Well this is a surprise. A US court declined to dismiss a lawsuit against Pastor Scott Lively. Pink News reports:
An appeals court has refused to dismiss a case against homophobic pastor Scott Lively, who is set to stand trial for crimes against humanity. [Read more…]
Raw Story reports on a conversation event Dawkins did last month, in which he expressed surprise that there’s such a thing as the Men’s Rights Movement.
During the event on November 21, Kennesaw’s Michael L. Sanseviro asked the outspoken atheist about the contributions of feminism to science. He also asked Dawkin’s opinion of the men’s rights movement. [Read more…]
BBC – don’t do that. Use your heads. Have some god damn sense.
Don’t do that headline.
Uber banned in Delhi over taxi driver ‘rape’
Yes I get that scare quotes take up less space in a headline than “alleged” – but that’s not a good enough reason to use them. Don’t do that. [Read more…]
It’s Monday morning, so let’s have some deep thought to start the week. This deep thought is courtesy of the Huffington Post and typed by Debbie Davis, a “writer, communicator, journalist.” (All three of those? Wow, she wear many hats.)
I have a strong faith in God. I believe He is our Creator, and made us in His image. I pray for His guidance and wisdom daily.
To say it is “foreign” to me to consider that not all people feel this way, is not a very broad-minded view, and is not realistic in today’s world.
What was that about Bill Cosby now? Ten women? Fifteen?
A former Playboy Club waitress is the latest woman to come forward with accusations that she was drugged and raped by Bill Cosby — and she says there are at least 12 more. [Read more…]
A new piece of hateful cruelty and suppression out of Saudi Arabia, land of glorious life-giving oil. Via the Gulf Center for Human Rights:
The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) is deeply concerned following the travel ban that has been imposed on human rights defender Samar Badawi, who works on defending people’s rights in Saudi Arabia, in particular the rights of prisoners of conscience.
On 2 December 2014, Badawi was informed by staff in the Passport Office at King Abdulaziz International Airport that she is not allowed to travel abroad anymore by an order from the Ministry of Interior, without any reason given or any prior investigations. [Read more…]
Oh dear god. Worse than ever.
There’s a second video of the killing of Eric Garner.
The second video shows the choking while one officer grabbed Garner around his neck, and threw him to the ground. It also, however, shows the seven minute long aftermath, where a disgusted bystander films the lifeless body of Eric Garner left on the sidewalk with police officers shuffling around him and seeming relatively undisturbed by the fact that they had just killed an unarmed man for not paying a few pennies of tax on cigarettes. [Read more…]
Anna Merlan at Jezebel reports on a new porn series featuring rapes of women crossing the US-Mexico border. Rape is a major risk for women in that situation.
That evidently sounds pretty arousing to the porn conglomerate MindGeek, formerly Manwin, who are behind the series. As the Daily Dot was first to report, the series was launched by MindGeek earlier this year, a major European company that also owns YouPorn, RedTube and many other major porn sites. It’s produced by Mofos, a porn studio that focuses on “real amateur girls.” Here’s a nausea-inducing description on the “Border Patrol Sex” homepage:
Watch these guys hunting the illegal female immigrants and giving them a lesson on why the law should be obeyed. [Read more…]
A federal judge said Nope to another attempt to get evolution banned in Kansas public schools.
Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) actually had the nerve to argue that teaching evolution amounts to teaching atheism, and therefore should be banned as a religious point of view in the classroom.
Learning about evolution could, following a train of thought, lead to atheism, but I can think of other things that could also do that – like reading the bible for instance; like going to church, like listening to sermons, like thinking about the idea of “god.” Pretty much anything could lead to a train of thought that ends up at atheism – or theism.
Americans United put it this way:
Everything about that argument is flawed. Contemplating the origin of life on this planet is not an inherently religious question that is unfit for children to ponder. And science has done a fine job of unlocking the mysteries of the universe – despite COPE’s claim to the contrary. Evolution may be a theory, but no legitimate scientists question its validity. Thus learning the facts of that theory is not “indoctrination.” It’s called education.
US District Judge Daniel Crabtree apparently agreed, because he threw out the case.
Learning can take you places. Deal with it.
Oh crap, that’s scary.
An unidentified drone came close to hitting a plane as it landed at Heathrow, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has confirmed.
An Airbus A320 pilot reported seeing a helicopter-style drone as the jet was 700 feet off the ground on its approach to the runway at 1416 GMT on 22 July.
The CAA has not identified the airline or how close the drone came to the plane, which can carry 180 people.
It gave the incident an “A” rating, meaning a “serious risk of collision”. [Read more…]