Don’t Overlook This! 6/3/08

These are stories in the news that have much more significance than they’ve received. These stories should have been the leading news items of their day. Their significance extends beyond just a particular area and beyond just a particular news cycle.

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Brigitte Bardot Convicted in Speech Case

The former movie actress was convicted for writing an open letter to the President of France regarding immigration policies. Her major concern has been Muslim practices regarding ritual killing of animals. (She has been an animal rights activist for decades.) Her secondary concern has been the changing culture in the wake of large scale immigration from mainly Muslim countries.

Bardot was known for her steamy performances in the 60’s and 70’s. Her views and her writings reflect the attitudes of that era. Since the Danish cartoon controversy highlighted the changing and diminishing freedom of speech rights, many artists and writers have scaled back their views of artistic freedoms, especially as regards Muslims.

This has not held true for anti-Christian speech. The movie “The Da Vinci Code” offended many (if not most) Christians but nobody was ever prosecuted in the West for it. The movie and the book it was based on went much farther in criticizing Christianity than Bardot did in criticizing Islam.

This is the latest in a trend of attacks on freedom of speech in the western world involving Muslims. In Canada, Mark Steyn and Macleans Magazine is being prosecuted for publishing excerpts from his book regarding the effects on Muslim emigration on Western societies. Like Bardot’s case, the writings would not have been objectionable (legally) a decade ago.

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Here is the Bardot story from the AP. And here is the Steyn story on Wikipedia.

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Why This Is Significant:

This marks a trend in the lowering of free speech rights in order to accommodate Muslim concerns. There has been a steady stream of news stories in recent years about a tightening legal climate on writers, artists and others.

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Related Story

In Britain today, two Christian missionaries have been warned not to proselytize in a Muslim neighborhood. The police told the Christians that trying to convert Muslims to Christians is now a hate crime. They also told the Christians that if they came back they would be beaten although they did not specify who would do the beating, the Muslim residents or the police.

The interesting part of this story is the muted reaction of the British government to the police action. Their public attitude towards this story is consistent with their past public statements on these kinds of incidents.

Much of Britain is now considered “no go” areas for anybody but Muslims. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has called for replacing British law with Muslim law in Muslim areas of Britain.

The story can be found here. There is a backlash as reported here.

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Now here's an interesting article from the Daily Telegraph, an English newspaper.

One More Time

The Clintonistas are finally (!) coming to terms with excessive lying. Here is Frank Rich of the NY Times. Here is Jonathan Alter of Newsweek. For me, there is some relief that justice is finally happening. The thing that I kept thinking all during the Clinton scandals was that sometime the universe would balance and justice would be done.

Sure some justice was done. Clinton was disbarred from the practice of law - the only President in history - but then he was still treated as a hero and the disbarment became no big deal. And on and on and on.

I don't particularly want Obama to beat Clinton. It's just that politicians should not lie as bad as badly as the Clintons have done and continue to do. Finally, they're going to have to pay in some meaningful way. Finally!

More on Clinton

I don't want to beat this topic to death but this does seem to be an end of an era. There is a limit to the amount of lies that people are going to stomach - and this is a good thing for our country. Mind you, I'm not talking about political issues here. Lying ought to be bad without regard to whether the pol doing the lying is on your side or not.

The Clinton case is bad because their lying has been so bad and so common. Every day on every topic. I especially hated their "Everybody does it" line during the period of their White House scandals - especially the sex scandals.

Today's essay underscores the point. Was Hillary named for Sir Edmond Hillary as she claimed? Bill even put this whopper in his autobiography. How could this have been? Sir Edmond did not do anything famous (climbing Mt. Everest) until 6 years AFTER HRC was born!

The trouble with this stuff is that the lies just went on and on. Little things, big things - on and on and on.

Picture from Wikipedia article on Hillary Clinton. The Wiki caption reads, "Re-enactment of Hillary Rodham Clinton being sworn in as a United States Senator by Vice President Al Gore in the Old Senate Chamber, as President Clinton and daughter Chelsea look on. January 3, 2001."

Hillary Clinton and the Lies

Here is an article that sums up the problem that the public has had with Hillary all along. People may be left or right wing and may like her or hate her for that but the main reason for her difficulties is the sense that she's just not very honest. I mean not honest to a degree worse than other politicians.


As the article says, by this time each individual either gets this or does not.

Beauty and the Geek - Season 5

This is still my favorite TV show. Season 5 already! Here I'm still in love with Mindi from Season 1. And Susan Polgar posted just yesterday about Joe Block being a chessplayer from Season 2.

I don't like it that the beauties and the geeks have been so typed on this show. And more, I don't like it that the producers have gone to so many former Playboy Playmates to get their beauties. Part of the charm of Season 1 was that the beauties were the beautiful girls we all wanted to date in school but didn't feel we could ever approach. The Playboy crowd just takes this to celebrity status.

Anyway, I've put a new widget on my right hand column. It is temporary for the duration of the season. I'm putting it permanently here.

The Chess Scene

This picture is Susan Polgar with Vishwanathan Arnand. Susan is the first woman grandmaster in history and former Woman World Champion. Vishy is the current World Champion.

I am proud to work for Susan on her Chess Discussion Forum. I help her manage the site as a Moderator.

I also help manage the site ChessUSA for Steve Owens.

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