It’s not just IS. Lejla Kurić reminds me that Karadžić said much the same thing at his trial. I’d forgotten that if I ever knew it.

The BBC reported it in 2010.

Former leader Radovan Karadzic has said the Serb cause in the Bosnian war was “just and holy” as he began his defence at his genocide trial at The Hague.

Marcus Tanner at the Guardian expanded on the point.

Listening to Radovan Karadzic describe his war against the Bosnian Muslims as “holy”, it’s tempting to think he is making a bad joke, or fooling the judges. This would be to mistake both the man and his supporters. Most of the Bosnian Serb fighters serving under him

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

Don’t let’s forget about the Yezidi women. Islamic State has enslaved hundreds or perhaps thousands of them for the purpose of rape, Amnesty International reports.

What AI doesn’t report, at least in the press release, is the fact that IS treats this as officially okie dokie according to Islam. IS gives itself permission and indeed approval to treat women and girls this way because they consider it endorsed by their religion.

From the full report:

In August 2014, IS fighters abducted hundreds, possibly thousands, of Yezidi men, women and children who were fleeing the IS takeover from the Sinjar region, in the north-west of the country. Hundreds of the men were killed and others were forced to convert

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

Originally part of a comment by kagekiri on “A predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric.”

Stop and frisk just harasses the vast, vast majority of people stopped (according to the NYPD, 9 out of 10 are innocent), as they aren’t committing crimes, and the vast majority of people stopped are black people. In areas that are 24% black or latino, they make up 75% of stops, and given only 11% of stops are ones where police actually have a suspect they’re looking for, that means 89% are just “random” (read: racist as fuck), so it’s not even mostly explained by having more black and latino suspects they’re looking for. It’s just plainly racist and authoritarian, and not even particularly effective … Read the rest

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

Should promoters of homeopathy be able to claim that homeopathic “vaccinations” are effective? Nope, not in my view. It’s the equivalent of advertising Cyanide Candy on cartoons shows aimed at children.

A court in Australia has accepted a version of that view.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has convinced a court that a company that offers homeopathic remedies was “misleading and deceptive” when it tried to argue that said remedies provide a viable alternative to the pertussis vaccine.

The case dates back to early 2013. The company, Homeopathy Plus, posted a series of three articles that claimed (among other things) that the vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough) is unreliable and ineffective. Literature currently at the site criticizes

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

Life for Canadian dentistry students who are careless enough to be women can be quite unpleasant, it appears.

“It was hell,” said the resident, CBC News is calling “Sarah”. We have agreed to protect her identity because she fears retaliation​ and damage to her professional career.​

Over the course of her final year in residency she says she and other female peers were targets of misogynistic jokes, comments and text messages made by a fellow male resident.

“When I started I was one of two females and the jokes [and] the acceptance for certain kinds of jokes were shocking to me.”

“He would make comments about other [female] residents weight or about her height. When we were studying cranial-facial abnormalities

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

Anthony Zurcher reports on the opportunistic “blame the protests” rhetoric over the murders of the two New York cops.

At the centre of the storm is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been heralded as a populist torch-bearer since his election in November 2013.

The mayor had previously expressed solidarity with protesters who had taken to the streets after a police officer was not indicted for the death of Eric Garner.

And he had publicly wondered if his biracial son was safe from police – rhetoric some are now arguing helped to create an environment that encourages violence against police.

Yes, and? Is protesting the killing of Eric Garner and the non-indictment of his killers so obviously … Read the rest

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

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on “A predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric.”

On the same day on which this story broke, I read another in which a cop attacked someone who was asleep in a hospital.

The cop arrested his victim for assault, it was probably only that hospital waiting rooms have cameras that resulted in the cop being found out.

Last week meanwhile I subbed a story about a cop who was suspended, for not tear-gassing a suicidal university student he had just talked down when his fellow officers felt the need to forcibly restrain the said student for no apparent reason.

America’s police force blames the media, but who was it that killed a 12-year-old for … Read the rest

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

Oh and by the way – it’s completely unimportant, but then again it perhaps led to things that were important, so it might be worth mentioning – the first person Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot was his ex-girlfriend, Shaneka Thompson. He shot her in the stomach.

Nancy Leong at Slate says this is a pattern.

We live in a country where shooting your ex-girlfriend is at most local news.

According to media reports, the management of Thompson’s apartment complex distributed a letter to other residents stating that her shooting was the result of a “domestic dispute” in order to reassure them that “this was a private, isolated incident.” When three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every single day

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

So there’s a new trend in France? A fashionable new style of mini-jihad – drive a van or truck or car into a crowd of shoppers because Allahu akbar?

A van has been driven at shoppers at a French Christmas market in the city of Nantes and the driver is reported to have stabbed himself, officials say.

Ten people are reported to have been injured, five seriously.

The exact circumstances remain unclear, but the incident comes only a day after pedestrians were run down in Dijon.

The driver of that vehicle screamed “God is great” in Arabic.

Meanwhile, to confuse the issue further, in Glasgow a garbage truck (aka rubbish lorry or bin lorry) went out of control in a … Read the rest

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

There’s a letter, or memo, that purports to be from the PBA but the PBA is denying it. If it’s real it’s terrifying – it’s unabashed fascism is what it is.

But the PBA is denying it.

A spokesman for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has denied that the group issued a now-widely circulated memo reacting to today’s killing of two police officers that says, among other things, “The mayors hands are literally dripping with our blood because of his words actions and policies …”

Well the “literally” is excessive for sure.

The memo was first posted on Twitter by Ryan Gorman, whose Twitter bio gives his title as managing editor of breaking news and original content at AOL. Gorman

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

Apparently the PBA of New York is blaming the mayor in the wake of the murder of two cops in Brooklyn yesterday.

The two police officers were sitting in their car when they were shot.

The killings have widened the divide between the NYPD—under fire following a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who killed unarmed Staten Island man Eric Garner in July—and Mayor Bill De Blasio.

Officers turned their backs on De Blasio when he arrived at police headquarters for a press conference, and police union head Patrick Lynch told reporters “there’s blood on many hands”— apparently singling out the mayor for blame alongside anti-brutality protesters.

Because we shouldn’t object to police brutality? We should smile … Read the rest

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

That Missouri legislator who introduced a law that would require women to get the man’s permission before she can have an abortion – that guy is even worse than he seemed at first. He talked to a news program on Thursday to clear that up.

“It took two to come together and create a child, and right now the way it is the woman gets the full say and the father gets no say, and I think that that needs to change,” Brattin said. “With the women’s movement for equal rights, well it’s swung so far we have now taken away the man’s right and the say in their child’s life.”

That’s because the pregnancy happens to the woman… Read the rest

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

Originally a comment by Dave Ricks on Provocative or offensive?

A side note about accommodationism:

In 2008, Austin Dacey wrote accommodationism to mean [1]

The view that there exist no important conflicts between science and religion I call accommodationism. Those who either recognize no conflicts between religion and science, or who recognize such conflicts but are disinclined to discuss them publicly, I call accommodationists.

In 2009, Jerry Coyne wrote accommodationism to mean [2]

Professional societies like the National Academy of Sciences — the most elite organization of American scientists — have concluded that to make evolution palatable to Americans, you must show that it is not only consistent with religion, but also no threat to it.

Dacey and … Read the rest

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

Here’s an uncomfortable subject to think about – police unions, and the part they play in keeping abusive cops from being fired.

There are, of course, police officers who are fired for egregious misbehavior by commanding officers who decide that a given abuse makes them unfit for a badge and gun. Yet all over the U.S., police unions help many of those cops to get their jobs back, often via secretive appeals geared to protect labor rights rather than public safety. Cops deemed unqualified by their own bosses are put back on the streets. Their colleagues get the message that police [are] all but impervious to termination.

I think labor rights are important, and unions are mostly a good … Read the rest

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

Ahmar Mustikhan reports in the Examiner on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s explanation for why the slaughter in Peshawar was right-on according to the prophet. It’s enough to make you vomit.

The Islamic terrorist outfit that carried out the bloodiest school massacre in world history Wednesday defended its action as being in line with what Prophet Mohammed, who Muslims believe was the last messenger of God, did with his enemies 1400 years ago.

“At the time of the Bannu Qurayza massacre, Prophet Mohammed ordered only those children be killed whose pubic hairs have appeared,” said Umar Khurasani, spokesperson for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Bannu Qurayza was a Jewish tribe that lived in present day Medina. Islamic history texts confirm 800 men and boys

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

Apparently that article about the unreliability of Doctor Oz et al. has prompted lots of people to say “well obviously you shouldn’t trust a doctor on some tv talk show!”

But it’s not obvious. It’s not obvious unless you already know it.

It’s not at all easy to know which authorities to trust, and it’s not obviously stupid to assume that people on tv are constrained by some sort of rules or standards about truth and competence. We may think it’s obvious, but I think if we do we’re forgetting that we have some background knowledge about Oprah’s attraction to woo and the like. Not everybody has the same background knowledge, to put it mildly. It’s not self-evident that Oprah … Read the rest

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

From Rahila Gupta in the New Statesman, here’s a shocking fact I didn’t know:

…the conviction rate for rape cases brought by Dalit women stands at an appallingly low 2 per cent as compared to 24 per cent for women in general.

I shudder to think how that plays out in court. I also wonder why the higher number is so much higher than the US rate, which is from 2 to 9 percent according to the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender. (If people wonder why rape victims don’t rush to tell the cops, that conviction rate has to be one reason. Go through that just to see an acquittal? Doesn’t sound like much fun.)

One organisation,

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

No really, they’re told that. The Guardian says so.

• Poster campaign will attempt to stop antisocial practice
• Doctors say crossing legs will not affect reproductive powers

Are they sure? Not in any way? Not even shrinking things just a little? Or enfeebling them ever so slightly? Or delaying appropriate responses? Or making them look like lace or flowers or scented soap?

As 2014 comes to an end, one thing New York commuters can expect in 2015 is an official city campaign against a growing problem: “manspreading”.

I wonder why the problem is growing. Maybe it’s a reaction to feminism? “I’ll show you – I’ll take up extra room so that you’ll know who’s boss.” Or maybe it’s that subway … Read the rest

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

So long, Geoffrey Peterson.

Adios, Secretariat.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=gof5Y72HTx4… Read the rest

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