TMW on 'The War on Christmas' (2015 Version)

What other cartoonist is going to give you both 'Hail Satan!' & 'adrift in a godless universe devoid of purpose or meaning' ?

Tom/Dan has some nice merch. available at his site if you're looking for a unique gift.

Jimmy Kimmel: Hipster or Hasidic

Needed some random silliness here.  Prob'ly wouldn't pull this off outside NYC.

Bors on 'The Secret Marxist Pope'

Don't think I've actually featured the work of Matt Bors here hitherto...'Bout time.

Bernie at Liberty U.

Got round to watching this speech by Bernie Sanders at Liberty University, and it's pretty impressive.  Both as a speech generally, and given the nature of Sanders' audience.  Not all* seem as enthusiastic as the few screamers when the camera pans out, and granted, this is the same school which forced their students to attend Ted Cruz, but this seems a pretty positive reception for what the media would paint as a far-left radical message, in anything but ideologically friendly territory.**

I especially like the willingness to 'go there' on actual New Testament-principles, and to call out, if only implicitly the utter hypocrisy of the political and religious elites.  Most establishment-politicians couldn't pull that off.  Trump could almost, but he's an evident self-serving egomaniac whose every other word is a lie.

And this is the speech almost of a general election-campaign, with the primaries months away, and the party in question being largely ignored by the media, outside of the faux-controversy over Hillary's e-mail-server.  Bernie may or may not actually think he could go all the way (as may not Trump, as may not have Corbyn), but he's evidently embracing the moment, and making the most of the spotlight, to get his economic message out.  I approve.

Now, he just needs to get some non-pasty white folk on side.  I don't see any movement on that front sadly.


* To say the least, skimming a second time over.  Quite Nixon/Kennedy in the dichotomy between audio & video.****

** I almost wonder if some of the current upheaval in Western politics is generational, and if the media tends to underestimate the millennials, given what just happened in the UK.  If I ignorantly attribute the attitudes of my generation and similar to millennials, and assume incorrectly that past experience justifies current cynicism.  Almost.***

*** Evidently no-one knows a damn thing with our current political swings, myself included.

**** And then after I finish writing all this, I hear that they intentionally positioned some of Bernie's supporters up front near the mics.  Well, fer...


Update: Full video here from C-SPAN, including the warm-up, if you give a crap about that, and the post-speech Q&A.

Wuerker On Civil Rights Martyr* Kim Davis

* Well in her head no doubt.

Speechless

Saudi Arabia has reportedly responded to the growing number of people fleeing the Middle East for western Europe – by offering to build 200 mosques in Germany.

Syria’s richer Gulf neighbours have been accused of not doing their fair share in the humanitarian crisis, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE also keeping their doors firmly shut to asylum-seekers.

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Diyar, Saudi Arabia would build one mosque for every 100 refugees who entered Germany in extraordinary numbers last weekend

Sure Thing, Donnie

Dude, you're the front-runner...You don't have to pander.

Speaking of which, doubt the man has ever read the thing*, but if he ever wants to, he apparently has plenty to choose from:

Okay, now that's weird.


* Certainly not the latter parts going by his actions.

Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is a religious extremist.  In the runup to his last bid for the presidency, he tried to soften his image, and moderate his message.  And did so quite convincingly -- I almost fell for it myself at times.  He then nabbed a show on Fox News, and immediately reverted to type, spouting religious fanatacism, hatred and intolerance day in, day out, all of it on tape.

He knows that he has no chance of winning over moderates a second time around, and thus, no chance at the presidency.  He is 'running' for the Republican nomination in order to raise money, and to raise his profile in conservative circles.

Tell Congress to do their constitutional duty & reject the Obama-Kerry #IranDeal --> http://t.co/SaIyuq4w01 pic.twitter.com/2rFJgdDHhV

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 26, 2015

And so, if cynically invoking the Shoah in reference to the Nuclear deal with Iran, and implicitly linking Obama & Kerry to Nazism, provokes outage, then job done !  The more outrage the better form Huckabee's point of view.  The man is a shameless self-aggrandising huckster, and unworthy of any serious consideration or attention.

No, Really, You Shouldn't Have...

My first reaction to this: Just WTF were you thinking ?  But, then, hey, what's that around Francis' neck ?  It would seem to be the very same symbol on the necklace, apparently also presented by Morales.  So, maybe Francis doesn't look that closely at symbols before he puts them around his neck ?*  Maybe he's short-sighted ?  The whole thing is fuckin' weird.

Bolivian president Evo Morales presents a hammer and sickle-shaped crucifix to Pope Francis during the exchange of presents in La Paz.

Photograph: Agencia Boliviana de Informacio/EPA

Vatican officials appear to have been flummoxed after Pope Francis was presented with a communist crucifix depicting Jesus nailed to a hammer and sickle by Bolivia’s president Evo Morales.

The gift from the leftwing leader caused an immediate stir among conservative Catholics who said the pontiff was being manipulated for ideological reasons.

The response of the pope was less clear. After being handed the wooden crucifix during a formal ceremony, he examined it for a few seconds before returning it to a Bolivian presidential aide.

His comments were largely drowned out by a flurry of camera clicks, prompting a flood of speculation. While some have claimed he expressed irritation, muttering the words “eso no está bien” (“this is not right”), Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the pope was more likely to have uttered “eso no sabía bien” (“I didn’t know that”) in bemusement at the origins of the present.

The Bolivian government insisted there was no political motive behind the gift. Communications minister Marianela Paco said Morales had thought the “pope of the poor” would appreciate the gesture.

* But, but, Luís Espinal.  Yeah, I read the same article.  Whether said crucifix of said Jesuit priest would have necessarily been recognised by or appreciated by Francis, who knows ?

Today(ish) in Republicans Saying Horrible Things

Tom DeLay on the recent decision on same-sex-marriage by the Supreme Court:

Well, we've already found a secret memo coming out of the Justice Department. They're now going to go after twelve new perversions: things like bestiality, polygamy, having sex with little boys and making that legal. And not only that, but they have a whole list of strategies to go after the churches, the pastors, and any businesses that tries to assert their religious liberty. This is comin' and it's coming like a tidal wave....They're coming down with twelve new perversions, and LGBT just isn't, is only the beginning. They're going to start expanding it to the other perversions.

Very precise, and very magical number that: twelve.


Rick Perry on the Supreme Court striking down Texas' absurd law requiring abortion-clinics to maintain hospital-level facilities:

"The Supreme Court's stay unnecessarily puts lives in danger by allowing unsafe facilities to continue to perform abortions," said the Republican presidential candidate in a statement. "I am confident the court will ultimately uphold these commonsense measures to protect the health and safety of Texas women."

Women's health, yeah that's what he's concerned about in shutting down clinics that often provide other services for women's health, beside abortion.


 Bill O'Reilly on the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court:

Now on healthcare, the issue is again greater good. Obamacare is obviously yet another federal entitlement program designed to help poor Americans at the expense of non-poor Americans. The president sold the law on the basis that it's a benefit for all; but only his party bought that....Subsequently, health insurance costs have risen for many working Americans, and a significant number of Doctors are refusing to take government-mandated insurance programs. But the four liberal judges don't really care about the overall impact of Obamacare. They want free healthcare for the poor.  That's what they want. And they'll find a legal justification for it, no matter what!  the actual law says. Add in Roberts and Kennedy, and presto! another enormous social safety-net that benefits the have-nots survives a valid legal challenge.

Note that there is no overlap between 'working Americans' and 'poor Americans' for Billo.


Rand Paul, who just met with racist anti-government radical Cliven Bundy:

Dr. Rand PaulVerified account‏@RandPaul

You can be a minority because of the color of your skin or the shade of your ideology. #StandWithRand

• RETWEETS213
• FAVORITES251
• 

3:20 PM - 30 Jun 2015

Erick Erickson on same-sex marriage and homosexuality:

First of all, you're only talkin' three to five percent of the population. Now, I know a lot of people, the thought is that you're born gay. That's, actually not really true in most cases. In some cases, I think it probably is. But in a lot of cases, if you got back to it, there are parental issues, there's abuse, and and that has a lot to do with it. And as you see a collapse of family -- I don't think that it's a coincidence that a collapse of family is, is directly inverse proportional or inverse related to the rise in people who identify as being gay.

Are we really living in the year 2015 ?  Sure it's not still 1985 ?


Bryan Fischer, on how the Supremes' ruling on same-sex marriage, is enciting terrorism:

I've not heard any body talking about this angle of what the Supreme Court did on Friday in their ruling imposing sodomy-based marriage on the United States of America. Now the whole world, this includes the Supreme Court, they know how the religion of peace deals with homosexuals -- they tie them to chairs and they throw them off of eight-storey buildings, and if they survive the fall, they stone them to death....Now how does the Muslim world justify their attacks on the United States ? Because they believe that we are the chief exporter of wickedness and decadence in the world. That's why they call us 'The Great Satan'. When we insult their god, their religion, their prophet, or their values, they claim a divine sanction to punish us for our transgressions. Now, the Left, interesting enough, actually agrees with the Muslim world on this score. Remember what happened with Pamela Geller and her 'Draw Mohammed Contest' in Garland, Texas. When the, when two Muslims shot the place up, who did the Left blame? They blamed Pamela Geller. She had provoked, she had incited, she had insulted the blessed prophet Mohammed and thus had brought this violence on herself. According to the Left, she got what she deserved. But now, what the Supreme Court did on Friday was to insult and offend the entire Muslim world, by celebrating and gloating and gushing over a sin that Muslims regard as so offensive to Allah that its practitioners must be thrown to their deaths. So the Supreme Court just gave the Muslim world another reason to attack us, and a terrorist attack appears imminent. So, if Muslims attack us, and they refer in any way to our celebration of homosexuality as part of the reason, then according to Liberals, culpability must be laid for that attack at the feet of the United States Supreme Court.

He'll be jumping for joy the second a bomb goes off, and the ambulance-sirens start to be heard in the distance.  'See, I told ya! It's the fault of all those perverted corrupt homosexual Liberals destroyin' America!'

Steve Wozniak: Robots Will Make Us Their Pets

Apple’s co-founder: We’re all going to be robots’ pets one day

by Benjamin Snyder     @WriterSnyder     JUNE 25, 2015, 12:23 PM EDT 

Apple AAPL -0.46% co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks we’re all probably going to become robots’ pets.

Speaking at a recent technology conference, Wozniak said that at first the thought of artificially intelligent beings in charge of everything scared him. But now it’s a comforting thought.

Fast forward hundreds of years to when robots are in charge. At that time, humans will probably be treated in a similar fashion to dogs, Wozniak said during an event at the Freescale Technology Forum 2015 in Austin, Texas.

“It’s actually going to turn out really good for humans,” he added. “And it will be hundreds of years down the stream before [artificially intelligent beings would] even have the ability.”

“They’ll be so smart by then that they’ll know they have to keep nature, and humans are part of nature,” he continued. “So I got over my fear that we’d be replaced by computers.”

Wozniak believes robots will helps us because we’re the “gods originally.”

More like animals in a zoo surely ?  If the motivation is preservation of humans as a part of nature.

And even if the robots did treat us like dogs, a lot of us treat dogs...really really horribly.  And if they treated us the way the more 'humane' in society treat dogs, they would still be...restricting our population, neutering us to control our breeding, restricting our movements, controlling out interaction with other humans, strictly controlling our diets, and euthanising us when we got sick or old.  Awesome future you've got mapped out for us there, Woz !

And the 'we're the "gods originally"' stuff is just wishful thinking, as is the rest of it.

What Wozniak really needs to conquer his existential angst, and what this is a form of, is religion.  In this case, it's one involving the fetishisation & worship of technology, and the faith in technology always being there for us, always leading to a brighter future.  A common, but often disappointing faith.

I'd suggest maybe...Buddhism instead ?

Accepting, Learning, Adjusting...

With the Pope's recent encyclical, the right-wing in American (professional) politics have predictably gone bezerk, including supposedly Catholic politicians in the GOP, but I get the sense from Catholic and mainstream media that the laity are more or less taking it in their stride.  Seems like the overall attitude is okay, this isn't something we've traditionally focused on that much, but now that Il Papa's had his say, maybe it's time to learn a little more and find out how we can apply what he said to our lives...  Catholicism is inherently conservative of course, and quite slow to change as a result, but there's a difference between conservative and radical (which would be a more appropriate label for many political & religious groups in the West that misuse the former term).

The Catholic Church isn't the one desperately trying to prove that the Earth is six-thousand years old, or insisting that every word of the Bible must be interpreted literally.  For that we have various evangelical organisations, some of them every bit as extreme in their interpretations of the Book and how it must determine every aspect of human society as their Muslim equivalents in the Middle East.  But sometimes we, certainly I, forget that difference.  And then it comes as a surprise, though it probably shouldn't, when the message from the Church is a fairly moderate, even sensible one. *

* Wanted, really really wanted, to embed the full video, which said somewhat more, but guess FN's scripts & Blogger don't play nicely together...Grumble...  Full video here:http://video.foxnews.com/v/4311350106001/cardinal-donald-wuerl-on-popes-climate-change-message/?#sp=show-clips

Relentlessly Gay

Photo via Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/3a70nf/relentlessly_gay/)

Instead of retreating, a Baltimore woman is getting revenge on a homophobic neighbor by using their attempt to shame her for her yard as the basis for a successful online fundraiser.

The Baltimore Sun reported that 47-year-old Julie Baker started the campaign after finding a note inside her door criticizing her for the multi-color solar lights on her front yard, which spell out the words “love” and “ohana.” The latter is a Hawaiian expression meaning “family.”

“Your yard is becoming Relentlessly Gay!” the note read. “Myself and Others in the neighborhood ask that you Tone it Down. This is a Christian area and there are Children. Keep it up and I will be forced to call the police on You! Your kind need to have Respect for GOD.”

Baker, who identified herself as bisexual in an interview with Baltimore City Paper, said the lights were not meant as a political statement.

Photo via citypaper.com

“The point of the rainbows isn’t about being gay,” she said. “It’s because we love rainbows. I have a rainbow tattoo on my arm. We’re going to decorate the white siding of our house with them.”

Baker also opened a page on the crowd-funding site GoFundMe seeking $5,000 she said would be used to make her yard “even More ‘relentlessly gay.'”

“Put simply, I am a widow and the mother of four children, my youngest in high school and I WILL NOT Relent to Hatred,” she wrote. “Instead, I will battle it with whimsy and beauty and laughter and love, wrapped around my home, yard and family!!!”

Sigh.  Colourful whimsical ornamentation is all I see here.  Odd thing is, although the woman apparently self-identifies as bi-sexual, which wasn't clear from coverage of the story on many sites, I suspect that she genuinely just wanted something pretty, something positive in a garden, something to bring a smile.

And yet, since the rainbow has been appropriated as a political symbol (not her fault), just as the word 'gay' itself was appropriated, the mere fact of choosing kaleidoscopic colours is immediately interpreted as something political, or as something sexual.

'Gay', like 'queer' (the latter also possessing in its traditional usage the additional bonus of onomatopoeia), is one of the relatively few monosyllabic words in the English language.  And not one in its traditional use that even submits easily to a dictionary-definition.  There's a suggestion of something childlike, something innocent about 'gay'.  It refers to a carefree happiness, a lightness shot through with joy.  It's a beautiful word.

My little wordbook is old enough that it still gives a traditional definition first.  Dictionary.com not only gives the sexual definition for the first and second entries, but has 'Slang: Often Disparaging and Offensive. awkward, stupid, or bad; lame' as its third.  Oxforddictionaries.com tells me that 'the centuries-old other senses of gay meaning either ‘carefree’ or ‘bright and showy’ have more or less dropped out of natural use. The word gay cannot be readily used today in these older senses without arousing a sense of double entendre, despite concerted attempts by some to keep them alive.'

Well count me as one of those who'll try to keep the original spirit of the word alive, world be damned.*  Not that I don't understand the desire for an alternative to 'homosexual' -- It's such an awkward, clinical sounding word -- Just wish there were an alternative to stripping two of the rarest and most beautiful words from the language.

Which is I suppose to say, that while the nosy neighbour was absolutely wrong in assuming the 'relentless gayness' of the garden, it is nonetheless, in my eyes at least, marvellously gay indeed.


* Out of curiosity, I checked this blog for my own usage, and found three instances where I used the word in the modern usage, one of which in quotation-marks.  So not as committed to this as I might want to pretend perhaps.

Cue Heads Exploding from DC to LA

Guess the ole' Encylical is out now from the Pope that some Americans insist on calling 'Pope Frank.'*  And given that the Republicans were already freaking out calling him a Marxist and hinting at him being the antichrist** (thinking of Gutfeld and Michael Savage specifically, but no doubt, there's countless examples), who knows what new rhetoric they'll come up with now.  How dare he bring religion into politics in my country !  Well, for most of you...you already did that. Again and again and again...But anyways...


*Which is far less insulting than what they called his predecessor.

** Not than many haven't been doing exactly that for generations.

Probably Wouldn't Even Embrace the Money-changers, this Guy

Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday.

In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds. The much-anticipated message, which will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops, will be published online in five languages on Thursday and is expected to be the most radical statement yet from the outspoken pontiff.

However, it is certain to anger sections of Republican opinion in America by endorsing the warnings of climate scientists and admonishing rich elites, say cardinals and scientists who have advised the Vatican.

And why should we continue to pander to the denialists in the United States (or other places -- thinking of the likes of Tony Abbott here) ?  Since when was the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church answerable to America ?

In a recent speech widely regarded as a curtain-raiser to the encyclical, Turkson said: “Much of the world remains in poverty, despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk of the world’s wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources.”

The Argentinian pontiff is expected to repeat calls for a change in attitudes to poverty and nature. “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it,” he told a meeting of social movements last year. “I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature? Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget this.”

The encyclical will go much further than strictly environmental concerns, say Vatican insiders. “Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that the environment is not only an economic or political issue, but is an anthropological and ethical matter,” said another of the pope’s advisers, Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Peru.

“It will address the issue of inequality in the distribution of resources and topics such as the wasting of food and the irresponsible exploitation of nature and the consequences for people’s life and health,” Barreto Jimeno told the Catholic News Service.

...

The rare encyclical, called “Laudato Sii”, or “Praised Be”, has been timed to have maximum public impact ahead of the pope’s meeting with Barack Obama and his address to the US Congress and the UN general assembly in September.

It is also intended to improve the prospect of a strong new UN global agreement to cut climate emissions. By adding a moral dimension to the well-rehearsed scientific arguments, Francis hopes to raise the ambition of countries above their own self-interest to secure a strong deal in a crucial climate summit in Paris in November.

...

Francis, the first Latin American pope, is increasingly seen as the voice of the global south and a catalyst for change in global bodies. In September, he will seek to add impetus and moral authority to UN negotiations in New York to adopt new development goals and lay out a 15-year global plan to tackle hunger, extreme poverty and health. He will address the UN general assembly on 23 September as countries finalise their commitments.

However, Francis’s radicalism is attracting resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and Rick Santorum, a Republican presidential candidate.

Earlier this year Stephen Moore, a Catholic economist, called the pope a “complete disaster”, saying he was part of “a radical green movement that is at its core anti-Christian, anti-people and anti-progress”.

Erm, words have meaning.  Destroying the only planet we have in the name of a extremist version of a particular economic ideology is radical.  Calling for cooperation in preserving said planet is conservative.  And calling for the rich of the world to be willing to sacrifice (at least some of) their (largely ill-gotten) riches for the sake of the poor is Christian.  As in the first and only of that name.

Tariq Aziz

Not a fan, but thought this was worth remembering: That within recent living memory, one of the leading figures in a majority-Arab, majority-Muslim government in the Middle East was a Christian.  Today, the few remaining Christians in many countries in that part of the world are being murdered en masse.  Including and perhaps especially in Iraq...

RIP

This'll Sway the Election for Sure

And we needed to know this now...why ?  FFS, first the SNP fearmongering from the Tories, then Ed cynically manipulating the deaths of migrants for political gain, and now suddenly days before the election, after all these years of letting himself be characterised as an atheist, Nick feels the need to set the record straight.

Nick, those who might actually care mostly can't tell the difference between atheist and agnostic, and wouldn't vote for you anyway.  Those who don't care and those who could tell the difference, well they wouldn't vote for you either.

Well, I guess if that Lab/Con. 'grand coalition' thing were to come off, Ed Miliband, while hardly the 'first Jewish Prime Minister', and looking rather less likely to be PM at all as the days wind down, could at least, Clegg having removed himself from contention, be the first Atheist Deputy Prime Minister.

Israel in Colour by British Pathé

Interesting time-capsules in these videos, including in the way Israel was portrayed by British Pathé back in the 'fifties & 'sixties.  Keeping in mind that Israel during much of this period was more political ally of the UK & France than of the United States.  There's a more than somewhat touristy if not propagandistic tone to many of the videos, but always cool to see a window into the past.  And in colour no-less.  Hell, most British teevee was still in black-and-white till the seventies.

Last line of the last video, from '69: 'They hope for peace.  The tragedy is, can it be achieved ?'  Well...

TPP & TTIP

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Revelation 17:1-2

TPP & TTIP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership & the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) don't seem to get much coverage in the media, despite their likely impact on so many countries, likely because a) the deals are complicated, and b) the deals are being worked in secret behind closed doors.  These are just 'trade deals' remember, not exactly a nuclear deal with Iran; Totally innocent stuff, and the reason the US, UK, and other governments don't want you to know about what's being discussed, is simply that it's so boring.  They'll tell you all about it eventually, such as...four years after the deals are already done and dusted.

In the meantime, you're just gonna have to trust them that the deals are in your best interest and will result in more jobs, more prosperity, and rising wages, just like...say NAFTA...or say...the MFN deal Clinton pushed with China.  Those worked out really well, didn't they ?  And the PRC is going to turn into a flourishing democracy with respect for the human rights and civil liberties of all its citizens any day now, right Bill ?

Basically, like all 'free trade' deals, the idea is to maximise corporate profits at the expense of labour costs (i.e. your paycheck), civil liberties, national sovereignty, safety, and the environment; to drag every nation slowly down to the lowest-common denominator.  To drag the EU standards down to those of the US, down to those of South America, down to those of east Asia, down ultimately one would imagine to those of Somalia.  And if any national government gets in the way of corporate profits by passing pesky laws to, say protect the safety & wellbeing of its citizens, well fuck 'em. !  They can just be sued, in trans-national arbitration tribunals, run by said corporations, and outside of national law.  Bye-bye national sovereignty.  And you think the EU is the threat, Ukippers ?


Here's a nice summary of the deals for the uninitiated (yes with Russell Brand, sorry):

Sounds good, huh ?

Remember this bit from Last Week Tonight ?  (Might want to skip to 8'05).  Think Philip Morris is the only corporation that does this stuff ?  Think making this shit even easier is a good idea ?

What to do, other than try to find some non-corporatist non-fascist non-cocksucker politicians to vote for ?  Well the first video has some suggestions towards the end.  I don't hold out much hope myself, but you never know.

For the American Sparkle-pony crowd, here's a bonus video, with not-going-to-be-the-Democratic-nominee-for-president-any-time-soon Elizabeth Warren on TPP and the ISDS tribunals back in February.

And if you really want lots more details on TPP, check out Gaius Publius' writings on the subject.  Don't know if Gaius has a dedicated page, but Hullabaloo & Americablog are probably good starting points.

The Murder of Farkhunda

This is some pretty fucked-up shit right here.

Farkhunda, who was beaten to death by a Kabul mob last week, had been arguing with a mullah about his practice of selling charms to women at a shrine.

In the course of the argument she was accused of burning the Koran and a crowd overheard and beat her to death.

Farkhunda, 28, was beaten, hit by bats, stamped on, driven over, and her body dragged by a car before being set on fire.

A policeman who witnessed the incident on Thursday told AP news agency that Farkhunda was arguing with a local mullah. Her father said she had complained about women being encouraged to waste money on the amulets peddled by the mullahs at the shrine.

"Based on their lies, people decided Farkhunda was not a Muslim and beat her to death," Mohammed Nadir told AP.

The policeman who saw the incident, Sayed Habid Shah, said Farkhunda had denied setting the Koran on fire.

"She said I am a Muslim and Muslims do not burn the Koran," he said. "As more people gathered, the police were trying to push them away, but it got out of control," he added.

Wait, 'The policeman who saw the incident'...

Police say they have detained 18 people over the incident, with more arrests expected. In addition, 13 policemen have been suspended for having failed to do enough to stop the attack.

And her father says 'they just stood around while she was killed.'

...I got nothin.