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Christopher Hitchens / Slate:
Cartoon Debate — The case for mocking religion. — As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.
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Jeff Goldstein / protein wisdom:
Identity Politics, Free Speech, and the Future of worldwide Liberalism, 2: a follow-up — From Islam Online: … [all emphases mine] — Note the bolded text, because it draws clear (if to be expected) lines of demarcation between the actions of the rival "protest" groups:
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TigerHawk, Austin Bay Blog, Mudville Gazette, SobekPundit, Dr. Sanity, Decision '08, Reason, All Things Beautiful, The Sundries Shack, Telegraph, KelliPundit, Dean's World, Right Wing Nut House, Little Miss Attila, Confederate Yankee, small dead animals, Michelle Malkin, The Glittering Eye, Argghhh!, Ed Driscoll.com and JunkYardBlog
Captain Ed / Captain's Quarters:
The Contrived Cartoon Network — It appears that the controversy over the Prophet cartoons has been somewhat artificially enhanced by Muslim imams in Denmark, according to the London Telegraph. Numerous readers and commenters have pointed towards this article by Charles Moore …
Dr. Rusty Shackleford / The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta:Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism
Eugene Volokh / The Volokh Conspiracy: THE BOSTON GLOBE ON SPEECH OFFENSIVE TO DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS GROUPS …
Boston Globe:Forms of intolerance — FREEDOM OF expression is not the only value …
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Informed Comment, Guardian, Stop The ACLU, The Mahablog, dcthornton.com, Daimnation!, Andrew Sullivan, The Politburo Diktat, Zacht Ei and Instapundit.com
Washington Post:
Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects — NSA's Hunt for Terrorists Scrutinizes Thousands of Americans, but Most Are Later Cleared — Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly …
Associated Press:
Feminist Author Betty Friedan Dies at 85 — WASHINGTON - Betty Friedan, whose manifesto "The Feminine Mystique" became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died Saturday, her birthday. She was 85. — Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure …
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Margalit Fox / New York Times:
Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85 — Betty Friedan, the feminist crusader and author whose searing first book, "The Feminine Mystique," ignited the contemporary women's movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States …
Patricia Sullivan / Washington Post:
Voice of Feminism's 'Second Wave' — Betty Friedan, the writer, thinker and activist who almost single-handedly revived feminism with her 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique," died of congestive heart failure yesterday, her 85th birthday, at her home in Washington.
Zeina Karam / Associated Press:
Protesters Torch Danish Embassy in Beirut — BEIRUT, Lebanon - Muslims protesting caricatures of Islam's prophet set fire Sunday to a building housing the Danish Embassy in Lebanon as security forces fired tear gas in an attempt to stop the protesters. — Thousands of protesters took part …
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Rantings of a Sandmonkey
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Christopher Caldwell / Financial Times:The reality of cartoon violence
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THE ASTUTE BLOGGER, The Counterterrorism Blog, Peaktalk, One Hand Clapping and History News Network
Tim B. / Tim Blair:CHEESE BURNED
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Secular Blasphemy, In the Bullpen, Hyscience, CALIFORNIA YANKEE, Iowa Voice and Rantings of a Sandmonkey
Peter Conradi / Times of London:
Iran as bad as Nazis: Merkel — THE German chancellor, Angela Merkel, compared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Adolf Hitler yesterday as Tehran vowed to resume the enrichment of uranium which could be used to make nuclear weapons. — Amid growing fears that the Iranians are intent on acquiring an …
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Andrew C. Revkin / New York Times:
NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness — A week after NASA's top climate scientist complained that the space agency's public-affairs office was trying to silence his statements on global warming, the agency's administrator, Michael D. Griffin, issued a sharply worded statement yesterday calling for …
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Mike Allen / Time:
How Gonzales Plans to Defend Eavesdropping — TIME Exclusive: Attorney General will tell Senators that wiretaps target suspects, not innocents … Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales plans to use a Congressional hearing on Monday to lash out at "misinformed, confused" …
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California Conservative, Decision '08, Daily Kos, Amygdala, Oliver Willis and Booman Tribune
BBC:
Two Jordan editors are arrested — Two Jordanian newspaper editors who published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been arrested. — Jihad Momani and Hisham Khalidi are accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law. — Mr Momani was fired from the weekly Shihan …
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Clarice Feldman / The American Thinker:
Court documents were released yesterday which appear to sound the death knell for Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's case against Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Leftists who once eagerly anticipated a "Merry Fitzmas" are likely to find a lump of coal in their stockings next December, before the trial …
David Rising / Associated Press:
Senators McCain and Lieberman cozy up at Munich conference — MUNICH, Germany — It was no surprise when U.S. senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman pulled chairs up next to one another Saturday to hear what German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to say at a prestigious defense conference.
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CorrenteWire
New York Times:
Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say — BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 4 — Iraqi and American officials say they are seeing a troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq's struggling economy.
Thomas E. Ricks / Washington Post:
Biggest Base in Iraq Has Small-Town Feel — BALAD, Iraq — Staff Sgt. Chad Twigg is on a one-year tour of duty in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. But on a recent winter morning, he wasn't digging a foxhole or tracking an enemy sniper or trying to grab some sleep between firefights.
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Rantingprofs
