January 19-20, 2016::End of the day round-up (pg 2)

India urged to ban FGM as women break silence on secret ritual

A group of Indian women who were subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) as children are calling on the government to ban the ancient ritual, describing it as child abuse.

FGM, which can cause serious physical and psychological problems, is more commonly linked to African countries which have led international efforts to end the practice.

Little is known about FGM in India where the ritual is carried out in great secrecy by the close-knit Dawoodi Bohra community, a Shia Muslim sect thought to number over 1 million.

The campaign is led by Masooma Ranalvi, a 49-year-old publisher who has launched an online petition in which she describes how she was cut as a seven-year-old in Mumbai.

"The shock and trauma of that day are still with me. All of us feel scarred by it. It is there in our psyche," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from New Delhi.

"What makes me really angry is that this continues today. What happened to me is history, but why are we doing this to young girls even now? Someone has to speak up and we have to stop this."

When It Comes to The Satanic Temple, Christians Seem to Love Bearing False Witness

CNS, like so many other Christian conspiracists, refused to consider an appeal to equality without coloring it as an assault meant to entirely eradicate traditional norms. In their willful ignorance, anything short of the criminalization of homosexuality is an assault on their cherished, archaic values. Annoying as this is, at least we had used the word “sacrament” in our statements related to marriage; it wasn’t exclusive to same-sex unions. When it comes to reproductive rights, though, we never used the word “sacrament” at all. Still, the word is now frequently attached to us, always in quotes, never with attribution.

For these zealous theocratic Christian “journalists,” it’s not enough to merely misrepresent The Satanic Temple in their own reporting. They must also feign affront and injury should any media outlet have the audacity to consider our actual words. Following any bit of responsible coverage of TST’s campaigns, there is inevitably a barrage of indignant commentary regarding the “liberal media’s” perceived alignment with the Satanic cause.
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“If you wanna do it in your basement, that’s fine, but parading it in public and trying to bring legitimacy to symbolism — that is not positive.” He said this while marching in public, proclaiming his faith, and shouting into a megaphone.

Encountering a couple of Catholic journalists, also protesting TST’s presence in Detroit, Ling asked one, “Do you believe in freedom of religion?”

“Yes.”

“So, to that extent, do you not believe that they [The Satanic Temple] should be able to practice their religion?”

“I don’t believe that people are free for error. People are free for the truth, but never for something that’s wrong.”

“If they espoused any other belief, other than Satan, would you be ok with them?”

“No, I’m not okay with any other religion because the only true religion is Catholicism.”

The Supreme Court Could Hear a Third License Plate Case

Now the Supreme Court has the opportunity to decide yet a third license plate case. In Cressman v. Thompson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected the claim of an Oklahoma man that he had a free speech right to tape over the image of a Native American shooting an arrow into the sky. Mr. Cressman objected to the compelled display of what he regards as the image’s pantheistic message. The “Sacred Rain Arrow,” based on a well-known sculpture by Allan Houser, depicts an Apache legend of a warrior who shot the arrow to the heavens to ask the gods for rain. However, the appeals court concluded that the image connotes only recognition of the Native American heritage of the state—and because Cressman does not object to that message, the court concluded that compelled display did not infringe his right to free speech.

Last November, Cressman filed a petition for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court. As the year ended, the libertarian Cato Institute filed an amicus brief urging the justices to accept Cressman’s case. Then, last week, the Court called for a response from the Oklahoma state defendants—often the first step before the Court grants review to hear a case on the merits.

The immediate issue in the Cressman case may seem quaint or peculiar, but it presents important questions with potentially far-reaching implications. As I shall explain, the appeals court appears to have erred in failing to protect Cressman’s right against compelled speech. Nonetheless, a Supreme Court decision to grant review and rule for Cressman could—depending on how the opinion is written—hold the potential to undermine anti-discrimination law.

Alex Jones: 'We Are Being Gang Raped' By Obama And Pals

“We are being gang raped,” Jones said. “We are being brought low. Like a pimp gets a young 16-year-old girl that runs away, this is the standard deal. Whether it’s Mexico, the U.S., Europe, it’s all the same system for thousands of years, she runs away from mommy and daddy, he gets her, he treats her good, he gives her food, takes care of her, gets her in, gets her in debt, gets her on drugs; two years later, he’s putting cigarettes out on her and kills her in a parking lot and throws her in a ditch after 5,000 guys have basically had sex with her. That’s what the globalists are doing to America and I’m not going to sit here and watch them put cigarettes out on our eyeballs.”

Alex Jones: My Critics Just Want A Spot In The Global Elites' Off-World Colonies | Right Wing Watch https://t.co/cJ36UfRJtj DERP ALERT!!

According to a Creationist Video, 3 + 3 = 6 is Somehow Proof of God’s Existence

But just because something is abstract doesn’t mean God’s responsible for it. Quick: Think of a unicorn. It’s not really there. That’s not proof of God’s existence.

There is a longstanding philosophical debate about whether mathematics was invented or discovered — but none of that suggests anything about God.

And invoking famous mathematicians who believed in God, like Isaac Newton (who is references in that clip), is just silly. He lived in a time before we knew about genes, DNA, evolution, etc. When you have no answers available to you, God makes a lot of sense. When those gaps start getting filled, though, clinging to the God hypothesis is ridiculous.

Go Home, Sarah. You’re Drunk.

No, sadly, the mask of the Sarah Palin so many of us were drawn in by has slipped. Rather than a warrior for conservative principle, we now see the oh-so shallow pool of her conservatism. She could have endorsed literally ANYBODY else running, but she threw her full-throated support behind a man who has said he identifies as a Democrat, has backed single payer healthcare, eminent domain, abortion, and a progressive tax on the wealthy. He has attacked real conservatives, shows a glaring lack of knowledge on most every important issue facing our nation, and covers it all with a gross layer of incivility and arrogance towards any who question him or hold him to task. He is all these things and will be the death of the GOP, or any chance of growing conservatism in this nation, again, if he is not stopped.

Make no mistake. Palin isn’t alone in this betrayal of the ideology she once rode to prominence. Talking heads from Hannity to Levin to Limbaugh have cut the throats of the entire conservative movement, all for the ratings a sideshow freak like Trump brings. Palin’s move, as well as the past few months of fawning, slack-jawed devotion to all things Trump that those who (formerly) enjoyed conservative talk radio have had to endure shows those of us who still value principle over celebrity just how unreliable and self-serving those who would be our “voice” truly are.