"This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."

In a first reaction, Savage announced that he will sue Jacqui Smith.

"My opinions are more in keeping with the mainstream I am closer to the heartland of America than this woman. The whole point of the First Amendment was to protect offensive speech, not polite speech. And, I want to remind you liberals, whatever happened to your famous sayings from the sixties, 'I may disagree with you but I will fight to the death your right to say it?"

Here's what he had to say to Sky News:

A spokesperson for Talk Radio Network compared Savage to Winston Churchill and Jacqui Smith to Neville Chamberlain:

"Winston Churchill claimed that in the years leading up to World War II, he was banned from the BBC for a period of up to eight years. He was put into political exile where he was labeled ‘an extremist’ at a time his voice and free speech was needed most. This attempt at marginalizing Savage and Savage’s free speech is no less egregious than what Churchill experienced in the hands of Chamberlain’s government. It simply validates how history does repeat itself when history’s lessons are not learned by leaders of the modern age".

Michael Savage is not your mister nice guy. While Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, the numbers one two on talk radio's popularity ranking, have close links ties with the Republican Party, Savage rejects any political affiliation. His motto "borders, language, culture" summarizes his conservative and nationalist viewpoints on immigration and social issues.

Savage has turned provocation, exaggeration and anger into an art form. You don't have to agree with what he says to appreciate and enjoy his program. Here's my story of how I got to know Michael Savage. I was in the US at the time in 2001 when Chinese military held 24 Navy crewmen in custody after a US spy plane was forced to land after a midair collision. On my car radio, I heard Michael Savage plead for nuclear bombardments on Chinese hydroelectric dams, to "put that country back into the stone age for a few decades". I immediately realized that in my country, Belgium, any person uttering such language on the radio would be subject to legal action for "hate speech", and such a person would surely be fired from his radio station. Was Savage's call for nuclear retaliation a call for violence? Not really, since it was merely a call for a democratic debate on whether the state should use its monopoly on legitimate violence in order to defend its interests against the actions of a hostile country. There's no illegal violence in that. Sure, his call was rude, provocative, repulsive but most of all, thought-provoking.  I admired a country where freedom of speech was not only protected by the Constitution, but could be seen and heard at work like in the radio programs of Michael Savage. To me, his program was proof that the First Amendment was not some theoretical clause in some law book, but a fundamental driving force of American society.

A country that tolerates provocative speech (called "hate mongering" in European newspeak) like that of Michael Savage, and where such provocative speech does not provoke violent actions, has in my opinion reached a higher level of political and societal maturity than a country that deems it necessary to prohibit speech considered "likely to cause inter-community tension". Freedom of speech is intended for offensive speech, not for polite speech. Polite speech generally does not need protection. Prohibiting offensive speech does not solve any problem, it only hides problems from the public eye. What happens to people like Michael Savage, in the US or in a European country like the UK, is a litmus test for free speech and for liberty in general. If a country is not willing to tolerate the savage verbal provocations of a man like Michael Savage, it does not deserve to be called a free country.]]> Europe Luc Van Braekel http://lvb.net/item/7383 Fri, 8 May 2009 13:04:00 +0200 http://lvb.net/item/7098

Here are my videos of 7 Drupal-related presentations from yesterday's Fosdem devroom sessions in Brussels.
Dries Buytaert: What's new in Drupal 7?



Wim Leers: Improving page loading performance in Drupal



Niels van Mourik: Building a community website (jobcircle.nl) using Drupal



Emma Jane Hogbin: Multi-site for fun and profit



Neil Drumm: hacker-proof your code



Stany van Gelder: Automated web translation workflow



Bart Feenstra: Taxonomy, Drupal's powerful classification system

]]> Technology Luc Van Braekel http://lvb.net/item/7098 Mon, 9 Feb 2009 20:50:30 +0100 http://lvb.net/item/6989

An Airbus A320 had to make an emergency landing on the Hudson river right between Manhattan and Jersey City on Thursday. This video from a surveillance camera of the US Coast Guard shows how remarkably fast everything happened.

• At 3:31:02 PM we see the plane appear in a cloud of splashing water, left in the picture.
• At 3:31:11 PM the plane seems to have lost most of its speed. It seems to be drifting off slightly to the left.
• At 3:31:36 PM the camera zooms in on the plane. We see people standing on the right wing.
• At 3:31:48 PM the front door on the right side opens.
• At 3:31:47 PM we see people sitting in a raft attached to the front door on the left.
• At 3:31:48 PM we see people appear on the left wing.
• At 3:32:53 PM a ferry boat is moving in the direction of the plane.
• At 3:33:05 PM we see how the plane is drifting with the currents at a relatively high speed.
• At 3:35:13 PM the ferry makes physical contact with the right wing.
• At 3:37:39 PM a second ferry makes physical contact with the left wing.

Now I'm not a fan of Sarah Palin. I'll start with that. But the things that they have been saying, they have been doing anonymously. They won't attach their own names to the things they're saying. So, let's consider this: this is a campaign that did almost nothing but lie during the campaign anyway. That's an exaggeration, but the McCain campaign lied a lot. And suddenly we're supposed to believe them because they're saying something terrible about Sarah Palin? I don't think so! And especially when they're doing it anonymously. She's right that these people are cowards. She's absolutely right about that. It doesn't mean what they're saying is false, but I don't believe it. I refuse to believe it, because these people don't have enough courage to say "yes I'm saying this" and say who they are. I would not trust these people for a second. So I'm absolutely with her on this issue.

Current opinio juris considers democracy not as an option but as a legal obligation. This does not mean that undemocratic regimes became the immediate object of a military operation. But it exposes these regimes to sanctioning, blaming and, if necessary and as a last resort, to international intervention.

One of the ongoing test cases is Zimbabwe. Its regime has been under sanctions by Europe and the U.S. although the UN Security Council has not imposed sanctions because African states were against it. However, Africa’s commitment to democracy and human rights are at stake here. If the African Union or a sub-regional organization such as the SADC cannot produce regime change in Harare, then the UN or the some important players in the international community will take over the leadership on this issue. Zimbabwe is a test to see if African states really live up to their African agreements such as the African Union Charter.

In the case of Somalia and Sudan/Darfur we have seen recently that African states were not successful in organizing and maintaining troops. Finally these questions were passed over to the UN Security Council which devised a hybrid structure of peace-keeping.

Democracy is firmly rooted in the human rights doctrine: free and fair elections, freedom of association, and freedom of expression. These three rights together are the minimal yardstick. And the most difficult right to uphold is the freedom of expression which proceeds the outcome of elections. I hope that we can undertake more research on democracy in the world.