There’s a report that the women in Pakistan haven’t been killed after all. That would be a relief! Thank you for not killing some women for singing and dancing at a wedding. You are very kind.

Pakistani campaigners say they have made contact with two out of five women previously feared murdered for singing in a wedding video.

Dr Farzana Bari met the two women after travelling with officials to a remote village in north-west Pakistan.

The team did not meet the other three women, but said local elders had given assurances that they were also alive.

Well good. I’m glad there’s one less horror in the stack of horrors.

After several hours climbing, human rights activists – travelling with

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Ed has a great post replying to a hilariously absurd one by John Loftus wondering what the Freethought blogs “mission statement” is. That question is swiftly answered: there ain’t one.

Ed points out a certain confusion.

On the one hand, if several FTBers agree on a subject and each write about it expressing a similar perspective, that’s bad and it’s obviously all orchestrated behind the scenes; on the other hand, when we disagree we’re drowning each other out and undermining atheism in the process.

Don’t I know it. I’ve just seen a little knot of people on Twitter agreeing with each other that FTB thinks as one and is horribly messily anarchic. If I’ve seen it once I’ve seen it … Read the rest

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Hilarious headline department:

Pope praises Britain’s Queen Elizabeth’s “noble vision” of a Christian monarch

You don’t say!

Well he would, wouldn’t he. She’s praised his “noble vision” of a Christian pontiff, too, for the same kind of reason. They’re colleagues. They both work in the unelected unaccountable head of an absurd hierarchy business. They both draw their illegitimate magical pseudo-authority from a non-existent “god.” They both wear expensive outfits when appearing to worshipful crowds. They both tell people what’s what, based on nothing in particular.

In a message released Wednesday by the Vatican, Benedict said the British monarch has over the past 60 years been an “inspiring example of dedication to duty and a commitment to maintaining the principles of

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Another petition for you, via the New Humanist:

We call on the Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay to withdraw their complaint against Indian Rationalist Sanal Edamaruku

You bet; I certainly call on the Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay to do that. Seriously? Edamaruku investigated a claim that a little statue of Mary was leaking tears, and he found that it was seepage from sewer water under the statue. That’s not a crime, to put it mildly, and the Catholic archdiocese has no business complaining about it.

Hey Catholic archdiocese of Bombay – I say the guy named Yeshua who was executed by the Romans 20 centuries ago is still dead, because dead people stay dead. Come and get me!… Read the rest

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Katha Pollitt reports bad news about the woman in Indiana who is being prosecuted for murder because she attempted suicide when she was 33 weeks pregnant.

The state Supreme Court has refused to review charges of attempted feticide and murder against Bei Bei Shuai. Just before Christmas 2010, Shuai, who was thirty-three weeks pregnant, attempted to kill herself by consuming rat poison after her boyfriend, father of the baby, abruptly announced he was married and abandoned her to return to his family. Rushed to the hospital, she had a Caesarean section, but her newborn daughter died after a few days of life. (Here’s my column on the case.) Despite amicus briefs from eighty respected experts and relevant medical and

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Stairs to no end reminded me of something: one of my favorite last-two-minutes of the ’90s tv show Northern Exposure, which had a lot of glorious final two minutes. I’m slow, so it took me awhile to remember that I might be able to find it, and by golly…

Chris the DJ-autodidact-ex-con has spent the episode preparing a surprise winter celebration thing for Cicely, and that celebration thing is the end of the episode. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2TPMoP01Sc

 … Read the rest

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Via Stewart, a fantastic (in both senses) video “inspired by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Richard Dawkins.” It needs to go viral.

“Not to ask questions is to live life asleep.”

… Read the rest

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