This post is pure self-indulgence and own-horn-tooting. Alan Greenspan has just been quoted saying exactly what I said a short while ago about how the political landscape is ripe for a third-party presidential candidate! Here is the summary:

Speaking to a Wall Street gathering Wednesday, the former Federal Reserve chairman decried the “polarization” of American politics and said the ground was ripe for a third party presidential candidate, according to several people who attended the event.

A member of the audience asked Mr. Greenspan if he would endorse a candidate for president. Mr. Greenspan said he would not, “for now.” But he went on to describe the two American parties now as controlled by their extreme wings, even though the voting public is far more centrist, the people who were present said. He described the leadership of the parties as “bimodal,” meaning clustered at the extreme ideological ends, whereas the voting public was “monomodal,” meaning clustered near the middle.

Such situations, he said, create an opening for a third-party candidate who appeals to the center. That, he said, could prompt the candidates of the other two parties to move back to the center, for fear of losing.

Hopefully someone will notify the voting public that politics is not a left-to-right 1-dimensional scale… there are both economics and social politics to think about. I didn’t even realize it until this January.

This past Saturday in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, which is predominantly Muslim, Muslims angered by the Muhammed cartoons went on a violent rampage against Christians, burning down churches and killing several people in the process. Today, Christians in the predominantly Christian city of Onitsha (also in Nigeria) went on a violent rampage against Muslims, burning down mosques and beating people to death.

This shameful act of violence cannot even be called retaliation, because those being attacked did nothing wrong! What ever happened to Turning the other cheek? It’s sad to see that in both cases, the majority has abused their position and has resorted to violence, but this attack against innocent Muslims is just as bad as what the Muslims have been doing in their violent protests. At least the Muslims were protesting something… this was pure hate! Is the entire country going to erupt into violence until only one religion survives? I sincerely hope that it never reaches that level.

An important film which illustrates how stereotyping is both the responsibility of the perceiver and the perceived, an ensemble cast full of big-names drives it home with tangible power.

A bit overrated, but a very enjoyable film which proves that Jamie Foxx is a supremely talented actor.

In the ongoing furor over the Mohammed cartoons, a Pakistani Cleric has offered a million-dollar bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew a cartoon of the prophet mohammed. Pakistani police have confined the cleric in the hopes of minimizing his influence, but riots continue to break out in both India and Pakistan.

According to the article, “Qureshi did not name any cartoonist in his announcement. He did not appear aware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures.” It’s become more apparent to me that this is just an excuse for these people to show their anger at Westerners. There are a number of reports that have indicated that some angry Muslims had added some particularly offensive cartoons to the original 12 when distributing flyers calling for protest. I don’t think any of these protesters really wants the facts, they just want the entire Western world to die a horrible death and this is a great excuse for them to get really really angry and burn stuff. Another example of emotional bias and political irrationality!

Chalk up one more point for science: The Ohio school board has revoked a controversial law which required schools to teach their students about “alternatives” to evolution.

Check out this brilliant quote by John G West, who would probably prefer a theocratic dictatorship to a democracy:

“It’s an outrageous slap in the face to the citizens of Ohio,” said John G. West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the institute, referring to several polls that show public support for criticism of evolution in science classes. “The effort to try to suppress ideas that you dislike, to use the government to suppress ideas you dislike, has a failed history,” Mr. West said. “Do they really want to be on the side of the people who didn’t want to let John Scopes talk or who tried to censor Galileo?”

It’s hilarious how he doesn’t realize that he is guilty of the exact same thing about which he is complaining. He is among a group of people who are trying to use the government to suppress ideas they dislike! Then he comes in with what I’m sure he thinks is a home-run by comparing the evolutionists to “the people who tried to censor Galileo”… way to go, John. It’s kind of a tough point, but this is not censorship. This is a matter of keeping religion out of the law books!

I first read about it in The Putdown, and I thought it was a great idea. Rather than identifying with a particular belief system just because you were raised that way, why not find out which belief system you actually follow? This short quiz will ask you a bunch of questions about what you believe (in non-denomenational terms) and in the end it will tell you what religions and belief systems promote your beliefs. Here it is, the Beliefnet Belief-o-matic! I was glad to see that I was aligned 94% with the belief system I actually identify as: Secular Humanism.

The most thought-provoking and inspiring book I’ve ever read, do not read it as though it were a manual about how to live, but use it as a mirror and a lens through which you should examine yourself and everyone around you.

I have just stumbled upon a web site which has collected tons of depictions of Muhammad throughout the ages (historic and recent). I urge you to check it out! 95% of these images are reverant and not offensive.

Also interesting is that it points out that pamphlets were distributed by some radical muslims which contains three incredibly sacriligious “cartoons” (they look more like photos illustrations) which they claim were included by the Jyllens-Posten article (but were not)!

Oh boy, here comes trouble… a prominent Iranian newspaper is calling for cartoons about the Holocaust! I really hope that the people who would be most offended by this do not hold violent protests, so that Iran and these hardline protesters can see just how out of line they are. This is so childish… “if you publish cartoons about Muhammad, we’ll publish cartoons about the Holocaust!” What will happen when there is no violent protest in response to their childish Holocaust cartoons?

I don’t mean to sound insensitive to the holocaust, which was a horrible tragedy, but I believe in free speech. If they want to publish cartoons about it, that should be their right. Do I think it was wrong to publish cartoons about Muhammad? I think it was stupid and disrespectful, but not a matter of right and wrong.

Since my last post about the outrage over those Muhammad cartoons, the violence has escalated to terrifying proportions! So far, Danish missions in Lebanon and Syria were set on fire, and the Austrian embassy in Tehran was pelted with firebombs. More violent protests were carried out all over the world, including Indonesia, Thailand, and Afghanistan.

Don’t these protesters understand that they are only strengthening the very stereotype by which they are so offended? To be accurate, they are not as upset at the muslim sterotype as they are that the prophet was depicted in an insulting manner, but I don’t think anything published in a newspaper warrants such a violent reaction.

My prediction? World War III is coming and Iran is going to be public enemy #1. I’m not looking forward to it, but I just can’t imagine that these governments and their followers will just calm down and make friends with the Europeans and the US. I’ll try to pretend like there won’t be suicide bombings galore within the states, but that’s probably going to happen too. Here is what the Iranian government spokesman said about the violent protests:

“It was an ugly measure. The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to sacrifice its life for its belief in Islam and the honor of the holy Prophet”

Heartwarming, isn’t it?

Last Tuesday I took the day off from work and went to Hunter Mountain (3 hours north of NYC) to go snowboarding with Brian and Darya (who were skiing). It was a blast! I have been snowboarding for what seems like 10 years now and I had progressed extremely slowly, only able to do blue square trails with a some difficulty (frequently falling down and wiping out). Before this trip I did some reading about snowboarding fundamentals and I went into this trip knowing what to concentrate on. It worked like a charm! We were doing mostly black diamond trails the whole day! I even got the guts to try the halfpipe and a few jumps! I would be lying if I said I did anything impressive on either, but I wanted to start off easy.

Hunter Mountain was fantastic and the conditions were excellent. I highly recommend it to snowboarders looking for a place near NYC.

Sorry I couldn’t think of a better title for this post. If you have been reading the news recently, there are lots of Muslims all over the world who are seriously, passionately, violently pissed off about a set of cartoons (view them here) which were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The Jyllands-Posten had asked 40 cartoonists to draw images of the prophet. The purpose, its chief editor said, was “to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues.”

Why are people so offended? Most of these cartoons are childish stereotypes and are pretty offensive, so I can understand why people are offended. What I don’t understand is why people are reacting against Denmark instead of the cartoonists. By generalizing the target of their anger to an entire country, they are guilty of the same stereotyping as the offensive cartoonists. Check out what some people are doing:

The 12 caricatures have prompted boycotts of Danish goods, bomb threats and demonstrations in front of Danish embassies across the Islamic world. Muslims have also directed their anger at other European countries, with Palestinian gunmen briefly kidnapping a German citizen Thursday and surrounding European Union Headquarters in Gaza.

So basically, some people are taking their generalization as far as the entire continent of Europe. That means 700 million people are seen as evil, even though only 12 people actually drew those cartoons. I suppose you could blame the publishers, but that only adds a few more people. So maybe there are less than 100 people (maximum) who you could really blame for publishing those cartoons. Could you get angry at the public for not protesting? I don’t think that’s fair, but I’m sure some people would. The problem with being angry at people who were not responsible in any way is that you are assuming that people support what they don’t protest… or you’re assuming that people who are all from a certain culture all think alike. Either way, you are failing to see people as individuals responsible for their own actions and this is the core of my issue with these protesters.

If people can start acknowledging that people are individuals who are responsible for their own actions, there will be less of this pointless anger and militant bullshit. The sad truth is that lots of people do not feel responsible for their own actions. People really need to wake up and get a mind of their own!