The Brussels Journal points out the close resemblence between the Arabic word for “Allah” and the logo of the UN Human Rights Commission, which may have been imposed by ” a high-ranking Muslim UN official .” Even if “Allah” is not the official UN Human Rights Commission logo, the UN acts as if it were. Brussels Journals points to “last week’s common declaration signed by EU Foreign Policy Coordinator Javier Solana, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The three men pledged to rewrite the UN Human Rights Charter to ‘protect the sanctity of religions and the prophets.'”
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Today’s Courageous Feminists
Cinnamon Stillwell observes International Women’s Day by observing that:
the real radical women in the world go largely unremarked by the feminist movement. Today’s true heroines are those who do battle with the gender apartheid, violence and oppression practiced against women in the Muslim world. There, women face not just phantom infringements to their civil rights and perceived slights to their sensitivities, but threats to their lives.
Read the whole article for an inspiring litany of women putting lives on the line by speaking out against Islamist oppression.
Whoopie Cushion Chair Prompts Lawsuit
Today’s Times of London reports an employment law claim by a teacher who chair made flatulent noises whenever she moved. The teacher, who resigned her position, is claiming constructive dismissal, and asking for one million Pounds in compensation.
Asked why she did not sort out the problem, she told the tribunal: “It’s a health and safety issue for an employer to ensure you have a comfortable chair.”
A chair that forces a person into bad posture might well be a health and safety issue, but a chair that merely causes embarassment is plainly not a health and safety issue — although the chair should still be replaced.
Stand Up to Islamism
Twelve leading writers from the Muslim world signed the Manifesto of 12: Together Facing a New Totalitarianism:
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.
We — writers, journalists and public intellectuals — call for resistance to religious totalitarianism.
Instead, we call for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values worldwide.
The necessity of these universal values has been revealed by events since the publication of the Muhammad drawings in European newspapers. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the arena of ideas. What we are witnessing is not a clash of civilizations, nor an antagonism of West versus East, but a global struggle between democrats and theocrats.
Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The preachers of hate bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a world of inequality. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred.
Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of greater power imbalances: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all others.
To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed people. For that reason, we reject “cultural relativism,” which consists of accepting that Muslim men and women should be deprived of their right to equality and freedom in the name of their cultural traditions.
We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia,” an unfortunate concept that confuses criticism of Islamic practices with the stigmatization of Muslims themselves.
We plead for the universality of free expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on every continent, against every abuse and dogma.
We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of enlightenment, not of obscurantism.
Now, the 12 signers are the subjects of a death threat. One of the 12, Irshad Manji, is asking people to come to her website and add their own names to the Manifesto. I just did, and I urge you to do the same.
Stand Your Ground
Back in 1987, Florida set off a national trend by enacting a law which allows adults with a clean record, who pass a safety class, to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun for lawful defense. Although some states already allowed concealed carry, Florida’s 1987 law led to the concept spreading nationally, so that today 38 states have handgun carry laws similar to Florida’s. Now, a new Florida trend is spreading: “Stand your ground” laws.
Last year, Florida enacted a statute stating that victims of a violent felony attack do not have to retreat from the aggressor (even in a public place), and can use deadly force. Now, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has signed a Stand Your Ground law in his state, and the South Dakota legislature has enacted a similar law.
Because most Americans intuitively agree with the principle of self-defense, opponents of the law, such as the Brady Center, have resorted to making silly claims, such as asserting that the laws allow “a person who just feels something bad is going to happen to open fire in public.” A careful look at the Florida model, which I blogged about last year, leads to the conclusion that the Brady Center’s claims are unmerited.
Lawyers’ reputations soaked in Poland Spring fight
“Mutually assured character destruction”: that’s what Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam says to expect from a trial that started March 7 in Portland, Me. federal court that pits some of the country’s better-known members of the plaintiff’s bar against each other. Among the cast of characters: Jan Schlichtmann, of “A Civil Action” fame, Steve Berman of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Massachusetts tobacco litigator Thomas Sobol of the same firm, and Alabama’s Garve Ivey. At issue is whether lawyers breached legal ethics or sold out the interests of class members in their sharp-elbowed maneuvers to control the process of litigation and reach a lucrative settlement with Poland Spring’s parent company, Nestle. Also testifying is celebrity enviro-pol Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had signed up a water company he controls as one of the plaintiffs — gee, who knew RFK Jr. was tied in with hotshot plaintiff’s lawyers? (Alex Beam, “An uncivil action in Maine”, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water bottlers in court to recoup lost settlement”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 8; “Law firm’s handling of Poland Spring case at issue in trial”, AP/Boston Globe, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water case puts lawyers’ ethics on trial”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 10; “Witnesses tell of how Nestle case fell apart”, Mar. 17). The trial is expected to conclude this week. For more on the Poland Spring class actions, see Sept. 10, 2003, Feb. 2, 2004 and Jun. 25, 2004.
“Public health” imperialism
Once upon a time, the main mission of “public health” was to prevent the spread of contagious illnesses, and handing the members of that profession a lot of coercive power may have seemed like a sound idea. But now many of the profession’s members are demanding that government intervene against unhealthy individual lifestyle choices. Keep your laws off our bodies, please (Ronald Bailey, “Is Diabetes a Plague?”, Reason, Mar. 17).
Update: Danish Muslim groups to sue over cartoons
27 Muslim groups in Denmark have announced their intent to sue the newspaper Jyllands-Posten for defamation in a Danish court, and also plan to “report Denmark to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights for failing to prosecute the newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad”. (Jenny Booth and news agencies, “Danish Muslims sue over Muhammad cartoons”, The Times (U.K.), Mar. 17). Earlier coverage: Mar. 4, Feb. 14 (Muslims in Calgary, Alberta plan to sue), Feb. 10, etc.
Scientology and South Park
The incident we reported on Feb. 28 has developed into quite a news story — see, for example, Andrew Sullivan, Mar. 16 and many other recent posts.
Site disruption
Yesterday we got an Instalanche (thank you, Glenn!) the traffic from which unfortunately had the effect of crashing our server. The site was down for much of the day, as was email service to overlawyered.com and walterolson.com (if you sent us mail and we didn’t respond, please resend). While the front page was restored within a few hours, most of the rest of the site remained down until this morning. Thanks for your patience.
P.S. Welcome readers from the second Instalanche, which we’re happy to say our servers have succeeded in accommodating. Our new slogan, courtesy of Glenn: Overlawyered, the site “you should probably be visiting regularly anyway”.