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Case In Point On Official Prayer
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As though right on cue, here’s a concrete example of exactly what is so harmful about official prayer (h/t Pharyngula and Seeing The Forest):
A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they’re suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from “state-sponsored religion.”The behavior of the Indian River School District board suggests the families’ fears are hardly groundless.
The district spreads over a considerable portion of southern Delaware. The families’ complaint, filed in federal court in February 2005, alleges that the district had created an “environment of religious exclusion” and unconstitutional state-sponsored religion.
I’m sure Matt will tell us that this is harmless and anyone who fights against it is (or at least looks like) some kind of extremist, since, after all, if you can get so riled up about something so minor, you must be on the fringe. Of course, it should be obvious what an outrage this actually is. And if that didn’t get your attention, maybe the death threats and eliminationist rhetoric will:
On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meetng. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.The complaint recounts that the raucous crowd applauded the board’s opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him: “take your yarmulke off!” His statement, read by Samantha, confided “I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy.”
A state representative spoke in support of prayer and warned board members that “the people” would replace them if they faltered on the issue. Other representatives spoke against separating “god and state.”
A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might “disappear” like Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. O’Hair disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.
The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to “go back up north.”
In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby. [emphasis added]
As Ed Brayton observes, “If even 10% of the allegations in this case are correct, it’s one of the most outrageous cases I’ve ever seen.” This is exactly why religion needs to be kept entirely out of government; not only is it oppressive in its own right, but it approves - even encourages - lynch-mob intimidation in the wider community.
It’s OK
Smart video makes fun of dumb MPAA warning
Steve Anderson created a video that makes fun of the MPAA’s “You wouldn’t steal a handbag…” anti-piracy campaign, by focusing on the real pirates: the greedy creeps plundering everything that makes the US such a wonderful place. Link
Berkelland berispt na vriendelijke groet
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Het college van burgemeester en wethouders van de gemeente Berkelland is op de vingers getikt door de gemeentelijke commissie Kamer Samenleving, omdat het gemeentelijke brieven te informeel ondertekent. Het college eindigt een correspondentie met de Needse carnavalsvereniging met de woorden ‘met vriendelijke groet’. Dat gaat de commissieleden te ver. Het was passender geweest als de brief was geëindigd met ‘hoogachtend’, zo laat de commissie weten.
STS-121
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During liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-121 on July 4, a camera captured a small piece of debris (pointed to by the arrow) that is believed to be a part of a shim used on the thermal protection system on the orbiter. The piece did not cause any damage nor will the loss be a concern for the mission or landing.
It’s nude balls, please
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Wimbledon fans got an eyeful yesterday when a streaker did a cartwheel yards from Maria Sharapova.
Dutch DJ Sander Lantinga, wearing an outfit held together with Velcro, stripped down to just his trainers in seconds — before dashing over to the tennis ace on Centre Court.
Sharapova, 19, who went on to beat fellow Russian Elena Dementieva, 24, in the quarter-finals, said: “I wasn’t scared. But I didn’t really look at the guy — I didn’t want to see all the details.?
Lantinga, 29, who works for MTV, did the stunt for the Dutch TV show Try Before You Die.
Microsoft fines OK’d
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The vote is (unofficially, and off the record) in. Regulators from the European Union’s 25 member countries have, according to reports, unanimously found Microsoft guilty of non-compliance with the commission’s landmark 2004 anti-trust ruling.
The way is now clear for Microsoft to start paying a $2.51m a day fine backdated to December 15 for failing to meet the terms of the commission’s ruling.
In an eerie parallel, meanwhile, Microsoft has bowed to Korean antitrust officials by agreeing to pay a somewhat smaller $35m fine for abusing its market position locally. The ruling, in February, instructed Microsft to ship a version of Windows minus Media Player and Windows Messenger and a version that carries links to Web pages that allow customers to download competitors’ software.
Microsoft was instructed by European regulators to share its Windows communications protocols with competitors, and to also deliver a version of Windows for use in the EU without a bundled version of Media Player.
Nah. stupidest ruling ever. Why do I have to actually go somewhere and download messenger?
Have them put in an option : do you want to install MSN, Media Player.
I couldn’t find a Linux dist. without a bunch of useless, intrusive and buggy softwares, so why don’t they fine SuSe and RedHat and so on?
I agree with Roland. I think the ruling is stupid. I use more than one makeof media player, more than one type of browser, and more than one type of communication system. For the novices, these MS tools are a natural addition to a MS operating system. Let the competitors make their own brand OS system and let them add in their own brand user tools. If I invented a new typ of brolly, I would not expect to have to make the buyers get their own basic cover for it, or get their own basic button to operate it. But I don’t suppose I would mind if people went out and bought a colourful cover for it or paid extra for a larger button to operate it.
Joel on Software had an article about MS on 16th June, and there he wrote:
a stubborn insistance on creating every possible product no matter what, (how many billions of dollars has Microsoft lost, in R&D, legal fees, and damage to reputation, because they decided that not only do they have to make a web browser, but they have to give it away free?),
Read the whole article - in fact, read the whole site
I think the point is that MS has a monopoly positon when it comes to the OS. It is the leveraging of this monopoly to other programs that the EU is trying to stop. As it was in the USA, Korea, and other countries around the world.
So, if I make an OS I can’t give you all the programs I made?
What exactly prevents anyone from downloading: WinAmp, Firefox, Oper, Yahoo! Messenger, whatever?
I still think it is a stupid ruling. I like it that I have a media player and a messenger when I install the OS, and I don’t have to spend time on finding and installing them.
Especially if I were a “pc virgin”, I would be in trouble to get those things.
Monopoply shmopoloy … You are free to buy a brand new spanking house, and afterwards rip out its “free” bathroom, “free” staircase, and paint over the emulsion colour chosen for you. It’s a consumer choice. I suppose there is an argument for saying the “OS” cost is unneccessarily higher because there are items built into the cost that the consumer didn’t actually want. But if you could find a house on the market without a staircase or a bathroom would that really make it the house any cheaper? Mass produced consumer items make prices lower.
This is a bit different.
Mediaplayer and the browser and such is not a staircase or a bathrom.
That’s the couch, the table, the chairs.
Just as easy to discard or change.