Oh! great, another bloody religious film. How much do you want to bet that this will again blow up in India and elsewhere? not much, i bet! (if you excuse the pun!).
And again there will be Christians who will be bellowing about bad interpretation, Hindus talking about conversions and caste system, Buddhists talking about loss of Buddhists to Christianity and then again there are going to be riots and all kinds of rot.
Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system.
All these people's heads are soft!
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Monday, November 19
Freedom of speech in the UK under threat from radical Islam, Christianity and Sikhism
Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson was right, the fight for free speech is being lost in United Kingdom. First let me repeat his speech in full. Then the topic of this post.
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
Those of us who have opposed this measure since its introduction in 2001 have never had a problem with its alleged intent, viz. to counter the expression of racial hatred under the disguise of religious hatred. Rather, our problem was always the legislation’s breathtaking scope and reach far beyond that intent.
The prime motivating energy for the Bill seemed to come not from communities seeking protection from bullying by the British National Party but from individuals with a more aggressive, fundamentalist agenda. Those who have sought, from the very day of the publication in 1989 of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, to immunise religions against criticism and ridicule – or at least to promote legislation that is so sinister and intimidating, it can provide that immunity without even the need to prosecute anyone. In other words, to impose self-censorship.
The starting point for my objections to this Bill is to argue with its supposedly inarguable premise: the ‘ooh Yes Religious Hatred, that sounds like a bad thing, let’s have a law against that’. As hatred is defined as intense dislike, what is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion, if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?
The Government has often spoken of how under existing legislation, Jews and Sikhs are protected from religious hatred on the basis of their race and that this Bill seeks merely to extend that protection to others. The problem that that ignores is that race and religion are fundamentally different concepts – you cannot choose your race, you can choose your religion – and even if for many the line dividing their race from their religion is blurred in the eyes of the law. A sharp line can and should be drawn.
If Jews and Sikhs are protected from criticism of their religious beliefs or religious activities, then that is a wrong and the idea of extending that to other religions is also a wrong. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right.
The freedom to criticise or ridicule ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is a fundamental freedom and a law which says that you can ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very odd law indeed. It promotes the idea that there should be a right not to be offended, when I think that the right to offend is far more important than a right not to be offended.
The only moderating influence on this legislation will be the Attorney General, who can veto prosecutions. Yet how can the Office of the Attorney General, an instrument of government, be expected to take only a judicial view of cases brought before him and not be influenced by the political ambitions of his employer?
The ease with which one religious group or another could be favoured or disfavoured is clear. You many not know that there is an Anti-Vilification law in a state in Australia, where a Witch successfully brought a prosecution against a Christian pastor for vilification of her religion. Now the government has assured us that our Attorney General would veto such a frivolous prosecution.
However, you can imagine that if, one day, electoral research by the party in government revealed that there were a surprising number of witches living in a number of marginal constituencies whose votes could be of considerable benefit to the party at the next general election, then such a prosecution might suddenly seem a more attractive and less frivolous idea to the Attorney General than it had previously. The potential for abuse is manifest.
It is time for the Government to listen. It has made no attempt to address any of these concerns – other than to deflect the criticism with the most anodyne rebuttals.
The Government says you will continue to be able to criticise or ridicule religion. Where in the Bill does it say that? Where is the clause that even implies that kind of freedom of expression? How can such bland reassurances carry any authority when there is no wording in the bill to support them and the chief promoters and supporters of this legislation, in consultation with whom the thing was drafted, have always taken the opposite view. They don’t think that religions should be ridiculed. They don’t think that religions should be criticised or insulted. That is why they have lobbied for this legislation for so many years and unlike the government are not blind to its potential to achieve those aims.
The problem with this Bill is its imbalance. It represents the relentless pursuit of the interests of a tiny minority of the population with, so far, no consideration or quarter being given to the concerns of the baffled majority. This is not to belittle the concerns of the minority which can be and should be accommodated but good government is also about doing everything in your power to accommodate the concerns of those most affected by your legislative ambitions. And this is simply not happening.
That is what these amendments are about. They do not affect the essence of the Bill – they seek only to provide reassurance and above all to protect freedom of speech, from which not just a minority will benefit, nor just a majority, but every single one of us
Now today's note:
Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals.
Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works.
“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organised by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
And this is true for other religions as well:
In Britain the most high-profile examples have also been seen in the theatre, with the campaign by Christian fundamentalists against Jerry Springer: the Opera and the protests in Birmingham that forced the closure of Bezhti, a play about rape and murder in a Sikh temple.
FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHES, BLOGS, NEWSPAPERS, EVERYWHERE! FIGHT THESE RELIGIOUS OBSCURANTISTS!
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
Those of us who have opposed this measure since its introduction in 2001 have never had a problem with its alleged intent, viz. to counter the expression of racial hatred under the disguise of religious hatred. Rather, our problem was always the legislation’s breathtaking scope and reach far beyond that intent.
The prime motivating energy for the Bill seemed to come not from communities seeking protection from bullying by the British National Party but from individuals with a more aggressive, fundamentalist agenda. Those who have sought, from the very day of the publication in 1989 of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, to immunise religions against criticism and ridicule – or at least to promote legislation that is so sinister and intimidating, it can provide that immunity without even the need to prosecute anyone. In other words, to impose self-censorship.
The starting point for my objections to this Bill is to argue with its supposedly inarguable premise: the ‘ooh Yes Religious Hatred, that sounds like a bad thing, let’s have a law against that’. As hatred is defined as intense dislike, what is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion, if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?
The Government has often spoken of how under existing legislation, Jews and Sikhs are protected from religious hatred on the basis of their race and that this Bill seeks merely to extend that protection to others. The problem that that ignores is that race and religion are fundamentally different concepts – you cannot choose your race, you can choose your religion – and even if for many the line dividing their race from their religion is blurred in the eyes of the law. A sharp line can and should be drawn.
If Jews and Sikhs are protected from criticism of their religious beliefs or religious activities, then that is a wrong and the idea of extending that to other religions is also a wrong. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right.
The freedom to criticise or ridicule ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is a fundamental freedom and a law which says that you can ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very odd law indeed. It promotes the idea that there should be a right not to be offended, when I think that the right to offend is far more important than a right not to be offended.
The only moderating influence on this legislation will be the Attorney General, who can veto prosecutions. Yet how can the Office of the Attorney General, an instrument of government, be expected to take only a judicial view of cases brought before him and not be influenced by the political ambitions of his employer?
The ease with which one religious group or another could be favoured or disfavoured is clear. You many not know that there is an Anti-Vilification law in a state in Australia, where a Witch successfully brought a prosecution against a Christian pastor for vilification of her religion. Now the government has assured us that our Attorney General would veto such a frivolous prosecution.
However, you can imagine that if, one day, electoral research by the party in government revealed that there were a surprising number of witches living in a number of marginal constituencies whose votes could be of considerable benefit to the party at the next general election, then such a prosecution might suddenly seem a more attractive and less frivolous idea to the Attorney General than it had previously. The potential for abuse is manifest.
It is time for the Government to listen. It has made no attempt to address any of these concerns – other than to deflect the criticism with the most anodyne rebuttals.
The Government says you will continue to be able to criticise or ridicule religion. Where in the Bill does it say that? Where is the clause that even implies that kind of freedom of expression? How can such bland reassurances carry any authority when there is no wording in the bill to support them and the chief promoters and supporters of this legislation, in consultation with whom the thing was drafted, have always taken the opposite view. They don’t think that religions should be ridiculed. They don’t think that religions should be criticised or insulted. That is why they have lobbied for this legislation for so many years and unlike the government are not blind to its potential to achieve those aims.
The problem with this Bill is its imbalance. It represents the relentless pursuit of the interests of a tiny minority of the population with, so far, no consideration or quarter being given to the concerns of the baffled majority. This is not to belittle the concerns of the minority which can be and should be accommodated but good government is also about doing everything in your power to accommodate the concerns of those most affected by your legislative ambitions. And this is simply not happening.
That is what these amendments are about. They do not affect the essence of the Bill – they seek only to provide reassurance and above all to protect freedom of speech, from which not just a minority will benefit, nor just a majority, but every single one of us
Now today's note:
Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals.
Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works.
“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organised by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
And this is true for other religions as well:
In Britain the most high-profile examples have also been seen in the theatre, with the campaign by Christian fundamentalists against Jerry Springer: the Opera and the protests in Birmingham that forced the closure of Bezhti, a play about rape and murder in a Sikh temple.
FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHES, BLOGS, NEWSPAPERS, EVERYWHERE! FIGHT THESE RELIGIOUS OBSCURANTISTS!
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
More disassembeling on Gujarat
I dont know where this article was published but I do need to congratulate the writer on a fantastic piece. The fact that Gujarat Government was complicit in the pogrom is not in doubt.
People in political parties, bureacracy, governing bodies, police all have confessed in camera on this. But look at the article. Hindu's were killed so Govt not involved. Army called out in 2 days, so Govt not involved. Tehelka did it, so congress linked so Govt not involved. Propaganda was so strong, SC was taken in, Govt not involved. English medium media is secular and anti hindu so Govt not involved. The fact that political leaders, policemen and government officials were complicit in the murders, having lists, distributing arms..... makes a mockery of the shoot at sight orders. The fact that Gujerati language newspapers are for Modi says exactly what? And by capitalising words, Mr. Singhal, your words do not make more sense or suddenly have the validity of truth.
But I am impressed by the number of directions this chap points to. And you know what, Mr. Singhal? I hope you and your party win. Because you guys need to be in the limelight, you need to rise higher and higher based upon that narrow support base of religious fundamentalism. And then when you are on that pedestal, you will be in a better position to be addressed for this
state sponsored pogrom. How does it feel when your leader is refused visa to visit other countries? You know what that means? That means that your leader might not be found guilty in a court of law, but in the eyes of the world, you are condemned. And to think this chap was part of the police and is representing Indian citizens in the upper house of parliament. Atrocious. Run, Mr. Singhal, Run, the world isnt big enough to hide from the wrath of Bhagwan and justice and !
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
People in political parties, bureacracy, governing bodies, police all have confessed in camera on this. But look at the article. Hindu's were killed so Govt not involved. Army called out in 2 days, so Govt not involved. Tehelka did it, so congress linked so Govt not involved. Propaganda was so strong, SC was taken in, Govt not involved. English medium media is secular and anti hindu so Govt not involved. The fact that political leaders, policemen and government officials were complicit in the murders, having lists, distributing arms..... makes a mockery of the shoot at sight orders. The fact that Gujerati language newspapers are for Modi says exactly what? And by capitalising words, Mr. Singhal, your words do not make more sense or suddenly have the validity of truth.
But I am impressed by the number of directions this chap points to. And you know what, Mr. Singhal? I hope you and your party win. Because you guys need to be in the limelight, you need to rise higher and higher based upon that narrow support base of religious fundamentalism. And then when you are on that pedestal, you will be in a better position to be addressed for this
state sponsored pogrom. How does it feel when your leader is refused visa to visit other countries? You know what that means? That means that your leader might not be found guilty in a court of law, but in the eyes of the world, you are condemned. And to think this chap was part of the police and is representing Indian citizens in the upper house of parliament. Atrocious. Run, Mr. Singhal, Run, the world isnt big enough to hide from the wrath of Bhagwan and justice and !
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Ill-regulated FI's should not be allowed
This is such a d' oh statement that one wonders why on earth was this allowed in the first place? When regulation is concerned, never let short term expediency (in this case desire for FDI) over-ride the requirement for sound functioning of the markets and proper protection of the consumers. Every time a regulatory body has violated this rule, they have regretted it deeply.
Read and weep!
NEW DELHI: The finance ministry wants to restrict investments by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) from countries whose market regulatory structure is not compliant with principles laid down by the International Organisation of Security Commissions (IOSCO).
Drawing from the Ashok Lahiri committee recommendations, the ministry, which had earlier asked Sebi to prepare a negative list of tax havens, has asked the regulator to prepare a list of non-IOSCO jurisdictions. This move by the ministry may lead to a blueprint for FII investments in the country.
Sources said it was important to ensure that an entity investing in India was regulated by a credible regulator back home, which followed internationally-accepted principles of due diligence. A country becomes a tax haven only because of a favourable double taxation avoidance agreement with India. A tax haven can lose its status with changes in the tax treaty.
While a country which is not a tax haven may not necessarily have a robust security markets regulatory structure in conformity with global best practices, a tax haven, in some cases, could follow global best practices in its security market regulations.
The Spain-headquartered IOSCO is the international standard-setter for securities markets with its norms applicable in more than 90% of world’s securities markets. All IOSCO members have to sign a memorandum of understanding, follow the principles endorsed by the body and facilitate exchange of information among the international community of securities regulators.
The organisation follows a comprehensive methodology which enables an objective assessment of the level of implementation of the IOSCO principles in the jurisdictions of its members and the development of practical action plans to correct identified deficiencies.
The body aims at facilitating cross-border co-operation, reducing global systemic risk, protecting investors and ensuring fair and efficient securities markets. It has 109 ordinary members, 11 associate members and 63 affiliate members.
Incidentally, market regulators in some popular tax havens including Mauritius, Cyprus and British Virgin Islands have MoUs with IOSCO. The majority of the foreign investment into the securities market in India comes from Mauritius because of the existence of a favourable tax treaty between the two countries. While Sebi is an associate member, Forwards Markets Commission of Mauritius is an ordinary member of IOSCO which was set up in 1983.
Islamic Finance and Political Islam links feared
I think this is a fond hope, I am afraid. This because of two reasons. The first is theological as Islam is a total philosophical and social system, you cannot have a financial system outside Islam or inside Islam and leave politics out of it. The second is that the current geo-political scenario does demand you to be cognizant of that fact that anything to do with Islam will be looked at with different eyes. By itself, there is nothing wrong with investing based upon Islamic Principles. But I can see why people can get upset with it.
Still, read on.
Islamic finance seeks independence from politics
By Roula Khalaf in Dubai
Published: November 18 2007 15:39 | Last updated: November 18 2007 15:39
Islamic finance experts are trying to disassociate the industry from political Islam, fearing the amalgamation could create a backlash in the west as the sector surges forward in its integration into the global economy.
Nasser al-Shaali, chief executive officer of the Dubai International Financial Centre Authority, on Sunday cited the need to disassociate Islamic finance from politics as one of the industry’s challenges.
“If we don’t demystify the industry, it will not be an alternative” in mainstream finance, he told a Dubai conference.
The phenomenal rise of Islamic finance, a market now estimated at $750bn, with a growth rate of about 15 per cent a year, has coincided with a broader move among Muslim populations to assert their identity.
While it is true that the global war against terrorism waged by the US and its allies has intensified the search for solutions within Islam, enhancing the popularity of Islamist political movements, Islamic finance experts insist that the factors behind the sector’s development have far more to do with economics than politics.
“There’s a minority view that links political Islam with Islamic finance but that view needs to be eliminated,” Mr al-Shaali told FT.com. “We’ve sent the spectre of protectionism in the US and Europe and we cannot tolerate to see it spill over into Islamic finance.”
Islamic financial products, he added, appealed not only to Muslims. “By some estimates, subscription levels for sukuks [Islamic bonds] are 50 per cent from non-Muslim investors.”
Mr al-Shaali said there was a need to raise awareness about the industry and better communicate what it’s about to decision-makers abroad.
The growth of Islamic finance, he maintained, was driven by the interest in more ethical investing. “In an age of greed, well publicised corporate corruption and increased awareness of the social role and responsibility of corporations, investing in Islamic finance is a refreshing alternative,” he said.
Sheikh Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, chief Shariah officer at Shariah Capital, a DIFC-based advisory company, said in a separate interview that the industry’s growth had most to do with its ability to compete with conventional banking.
“In the last 10 years, we begun to compete with conventional institutions, we can provide the same levels of service and perform with the same bottom line,” he said.
Humayon Dar, chief executive officer of BMB Islamic, a London-based advisory firm, said Islamic financial products are designed to appeal to moderate Muslims.
“Islamic finance is a modernist movement in Islamic communities,” he told FT.com. “It has no political agenda – it’s about a new Islamic identity for moderate Muslims and an attempt to bring Muslims out of the mosque and into the market they interact and trade with people.”
He noted that for the first time, Islamic clerics were dealing with the “torch bearers of capitalism.” If funds from the region are not going into the US as fast as in the past, he added, it was not due to a lack of interest by investors but is rather blamed on the difficulty of accessing the American market.
Technorati Tags: Islamic Finance , Politics
Sunday, November 18
Paint buildings white to save global warming!
Very interesting argument: I just quote one bit:
Consider Los Angeles. Reroofing most of the city's five million homes in lighter colours, painting a quarter of the roads and planting 11m trees would have a one-time cost of about $1bn. Each year after that, this would lower air conditioning costs by about $170m and provide $360m in smog-reduction benefits. And it would lower LA temperatures by about 3C - or about the temperature increase envisioned for the rest of this century. Compare that to the $180bn cost of implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which will have virtually no effect.
Well, there is much to this argument, but would you want LA
to look like this (Mykonos, Greece)?
Technorati Tags: Urbanisation , Climate Change
The death penalty actually deters potential murderers!
First of all, I am not in favour of the death penalty. The main reason is that man is not infallible. As long as decisions cannot be reversed, I cannot support using the death penalty. But no issues whatsoever to removing parole from murderers and life imprisonment.
But this article from the NY Times actually suggests that there is an economic case to be made for the death penalty as it does seem to deter possible and probable murderers. This is a way too complex a matter for me to evaluate offhand, but based upon my quick read study of the Katz et. al. paper looks to have some meat.
But I understand the data issues, but again, that is not that much of a problem, you have zillions of methods to cater for that. I also do appreciate the issues with multiple factors influencing the result. But overall, quite an interesting debate. I would have liked the researchers to check whether there is a difference between life imprisonment and death penalty on further homicides to confirm my initial comment, but hey, lets see! :)
Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate
By ADAM LIPTAK
For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment.
According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.
The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.
“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.”
The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.
The death penalty “is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors,” John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2005. “The existing evidence for deterrence,” they concluded, “is surprisingly fragile.”
Gary Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992 and has followed the debate, said the current empirical evidence was “certainly not decisive” because “we just don’t get enough variation to be confident we have isolated a deterrent effect.”
But, Mr. Becker added, “the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.”
The debate, which first gained significant academic attention two years ago, reprises one from the 1970’s, when early and since largely discredited studies on the deterrent effect of capital punishment were discussed in the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstitute capital punishment in 1976 after a four-year moratorium.
The early studies were inconclusive, Justice Potter Stewart wrote for three justices in the majority in that decision. But he nonetheless concluded that “the death penalty undoubtedly is a significant deterrent.”
The Supreme Court now appears to have once again imposed a moratorium on executions as it considers how to assess the constitutionality of lethal injections. The decision in that case, which is expected next year, will be much narrower than the one in 1976, and the new studies will probably not play any direct role in it.
But the studies have started to reshape the debate over capital punishment and to influence prominent legal scholars.
“The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified.”
Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that “the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ” quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.
“Capital punishment may well save lives,” the two professors continued. “Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.”
To a large extent, the participants in the debate talk past one another because they work in different disciplines.
“You have two parallel universes — economists and others,” said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment.” Responding to the new studies, he said, “is like learning to waltz with a cloud.”
To economists, it is obvious that if the cost of an activity rises, the amount of the activity will drop.
“To say anything else is to brand yourself an imbecile,” said Professor Wolfers, an author of the Stanford Law Review article criticizing the death penalty studies.
To many economists, then, it follows inexorably that there will be fewer murders as the likelihood of execution rises.
“I am definitely against the death penalty on lots of different grounds,” said Joanna M. Shepherd, a law professor at Emory with a doctorate in economics who wrote or contributed to several studies. “But I do believe that people respond to incentives.”
But not everyone agrees that potential murderers know enough or can think clearly enough to make rational calculations. And the chances of being caught, convicted, sentenced to death and executed are in any event quite remote. Only about one in 300 homicides results in an execution.
“I honestly think it’s a distraction,” Professor Wolfers said. “The debate here is over whether we kill 60 guys or not. The food stamps program is much more important.”
The studies try to explain changes in the murder rate over time, asking whether the use of the death penalty made a difference. They look at the experiences of states or counties, gauging whether executions at a given time seemed to affect the murder rate that year, the year after or at some other later time. And they try to remove the influence of broader social trends like the crime rate generally, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, economic conditions and demographic changes.
Critics say the larger factors are impossible to disentangle from whatever effects executions may have. They add that the new studies’ conclusions are skewed by data from a few anomalous jurisdictions, notably Texas, and by a failure to distinguish among various kinds of homicide.
There is also a classic economics question lurking in the background, Professor Wolfers said. “Capital punishment is very expensive,” he said, “so if you choose to spend money on capital punishment you are choosing not to spend it somewhere else, like policing.”
A single capital litigation can cost more than $1 million. It is at least possible that devoting that money to crime prevention would prevent more murders than whatever number, if any, an execution would deter.
The recent studies are, some independent observers say, of good quality, given the limitations of the available data.
“These are sophisticated econometricians who know how to do multiple regression analysis at a pretty high level,” Professor Weisberg of Stanford said.
The economics studies are, moreover, typically published in peer-reviewed journals, while critiques tend to appear in law reviews edited by students.
The available data is nevertheless thin, mostly because there are so few executions.
In 2003, for instance, there were more than 16,000 homicides but only 153 death sentences and 65 executions.
“It seems unlikely,” Professor Donohue and Professor Wolfers concluded in their Stanford article, “that any study based only on recent U.S. data can find a reliable link between homicide and execution rates.”
The two professors offered one particularly compelling comparison. Canada has executed no one since 1962. Yet the murder rates in the United States and Canada have moved in close parallel since then, including before, during and after the four-year death penalty moratorium in the United States in the 1970s.
If criminals do not clearly respond to the slim possibility of an execution, another study suggested, they are affected by the kind of existence they will face in their state prison system.
A 2003 paper by Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt and Ellen Shustorovich published in The American Law and Economics Review found a “a strong and robust negative relationship” between prison conditions, as measured by the number of deaths in prison from any cause, and the crime rate. The effect is, the authors say, “quite large: 30-100 violent crimes and a similar number or property crimes” were deterred per prison death.
On the other hand, the authors found, “there simply does not appear to be enough information in the data on capital punishment to reliably estimate a deterrent effect.”
There is a lesson here, according to some scholars.
“Deterrence cannot be achieved with a half-hearted execution program,” Professor Shepherd of Emory wrote in the Michigan Law Review in 2005. She found a deterrent effect in only those states that executed at least nine people between 1977 and 1996.
Professor Wolfers said the answer to the question of whether the death penalty deterred was “not unknowable in the abstract,” given enough data.
“If I was allowed 1,000 executions and 1,000 exonerations, and I was allowed to do it in a random, focused way,” he said, “I could probably give you an answer.”
'Indian money' and Shia Iraq in 1700-1800's
I love digging into mouldy old stuff and finding things which make me go, whoa, really? wow!. Well, this is one example of that. While researching the sack of Karbala by the Saudi's in 1801/02, I came across a curious factoid. Apparently, for a period of 70 years, the rulers of Awadh sent un-imaginable amounts of money for the Shia shrines in current day Iraq.
This money, all wrung out of the fevered and sweaty brows of the ordinary Hindu and Muslim peasants of the Awadh Kingdom, was sent to Iraq to repair shrines, to dig canals, and the like. And we are seriously talking about huge sums. For example I quote
In the late 1780s Awadh Chief Minister Hasan Riza Khan
remitted Rs.500,000 to Najaf through the Iranian firm of Hajji Karbala'i Muhammad Tihrani for the construction of a canal in the middle Euphrates that would bring water to perpetually dry Najaf. The project, aimed at sparing inhabitants and pilgrims inconvenience, was completed in 1793. It became known as the Asafiyyah or Hindiyyah canal, after its patron.
Remember all this time, there were frequent famines in and around Awadh itself. Oh! and there was no problem in accepting money based upon interest (long story that, the British borrowed money from Awadh to prosecute the Nepal War, and then the money was given to nominated beneficiaries which included people in Lucknow, India as well to Shia people in Iraq and Iraq through the British Agent in Basra, Iraq). The article also refers to a fascinating exposition on how Iranian and Indian merchants (the precursor of international banks!) worked to transfer huge amounts between such huge distances. But let me quote from the conclusion which is very interesting.
In the absence of overall figures for contributions to the shrine cities from Iran and elsewhere, it is impossible to assess the exact significance of the money coming from Awadh. Even the precise sums involved in the 'Indian money' are difficult to specify, though British records are explicit on some projects, such as the 1840s canal work.
There can be little doubt, however, that the 'Indian money'was important. In designating certain individuals its recipients, the Awadh notables and ulama helped shore up the leadership positions of Usuli mujtahids against Akhbari and Shaykhi rivals from the late eighteenth century on. Moreover, projects like the Asafiyyah canal had a discernible impact on the ecology of Iraq in the area around the shrine cities, on population movements and agriculture.
Beyond these considerations, however, the case of the 'Indian money'
illustrates in part the importance of monetary contributions made to the clerical establishment by Shi'i governments and high notables. One conclusion that can be suggested on the basis of the evidence presented here is that the mujtahids were far more closely tied to, and beholden to, Shi'i governments than has generally been recognized.
The Usuli clerics in the nineteenth century are often seen as highly
independent of the Iranian government, in contrast to the Sunni ulama in the Ottoman Empire. But money is influence, and to the extent that Shi'i mujtahids received gifts, stipends, and other wealth from governments and high officials, they were beholden to them. Of course, Awadh was too far away to demand much in return from the clerics in Najaf and Karbala. But an investigation of financial support from the Iranian government and its high
officials for the clerical establishment in nineteenth-century Iraq might yield similar conclusions.
Because India was one of the first areas to take the full brunt of European industrial imperialism, modern capitalism affected Shi'i finances first there. In the 1830s and 1840s substantial sums deriving from interest on loans to the East India Company were being disbursed to the Iraqi mujtahids by the British Agent in Baghdad on behalf of the Awadh government. The principal,
originally extorted from Hindu peasants by Awadh's Shi'i tax-collectors, financed further EIC imperial expansion in the subcontinent, while the interest supported both the Awadh ruling class and its clients, the Shi'i ulama in India and Iraq.Shi'i jurisprudents in Lucknow, and presumably in Iraq as
well, quickly reinterpreted Imami law so as to allow the charging of interest on loans to Christians. Armed with this ideological justification, the mujtahids entered the ranks of the capitalist rentiers.
It has long been recognized that religious leadership in the Shi'i world grew somewhat more centralized in the course of the nineteenth century. The magnitude of the sums involved in the 'Indian money' and in the charitable contributions forwarded from Iran suggests that the emergence of the 'supreme exemplar' in Najaf may have been facilitated by an expanded economic base.
The British role in helping transfer funds and in providing the mechanism for interest-bearing loans was conspicuous. Interestingly enough, the increasing British presence at first provoked some conciliatory moves on behalf the prominent ulama. The British were allies of the Shi'i kingdom of Awadh (Oudh), and their agent in Baghdad had become the distributor of Awadh largesse to the chief mujtahids in Najaf and Karbala. The prayer leader of Tehran apparently wished to strengthen the British-Shi'i alliance as
a means of furthering Shi'i interests and the interests of the ulama. But the 1840s were the high point of this relationship. The 1856 annexation of Awadh and the resultant revolt ('mutiny'), increasing British presence in south Iran, and British attemps to use the 'Indian money'to manipulate the ulama in Iraq, were ultimately to sour the embryonic alliance.
The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam
I am currently reading the Muslim Jesus, a very interesting but at the same time, very frustrating book. But more on that in a later post. But in the meantime, I read this paper, which was fascinating. When I was a young and callow youth, I used to see scriptures and used to revere the books as the literal words of god personified in the book itself. So when I would kiss the book, or bow to it, it was literally to the words contained within it.
But now that I have grown up, I think I have managed to read more into scriptures. They are but normal books. What we know as scriptures is just another historical book, and these books change, evolve and mutate as life goes on. Whether you are talking about Ramayana, Mahabharat, Bible, Torah, Quran, you name it. To call it the unchanging word of God is very simplistic but I can see why kids see it that way. But this is very sensitive, and people kill because of this.
Take a look at this paper which explores this aspect:
Pregill,Michael E., The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam, 2007, Religion Compass, 643-659, 1, 6
Abstract The biblical tradition is manifest in the Quran in many different ways. Similarly, scholars have adopted a number of different approaches to the phenomenon of the biblical ‘borrowings’ found in the Quran. Since the foundation of the modern discipline of Islamic studies in the nineteenth century until very recently, scholars have often seen the appearance of biblical stories in the Quran, often in significantly altered, distorted, or amplified form, as reflecting Muhammad's dependence upon Jewish teachers and thus an overarching Jewish influence on Islam. In point of fact, this approach to the biblical tradition in the Quran has significant roots in medieval Christian polemic against Islam. In recent years, a few scholars have sought to develop more constructive approaches to this material and to Quranic narrative in general; nevertheless, a full-scale reconsideration of the basic problem is still lacking, and the legacy of medieval polemic in the early Orientalist tradition, as well as its modern implications, has yet to be widely recognized.
African Values mucked up by Big Brother
I read this post and I was laughing my head off at the various responses around the globe. Apparently, the chap who won fell in love with a fellow room-mate, was possibly involved in a sexual assault in the house and he was newly married before he entered into the house. Well, the morality and nationalism police seems to have got all very excited about it all. And while I was reading this, I jotted down some African values that one can think of:
- Theft is ok?
- Corruption is part of nature?
- Kleptocracy is a birth-right?
- War is necessary?
- Rape is a tool of social policy?
- Everything can be blamed on imperialism?
- Tolerate, use and ignore child soldiers?
- Lack of capital and pathetic economy?
- Think beetroot juice is a good cure for Aids?
- Bad infrastructure and steadily getting worse?
- Tribalism is good?
- Religious fundamentalism is even better?
- Rioting is a good way to draw attention?
- Famine happens?
Unbelievable, its just a TV show, guys, stop moralising!
Technorati Tags: Africa
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)