Anyway, today’s story comes from Africa.

When a person has seized control of a country, open fired on UN troops and demanded that they get out, are they really going to pay attention to sanctions?

The UN, toothless as it is, needs to play a more prominent role in ensuring that it’s values are adhered to. This means that it cannot be hijacked by bigoted countries looking to curtail human rights of gays or those who wish to speak out about religion. It also means that when it see’s something like this happen, it has to act in a meaningful way.

The sanctions will not work as from all appearances, the only language that Gbagbo knows is violence. I’ll go on record now and say that if the UN presences diminishes in anyway whatsoever this will become yet another sad and unnecessary conflict on the African continent.

What’s needed to overcome this is a show of force from the international community under the direction of the UN. Without this, Gbagbo will continue to have his way in direct opposition to the values that the UN stands for.

A couple of Facebook posts later I find myself under fire for being one of those “Politically Correct” prudes who needs to loosen up and have a sense of humour about it. Here’s my response.

It’s fine to mock people about aspects of their life that they are able to choose and do something about. For example, if you choose to eat crap food and not exercise, you will get fat. This is as simple as cause and effect and a case of personal responsibility (or lack thereof) and therefore is is fair to mock people about this. It’s alright to mock someone if they are hypocritical as people can choose what they say in any situation and then, if their actions or later words contradict this, they should be called on it. I would expect to be called on it if I contradicted myself at any point, this is only right and in my view, a fair exchange. It’s also fine to mock things like religion as people choose their religion and people can change their religions fairly easily – strict Islamic countries aside.

Mocking someone’s religion and weight is not politically correct. What it is, is deriving humour from the conscious choices that the people in question have made.

Note that this implies that the person who is deriving the humour from the situation does so in an articulate way as simply saying “your fat” is not funny (in most cases). The joke has to have a preamble that sets it up and a punch line that delivers a laugh. For example, The Pope, despite being the right hand of god (according to Catholics), still needs to rely on bullet proof glass in the Pope mobile. What happened to the power of prayer. This in and of itself is ludicrous enough to be laughable…

On the other hand, mocking or deriving humour from people about aspects of their life that they can do nothing about, such as their ethnicity, sexual preference or physical or mental handicap is ignorant and very likely to be found offensive. In Paul Henry’s case, the racial slurs. The only exception to this that I can think of is self-depreciating humour if you happen to be part of one of these groups. For example, someone with no legs making jokes about handicapped people.

Both of the above examples can be classed as politically incorrect, the subtle difference is that in one, people are being held to account for their decisions and in the other, they are being mocked for something that they have no power over.

Or – and here is where I go trolling – to put it in language that Paul Henry supporters might understand, one requires you to think, the other doesn’t. I say this as if you browse any of the support groups for Paul Henry on Facebook, the vast majority of his supporters just so happen to be white and judging by the grammar of their status updates and comments, lacking a good education.

It’s the difference between being mean and being funny.

The best example I can give of someone who does this well is Bill Maher who has a show called Real Time. It screens on Friday night in the States on HBO and can be downloaded like any other shows you might download. Check it out…it’s class!

I have a feel that I speak for the majority of “civilised” people when I label this punishment as a barbaric remnant of the dark ages, practiced only by those who still wish to live in the stone age, but by the same token, use very modern weapons in an attempt to enforce their religion on those “infidels” who do not wish to submit all of thier basic human rights to an outdated superstition.

The fact that this can and does happen in this day and age sickens me. If anyone has any kind of petition to sign, post it in the comments – however it comes down to the principle as I doubt that the Iranian government listens to anyone – especially the will of the people.

This is hardly a surprise but it does bring to mind the infamous quote by Princess Leia from Star Wars – A New Hope:

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

And just like the evil empire, radical Islam seems to tighten its grip and hopefully push those moderate Islamists out there to the left. I say hopefully because in all of my internet searching, I’m yet to really find the voice of moderate Islam. Assuming of course there is such a thing as moderate Islam.

Does this mean that our last, best hope will be all those opposed joining forces, hardly,  given the “Ye shall take no god before me” commandment…so in that case, who will be our Luke Skywalker and Han Solo?

You, that’s who. Join the conversation, have a voice and do what you can to fight the oppression of the evil that is religion!

2009-10-31 – Halloween.mp3 (15285 KB)

Available for download now on iTunes. See www.manonasoapbox.posterous "about" page for more information.

Posted via email from Speaking from the Soapbox

As you may be aware, the Catholic Church has been ordered to pay millions of pounds in settlement for the crimes it committed in abusing children in Ireland. Since this information has become public the Catholic Church is yet to apologise. The closest it has come is saying that and this is not a direct quote but something very close to it: “Child abuse is bad but there are x thousand abortions happening every year and that is much worse since those children die”.

And that’s it. No sorry, no we will reform our ways simply justifying what they have done by saying that there are worse things (I refuse to use the word crime when speaking about abortion) happening in the world.

Given this rationale, I think I might just visit my local Aston Martin dealer and steal a DBS because we all know that there are people being murdered out there.

Furthermore, no one has been charged with anything. So the perpetrayors of all the abuse that took place seem to have gotten away scott free. That disgusts me.

In this article, it is clear and no attempt has been made to hide the discriminatory nature of the Vatican. The Vatican issued a directive saying that children should not be adopted out to homosexual couples. They claim that this is tantamount to child abuse. Given the record of the Catholic Church in relation to looking after children, that disgusts me as well.

When the San Francisco board claimed this to be: “An insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great City’s existing and established customs and traditions such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need.” The resolution viewed a claim from the Vatican that, “allowing children to be adopted by persons living in [homosexual] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children” as defamatory in nature and “absolutely unacceptable to the citizenry of San Francisco.”. The Board said such defamatory language was: Insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors.

I applaud the San Francisco board in this action.

But not to be outdone, the Catholic Church has hit back saying that this: “The policy of San Francisco is one of totalitarian intolerance of Christians of all denominations who oppose homosexual conduct. My concern is that if this ruling is allowed to stand, it will further embolden anti-Christian attacks.”

They then went on to say that “Our constitution plainly forbids hostility toward any religion, including the Catholic faith. In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco have abused their authority as government officials and misused the instruments of the government to attack the Catholic Church. Their egregious abuse of power now has the backing of a federal circuit court. This decision must be reversed …”

The Law society continued that: “The Anti-Catholic resolution sends a clear message to plaintiffs and others who are faithful adherents to the Catholic faith that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message that those who oppose Catholic religious beliefs, particularly with regard to homosexual unions and adoptions by homosexual partners, are insiders, favored members of the political community.”

I for one, am actually very against the Catholic church or any religion for that matter having any role in politics. If someone speaks to an imaginary being, then they are simply not fit for public office. End of story.

The sad truth is that in this day and age the Catholic church can issue a brazenly discriminatory order and then claim that by no following it their rights are being violated. I stand utterly amazed that there are supposedly so many “intelligent” people who actually do not speak out against it.

It leaves me feeling both disgusted andthat much more passionate about speaking out against religion and the evil that it fosters.

Interestingly enough, the same people who believe in the virgin birth, talking snakes and people living inside of whales and up to 800 years old are also more likely to say that using torture is justified.
Yes – these are the same people who preach God’s forgiveness and goodness.

Needless to say that this survey adds to the already huge amount of data showing that what the religious preach is different to how they act. It’s inconsistant and yet they defend it to the end – as is evidenced by my “discussion” of this with my partner.

It’s sad that yet again, divisions are drawn down religious lines and not human ones.

Just another item of evidence that will lead to the negativity of religion being it’s downfall.

But typically, no one, no one single nation is actually acknowledging the Elephant in the room.

For those of you who do not have time to click on the above link, here is a summary of the article:

Quote
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement criticizing Ahmadinejad for using the conference “to accuse, divide and even incite.”

Ban said he had spoken to the Iranian president and asked him not to focus on “divisiveness” in his address.

“It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian president,” Ban said.

Ahmadinejad’s Comments
During Monday’s speech, Ahmadinejad paused a moment, then continued: “In fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.

“It is all the more regrettable that a number of Western governments and the United States have committed themselves to defend those racist perpetrators of genocide,” he said, echoing Tehran’s official line on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Some Facts
Israel was established in 1948 as a homeland for Jewish people after the Holocaust, on land also claimed by Palestinians.

Ahmadinejad said Zionism, the Jewish national movement, “personifies racism” and accused Zionists of wielding economic and political resources to silence opponents.

The Jewish Response
Speaking at a Holocaust remembrance service in Jerusalem, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Ahmadinejad’s address “constitutes an acceptance of racism, rather than the fight against it.”

“It is hard to fathom why despots such as Hitler the Nazi, Stalin the Bolshevik and Ahmadinejad the Persian chose the Jews as the main target for their hatred, their madness and their violence,” Peres said. “Perhaps they targeted the Jewish people because of its spiritual power – a nation poor in material possessions, but rich in values — for he who is infected with megalomania fears the power of the spirit.”

Europe’s response
A number of European countries had vowed to walk out if Iran’s president made offensive remarks.

“The UK unreservedly condemns Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s offensive and inflammatory comments. Such outrageous, anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a U.N. anti-racism forum,” said Peter Gooderham, Britain’s envoy to the U.N. in Geneva.

The UN Organisers comments
While rejecting the boycott, Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged reporters “not allow this one intervention to mar the conference.

“I prefer to move on,” she said at a news conference after Ahmadinejad’s speech. She also criticized the delegates who walked out during his speech, saying his “unsavory remarks” did not “provide justification for anyone to walk out of the conference.”

Pillay said Sunday that she regrets — and is “shocked” by — the United States’ decision to boycott.

So why is it that no one actually addresses the real reason behind all of this dissent? That no one is addressing the Elephant in the room? – because the real reason, the Elephant? The Elephant is religion!

Interestingly enough, this is the same department of the United Nations that seems to be extending this misplaced sense of non-questioning to entertaining the notion of criticising religion being against human rights.

However, luckily for all of the intelligent, free thinking individuals in the world, there is a response in the works.

The more I think about this the more outraged I become. In short, my view is…

• Religion is a belief that someone has
• Religion is not a human and therefore is not entitled to the same rights as a human
• Further more, Religion (applied equally to all religions) is simply a collection of myths and legends that different groups of society assume as true without questions
• Trying to censor critisism of religion under the guise of human rights is simple a thinly disguised form of censorship and, infact, a restriction in freedom of speech

If a logical line of questioning is applied to any religion then that religion will not hold up as true. Thus we can see the religious motivation behind the positioning that “belief without question” is a virtue. For if you never question religion, you will never see how full of falsehood it actually is.

Belief without question is not a virtue but a marker of ones lack of ability to think independently and freely. By questioning religion I truly believe that you can remove it.

So now I’ll get back to the UN racism summit.

In one corner we have the Muslims and in the other corner we have the Jews.

If you question/remove religion you can remove those labels and these groups simply become people who are arguing over a place to live.
If you question/remove religion, Israel is no longer a spiritual home of anyone, but simply land.

If you question religion you remove it.

Question religion at the United Nations racism summit and you will find the true motivation behind the dissent.

Religion is driving the racism and xenophobia.

Rid the world of religion and you’re left with open minds that can be logically rationalised with.

More so, you’re a whole lot closer to one peaceful planet!

According to North Korea, the launch was for peaceful research purposes.

According to the US and various experts on North Korea, this was a test run for a ballistic missile.

Now the DPRK has asked all of the IAEA representatives to leave and is going to fire up their nuclear reactors again.

Now I think that North Korea and especially that little fat man Kim Jong Il are simply dressed up bullies.

My explanation is thus:
His military is very well fed and one of the largest in the world and yet the country is existing in a mire of poverty, poor education and poor healthcare.

Kim Jong Il has his “Pleasure Brigade” being simply his harem and apparently lives a life filled with all of the luxuries that he desires while the country he leads continues to suffer.

Kim Jon Il is not a leader but a short, fat bully.

Unfortunately, due to the size of his army, invading there like was done with Saddam Hussein is not really an option, given the massive loss of life that would ensure (on all sides).

Neither is fuelling the people to rise up as they are held under his tubby little fist.

Where the other countries need to focus their action is on international sanctions and covert operations.

Sanctions can work but are flawed for two reasons. The first is that Russia and China have veto power on the UN Security Council and they have a vested interest in North Korea continuing to buy their goods. For this, among other reasons I do question the effectiveness of the UN.

The second reason that imposing sanctions is not a good idea is that it’s the people who suffer. Kim Jon Il will continue to life his closeted little life while the people suffer. Banning the materials that the DPRK require to build nuclear weapons has already been done but they continue to research this.

Therefore the majority of gains are going to come from covert operations. These, to my mind should take two paths.

Military covert operations should be based around air strikes or similar designed to take out their nuclear facilities. Diplomacy is not likely to close these down so use of force, as a last resort seems one of the only options left.

Another option is to provide support for a military coup by leaders who would bring a more even keel to the leadership of North Korea. This is ultimately where I think the path will lead us to.

Kim Jong Il will have his heart attack sooner or later and a successor will take over. What the modern world needs to do is be ready to support a leader with experience and knowledge of how to do a good job, rather than the abortion of a job that this tubby, 80s sunglass wearing fatboy is doing at present.