Subscribe to this blog in Radio:
Didn't find what you were looking for?
E-mail this blog's author, Bruce Umbaugh:  |
|
 |
Monday, May 29, 2006 |
Not this time...
....I'm not going to be "conned"! Like many blogs, I fell for the Iranian color-coding the Infidels story, and its subsequent retraction, and duly ate humble pie. I managed to steer clear of the Two Saudis on the School Bus story, because for me it didn't ring true as some sort of dastardly crime. And this one is definitely someone trying to stir up trouble and give the Muslim Offense Level a real boost.
Ready for the soccer jihad?
 It appears that this is some kind of World Cup soccer ball, with the flags of the various participating nations -- including Saudi Arabia.
So what? Well, as you can see, the Saudi flag prominently features the Shahada, the Islamic profession of faith: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger."
And...people are going to kick that?
Nice try, guys. Except this is nothing to do with the 2006 World Cup. It looks like the tacky product of some back-street Third World sweat-shop factory. And the reason it has nothing to do with the World Cup? The flags of Northern Ireland and Israel. They are not in the World Cup. Israel, maybe next time, but come on, Northern Ireland have about as much chance of ever qualifying, as the Imam University team.
As the post goes on....
[The Religious Policeman]
7:01:09 PM 
|
|
Ralph Reed and the Gospel of Money.
The Washington Post has a report on religious right poster boy Ralph Reed and his misuse of religion in the service of making himself right. This will surprise no one:
In August 1999, political organizer Ralph Reed's firm sent out a mailer to Alabama conservative Christians asking them to call then-Rep. Bob Riley (R-Ala.) and tell him to vote against legislation that would have made the U.S. commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands subject to federal wage and worker safety laws...
"The radical left, the Big Labor Union Bosses, and Bill Clinton want to pass a law preventing Chinese from coming to work on the Marianas Islands," the mailer from Reed's firm said. The Chinese workers, it added, "are exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ" while on the islands, and many "are converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand."
Well, who could be against bringing those godless atheists to American territory and then to Christ? Trouble is, that's not what was really going on in the Marianas Islands at all: . . . [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
6:59:54 PM
|
|
Compartmentalization of Identity.
Kim Cameron has a post, "IBM Researcher Slams UK Identity Card Scheme" in which he writes:
He couldn’t be more right. My central “aha” in studying the British government’s proposal was that the natural contextual specialization of everyday life is healthy and protective of the structure of our social systems, and this should be reflected in our technical systems. A technology proposal that aims to eliminate compartmentalization rejects one of the fundamental protective mechanisms society has evolved. The resulting central database, where everything is connected and visible to everything else, is as vulnerable as a steel ship with no compartments - one perforation, and the whole thing goes down. It's a tremendously important point. Our lives are naturally, usefully, and importantly segmented. In 1959, Erving Goffman discussed this in the (still important) "Presentation of Self In Everyday Life." (Wikipedia article, or some excerpts...I know. Books. Get over it, there's some useful stuff stored that way.)
His basic thesis is that we play roles: "school principal" or "mother" or "doctor" or "bribe-accepting Congressman," and that each of these roles has its own quirks and presentations, and it is useful and important to separate them. An identity system that doesn't support that in powerful ways is far less likely to be adopted.
[Emergent Chaos]
6:58:08 PM
|
|
|
