Listics

Robin Stearns of Wire Safe Wisconsin was advised this afternoon by Al Rabin of Waunakee Village Board that a resolution prohibiting the construction of overhead high power lines within the village has been unanimously passed. The specific details  of the resolution are still pending, but proponents of the resolution are praising it as a victory for all those concerned with the environmental and health issues surrounding the construction of overhead lines such as the 345,000 volt line currently being proposed by American Transmission Corporation for construction along Highway 13 in Waunakee.

Wire Safe Wisconsin
"Fighting for the Responsible Placement of High Tension Transmission Lines"

Okay… one more observation about this nonsense and then I’ll give it a rest.  A certain set of thin-skinned muslims took such offense at a Danish newspaper’s publication of a few insensitive and offensive editorial cartoons that they, the thin-skinned muslims, burned foreign embassies and called for a boycott of Danish goods.  Fine.  Syria is their country and they have a right to disobey its laws I guess. 

But to the extent that I am intolerant of oppressive christians who preach Intelligent Design and would deny a woman her right to choose, christians who support war as an answer to an unasked question, to the extent that I am intolerant of Israel’s oppression of Palestine, to that extent I remain committed to oppose extremism from muslims that results in the burning of embassies, oppression of women under sharia law, fatwas against writers like Salman Rushdie.

Here is a link to an article pointing out that antisemitic cartooning is ironically alive and well in the arab world.  And I’m wondering why it’s okay to poke fun at jews ("fun" like drawing a swastika on a star of David) while it’s not okay to print a picture of suicide bombers being turned back at the gates of paradise because they ran out of virgins.

Against reverence and awe the best argument is sometimes not logic,
but mockery. Structures of oppression that may not be susceptible to
rational debate may in the end yield to derision. When people see that
a priest, rabbi, imam or uniformed official may be giggled at without
lightning striking the impertinent, arguments may be won on a deeper
level than logic.

We should never, therefore, relinquish, nor lightly value, our
right not to argue in the face of other people’s gods — but to fart.

— Matthew Parris, in the Times Online

I find much to agree with in this editorial, including the following passage:

Now it’s very easy to murmur “I am not a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Hindu”
as though not being something was terribly inoffensive — a sin, at
worst, of omission; a way of avoiding an argument — the suggestion,
perhaps, that “your” religion may be “true for you” but, as for me,
I’ll sit this one out. But let us not duck what that “I do not believe”
really means. It means I do not believe that there is one God, Allah,
or that Muhammad is His Prophet. It means I do not believe that Jesus
is the way, the truth and the life, or that no man cometh to the Father
except by Him. I do not believe that the Jews are God’s Chosen People,
or subject to any duties different from the rest of us. It means I do
not believe any living creature will be reincarnated in another life.

In my opinion these views are profoundly mistaken, and those
who subscribe to them are under a serious misapprehension on a most
important matter. Not only are their views not true for me: they are
not true for them. They are not true for anyone. They are wrong.

Regarding the Danish cartoons, read Christopher Hitchens’ "The Case for Mocking Religion."  An excerpt…

The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone
of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right
to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a
"holy" book. But I will not be told I can’t eat pork, and I will not
respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong
convictions and beliefs, and value the Enlightenment above any
priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to
breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or
the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy
Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also
prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or
kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating
diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy
or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a
moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway
individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled
tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show
yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of
our species.

I wonder if others saw what Tom saw?

I should have known that Jeneane would have it covered.

Views from around the globe:
In San Francisco, Mark Morford reports,

In one short year, the sneering, all-consuming GOP has gone from master of all
domains, from owning every aspect of the federal government and launching
multiple failed wars and abusing all laws and spying and wiretapping and
torturing and lying, to one of the least stable parties in ages. Scandals,
indictments, arrests, Abramoff, Enron, DeLay, thousands of dead U.S. soldiers
and nothing to show for it but more enraged terrorists, an economy running on
fumes. Regimes built on lies and religious fearmongering never last. It’s like a
genital rash — it just seems to take forever to heal.

From Boulder, Chris Locke illustrates… well, SOMETHING.

Halley reporting from menlomenlo says… well, nothing.

Liz wrapping her thighs around around the continent from Rochester to Redmond says… well, nothing.

From Capetown, South Africa, Golby reports on the US symbol swap, from Eagle to Condom (with links to the Times, and elsewhere).  ("A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of Dicks…".

Silence on the event from Beantown and Santa Barbara.

Ironic that the howl of protest should echo from Formerly Nazi Occupied France while Dubuque, North Platte, Santa Barbara, and Boston look on in befuddled silence.

Kate Moss left the building in a silver Mercedes.

… dressed as Batman.