Get Cynical

More religious extremists forcing their views on others.

SRINAGAR, India — A Muslim women’s group in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir group burned greeting cards and beat young couples to stop people celebrating Valentine’s Day, witnesses said Tuesday.

The separatist Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Nation) raided restaurants and showered blows on some couples and then burned cards during a rally in the summer capital’s center, a witness said.

The group, along with an Islamic association called the Forum Against Social Evils, regularly wage morality campaigns against movies and other emblems of popular Western culture that they deem un-Islamic.

“We will not allow Western culture to take roots in Muslim Majority Kashmir,” chanted several dozen marchers led by Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Aasiya Andrabi.

(via Religious Freaks)

I don’t read too many political blogs these days but I’m a huge fan of Shakespeare’s Sister which I always find to be funny and insightful. Melissa, who runs Shakespeare’s Sis, has resigned her post in the John Edwards campaign as a part time technical advisor due to the negative attention being brought onto the campaign from Bill Donohue and the Catholic League.

What did Melissa write on Shakespeare’s Sister that put a crucifix up Billy boy’s ass?

“…it’s difficult to imagine a time in which Christianity wholly submits to the prevailing view of science and ends its reign of persecution against the LGBT community. This time, they are not going after one man, but millions of people, and some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders — including the Pope — regularly speak out against gay tolerance. In America, many Christian leaders actively pursue discriminatory legislation, seeking to limit the rights of the LGBT community throughout society. Should they eventually embrace the scientific view this time, they will have a lot more for which to answer — which certainly means their reluctance to admit their error is much greater.”

There are a few other posts they had issues with which are listed here and that they are now using to label Melissa as an “anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigot”. (Wait a minute, what’s wrong with being a vulgar trash-talker?) It’s ridiculous that a self-appointed blowhard like Bill Donohue (Catholics already have a leader billy, he’s called the pope) gets so much attention from the media.

Looking back over my archives, I hereby pre-emptively resign any positions that I have not yet been appointed to in any political campaign. Go visit Shakes today to give her your support.

From The Register:

A bloody war between rival Mexican drug gangs has spilled onto YouTube where two competing cartels “taunt each other with blood-soaked slideshows and films of their murder victims”, Reuters reports.

The war between north eastern Mexico’s “Gulf Cartel” – with its private army “Los Zetas”, led by Osiel Cardenas, and “traffickers based in the western state of Sinaloa” headed by Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman – last year claimed more than 2,000 victims.

Mexican president Felipe Calderon responded by dispatching troops to several states to restore order, although the killing appears to continue unabated, if the video evidence is anything to go by.

Indeed, Reuters notes that on YouTube “one popular video shows a man being shot in the head” while a “stomach-churning series of photos shows another execution victim, his missing face a mangled mess of flesh”.

According to the news agency, in one YouTube post, a user “offers about $4,500 to anyone who can show proof of having killed members of The Zetas, ‘via photo, video or presenting the body’.”

Just in time for lunch. Enter your zipcode and you will be presented with a wheel of fortune style locator for restaurants in your area. This looks great for days when you can’t decide on what you are in the mood to eat.

(via del.icio.us/mathowie)

Kudos to the news station for airing this story despite receiving complaints that this would only teach criminals this trick. Alerting people to ineffective security measures should always take precedent over hiding flaws.

(via J-Walk)

Another video on Boston’s Great Mooninite Scare of ’07.

(via Making Light)

Firedoglake on the walking festering open sore that goes by the name Bill Donohue:

Why anyone takes that steaming turd of a man Bill Donohue seriously is beyond me. But like all Right Wing extremists, it seems all he has to do to get on TV is show up at the studio and it’s lights, camera, action, and the paleo-pundits of the traditional media just sit by and chuckle benignly while Donohue spews his hateful bilge about Jews, gays, women, movies he’s never seen, music he’s never heard, and the perils of liberal bloggers, who are one of the greatest threats to our society, yes! Right behind Lipton Onion Dip:

Reddit debates whether Google googed goofed their Vday logo or if the green stem is really the L. (It’s a slow day, what can I say)

Update:

Google responds. (I still don’t see see it)

From Reuters:

TOPEKA, Kansas (Reuters) – The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday threw out science standards deemed hostile to evolution, undoing the work of Christian conservatives in the ongoing battle over what to teach U.S. public school students about the origins of life.

The board in the central U.S. state voted 6-4 to replace them with teaching standards that mirror the mainstream in science education and eliminate criticisms of evolutionary theory.

“I’m glad we’ve taken this step. If we are going to have a well-educated populace, this is important,” said board member Sue Gamble.

The Daily Mail has video and pictures of a man who plummets to the ground from 12,000 feet after his parachute failed to open. I’m having problems opening the video on the Daily Mail’s site but luckily there is always YouTube.

It’s the most gut-wrenching, mesmerising and shocking clip of video footage imaginable.

Shot from the tiny camera in the helmet of champion skydiver Michael Holmes, it records with chilling clarity what happened when he plummeted 12,000ft to earth.

There is the moment when he tugs his ripcord and discovers his parachute won’t open. There are the frantic efforts to release it, made as he spins so fast that movement is almost impossible.