Dr Jen Gunter has a terrific post today on Savita Halappanavar – yes, another one. It starts with the fact that the hospital was checking fetal heart tones, not once, but several times a day. That’s a tell.

Fetal heart tones are not checked with any medical purpose in mind until viability (around 23-24 weeks). The presence of fetal heart tones was irrelevant because survival of a baby at 17 weeks with ruptured membranes and/or advanced cervical dilation is impossible. Ms. Halappanavar was not 22 weeks pregnant where there might be a 3% chance of survival (depending on weight, sex of the baby, gestational age, whether it is a singleton or a multiple gestation etc). At 17 weeks with ruptured

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

The Montreal Gazette reports on Dennis Markuze. The headline is good.

Man charged with threatening people using social media — again

Yes exactly: again. He was charged with it before, he was released on condition that he not do it again, he did it again. A lot.

A Saint-Laurent man has been charged, again, with abusing social media to  threaten people who express their views online.

Dennis Markuze, 40, faces three new charges, including one alleging he  violated the conditions of a sentence he received in May for the same offence.  He was also charged with threatening the Montreal police officer who was  investigating claims from several of Markuze’s past victims. Those victims  alleged that Markuze’s threats have intensified

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

Damn. Kevin Clash has resigned. That’s sad.

Mr. Clash has played Elmo on “Sesame Street” for decades. He was profiled in a documentary last year, “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”

That documentary is why I know about him, as it probably is for a lot of people. He seems like an outstanding human being.

It looks as if Sesame Street, or PBS, or both, simply threw him to the wolves.

Last week, Sesame Workshop said the first man’s accusations were unfounded. The organization did not have any immediate comment about the second man’s lawsuit on Tuesday. But in a statement, it said:

Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world

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

The Telegraph informs us that Anjem Choudary has plans to “announce a fatwa” on Malala Yousufzai later this year.

What?

Anjem Choudary lives in London on state benefit and issues periodic “announcements” of this and that as if he had an army at his command. What does it mean for some random asshole to say he has plans to “announce a fatwa” on a teenage girl he doesn’t know? I could say I have plans to move into a penthouse on Central Park West, but that wouldn’t make it happen.

Whatever. Choudary has been getting attention from the media by saying ludicrously murderous things for years. It’s a thing.

Later this month, hardliners plan to gather at the notorious Red

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

This just in.

Police Montréal‏@SPVM

D.Markuze was arrested for social media harassment (breach of probation). Thanks to those who helped with the investigation #Mabus#SPVM

Well hallelujah.… Read the rest

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

India is still in a committed relationship with censorship. The Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray died on Saturday, and Bombay was shut down by way of farewell.

On Sunday, the police in Palghar, in Thane district, on the outskirts of Mumbai, arrested Shaheen Dhadha after she posted a status update on Facebook that questioned the shutdown, also known as a bandh. A local daily, the Mumbai Mirror, reported that Ms. Dhadha, 21, had written, “People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that.” The police also arrested her friend who “liked” the post, whom NDTV identified by her first name, Renu.

Got that? The head of a far-right Hindutva political party … Read the rest

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

The new issue of Free Inquiry is out. It has a special section on the Women in Secularism conference. I did an article for that section, based on my part at the conference but not restricted to it. It is online.

The basic idea is that the stereotypical idea of women is not very well suited for overt rebellion against god.

The main stereotype in play, let’s face it, is that women are too stupid to do nontheism. Unbelieving in God is thinky work, and women don’t do thinky, because “that’s a guy thing.”

Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that during a panel discussion on the online talk-show The Point. The host, Cara Santa Maria, presented

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

We’ve got new people joining Freethought blogs – it’s going to be great.

Lalala I can’t wait to say who they are but I have to, we don’t say until their blogs are up and running, lalala I can’t wait.

You’ll be thrilled. I guarantee it.

(Well. When I say “you” I mean people who read B&W because they like it – not because they agree with every word of it, but because they like it as opposed to hating it. I don’t mean people who read it solely because they hate it and more especially me, and are monitoring it for things to spit bile at – thus increasing my hit count and causing millions of dollars to flow … Read the rest

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

A festive Sunday morning in Indonesia in 2006, with coconut cakes and Javanese music and lots of women in hijabs and lipstick. They were there to chop up the genitals of 248 little girls.

It is April 2006 and the occasion is a mass ceremony to perform sunat perempuan or “female circumcision” that has been held annually since 1958 by the Bandung-based Yayasan Assalaam, an Islamic foundation that runs a mosque and  several schools. The foundation holds the event in the lunar month of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and pays parents 80,000 rupiah (£6) and a bag of food for each daughter they bring to be cut.

The foundation pays the parents to slice up their daughters’ genitals.

At

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

This thing on Facebook…

… Read the rest

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