Half a century later Russian President Putin, on his visit to Budapest acknowledged Moscow’s moral responsibility for the brutal Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising.

The Kremlin sent Soviet tanks into Hungary on Nov. 4. 1956, to crush a revolt after Hungarian Prime Minister and Communist reformer Imre Nagy formed a coalition government, proclaimed neutrality, ended censorship, and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact.

Today’s Hungary has integrated itself into Western alliances and trade blocs, joining the European Union two years ago and NATO in 1999. The country also sent troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition there. (full article here)

Tags: Putin, Hungary, 1956 Revolution, Communism, Budapest, Politics

President Bush now says his 2004 victory over Sen. John Kerry, who is mulling a comeback in 2008, was inadvertently aided by al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden’s videotaped diatribe against Bush the Friday before the 2004 election.

See Drudge Report for full article.

Tags: Bush, Kerry, Election, Politics, Osama, Bin Laden, Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda, terrorism

“The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.
Black Box Voting successfully sued former Palm Beach County (FL) Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore to get the audit records for the 2004 presidential election.”  full article here.

Related Posts:

• Rise of the machines
• Voting Machines Story
• Florida: tampering may have made a difference
• Voting Machine Problems. Again.

Tags: Bush, Gore, Florida, Election, Florida Election, Voting Machines, Voting Irregularities, Politics

(Updated – see bottom)
No, this is not another post about the cartoons and the violence that followed.   Instead, I’ll  present three unrelated cases of what I consider extremities of Freedom of Speech – going to far, or none.

1.)   Right-wing British historian David Irving was sentenced to three years in prison Monday after admitting to an Austrian court that he denied the Holocaust — a crime in the country where Hitler was born.   He is 67 years old, was arrested last year for a speech he made in 1989 in Austria.   The Holocaust is a historical fact, a disaster in human history, and source of long-lasting shame and guilt especially in Germany and Austria.   That said, it was a speech, and should be dealt with accordingly: ignore the old fool, or challenge him at any public forum.  But nobody should go to prison for years for simply expressing their views, however stupid and insensitive they are. 

2.)  Forget the old fool, look at these cute girls … aren’t they adorable?  So innocent-looking.  Who would believe they are Prussian Blue, a white-supremacist band performing all around the US, and publishing their CD’s full of hate-lyrics like this: 
“Soon will come a great war, A bloody, but holy day. And after that purging, Our people will be free… And the forests will echo our grace, For the brand new dawn of our Race.”
“Aryan man awake, How much more will you take, Turn that fear to hate, Aryan man awake.”
“Let the cities burn, let the streets run red, if you ain’t white you’ll be dead.”

Quotes from the “Nazi Olsen Twins” (as they are often referred to) :  “Men like Adolf Hitler and Rudolph Hess are heroes to our cause…Adolf Hitler was a great man who was only trying to preserve his own race in his own country.”
The girls can freely perform and call for violent acts all in the name of  Freedom of Speech.  
 

3.)   Just how far does our Freedom of Speech go?  The Rolling Stones were censored during their halftime performance at the Super Bowl XL in Detroit.  TV censors deemed two lyrics too sexually explicit to be broadcast and they were cut from the three-song show.  During “Start Me Up,” the racy last line about a woman so hot, “you make a dead man come,” was silenced.  A whole generation grew up listening to the Stones.  Hundreds of millions have heard Start Me Up, including the censored line… they were not about to say anything new.   Let me say this again: in the same country where the neo-nazi hateful trash can be performed, the Rolling Stones get censored.

Something’s wrong, terribly wrong here. 

 Update (2/20):  Related posts:

• On Freedom of Speech and Fundamentals
• Is there a double standard on “thought crime?”
• IRVING’S SENTENCE
• British Holocaust Denier Gets Three Years Jail Sentence
• Europeans Fake Their Stand On Principle
• Man gets three years in prison for being a moron
• Deny the Holocaust and Go To Jail
• Is this really what a free society does?
• David Irving
• Mick Was Stiffed
• The Watcher watches the Grammys
• Rolling Stones Deny That They Agreed to Censorship of Super Bowl Halftime Songs
• The Stones Play It Rich in China

 Update (2/21):  A really thoughtful article about Mohammed Cartoon Madness and Understanding.   Freedom of Speech is a right that should not be abused. Some things can not be regulated by law, but should be subject to self-control, common wisdom, decency, respect for others. Duncans comment below made me realize I didn’t express myself clearly:  self-control, respect .. etc are subjective, and I did not mean those to be enforced by some outside authority, but the persons exercising their rigth to Free Speech.

Tags: Freedom of Speech, Holocaust, Prussian Blue, Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Censorship, White Supremacism, Racism, Hate, hate crime, neo-nazi, aryan, cartoons, decency

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…the left and right photos are the results of an identical image search on Tiananmen using the free Google and the censored Google China version.

They are worth clicking, there’s more where these came from… quite shocking.

(hat tip: Paul Kedrosky) 

 Update (1/28):  this one via Jeff Nolan is a total hit:

Update (1/29): this one from Randy Thomas is quite telling, too:

Oops, this last one originally came from Michelle Malkin – there’s more on here site, worth clicking.

This isn’t bad, either:

Update (1/31):  People still post this as new …

• Revealing China Censorship via Google Images
• A Picture Says 1000 Words… (this is a bit too close for comfort … no credit … oh, well…)

Tags: Google, Google China, Image Search, Google Image, Censorship, Politics, Tiananmen