've done is put this naturally occurring bacteria into the mosquitos that actually halves their adult lifespan so they don't live long enough to be able to transmit the virus."

The research published Friday in the journal Science is the result of injecting 10,000 mosquito embryos with a bacterium that occurs naturally in fruit flies but has never been detected in dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

O'Neill said the test was designed to see whether the bacterium reduced the lifespan of the insects without killing them or preventing them from breeding and was able to be passed on to offspring.

He said while the laboratory tests, which involved researchers allowing the bacteria-infected mosquitoes to bite their arms because the species needs human blood to breed, had been successful, it would be several years before the technique would be tested in the wild.

"It's really a preventative strategy for preventing dengue fever outbreaks and what we've done is show that it's possible to be done in a laboratory," he told AFP."

HERALD MERAYU TERHADAP KEPUTUSAN KERAJAAN YANG BODOH LAGI BERMAHARAJALELA MELARANG PENGGUNAAN BAHASA KEBANGSAAN

"Herald appeals Bahasa ruling
KUALA LUMPUR: A Catholic newspaper said on Friday it might take the Malaysian Government to court for allegedly violating the rights of religious minorities by refusing to let the publication use Bahasa Malaysia.
The Herald, the main Roman Catholic weekly in Malaysia, received a letter from the Home Ministry on Tuesday restricting it to English, Mandarin and Tamil for its multi-lingual editions. The newspaper typically uses four languages including Malay.
Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, said the newspaper sent a letter to the ministry Friday to appeal the order. If there is no response in seven days or the decision is not retracted, the Herald will consider legal action against the government, Andrew said.
The Herald has sought a court order to challenge the government’s ban last year on its use of “Allah.’’ A hearing is scheduled for next month. - AP"

And so it seems the assault on religious freedom by the bigots within the "Islamist" establishment continues. Come on folks, what is it you idiotic schizophrenics want? Is Bahasa Malaysia the language of the country, the national language, the official language, the one All Malaysians should be proud to speak, and NOT just Muslim Malaysians, and Malay Muslim Malaysians at that, never mind the Indian, Chinese and other non-Malay ethnic-origin Malaysian Muslims, OR NOT????

Malaysians, Christians or otherwise, Catholic or otherwise, Unite!!! We have to fight this now! Before it gets to THIS stage! and the so-called Muslims who are NOT really genuine Muslims but only power-hungry bigots who CLAIM to be Muslim, take power completely! We have to stop all the little Maharajalelas before they get out of hand and do a JWW Birch on the Malaysia that we know!