From a heavily guarded studio.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Dawkins Evangelical Atheist 
Aug 6th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Also celebrity fundamentalist atheist. Yak yak.… Read the rest
All Devout Muslims, All Face Same Dilemma
Aug 6th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Whether to earn money working for haram Westerners and get an education, or be pure and uneducated.… Read the rest
Necla Kelek on Tariq Ramadan
Aug 6th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ramadan’s initiative against forced marriage is an attempt to contain and advise Muslim girls in an Islamic manner.… Read the rest
Adios freedom of speech
Aug 5th, 2008 3:02 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell at least someone is paying attention.
Pakistan and the other nations that have banded together in the Organization of the Islamic Conference have been leading a remarkably successful campaign through the United Nations to enshrine in international law prohibitions against “defamation of religions,” particularly Islam. Their aim is to empower governments around the world to punish anyone who commits the “heinous act” of defaming Islam. Critics say it is an attempt to globalize laws against blasphemy that exist in some Muslim countries — and that the movement has already succeeded in suppressing open discussion in international forums of issues such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and gay rights.
Quite. David Littman is one of those critics. … Read the rest
More on ‘Defamation of Religion’
Aug 5th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
With the kind of global blasphemy laws in this resolution, anybody could sue for hurt feelings. … Read the rest
Southall Black Sisters Won Its Challenge
Aug 5th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Secular spaces are literally being squeezed out of minority communities.’… Read the rest
Using the UN to Stifle Free Speech
Aug 5th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
OIC aims to empower governments around the world to punish anyone who ‘defames’ Islam.… Read the rest
Rosie Bell on the LRB and Verso’s List
Aug 5th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Voice of Hezbollah; The Statements of Osama Bin Laden; The Holocaust Industry.… Read the rest
Iran Suspends Execution by Stoning
Aug 5th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The stones used must be big enough to cause pain, but not to kill immediately. … Read the rest
They meant no harm, they’re just a little highspirited
Aug 4th, 2008 5:48 pm | By Ophelia Benson‘Animal rights activists’ apparently firebombed a house where a biologist lives with his family at dawn on Saturday.
Feldheim, whose townhouse was firebombed just after 5:30 a.m., uses mice in laboratory research on brain formation. He told The Chronicle that he and his wife, along with their 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, had to drop a ladder from the window of a second-floor bedroom to escape after smoke filled the home’s first floor.
So…they could easily have been killed or seriously injured. Rather a rough form of ‘activism’ then.
… Read the restIn January, a Molotov cocktail exploded on a UCLA researcher’s porch. A month later, six people in masks tried to force their way into the home of a UC Santa Cruz
More on Santa Cruz Firebombing
Aug 4th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The attacks on researchers have been escalating.… Read the rest
Firebombs Target Santa Cruz Biologists
Aug 4th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Jerry Vlasak said, idiotically, ‘the bombers likely were not trying to hurt’ the researcher whose house they hit.… Read the rest
Mark Bauerlein on 42 Years of ‘Theory’
Aug 4th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The putative need to be theory-savvy was harmful to the humanities.… Read the rest
Efforts to End Child Marriage in Yemen
Aug 4th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Religious ‘leaders’ oppose legal minimum marriage age, saying it would contradict Islamic precepts.… Read the rest
Secularism and Equality
Aug 4th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Special exemptions for religion are the opposite of equality before the law.… Read the rest
Part-time Evangelist Charged With Wife’s Murder
Aug 3rd, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Body of mother of 8 kept in freezer for four years, ‘Rev’ also accused of rape and incest.… Read the rest
Chief Justice Dissents in Texas Exorcism Ruling
Aug 3rd, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘This sweeping immunity extends far beyond the protections our Constitution affords religious conduct.’… Read the rest
India: At Least 120 Killed in Temple Stampede
Aug 3rd, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
There have been at least three fatal stampedes in the country so far this year.… Read the rest
Daniel Dennett Autobiography Part One
Aug 3rd, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A pleasant surprise that not all the delicious thoughts of my childhood had to be kept private.… Read the rest
