His first choice is In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai.… Read the rest
Fatwa train
Oct 31st, 2010 4:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhy is it the Telegraph that mentions such things? Where are the papers to the left of the Telegraph?
Nick Cohen is on the case.
Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity yesterday featured Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens singing “Peace Train”. Islam/Stevens previously showed his commitment to peace and sanity by saying that death was the appropriate punishment for Salman Rushdie’s “blasphemy”.
I’m hoping that Rushdie will drop a word to Stewart and Colbert and that they will say something – like perhaps that they didn’t realize that about Islam/Stevens and have no desire whatsoever to endorse fatwas on heretics or blasphemers or apostates.… Read the rest
Salman Rushdie on Yusuf Islam
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat he said to the New York Times in 1989.… Read the rest
What was Yusuf Islam doing at the Sanity rally?
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe previously showed his commitment to peace and sanity by saying that death was the appropriate punishment for Salman Rushdie’s “blasphemy.”… Read the rest
BJP protesters besiege Arundhati Roy
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAround 150 BJP members surrounded her house chanting slogans. Roy supports independence for Kashmir, which the BJP opposes.… Read the rest
PSI research: What do these numbers really mean?
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe problem is not the results but how they are being interpreted.… Read the rest
New evidence for precognition?
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Rehearsing a set of words makes them easier to recall in the future, but what if the rehearsal occurs after the recall?”… Read the rest
Blasphemy law in Italy
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat kind of all-powerful Deity needs secular law enforcement to protect it from the jests of a few comedians and other riffraff?… Read the rest
How Berlusconi disagrees with a female politician
Oct 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBy telling her she’s old and ugly. Italian women “protest against this cretinisation of women, of democracy, of politics itself.”… Read the rest
What climate change needs is a New Narrative
Oct 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPeople who make a living painstakingly creating stories from ideas tend to overvalue the importance of narrative.… Read the rest
Hitchens on submitting to the needle in the arm
Oct 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe thinks of the obituaries he’d like to write, listing Robert Mugabe. Joseph Ratzinger. Henry Kissinger.… Read the rest
Terrorists inspired by Fox News and Glen Beck
Oct 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe campaign coordinator for Rand Paul who stepped on the head of a female protester is not an isolated example.… Read the rest
Discovery Institute does a bait and switch
Oct 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt was “the Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science,” but then it became War.… Read the rest
Sympathy for the doctrine
Oct 29th, 2010 4:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Freedom House report on blasphemy laws gets it right.
Precisely. Institutions (including corporations), doctrines, figures and concepts do not need protection from insult or offense, and they cannot be given such protection without restricting freedom of expression. Since they do not need the protection, it is a bad and stupid idea to restrict freedom of expression in order to give it to them.… Read the rest[A]n examination of the application of blasphemy laws indicates that they typically give rise to the violation, not the protection, of fundamental human rights.
…
By definition, these laws, which are designed to protect religious institutions, doctrines, figures, and concepts—in other words, nonhuman entities and ideas—from insult or offense, impose undue restrictions on freedom of expression.
Franco Frattini
Oct 29th, 2010 4:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonAs you saw if you keep up with the News here, Marc Alan Di Martino helpfully translated some theocratic bullying from Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in the Vatican’s house rag the Osservatore Romano.
Christians also must be able to forge an agreement with Muslims on how to fight those aspects which, like all extremisms, threaten society. I refer to atheism, materialism and relativism. Christians, Muslims and Jews can work together to reach this common objective. I believe it’s time for a new humanism in order to struggle against these perverse phenomena, because only the centrality of the human being is an antidote to fanaticism and intolerance.
Very papal, isn’t it. Also stupid and deceitful – the whole point of … Read the rest
Jesus and Mo blow a kiss to Franco Frattini
Oct 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe guy who’s whipping up the monotheists to make war on atheism.… Read the rest
Seriously they want me to wear purple
Oct 29th, 2010 11:58 am | By Ophelia BensonThe loveliness of the religious mind.
Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed therselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE
Ooh ick – who’s that – some high school kid, right?
No, it’s a school board member at Midland School District in Arkansas. It’s a grown-up male adult mature citizen over the age of 16.
… Read the restbeing a fag doesnt give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being
More on Arkansas’s fragrant Clint McCance
Oct 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“being a fag doesnt give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag.”… Read the rest
Arkansas school board member to resign over FB post
Oct 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe wrote that he wanted gay people to commit suicide, used the terms “queer” and “fag” repeatedly, rejoiced “that [gay people] give each other AIDS and die.”… Read the rest
Hari on Naipaul on African belief in spirits
Oct 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOnce you cede power to an invisible force, you cede power to other human beings who can then claim to use those invisible forces against you.… Read the rest