Americans United reports on two – not one but two – bills under discussion in the Alabama legislature proposing a government establishment of religion.

One egregious bill, HB 318, would require public school teachers to recite prayers each morning at the beginning of school. Proponents of this bill have tried to create the illusion of constitutionality by specifying that the prayers must be the same ones recited by the United States Congress.

That’s quite a massive step up – from allowing to requiring.

HB 281 claims to allow religious student expression in public school classrooms, but actually is unnecessary and potentially harmful. Students can already observe their religion as long as it isn’t coercive or disrupt the school’s educational

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

James Lasdun wrote a tribute to Chekhov in the Guardian in 2010.

Have a striking passage from it:

His father, Paul, ran a grocery-cum-general store where Taganrog society congregated to purchase rice, coffee, paraffin, mousetraps, ammonia, penknives and vodka, and were duly cheated by the proprietor. Family lore records an occasion where a drowned rat was found in a cask of cooking oil. Instead of throwing out the oil, Paul had it “sanctified” by a priest, and continued selling it – an ur-Chekhovian episode, complete with a climax that is at once a non-event (business going on as usual), and a pitiless illumination of the father’s character. A bullying, fanatically religious man as well as a total failure (he went

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A good thing from last May – Stephen Fry chatting with Craig Ferguson about homophobia. In particular, he reports meeting with the Ugandan Minister for Ethics and Integrity. Progressive Secular Humanist has a transcript.

I actually got a Ugandan Minister to say on camera- he’s the Minister for Ethics and Integrity, it’s the only such ministry in the world. I said to him… there’s so much more to worry about in your country than the odd gay person going to bed with the other gay person. For example, you have almost an epidemic of child rape in this country, which is just frightening.

And he said “Ah, but it is the right kind of child rape.”

[Ferguson reacts.]

I

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

An Indian site reports on an interview with Taslima in which she says Indian secularism is too selective. It has video of that part of the interview (which is in English) and a transcript.

Sagarika Ghose:Do you believe secularists in India are selective?

Taslima Nasrin: I think secularists in India are selective. I don’t think they are true secularists. I criticise Muslim fundamentalism as well as Hindu fundamentalism. Indian secularists defend those people who are attacked by Hindu fundamentalists but they do not defend writers and authors, filmmakers and people who are attacked by Muslim fundamentalists. This is very alarming.

Taslima has a much more extended version of her thoughts on her blog, which is right next door here.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Now that you mention it, let’s just take a look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act, shall we? Let’s take a look at the law that says no, actually, you may not discriminate or segregate on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. It does not say “sexual orientation” in that short list, nor does it say “gender.” Both should be added. But the fundamental point is clear: you don’t get to discriminate or segregate for bad reasons.

Title II is INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF .PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION.

SEC. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Well here’s a startling opening paragraph, in an article in the Guardian:

Home Office officials are being rewarded with shopping vouchers for helping to ensure failed asylum seekers lose their attempt to stay in the country, new documents reveal.

It’s hard to get the head around that. Life and death for asylum seekers, and shopping vouchers for the people who reject their asylum applications.

A process shaped not, as we fondly imagine, by the facts of each case, but by petty bribes.

Deluded people from countries ruled by dictators or theocrats or both combined into one SuperBully, thinking the UK is a bastion of liberal thinking and human rights, only to find that its officialdom would rather have a … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

They’re telling me to be tolerant? The boys in the boys’ club are telling ME to be tolerant? They don’t even let women in the fucking door. How about they be tolerant?

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

For a morning wake-up treat (stop that, it’s morning here) have Bella the Lab who uses Bubbles the African elephant as a diving platform.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR0BlQzbOUk

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Why BenBaz Aziz was put in prison for a year.

In the name of his highness the prince of Kuwait

case no 108/2012 CID

sued by Public Prosecution

Against: Aziz ben baz

Reasons:

1- he broadcasted opinions include sarcams and insulting to islam via internet.

2- national security has reported CID that the blogger has insulted god and prophet abraham through a picture he posted.

3- he calls for atheism and insulting islam.

Sentence: 1 year + fine 250 dollars

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Vox Day is annoyed that people are annoyed that there aren’t enough female characters in video games. He has a post about it, titled Why we don’t put girls in games. That’s silly; everybody knows why. It’s because “we” don’t want to, because “we” think “girls” are very nice for a few limited purposes but other than that they’re just a pain in the ass.

Yet another clueless wonder is yapping about the absence of the unnecessary from video games:

There is a point to including playable female characters in games…

Having taken it as fact that there is a point to including female characters in video games, why on earth are we still hearing excuses for their absence in

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Next trick in the anti-abortion playbook? Ban D&E procedures. South Dakota is working on it.

…the state has become a testing ground for messaging, ballot initiatives and trial-balloon legislation meant to provoke a Supreme Court review of the durability of the Roe v. Wade decision. Now, South Dakota may be laying new groundwork to end legal abortion at any point after the first trimester—first in the state but, also, if history repeats itself, for the country. What happens in far-off South Dakota, in other words, very likely won’t stay there.

Anything. Anything to make sure women can’t be in control of their own lives. Anything to keep women enslaved to fertilization.

House Bill 1241, which was filed in

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Huh. It turns out that some guys in the science fiction community are still not happy that women and minorities in that same community won’t stfu.

Just when readers thought the dust had settled on last week’s debate about “political correctness” in sci-fi publishing, a group of highly influential writers spent the past few days lamenting the rise of increasingly vocal women and minorities in their community. The discussion happened on a list-serv thread where the participants apparently thought no one would notice them—at leastuntil they remembered all their posts were public.

Predictably, a new Tumblr is posting excerpts from the conversation, presumably as a way of highlighting just how real the problems with sexism and

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Brilliant. An unvaccinated Berkeley student rides a BART train. It turns out he has measles! Hahaha what a riot; joke’s on him, right? Well no, it’s more that it’s on everyone who was on that train.

Phil Plait explains the background.

People who are unvaccinated have a much higher risk of contracting it than people who are vaccinated. The young man, confirmed to have a case of measles, was unvaccinated and had recently traveled to Asia, where he may have contracted the disease. Measles had been wiped out natively in the U.S. by the 1990s, but local epidemics can be triggered when unvaccinated people travel to other countries. This has happened over and again here in America in the

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What Edna Adan is up to these days – she’s in Australia with a young Somali woman who needs facial reconstruction because of a bullet that destroyed one side of her face when she was two years old.

Edna has traveled with Ayaan to Brisbane, Australia, where Ayaan will receive facial reconstruction surgery to restore her face which was injured during the Somali Civil War.

Ayaan has lived all her life with a hole in the side of her face and now, after many years seeking help, she will undergo surgery this week to have the injuries repaired.

This case has touched Edna deeply and she is so relieved that now – with the support of the Brisbane Rotary Club,

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Somebody called Robert Cribb wrote a silly piece for the National Post in 2011 about men being the new underclass. (Jesus christ, people. Really? Are you serious?) He talked to Justin Trottier. There is a picture of Justin Trottier on it. Justin Trottier is front and center.

First for a sense of the careful thinking and research behind the article:

Proposition: In the shifting modern narrative of gender politics, men are the new women.

The once fortified white male empire, bowed and beaten by generations of women scorned by its bloated superciliousness, has born sons they barely recognize.

We, the offspring of assured, confident, self-realized men, are emerging as a new underclass.

Statistics Canada has gathered the data.

About

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)