Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Yahoo! Bans "Allah" in Screen Names

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:00 AM
from the when-things-go-to-far dept.
Businesses The Internet Yahoo!
szembek writes "According to The Register it seems that Yahoo! is banning the use of the string "Allah" in all screen names. The issue apparently became apparent when Linda Callahan attempted to use her surname in her screen name. The following link has an interesting list of terms that Yahoo does allow, and ones they don't."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Yahoo Reverses Allah Ban 331 comments
damnal writes "Yahoo's ban on "Allah" in users names, has been reversed. The ban was instituted due to a number of people registering for IDs using specific terms with the sole purpose of promoting hate. Yahoo's comment on the reversal: "We recently re-evaluated the term 'Allah,' and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse.""
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Yahoo! Bans "Allah" in Screen Names 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • It's a good thing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by AllPowerToAllah (956167) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:01AM (#14768085)
    ...slashdot hasn't!

  • Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by raider_red (156642) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:03AM (#14768107) Journal
    Is apparently allowed though.

    • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ubergrendle (531719) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:12AM (#14768207) Homepage Journal
      On the whole, Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions. Jews, Christains, Atheists...there's lots of wackos amongst those groups, but in the last few decades radical islam wins hands down for self-righteous violence and terror.

      Make no mistake -- Yahoo is behaving cowardly in this instance. This has nothing to do with respecting other cultures, and all about avoiding undue attention to the corporate entity. Clearly in this case, terrorism has be effective.

      • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:20AM (#14768294)

        A theological perspective [desiringgod.org] on the difference.

      • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tom (822) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:52AM (#14768613) Homepage Journal
        On the whole, Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions.

        On the whole, muslims don't, either.
        Some fanatics, yes. But right-wing born-again christians also not only threaten but on a few occasions have actually killed abortion doctors or activists and others they dislike.

        Jews, Christains, Atheists...there's lots of wackos amongst those groups, but in the last few decades radical islam wins hands down for self-righteous violence and terror.

        Depends on
        a) how much you believe the mainstream press is reporting truth and how much you think they report whatever will make more sales
        b) how many of the people who use religion as their cover you actually consider to be religious fanatics
        c) Whether or not you take into account the prejudice and hatred against all muslims, because prejudice doesn't run through a "are you a radical?" checklist first.

        • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by networkBoy (774728) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:54AM (#14768633) Homepage Journal
          For the record, that hammas (sp?) was elected as the majority in Palestine makes me think I need to disagree with you on this point. Maybe it's localized by geo or something, but at least in that part of the world I do not think the minority is so minor.
          -nB

        • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Xiaran (836924) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:00PM (#14768696)
          However ignoring demands and dealy harshly with the IRA would seem to contradict what you are saying here. What really started working with the IRA was discussion and resolution(after Maggie "we do not deal with terrorists" Thatcher left). It hasnt been always smooth and a perfect prcess... but there are a lot less bombs going off in London these days. And offshoot nutter(ie The Real IRA) seem to be geting stamped out(I suspect by the actual real IRA combined with law enforment).

          Im not suggesting that this is always the way to go. However I think it would be a more positive step to allow some other hope for people who firmly beleive that their only option to fight back is to wire exoplosives to themselves and walk into crowed cafes or crash airliners into large, occupied skyscrapers. There will always be nutter prepared to do this for their cause... but the nutters need a support network. A support network involves money and people. The IRA got into trouble when their US fundign started drying up. But there were still nutter to blow stuff up. Its because the animosity and hatred become an instituion. Its viewed as a good thing to hate the english/americans/whoever.

          I should disclaim that I am half Irish and my mother was born in Belfast. She left when she was 6 but was raised in a firm republican family(my grandmother was buried with the flag of the Republic. Her sister was killed and her brother maimed by a pub bomb. My great grandmother ran a safe house and stored guns for the IRA against the blacks and tans during the civil war). For many years my mother would not become a citizen of Australia as it would involve swearing an oath to the queen. She had no rational reason to hate the english, and she is not a bad person, but she did. It was ingrained that deeply from a distance of thousands of miles from The Troubles. Later in life she realised this... and became a citizen. Ive witnessed levels ranging from dislike to hatred for the other side. Of course its a lot less these days. I wouldnt say that I understand where a young palistinian young is coming from... I obviously can not... but I know something about irrational disputes that get ingrained in people... and in families.

          • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Deliveranc3 (629997) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @02:30PM (#14770150) Journal
            Agreed some of the issues involved here are totally bizarre.

            Like not being allowed to see or hear ossama's messages, we know they're out there but no where can you find them subtitled or dubbed or directly translated in any way.

            All you get are summaries from the news, holy crap the public doesn't know anything about why he's upset and no one has gotten upset?

            They actually got the most recent one on the net and in it he was talking about being denyed the option of peace talks... super.
              • wut. What war with spain? The last time the UK was at war with spain was, christ, the 18th century?

                Yep, that's exactly right- there has been NO need for the UK to control Ireland since the 18th century. ALL of the rest has been human rights violations.

                Ireland was never useful as a strategic property, unless you planned to invade the US or something.

                Wrong. During the Reformation, when England went Protestant, a very real fear was that the Catholic Spanish Armada would use Catholic Ireland as a steping stone to attack England. To prevent that, Cornwall invaded Ireland, and used Scotish Presbyterian settlers to kick the Irish off their land. ALL of the "troubles" can be traced to that invasion.

                And the IRA only fought over the north; the south, and vast majority, is completely free.

                You don't think the IRA started in 1921 do you? No, they've been around since the 1700s.

                And it still remains in UK hands, so the IRA didn't get what they wanted.

                Actually, the UK is negotiating a date to hand it over- and the IRA already got an election out of the deal.

        • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Plunky (929104) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:06PM (#14768765)
          I am a christian and go to church every Sunday. So I will set the record straight. There are at least a few "Christians" that would threaten the same kind of violence as these Islamic extremists. Thankfully the seem to be a lot fewer of them.

          Clearly this is not true. You can buy T-Shirts with pictures of Jesus on them in all sorts of poses, there are millions of Jesus jokes. South Park (I just heard on the radio) has an episode called 'Bloody Mary' that appears to be parodying his mother. Where are these "Christian" extremists exactly, and whose embassies are they burning?

            • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:4, Insightful)

              by N3WBI3 (595976) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:48PM (#14769189) Homepage
              There are plenty of self-proclaimed Christians who would do violence on people who violate the letter, or perceived spirit of the Bible.

              I think you're exaggerating here. There is a handful of nut-jobs out there, not 'plenty'. "The Last Temptation" drew a good deal of protest but not *1* incident of violence. The South Parks that someone else mentioned were brutal but again no violence! The fact is 99.999999-% of Christians would not burn down the Saudi Embassy if they published cartoons making fun of Jesus.

            • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Informative)

              by broter (72865) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @02:09PM (#14769967) Homepage Journal
              can someone please tell him it's the same god ... ?

              No we can't, because they arent the same and never have been. The Muslim god, Allah, is based off of a member of the local pantheon at the time their prophet. The Christian god is a bastardization of the Hebrew god which is the result of a Monotheistic push from a violence minority starting roughly around the time of the biblical exodus. Some theorise that is was the result of the Egyptian cult of Aton, started by Akhenaton, that drove a murderous sect of Judeism (see Mose's responce to the Hebrews' rejection of his 10 commandments) to become Monotheistic.

              So you see, there's good evidence that, although they all hold the same philosophy on rigorism, the various branches of monotheism are only related by their violent means of enforcing believe (whether used internally or externally)

              But your milage may vary.

              • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Informative)

                by mrops (927562) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @02:16PM (#14770033)
                Ok... So far have only seen non-muslim point of view... If you do know about islam... it is the same god because islam says Both Jesus (know as Isa in Islam)... moses (know as Musa) and Abraham (Ibrahim), david (dawood), john (jahn), Joseph(yusuf).... were all messengers of the same god.... The god of Mohammad... So again... depends how you look at it.. Based on Islam... they are all same god. And then... Whats in a name, rose by.....

        • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pjl5602 (150416) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:08PM (#14768778) Homepage
          There are at least a few "Christians" that would threaten the same kind of violence as these Islamic extremists. Thankfully the seem to be a lot fewer of them.

          I see it a bit differently. If a nut did something violent in the name of Christianity, the vast, vast majority of Christianity would denounce the act and the practitioner. That doesn't seem to be the case with Islam. I'm not sure of the reason. Maybe they agree with the sentiment. Maybe they're scared of being targeted themselves. I'd like to think it's the latter rather than the former.

          • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Struct (660658) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @01:00PM (#14769305)
            I think that people are people wherever you go. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or a Muslim, and both religions have had their ugly moments. The key difference between Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists right now is that Christain fundamentalists typically have a pretty decent quality of life, and Islamic fundamentalists don't. The Christian fundamentalists are capable of the same self-righteous rampaging as the Islamic fundamentalists, but the Christian fundamentalists have so much to lose right now, it seems unimaginable to behave that way (who can afford to burn down a building and go to jail when they're working off that second mortgage?). If you took all of the wealth in the US and Europe and handed it over to the Middle East, I have a feeling that you'd soon see an awful lot of poor, desperate, angry Christians burning flags in the street while a bunch of well-fed, well-clothed Muslim families watched from their living rooms and wondered what in the hell could possibly make those Christian lunatics so rabid.

            Fundamentalists of any religion are crazy, and poor, desperate fundamentalists of any religion are dangerous.

            • Poverty is not the root of religiousfundamentalism (Score:4, Insightful)

              by sita (71217) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @05:09PM (#14771665)
              The key difference between Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists right now is that Christain fundamentalists typically have a pretty decent quality of life, and Islamic fundamentalists don't.[...]If you took all of the wealth in the US and Europe and handed it over to the Middle East, I have a feeling that you'd soon see an awful lot of poor, desperate, angry Christians burning flags in the street while a bunch of well-fed, well-clothed Muslim families watched from their living rooms and wondered what in the hell could possibly make those Christian lunatics so rabid.

              The wealth of the US and Europe is handed over every day to the Middle East. At about $60 a barrel. Many of your top-brand islamic fundamentalists their pockets with your money. In fact, the GDP per capita of Saudi Arabia is $12900, that is 13 times that of Mali ($1000), a peaceful stable secular democracy. The Malinese are (mostly) moslem, but very nonfundamentalist. If you want a poor Christian country, there is Malawi ($700). Comparably quiet.

              No, being the haves or have nots doesn't seem to be the explanation. Try again.

        • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:5, Informative)

          by Distinguished Hero (618385) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:21PM (#14768904) Homepage
          Put another way, all Muslims are prone to utter death threats at those that disagree with them?
          Probably not, but at the same time, not all Nazi's were prone to run their own little concentration camps in their own basement. It's called division of labour (and probably a Gausian distribution for support of the actions in questions). "Put another way," what percentage of the Muslim world has expressed support for freedom of speech at the expense of their compatriots? (This is not a retorical question, I'm interested in an answer).

          Adolf Hitler was a Christian
          Hardly.
          Here [paradise.net.nz] are some quotes by Hitler, most from "Hitler's Table Talk" (published 1953):
          "National Socialism [Nazism] and religion cannot exist together.... "
          "Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure."
          "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity"
          "The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."
          "When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease."
          "Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics."

            • There is no middle ground between freedom and life (Score:5, Insightful)

              by donscarletti (569232) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @02:09PM (#14769964)
              Why does nobody involved in the abortion debate ever understand what a continuum is?

              If you think there is a continuum then you do not understand the question. It is wrong to kill babies. It is wrong to deprive women of freedom of choice over their own bodies and subject them to a painful pregnancy for any reason but the welfare of others. Thus, taking the middle ground is to acknowledge that one or both of these injustices are happening.

              There are people who are willing to stand by to see these injustices happen, but those are cynical, apathetic people who are of a lower moral character than abortion doctors and those who murder abortion doctors because both these groups are doing what is right in their own reasoning. Don't you see? abortion is the greatest debate in history because to a religious person, or a secular humanist or anyone else, life is sacred. You cannot say that there is part of a life in a woman's womb, you cannot redefine life though existential debate for that is denying your own existence and your own right to life.

              To allow abortion in certain cases and deny it in others is to acknowledge abortion as the slaughter of the innocent and as a woman's right. Thus in the cases where it is denied, you are forcing a woman into having her life changed by an unwanted child for no reason but your bossy authoritarian and when abortion is granted you are killing a human that has done nothing to deserve it.

              In the US today, abortion is legal, yet when you accidentally terminate a wanted pregnancy through negligent driving it is considered manslaughter. This inconsistency leads to only one conclusion: a fetus is human if and only if its mother wants it. If this is about the beginnings of humanity, how can we not extrapolate this nihilist world view into our own lives? Am I only human because my mother and others continue to love me?

              There is no middle ground when talking about what is life, it didn't work for Plato, Descartes or Wittgenstein who are all people smarter than you that have tried to define humanity and it won't work for me. The abortion debate should be thought through by each one of us, because it goes beyond choice or killing babies, it cuts to the very core of each one of our existences. The politically correct middle ground might be the safest option, but most great questions, the middle ground between two extremes is the only one that can be conclusively proved to be wrong.

              • Re:There is no middle ground between freedom and l (Score:4, Insightful)

                by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @03:50PM (#14770875)
                Hmm.
                I like most of your post.
                But it seems to me that the extremes are easier to prove conclusively wrong.

                i.e.
                Abortion is illegal under ANY circumstances.
                Okay the mother AND the child will die when she is about 7 months pregnant.

                Abortion is legal under ANY circumstances.
                Okay we are killing an 8 month old baby that could survive outside the womb.

                So the middle ground must be where the correct answer lies or there may be -no- correct answer. Heads you lose, Tails you lose.

                If you get down to it, even if you use birth control prevent the union of sperm and egg that would have occured- you just prevented a human life. Maybe not violently but just as surely as if you had aborted it at 8 months.

    • Re:Jesus Christ! (Score:4, Funny)

      by saskboy (600063) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:13AM (#14768211) Homepage Journal
      I'm expecting a flood of Allah and YWHW Slashdot registrations today.

      Muhammed is said to be unimpressed with the maturity level of the average Slashdotter.

  • Why Allah? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Physician (861339) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:04AM (#14768113) Homepage
    Why is the name of Allah banned while the use of the god of other religions is not? Who should feel slighted? Muslims or others?

  • Dumb filters are annoying (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hoarke42 (77421) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:06AM (#14768138)
    I've run into problems with my last name ("Marcum") due to the last three characters.

    It's still not as bad as Blizzard's, filtering out words like "basement".

    Ignoring the whole political issue of it, if they are going to filter a string, they should at least allow common legit strings that it is a substring of.
  • Here we go again, Good thing Yahoo doesn't have embassies to torch. :)

  • Cue the Islamophobic comments and Allah-bashing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ender_Wiggin (180793) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:09AM (#14768172)
    Oh all the Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes are going to come out of the woodwork.

    Let's look at the article


    Nor will Yahoo! accept yahoo, osama or binladen. But it will accept god, messiah, jesus, jehova, buddah, satan and both priest and pedophile.


    I guess Yahoo is trying to avoid the trolls and hatemongers. You can't have a screenname "I<3Osama," but you can have a name with Jesus in it. I suppose that makes sense from a certain standpoint, Jesus is a popular hispanic name (but so is Osama and Usama as a male name in the Arabic world).

    I could have iHeartJesus, but not iLoveAllah?

    • Re:Cue the Islamophobic comments and Allah-bashing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CyricZ (887944) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:23PM (#14768924)
      Avoiding the "trolls and hatemongers" is, like it or not, completely against the concept of freedom of expression.

      Freedom of expression very often involves ideas which many may find "offensive". That's just part of the game. To try to filter out that which is "hate" is a pathetically useless exercise, and inherently against liberty.

      Yahoo!, if not the entire Western world, must make a decision soon. Either they will have to fully support freedom of expression, or fully disregard it. Of course, disregarding it would basically mean an end to what has allowed Western civilization to progress over the past few centuries.

      This mixing of some freedom of expression here and there, if you say the "right" things, but none for people saying the "wrong" things, will only lead to strife.

      Anyone who truly supports such ideals as freedom of expression and freedom of speech must be willing to accept that there will be people who speak out against Islam. There will be people who speak out against Christianity. There will be people who speak out against fish and chips. And if you really do appreciate freedom, then you will not only accept the right of such people to make their points known, no matter how much you disagree with them, but you will actively encourage them to express themselves. That is true freedom, my friend. Self-sustaining freedom.

  • why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bogaboga (793279) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:12AM (#14768197)
    I am wondering why. IS it because they (Yahoo) "respect" Muslims and wouldn't want to "offend" their religion? We all know about the cartoon saga. For those who do not know, Allah is God in Arabic. Arabis is the language the Quaran was [originally] written in.

    Or do Yahoo fear losing revenue from Muslim countries...or do they fear a bomb?

  • Not trying to be flamebait here, but there is some serious problems with the way Yahoo! is doing business. Censoring the word "allah" on one hand but handing over journalists to the Chinese government on the other. Does anyone at Yahoo! have a friggin clue?

  • Sad, really (Score:5, Insightful)

    by a_nonamiss (743253) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:15AM (#14768242)
    I read this article yesterday, and it's sad, really, that nazipedophilesodomyisgreat@yahoo.com is allowed, but nancycallahan@yahoo.com is not. It's an example of an idea that probably started as a noble concern. (I would imagine that someone tried to sign up for deathtoallah@yahoo.com in order to troll on a forum somewhere.) But in the processm you come up with something that is really unsolvable. The solution here seems to be that you ban the 7 naughty words (as determined by the FCC) throw in a couple obvious ones (administrator, security, etc.) and leave it at that. If you try to ban certain words, there is way too much grey area. Do you ban the word breast? How about the Yahoo ID breastcancerawareness or chickenbreast? There are just a few areas in life where a couple simple rules won't solve the problem. I am well aware that even banning the 7 naughty words isn't enough, (I could sign up for fuuckme@yahoo.com, and people would understand what I'm getting at.) but that's really as far as you can take it.

  • Dammit Callahan, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:15AM (#14768243) Homepage Journal
    This is NOT your personal war! Those people have rights!

  • Terorrism works... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toupsie (88295) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:16AM (#14768247) Homepage
    Sad part of Yahoo! (got to remember the exclamation point!) buckling under like most of the western media over Mohammed cartoons is that it shows to terrorists and their lackeys is that terror as a political tools works. It's not kooky right wing christians that are the biggest threat to our freedom of speech. It's fundamentalist Islam that seeks to regulate western speech with threats of violence from the middle east.

  • It's just lucky... (Score:4, Funny)

    by clickety6 (141178) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:16AM (#14768248)
    .. she doesn't live in Scunthorpe as well...

  • sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kook44 (937545) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:02PM (#14768718)
    Is there any doubt that we have lost the war on terror? should we even bother fighting it anymore? We repeatedly show these extremist nutcases that they can get whatever it is they want by terrorizing us. Every article about these ridiculous cartoons on CNN.com ends with a disclaimer: CNN has chosen not to reprint the cartoons out of repect for Islam when all I can read is CNN has chosen not to reprint the cartoons out of fear of getting firebombed proof that we have lost: Yeah, Osama may be on the run in remote areas of Pakistan & Afghanistan, but it takes me 40 mins to get through security at the airport, and I have to have my personal belongings searched to ride the subway.

    • Re:War on Terror (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vertinox (846076) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @01:51PM (#14769813)
      Is there any doubt that we have lost the war on terror?

      Well put it this way...

      WWII: 1941-1945
      War On Terror: 2001-2006(+)

      If we can defeat two of the most powerful nations on earth in 4 years, but can't beat a handful of men in 5 years, then we are doing pretty badly as a nation.

      If I hear the words "War On Terror" in 2011 out of a politicians mouth, I'm going to very pissed.

  • TheoCrapitocracy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:54PM (#14769249) Homepage Journal
    Now we see how perfectly compatible is fascism with theocracy. Corporations will do whatever is necessary to enforce religious laws to protect their profits. When the international currency, oil, is controlled by theocrats (Christian, Muslim or otherwise makes little difference), corporate lawmakers will enact those laws, or enforce them privately.

    • Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pantero Blanco (792776) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:12AM (#14768208)
      The whole point of writing articles like this is so people WILL stop using their services. If no one bitched, most people wouldn't know about it.

    • Re:Sheesh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anne Honime (828246) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:38AM (#14768480) Homepage
      Forewords : I'm european, I'm positively sure Shoah did happen, that it was a mass-murder of 6 millions of jews, plus some hundred thousands of gipsys, plus a couple hundred thousands of gays, communists, mentally disabled etc.
      I'm all against trials of writers and so-called revisionnists, because I don't believe in state imposed truth : a truth you can't debate is a myth in the full, dictionary, sense of the word. Those morons desserve to be laughed at, not sent to jail.

      This said, your comparison is fallacious, because you're mixing two completely different things :

      • religion is not true or false : you believe it or not, that's the end of it. It then is compatible for one to worship what's making his neighbour smile, none of them being more stupid than the other, both desserving respect.
      • On the other hand, historical facts can be proven, first hand, by testimonies, memories, clues or whatever. Denying those facts makes you at best an idiot, who deserve the contempt you get.

      Therefore, by siding religious feelings and historical facts, you're fuelling the arguments or religious zealots willing to enforce their own myth as a state-held truth, and / or justifying racism toward those holding beliefs we don't share because they're holding a supposed "truth" we don't believe in. Both moves being equally dangerous.

            • Re:Guantanamo (Score:4, Insightful)

              by dwandy (907337) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @01:04PM (#14769341) Homepage Journal

              How about the estimated half of the prisoners in Guantanamo who don't seem to have actually done anything?

              Some of them are probably innocent, and some of them most likely aren't. The question is how to determine that, which is a difficult decision in a time of war. But they certainly weren't put in jail for thinking the wrong thoughts. They were believed, rightly or wrongly, to be involved in terrorism.

              4 words: Innocent until proven guilty.

              How about the protesters arrested in NYC during the Republican convention - held in jail and mostly released with no charges?

              It's called "disturbing the peace". They weren't arrested for having the wrong thoughts, they were arrested for violating the rights of others. You have the right to free speech; you don't have the right to force your speech on others and create a public nuisance.

              Peaceful assembly and demonstration is a key and integral part of a democracy. When the guv removes people who oppose their views we have arrived at a police state.

              Regardless of what you think of Bush and regardless of what you think of them protestors we must all protect the rights of the protestors to have their say: The famous quote often attributed to Voltaire, that "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" seems as relevant now as it ever did.

    • Re:Trends! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Golias (176380) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @11:42AM (#14768517)
      My response to people who are too easily "offended" by funny pictures, disrespectful online names, etc.:

      My very own Mohammed cartoon [imageshack.us]

      Make one of your own. Share with your friend. C'mon, folks, the time is now to be juvenile!

      Like the old saying goes: "The Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it." Well, dammit, that might be true, but I'm tired of people damaging the Internet! Let's do what we can to make them unhappy.

    • I consider it a completely irony that Islam is supposed to be a religon of peace and tolerance. Someone decides to write a dumb cartoon and the Muslim world gets upset.

      I consider it sad that even on a self proclaimed site for "nerds" some people insist on describing the actions of a few people as "the muslim world."

      Muslims are always getting upset about something. Threatening death, riots, bombings, etc...

      And then they insist on making prejudicial remarks, about what "muslims" are always doing. You might as well say, "christians are always bombing foreign cities. We should ban the religion."

      Christianity, people may get upset but the world doesn't do a damn thing. What's wrong with this picture?

      Your ignorance. When was the last time Christians murdered someone for being homosexual? I seem to recall a mass murder a few weeks ago. How many forums ban the word "gay" even though there is nothing wrong with it aside from Christian oppression?

      Muslims want the world to change for them but refuses to adapt in any way shape or form.

      Yeah, that is why they keep invading countries half a world away... oh wait, that was a predominantly christian country wasn't it?

      The problems with your "ideas" are multiple and fundamental. First, you are judging a religion based upon the actions of a few members of that religion. Second, all your information about those actions is what you have seen promoted by mass media, who has a vested interest in sensationalism over truth. Third, you are failing to account for the fear and anger of a people who is being invaded and conquered by a nation composed primarily of another religion and who has repeatedly openly scorned their religion, as you are doing now.

      The christians I know would act no better, and probably worse given a similar situation. After a united middle east had just finished conquering the US, the mexicans and the refugees from the US who escaped the bombs would be less then kindly disposed towards and muslims. When they start making excuses to invade mexico, who has little hope of defending itself, and after seeing on TV the sexual abuse of captive Americans, if some other muslim nation were to print sacrilegious pictures of Jesus being raped by a dog, while also including in these cartoons some of the lies used to justify the invasion of the US, well there would be plenty of riots and lynching of muslims in Mexico. And I have no doubt there would be christian priests trying to stop the violence, just as there were muslim priests throwing themselves between the mob and the danish embassy. And I have no doubt ignorant muslims would make comments similar to those you are making about how the uncivilized christians need to grow thicker skins.

      • Re:Secondary filters? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Haeleth (414428) on Tuesday February 21 2006, @12:33PM (#14769026) Journal
        Consider this. "Pen" is an ok word, "Island" is ok too. So I want to celebrate Pen Island with a domain name... penisland.com? Oops?

        The classic real-world example of that being when the Italian company Powergen created a website with the perfectly obvious name of "PowergenItalia".

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.