Open thread

Keith Olbermann talks about the recent death of habeas corpus.  He does a good analysis of it and what it means for Americans, not to mention the fact that it was so important for Bush yet he’s ignored the law for two weeks since it was passed by Congress.

This is so typical of the right: take a reasonable situation and blow it up into complete nonsense.  British Airways has a policy that says its employees can wear jewelry but must keep it inside their uniforms.  A woman wearing a cross got in trouble because she let it dangle outside her uniform.  Now she’s claiming religious discrimination because Muslims can wear head scarfs and Sikhs can wear turbans but she can’t wear a cross.  There’s no fucking comparison, and yet the right, as evidenced by Evan’s bullshit post, wants everyone to believe this woman was singled out for punishment because she’s Christian.  What ignorance and spin these people come up with.  One, Christianity absolutely does not require her to wear a cross.  That’s point number one and all that matters.  Beyond that, if Christianity did require her to wear some article of clothing or other identifying piece of garbage, I’m quite certain the airline would make allowances just as it has for others, but even those allowances would have to fall in line with the policy.  As the airline said: “British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn underneath the uniform. [. . .] There is no ban. The rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross. Other religious items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms.”

Amazing!  The media is finally noticing Bush’s wavering reasons for the Iraq war: “President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.”  Gosh, it took them long enough to realize he can’t keep his story straight and keeps giving new excuses because the old ones no longer hold water.  Let me point out the details: we’ve had five reasons thus far, and reason six has just been announced.  You can get a quick recap of all of them from Pam if you don’t want to read through the whole AP article.

Weekend Cat Blogging #71 and Carnival of the Cats #134 offer a litany of links to cat photos for the last week, so get your feline fill.

Red Jr., the new small red spot on Jupiter, is strengthening and now has wind speeds equal to that of its older and significantly larger sibling, the Great Red Spot.

He deserves to be charged.  “A school principal has resigned and could face felony firearm charges after he shot and killed two orphaned kittens on school property last month.”  He already resigned after saying he shot them to spare their lives after their mother was killed in a trap.  Whatever.  Throw the book at him for being a dick, for being a typically cruel human, and for having a gun on school property—not to mention shooting it on school property.  If he’s so ignorant that he doesn’t know the implications of that, he deserves to lose his job and be put in jail.

You have to admit their inability to see the irony and ignorance of their own gibbering creates all sorts of entertainment for the rest of us.  A Christian organization wrote an entry on their blog telling young people that blogs are the work of Satan, that they are evil and very much against the nature of their god, and that they should never use online tools to communicate, keep in touch, or even express themselves.  Christians always make the best hypocritical mistakes, and this case emphasises the apparent lack of intelligence about technology and what it can be used for.  Oh, and did I mention irony about blogging about the evils of blogging?

To help get that religious smell off of you from the last entry, check out Carnival of the Godless #51 for all your infidel enjoyment needs.

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