Here it is, via News.com.
The Australian's Bill Leak returns the favour, and offers his own thoughts on the perils of political cartooning.
Oglala Sioux Tribe President Cecelia Fire Thunder says a clinic on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation could provide abortions if South Dakota’s new abortion ban goes into effect.And get this:
The new South Dakota law bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother — with no exceptions for rape or incest.(Emphasis added, obviously.)
A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.So there you go. You can't just be any old rape victim: you have to be religious, a virgin who plans to remain a virgin until marriage, and the rape has to be especially brutal, and it has to involve sodomy. For the rest of you: tough. You baby-killing sluts.
When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn't allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.Hick.
"Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in 'sharing their vision of American society.' Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry."Significantly:
Atheists are viewed as outsiders, "others," who do not share a common community vision. "What matters for public acceptance of atheists -- and figures strongly into private acceptance as well -- are beliefs about the appropriate relationship between church and state and about religion's role in underpinning society's moral order, as measured by our item on whether society's standards of right and wrong should be based on God's laws." The study found that conservative Protestants especially rejected the "possibility of a secular basis for a good society." This, more than anything else, may be the driving factor placing Atheists outside the cultural mainstream in the minds of nearly a majority of Americans.Some dislike atheists because they associate atheism with illegality and immorality--according to the fallacy that people will see no reason to behave ethically if they don't believe in God. Others view atheists as "cultural elites who think they know better than everyone else."This, I gather, stems from the popular association of atheism with the natural sciences or with the possession of a certain level of education--not exactly an asset in these increasingly anti-intellectual times.
• A "Flying Spaghetti Monster" created the universe, Earth and its creatures, making a few mistakes on the way after drinking heavily from heaven's beer volcano.
• The FSM hid dinosaur fossils underground to "dupe mankind" about Earth's true age and is the secret force behind gravity, pushing everything downward with its "noodly appendage."
• The FSM wants everyone to talk and dress like pirates. Global warming is considered a punishment for the relative scarcity of pirates these days.
• Every Friday is a sloth-filled holy day. Instead of "amen," devotees end missives with "R'amen," in honor of the college student's favorite noodle fare.
Even hard scientists--those who know the difference between science and religion--can't resist putting the boot into Bobby Henderson's faith. William of Occam-o-phile Rob Crowther, of America's (nay, the world's) most august scientific body the Discovery Institute, complains:"It's too bad that they'll get attention for this sort of drivel when we have a robust scientific research program that the media doesn't seem to want to write much about." Meanwhile, the devotees of the scientific method at Uncommon Descent point out that Henderson is "making a mockery of the religion of 8 of 10 Americans," and compare Pastafarianism with torching churches.
Oh well, you know what they say. "Some are born pasthumously."
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union says it discovered the listening device at automotive parts manufacturer Dana Australia, which was the target of a union campaign last month for threatening to cut workers' wages by 5 per cent, and new employees' wages by 20 per cent.
The bug, which fits into the palm of a hand, is believed to broadcast on an FM frequency and has a range of up to 60 metres.
It was found last Wednesday on the window sill of a shop steward's office, where union members met to consider a wage offer made by management.
Dana apparently has been an enthusiastic backer of the Workchoices legislation, and this kind of chicanery certainly foreshadows the Hobbesian industrial landscape--where even a "personality clash" is enough to get you fired (!!)--which the new laws will help create.
One thing is certain: every sacking and every reduction in wages and conditions that transpires henceforth is bad publicity for Workchoices (whether or not the connection is merited). The ACTU clearly knows this, which explains its current strategy of publicising every sacking and every reduction in wages and conditions. And I believe this opens up a golden opportunity for Labor (and the labour movement generally)--if only it could get its shit together enough to seize it. Because while the Government will accuse it of scaremongering--and not without some justification--the Government itself doesn't really have any answers beyond a meek "Trust us." Or, rather, "trust them"--"them" being the employers whose goodwill and capacity to behave ethically towards employees can no longer be vouchsafed to the same extent that it could under the old regime. We are entering an industrial world that is even more insecure--and that insecurity is precisely what makes Workchoices so unpopular.
Article 130 enables prosecutors to bring forward cases of alleged crimes about which there is no codified law “in accordance with the Hanafi jurisprudence”. The same article, however, calls on courts to rule “within the limits of the constitution” and “in a way to serve justice in the best possible manner”.And Article 7 of the same constitution, as Amnesty points out, declares that "the state shall abide by the UN Charter, international treaties, international conventions that Afghanistan has signed, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Furthermore,
As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the government of Afghanistan is bound to uphold Article 18, which provides that “everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and that “this right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice”. In its General Comment on this Article, the Human Rights Committee, the panel of independent UN experts which examine states’ implementation to the ICCPR, has stated* that “the freedom to ‘have or to adopt’ a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one's religion or belief”. It further stated that “the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs […], to recant their religion or belief or to convert” is prohibited.The case has given rise to an interesting discussion on Ed Brayton's blog regarding the tension between liberty and democracy, and the perils of imposing democracy on hitherto non-democratic states. Brayton forcefully argues that "liberty is infinitely more important than democracy"; some of his interlocutors maintain that you can't have liberty without democracy. This then translates into a debate over whether the occupying forces should have intervened in the shaping of the Afghan constitution to a greater degree in order to safeguard human rights, or whether they should step back and allow Afghanis to--as one commenter puts it--"learn how to be free" (with the occupiers' role being to "put pressure on them to steer them in the right direction"). Perhaps Rahman finds himself in such an unfortunate situation because the latter view has prevailed among US policymakers.
When Justin Watt, a blogger from Santa Rosa, California, saw a photo of a billboard advertisement for so-called “reparative therapy” from “ex-gay” ministry Exodus International, he was offended and insulted. The billboard read, “Gay? Unhappy? www.exodus.to” Watt made a statement about his views on Exodus’s tactics by altering the image to read “Straight? Unhappy? www.gay.com,” and then posted it on his Web site. Liberty Counsel, an anti-gay legal group representing Exodus, sent Watt a letter threatening legal action if it wasn’t removed. The ACLU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Project and the ACLU of Northern California responded, calling on the groups to drop their attempts to censor Watt and pointing to case law holding parodies to be Constitutionally-protected speech.
Most mainstream mental health and medical groups have denounced reparative therapy, stating that there is no evidence that reparative therapy is successful and that the practice may in fact be harmful to those who undergo it.
This puts me in mind of an amusing mock-questionnaire I first encountered about 10 years ago in a seminar on masculinities:
Heterosexual Questionnaire
- What do you think caused your heterosexuality?
- When and how did you decide that you were a heterosexual?
- Is it possible that your heterosexuality is just a phase that you may grow out of?
- Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?
- If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you need is a good gay or lesbian lover?
- To whom have you disclosed your heterosexual tendencies? How did he or she react?
- Why do you heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into your life-style?
- Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Why can't you just be what you are and keep quiet about it?
- Would you want your children to be heterosexual knowing the problems that they'd face?
- A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual. Do you consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?
- With all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?
- Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?
- Considering the menace of overpopulation, how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual like you?
- Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be objective? Don't you fear (s)he might be inclined to influence you in the direction of her/his own leanings?
- How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive heterosexuality, and fail to develop you natural, healthy homosexual potential?
- There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that might enable you to change if you really want to. Have you considered trying aversion therapy? (Source)
The uproar began when Waggoner showed a video clip of Gounod's Faust, narrated by Joan Sutherland and featuring singing sock puppets. She had hoped to pique the curiosity of the first, second, and third graders in one of her classes about opera, and chose Faust to teach the children about bass and tenor voices, the use of props, and "trouser roles" in opera.
This led to accusations that the married mother of two was a lesbian promoting homosexuality; the plot of Faust, where the title character sells his soul to the devil to recapture his youth, led to her being labeled a devil worshipper.
What the fuck is happening to that country? I keep having this mental image of Planet Earth with a vast watery gap between the north Pacific and the north Atlantic oceans, and with the United States of America floating in orbit somewhere nearby (like Valinor at the end of the Second Age, for all you Tolkien enthusiasts).
Word around the campfire is that Waggoner's suspension is payback for the fact that the school Christmas play failed to include Christian songs.
Waggoner did not put Christian songs in the play. This outraged some townsfolk. She had to go.
"I did the same concert a week later in my own church with Christian songs," Tresa Waggoner said. "But in a public school, you really can't do that.
"I was told by some that the school for the last 30 years did Christmas music. They were outraged. But they never came to me."
They "hung me out to dry," she said.
Meanwhile, a Missouri high school teacher has resigned pre-emptively after catching fundie heat over her school's performance of Grease and its proposed performances of The Crucible and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This "Christian Exodus" we hear tell of--can they get a wriggle on?
WORN down by racist abuse and sexual harassment from angry Western
customers, Indian call centre workers are lobbying to have repeat offenders
barred and to have complaints lodged with police around the world.
Vinod Shetty, of Mumbai, secretary of the newly formed Young Professionals
Collective, said staff were subject to so much abuse that thousands of its
workers were quitting in despair.
The problem has become so bad that remaining workers are being forced to extend their shifts to 12 and 13 hours a day to fill the gaps.
Man 1: "I went to the David Byrne concert last night."Yowzah yowzah yowzah!
Man 2: "Oh yeah? How was it?"
Man 1: (Shrugs.) "Same as it ever was."
Please speak softly in this area as Phys. Ed. majors are trying to read the graffiti, and some of those words are really long.-- Sign appended to the wall of a computer lab in the School of Education at UWA.
