By the time Chinese authorities said they were investigating Ai for alleged tax evasion, over 140,000 people had signed Change.org’s online petition seeking his release.… Read the rest

And the BBC buys it.… Read the rest

Ratzinger knows he can’t aim his pious invective at the Jewish people as his predecessors did. So he takes aim at the next best enemy of his faith: atheists.… Read the rest

In late September 2011, a 12-year-old girl was given in marriage to an 85-year-old man in Punjab. Her father sold her in lieu of five acres of land to resolve a dispute.… Read the rest

Justice Beinisch says minority groups cannot take over public spaces, says there should be no segregation in Mea Shearim.… Read the rest

Large billboards posted throughout Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods last week forbade women to enter Mea She’arim Street during the Sukkot celebration.… Read the rest

For boxing. Boxing in a skirt. Seriously.… Read the rest

“They say they want to be like Turkey but it could turn out like Iran.”… Read the rest

Ayman Youssef Mansour also received three years, not for offending the demigods of the military but rather for “insulting” Islam” on Facebook.… Read the rest

One body of research has focused on the very large pay increases for top corporate executives…… Read the rest

The Congressional Budget Office said income had trebled for the richest 1% between 1979 and 2007.… Read the rest

“Convinced as we were that I was more susceptible to Satanic deception, our family was deprived of my reasonable input in decision making.”… Read the rest

We are saying, implicitly, “If you believe in God, you’re mistaken.”… Read the rest

Science has authority not because of white coats or titles, but because of precision and transparency, Ben Goldacre notes.… Read the rest

Only by willfully ignoring that entire trial record can Scalia and Thomas reduce the entire constitutional question to a single misdeed by a single bad actor.… Read the rest

It is too easy to dismiss Afghanistan along with Iraq as yet another foreign  policy mistake.… Read the rest

“A fundamental mistake, Bellah argues, is to conceive of religion as primarily a matter of propositional beliefs.” Uh huh.… Read the rest

Ottoman sultans, or caliphs, in the 18th and 19th centuries launched secular schools and promoted the education of women.… Read the rest

Really – we don’t need a structure. We don’t want to be led by chaplains. Really – we don’t.… Read the rest

Goddy people like having a honcho to run things. Ungoddy people don’t. A humanist “chaplain” is not needed.… Read the rest