Today I shall go outside in the daylight. I am looking forward to it.

August 26th, 2010

Monkey rides a goat y’all. http://bit.ly/dczkg6

August 24th, 2010

I have just taken delivery of a dauntingly large collection of New Zealand comics.

August 21st, 2010

This small example of civility made me happy. http://bit.ly/byeO5r

August 20th, 2010

I can’t vote in the USA, but I’ve given a small donation at Park51.org to support the construction of Cordoba House.

August 19th, 2010

Erm… apparently Twifficiency is a boring thing that posts a meaningless number to your Twitter account without your permission. Avoid.

August 18th, 2010

My Twifficiency score is 49%. What’s yours? http://twifficiency.com/

August 18th, 2010

#ebz friends: I may respond to your nightmare-sharing requests when I don’t have my own nightmares to deal with. Laudanum will be quicker.

August 18th, 2010
18
Aug

The Cordoba Center

 

I’ve been following the weird controversy over the Cordoba Center in New York with some interest, inasmuch as it’s a fascinating example of the politics of fear.

As far as I can make out, the arguments against it seems to be that Muslims shouldn’t build a cultural centre in Manhattan because it offends some ill-defined group of other people who think all Muslims are terrorists. Usually the actual person making the case acknowledges that the Cordoba Center people aren’t terrorists, so they have to come up with some quite bizarre logical gymnastics to explain why we should disregard what they know to be the case in favour of the ill-conceived notions of ignorant people who may or may not exist.

That would be bad enough if the Cordoba Center were a neutral organisation for private worship. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of organisation that’s on the front lines of combatting terrorism. Islamist terrorist groups do exist, and they operate by brainwashing young Muslim believers into thinking that Islam is locked into an unavoidable battle with the terrible Crusaders of the West. Thankfully these groups are tiny, and their message doesn’t stand up well to the day-to-day experience of most Muslims living in the West, but it’s a constant battle within Muslim communities to contain the influence of these cultish groups. This is where the real fight against Al Qaeda is being waged, and the Cordoba Center should be seen as a fortress defending the United States against terrorism.

Because… you know who wants you to think that all Muslims are terrorists? Osama Bin laden, that’s who.

Who would have thought that in 2010 I’d still be getting olde-timey “link exchange” spam?

August 17th, 2010