Commentary about things in the news (25 October 2006)

Regulation and rights
The people who don't want to regulate things like genetically and potentially dangerous modified food are the same people who want to invade our personal privacy and civil liberites under the guise of the Patriot Act and other invasive laws (as well as 'moral' regulation) impeding on the Internet and other tools of speech and expression. See some of my own consumer safety commentary.

Practice what you preach
If people say if peaceful, normal Muslims often remain quiet in condoning the violent Islamic fundamentalists (a small minority of Muslims) they are nearly as bad, I pose this:
The silence of civil liberty- and human rights-loving Americans is nearly as bad as the taking away of such rights by the government (e.g. indefinate detention without charge, warrantless wiretapping).

Also, some of these Islamophobics also should not generalize about followers of Islam. That is to say, not all Jews are spiteful of Muslims or fight for the land of other's that they occupy (not Israel itself, but the territories it invades/controls); not all Christians are as nuts as Pat Robertson and his gang, or think that President Bush is in contact with the divine. In fact, a small minority of Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in what their fundamentalist fellows do.

Sure, blame it on the newspapers...
And now, as if there weren't enough people attacking them, Madonna condones the international news media on the covering of her adoption of a boy from Malawi (FYI, that's in Africa).

She does realize she is attracting great attention from the media by making these kinds of statements, right?

technorati tags: madonna+adoption, african, malawi, news+media, media, madonna, muslim, islam, terrorism, civil+rights, civil+liberties, consumer+safety, regulation, politics, news, in+the+news, current+affairs, in+perspective, commentary, clearthought, opinion, hypocracy, fox+news, right+wing, fundamentalism, religion, islamophobic, islamophobia, jew, judiasm, christian, christianity, pat+robertson, evangelical