"People Know The Consequences"

And if they don't, they should by now.

Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires.

Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike....

Within liberal democracies, freedom of expression has curtailments, such as laws against incitement and hatred.

The truth is that Western governments are content to sacrifice liberties and freedoms when being complicit to torture and rendition — or when restricting the freedom of movement of Muslims, under the guise of protecting national security.

So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?

It is time that the sanctity of a Prophet revered by up to one-quarter of the world's population was protected.

Normally I would argue that we don't need a law, since the mores are so strong: although the quantity of mockery is not none, in America it's really very close to none without the bother and expense of legal actions.

This in a culture that produces regular, ongoing mockery and testing of its own core belief system. We invented Heavy Metal music, which was little more than an exercise in blasphemy. We make movies and television shows that mock the religion shared by the vast majority of Americans both living today and historically. So this sensitivity isn't part of a general commitment to anti-blasphemy, it's part of a general commitment to be sensitive to the feelings of Muslims.

Apparently this is not enough, however. And you know the consequences for not submitting.

Don't rush us!

We've only had six years to think about Keystone.

Inside the Minds of the Shooters' Supporters

The Counter Extremism Project collects supporters' statements from today's Paris attack.

One Came Calling

I don't really find the form of humor especially enlightening, but that's the point of free expression. We protect the bad ideas, too.

Of course, "protect" in this case would have better been done by having a couple of rifles in the office and some guys who knew how to use them. If I were running a satirical magazine -- or a think tank -- I'd look into making sure that there was a weapons locker and some training days on the corporate calendar.

Climb To Glory, Commando

WTF Army Moments reported this, but I checked it myself and it's for real.  

Well, we rode on Black roads in Iraq.  There it meant probable IEDs.  What's a little snow?

Paul Revere Time Capsule Opened

Here's the story. And here's the video:

'A Sufficient Number of Psychologists'

I don't have a problem with this idea, as long as we can agree that the sufficient number of psychologists in a riot is always zero.

The Missouri Democrat who told MSNBC the riots of Ferguson and the tremors of racial outrage that spread nationwide from the Missouri community were “our race war” unleashed a Twitter tirade Jan. 3 that foreshadowed a stormy legislative session ahead for her white colleagues in the Missouri Legislature....

Her legislation also includes what Chappelle-Nadal described as citizen protections and officer professional standards:

• The bill scales back the current “use of deadly force” laws in Missouri, allowing officers to use deadly force only in instances where a suspect poses a clear danger to the officer or the public.

• If a police officer shoots an unarmed citizen, or a police officer kills an unarmed citizen by any other means, a special prosecutor will automatically be appointed.

• When law enforcement is deployed to a protest situation or a scene of civil unrest, all officers will be required to wear accurate and visible identification with their full names clearly displayed.

• Law enforcement officers shall not be allowed to “hog-tie” citizens or verbally degrade or make derogatory comments toward any peaceful protestors.

• If the governor declares a state of emergency due to civil unrest, the governor shall immediately reassign and mobilize a sufficient number of state social workers, counselors, and psychologists to the area.

• The deployment of tear gas shall not be allowed unless the governor has declared a state of emergency and a neutral third-party agency (such as Amnesty International) is on the scene to certify that the tear gas will be deployed in a humanitarian manner.

• If the governor declares a state of emergency due to civil unrest, the governor shall concurrently contract with a neutral third-party agency (such as Amnesty International) to immediately report any abuses of human, civil, and constitutional rights to the Missouri and United States attorney generals.

• All law enforcement agencies in Missouri must be accredited by July 1, 2016.

Most of these sound like sensible ideas. "Use of deadly force" laws in Georgia hold the police to the same standard as anyone else -- only to stop an immediate threat of death or grievous bodily harm -- which is a pretty reasonable standard. A special prosecutor standard may well be warranted in cases of unarmed persons being killed by police, at least for a while given the serious degradation in public trust in the system's ability to hold the police to account. The use of third party validators is not a bad idea in such an environment either: the US military used embedded media to great effect in tamping down the worst of the irresponsible accusations of excessive force. (In fairness, the embeds sometimes caught some actual excessive force on camera -- but that can be valuable too, especially in a policing environment where the goal really is to train so that excessive force will not be used.) Visible identification aids public accountability too, especially in an age of easy access to cameras and video recording equipment.

Not being allowed to "verbally degrade or make derogatory comments" sounds silly to me, though. I assume most departments have standards governing that anyway, so perhaps there's no harm in it, but still.

But 'social workers, counselors, and psychologists'? We'd be well off without them.

Symmetry

Another snowflake, next to the last one.  Funny, I was trying to do something similar.

Update:  on top, a third variation on a theme, more what I was aiming at.  I'm on the last round of this iteration; the completed part is on the bottom left.  You can see how big it is by the fact that it's sitting within the earpieces of the glasses I have to use when I'm working with thread this fine.

The Black Church Loses... in Atlanta

It's one thing when this happens in California, but to lose one in Atlanta has to hurt.

Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran — the subject of recent controversy over remarks made in a self-published religious book — has been terminated from the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, Mayor Kasim Reed announced today.

Cochran returned to work today following a month-long suspension for comments in his 2013 book “Who Told You That You Are Naked?” Many criticized the book as promoting discriminatory and anti-gay views, while Cochran’s suspension — and now termination — has since become the focus of a fight over “religious liberty.”...

Among what city leaders said were troubling remarks in the fire chief’s book was a description of homosexuality as a “perversion” akin to bestiality and pederasty. Reed said in November that such writings were inconsistent with the city’s employment policies and opened an investigation into potential discrimination within the fire department. The findings of that investigation have not yet been released.

Of course you can have private religious views. In private. They're certainly not to be published in a book, even a religious book for religious audiences -- not if you want to hold a job.

The mayor says the real reason he's firing the Fire Chief is that he questions his judgment, and had told him not to speak to the matter in public while a national controversy raged about his good name. The Chief says that isn't what happened, and that part is one of those 'he/she said' controversies.

But the mayor gives the game away when he says that "he believes Cochran opened up the city to the potential for litigation over future discrimination claims," and that "such writings were inconsistent with the city's employment policies[.]" What that means is that he believes that it is against the law for a government official in Atlanta to publish a book making these kinds of claims, both in the sense that it would constitute a tort and that it is a violation of the laws governing employment policy.

If true, that would mean that the religious views of the Chief's church are illegal for a public official in Atlanta to profess. That sounds suspiciously like a religious test for public office -- a kind of negative test, so to speak.

News from the Land of Cassandra

I thought you had these Marylanders under control, Cass.

Red Phone

You can secure calls from your cell phone by encrypting them, which you might consider since the FBI apparently thinks they have free reign to listen to you talk without a warrant.

Writing in Ars Technica, David Kravets is unimpressed with the FBI’s regard for Americans’ expectation of privacy.

The bureau’s position on Americans’ privacy isn’t surprising. The Obama Administration has repeatedly maintained that the public has no privacy in public places. It began making that argument as early as 2010...

Of course, there's always a chance that the tech firms offering the encryption have partnerships with the government. That's certainly been the pattern in the past.

Al Sisi's Speech

The man seems to be showing some spine.

Now President Sisi is in a position similar to ours in Iraq after the defeat of Al Qaeda and Iran. He has defeated the Muslim Brotherhood, and he is pressing his advantage, liquidating the leaders the Brothers had elevated over the course of eighty-odd years, and in the last week he delivered the blockbuster speech and became the first president in Egyptian history to attend Coptic Christmas celebrations in Cairo.

It’s a very big deal.

Kings of England

If you're interested in this playful quiz matching you with one of the kings of England, have a go. I got "Henry V."

Artistic License

Trolls are variously depicted in the literature. Some of them are very small, and some of them are very tall...

They are generally all ugly, however.

Wassailing

Apparently a revival of the old tradition is happening in parts of Britain.

The fire is lit, then they sing and dance in the frosty night, offering good wishes to a fruit tree and slurping from a bowl of carefully brewed spiced alcohol. This is wassailing, a pagan ceremony to bring on the spring. Once an ancient Twelfth Night ritual on the wane, wassailing is increasingly being appropriated by modern food-and-drink folk.

Why not? It's fun, and it's Twelfth Night -- approximately, since traditions differ slightly on just which night is the twelfth.

Although the etymology caught my eye:

Sounds like a quaint Nordic custom, doesn't it?

Well, actually, you might be on to something. The term "wassail" comes from the Old Norse "ves heill", meaning "be healthy", and was probably introduced by Danish-speaking inhabitants of England, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

I would have told you it was Old English rather than Danish, although it's hard to argue with the OED. My reasons for doing so are that it is a term that was put into the mouth of the Anglo-Saxons by none other than Geoffrey of Monmouth.

In the meantime, the messengers returned from Germany, with eighteen ships full of the best soldiers they could get. They also brought along with them Rowen, the daughter of Hengist, one of the most accomplished beauties of that age. After their arrival, Hengist invited the king to his house, to view his new buildings, and the new soldiers that were come over. The king readily accepted of his invitation, but privately, and having highly commended the magnificence of the structure, enlisted the men into his service. Here he was entertained at a royal banquet; and when that was over, the young lady came out of her chamber bearing a golden cup full of wine, with which she approached the king, and making a low courtesy, said to him, "Lauerd king wacht heil!" The king, at the sight of the lady's face, was on a sudden both surprised and inflamed with her beauty; and calling to his interpreter, asked him what she said, and what answer he should make her. "She called you, 'Lord king,'" said the interpreter, "and offered to drink your health. Your answer to her must be, 'Drinc heil!'" Vortigern accordingly answered, "Drinc heil!" and bade her drink; after which he took the cup from her hand, kissed her, and drank himself. From that time to this, it has been the custom in Britain, that he who drinks to any one says, "Wacht heil!" and he that pledges him, answers "Drinc heil!"

Sir Walter Scott follows this usage in Ivanhoe, where he uses knowledge of the proper response to the call to establish Richard the Lionheart's familiarity with the Saxon traditions of the country over which he, as a Norman, rules. Scott's suggestion that Richard might have known the story is well-founded. Geoffrey was Welsh, but his history was written in large part to benefit Norman claims to the English throne. He wrote it around 1136; it was translated into Norman verse in 1155, two years before Richard was born. It's highly likely that Richard would have known the story.

Yet of course the story might be wrong -- much else is in Geoffrey's history. On the other hand, Geoffrey got the phrase from somewhere. He wasn't living in the Old Danelaw, but in Wales. He claimed his sources were originally from the Welsh language, and probably some of them were. So perhaps this part of his history is right, and the OED is wrong: perhaps the phrase is original Old English, and not a Danish addition to the language.

I'm Not Sure I Got My Point Across About Mazzy Star

If you don't know them, you should listen to a bit of their work.



They once wrote a piece that got my attention, given my love for highways and speed and the death that attends them.



This one was their famous piece:



But really in the end, I liked everything they did.

Free Expression

My guess is that banning hoodies won't work in the United States, though I gather something similar was passed in the UK. Oddly enough, UK opponents referred to this law (which also banned owning bicycles for gang members) as an "American-style" system. But of course that's nonsense: no American jurisdiction could make sense of a law banning bicycles for some citizens and not others, and probably couldn't digest any ban on bicycles at all.

If you get to the point that you're banning bicycles, any American would say, you've lost the ball.

"Hello, 911? Could You Send A Deputy To Supervise My Parenthood?"

Is it worse that our culture's faith in parental authority has become so weak that this seemed plausible to someone, or that our faith in governmental authority has become so strong?

Sounds like the deputies wish you'd just take care of it on your own. That's easy to understand: "Watch me spank my daughter" is the sort of request that could only make one uncomfortable.

"Comrade 'Skynet,' You Say?"

Moscow tests battlefield robots, armed with machine guns.

Now all they need is a device to permit automated nuclear... oh, right. They've had one all along.

Well, we'll just wait for AI, then. I'm sure it'll go fine.

Islamic Hackers Inconvenience Bristol Bus Passengers

...but only slightly.

UPDATE: Oddly enough, they were not the biggest morons in the news today.