I got an email telling me to stop it at once! It’s a real gem. It’s from someone called Matt Wykoff. He tells me:

www.vaticancatholic.com I hereby declare- you to be – – an unlawful obstructionist. I order all those assembled to immediately disperse. I repeat- to immediately disperse. I order all your activity to immediately cease. I repeat-to immediately cease. It is not in accord with the ordinances of Canon Law. Due to your catalytic tendency of disseminating objectives adverse to Christendom – you are therefore ordered to discontinue your illegal profession. Failure to do so will result in proactive, responsive, and co-active measures. I judge, adjudge, adjudicate, deem, determine and declare your thoughts, words, actions, public or secret, and omissions, biological and spiritual property, subject to the Jurisdiction of the Unfathomable, Infinite, and Ineffable Excellence of OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Further, your humanist anachronism, obscurantism, absurdum, intent, mission, and schemes, are henceforth proscribed and condemned. You may be arrested and or subject to other police action! [Read more…]

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Forum remembers Pharbin Malik.

Pharbin Malik was sixteen years old when she died on a street in Birmingham, England, in 1989. She was killed by her father because she did not follow his religion anymore.

We could find no photograph of her anywhere online, or in newspaper archives.

It seems the world has forgotten her. And yet, her story reaches forward in time to touch raw and exposed nerves today. [Read more…]

You know that thing where you knock a bowl of soup off the counter with your elbow? The US Air Force almost did a larger version of that in 1961, when it accidentally knocked a couple of hydrogen bombs onto North Carolina. Oops, what a mess, and that was my favorite bowl.

A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima. [Read more…]

Al-Shabaab has killed at least 30 people at a shopping mall in Nairobi.

Somalia’s militant group al-Shabaab is claiming responsibility for the attack on a Nairobi mall on Saturday that has killed at least 30 people, saying it was retribution for Kenyan forces’ 2011 push into Somalia. The group threatened more attacks.

…

Al-Shabaab, on its Twitter feed, said that it has many times warned Kenya‘s government that failure to remove its forces from Somalia “would have severe consequences”. [Read more…]

So, you can’t have a state of no groups, no criteria, no filters, no beliefs, no commitments, no ideas. Or, you can, maybe, but then you’re a boring empty zero who does no good in the world of any kind; what’s the point of that?

It’s no good aiming for a state of zeroness, and it’s no good pretending to do that while actually just treating your own beliefs as if they were magically not beliefs.

The issue isn’t beliefs or no beliefs, commitments or no commitments. The issue is which ones. [Read more…]

This is funny. There’s some kind of “group,” which in this case apparently means Twitter group, that calls itself ASH, for Atheism Secularism Humanism. There are real ASH groups in the UK; we’re familiar with the LSE, UCL and Reading Student Union branches, which do good work and get accused of “Islamophobia” for their pains. The Twitter group seems to be a different kind of thing.

One of their number, self-styled “capn atheist,” [aka Steve] wrote a post about abjuring all groupism and exclusivity.

Hey everyone!

By now you’ve probably noticed a big change in how ASH has changed.

From here on out, there is no actual group, or exclusivity. Anyone that supports the ideas of Atheism, Secularism, and Humanism is welcome  to use a “Twibbon” to show their support for those ideas.

See the problem? Of course you do. The surprising thing would be not seeing it. [Read more…]

Keep in mind it’s the Telegraph, but still – the aforementioned Telegraph reports that “Islamic schools” (I think Maryam would say that should be Islamist, not Islamic) in London mandate the burqa for girls.

A number of the religious schools enforce uniform policies where such clothing is mandatory, even for girls as young as 11.

Under the dress code stipulated by the Madani Girls’ School in Tower Hamlets, East London, all pupils must wear a black burka and long black coat when outside.

The girls must also wear headscarves in the classroom and the school says on its website that its uniform rule “conforms to the Islamic Code of dressing and must be adhered to at all times”. [Read more…]

From the archive.

And it doesn’t go well for him.