Here is the chance to say thanks

I found such a treat at the top of my email queue this morning, from one Daniel Paden (not a name I recognize, though I do know of a Reap Paden). It’s a link to and the text of a fundraising appeal for said Daniel Paden.

I’ve been a podcaster for the last 8 years. If you have been entertained and/or educated by

•ReapSowRadio,
•The Angry Atheist Podcast
•Modern Satanism
•DREAD Radio
•The Apartment J podcast
• Reap Rants (heard on American Heathen)
•FCUK Radio
Or any of the other videos, blogs, interviews that I’ve done in the past here is the chance to say thanks. Once I get past this revenue hurdle then I can get back to creating content and addressing whatever is being done that is unfair, plain stupid or just deserves to be mocked. Thanks

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No

“I just saw it was something serious and ran to help”

Now for a happier item – a taxi driver who did the right thing. Twice.

A Watford cabbie who pulled a pregnant woman and baby from a burning car wreck has been honoured with a bravery award for his heroic actions.

Azhar Shah witnessed the horror smash at the junction of Stratford Road and Park Road, in Watford, while driving his taxi just days before Christmas 2012.

The 44-year-old was overtaken by a car speeding at about 60 miles per hour through the cross roads. [Read more…]

She was loved by everybody in the family

Milton Nkosi reports for the BBC on heartbreak in Nairobi as parents collect the bodies of their children murdered in the Garissa slaughter.

I watched mothers, fathers, other relatives and friends break down in tears at Chiromo mortuary in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, as coffins of their young sons and daughters were handed over.

There could not have been a more poignant moment to witness the deep pain and grief suffered by families of those who perished in the Garissa University College attack last week. [Read more…]

They’re drugging her

English PEN has more on Zainub Dala:

English PEN is gravely alarmed to hear that South African novelist Zainub Priya Dala has been admitted to a mental institution in Durban, South Africa. Dala is also a psychologist and a physiotherapist specialising in autism.

In March, at a literary event at a school, she praised the works of Salman Rushdie. A day later, three men accosted her when she was in her car, placed a knife at her throat and hit her face with a brick. She was addressed as ‘Rushdie’s Bitch.’ She believes that if a minibus taxi had not pulled into the vacant lot that she would have been stabbed. [Read more…]

When she continued to refuse to make a religious vow

Remember the attack on Zainub Dala last month? After she said at a writers’ festival in Durban that one of the many writers she admired was Salman Rushdie? Well now, according to PEN America, she’s been shoved into a mental institution. Bookslive.co.za reports:

Now, according to PEN America, the shocking news has come about that Dala has been put under “extreme pressure” by members of the Muslim community in Durban to “renounce her statement about Rushdie’s work” and “to make a public vow of religious loyalty to Islam”.

When she refused, she was apparently admitted to a mental institution. [Read more…]

Meet the slyme pit

Ashley Miller did a post on some background. She included a photoshop that I hadn’t seen before (although I have seen other versions of the same photo, the one we took in solidarity with atheist bloggers in Bangladesh – such a suitable subject for ridicule and mockery, don’t you think?). I was curious so I did a google image search – and found a whole page of images: three weeks’ worth at the slyme pit, 9/30-10/14 2014. They’re productive.

This is the slyme pit: Michael Nugent’s informants and allies, people Hemant Mehta thinks PZ is too hard on when he “deems” them “trolls.”

There are a lot of photoshops of PZ there, and some of Rebecca and Stephanie, a few of Greg Laden and Melody and maybe others, and there are a lot of me, probably because I’m so grotesquely ugly I make a good target for them.

Meet the slyme pit.

Image

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Image [Read more…]

The talaq

PZ has an amusing post about his latest excommunication from something he wasn’t part of in the first place.

Next time I’m waiting for a bus I think I’ll fantasize about all the groups and organizations I’m not part of that could excommunicate me. The Air Force. Focus on the Family. The League of Left-handed Botanists. God-lovers United for Cheese-flavored Dog Food.

Read PZ’s post for the full entertainment package, but I just want to poke at the excommunication a little myself because it’s so…classic. [Read more…]