Always look on the baby side of rape

A West Virginia Republican wants to make sure everyone is aware of the upside to rape. Yes, of course, it’s unpleasant and horrid, but on the other hand, you can get a child out of it. What a payoff! Imagine if you could get a child that easily any other way – say, by getting your teeth cleaned, or waiting for a bus for an extra long time on a cold day. But you can’t. With most unpleasant things you can’t get a child out of it at all. But with rape, you can! How cool is that?

West Virginia Del. Brian Kurcaba (R) made the comments — which were first reported by Charleston Gazette staffer David Gutman — during a public hearing on Thursday. A health committee in the legislature was debating a proposed 20-week abortion ban. Kurcaba was explaining why he opposed a Democratic-sponsored amendment to add an exception for rape victims.

“Obviously rape is awful,” Kurcaba said. “What is beautiful is the child that could come from this.”

[Read more…]

Meet Horus Gilgamesh

Well, here’s a treat. That bible item isn’t from a kiddy bible at all, it’s from a grown up mockery of the bible. The author is Horus Gilgamesh (see what he did there?). He’s a former Catholic turned born-again turned missionary turned guy who understands that starving people need food not bibles.

Here’s 32 VIRGINS FOR…GOD.

The Lord wasn’t a fan of the Midianites, so he told Moses to command his army to slaughter all of them. Well, almost all of them…

Much like the modern day Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, Moses’ army took the virgins for themselves, to do with as they pleased – turning them into forced brides, sex slaves, or to sell on the black market. [Read more…]

Nope nope nope

Priorities all wrong. Priorities fucked up. Priorities baaaaaaaad.

No. Don’t do that. Instead denounce the torture of Raif Badawi. Denounce the mass murders by Boko Haram. Denounce the massacre in Paris. Denounce the murders of many thousands of Muslims by Islamist fanatics. Denounce cruelty and torture and oppression everywhere. Denounce crimes against the living.

Updating to add what Maajid said:

Maajid

This Sunday UK Muslim “community leaders” will protest, not the burning to death of al-Kasasbah in Islam’s name, not the public flogging of Raif Badawi for ‘blasphemy’ in Saudi Arabia, but cartoons.

Pretty much what they recommended

Udo Schuklenk has been working on the Canadian right to die issue for years. He has some first thoughts on the ruling.

Unless you have lived under a rock during these last few years you will know that I spent a significant amount of my time arguing in favour of the decriminalisation of assisted dying in the country, no least in a report of an expert panel the Royal Society of Canada asked me to chair, on end-of-life decision-making in Canada. In addition I wrote a large number of newspaper columns on the issue and gave oodles of TV interviews and what-not to advance that cause.

He and Eric and I met up for lunch at CFI-Ottawa’s Eschaton a couple of years ago. That was memorable. [Read more…]

Oslo, Jordan, Sesame Street

Via the Humanistisk Ungdom page (Norway’s Humanist Youth) – a sizable collection of people on a cold snowy day protest in front of the Saudi embassy in Oslo.

A Google translatation with some adaptations –

For the fifth time we stand together with Amnesty International outside the Saudi embassy and demonstrate for Raif Badawi .

He is sentenced to prison and 1,000 lashes – for a blog post.

This time, we were suddenly chased 10 meters away from the embassy, behind a hedge, entirely without justification or explanation of who gave the order.

We didn’t give up though, and continued to shout: #Free Raif Badawi! #Stop the flogging!

Go there to see a 9 second video of them doing it, with a pan from them to the embassy.

In Jordan – [Read more…]