Well I’ve been thinking (and murmuring, much of the time) that this all seemed rather hasty and unconsidered and likely to end in tears. It’s all very well, but writing someone a check for $700 billion to do as he likes with is really a little bit extravagant, when you think about it. I understand that he says the situation is urgent, but all the same, this business of shouting ‘hurry up, right now, there’s no time to lose, don’t stand there talking about it and thinking about the consequences and asking foolish questions and wondering if it will work, we’re in a crisis here, give me the 700 billion dollars right now!’ looks unpleasantly like…a rather bumptious way … Read the rest

Good, the word is getting out. That was the idea. It needs to get out, and it also needs to be not a monopoly of right-wing blogs. This is not an inherently right-wing concern, to put it mildly – and the more it is left as such the more it strikes people as perhaps possibly vaguely racist – but it isn’t – so it’s good that it’s getting out.

PZ gets the word out. The Freethinker does too. Norm also does. Mick Hartley is another. Dale is another.… Read the rest

Austin Dacey has been in Geneva all this month on assignment from the Center for Inquiry to defend human rights against attacks from people who prefer religious rights. Hillel Neuer of UN Watch got down to work the next day.

For several years, states from the Organization of the Islamic Conference have advanced resolutions to combat “the defamation of religion,” which have passed handily. In March, the OIC, aided by Russia, China, Cuba, and the so-called non-aligned states, succeeded in altering the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression to include monitoring and reporting on “abuses” of expression on matters of religion. In late August, an Abuja, Nigeria regional meeting (in preparation for the Durban II conference