All right! Let’s do this thing.
There’s a hearing in Washington next week:
S.1696, The Women’s Health Protection Act: Removing Barriers to Constitutionally Protected Reproductive Rights
There’s a petition. Sign and share. Tell your Representative and Senators (if you’re in the US).
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Yet more reason to loathe Penn Jillette.
Penn Jillette says that people are “burying the lede” in the alleged incident that led to SiriusXM’s decision to fire “Opie and Anthony” host Anthony Cumia. He also argued that he’s never seen any evidence that suggests Cumia is racist as many of his critics have alleged.
“We are burying the lede of this story, which is that Anthony, who has a reputation for being a bit of a hot head, is carrying, comes up gets hit in the face and does not hurt the person back,” Jillette said during his “Penn’s Sunday School” podcast this weekend.
“That is incredible. If I am in the position where I cross somebody who is carrying a gun and who can defend themselves and hurt me, and their choice is to write angry stuff on Twitter instead of fighting me back — wonderful. Gandhi! That’s Gandhi! … That is Martin Luther King,” he continued.
It is? Just refraining from killing people when you’re pissed off is Gandhi and Martin Luther King? I don’t think so; I think it takes more than that.
Cumia was fired last week over racially-charged tweets he wrote after an incident where a black woman allegedly punched him several times after she ended up in a photo snapped by the radio host. He claims he was carrying a firearm at the time of the alleged assault but exercised restraint. So far, we only have one side of the story — Cumia’s.
In a “livid” state after the incident, Cumia took to Twitter and called the woman a “cunt” and a “savage.” He also alleged there is a serious violence problem within the black community. He later deleted the controversial tweets and explained on Monday that they “were being picked apart & used, out of ANY context, to fuck me over.”
But he’s Gandhi Luther King, because he didn’t shoot anyone that we know of.
PZ gives some samples of Cumia’s Gandhi Luther Kingness:
Savage violent animal fucks prey on white people. Easy targets. This CUNT has no clue how lucky she was. She belted me 10 times. I had a gun
No,an ANIMAL BITCH used it’s instinctual violence on me. I restrained myself from putting it to sleep
It’s a jungle out in our cities after midnight. Violent savages own the streets. They all came 2 defend this pig. I had to yell like at dogs
Yup that’s Penn Jillette’s Gandhi Luther King guy. Free market booya.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Missouri governor Jay Nixon has vetoed a stupid malevolent control-the-women anti-abortion bill.
Setting up an election-year showdown with the Legislature, Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed on Wednesday a bill that would have required a 72-hour waiting period for abortions in Missouri.
Nixon said the bill’s lack of an exception for victims of rape and incest was a “glaring omission” that was “wholly insensitive to women who find themselves in horrific circumstances.”
But even if the bill had contained such an exception, he would have vetoed it, Nixon said in unusually sharp criticism of an abortion bill.
Tripling the current 24-hour waiting period “serves no demonstrable purpose other than to create emotional and financial hardships for women who have undoubtedly already spent considerable time wrestling with perhaps the most difficult decision they may ever have to make,” the governor, a Democrat, said in his veto message.
Because guess what, women know how to think, all by themselves. They don’t need legislators trying to force them to think; they can do it on their own.
But not all legislators get that.
The Republican-controlled Missouri House and Senate approved the longer waiting period by large margins in May. Supporters said that women need more time to consider their decision and that it would reduce the number of abortions.
If women “need” more time to consider their decision (more than what?) then they will take more time. You don’t meet people’s needs by forcing things on them. How do the supporters even know women “need” more time? How do they know how much time women have already taken? What makes them think stalling is in any way about what women need? As Nixon says, it’s just a way to push women around and take revenge on them for existing.
Senate bill handler Sen. David Sater, R-Cassville, vowed to seek an override at the veto session in September.
Abortion “is an irreversible and permanent decision, and taking the time to think about the consequences is not unreasonable or a burden,” Sater said in a statement.
How the hell does David Sater know that women have not taken the time to think? How does he know he needs to force them to think? How does he know that’s any of his business?
He doesn’t. It’s just goddy bullying.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Saudi Arabia is also (surprise surprise) harsh and bossy about Ramadan even for people who have the bad taste to be not Muslim.
The Interior Ministry has warned that it would deport non-Muslim expatriates found eating and drinking in public during Ramadan.
“Non-Muslim expatriates should respect the feelings of Muslims by not eating, drinking or smoking in public places such as streets and workplaces. They should not think that they are exempted from this because they are followers of other faiths,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry reminded workers that their contracts stipulate that they should respect Islam’s rituals and practices, including the month of fasting.
The ministry warned that it would deport those who break the law. It stressed that employers and companies should inform their foreign workers about the penalties for violating the sanctity of the holy month, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
So foreign workers in one of the hottest places on earth are ordered to risk death by dehydration and heat stroke because of a stupid (and very dangerous) religious demand imposed by a “prophet” 1400 years ago when people didn’t understand much about physiology. Fabulous. Humane, sensible, compassionate, reasonable – everything good. Allah is merciful.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Travel tip – never visit Pakistan during Ramadan. Sahar Majid explains why.
.
In 1981, Zia issued an ordinance officially prohibiting public eating and drinking during Ramadan’s fasting hours. The dictate also forced public restaurants and eateries to close. Anyone breaking this rule could face three months in jail and a fine of about $5. (Luckily, the ordinance exempts food service in hospitals, schools, airports, and train and bus stations.)
Eating and drinking – so if you’re visiting Pakistan during Ramadan you can’t even walk around with a bottle of water and drink from it when you get thirsty.
Zia’s toxic traditions plague Pakistan to this day. His Ehtram-e-Ramzan (“reverence for Ramadan”) ordinance remains in effect because no subsequent government has dared go against it for fear of angering religious scholars and parties. While the law is not enforced as strictly throughout the country as it once was, there have been arrests for violating its provisions in recent years.
There’s a lesson for us – once you let theocracy in, it’s very hard to get rid of it. I’m looking at you, SCOTUS 5.
The practice of fasting is meant to instill a sense of tolerance, compassion, and empathy. If you are fasting but unable to behave well – if you refrain from eating and drinking all day, but not from backbiting, lying, bickering, and other misbehavior – it is not worth the effort.
Simply starving will not get you into the good books of the angels. It might help you lose a few pounds, but you can do that by eating less and exercising.
It is good for your body, mind, and soul if you are devoted to pleasing God and will go to any length for that purpose.
No, it is not – it is not good for the body. Fasting is not good for the body, and going without water is terrible for the body. Inserting the word “god” into it does nothing to change that.
But she ends well.
As for me, I don’t fast. I believe religion is a matter between me and my God, and I don’t need to observe fasting just to prove myself pious.
As far as pleasing God is concerned, I think he will be pleased if you take care of his people. And, by the way, you can do that each day of the entire year – not just for one month!
That. If only more people thought of pleasing god in those terms! Instead they do the opposite.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Cross-posted from Facebook.
Memo to people who say things.
If you compare someone behaving badly to “a teenage girl” and you get a reaction to the sexism – the right answer is not to call that “PC”.
It’s not “political correctness” (in the pejorative sense) to try to get people to refrain from automatic mindless disparagement of girls&women.
It’s not trivia. It’s not fussiness or pedantry. It’s not a gotcha. It’s not “call-out culture.” It’s not language-policing. It’s not authoritarian.
It’s a long (long long long) term effort to shape a world where girls DON’T grow up constantly being told, directly and indirectly, that they are fundamentally stupider, weaker, more spoiled and whiny, and just overall more annoying and bad and inferior than that other sex.
Why would this not be an important and worthwhile goal? Why would we want to keep half of humanity in a permanent state of attributed inferiority?
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Dalia Farouk at The Cairo Post reports a bad trend in Egypt:
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is increasing in rural areas in Egypt according to Women and Development Association (WDA) Alexandria governorate head Aida Nour al-Din, Youm7 reported Friday.
Din said that FGM is also common in urban areas due to some religious beliefs that it is a “religious obligation and must be done.”
She also said a 2008 study indicated 86 percent of divorce cases were due to FGM and its negative impact on marital intercourse.
Weird, isn’t it. You’d think people would be able to figure it out eventually. “Let’s see, how to make sure women won’t slut around – I know, mangle their genitals so that sex won’t be any kind of fun whatsoever at all. Perfect. Oh, wait a second…”
Gynecologist Eman Mahmoud told The Cairo Post in a phone interview Friday that FGM has a negative psychological impact that “lasts for years after performing the practice and losing part of the body.”
She added that FGM results in a loss of sex drive for women because they often feel pain during intercourse and because sensory nerves in the genitalia are often removed or damaged during FGM.
Well yes – on the one hand it hurts, and on the other hand there’s no compensatory pleasure. Bit of a down side.
But despite the practice’s prevalence in Egypt, 11 governorates announced Friday they had teamed up with an anti-FGM initiative organized by the Union Against Harmful Practices to Women and Children to combat the practice, Youm7 reported.
Also, back in June the Adam Foundation for Humanitarian Development (AFHD) launched its “Girl of the Nile” campaign to discourage FGM by publicizing Al-Azhar fatwas issued against the practice.
Good luck to them.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Not a good way to recruit women? Act as if they all like pink frilly pink frills all over everything.
To start, there were the pitches from college engineering programs in curly purple typeface accented by flowery images. She started to notice that many websites for budding female engineers are pink. Then there was the flyer for an after-school program hanging in a hallway of her high school. Printed on purple polka-dot paper, it read, “Are you a tech girl? Are you a web diva?”
The soon-to-be high school senior aspires to become an engineer of some sort. She has absolutely no interest, however, in a career as a “web diva.”
“It seems so degrading,” Wheat said. “If you’re a girl interested in building websites, you’re a ‘web diva.’ If you’re a boy, you’re a web developer.”
Well it’s because you’re a girl, which is not normal. Real, normal people are engineers. Girls who go into engineering are engineeressettes.
Wheat had discovered what Elizabeth Losh, a digital culture scholar at UC San Diego, calls “ridiculous, pink, sparkly techno-princess land.”
Pink websites and polka-dotted flyers are what happens when an entire field overcorrects.
Recruit women! Make the environment welcoming to women, by all means. But vanishingly few women want to live inside a Pepto-Bismol bottle.
…as Wheat sees it, the problem with techno-princess land is that it attempts to combat the stereotype that technology is a guy thing with stereotypes of what women want.
The overflow of pink in her inbox moved the Virginia teen to pen an opinion piece, which was recently a runner-up in a New York Times teen editorial contest.
“It says that the only way you can be interested in technology is if it is girly,” said Wheat. “I’m very girly. My room is purple. I have floral bedding. I think I’ll probably be a very feminine engineer. I just don’t like the idea of being pigeonholed.”
But pigeons are so sweet and girly and adorable.
At a recent Bay Area tech mixer put on by Girl Geek Dinners, the tech company that chose the decor elected to replace office lightbulbs with pink and purple ones, bathing the entire event in a fuchsia glow. An open bar was covered with a pink sequined runner. Guests were encouraged to take a Cosmo-style personality quiz revealing their nerd girl personas and given slap-bracelets and strawberry lip balm at the door.
Siiiiiigh.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Lisa Bloom explains lucidly in the Washington Post what is so radical about the Hobby Lobby ruling.
The U.S. is the most religious and most conservative first-world nation, and believers have tried to opt out of our laws for centuries. For the most part, courts haven’t allowed it. May Christian Scientists forego lifesaving medical treatment for their children? No. May Native Americans ingest illegal peyote as part of their religious ceremonies? No. May the Amish refuse to pay Social Security taxes that violate their sincere religious beliefs? No.
The simple general rule has always been that you are free to practice Protestantism or Wicca or Zoroastrianism or any belief of your choice, provided your religious practice does not harm others. You may swing your arm just until it reaches my shoulder, as the old legal epigram goes. Nor may you impose your religion on me, thank you very much. And whether you’re Hindu or Muslim or Baha’i, you must follow general U.S. laws, including paying a wide array of taxes and fees, and more recently, buying certain kinds of insurance, like auto and health insurance.
To interrupt for a second – actually in most states, Christian Scientists may forego lifesaving medical treatment for their children, as may any other religious fanatic. I think it’s 30-something states that have religious exemptions.
Pause to look it up.
Damn, it’s 38 states.
Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse or neglect, largely because of a federal government policy from 1974 to 1983 requiring states to pass such exemptions in order to get federal funding for child protection work. The states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Additionally, Tennessee exempts caretakers who withhold medical care from being adjudicated as negligent if they rely instead on non-medical “remedial treatment” that is “legally recognized or legally permitted.”
As Bloom says – we are the most religious and most conservative first-world nation. Back to Bloom’s article.
Probably every American, religious or not, can point to services provided by moneys we are required to pay that we despise on moral or religious grounds. For my part, as an ethical vegan, government subsidies to hideously cruel factory farms tops the list of most vile uses of my tax dollars. Can I opt out? No, just as a religious Jew can’t say no to his tax contribution to the pork industry and a Quaker can’t hold back tax payments for wars. We can lobby to change the laws. But once they’re passed, we must all follow them. We can’t have 300 million different legal exceptions for the 300 million Americans who’d like to pick and choose which laws comport with our personal beliefs.
The Hobby Lobby decision’s first radical move is in its wide departure from these core American principles. For the first time in the Court’s history, it ruled that a law requiring one to merely vicariously enable another to take an action contrary to one’s religious beliefs violates religious freedom.
I know this is not new, but I still just marvel (and cringe) at how farfetched it is, how 17th century in its intrusiveness, how illegitimate, how great a triumph for the evil bishops.
Let’s take a moment to remember what was entirely forgotten in the Hobby Lobby majority opinion: that birth control is vital to women’s health and equality, even our very lives. The United States has one of the highest rates of unplanned pregnancies in the developed world, in part because we have not had universal coverage of birth control as is the case in much of Europe, which — shocker — has far fewer unwanted pregnancies. Unintended pregnancy rates for poor American women are high and have shot up in the last two decades, as the prices for contraception for those without health coverage make it unattainable.
Oh well now there’s another item for that list I drew up a few weeks ago, the list of ways we differ for the worse from other developed countries – a high rate of unplanned pregnancies. Maybe theocrats think that’s a good thing, because it’s a Sign that god’s will can shove aside what any given woman may have wanted.
In wide swaths of America, abortion is so unavailable we may as well be living in the nineteenth century. 87 percent of U.S. counties lack any abortion provider. For many poor American women, an unplanned pregnancy means a surprise baby, full stop.
All medically approved forms of birth control are far safer for women’s health than childbirth, as is abortion, a safe and simple medical procedure when performed by a doctor. Childbirth, in contrast, can be dangerous for poor American women. Most of us are unaware of the shocking fact that a U.S. woman’s chance of dying in childbirth is high and on the rise. We rank 60th in the world in maternal mortality rates, worse than China with its hundreds of millions of rural poor.
That one I did include on the list.
There’s a lot more. I find myself wanting to read all the lawyers these days. Well, all the secular lawyers.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The world cup is abomination, according to a Russian Orthodox priest, because the players wear gay shoes. Gay shoes I tell you!
It’s true, I’ve noticed it myself – bright green, bright orange, bright blue – they’re a treat to watch, plus they make it easier to keep track of the players’ feet. But of course it’s true that they’re also bright bright gay, no getting around that.
Writing in his column on Russian People’s Line, Priest Alexander Shumsky claimed that players are promoting a “gay rainbow” by wearing green, pink, yellow and blue shoes.
He said: “Wearing pink or blue shoes, [the players] might as well wear women’s panties or a bra.”
Oh, I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay,
I sleep all night and I work all day.
etc etc
CHORUS
I chop down trees, I wear high heels,
Suspenders and a bra.
I wish I’d been a girlie
Just like my dear papa.
“The liberal ideology of globalism clearly wants to oppose Christianity with football. I’m sure of it.
“Therefore I am glad that the Russian players have failed and, by the grace of God, no longer participate in this homosexual abomination.”
Russia exited the competition in the group stages, failing to win any of their three matches.
And then they phoned up the bishop and asked him to explain their failure to win any of their three matches as a divine gift from god designed to rescue them from the faggoty peril of bright green shoes.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Here’s a question for UK readers, and anyone else with an informed opinion (or just plain information) – why is the abortion issue so huge here and non-existent there?
I want to know so that whatever it is that you’re doing, we can do it too.
You don’t seem to have anything like an equivalent of the USCCB. You don’t seem to have monster bishops running everything. You have Anglican bishops meddling with things, I know that, but they’re mere mouse squeaks in comparison. What’s the deal with your Catholic bishops? Why are they so quiet?
Why aren’t there abortion protesters and “counselors” outside all NHS facilities that perform abortions? Why aren’t people always yammering about it? Why is it such a non-issue?
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Rebecca Schuman at Slate on academics who treat their graduate students as a sex pool.
Some things in academia never change. Even in an age when the feminists apparently control everything, it seems that the practice of older (usually male) scholars sleeping with much younger (usually female) graduate students is alive and … well, I wouldn’t say “well.” With two such relationships making recent news in the discipline of philosophy alone, for some of the older generation of male professors (again, mostly male), the grad students are still a dating pool—and vice versa. This is not just icky—it is highly damaging to the profession.
Philosophy! Again! What is it with these guys?
It’s not just a matter of two consenting adults’ hearts wanting what they want. Because not only are these relationships almost always an unacceptable abuse of power, they also affect the dynamics of departments, entire fields, and the very act of academic mentorship altogether.
So why does it still happen (other than the fact that people enjoy having sex)? It happens because in many academic disciplines—such as, of course, philosophy,which already enjoys a reputation for misconduct—there is a tendency for beginning scholars to have “philosophical idols,” as explained to me by Meena Krishnamurthy, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. (Just count the times this author uses the word “hero.”)
Oh gawd. Ok. You know where else that happens? Locally – among the atheists and secularists (and skeptics). There’s a huge amount of fandom and hero-worship. That’s why I was so disagreeable to the “Global Secular Council” when it gave birth to itself: it was the unabashed presentation of the same 8 or 10 faces we’d been seeing for 8 or 10 years, and the unabashedly worshipful language. Not healthy, people! Remember “thought leaders”?
[pauses to see if it's still there - it's still there]
The world’s greatest thinkers are already making the case for rationalism, but as free agents their impact on international discourse is hindered. We coordinate the thought leaders of our movement, providing an arena where compelling information from a secular perspective can be organized, published, and disseminated.
Our team of social and political thought leaders compiles the knowledge and data that uphold our worldwide community, providing substance and fresh leverage to we who think scientifically, as we lobby for government and societal change in the United States and around the globe.
Don’t talk like that. Don’t don’t don’t.
Take this example from Carla Fehr, associate director of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession Site Visit Program, which conducted the recent visit to the University of Colorado–Boulder that resulted in the ouster of the chair and the freezing of graduate admissions. Let’s say, Fehr proposes, a woman whose adviser has a reputation for dalliances with students goes out on the job market. “People ask, with a wink and a nod, what it was like getting that letter of recommendation.” If, the next year, she leaves his letter out, she’s then “asked why the famous professor was not writing for her. Her professor’s behavior,” Fehr explains, has “put her in a position where she just couldn’t win.”
It was nice for him though. Isn’t that the important thing?
So what, if anything, can be done? Institutional policies that forbid such relationships? Many universities have these already, and they rarely seems to matter. Off-site visits, such as the one Carla Fehr engineered? As satisfying as it was to see CU–Boulder duly spanked, that resulted in an infuriating amount of rank-closing and defensiveness. Sure, every now and then, a Colin McGinn type does something high-profile enough to cost him his job—but that’s rare. Usually the “consequences” are little more than behind-the-back whispers and the occasional passive-aggressive slight. (One of my mentors in grad school once stuck a very prominent scholar—who had just left his wife for a 28-year-old graduate student—in a near-unattended 8 a.m. conference slot.)
Indeed, most of the time, an accomplished senior scholar can get away with almost any poor sexual decision with a student, and still be respected in the field. Colin McGinn himself is giving a keynote at a high-profile philosophy conference in a few weeks.
Well that’s insulting. And it kind of confirms what I just said – it was fun for him and that’s the important thing.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Orignally a comment by jesse on Back to reporter school.
Working journalist here.
I’ll say this kind of stuff is needed because, as quixote noted, the issue is really that a lot of communications people don’t do science in their coursework, except for the minimum.
More to the point, the allergy to science starts earlier than university, usually, and comes from the fact that in the US the requirements for high school historically went: 4 years of English, 3 history, 2 math and 2 science as the minimum to graduate. This has changed a bit, but it reflects some rather old-fashioned needs. (It used to be that a lot of engineering-related stuff got covered in shop, before those classes turned into dumping grounds). Most communications majors weren’t interested in science to begin with.
Anyhow, the requirements for journalists were historically to do with how to find information. I know that sounds odd in the Internet age, but we learned a lot about what documents to go for and where to get them, how to file a FOIA req and who to ask and how to parse stuff in situations where you have to assume that everyone is lying to you or is telling you something for self-interested reasons. (Also, most of the good stuff isn’t online).
But finding information is one thing; knowing what to do with it is another. That’s a tougher skill to teach and learn. (And it’s why I and other old-er school people resist certain technologies a bit. Knowledge, information and wisdom are not synonyms).
This is some of the source of the false balance problem. I mentioned this once to a gathering of science writers — I asked how many people had ever covered other beats. Most had not. I told them that the big difference in reporting on science, and why I like it, is I no longer have to assume that everyone is a liar. In politics or covering cops that’s a kind of undercurrent you have to deal with. (A sense of humor about it helps, but if you ever wondered why many of us sound jaded, this is why). Most reporters for big mainstream outlets are generalists, and you get told “Hey, cover this!” and you say “You know, I don’t know anything about…” and you get told “DO it.”
So when you come at it after covering stuff in which there is no peer review, where all you have is say, a budget document and three politicians all telling you it means different things, or when you cover cops and have to assume that nobody is telling you the truth, that infects what you do when you cover the sciences. I am not saying we assume scientists are liars (consciously, anyway) — just that you get used to certain forms and mental habits out of necessity even when they aren’t applicable to some situations.
I have a science background, so I was able to get away from that a bit. But more than one editor told me to get “an opposing view” on some stories. I had to explain that no, science doesn’t work that way…
On the bright side most reporters do this because we love learning, which is why people with no knowledge are willing to tackle writing about something. There’s not many other jobs where you can say you know something now that you didn’t earlier in the day. And you get to tell everyone about it. So this is a group that will be very receptive I think.
Learning how science actually works is a big step in the right direction. Many reporters don’t, or have only a cursory knowledge. So kudos to the BBC.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
It’s only a fraction, but it’s more than 60. >60 is way better than zero.
More than 60 women and girls are reported to have escaped from the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, security sources say.
They were among 68 abducted last month near the town of Damboa in north-eastern Borno state.
But some women who made it home said they feared other escapees had been recaptured, villagers told the BBC.
Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls abducted from Borno’s Chibok town in April.
There’s some disagreement about how they escaped.
18 women who have made it back to villages around Damboa over the last three days – and are being treated at a hospital in Lasa village – said the militants were asleep when they escaped, a Lasa resident told the BBC Hausa Service.
Other relatives told the BBC that the women recounted how they climbed over a wall on Thursday night into Friday morning – and immediately began running away.
Dogs then started barking, which woke up the militants who started shooting at them, the women told the villagers.
They said they feared a significant number of them were subsequently recaptured.
“They’re looking very distressed and very lean… they have gone through a very terrible ordeal,” the Lasa resident told the BBC.
So it’s not actually a picnic to be kidnapped and enslaved by Boko Haram.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Oh look, sly dishonest interpretation from James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, in an article on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s ad responding to the Hobby Lobby ruling in the New York Times. (That’s too many things. It’s too confusing. The FFRF ad was in the Times. It was responding to the Hobby Lobby ruling. Writing is hard.)
…the FFRF’s rhetorical approach does not seem finely tuned for the purpose of winning political allies. The ad is more in the spirit of James Blaine than James Madison. It begins with a quote from birth-control (and eugenics) crusader Margaret Sanger, then, in large capital letters, declares: “Dogma Should Not Trump Our Civil Liberties. All-Male, All-Roman Catholic Majority on Supreme Court Puts Religious Wrongs Over Women’s Rights.”
Disparagement of males is commonplace in today’s culture, but anti-Catholic bigotry still has a bad odor. It must be said, however, that the FFRF ad is not the first, or even the worst, example of it in the context of the ObamaCare mandate.
“Disparagement of males” ffs – they were all male, and males don’t get pregnant; males are not vulnerable to bad rulings on contraception in the way that females are; it’s not “disparagement” to point that out. As for “anti-Catholic bigotry” – oh never mind, I don’t have the energy. He will win anyway: that kind of thing is one reason people are so squeamish about this subject.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
One piece of good news, amid the gathering shadows of looming Supreme Court justices:
BBC journalists are being sent on courses to stop them inviting so many cranks onto programmes to air ‘marginal views’.
Yessssss. Should have been done long ago.
The BBC Trust on Thursday published a progress report into the corporation’s science coverage which was criticised in 2012 for giving too much air-time to critics who oppose non-contentious issues.
The report found that there was still an ‘over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality’ which sought to give the ‘other side’ of the argument, even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed.
Some 200 staff have already attended seminars and workshops and more will be invited on courses in the coming months to stop them giving ‘undue attention to marginal opinion.’
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Well, at least I have confirmation that I wasn’t exaggerating yesterday when I said Alito lied in the Hobby Lobby ruling. Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West at Slate say the same thing. They say it with considerable heat and energy.
…moments before they adjourned for their summer recess, the justices proved they can act quite quickly and recklessly when it comes to violating the terms of a controversial opinion they handed down only days earlier. It’s as if the loaner car the court gave us in the Hobby Lobby ruling broke down mere blocks from the shop.
In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled that it was a “substantial burden” on the religious freedoms of closely-held corporations for the government to require them to provide contraception as part of their employee health care plans. The court didn’t say that the government could never require a company to do something that violated its religious beliefs, but rather that the government had to use the “least restrictive alternative.” That means that if there is a slightly less burdensome way to implement the law, it needs to be used. To prove that the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate was not the “least restrictive alternative,” the court pointed to a workaround in the law for nonprofits: If there are religious objections to a medical treatment, third parties will provide coverage to the employees.
Yet in an unsigned emergency order granted Thursday evening, the very same court said that this very same workaround it had just praised was also unconstitutional, that this workaround also burdened the religious freedom of religious employers. Overnight, the cure has become the disease. Having explicitly promised that Hobby Lobby would go no further than Hobby Lobby, the court went back on its word, then skipped town for the summer.
So, they lied, and Alito’s ruling lied.
Or, I suppose, they simply changed their minds Monday evening, or possibly it was Wednesday afternoon, or even Thursday morning.
Except…then wouldn’t they have to wait for a new case? Aren’t they supposed to adhere to their own rulings until such time as they overturn them or tweak them?
Well yes, probably, which is probably why Sotomayor was so scathing in her dissent from that emergency order. (What fucking emergency??)
A majority of the court granted Wheaton a temporary injunction allowing it to refuse to comply with the workaround, or “accommodation,” the court had just held up as the answer in Hobby Lobby. Under the ACA, churches have always been categorically exempt from the mandate. The law further allows religious nonprofits that don’t want to offer contraception to submit a short form, known as Form 700, which affirms their religious objection to providing contraception. Form 700 enables the company’s insurers or third-party administrators to cover the birth control instead of the employer. Easy peasy, right? Sign the form and you don’t have to provide the coverage that violates your religious beliefs. In Hobby Lobby, Justice Alito wrote that this solution “achieves all of the government’s aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty.”
Wheaton, however, along with many other religious not-for-profits, have long objected to this very workaround. They filed lawsuits claiming that the mere fact of signing a form noting their religious objection to contraception coverage triggered third parties to provide the contraception, which triggered women to have access to morning-after pills and IUDs, which in their view were akin to abortions, and thus violated their religious consciences. Signing the form, they said, was the same as actually providing the contraceptives themselves. It’s the butterfly effect of contraception. Any time Wheaton flaps its religious-conscience wings, a woman somewhere ends up with an IUD, and Wheaton’s religious liberties are violated.
And Thursday night a majority of the court agreed. The order is a preliminary injunction. The court will need to decide this and dozens of similar cases in the future. The justices caution that this in no way reflects their views of the future cases. But for our purposes, let it be known that the very workaround the court gave to religious objectors only four days earlier now likely violates their religious liberty as well.
Disgust doesn’t even begin to describe it.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Tour de France? All very well but why is it men only? The BBC asks.
Former Olympic champion Nicole Cooke says it is a “scandal” there is no longer a Tour de France for women, blaming sexism in cycling.
The men’s race, which starts in Leeds on Saturday, is now an iconic event, but the women’s Tour last ran in 2009.
(Sigh – there’s that dopy use of “iconic” again.)
“It’s a scandal there isn’t a Tour for women at the moment,” the 31-year-old said in an interview with BBC Breakfast.
“In the 1980s, there was a women’s Tour de France. It was held over the same stages as the men’s race. They celebrated with equality.
“Since then, women’s cycling has kind of been swept under the mat.”
The women’s Tour has been staged on and off, in numerous guises, since 1984 and was won by Cooke in 2006 and 2007.
It began life as the Tour de France Feminin and was rebranded the Grande Boucle in 1998, but has slowly dwindled in size.
As Kate Smurthwaite said in a public Facebook post -
What channel is the women’s Tour de France on? … Oh … Oh really. Well then FUCK YOU. Seriously how dare these people put all that time and effort into building dreams for our sons and not our daughters? If the race was whites-only there would be uproar. **commences uproar**
On with the uproar, I say.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The speakers, left to right, up to down:
Tawfique Chowdhury
Bilal Philips
Yasir Qadhi
Abdur Raheem Green
Sajid Umar
Waleed Basyouni
Alaa Elsayed
Yahya Ibrahim
Abdul Nasir Jangda
Omar Suleiman
Bilal Ismail
Yusha Evans
Hamza Tzortzis
Navaid Aziz
Daood Butt
Abdur-Raheem McCarthy
Shady Alsuleiman
Fatih Seferagic
Mohammed Zayara
Mulsim Belal
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Another fun event for your participatory pleasure: the Night of Power Conference.
The Night of Power Conference – The first-ever global online video conference organised by Mercy Mission, to be held on the 27th Night of Ramadan 1435 A.H. (2014).
The Event shall be streamed LIVE, featuring over 20 world-renowned Islamic figures, for 36 consecutive hours! The theme of the Conference, ‘Spiritual Journey with the Qur’an’ aims to revive the Ummah through knowledge and action.
Behold the over 20 world-renowned Islamic figures. [click to embiggen to get the full effect]
Um…
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
