Big news from Loch Ness:

A 30ft (9m) model of the Loch Ness Monster built in 1969 for a Sherlock Holmes movie has been found almost 50 years after it sank in the loch.

The beast was created for the Billy Wilder-directed The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, starring Sir Robert Stephens and Sir Christopher Lee.

It has been seen for the first time in images captured by an underwater robot.

Loch Ness expert Adrian Shine said the shape, measurements and location pointed to the object being the prop.

Ok. But then look at one of the images the underwater robot captured:

Kongsberg Maritime

How do they know that’s not the monster?

The robot, operated by Norwegian company Kongsberg

I hadn’t heard of Shugs & Fats before but now I have, and they sound amazing.

Growing up, comics Nadia Manzoor and Radhika Vaz never dreamed that they would one day co-star in a sketch-comedy series about two women in Brooklyn.

“Being onstage was something that I could’ve never imagined,” Manzoor, who grew up in a Pakistani-Muslim community in London, tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “The only time I thought I was going to be onstage was as a bride; that’s how Pakistani women were on stages.”

But now, in the Web series Shugs & Fats, Manzoor and Vaz (who grew up in India) play immigrant roommates whom they describe as “walking the line between hipsters and hijabis.” Manzoor

The BBC on witch hunts in India, and a woman who campaigns against them.

Witch hunts have been reported from Assam, one of India’s most ethnically diverse states, for decades now.

Last year, the home ministry informed the parliament that at least 77 people – mostly women – were killed and 60 others injured in “witch hunting incidents” in Assam since 2010. Last year, in a particularly grisly incident, a feted athlete was branded a witch, tied up and severely beaten. (More than 2,000 ‘witchcraft murders’ have taken place in India since 2000)

Women are often branded witches to help relatives and neighbours grab their land and property, to settle personal grudges, or for denying sexual favours.

In tribal

The Guardian took a look at comments on the Guardian, and found what we all knew.

New research into our own comment threads provides the first quantitative evidence for what female journalists have long suspected: that articles written by women attract more abuse and dismissive trolling than those written by men, regardless of what the article is about.

Although the majority of our regular opinion writers are white men, we found that those who experienced the highest levels of abuse and dismissive trolling were not. The 10 regular writers who got the most abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white) and two black men. Two of the women and one of the men were gay. And of

This looks like a delayed April Fools joke but apparently isn’t. Neil Lyndon at the Telegraph is aggrieved that some people think prostitutes aren’t the guilty party when it comes to the sex trade.

This unusual approach to criminal responsibility – reversing legal tendencies that have developed for decades in the West to protect the customer – will be the obvious, logical outcome of France’s latest regulations governing prostitution.

Interesting point: he thinks the sex trade should be a matter of consumer protection rather than worker protection. So I guess if a punter finds a prostitute insufficiently hot when naked, he can file a consumer complaint?

What is obvious, however, is the clear prejudice towards heterosexual men which underpins the

A friend posted that 1997 David Foster Wallace piece on Updike on Facebook, and what a gem it is.

[N]o U.S. novelist has mapped the solipsist’s terrain better than John Updike, whose rise in the 60’s and 70’s established him as both chronicler and voice of probably the single most self-absorbed generation since Louis XIV.

That is what eventually put me off Updike – the fact that he was always writing about himself. And the fact that he didn’t seem to realize that women existed, except as things for having sex with.

His friends, especially his women friends, did not like Updike, at all.

[I]t’s Mr. Updike in particular they seem to hate. And not merely his books, for

From the Telegraph:

A stack of leaflets calling for the killing of a sect of Muslims have been found at south London mosque, it was reported today.

The flyers, uncovered in Stockwell Green mosque, are said to have labelled Ahmadi Muslims apostates, claiming they deserved to die if they refuse to convert to mainstream Islam.

They call for those who refuse to convert to mainstream Islam within three days to face a death penalty.

Which random guys are apparently willing to carry out on a voluntary basis. A return ticket from Bradford to Glasgow and the job’s done.

Ahmadis are known for their non-violence and interfaith concerns. But the sect is banned by the constitution of  Pakistan from referring

The Beeb reports another manifestation of religious zeal:

An Australian prisoner who supports the so-called Islamic State has allegedly used a knife to carve a slogan on to his cellmate’s head.

Reports said the Islamic State mantra “e4e”, standing for “an eye for an eye”, was carved into the man’s head.

An inquiry will examine how the high-risk attacker, 18, came to be housed with his 40-year-old cellmate.

The guy with the carved-up head was a minimum security prisoner; the carver was maximum security.

The 40-year-old man was admitted to Port Macquarie Base Hospital in a critical condition, but was now stable, a hospital spokesperson told the BBC.

Police have charged Hraichie with causing grievous bodily harm with intent

Oh hey, I think I see where the “discussion” that led to the shunning of Surly Amy took place. I’d assumed it was on The Orbit, and there was no way I was going to look for it there, but it seems to have happened on The Orbit’s Facebook wall, where it’s a doddle to read posts by visitors.

So unless there’s another parallel discussion on The Orbit, this is where the Aggrieved ordered the Orbit to shun Amy and The Orbit said okay.

It’s a public post, by the way.

Emily Titon‎ to The Orbit
March 30 at 11:29pm ·

I would love to support the Orbit, because some of my most favorite bloggers are on it. But I

Meghan Murphy on Australia’s first abolitionist conference, and the harassment that greeted it.

A campaign headed up by Vixen, a pro-prostitution advocacy group in Australia, attempted to shut down Australia’s first abolitionist conference (which doubles as the Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade book launch), but failed.

Over the past week, the #RMIT2016 hashtag was overrun by prostitution fans and anti-feminists who claimed that, somehow, hosting voices of survivors and feminists who opposed the sex industry equated to “silencing” and “hate.” Vixen encouraged supporters to harass RMIT University, via Twitter and email, into shutting down the conference, though University representatives refused to comment publicly (because, why?). Feminists were called “cunts” by online protesters and one young

Remember last summer when things got all sharp and spiky at Freethought blogs so I left there and came back here? After that everything calmed down at FTB and went back to collegial harmony and love.

Hahaha no it didn’t. That’s why we saw the debut of The Orbit on March 15, a new blog formed from a bunch of former FTB ones and some new ones.

It took only three weeks. Three weeks! Even I, who know their way with dissenters so intimately, thought it would take way longer than that. Only three weeks before the first schism: an update to their fundraiser on April 6:

We Made a Mistake, and We Apologize

When The Orbit launched,

First there’s the headline. You just have to laugh.

John Colapinto Revives the Male-Centric Literary Sex Novel

Say what? Revives it? Since when is it moribund?

Then there’s the author: Steven Kurutz. So men think there aren’t enough male-centric sex novels around. Ok…

Then there’s the article.

There was a time when the great American male novelists took delight in writing about sex…Sex was freedom, sex was adventure, sex was a good time, sex was pain, sex was life. Masturbation, threesomes, pedophilia, extramarital flings, one-night romps: It was all up for grabs, and how they grabbed it.

Good old “it.” No need to ask an it how it feels about any of this. Also, what is pedophilia doing in there? … Read the rest

Libby Brooks in the Guardian on Tanveer Ahmed and life for Ahmadis in the UK and elsewhere.

She begins with a slice of life:

Some of Samia Sultan’s neighbours don’t greet her any more, and sometimes it’s hard for her to understand why. Sultan, a dentist, lives in Glasgow, in an area of the city that is – like most Muslim populations in the UK – majority Sunni. But Sultan isn’t Sunni: she is Ahmadi. And that is the source of the problem.

“My neighbours were fine, but when they came to know I was Ahmadi, their attitude changed,” Sultan explains. It is a bright morning in Glasgow, but the boredom of the school holidays is beginning to bite, and

French flight attendants are saying no to Air France’s order to wear Air France hijab in Iran.

Air France stewardesses, furious at being ordered to wear headscarves in Tehran, say they will refuse to fly to the Iranian capital when the airline resumes the service later this month.

Female members of flight crews have been ordered to cover their hair once they disembark in Tehran and unions are demanding that the flights be made voluntary for women.

…

French women see Islamic headscarves and veils as an affront to their dignity. Headscarves are banned in French state schools and offices, and it is illegal to wear the full-face Muslim veil in public.

You know…that’s not just some funny quirk of … Read the rest

Tanveer Ahmed, the Bradford man accused of murdering Asad Shah, issued a statement on Wednesday explaining why he did it. The statement is exactly as disgusting as you would expect.

Ahmed made no plea when he appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Wednesday for a full committal hearing in private but after the hearing he released a statement through his lawyer, John Rafferty.

The statement said: “This all happened for one reason and no other issues and no other intentions.

“Asad Shah disrespected the messenger of Islam the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Mr Shah claimed to be a Prophet.

“When 1,400 years ago the Prophet of Islam Muhammad peace be upon him has clearly said that ‘I am

And then there’s Dilly Hussain. His latest caper is to pin a target on Sunny Hundal:

https://twitter.com/sunny_hundal/status/718809269433475073

Dilly Hussain is currently busy on Twitter mocking the idea that he tried to incite violence against Sunny, but that’s extremely disingenuous given what he said:

Dilly Hussain‏@DillyHussain88
.@sunny_hundal mocks the Prophet of Islam (saw) on the status of animals,,and uses his hidden Islamophobia to come across as a fair liberal.

We know what the sentence is supposed to be for people who “mock the Prophet of Islam (saw)” – it’s death. We know there are people who carry out those death sentences. Dilly Hussain knows that too.… Read the rest

The CEMB has more on Media Diversified, from December 2013.

Lejla Kuric is a Bosnian Muslim who lives in Manchester, England.

She believes in secularism, feminism and the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As such, she disagrees with those who seek to restrict Women’s Rights in the name of religion, and is very active in opposing cultural relativists and Islamists.

We disagree with Lejla Kuric on many issues. She is a believing Muslim. We are apostates. Despite this, Lejla has openly supported our right to leave and be critical of Islam, and has done that despite facing criticism and abuse from some Muslims for doing so. We consider her to be a brave and principled