petitefrancaise

And who gets to decide what is bad for society? Someone who doesn't agree with it? Ask Mme LePen what she thinks is bad for french society and you'l get an answer very different to that of the average french person.
What may be "bad" at one moment in time can become the norm in the future. Abortion??

And as for gender inequality - really? Surely you mean pay inequality or health inequality? In our society, women are equal to men, and the kinks are being ironed out I think?

RoadWarriorFromLP

One thing that distinguishes a free society from a dictatorship is that we don't charge people for thought crimes. We care about what people do (or intend to do), not what they think.

People are free to have their religious beliefs. They aren't free to blow things up and shoot each other, irrespective of what motivates them.

By focusing on bad acts, we can stay true to our democratic principles while simultaneously being more effective -- focusing on the crime instead of on the stereotypes gets better results.

Pulaski

I think I know what the writer means but I can't make absolute sense of it using any definition or usage of "unique" that I am familiar with.

scrubbedexpat099

To win you need numbers and will. Morale high ground etc is both subjective and irrelevant.

To be honest this is pretty much small beer, nasty if you were one of those directly involved but that is far as it goes.

The bigger picture has not changed.

Gordon Barlow

But we in the West ARE free to drop bombs and rockets on civilians in faraway countries - or, at least, a majority of our political representatives feel free to order their militaries to do so; and the voters keep voting to re-elect those representatives. What are the victims supposed to think of those voters and their beliefs?

scrubbedexpat099

Ruling on one who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) - islamqa.info

For those wondering about correct punishment for those who insult the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)

Beaverstate

Anonymous claims first victim in 'Operation Charlie Hebdo'

Hackers to the rescue.

petitefrancaise

Wow! Just popped through and asked cs whiz hacker daughter about this. She said this has been going on in the hacker world since last week. The aim is to disrupt their communication channels (extremists are not very sophisticated it seems) and bring down websites.
Think I might just upgrade the security at our house......

Hotscot

It's possible this could be counterproductive as the security forces may currently obtain useful information from their websites.

Better to quietly leave Trojans...

petitefrancaise

I would make a bet that the FBI keeps a close eye on the hacker communities. Apparently last week a few hackers were interviewed about the stuff going on in N Korea. They were laughing their heads off.

Steerpike

So give me your thoughts on how the Taliban are killing their own women and children and doing what they can to make women remain ignorant. Where does respect and power enter into that?

Steerpike

Honor killings of Mulsim women are somewhat well documented. In your example, sounds like a 'western' lady was choosing to live with a Bangladeshi MAN ... that's quite a different story - the men get to do what they want.

Pulaski

Here we go!

Steerpike

When I was growing up in the UK's "North West" in the 60s and 70s, we got the first wave of Indian and Pakistani immigrants. Back then, there were difficulties because of the obvious cultural differences but everyone said the situation would improve with time - that future generations would grow up in this 'new' environment and they would be better integrated. When I go back there now, it's clear that things have gone in the reverse direction; I see more women in veils/burquas (face coverings) now than I did 50 years ago, and I see very little evidence of interracial marriage.

There was blatant discrimination against these immigrants back then. One could say it was that discrimination back then that has led to the situation today - the incumbent society did not welcome these new folks, and thus they turned inwards and built their own cultural ecosystem, raising the next generation as outsiders of the mainstream society. I'm sure this is true, but - one thing I understand now that I didn't understand then - we had large influxes of both Indian and Pakistani immigrants, and today, the Indians are almost entirely integrated while the Pakistanis have become more marginalized. One key difference is ... religion.

sir_eccles

There is a joke about 72 virgins somewhere in there...