J. M. Verville

I was skimming an article today and I saw this:

According to a recent survey by Microsoft, 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants — including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites. Seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online, like photos and discussion-board conversations and membership in controversial groups.

NY Times

I imagine this could potentially negatively effect a lot of people in the long run. It will certainly be interesting when we have political candidates get their facebooks searched from when they were in college or high school or someone tracks down political or religious opinions posed by them on the internet that are deemed controversial.

In a way, the internet trails we leave lead people to be ready to judge us and brand us; although it has empowered many to express themselves to a larger group of people it has also resulted in people to be punished for that very expression.

I think people are entitled to their opinions and entitled to not be judged by photos of them drunk 5 years ago. I respect people with opinions and who do not feel the need to carefully put all of their skeletons in their closets…

I just do not believe people should be forced to hide their opinions or assume completely different identities when posting on the internet. I believe it is petty and low for companies to do this.

When you break it down, everyone has a controversial opinion and has done things that are regrettable; turning the employment process into an internet witch hunt is pretty lame.

I found this to be vaguely amusing…

Former NASA Director Says Muslim Outreach Push ‘Deeply Flawed’

The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as “deeply flawed” the idea that the space exploration agency’s priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.

“NASA … represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity,” Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com.

Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and “perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.”

Fox

I was unaware that NASA’s mission would be to inspire children and to even try to inspire foreign, Muslim cultures. I thought there was a very real, tangible effort to develop technology and conduct meaningful exploration and utilization of space.

Of course, inspiring others is one thing, but the notion that NASA would become a tool to fulfill these goals is silly.

Muslims themselves can easily look at history and take note of some brilliant Muslim minds like Averroes and al-Biruni who revolutionized the way that a lot of us view space. The fact that we are supposed to be the ones doing that is condescending and patronizing.

Using NASA as some sort of mouthpiece like that just seems like more and more posturing without any potential, real results.

Obama should just save it for his speeches when he goes to Islamic countries.

I admire the Pope’s stance. Middle Eastern Christians are being largely overlooked — I am not sure as to why. Probably because the sporadic violence that occurs is what the media would term ‘Arab on Arab’ crime and thus not as consequential to Westerners because at the end of the day if there are no dead Westerners most people shrug.

The persecution of Christians within the Islamic world is something worth noting — it is also something that indicates the current political and cultural immaturity of the ME as a whole to still persecute blatantly based on these lines.

It is because of things like this that I become more skeptical of whether or not democracy can work in the ME. Sometimes, if the people really do get what they want, it means misery for the minority.

Someone once said: Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner.

NICOSIA, Cyprus – The Vatican said Sunday that the international community is ignoring the plight of Christians in the Middle East, and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and political instability in Lebanon have forced thousands to flee the region.

A working paper released during Pope Benedict XVI’s pilgrimage to Cyprus to prepare for a crisis summit of Middle East bishops in Rome in October also cites the “extremist current” unleashed by the rise of “political Islam” as a threat to Christians.

The paper said that the line between religion and politics is blurred in Muslim countries, “relegating Christians to the precarious position of being considered non-citizens, despite the fact that they were citizens of their countries long before the rise of Islam.”

Yahoo

Just to give you a taste of how great the hatred of Egypt is towards Israel, and perhaps more than this the greater Arab attitude towards Israelis:

A court in Cairo has upheld a ruling urging the government to consider stripping of their citizenship Egyptian men who are married to Israeli women.

The ruling requires officials to send all such cases to the cabinet, to be decided on an individual basis.

The interior ministry had appealed againt the original ruling, made by a lower court last year.

The new decision is seen as a sign of negative feeling towards Israel in Egypt, despite a 1979 peace treaty.

Anti-Israeli sentiment is high in the country in the aftermath of Israeli raids on Gaza aid ships - but the long-scheduled court decision was not connected.

It calls on the cabinet to determine whether to remove the nationality of the men concerned, as well as that of their children.

The court said the government should consider whether the Israeli woman was an Arab or a Jew.

It is estimated that about 30,000 Egyptians are married to Israeli women.
‘Disloyal’

The lawyer who brought the case, Nabih el-Wahsh, said it was aimed at protecting Egyptian youth and Egypt’s national security.

He says that offspring of marriages between Egyptian men and Israeli women should not be allowed to perform military service.

There should not be a new generation “disloyal to Egypt and the Arab world”, he said.

BBC

This goes to show the depth of distrust — that even if you associate with people who are from a nation perceived as the enemy you can literally be stripped of your citizenship, something which is illegal according to the UN. The depth of hatred is profound as the ocean and more than this it shows the official, governmental endorsement of such discrimination.

Naturally, if top intelligence officials or people in sensitive positions were marrying women of rivals in the US they would be investigated. In fact, I lost my security clearance due to my longterm Chinese girlfriend in 2007-2008. Even then, many people regarded this as a big deal… But an important note: at no point did the American government contemplate stripping me of my citizenship, a basic right.

Overall, this is an extreme approach that will only lead to gross human rights violations and the feeding the flame of hatred.

Conversely: here is a list of Arab members of the Israeli Knisset:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset

Three young Asians (I will never fully understand how liberally the British use the word Asian — they are giving everyone East of the Himalayas a bad name) come to start a fight with an old BNP geezer; typical tactics.

Let’s go up and get in the face of those campaigning because of our preconceived notions that they are “racist” because they aren’t excited about having their nation inundated with foreign workers robbing the domestic working class of opportunities.

A fight broke out between a British National Party parliamentary candidate and some Asian men as party members were out campaigning in east London.

Some men earlier swore at leader Nick Griffin and threw fruit at him and he was taken away from the scene.

The candidate for Romford, Bob Bailey, was filmed shouting at a group of men in Ripple Road before punching a man who spat at him.

Police were called after 1500 BST to the fight between the two groups.

‘Campaign of hatred’

At the time Metropolitan Police said they were called to the incident but no-one had been arrested at the scene.

Later however, police said an 18-year-old man attended Barking police station and alleged common assault against another man.

The Barking Community Safety Unit is to look into the matter.

When asked about the fight Mr Griffin told BBC London the fight was the result of a “campaign of hatred and dehumanisation against any group of people, in this case us”.

He said: “I think people have to realise that the people have spoken, this is a democratic vote and everyone has to go along with that, whether it’s us, our opponents or people on the streets, and if there are a few crazies or thugs on the streets I’m sure the police will deal with them quite quickly.

BBC

Things are starting to get ugly — the PC thugs are out en force attempting to silence anyone who stands up for common sense immigration reform and right wing policy.

People think they can go around and bash people that they label as ‘racist,’ but now they are finding out that not only are they incapable of bashing them (and embarrassingly so) but they are also becoming incapable of defeating them in elections.

Now what will the PC brigade do that their campaign of intimidation is failing, and the British people start asking their leaders tougher questions?

The more the Conservatives turn their back on the average person the stronger the BNP will get.

A lot of people have waited for this — it is the right move by the Pope.

LISBON, PORTUGAL — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday blamed the church’s own sins for the clerical sex-abuse scandal — not a campaign mounted by outsiders — and called for profound purification to end what he called the “greatest persecution” the church has endured.

His strongly worded comments placed responsibility for the crisis squarely on the sins of pedophile priests, repudiating the Vatican’s initial response to the scandal, in which it blamed the news media as well as advocates of abortion rights and legalizing same-sex marriage for mounting what it called a campaign against the church and the pope.

Speaking en route to Portugal, Benedict said the Catholic Church has always suffered from problems of its own making but that “today we see it in a truly terrifying way.”

Washington Post

I do not think that the media has targeted the Church but rather it is a case where for so long the media did not ever report anything negative about the Church. They’ve now had a rude awakening now that we’ve taken the kid gloves off and are ready to be mature about issues about the Church.

Perhaps to some extent there have been groups trying to vilify the Church more and more, and I think that the vilification was truly justified for a long time. But as the Pope says: now is about the time that we start recognizing that the Church is finally moving past this and recognizing its own shortcomings.

It looks like the Pope is signing the Peace Treaty and recognizing their own shortcomings. Now it is our job to recognize their recognition and begin our push to treat such instances as criminal matters and uphold our part of justice.

This is certainly an intriguing question:

A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it’s yet another law targeting Latinos in the state.

The move comes less than 20 days after Brewer signed a controversial immigration bill that has caused widespread protests against the state. The governor’s press office did not return requests for comment Tuesday evening.

HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

LA Times

It makes a modicum of sense when we are looking at classes that may be encouraging ethnic separatism.

Certainly everyone would cry foul at classes meant for ‘White Studies’ (and then we have to rehash the old idea that oh, jeez, everything else is ‘white studies,’) as potentially promoting racialist or ethnocentric ideas, but no one raising a cry of foul in regards to other studies has become a bit much for me.

I do not believe that these classes are necessarily supporting racialist or ethnocentric ideologies, but they certainly aren’t helping to resolve the notions of race and echnicity within America.

I have always been a fan of minimalism — simply stated, we ought to reduce people down to their most basic level. The level of being an individual who stands independent from those around them.

Promoting ethnic identification, whether positive or negative, from a young age will result in a lot of issues.

Of course, college is a different question — part of the intellectual goals of a person ought to be to understand other ethnic groups from within their own line of reasoning. thus ethnic studies makes sense. As do gender based studies, etc. But at young ages…

This sounds like a good idea.

The room for indoctrination and abuse is large when we give some ideologue the ability to preach at teenage kids about ethnicity and nation.

I enjoy these sorts of stories because they represent the way that humanity has gone backwards while we perceive ourselves as going forward:

A key prosecution witness at the court martial of Capt. Robert Semrau testified Wednesday that Semrau claimed he shot and killed a wounded Taliban fighter in a “mercy killing.”

Semrau, 36, is facing a second-degree murder charge in connection with the shooting death of an unarmed Taliban prisoner in Afghanistan in October 2008.

The witness, Cpl. Steven Fournier, and Semrau were fire-team partners on the battlefield, meaning they were never more than a few metres apart.

Fournier testified Tuesday that he was only a short distance from Semrau when the captain stood over the broken body of the wounded Afghan man and fired two shots in quick succession.

Fournier testified he didn’t see the shots but heard them and quickly looked back to see Semrau closing the ejection port on his rifle — an action soldiers take after they fire their weapon.

On Wednesday, Fournier said that when he heard the shots he wheeled about quickly thinking he was under attack. He said he saw Semrau standing over the insurgent.

Fournier said he was confused and couldn’t figure out what had just happened.

He told the hearing that Semrau then said: “It’s OK. It was me.”

As the two men marched on to join the Afghan unit they were mentoring, Semrau spoke again, Fournier said.

Semrau said he thought the shooting was necessary because it was the humane thing to do, Fournier testified. Semrau said couldn’t live with himself if he just left a wounded man to die on the battlefield, the corporal said.

CBC
The big issue is that in a lot of circumstances, then, people would kill wounded insurgents and claim it was a ‘mercy killing.’ But nonetheless — one should be able to tell by autopsy whether or not the person was at actual risk of dying.

The ultimate irony:

The Taliban insurgent was probably happy and felt relieved, and that the soldier had paid him a great tribute by ending his wretched, slow death.

60 years ago on a battlefield it was a war crime to not mercy kill people.

But now we are so divorced from basic, common sense reality it is ridiculous.

When we went fishing, we used to cut off the fishes heads promptly after we brought them in, and began gutting them right away. That is because it is more human to end their lives then have them slowly suffocate on land. This basic principle can be extended out to anything.

And now we have the modern, Geneva Convention humanitarian bunch telling us that this is actually cruel.

The funny thing about the humanists who come up with these policies is that after they climb into their great, Ivory towers they become anything but human and slowly work to destroy the last vestiges of the human spirit.

I have heard a lot of the extreme measures people have adopted around the world to curb smoking but this is pretty outrageous:

Australia could become the first country in the world to require cigarette packages to be stripped of logos and designs.

By July 2012, all cigarettes in the country will be sold in plain packs carrying graphic warnings against smoking, according to an anti-smoking initiative announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office.

“Now the big tobacco companies are going to go out there and whinge, whine, complain, consider every form of legal action known to man,” Rudd told reporters. “That’s par for course. We, the government, will not be intimidated by any big tobacco company trying to get in the road of doing the right thing.”

CNN

OK… We get it… Cigarettes kill you. We are taught this from day one in our classes at school.

Do you really have to invade people’s personal lives to the extent of erasing logos to insert your warnings on the packages? It is extreme and utterly over the top.

Quite unbelievable — I understand warnings but making the whole pack a warning? I do not see how this should be able to stand up.

In a very real sense this is totally inserting yourself into someone else’s business.

I think this is one of the reasons there are many people on the right wing that cannot understand Europe necessarily; the woman criticized the policies which allow a lot of unchecked migrant work into Europe and basically questioned the entire situation of immigration in Europe.

Suddenly, she is later declared a bigot:

watch here at the BBC

It is impossible to have good dialog on the topic because whatever the Right Wing says will be labeled ‘bigoted’ if it doesn’t fit into the narrow sphere of acceptable that the Euro left puts out.