Oliver's /dev/null replacement

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer recently said that there can’t be a NATO where some members emphasize on the humanitarian aspects, while others emphasize on the combat aspect. This was mainly targetted at Germany’s role in Northern Afghanistan. Germany has sent in troops to protect efforts to rebuild the country. As skeptical as one may be about this, did Mr. de Hoop Scheffer actually check the list of NATO member countries before he made that statement?
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Now that the so-called “doomsday vault” has surfaced again in mainstream media and now that it’s finally “opened”, everyone – dictatorships and democracies alike – is invited to place the first bid…ehrm bomb.

A colleague of mine, who hadn’t heard of the vault before today asked me: how do they get there and back to pick up the seeds and use them after a global catastrophe? Read: if modern civilization has been erased from Earth’s surface by whatever means – man-made or not – how will the potential survivors get to this remote location with the very harsh weather conditions? Good point! Whoever knows the answer can buy him/herself a candy 😉

// Oliver

So Fidel Castro, someone who is both, a living legend to some and a dictator to others, has resigned. Fine. Whatever people think about his person, listening to George W. Bush’s comment on Castro’s resignation gives the whole situation a comical spin – once more.

He tells us that he expects free and fair elections now that Castro resigned. I wonder what this so-called election in 2000 was in the USA. Free? Fair? C’mon, this must be a joke, right? Right?

// Oliver

Muslims ask for illustrations of Muhammad to be taken down from Wikipedia. Quote from the petition text follows:

In Islam picture of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and other Humans are not allowed. But Wikipedia editors are showing illustrations with face illustrated and face is veiled or white washed. But still they are offensive to Muslims. I request all brothers and sisters to sign this petitions so we can tell Wikipedia to respect the religion and remove the illustrations.

What the heck? It’s all nice if Muslims or any other religious groups have sensibilities due to their faith, but why oh why do these sensibilities always have to affect other people which do not share this faith? This time it’s not about the caricatures of Muhammad, but about illustrations from the fifteenth century, by the way. So it’s not per-se something offending from a Muslim point of view. In fact the Shi’a and the Sunna are not of the same opinion concerning this question either.

By the way, while we’re at it. In the stricted sense there has been a clear prohibition of images of god (not of the prophets, though) in the Christian and Jewish world. This particular prohibition can even be interpreted as being valid for anything that has a face (which includes many animals, of course). Now what would we say if Christian fundamentalists told us to stop broadcast TV? Well, not that I really mind – I do not even have a TV set – but occasionally I watch reports on the internet.

// Oliver

PS: When will religious zealots start to respect my sensibilities as an atheist?