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Dutch Government Backs Burqa Ban

BBC:

The Dutch cabinet has backed a proposal by the country’s immigration minister to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa in public places. The burqa, a full body covering that also obscures the face, would be banned by law in the street, and in trains, schools, buses and the law courts. The cabinet said burqas disturb public order, citizens and safety. The decision comes days ahead of elections which the ruling centre-right coalition is expected to win. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is known for her tough policies, and has clashed with past coalition partners. Late last year she said the government would look into a ban after a majority in the Dutch parliament said they were in favour.

This is a gimmick. This government is about to change, and Verdonk and her co-bigots want a quick electoral boost with the xenophobes (of whom there are many) before next week’s vote, knowing damned well that any such law will not survive a European Human Rights Convention challenge in court.

In my 3 years in Amsterdam I’ve seen precisely 3 woman in burqa or once a year – and 2 of those sightings were the same woman, who lives right up the street. This move is cynical in the extreme and typical of the loathsome slime that calls itse;f Rita Verdonk. How I loathe that bloody woman.

It’s also likely to be counterproductive too: as in the UK, continued negative focus on Dutch Moslems and the more extreme examples of religious clothing, while ignoring the mass of Moderate Dutch Moslems – who’re just going about their daily lives and who are neither radical not particularly pious, just decent people like everybody else – will make even more young Moslem women feel that they must wear burqa as a political statement.

But what does Verdonk care so long as she gets the votes?

Read more: Netherlands, Holland, Burqa ban, Verdonk

Now you know why some cops need killing

Warning: extremely disturbing video footage of an Iranian-American student being tasered for no reason by some UCLA cops. You don’t get to see too much, but just hearing the guy shout in extreme pain while the cops keep extorting him to get up, which he is obviously incapable of doing, is bad enough.

I have no idea what it would’ve been like to see it happening live; there were plenty of people around not doing much to stop these cops until they zapped him again; then it got so threatening to the cops they called for backup. However, nobody tried to physically attack this filth. Had I been there, I’m not sure I could’ve remained so passive. As it is I would not mourn these cops if they died tomorrow, as they’re clearly the lowest scum and filth imaginable. I’m so angry and shocked I’m lierally shaking! If you wonder how American soldiers could so easily be going along with torture, here’s your answer.

Because this is only the tip of the iceberg, something comparable to the Rodney King video, a rare instance in which police thuggery is caught on camera rather than hidden out of view. Lenin has more examples of police brutality

Read more about:
UCPD,
police brutality,
torture,
UCLA

How Weird About Sex Are Fundies?

I’m much obliged for this link to commenter Melanie S. at Pandagon, without whom I’d’ve never known that “A BDSM relationship between a dominant husband and submissive wife is actually the ideal of marriage set out in Ephesians 5:22-26 taken to its logical conclusion! “

The answer to the how weird are they question is – pretty damned weird, if this hodgepodge of biblical justifications, wishful thinking and perversion is any guide (Link NSFW.) Here’s a couple of excerpts that I’ve Mrs Grundy’d to make them just about SFW.

On a*al s*x :

I thought the Bible said a*al s*xwas a sin.?

This is a common misconception. A*al s*x is confusing to many Christians because of the attention paid to the Bible?s condemnation of homosexual acts. However, it?s important to realize that these often quoted scriptures refer only to sexual acts between two men. Nowhere does the Bible forbid a*al s*x between a male and female.

In fact, many Biblical passages allude to the act of a*al s*x between men and women. Lamentations 2:10 describes how ?The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground,? indicating how a virginal maidens should position themselves to receive a*al s*x. Another suggestive scripture tells of a woman?s pride in her ?valley? (referring to her buttocks and the cleft between them) and entices her lover to ejaculate against her backside: “How boastful you are about the valleys! O backsliding daughter who trusts in her treasures, {saying,} ‘ Who will come against me?’ (Jeremiah 49:4) And in the Song of Songs, the lover urges his mate to allow him to enter her from behind: ?Draw me after you, let us make haste.? (Song of Solomon, 1:4)

Oo-er, missus. Seems to me this guy’s been reading his Bible in entirely the wrong state of mind, or should I say body. I don’t remember that being taught in scripture class. The reader questions are quite illuminating too:

My boyfriend and I drink each other’s semen. We don?t have oral sex because we believe it is forbidden by the scripture. We believe that it is the way God intended us to be – just like David and Jonathan.

You cite the Biblical story of David and Jonathan, which describes a close spiritual relationship between two men – ?the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.? (1 Samuel 18:1) Jonathan and David loved each other deeply, and even wore the same clothes (?And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. [1 Samuel 18:1]). However, the Bible doesn?t say anything about them having sex or swallowing each other?s semen. You and your friend would be better off each drinking your own semen, as described above. If you want to do it together, that?s probably OK, as long as you don?t touch each other.

Oh, well, that’s all right then. Wank away, boys!

I dunno, the needless theological knots some people tie themselves into, trying to convince themselves they can have their cake and eat it. They want to live in the perpetual smugness and public approval of the Saved, while still doing the wild thing all night long in a gimp mask, furry handcuffs and a studded butt-plug.

Moral majority my ass – or rather theirs.

Read More: Fundies are just plain kinky.

Quick, Put Some Bromide In That Woman’s Tea

It’s no secret that a lot of straight women find brainy men swoonworthy, including me (Armando Ianucci, be still my beating heart).

Add a sense of humour to nerdiness and we’re gone, which explains why Stephen Colbert was chosen as one of the sexiest men alive ( “Eat it, James Dean!”), along with the enduring popularity of shows like Beauty and The Geek.

But this next, from Salon via Pharyngula, just makes my skin crawl and all my many and various sphincters clench, it’s so over-the-top, schoolgirl crushy. Even my toenails are cringing. Though if a schoolgirl ( at least at my school) had written this and her friends found it, they’d be dancing round her in a circle singing “Take the shame, take the shame!”. She’d never live it down, ever. It’d turn up on Friends Re-united or MySpace 30 years later. The piss-taking would just go on and on, with excerpts read at her funeral.

Yes, it’s that bad. Have a sick-bucket handy.

After South Park made such a botch of it’s portrayal, this might be some vindication: Salon names Richard Dawkins as one of the sexiest men living. It’s a bit gushy, I’m afraid.

Wonder is sexy. Knowledge is sexy. And embodying both as much as any man in the world today is a man in a tweed jacket riding his bike around the Oxford University campuses, the damp English breeze sweeping a curtain of silver hair from the delicate bones of his face. Yes, those cheekbones, those piercing eyes, that pursed bow of a mouth — but that brain, oh that brain, oh, god, that brain — is what makes Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and the most famous atheist in the world, the sexiest man around.

Dawkins is the professor I never had an affair with, whose very sentence structure threatens to weaken my concentration on the content of his words. Call me deluded: I ache for his atheism; I reel from his reasoning. He is my James Bond, a well-attired, fearless seeker of truth in the face of nihilism. And yet, for all his pedigree, he enthusiastically appeared this fall on “South Park” to spread the gospel of science, his dashing cartoon figure covered in the feces of a teacher who scoffs at evolution.* While scatology isn’t my thing, straddling the highest of the ivory highbrow with the glorious lowest of the low: Now that’s sexy.

More…

Gushy? I applaud PZ’s dignified restraint. I might’ve said something much more extravagant, like oleaginous, or slavering. And it’s Cambridge that’s more famous for its hundreds of bikes.

Damn it, it doesn’t even make any logical sense; Dawkins is the professor none of us ever had an affair with. One can only hope the writer at least has the excuse of youth and/or intoxicants on her side. But a horrible thought occurs – is Peggy Noonan moonlighting? It is rather reminiscent of her at her servile, fawning best. Naah, it can’t be – she’d never have the hots for a godless atheist like Dawkins. But no, actually the byline says Lauren Sandler.

Take the shame, Lauren!

[Image by the Romance Novel Cover Generator]

Read more: US Media, Sexiest Men Alive, Richard Dawkins, Lauren Sandler

Spit: more powerful than morphine

Don’t let the drug warriors hear it, but according to research at the French Louis Pasteur institute, human spit contains a substance “six times more powerful than morphine”, which may just be why people tend to put their fingers in their mouth when they’ve cut them.

An abstract from the research paper can be found at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website, slightly humourous and probably also somewhat inaccurate layperson coverage coming to a local newspaper near you soon.

Read more about:
science,
humour