tagged w/ Freedom of Speech
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By David Edwards
Thursday, January 26, 2012 13:35 EST
A former Lake Worth city commissioner was removed from an event featuring Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in Coral Springs, Florida on Wednesday because authorities feared the candidate’s supporters might turn on her.
“Do you work for the people or Freddie Mac?” Cara Jennings shouted, standing about 50 feet from the candidate.
Conservative Shark Tank blogger Javier Manjarres caught the incident on video after the heckling had already begun.
“This is a free country and people are allowed to come and be noisy,” Gingrich explained to the angry crowd. “If you go to the July 2008 New York Times, you will see the only reference to my talking to Congress about Freddie Mac. I told the House Republicans to vote no on giving them any more money.”
“You lie like a lobbyist!” Jennings replied.
“You lie!” a man in the crowd shouted back. “Get out of here!”
“Abraham Lincoln once said, if you are debating somebody who will not agree that two plus two equals four, you will never win the debate because facts make no difference,” Gingrich retorted.
“If facts made a difference you’d be in jail!” Jennings yelled, doing her best to be heard over Gingrich’s microphone and the noisy crowd. “You’re a corrupt politician!”
“Shut up!” a Gingrich supporter bellowed. “You’re an imbecile!”
As Jennings continued heckling the candidate, his fans seemed to grow more angry.
“Shut your big mouth!” a man howled. “We don’t want to hear your shit! Get that asshole out of here! Get the hell out of here you asshole!”
Gingrich’s Broward County Co-Chair, Karin Hoffman, stepped forward and got in Jennings’ face, but her protests did not stop.
“Is it fair that CEO pay is 300 times the worker’s pay in this country?” Jennings pressed.
A male staffer in a suit and sunglasses approached the activist. “We are worried for your safety,” he said.
“You’re telling me your own supporters are going to attack me for having an opinion?” Jennings asked. “I think that’s what you just said.”
Hoffman again returned to confront the former city commissioner: “You are lying. … You have no conviction.”
In response to a reporter’s question, Jennings said she was neither affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement nor the Democratic Party. In fact, Jennings won her election in Lake Worth as a member of the Green Party.
At that point, for reasons that are not clear, Hoffman punched Manjarres and his camera.
“Assault charges could be forthcoming, and it’s fair to ask if she is suited to be representing Newt Gingrich in Broward County,” the conservative blogger promised on his website. Manjarres has previously reported on Hoffman for mocking cancer survivors like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
Although the video ends there, The Daily Beast noted that police officers eventually formed a ring around Jennings and removed her for her own safety.
According to a 2006 profile of Jennings, the activist isn’t new to protesting. In 1996 at the age of 19, she started a group called the “Radical Cheerleaders” to speak out against globalization. She has also worked as a special needs instructor at a local high school.
“I believe in a form of governance where people have the utmost say over how they are governed,” she told The Palm Beach Post in 2010. “I’m not anti-government. I’m for the utmost public input into the things that impact our lives.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/26/activist-removed-for-her-own-safety-after-gingrich-crowd-turns-angry/
Watch this video from The Shark Tank, uploaded Jan. 25, 2012.
"I think they removed her because she was the only one in the crowd that made sense..."By David Edwards
Thursday, January 26, 2012 13:35 EST
A former Lake Worth city... more
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Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul announced Wednesday that he would filibuster any attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the Protect IP Act (PIPA) to a vote.
PIPA, the Senate version of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), is being sponsored by Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and pushed by Reid as a “job creator.”
The bills would ostensibly crack down on online copyright infringement, but critics contend that the legislation would also challenge free speech and the ability of large websites to function.
Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, the sponsor of SOPA, announced Tuesday that the bill would continue to undergo markup in the House Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, in February.
http://runrandrun.com/legislation/rand-paul-promises-to-filibuster-censor-the-internet-legislation/Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul announced Wednesday that he would filibuster any... more
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Beginning earlier this morning at midnight, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 some major Internet companies did something historical - by going dark for 24 hours as part of an online protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.Beginning earlier this morning at midnight, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 some major... more
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Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.
Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.
Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.
Also included in the roster of those subjected to the spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.
The department says that they will only scour publically-made info available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses.
The development out of the DHS comes at the same time that U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied pleas from supporters of WikiLeaks who had tried to prevent account information pertaining to their Twitter accounts from being provided to federal prosecutors. Jacob Applebaum and others advocates of Julian Assange’s whistleblower site were fighting to keep the government from subpoenaing information on their personal accounts that were collected from Twitter.
Last month the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk Massachusetts District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter over details pertaining to recent tweets involving the Occupy Boston protests.
The website Fast Company reports that the intel collected by the Department of Homeland Security under the NOC Monitoring Initiative has been happening since as early as 2010 and the data is being shared with both private sector businesses and international third parties.
http://rt.com/usa/news/homeland-security-journalists-monitoring-321/Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the... more
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Anonymous message to Wall Street: "We have changed the rules of the game. Growth of the magnitude required to maintain your capital in its present form is no longer possible for you. Your ability to seduce the public has been destroyed. Your survival has long depended on your capacity to suppress the truth of your abuses, and that ability is now gone. We have removed it."
http://veracitystew.com/2011/12/15/anonymous-to-wall-street-we-have-changed-the-rules-video/Anonymous message to Wall Street: "We have changed the rules of the game. Growth... more
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Our government has failed to honor this most basic of American rights by their oppressive, violent and hypocritical crackdown on the Occupy Wall Street movement. While our political leaders speak up for the rights of Libyans, Egyptians and Syrians to peacefully protest in their own countries, those same leaders and officials in America have turned a deaf hear to the cries of the 99%.
http://veracitystew.com/2011/12/05/i-am-not-moving-americas-hypocrisy-with-occupy-video/Our government has failed to honor this most basic of American rights by their... more
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Around 2 a.m., the Occupiers said the New York police destroyed the “OWS library,” throwing 5,000 donated books in the dumpster. At 2:55 a.m., New York City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez was “arrested and bleeding from head,” the OWS website said. A little after 3:30 a.m., the park’s “kitchen tent” was reportedly teargased, and police moved into the camp with “zip cuffs.”
http://veracitystew.com/2011/11/15/bloombergs-middle-of-the-night-raid-to-clear-ows-video/Around 2 a.m., the Occupiers said the New York police destroyed the “OWS... more
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A company has sold technology to Iran that could have been used to crush anti-government protests.
Kingston-based Creativity Software is now facing parliamentary scrutiny over concerns it sold the product, which was used to round up activists communicating with their mobile phones.A company has sold technology to Iran that could have been used to crush... more
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KB723
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Jury Rights Day!
A History
On September 5, we celebrate Jury Rights Day. On this day in 1670, Quaker William Penn of London was arrested, pled not guilty, and subsequently argued against England’s Conventicle Acts, which outlawed the practice of religions other than the Church of England.
The Judge instructed the Jurors to find Penn guilty. The Jurors’ refusal to enforce a bad law led to the Court jailing and withholding food and water from the Jurors. Read the rest about jury rights day and about your rights when you serve on a jury here at: http://fija.org/jury-rights-day/Jury Rights Day!
A History
On September 5, we celebrate Jury Rights Day. On this... more
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MPs have released a letter from the News of the World's former royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed for phone hacking, alleging that senior figures at the paper knew what was going on.
Goodman wrote the letter to News International as he appealed against his dismissal in 2007, saying hacking was "widely discussed" at the paper and that he had been promised his job back if he did not implicate it in court.
In a separate move, the Commons culture committee may recall James Murdoch.
Committee chairman, Tory MP John Whittingdale, said that it might recall Mr Murdoch to give further evidence because it needed to ask more questions about what he knew about hacking.
Other former News International executives are already expecting to be called to give evidence to MPs in September.
Goodman is the only journalist so far to have been convicted of intercepting voice mail messages.
He was jailed for four months in January 2007 after pleading guilty to hacking phones.
News International said at the time that Goodman had acted alone and no other journalists were involved in hacking.
In early February of that year, Goodman was told he had been dismissed for gross misconduct, prompting his appeal to News International's director of human resources, dated 2 March.
The letter, published on the MPs' committee website, was copied to Les Hinton, News International's then executive chairman, and Stuart Kuttner, the then managing editor of the News of the World.
Appealing against his dismissal, Goodman wrote: "The decision is perverse in that the actions leading to this criminal charge were carried out with the full knowledge and support of [redacted] … payment for Glen Mulcaire's services was arranged by [redacted].
"The decision is inconsistent because [redacted] and other members of staff were carrying out the same illegal procedures.
"This practice was widely discussed in the daily editorial conference, until explicit reference to it was banned by the Editor. As far as I am aware, no other member of staff has faced disciplinary action, much less dismissal."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14541848MPs have released a letter from the News of the World's former royal editor Clive... more
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Asmaa Mahfouz was widely celebrated among Egypt's youth as a heroine, when on February 14, 2011, after weeks of massive demonstrations in the country led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. She was one of the faces of the 'digital' revolution, as she had taken to Youtube airwaves and posted a message to Egypt's wired generation to join her in Tahrir Square in order to get rid of the dictatorship that had gripped the country for nearly thirty years.
I celebrated Asmaa Mahfouz as she didn't fit the female stereotype of Egyptian women who are known for their non-aggressive ways, as the country's patriarchal personality has little tolerance for assertive women. See the article here:
Meet Asmaa Mahfouz: the woman who organized Egypt's historic demonstrations
Asmaa was not alone in her quest for change: with the weeks that followed, we learned of another young Egyptian, who used to be a Google executive, who was also instrumental in gathering support and organizing mostly secular, Internet-savvy Egyptians on the art of deposing a dictator.
Continue reading on Examiner.com The rise and fall of Asmaa Mahfouz: Egypt not ready for change - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/the-rise-and-fall-of-asmaa-mahfouz-egypt-not-ready-for-change#ixzz1V3pta68dAsmaa Mahfouz was widely celebrated among Egypt's youth as a heroine, when on... more
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Following in the footsteps of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) called on the media to censor Tea Party ideas that he and others like him consider "absurd" or "not factual."
"The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual, it doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do," Kerry said while appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe Friday.
As Noel Sheppard writes at Newsbusters, this is exactly what Krugman wrote last week, but Kerry wasn't finished.
We have to, have to find a way to get some of these people in Congress, who are locked in to just one view about where we can go, and, and that’s really what’s hampered us. You know, when I have a top Senator in the Republican leadership tell me that he’s been calling members of his delegation and he can’t persuade them to do something reasonable here, that all they’re focused on are cutting, cutting, cutting, we got a problem.
What Kerry and so many of his fellow liberals fail to understand is that the nation's economy is on a very fast train to a very hot place, and the Tea Party Republicans were elected to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington.
The Senate has not passed a budget in over 820 days, and the only budget submitted by President Obama was so radical and extreme it got no votes in the Senate whatsoever.
Continue reading on Examiner.com Senator John Kerry: Media should ignore Tea Party because I disagree with it - Spokane Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/senator-john-kerry-media-should-ignore-tea-party-because-i-disagree-with-it#ixzz1UB16nQfHFollowing in the footsteps of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Senator John... more
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You only think you have freedom of speech. But if you make the mistake of pissing Big Brother off, he's going to get you, one way or another, even if he has to invent a crime just for you. Former executive voice of the dissenting group, DemandProgress, found this out first hand. Apparently Aaron Swartz tweaked someone important's nose, and the Justice Department has now arrested him for doing too much research in college! From now on, any thing we do may be grounds for Big Brother to arrest us in the future. Read the unbelievable at:
http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/support_aaron/akid=765.403945.DENvDC&rd=1&t=1You only think you have freedom of speech. But if you make the mistake of pissing Big... more
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The full details of the chat logs between accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo, the ex-hacker who he confided in but later ereported him to the Army and the FBI has been published by Wired.com.
A little more than a year ago, Wired.com published excerpts from instant messenger chats but now they have decided to publish the whole bulk. Their justification for doing so is that it's in the public interest.
When we broke the news of Manning ’s arrest in June 2010, we judged, after discussions with Manning’s friends and family, that the logs included sensitive personal information with no bearing on WikiLeaks, and it would serve no purpose to publish them. […]We stand by that decision and our reasoning, but we now believe that independent reporting elsewhere has tipped the scale in favor of publishing. By all evidence, Manning is a figure of historic importance. Inasmuch as the conversations shed light on the personal pressures in Manning’s life at the time of his arrest, publishing the logs serves a valid news interest, and at this point we believe it will cause little additional harm to Manning’s privacy.
The full chat between Manning and Lamo is really long. Below are some of the most shocking and depressing bits. Please visit Wired.com (links to the article) for the full chat. It's clear that Manning is not in great shape mentally when he is talking to Lamo, which makes this whole affair even more depressing.
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(11:27:18 AM) bradass87: i was a short (still am), very intelligent (could read at 3 and multiply / divide by 4), very effeminate, and glued to a computer screen at these young ages [MSDOS / Windows 3.1 timeframe]… i played SimCity [the original] obsessively(11:29:57 AM) bradass87: home was the same, alcoholic father and mother… mother was very nice, but very needy emotionally… father was very wealthy (lots of nice toys / computer stuff), but abusive(11:31:07 AM) bradass87: my favorite things growing up were reading my encyclopaedia, watching PBS (the only channel i could get on my TV) building with lego, and playing on my dad’s hand-me-down computers
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(11:36:34 AM) bradass87: my father in a drunken stupor got angry with me because i was doing some noisy homework while he was watching TV… he went into his bedroom, pulled out a shotgun, and chased me out of the house… the door was deadbolted, so i couldn’t get out before he caught up with me… so my mother (also wasted) threw a lamp over his head… and i proceeded to fight him, breaking his nose, and made it out of the house… my father let off one or two shots, causing damage, but injuring nobody, except for the belt lashing i got for “making him shoot up the house”
(11:36:59 AM) bradass87: i went to school the next day, and my teachers noticed the wounds, and got social workers involved
(11:37:11 AM) bradass87: he immediately stopped drinking, and my mother filed for divorce
(11:37:29 AM) bradass87: after the divorce, my mother attempted suicide…--(11:47:28 AM) bradass87: im very isolated atm… lost all of my emotional support channels… family, boyfriend, trusting colleagues… im a mess(11:49:02 AM) bradass87: im in the desert, with a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger happy ignorant rednecks as neighbors… and the only safe place i seem to have is this satellite internet connection(11:49:51 AM) bradass87: and i already got myself into minor trouble, revealing my uncertainty over my gender identity… which is causing me to lose this job… and putting me in an awkward limbo--(1:54:55 PM) bradass87: but im not a source for you… im talking to you as someone who needs moral and emotional fucking support(1:55:02 PM) bradass87: :’((1:55:10 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i told you, none of this is for print(1:55:16 PM) bradass87: ok, ok--(3:02:29 PM) bradass87: im exhausted… in desperation to get somewhere in life… i joined the army… and that’s proven to be a disaster now--(3:04:57 PM) bradass87: and now i’m quite possibly on the verge of being the most notorious “hacktivist” or whatever you want to call it… its all a big mess i’ve created… im sorry, adrian…(3:05:51 PM) bradass87: im pouring my heart out to someone i’ve never met, and i dont exactly have a lot of proof of anything(3:05:59 PM) bradass87: im shattered(3:06:47 PM) bradass87: im so exhausted :’((3:07:10 PM) bradass87: im a real downer…(3:11:13 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: no apologies needed--(02:38:45 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: What would you do if your role /w Wikileaks seemed in danger of being blown?(02:38:48 PM) bradass87: but i was a part of it… and completely helpless…(02:39:01 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: sometimes we’re all helpless(02:39:34 PM) bradass87: try and figure out how i could get my side of the story out… before everything was twisted around to make me look like Nidal Hassan(02:40:15 PM) bradass87: i dont think its going to happen(02:40:26 PM) bradass87: i mean, i was never noticed--03:52:34 PM) bradass87: like i think ive said before…. im not so much scared of getting caught and facing consequences at this point… as i am of being misunderstood, and never having the chance to live the life i wanted to…--(02:19:39 AM) bradass87: assange offered me a position at wl… but im not interested right now… too much excess baggage--(02:18:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: what’s your endgame plan, then?(02:18:36 AM) bradass87: it was vulnerable as fuck(02:20:57 AM) bradass87: well, it was forwarded to WL(02:21:18 AM) bradass87: and god knows what happens now(02:22:27 AM) bradass87: hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms(02:23:06 AM) bradass87: if not… than we’re doomed(02:23:18 AM) bradass87: as a species(02:24:13 AM) bradass87: i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens--(02:28:10 AM) bradass87: i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public--(02:23:25 PM) bradass87: i could’ve sold to russia or china, and made bank?(02:23:36 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: why didn’t you?(02:23:58 PM) bradass87: because it’s public data(02:24:15 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i mean, the cables(02:24:46 PM) bradass87: it belongs in the public domain(02:25:15 PM) bradass87: information should be free(02:25:39 PM) bradass87: it belongs in the public domain(02:26:18 PM) bradass87: because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge(02:26:55 PM) bradass87: if its out in the open… it should be a public good--(02:53:28 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: only the people you trust can fuck you – infowise ;>(02:54:03 PM) bradass87: so anything published, and classified up to SECRET//NOFORN(02:54:44 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: in all seriousness, would you shoot if MP’s showed up? ;>(02:55:04 PM) bradass87: why would i need to?(02:55:18 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: suicide by MP.(02:55:34 PM) bradass87: :L(02:55:39 PM) bradass87: do i seem unhinged?(02:56:04 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i mean, showed up – for you – if Julian were to slip up.(02:56:46 PM) bradass87: he knows very little about me(02:56:54 PM) bradass87: he takes source protection uber-seriously(02:57:01 PM) bradass87: “lie to me” he says(02:57:06 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: Really. Interesting.(02:57:34 PM) bradass87: he wont work with you if you reveal too much about yourself(02:58:13 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: why talk to me?(02:58:47 PM) bradass87: because im isolated as fuck… my life is falling apart, and i dont have anyone to talk to(02:59:02 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: I’m flattered ;)(02:59:09 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: How is it falling apart?(02:59:41 PM) bradass87: GID… discharge… family issuess… and possibility of transition in near future(03:00:21 PM) bradass87: its all happening so quick for me… its overwhelming :’((03:00:35 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: but you make a cute boy! ;>(03:00:53 PM) bradass87: im not comfortable with myself(03:01:06 PM) bradass87: im in an awkward state(03:01:23 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i don’t understand, but i understand the idea, if that makes sense.(03:01:39 PM) bradass87: and the weird part is… i love my job… i was very good at it… i wish this didnt have to happen like this(03:01:48 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: one of my ex’s is living as a girl in .au(03:02:05 PM) bradass87: i dont understand it either(03:04:05 PM) bradass87: its clearly an issue… i mean, i dont think its normal for people to spend this much time worrying about whether they’re behaving masculine enough, whether what they’re going to say is going to be perceived as “gay”… not to mention how i feel about the situation… for whatever reason, im not comfortable with myself… i mean, i behave and look like a male, but its not “me” =L(03:04:34 PM) bradass87: its… odd(03:04:40 PM) bradass87: or at least painful(03:05:31 PM) bradass87: 8 months ago, if you’d have asked me whether i wanted i would identify as female, i’d say you were crazy(03:06:11 PM) bradass87: that started to slip very quickly, as the stresses continued and piled up(03:06:48 PM) bradass87: i had about three breakdowns… successively worse, each one revealing more and more of my uncertainty and emotional insecurity(03:07:57 PM) bradass87: now… i spend a lot of time thinking of transitioning… im now very familiar with the process… and have a rough plan of how to get portions of it to work--(06:08:53 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: What’s your greatest fear?(06:09:24 PM) bradass87: dying without ever truly living(06:10:16 PM) bradass87: cliche, but honestThe full details of the chat logs between accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning and... more
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An Austrian atheist has won the right to use a photo of him wearing a pasta strainer on his driving-licence claiming it is a "religious headgear".Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons. He has now finally won the right to have a pasta strainer on his head. Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.The Austrian authorities naturally thought that Mr Alm was crazy and told him to obtain a doctor's certificate that proved that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.You may think the pasta headgear is a bit bonkers but Mr Alm came up with the plan three years ago as a way of making a serious, if ironic, point about religion and its influence on society.A self-confessed atheist, Mr Alm says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted faith whose members call themselves pastafarians (not a joke people).The group's website states that "the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma".In response to pressure for American schools to teach creationism, as an alternative to normal biology, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote to the Kansas School Board asking for the pastafarian version of how we all came to be on this earth to be taught to their schoolchildren, as an alternative to the Christian theory.The next step, Mr Alm told the Austrian news agency APA, is to apply to the Austrian authorities for pastafarianism to become an officially recognised faith.I am a bit hungry after writing that up, are you?
Source: BBCAn Austrian atheist has won the right to use a photo of him wearing a pasta... more
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