Politics – Page 27 – Spinor Info

Muslims in America

Nov 022012

I am reading some very interesting statistics. It is a survey of Muslims in the United States.

Wenzel strategies is a partisan public opinion firm associated with the US Republican Party. Nonetheless, while their ideology may be reflected in their choice of questions, I have no reason to believe that the statistical integrity of their survey is compromised. There may be some shenanigans not uncommon when partisan pollsters are involved (for instance, how did they select their respondents?) that may skew the results somewhat, but I don’t think they would alter the outcome dramatically. In other words, I don’t think this is islamophobe fodder.

The picture painted by the survey is complex. A small but not insignificant percentage of the respondents (almost all of whom are US citizens who are registered to vote) clearly have extremist views: for instance, 12% of the respondents think that those who criticize Islam or Mohammed should be put to death, with a further 9% unsure. On the other hand, defying stereotypes, only about 16% think that Israel has no right to exist, and only 7% think Sharia law should take precedence over the US constitution (with a further 20% unsure). And a surprising 30% think it’s okay for US citizens to evangelize Muslims, with a further 28% unsure.

In the data set, I don’t see much by way of significant differences among demographic groups. One exception is the support for the death penalty for those who offend Islam: younger responders were much more inclined to agree (19%) than the older generation. Similarly, younger responders were much less likely to support Israel’s right to exist (31% disagree with that right).

Overall, if the survey results are valid, they are troubling. While the majority tends to have moderate views, an alarming minority (and in some cases, even a majority) expressed views that are fundamentally incompatible with liberal Western principles. For instance, as many as 58% do not believe that the First Amendment of the US constitution should protect criticism of Islam or Mohammed. And the fact that younger Muslims tend to have more extremist views may mean nothing (younger people are generally more receptive to radical ideas) but may also indicate an alarming trend.

One conspicuously missing demographic question is the one about immigration status: how many of the respondents were born in the US, immigrated as children, or arrived as adults? Perhaps accompanied even by a breakdown by country or region of origin. That is because I would not be surprised at all if the more extremist views were held by recent immigrants from countries with strong tribal traditions. I wonder why these immigration questions were omitted from the survey.

Immigration status and partisan views notwithstanding, I find it deeply disturbing that, at least according to this one survey, as many as one in five young American Muslims think I should be put to death if I were to make my critical views on Islam or Mohammed public.

Are conservatives really anti-science?

Canada, Politics, Science No Responses »

Oct 272012

I gave this post a provocative title intentionally. I am a one-time conservative voter. One reason why I feel disenchanted with conservatives (not just in Canada, mind you) these days is that they seem to have politicized science at every opportunity. Sure, others have done the same thing in the past (liberals are certainly no knights in shining armor) but the past is the past, right now I am worried about the present. Reproductive health, stem cell research, environmental science, climate change, you name it… if they don’t like the result, they attack it, and if the result withstands politically motivated attacks, they move on to attack the researcher. Or, as the case might be, they do their darnedest to undermine the integrity of the data.

This is precisely what happened when Canada’s conservative government eliminated the mandatory “long form” census that was sent to 20% of Canadian households. Sure, there were legitimate privacy concerns that could and should have been addressed (I even wrote a letter to the Chief Statistician myself many years ago when we received the long form census and found some questions a tad sensitive, and the safeguards against being able to personally identify responders inadequate.) But eliminate the long-form census completely, making it “optional”? That is a bone-headed stupid move. The most charitable interpretation is that the government simply didn’t know what they were doing because they don’t understand statistics. A more sinister possibility is that they knew exactly what they were doing, and they are undermining the integrity of Statistics Canada’s data sets on purpose. In light of what has been done and said in recent years, despite my general dislike of conspiracy theories, I am leaning towards accepting this interpretation.

And now the results are beginning to arrive, demonstrating the validity of all those concerns. According to the data collected, the percentage of people in Canada whose mother tongue is English remained the same despite the fact that in the meantime, Canada received 1.1 million new immigrants, 80% of whom had a mother tongue other than English of French. Or that the number of people in Canada whose mother tongue is a non-official language supposedly dropped by 420,000, again despite the above-mentioned immigration statistics.

Of course these results make no sense. What they reflect is a faulty data collection methodology. A methodology forced upon Statistics Canada by a political leadership that finds it appropriate to meddle with science.

The damage due to such meddling is profound and lasting. There is the immediate damage of distorted results. This can be fixed easily; for instance, if Canada were to return to the long form census, this one census could be discarded as an outlier and the long-term integrity of the data would remain assured. But by politicizing the science and polarizing researchers, they undermine the process itself, creating a partisan mindset. Defenders of scientific integrity will unavoidably find themselves participating in political debates and feel forced to adopt polarized positions. Climate scientists often sound more like preachers of a religion than impartial researchers. Could this be, at least in part, due to the polarized atmosphere in which their scientific results are scrutinized? Ultimately, it is the integrity of the scientific process that suffers, and that’s bad news for all of us, regardless of our political views.

Why I am not fond of Republicans these days…

Physics, Politics, Science No Responses »

Oct 152012

This is not some fringe moron but a Republican representative for Georgia’s 10th district. Member of the Tea Party caucus. And a physician to boot:

Groan. I guess I must be a servant of the Devil then (go, Lucifer!) as I, too, spread the “lie from the pit of hell” called the Big Bang theory. Or the lie called “evolution”. Or the lie called “embryology” (that’s a new one for me; would you know what’s wrong with embryology from a Tea Party perspective?) What next, write down the Friedmann equations, be burned at the stake?

Now this is why, even if everything you told me about Obama and his Chicago lot was the gospel truth, I’d still prefer them over Republicans these days. I’d rather take 21st century corruption than go back to the Middle Ages.

Part of me wonders (hopes, even) that this is just a cynical attempt to attract votes and he is not actually this stone dumb stupid. But I don’t know what it says about the Republican party these days if these are the kinds of votes its representatives go after.

A girl with a book

Politics, Religion No Responses »

Oct 142012

I am unashamedly reblogging a cartoon that I came across on Facebook yesterday. It needs no further comment:

Missed opportunities

Politics No Responses »

Oct 042012

I admit I was underwhelmed by Mr. Obama’s presidential debate performance last night, and like many others, I think Mr. Romney exceeded expectations.

I was particularly annoyed by the number of opportunities missed by Obama to strike back at his opponent. The obvious one, of course, is whether Romney really believes killing Big Bird is the secret to a healthy economy. But more importantly… does Romney really believe that when you get a heart attack and you suddenly realize that your insurance company is screwing you, you can easily switch insurance? And what was this nonsense about “panels of government bureaucrats”? How is that any worse than panels of private insurance company bureaucrats who, unlike their government counterparts (who would only set policy) actually DO stand between you and your doctor, deciding which treatment to approve? Last but not least… a classic opportunity was missed when Mr. Romney was repeatedly talking about the middle class. Had I been in Obama’s shoes, I would have told him, “Mr. Romney, you never lived the life of a middle class American. I know middle class life. I lived most of my life as a middle class person. Mr. Romney, you are no middle class.”

That said, I was pleased by how civilized and intelligent this debate was. Neither candidate was trying too hard to be a partisan populist. This was refreshing.

Islam and Voltaire

Culture, Politics, Religion No Responses »

Sep 302012

There is, apparently, a call for a world-wide ban on anti-Islam “hate speech”: essentially, any speech that criticizes Islam or its prophet.

My immediate reaction was a flat out Cold War Soviet-style “Nyet”. Or simply to tell them to bugger off. Seriously bugger off.

But it was a friend of mine whose views on Islam are generally far less restrained who offered the most eloquent way to respond to these calls. It was a quotation supposedly from Voltaire:

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”

Free speech vs. hate speech

Legal, Politics, Religion No Responses »

Sep 232012

Protesters at the US Consulate in Toronto yesterday demanded that American authorities do something about the infamous anti-Islam video, the Innocence of Muslims. They held up signs claiming that “free speech does not mean disrespecting any prophet”, among other things.

But, my friends, that is EXACTLY what free speech is. It is precisely the right to disrespect, even insult if I wish, God, Yahweh, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Ra, Moses, and every other living or imaginary prophet, deity, political or religious leader. Even using crude or obscene language and bad humor, if that happens to suit my fancy.

Do you want to know what hate speech is? Why, it’s easy: holding up (not to mention handing to 4-year olds to hold up) signs that demand the beheading of people as it happened the other day in Australia:

No, I am not ready to join the ranks of Islamophobes worried about the coming Caliphate, but I still categorically reject these Islamist attempts to limit the right to free speech in Western societies and the implied or, in this case, explicit threats. As an immigrant myself, I think I have the right to say something that might appear a tad more distasteful if uttered by persons born here in Canada: if you don’t like it here, you are free to leave.

Perhaps go to Pakistan. After all, that fine country’s Minister of Railways thinks that offering a $100,000 bounty for the head of the filmmaker is the right thing to do. How enlightened and civilized. I am sure people who think about free speech like these protesters do would fit right in.

Troubles in Mexico City

Politics, Society No Responses »

Sep 212012

Two years ago I attended a conference in Mexico City. We had many pleasant conversations with our hosts, who sadly told us that these days, Mexico City may be the safest part of the country… not because it is any safer than it was 20 years ago (when it qualified as the least safe) but because the rest of the country went downhill as a result of a perpetual drug war.

This is why I find these latest news so disturbing: it seems that the drug war may have reached a suburb of Mexico City. It appears that not even the capital is immune anymore.

Poetic justice

Politics 1 Response »

Sep 192012

Sometimes, there is justice.

It has been widely reported that a Pakistani man died the other day… as a result of breathing in the fumes of an American flag that they set on fire.

It does not happen that often, but sometimes, the world actually works the way it is supposed to.

(Part of me is wondering, though, exactly what material was that flag made of, in whatever Chinese sweatshop American flags are made in these days?)

Are Muslim extremists the real enemies of Mohammed?

Film, Politics, Religion No Responses »

Sep 132012

So an American (or not; the identity, ethnicity and nationality of the filmmaker(s) are not entirely clear) filmmaker creates a rather amateurish production bearing the title, The Innocence of Muslims, screened originally to an audience of less than 10 when it was first shown in a theater earlier this summer. To say that the movie is obscure is an understatement… It doesn’t even appear to have an entry in the Internet Movie Database (though chances are this will change soon.)

So what’s the best way to defend the honor of your Prophet? Why, how about launching a world-wide publicity campaign for this film, attacking embassies and consulates, burning American flags, and generally making sure that every news media talks about the film and its availability on YouTube. The trailer has now been seen by more than 1.2 million people.

So, dear protesters, if your goal was to promote this hack job on your religion, give the filmmaker worldwide fame (and no doubt help him earn a few dollars in the process) and, incidentally, by murdering America’s ambassador to Libya, produce evidence that perhaps the movie’s point is not entirely to be dismissed, you succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. Mohammed must be proud.

Fifty years

Personal, Politics, Space No Responses »

Sep 132012

Busy celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary yesterday, I forgot that there was another important anniversary on September 12: it was fifty years ago yesterday that a certain John F. Kennedy uttered the words, “We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” And with those words, an astonishing sequence of events took place, and before the 1960s came to an end, two Americans indeed landed on the Moon… a technological feat the like of which the world has not seen since 1972, when the last of the Apollo Moon shots took place.

Protests, religious insults and threats

Film, Politics, Religion No Responses »

Sep 112012

At this moment, there are protesters ripping down US flags at the American embassy in Cairo, upset over some film (no idea which one, just repeating what I heard on CNN) that in their mind insults the prophet Mohammed (many Muslims like to add the phrase, “peace be upon him” to his name, but there is nothing peaceful about the name of a prophet in whose name suicide bombers kill innocents, even if most followers of Islam do not subscribe to such violence. No, I don’t think Christ represents peace either.)

I think it’s about high time we tell something to violent Islamists who believe it is alright to intimidate others who, in their view, offend their religion. You, Islamists, offend us. You offend one of our most sacred beliefs, our belief in the right to free speech and freedom of expression. And yes, if necessary, we are willing to resort to violence if that’s what it takes to protect these rights. And don’t think for one moment that our beliefs are less important to us than your beliefs are to you. So what shall it be? Shall we go on and murder each other in the name of our mutually incompatible beliefs? (Don’t forget, there is a good chance that we might win. Westerners have become rather good at this war business after two world wars and countless smaller ones, and we are armed to the teeth. We also invented industrialized murder, you know, Auschwitz and all that.) Or shall we just let each other be?

I suggest the latter. And if you believe that there is a veiled threat behind this suggestion, you might not be wrong.

So next time you hear about a film that you don’t like, here is an easy solution: don’t watch it. Then we can just happily leave each other alone.

A socialist for president

Economy, Politics No Responses »

Sep 082012

Some interesting plots from Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, courtesy of The New York Times. Compare Obama’s and Bush’s record for private sector employment in the first 40+ months of their respective presidencies (yes, this would mean Bush’s first term, in 2001):

And compare their public sector employment statistics:

So which one, exactly, is the “big government socialist”?

Lost in translation

Food, Hungary, Politics No Responses »

Aug 292012

Rapper Curtis James Jackson III, aka. 50 Cent, was apparently in Hungary a few days ago. While in the country, he must have visited a grocery store, where he took a picture of something that, to him, obviously looked horrendously offensive: a product carrying the name “Negro”, with what appears to be the stylized image of a hanged black man on the plastic bag.

Except that it isn’t. While racism and the rise of the far right are increasingly troubling issues in Hungary, in this case there is a completely innocent explanation. The packaging in question contains candy, throat drops to be precise, made using a nearly century-old secret recipe. And while Negro lozenges are traditionally black in color, the name has nothing to do with the candy’s appearance either: reportedly it is named after its inventor, Italian confectioner Pietro Negro.

And what about the image of a hanged black man? Not exactly. The classic Negro advertising slogan calls the throat drops “the chimney sweep of the throat”. And what may appear as the silhouette of a black man in a noose is, in fact, a chimney sweep doing what chimney sweeps usually do: sweeping a chimney!

In any case, it’s not like it’s hard to find truly offensive product names in Hungary. Like this one:

The Hungarian-language label reads “Negro kiss, vanilla flavored”. But although in this case, the word unambiguously refers to black people, there is again no offensive intent: this is a traditional product name that has been in existence for decades.

Are all Iran’s ayatollahs jerks?

Education, Politics 1 Response »

Aug 222012

Warning: the language of this post is offensive. I find ordinary words insufficient to express how I feel about Iran’s latest, a broad ban on female attendance at Iran’s universities.

When my wife asked the obvious question, “why?” I could only offer a very crude answer: because the ayatollahs had trouble jerking off last night and needed to find another way to get a hard-on. There really is no sensible way to describe this medieval theocracy that has been Iran’s curse for the past several decades.

There is a silver lining though: by depriving themselves of a capable, educated work force (quite capable, in fact, as women routinely outperformed men), perhaps they are hastening their moronic regime’s imminent demise. Cannot happen too soon, if you ask me.

The strange case of Julian Assange

Internet, Legal, Politics No Responses »

Aug 202012

I tend to sympathize with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. That said, the facts may not necessarily be on Mr. Assange’s side, according to an excellent New Statesman article. In particular, the article asserts that he is less likely to be extradited to the United States from Sweden than from the United Kingdom. The author also makes a very good point about Ecuador’s presumed commitment to freedom of the press: the country is about to extradite a blogger who sought asylum there in 2008, Alexander Barankov to, of all places, Belarus, where he may face the death penalty. I also wonder if we are going to see Wikileaks publish Ecuadorian secret documents now. My guess is… not anytime soon.

Political prisoners in Russia

Music, Politics No Responses »

Aug 182012

It has been two decades since the collapse of the Soviet empire but Russia still has political prisoners.

The names of the latest three are Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevitch, members of the feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot. Their crime? Singing a punk rock anti-Putin song in an orthodox church. This earned them a two-year sentence for “crudely undermining the social order”.

Needless to say, I am thoroughly disgusted by this deplorable show trial. But I am also left wondering: is Mr. Putin’s regime really so insecure that they feel threatened by these young women? (The irony, of course, is the the decision to jail them and put them on trial probably harmed Mr. Putin’s regime a great deal more than their songs ever could. But then again, according to statistics quoted by Wikipedia, most Russians seem to think that the trial was fair and impartial. So perhaps Putin’s thugs know what they are doing.)

The inviolability of embassy grounds

Internet, Legal, Politics 1 Response »

Aug 162012

In the fall of 1956, after Soviet forces crushed Hungary’s anti-Communist revolution, cardinal József Mindszenty sought refuge inside the American embassy in Budapest, where he remained for the next 15 years.

Not even the Communists claimed the right to withdraw the diplomatic status of those embassy grounds or threatened to storm the embassy to arrest Mindszenty.

I am not particularly impressed by Julian Assange’s narcissism, nor by the latest shenanigans of Wikileaks, including the production of a fake newspaper editorial. But the notion that the United Kingdom might use force to remove Mr. Assange from Ecuadorian embassy grounds is just unthinkable. If this threat was meant to impress and intimidate, well, it didn’t seem to work very well, did it? If they were serious about it, I think Mr. Cameron might need to have his head examined.

Zakaria busted… but should he have been?

Politics, Television No Responses »

Aug 122012

Today, I was waiting for Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN in vain. I had no idea at first why the program was preempted, but then on Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz explained: Zakaria was was suspended by both Time and CNN for plagiarism.

Zakaria was caught by the conservative news watchdog site Newsbusters, for writing the following:

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

This was supposedly plagiarized from a New Yorker article by Jill Lepore, who wrote this:

As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

Zakaria admitted making a “terrible mistake” and apologized. But wait a cotton-picking minute. What exactly happened here?

Lepore found some relevant data in a book by Adam Winkler. Most of the paragraph in question is just a summary of facts obtained from Winkler’s book, and a direct quote. Zakaria presumably found out about this book from Lepore’s article, and reprinted the same facts. But plagiarism? It’s not like the Lepore paragraph was full of original thoughts. Indeed, if I take the list of states and dates and the direct quotes out, very little original text remains:

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight […]. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893 […]

Zakaria’s version:

As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight” […], firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, […]

Perhaps it might have been wise for Zakaria to mention that this paragraph was based on Lepore’s article. But then, unlike papers written for scientific journals, newspaper articles are rarely sourced.

In any case, I just don’t see how this warrants a suspension and a public humiliation of a journalist who is respected around the world. Not to mention giving an undeserved opportunity for right-wing nuts who find even Zakaria’s centrist views much too liberal for their taste to rant again about the “liberal bias” of the “mainstream media”. A prime example comes from the blog site American Thinker: “wouldn’t it be prudent to cut him and let him paste away elsewhere? I mean, I know you have a Muslim quota to fill, but I’m sure there’s an acceptable replacement you could poach from Al Jazeera.” Huh? Yes, I know Zakaria was born a Muslim, but he is no more a practicing Muslim than I am a practicing Catholic. I guess these are the same “American thinkers” who cannot tell the difference between a Muslim and a Sikh when going on a murderous rampage. But then, who cares about such nuances when you can spew hate?

Wikileaks or Wikihoax?

Internet, Legal, Politics No Responses »

Aug 052012

Julian Assange might be a weird fellow, but until now, I had no reason to distrust Wikileaks.

But that was before Wikileaks concocted up a fake New York Times article, combined with a spoofed PAYPAL official blog site to back it up.

Now I regret having sent them money once. My respect for them was based on their perceived moral authority, taking considerably risks for the sake of public transparency. But apparently, their high moral standards apply only to others, not to themselves.

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