12:34:56 7/8/9

Once in a thousand years…

And Happy Birthday Hubby!

On Friday, June 26, 2009 I received a take down notice from a police group in Mumbai, India. I reproduce the email in full here:

O.W.No.1680/Sr.PI/CCIC/09
Office of the
Sr. Inspector of Police
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell
Crime Branch,CID, Mumbai
Date :- 26/06/09
To,
Website Administator,
Musing mind.com

Subject :- Block / delete suspected links about muslim communities.

Dear Sir,

This office is enquiring a complaint wherein cartoon articles on alhaa and islamic religious personalities for eg. Mohammed and wife aisha are created and posted. They are making insulting remarks against muslim prophet and other personalities of muslim communities. You are requested to delete/remove block below mentioned suspected and malicious link and articles on your websites.

http://musing-minds.com/[…]/2008/02/jyllands-posten-mohammed.jpg

Regards,

(Mukund Pawar)
Police Inspector
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell
Crime Branch, CID, Mumbai.

This is exactly what I received, with all spelling, grammatical, and capitalization mistakes intact. The only change I made was in the url for the image. Entering it as given in the email was returning a 404 error anyway so I have replaced part of the url with […].

The email was sent from officer at cybercellmumbai dot com. That site states that it is the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, C.I.D., Mumbai.

The picture that is so offensive is this one:

from this post in February 2008: No Surrender.  The image was linked to Human Events’ article Muhammed Cartoon Gallery of 2/2/2006 where all the full size cartoons can be found.

Needless to say I am not going to take this down. I contacted a few people about it and was advised to report it to the Chilling Effects website, which I did. I was told that perhaps the worst case scenario of not complying with the request would be that I could never travel to India. The other worst case scenario was that I would become the next Salman Rushdie. I really doubt that one since others, far more prominent than I, have published these images as well.

I do hope I won’t have to go into hiding.

I’d like to know if anyone else received one of these notices. Please let me know, either in comments or by email to kimsch at this domain.

Thanks Howie for the link!

Founding Bloggers linked. Thanks!

Kyros from Report on Arrakis linked. Thanks!

What a strange weekend for Independence Day. Saturday was rainy and relatively chilly. Sunday was much warmer and mostly cloudy.

Still, the turnout at the Chicago Re-Tea Party wasn’t too bad with the rain, and Taste of Chicago, and some mis-information that the Tea Party had been canceled (a different one had).

Here’s Christina Tobin of ReTeaParty and FreeandEqual.

And Happy Birthday to Nancy Reagan and George W. Bush!

I almost forgot, when we were leaving the Chicago Childrens’ Museum there was a family arriving. Mom was dressed in a full black burqa. The daughter (about 4-5) was dressed in headscarf, tunic and loose trousers. The father and the boys were also wearing religious garb, tunics and hats.

Althouse fisks Weymouth.

Several hundred people here in the rain at Gateway Park at Navy Pier in Chicago.

A picture from the Chicago Children’s Museum:

A bigger picture and more can be found here.

Founding Bloggers has a picture of Hubby and our “growing debt-star” sign and many more:

Our Growing Debt-Star sign

Hubby, The Little Guy, and I are about to get on the train to go to the Tea Party at Navy Pier in Chicago! Yay!

I will be taking pictures with my camera and my phone.

I’ll see what I can post from the Tea Party!

This has been a strange week. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays all gone. Ed and Farrah had both been quite ill for quite some time. Michael and Billy were both almost 51 and died suddenly. Michael would have been 51 at the end of August, Billy on July 20th.

As Jim Lindgren over at The Volokh Conspiracy put it “Congress Votes to Change the Weather“.

The idea that a government of one country could appreciably change the world’s climate over the next 40 years is the ultimate hubris. Legislators may think they are God, but they’re not.

He also quotes Maxed Out Mama:

Let’s hope it can be stopped in the Senate. Even if it is, our nation has lost something here, and that something is the principal legislative body’s grasp on reality. It is as if the House of Representatives suddenly passed a vote to reduce gravity by 10 percent in order to lessen the costs of obesity to putatively cut Medicare costs in the future. Truly amazing.

Did the EPA suppress a report that questions anthropogenic global warming prior to this huge assumption by 219 people that they could change the weather by legislative fiat?

There are inland Viking settlements that were ports when they were founded. The icy island known as Greenland was named that because it was green when it was discovered. Both of these examples show that the earth was much warmer in the past, during the time of humans, but well prior to SUVs.

Billy Mays was found dead this morning at his home in Florida. He was 50 years old, he would have been 51 on the 40th anniversary of Man’s first steps on the Moon, July 20th.

Our condolences and prayers go out to his family and friends.

May the Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

May the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Hubby and I called and emailed our representative prior to the vote on the bill to tell her that we wanted her to vote no. Hubby had called, and I had emailed. Then Friday, Hubby emailed her again. She still voted yes. Following is the text of the email that Hubby sent:

Madam Congresswoman,

I left a message yesterday regarding my desire for you to vote no on two legislative matters, National Energy Tax Bill (Cap and Trade) now under discussion and Healthcare reform coming up soon.

With the healthcare measure I am concerned with the strong possibility that we are revisiting the mistakes of the “Great Society”  which gave us generations of welfare and the corresponding debt to the nation and damage to the family structure it created. Government participation/control will most definitely lead to a single payer system creating the same damage to the nation. Perhaps Congress should consider tort reform so doctors are relieved of the need to order unnecessary testing to cover their backsides and possibly reducing their malpractice liability costs.

With regard to Cap and Trade, I am watching C-Span at this moment and I am appalled at the behavior of your colleagues. A bill is not present on the floor containing at least 300 pages added in the middle of the night. What I am seeing is a food fight by individuals unworthy of the role of dog catcher, much less responsible for crafting laws that will ultimately impact everyday Americans.

Please do the responsible thing and save myself and the rest of your constituents the crippling tax and living expense increase to obtain a dubious .01 degree reduction in temperature in the next 91 years. We see this argument day in and day out, and to be frank, the data driving the debate is a statistical outlier when taken in context of the age of this planet. One century of data is insufficient to predict global patterns that typically span thousands to tens of thousands of years.

I welcome your feedback and trust your vote will reflect the will of your constituents and the ideological path of your colleagues.

Best Regards,

I don’t know how much writing and calling our Senators will do. We’re stuck with Dick Durbin and Roland Burris…

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both passed away yesterday. Both too soon. Farrah after a long battle with cancer at 62, Michael after a sudden heart attack at almost 51. Hubby is only a week or so older.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families and friends.

May the Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

May the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Numbers 6:24-26