That was fast – reactions to the Law Society advice on Sharia wills already.

Barry Sheerman, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, cautioned against legislation on the issue but called for a joint investigation by the Commons Justice and Home Affairs Committees into how widespread the use of Sharia law now is in Britain.

“We need a serious look at this through the select committee system,” he said.

“I think it would be harmful to make it a party-political issue.

“This should be dragged out into the open and be discussed.” [Read more…]

It turns out the US isn’t even the worst places for young girls aspiring to be models in worryingly large numbers. In Brazil it’s not 30% of girls, it’s all girls, at least according to Lourdes Garcia-Navarro at NPR.

I recently spent some time at a leading international modeling agency in Sao Paulo. During the afternoon, waif-thin models came in with their amateur portfolios and big dreams. The girls were all in their early to mid-teens.

The main headhunter told me confidently that all young boys in Brazil wanted to be soccer stars, and all young women aspired to be models.

You can go to schools here and quickly learn that little girls are not encouraged to become the next Ronaldo. While Brazil is a global force in men’s soccer, women’s soccer in Brazil is almost nonexistent. But girls as young as 6 or 7 know which models are on the cover of magazines.

Well the headhunter probably didn’t have an accurate count, and probably did have a distorted sense of the proportions, but anyway – it’s not just the US.

Facebook can be so random. Usually you see posts from people whose posts you’ve commented on or liked or yadda yadda but then once in awhile there’s a spanner in the works, someone you didn’t even know you were friends with, or someone you’ve forgotten you were friends with and haven’t had any interactions with in generations.

Thus with a pop and a whiff of sulfur I found an update by Lee Moore at the top of the stack just now. And what a ridiculous update it is.

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My friend Dave Richards composed a prayer in the style of CPAC on Facebook today. He gave me permission to quote it.

Dear God-

We thank you for the 4110 children who will starve to death today and every day. We know you want them to come to live with you in Heaven. Except for the ones who aren’t Christian; they can suck it. We know they did not get a chance to experience life, and that the life they did experience was probably miserable, but, hey, the little brats would doubtless grow up to be ingrates anyhow, as all children do. Or they might have just been a drain on society. You know: takers. If they didn’t want to starve, they should have gotten up off their lazy asses and gotten a job. Or perhaps even started their own business, so clearly it’s their own fault. Anyway, we thank you for smiting them. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

It gets at what annoys me perhaps most of all about piety – if they think “God” did all this why aren’t they furious at that “God”?

The LSS has drawn up a petition. It has also issued a statement: LSS condemns Law Society’s practice note on “Sharia compliant” wills.

The LSS is very concerned to learn that the Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, has recently issued a practice note on “Sharia compliant” wills. See LSS member Sadikur Rahman’s blog post from last week about it. [Read more…]

The Telegraph and the Times today report on that guidance from the Law Society on how to draw up “Sharia-compliant” wills.

The Telegraph:

Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.

Under ground-breaking guidance, produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude unbelievers altogether. [Read more…]

A Republican state senator in Alaska really doesn’t think much of women.

He wants the state to provide free pregnancy tests in bars.

Kelly envisions the government contracting with a nonprofit to make the tests widely available at places that serve alcohol. As he explains, “So if you’re drinking, if you’re out at the big birthday celebration and you’re kind of like, ‘Gee, I wonder if I…?’ You can just go in the bathroom and there should be a plastic, Plexiglas bowl in there, and that’s part of the public relations campaign, too. You’re going to have some kind of card on there with a message.”  [Read more…]

Well, yes, but…

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What about all those untested rape kits gathering dust in police departments around the US? 400,000 of them, we’re told. Is that “hysteria about rape culture”? (Thank you, American Enterprise Institute hack Caroline Kitchens.) It sounds more like bland indifference to rape, to this puzzled observer. But maybe the police just know all of them are false accusations, without checking?

Anti-rape activists are quick to point out that, although one-third of women experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, only 3 in 100 rapists will ever spend a single day in jail.  [Read more…]