Books of Note

Practical Common
LispThe best intro to start your journey. Excellent coverage of CLOS.

ANSI Common
LispAnother great starting point with a different focus.

Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence
ProgrammingA superb set of Lisp examples. Not just for the AI crowd.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Support Denmark 


Comments:


I glommed it.
 


No problem. So did I. ;-)
 


Please, let the lisp community free from so controversial issues.
I think is, and will be, very important to have some confrontation-free spaces, for building not destroing.

A catholic friend of all good willing people, and against EVERY violence.
 


Hey, don't forget Norway!

Madness I tell you, these folks ..

«Fytterakkern; tenk å unskylde seg?»
 


No apology for beeing uncivil unmannered with dirty mind and heart?
 


we're all a little mad; think of the passions that the passion of the christ engendered a few years back. Hated and fear of the other is human, all too human.
 


Yes, feel free to provoke and offend other people. Feel free to act surprised when you succeed.
 


No apologies for burning embassies?
 


sigh.
 


What does this have to do with Lisp?
 


where is this Denmark?
is it a new country?

ah ok! they just got freedom!

so they are trying out freedom by insulting the prophet of 1.5 billion human!

hahaha

i think it is unwise to give freedom for criminals or racialist!
 


Tolerance means accepting that others are different, that other people might have other values, and *respecting* this.

I can imagine that if someone published a cartoon on a newspaper showing Jesus and Bush together, with a machine-gun, fighting for oil, many would call this person a "barbarian".

Can't we just take this mask of IGNORANCE out of our faces and try to UNDERSTAND these people and their culture instead of trying to push our arrogant vision of the world on them?
 


I love the way people are using their freedom of expression in the comments here. It would be sad if some theocratic cheerleaders silenced them.
 


Treating *any* minority different than the rest of the society is wrong, and somehow it would have been an insult to all moderate and secular muslims to perform double standards; it was provocative, yes, but certainly *not* in any way ment to be racist, uncivilized or dirty. "Infidels" are beheaded on video in the name of God and the Prophet; you tell me, which is more blasphemeous?

That said, it surely wasn't a wise move to publish the cartoons. Surely a lot of people *were* offended (and the newspaper *did* issue an apology), but it seems as if li'l ol' Denmark is a perfect target when letting out all the steam and frustration that's, perhaps understandably, been build up in the muslim world. It's a free ride to boycot and threaten Denmark because of its small size and supposed political unimportance.

Few take notice of Denmark's work when it comes to support of a peacefull two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict, the rights of the chechen citizens (except perhaps the russians...) or the attempt do fuel a better dialogue between the Middle East and the Western World. But that's all down the drain now, because of a few cartoons of which only two were truely offensive, IMHO.

Now do tell me, what if somebody suddenly finds the syntax of LISP offensive and wants you to change it or face the fury of a world religion...?
 


I have to say that I'm a bit dissapointed Dave.

Picking sides is too easy.

I expect more from someone like yourself.
 


I don't support Denmark.

This is ridiculous, and totally unrelated to programming.

There are more than enough places on the internet for political discussions. Think of the possible damage you could be doing to Lisp advocacy, if you think advocacy is important.

As an American, I cannot support a government that takes the freedom of choice away from its people.

Many countries in the EU walk a dangerous path, first suppressing "hateful speech", and now banning clothing. I'm afraid to see where this path ends.
 


Color me ignorant. Replace Denmark with Holland in my last post. Go Denmark.

But still, really no place in a programming forum.
 


I'm with you. Nuts to these other losers.
 


So it ended up in a programming forum, too bad. But at least it's forcing non-Muslims and moderate Muslims to realize that Islam has a serious problem with a prevalent culture of violence. Anyone who has actually read the Koran could, at least in part, correctly characterize it as blood-soaked, there's so much in there about killing non-believers and adulterers in myriad ways. That's bad enough, and needs to be confronted without the smothering relativism that is political correctness. Worse is that radical clerics and madrasas emphasize these teachings in radicalizing their students. But what's worst of all? That the non-Muslim and moderate Muslim population have endured this for so long. These riots may not do it, but eventually fundamentalist Islam will shout in our ears with a voice louder than we've ever heard that it needs to be stamped out.
 


I am quite astonished that this is such a controversial subject. Isn't it a natural part of religious freedom to not enforce the rules of your own belief on non-believers? I would recommend every Muslim to just unsubscribe the Jyllands Posten if they feel offended by it.

On the other hand, the fuelling of outrage as it happened in the Islamic world is not foreign to Western culture, but seems to be inspired precisely by multiculturalism and victim culture in Western societies.

The problem with the image in my opinion is that it demands zero tolerance for intolerance, while the strength of Western civilisation is showing exactly in that we can be tolerant even with the intolerant.

The liberal discourse seems to confuse tolerance and respect here. Of course we should not respect stupid Mullahs but we should tolerate their hate speech nevertheless. And we should be proud of the fact that we are not so uncivilized as Islamic countries that cannot handle critical opinion.

If we do not do this, we should be careful with any claims of freedom of speech in our own societies.
 


GO DENMARK! I am eating many danish bacon butties in support of the brave Danes.

Jej elske Dej
 


Sadly Unthinking Muslim In The Street: "We hate you, and these cartoons are our excuse to destroy your things. Especially Ronald McDonald and Colonal Sanders, those two Leading Western Infidels (great name for a rock band, and .25 royalties to Dave Barry) who are obviously part of the Danish Newspaper Cabal (Dave says, 'Cha-ching!'). We tolerated your Extra Crispy and the McNuggets ('Ching!') and the jobs, but now you've gone too far.So now I will allow myslef to be led around by the nose by my insane religious leaders and blame America. And, oh yeah, almost forgot: Death to Israel."

Most sadly, the average workaday Muslim who abhors these attacks will be lumped into the nut stew, a la the workaday Christians in America who get tarred with the brush of intolerance meant for the Religious Far Right (now that's a metaphor, baby...feel free to copy).

Re: My code has no lisp....not that there's anything wrong with that!
 


Tak for jeres støtte
- thanks for the support
 


Hello
im danish myself, and proud
I myself think it was some shit the Jyllands Post did, but is it realy fair to blaim all danish?
 

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