All entries by this author

No Jaipur Literature Festival for you

Jan 22nd, 2012 12:27 pm | By

Yesterday Praveen Swami reported that

Local intelligence officials in Rajasthan invented information that hit men were preparing to assassinate eminent author Salman Rushdie in a successful plot to deter him from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival, highly placed police sources have told The Hindu.

I didn’t post about it yesterday only because it was a little thin (and it’s absolutely extraordinary), so I decided to wait.

Now Salman Rushdie has said on Facebook and Twitter:

I have investigated this myself and am now convinced that the story is true. I was lied to by the Rajasthan authorities, and don’t know when I have felt so angry.

Staggering. So much for secular India.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


It’s only a ruddy parking ticket

Jan 22nd, 2012 11:27 am | By

Remember the Monty Python court room bit?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLplQWB2S_8

Behold Michael Sean Winters yesterday in the National Catholic Reporter, doing a very similar bit.

President Barack Obama lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.

I do not come at this issue as a Catholic special pleader, who wants only to protect my own, although it was a little bracing to realize that the president’s decision yesterday essentially told us, as Catholics, that there is no room in this great country

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Joan Smith on a dreadful week for free speech *

Jan 22nd, 2012 | Filed by

Why hasn’t there been a furore about all these incidents? Why aren’t MPs and ministers insisting on the vital role of free speech?… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


There are other critics of the word “Islamophobia”

Jan 21st, 2012 4:44 pm | By

There was that statement by 12 writers in Charlie Hebdo in 2006 for instance. It includes this:

Islamism is a reactionary ideology that kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.

Its victory can only lead to a world of injustice and domination: men over women, fundamentalists over others.

On the contrary, we must ensure access to universal rights for the oppressed or those discriminated against.

We reject the “cultural relativism” which implies an acceptance that men and women of Muslim culture are deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secularism in the name of the respect for certain cultures and traditions.

We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, a

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


The organisers have refused to hand over the tapes

Jan 21st, 2012 3:33 pm | By

The police are still policing the writers who read from The Satanic Verses at the Jaipur festival yesterday.

A day after author Salman Rushdie made it clear that he would not be coming to India, alleging that he was told that underworld hitmen were out to get him, the raging debate at the Jaipur Literature Festival is still on. The police have now asked for the tape recordings of author Amitava Kumar reading out excerpts from Mr Rushdie’s controversial book – Satanic Verses – which is illegal in India. The organisers of the event, however, have refused to hand over the tapes.

…

Authors Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar, as a mark of protest, used their session at the festival

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


Telegraph obit of Frank Cioffi *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

Later critics of Freud such as Frederick Crews, Allen Esterson and Malcolm Macmillan always acknowledged their debt to Cioffi, and Freud’s frequent departures from truthfulness are now conceded by even ardent admirers.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


‘Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie’ *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

Local cops made up a story that hit men were planning to kill Rushdie in a plot to deter him from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival, police sources have told The Hindu.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


David Remnick on a writer under threat again *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

The festival is an astonishingly diverse and gaudy affair, with five enormous venues centered around the Diggi Palace, smack in the middle of Jaipur’s Pink City.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


Hank Fox’s book

Jan 21st, 2012 10:06 am | By

I’m reading Hank Fox’s book Blue Collar Atheist - and it’s fantastic.

He has me choking up on one page, then giggling on the next, then shrieking with laughter on the next. He’s a genius with metaphors. I love love love this book.

Some good lines -

…we live in a society so permeated by goddiness that the idea that there might not be a God seems perversely even more mystical. [p 5]

On the emancipation of escaping the entanglement of religion and the peace that goes with it:

It was the peace of understanding that, while there might be quite a lot of the world unknown to me, there was nothing purposely concealed. [p 14]

I love that. … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,


The UN plans to make everybody gay!!11!

Jan 21st, 2012 9:35 am | By

And then there are those zany Spanish bishops.

During his Boxing Day sermon, the Bishop of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernández, said there was a conspiracy by the United Nations. “The Minister for Family of the Papal Government, Cardinal Antonelli, told me a few days ago in Zaragoza that UNESCO has a program for the next 20 years to make half the world population homosexual. To do this they have distinct programs, and will continue to implant the ideology that is already present in our schools.”

Wheeeeeee! Demetrio Fernández must have a whole wardrobe full of tinfoil hats.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


A big win for theocracy

Jan 21st, 2012 9:26 am | By

So Egypt is doomed. Islamists control two thirds of the seats in the People’s Assembly. In other words, the Assembly is in the hands of avowed theocrats.

The final results in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections confirm an overwhelming victory for Islamist parties.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won the largest number of seats under Egypt’s complex electoral system.

The hardline Salafist Nour party came second.

…

The overall results mean that Islamist parties control around two-thirds of the seats in the assembly, though the final share out of seats is not yet known.

It’s a disaster.

Check out some Islamists in Derby.

Ihjaz Ali, 42, Kabir Ahmed, 28, and Razwan Javed, 27, were found

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


Egypt: Islamist parties win *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

The overall results mean that Islamist parties control around two-thirds of the seats in the assembly.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


Nigeria: bombs kill at least 120 in Kano *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

Boko Haram said they carried out the attacks. A BBC reporter in Kano said he had counted 150 bodies in the mortuary of the city’s main hospital.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


Church in Spain goes for the crazy *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

Bishop of Córdoba: “Cardinal Antonelli told me a few days ago in Zaragoza that UNESCO has a program for the next 20 years to make half the world population homosexual.”… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


Praveen Swami on Salman Rushdie and India’s new theocracy *

Jan 21st, 2012 | Filed by

Rushdie’s censoring-out from the ongoing literary festival in Jaipur will be remembered as a milestone that marked the slow motion disintegration of India’s secular state.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


My Visit to Australia

Jan 20th, 2012 | By Leo Igwe

From August 17 to September 5 2011, I visited Australia. I was invited by the the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Skeptics to deliver the Canberra Lecture and to do a speaking tour of the country. It was my first visit to the country and continent. Late in 2010, I was contacted by Kevin Davies to know if I could visit Australia and deliver a lecture as part of events marking the National Science Week. I readily accepted.

What started as an invitation to deliver a lecture gradually ‘evolved’ to become a grand tour that would take me to all states in Australia. It was only the Northern Territory that has Darwin as its capital … Read the rest

Posted in Articles


Guardian on Rushdie not in Jaipur *

Jan 20th, 2012 | Filed by

A cleric’s description of Rushdie as having “hurt the sentiments of Muslims all over the world” was widely reported in India, and prompted calls for Rushdie to be denied a visa.

 … Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


Nigerian reporter murdered while covering bombings *

Jan 20th, 2012 | Filed by

Enenche Akogwu, 31, was shot by unidentified gunmen as he attempted to interview witnesses of a deadly terrorist attack in Kano.… Read the rest

Posted in Latest News


Mr Rushdie regrets

Jan 20th, 2012 1:41 pm | By

More on Rushdie not in Jaipur.

Times of India:

Two prominent authors on Friday read out portions from Salman Rushdie’s banned book “Satanic Verses” at the Jaipur Literature Festival as a mark of protest after the India-born author had to pull out of the event over security concerns.

As the literary community expressed outrage over Rushdie not being able to make the trip, Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar used their session at the festival to read from “Satanic Verses”. The controversial book was banned in the country shortly after it was published in 1988, for allegedly hurting the sentiments of Muslims.

Love those guys.

The organizers later asked Kumar not to go ahead with his reading. Kumar initially agreed

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,


No longer a “safe space”

Jan 20th, 2012 11:52 am | By

Alex Gabriel reports another front in the battle against “Islamophobia” (meaning, in the battle against any and all criticism or mockery of Islam). This time it’s LSE’s Student Union hassling LSE’s student atheist society. It has to do with the atheist society’s Facebook page not being a “safe space” for Muslim students.

What?

Well don’t look at me, it’s not my idea. It’s what they were told:

Here’s part of the e-mail I got today from the society, who’ve just met with their union to discuss the issues:

Essentially, a large of group of Muslim students felt offended that there were pictures of Mohammed on the facebook group. As a result, they felt that our facebook group was no

… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: ,