Here’s the Saturday night entertainment for QED 2015 –
Each year we are delighted to bring an eclectic and varied evening of entertainment for every single one of our QED attendees, and QED 2015 is no exception – with an evening line-up featuring the talents of Kate Smurthwaite, Jay Foreman and Mitch Benn.
Take that, Goldsmiths feminist and comedy societies.
Also University of Manchester Student Union. Go, and sin no more.
The #Smurthgate saga continues.
Amnesty reports a new fact relating to Raif Badawi –
Raif Badawi was not publicly flogged on Friday 30 January for unclear reasons. Unlike in previous weeks he was not called from his cell and examined by the prison doctor. It is unclear why the routine medical check-up did not take place and or why the flogging was postponed.
Amnesty International also learned that Raif Badawi’s case was referred on 3 February from the Supreme Court back to the Court of Appeal in Jeddah. No further information about the details of this transfer were made available. The Supreme Court could have upheld the conviction and sentence, or it could have called for a retrial by overturning the sentence and conviction or by making observations and recommendations. The Saudi Arabian authorities have not yet made an official statement on the case despite the international outcry.
However as long as the sentence to flogging and prison stands, Raif Badawi remains at risk of flogging and will serve his 10-year prison sentence.
The Supreme Court has sent the case back to the Court of Appeal in Jeddah. It’s impossible to know what that could mean, but…to an outsider it looks like people in Saud-family Arabia passing a hot potato around, trying to figure out how to get out of a mess with the least possible embarrassment to themselves.
A Republican senator from North Carolina is hacked off about all these god damn pesky government regulations, like say for instance making restaurants tell their workers to wash their hands after using the toilet. Let the market deal with that!
“Let them decide” such issues, the newly elected lawmaker said.
His argument was that restaurants which did not require workers to wash their hands would quickly go out of business.
Definitely! Because all the customers would know the workers were not washing their hands, so they would just stop going to those restaurants. How would they know? Um…the magic of the market?
No no wait, the restaurants would tell them. Yeah that’s it!
He suggested that restaurants that did not require hand washing would have to alert customers with prominently displayed signs…
Brilliant! Don’t mandate signs telling the workers to wash their hands – mandate signs telling the customers the workers aren’t required to wash their hands. That’s doing away with pesky government sign-posting and no mistake.
The comments come as some Republican presidential hopefuls have questioned vaccine regulations amid a measles outbreak.
At least two hopefuls have said parents are justified in sometimes having their children avoid vaccinations generally required for attending school.
Freedom freedom FREEDOM.
Here we go again. Another student union at another UK university says another “no you may not have a cartoon of Mo on your table/Facebook page/stall” to another student union secular society. This one is Manchester.
Outrage has been sparked on Twitter this week in light of a tweet from the University of Manchester Free Speech and Secular Society (FSS) accusing the University of Manchester Students’ Union of unjust censorship in preventing them from displaying a copy of the Charlie Hebdo magazine at the Refreshers’ Fair last Tuesday.
That’s a woefully inelegant sentence, but you get the idea. [Read more…]
Ha! No, no, there isn’t, because you see – oh never mind.
Jammy Dodger @mrjammyjamjar
Is there a right way to say @SaraKhanInspire deserves a slap without sounding like a misogynist
Rupert Myers is very polite and repentant about writing such a nasty and untruthful article in the Telegraph about how Kate Smurthwaite is milking the last minute cancellation of her gig for publicity and besides nobody wanted to see her show anyway.
Hahahaha I’m kidding, no he’s not, he’s rude and dismissive.
Rupert Myers @RupertMyers 6 hours ago
@Cruella1 I wish you the best of luck: my point is that this wasn’t a free speech / no platform situation.Kate Smurthwaite @Cruella1 6 hours ago
@RupertMyers and you felt the need to accept their point that sales were low without checking the actual facts. You don’t see how that…
…might damage my reputation? Just as well I don’t make my actual living doing this… Oh yes I do. [Read more…]
Guest post by Misty Griffin
One of the only photos taken of the Author during her teenage years. Here she is seventeen years old.
“People would smile reverently as we walked by, never did they suspect the horrific sexual, physical and mental torture that my sister and I suffered on a daily basis. To the outside world we were the epitome of chasteness, sobriety and down to earth values. In reality my life was a living nightmare straight from the depths of hell.”
– Misty Griffin
If you are a rape victim among the Amish it is in every case a very harsh and scary reality. You have no allies, no one to talk to about what happened and no one who will hold your hand as you cry. You the victim are hushed from the very moment word gets out and are told by church leaders that you must have done something to welcome such an attack. In addition you are told that if you speak of the matter you are unforgiving and will go to hell if you do not repent. If the victim is a church member she will be shunned if she refuses to forgive and live as if nothing had happened. Even the victim’s family will not allow her to talk for fear of being caught and punished by the church.
Children are not taken out of the home. If the rapist is the father they must continue to live in his household until they marry.
The BBC reports on a “no Jews need apply” ad in France:
An advert for a graphic design job in France has been withdrawn after it said the candidate should “if possible not be a Jew”.
Racial discrimination is illegal in France and anti-racism group SOS Racisme says it is taking legal action.
The ad was posted on Monday by Paris-based NSL Studio on jobs site Graphic-Jobs.com.
NSL Studio has apologised for the ad but offered various explanations as to why it contained the offending clause.
First they said long hours, might conflict. Then they said hacked. So those are two totally conflicting reasons. The first is “we had a good, non-anti-Semitic, pragmatic reason.” The second is “we never.” The first betrays the fact that the second is not likely to be true. Pro-tip: choose one of that type but never both. If you use both it looks exactly as if you’re lying. Say you did it for a good reason OR say you never did; do not say you did it for a good reason AND you never did. That doesn’t work.
