No doubt it will just be filed and forgotten, but it’s good to see, all the same…

Two German lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity…

They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”.

They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new

The PBS documentary show Frontline did a special on the Egyptian revolution last night, the first part on the events overall, the second part on the Muslim Brotherhood.

The second part was reported by Charles Sennott. He was on Fresh Air last week, talking about the same subject. I thought the Frontline piece was abysmal. Interesting, to be sure, and informative in its way, but abysmal. He never so much as mentioned women. Not a word. He didn’t mention the implications of a political movement that is a “brotherhood”; he didn’t mention women’s rights; he didn’t mention women in Egypt; he didn’t mention hijab; he didn’t even mention women, period.

Hello? Hello hello hello hello? Is anybody listening? I’m … Read the rest

Russell says why metametametameta discussions about Why Gnu Atheists Are So Horrible are likely to be irritating to gnu atheists.

If people who don’t believe they have been especially uncivil are chided not to be “a dick”, or if lies are told about people like them behaving in public in outrageously uncivil ways, and if stories are told that suggest they are uncivil in the manner of the children in Jean’s story, it produces certain emotions. To be blunt, it creates anger and ill-will.

Well yes it does rather. It does that all the more when all these things, and other things too, happen over and over and over again, saying the same thing, pointing at the same people, tutting … Read the rest