The very name Pakistan inscribes the nature of the problem. It is not a real country or nation but an acronym devised in the 1930s by a Muslim propagandist for partition named Chaudhary Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind. The stan suffix merely means “land.” In the Urdu language, the resulting acronym means “land of the pure.” It can be easily seen that this very name expresses expansionist tendencies and also conceals discriminatory ones. Kashmir, for example, is part of India. The Afghans are Muslim but not part of Pakistan. Most of Punjab is also in India. Interestingly, too, there is no B in this cobbled-together name, despite the fact that the country originally included the eastern part of Bengal (now Bangladesh, after fighting a war of independence against genocidal Pakistani repression) and still includes Baluchistan, a restive and neglected province that has been fighting a low-level secessionist struggle for decades. The P comes first only because Pakistan is essentially the property of the Punjabi military caste (which hated Benazir Bhutto, for example, because she came from Sind). As I once wrote, the country’s name “might as easily be rendered as ‘Akpistan’ or ‘Kapistan,’ depending on whether the battle to take over Afghanistan or Kashmir is to the fore.”

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States. [Wikipedia]

Happy birthday, Mr Jefferson.

Here’s something that Jefferson insisted upon that the Indian government would do well to adopt. In the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, Jefferson wrote:

“[no citizen] shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…[to] compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of [religious] opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”

I think that it is immoral and wrong that the Indian government forces me to pay for the support of religious activities that I find is sinful and tyrannical.

Today is also the birthday of Christopher Hitchens. Happy birthday and many happy returns, Christopher. May you continue your good fight against the theists. I should mention that I totally disagree with Hitchens on his support for the American invasion of Iraq.

Here’s Christopher Hitchens debating his brother Peter. It is a 14-part video and the first four parts were on Iraq. This part is where they start debating the proposition that the (monotheistic) god does not exist and that god is not great.

On a related note, the Guardian.co.uk reported that (as of Feb 17th), “180,000 demands to remove images of the Prophet” from the Wiki page on Muhammad have been made. I assume that these were followers of Islam who made that demand. Islam forbids the depiction of Muhammad because it could lead to idolatry — that is worshiping of Muhammad — and Islam calls for the death of all idolaters.

Yes, the followers of Islam if they so choose should not depict Mohammed or any other living creature. But demanding that non-Muslims follow the dictates of Islam is patently idiotic, and ridicule and derision should be heaped on attempts at controlling others.

Here’s a clue to those clueless retards that want to control others. You are not required by law — human or physical — to go check out any material that is not consistent with your ridiculous belief system. If you don’t like to read something or watch something because it offends you, then don’t do it. Just read or watch or listen to what you don’t find offensive. Don’t like a novel? Don’t read it. Write your own which suits your taste and follows your religion’s dictates.

Let me remind you. I find your belief system offensive and inhuman. (Don’t thank me. I am merely returning the compliment. Check out what your “holy” books say about my belief system.) But I would not presume to tell you not to practice it in the privacy of your own home. I don’t call for the ban of your “holy” writings that the majority of humanity finds offensive. Yes, however millions of Pastafarians exist, there are more non-Pastafarians. And that goes for the followers of every other religion — including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Let me also remind you that the world is a pretty big place. It is much much bigger than could be conceived by the writers of the “holy” books who lived and died their whole miserable lives in a desert in the Middle East a couple of thousand years ago. They thought that what they could see from the top of their camels is all that the universe was. Nope, the world is much bigger. Other people have other ways of living and thinking. Believing that the entire world was just a huge freakin’ desert where everyone must do everything exactly the same way is retarded and unimaginative.

It is stupid and dangerous insanity to want to dictate to others how they should live under your religion’s prohibitions. Let me give you an example. To most Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists, killing cows and eating them is offensive and against their religion. Would you support a worldwide ban on the slaughter of cattle? If not, why not? What makes your ban any more reasonable than the ban on something that most Indians find offensive?

Grow up. It is way past the 7th century and we are no longer in the Arab peninsula, Toto.

The Wikipedia team told the wackos who want to control what is published on the web to shove it but did it very politely.

Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.

So long as they are relevant to the article and do not violate any of Wikipedia’s existing policies, nor the law of the US state of Florida where Wikipedia’s servers are hosted, no content or images will be removed because people find them objectionable or offensive.

See, there is a place outside of the desert and it is called Florida and there is a time called the 21st century that is not the 7th century. Sweetie, if you are offended by something that you have no reason to be able to control, then it is your problem, isn’t it? Can’t you get it into your pointy little head that YOU are the one who is taking offense — others have better things to do than go around offending you.

Live and let live, my preciouses.

This ends my little rant. But wait, there is more. Here’s Christopher Hitchens on YouTube. It is part of a debate on free speech in Canada in November 2006.

Hitchens (the author of “God is not great: How religion poisons everything”) is great. An Englishman who became an American citizen a few months ago. What is with these Englishmen? You have Hitchens, and Dawkins, and Pat Condell. Condell’s rants on religion are amazingly lucid and hard-hitting. Here are two for your watching pleasure. As Condell says, “Peace.”

NOTE NOTE

Follow up to this post is here.

Here’s Hitchens (from one of his live debates):

What’s motherly about her? Hideous virgin and fraud, and fanatic and fundamentalist, shriveled old bat. [She was] as far from the nature of motherhood as a woman could decently get. . . We have to have the fortitude to say… to those who are afflicted, to those who are poor, to those who really are suffering, we should say honestly that those who offer them false consolation are not there friends. Who doesn’t know by now that the cure for poverty is not charity in Calcutta. Who doesn’t know that? Why did we decide to forget what we learnt over the generations that charity is an insult to the poor and a way of prolonging poverty; that Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor, she was a friend of poverty. That there is only one cure for poverty, and that is, by the way, the liberation of women. And which works every time and against which all religions have set its face every time. And against which Mother Teresa has spent a lifetime campaigning, to ensure that misery and poverty and dirt and disease and ignorance would be continued so that there would be ever more people to testify to the Catholic faith.

Hitchens is accurate in his description of Teresa being a fraud. It has recently been revealed that she did not believe in the tripe she was peddling pretty much all her life. She did not have faith in her god. This did not come as a surprise to me because I had concluded that she was a supremely shrewed, cunning, and intelligent person. The way she manipulated the press, the way she used the high-ranking politicians (and the way she allowed herself to be used by them in turn), the way she rubbed shoulders with convicted frauds as long as they enriched her order, the way she handed out indulgences to mass murderers — it all indicated that she was nobody’s fool and she could not have possibly believed in the simple-minded nonsense that the Catholic church expects its flock to believe.

But apparently she wanted to believe in that vile nonsense. And being unable to believe, she was a tortured soul. Perhaps there is some justice in the world after all: at least she suffered a bit. Not a whole lot compared to the suffering that she inflicted by her evil machinations but still suffered. There is no hell but perhaps she did inhabit a bit of hell on earth. Unfortunately though, it is possible that if she had not been so tortured by her lack of faith, perhaps she would have been a little less merciless in her actions. A good person does not even unintentionally harm innocent humans. The evil she represents is absolute because she knowingly increased suffering and pain.

If she had toiled in obscurity whatever her motivation, if she was just another misguided monkey trying to save fish, if she had been just one more missionary hell-bent on converting the heathens — I would not waste my breath on her. But she was celebrated by the powers of the Western world, and celebrated by the morons in the Indian press, awarded all kinds of honors by the stupid Indian government, and finally given a state funeral. The louder these powers speak about her holiness, the more the general population gets brainwashed into believing a falsehood. So I consider it my duty to expose the evil she embodied. I am laying out the evidence and voicing my opinion. To this end, the best spokesman I have found is Christopher Hitchens. May his tribe increase.

Here is part 1 (of 3) of one of Hitchens’ documentary on Teresa titled “Hell’s Angel”.

Here are Part 2, and Part 3.

Teresa was absolutely against abortion, and even just plain contraception. At the very least, if one opposes abortion, one should at least be absolutely for contraception. She was vile. And absolute opposition to abortions leads to murder. Don’t believe me? Read this report in the Guardian titled “Killer Law” on Nicaragua’s anti-abortion legislation. Not pretty, is it? Check your pulse if it does not make your blood boil.

I am sure that I will continue to write against Teresa. For now, let me close with a letter that a friend of mine forwarded to me. It is part of a letter-writing campaign addressed to those in charge of the international airport in Kolkata.

4 November 2007

To
The Director
NSCBI Airport Kolkata
Kolkata 700052

Dear Sir

As a lover of Kolkata and frequent visitor to your city I was shocked to see, just at the entrance to the check-in section of the international airport, a large portrait of Mother Teresa.

The late nun has caused and is causing IMMENSE harm to Kolkata’s reputation through the worst kind of negative publicity. Most people in the world believe that Kolkata is one mass of disgusting slums where nothing except the most dire poverty exists. This belief system cuts through national, religious and social boundaries.

Let me assure you that without the oppressive yoke of the Teresa myth Kolkata would have enjoyed many many more visitors. Also Kolkata’s business prospects have been irrepairably harmed by the Teresa association.

We, the undersigned, therefore, ardently request you to remove the portrait of Mother Teresa from such a vantage point. We do not have any religious issues about her, as we are drawn from many religions (and none). But we deeply care about Kolkata and its honour and dignity.

Yours faithfully
Dr Z K Kittler

Copy: Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister, West Bengal

Kolkata, whatever its miseries, does not deserve the punishment that Teresa so mercilessly administered it. I do pity Kolkata but I also feel contempt for the ignorance of the people of Kolkata that they so shamelessly acquiesce to their own debasement.

1. Hitchens thinks he is great. (I agree.)
2. God is not great. (According to Hitchens as the title of his latest book is God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”)
3. Therefore, Hitchens doesn’t think he is god. Q.E.D.

(Proving Hitchens is allah is left as an exercise for the interested reader. )

Here’s Hitchens speaking with Lou Dobbs on CNN.