Category Archives: Politics

On Iran – A Brief Update

On Tuesday March 3rd, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before congress on the need to halt Iran’s nuclear program. Opinions on the program (those will be later) and absurd and slightly hypocritical comparisons aside, one of Netanyahu’s major talking points was the following Tweet from Ayatollah Khomeini:

Taken at face value this Tweet looks pretty menacing; it seems like the Supreme Leader of Iran is making a threat against the Jewish people! That, however, is not what is happening. Iranian officials and Khomeini have previously drawn distinctions between “the regime of Israel” and the Jewish people and these distinctions are crucial in understanding what is going on. The Tweet is specific to the regime that currently in place, namely Netanyahu’s administration, and is calling for the destruction of that regime, that’s it. When the US said that Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was in the “Axis of Evil” and must be stopped, the US didn’t mean that the Iraqi people needed to be liquidated; rather the regime needed to change. When the US condemns the North Korean regime, it is not making a normative statement about the ethnic group making up the country, rather it is making a statement on the government that is in place. Similarly, when Khomeini makes a statement about “the regime of Israel” (especially in the context of Israels failure to protect Al-Aqsa, the third holiest Islamic site), he is NOT making a statement about the Jewish people or the ethnic groups that make up Israel; all he is saying is that there must be a regime change and while the word “annihilated” might sound spooky, that is pure rhetoric and doesn’t imply an outside force attacking Israel. Quite literally, Khomeini is doing what all governments do, denounce States they see as evil. That is it.

It’s time to stop giving Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt and critically examine what’s going on between the two nations. For a further, and more indepth, discussion on whether Iran has a nuclear program, whether they want to “wipe Israel off the map”, and whether a nuclear Iran is a good thing, please read the post “Arm Iran – The Case for the Nuclear State”.

Data Privacy Day 2015 – Security Tips

As is the case every year, Data Privacy Day rolls around and I come dangerously close to forgetting about it. This year, I was saved by Mauricio Prinzlau over at Cloudwards who reminded me to write something and gave me a useful article he wrote entitled “Data Privacy Day 2015: Top Experts Comment on Privacy Issues (+Infographic)” which I will use in this post and strongly recommend you read. To recap, however, last year I wrote a post about staying secure online and my personal security setup and published a PDF version. This year I intend to write a more general post about current security trends, some new tips to stay safe, and some nice infographics. As usual, I’ll see you after the jump!

dataprivacyday2015

 

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Would A Third of Male Students Commit Rape? – Methodological Flaws in New Study

Yesterday, the fine news source BuzzFeed posted the following article A Third Of Male Students Say They’d Rape A Woman If There Were No Consequences, A Study Reveals. The issues with BuzzFeed as a source aside, the article as well as the study it’s citing are flawed in more ways than one. Let’s talk about them!

 

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Thoughts on Charlie Hebdo – A Reply

I originally wasn’t going to write anything about the massacre at Charlie Hebdo because I was under the naïve assumption that there wouldn’t be people posting with the hashtag “#NoTearsforCharlieHebdo” because they’d realize how absurd they were…but I was wrong. Recently, the blog Fuck Yeah Marxism-Leninism posted an essay by a one Eric Struch wherein he compared Charlie Hebdo to Der Stürmer (a Nazi-era publication) and concluded with “‘freedom of expression’ really is, is just a continuation of colonialism in a new form”. Before we get into the nitty gritty of this after the jump however, I shall quote Struch’s entire post below (image included):

“The inability of liberal ‘humanists’ to understand racism and national oppression, and the transformation of this ostensible ‘humanism’ into a propaganda tool of imperialism:

“If a Filipino Catholic ‘guest worker’ (AKA modern-day slave) in Qatar, who has no rights and probably lives in a non-air-conditioned sweatbox with 50 other workers (and has seen plenty of his fellow workers go home in pine boxes), wants to make fun of the hypocritical way the al-Thani family purports to be ‘Muslim’ while abusing other Muslim workers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc.— that’s one thing.

“But in France, which still has a neocolonial relationship to Muslim countries like Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, and others, and has housing projects filled with poor immigrants from these countries, where French cops get to go into these projects and get away with shooting whoever they want— then what this so-called ‘freedom of expression’ really is, is just a continuation of colonialism in a new form.”

– Eric Struch

Graphic via IS Horst

#NoTearsForCharlieHebdo

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Re: Why I Do Criticize Israel – A respectful reply

A few weeks back I was delighted to open my email and see a reply that someone had sent me in regards to a previous post (which itself was a reply to Sam Harris) called Why I Do Criticize Israel – A Response to Sam Harris. After apologizing for the obscene amount of time it took to get around to sending the sender a reply, he gave me permission to quote his criticisms and address them on my blog (if you haven’t listened to my reply to Harris, it is below).

Thus, quoted below verbatim, are the criticism I shall be addressing:

A few points you neglected in your talk which I would like to comment on:

1)  Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, so your expansionist claims in respect to Gaza, are incorrect. There is no occupation in Gaza. Gazans were given complete autonomy as to who their elected leaders would be. They chose Hamas.

2) Your stated claim that Hamas has a 40% approval rating is for economic reasons. (It has increased since the recent conflict) Hamas has used aid money to build tunnels instead of the welfare of it people. They have turned Gaza into a military camp instead of a thriving community. The tunnels into Israel are for offensive purposes only. Israel was justified in destroying them.

3) I agree with you on these points: I’m against the occupation, I condemn religious extremists on both sides and I’m against new appropriation of land for Israeli settlements. I believe a two-state solution to the conflict is necessary. I didn’t hear your opinion on what the resolution should be in your talk.

4) You claim that Israel’s aim, for prolonging the conflict, is to expand its territory. Actually, just the opposite is true. Israel has offered Palestinian leadership their own state several times as recently as 2001. Hamas will never accept a Palestinian state as long as there is a Jewish one. But, it even goes deeper than that. Not only do they not want a Jewish state, but they don’t want a Jewish /presence/ in the area. Harris is correct. There would be genocide on a monumental scale if the military power was reversed.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

I want to thank Dan for his comments, and my reply shall follow after the jump!

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