Yes, it’s true, I’ve been absent from the site for half a year (unless you count Secular Right’s Twitter account) and I’ll be scarce for yet a while longer because of the book manuscript I need to finish. But there’s still time to round up some short items from the past month that might otherwise pass without note:
- “Few people are motivated by purely secular considerations to become …better people.” Really? [PrawfsBlawg]
- Trail of proposed Uganda death-for-gays law leads back to U.S. [Box Turtle Bulletin]
- “Why he stopped believing: confessions of a former missionary” [Amy Alkon]
- “Coma man” tale: “CNN and MSNBC duped by ‘facilitated communication’” [Michael Rosch/Examiner, Orac/Respectful Insolence]
- “War on Christmas” grievance-collectors really should lighten up [Ken at Popehat]
- Successful “libel-in-fiction” claim against author of bestselling “Red Hat Club” novel included allegations that plaintiff had been depicted as atheist and “right-wing reactionary” [Fulton County Daily Report, Overlawyered]
- “Hard Evidence: Seven salient facts about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan” [Christopher Hitchens]
- “How many Bibles must there be in the jury room to aid in the deliberations?” Four in this Texas capital case [Scott Greenfield]
- “Man sacked for belief in psychics backed by judge” [U.K. Independent]
- Heh: “Efforts to reach Christ for comment were unsuccessful.” [USA Today; Alabama woman who changed her name to “Jesus Christ”]
# Trail of proposed Uganda death-for-gays law leads back to U.S. [Box Turtle Bulletin]
Am I the only one that thinks a lot of this talk about The Family is all rather alarmist? Some of the claims about The Family in the leftist blogosphere are rather laughable, like Alternet’s article which claims that The Family “Openly Reveres Hitler”.
As far as I can tell, there is zero proof that the American branch of The Family had anything to do with the “death-for-gays law”. Just because David Bahati is a member, that doesn’t mean he was receiving directives to institute the policy from them.
B.B. makes a fair enough point, and it is in part my fault for not fitting the description to the link better. Box Turtle Bulletin has extensively reported on the U.S.-based forces that helped influence and propel the current outbreak of extremism in Uganda, but most of those influences are separate and distinct from “The Family” (though that one makes an interesting story worth knowing about in itself, even if exaggerated in some quarters). So my link should really have emphasized the bigger-picture connections as found in the dozens of earlier posts linked at the bottom of the BTB post.
The “libel-in-fiction” suit is pretty disturbing, or should be to anyone who writes fiction. I thought that when the guy who sued Terry McMillan over his alleged depiction in “Disappearing Acts” lost the suit that a precedent was pretty much established that this kind of litigation wouldn’t fly.
Nidal Malik Hasan
I’m surprised that he hasn’t had his own post here: a Mulsim terrorist hiding in plain view with the help of his PC-cowardly cohorts – what’s not to like? I predict they’ll let themselves off the hook by (eventually) determining that being a terrorist is the result of mental illness.
Respectful Insolence (‘Coma man’)
I useta read that blog – until I realized that he’d fallen for the “climate change” woo, as he calls it, lock stock and barrel. (And appears to be ignoring the recent revelations of data falsification and other anti-science shenanigans by his fellow Believers).
@Susan
And I suppose it’s amusing that in Georgia, it’s libel to describe a character as an atheist. Is that better or worse than being called a drunken slut? 😀