More on the teenage Kenyan girl who was gangraped and then thrown into a toilet pit, from the BBC.
They threw her unconscious body into a latrine. Her spine was broken, and the girl – referred to simply as Liz to protect her identity – is now in a wheelchair. [Read more…]
He never should have been in prison in the first place, and he was there for 20 months, but he’s out now, so YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
Supporters of Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari are celebrating his release after his imprisonment 20 months ago. His lawyer Abdulrahman Allahim said he was released early Tuesday, though there was no official confirmation from the government.
Kashgari was detained in February 2012 for allegedly blasphemous tweets. He fled to Malaysia following widespread outcry and death threats from some religious conservatives. He was extradited back to the kingdom where he was apprehended.
Remember that? He was heading for Indonesia, I think, New Zealand but he had to go via Kuala Lumpur and there the bastards grabbed him and sent him back – probably in violation of international law. Extradition is for serious shit, not made-up bullshit “blasphemy.”
Anyway, he’s out now. Enjoy your freedom, Hamza.
I knew the situation with antibiotics was bad but I didn’t know how bad. It’s really bad. The part I didn’t realize (which was stupid of me, because it’s obvious once it’s pointed out) is how heavily most advances in medical treatment, i.e. surgeries, depend on antibiotics. We’re screwed.
Frontline did a big show on it last week which I haven’t seen yet. It has an interview with Dr. Arjun Srinivasan of the CDC on its website. [Read more…]
For awhile the Mormon church tried to appear like less of a malicious hate-driven institution, but now that Romney has not been elected president it’s decided the hell with that, at least in Hawaii. It’s back to the old project of trying to repair the gayness, according to Mother Jones.
This week, the Hawaii state legislature began a special session to consider a bill that would legalize gay marriage in the state. The church is actively working to kill that measure. [Read more…]
Another petition worth flagging up (because worth signing) – about a rape case in Kenya in which the rapists were basically congratulated and sent on their merry way.
[“Liz” is not the victim’s real name and that’s not a picture of her.]
16 year old Liz was walking home from her grandfather’s funeral when she was ambushed by six men who took turns raping her and then threw her unconscious body down a 6-meter toilet pit. Their punishment? Police had them mow their station lawn, then let them go free!
Liz’s horror story has sent shockwaves through Kenya and now politicians and the police are under pressure to respond. But women’s groups in Kenya say nothing will truly change unless the government is put under the global spotlight. They are calling on us urgently to help ensure justice is done and that Liz’s nightmare marks a turning-point in Kenya’s rape epidemic.
Nobody has been brought to justice — not the rapists, and not the police. Today, we change that. Let’s stand with Liz right now, before her attackers and the police escape. Sign now to get justice for Liz and help make sure no girl anywhere suffers this violence.
That must have been an exciting day in the Religious Education class.
A religious education teacher has been struck off after telling pupils: “Hitler wasn’t all bad – he killed the Jews, the gays and the disabled”.
David McNally also told pupils at Kilwinning Academy that he would rather have been a child abuser and liked to watch porn on his mobile phone. [Read more…]
Joking aside, though, I really do have profound contempt for this whole “there are bigger issues so shut up about your issues because they’re not the biggest issues” line of patter. It’s even worse because it’s not even serious, or really meant, it’s just a pretext for saying some kind of shit, however desperate. But it wouldn’t be very respectable even if it were meant.
It’s just fucking dumb. The world is a big place, with a lot of people in it, and it’s a good thing that different people work on different things in different ways. It’s not a reason to spend a big chunk of time using social media for the purpose of badmouthing people who work on things that are not The Most Important Things Anyone Could Possibly Work On.
Saudi women are not allowed to drive, therefore people who blog about feminism should shut up.
Wut? Why should they? Why should we? And who made random creepers on Twitter the experts on the subject?
They shouldn’t, we shouldn’t, and no one did.
Dan Fincke sent me the link to an inspirational discussion on William Lane Craig’s Q and A page.
Dear Dr. Craig,
I have usually found your words to be a source of information and reassurance in my Christian faith, and have often sought out your writings and videos in times of doubt or questioning.
So I was really disappointed, almost shocked, when I read your newsletter of April of this year in which you casually stereotypes men and women, and complain that the church is becoming increasingly feminized, and has difficulties in attracting men.
Your compared the audiences at a couple of your speaking engagements to the audience from a clip of a Downton Abbey Q&A at another location – concluding that they were all men at the former and almost all women at the latter “simply because the Downton Abbey program is highly relational, which is more appealing to women, whereas my talks were principally intellectually oriented, which is more appealing to men.” [Read more…]
I posted a short excerpt from The Collected Tweets of Someone Very Angry About Something on Facebook, and people couldn’t even figure out what it was supposed to mean, so I thought I’d crowd-source it another way.
One pernicious aspect of identity politics favored by social justice warriors is it tends to subvert any concern with the horrors of poverty
Something about a tricycle is it?
Pink News reports a Nigerian bishop raging at the archbishop of Canterbury for not hating teh gaze.
The Most Rev Justin Welby risks allowing the Church of Nigeria to break away from the worldwide Anglican Communion, Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma warned during a conversation with journalists at Nigera’s Akanu Ibiam International Airport.
Bishop Chukwuma had returned from Nairobi, where he’d been attending the Global Anglican Future Conference, along with 500 other Nigerian bishops.
He said: “We are not going to compromise. And we have made it quite known even to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the whole Europe and America, that there is no compromise as far as the scripture is concerned. So, if they do not repent, we are ready to stand on our own and go ahead with that authority of the scriptures and confess that faith as Anglicans for the future of church of Anglicanism.
“We secede. We are ready to secede because if you look at Ephesians chapter 5, verse 7, it says that you should not have anything to do with those people [homosexuals] who are becoming disobedient. So, why should we yoke with unbelievers. So, if they do not repent, we are ready to say, go away, we go our way. We love them but we hate their sins.”
Who cares what Ephesians chapter 5, verse 7 says about what you should not? Ephesians was written many centuries ago, and morality has improved since then. What pathetic bungling ignorance it is to point at a page in one single book and treat it as dispositive of anything.
Let’s take a look at the conversation-stopping wisdom of Ephesians 5. The New International Version.
5 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[a]6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7 Therefore do not be partners with them.
Well there you go – it’s just some ignorant anal-compulsive narrow pseudo-morality about being pure. It’s ethically impoverished. It’s barely adequate even as advice on polite manners in a public place, and as for being an irrefutable reason to treat LGBTQ people as tenth-class citizens, it’s beneath contempt.
Your morality is shit, Bishop Chukwuma. You’re a bad man doing bad things. You may not mean to be, but you are.