Leo Igwe tells us:

A victim of witchcraft accusation and witchcraft related violence in KENYA NEEDS YOUR HELP!

A 24-year-old woman is fighting for her life at Maua Methodist Hospital in Meru after her hand was chopped off and her private parts bruised after she was accused of witchcraft.

Mercy Nyoroka was assaulted for allegedly bewitching her neighbour and child at Kathelwa area, Igembe Central Sub County.—–

They later brought her back to her kitchen with deep wounds on her head and private parts. Her hand was also chopped off.

Richard Ntoiti, the victim’s husband, says he had gone to buy milk when his wife was abducted by the attackers.

Ntoiti, who is a casual labourer, is now appealing

Purple Sage has a post on a new “Safer Sex” guide for trans people. Read it all; I want to share a couple of her points here.

The guide begins by defining some terms:

“We, as trans people, use a variety of words to describe our gender and our body parts, and these words can be very unique and personal. There’s no one right way to refer to our bodies, but to keep things consistent in this guide, we’ve decided to use the following words in the following ways.

…

PARTS: We use this word when we’re talking about genitals or sexual anatomy of any kind.

DICK: We use this word to describe external genitals. Dicks come in all

Yes! The FDA has banned anti-bacterial soaps.

Antibacterial soaps were banned from the US market on Friday in a final ruling by the Food and Drug Administration, which said that manufacturers had failed to prove the cleansers were safe or more effective than normal products.

Dr Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s center for evaluation and research, said that certain antimicrobial soaps may not actually serve any health benefits at all.

“Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water,” she said in a statement. “In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than

A new horror in the murder of Samia Shahid: she was raped before being murdered.

A British woman who died in Pakistan in a so-called honour killing was raped before her death, the officer in charge of the investigation has said.

Samia Shahid, 28, from Bradford, died in July in northern Punjab.

The Pakistani chief investigator also told the BBC Ms Shahid’s father and former husband carried out her murder.

He added he was seeking to have her mother and sister returned to Pakistan to be questioned about their role in the murder.

She never wanted to marry him in the first place. She was forced to marry him. She left him, and divorced, and married someone she did … Read the rest

A friend went to the Science Museum – you know, the prototype one, the original one, the one in South Kensington. The friend took pictures of an exhibit. I got permission to share them. They’re from a Wellcome Trust exhibition, Who Am I?

“Who am I?” is a somewhat odd question for a science museum. Science can tell us what we are but not really who. Who questions are conceptual rather than scientific.

“Gender identity” isn’t a scientific term. It’s political. It’s maybe literary, maybe philosophical; it’s conceptual…but it’s not scientific.

“Identity” too is not scientific. “Feeling” male or female is not scientific.

Not science.… Read the rest

A press release from Maryam and One Law for All:

Dear Mona Siddqui

RE: Independent Review into Sharia Law

Thank you for your invitation to give evidence to  the Sharia review.

We will not be able to accept your invitation. We are boycotting the review because of its limited terms of reference; the panel makeup (including yourself – a theologian – as chair and a former Judge who is a member of the Christian Lawyers Fellowship); imams as ‘advisors’; and your labelling the legitimate concerns of women’s rights campaigners and organisations as ‘arrogant’. The above confirm our fears that the review will be nothing but a whitewash aimed at further legitimising parallel legal systems at the expense

Originally a comment by Maureen Brian on Approaching a woman in a confident, easy going way.

As Samantha says, listen to women.

Do you go up to men reading and demand that they talk to you, that they flirt with you even? Do you go up to men out jogging and demand that they converse with you on the basis of no known common interest? Do you get all het up and defensive when you try to start a conversation and the man walks away? Probably not but the way you are addressing this issue suggests that you might just be daft enough.

When women are interested in making new friends and acquaintances they put themselves into social situations … Read the rest

A bad thing didn’t happen:

A deadlocked Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to revive parts of a restrictive North Carolina voting law that a federal appeals court had struck down as an unconstitutional effort to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

The court was divided 4 to 4, with the court’s more conservative members voting to revive parts of the law.

That includes Clarence Thomas, of course – voting to weaken the Voting Rights Act.

North Carolina’s law, which imposed an array of voting restrictions, including new voter identification requirements, was enacted by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2013. It was part of a wave of voting restrictions enacted after a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that effectively struck

More good advice for men who want to intrude on women:

THE cold vastness of space is a surprisingly good place to pull because female astronauts get very lonely and horny.

Here’s how to approach a lady spaceman as she is orbiting the Earth:

– When you meet a female astronaut out in the Earth’s orbit, the first thing you should do is casually knock on the helmet and introduce yourself.

– Their first response may be to tell you “Fuck off” but that’s just them being coy and maybe a little shy. We all know what women are like.

– Persistence is key. So, just casually knock on the helmet again and gesture for them to remove the helmet

It’s not just the Olympics. Even when a woman is murdered, she’s reported as Relative of Famous Athlete Man. Being murdered is a lot worse than being disappeared in the reporting of your murder, but still – it’s an extra indignity, and it’s not great for the murdered woman’s loved ones, either.

Reuters last Sunday:

The headline: Two Chicago brothers on parole charged in murder of NBA star’s cousin

That’s an appalling headline.

First para:

Chicago police on Sunday said they have arrested two brothers and charged them with the fatal shooting of basketball star Dwyane Wade’s cousin as she pushed a baby in a stroller, a murder that has stunned a city plagued by a surge in gang-related

The European Commission ruled yesterday that Ireland’s deal with Apple was a good deal too sweet for Apple (and thus sour for Ireland and the Irish people).

Ireland should recover up to €13bn (£11bn) from Apple in back taxes, the European Commission has ruled.

After a three-year investigation, it has concluded that the US firm’s Irish tax benefits are illegal.

The Commission said Ireland enabled the company to pay substantially less than other businesses, in effect paying a corporate tax rate of no more than 1%.

“Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

“The Commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple,

This is several years old, but it makes the point neatly.

Look, if posing naked were empowering, then the rich men who run the world would be lining up for it. We would be awash in naked dick shots of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and Barack Obama; magazines would be filled with male politicians and financiers and moguls with their bits hanging out. Softly lit, perhaps; head coyly tilted, bunny tail on the ass. Power.

But we’re not awash with those, are we. No Trump, no Putin, no Erdoğan – no generals, no CEOs, no bankers. No one telling men that selfies are empowering. Hmm.… Read the rest