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

It’s about time. Channel 4 has rebuked Assed Baig for calling liberal Muslims names like “house Muslim” and “sell-out.” He’s bullied several friends of mine that way.

A Channel 4 reporter has been reprimanded by the broadcaster after claiming British Muslims are ‘sell-outs and Uncle Toms’ if they attend government-organised Islamic events.

Investigative journalist Assed Baig, 34, who was born in Birmingham but now lives in London, has also used the pejorative term ‘house Muslim’ on Twitter in relation to moderate Muslims.

And the former BBC reporter referred to any Muslims who attend British government iftars as ‘Uncle Toms’, which is a derogatory term meaning a black person showing obedience to whites.

…

Mr Baig, whose tweets were reported by

Arwa Mahdawi reports on a festive annual event:

Every year at the end of March, 20,000 lesbians from around the world fly into the Californian desert for five days of debauchery, and I’m one of them. It’s my second time at the Dinah, also known as the largest girl festival in the world. I’m staying at the Hilton in Palm Springs, which is hosting the famous Dinah pool parties, and the hotel feels like a homosexual harem.

It’s a surreal experience: for a few days the world is turned upside down, the minority is suddenly the majority. Everywhere you look, lesbians are smiling, drinking, dancing, kissing. There are a few men around – staff working the event and guys

The Guardian has a surprise:

This week, the French national assembly finally ended two years of wrangling and became the fifth European legislature to introduce a ban on buying sex. It is following the example set by Sweden in the late 1990s, and then by Norway and Iceland. In the UK, the Northern Ireland assembly banned it in June last year.

Many sex workers, admittedly, don’t want their clients criminalised. In France, backed by a commission of the senate, they vehemently protested that it would make their work more, rather than less, dangerous: it would reduce the number of punters, they say, and leave them facing greater competition, the more vulnerable because they would have less

Meghan Murphy tells us:

On April 6, 2016, the French National Assembly recognized prostitution as a form of violence against women, voting to criminalize the purchase of sex in France. Under the new law, prostituted people will be decriminalized and men who are caught buying sex will be subject to fines.

In a press release, Ressources Prostitution points out that adopting this law ensures France is in compliance with international and national human rights commitments, including the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949) and France’s national rape law, which defines rape as “any act of penetration imposed on someone by violence, surprise, threat, or

Former prostitutes who don’t view sex work as just another job.

AT RHIANNON’S* lowest point, she agreed to sex for money with a man who found her drunk, high on prescription drugs and crying on the street outside the strip club where she worked.

Back at his home, she cut her wrists in his bathroom and stuck toilet paper on them.

“The man felt it was worth paying a hundred dollars to have sex with a woman who had a tearstained face and bleeding wrists,” she said.

“I insisted on clutching the cash while he used me.”

She asked him to call her an ambulance and he shrugged, so she left and called one herself. She planned to jump … Read the rest

Fresh Air yesterday:

The North Carolina state legislature sparked a national controversy recently when it acted to overturn a law passed by the City Council in Charlotte, N.C. that banned discrimination against LGBTQ people. Our guest, Lisa Graves, says this move by the North Carolina Legislature is part of an increasingly common pattern in which towns and cities pass laws ranging from bans on fracking to increasing the minimum wage only to have their state legislature pass a law that overrules the local ordinance.

No minimum wage for you, city slickers! Your state knows best.

Lisa Graves is executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. The center has been tracking this new trend of preemption laws on

The NY Times on the murder of Nazimuddin Samad:

Mr. Uddin, 26, was a convinced atheist who frequently expressed his views on Facebook, often posting as many as five times a day. His family had asked him to stop, fearful that the posts would make him a target, and for about four months, ending in January, he had complied, said Gulam Rabbi Chowdhury, a childhood friend.

“To tell the truth, he was always a little detached from his family; he had trouble with them because of his views on religion,” Mr. Chowdhury said. “He was very outspoken. He didn’t worry about whether you were with him or not.”

Mr. Uddin’s killing deepens the sense of dread among those campaigning