Tibetan refugee shot by Chinese army

On October 14, 2006 By Rick McIn bad news, government, hikingLeave a comment

A terrible story.

One killed for sure. Children led off to be “detained”.

It hit the major media an hour ago.

My read on this crime against civilians posted on my hiking blog.

China unblocks Wikipedia – right on!

On October 13, 2006 By Rick McIn governmentLeave a comment

China has unblocked Wikipedia.

Wikipedia refused to censor itself to appease totalitarian Beijing, but China unblocked it anyway. China needs Wikipedia and Chinese net-users would access it using circumvention tools — the block on Wikipedia made Chinese Wikipedia users into automatic dissidents.

Boing Boing: China unblocks Wikipedia, even though it won’t censor

getting your news from The Daily Show

On October 13, 2006 By Rick McIn government, humour, TVLeave a comment

New research confirms what we already knew — The Daily Show is as “substantive” a source of US political news as the real news shows.

Using the entire half-hour programs as the basis of analysis yielded the same results: there was just as much substance to The Daily Show’s coverage as there was on the network news. And The Daily Show was much funnier, with less of the hype—references to photo ops, political endorsements, and polls—that typically overshadows substantive coverage on network news, according to the study.

The Daily Show is as substantive as the “real” news

Fox News is actually funnier than The Daily Show, but Fox is trying to be serious.

happy (belated) Columbus Day?

On October 10, 2006 By Rick McIn government1 Comment

Oops. Missed celebrating the controversial US National Holiday yesterday, Oct. 9th.

For some Columbus Day commemorates Columbus discovering America. But more than that, it celebrates Europeans bringing democracy and capitalism to the pagans who were nothing more than warring tribes led by chieftains no better than Saddam Husein.

Strangely, First Nations have still not thanked the white man for raising them up.

Columbus at the Coit Tower in San Francisco. (I assume Coit is short for Coitus.)

Is Bush telling the truth?

On October 7, 2006 By Rick McIn government, humourLeave a comment

I check internet hoaxes on a great site called Snopes.com

But Google has bigger things in mind.

Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct. That is the sort of service Google Inc. boss Eric Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.

Dvorak Uncensored » Google head warns politicians about truth and the Internet

Canadian deported to Syria for torture is cleared

On October 3, 2006 By Rick McIn bad news, government, IslamLeave a comment

Maher Arar was guilty. But only guilty of being Muslim.

Having heard Arar interviewed, I must say his story sounds legitimate. Authorities over-reacted.

Arar is waiting on a personal apology from the Prime Minister.

A Syrian-Canadian has been totally exonerated of having ties with Al Qaeda — after the RCMP and US Department of Homeland Security conspired to have him shipped to Syria, where he was tortured for ten months.

Maher Arar was passing through the US on the way back to Canada when the DHS detained him. The Mounties sent the US authorities bogus intel about him, saying that he had “links with Al Quaeda” because he was friends with someone who might be an Al Quaeda sympathizer. The US authorities sent him to Syria, where they (and the RCMP) fed questions to his Syrian torturers for months. Eventually, his torturers extracted a “confession” from him.

When he returned to Canada, he publicized his plight and the RCMP responded by smearing him, publicizing his “confession” and saying that he’d gotten what he deserved.

Now a public Canadian inquiry (which the DHS boycotted, refusing to disclose any information) has totally cleared Arar, and the RCMP has apologized for sending a citizen to a corrupt totalitarian state to be tortured because he was friends with someone they didn’t like.

… Three other Canadian citizens were also tortured in the Middle East under similar circumstances: Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muyyed Nurredin.

Boing Boing: Canadian deported to Syria for torture is cleared

criticism of Islam

On September 29, 2006 By Rick McIn government, Islam, travelLeave a comment

If you read this blog regularly you know I am pro-Islam.

I have had nothing but wonderful experiences travelling in the Muslim world and am mortified at the stupid things I see in the Western media.

That said, there are aspects of Islam with which I disagree including these listed on the (locked down) Wikipedia page:

The use of fatwas to punish violations committed by Muslims (e.g. the death edict against British writer Salman Rushdie).

Apostasy in Islam, which is punishable by death under Islamic Law (in some countries).

Human rights abuses by the Taliban and other fundamentalist governments.

The use of violence by Islamist militant organizations as a means of spreading Islam.

The state of women’s rights in muslim societies. (Especially disallowing girls to attend school.)

The censorship of criticism of Islam (e.g. Muhammad Cartoons).

I don’t list the current debate about whether the religion was historically more spread by the sword than Christianity. It is an unimportant issue. Ancient history. A hot button which diverts attention from the far more important issue of women’s rights.

Certainly there are many Muslim societies that have evolved past all of these (often exaggerated) criticisms.

The good works of Islam far outweighs the bad.

Of course I also disagree with some of the traditions of other religions, especially Catholicism and Hinduism. (Lets save those for future posts.)

Now unlike some religious defenders, I welcome criticism of my point of view. If you believe I am wrong please post a comment below.