I’ve been in a bit of a fog for the last few weeks, and am just now catching up on the noise about the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”, and I have to say I’m a bit disappointed in Hitchens. He rightly points out that most of the opposition is base, stupid demagoguery and racism, but then he offers his own reasons why the construction is problematic. They are that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the building, holds odious and undemocratic views, and that encouraging Muslims leads to their attempts to impose their rather unpleasant moralistic views on their neighbors.

Which is all true. However, we have not made thinking ugly thoughts about creating a theocracy illegal — if we did, we ought to simply arrest the Imam for promoting undemocratic ideals. We don’t and we won’t, I hope, because then we’re voluntarily setting ourselves on the road to tyranny that they seem to want. Also, of course, if disseminating propaganda advocating a theocratic state were criminalized, practically every fundamentalist/evangelical Christian leader in the country would also have to be arrested. There’s much to be said for a plan that would scoop up Phil Johnson, Lou Engle, Pat Robertson, the hierarchy of the Catholic church, the leadership of the Discovery Institute, and every tinpot crank preaching a generic fundie gospel in a converted grocery store and throw them into prison…but again, we lose our democratic soul if we lose our tolerance for stupid ideas. If the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has done nothing that warrants any kind of criminal charges, you can’t simply use evidence of his unpleasant character and nasty dreams to justify civil punishment.

Also, you can’t use the possibility that once they’ve got their community center, local Muslims will start harrassing people who walk their dogs too close to the building as a reason to oppose it. That would be like suggesting that maybe if the work permit for a new Catholic church goes through, someday a priest might rape a little boy or girl inside, therefore it should not be built. Of course those things could happen, which is why there are laws about public access and the protection of minors, and those are what we ought to focus on enforcing.

Naturally, I dislike the idea of constructing religious buildings anywhere, since they are a colossal waste of community resources, typically represent unproductive holes in the tax base, and promote stupid thinking — but guess what? Those aren’t legal cause to interfere with people’s right to waste their time and money. Also, if we accept the privilege of individual autonomy and personal freedom, we don’t have moral cause to interfere.

I do like Hitchens’ conclusion, though: “Let us by all means make the ‘Ground Zero’ debate a test of tolerance. But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well.” Which is exactly right: we stand back and make it an open example of the principle of liberty that they can build anything they want (within zoning laws), whether it is a mosque, a synagogue, a cathedral, a community center, or a retirement home for mentally ill clowns, but that that freedom does have reasonable community constraints that they are voluntarily accepting, and there’s no going back and saying after the fact that the ideology of their building occupants allows them to violate local laws.

Prime Minister Harper has come up with a bizarre goal: he thinks so highly of the US’s Fox News that he wants to create a similar propaganda organ up North. Incredible — isn’t Canada supposed to learn from our terrible mistakes?

Here’s an idea: sign this petition. It can’t hurt. But then, the plan was certifiably crazy from the beginning, so I don’t know how much a cry of horror will help. Is there also a petition to have Harper committed anywhere?

The New Yorker has a very well written article on Francis Collins and the recent upset in stem cell research, but it feels terribly premature. It’s a stage-setting piece to an act that hasn’t been resolved yet.

The part about Collins is familiar ground for those of us who were peeved at his selection to be head of the NIH — he’s a folksy evangelical Christian with a fabulous scientific CV. But it’s the context that’s most important.

Here’s the deal: during the Bush years, many restrictions were imposed on embryonic stem cell research by a reactionary right-wing congress and executive. President Obama has been trying to move ahead and open up new avenues for research, but just recently got a bit of cold water splashed in his face by a judge who determined that the Dickey-Wicker amendment was being illegally neglected.

The Dickey-Wicker amendment is a relic of Gingrich-era scientific obstructionism. It prohibits the funding of research in which human embryos are created or destroyed; the Clinton administration developed a rather dodgy line of reasoning to get around it by arguing that human stem cells were not human embryos, therefore research on cells could be funded. Which is entirely true, but it’s shaky because the intent of the legislators was to kill human embryonic stem cell research entirely, and taking advantage of the inability of Republican congressman to draft a scientifically complete description of the work they were prohibiting isn’t exactly fair.

So, much as I deplore the decision, Judge Royce Lambeth was legally correct, I think, to pull the plug.

“The language of the statute reflects the unambiguous intent of Congress to enact a broad prohibition of funding research in which a human embryo is destroyed,” he wrote. “This prohibition encompasses all ‘research in which’ an embryo is destroyed, not just the ‘piece of research’ in which the embryo is destroyed,” as the Justice Department argued.

The problem is the anti-science Dickey-Wicker rider, which needs to be scrapped (rather than rhetorically sidestepped) in order for research to proceed. And that’s where Francis Collins comes in, and, unfortunately, precisely where the New Yorker article stops.

Collins has the right goals: he’s wrangling with congress to open up opportunities for more stem cell research. His opponent is the Christian pro-life contingent, and hey, look, Collins speaks their language — he’s One of Them. Could that help? Will he get through to them and break the logjam? Stay tuned!

I’m a bit cynical. I think we’re looking at a deep-seated ideological conflict, and that the right wing won’t budge no matter how folksy and friendly and religiously copacetic Collins might be. But this is a case where, if Collins succeeds in battling the bureaucratic believers and overcoming the hurdles to stem cell research support, I will grudgingly admit that he was a politically astute choice for his position, despite my earlier contrary sentiments. I still think he’s a dingbat, but maybe we need a few dingbats on the interface between science and politics.

Of course, if he fails…but let’s hope he doesn’t.

Amnesty International reports that:

Reports say a court in Tabuk, in the north-west of the country, had approached a number of hospitals about the possibility of cutting the man’s spinal cord to carry out the punishment of qisas (retribution), as requested by the injured victim.

I don’t know how you find a doctor willing to commit such a violation of medical ethics, but then, I don’t understand how we can have doctors to carry out the death penalty, either.

I keep hearing from official sources that we’re getting Afghanistan under control, but I don’t believe it. If we are, how is this happening?

The Taliban in Afghanistan has publicly stoned to death a man and a woman over an alleged love affair, government officials said.

I guess a mass of soldiers sitting in your country really doesn’t do much to change your quaint ancestral folkways.