Worse Than You Think

After a rather long hiatus, I'm happy to say that I'm back for good! Expect the same reporting and commentary you were used to with a slightly more political slant to the analysis from now on! Enjoy! (and Merry Christmas!)

The date was September 30th, 2005. It was a normal day in Denmark -- nothing out of the ordinary happened -- or so it seemed. However, it was on this day, that the New York Times of Denmark, the Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, had printed its 12 infamous cartoons.

Jyllands-Posten had asked around 40 cartoonists to draw their idea of what Muhammad might look like. Most of the cartoonists rejected the offer, afraid that they would be killed, as have the few brave enough to try to draw or otherwise create an image of Muhammad or Allah. Islam forbids idolarity, which is the worship of an image, idea or object, as opposed to the worship of a supreme being. Although the Koran does not explicitly forbid a pictoral representation of Muhammad, most Muslims condemn these representations. Although the Shi'a or Shiite Muslims and the Ottoman Muslims are very tolerant of pictoral representations, the Sunni Muslims, which make up the majority, strongly condemn them. This is where the controversy sprouted.


It is safe to say that most of the Muslim world is furious. The Shi'a and Ottoman Muslims are furious because many of the cartoons implied that Muhammad was a terrorist, and the Sunni Muslims are furious not only because of that, but also because all of the cartoons pictured Muhammad in one way or another, which they condemn. If you would like to see the cartoons for yourself, click here, with larger versions available here. Although this should be obvious, I feel like putting out a disclaimer anyways. IF YOU PLAN TO BE OFFENDED BY THESE PICTURES, DON'T CLICK THE LINKS!

After the Muslim world was in uproar, and began a series of protests, including when Muslim protestors set fire to the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon, and pelted Denmark's embassy in Iran with stones, Jyllands-Posten decided to issue an apology for the cartoons, which is as follows:

Honourable Fellow Citizens of the Muslim World

Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten is a strong proponent of democracy and freedom of religion. The newspaper respects the right of any human being to practise his or her religion. Serious misunderstandings in respect of some drawings of the Prophet Mohammed have led to much anger and, lately, also boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries.

Please allow me to correct these misunderstandings.

On 30 September last year, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten published 12 different cartoonists' idea of what the Prophet Mohammed might have looked like. The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.

In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.

Since then a number of offensive drawings have circulated in The Middle East which have never been published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and which we would never have published, had they been offered to us. We would have refused to publish them on the grounds that they violated our ethical code.

Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten attaches importance to upholding the highest ethical standards based upon the respect of our fundamental values. It is so much more deplorable, therefore, that these drawings were presented as if they had anything to do with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.

Maybe because of culturally based misunderstandings, the initiative to publish the 12 drawings has been interpreted as a campaign against Muslims in Denmark and the rest of the world.

I must categorically dismiss such an interpretation. Because of the very fact that we are strong proponents of the freedom of religion and because we respect the right of any human being to practise his or her religion, offending anybody on the grounds of their religious beliefs is unthinkable to us.

That this happened was, consequently, unintentional.

As a result of the debate that has been going on about the drawings, we have met with representatives of Danish Muslims, and these meetings were held in a positive and constructive spirit. We have also sought in other ways to initiate a fruitful dialogue with Danish Muslims.

It is the wish of Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten that various ethnic groups should live in peace and harmony with each other and that the debates and disagreements which will always exist in a dynamic society should do so in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

For that reason, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has published many articles describing the positive aspects of integration, for example in a special supplement entitled The Contributors. It portrayed a number of Muslims who have had success in Denmark. The supplement was rewarded by the EU Commission.

Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten takes exception to symbolic acts suited to demonise specific nationalities, religions and ethnic groups.

Sincerely yours

Carsten Juste
Editor-in-Chief

Now the real question is, should Jyllands-Posten and all of the other newspapers who reprinted these cartoons after Jyllands-Posten apologize for what they did? Note that the cartoons were printed in Jyllands-Posten with an editorial article on freedom of expression. So in short, Jyllands-Posten was expressing their right to freedom of the press, and because of it, this enormous controversy got started. Should Jyllands-Posten have done this?

Now I think that Jyllands-Posten DEFINETELY has the right to do this. If there is true freedom of expression, then there should be no exceptions to this rule. Many of the Muslim clerics who aren't busy chanting DEATH TO DENMARK, the new addition to the longtime favorite, DEATH TO AMERICA, are saying that freedom of expression is good, but not when the expression is "insulting" Islam. That is complete bullshit. In a true democracy, the people have the right to say whatever the hell they want, and they have every right to humiliate whoever the hell they want.

So Jyllands-Posten had every right to do it. However, should they have exercised their right? Was this good judgement on their part, considering the fact that the entire Muslim world now hates Denmark, many are seeking to kill the cartoonists, and that the entire Muslim world has boycotted Danish goods? This is political and economic torture to Denmark. If Jyllands-Posten was smart, they wouldn't have been so bold. Now I'm not defending what the Muslim protestors are doing. Sure, they can be unhappy, nobody can stop them from doing that. And they can express their distaste in a civilized manner. But when they are burning down buildings and killing people, thats where they've crossed the fine line between acceptable and unacceptable.

However, it wouldn't have taken a genius to realize that they would have reacted like this. So when you know what the reaction is going to be, when you know what kind of a global audience you're dealing with, why provoke the irritable, when it means that the well being of your country and its people is at stake?

A bit of thought could have easily prevented all of this.

Just when I thought I had seen enough idiotic legislation, I find this on the news:

Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name.

What kind of an law is that? A pointless and idiotic one. First of all, in my mind it's a serious violation of my First Amendment rights, which guarantee my right to the freedom of speech. My freedom of speech gives me the freedom to annoy whoever I want. And it's not like I go around annoying people anonymously all day long. No-- it's the whole concept of infringing upon basic rights that ANNOYS me.

But I guess Bush hasn't been too concerned about upholding the Constitution in the past, so it only makes sense that he would pass this legislation. Him, and all of his conservative Republican friends in Congress.

And even more troubling, the legislation says that it is illegal to "annoy" someone without disclosing your true identity. First of all, how do they define annoy? Different people find different things annoying. In fact, just about anything could be considered annoying. If a person wants me locked up, they sure as hell could without much trouble. Having the law worded in such a vague form makes for very subjective interpretation. And secondly, how do they plan to enforce this law? Sure, someone could complain that something I said is annoying, and they want to know my true identity. However, if I was really intent on annoying someone, I could very easily go to a public place and send annoying emails. They can't track me by my IP address, and the name I've provided to the email service isn't verifiable. Simple work-arounds like this make the law pretty pointless. But then again if I wasn't intent on annoying someone, then I could get in trouble for no reason.

Although I've heard really positive feedback about the ticker, I've also heard a few complaints regarding the ticker and its use of system resources. Apparently, since I added on the ticker, people's computers tend to slow down somewhat when viewing the site. When I tested it myself, indeed, the CPU usage of Firefox skyrocketed. However, the only real-world difference I noticed was that my fans speeded up. In other words, it wasn't a difference big enough to cause me to take the code out. However, I'm not sure how exactly this is affecting your computers. If you have been experiencing this too, please let me know. The ticker itself is just some simple javascript code, so I wouldn't have thought of it as a system hog, but obviously I was wrong. Let me know: worsethanyouthink@gmail.com

Let's think about all of the things the United States has been concerned about since 9/11. First, we were afraid of Osama and his Taliban regime, so we bombed the shit out of Afghanistan. After that, we moved on to Iraq. It seems as though we are no longer concerned about Iraq, or if we are, it doesn't compare to our concern regarding Iran. Iran pops up in the news all the time now. Their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made headlines by questioning whether or not the Holocaust took place. But the world isn't concerned about Ahmadinejad's ridiculous claims. No -- the world is concerned about something far worse. Nuclear bombs.

Now there are two sides to the argument. First, there is the United States and most of Europe, which thinks that Iran is aiming to make a uranium-grade bomb. Then on the other side of the argument we have Iran, claiming that the world is paranoid, and that Iran is developing their nuclear technology only for power.

At the moment, the case the US and Europe are pursing seems more believable. For starters, the entire Iran facility, known as Natanz, has been secret, until an Iranian opposition group exposed the operation. Then, in August of 2003, the U.N. found particles of highly enriched uranium at Natanz. Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment program, but construction still continued. Then by July of 2004, much of the facility had gone underground -- it was beneath 75 feet of earth and about 15 feet of concrete. Last I checked, nuclear power plants didn't have to be foritfied to such a degree...

To make matters worse, not only do we know (for the most part) that Iran has nuclear weaponry, but also that Iran intends to use these weapons. Ahmadinejad has talked about wiping Israel off the map. Wiping an entire country out!! Israel already has nukes, and if Iran attacks Israel, Israel will fire right back! The future of the Middle East isn't looking so good at the moment.

As for the people of Iran, they are backing their government completely. The people of Iran think that they are entitled to nuclear technology. They call the rest of the world hypocritical, considering the fact that the US, India, Pakistan, and Israel all have nukes, and nobody is complaining about them. Of course, none of those countries support terrorism, but the Iranian people don't seem to realize this minor difference in values. If Pakistan had stated its intentions to wipe India off the map, or vice versa, I'm sure the world would have been concerned with them as well. Ditch your government, and maybe we'll reconsider your "right" to nukes.

However, the whole issue is quite delicate in that we really have no way of stopping Iran. Obviously us telling them to stop isn't going to do anything, and neither will treaties. Iran has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows R&D of nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes, but it looks as though they aren't keeping their promise. The only other alternative would be brute force, which is definetely not a good idea. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think attacking a country that is quietly making nukes in a little underground factory is a good idea. The day those nukes come out of their little hiding spot could be the day that marks the end of the Middle East, or even much of the Western world. We certainly don't want to encourage them.

I've recieved numerous emails on the topic, most sounding something like this:

OMG! Teh bird flew (sp?) is here!!!11 We're all gonna die right?? OMG!!!1

Well I assure all that are concerned -- the bird flu isn't nearly as bad as the media portrays it. I see headlines all the time like THE BIRD FLU PANDEMIC IS HERE!!, and I click them, thinking that I am going to read about an outbreak where millions are dying. Instead, I read about 7 people dead in Turkey. Now it's not like I'm saying that the 7 people that are dead don't matter -- no I'm definetely not trying to imply that. It's just that a pandemic is a situation where millions are dying and the disease is spreading like crazy. Our current situation doesn't meet either of the criterion.

When experts say that they are concerned about the bird flu, they don't mean that it is a real danger to any of us. They are saying that it is a slight possibility that the virus could mutate so that it could easily transfer from human to human.

Your average John Doe cannot tell the difference between a deadly virus that he should be afraid of and a deadly virus that he shouldn't have a care about. Take for example, the ebola virus. Sure, it is a deadly virus, and has a very high mortality rate. On top of that, it transfer from human to human. Why aren't we afraid of ebola? Because for the virus to spread, the humans' bodily fluids must make direct contact. Because of this, the virus is incredibly easy to contain. Compare this to smallpox, which before its eradication, was something that we were very afraid of. Smallpox's mortality rate wasn't quite as high as ebola's, but it could spread far more easily. Smallpox spreads in an aerosolized form, meaning that the breath of a patient infected with smallpox can infect everyone in the vicinity. That makes the virus very hard to contain. Now compare both of those with the avian flu. Sure, avian flu has a high mortality rate, but it cannot spread from human to human at ALL. That is why healthcare professionals aren't incredibly afraid of this virus and why you shouldn't be either.

The other day I was just thinking about theories and religion and what I bought and what I didn't. I've always thought of myself as very scientificly minded and I often find myself believing science over religion. I buy the theory of evolution completely which is perhaps the main area of science that would conflict with religion. But there is one area in science where I don't take what science has to offer and instead go with my own formulated beliefs.

Genetics.

Now I definetely believe in the part of genetics that says that I inherit genes from my parents that makes me look like them, etc. However, I've always believed that there are no genes that determine what the mind is like. Disregarding genetic defects that would impair someone's inteligence, I don't believe that my inteligence was "inherited" from my parents. I also don't buy the part that dictates that my personality would bear a semblance to that of my parents. Teachers often tell me that I have an aptitude for science, and that I must've gotten those genes from my professional parents. I don't think that is the case at all. My aptitude in science is probably due to the fact that both of my parents work somewhere in the vast field of "science" (the vagueness is due to my desire to retain my veil of anonomity) and that I have a good exposure to the field. Say, for example, I were seperated from my parents at birth and was sent to Czechoslovakia to live with uneducated parents who both worked as janitors, I seriously doubt that I would have an aptitude in science. And if I may say so myself, the incredible intelligence that I currently have would be nowhere to be found.

I was surprised to realize that I was questioning science. Now my thinking has logical backing, but the only way to "prove" it would be to find my long lost twin in Czechoslovakia or what would now be either the Czech Republic or Slovakia and compare us. I guess this just goes to say that we shouldn't just follow a preset set of beliefs, whether this set be scientific or religious. Don't believe in whatever people tell you to believe. Make logic the law and formulate your own beliefs. Not only is this the right way to go, but it will allow you to open yourself to other beliefs. You will be a more accepting person, which in turn will be not only better for you, but better for those around you.

Apparently, London subway workers decided to be incredibly stupid like their New York counterparts and go on strike. Londoners say that they were just confused, but the strike didn't affect New Years at all... Well have a g'day ye confused ol' chaps. No, but seriously -- are unions stupid or what? I mean, the idea behind a union isn't all that bad -- they protect the workers from the big bad company, which makes them sound like a good thing. But who the hell thought of strikes? I mean, there are geniuses like Thomas Edison who made mankind seem half-decent, and then there's the guy who invented the concept of a strike. His mom must've had a bit too much crack when she was pregnant. I mean seriously, protesting is great and all, but ruining the lives of others in the process? You might think that you're going through shit, and really, you might be, but there is no good reason behind making other people go through shit as well. That makes you no better than your big, bad employer. Strikes might be serving their intended purpose, as everyone is eventually going to get overwhelmed and give up, but is that an uncivilized protest or what? It shouldn't be allowed. Here's what I think the Londoners should do. It's too late for New York, but I think London is still salvageable. Boycott the subway system until the dumbass union gives up. They can't remain on strike forever. The fees that the unions take are supposed to help support workers during a strike, but there aren't enough fees to last out say 2 or 3 months. That should be ample time for the union to completely give up. Then the workers would give up on the union, the union would get screwed over, and then you are left with some happy Londoners!

Sure, this may end up being somewhat of a nuisance, not to mention slightly expensive, but if this plan is implemented, it will break the union altogether. The workers will lose all of their trust in the union and other unionized workers will follow suit. Nobody will go on strike anymore, and everyone will be happy. And until somebody thinks up a new way to protect the workers, the big bad companies will become more powerful, but hey -- we can't have anything.

asian tsunami




1 year old mourns the death of his fallen father




israeli settler weeps as she is deported




blind dog frolics in this years extra snow




the death of rosa parks




goose wanders around desperately in its search for weed in the remains of new orleans




the death of pope john paul II




people crowd around a hotel in new orleans




a british soldier catches fire and jumps off a tank in iraq






bomb explodes in iraq





soaring gas prices (yes, the rain is going up somehow)




iraqi civilians protest us inhabitance




woman is soo ugly that normal plastic surgery won't do...




allah sends a dust storm to us soldiers



first shuttle launch after the columbia disaster




buy basket, and chubby chinese baby come free!




new orleans then and now




aftermath of the london subway bombings




bush doesn't care about black people!







this is a growing post. submit your "picture of the year" entries to:
worsethanyouthink@gmail.com

Merry Christmas everyone! Hopefully you got what you wanted and are enjoying yourself on this fine day. Funny isn't it -- more than a month of running around frantically (see preparation), throwing away money (see shopping), and watching your mouth to make sure you don't accidentally say Merry Christmas (see idiotic) -- all for one day of the year. Well I suppose it's worth it. That is, if you're the Chinese worker putting together an iPod for some American or the Saudi worker pumping oil so that another some other American can go buy his/her iPod. It seems like everything we do helps the world economy. It's kind of retarded, because if you think about it, all of the terrorists trying to blow up America won't get a penny from their precious oil if there's no America left to buy it from them. They hate us, but they need us at the same time. But sadly enough, I think we need them more than they need us. If you think about it, that would be an incredibly effective terrorist attack. If the Middle East all of a sudden severed ties with the United States and refused to sell us any oil or agreed to sell it to us, but only at exorbitant prices, we would be brought down to our knees. Sure, we could turn to Alaska but how long is Alaska going to last? We can't rely on Alaska alone. And besides, we'd be destroying whatever little wilderness we have.

Moral of the story: Count your blessings and be prepared to screw over all of the grizzlies.