Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton said it to Wolf Blitzer on CNN: check your priorities, aka Dear Muslima. Arkansas’s RFRA is no big deal because hey, it doesn’t kill you.

But I also think it’s important we have a sense of perspective about our priorities. In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay; they’re currently imprisoning an American preacher for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in Iran. We should focus on the most important priorities that our country faces right now.

So passing the RFRA was an important-enough priority, and signing it was an important-enough priority, but objecting to it apparently is a frivolous diversion. How does that work, exactly?

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

My eye was caught by a wide yellow-spined book on a shelf at the library, which turned out to be Arguably, a fat collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens. I plucked it off the shelf and checked it out. Later, I opened it at random and started to read – on page 234, under the subheading The Afterlife of Animal Farm, in an essay on Animal Farm that originated as an introduction to a 2010 edition.

It starts with the “some animals are more equal than others” line. It cites communism in Russia and Eastern Europe and its “New Class” system, “with grotesque privileges for the ruling elite and a grinding mediocrity of existence for the majority,” and the moral effects that Orwell’s work had. He moves on to China, and a phone conversation with a Communist friend of his there.

Then a new paragraph, and a new country.

In Burma, one of the longest-lasting totalitarian systems in the world – an amalgam of military fascism, Buddhist dogma, and Communist-style rhetoric about collectivization – George Packer of the New Yorker not long ago heard a saying that had become popular among democratically minded Burmese. “We revere George Orwell very much,” they told him, “because he wrote three books about our country: Burmese Days, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty-four.” Thus far, Animal Farm has not been legally published in China, Burma, or the moral wilderness of North Korea, but one day will see its appearance in all three societies, where it is sure to be greeted with the shock of recognition that it is still capable of inspiring.

I stopped reading there, because a thought struck me.

The thought was how radically different that passage and the mind that was capable of it are from anything the more banal wing of the “horsemen” could come up with. It was how enormously distant he was from the kind of people who think “social justice” is a taunt. He was an informed and lucid social justice warrior his whole adult life, yes even when he was gung-ho for the invasion of Iraq. It was his subject. Atheism was a tributary of that, not the thing itself. He goes on the shelf with Orwell and Arendt, not with Harris and Dawkins.

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

Christians are there protesting though, across the street.

As the American Atheists hold their national convention in Memphis this week, local Christians are responding with a “Memphis Exalts Jesus” worship concert at AutoZone Park.

Amanda Knief tweeted a photo:

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

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

Muhammad Syed tweeted this important item from Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s talk:

“If you don’t allow for compassion, that is the end of civilization” @Ayaan #AACon15 in ref to Quran 24:2

Says it all, doesn’t it. “Do not be taken by pity for them” – WHY NOT? If you flinch at the idea of flogging people for having sex, you have the right intuition. If you stamp out that flinch and go ahead and flog them, you have the wrong intuition.

And yet one of the names of Allah is “the merciful.” On the basis of what?

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

A gay atheist doctor in Indiana wonders if the shiny new RFRA lets him refuse service to assholes.

“Dear Governor Pence and the Republicans in the state legistlature,” Freiheit’s letter begins, “As a gay atheist doctor in a small town in Indiana, I want to applaud your bravery and standing up for your principles, because it would seem that you have given me a chance to finally stop having to treat asshole, bigoted Christians at my practice, based on my own deeply held religious views, and not anything more sinister or petty, of course.”

That is what we want, right? To make all public services and interactions conditional on agreement with each other’s world views? We want to have to fill out applications listing our beliefs and allegiances and political views every time we go to the grocery store, right?

“Governor Pence, I submit that if I am now to be treated as a second class citizen on an arbitrary basis, whenever the personal, religious beliefs of a shop owner or employee butts up against my sexual orientation, then every Christian who believes that in 2015 they still have a right to discriminate based on what makes them feel ‘icky’ and their desire to hold onto antiquated philosophical and mythological texts as if they are hard and fast universal truths will have to go seek medical treatment somewhere else, if that’s okay by you and your friends, Mr. Pence.” Freiheit then writes, “Therefore, I would like to ask directly if I can consider myself protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that you signed to discriminate against Christians based on my religious beliefs. If I am not, then I believe your law is unconstitutional as it is not written equally and does not apply equally to all citizens of Indiana.”

Let’s all invent religions that require us to reject and refuse and deny service to all sorts of people for all sorts of random (but belief-based) reasons. Then when the gridlock stretches from sea to sea, we can point out the consequences of their tiny-minded bigotry.

“The funny thing to me,” Freiheit told our reporter, “is that all day, every day I treat people who I know deep-down think my husband and children and I are all going to Hell and that we shouldn’t even be allowed to be a family in the first place, and I still suck it up and give them their antibiotic prescriptions, diagnose their various illnesses, and ultimately help heal them.” Dr. Freiheit continued, “I don’t know why the baker or the florist in town should be given a free pass to be a whiny, baby about life and the rest of us are expected to suck it up. I don’t get why if we expect doctors and lawyers to take any and all clients that come through their doors, we can’t expect everyone who operates a business in the public square, under state regulated corporate protection for their assets, to behave with the same maturity and respect.”

Because they’re in business, and business is god’s favorite job title description category.

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

Here is that video address by Bonya Rafida, Avijit Roy’s wife, at the American Atheists’ Convention.

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

I’m reading tweets from the American Atheists Convention again – there’s a lot of good stuff going on there, despite all the disagreement over CPAC and humanism/social justice/feminism. My friend Vyckie Garrison is this year’s Atheist of the Year; there was an ex-Muslims panel with Heina Dadabhoy and Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider, and Asif Mohiuddin just did a talk.

They all stood in solidarity:

Dave did the same:

Asif:

Asif shared a video message from Rafida Ahmet Vanya, widow of Avijit Roy.

Asif? Please don’t return to Dhaka.

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

Originally a comment by hotshoe on No snow at the Phillips Station site.

A slow-motion natural disaster which directly affects at least 40 million people – and indirectly affects all 320 million USAians, as well as having international implications – is bound to create a little emotional tension. It’s bound to lead to finger-pointing and blame-games, but those are worthless (even if accurate, which they’re mostly not) unless in turn they lead to actual solutions.

Yes, turning off the fountains is a good minor solution; Las Vegas is criminally wasteful. Turning off the agricultural output — which has up till now been larger than the output of entire countries such as Mexico, Germany, and Canada — is not a good solution. However, turning off CA agriculture has already happened in some degree, and we’re just waiting to find out what fresh disaster that causes.

We’re going to see renewed unemployment, worsened poverty in the already poorest rural counties, plus widespread child malnutrition due to unavailable/unaffordable produce.

The massive federal, not state, Central Valley Project has notified all customers that it must deliver zero water to farms this year (in hopes of being able to provide about 25% of contracted allocations to drinking-water utilities and to wildlife refuges). That missing irrigation water would have gone to about 3 million acres of vegetables and fruit in six out of seven of the most productive farm counties. Last year, some fields were fallowed and some – particularly orchards which are too expensive to replant – were kept in production or at least kept alive by drawing on new deep groundwater wells, This year, who knows. Already, so much groundwater has been pumped that the land is subsiding as much as a foot per year. It’s not sustainable. Imagine the damage to bridges, levees, buildings’ foundations. Worse, the water table in some areas has been sucked dry below the reach of residential wells and we now have thousands of scattered homes without running water.

I’m not a farmer. I know some ranchers but I don’t personally know anyone who farms. As they say, I don’t have a horse in this race … except that I’m a human being, a fellow citizen, concerned, or to be honest, rather panicked about the welfare of all the parents and children who have nowhere else to go. That, and the only reservoir from which my town can draw its water is filled not by rain but by the CVP. I don’t expect to see people in my town lining up at the water truck for their water ration this year, but it could happen someday, and will almost certainly happen to other CA communities of as many as 10,000 people by next month.

That’s going to be quite a picture.

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

The American Atheists Convention is on this weekend.

There was a CAH tournament:

Nick Fish @NotNickFish 21 hours ago
Playing Cards Against of Humanity with donations going to Planned Parenthood of Memphis. Awesome.

And the winner is -

Nick Fish @NotNickFish 19 hours ago
Of course this was the winning play for our Cards Against Humanity tournament. #AAcon15

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

The fundraiser for the pizza family in Walkerton, Indiana is now at $749,741 and still rapidly climbing. Quite a reward for making public their religious opposition to same-sex marriage.

A more worthy fundraiser is one to send Sunil Khandbahale to MIT.

Born and raised in a rural farming village in Nashik, India to uneducated and illiterate parents who firmly believed in the power of education to unlock their children’s potential, Sunil was the first in his family to go to university and now he’s been acccepted to MIT Sloan’s fellowship program.

Sunil has spent the past 14 years overcoming many obstacles and building from nothing to what is now a free technology enabled multilingual translation platform  that is being used by over 120 million users in 150 countries!

Additionally, he has also set his sights on ensuring that young children in and around his rural village get a strong foundation by building a family-run preschool attached to his parents home that now serves nearly 100 preschoolers.

The only problem is that there’s one thing Sunil didn’t do on his quest to impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people….and that’s focus on making a financial return. While it has never been what motivates him, the fact of the matter is that MIT’s program costs more money than Sunil has ever dreamed of.

Please join us in proving to Sunil that good things happen to people who commit themselves selflessly to improving the lives of others. We can think of no future leader more deserving of becoming equipped with the tools that MIT’s program offers than Sunil, and we hope that by using the power of technology and the same online platform that Sunil has used to improve the lives of so many, we can join together and raise the money needed to send Sunil to MIT.

H/t Kausik.

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

Ouch. More on that drought in California:

Southeast of Lake McClure is the town of East Porterville, where waterways aren’t the only thing drying out. The town’s residents have also run out of well water, the primary source of drinking water for many of the area’s homes, according to the New York Times.

Residents haven’t had running water in months and rely on donated water tanks to bathe, wash clothes and eat, the report added. To drink, many of the city’s residents rely on bottled water, either donated or purchased on their own.

The town is largely made up of Mexican immigrants who work in the fields all day, toiling under the sun. The local high school has allowed students to come in early to take showers in the locker rooms, if needed, the report added.

Mexican immigrants who work in the fields all day, toiling under the sun, who have to buy drinking water.

H/t Dave Ricks.

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

Since it came up, I’ll just share the 2012 news about how Malala’s classmates recovered from being shot on that little bus going home from school.

“Which one is Malala?” he barked. Terrified, the girls fell silent. Malala Yousafzai was their 15-year-old schoolmate, a well-known children’s rights advocate who frequently challenged the Pakistani Taliban’s stance against girls education. She was sitting to Shazia’s right. “I think we must have looked at her,” admits Shazia. “We didn’t say anything, but we must have looked, because then he shot her. He shot her in the head.” Shazia screamed when she saw Malala slump forward. The gunman turned and shot Shazia twice, just below her left collarbone, and in her left hand when she tried to protect herself. Then he aimed his Chinese-made imitation Colt 45 at Kainat Riaz, the 16-year-old 10th grader sitting to Shazia’s left. He shot her in the shoulder, then dropped off the back of the truck and disappeared.

They both recovered.

Shazia and Kainat, however, returned to the Kushal School and College for girls on Nov. 29, determined to continue their education no matter the threat. “I love to study, and nothing will stop me, not even a bullet,” Kainat told TIME on her first day back in class. Shazia was equally defiant: “Even if they attack me three more times, I will always go back to school.”

Their courage is awe-inspiring, but it would be so much better if they didn’t need courage to go to school. I would be so happy to do without any awe or inspiration in exchange for a world where girls can go to school and atheists can utter their thoughts without needing heroic courage.

Shazia and Kainat are true illustrations of how Malala is no outlier, but rather an example of the kind of students coming out of Khushal school: courageous, intelligent and articulate. Samar Minallah Khan, a documentary filmmaker who filmed the school in 2010, was astounded by the ambition and character of all the girls she met. “There has to be something exceptional going on with either the school or the person running the school if all these girls are as confident, as inspiring and as courageous as Malala,” says Khan.

Maybe the credit goes to the Taliban. What a horrible thought.

Both still struggle with fear, and how to quell the panic that rises every time the memories come flooding back. Kainat, a slim, pretty girl with a ready smile and gemstone-flecked glasses, has trouble sleeping. Still, she says, the attack has strengthened her determination to fight for girls’ education. Before the shooting it was always something abstract—after all, she is one of the lucky ones, with a family willing to pay for her education all the way through graduation. Now that she has seen first hand how far some people are willing to go to take away that right, she knows what is at stake. “I feel myself stronger now,” she says, as she sits on a traditional rope bed in her family’s high-walled courtyard. “It was an unfortunate situation, but it gave me courage. It made me realize that it is the duty of every girl to encourage education. Now that Malala is in the UK, we have to fulfill her mission.”

We want a world where girls are secure enough to be bratty spoiled teenagers who don’t need that kind of strength.

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

Drought in California. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory restrictions yesterday, standing on a mountaintop that should be snowy but isn’t.

The governor’s emergency order comes after a year of requests for voluntary conservation — and a record-breaking warm and dry spell culminating in the worst April snowpack in recorded history — have failed to alarm many Californians enough to cut back on water.

Do they think it will just be there anyway? Like magic?

Snow surveyors found no snow at the Phillips Station site — the first time that’s happened in 75 years of early-April measurements. In an average year, the site would have 5.5 feet of snow. Across the Sierra, electronic readings indicate the water content of the snowpack is only 5 percent of average.

5 percent!! That’s no good. That’s no good at all. Lots of people, lots of agriculture…not good at all.

That shattered the previous low record of 25 percent of the average April snowpack, set last year and in 1977. The implications are huge for the cities, farms and wildlife that depend on melting snowpack to yield water during the spring, summer and fall.

Snowpack traditionally is at its peak by early April, before it begins to melt. With the state’s historically wettest winter months now gone, the drought is now firmly rooted in its fourth consecutive year.

Not a good portent.

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

What a good idea. No, I mean, what a bone-achingly bad idea. Alabama wants to see children carrying hand guns.

…lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the state’s gun laws that would allow minors to acquire their very own pistols. At the moment, the law is on a bit more even keel, stipulating that “no person shall deliver a pistol to any person under the age of 18.” Lawmakers want that changed to allow minors to have pistols, but only if they get the permission of a “parent, guardian, or spouse who is 18 or older (?)”

So little George age 5 who is married to Tina age 19 will be able to pack heat as long as darling Tina says yes. That’s sweet.

The measure is sponsored by three state senators: Arthur Orr, Greg Reed and Clay Scofield (all Republicans). A matching House bill is being sponsored by Ed Henry, Micky Hammon, Barry Moore and Corey Harbison (all Republicans). It’s unclear why the group of lawmakers felt that kids needed additional relaxation of existing gun laws.

On the flip side, we do know that childhood shooting accidents are in the top ten leading causes of accidental death among children. We should use the term “accidental” very loosely here because in almost every case the child stumbled across a loaded and unsecured gun somewhere in their own or a family member’s home. Now, in Alabama, children won’t even need to “stumble” on a gun, they’ll legally be allowed to possess it.

Get ready for fun!

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

The attack is over, the BBC reports, and all the students are accounted for.

The number of people killed in an attack by al-Shabab Islamist militants on a university in north-eastern Kenya has risen to 147, Kenyan government officials say.

The operation to secure the Garissa University College campus was now over, with all four attackers killed, they added.

Officials said 587 students had been evacuated, 79 of whom were injured.

Nine who are critically injured have been airlifted to Nairobi for treatment.

Student Collins Wetangula said when the gunmen entered his hostel he could hear them opening doors and asking if the people inside were Muslims or Christians, the AP news agency reports.

“If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot. With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die,” he said.

Al-Shabab says it attacked the university because it is at war with Kenya, BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper reports.

Kenyan troops entered Somalia in October 2011 in an effort to stop the Islamists from crossing the long, porous border between the two countries and kidnapping people – but their presence achieved the opposite effect, provoking al-Shabab to increase its activity in Kenya, our correspondent adds.

Because how dare Kenya try to stop al-Shabab kidnapping people in Kenya? Keny must understand that al-Shabab can do whatever it wants to, because Allah.

147 killed. A morning’s work.

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

Originally a comment by screechymonkey on But it’s terribly important to understand.

Who asked him? What makes him think it needs to be said? Who asked him to pronounce on which abuses of women are worse than other abuses of women?

He’s just trying to be helpful! He’s gearing up to start writing a regular advice column. It’ll be a big success:

Dear Richard Dawkins,
I’m currently unemployed, but have just received two job offers. One of them is in a predominantly Muslim country, and one of the job requirements is having my clitoris cut off. The other job is here in the U.K. and has no such requirement, but the boss is a bit handsy. I can’t decide which job to take — any advice?
Signed,
Confused

Dear Confused,
Sexual harassment is bad, but female genital mutilation is worse. Take the local job.

Dear Richard Dawkins,
My left pinky finger has become gangrenous and the doctors say if it isn’t amputated, the infection will spread and I will die. What should I do?
Signed,
Indecisive
Dear Indecisive,
Losing any finger — even a pinky finger on your non-dominant hand — is terrible. But dying is worse. Get the amputation.

Or maybe we can skip the advice column stage and just have John Prine re-work his song “Dear Abby”:
Dear Dawkins, Dear Dawkins, I just can’t decide,
Should I cut off my finger, or commit suicide?
Both things are bad, so how can I choose?
Please give me your logic, I’ve nothing to lose.
Signed, Indecisive

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