Join the campaign against #TwitterTheocracy today June 10th 2014. Ex-Muslims of North America explains:

Twitter has agreed to use its ‘Country Withheld Tool’ to block “blasphemous tweets” in Pakistan, thus becoming complicit in suppressing free speech, and in aiding Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Over the past month, Twitter accounts have been suspended and tweets have been blocked in Pakistan; a Twitter user has recently been jailed in Turkey for a “blasphemous” tweet. In Pakistan and other theocracy-based states, blasphemy laws are key tools used by those in power to actively persecute minorities. We urge Twitter and all other international companies and organizations to uphold human rights-based standards of conduct, particularly when it comes to freedom of expression.

We at Ex-Muslims

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And in Borno state, more women are grabbed and enslaved.

Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted at least 20 women close to where 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in northern Nigeria, eyewitnesses say.

The women were loaded on to vans at gunpoint and driven away to an unknown location in Borno state, they add.

The army has not commented on the incident, which occurred on the nomadic Garkin Fulani settlement on Thursday.

And Nigerian officialdom just shrugs and goes about its business?

The latest incident occurred close to where more than 200 schoolgirls were snatched from the remote Chibok town near the Cameroonian border on 14 April.

A member of a local vigilante group set up to resist such attacks said

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Today’s is in Oregon.

A gunman has shot dead a student at a school in the US state of Oregon, and he is also dead, police said.

“The student has died. I’m very, very sorry for the family,” said Troutdale police chief Scott Anderson.

Shots were reported at Reynolds High School in Troutdale on Tuesday morning when the suspect opened fire using a semi-automatic weapon.

A well-regulated militia.… Read the rest

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The BBC has a rather opaque story on the “Trojan Horse” thingummy.

Head teachers claim there was an organised campaign to impose a “narrow, faith-based ideology” at some schools in Birmingham, Ofsted has said.

The watchdog has placed five of the city’s schools in special measures after “deeply worrying” findings.

It inspected 21 schools after an anonymous letter alleging a Muslim takeover plot was circulated.

It’s too bad they don’t just require state schools to be secular.

Sir Michael said teachers at some of the schools inspected had reported being unfairly treated due to their faith and gender.

He said inspectors had “uncovered evidence of unfair and opaque recruitment practices, including examples of relatives being appointed to unadvertised senior

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A Twitter conversation with Improbable Joe that touched on collecting papers reminded me of Ensign Pulver, looking for marbles all day long, so I Googled to see if I could find a YouTube clip of that bit but no luck, there’s only the more famous last scene where Pulver throws the Captain’s palm tree overboard. So then I Googled the phrase itself and found several things including…a ten-year-old post by me. It’s kind of interesting so I’m just going to recycle it.

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One thing (but not the only thing) that prompted this train of thought (or perhaps bus of rumination or minivan of woolgathering or rollerskate of idle daydreaming) was something I read a few days ago in another … Read the rest

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I generally try to find other sources for items reported by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, because I’m leery of his allies and fans. But I could find only Spanish news sources for this one, so I’m going with it, hoping English language sources will pick it up later. I’m going with it because it’s horrendous.

Spain to deport Pakistani ex-Muslim refugee for criticizing Islam

“Spain to Deport Pakistani Refugee for Criticizing Islam,” by Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, June 6, 2014:

The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that a political refugee should be deported because his criticism of Islam poses “a danger to the security of Spain.”

The May 30 ruling, which upholds an earlier decision by a

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Originally a comment on Asking a question.

Others have already said much that I would have about the content and attitude of this missive, but I found this remark the most concerning:

The Global Secular Council “launched” only its website and social media at the behest of many involved, mainly donors,

As I mentioned previously, many of these organizations seem to have a real transparency problem concerning donations and finances. It was a big issue at RDF, Rogers’ recent firing appears to have something to do with embezzlement at SCA, I can’t get anyone from the Harvard Humanists to give any information about donors,* and the course of the JREF looks at this point to be determined by one … Read the rest

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Wow! An 11-year-old kid did today’s Google doodle, which is one brilliant doodle – I jumped when I saw it and then looked for information about it, as one does – I thought it was perhaps a variation on John Tenniel, creator of the brilliant illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-glass. I was not thinking “probably an 11-year-old kid.”

Credit: Google

The Google one is animated. Audrey Zhang’s is a still.

Yesterday the Handmade Parade in Hebden Bridge, today this. Yay art. Art makes me feel optimistic.

Long Island Now reports on the local genius:

Visit Google’s homepage today and marvel at the intricate and interactive doodle created by an 11-year-old Long Island girl.

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EllenBeth Wachs @BlameEllenBeth Jun 6

Holy mofo crap how do you not see your hypocrisy Ophelia?-> Why do they think they are above being questioned?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2014/06/why-do-they-think-they-are-above-being-questioned/

I’m not an organization.… Read the rest

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A forthright piece in the Irish Independent on the death rate in the Tuam mother and baby home.

It didn’t just happen. It wasn’t just bad management. It took years of organisation, strategies of intimidation and control. And, let’s face it, it took a citizenry steeped in fear and reverence.

A population that was deferential. People who did what they were told. People who didn’t dare ask questions.

Not, of course, that dumping the bodies of almost 800 kids near a septic tank was the object of the exercise – that was just a byproduct. Just some human waste that had to be tucked away in a suitable place.

It was about sex and power. It was about the

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Ann Widdecombe is vying for Most Outrageous this week. I think she has a shot at it.

It is “very difficult” to be an active Christian in modern Britain, former government minister Ann Widdecombe, who lives in Dartmoor, has claimed.

The ex-MP blamed “quite militant secularism” and equality legislation for people feeling they could not express their faith.

She claimed that respect for people’s personal views meant people could have been a fascist in post-1945 Britain or a Communist during the Cold War but Christians now had started “suppressing the expression of conscience”.

And yet, there the Archbishop still is, archbishoping away.

Ms Widdecombe, who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1993, said: “Christians now have quite a lot

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Gnu Atheism illustrates:

… Read the rest

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For a joyous interlude – check out the Handmade Parade today in Hebden Bridge in south Yorkshire. There’s a huge collection of photos here, and Maureen has given me permission to post a selection of hers.

… Read the rest

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Any time I want to make sure I’m not getting too optimistic about things, I pause to remember how shamingly far the US differs (always in the wrong direction) from all other developed countries on a whole slew of indices of national well-being or flourishing. Just off the top of my head, without taking to Google to find lists, there’s

• infant mortality
• maternal mortality
• lack of universal health insurance
• income inequality
• wealth inequality
• percentage of the population in prison
• executions
• violent crime
• guns
• debt

That’s a terrible list.

An item I wasn’t really aware of is the rate of juvenile incarceration. It’s off the fucking charts higher than any other developed country. How the scorching blood of shame rises to … Read the rest

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Catherine Corless isn’t happy about the way the discussion of the Tuam mother and baby home has gone. She doesn’t like the framing.

‘I never used that word ‘dumped’,” Catherine Corless, a local historian in Co Galway, tells The Irish Times. “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.”

The story that emerged from her work was reported this week in dramatic headlines around the world.

“Tell us the truth about the children dumped in Galway’s mass graves” – The Guardian.

I used the word “dumped” too. That was the word that occurred to me. … Read the rest

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There was a protest outside a mother and baby home in Cork today, the Irish Times reports.

Mothers who lost babies at the former Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork tied teddy bears and toys to the gates of the building today as they stated their hope to be included in any form of inquiry the Government is now going to order.

The founder of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Support Group, Helen Murphy, who was born at the home and left when she was seven months old said the vigil was part of a larger campaign.

“We want the truth to be known. We want justice to be done and we want Bessborough to be included in

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What was that about the Catholic church in Ireland and its way with the babies of single mothers with no money? Starving them, neglecting them, throwing them in a pit when they died?

Oh yes, and also performing medical experiments on them.

Scientists secretly vaccinated more than 2,000 children in religious-run homes in suspected illegal drug trials, it emerged today.

Old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

There is no evidence that consent was ever sought, nor any records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result.

… Read the rest

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… Read the rest

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