Which of these is more suitable for children?

This:


Or this:


Yet Venezuelan TV has decided that Baywatch is more suitable, saying that The Simpsons have flouted a regulation that prohibits "messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents".

So what exactly is Baywatch teaching young boys and girls? Apart from how to run in slow motion and play with themselves?

Ok, that's not quite true. Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, actually said:

Erm... so if earthquakes are the fault of the gays, what happened to the whole tectonic plates thing? Or did Shlomo Benizri just skip basic geography, and headed straight to the bigoted religious nut class?

And if his conclusion is indeed true, why are those countries who offer gay marriage/civil partnerships not experiencing earthquakes to a far greater extent than Israel who is merely recognising them? Or is that just too much like logic?

In other news, Iain Dale promises to avoid shaking his genitals in future. Something I think we can all be thankful for.

The most insightful comment of the day on Cuba [via Mr Eugenides]:

INTERVIEWER: So you did some of your new album in Cuba?

CRAIG DAVID: I had lots of misconceptions about it being a communist country and all that. It's true that they're not as privy as we are with inventions, food and so on. But they make up for it with incredible dancing.

Yes, well. Obviously being being able to dance makes up for living in a decaying country under a communist dictator. Who is resigning to be replaced by a slightly younger communist dictator. His 76 year-old brother.

Why are the leaders of Cuba so scared of democracy? Simply because they know that they'd get voted out. And besides, they like the power.

Besides, that the Cubans can dance is hardly a secret to anyone who has seen Dirty Dancing 2 [it was on at some point around Christmas when I was bored, ok?].

This may seem controversial, but it doesn't really seem very much so to me at the moment. That the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has left a void in Pakistani politics shows that the political leadership in Pakistan is still weak and massively personality focused.

What also makes me doubt Pakistan's devotion to democracy is the choice of replacement for Benazir Bhutto as leader of the Pakistan People's Party - her 19 year old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. I mean, a nineteen year old who is still at university?! Have they really got no-one else? Why do they need a Bhutto at the head of the party so much that he even has to change his name? To me, that doesn't demonstrate a readiness for real democracy.

After all, if any of the party leaders in the UK was assassinated, there would always be several people who could step into the role. It certainly wouldn't lead a "void". And neither would there be any call the son - or any other relation - of the now-deceased leader to take over.

Pakistan may well be ready for democracy, as in electing who they want to lead them, but it certainly doesn't appear to me like they are truly ready for or capable of what I would regard as real democracy with all that that entails within the political system.

What does need to happen, however, is that this election goes ahead - maybe not on the original date, but with only a short delay at most.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez been told to shut up - and not by the King of Spain this time. But, instead, by the people of Venezuela, who have voted against his plans to officially turn their country into a socialist state. Why? Because Chavez's policies are not working:

Does this sound at all familiar?

This is an example of democracy in action - just not the sort of democracy they wanted [h/t Daniel Hannan]. That even a country which has elected Chavez several times votes against becoming a socialist state, preferring democracy over the socialistic imitation, just proves that 'the people' everywhere do not want socialism, despite the usual suspects claims to the contrary.

The people of Venezuela have told Chavez to shut up over his constitutional plans. Hopefully he now will.

Source: The Telegraph, BBC

Breaking News: Gillian Gibbons, the teacher who allowed her class to name a teddy Muhammad, is to be released. The BBC are just reporting that she has been pardoned by the President of Sudan after the visit by two British Muslim peers - Labour's Lord Ahmed and Tory Baroness Warsi.

Fantastic news, and none too soon. Will they also acknowledge that it was a disproportionate sentence for her crime? Almost certainly not explicitly, but at least they have implicitly accepted it by releasing and pardoning her.

In the comments of my post over the disproportionate sentencing of Gillian Gibbons for naming a teddy bear "Muhammad", I have been alerted to this. You can buy your own teddy bear named Muhammad - with 100% of the profits pledged to help Gillian restart her life.

Pretty much the worst that you can say about this is that it's just a cute bear!

Daniel Finkelstein is wrong when he says that the sentence meted out to Gillian Gibbons for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad isn't disproportionate.

He is utterly wrong. The sentence meted out to Gillian Gibbons by Sudan is disproportionate. The reaction both legally and socially is highly disproportionate to the supposed crime of naming a teddy bear after a prophet.

After all, let's think about this. The teddy bear is named after an American President, and who among us didn't have a teddy bear that had it's own name? Why was that? Because the teddy bear is a children's toy much loved by every child who has one - which is pretty much every child. Even those who didn't have a bear per se would have had something similar. Quite frankly, naming a teddy bear Muhammad should be regarded as a good, pro-Islam, thing - especially when it is selected by the children themselves.

Yes, Gillian Gibbons was naive to let her children choose such a name, but she can hardly be blamed for the excessive and disproportionate reaction taken towards it and her by Sudan.

News that two British Muslim peers - Labour's Lord Ahmed and Tory Baroness Warsi - have visited Sudan to meet Gillian Gibbons and to press their case to have Mrs Gibbons pardoned and released is cheering. Hopefully their reason will triumph over the religious fundamentalism which has led to her imprisonment.

Telling Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president, to shut up has made King Juan Carlos of Spain a YouTube and mobile phone ringtone hit. The phrase "why don't you shut up?" have also made it onto mugs and t-shirts. It is being downloaded in Venezuala as a form of protest:

We understand. It's something a lot of us would like to tell many of our political leaders too.

The suggestion by their Prime Minister that New Zealand should remove the Union flag from their national flag has put the country in a "flap" [boom boom!]. The idea is that removing the Union flag from the top left corner of the flag would "New Zealandise " it. But would it really? No. All it would do is make it almost meaningless.

If they want to change it, they should do so fully - take the Canadian flag. They went from the Canadian Red Ensign to the Maple Leaaf flag we know today. New Zealand should, if they make any change at all, go from the defaced Blue Ensign they currently use to the simple, but effective, and New Zealandish [it's a word if I say it is] symbol used by the All Blacks - a silver fern on a black background.

The idea that changing the flag would cause them to forget their British traditions is utter bollocks. Just rubbish. They have history books and history teachers, after all! A flag does not make a nation, but a nation makes a flag. A flag does not matter - it is nothing but a bit of brightly-coloured fabric - unless it is given meaning by the people of that nation.

If the people of New Zealand want a different, more "New Zealandish" flag, then they should have one. But is it really worth bothering? That's up to the New Zealanders.

Source: The Telegraph

Is the title of this post libel? Could I be charged with it? If I was in Poland, yes, and I could also face up to three years in prison:

Calling the President a "penis" and linking to his website with that word is hardly libel, and certainly isn't worthy of a jail term.

Poland is supposed to be a democracy, and as such calling the President a penis shouldn't really matter. He can call the President a penis if he wants to, in the same way that I can call Gordon Brown a penis - and there shouldn't be any fear of prosecution for doing so.

Democracy means being able to insult those who lead the country if we want to. They govern us with our consent, not the other way round. We have the right to insult our political leaders - especially with such mild insults as "penis".

Source: The Telegraph

I'm never going to be able to do the washing up again...

Should any books be banned?

"The Koran should be banned as a “fascist book” alongside Mein Kampf because it urges Muslims to kill non-believers, says Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders...
The call to treat the Koran in the same way as Adolf Hitler's biography, which has been banned by the Dutch for over 60 years, is the latest in a long line of Islam controversies sparked by Mr Wilders, who lives under tight security after murder attempts by suspected Islamist terrorists." (The Telegraph)

Comparing the Koran, a religious text, to Mein Kampf is a direct attempt to cast Islam as a fascist and dictatorial religion, a fact belied by the large number of "moderate" Muslims, and the large number of Islamic religious leaders, with no central authority figure - unlike most other "mainstream" religions. You could also claim that the Bible encourages [or at least has caused] murder, such as the witch hunts of Early Modern Europe. But I have absolutely no intention of making my argument on this basis. Instead I wish to ask this question: What are books?

Books are the repositiory of thought in a written and printed form. They offer text in a way that can be perused and interpreted by the individual. They do not dictate what an individual can or should do. You can, and should, read books from as many political views as possible. I have read Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto, but I am by no means a Communist, or even share any of their views. I've read Hobbes, Burke, Rousseau, and Locke too. A book does not, and cannot, make a person do anything. It can, and they do, offer excuses for people to do and believe things, but they do not give people views.

Why should any book be banned because it esposes unconventional views, or support for something - anything - we find reprehensible nowadays? This is censorship, and something which we are supposed to be above in this day and age. Unless a book is nothing more than a hate-filled invective, on what possible basis could, or should, it be banned? The principles of freedom of speech and freedom of press should mean that few, if any, books are banned.

I have read neither the Koran nor Mein Kampf - which is, by all accounts, a boring and stodgy read - but I can see no basis for the banning of either of them. No books should be banned on the basis that Wilders is claiming, or any other. Like Tom Paine points out, it is rather ironic that the leader of the "Freedom Party" should call for the banning of a book. I can see absolutely no reason why the Koran should be banned anywhere - and the same for Mein Kampf. Like making Holocaust denial a crime, it is just wrong. They don't need to be banned, just ridiculed.

Source: The Telegraph

"The Elders" are here to save the world - or so they say:

"Nelson Mandela and five other senior statesmen will today form themselves into a team of international troubleshooters called "The Elders".
The initiative, funded by Sir Richard Branson, will be launched in Johannesburg during celebrations marking Mr Mandela's 89th birthday...
The idea is that he will team up with Jimmy Carter, the former US president, Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general, Mary Robinson, the former Irish president, Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Mohammed Yunus, the Nobel Laureate and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh." (The Telegraph)

It's all very noble and stuff, but will it work? Not on your life. They are all old, or very old, people who have served as leaders of their country or another organisation in some way and then retired. They may each be a "non-partisan figure with a rolodex packed with international contacts," but they don't have a chance of actually achieving anything substantial. The best they could possibly do is raise an issue - but since when has that caused all that much action?

These self-styled "Elders" won't make any difference - not to hostage situations in Nigeria, the crisis in Zimbabwe, the Middle East, or absolutely anything else. They are nothing more than a bunch of talking heads. However well regarded they may be, heads of government will make all the right noises to agree with them, but do absolutely nothing that they would not do otherwise. They couldn't solve the world's problems whilst leaders with power - so why would they be able to do it now?!

UPDATE: Croydonian has a delightful dig at them as well: Group of old politicians make desperate plea for attention

Source: The Telegraph