Could it be any more fuckin' obvious?

Prosecutor moves on ruling Turkish party

"Turkey's chief prosecutor asked its highest court Friday to disband the ruling party for attacking the country's secular traditions, including a ban on women's head scarves in universities, a court official said.

The move escalated the conflict between the long-established secular elite and the Justice and Development Party, which was elected in July and has been working to ease limits on public religious expression with the support of Turkey's conservative, rural and working class.

In a 150-page petition to the Constitutional Court, prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya accused the party of "being (the) focal point of anti-secular activities."

Court head Hasim Kilic told reporters that the prosecutor had asked that 71 party leaders — including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul — be banned from political life for five years.

Gul, who is now considered neutral toward all political parties under the law, previously served as foreign minister in Erdogan's previous cabinet.

Erdogan and other party leaders held an emergency meeting minutes after the prosecutor's move to shut down the party was made public.

It will likely be months before the court holds a hearing on Yalcinkaya's petition.

The indictment cites Erdogan's efforts to lift the ban on head scarves in universities as evidence of a hidden Islamist agenda, a court official said. He asked not to be named because he was not allowed to release the information.

The indictment could not immediately be made public under Turkish law.

The pillars of Turkey's establishment, including the military, legal system and the civil service, have been staunchly secular since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — established the state from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire

Parliament, where the ruling party has 340 of the 550 seats, voted last month to rescind a decades-old ban on wearing the Islamic head scarf in universities. The legislation is being reviewed by the Constitutional Court."

Liberals are assholes, too. There's no way around this one.

Lord Acton was right. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It doesn't matter who holds the reigns.

You know who it will be obvious to?

Our children. It always is.

Eugene Robinson is such a fuckin' asshole

This is why I don't trust journalists just because they call themselves "progressive," these days.

It Wasn't Her Place

Is this what we've been reduced to? Is this what progressive ideology really means, Martin Luther King be damned?

Progressivism means saying that Bill Clinton's affairs are his own personal and family issue but it's not Silda Spitzer's place to be by her side when her husband fucks up.

That's what is fuckin' wrong in the world. It's not liberals or conservatives. It's the hateful scolds amongst all of us. It's spoiling my country. And I'm tired of pretending like somehow it's better for us than it really is.

Eugene Robinson is such a fuckin' asshole.

Am I the only goddamn person in the world who actually takes what Jesus said seriously?

What would Jesus do? I think he'd sit back and have a cold one and wonder what the fuck this goddamn world is thinking.

Signs of progress

Protests turn violent in Tibet

The Dalai Lama is trying to keep this thing peaceful, which is a strategic concern, not an absolute principle for how to free Tibet from China. If Tibet could stage a successful revolution against Chinese rule and there were no other more peaceful options, I would support it. As is, I think the Dalai Lama is right that a peaceful path is the wisest and the most likely to avoid unnecessary death and carnage, at this point.

But it is better for Tibetans to endure the risks associated with challenging Chinese rule than to just take Chinese dictatorship lying down.

Submitting to force as a governing philosophy is cowardice, it's not a virtue. And the bigger cowardice is espousing force as a philosophy to cover for your covetousness of power and your fear of freedom.