This is your colon on Matzah:
ANY QUESTIONS!?!?!?
Category: Religion
OOPS!!!
The FBI had to rush and arrest Khalifah al-Akili after he sent out an email to his friends and the Guardian newspaper that he was being targeted for entrapment by them:
The arrest of a Pittsburgh man described as a Taliban sympathiser has sparked allegations that the FBI deployed a notorious confidential informant used in previous controversial stings on suspected Muslim radicals.
Khalifah al-Akili, 34, was arrested in a police raid on his home on March 15. He was later charged with illegally possessing a gun after having previous felony convictions for drug dealing. However, at his court appearance an FBI agent testified that al-Akili had made radical Islamic statements and that police had uncovered unspecified jihadist literature at his home.
But, in a strange twist, al-Akili’s arrest came just days after he had sent out an email to friends and local Muslim civil rights groups complaining that he believed he was the target of an FBI “entrapment” sting. That refers to a controversial FBI tactic of using confidential informants – who often have criminal records or are paid large sums of money – to facilitate “fake” terrorist plots for suspects to invent or carry out.
In the email – which was also sent to the Guardian before al-Akili was arrested – he detailed meeting two men he believed were FBI informants because of the way they talked about radical Islam and appeared to want to get him to make jihadist statements. According to his account, one of them, who called himself Saeed Torres, asked him to buy a gun. Al-Aikili said he refused. The other, who was called Mohammed, offered to help him go to Pakistan for possible Islamic radical training. Al-Akili also refused.
It looks like the FBI was was trying to manufacture some more terrorists, and when this guy started realized that some weird sh%$ was going down, and emailed the press, they busted him.
Let’s be clear, he is being charged with breaking the law. It is allied alleged that as a felon, he did break the law when he fired a friend’s rifle at the range 2 years ago, but he’s being held without bail because prosecutors are alleging that he is a terrorist.
This isn’t making us any safer, and I cannot imagine how this can do anything but feed distrust of law enforcement among among American Muslims.
Deep Thought
Despite the fact that I am religious, I generally* find the observations of atheists on the relative merit of organized religion to be spot on.
*The late Christopher Hitchens excepted. I always just found him pretentious and shrill.
Poenitentiam agite*
In South Carolina, the Laurens County Republican Party is demanding that all of its candidates sign a pledge that they have not had premarital sex. This is kind of a surprise to me, since the way that Republicans propose marriage is to say, “You’re what?”:
Before you can join the Laurens County Republican Party in South Carolina and get on the primary ballot, they ask that you pledge that you’ve never ever had pre-marital sex — and that you will never ever look at porn again.
Last Tuesday, the LCGOP unanimously adopted a resolution that would ask all candidates who want to get on the primary ballot to sign a pledge with 28 principles, because the party “does not want to associate with candidates who do not act and speak in a manner that is consistent with the SC Republican Party Platform.”
Among the principles, according to Vic MacDonald & Larry Franklin of the Clinton Chronicle, is standard fare like opposition to abortion and upholding gun rights, as well as “a compassionate and moral approach to Teen Pregnancy” and “a high regard for United States Sovereignty.
I’m done for the night. This is just too f%$#ing weird for me.
*Oh, come on! Aren’t you aware of the Apostolic Brethren, or their successors, the Dulcinian movement, then you’ve read The Name of the Rose, or seen the movie version with Sean Connery? Seriously†
†OK, I admit it, I’ve just seen the movie, and this is the most obscure title I’ve ever put on a blog post, and I’m just f%$#ing with my reader(s). My bad.
Another Take on Mormons Converting the Dead
The web site needs some more development, but I like the idea.
Bully For Him!
In Tunisia, Yunisian President Marzouki has requsted that the parliament pass a law banning accusations of blasphemy:
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki on Saturday called on parliament to outlaw accusations of blasphemy as a threat to public order.
“Such practices can threaten the peace between citizens living in the same country and lead to conflict,” Marzouki warned in a statement.
He asked the president and members of the Constituent Assembly which in December approved the North African country’s new government to adopt legislation “that outlaws accusations of blasphemy.”
Violators of the new law should be prosecuted “to protect the coexistence, fraternity and solidarity among Tunisians,” he said.
I think that the right to blaspheme is among the most basic of human rights, so I am heartened by this development.
They Posthumously Baptized Anne Frank Again?!?!!?
Oh those whacky Mormons:
Anne Frank, one of the most renowned Jewish victims of the Holocaust, has allegedly been baptized -again- in a Mormon temple. The proxy ritual, known as a ‘baptism for the dead’ reportedly happened in the Dominican Republic.
On Saturday, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was said to have performed the ceremony posthumously, according to whistle blower Helen Radkey.
Radkey, a Salt Lake city researcher and former member of the church, discovered that Anne Frank, who died in a concentration camp at 15, was baptized by proxy over the weekend.
The situation also stirred conflict between the two religions, as the Mormon church vowed to stop the posthumous baptisms. But the ritual has been carried out at least nine times in Frank’s case, over 10 years, from 1989 to 1999. Radkey said she made the discovery of the incident when Frank’s name appeared in a database for proxy baptism, which is usually only open to Mormons.
It is so on, bitches.
OK, Rubio Won’t be the VP Pick
I had thought that he was the likely pick, as his selection would serve to mend some bridges with the Hispanic community, but, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, he won’t select Rubio, because he is sort of a Mormon:
In the compelling personal narrative that has helped propel Florida Senator Marco Rubio to national political stardom, one chapter has gone completely untold: Rubio spent his childhood as a faithful Mormon.
Rubio was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his family at around the age of eight, and remained active in the faith for a number of years during his early youth, family members told BuzzFeed.
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant confirmed the story to BuzzFeed, and said Rubio returned to the Catholic church a few years later with his family, receiving his first communion on Christmas day in 1984 at the age of 13.
The revelation adds a new dimension to Rubio’s already-nuanced religious history—and could complicate his political future at a time when many Republicans see him as the odds-on favorite for the 2012 vice presidential nod. Vice presidential candidates are traditionally chosen to provide ethnic and religious balance to a ticket. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism and Rubio’s Catholic faith would already mean the first two members of minority traditions on a Republican ticket in American history. Rubio’s Mormon roots could further complicate that calculation.
Yes, having a Mormon on the ticket should not be an issue in this day and age, but having 1½ Mormons on the ticket will have every bigoted whack job’s head exploding.
Seeing as how the, “my parents are first cousins, X-Files wannabe, black helicopter, tinfoil hat wearing, stupid, dim-witted, thinks pro wrestling is real, lunatics,” are also known as “The Republican Base,” this is highly problematic.
Why It’s Not Eleventy Dimensional Chess, It’s an Epic Fail
At Digby’s place, David Adkins notes that the Obama’s “compromise” on birth control coverage with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has had the effect making opposition to birth control mainstream:
And guess what? As Digby points out, it’s working. What just a few weeks ago was considered so mainstream as to an afterthought (providing contraception) is now seen as some sort of controversial touchstone, even as “religious freedom” has become a buzzword in the press.
Democrats can high-five one another about Republican overreach and laugh hysterically at the increased number of votes Barack Obama will receive in 2012 over Mitt Santorum. But ultimately the joke’s on us. It’s been on us ever since the Obama Administration decided to concede an inch to the misogynist conspiracy of extremist fanatics that are the Bishops, rather than mock them immediately for being out of touch with their own flock, to say nothing of the mainstream American public.
The political ground on contraception has suddenly shifted to the right faster than I have seen on any social issue in my lifetime. It’s incredible.
The appropriate response to the outrage from the medieval set is, “Sorry, I live in the 21st century, if they don’t want to, then maybe they aren’t qualified to provide medical care or education.”
This is Not a Joke
Matt Bors has a great cartoon, and this first frame is a sample.
The rest is a fictional forecast of the future, but is certainly an accurate portrayal of how Republicans see A Handmaiden’s Tale as a blue print for the future.
The Pedophile Protectors Move the Goal Post
You knew that the be satisfied with nothing but a right to enforce their religious beliefs on the rest of us:
Hours after calling the Obama administration’s contraceptives compromise a “first step,” the Catholic bishops said Friday night they have “two serious objections” to the new policy and will fight its enactment.
First, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the administration’s plan still includes a “nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients.”
“This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern,” the bishops said in their statement. “We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.
I am so not shocked by this.
This is why compromise is not an option.
There isn’t one. You either capitulate, or fight.
He Keeps Coming Back, Like a Bad Penny
Yes, it’s Ken Starr, and it looks like he got yet another trumped up investigation, this time of a Jewish Studies professor who isn’t right wing enough for the Clinton era persecutor prosecutor:
It’s unclear what exactly Ellis is on trial for, as neither Baylor nor Ellis would comment on the record about the nature of the charges. (One clue: no criminal charges have been filed against Ellis.) Roger Sanders, Ellis’ lawyer, says Baylor’s lawyers told him the internal process mandates nondisclosure, though Baylor spokesperson Lori Fogleman disputes this, telling RD that the charges can only be released with Ellis’ written permission.
Sanders says the investigation hinges on “bogus allegations.” One can only hope the result will not be another 336-page Starr Report—the $40 million product of the independent counsel’s four-year investigation, for which the beleaguered Monica Lewinsky was interrogated over 20 times. “‘You’re a pervert, Ken Starr,’” Lewinsky’s father once said he’d like to tell the former independent counsel.
In late November Cornel West, feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other luminaries launched a change.org petition addressed to Starr, which has thus far gathered over 5,000 signatures. The petition asserts that the controversy “looks more and more like a persecution to silence a Jewish voice of dissent.”
“The charges,” reads a petition update, “are about ‘abuse of authority.’…Many of us were contacted several times by institutional lawyers who tried to persuade us to tell them examples of ‘abuse of authority’ he has exercised.”
According to Sanders, the investigation consisted of “sort of announc[ing] to people, ‘Here’s what Marc’s guilty of. Now tell us what you know about him.’” Fogleman claims no knowledge of the investigation’s procedures and declined to recommend officials who could answer questions about it.
The fact that, but for his misconduct in l’affaire Lewinski, he’d probably be on the Supreme Court now, should scare the hell out of us.
Cry Me a River
That is not the real Pope
Ok, because Natalie, my daughter, insisted on watching the Grammys, so I saw Niki Minaj’s The Exorcist inspired bit.
My reactions was, “WTF?”
But professional victim, pedophilia apologist, and talented amateur bigot, Catholic League president Bill Donohue predictably blew a gasket:
In what should come as zero surprise to anyone who watched Nicki Minaj attempt to reenact “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” during her performance at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, the Catholic League has issued a statement condemning the actions of the “Superbass” star.
As predicted by our own Maura Judkis, the faith-based organization whipped up an angry news release written by Catholic League president Bill Donohue as a response to Minaj’s rendition of her song “Roman Holiday.” Donohue mocked Minaj but primarily blamed the Recording Academy for allowing the number to air, a notable fact given that the executive producer of the Grammys and Minaj have told conflicting stories about how the performance got approved. More on that in a moment. First, the angry press release.
Well, this improves my opinion of Minaj.
There is probably a more contemptible (technically self appointed) spokesman for the Catholic Church, but none immediately come to mind.
Obama and Contraception
When your opposition looks this pampered and out of touch, you have a winning issue
So, in the ginned up controversy over the requirement that religious non-profits cover contraception for their employees, Obama has split the baby:
Mr. Obama announced that rather than requiring religiously affiliated charities and universities to pay for contraceptives for their employees, the cost would be shifted to health insurance companies. The initial rule caused a political uproar among some Catholics and others who portrayed it as an attack on religious freedom.
Meeting with his top advisers in the Oval Office last week amid rising anger from Catholic Democrats, liberal columnists and left-leaning religious leaders — a fed-up Mr. Obama issued an order meant for Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services. Ms. Sebelius and agency lawyers had initially told the president they needed a year to work out a compromise that had seemed obvious to some in the administration from the start: make the new rule more like that offered by the State of Hawaii, where employees of religiously affiliated institutions obtained contraceptives through a side benefit offered by insurance companies.
But in difficult internal negotiations, a group of advisers had bested Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and others and sold the president on a stricter rule. Now the political furor surrounding it was threatening to consume signs of economic improvement giving a boost to the White House and put the Obama re-election campaign on the defensive.
So the mandate for coverage is now on insurance companies, rather than the employers.
If this is the end of this matter, then this is a good thing.
My concern, based on past history, is that this is only the first step in a larger retreat.
Then again, there are a number of people I respect who see it as eleventy dimensional chess, with people like Amanda Marcotte suggesting that Obama punked both the Conference of Bishops and the woman hating wing of the Republican Party, by forcing them to publicly oppose contraception, which is used by something like 99% of all sexually active women in the US at one time or another.
Certainly the optics, for now at least, are good, and the effect on coverage of this change is zero, so it’s a win win.
But the most powerful knock against Obama is his unwillingness to fight, and in the 2-3 days before this decision, news outlets were starting to note that there are 28 states that have had an identical mandate, and have had such a mandate for years, with nary a peep from the pedophile protection bureau US Conference of Catholic Bishops, so it was clear that the worm was turning in the media as well, so keeping this up until they blinked would, to my mind, have been the optimal approach.
[on edit]
I think that the real policy and political implications are best synthesized by the following from Lindsay Beyerstein:
But if the bishops won’t accept this deal, Obama should stop trying to accomodate them. Respect for religious freedom does not include paying solemn lip service to the contraception cooties.
So, the Pedophile Protection Bureau Wants Contraception Coverage Banned
So, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, or more accurately the guy they hired to represent their position, has admitted that they want to ban coverage for all forms of contraception for everyone:
“There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular,” [Conference general council Anthony] Picarello said. “We’re not going to do anything until this is fixed.”
That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this.”“If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate,” Picarello said.
They want to pull all coverage for contraception for everyone, and so we should take it seriously when they they say want to ban all contraception.
At least the Taliban does not find f%$#ing little boys to be a moral imperative.
More on the Catholic Church and Sh%$
Amanda Marcotte has a great example of just what “public accommodation” means, and it is both illustrative of just how hypocritical the Catholic Church is being over the requirement that they follow the law in insuring their employess.
It has the additional advantage of goring my own ethnic ox, albeit that I am not at a black hat Jew:
There was an interesting story a few months ago here in Brooklyn about a privately owned company that serves the public that was engaging in discrimination against women.
Women who ride the B110 bus in Brooklyn can’t sit where they want unless they’re okay with being berated by Orthodox Jewish men, even though technically the B110 is a public bus.
The B110, which travels between Williamsburg and Borough Park is open to anyone, has a route number, and goes to city bus stops. However, the line is run by a private company under a decades-old agreement with the city, and since the bus is designed to serve the Hasidic community in the area, a board of rabbis sets the rules. They’ve decreed that women should sit in the back and men should sit in the front to avoid contact betwen members of the opposite sex.
When it was exposed that a bunch of religious fanatics were doing this, the city came down on them and said, “God or no god, you can’t discriminate against women if you’re serving the public.”
She’s right. Hospitals and universities serve the public provide public accomodation.
The Catholic Church has no more right to make its employees sit at the back of the bus for their insurance than do those Jews running that bus line.
Props to Obama
He told the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to go Cheney themselves, and he approved a rule that requires employers to cover birth control in their insurance under almost all circumstances:
Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.
Opponents of contraception had lobbied hard for a broad exemption that would have allowed any religiously-affiliated employer to opt out of providing such coverage. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that push and decided to maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt. Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule.
Twenty-eight states already require employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, to cover contraception in their health plans. The only change is that now they must cover the full cost.
I’m truly shocked.
I expected them to split the baby yet again, and cave to the anti-abortion zealots.
I’m not sure if this is an outbreak of good policy making, or if it’s just because it’s an elections year, but I’ll take it.
Good News Everyone! Bigots Don’t Get to Steal Property.
So a bunch of bigots were upset with the Episcopal Church not hating on te ghey enough, so they left the Episcopal Church, and affiliated with a “Kill the Gays” Anglican Bishop in Nigeria.
Well, now a judge has ruled that their churches are property of the Diocese of Virginia:
A Virginia judge has ruled against seven conservative congregations that broke away from the Episcopal Church in 2006, rejecting their argument that they should be able to keep some $40 million in church real estate that the national denomination also claims.
The case has drawn worldwide attention because it involves a cluster of large, prominent churches with well-known conservative pastors and because the issues at hand — particularly the Episcopal Church’s acceptance of same-sex relationships as equal to heterosexual ones — are roiling much of organized religion. Various Protestant congregations in particular have wound up in litigation across the country.
The 113-page ruling was handed down Tuesday by Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows.
A spokeswoman for the congregations said they were considering their next step, but a letter sent to some 4,600 congregants sounded as though they are bracing for the worst. Each congregation has a contingency plan if they have to vacate, said Caitlin Bozell Manaois.
Couldn’t happen to a more repulsive group of people.
For too many people, religion is just an excuse to hate.
BTW, it appears that Caitlin Bozell Manaois is Brent Bozell’s daughter. (She works at CRC Public Relations, which is one of his front groups)
Brent Bozell is the head of the “Media Research Center” and is probably best known for referring to Barack Obama as a, “skinny ghetto crackhead.”
I Don’t Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumours…*
Because the one of the Vatican’s child safety coordinator has just been sentenced to jail for downloading child pr0n:
He was arrested after uploading images of pre-pubescent boys on to the Ning social networking website.
Police officers who traced him to his home in Plymouth, Devon, found more than 4,000 child porn images, mainly of boys aged 10 to 12, on his church-supplied computer and a memory stick when they raided the house in Penrose Road.
The court heard that 4,389 images were found on the laptop and memory stick.
The majority, 3,721, were at Level One, the lowest level for abusive images.
But there were 120 at Level Four, which includes scenes of child rape, and 12 at Level Five, which can include scenes of torture and sadism.
Jarvis, who the court heard claimed he was abused as a child, was sentenced at the city’s crown court after admitted 12 counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images at a previous magistrates’ court hearing.
You know, notwithstanding the assertions of people like ……… You know ……… the Pope that it’s all an aberrations and caused by our wicked society.
I think that a bit of self examination is order here, because lashing out at the rest of the world over this seems to be just a bit delusional.
H/t Americablog.
*The refrain from the Depeche Mode song Blasphemous Rumors is, “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor, And when I die I expect to find Him laughing.”
Jon Stewart is Right
At about 3:30, but it’s worth it to watch the whole thing
You can make fun of Rick Santorum without having to resort to making ass juice/frothy mixture/Google jokes.
There’s simply way too much insanity even without Dan Savages bit of literary genius.
Case in point, he just said that the “American left” “hates Christendom”, because, among other things, they think that the Crusades were an aggression against the Arab world.
Because, the mass slaughter in Jerusalem, and the pogroms and murders that swept through Europe was all hunky dory.
On behalf of my ancestors, who were doubtless murdered and raped by your ancestors, go Cheney yourself.
H/t The Reality-Based Community, who asks the obvious question, “Is he going to endorse the Inquisition next, and expose Voltaire as an undercover jihadist and proto-Marxist?”
Seriously, I’m not sure if Santorum is simply bat-sh%$ insane, if he’s just used to saying this crap because it’s what College Republicans do to tweak people in order to get their juvenile jollies.
Truth be told, it doesn’t matter. The end result is the same.