Here is today’s column in USA Today on the Obama Administration’s decision to join the U.N. Human Rights Council and support Egypt in recognizing limits on free speech for those who insult or denigrate religion. While the exception was included in a resolution heralding free speech, it was viewed as a major victory for Muslim countries seeking to establish an international blasphemy law.
Continue reading “Just Say No To Blasphemy: U.S. Supports Egypt in Limiting Anti-Religious Speech”
Below is today’s brief column in the Los Angeles Times where I joined other writers on how each of us believes President Obama can earn the Nobel Prize, here. For civil libertarians, Obama’s selection is the ultimate triumph of hope over experience. My suggestion is probably predictable for people on this blog.
There are some who remind us of the virtue of restraint.
There has long been tension between animal activists and religious adherents over the sacrificing of live animals. Jewish and Muslim leaders have long argued that the sacrifices are not any more painful than what occurs in slaughter houses. Now a study is challenging that assumption and leading to calls in England for a ban on live sacrifices.
Continue reading “Sacrificial Study: New Research Finds Pain in Religious Live Sacrifices”
Professor Ellen van Wolde, a world acclaimed Old Testament scholar, may have introduced a considerable problem for creationists. What if the Bible never actually said God “created the Heaven and the Earth”? Van Wolde has issued an intriguing paper suggesting that a mistranslation is responsible for an error in the first sentence of Genesis and that in reality the Bible says that God merely rearranged things on the pre-existing Earth. Much of this turns on the Hebrew verb “bara”, which she says did not mean “to create” but to “spatially separate.” That would require Creationists to rename themselves as “separatists.” “Baristas” may cause trademark issues with Starbucks.
Continue reading “Creationism to Be Renamed Separatism After New Interpretation Released of Genesis”
Muslim extremists in Somalia are taking to the streets to address the latest threat to Islam under Sharia law: bras. The men from Al Shabaab have been whipping women found to be wearing the “deceptive” garments.
Continue reading “Somalia Extremists Crackdown on “UnIslamic” Use of Bras”
There is an interesting potential contract case brewing in New York and other cities with large Orthodox Jewish populations. Various buildings in New York cater to Orthodox residents in offering such things as Shabbos elevators, which stop on every floor from Friday evening to Saturday evening so that residents do not have to push floor buttons. Talmudic rules prohibit the use of electrical devices. However, a group of powerful rabbis have now issued a new judgment on the use of Shabbos elevators that they may indeed be a prohibited practice — even if you simply step into one.
Continue reading “My Way or the Yahweh: Rabbis Ground Shabbos Elevators With New Religious Interpretation”
Target is under attack for one of its new Halloween costumes: the illegal alien. The space alien is dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit with “illegal alien” blazoned across its front and holds a large card reading “green card.”
Continue reading “Off Target: Store Under Attack of Illegal Alien Costume”
In light of our disturbing Bunny Briquettes story, this video shows that rabbits are useful for many things beyond combustible fuel. Indeed, Sweden may want to consider dispersing its excess rabbits to offices as letter openers.
Continue reading “Letter Leporidae: Rabbits Are Not Just For Fuel Anymore . . .”
The Halloween-related crime and tort stories have begun early this year. A 75-year-old man, Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed, was left decomposing on a balcony in Los Angeles for days because neighbors thought he was a Halloween display.
Continue reading “Dead Man Left for Days on Balcony After Neighbors Assumed Body Was Halloween Decoration”
Chef Mark DeCraepeo at Pizza Time in Boca Raton had been pushed just about as far as you can go as an Italian chef. One of his cousins working as a waitress at the restaurant hanged a ticket for another mozzarella caprese after he has already prepared the dish. DeCraepeo responded by pulling a gun and threatening to shoot her in the forehead if she hanged another order for mozzarella caprese.
Continue reading “Step Away From the Mozzarella Caprese: Florida Chef Arrested for Threatening to Shoot Server”
This is an amazing and depressing statistic. There are 800 girls at Chicago’s Paul Robeson High School. Out of 800 girls, 115 are now pregnant or recently had children.
Continue reading “Chicago High School Reports 115 Pregnant and New Mothers Out of 800 Students”
City officials in Stockholm are feeling the heat over rabbit fuel. The city relies on green technology, including biofuel to reduce pollution and global warming. So, when thousands of rabbits had to be culled from Sweden’s parks and streets, they were used as fuel in the city heating plant. Now, people are hopping mad, but officials are having “burn, bunny, burn.”
Continue reading “Bunny Briquettes: Stockholm Burns Rabbits to Heat City”
This video is hard to watch. However, the most extraordinary thing is that this six-month-old baby boy survived with only a small bump on the head.
Continue reading “Video: Baby Rolls in Stroller In Front of Passing Train”
There is an interesting torts lawsuit in Los Angeles where Amber Duick has filed against Toyota for a weird advertising campaign that she said “punked” her and convinced her that she was being stalked by an English man called Sebastian Bowler. She is demanding $10 million.
Continue reading “Duick Blind: California Woman Sues After Being “Punked” by Toyota”