Jeremy Clarkson is baaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaack.

Jeremy Clarkson is set to make his first appearance on the BBC since losing his job as co-presenter on Top Gear.

The controversial broadcaster will appear as the guest host of Have I Got News for You on 24 April.

“Jeremy’s contract has not been renewed on Top Gear but he isn’t banned from appearing on the BBC,” a BBC spokesman said.

Oh. There was me thinking the BBC actually didn’t want him around any more, on account of that thing he does where he hits underlings in the face and calls them fucking cunts at the top of his lungs in posh hotels. But no, they just didn’t want him around on that one … Read the rest

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I too have a very low opinion of Karen Armstrong, Debbie Schlussel, Fred Phelps, Rush Limbaugh, and Ronald Reagan. I’m likely to use harsh adjectives and/or swear words to describe them.

I’m just saying.… Read the rest

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Good to know sexism is dead and we can all move on n shit.

Via Peter Cohen on Twitter –

Me? No. No, you’re not.

 … Read the rest

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Polly Toynbee pointed out last December that everybody’s favorite soap opera Downton Abbey is staggeringly dishonest about the reality of servants’ lives in the early 20th century.

To control history by rewriting the past subtly influences present attitudes too: every dictator knows that. Downton rewrites class division, rendering it anodyne, civilised and quaintly cosy. Those upstairs do nothing unspeakably horrible to their servants, while those downstairs are remarkably content with their lot. The brutality of servants’ lives is bleached out, the brutishness of upper-class attitudes, manners and behaviour to their servants ironed away. There are token glimpses of resentments between the classes, but the main characters are nice, in a nice world. The truth would be impossible without turning the

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And here’s more background from last September, by Qasim Rashid in the Huffington Post.

It is no secret I’ve been critical of Muslim leadership for their deafening apathy and silence over the 125-year worldwide persecution of Ahmadi Muslims. To add insult to injury, every time a new atrocity emerges I’m bombarded with standard anti-Ahmadi talking points in a shameless attempt to justify the violence. Just recently in Gujranwala, Pakistan where four Ahmadi Muslims (including three young children) were murdered when their homes were burned down, insults followed the anemic condemnations. Those who bothered acknowledging the attack refused to recognize Ahmadis as Muslims, thus holding the same view as those who attacked and murdered the young children in the first

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In 2010 the BBC offered some background on the Ahmadi movement, aka the Ahmadiyya community.

[I]t is regarded by orthodox Muslims as heretical because it does not believe that Mohammed was the final prophet sent to guide mankind, as orthodox Muslims believe is laid out in the Koran.

Well there’s your problem right there: thinking “heretical” is a meaningful and useful word. Let’s face it, nobody knows whether Mohammed was the “final prophet” or not, or whether he was a “prophet” at all, or how they would know he wasn’t one. It’s all just claims all the way down. That, I suppose, why there’s so much venom about the claims.

The Ahmadiyya community takes its name from its founder

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We have a crappy public sphere in the US, as any fule kno. Public schools, public libraries, public parks, public broadcasting – they all have to struggle and beg to get minimal funding. They’re public, you see, and that’s socialism, and that’s the devil.

Norman Lear in the New York Times points out that PBS is starving its documentary shows in favor of soapy entertainment like Downton Fucking Abbey.

At issue are PBS’s two flagship independent documentary series: “POV,” founded in 1988, and ITVS’s “Independent Lens,” started in 2003. Both take on huge topics of public urgency. “Food Inc.” (2010), from “POV,” exposed harms in the food industry. “Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story” (2011) cast a spotlight on harsh

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Kashif Chaudhry is tired of seeing his friends and relatives jailed for being Ahmadis.

Yesterday, a very close family friend – someone I have always considered an uncle – was arrested in Pakistan. His crime: he had printed verses from the Holy Quran in an Urdu publication.

My uncle is an Ahmadi, and under Pakistan’s notorious anti-Ahmadi laws, he committed a ‘crime’ punishable by at least three years imprisonment and a fine. The law states that an Ahmadi who “poses as a Muslim hurts the religious feelings of Muslims”.

In the late 80s, three of my maternal uncles spent time behind bars under these same anti-Ahmadi laws for the crime of saying the Kalimah. Thousands of Ahmadis – and

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On the other hand, the interview with Ayaan HA alerted me to this article by Asra Nomani on the silencing of criticism of Islam which tells me some things I didn’t know.

In 2004 a Muslim man she knew told her to stop writing. She did not comply.

It was the first time a fellow Muslim had pressed me to refrain from criticizing the way our faith was practiced. But in the past decade, such attempts at censorship have become more common. This is largely because of the rising power and influence of the “ghairat brigade,” an honor corps that tries to silence debate on extremist ideology in order to protect the image of Islam. It meets even sound critiques

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